by Alma Nilsson
Ket hit reply and began a message to his sister, “Dera, it’s always good to get your advice,” he said a bit sarcastically. “I’ll send Drusilla some kind of hair pin just so she does not open herself up to unnecessary ridicule. Would it be too much to ask you to speak to her? As for the Empress, I cannot imagine that Admiral Tir would ever be Emperor now with his choice of wife. Why is everyone so afraid of humans all of the sudden? We have nothing to fear from them, they can hardly make it out of their galaxy and are so easily distracted by beautiful things. We’ve brought them here to help us have children, they’re not going to change everything.” Ket looked into the screen and smiled, “And I know what you are saying to my image now little sister, ‘Oh Ket, you’re a man, what do you know of real politics on the planet?’,” he laughed a little. “And I’ll reply, I know enough of what goes on in men’s minds and having dealt with humans enough to know we have nothing to fear. Speak to Drusilla and you will understand.” He paused thinking, “I don’t know when I’m next back, possibly in six weeks, there is a conference and I have been asked to speak about applications of new technology onboard. I’ll let you know. Please keep an eye on Drusilla,” he hit send.
Ket took off his necklaces and unbuttoned the mandarin collar on his black uniform. He opened his social media account. There was nothing of interest there. He searched for any new news about Drusilla from the gossip columns and there was only a small article he had seen before about her starting medical school. Every now and then the gossip columnists would write something about her, there was still large speculation among the women who put a ban on her. He smiled to himself, he loved this Alliance game between the men and women. He wondered if Drusilla had any idea. He went to his favorite ornamental hair jeweler’s shop then and bought a barrette and two hair pins with some fragrant hair oil. Dera was right, it was enough that she was human. When it came to the message, he hesitated on what to write. He did not want to be condescending.
It was late when Dru returned home after her second day of classes. She had moved up five seats in the ranking. She was pleased with herself and her upgrade urged her to study even harder so that she could move up again. Dru had missed the evening meal, as she had been studying in her private study room, so she just went up to her room. She knew the three slaves were already asleep. The whole building was completely quiet. The lights turned on for her automatically as she made her way to her room. When she entered, she noticed another small black parcel for her on her desk. She went directly to it. Her heart skipped a beat and she opened the box quickly and found the black card with silver script.
Drusilla,
I hope these will only add to the beauty of your fiery hair.
Dru was annoyed he still didn’t say who he was. She sighed and then looked in the box at the two simple but beautiful hair pins, a silver barrette and a small glass vial of hair oil. She took them all out and investigated them. The only thing she had ever worn in her hair before was a simple hair tie. She had no idea how to braid her hair or use these hair pins as the Alliance women wore them. Thankfully, she remembered that the mirror in the bathroom could do it for her. She had noticed that all the other women in her medical school always wore their hair up and it had been on her list to ask Madame Bai about it. She thought, It must be so shocking I don’t wear my hair up that even Mr. Mystery interfered. She wondered then who was spying on her in the classroom to tell him, but then realized she couldn’t even guess as it could be any of them. However, if it was a sister then her Mr. Mystery couldn’t be too much older than she was, and this thought made her stomach flip.
The next day Dru wore her hair up with one of the hair pins. She noticed that she got less disdainful looks from her classmates. As the weeks went by Dru moved up the ranks and after two months, she was number five and had become accustomed to her new life which was primarily made up of only learning and studying. Sometimes, one of her classmates would speak to her, to offer her salutations or another pleasantry, but she still ate the midday meal alone and no one invited her to spend time with them on any days of rest.
However, during her twelfth week, one of her classmates asked to join her for the midday meal.
“Drusilla may I sit with you?”
“Yes,” she was so surprised that one of her classmates wanted to sit with her, she almost knocked over her water as she looked up.
“My name is Dera. I assume it must be more difficult for you being new to remember all of our names.”
“Yes,” said Dru a bit nervously. She really wanted a friend but did not want to seem desperate even though she was desperate. She knew Dera was number eleven in the rankings but not much else. “Have you all known each other for a long time?”
“Since birth. You know if you are born into a family of doctors, you usually become a doctor. Especially if you are a woman. And we can’t leave the planet, so we all know each other very well. On Earth don’t you know the same people your entire lives?”
“It depends,” she didn’t want to talk about the Exterior. “I wanted to see the galaxy, so I left my hometown to join the fleet.”
“Is your family all doctors too?”
“My mother is a doctor,” this was no lie, Dru’s mother was a medicine woman of sorts in the Exterior and Dru had been her apprentice, just as her mother had apprenticed with her grandmother and so forth. However, she broke with tradition by leaving and she had sometimes wondered if her mother’s curse, she knew her mother would have put a curse on her for abandoning her, had reached her here, across the galaxy. And that is why no one wanted to socialize with her.
“And now that you are here? What does she think?” Dera looked straight into her soul.
Dru knew she could not block these strong emotional feelings from Dera’s telepathic sensitivity, “I imagine she is disappointed,” which was putting it lightly.
“You haven’t spoken to her about it? Does she know you are here?” Dera was shocked. Her mother was her closest confidant and her guide in life. She would never want to keep anything from her. She couldn’t imagine being separated from her for a long period of time and even worse not speaking to her.
Dru knew she needed to tread lightly now as Alliance people valued their family life above all other things. “No, she only saw one path for me.” Then Dru took a deep breath and said something she knew to be true but had never said out loud to another person before, “I knew it was my destiny to leave.” She specifically didn’t specify the Exterior and knew that Dera would assume she meant Earth. It didn’t matter, both were true, although her urge to leave the Exterior had been so great, she couldn’t have ignored it.
“The gods have been kind to you bringing you to us,” Dera commented. “I’ll be honest with you, we laughed when they said a human would join our class. We didn’t think much of humans before we met you. And now look how wrong we all were to doubt you. You are doing so well…”
“For a human,” she finished the sentence and before she could excuse Dera she continued, “I have a lot of time to study.” She wanted to change the subject, “Are you married?”
Dera held up her left wrist, “No, are you?” she asked with a smile.
“Sorry, I keep forgetting that you can tell when someone is married or not by their bracelets. A lot of the other human women are already married, but they are away so I don’t see the bracelets and therefore I’m not reminded regularly”
“I understand. It must be so different. I hear that humans don’t marry. I find it so difficult to believe. How do you organize yourselves and keep track of everyone?”
Dru smiled, “Well, to begin with, we only have a population of 12 billion. And then I guess we use our names and databases to keep track of everyone.”
“And no incest problems?”
Dru was shocked by her question, “No. Twelve billion is small but it’s not that small and we know who we are related to even if we don’t marry. We still have familial relationships.”
“It sounds
so confusing,” Dera commented. “Are you courting anyone?”
“No,” Dru smiled, “I haven’t even spoken to an Alliance man yet.”
“Haven’t you been to an Assembly? I read in the Day…” Dera was thoroughly enjoying this conversation now. She thought it was adorable that Dru didn’t know who put the ban on her.
“Yes, but unfortunately someone put something called a ban on me, so no one would talk to me.”
“He must be very high ranking if no one spoke to you at the Assembly. Doesn’t that make you feel special?”
“I feel excluded. And at the Assembly no one told me what was going on so I thought I must be the ugliest woman ever for so many people to ignore me.”
Dera felt she needed to defend her brother now, “I’m sure the man who put the ban on you had absolutely the opposite reaction in mind. You know for us, it’s charming when a man puts a ban on us. I think it would be so romantic,” Dera said wistfully.
“Has anyone ever put a ban on you?”
“No,” she said sadly. “But maybe someday a man will look at me and want to court me but for whatever reason he has to put a ban on me. Maybe he is away fighting in a war or on a long expedition, but he sends me things to let me know he is still thinking about me. It’s dreamy.”
Dru looked at the young woman talk about the ban and tried to be respectful of their culture but right now it just felt too different. “I don’t like the mystery. I want to know who he is. It makes me uncomfortable to accept gifts from someone I’ve never met.”
“But you wear his jewelry?” Dera pointed out. She knew she could say this as there was no other way Drusilla could have Alliance jewelry.
Dru looked down at the ring, “I do. He has good taste and I must admit, these pieces of jewelry have given me some comfort, but I wish I knew who he was.”
“That is all a part of the fun, Drusilla. You must speculate. Do you have any clues other than that he is high ranking?” Dera had to watch herself now, it was forbidden for her to talk specifically about Ket to Drusilla by the rules of the Contracts.
“No idea at all,” Dru said with a small smile, “I just hope he isn’t old and ugly.”
“I don’t think he is old and ugly,” Dera said, “Old and ugly men usually don’t care about marriage and only want slaves.”
“What do you mean?” Dru didn’t know what she meant by that as she thought the social classes were not supposed to interact with one another on a personal level. But the bell chimed, and it was time to get back to class so she never had the opportunity to ask and had forgotten about it by the next day.
The days passed, Dru woke every morning at five, ate breakfast with a slave on rotation watching her, went to her classes all day. Ate lunch either with Dera or alone. The medical school canteen now provided her with a selection of Alliance vegetables which the canteen slaves were actually friendly enough to set aside for her every day. In the afternoon, she had classes and then she studied late into the evening and sometimes missed the evening meal.
Now that Dru had spent many months studying she was first in her class. And she felt that many of her classmates respected her for it, but there were still some who were openly prejudice about having an alien among them. One in particular was named Rez. She had hated Dru from the beginning. She had spread rumors about Dru, nothing true or serious, but rumors nonetheless about how no one wanted the red-haired woman, not even her own crew who had abandoned her here in the Capital City.
Dru was usually able to just ignore the insults and hold her composure, but today she was extra sensitive because she knew her period was going to begin in a few days. So, after class Dru had planned to quickly check her exam results and then get to the library without speaking to anyone. All she wanted to do was shut herself inside her private study room and lose herself in study. Away from everyone else.
Rez saw the results and was angry that Drusilla scored higher than all of them again. She couldn’t help herself and said loudly in front of everyone, “Oh look, the red-haired, hairy human must have cheated her way to the top. How did you do it Drusilla? Witchcraft? I heard humans still believed in such things. Wanton barbarians that have come here to steal our men. You all should be of the slave class. Disgusting any men would want you.”
Dru looked at Rez passively and tried to walk away, but Rez followed her, continuing to say demeaning things while some other students laughed. Then Dru turned her, “Rez, you ignorant woman. The only barbarian here is you. Shut your mouth and try studying and then you might not always be so ignorant, but then again, maybe you are just plain stupid and no amount of studying will change that.”
Rez was in such shock from Drusilla’s words, she stood there and was about to slap Drusilla but then saw Ket out of the corner of her eye. She pined for Ket. They had courted last year, and her heart still ached for him. All thoughts of Drusilla were lost now, and she let the human just walk away.
It was snowing and Dru had her head down walking through the courtyard to the gates of the medical school. She was going directly to the library. She kept her head down to protect herself from the cold, as she didn’t have her hat on she had left in such a rush, and to keep her face hidden form the tears that were about to fall from Rez’s cruel words. Then she ran right into a man. She looked up; it was a handsome man. Their eyes locked and Dru felt like she couldn’t breathe. His sharp grey eyes seemed to see right into her inner most thoughts. She excused herself and tried to continue walking, but he gently held her arm.
“I’m sorry. Are you all right?” Ket could not believe that Drusilla had walked right into him. He noticed there had been something going on between her and Rez. Drusilla looked so lovely with her red hair and pale skin, but she was obviously distraught. He wanted nothing more than to comfort her in that moment. He hesitated, his voice had disappeared when their eyes locked. He wanted to say something, that he had put the ban on her, that he was in awe of her accomplishments, that she was the loveliest creature he had ever seen, but all he could do was apologize for running into her and used his influence while touching her arm to comfort her. Then he let go after half a minute. He watched her go, her red hair moving gloriously with her steps and the wind and the snow towards the library and he felt like a fool.
Not soon after Dera came out from the medical school. “Ket, I didn’t expect to see you here.” Then she smiled, “Or if I would have thought about it, yes, I would have expected to see you here. Did you see her?”
“Yes, but she seemed very upset.”
“Rez and her friends were giving her trouble again. Don’t worry, Drusilla is resilient.”
“And you don’t defend her?”
“She must find her own way and earn her right to be with us. She will always be human, and some will always hate her for it. Rez is going to be livid when she finds out you have put the ban on Drusilla.”
“Rez is the worst kind of person.”
“I told you that, but you still insisted on courting her last year. Now, Brother, where are you taking me? I would like to eat dinner at Leld.” Leld was one of the best restaurants in the Capital City.
“I was thinking the Earth Store first.”
Dera laughed, “Oh dear, are you that worried for her? I’m sure she is fine and I’m not sure if it’s safe to go to the off-worlders’ ring.”
“Are you afraid of off-worlders?”
“Yes, aren’t you?”
“No, since I’m in the fleet, I meet them quite frequently and not usually the nice ones, who are fully vetted before being allowed to come live on the Capital Planet. Come on, I’ll protect you,” he said jokingly.
Ket and Dera took his transport to the other side of the Capital City to what was called the Immigrant Ring, although it was more of a full circle than a ring around the palace as the rest of the city rings were. The Immigrant Ring was an afterthought and therefore not a ring, or that is what the Alliance people liked to say. Immigrants from other worlds who lived and worked there wo
uld say the Alliance did it on purpose to keep them as separate from Alliance society as possible.
Ket parked the transport in the Immigrant Ring, and they found the Earth Store quite easily, it was a large glass building with a sign that said, ‘Earth Store’ and a moving image of what Ket and Dera assumed to be Earth under it. They went in and it was reasonably busy.
“I didn’t realize off-worlders liked human things so much,” commented Dera.
“Humans make most of their universal credits from selling food, wine and beautiful objects without any other functions,” Ket explained.
“Greetings Alliance customers. How may I be of help today?” Frank the owner of the Earth Store asked.
The man looked so friendly, Ket could not help but smile, charmed by his blue eyes defined with paint, “I‘m looking for something for a friend.”
“A human friend?” Frank asked with some humor to his question. He had already had many Alliance men frequent his shop for gifts for the human women that were taken from the Dakota. He thought it was adorable the way they were so shy about what to buy for these women.
“Yes, one of the women who Admiral Tir rescued.”
“Do you know what she misses from home?” The shopkeeper hazarded. He knew Alliance people usually did not even consider this. They thought everything they had was far superior to anything Earth would have to offer and couldn’t readily understand a human could miss something from Earth. When his customer gave him a blank look, he offered, “Many of the human women who live in the city shop here. I could check the woman’s account and tell you what she likes?”