Slow Train to Arcturus

by Eric Flint

  "I see. Are you too hot or too cold?"

  "Too cold. If I am too hot, the cilia stand out to increase the cooling surface. If I was the right temperature then the cilia would resorb. It is an energy expensive process with high metabolic demands. My suit helped me to thermo-regulate."

  "What happened to your suit?" she asked, walking to a locker and measuring him with her eyes.

  "I was made to remove it by the people who brought me here. There is some taboo here against the wearing of clothing. My companion and I were not aware of it and we got into difficulty with your authorities."

  She snorted. "They're not terribly bright. What have they done with your companion? Is he also one of you aliens?" She tossed him an orange overall. "Here, put this on. I'll get this suit of yours back from them."

  "No. Howard is human. He was sent to help me get back to my spacecraft."

  The red-head-filamented one lost interest in Howard. Kretz held up his cuffed wrists. "I cannot put this on with these. And… will I not get into trouble again for wearing it anyway?"

  She laughed. "You would, out of this building. But unlike the rest of the environment of Diana, this area has coldrooms. There are also various things you wouldn't want to have exposed to the skin, and there are cultures we need to keep dead skin cells out of." She looked at the cuffs and sighed. "It would take them a month of Sundays to get up here with the keys. I'll need to get some bolt-cutters."

  She pointed at a chair. "Sit down. I'll be back in few minutes."

  She came back, not much later, with an enormous clipper-device, with which she cut the links between the cuffs. Kretz had got himself into the lower half of the overall and now he was able to pull it on. It was thick and soft.

  "Don't go wandering beyond the courtyard in that," she said. "The matriarchy are obsessed about nudity. It's an overreaction to a piece of ancient history. The reason is lost to them, but they've become obsessed with the form of the thing."

  "It is a little odd," admitted Kretz. "Clothing is worn for protection from weather or to help with temperature-regulation in our society."

  "Oh, it's all about sex with us. You aliens will find that we humans are crazy. After all, what sane species could believe that covering someone from head to toe would lessen their sexual attractiveness?" She laughed, patting her own rounded midriff. "Mind you, in a lot of cases seeing someone naked will do that. Covering it up just feeds the imagination. And the imagination is always better than reality."

  18

  The populations of space habitats differ, as does their societal structure. Take for instance the low-tech environment of the Society of Brethren. The initial nine thousand occupants, scattered in individual holdings, farming their land, was very different from the habitat of their neighbors, the Matriarchy of Diana. Diana, with a high degree of technical sophistication and mechanization, had some 70,000 occupants, and still had room to grow. That's the difference between urbanization with mechanization and a primitive lifestyle.

  From: Basic Sociological Engineering,

  Herne, G. amp; Weaver, A.

  Oxbridge VoxPress,

  New Britain, 2307

  The painted Jezebel who had assaulted and arrested him had a rather puzzled expression on her face. "I didn't expect to even have my bid considered." she said. "I don't know how I am going to afford this. I wish I hadn't done it, to be honest."

  She looked… well, less of a virago now, and quite troubled. That found a chink in Howard's armor which her aggression had failed to.

  "I think she did it to punish me," he said humbly.

  His new mistress looked at him in puzzlement. "Why? She just let you off scot-free. She's been drooling all over you for the whole hearing. I thought she was going to take you right there on her desk at one stage."

  Howard blushed to roots of his hair.

  "Oh," she said, scowling. "That's it. She's punishing me, not you. You can't get it up, can you?"

  Howard's mouth fell open as he grasped what she was saying. He shook his head furiously. "No. It's just that I would not lie with a woman I was not married to. It is a sin!"

  It was her turn to gape at him. "You mean you turned Judge Garanet down? You wouldn't let her have it?"

  Howard nodded, almost dying of embarrassment. "I'm afraid that it is true. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

  His new mistress shook her head incredulously. And then began to giggle. And then to laugh until the tears ran down her face. She had to hold onto the wall for support. "So, I am supposed to make your life a misery?"

  "I would guess that that is correct," said Howard uncomfortably.

  Lani bared her teeth in a savage grin. "She really is forcing me to be nice to you. Let's take a walk up past her office. You can put your arm around me," she said with the air of someone giving him an enormous privilege.

  "It would not be seemly," he said, folding his arms hastily.

  She turned her basilisk look on him, muscles tensing… and then shook her head at him. "Now I really do believe you turned her down. It must be a weird place, this New Eden of yours. I'll just have to remember that. Keeping my temper with you is going to be hard, but worth it, just to get up her nose. Look, it's a big privilege for a man to be allowed touch a woman in the street. You should walk a little behind me."

  "But you all take such short steps," said Howard, desperate to talk about anything else.

  "That's because you're too big," she said with her normal scowl. "Now, take my hand at least. Look, I'm not going to bite you! I just want to make the old bat turn green. She made me look like a fool in that hearing."

  Howard had to admit, with the vision of hindsight, that the judge had gone out of her way to make the young woman look foolish. He extended a nervous hand. His palm sweated as he took her hand gently in his. "The path to redemption lies in forgiveness. It is better to forgive than to seek revenge."

  She closed her eyes briefly. Took a deep breath. "Good. So we're giving old Judge Garanet a chance to take the path to redemption. Isn't that kind of us? Now walk, and try not to look like you think I'm going to bite you. I won't, not yet, anyway."

  That was almost more worrying.

  They did a little promenade and then walked to her odd two-wheeled vehicle. Howard eyed it with trepidation. "What pulls it?" he asked, as she swung herself onto the saddle.

  She shrugged. "It's electrically powered. Get onto the pillion."

  "What is a pillion?" he asked.

  She looked at him, and shook her head. "You really don't know anything do you? I'll have to try to remember that. This bit." She patted a narrow pad behind her.

  It looked very small and very close. "Er. Can't I just run behind? I'm afraid my weight might break it," he added ingeniously.

  She snorted. "Don't be ridiculous. Get on."

  So he did, painfully aware of his nakedness and her closeness.

  It got worse. "Hold onto my waist," she said.

  Riding back to her home Lani had time to wonder what sort of a mess her impulsive behavior had gotten her into this time. The one thing she was determined to do was prove that old harridan wrong. Still, there was an exotic fascination to her man. She just had to accept that he really didn't know anything.

  And then, within sight of home, they hit a bump. There was an alarming crack, a high-pitched squeal, and the scoot stopped dead.

  They didn't. The two of them landed-at some speed-in a heap in the wall-growth. Lani was totally winded by the steering bar being crunched into her midriff, not only by her own forward momentum but by the weight of Howard as well. She lay there struggling for breath, with a warm wetness trickling down from her hair, feeling shocked and stunned.

  The next part was even more shocking. Her new man got up off her, looked down at her and said, "Are you all right?"

  She had too little breath to spare to reply. So he picked her up and carried her at a run, to her own door.

  He managed to knock thunderously, and hold her-without quite d
ropping her. Of course there was no reply. "It's my house. You can put me down," she said. She seemed to be in the habit of saying that.

  This time he didn't drop her hard, but set her down as if she were porcelain. Fragile porcelain, at that. It didn't help. She still swayed and he caught her just before she fell. Somehow, he managed to open her door, while supporting her, and then picked her up again and carried her inside. He took her to the couch and put her down. "How do I call someone to help?"

  "I'll be fine. Really. Just let me lie back for a bit."

  "I need to stop that bleeding," he said firmly. "And then we need to get a healer to you. I was foolish and a little shocked. I shouldn't have moved you. It was just seeing all the blood… I panicked a little. Anyway, head injuries can be serious. You need to get it checked. Here. Press your hand to it, gently. Now, I need to find water, boiling and cooled, and clean cloth to staunch this cut."

  "Head wounds bleed," she said. "There's a first-aid kit in the cupboard down the passage. Get it for me."

  He looked at her, and went. A little later he came back with a bowl, warm water and her first-aid kit. "I will need to wash it and see. If needs be I must carry you back to the last house we passed."

  He washed and cleaned the area around the wound, and then with care snipped away the hair with scissors from the box. "It appears superficial," he said, his relief obvious. "It should still be looked at by a healer. Shall I walk to the last house?"

  "And get yourself arrested for wandering around without a woman, stupid." Lani frowned at him, and then wishing she hadn't. It pulled at the cut.

  "Stay still," he said firmly. "I am going to put a dressing on it, but I want to clean the wound itself. I have read the instructions on this bottle and it says I should add two drops to the water before cleaning it."

  "You can read?" Men couldn't read. It wasn't permitted.

  "Can't you?" he asked, adding the disinfectant to the water. "Every child learns how to read in New Eden. It is beautiful script you have here. As neat and uniform as the oldest holy writ."

  "Of course I can read!" she said. "It's just men that can't… uh, usually."

  "You mean you have kept them from doing so," he said grimly. "We are all, men and women, made in God's image, and equal in his sight. Hold still! I need to work very carefully here."

  "You need to learn to be careful with your big mouth too," she said, "You're an intolerant bigot talking about our culture like that. It could get you into serious trouble."

  He worked in silence. For someone with big hands he was very precise.

  "I had not thought of it as being intolerant of your culture," he said quietly, as he put a dressing over the wound. "I had just seen it as right to proclaim against you. Forgive me."

  Having just gotten herself angry, Lani felt wrong-footed again. She bit her lip. Pulled herself together and tried to make amends. "You're wrong, but you can't help it, I suppose." She said it sulkily, knowing that she was behaving a bit like a very ungenerous spoiled brat, knowing that she'd made no allowance for his background. He was a man, after all, and from the weaker sex. You had to make allowances. She knew that was part of her problem with them. She kept forgetting you had to.

  He smiled. "Yes. I'm only used to my own culture, lady. Now, I am going to put a bandage around this dressing. Sister Thirsdaughter would be very rude about it, but it will serve. I still do not see that what you people do is right in the eyes of man or God, but I will try to keep my opinion to myself. To keep my mouth shut." He began winding the bandage around her head.

  Lani sighed. "You're going make me old before my time. I suppose you can talk. To me only. When we're alone. I won't beat you, even if I should. Now just let me lie here with my eyes closed for five minutes, and then I'll contact someone to do something about the scoot."

  He nodded and took the bloody water away, and Lani closed her eyes. She now had bruises to show. And a few grazes too. And quite a headache.

  When she next opened her eyes there he was. Sitting, watching her, a worried expression on his big open face. He smiled warily when he saw her eyes open. "How are you feeling now?" he asked.

  She felt her head. "A bit sore, but I'm all right. How long was I asleep for?"

  "Perhaps half an hour."

  "Hell. I'd better do something about reporting that scoot. It's blocking the roadway. The harvesters use the road a lot." She started to sit up, wincing.

  He put up a quelling hand. "Don't worry. I went and fetched it. I carried it back here."

  "On your own?" she demanded.

  He nodded. "It wasn't that heavy."

  She raised her eyes to the ceiling. "Get this into your dumb head. You can't walk around here without a woman to escort you. It's not that I don't appreciate your doing it. It's just that you have to work within the rules here. Our rules, or you'll get both of us into trouble. I'm liable for your actions, you know."

  She sighed. "Look. I know you didn't mean any harm. But the next time you end up in front of a judge here, it might not be one with more lust on her mind than justice. Or you might get old Garanet again. She'll throw the book at you next time. And it wouldn't just be at you, it would be at me too. You're my responsibility." She sighed again. "I wish I knew what went wrong with the scoot. There are a couple of women who've started doing repairs. They don't know much about it, but apparently they know how to charge…"

  "This." He held out a metal shaft. "This is half of the rear axle. As you can see it is badly worn along here. It fractured, with the extra weight, as you went over the bump. I'm sorry. I should have run behind."

  She sniffed and dabbed the corner of her eye, irritably. Crying like a man! "I need it for my job. I'm afraid it'll have to be fixed, no matter what they decide to charge me."

  "I think I could fix it if I can find a suitable shaft," he said diffidently. "Fixing mechanical things is permitted here?"

  "Oh, by Susan, yes. Can you imagine if it wasn't!?"

  "It isn't encouraged in New Eden," he admitted. "But I'm a fair artificer."

  She scowled. "I thought about going in that direction myself. There is money in it. But the trouble is, according to my history teacher, everything worked beautifully in Diana… for the first seventy-five years. By the time that things started breaking down, we'd lost a generation's worth of minds that were used to dealing with technical repairs. Anyway, they were used to being part of a technical society, that had robots and factories. We were cut off from those. Now we're even losing an increasing number of maintenance robots, and no one has the sort of skill required to fix those. The matriarch set up a rota for training, but we're short on experience."

  "I will happily try to fix your vehicle. It would work better if I could talk to Brother Kretz," said Howard hopefully. "He is a very good engineer. That woman would not tell me what she'd done with him. He's alone and scared."

  He had a way of putting obligations on her. "Oh, hell. He'll be treated all right, Howard. We're not barbarians. Look, I'll call a few people and ask."

  "Thank you," he said humbly. "I promised the council I would look after him. So far I have done a poor job. I will try to fix this 'scoot.' The bearings appear to still be sealed."

  Bearings? "Is that good or bad?"

  "Good," said Howard. "They failed in the corn-grinder at home. Getting it to work at all after that was difficult. But I contrived."

  It sounded promising. "You've fixed things lots of things before?"

  Howard nodded guiltily. "I enjoy it," he admitted. "I like to understand things. They're easier than people."

  She had to have that scoot. Without it, she would be on desk-duties, at best. "If there is a part number on it I can order it from stores. It'll cost, but if you think you could put it in it'll be a lot cheaper than getting it fixed by someone else."

  He looked at the piece of metal. "There is a number on it. But explain how this works, please, woman? There is a store of such parts, prepared like the granaries Joseph had made in Egypt?"


  "Yeah… well there is a store of them," she said, amused. "I've never heard of the Joseph and Egypt part. And call me Lani, not woman." She thought a bit. "Look, I should be able to access the onscreen manual… Just don't ever tell anyone I let you look at it. I'm not supposed to let a man learn to read, but you already know how to read. You've read all sorts of things in this New Eden place I suppose."

  He shook his head. "Only the Holy Book. The Elder has some others, and the healers have some too. But I have never even heard of a book called 'Onscreen Manual.' "

  "Book… like a thing made of paper and printed on? Like court papers?"

  Howard nodded. "Yes. Written, with ink, and bound."

  Lani shook her head. "I've seen one in the museum. An original Susan Sontag! Anyway, let me show you the screen. Most things can be accessed by vox, but reading is a lot faster. I'm lucky, in a way, being out here. The Matriarch ordered all the town computers still in working order to be put into the computer room, and you get access by time allocation. But out here… Well, no one wants to live out of town, so there are some perks for a lousy social life."

  She got up and took the arm he offered. The offer was done in such a way that she was pretty sure it was because he regarded her as walking wounded. He certainly had no idea about the duties a man owed to his mistress! Teaching him was going to be quite a lot of fun, although right now her head and ribs were still sore, which rather limited the appeal of sex. She stole a look at his profile. Okay, so some women might regard the first addition to her harem as a freak, but there was some odd primitive appeal to his body. She leaned on the arm. It was solidly muscled.

  "Right-here is my work cubicle. Normally men should keep out of this area, except to clean it." She sat down gingerly. Winced. It was from the graze on her side, but he reached the wrong conclusion.

  He blushed. "I didn't mean to drop you so hard." He bit his lip. "That is a lie. What I mean is, I am sorry I dropped you so hard. It was un-Christian of me. I didn't think about how much I would hurt you."