by Bodicea
The men proceeded past a large domed structure. Tobias told them it was a recreation facility, where the boys and the young men were encouraged to engage in sport, both for the entertainment of the men in the Compound (and compounds in other cities) and to keep themselves fit and healthy for the service of women.
They finally came to the furthest building from the front gates, the building for men past the age of service to women. It was the tallest structure in the compound, an eight-story edifice consisting of two sets of four wings, arranged in a double cross, and linked along the center. It seemed less well-maintained than the other dormitories, its front stained grain where rainwater had washed. “Jubal lives on the east side. They entered. “It’s the weekend, so the reception desk should be unattended.” Tobias was right. The front desk was closed and shuttered as they walked past.
They found Jubal ‘s room on the sixth floor, near the very center of the building. Jubal was a middle-aged man, with silvery hair and a careworn face, not much taller than Tobias. He was dressed in a gray nightshirt and a pair of striped pants. His room was small, a simple rectangle about six meters deep and four meters wide, with a bunk, a desk, a tele-viewer, and a sink. He smiled when he saw Tobias, “Son, it is good to see you.”
“It is good to see you,” Tobias answered, and hugged the Old Man. He looked over Tobias’s shoulder at Pieta, who did not enter the room, but remained in the hall.
“I would like you to meet my friends, Tamarind, and Philip Miller.”
“Ciel permits you the company of other men, now?” he grinned. “You must be keeping her well-satisfied.”
“She doesn’t, they come from… another world.”
Jubal ‘s eyes widened. His hands began trembling visibly. “Like the Traveler.” He ushered them quickly into the room and closed the door behind them.
Tobias nodded. “The signal we picked up, some weeks ago, it was not a stray broadcast, like the Circle of Communication said. It was from their ship.”
“Have you come from one of the Commonwealth worlds?” Jubal demanded.
“Two of them, actually. Sapphire and Republic, colonies in the Pegasus sector.” Jubal held up his hands. “The what sector?”
“We don’t have much time. We came here at great risk.” Tamarind explained, with preternatural calm. “We were wondering what you know of this Traveler.”
“The Traveler was not one of you?” Jubal asked.
“We don’t know. We need to know exactly what the legend said,” Miller told him.
“Why?” Jubal asked.
Miller repeated, essentially, what he had told Tobias before. Jubal proved no less suspicious than Tobias, demanding to know why they wanted to know, and proving who they were.
“I trust them,” Tobias assured his father, sounding slightly detached and not notably convinced.
Jubal sighed, and turned toward the girl. “Pieta, if you should wish to go downstairs, they are setting lunch now, I should imagine.”
“I don’t want to go,” she answered him haughtily.
“Really? Then, good, because I am going to tell these men about my athletic accomplishments in the days when I was young. I am going to tell them how I accumulated 14,400 points in Unifying Fumble Whelp when I was a boy about your age. I remember the day as though it were the day before yesterday. It was hot and dusty, and myself and thirteen other boys were standing around the pole. There was me, and there was Israel, and Gilbert, and Mackay, who we all called ‘Stinky.’ And, let’s see, who am I forgetting… Shamel, Increase… he had a lazy eye…, which in those days, we called the ebullient egg-sac of ennui.”
Pieta was bright enough to know adults would never discuss anything interesting with her around. So be it, she thought, I’ll just stand here. I have no where else to go.
Tamarind turned to her. “I would be interested to know what they are serving. I would consider it a favor if you found out for me.”
With a reluctant sigh, she disappeared down the hallway to check on lunch.
Miller turned to Tamarind. “I’ll give you a month’s if you can make Ex. Commander Lear think she’s poultry.”
“I can only use my power for good.”
“Okay, then make her think she’s a cocktail waitress in Eddie’s bar.”
“Perhaps, later.”
The Old Man gestured for them to sit, and there was no other place for sitting than the floor. The heard his tale looking up at him from the ground. “I first heard the story of the one called the Traveler shortly after my first orgy. As the women rested in each other’s arm, myself and my mentor, Belac, stepped out into the night. He showed the stars to me and told me of the Traveler.”
“He came here some two centuries ago. The story goes that he came from the stars. His ship crashed into the sea, but he ejected before it was lost, and came ashore near the city of Apollonia. He … he hid in the sea-woods that abutted the ocean, and studied the city and its women for two years before he made contact. After learning enough of our language to pass among us, he made his way into the city. He was captured by the monitors and, having no identification on him, was presumed to be a rogue male. He was bundled into a net, beaten severely, and then taken to the Compound of Men.”
“The men of the city took care of him. As they nursed him back to health, he told them he came from another world, a world that had been a colony of the Commonwealth. They, of course, believed he was delusional on account of his injuries. It took a very long time to convince them, partly because he knew so little of our language, but also because there was little memory of the Commonwealth among us, only that it was a male-dominated empire and we were better off rid of it.
“The Traveler told the men in the compound of his own world, a world that had been held enslaved by aliens for centuries, before another Traveler came to his world, and taught them to rise up and fight. They drove the aliens from their planet and liberated themselves. They stole the aliens’ technology and now sent Travelers throughout the galaxy. They were looking for other worlds that lived under these aliens, but he said, he had found a different kind of oppression here. He said that men should be free, should be equal to women, and he would help us achieve that.”
“The men hid him in their compound, stole parts that enabled him to construct a beacon.
He told them how to organize, and how to prepare so that when his comrades arrived, we could help them overthrow the existing order, and claim a place in society equal to women.”
“What did he teach you?” Tamarind asked.
Jubal paused a long time before he answered. “He taught us not to tell strangers what we had been taught.”
Tamarind nodded, and bade him go on.
“Years passed. The Traveler grew old. Too old, and too injured to be of use to the women, he moved in secret from city to city, from Compound to Compound, spreading the word, organizing. I was told he was in Allyssia when he died, cold and forgotten, lying in a gutter.”
“Since that time, we have tried to maintain his teachings, passing along the story to certain boys we mentor, the ones who could be trusted, not the frivolous ones, the lazy ones, the stupid ones. We have maintained a hope that one day we would be set free. So much time has passed, with no sign of liberation from space or elsewhere, I am afraid there are few of us left, far too few to support any kind of insurgency.”
“Are there any current contacts with off-worlders?” Tamarind asked. “Is anyone communicating with agents, or secret spies in hidden places?”
“One hears rumors,” Jubal said, matching his stare.
“Of what does one hear rumors?”
Jubal answered. “Rumors of men, having escaped, hiding in the deep recesses of the planetary wilderness. Rumors of Travelers who have come to join them and who will, when the terrible liberators fall from the sky, rise up against the monitors and the protectors of the Circle. If someone were to come down to this planet, and lead us in a fight against the Soroarchy, many would follow him.”
/> Tamarind persisted. “That is not what I asked.”
Jubal turned to Tobias. “Have these men any intention of liberating us?”
“They have promised me asylum aboard their ship,” Tobias answered, with his eyes pinned shamefully to the floor.
“Oh, alas, the hundred million other men will covet your good fortune. What do they have to offer us?”
Tamarind concentrated, lifted his head and stared hard into the old man’s eyes, then stood. “We can leave now. He has nothing more to tell us.” He stood, and managed a gesture of respect, but not too much respect, to the old man who had been their host.
As Tamarind went for the door, Jubal grabbed his arm. “Wait!” Tamarind gently took the man’s hand away. “You have no contact with the aliens. You suspect others have been in contact with them, but not the men. I understand. That is all I wanted to know.”
“What are you going to do to help us?” Jubal pleaded.
“I was not bred and trained to fight your Sororarchy. If you wish to cast off your chains, then do so. This is your life, if you can’t fight for your own freedom, you do not deserve to have it.”
“How dare you?” Tobias screamed, very indiscreetly.
Tamarind stood firm. “We must go now.”
“Oh, fine,” Jubal moaned. “Leave us. Go back to your spaceship and forget about your brothers. Go on, go…”
Right at that moment, Miller’s communicator chirped for attention. Miller touched it to his ear, taking the message privately, then announcing. “Commander Keeler’s shuttle is returning to Pegasus. The commander wants us to see him in the War Room … now… Super-Duper High Priority. I’m going to signal Jones to pick us up in the compound. Is there a way to the roof?”
“Yes,” Jubal answered bitterly. “You go up.”
Just outside the outer marker, Winnie hooked up with Hector and transferred Keeler, Alkema, Partridge and the ship’s original surviving crew. Hector continued and returned to Pegasus’s landing bay with the rest of the ships, except for Winnie, which transported Lear and the Bodicéan representatives back to Concordia.
The friends and relatives of Hector’s crew greeted them in a raucous ceremony in the landing bay. Keeler, Alkema, and Honeywell left quickly and proceeded directly from the Landing Bay to the War Room, where Miller and Tamarind were waiting. They began with an exchange of intelligence. Alkema reported their meeting with the Aurelians, and provided them with a schematic of the world-ship. Honeywell provided his tactical assessment of the Protector Ships. Keeler then talked about Coronado and his vivid mental impression of the assault she was planning on Bodicéa.
“They seem to have a greater depth of knowledge of this planet than we did when we entered the system,” Tamarind observed.
“Solay suspected there was some kind of … agent network at her planet,” Keeler hazarded.
“She may have been right.”
“Collaborators, but even if there are any left, they … they have been deceived.” Miller responded. “We can not hold it against them.”
Tamarind said, “That assumes they were, in fact, contacted by the Aurelians 400 years ago, and not some other Commonwealth World. It does not matter. The Aurelians are the enemy now, and you believe they will attack even if the Bodicéans approve the treaty.”
“Za, I saw her thoughts clearly. There was an overwhelming impression of inevitability about it.”
“Why will they attack?” Tamarind asked, emphasis on the why.
“The only sense I had of that is… an almost predatory motivation. As though, they need to consume other planets.”
“Perhaps eliminating the weak,” Honeywell suggested.
“Did you get a sense of when they plan this attack?” Tamarind persisted.
Keeler had to think very hard. “Soon.”
“How did they treat the crewmen they captured?” Tamarind asked Honeywell.
“They all say they were well-treated… even spoiled.”
“Were they questioned?”
“Nay, they said the Aurelians never asked about our ship, our defenses… not even where we were from.”
“Hmm,” Tamarind grunted.
“So, what next, Commander?” Miller asked.
As if in response, the doors to the War Room slid apart, and Flight Captain Jones entered, followed by Tactical Specialist Shayne American. The women took two of the open seats at the table.
They’re timing was a little off, Keeler thought. A few minutes later, and their entrance would have been perfect. He continued. “Ground reconnaissance was an excellent idea. In our present circumstances it’s as important to understand who we are defending as it is to understand who we’re fighting. I commend your thinking”
“We can read the Aurelian’s minds easily,” Keeler went on. “The Bodicéans can not. We know the Aurelians are planning to conquer this planet, possibly destroy it as they did Medea.
I can not convince the Bodicéans of this. The Aurelian leader has told them everything they wanted to hear and they believed it, most of them.” he sighed and rested his head in his hands.
“Not all of them?” Miller asked.
“Neg, not all.” Keeler raised his head slowly, and sighed again wearily. “I don’t know whether my ship is strong enough to hold off their fleet. I don’t know if I should try and do so over the objection of the planet’s inhabitants. I don’t know if I have the moral authority to fight on their behalf. So far, we have only met the leaders of this planet, and we have been forbidden from making contact with… with the common citizen, the person on the street. Does the leadership truly speak for them? If I made an appeal to the people, would they want us to intervene?”
“The men would,” said Miller. There was an unspoken question, too. Are these people good enough to be saved, at whatever cost to the ship and its crew?
Keeler swiveled his chair away from them, toward the bank of monitors showing Bodicéa , Pegasus, the moons, the position of the Aurelian fleet, and the seventh planet. “Miller, Honeywell, Tamarind, I want you to begin conceiving and implementing defensive strategies.
Plan for initial minimum engagement, and then graduated escalation up to complete engagement using all ship’s resources. We have to get maximum effect from each weapon if we are going to defend Bodicéa.”
“We will do that,” Miller answered.
“Executive Commander Lear is on the surface now, working to secure a meeting with planetary leadership to discuss the defense of their planet. Phil, prepare to go to the surface to present our strategy for their planetary defense.”
Miller was skeptical. “Are they going to listen to a man? Shouldn’t someone like Lt. Nasa, or even Specialist American be more suitable.”
“Even…?” American seethed.
“Also, if they have just been offered a peace treaty by the Bodicéans, are they even going to give half a thought to planetary defense. Their Pacifism seems… almost pathological.”
“The first thing, that’s your problem, take along a whole staff of female tactical officers, except American, I need her, and the second thing, that’s also your problem, make the most of that almost.”
Jones and American looked at each other. What did this have to do with them? They were about to find out.
“In the meantime,” Keeler continued. “I want to know what the real people of this planet think. I need ground intelligence. I need people I know and trust to move among the common people and tell me how life is lived on Bodicéa.”
“You want us to spy on them.” Jones said.
“Neg, neg, … well, not spy exactly. Think of it as … anthropological tourism. Tell me how real Bodicéans live, and if they are likely to share the views of their leadership.”
“Why us?”
“You’re women, first of all. You are also senior officers whom I know I can trust. I asked Lt. Navigator Change if she would lead this mission, and she refused, rather adamantly *.”
“The next time you take an excursi
on party to Isle of Mab, I want you to drop them off, climb to altitude, hit the holoflage shield, and travel to this city.” He pointed to a settlement on the interior of the southern continent. “Our Cultural Survey tells us, this is just about the most ordinary city on the planet, the Matthias, Graceland of Bodicéa.”
“Don’t oversell it,” Miller said. “They might be disappointed when they get there.”
“Spend a day down there, mix with the regular folk, come back and tell me. You’ll be provided with typical Bodicéan clothing and identification, if you accept the mission.”
“I still don’t understand this mission,” American said. “If we get down there, and if we find out the ‘regular people’ aren’t worth fighting for, are we still going to fight for them?”
Keeler looked at her in a way that said his mind had already been made up. “Do you accept the mission.”
Jones nodded. “Count me in.”
American agreed. “Affirmative.”
“Message incoming,” said Communications Specialist Eads, on the bridge of Pegasus, a few hours after Keeler’s meeting had concluded and he had gone to bed.
“Message incoming,” Eads repeated after several seconds had passed with no acknowledgement from the commanding officer.
Eliza Jane Change had been thinking about Matthew. She had not heard from him in several days. The last time she had seen him was at the Slam-N-Jam, the night after his return from the first reconnaissance mission, the one that had given them totally the wrong idea about the Aurelians. He had not called to apologize, which she had expected. She wondered if she ought to…
“Message Incoming,” Eads repeated, more loudly.
Eliza Jane cursed herself. “Origin?” she asked, not knowing whether it was time for a check in from the surface of Bodicéa, from the exploratory party on the moon, or from the extraction team that was wrapping up operations and preparing to evacuate the seventh planet.
Eads studied the message, an expression of perplexity wrinkled her fine Republicker figures. Eads was, for the record, the most elderly of the regular bridge officers, being only a few years before the age at which most Republickers retired from full-time employment and began receiving pension stipends. “At first I thought it was the extraction team on 10 225