The Rainbow Cadenza: A Novel in Vistata Form

by J. Neil Schulman

  Joan's already-high opinion of McDonough rose even further when a cadette from Delta Harem did wash out. The maternal D.I. ruled a phobia discharge with no criminal or civil penalty attached. Joan thought that if she hadn't begun to like McDonough so much, she could have tried for a Paragraph 23 herself--though at this point there was no great hurry to be anywhere else until she could win custody of her mother.

  The only other person Joan became close to at Camp Buffem was Cadette Adele Sommers, though the relationship was clearly demarked with Joan as Big Sister to the pale, slight blonde, albeit Sommers was a year older. Even though she explained that her pregancy had been unplanned--she'd neglected to get her shots--Adele was still upset about her abortion and turned to Joan as a co-survivor of a common tragedy, drawing Joan into speaking ex cathedra on weighty moral issues.

  Sommers began tagging after Joan to meals and wherever else Joan would let her, but sensed when Joan wished to be alone and didn't press beyond that point. Joan knew Adele's interest wasn't purely sisterly, though. She was inclined to physical affection--even kissing Joan on the lips--and Joan realized clearly she could have expanded their relationship as much as she wanted; there were unused dorm rooms to which the assistant D.I. had easy access. Joan, however, did her best to keep any sexual conversations between them purely official.

  On Friday at 1900 hours, Taurus 25 Sorority was in Steinem Assembly Hall for Corporal McDonough's final orientation lecture. After a discussion of technical matters, the D.I. changed to a different subject. "On your first day here," she told the sorority, "I said that if you kept up the diligence with which you impressed me on your arrival, there would be special privileges to be won. Well," she said, almost allowing her pixies to win, "here's the first. After this lecture, you are all granted a three-day pass."

  Even dicterial discipline couldn't restrain the cadettes from cheering.

  Corporal McDonough ignored the disciplinary breach, waited for the noise to die down of its own accord, then raised her hand for complete silence again. "You are all due back in this assembly hall at twenty-one hundred hours, Monday, fifteen June. On Tuesday morning, we will dispense with theory for a while and each of you will be assigned an androman as a sexual tutor."

  McDonough waited a few minutes to let her words sink in. "Medical examinations show that at least seventeen of you girls are probably still virgins--I say probably because I've heard about elastic hymens, though I've never encountered one. Well, it doesn't matter who the virgins are--the Corps doesn't really care. But by Tuesday evening, every one of you will have experienced penile penetration.

  "So if any of you are still virgins, my advice to you for this pass is 'Go get fucked!' If you fuck someone you care a little bit about, it won't be so shocking the first time--and won't waste the time of your tutors, who I assure you don't find this enjoyable work, are all Doctors of Sexology, and cost the Corps a bloody fortune to keep on our civilian staff. The Peace Corps has no need of your cherry, so give it to someone you like.

  "One last thing. Federation elections are coming up shortly, and some of you women are eligible to vote for the first time. If you are interested in voting, register at the terminal on the first floor. The program code is 'Vox populi'. Corporal Darris, dismiss the sorority."

  Joan stood and said, "Sorority, ten-hutt!" The other women stood. "Gynu-flect!"

  Corporal McDonough gyned the sorority in return, then left the assembly hall.

  "Taurus Twenty-five," Joan said, "dis-missed!"

  There was cheering again, and war whoops that ranged in pitch from soprano to contralto, as the women ran to the lifts to begin packing in their rooms.

  Joan took her time. She wasn't at all sorry that she had jumped the gun, so to speak, in dispensing with her virginity. Mac had been nice, even if this did take the edge off her gesture of rebellion.

  Besides, Corporal McDonough's last words had given her an idea of where and with whom she wanted to spend her first pass--if His Gaylordship could find the time just before elections to invite her to the Federation capital. And considering what she had seen on her two previous visits to the capital, they probably didn't allow any real ones in the Virgin Islands anyway.

  Wendell could and did find the time to invite his favorite niece for a visit, but he could not be there immediately, as he was making campaign appearances that night and Saturday across the South. His Gaylordship offered Joan several choices.

  The first was for Joan to take a shuttle immediately that night to Mexico City, campaign with him on Saturday, then fly back to Isle of Persephone with him in time for dinner at his home with a close political ally from the Lower Manor.

  Of Joan could enjoy herself around Southern Pacifica that night and Saturday morning, catch a Saturday-afternoon shuttle to the Virgin Islands, and be there in time for dinner.

  Finally, she could catch a shuttle to Wiccensted Skyport that night; tour the islands, lounge around Wendell's almost-empty estate, Villa Olga; spend all day Saturday practicing at his full-size lasegraphic console--or sunbathing on his private beach--and join His Gaylordship and his guest when the two arrived at dinnertime.

  Joan opted for the final choice.

  After phoning PanCord for reservations, she packed--including extra pinks, dress whites, and civilian clothing in her valise -- then made it via tube to Queen of the Angels Skyport by eight- thirty, where she caught the nine-twelve shuttle to Alamo City Skyport. The shuttle she caught out of Alamo flew her the rest of the way to Wiccensted, and by 3 A.M., local time, she was in a taxi from Wiccensted, Isle of Artemis, to Charlotte Amalie, Isle of Persephone.

  Joan spent most of her time in transit fending off advances from wolves who took her pink uniform as an open invitation, and she considered that it might be worth the extra bother on her return to travel in civvies and change back into uniform in a skyport rest room just before returning to base.

  Charlotte Amalie at night was a colorful and magnificent city, Joan had to admit, with its stately hilltop palaces, towers, museums, monuments, and open beaches just a few kilometers away from the narrow, bustling streets and orgiastic nightlife in Cha- cha Town.

  Villa Olga was within a kilometer of Cha-cha Town, overlooking the Caribbean, and except for some necessary modernizations and additions, it was essentially the same almost three-century-old villa that had been the Russian Embassy under Tsar Nicholas II and later a popular resort for the literary world. It was said that many famous authors had written their best-known works here.

  The sight-seeing was not what had attracted Joan this time. She had seen the buildings of state, the museums, and the monuments on her two previous visits before she'd left for Ad Astra. Her first visit, when she was ten, had been a field trip with her class from the Blair Academy. The second time, a few months before her departure with Jaeger, had been when her parents, brothers, and the rest of the family circle had gone to the capital to see Wendell sworn in as Vice President Pro Tem, right after Vice President Ramundi's assassination.

  So this visit, Joan settled into Wendell's home immediately with the aid of his robot staff, took a pre-dawn skinnydip in the blood-warm Caribbean Sea, had the butler prepare her a pina colada--an alcoholic delicacy she'd never tried but had heard about--and spent an hour before she went to bed at the console. A week without practicing had seemed forever.

  Her last thought before she fell asleep that night was how good it felt to lie in an intelligent bed.

  Joan didn't leave Villa Olga at all the next day. She spent the morning swimming and sunbathing (again in the nude; when Wendell had said the beach was private he'd meant it) and after lunch played through five of Jaeger's vistatas before she felt her fingers could forgive her.

  She thought about working a little bit on The Helix Vistata, but she just didn't have the will to try. She hated the idea that she might get a fresh idea on the composition only to be forced to let it grow stale by the time she could get back to it. It was better to let the whole thing alone until
she could give it the attention it deserved.

  At four-thirty, Joan took one more dip in the ocean, went from there to a shower, fixed her hair, then decided that she would amuse her uncle by wearing her dress uniform to dinner. Besides, she felt the white gown was more appropriate in this climate than anything else she'd packed.

  At five-thirty His Gaylordship and a very handsome guest arrived. Joan and Wendell hugged and kissed each other--their first greeting in more than five years; then His Gaylordship introduced Joan to their tall, well-built, and roguish-looking dinner companion, His Excellency Burke Filcher, Majority Leader of the Libertarians in the House of Commen. "Oh!" Joan said when she heard his name. "The author of The Diplomat's Guide to the Habitats."

  His Excellency grinned, and one could have lit up a laserium by his teeth. "You've read my Guide?" he asked.

  "Watch it, Joan," Wendell said. "Compliments can be tricky."

  Joan shrugged. "To be honest, I practically memorized it. My uncle gave it to me when I left for school in Ad Astra. It was indispensable."

  "Now you've done it," Wendell said.

  "Wendell," Filcher said. "I believe I'm madly in love with your niece."

  Wendell shook his head and sighed. "I tried to warn you, dear. But you'll have to learn that when you compliment an author on his work, you're creating a loyalty more binding than the one between a pair of Siamese twins."

  "Then I don't have to worry," Joan said. "It wouldn't be binding at all in this city, if the twins disagreed on a crucial issue--am I right, Your Excellency?"

  Filcher laughed. "It wouldn't be any problem in the House. I'd simply arrange to pair their votes."

  Wendell groaned. "One more like that, Burke, and you can eat in the kitchen."

  "I won't mind," His Excellency said puckishly, "if your charming and intelligent niece would care to join me in the cabinet."

  Joan discovered over dinner that Burke Filcher's predilection for pretty young women who liked his writing was exceeded only by his predilection for bad jokes. This aside, he was an excellent dinner companion, as urbane, traveled, and witty as his Guide suggested. Wendell informed Joan that Filcher was well known around Charlotte Amalie for being able to talk glibly on any subject for at least half an hour, whether he knew anything at all about it or not.

  He impressed Joan with his wide-ranging knowledge, his succinctly stated and often-caustic appraisals of capital politics and social life, and his good-humored cynicism about his profession. Joan was sure this attitude, shared by her uncle, was the main nonpartisan bond between the men.

  Joan was also quite certain that beyond his personality, Filcher's still-boyish good looks--jet-black hair, baby-blue eyes that he used like an expert, and the body of a squatball champion--made him a model for the commen who voted for him: the Confirmed Bachelor Women Couldn't Resist. He even had a sarcastic comment about his looks, mentioning to Joan that he had worked his way through college, sixty years before, as a model for coca mocha advertisements.

  After dinner, on the veranda, with the ocean rhythmically rolling in to the beach, the three of them broke out the cannabis and allowed the discussion to turn serious.

  "How do you like the Corps so far?" Filcher asked Joan.

  She smiled slightly. "You wouldn't want an honest answer."

  "I admit," he said, "one doesn't get one very often around here, but it's always welcome."

  "Wouldn't I be violating some sort of unwritten law by speaking against the Corps while in uniform?"

  "Why, no," Filcher said. "I believe we've written a law on that very subject. But I won't turn you in. Will you, Wendell?"

  "Speak your piece, Joan," Wendell said. "You may never get another chance."

  Joan shrugged. "I think that if there were a button here," she said, "and by pushing it I could blow up this planet to avoid subjecting myself to the next three years, I wouldn't delay pushing it for a second."

  "Well said!" Filcher declared. "Now can you formalize the charges beyond an emotional desire?"

  Joan laughed. "I wasn't propagandized in Earth schools long enough, Your Excellency--"

  "Burke," he said.

  "Burke. Do you expect me to be unaware, after five years in Ad Astra--a place you know as well as I--not only that the Corps is essentially three years of continuous rape--beginning with legalized kidnapping and maintained as legitimized slavery -- but that it's completely unnecessary for a society to have any such institution?"

  "Any further charges, before I present a defense?"

  "Rape, kidnapping and slavery isn't enough? You want more?"

  "Please."

  "All right. I'm a lasegrapher. The draft takes me away from my profession for three years--years that are crucial to my artistic development."

  "You can't know that," Filcher said.

  "How can anyone know for certain what might have been? How many lasegraphers, musicians, painters, inventors, medical researchers, and architects are being interrupted by the draft -- and what has this planet lost by stealing part of their lives?"

  "The argument from the unseen--and elitism. Is that it?"

  "You may proceed, Counselor," Joan said, taking a toke.

  "I've never faced a prettier prosecutrix," Burke said.

  "Out of order," Wendell ruled.

  Filcher inclined his head slightly. "As you wish, Your Honor." He lit a pipe and took a few tokes before turning back to Joan.

  "A while back," His Excellency began, "a Libertarian named Randolph Bourne coined the proverb 'War is the health of the State.' It was true enough. It was only during wartime that even supposedly democratic republics could commandeer the lives and property of their citizenry in any fashion the rulers saw fit. But by the mid-twentieth century--when weapons of universal destruction first became available--war was much too dangerous to be used to keep political societies healthy. All- out war was was genocidal, the Brushfire War proved that limited wars had irreparable consequences to the economic well-being of a country, and the Colonial War proved that in any conflict between Earth and space, space had the clear upper hand--pun intended, my dear."

  "Forgiven," Joan said.

  "Moreover, with the habitats producing at an outrageous pace -- space has clear advantages in a number of ways--national wars on Earth placed our planet at an intolerable disadvantage--one we couldn't bear for long without becoming the economic colony of our offspring."

  Filcher took another toke. "But the Lady smiled her luck on us. The very sexual imbalance that the Brushfire War had inflamed also provided the solution to our political problems -- if we handled them intelligently. We simply changed the equation from 'War is the health of the State' to 'Rape is the health of the State.'"

  "You admit it's rape?" Joan said.

  "Does it pay for a statesman to deny obvious truths? Not that you'll ever hear me speak this way in public. The theories are too technically involved to be understood except by a doctor of political philosophy--and not all of them."

  "Then why explain it to me?" Joan asked. "Or is this more flattery?"

  "You might have been able to understand this if you hadn't lived in the habitats, but I would say that's your main advantage here. Very well. I concede not only your charge of rape, but also kidnapping and slavery. I intend to justify all three to you before I'm done."

  "That I'd like to see," Joan said.

  "Let's start with a comparison," Filcher said. "Isn't the Corps and its draft a small price to pay compared with wars and the military drafts that left men, women and children crippled, dismembered, and dead?"

  "I object to both equally," Joan said. "But I will point out that you are completely free from this 'price' that you claim saves us from war--completely free from what you admit is rape, kidnapping, and slavery. It that fair?"

  "Life is rarely 'fair,' my dear--especially when the needs of a world are involved. For centuries, governments imposed military conscription exclusively on men, with women, if you will, getting the benefits without pay
ing the price. Was that any fairer? Do you think if wars were possible today without destroying the planet--if we men could fight it out as we used to, with swords and shields on fields of honor--that we wouldn't gladly pick up swords and shields to spare our women this burden? We do not have that choice. Again I concede, ours is an ignoble age. But when it comes right down to it, is the service so bad?"

  "I wouldn't know yet. I expect it to be intolerably boring."

  Millions of women have 'tolerated' it--and some of them didn't even have the variety the service offers: they had to tolerate their husbands. But even if it is boredom, look at the bargain. For three years of boredom, you women provide the world with virtually unlimited freedom, peace, and prosperity--more than this sorry planet ever saw before. Moreover, immediately after the service, you are one of the prime beneficiaries of that peace and prosperity--one of the privileged ruling class. Is that such a bad deal?"

  "I have no interest in being part of any such ruling class."

  "You were born into it," Filcher said, "and have already received the benefits. Let's not fall into the fallacies of hypocrisy, Joan. Weren't you born into a family wealthy enough to allow you a luxury handed few generations--the possibility of pursuing your artistic talents virtually unfettered? Were you required, as previous generations were, to spend your hours cooking, cleaning, tending your younger brothers, and performing the other drudgeries women were subject to?"