The Rainbow Cadenza: A Novel in Vistata Form

by J. Neil Schulman

  "I don't suppose you attribute the robotics revolution to the draft also?" Joan said.

  "I don't have to," Filcher said. "All I suggest is that there would have been no guarantee that Joan Darris would be born into such a condition if society weren't free from war, and if our planet's current policies didn't make certain that only the wealthy and successful produce offspring."

  "The habitats get along just fine without rape, kidnapping, and slavery," Joan said. "Remember, I've lived there."

  "That is their nature," Filcher said, "one we cannot share, I believe you're used to thinking septimally, aren't you? Seven colors of the dichroic scale, seven movements to a vistata, and so forth?"

  Joan nodded.

  "Very well. You can divide things up almost any way you please, but for your convenience, let me say that there are seven principal interests of humankind: war, adventure, money, sensuality, religion, creative work, and children."

  "What about love?" Joan said.

  "'Love ain't nothing but sex misspelled,'" he quoted. "War -- as we have seen--is no longer a safe pursuit; so we substitute sex and adventure. But the habitats are populated by those who have rejected this pattern for other specific alternatives. In spectra, we might say Ad Astra thrives on money to creative work, primarily. Kibbutz from religion to creative work to money. Lenin almost entirely on religion."

  "A Leninite would disagree with that," Wendell said.

  "Not a self-honest Leninite," Filcher said.

  "That's a contradiction in terms," Wendell said.

  "As you wish. St. Clive thrives on religion to creative work and children; Daedalus primarily on adventure--need I go on? Without exception, each habitat has chosen primary interests other than the ones that make peaceful life with our gender ratio possible. Their patterns work beautifully--for them. But not for us. By the Lady, Earth had fallen into a gender imbalance which put sex at a premium--an artificial scarcity inflamed by stupidity and intervention during the Brushfire War--and this left our planet with a way to move from organization around war -- chauvinism, racism, protectionism--to a World Federation organized around sex. Instead of drafting young men to go to war and be maimed and killed, wasn't it better to draft young women for a three-year term of comparatively harmless rape?"

  "Rape is an act of violence, not an act of sex," Joan objected.

  "Then how can you claim the Corps fosters rape when there is no violence permitted? You contradict yourself. No, Joan, you corporals are raped because the essense of rape isn't violence, but trespass. But we satisfy the taste for violent rape also, through licensing Touchable hunting--institutionalizing satisfacton of the two main reasons for war: the hunt and its thrill of conquest; and the foot soldier's main spoils throughout history--rape of enemy women. But more than this, it gives us a controllable society without the inefficiencies of prisons. Outright criminals are declared Touchable and subject to public abuse; lesser problems can be dealt with either through the draft -- for young women--or by threatening to cut off dicterial and hunting privileges--for young men. Those immune from these controls--older women, lesbians, married men, andromen -- naturally become our ruling class--though we're above all a gerontocracy."

  "I hadn't thought of it that way," Joan said.

  "Then I'm not wasting my time," Filcher said. "I'll wrap this up, then. The most important thing about the Corps--and a world order based on sex--is that it spurs competition as never before, which is good for both our economy and our evolution as a species. Men know that only the top seventh of them will ever be able to interest a woman in marriage and get out of the dicterial rat race, so you women act as the spurs to men's greatest efforts, which is proved by the fact that in economic terms the Federation has begun gaining on the habitats in innovation and economic production. Moreover, only the top seventh or so of the male population reproduce--I'm including those andromen rich enough to hire a host-mother so they can clone themselves. Only the richest, best-looking, best-educated, most-charming -- whatever the rape you women look for in a man--reproduce. The next generation--no matter how much more affluent their parents' production has made the world--will be faced with just as much competition. Economics is no longer a prime motivation, since it can be wiped out by closer and closer approaches to economic post-scarcity. Each child born on this planet is born with a silver spoon in his or her mouth. We have no starving children. And each son must compete against his brothers for the one daughter from another family, so he can marry and reproduce. The only device that lets us use this economic and evolutionary tool is the draft. The only tools at our disposal are rape, kidnapping and slavery. I don't think we are unjustified in using them. If you could convince me that we could achieve the same benefits, economically and evolutionarily, without coercion, I might change my mind. But I have seen little evidence of it. Our planet is prosperous, peaceful, and competitive with the habitats at a grave economic handicap--our atmosphere and gravity well. I attribute our success to the sexual pattern we've adopted that makes competition so tough for us. Moreover, I suspect that in a few hundred years the evolution will show its first effects, and you will see the 'wolves' from this planet rise up and eat up the 'sheep' in the habitats."

  Wendell dumped his dottle into an ashtray. "You know, Burke," he said, "as soon as you do away with the concept that the individual was a right to be free of any burdens, any costs, that he or she hasn't voluntarily agreed to--no matter what the supposed benefits--you justify any and every system that fits your whimsy and justify it in the name of the good of the race, or the good of the nation, or the public good, or other sophistries of villains."

  "Now you're over the rainbow!" Joan said.

  "As you know, my dear fellow," Filcher said, "the a priori assumption of individual self-ownership--which is necessary to such a proposition--is one I have never seen a reason to make."

  Joan looked Filcher straight in the eye. "It's an assumption," she said, "that anyone is blind to at his own risk -- and possibly over his own dead body."

  His Excellency smiled at Joan. "My dear, in your case I do believe it would be worth the risk."

  Chapter 23

  JOAN SPENT SUNDAY alone at the villa with Wendell. There were several things she wanted to accomplish before she reported back to Camp Buffum, and his Gaylordship was free until a holovision speech he was to record that evening.

  Joan's first objective was accomplished at breakfast-- discussing her planned lawsuit to gain her mother's custody. Wendell was sympathetic. He told Joan that he had tried the very Saturday of Eleanor's accident, when Stanton had phoned him, to convince his brother that he must make arrangements to revive his wife. Their mother--Joan's grandmother, Kate--had made a similar plea, with just as little success. They had both been one night too late: Vera had convinced Stanton in pillow talk that there was no point in complicating their lives by reviving Eleanor--from whom Stanton would have separated anyway--as long as the two of them were living together. "I knew this when I arranged your schooling with Jaeger," Wendell said. "It was primarily to save you from Vera's influence--and knocking your head against a ferrofoam wall--that I thought it would be best to get you off the planet."

  Joan breathed in deeply; much of this was news to her. She'd had no idea that her parents had been planning to separate anyway. "They waited six weeks to tell me," she told Wendell, "then they said it was because they objected to cerebral abortion."

  "The morality of cerebral abortion is a tricky proposition, I must admit," Wendell said, sipping a cup of mocha, "but I assure you it was not a paramount concern in their decision. Vera's motivation you know as well as I. But your father's is somewhat more complex. In essence, what comman has the opportunity to marry his wife twice, and the second time get a newer model with none of the boring familiarity of the first? Plus, when it came right down to it, your mother was not as good for your father's ego as Vera is. They hunt together, and your father--who has always had a dreadful inferiority complex to our father--feels he'
s proving his masculinity with every Touchable he catches. And instead of staying at home accusingly, as your mother began doing, Vera goes right along with him and even helps."

  "Vera told me as much when I confronted her about it."

  "Vera can be amazingly honest for someone who lies to herself and others so often. But what I find even more amazing," Wendell said, "is the courage you showed in coming back here at all, to try saving your mother. I wish you could have known my father. You and he are really two of a kind."

  Joan blushed. "Thank you," she said softly. "That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me."

  "It won't be an easy court fight," Wendell said. "Expect to have access to your father's money cut off as soon as he learns of the suit."

  "I've already thought of that," Joan said. "But what I'm more worried about is that my father might use this as an opportunity to try getting my mother declared legally dead."

  Wendell smiled. "Don't worry your head about that possibility," he said. "They won't make any move on that, because as soon as your mother is legally dead, you inherit a quarter-share of the estate."

  "What?"

  "You mean you haven't seen your mother's will? Very frankly, when you first told me you were going to sue your father, I thought you meant to declare your mother legally dead yourself, so you could inherit your share of the Darris millions."

  "I almost feel like slapping you for that," Joan said. "How could you think so little of me?"

  Wendell grinned. "I try never to see the better side of people. That's why I've gotten as far as I have in politics. But before you sidetrack me--have you thought of what you'll use to pay your lawyer?"

  "I intend to use the Corps's Legal Aid Office," Joan said.

  Wendell buttered a brioche. "You'll use my attorney, right here in Charlotte Amalie. I'll foot the bill. I would have filed suit myself, five years ago, if I'd had a chance in the caldron to win."

  "Wendell, you're going to make me cry for the first time in years," Joan said. She leaned across the table and kissed him on his cheek.

  Wendell busied himself behind his brioche. "Now, don't go sentimental on me," he said. "You wanted to slap me just a few seconds ago, remember? Drink your mocha and we'll see my lawyer first thing Monday morning."

  Joan's second objective was accomplished later that afternoon, with the aid of a powder Dr. Torres had given her before she left the operating room. She had told Joan that if she didn't get her period by itself within four days, she should ingest the powder and it would bring on her period within hours. Joan took it at breakfast and went swimming nude in the ocean again that afternoon, and when her period came while she was swimming, she gave her surrogate embryo a burial at sea.

  She reminded herself that as soon as she returned to base she had to vist the doctor again, to get the first of a series of shots that would in essence make her a freemartin--with no days lost to menstruation--for the time she was in the Corps.

  Wendell took Joan that evening to an expensive dinner at The Pirate's Cove in Cha-cha Town, after which they went to the holovision studio on the Hill where Wendell recorded a half-hour speech for broadcast election eve.

  Monday morning at ten o'clock, Wendell and Joan visited Wendell's attorney, Linda Klausner of Deyo, Abrams & Greenberg, and Joan signed the electronic documents necessary to begin court proceedings.

  She flew back Monday afternoon to Pacificia--in civilian clothing, this time--made a purchase at the skyport outlet of a disc-store chain called Civilization and Its DisContents, then changed back into pinks and was back on the base by supper. She found a note from Corporal McDonough on their dorm-room terminal saying that the D.I. wouldn't be back on base until just before roll call at 2100.

  Joan saw Lieutenant Matron Torres just after she ate, got her anti-ovulation shot, and spent the time until McDonough returned reading the disc she'd bought at the skyport. It was called The Physiology of Orgasm in the Woman, and getting this disc, or its equivalent, had been Joan's third objective while on leave. She memorized and rehearsed the parts she needed and disposed of the disc down the nearest scintillator just before Corporal McDonough came back.

  Cadette Sommers was missing at roll call, but late that night she arrived back on the base, and was present at morning formation. Corporal McDonough gigged her, with a punishment of confinement to base for the sorority's next pass, which she told Joan privately would probably be in two weeks.

  After breakfast, Taurus 25 Sorority were assigned their tutors. Joan's was a muscles-on-his-muscles androman named Boyce Blaine, Ph.D., who she was certain had to be andro by choice, since his looks could have gotten him as many women as he wanted. Aside from his build, he was tall, blond, and blue-eyed, with a dimpled, jutting chin that could have been used to bust knuckles. Joan thought he was as close to physical perfection as any man she had ever seen, and she was completely repelled by him.

  She had the distinct impression that the feeling was mutual.

  Joan and her tutor were assigned Training Boudoir 46, where Blaine ordered her to strip. Joan turned around and unfastened her jumpsuit. When she stepped out of it, naked, and turned around, her tutor was already stripped bare. He did not have an erection.

  "We'll start with basic fellatio," he said, walking over to the bed. "It's very important to remember at all times that the most sensitive parts of the penis are--what are you waiting for?"

  "I can't do this," Joan said. "I thought I could, but I can't."

  "Listen, there's nothing to it. Half an hour from now you'll be an old hand at this sort of thing. And don't worry about my coming in your mouth. I take forever, and I'll give you plenty of warning."

  "It's not that," Joan said. "I'm sure you're a very good tutor, but I can't go through with this."

  Dr. Blaine looked tired. "Why do they give me all the virgins?" he asked rhetorically.

  "I'm not a virgin," Joan said.

  "You might as well be, as far as I'm concerned. Listen, Cadette Darris--"

  "Corporal Darris," Joan said.

  "Not if you keep up this nonsense another thirty seconds," he said. "I have tutored approximately nine hundred seventy-five cadettes over the past ten years, and just about half of them were sure going in that they 'couldn't go through with it.' I thought that since your were the assistant D.I. I could save some time and bypass my usual bedside manner. I see I miscalculated, and for that I apologize. All right, we'll ease into this. Lie down on the bed."

  "But--"

  "You won't have to touch me, I promise. All you have to do is lie there and allow me to lick you to orgasm at least three times in the next hour. Believe me, after the Blaine Treatment you won't have any reservations left about doing the same for me. I know about this, trust me."

  He took a step closer to Joan. "The alternative facing you," he went on, "is that we get dressed right now and tell your D.I. that her assistant has washed out. I think she likes you; she'll probably decline to sit on your court-venereal. Now, which is it, Corporal?"

  Joan hesitated a second. "Let's go back to circle one," she said. "Basic fellatio."

  Her tutor shrugged. "Four years of college, five of graduate school, and ten years in this business, and I still can't figure women out. All right, let's get going."

  Dr. Blaine lay down supine on the bed and Joan positioned herself kneeling between his legs. He told her to grasp his penis. She did.

  "We'll begin with an operation known as 'fluffing,'" he said, "since we do not have an erection. About twenty-five percent of the commen you encounter in the dicteriat will need to be fluffed. As I started saying before, it is crucial to remember that the most responsive parts of the penis are the glans and the underside of the shaft. Begin by withdrawing your teeth behind your lips and take the tip of the penis in your mouth, gently massaging it with your lips."

  Joan did as she was ordered, orally massaging the head of his penis until Blaine had reached erection.

  "Very good," he said, propping himself up on
his elbows. "Now, there's a standard order to proceed from erection, and we have a mnemonic called the Three T's--Tongue, Teeth, Testicles. Repeat that."

  Joan began to repeat it, but he interrupted her.

  Dr. Blaine giggled. "Didn't your mother ever teach you never to talk with your mouth full?"

  "And, with one-sixteenth of one percent of the votes from North America in," said satellite-anchor Bruce Farmer, "our panel of U.H.I. computers has declared the winner in the hotly contested race for the Concord's two seats in the House of Gentry."

  Joan and a dozen of her dorm-mates were gathered around a communal holoscreen on election night, Tuesday, June 23, watching the live worldwide coverage.

  Joan watched with a mild interest in her uncle's fate. She had been elgible to vote for the first time, but had not registered. "I don't believe in playing rigged games," she had told Adele, when she'd asked. "The power is always at the center, regardless of what the election outcome is."

  "You won't even vote for your own uncle?" Adele had asked, astonished.

  "Especially my uncle," Joan had said. "I like him too much to help him even symbolically--by casting a statistically meaningless vote--to continue playing piano in a bawdy house."

  "What in the world does that mean?" Adele had asked.

  "Never mind," Joan had answered. "I've just read too many history discs. Maybe the only way I can explain is to say that the old statesman Edmund Burke was wrong. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to go into politics."

  "If you don't vote," Adele had said, "you have no right to complain about the outcome."

  "You'll believe ever piece of scat they fed you in school, won't you? Do you think I consider the course of my life subject to the whim of any plurality?"