The six didn't do much of the work on it themselves, though Kiev rather closely supervised. The others were all studying furiously for the papers she'd told them she wanted them to have. The ship was complete, Dane got his captain's papers, Yan and Taral got their executive officer's papers and Mal and Kano got their engineer's papers the day the courier with the news of their discovery and patent application was due to arrive on Earth.
They spent a last night in the apartments, then moved the ship down to the planet surface and began moving into it the next day. It was basically a duplicate of the apartments, but with the addition of a bridge, engineering, hold for three of their cars and Dane's flyer, a workout area, and a very large formal room for entertaining. It wasn't all on the same level as the apartments were, but was actually slightly larger, not counting the extra areas. Taral sighed and said Kano's car was probably more practical to take than his and Kano grinned and agreed. Yan didn't even mention his. It definitely wasn't practical. Dane asked Kiev if they were taking his and she said it was already loaded. He didn't realize quite how much it meant to him until she did. He was very happy. Then he thought about it and asked if everything was loaded. Kiev told him yes.
She suddenly smiled and said they were ready to leave, except for one thing. They were having two very big parties. The first was to show various personages on the planet, including the human ambassador and Todd, the ship. It would be that evening. The next would be for the family, would start early the next afternoon and last until late in the night, so that every person in it and several who 'felt like they belonged' had a chance to come, including the babies.
Kiev decided there were enough surprises in store and gave them the one she'd been saving. For two-and-a-half years, Dane, Yan and Taral had all been 'good' and never mentioned it. It had only been about a year for Kano and Mal, but she knew neither had before she bought them. She told them they could have probably made the party shorter, but she'd thought spreading it out would make it less crowded since all their mothers' masters were bringing their households too. She suddenly had five males on their knees in tears and was angry with herself she hadn't done it sooner.
She softly told them all their mothers, Kano and Mal's too, had seen them receive their rankings and Dane's mother had been at his music performance. She'd talked to them many times and told them how their sons were and what they were doing. She told Dane she hadn't told his mother how difficult his training was, or he'd worn a collar and leash and nothing else, but made sure she knew about his marks in the subjects he had taken and how well he performed the tasks he was given.
Breaking the tie to the mother's family and master was always difficult, especially for males, and slaves were sometimes in their new families for five, or even ten, years before they were told they could call their mothers, but she could have let hers call sooner. They didn't want to go home to mother. Even Dane hadn't wanted to go home to his mother's master's home. She told them she was sorry and should have done it sooner, but had listened to the 'recommendations' and not her heart, and that she planned on telling everyone she knew not to be as foolish as she'd been. She turned and walked away and they all followed her. Each gave her a kiss, but they left Dane holding her while she cried. She cried five more times before the long day of party ended the next night, each time one shouted, "Mother!" with absolute joy.
Chapter Ten
Human space. The words were awesome. They'd come out of their space, some distance down-arm, past the turgee, asked everyone they met if they were interested in the exchange of ideas and goods and requested Central Stellar to give them a place on the monetary exchange list. The turgee asked them if they'd met the lonoki.
The lonoki had taken one look at them and told them they'd get close when they were sure they were different enough they couldn't pass the group of destructive mutagens to them. It got the point across to people of both species they weren't really the same. It meant they could be friends. In thirty years, the somewhat distant human sector had become a financial power in the economy of the arm. The lonoki had a single world, and they had something humans wanted.
Yan had no trouble with Jasmine traffic control. They yelped when he said they should get slowed down enough to make an orbit. Dane took over fast. The traffic control person didn't really get calmer though. Dane wondered if he should have 'put on the brakes' a little sooner. The man did seem to have trouble believing they weren't going to hit the planet.
He told him to just relax because the ship had the new power conversion system Taral had invented and they had plenty of power to slow from point nine seven two light-speed from the orbit of the eighth planet. Then he asked him for landing coordinates or a beacon and explained his owner wanted to have parties on the ship and couldn't do that if it was in a space dock. Someone else suddenly got on the comm and gave him coordinates and projected a grid reference. He thanked her and landed a few minutes later.
News of the new drive had gotten to Jasmine a few hours before they did. Dane called news agencies and set up a news conference this time. The best way to pre-empt a mob seemed to be to invite them for tea. He invited eighteen and a crew of one each, suggesting on a focus for each agency and telling them to pick the person accordingly. A ten-minute perusal of the subscription statistics had told him what the best news program was for each and who their best commentators were. The focus he suggested was designed to get them to send only those.
Yan sat at a computer and played with a little math. He talked about the solution, bumping the wrong key and not being experienced enough to know what he was doing should have been a waste of time. Taral handed Dane his plondo and told him to charge it so he could use it to explain the power conversion system. Dane sighed when he grinned and told him he had to play it so the explanation was complete. Kano and Mal prowled the ship engineering systems with three commentators and talked about the differences in human and lonoki technology and pointed out the fact they had to hunt for them. Kiev took four on a tour of the ship and discussed the business potential for the lonoki. They all stopped talking to listen to Dane play.
"And that's Kiev Dane. He's the one who rehearsed us all for these interviews. He's the one you should talk with, to learn about our culture. He knows how to explain it in a true historical context, as well as a sociological one. I can tell you it's healthy for individuals and that wasn't easy. Suicide is very rare on our world and so is any other emotional disorder which could be classed as an environmentally caused psychosis."
"That's an interesting classification, Fem Evrun."
"For our world it's a very important one, Fem Roshad."
"Your people were devastated at almost the exact same place in your cultural development as we were about five hundred years ago. Your current culture reflects the scar of that near destruction."
"Please, the wound is healing and survival seems, at this point, to be assured. The patient is progressing at better than the expected rate. Actually, we're doing fine. Our population is growing nicely and we, individually, don't kill ourselves or anyone else. It works. We were forced to adapt or die. We're the only species which had to go through an emotional adaptation to a physical evolution. Nature works the other way around in sentient species. We grow mentally and emotionally and drag our primitive physical survival characteristics along with us, until they slowly fade over millennia. What was done to us didn't work. None of it."
"The only way to control the primitive survival characteristics is with the intellect. Learning how is part of the advance of the science of medicine. Badly paraphrased from a speech by Adrian Yoroski about thirty years ago."
"I do know who he was, Gen Fineman, and I know the speech. He was right about many of the correlations between our cultures and your getting out of your solar system two hundred years sooner, after the beginning of your space exploration era, being a very important difference. We aren't less aggressive as a species, but the culture which came to dominate our world was a less aggressive culture t
han the one which came to dominate yours. We didn't have the type of violence due to overcrowding you did. The damage was more hidden; therefore, less of a spur to colonize. Also less of a spur to practice conception prevention. Someone, who loved children too much to see them suffer poverty, neglect and lack of love decided to give them that. No child would be born without two who loved to love it. Tregdull died before he learned the tie required was too strong and there really wasn't anyone else of his caliber, but they still tried to fix it. We didn't have much choice. We had to try something. Eventually, we got something which could work and quit messing with the mess."
"You live with five men."
"No, I do not. I live with five noki, males. Humans are men and women. We are not. We are not the same species. We evolved along the same type of evolutionary track to fill the same niche, and believe there was some influence on that evolution, yours, ours or both, because it's statistically impossible, but it wasn't the same evolutionary track. We look alike and think a great deal alike, but we aren't family, just neighbors. I love the males in my life. I'm in love with Dane. Since we both gave our world children before it happened, it's far from a problem. It enriches all our lives."
"Your people were really split into two species, weren't you?"
"Yes. I am a master. If my species dies, another sentient species dies with us. There aren't as many of us and our population growth is very slow."
"It's not for slaves?"
"Good for you, Fem Roshod, you didn't wince when you said it. It's a necessity of survival there be masters and slaves. It's not really much fun for either of us, but that doesn't mean we don't enjoy life. Slaves fall in love with masters. Only a master who is loved intensely can enable the slave to reproduce. There are many more slaves than masters. They pick us most of the time, but we usually know when we've found the right slave almost immediately, as well. Dane has been doing a bit of study on it. It might be the first evidence of an actual adaptation. Knowing at almost first sight who are the right ones to share our lives is rather handy when it helps the species survive."
"The word translated as slave actually has a different connotation in your language, doesn't it?"
"No, it does not, but to call the survival necessity for a master any other name would be a lie. We refuse to be forced to lose respect for people we must love, but we can't change the reality. The males are my slaves. I bought them and the fruits of their labor are mine. I will never sell them because I am the right master for them or they wouldn't have fathered children. I also love them very much. They're in my family and share my life more closely than any others in it. We don't breed slaves for docility, or to serve us. We breed them to be loved life companions. The more interesting they are, the more enjoyable life is. Remember also, our sex drive was increased before it was learned that wouldn't do any good. That was the simplest change that could be made, so it was first. The more gorgeous a slave is, the more likely he or she is to get the attention needed. The smarter the slave, the more likely that slave is to help the family make money to purchase and support more slaves. Masters don't increase fast enough to need much financial growth to support themselves. My five slaves are much more ordinary a number than my brother's sixty-two."
"Sixty-two?"
"Yes, and all in love with him. We just finished building a recreation complex and classrooms for the approximately one hundred thirty children who will be in his household."
"That's a community, not a household."
"In Jarun's case, it's a family. There's a point that must be emphasized in this. Love is the basis of every relationship on our world. It is required to have children. If real love is not present, there are no children. One can't really love one whom one does not respect. Masters respect slaves for their acceptance of the physical necessity which requires they be slaves. Slaves respect masters for their acceptance of the duty to own them and aid them to have children. We don't like it, but we accept it and we are surviving."
"It was a close thing?"
"Our world population dropped from eleven billion to about eight hundred thousand in seventy years. We are now at just under three billion. It's taken us about seven hundred years to build it back up to the current level. It's still a close thing. Every person on our world knows why he or she is master or slave. Every small increment in the number of masters is celebrated. Hello, Dane. Did you run before you were handed several more instruments to play?"
"Taral was eyeing my kend and trella, Kiev. You know his idea of an interview is four sentences and a statement he's done, but I think Fem Wallack of Science Net has gotten him to actually explain the power system and he's forgotten the cameras."
"Yan?"
"Will get deeper and deeper into the mathematics, notice they're all lost, then that three of them are attractive women and interview them with questions about comm numbers and such."
"You don't have any vows of fidelity?"
"Of course we do, Fem Roshod, but they're personal and realistic. Celibacy is not an option for our people. It's anti-survival on a personal basis."
"Dane was 'celibate' until he was twenty-one. That fact has gotten him the title of the strongest-willed male of our species and he now has more children than any other male has ever had."
"Oh, thank you, Kiev. I'm too strong-willed. My world needed my children and I had to accept I am a slave to father them. That's not an intellectual decision. One must love another so deeply one can surrender the will, and be so well trained to accepting commands the body responds. That is why I went through physical deprivation, and it is deprivation for our species. The drive reaches its peak at about my current age, building from about age fifteen of our years, call it seventeen of yours. I'm the equivalent of about twenty-three. However, the difference in that peak and the level of the drive until about age seventy is minimal. It tapers off quite slowly from that point on and never leaves us. I have given a vow of fidelity within our household, basically vowed to share my body with no female other than Kiev. I couldn't have given that vow before I fathered my children and she had borne hers. I still could not have given that vow if Kiev would not accept it and I can only keep it if she allows it. I'm a body slave. It's the highest responsibility a slave can attain and the most complete slavery. It has made me a celebrity of sorts. I made my vow very public before we left our world."
"He had slaves, who had seen him on newscasts, sending messages asking to meet him because they thought he might be the one they could love enough. He's not a master. He's done his duty for our people. He has accepted the burden of being a slave. He won't be forced to accept the burden of being a master, as well. I have vowed fidelity within our family, but I am a master and had to make exceptions. If a male slave comes to me and tells me he is in love with me and asks me to buy him, I can't refuse. It means I am the only person who can help him give the world children, and he would suffer from not having me in his life. All slaves must accept masters will not love them in the same way. If we do, we can't have children. Without our children, there won't be any more children period. I nearly avoided Dane, until I was carrying my second set of twins. A slave cannot respond to the command to complete the reproductive act, if that slave knows the master really wants the slave's children, and not the slave give them to another. Love is the basis and never wrong. Our slaves are the wonderful, witty, warm and loving people we choose as our life's companions and falling in love with one of them is quite acceptable. It's only tragic if neither master or slave has given children to our species first and there is no stigma attached if it happens. I am in love with Dane and it's wonderful. We have left no duty unfulfilled and have the rest of our lives to share our love. Ours is the love story which is the dream of every slave and most masters. Dane is the brilliant and accomplished romantic hero of it. Don't young human women fall in love with romantic heroes they don't know? On our world, the romantic hero must accept the lives of every one who does into his keeping for life. Accepting Dane's vow and letting him
make it public, will hopefully turn the attention of young females to others before they really do fall in love with him. Besides, I don't like the idea of him holding another female, or woman. So, hands off, girls, this one is all mine."
"What is a body slave, Kiev Dane?"
"When the master is absent, the slave becomes the master, completely submerging the personal identity. When I am Kiev, every decision I make is with her mind. My own knowledge is a reference I use, just as she does when I am not being her. I sign work I do at those times with her signature. It isn't me signing her name and it is in her hand. An expert cannot find any difference in it other than the size of the hand holding the stylus. I did not practice that specifically. It was almost a gauge of the progress of my training. I am her in all things I do as Kiev. The only time I am totally myself is with her in our apartments with only our family there. At all other times, I am Kiev or Kiev Dane. Only a person with a great deal of responsibility needs a body slave. Few of those need them until middle-age. Most have a slave who knows them completely and loves them so deeply that the transition and training aren't extremely difficult. Kiev has far more responsibility than most and gained it far younger. I was one of the most expensive slaves sold at the market the day of my first sale. The others in my price range were older and had years of garnered skills in their professions. I had potential and superb general education. However, I had not learned to be a slave. That took two years. I could not give my world children until I did. It wasn't an easy two years."
"It was hell on us both and you know it."
"Yes, Kiev, I know it, but that's one of the words we're not supposed to use. You said so."
The Lonoki Solution Page 11