The High Ground

by Melinda Snodgrass

  “Yes, Your Highness. You and your ladies. And not just to this institution, but to our very way of life. What is happening is a cultural experiment and those rarely turn out well.”

  “There were economic studies in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries that indicated that integrating women fully into society resulted in a better outcome for those societies,” Tracy called. His early timidity burned away in the face of the attack on Mercedes.

  “That might have made sense when we were limited to the finite resources of a single planet,” Crispin said, turning on Tracy. “But resource scarcity isn’t our problem now. Our problem is population density or more precisely the lack thereof. We need more humans. Therefore our women are precious, their role in society sacred.”

  “What is it you want me to do? Quit? Become a royal broodmare? Well, I’m not going to quit. I’m going to make it.”

  To Tracy’s ears it sounded like a cry of desperation rather than a statement of certainty.

  Crispin’s expression hardened and he turned again to face Mercedes. “Then let us see if you can.” As he stalked back down the steps toward the desk he called, “We’ll begin with the Climate Wars of 2077.”

  * * *

  “You need to step on that encroaching little cucaracha and depress his pretension,” Boho said over lunch.

  “I don’t think the faculty would appreciate my condescending to a professor,” Mercedes said mildly as she dipped up a spoonful of asparagus soup.

  “Not Crispin. The intitulado, the tailor’s son.”

  “So, that’s Tracy’s background—” The words were out before she thought better of it.

  “Tracy? How do you know his name?” Boho demanded with a frown.

  “I… I must have heard it during… during roll call.”

  “Crispin didn’t call the roll and you weren’t there when we all introduced ourselves,” Cipriana pointed out. Mercedes shot her a venomous look. Cipriana gave a bland smile in return.

  “And he gave his name as Thracius,” Yves Petek added unhelpfully, mumbling around a large bite of croissant spread thickly with cheese.

  Mercedes gave a sharp gesture with her spoon like an agitated conductor, and demanded, “Why are we discussing this boy? And I noticed none of you stepped up to defend me… us.” Mercedes raked the males at the table with a cold glance. “Perhaps you agree with Commander Crispin?”

  “Well, of course we do,” Arturo said with the air of a parent talking to a particularly slow child. To Mercedes’ eyes her cousin looked like a smug otter with his sleek brown hair and superior half-smile.

  “Well, I don’t,” Boho said.

  “And I detect a decided browning of your nose,” Arturo said, his tone pure acid.

  Mercedes tensed but Boho merely smiled. “I stand as friend to the Infanta, and will be ready to serve her as she sees fit.” He inclined his head in respect. He glanced over at Arturo. “As should we all. We will all owe her our allegiance… in time.”

  “For now you owe my father your allegiance.” Mercedes stood. “And it is his will that I am here so it behooves you to… to…”

  “Back off and butt out,” Sumiko said. She also stood. Cipriana and Danica rose but more slowly. The blonde girl looked particularly pathetic, her mouth half open as she struggled to breathe past the packing in her broken nose.

  “And now we have class and I won’t be late again,” Mercedes said.

  “So what’s your punishment?” Yves asked.

  Mercedes stiffened ready to take offense then realized the question was prompted more out of fear than a desire to gloat. She decided the fat boy had reason to be worried. He was likely to come in for more than his share of demerits and punishments.

  “I have to clean the bathroom in our quarters for the next week.”

  “By which she means us,” Sumiko said in response to Boho’s and Arturo’s outraged expressions. “We know our required roles.”

  You too? Mercedes thought as she watched the plump girl walk off in her stolid flat-footed way.

  10

  CABALS

  Tracy was working through a particularly tricky orbital mechanics problem. It wasn’t like high school where you were clearly in geometry or calculus class. He realized early on that he was going to have to be flexible and jump from discipline to discipline to reach the solution.

  The buzzer on his door sounded. The nasal blare broke his train of thought and he lost the thread of the problem. Irritated, Tracy threw down his stylus and considered ignoring whoever was disturbing him at—he glanced at the time code in the corner of his tap-pad—9:17 at night. The buzzer sounded again. Hitching the belt of his bathrobe tighter Tracy strode to the door. He tapped the door camera and was stunned and alarmed when Mercedes’ strained face appeared in the screen.

  He touched the admit icon and the door slid open. Tracy was relieved to see she was accompanied by the plump girl. The next thing he noticed was the stack of folded undress uniforms held by the Infanta.

  “May we come in? Good, thank you,” Mercedes said in a harried whisper as she darted past.

  Tracy was acutely aware that he wore only his jockey shorts beneath his tatty old bathrobe. As Sumiko stomped past she gave him an amused look as if she’d read his thoughts. “Shut the door,” Sumiko ordered.

  Tracy did before he thought better of it, then the reality and the dangers inherent in the reality came crashing home. “Princess… Highness… You can’t be in here—”

  “I need your help.” Her voice throbbed with despair like the toll of a bell in a minor key.

  “What do you need?” The words just emerged. Tracy comforted himself with the thought that it was his duty to serve his ruler.

  “Boho said you were a tailor’s son. Do you know how to sew because—”

  Resentment lodged in his chest hot and heavy. “Of course he did.” Tracy jerked his head at the slacks Mercedes held. “Did he send these to me for pressing?”

  Mercedes gaped at his harsh tone. “What? No. Why do you two hate each other so? Oh, never mind. I don’t care. Look I went to Captain Zeng to complain about our absurd clothing, and when we returned to our quarters after dinner these were sitting on our bunks with a message that we were expected to be dressed appropriately by the first class tomorrow but they don’t fit—”

  “They especially don’t fit me,” Sumiko interrupted, and she gave her rather ample rear end a pat.

  “I was hoping you knew how to… that you could maybe help us make them fit,” Mercedes said. She held out the stack of trousers like a priestess making an offering.

  Tracy lifted up a pair of slacks, flipped them inside out and inspected the seams. As he had suspected, there wasn’t enough material that could be let out to accommodate a woman’s hips. He said as much. Mercedes let out a doleful sniff and drooped toward the door.

  “Sorry to have disturbed you.”

  “Wait.” She turned back. “Do your ladies know how to sew?”

  “Of course,” Sumiko said. “Well, embroidery.”

  “That’ll do,” Tracy said. “Go back to your rooms and bring me your undress skirts.”

  “Why? We’re not going to be allowed to wear them any longer,” Mercedes said.

  Tracy waved the inside-out trousers at her. “As my dad would say—we can teach or we can do. Your choice, Princess.”

  For an instant she gaped at him, then she gave a decisive nod. “Right. Got it. Okay.” She headed for the door. Tracy lifted the remaining slacks out of her arms as she passed. A wild idea was coming into focus.

  The door sighed shut behind the women. Tracy dumped the trousers on his bunk, knelt and opened the drawer that held his sewing kit. Draping the tape measure around his neck he pulled out the box of pins.

  Moving to the desk he pressed the call button. A few moments later Donnel arrived.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The Infanta came here tonight—”

  “That could be problematic, sir.”
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  “So they’ll know?” Tracy asked.

  “The administration will find out—they check the cameras.”

  Tracy sank down into his desk chair. “Oh crap, ’cause she really needs to come back. All the ladies need to.”

  “We might be able to alleviate that problem,” Donnel said smoothly.

  “We? Who’s we?”

  “Those of us who serve.”

  “The batBEMs.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you guys have a network or something?”

  “Something like that.” The alien’s tone was imperturbable.

  “I don’t know if that’s reassuring or alarming,” Tracy muttered.

  “Let’s just say we stay in contact so we can better serve.”

  “Do you take sides? I mean do you support your cadet against the others? Try to undermine the other guy?”

  Donnel didn’t answer that question. Instead he said, “I’ll get on the cameras. Is there anything else you need?”

  “Yeah, I need thread.” Tracy held up the undress blues. “In this color. Several large sheets of paper, chalk, and probably a few more needles and pins.”

  “Would a sewing machine help, sir?”

  “You could get that? Never mind, I don’t want to know. Yeah, that would help. Oh, and scissors. Good ones.”

  “I’m on it, sir.”

  * * *

  The room really wasn’t designed for five. Cipriana, Danica and Sumiko perched side by side on the bunk. Their hair, unbraided, fluffed around them like the feathers of nesting birds on a cold day. Skirts and trousers and jackets were stacked on the closed lid of the toilet. Mercedes stood in front of Tracy.

  She was shocked when he said, “I’m willing to help you, but I want something in return.”

  There was that inward cringe. She had felt it on the beach when he’d run toward her. She knew the lower classes liked to take advantage. Granted he had only been warning her about the rising tide, but perhaps he had thought to bide his time and now he would make his move. Boho’s words about “encroaching cockroaches” came to the forefront of her mind.

  “What?” Mercedes asked in her most forbidding tone.

  He looked hurt then annoyed and said, “Give me these undress uniforms and your new dress uniforms too.”

  “Why? Why should I?”

  Tracy moved to the closet and pulled out his cheap synthetic undress blues. He tossed the coat with its fraying silver braid onto the floor between them. “Because I’m tired of looking like the poor relation. I know you’re all going to treat us that way, but we should get to at least start out even. I want a decent undress uniform for me and for the other scholarship student, and this way he can have a dress uniform too.”

  She sagged with relief. “Oh, is that all? Well, that seems quite fair and reasonable.”

  “Okay. Then we better get to it. I need to get your measurements.” Tracy dropped to one knee and placed the end of the tape measure at the top of Mercedes, thigh against her crotch.

  No one apart from an elderly female doctor from one of the repatriated Hidden Worlds had ever touched her there, and certainly no man had ever done so. A sudden heat washed through her belly. Sometimes late at night Mercedes had begun to tentatively explore her privates causing just this reaction, but she’d immediately felt guilty, had confessed to Father Francisco and been assigned twenty Hail Marys.

  Tracy’s hand felt hot even through the material of her gym clothes. She squeaked; Tracy gasped and threw himself backwards, falling hard on his rear end. Cipriana choked on a giggle. Danica gave a shocked moan.

  “Uh… maybe you better do the measuring,” Tracy said, flapping the tape desperately at Sumiko.

  “That would probably be a good idea,” the knight’s daughter said in her blunt, matter-of-fact way.

  “I’ll just write down the numbers,” Tracy gabbled as he snatched up his tap-pad. His embarrassment was rather sweet, Mercedes thought, and she swallowed a giggle.

  One by one they measured each other—in-seam, hip, waist, length of torso. Partway through the door slid open, and terror shut down the breath in Mercedes’ chest. It turned out to be Tracy’s very odd-looking batBEM. He had a small portable sewing machine under one arm, spools of thread in another, scissors and chalk in another, and a roll of white paper under his fourth arm.

  “Mela has a cousin in maintenance. The cameras have been seen to, and the lady cadets’ batBEMs have created the illusion they are all safely asleep in their beds.”

  “Your Highness, please get on the bed. I need the floor,” Tracy said.

  Mercedes climbed onto the bunk with her ladies. It took some shifting around to get them settled. They formed two rows—Danica and Sumiko in front, Mercedes and Cipriana behind them, their backs against the wall. Like a little box full of girls, Mercedes thought.

  They watched as Tracy laid out the paper, and using the measurements he drew a pattern for each of them. While he was working the Cara’ot set up the sewing machine on the desk.

  “Donnel, give me one of those skirts.” A small frown of concentration wrinkled the skin between Tracy’s pale brows. Mercedes noticed that he chewed his lower lip with his teeth when he was really concentrating.

  Next he ripped out the seams on the undress culottes and laid out the material. As he gathered up the first pattern Cipriana said approvingly, “Oh well done, you. That’s why you wanted the skirts. There will be plenty of material to make trousers.”

  Tracy flashed her that blazing smile. “Exactly, my lady.”

  Danica leaned back against Mercedes and whispered, “He’s rather cute.”

  Yes. Yes, he is was what Mercedes wanted to say, but in this new environment where undercurrents flowed in all directions and none of them good she realized she needed to be cautious.

  “Really? Do you think so? I find him rather ordinary,” she whispered instead, and she infused boredom into the words.

  The alien watched, then pulled down the remaining skirts and began tearing out the seams. Tracy cut out the pattern, gathered up the material and moved to the sewing machine. Mercedes watched fascinated as the alien used his four arms to cut out two patterns simultaneously. She wondered if the Cara’ot’s brain was partitioned like a cloud drive on a computer.

  A few minutes later and Tracy stood up from the desk. He held a pair of slacks in his hands. “Okay, Your Highness, please try these. We need to sew on the waistband and set the hems, but that’s something you and your ladies can do by hand while I put together more trousers.”

  Mercedes wiggled out from between Sumiko and Danica, took the slacks and headed into the tiny bathroom. The door closed behind her. She stripped out of her gym culottes, and tried on the pants. They fit and were only a little long. She emerged, and Tracy nodded in satisfaction.

  “Not bad, if I do say so myself.” He knelt at her feet, turned up the hem and pinned it. “Okay, it’s up to you now.”

  The sewing machine hummed and chattered. Danica sat on the floor in the closet and stitched. Sumiko used the toilet as a chair. Cipriana and Mercedes were on the bunk frantically sewing. Somewhere around three a.m. they were finished. Tracy stood and pressed his fists against the small of his back. Mercedes wondered if she looked as exhausted as her companions.

  “Have your batBEMs bring me your dress uniform skirts, and I’ll get pants made for them too. Now that I’ve got your measurements and patterns there’s no reason for you to come here again. Let our servants handle it.”

  “Is it worth going to sleep for two hours?” Cipriana asked.

  “I’ve seen you stay up all night at a ball and go out riding in the morning,” Mercedes pointed out.

  “Yes, but that was doing something fun. This wasn’t fun.” She turned to Tracy. “Not that I don’t appreciate the help.”

  “Of course if we’d failed to turn up in proper attire this morning we all might have gotten to go home,” Sumiko said.

  “Or just gotten some grotesque punishmen
t,” Mercedes countered.

  “Gentle ladies, you had best go,” Donnel urged.

  Danica, Cipriana and Sumiko slipped through the door. Mercedes hung back, and laid a hand on Tracy’s. “Thank you. I won’t forget this.”

  He turned his hand so he could grip her fingers. The hollow jittery feeling invaded her belly again. “You’re welcome.”

  “Are you going to go to sleep?”

  “I have to finish my math homework.”

  “I have to start it,” Mercedes said.

  “I wish I could do it for you, but that would really be a violation of the code of ethics.”

  “As if we haven’t broken a thousand rules tonight,” Mercedes said with a smile.

  Tracy gave an answering smile. “Goodnight… well, good morning. See you in class, milady.”

  * * *

  As Tracy walked down the hall toward Crispin’s class he saw Captain Zeng loitering in the hall. He swallowed a smile and gave the coat of his proper undress uniform a tug. It hadn’t taken much work to tailor it. The FFH assholes looked surprised, but Wilson gave him a furious glare. Tracy hurried forward, caught the other scholarship student by the arm, and pulled him aside.

  “I’ve got one for you. Dress blues too. Come to my room after dinner,” Tracy said quietly.

  “How?”

  A rising hubbub of conversation filled the hall. Words like outrageous, shocking, indecent could be picked out of the confused basso hum.

  “Not here. Not now,” Tracy snapped.

  He turned to see the four women approaching in their uniforms. Last night he hadn’t been able to fully appreciate how good slacks looked on a woman. Even among the lower classes most women wore skirts or culottes. The only time he’d seen pants on women were Isanjo females. Even the Hajin had adopted the dress of their conquerors. Mercedes, tallest of the four, carried it off the best. Her chin was up, shoulders back, and she strode confidently down the hall. The small blonde tugged at the edge of her coat trying futilely to make it longer.

  Tracy quickly shifted his gaze to Zeng expecting to see blazing anger there too. Instead a very small smile touched the administrator’s lips. He caught Tracy looking. Tracy ducked his head and looked away.