by John Norman
“How will we make contact with the Pons?” asked Brenner.
“They will meet us outside the fence,” said Rodriguez. The fence, incidentally, was a force fence. This could be important, given the proximity of Company Station to the forests. Indeed, it represented an enclave of civilization in the midst of such forests. One needed a pass from company officials, incidentally, to go outside the fence. It was not that there would normally be any difficulty in obtaining this permission, either to leave, or to come in. It was a more a matter of keeping track of things, or of an innocent security. On the other hand the company would not wish, for example, to have expensive equipment leave the station without authorization. Such equipment, surveying equipment, drilling equipment, samplers, mineralogical testing devices, and such, was valuable.
“When?” asked Brenner.
“Anytime,” said Rodriguez. “I checked with the agent and he says a camp of them has been located outside the fence for a week now, to the south.”
“In this weather?” asked Brenner. He had been given to understand at the agent’s office that the weather had been much like this for the past several days. To be sure, that was not that unusual at this time of year, in the early fall, in this latitude on Abydos. The ship, incidentally, was some five Commonworld Revolutions behind its originally projected schedule, as a result of a rerouting mandated by the company some months before Brenner and Rodriguez, after making diverse connections and transfers, had embarked on her, on Eos. As this earlier rerouting is not altogether unrelated to our account I shall mention that it involved a side trip to a world which, not concerning ourselves with its number, was known in this portion of the galaxy as Persia.
“There should be a bar around here,” said Rodriguez.
“They should let them inside the fence, give them shelter!” said Brenner.
“They probably don’t want in,” said Rodriguez. “They are a shy, secretive lot.”
“Perhaps they will be offended,” speculated Brenner, uneasily.
“Not at all,” said Rodriguez, looking about. “They are a charitable, gentle, long-suffering, innocent, humble crew. Compared to them a Humbler saint would come off looking like a king lizard.
Brenner did not think the allusion apt as in his experience the Humblers tended to be amongst the most arrogant of rational species, tending, for example, to be rather proud of their humility. They did, of course, regard themselves as superior, particularly in virtue of their moralities and teachings, to all other life forms. That, in itself, even if they were humble about it, did not seem too humble. On the other hand, most life forms, it seemed, at least of those capable of doing so, regarded themselves as superior to all other life forms. That seemed to be almost a necessary condition for qualifying for a rational life form. Brenner supposed it was healthy. He knew members of his own species, for example, who regarded their species as the superior life form in the universe, not that it was the strongest, or most successful, or most intelligent, or most prolific, or the most widespread, or the fiercest, or the most innocuous, or the kindest, or whatever, only that it was the best. Brenner himself, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, and his commitments to modernism and lifism, tended to share this belief. So, too, he suspected, did Rodriguez, who even went so far as to identify himself, alarmingly enough, as a species chauvinist. Brenner did think there was something interesting, or nice, at least, about his species. To be sure, as we have noted, it was held in an unusually low regard generally in the galaxy, and doubtless for several excellent reasons.
“There must be a bar somewhere around here,” said Rodriguez.
“Surely we must make contact!” said Brenner.
“Tomorrow morning will do,” said Rodriguez, stopping, puffing in the rain, wiping his face.
Too many Bertinian weeds, too much Velasian Heimat, thought Brenner. But, he, too, was tired. It was not easy slogging through the mud. More important, doubtless, was the fact that neither of them, as yet, had recovered their “surface legs,” so to speak. Both were still somewhat unsteady, despite the regime of shipboard exercises which Brenner, at least, had maintained. Indeed, this may help to explain why Brenner had occasionally lost his footing and slipped from the walking boards, those laid here and there across the mud. To be sure, several of the boards had not provided a secure footing, being slick with mud and water.
“Do you see a bar?” asked Rodriguez.
“Let’s find the hostel,” suggested Brenner, who was cold enough and miserable enough, to find Rodriguez’ suggestion about tomorrow morning less objectionable, and less an affront to scientific enthusiasm, than he might have otherwise. And Rodriguez, after all, was the senior colleague.
“That’s ahead,” said Rodriguez.
The rain, a few moments ago, had begun to fall more heavily again. Brenner squinted into the gloom. He then saw the sign, not lit this early in the day.
He started out immediately, gratefully, but in doing so, obstructed the passage, producing a collision with, a small figure, one of the few individuals Rodriguez and he had seen on the streets, once they had left the vicinity of the agent’s office. The small figure, clutching a cloak about itself, with a hood, cried out, angrily, and Brenner, slipping, stepped back, to apologize profusely. Briefly, within the folds of the wet hood, Brenner glimpsed a lovely, rounded face, almost exquisite, with an expression of anger, of petulance, with red lips and deep, dark eyes. And then the hood was pulled even more about the face, angrily, and she hurried on.
Brenner looked after her. He could see her bared, muddy calves within some circular garment, beneath the cloak. Beneath such a garment one might even, easily, put one’s hand.
“What is that she is wearing?” asked Brenner.
“It is called a ‘dress,’” said Rodriguez. As an anthropologist Brenner was familiar with this term, but he had never seen one on a person before, except, of course, in pictures, from distant worlds, and from the home world, going back to benighted times. Brenner shuddered. Such garments so debased and degraded a woman! Surely she would not, of her own will, have donned such a garment. Perhaps she was a whore, intent upon stimulating maleness. Such garments, on many worlds, were outlawed, because of dreaded moral and social consequences. But she did not seem to be a whore.
“That is what they give them to wear, outdoors,” said Rodriguez.
“‘Them’?” asked Brenner. “‘Give’?”
“Yes,” he said.
“She is barefoot,” said Brenner, looking after the small figure, disappearing now in the gloom, beyond the hostel entrance.
“It is easier to wash feet than clean boots,” said Rodriguez.
“I do not understand,” said Brenner.
“If it were colder, later in the year,” said Rodriguez, “she would have been given foot bindings, or boots, or something.”
“‘Given’?” asked Brenner.
“You do not think that women come of their own free will to Company Station, do you?” asked Rodriguez.
“Of course,” said Brenner.
“Oh, some do, I suppose,” said Rodriguez, “the mates of certain employees, or such.”
Brenner was alarmed, standing there in the mud, the rain. On the home world mating had been abolished, at least in any official or recognized sense. It had been established by suitable panels of experts, to which various judiciaries deferred in certain decisions, that that institution constituted an infringement of species freedom, at least in Brenner’s and Rodriguez’ species, if not in that of others, such as those of penguins, king lizards, sticklebacks, and inwits, that it humiliated all partners involved, in whatever numbers or arrangements, interfered with the indisputable role of the state in guiding socialization into correct channels, and was in clear violation of numerous rights which had been recently discovered. Mating now, and, indeed, sexual relations, and, in particular, heterosexual relations, with their appendant dangers of populationalism, was regarded on many worlds as either a crime, ranging from a felony
to a misdemeanor, a civil wrong, or tort, or a vice, depending on the world. Breeding on several of these worlds, of course, tended to be supervised through various state boards. If the state had a right, for example, to require licenses for operating certain forms of equipment, for example, vehicles, or businesses, or to regulate the possession of, say, bladed weapons of more than two inches in length, surely it had the right, it seemed, to supervise the far more important matter of the number and nature of the constituents of the commonwealth itself. Advanced biological techniques, for example, for fertilization and storage, were helpful in these matters, as well as in vitro nourishment or, in most cases, recourse to host mothers. In some cases, gametes were so prepared and fused that the genetic endowments pertinent to a given organism could be traced to an indefinite number of “parents,” so to speak. Emotional relationships, such as love, had long ago been seen for the cruel and heinous traps they were, the ingenious devices of insidious forebears, designed to exploit and suppress certain portions of the species. To be sure, love, directed toward its proper object, such as a movement, party, or state, was encouraged, depending, of course, on the particular movement, party, or state in question. Various companies, incidentally, it had been recognized, particularly within the companies, were also fit objects for the exercise of this devotion. To be sure, many of these principles, prescriptions, and such, were by certain portions of these populations more honored in the breach than not. Many members of a species tended to remain incorrigible. It was also speculated that numerous dissenters, or even nonconformists, or even recusants, might exist in secret. The business of reconstructing a species in its own best interest, of transforming it, in effect, into something different, remained, as always, difficult. But such work constituted a challenge to the behavioral engineers, and, indeed, this challenge encouraged many to enter the field, often idealistic youths willing to take upon themselves the responsibility for the amelioration of the species. The approach, as might be supposed, was often two pronged, psychological and biological, the psychological aspects having to do with the control of conditioning programs, for the most part, aside from affirmative and negative control of the media, administered through supervised, centralized school systems, proven to be the most efficient in producing reliable educational output, and the biological aspects having to do with selective breeding, politicized eugenics controlled through screening, replication licenses, abortions, prenatal and postnatal, and, of course, genetic engineering. It is interesting to note that on the home world of Brenner and Rodriguez aborting a member of their own species, particularly one of certain groups, was regarded as unobjectionable, especially when done under the direction of the state, which often bore the expense of the operation, whereas aborting a member of another species, rational or subrational, was not, but rather constituted a felony. The rationale for this seemed to be that the state had the right to control its own body, in effect, its body politic. In many cases, of course, it must be admitted that the state accorded the liberty of such terminations to the mother, whether the conceiving mother or the host mother, and whether the member of the species was within a body or in a nourishment vat. Postnatal abortions at the option of either the conceiving mother or the host mother could be performed during the first several years of the organism’s life, the matter of being within or outside a body, or vat, being sensibly regarded as biologically irrelevant, given the gradualistic nature of organic development, which obviously continued from the first fusion of gametes at least until adulthood. Most states, on the other hand, retained abortion rights throughout the life of the organism, this provision making it possible to rectify any later-discovered oversight or to counter any irrational sentimentality on the part of a conceiving or host mother. On some worlds, in deference to biological facts, fathers were also given abortion rights over the member of the species, whether it was within the body of a mother or in a vat, these rights again extending to a certain point in the life of the organism, coterminous with the point to which the mother’s rights, whether a conceiving or host mother, extended. The exercise of these rights did not require mutual agreement because that would, as various jurists had pointed out, infringe the rights of the other partner. None of this, of course, compromised the rights of the state, which in all cases, as was proper, given its greater amount of information, the longer, broader perspectives at its disposal, and its wisdom, took priority. In speaking of incorrigibility, and such, it might be mentioned that Brenner, whereas he tended on the whole to be a. morally responsible citizen of the home world, did not favor abortion. His view seemed officially to be predicated on a suspected inconsistency between the putative morality of aborting a member of his own species and the putative immorality of aborting a member of another species. This also seemed congruent, at least in his mind, incidentally, with the thesis of the equivalence of life forms, he supposing that a member of his own species, such as it was, ought to be entitled to the same rights as those accorded to, say, squirrels, rabbits, or terbits. On the other hand, one suspects his views may also have been influenced by the fact that he had discovered, at the age of some twenty Commonworld years, that he himself had narrowly escaped abortion. Indeed, a vat attendant had refused to flush out the vat and place the fetus in the garbage. And, as Brenner was pleased that he had not been aborted, he tended to disapprove of abortion, in spite of its putative convenience to one party or another. To be sure, Brenner seldom expressed his reservations on these matters, which was perhaps just as well.
“You do not think then,” said Brenner, peering off through the rain in the direction in which the young woman had taken her way, picking her way through the mud with her bare feet, “that she is a “mate.”” He shuddered a little as he said that word, with its disgusting aspects of salaciousness.
“I would not suppose so, not here,” said Rodriguez.
For some reason Brenner was pleased with this speculation on the part of Rodriguez. Upon considering this, Brenner speculated that his relief must be due to the fact that the young woman was spared at least an implication in a relationship so carnal and deplorable, so antithetical to personness.
“But what then?” asked Brenner. He was dimly aware of an odd sense of expectation, or hopefulness, even an unworthy, excited hopefulness, in himself as he asked this question.
“Who knows?” asked Rodriguez.
“What do you think?” asked Brenner.
“She was barefoot,” mused Rodriguez.
“Yes?” said Brenner.
“Did you get a look at her neck, or her left wrist?” asked Rodriguez.
“Not really,” said Brenner.
“I didn’t notice any chain or anklet on her left ankle,” said Rodriguez.
“‘Chain’? ‘Anklet’?” said Brenner.
“To be sure,” said Rodriguez, “such would have to be dried, and cleaned, very carefully, if it were worn in this weather, in the rain and mud. It could, of course, have been removed, before she was sent on her errand.”
“An errand?” asked Brenner.
“One supposes so,” said Rodriguez. “This is hardly the sort of weather in which one would be likely to make social calls.”
“What is she?” asked Brenner.
“I don’t know,” said Rodriguez.
“Is she a—slave?” asked Brenner.
“Quite unlikely, for a number of reasons,” said Rodriguez. “First, she was angry when you obstructed her passage, when you struck into one another, and even cried out in anger, or made some sort of angry noise. It is highly unlikely that a slave would have done that. A slave might rather have been terrified that she might have been found displeasing. A slave would have been down on her knees or belly in the mud, in an instant, contrite and fearful, begging your forgiveness, perhaps trying to placate you by licking the mud from your boots. She would not wish to be beaten.”
“Men have such power over slaves?” asked Brenner, in awe.
“Of course,” said Rodriguez. “They are slaves.�
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