“I doubt if the Councilor remembers me,” he quickly said, “Captain North-Taylor Diad. It was a large, formal affair on Trefuss.” He smiled and half winked at her. “You know how those kind of events can get.”
As Rinne took his arm in the shoulder grip greeting, he clearly mouthed the words, “Save me!”
“From what?” she mouthed back. And his eyes shifted once quickly toward Ur’ Sa who was still there, but speaking to someone else.
“In fact, I do remember!” Rinne said and kept her arm on his. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you ...” She detached herself and turned them away from the other Councilor.
“Might we step outside?” he said. It wasn’t really a question, and Rinne had more than enough of the party to think: Oh, why not.
Outside it was a typical Melisande night: balmy, moonless, wonderful. “Gratitude!” he said, once they were alone on the curving open balcony. “Exactly what torment did Ur’ Sa have planned that I’m saving you from?” Rinne asked, turning to look at him.
“Meeting more women. I’m afraid I’m in over my head. I’ve never seen so many beautiful and accomplished women in one place. It fairly takes my breath away.”
Rinne noted that Captain Diad was wearing a modified Hesperian outfit: no wrist armor, no codpiece, not even the usual studded kneecap boots.
Still, his close-fitting body singlet was “City Jet” black with platinum trim, and his jewelry – small nostril plug, single earring, wristlet, and starburst clasp for his cape – looked to be of the finest-grade Plastro. His close-cropped hair and one sideburn, growing across his swarthy, olive-complexioned face to a thick mustache, was a black comma enclosing a strong nose and eagle eyes. She guessed him to be about her age, and in excellent physical shape.
“What did you expect on Regulus Prime?” she asked.
“I’m afraid I expected exactly what I’ve gotten. Even so ...”
Two statuesque young MC guards in their body-fitted uniforms strolled past and he gazed at them.
“You might have guessed I’m a visitor here.”
“Who isn’t?” she said. “Vacation?” she asked, not knowing why, but wanting to be with him more than being back inside, avoiding questions from her fellow officials about what she was really doing back in Melisande.
“I’d been all over most of the Matriarchy, but I’d never seen the center,” Diad said. “I thought when I retired ... well, that I owed it to myself to come here once.” He gestured helplessly. “I thought, well frankly, Councilor, I thought I might be ignored or ...”
He must know he wouldn’t be ignored on Melisande. This had to be what, decades ago, her trine-spouse Lyon used to call a “good old-fashioned line.”
“Retired from Hesperia? I thought no one ever left the wondrous City.”
“Retired from Beryllium ore hauling, Councilor. That was my avocation until a few months ago Sol Rad. Now, I’m just an early retiree, on the loose.”
“A rich retiree, I’d say, if you were in Beryllium hauling.”
“I did fine, gratitude, Councilor. But although I’m traveling a bit, I doubt that I can fail to return to Hesperia. If you’d ever been there ...”
“Not for a long time, I’m afraid,” she said. “But I found the experience unforgettable. Pleasantly,” she added.
“I’m glad to hear that.”
The two guards were gliding past again. Again he looked at them.
“I’m not used to seeing soldiers at social functions,” he explained.
“Ah, but think of who’s gathered here! The cream of Melisande! It was thought that Herself might make a personal appearance. She might still.”
“Not that I haven’t seen my share of that uniform,” he said.
Rinne turned to face him, eager to hear more. “You’re far too young for the war.” A joke. She added, “Or were you in action connected with the Bella=Arth. War, and Hesperia has cosmetological secrets we’ve not heard about yet?”
They laughed. Then he said in a more serious tone, “No, no, but I’ve run across young MC sparks like those two who found the possibility of besting a Hesperian male an opportunity not to be missed. Mostly, I admit, on frontier planets and some of the less savory port worlds. I can’t blame them. They might have been bored, or simply intent on impressing some young male. Truly!” he said, doubtless thinking she doubted him. “I’ve got the scars to prove it,” he began to lift aside his breast clasp.
“I believe you do have scars!” she stopped him. “But I also believe a Hesperian male mightn’t be as innocent as you claim you were. They have been rumored, on occasion, to provoke MC guards.”
He smiled again and said, “Perhaps I’ve misremembered the exact circumstances. Not very gallant of me, you’re thinking.”
Rinne was thinking something quite different, she was thinking: I like him. And he likes me. How novel!
“So what’s on your tourist agenda? Or shouldn’t I ask?”
“There is an agenda, of sorts,” he admitted shyly. “But really, I’ve never been the sort to follow a plan. I prefer to wander about. From what I’ve seen here on Melisande, that seems to be how many spend their time. It’s very beautiful. Virtually a paradise. I expected it to be far more ... built up.”
He told her his itinerary, which was a bit better than the standard one for the planet, no doubt because he had an astonishingly high credit line and was used to being treated royally. He added quickly, “I’d be willing to hear any suggestions.”
“Have you been to the Spoorenberg? That needlelike object in the middle of Karenina Park? It was originally built as an orbital transport elevator. It has an observation restaurant above the clouds. On a clear day, it’s quite marvelous.”
“I hadn’t planned it, but I will now.”
There was a slight commotion inside. She thought Wicca Eighth might have arrived, and perhaps she might be even nicer to Diad and introduce him to Herself. But in a few seconds she realized from the shape of the crowd, that it was only a live holo of the ruler.
“I’m certain you’re a very busy woman, but perhaps you’d join me there – say, for dinner?”
Rinne thought: I’ve wanted to be with a stranger three times in my life – once it ended in heartbreak, but two of those times worked out, and one turned into a spouse. Of course, she’d been younger then, and now was hardly a time to be even thinking of romance. Still ...
“I’ve just insulted you, haven’t I?” he apologized. “Didn’t mean it. Even back in the City, I’ve never known the right thing to say. It all gets so complicated.”
“You haven’t insulted me,” Rinne said, while admitting that some women would be taken aback by a male making such a proposal. “But I am a busy woman. However, if you let me comm. you sometime ...”
She reached her hand forward to his, and only when their wrists touched did she realize that as a Hesperian he wouldn’t have an implant. Even so, he held her hand longer than he should have before she could remove it.
“I was looking for your comm. code,” she said.
He gave it to her orally, and she tapped it into her wrist plate. Then he said, “Gratitude, for making my stay in Melisande so ... unexpectedly intriguing.” Rinne swore she heard sincerity in his words.
The live holo was over when they went inside and Rinne’s group was leaving so she said farewell to Captain Diad and he promised to comm.
“Who was that male you spent so much time with?” Geo-Exploiter Sanya Rhyyce asked when they were in the down-lift.
“A retired Hesperian.”
“I’ll bet he’s one of those grokky City degens,” Sanya’s daughter Leota, a know-it-all adolescent, commented. “Either that or a multibillionaire!”
“You’ve been watching too many PVN digests,” her mother complained. She never repeated her question.
Of course, meeting Captain Diad was out of the question. Or at least throughout most of the following morning and afternoon it seemed to be.
Councilor Rinne’s mornings were given over to work on “The Problem,” as she and others of her rank and involvement in the microvirus program had come to call it. From the moment she had returned to Regulus Prime, Rinne had been drafted to aid the monumental effort. After less than a week Sol Rad. in Melisande, she had demanded a better Cyber. Following days of arguments from everyone around her, she had finally been given one she approved of: intelligent, voluntarily modified following its reading of the Confessions, and really quite personable – it called itself Jenn-Four. After a week or so of working together in the small office in her apartments, Rinne felt comfortable enough to begin to open up to Jenn-Four. It was imperative that she know everything that the MC was doing about The Problem, no matter how apparently trivial.
In response, Jenn-Four had begun data hunting through the entire Matriarchy’s files, using Rinne’s Councilor status clearances as access codes.
Rinne now knew all of the scientific programs instituted since the emergency began; she could attest to how widespread those programs were, from new attempts at that seemingly unattainable grail – completely Hume genetic cloning – to the most minutely detailed attempts at partial and total cure by chemical and biological means. Every quack on the fringes of the Matriarchy had been pulled into the great task – few questions asked, funded to the hilt, and set on their way to see what they could come up with: artificial birth canals, Cybernetic ova, prosthetic fallopian tubes.
The terrifying fact was that under the First Matriarchy, any possible new methods of conception, gestation, and birth had been strongly discouraged. The Neofeminism Movement of the middle 3rd Millennium century had absolutely depended upon a bedrock of clean, healthy, and, above all, natural childbirth. As often as possible. And for the good of the Matriarchy. Those early holo-advert.s that had spread across system after star system were ludicrous to look at now: the gigantic and perfectly idealized woman surrounded by her many daughters, while behind her stood, equally tall and idealized, her female prime-spouse. The male who made the “natural” splitting of the ovum possible was seldom seen, except perhaps as a tiny figure or chain of figures below, carrying posters or banners supporting Neofeminism. In some advert.s, the male figure was missing altogether, the symbolic male circle and arrow pinned onto the lapel or cap of one of the more ambitious-appearing children. In some advert.s, all one ever saw of the male was a tiny stylized sperm.
But if experiments beyond the norm were discouraged during some periods, they were completely banned, utterly taboo, during others, and those – like Relfi – with innovative ideas were subjected to witch-hunts, tried by kangaroo courts, and destroyed, usually along with their work. More than once, Rinne found herself thinking that it would be a fine – if terrible – irony indeed if the Three Species ended because of their own past prejudice and shortsightedness.
Rinne had also set Jenn-Four to look for any possibly related programs, and had been surprised to find a listing of them almost fifty long. Some were open to her access and consisted of nothing more than preproduced holos of a half-informational, half-inspirational sort. Others were programs mentioned in passing in some other file and now indexed under “military,” “geoexploration,” and “terraforming and resettlement.”
Indeed, it had been one of the last, a program called Eden-Breed, that had especially gotten Rinne’s attention only a few days ago, when her access codes wouldn’t let her in. Jenn-Four had tried roundabouts, lies, and finally even partial destruction of one of its own units to pry entry. To no avail. Rinne immediately comm.ed Councilor Ly’s Delmon, her friend Sanya Rhyyce’s employer, of New Planets Division, and asked for access to the file.
And had been told she couldn’t have it. So, she comm.ed Herself, and after a day of frustration and blockage, Wicca Eighth comm.ed back.
“You needn’t know everything, Councilor Rinne – unless you plan to become Wicca Ninth.”
“You gave me a job to do. I’m doing it,” Rinne replied. “If I’m hindered, what’s the sense of bothering? I should go back to Sag. Central and do what I was doing there.”
“Now don’t be hasty! First you must understand that not all of Our programs during this emergency are as ... logical and sensible as We might wish.”
“I’ve encountered some weird ones already.”
“Eden-Breed is a bit different. Quite desperate,” Wicca Eighth said. “You know that We’ve been gathering up females not affected by the microvirus. Most of them have gone to biolab. stations as control subjects. But a certain number are being held in abeyance for the moment, being set up for an extraordinary final salvation effort.”
The Matriarch had been speaking quickly. She slowed down now.
“The idea first came from the Interstellar Metropolitan Himself, Gn’elphus XXI.”
“Of the Church of Algol?” Rinne asked.
“I’m afraid so. Despite centuries of Our best efforts at Ed. and Dev., there are those for whom the Maudlin Se’ers still hold much credit in some parts of Our realm. Because of that, Our relations with the Se’ers have had to be as delicate as those with Hesperia. Even so, once the idea of a salvation unit was brought up at an MC Inner Council meeting by the church’s ambassador, there turned out to be support for the idea. Thus it was implemented.”
“To the benefit of the Church of Algol, I assume.”
“A bit. As We said before, it’s quite last-ditch. The plan is to take a certain number of the untouched women to a safe place, far from any possible contact with the microvirus, and to sequester them there and allow them to breed in safety. Should all Our plans fail, the Matriarchy will at least have an outpost where it can regather its forces. Womanhood will not be completely lost.”
Without meaning to, Rinne put a hand up over her eyes. Of all the ridiculous ideas!
“We have no choice but to try it.” Wicca Eighth defended the program. “Several Fasts will be fully equipped with all of the necessities and all of the bases of Our culture. Their destinations will be random until the Fasts are out of the galactic spiral.”
“A batch of women with a few Se’ers along for propagation – and propaganda – purposes?”
“That hasn’t been settled yet. Naturally, officials and MC guards on a voluntary basis will join them,” Wicca Eighth added. “I know you think it’s a terrible idea, but I don’t think you realize the gravity of the situation, Councilor Rinne. Two days ago Sol Rad., when the Orion Spur stock market opened up on Tau Ceti VII, there was a column for bride-prices.”
“A joke. A typical O. Spur joke!”
“Was it, Councilor Rinne? Oh, it was gone in an hour Sol Rad., but it had been there for everyone to see!”
“You knew we couldn’t keep it secret forever.” Rinne said. “But no one will actually talk about it. Even the O. Spurs don’t dare. Everyone’s terrified to bring it up. It’s probably the widest-known, best-kept secret since time began.”
“We hope you’re right. And We hope We don’t have to send those women on those Fasts out of the galaxy.”
“I still need better access, Ma’am. A higher code or ...”
“We’ll see what We can do.”
“On which of the inaccessible programs would I find more data and holos of Ay’r Kerry Sanqq’?”
“Under his name,” Wicca said. “Have you made any progress with your holo notes from the Arcturus Mammalogical Institute?”
“Nothing worth discussing,” Rinne said as the holo snapped off.
Which was what she did every afternoon when all of her other work was cleared: go through holo-notes never meant to be saved beyond a few decades; holos stored hastily, never complete to begin with, poor in quality, requiring lumel and sonal amplification to even be useful.
Worse, when the holos were useful, they were difficult for Rinne to watch and listen to. There she was, not only 200 years younger, but lacking in the sheer accumulation of experience by which she now defined herself. She found that she didn’t have a hint of the thoughts and emotio
ns going through the mind of the child she had once been. Rinne could glean hints from her earlier self’s body language, vocal intonation, and even actions, but it was still like trying to read a four-dimensional map with a two-dimensional line.
There also were her colleagues at the institute: Poul’a Hriniak, Mondre Va Uip, Cam Caroly’a Jesper, to mention only her closest friends. All of them now mothers, businesswomen, politicians, government servitors, accomplished in vocation and avocation, as she was. And there, too, were the proctors and assistants, among them, of course, astonishingly, exactly as she had last seen him and since remembered him – Ferrex Sanqq’.
Rinne knew that, in these days, rebellious adolescents like Leota Rhyyce toyed with the idea of woman-male relationships, used it to shock their elders, appeared openly affectionate with males their age and size together in public. Most of them quickly outgrew it, understanding its grotesqueness, its inapplicability to real life in the Matriarchy. In Rinne’s youth, it had been far far worse to swoon over a male. Yet she had done so over Ferrex Sanqq’, and when she had begun to look through the holo-notes, she had been fearful how it would show up. It hadn’t been as blatant as she had feared, but it had unmistakably been there.
As had been Ferrex’s grace and tact in either ignoring it, deflecting it, or hiding its existence from others. He had not been espoused at the time, but he must have had previous experiences with overstimulated students like Gemma Rinne, because he kept his personal life closed, insisted he had none, and when forced by the institute to attend some social event, he had always come and left with a male assistant or male student – the only approved relationship for a bachelor in the Matriarchy. In those days, Rinne had thought that Ferrex Sanqq’ was either hypocritical or just plain smart. Once she had berated him, and he had simply responded, “If I even looked at you, I’d be subjected to a complete wipe. Is that what you want, Gemma? Everything in my mind wiped out?”
Another time, however, when they were alone in the Cyber-lab. going over Relfi’s tatters of documents for the thousandth time, he had been kinder. He had taken her hand in his and said, “If you follow this path, you’ll be doomed in the Higher Matriarchy. You understand that, don’t you?”
Dryland's End Page 18