The Return of Nathan Brazil

by Jack L. Chalker

  "Yua, you will take me to the Temple. We shall go by conventional ship; I wish no suspicions raised," one said in the High Priestess's voice.

  The second Yua turned and actually kneeled before the speaker.

  "Oh, yes, my Lady," she responded softly, almost adoringly. "You have but to command and I must obey."

  Marquoz turned to Gypsy. "Remind me," he said casually, "not to get back on that platform, won't you?"

  Gypsy nodded absently. "That thing changes minds faster than a fickle shopper at a bargain bazaar," he commented dryly.

  Olympus

  Olympus was well off the main shipping lanes. It had actually been discovered fairly early in Earth exploration and might have wound up as a grand Terraforming experiment except that the same space drive that allowed man to reach the planet also made possible the almost simultaneous discovery of a number of more attractive and less expensive planets more or less in a row.

  It was roughly thirty-two thousand kilometers around at the equator, a bit smaller than old Earth, and farther out so it was colder. In fact, normal air temperature would be about three degrees Celsius on a summer's day, minus eighteen in winter. Geologically Olympus was very active. Volcanoes larger than any seen on old Earth spewed hot gases and molten magma all over the place; earthquakes were an everyday occurrence on most of the world, although severe ones were rare. To top it all off, the atmosphere was loaded with oxygen and a lot of other gases. The air smelled something like that around a huge chemical plant no matter where you were, and though it rained frequently the chemical content of that rain was a mixture of weak acids stronger by far than those around industrial areas on more Earthlike worlds. The usual materials wore away quickly here; the rains stung and irritated exposed human flesh, and the additives in the air were severe enough to require an artificial air supply. The place had developed a lush plant life well adapted to it as well as some minor insects and sea creatures, but nothing very elaborate. The environment was still too hostile.

  The First Mothers, bankrolled by Councillor Alaina, had bought Olympus cheap. Although Ben Yulin had wished for idealized love-slaves, he had made them into superwomen able to withstand enormous extremes. Obie had been the engineer, and he'd done a fine job. The First Mothers found they could live easily on Olympus; their metabolisms permitted them to consume just about anything organic.

  Initially, living conditions on Olympus were primitive; houses hewn from solid rock by borrowed lasers were the first homes, and for a generation the population was just a small band of primitives living as naked hunter-gatherers in an almost stone-age culture. They had two advantages, though, a large interest-accruing account in the Com Bank and continuous contact with the Com and its resources.

  After a few months, all the First Mothers discovered that they were pregnant. All of the children born were female save two. It was then that they realized they could, in fact, found a new race.

  Off-world cloning was employed to guarantee a large, steady supply of females who would be of roughly the same age as the two males when they matured.

  The girls were raised to believe that it was their duty to have children as long as they were able and as often as they were able, and the population grew rapidly, eventually allowing the Olympians to dispense with cloning and the outside interests the process necessitated. Now, over seven hundred years later, the population of Olympus was well over thirty million and still growing, although the birth rate had been slowed centuries earlier.

  And all the women, except for hair and eye color, looked exactly alike with one additional difference. Of the First Mothers, Yulin had created two before adding the decorative tail. After seven centuries, ten percent of the population lacked the tail. They were the Athenes. The tailed majority were Aphrodites (the last two syllables pronounced as one). They called their race the Pallas, although everyone outside of their culture referred to them as Olympians after their planet. (One of their early books had contained information on human myths, legends, and ancient religions.)

  Mavra Chang, disguised as a Pallas, along with Yua made subservient to her by Obie, approached Olympus in an Olympian ship after transferring from a commercial freighter. Realizing the naïveté and vulnerability of their early state, the First Mothers had severely restricted access to Olympus. Over the centuries the rules had been chiseled in stone and made absolute. Only Olympians were allowed on the planet. Even freighters had to be Olympian owned and operated.

  Although the planet was now modern and civilized, it produced little that was marketable. The old bank funds had been invested in the freighting concern, though, which also did some work for Com worlds. Although it was little known, skilled Olympian females were available for hire, as couriers, as guards, as private ship captains. They were totally loyal to their employers, absolutely incorruptible, and, as superwomen, not easy to tangle with. Their attributes made them very useful as couriers of secret information of vital material. The Temple, too, invested heavily in Com businesses; its recent growth had made its wealth astronomical.

  All this Obie extracted from Yua's mind; also the linguistic differences, cultural forms and attitudes. Mavra would make no outward slips. But Yua was not the biggest help. She'd been raised in the Fellowship with the sole purpose of becoming a Priestess, so she had little contact with the greater society of her home planet, no more than one born and raised in a nunnery. Even her education had been turned toward dealing with the humans of the Com.

  For example, she'd never seen a male Olympian. She knew they existed, of course; she was not sexually ignorant, although her drives in that direction had been in some way suppressed. Even though she had not met one, she retained a very low opinion of the males. They were not capable of advanced reasoning, she'd been taught, certainly incapable of any responsibility. They were little better than smart animals, sex machines good for little else.

  Both Mavra and Obie found this attitude curious, but they reserved judgment. There was no reason for the males to be that way. Considering how Yulin created this race and his own egomania, the men would in fact be powerful sex machines but they should also be at least Yulin's intellectual equal, and he was, for all his amorality and ambition, certainly close to genius. Obie certainly hadn't programmed poor reasoning into the biology of the Olympian males.

  There were no customs and immigration formalities at the small, spartan spaceport; if you weren't an Olympian you wouldn't be there. There were also no dives, bars, or other such spaceport fixtures—just the shuttle landing bays, the barge docks, and a small lounge. Everything was modern, functional; it all looked prefab and lacked traces of imagination.

  The capital city, Sparta, reflected its name—no frills, all function. Set as it was in a huge bowl-shaped valley surrounded by snow-capped mountains on three sides and an oddly disturbing deep-purple ocean on the other, it seemed shameful that it was not as beautiful as its setting. Blocky buildings, wide streets with concrete medians, all dull grays and browns. Trolleys carried the people most places, smoothly and silently; the hill sections were served by cable cars. There seemed to be no private vehicles, although there were many trucks whirring back and forth in their own lanes.

  People walked a lot, too, and in about every state of dress and undress often with gaudy cosmetics, lots of jewelry, every possible hairstyle—and tailstyle—and tattooing seemed to be in. Some of the people looked like old circus exhibits.

  Mavra understood that needless decoration at once. All Olympians looked alike once they reached fifteen; then stayed that way, aging internally but not externally until they died, normally at the age of two hundred or so. They were all the same height; had exactly the same tone of voice, everything the same except for hair and eye color, which could be modified by dyes or special lenses.

  So making oneself a recognizable individual was a passion to these women—and that's all Mavra saw. Hundreds, thousands of identical women going about the city. No males at all.

  Most of the drudge work, inc
luding that of moving the newcomers' luggage, was performed by robots built to withstand the corrosive atmosphere. There were smart and dumb Olympians because there were smart and dumb First Mothers and, of course, other factors of environment intervened as well, but nobody had to do manual labor and nobody did—machines were built for that.

  "Hotel Central," Yua told the machine crisply; it looked like a glorified animated hand-truck to Mavra.

  "Yes, ma'am," a mechanical voice responded and the machine quickly scuttled off to collect and transfer the luggage through underground commercial roadways.

  There were no taxis; an Olympian was expected to know her way around and which trolley to take. Yua chose one and they jumped on as it rumbled off. The new arrivals joined standing ranks of neatly identical Olympians. Apparently nobody sat down in Sparta, Mavra thought glumly.

  The trip took about ten minutes and the tram never stopped. It just crept slowly along with people jumping on and jumping off. Nobody tried to collect a fare.

  The Hotel Central was a square block near the city center; like all Spartan buildings it was low, five stories, built for an earthquake zone on a planet that was entirely an earthquake zone. Mavra studied the building before following Yua through the front door. Probably rent closets where you can sleep standing up against concrete, she guessed. She was not impressed with what her grandparents' descendants had wrought, although, she knew, they would probably not be too thrilled by present-day Olympus, either. It's sometimes a blessing that great historical figures don't live to see what people do to their visions.

  The lobby was drab and depressing as expected, but they had no problem getting a room. Again no money or identification was required. The society was communal to the nth degree and simply assumed that, if you needed a hotel room, you had a good reason to need it. You did have to register, though; Mavra suspected that somewhere somebody inspected those registers to see who was doing what with whom.

  She signed as Mavra A332-6; apparently Mavra was a common name on Olympus—which pleased her. Nikki Zinder, also one of the First Mothers, had had a daughter—one of the founders—by Renard, the bookish Agitar satyr when he was still in human form—and she had named the child after Mavra Chang. She suspected that names like Nikki and Vistaru and perhaps ten or so others were also very common.

  Mavra was using Yua's codenumber, which indicated to the clerk that they were a "bonded" couple. Such associations were common on Olympus; at some point almost everyone chose to have a child, and there was an ingrained insistence on two-parent family structure. A "bonded" couple checking in generally meant only one thing to the locals: They were in Sparta to visit a Birth Temple, to be impregnated.

  They quickly found themselves being treated like newlyweds. This was uncomfortable for Mavra, but it had been Obie's idea. The cover easily explained why the two were doing everything together, and Yua's fawning adulation of Mavra might be dismissed as the reaction of a lover.

  Their room was a pleasant surprise; it contained a gigantic soft and fluffy bed, an entertainment console, a versatile portabar, and a dial-a-meal food service area. Located on the fifth floor, it had a large draped window through which part of the city could be seen.

  Yua delighted in pointing out the sights to Mavra. "Up there, see, near the mountains, were the First Mothers' original homesites, now a national shrine. At the base of that mountain was the Mother Temple, seat of the now interplanetary religion and the Olympian theocracy, while over there, to the right, the big cubed building in the distance, was where I grew up."

  In the morning they would take a tour of the city, then visit the Mother Temple itself. Mavra still wasn't sure what she would do once she got there, but she decided to sleep on the problem. She still wondered where the men were. Was it possible, she mused, that, just as the tailless Athenes were superior to the tailed Aphrodites, perhaps the males, a far smaller portion of the population, might be at the heart of the Mother Temple?

  But that didn't make much sense, considering how Yua was brought up to regard the men she'd never seen. There was a puzzle here, one she wanted to solve—and which Obie was also curious about—but perhaps the answer would be found in the Mother Temple. If not, it could wait. There were more pressing things to do, and Nautilus, with an impatient Obie—not to mention Marquoz and Gypsy—was waiting.

  Yua dialed meals and drinks for them as the sun, a ghostly red-orange, vanished behind the mountains. Then they lay down on the bed, roomy enough for them despite their tails and the most comfortable thing Mavra had encountered on the journey. She felt odd in ways she couldn't quite put her finger on, ways she hadn't felt in so long she could hardly remember. I'm horny as hell, she suddenly realized. Something must have been in the food or drinks; some kind of aphrodisiac that really worked on the Olympian biochemistry. It took all her willpower to fend off Yua's advances and get to sleep.

  They were awakened by a buzzer. It was loud and annoying, the kind one wants on alarm clocks when getting up is a necessity. Yua groaned, looked over at Mavra and smiled sweetly, then got up. "It's the door; I'll get it," she said softly.

  Mavra was having problems. If anything the sexual craving was worse; if it grew any more powerful it would be impossible to control. On the other hand, who should know they were there—and why were they being awakened by that someone?

  It turned out to be a room-service robot laden with an assortment of odd-looking but tremendously appetizing breakfast items as well as a bottle of the Olympian equivalent of champagne.

  Mavra got up. "What? We didn't order this," she told the machine.

  "Compliments of the hotel," the robot waiter piped. "All fresh, no synthetics. We have also taken the liberty of registering you with the Temple of Birth. Another service of the Hotel Central," he added, almost proudly. "It is oh-eight-hundred now; your appointment is at ten-hundred hours. Pick up the card at the desk, take tram one eighty-seven. Thank you." It detached itself from the serving table and rumbled out, the door closing automatically behind it.

  Mavra was disturbed. "They certainly assume a lot, don't they?"

  "What will you do about it?" Yua responded. "There will be much suspicion if we do not keep the appointment."

  Mavra nodded. Damn, I'm horny! She was almost looking forward to it! Still, Yua was right—not to go might arouse suspicion and make it hard to operate. The procedure would probably be pretty clinical anyway, and over quickly; then they could get over to the Mother Temple.

  Yua seemed excited at the prospect. Mavra sighed and surrendered, sitting down to eat. The stuff was probably loaded with aphrodisiacs, but what the hell, she thought. At least today I'll find out where the men are.

  When a race is physiologically identical to the nth degree it is easy for trained biochemists to mass produce whatever physiological results are desired. The fact that so little modification had been done to the people of Olympus was something of a credit to their leadership, if there was a leadership as such. In the case of reproduction, however, little was left to chance. A combination of aphrodisiacs designed for the Olympian body had brought Mavra and Yua to exactly the correct physical and emotional state. By the time they reached the Temple of Birth the two women could hardly think of anything nonsexual, and the internal physical and mental pressure was almost unbearable.

  They obviously were expected and were ushered in with little fanfare by crisp, professional technicians. A slight, still rational corner of Mavra's mind wondered at all the prepreparation; it seemed all too pat.

  They were directed to separate elevators, each of which seemed able to hold just one person. As they each entered the door closed on them and they sank, although slowly. Mavra felt as if a tremendous cloud were being lifted from body and mind.

  "Sorry, Mavra." Obie's voice intruded into her mind. "I do not wish to force you into this against your will."

  Obie! she thought back fiercely. What the hell? . . .

  "I'm wired into your brain and central nervous system, of course,"
the computer responded.

  "I'm sorry. You have to understand, these are my children's children. I created them—I have to know."

  All this birth stuff—you arranged it! You ordered it, somehow!

  Obie sounded very apologetic. "It isn't wasting much time. I must see what the males are like. I didn't program anything to make them different."

  Well, unless they're artificially inseminating, which I doubt, I am going to face a sex-crazed male in a matter of seconds, thanks to you. Get me out of this!

  Obie was still apologetic, but only slightly. "I feel confident you can deal with such a situation."

  She was coldly furious. Obie—don't you ever do anything like this without my knowledge or permission again, you hear me?

  There was a pause, then a little chastened, the far-off machine replied, "All right, Mavra."

  She'd undergone such mind linkages many times before, but never under similar circumstances and never when she was not in full control of herself.

  The door opened into a bedroom; the floor all of it, was the bed. Well decorated with soft, indirect lighting, subtle music playing, sweet smells in the air, and lots of pillows all around. Near the far side of the room, reclining, was an Olympian male.

  He looked as she and Obie had expected—the very essence of masculinity, incredibly handsome and muscular to boot, just as Obie had designed to Ben Yulin's specifications so many centuries before.

  She approached him cautiously, trying to figure a way out of the situation.

  "Hi, there," he greeted, softly and sensually. "Please come on over and lie beside me."

  "Your hypno works on Olympians," Obie assured her. They were immune to almost every toxin, thanks to Obie; but because Obie had designed them he would naturally know exactly how to get around his own designs.

  She flexed small muscles in her fingertips, feeling the toxin ooze from tiny glands into the needlelike tubes Obie had placed under her nails. It assured her; she was in control again.