“Some of us young men want to stop it and the elders can’t stand for that,” Isshel went on. “One of your own brothers is with us. Like Entara, we strongly feel that to waste male lives through gelding is cruel and unnecessary.”
“It may come as a surprise to her that her concerns have already spread so far among the males,” Ayan’we responded.
A cloud came over Isshel’s features. He was remembering something. Ayan’we knew how it felt. She got that way whenever she remembered the nastiness her father Tays’she had shown toward Entara, how he stripped her of First Wife status and threatened the children’s future, how he plotted to enslave young Forlani women off planet for his own gain, and how he went so far as to arrange the murder of Entara and the girls. They were only saved by Klein’s reckless, intrepid confrontation that left Tays’she nothing more than a drooling idiot in the shell of an adult. This painful pause ended when Isshel began to speak again.
“Understand, Ayan’we, you are so lucky, the firstborn of a para-pa. Your father was an artist of great talent before his… unfortunate accident. We all studied and copied his series of tableaux on the Great Spiral of Being. Not all of us are as fortunate as your family. I have a brother, a twin. Together we were raised by the Brotherhood from infancy. Sharàel was strong and graceful as a youngster, but had trouble with the tests, which bored him. Finally he was selected for gelding.” Isshel’s chin fell to his chest. “I would have killed myself then and there if my mother had not visited me and told me I must go on and persevere for Sharàel’s sake, that I must be the one to look after him as best I could.” Isshel looked Ayan’we in the eyes. “I see him as often as I can. He still retains some of his old character. But how I ache to see his mind grow weaker and weaker as he is burdened with menial tasks and treated like a thug. The best I can say is that I have prevented them from making him into a criminal or exposing him to much bodily danger.”
All that Ayan’we could think to say was, “I feel your suffering. You have shown courage and affection, more than anyone could expect.”
“Well, that’s why I hold your idealistic mother in such high regard.” Among the younger members of the Brotherhood, Entara was becoming a heroine, spoken of in whispers away from the prying censors. They could not stop talking about how she was urging the Council of Nine to make a purposeful effort to persuade the Brotherhood to stop the practice of gelding, using tempting offers of material gifts if they would at least refrain on a temporary basis. “Your mother’s example is why from this moment on I will do my best to observe the Phiddians and other delegates in order to try to find something useful.”
“She will be delighted to hear of your commitment!”
Instead of basking in the glow of this approval, Isshel became very guarded. “Now, if you don’t mind, I must ask you to leave me alone. I am most uncomfortable through no fault of yours. “
Ayan’we had meant to ask him about his art project, but knew that he needed time to get his emotions back under control. As she stepped out the door, she felt suddenly prey to divided emotions herself. She was eager to share this most unusual interview with Entara, yet at the same time hesitant to probe her private reactions to Isshel. There were things going on that she had not experienced before.
The next day, Ayan’we scanned the council room where she and the other security chiefs had been summoned by the physiological officer, Torghh, to discuss issues before the opening ceremony of the conference. Construction walls had been removed from the Blynthian carrel to reveal four tubes about a meter in diameter running from floor to ceiling. The fifteen other carrels were more conventional, involving different types of desks and seats according to the species concerned. The Kael carrel had perches instead of seats, since these avian creatures could not sit in the usual sense of the word. On the front of each carrel was an intervention light that lit up when a delegation wished to speak. There were also a few smaller carrel fronts beneath viewscreens for those that had not sent physical delegations and wished to follow the proceedings by comlink, like the aquatic Weh, who did not feel comfortable with the design of a Phiddian space station.
When all but the Blynthians were present, the famous Doctor Torghh entered with two other robots. Torghh was a modular robot, so his appearance could continually change according to his mission. His vocation as one of the greatest sensory surgeons in this part of the galaxy meant that he had to adapt to all kinds of conditions, according to the medical needs and natures of his patients. Ayan’we knew that when Torghh had reconstructed one of Klein’s eyes after an explosion on Song Pa, he had been in a very simple configuration. Torghh’s colleague, Doctor Ragatti had also told her that, in his typical attitude of shyness, Torghh had not actually appeared before the heavily bandaged Klein until the day the human left his care on Corlatis. In fact, she was astonished that he had accepted to play a public role at this conference. His configuration now was the rather conventional three-piece arrangement, with his main motor drive on the bottom, his processors in the middle, and a “head” that was unadorned of most of its usual collection of medical gear, except for several sensors and a translation pod.
“I welcome all the organic security personnel to this meeting. Let me first present my two colleagues, my assistant Rack and KC5468732 of the Robotic Guild, who suggests you address him simply as KC. You will be seeing much of Rack since he accompanies me most of the time and in a way is another part of me. He is a robot’s robot, specializing in transporting different modules that I utilize in my work, as well as performing needed maintenance. Think of him as a robot valet.”
Rack indeed looked like a rack that one might find in a storage hanger somewhere. Like Torghh, he was fitted with track propulsion for the moment, but Ayan’we knew he could also rise on solenoid legs. At the moment, he appeared to have eight arms, two more than Torghh. Ayan’we wondered how communicative he was with organics, or whether he could only converse in some machine language with the doctor.
“…As for KC, his cooperation is crucial for reasons that will become clear. I direct your attention to the tubes in the Blynthian carrel. When the Blynthian delegates first appear tomorrow, these tubes will be filled with the materials necessary for their survival, under a pressure considerably exceeding what the rest of you are accustomed to. Without this artificial environment, their participation could not take place. You must realize, however, that the Blynthian atmospherics contain both organic compounds and heavy metals that would be instantly toxic to the rest of you. It is therefore imperative that we take precautions so that a breach of the tubes, either due to mechanical failure or…. other causes, will not damage the other organics. Thus, KC and several members of the Guild have installed a very sophisticated vent system that can function in case of a problem. Guild members have been specially equipped and trained to aid in an evacuation of organics, should that be necessary. Naturally, we non-organics are less worried about a breach and have already hardened ourselves as required in case one occurs. Unfortunately, we cannot harden you. Our last-ditch solution has been to provide special masks that will descend from over each carrel station in order to try to save you. Almost all of you. The exception is the Song Pai delegation, which has declined the use of this safety equipment for reasons of honor.”
Along with the others, Ayan’we looked over to the Song Pai carrel, where their security director and a couple of assistants drew themselves up on their tentacles to a height of about nine feet and changed color from their usual dull green to a bright silvery tint that denoted pride for them. The syncopated slow swaying of their “heads” was body language equivalent to assent. Undoubtedly, they wished to impress their traditional enemies, the Garanians and the Earthlings, as well as their potential foes from Blyn, that they were as eager to die the rest of their race.
“Any questions so far?” queried Torghh.
Ayan’we took a deep breath, pushed the button illuminating the blue intervention light, and rose to face her counterparts. “We Forl
ani have long enjoyed the protection of the fighters of Song Pa. It was they who came to defend us when the Earth corporations tried to seize control of our world by force.” One Song Pai warship almost obliterated a whole task force of Corporation vessels, deliberately allowing a few survivors to go back to spread the description of their willingness to massacre any other humans who tried to enter the system. “Even now that we have undertaken to provide our own planetary security, we recognize and will always remember our debt to them. In solidarity with our historical defensive allies, we of the Forlani delegation will also do without mask protection.”
She bit her tongue a bit as she sat down, knowing that she was exposing not only herself and her sisters, but her mother as well, to possibly lethal contamination. But her attention, and that of the other directors, was quickly diverted to the Song Pai carrel where a chorus of “Schplurt, gtjrrjsk” and other weird sounds erupted, along with the waving of tentacles and a kaleidoscopic color display running the gamut of their emotions. After an animated huddle with the associates, their security director moved forward to signal and speak. For this purpose, he wore an audio adapter rather than communicating by tablet as the Song Pai generally did with strangers.
“Warriors, we commend the courage of our tailed confederates, who show themselves worthy of our glorious deaths. Yet we find your present action unsuitable. When the Song Pai die, and only when they die, do their genes pass on to the incubation ponds and then to the open, sublime sea to show their worth. You land-dwellers, though, lose all hope for reproduction when you die, and your genes shrivel in your flesh, condemned to oblivion. In the name of generation, which the Sacred displays as the highest value, you must not this time imitate our example. We challenge you to withdraw your statement.”
“Very well,” Ayan’we responded with a secret feeling of relief, “We are pleased to accede and wish you a noble death.” She had to add the last part as a necessity of Song Pai civility. To wish them a long life or peaceful prosperity was a curse.
Torghh had been following this exchange with great interest, scientifically scanning the body temperatures of all present in the hall with his infrareds to gauge their covert reactions. He was most pleased when general warmth spread among them at the end, despite the fact that it was not a reaction he would ever experience himself unless something was malfunctioning.
“And now, just a few more details,” he added, going on to talk of various physical adaptations for the different species, questions of timing associated with their respective bodily functions, and the diplomatic costumes they would be wearing during the plenary sessions. He closed by saying, “Of course, in accord with standard diplomatic protocols, no eating, excretion, or sexual displays of any kind will be allowed. Any occurrence will result in the suspension of sessions until the delegation involved has left the conference. That will do for now, except that I will need to speak with the Forlani security director about the masks before she leaves.”
Ayan’we deliberately took a long time giving instructions to the cluster members who had accompanied her and gathering up her papers and memory devices. She was curious to see how the other species might react to her tête-à-tête with Torghh. She noticed that the human delegation was also taking its time and casting covert glances in her direction, as were the Phiddian hosts. In the entryway, one of the reptilian Garanians, newly arrived on Varess, had stopped to chat with an aide and she wondered if he also might be monitoring the conversation.
So when she stepped up to the robot, she started with small talk. “Salutations, Doctor Torghh, I bring you the distinguished best wishes of all the medical staff of our mahämes, together with a blanket invitation to visit any hospitals on our planet if you are passing that way.”
“You are too kind. Thank you.”
“I also bring you personal greetings from a colleague of yours who was privileged to work with you on the patient Klein and again during the relief efforts against the plague on Earth.”
“When you communicate again with Doctor Ragatti, please send her my warmest compliments. I miss conversing with her because of her unique sense of humor and her frankness about many organic experiences that others are too often unwilling to discuss with a non-organic.”
“Yes, one can always learn something unusual in a conversation with Ragatti,” Ayan’we chuckled, looking around the hall again. Everyone had departed except for the Garanian in the door, so she prolonged the chatter a while longer. “You know, if I may ask something a bit personal, I always wondered about your name, which is, if you permit me to say, a bit unusual for a robot.”
“Ah, you are right, Ayan’we. It is a name that came originally from a joke made by a human I worked with some time ago. My original designation was, of course, a binary sequence without meaning for organics and I had been thinking about a vocal tag that would render communication easier. So when this human female likened me to someone named Torghh, I accepted it. Later, as I studied human culture, I became aware of the humor she intended, because the comparison with the Torghh she had in mind was most ridiculous. By then, however, I was used to it and the name presented the advantage of being audible in many different forms of communication.”
Seeing that the last Garanian had gone on his way, Ayan’we asked, “Now that we are alone, I assume you wanted to mention something about the security situation.”
“That is correct. I have scanned many bodily reactions on this station and am not quite pleased to find that there is latent hostility. I have already warned the Coriolans and the Kael to take extra precautions, if only because those races have low levels of natural suspicion. I will do the same for you. These Phiddians are particularly perplexing to me. I have dealt with hermaphroditic organics before, but these have such complex hormonal tides that it makes establishing biological baselines nearly impossible. I believe you would say they have extreme mood swings. Thus, I am not successful in interpreting whether they are being truthful or not, as I can with some species. Perhaps you will fare better.”
“We will do our best. I have someone working on that.”
“I assume there have been no further attempts to steal information from your quarters?”
“No, the guilty Powl was trailed for quite a long time without betraying any contacts.”
“Your colleague handled the matter in a very competent way. I was impressed.”
“Lila is one of my most trusted people. You will find you can rely on any of them in an emergency.”
“One additional point,” added Torghh. “I have noted that your mother Entara has brought a child, a mere infant, to this conference. I must disapprove of this and recommend that she send the young one to a safe place immediately.”
“Why?”
“The Phiddians who designed this station did not make provisions for the care of the young. Typical! I have checked over the station medical staff and they have surprisingly little training in this field. Should an emergency occur, I would be the only one you could rely on. I am uncomfortable being a sole resource. This goes strictly against the principles of most non-organics, of course, for to us, redundancy is a virtue.”
“I will pass on your advice, but I must tell you now that I don’t think it will have any effect. I know Entara has considered the risks of bringing my little sister along. I don’t understand exactly why she insisted on it. Of course, we Forlani know that giving birth involves risk to the infant. My mother, like most, experienced unsuccessful births several times, so she knows what it is to lose a child. This one has special meaning for her, so I can predict that she will not separate herself from Quatilla.”
“You know best. But exercise maximal care. This may be a more dangerous assignment than it seems, with a war at stake and fifteen delegations well supplied with spies. I have dealt with spies before and am aware of the threat they pose to all because of their determination to complete a mission. Despite their inherent violence, I actually worry less about the Song Pai. They like a pitched battle a
nd consider subterfuge cowardly and unworthy of the permission to procreate. Still, if provoked or tricked by another race, they may lash out in a way that would cause the collapse of the peace process. Just the same, even they may engage the service of spies that are not so scrupulous. As for the other races, many have absolutely no aversion to assassination. Some even consider it a form of art. Others have perfected indirect types of behavior that needs to be carefully watched. We must expect anything. It is imperative to take maximum precautions.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” concluded Ayan’we. “I will doubtless have further questions as I get to know these beings better.”
Pacing nervously after he returned to the Garanian quarters, Tashto found his mind troubled after the end of Ayan’we’s intervention at the preliminary meeting. The Ministry’s documents had told him that the Forlani were a weak, decadent race that flexed and waved like swamp reeds in the wind. They were said to have no firmness, no connection to the hard, masculine aspect of existence that defined the Garanians and allowed them to achieve a Unity government. They were a people so weak they had to rely on others—the hated Song Pai—for their own defense! Yet Ayan’we spoke with the determination and assurance of a soldier. The Overseer had once told him that assurance had been considered the Sixth Virtue in the days before the Unity Government had been founded. Now it was considered a dangerous emotion, something akin to hubris, for no Garanian could possibly comprehend the true intentions of the government, or fully understand the schemes of fellow citizens in their everyday lives. Garanian society had become one based on control and subterfuge, not openness and honesty. Perhaps this was why Ayan’we’s speech had so unnerved him, Tashto reasoned. She had simply displayed her emotions in a manner so unbefitting a Garanian that he was having difficulty understanding them in context. Was there perhaps no true valor in her, no warrior’s spirit; was it merely a technique to disturb him, a Forlani trick of the mind to make her appear stronger than she actually was?
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