The women do a pretty good job. By nightfall our enemy has fled back into their mountains and the women are still on top of their wall. It looks as if they’re going to spend the night up there. It’s a wide wall. Not as badly built as I told the boys it was.
We find beds for ourselves, all of them better than our usual sleeping pads. I go to Una’s hut and lie where I had hoped to have a copulation.
Cats prowl and yowl. All sorts of things live with the women. Goats wander the streets and come in any house they want to. All the animals expect food everywhere. Like the women, our boys are soft-hearted. They feed every creature that comes by. I don’t let on that I do too.
This whole thing makes me sad. Worried. If I could just have Una in my arms, I might be able to sleep. I have a “day dream” of her creeping in to me in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t even care if we had a copulation or not.
In the morning boys climb to the roofs again to see what’s up. They describe women lying under shields all along the walls and they can see some of the enemy lying dead away from the walls. I need to climb up and see for myself. Besides it’s good for the boys to see me taking the same chances they do.
I send the boys off and I take their place. I look down on the women along the wall. I see several rifles pointed at me. I stand like a hero. I dare them to shoot. I take all the time I want. I see wall sections less crowded with women. I take out my notebook (no leader is ever without one) and draw a diagram. I take my time until I have the whole wall mapped out.
I could take out my pistol and threaten them. I could shoot one but it wouldn’t be very manly to take advantage of my high point. Were they men I’d do it. But then they do the unmanly thing. They shoot me. My leg. My good leg. I go down, flat on the roof. At first I feel nothing but the shock … as if I’d been hit with a hammer. All I know is I can’t stand up. Then I see blood.
Though they’re on the wall, they’re lower. They can’t see me as long as I keep down. I crawl to the edge where boys help me. They carry me back to Una’s bed. I feel I’m about to pass out or throw up and I become aware that I’ve soiled myself. I don’t want the boys to see. I’ve always been a source of strength and inspiration in spite of or because of my size.
One of those boys is Hob, come to help me, my arm across his shoulders. I lean in pain but keep my groans to myself.
“Sir? Colonel?”
“I’m fine. Will be. Go.”
I wish I could ask him if he really is my son. They say sometimes the women know and tell the boys.
“Don’t you want us to …”
“No. Go. Now. And shut the door.”
They leave just in time. I throw up over the side of the bed. I lie back—Una’s pillow all sweated up not to mention what I’ve done to her quilt.
Una can make potions for pain. I wish I knew which, of the herbs hanging from her ceiling, might help me. But I’d not be able to reach them anyway.
I lie, half conscious, for I don’t know how long. Every time I sit up to examine my leg, I feel nausea again and have to lie back. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to lead a charge or a raid for boys or a copulation day. And I always thought, when I became a general (and lately I felt sure I’d be one) maybe I’d find out what we’re fighting for—beyond, that is, the usual rhetoric we use to make ourselves feel superior. Now I suppose I’ll never know the real reasons.
The boys knock. I rouse myself and say, “Come.” Try, that is. At first my voice won’t sound out at all and then it sounds more like a groan than a word. The boys tell me the women have called down from the wall. They want to send in a spokesman. The boys want to let him in and then hold him hostage so that we’ll all be let out safely.
I tell them the women will probably send in a woman.
That bothers the boys. They must have had torture or killing in mind but now they look worried.
“Tell them yes,” I say.
It must smell terrible in here. I even smell terrible to myself, and it’s uncomfortable sitting in my own mess. I prop myself up as best I can. I hope I can keep to my senses. I hope I don’t throw up in the middle of it. I put my dagger, unsheathed, under the pillow.
At first I think the boys were right, it’s a man, of course a man. Where would they have found him, and is he from our side or theirs? That’s important. I can’t tell by the colors. He’s all in tan and gray. He’s not wearing any stripes at all so I can’t tell his rank. He stands, at ease. More than at ease, utterly relaxed, and in front of a colonel.
But then … I can’t believe it, it’s Una. I should have known. Dressed as a man down to the boots. I have such a sense of relief and after that joy. Everything will be all right now.
I tell the boys to get out and shut the door.
I reach for her, but the look on her face stops me.
“You shot me in the leg on purpose, didn’t you! My good leg!”
“I meant to shoot the bad one.”
She opens all the windows, and the door again, too, and shoos the boys away.
“Let me see.”
She’s gentle. As I knew she’d be.
“I’ll get the bullet out, but first I’ll clean you up.” She hands me leaves to chew for pain.
As she leans, so close above me, her hair falls out of her cap and brushes my face, gets in my mouth as it does when we have copulation day. I reach to touch her breast but she pushes me away.
I should kill her for the glory of it … the leader of the women. I’d not be thought a failure then. I’d be made a general in no time.
But, as she pulls away the soiled quilts, she finds my dagger first thing. She puts it in the drawer with her kitchen knives.
I think again how … (and we all know, only too well) how love is a dangerous thing and can spoil the best of plans. Even as I think it, I want to spoil the very plans I think of. I mean if she’s the leader then I could deal with her right now, as she leans over me—even without my dagger. They may be good shots, but can they wrestle a man? Even a wounded one?
“I chose you because I thought, of all of them, you might listen.”
“You know I won’t ever be let come down to copulation day again.”
“Don’t go back then. Stay here and copulate.”
“I have often thought to bring you up to the mountain dressed as a man. I have a place all picked out.”
“Stay here. Let everybody stay here and be as women.”
I can’t answer such a thing. I can’t even think about it.
“But then what else do you know except how to be a colonel?”
She washes me, changes the bed, and throws the bed clothes and my clothes out the door. Then she gets the bullet out. I’m half out of my head from the leaves she had me chew so the pain is dulled. She bandages me, covers me with a clean blanket, puts her lips against my cheek for a moment.
Then stands up, legs apart. She looks like one of our boys getting ready to prove himself. “We’ll not stand for this anymore,” she says. “It has to end and we’ll end it, if not one way, then another.”
“But this is how it’s always been.”
“You could be our spokesman.”
How can she even suggest such a thing? “Pillows,” I say. “Spokesman for the nipples.”
Goodness knows what the mothers are capable of. They never stick to any rules.
“If the answer is no, we’ll not have any more boy babies. You can come down and copulate all you want but there’ll be no boys. We’ll kill them.”
“You wouldn’t. You couldn’t. Not you, Una.”
“Have you noticed how there are fewer and fewer boys? Many have already done it.”
But I’m in too much pain and dizzy from the leaves she gave me, to think clearly. She sees that. She sits beside me, takes my hand. “Just rest,” she says. How can I rest with such ideas in my head? “But the rules.”
“Hush. Women don’t care about rules. You know that.”
“Come back with me.” I pull her down a
gainst me. This time she lets me. How good it feels to have us chest to chest, my arms around her. “I have a secret place. It’s not a hard climb to get there.”
She pulls back. “Colonel, sir!”
“Please don’t call me that.”
Then I say … what we’re not allowed to say or even think. It’s a mother/child thing, not to be said between a man and a woman. I say, “I love you.”
She leans back and looks at me. Then wipes at my chin. “Try not to bite your lip like that.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It does to me.”
“I liked … I like …” I already used the other word, why not yet again. “I love copulation day only when with you.”
I wonder if she feels the same about me. I wish I dared ask her. I wonder if my son … Is Hob hers and mine together? I’ve always hoped he was. She’s made no gesture towards him. She hasn’t even looked at him any more than any other boy. This would have been his first copulation day had the women not built their wall.
“Rest,” she says. “We’ll discuss later.”
“Is it just us? Or are you saying the same thing to the enemy? They could win the war like that. It would be your fault.”
“Stop thinking.”
“What if no more boys on either side, ever?”
“What if?”
She gives me more of those leaves to chew. They’re bitter. I was in too much pain to notice that the first time. I feel even sleepier right away.
I dream I’m the last of all the boys. Ever. I have to get somewhere in a hurry, but there’s a wall so high I’ll never get over it. Beside, my legs are not there at all. I’m nothing but a torso. Women watch me. Women, off across the valley floor as far as I can see and none will help. There’s nothing to do but lie there and give the war cry.
I wake shouting and with Una holding me down. Hob is there, helping her. Other boys are in the doorway looking worried.
I’ve thrown the blanket and the pillow to the floor and now I seem to be trying to throw myself out of bed. Una has a long scratch across her cheek. I must have done that.
“Sorry. Sorry.”
I’m still as if in a dream. I pull Una down against me. Hold her hard and then I reach out for Hob, too. My poor ugly boy. I ask the unaskable. “Tell me, is Hob mine and yours together?”
Hob looks shocked that I would ask such a thing, as well he should. Una pulls away and gets up. She answers as if she was one of the boys. “Colonel, sir, how can you, of all people, ask a thing like that.” Then she throws my own words back at me. “This is how it’s always been.”
“Sorry. Sorry.”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake stop being so sorry!”
She shoos the boys from the doorway but she lets Hob stay. Together they rearrange the bed. Together she and Hob make broth for me and food for themselves. Hob seems at home here. It’s true, I’m sure. This is our son.
But I suppose all this yearning, all this wondering, is due to the leaves Una had me chew. It’s not the real me. I’ll not pay any attention to myself.
But there’s something else. I didn’t get a good look at my leg yet, but it feels like a serious wound. If I can’t climb up to our stronghold, I’ll not ever be able to go home. I shouldn’t, even so, and though my career is in a shambles … I shouldn’t let myself be lured into staying here as a copulator for the rest of my life. I can’t think of anything more dishonorable. I should send Hob back to the citadel to report on what’s happened and to get help. If he was found trying to escape, would Una let the women kill him?
I try to get Hob alone so I can whisper his orders to him. Only when Una goes out to the privy do I get the chance. “Get back to the citadel. Cross the wall tonight. There’s no moon.” I show him my map and where I think there are fewer women. I want to tell him to take care, but we don’t ever say such things.
In the morning I tell Una to tell my leaders to come in to me. I’m in pain, in a sweat, my beard is itchy. I ask Una to clean me up. She treats me as a mother would. Back when my mother did it, I pulled away. I wouldn’t let her get close to me. I especially wouldn’t let her hug or kiss me. I wanted to be a soldier. I wanted nothing to do with mother things.
All the boys are looking scruffy. We take pride in our cleanliness, in shaving everyday, in our brush cuts, and our enemy is as spic and span as we are. I hope they don’t launch an offensive today and see us so untidy.
I’m glad to see Hob isn’t with them.
I find it hard to rouse myself to my usual humor. I say, “Pillows, nipples,” but I’m too uncomfortable to play at being one of the boys.
I’d prefer to recuperate some, but the boys are restless already. I can’t be thinking of myself. We’ll storm the wall. I show them the map. I point out the less guarded spots. I grab Una. Both her wrists. “Men, we’ll need a battering ram.”
Wood isn’t easy to get out here on the valley floor. This is a desert except along the streams, but every village has one tree in the center square that they’ve nurtured along. As here, baby’s graves are always around it. In other villages, most are cottonwood, but this one is oak. It’s so old I wouldn’t be surprised if it hadn’t been here since before the village. I think the village was built up around it later.
“Chop the tree. Ram the wall,” I tell them. “Go back to the citadel. Don’t wait around for me. Tell the generals never to come here again, neither for boys nor for copulation. Tell them I’m of no use to us anymore.”
The women won’t be able to shoot at the boys chopping it down. It’s hidden from all parts of the wall.
When they hear the chopping, the women begin to ululate. Our boys stop chopping, but only for a moment. I hear them begin again with even more vigor.
Here beside me Una ululates, too. She struggles against me but I hang on.
“How could you? That’s the tree of dead boys.”
I let go.
“All the babies buried there are boys. Some are yours.”
I can’t let this new knowledge color my thinking. I have to think of the safety of my boys. “Let us go, then.”
“Tell them to stop.”
“Would you let us go for the sake of a tree?”
“We would.”
I give the order.
The women move away from a whole section of the wall, they even provide their ladders. I tell the boys to go. There’s no way they could carry me back and no way I could ever climb to the citadel again.
No sooner are the boys gone, even to the last tootle of the fifes, the last triumphant drum beat … (We always march home as though victorious whether victorious or not.) Hearing them go, I can’t help but groan, though not from pain this time. No sooner have the mothers come down from the wall, but that I hear, ululating again. Una stamps in to me.
“What now?”
“It’s Hob. Your enemy … Your enemy has dropped him off at the edge of your foothills.”
I can see it on her face.
“He’s dead.”
“Of course he’s dead. You are all as good as dead.”
She blames me for Hob. “I blame myself.”
“I hate you. I hate you all.”
I don’t believe we’ll be seeing many boys anymore. I would warn us if I was able, I would be the spokesman, though I don’t suppose I’ll ever have the chance.
“What will the women do with me?”
“You were always kind. I’ll not be any less to you.”
What am I good for? What use am I but to stay here as the father of females? All those small, ugly, black-haired girls … I suppose all of them biting their lower lips until they bleed.
EILEEN GUNN
Stable Strategies for Middle Management
Eileen Gunn is an American writer and editor. She is the author of a small but distinguished body of short fiction published over the last three decades. Her other work in science fiction includes editing the pioneering webzine The Infinite Matrix and producing the website T
he Difference Dictionary, a concordance to The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. A graduate of Clarion, Gunn now serves as a director of Clarion West. Her fiction has been recognized with awards such as the Nebula. “Stable Strategies for Middle Management” deals with the lengths an executive will go to fit into the corporate culture and show her loyalty to the company. It was first published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in 1988 and was nominated for a Hugo Award.
Our cousin the insect has an external skeleton made of shiny brown chitin, a material that is particularly responsive to the demands of evolution. Just as bioengineering has sculpted our bodies into new forms, so evolution has changed the early insect’s chewing mouthparts into her descendants’ chisels, siphons, and stilettos, and has molded from the chitin special tools—pockets to carry pollen, combs to clean her compound eyes, notches on which she can fiddle a song.
—From the popular science program Insect People!
I awoke this morning to discover that bioengineering had made demands upon me during the night. My tongue had turned into a stiletto, and my left hand now contained a small chitinous comb, as if for cleaning a compound eye. Since I didn’t have compound eyes, I thought that perhaps this presaged some change to come.
I dragged myself out of bed, wondering how I was going to drink my coffee through a stiletto. Was I now expected to kill my breakfast, and dispense with coffee entirely? I hoped I was not evolving into a creature whose survival depended on early-morning alertness. My circadian rhythms would no doubt keep pace with any physical changes, but my unevolved soul was repulsed at the thought of my waking cheerfully at dawn, ravenous for some wriggly little creature that had arisen even earlier.
I looked down at Greg, still asleep, the edge of our red and white quilt pulled up under his chin. His mouth had changed during the night too, and seemed to contain some sort of a long probe. Were we growing apart?
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