“Yes,” Chalmers said. “That’s very definitely a she.”
The alien rose, then strode out of the room. Percy stared at her retreating back, still unable to tell the difference between a male and a female. Had he been wrong? Was Ivan actually a female? Or were the clues too subtle for human eyes to detect?
“I think the only major difference is between their legs,” Chalmers said, when Percy finally asked. “The women have a vagina; men have a penis, but it’s completely retractable. I think scent plays a major role in their mating, Percy. They may be able to have sex all the time, like us, but when they’re ready to actually become pregnant their hormones drive them into bed again and again. Once they are pregnant, their scent changes again and becomes a turn-off. They don’t get to have sex while pregnant.”
“I see,” Percy said. “Can they use birth control?”
“I don’t think so,” Chalmers said. “One of the escaped prisoners had been effectively castrated; from what they said, he is neither interested in women nor capable of attracting them. They may be able to block out the male scent and thus keep their hormones from triggering, but it would be unreliable.”
He shrugged. “We could probably come up with something,” he added. “There may be ways to prevent women from going into mating season. But that would definitely change their society in unpredictable ways.”
Percy frowned. “Would that be a bad thing?”
Chalmers gave him an odd look. “Back in 2050, they developed a pill that would allow you to select the sex of your baby without any irritating medical procedures,” he said. “If you happened to want a little boy, you took a course of blue pills before intercourse. Or pink, if you wanted a girl. It might not have been the smartest medical treatment to make available to everyone.”
“I don't understand,” Percy said. “Why?”
“Tell me something,” Chalmers said. “In our society, how many positions are sex-specific?”
“The Royal Marines,” Percy said. “A handful of elite military units. The Women Wardens.”
“Precisely,” Chalmers said. “Only a handful of positions are exclusively for one sex or the other. A brother and sister can join the Royal Navy, or any corporation, and climb to the very highest levels without being impeded by their sex. There is no advantage to being born male or female.”
“Unless you want to be a Royal Marine,” Percy said.
Chalmers ignored him. “But in other societies, having boys was considered better than having girls,” he added. “A girl was considered inferior; at best, she was suitable only to cook, clean and have babies of her own. Men were the masters of the universe; their sisters were expected to stay in the shadows and do as they were told. And a father who had a small army of sons claimed lots of prestige. What do you think happened when those societies gained the ability to choose their children’s sex?”
Percy flushed. “They chose boys,” he said.
“Precisely,” Chalmers said. “And, twenty or so years after the pills became available, very few of those young men could find wives. Even after they realised the problem, the cultural bias in favour of men was still overpowering. Each family told themselves that someone else would have the young women.”
“And none of them did,” Percy guessed.
“Quite,” Chalmers said. “And it got worse. To us, homosexuality is just ... another personal choice. If you’re wired to fancy your own sex, well ... you’re wired to fancy your own sex and no one else really gives a damn. But to them, homosexuality was sinful and anyone who practiced it would burn in hell. Prostitution, too, was sinful ... assuming they could find women willing to serve in the brothels. Those young men had no way of getting sexual release without committing one sin or another.”
“Shit,” Percy said.
“It tore their society apart,” Chalmers said. “The Chinese had a similar problem, but they got it under control before the pill made matters worse. These people couldn't or wouldn't allow the government the power it needed to tackle the issue. I cannot help, but wonder just how many of the young idiots who impaled themselves on our guns were driven by sexual frustration. The promise of forty virgins in heaven after one dies must seem very tempting if there is no hope of getting married in life.
“And what will happen here, if we start meddling?”
Percy considered it. “The Russians have already started meddling,” he said. “We’d just be putting things back the way they were.”
“No, we wouldn't be,” Chalmers said. “Even if there’s no further direct contact between us and them, their society would have been changed forever.”
“Maybe,” Percy said. “But would that be a bad thing?”
“I wish I knew,” Chalmers said.
He tapped the medical computer he’d carried from the shuttles to the village. “I could synthesise a counter-hormone that would prevent a female from coming into her season,” he said. “Or one that would make any male who scented her think she was pregnant. There would no longer be any need to keep the young females separate from the young men. And what would that do to them?”
“A more equal society?” Percy guessed.
“Or a less equal one,” Chalmers offered. “If women enter the local workforce as equals, what will that do to male job opportunities?”
He shrugged. “The people I talked about used that as a reason to keep women in the homes,” he warned. “They said that if women acted like men, men would be emasculated. Young men wouldn't be able to find jobs if young women were taking them all ...”
“That makes no sense,” Percy said.
Chalmers pointed a finger at him. “You’re using logic and reason,” he said. “People are not logical, Corporal. Fear is rarely logical. If you’re the one on top, you are automatically afraid of anything that might dislodge you, even though cold logic says otherwise.
“Imagine a slot opens for promotion up the ranks,” he said. “There are five men, counting you, who want the job. All else being equal, what are your odds of getting it?”
“One in five,” Percy said, automatically.
“Correct,” Chalmers said. “Assume you now have five women added to the five men. What are the odds of you getting the job?”
“One in ten,” Percy said.
“Exactly,” Chalmers said. “Do you see their thinking now?”
He sighed, then sat down on the makeshift bed. “Every change in society has unpredictable consequences,” he said. “And sometimes they have been disastrous. What will happen to the Vesy when the changes start reshaping their society? I have no answer. And nor will anyone else.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“He looks odd,” Gina said. “Are you sure that’s a baby?”
Gillian McDougal glared at the younger woman. “Yes, I’m sure that’s a baby,” she said, as she moved the sensor over Gina’s womb. She was sure Gina hadn't been this silly when she’d been training for the colony mission. “It sure as hell isn't a little alien.”
Gina smiled, nervously. “Do you think Josef will like him?”
“I hope so,” Gillian said, tartly. “I’m sure he will be delighted.”
She helped the younger woman to her feet, then reminded her to drink plenty of water and take the supplements that were provided with all meals. Gina hugged her in delight, then headed out of the room, swinging her hips in a manner that would have shamed a younger and less reserved girl. But then, Gillian knew that Gina’s mental stability was more than a little questionable. They were all slowly going insane.
None of them had expected to be taken prisoner by pirates. The whole concept had been thought insane, the stuff of bad movies written by lousy scriptwriters more intent on showing nude bodies than anything resembling a plot, but it had happened. Vesper had been boarded and the captain and his crew had been taken prisoner, then the ship had been steered through the tramlines to Vesy. And there, they had been told that they would be breeding stock for the next generation of human settlers. Th
e Russians had been polite, but firm. They were prisoners now, the women had been told, and they had to learn to adapt.
Some had adapted, Gillian knew. Gina wasn't the only one to believe herself in love with her Russian ... but then, love made it easier to endure the fact they were prisoners. It wouldn't have been that hard to get out of the compound, yet she knew just how many monsters lurked beyond the walls. The locals - aliens, of all things - would quite happily kill any human who showed her face without protection. They had good reason to hate the Russians by now.
She sighed, then reached into her desk drawer and produced the bottle of homemade vodka, then took a long swig. It tasted foul, as always, but it helped to keep her from losing herself in depression. The Russians had done their best, she had to admit, to build a medical centre, yet it was terrifyingly primitive compared to the facilities on Cromwell, let alone Earth. She had a suspicion that, when the first babies started to be born, she was going to get very rapidly overwhelmed. A number of women were training as midwives, but they were completely unpractised. They would have to learn by doing.
Bastards, she thought, as she put the bottle back in the drawer. The Russians knew she was too valuable to lose, which meant she risked nothing more than a beating for being drunk on duty, but she might very well kill someone if she tried to operate on them while drunk. Dirty filthy fucking bastards.
The words echoed in her head as she rose to her feet, then stepped into the makeshift medical ward. Aliens had built it to her specifications, but she still knew it was far from perfect. Two beds held Russians, both injured in the line on duty; she contemplated an accident, despite her oaths, before reminding herself that the Russians would take it out on the children. A third bed held a young woman, sleeping off the results of a brutal beating. Her ‘husband’ was a drunkard, a coward and a brute, Gillian knew. But none of the other Russians seemed to give a damn about how he treated the girl.
Or anyone else, for that matter, she thought, as she stepped out of the medical compound and looked towards the fence. They’re all starting to crack under the strain.
She groaned inwardly at the thought. The Russians spoke English, after all, and they used it to speak with their ‘wives’. Gillian had urged the women to learn as much as they could from their ‘husbands,’ even though the Russians had little patience for backtalk. It hadn’t painted a pretty picture. The Russians had thought they were the last survivors of the human race, then they’d discovered they were nothing more than deserters. They couldn't go home again, she knew, which made them desperate. And increasingly prone to savage violence.
A sound caught her attention and she looked towards the source. A handful of children - all girls - were playing a complicated game that seemed to be a mixture of dodgeball and football, watched by a single grim-faced Russian. Gillian didn't know what had happened to the male children; they’d been taken from their mothers the day after they’d all been shipped down to the planet’s surface, then moved into a different compound. She wasn't sure if they had been executed, or started training to serve the Russians, but it hardly mattered. There was no way to get to them, even for her.
She fought down the urge to collapse into despair as she walked away from the compound, catching sight of a handful of alien slaves working on the next building. The Russians weren't kind to the kidnapped women, but they were positively savage to the slaves. Their bodies were laced with scars, left behind by whippings that would have killed any humans; their faces were torn and broken where they’d been hit and kicked repeatedly. It was as if their despair, their certain knowledge they were doomed, had freed the Russians from all civilised restraints. The overseers saw the aliens as nothing more than cattle. To her horror, the aliens seemed to agree.
“Mother,” a voice said. “What are you doing here?”
Gillian sighed, inwardly, as one of the guards came up behind her and smiled. They all called her Mother, for reasons she had never been able to discover. But then, their leader had told them that a trained doctor was firmly off limits. She would have been surprised if anyone had dared to question, let alone disobey, the General’s orders. She’d watched him strip the skin from a man’s back for daring to lay a finger on one of the children.
“Wandering,” she said. The guard - she had never troubled herself to learn his name - wasn't a bad man, not compared to some of the others. But she wasn't about to share anything of herself with him. “And yourself?”
“Just back from Petrograd,” the Russian said. He smirked. The God-King’s city had an unpronounceable name, so the Russians had promptly declared it Petrograd. No one knew or cared what the Vesy thought of it. “We’re going to be moving again in a week, heading to Warsaw.”
“Oh,” Gillian said. She didn't know how many Vesy had died since the Russians had arrived, but she would have guessed it was well over a million. They’d died in their thousands on the battlefields, then in their tens of thousands as their cities were stormed in a manner that would have horrified Genghis Khan. “I’m sure you will have fun.”
“I'm sure I will too,” the guard leered.
Gillian shuddered. The Russians had fallen far, too far. They knew they were doomed, so why not indulge themselves with every manner of depravity known to man? And it helped that the Vesy weren't human. Basic empathy was something the Russians seemed to lack, at least for alien lives. Some of the Russians, she had to admit, had been quite kind to their wives, even if they had been forced into marriage.
“I could give you fun too,” the guard offered. Compared to some of the chat-up lines she’d heard, it was positively subtle. “I could be at your bedroom at nightfall ...”
“Go to the devil,” Gillian said.
She regretted it the moment the words left her mouth. The Russian wouldn't dare touch her, she was sure. His commander had made quite sure of that, when he’d issued his edict and dared them to disobey. But he could find one of the other women, the ones the Russians had deemed useless, and take his fury out on her ...
Instead, he laughed. “You don't know what you’re missing,” he said. “Sally said I was the best she’d ever had. She begged me to do it again and again.”
Or didn't want to provoke you into beating her again, Gillian thought. Sally, like so many others, had cracked under the strain. Would you have stopped if she said no?
The guard snorted, then jogged past her, heading for the small fortress at the centre of the compound. Calling it a fortress was generous, perhaps, but nothing the natives had could get through prefabricated walls. Gillian wondered, as she watched him go, if the Russians were right to be paranoid. By now, the Vesy had to hate humanity - all humanity - with a burning passion. Maybe they would attack, accepting the death of thousands of warriors in exchange for destroying the humans, once and for all.
But the rocks will fall and the Vesy will die, she thought. And that will be the end.
She shuddered, feeling suddenly sick. She hated this world, she hated the omnipresent heat, she hated knowing she was helpless, that one day the Russians would turn on her or the aliens would rise up against humanity, not knowing or caring that two-thirds of the humans were actually slaves. And she hated watching so many of the girls give up, surrendering themselves to the Russians who pretended to be their husbands. What manner of person, she asked herself, falls in love with her rapist?
It was Stockholm Syndrome, she knew. The human mind adapted. Whatever happened, no matter how intolerable the situation, the human mind adapted. And if that meant believing a lie, believing that sex and violence were love ...
She wanted to cry. No matter how she tried, she could barely recall her husband’s face.
But instead, she walked back to the medical compound. There was work to do.
And a beating waiting for her, she knew, if she didn't do as she was told.
***
“This is the compound,” Peerce said, as the Marines gathered round the chart he’d drawn on the floor. “We have gathered a considera
ble amount of data from our local sources, much of which has been verified by the remote sensor nodes.”
Percy squatted next to him and watched as the Sergeant pointed to the markings outside the Russian wall.
“The Russians are surrounded by a large number of fields,” Peerce said. “I believe the Russians cleared the space deliberately, to make it harder for an enemy force to sneak up on their walls. Since then, they have allowed their slaves to start planting various food crops in the cleared soil, both to introduce the natives to human water-feeding techniques and to provide another barrier. The natives frown on destroying cropland.”
He paused. “They have also produced roads,” he added. “I don't think I need to tell you that the roads are carefully watched.”
Percy nodded. The God-King might not be as impressed by the roads as he was with the weapons, but he might change his mind soon. Good roads were the key to binding an empire together, particularly once the natives started using cars, lorries and tanks. Hell, even a marching army could cover more ground if it was travelling a road. The Romans had proved that centuries before the first automobile had been developed and put into mass production.
[Ark Royal 04] - Warspite Page 35