“You can do an interchange?”
“Not exactly. This is a carrier interchange – I’m not allowed to absorb it. Just a vehicle, me. Feels like a sizzler, though.”
This time, there was no magnanimous offer to sit by the stove. “Your report has implications. I can only presume that winding down towards discontinuation clouded Honour’s memory, and cluttered her thought processes. Presumably, you arrived at the same conclusion.”
“No, mother.”
Perspiration glistened on the mother’s face. “Do you know what you’re saying?”
“Yes, mother.”
“You don’t believe this to be a faulty memory?”
“I believe it to be one of the truest memories ever shared by a memory-keeper.”
The Shaper Mother slid a narrow look over Constance. When she spoke again, her earlier friendliness was back. “You’re babyfused. Sometimes, it can lead to realities becoming scrambled. Let me put my hands on you, sweet child, and see what I can sense.”
Constance did not want this intuitive woman raking over her being, although she could not prevent her if she insisted. “Forgive me, mother, but I’m anxious about any outside disturbance affecting my babyfusion. The defusion risk is particularly high in the early weeks.”
“Very well. We mustn’t count our chickens before they’re hatched. Yours is the most challenging role in Sisterland, but also the most gratifying. Sources bear not just children, but responsibility for the State’s continuation.” The mother’s expression grew remote. “And speaking of the State, memory-keepers serve Sisterland in a particularly important way. You’re privileged to be one of the last people to talk to Honour 19. Let me share a secret with you, Constance. I idolised her as a girl. Her dedication to the cause was inspirational. We’re determined to hold a public memorial service for her. Such women don’t pass this way often. Perhaps the synchronised release of a general moe to mark the occasion will be approved. An N might be appropriate. Nostalgia isn’t as appreciated as it ought to be – sales are low, I’m told. Now, where were we?”
“With Honour, mother.”
“A memory-keeper who always put Sisterland first. She met our founder, you know: that far-sighted woman who devised the Nine principle of consensual government. When she was a young girl, Honour was taken to hear the great Beloved speak in public. It was the Midsummer Address – I expect you learned it off by heart in girlplace. Yes? Me too. Those words give me goose bumps, still. ‘Our hands will shape Sisterland. Our vision, our will. Destiny is ours to create.’ Afterwards, Beloved walked among the crowd. She stopped by Honour and spoke directly to her. ‘Will you play your part, little sister?’ she asked. ‘Can Sisterland count on you?’ It changed Honour’s life. She devoted herself entirely to Sisterland.”
“Honour said Sisterland had gone terribly wrong. She said we needed to forgive men. And hope that men might forgive us, in their turn.”
“Constance, in fairness to Honour, we ought to set aside one throwaway remark from a sister on the verge of discontinuing. A sister who could have been misunderstood by a trainee co-keeper. She’d never do anything to unravel Sisterland’s legacy. I expect she was a little muddled.”
Constance broke free of those persuasive eyes. She owed it to Honour to stand her ground. The truth might not be the most solid piece of earth under her feet, but it was the position she chose.
“Truth is never absolute,” said the Shaper Mother, reading her resistance. “You could call it a question of perspective.”
Modesty interrupted – a welcome respite for Constance. “Greetings from the Nine. They request a meeting with the Shaper Mother and her trainee co-keeper. Didn’t sound much like a request to me.”
Instantly, the mother was businesslike. “When?”
“At once.”
Constance gulped. Sisterland’s executive elite – a group she had only glimpsed in the distance at public events – wanted to meet her.
The Shaper Mother unhooked her skin. Her face seemed naked to Constance without its high-gloss coating. “Leave your skin here, Constance. It’s disrespectful to wear it before the Nine.” She pointed to a wooden bowl.
Constance fumbled to unlatch it, all fingers and thumbs. “Why should they want to see me?”
“About Honour 19, I suppose. They won’t like what they learned.”
“That’s hardly my fault!”
The Shaper Mother pursed her lips. “You interchanged that corrosive memory, Constance. It’s yours now. Have you any idea how that contaminates you? The problem is, it contaminates Sisterland, too.” With a sweep of her arm, she threw aside her shawl. Now she stood before Constance and Modesty, her uniform matching theirs. “Let’s see what the Nine says about it.”
Chapter 18
The Shaper Mother sailed from the room, with Modesty jogging along in her slipstream. On her short legs, Modesty always appeared to move at a trot, her ponytail bouncing. Constance, stunned at being defined as contaminated, brought up the rear. She was led up two levels, into a cavernous space. Even the Tower’s readying room was pokey by comparison. A sunburst chandelier was suspended from the ceiling, rainbows dancing from the tips of its lustres. Constance was dazzled by the glittering ball, and it took her eyes a few moments to adjust.
When they did, she saw white marble everywhere, on the walls as well as the floor. A series of niches were carved into the walls, in each of which stood an icon. Some were painted, some plain. There were statues of the Greek goddess Hera, the Roman goddess Venus, the Hindu goddess Shakti, and more whom Constance didn’t recognise. A rough-hewn, goggle-eyed wooden shape with an exaggerated vulva, to which the figure pointed, caught her attention.
“That’s a Sheela-na-gig,” said Modesty. “Celtic goddess of fertility. She’s several thousand years old. Not a thing of beauty. But a compelling sister, you have to admit.”
The Shaper Mother put her finger to her lips. Relenting, she murmured, “These figures are conduits: agents for dynamic creative power. They are metaphors for womanhood.”
Sisterhaus attendants, hands folded in front, stood against the walls. At the far corner of the room, a stand held a profusion of lilies.
Modesty nodded towards it. “They sprayed the wrong scent on those flowers: it smells of the seaside.”
As Constance inhaled the salt-spray tang, there came a sound like cymbals shaking, and an attendant opened the door to the left of the floral arrangement. Nine women in ankle-length white robes filed in: Sisterland’s ruling elite.
They were an eclectic assortment, with flesh colour from vanilla through to liquorice. Three features they shared in common, however. Each sister had her eyebrows shaved off. Each wore a curved headdress in looped semi-circles – first rose-gold, then copper, and finally bronze, from which was suspended a diaphanous veil that floated onto the floor. And each had a glow about her, a strangely youthful radiance. It was as if a nimbus surrounded every one of the Nine.
“Nine sisters working in unison. Three times three: a potent combination,” murmured Modesty to Constance.
The Shaper Mother took two paces forward, and bowed from the waist. In unison, they inclined their heads. Constance noticed that all of them wore their skins, although no-one else did.
An attendant indicated to Modesty that she should leave.
“The mother’s banking on one of those fancy metal crowns,” whispered Modesty again. “Biding her time.”
The attendant beckoned more insistently. Modesty backed away.
The Nine formed a horseshoe round the Shaper Mother and Constance. Attendants darted forward with marbled white stools, their legs ending in birds’ feet, and each of the Nine sat, arranging their gossamer veils with care. Lower stools without the ornamental legs were also provided for the Shaper Mother and Constance. When everyone was settled, one of the Nine stood up, an arresting sister with multiple plaits. Constance supposed they must be a wig, remembering the Mating Mother. Despite Beloved’s advice on short crops, wig use
showed how some women remained drawn to long hair.
“The universal sisterhood welcomes you,” said the Plaits Sister. She unleashed a smile entirely lacking in friendliness. “First, let us pay tribute to our sister, Honour 19, and celebrate the riches of her long life.”
She crossed her hands over her breast, one on each shoulder, and bent her head, causing the metal discs of her headdress to clink. Everyone stood and followed suit, giving themselves over to meditation. When she dropped her hands, everyone sat while she remained standing, and waited for the rustling to stop.
“Next, we must consider her legacy,” she continued. “We have studied the interchange of Honour’s final memory. It bewilders us. And causes us pain. This is an undisciplined memory – utterly contrary to the Sisterland ethos.” She looked left and right along the semi-circle, and everybody assented. “The memory-keeper suggests there was a time when the two sexes co-existed compatibly. Yet this is untrue: the man-made world was always hostile to women. Men could not evolve sufficiently to value the female contribution, and so we were obliged to impose a woman-made world on them. Shaper Mother, introduce the young sister to us.”
“Greetings, sisters. May I present Constance 500? She’s a promising recruit to our new co-keeper programme. Honour asked for her specifically. But the interchange poses challenges.”
The Nine focused the searchlight of its gaze on Constance.
“We’d like to hear from you, Constance,” said the Plaits Sister. “Was Honour in her right mind, in your view? Could she have had some score to settle? As life ebbs away, queer obsessions can seize sisters.”
Constance straightened her posture. Her heart was thundering, but she tried to appear composed.
“Greetings to the Nine. I don’t believe Honour had a grievance – only a desire to put her talents at her sisters’ disposal. It was a privilege to meet her. Her discontinuation fills me with a sense of loss.”
“That goes without saying,” said the Plaits Sister. Her tone smacked of reprimand. “But we need to analyse her message, and what lies behind it. You did the interchange. Honour made many preposterous claims. But perhaps the most regrettable was that Sisterland is a failed experiment. That wounded all of us here when we heard it. It’s incomprehensible. But we want to give her the benefit of the doubt. Did she truly believe it? And if so, why?”
“I’m afraid she did believe it,” began Constance.
Tumult erupted.
“Sisterland is a society on the highest plane of human existence!” protested one sister.
“Imagined and brought into being by an inspirational woman – our dear Beloved,” cried another.
“Agreed,” said the Plaits Sister. “But we said all that already, after listening to the interchange. Now let’s hear from Constance. She may be able to throw further light on this disruptive missive from Honour.”
Constance groped for words. “I think Honour was ill at ease about that last memory. That’s why she kept it to herself for so long. She was afraid of what it meant. But more afraid of discontinuing without passing it on.” She broke off, her mouth dry.
Intent, the Nine waited. Constance found it disconcerting to be the convergence point for those eyes.
She tried again. “Honour realised the interchange would cause upset. But she was one of the last people who remembered a time when women and men lived together with their children. Her memory told her it had worked. She said it was a mistake not to have fathers play a part in child-rearing – that we’d forgotten how fathers had skills to teach their children.”
“Nonsense! Their tricks are no match for a woman’s talents,” exclaimed a sister with cropped platinum hair tipped with black, her veil fluttering under the force of her protest. “Men knew it, and from the dawn of time they kept us subjugated.”
Agreement whirred from one end of the horseshoe to the other.
“Honour’s final memory is a rogue memory,” said another sister. The diamond stud in the crease of her nose flickered an icicle sparkle. “It’s damaging, disruptive and dangerous.”
“My young sister meant no offence,” intervened the mother. “This was her first interchange. No doubt inexperience has led her to misinterpret it.”
“Is that possible, Constance?” asked the Plaits Sister.
Constance was quailing before the Nine’s annoyance. She had known there would be fallout from the interchange but hadn’t expected to be present for it – to witness this clamorous vexation. She closed her eyes, and saw Honour’s hand curled on top of quilt squares embroidered with messages from Beloved. Messages could be misconstrued. Was she jumbling Honour’s? All she really knew for certain was that Honour had loved her father.
She opened her eyes and looked at the Nine. “Honour believed Sisterland to be a failure. Her PS memories of her father were used in evidence.”
A hissing sound ensued – a group intake of breath. The Shaper Mother swooped a warning flash of the eye. But what was said couldn’t be unsaid.
One of the Nine raised a hand to head height. “We must be willing to give Constance a hearing. Even if we dislike her message.” She was among the more mature sisters, her golden hair curling soft as a baby’s under the diadem.
Even as Constance mentally positioned her among the oldest present, she realised it was an incongruous word to use about any of the Nine. Once again, she was struck by the youthful flush which created a halo effect round each of them.
The Baby-Hair Sister continued, “Understanding Honour’s memory interchange is crucial. Our repugnance at the contents shouldn’t blind us to that. Remember, she met our dearest Beloved, and laboured in the early years as Sisterland was built. But the Honour I knew saw sharing government with men as an unworkable idea. It’s always been too risky. Inevitably, they’d try to snatch power.”
A shudder quivered from sister to sister.
A sister with long, curling fingernails spoke up. “Men have a primitive animal drive which can be useful, but it must be controlled and directed. We can’t leave them to their own devices. It’s not safe.”
“Honour’s father may well have been a sympathetic person,” said the Baby-Hair Sister. “We don’t dispute that certain individuals had potential as human beings. But men abused their powers. Their bestial sides got the better of them. It’s unfortunate that Honour should have set aside this essential truth.”
An approving buzz followed, broken by the Baby-Hair Sister.
“She made one point that interests me. About forgiving men. I wonder if we shouldn’t consider it.”
Mouths were puckered round the semi-circle.
“They’re cunning enough to try to profit from any softening on our part, Gracious,” said a sister.
Constance looked at the Baby-Hair Sister with renewed interest. Gracious was the senior sister among the Nine, with a casting vote in split decisions. Only the Nine had names without numbers after them.
“Poor, dear Honour must have slipped into dotage,” put in another sister.
“Why do you suppose she wanted us to forgive them, Constance?” asked Gracious.
“She didn’t say.”
“But what was your impression? Didn’t you sense anything from the interchange? Go on, I see you did pick up on something. Speak freely.”
Constance took a deep breath. “Her mindmap held some residues: a suggestion that failure to forgive stunted our development. That Sisterland was the loser by it. As you heard on the interchange, she believed it was unfair to write off all men. She thought we could have tried to phase out destructive male characteristics to improve the gender, over time. If aggressive males were forbidden from Himtime, eventually the problem would vanish.”
This provoked merriment.
When it died down, the Nose-Stud Sister spoke. “Too simplistic. Hyper-male tendencies can skip generations, and crop up again. Isn’t that so, Temperance?”
The Platinum Sister answered. “Indeed. Of course, castration has been proven to have a pacifying
effect. But we are not that cruel.”
“Not that stupid,” the Nose-Stud Sister corrected her. “Castration limits the mating pool.”
“And the most hostile males are often the most effective meets,” put in Gracious.
The Fingernails Sister spoke up. “When Sisterland was established, we realised we were dealing with inbuilt male limitations. We came to the conclusion it would be impossible to change them. You’re correct, Constance – or Honour is correct, I should say. Once, the two sexes must have co-existed and cooperated. But men went horribly wrong – wedded to selfishness, greed, and above all war, endless war.”
Now the Plaits Sister spoke. “As soon as men were set aside, a visible improvement in the world took place. There was no alternative. Was there, sisters?”
“None, Innocence,” rippled back.
“But look at the world we’ve created,” said Innocence. “It’s safe, nurturing, and fair. Every girl is encouraged to achieve her full potential. We’ve eradicated poverty and crime. Sisterland knows only peace. Armies have been disbanded. The only war we waged was against social evils, which are eliminated. Sisterland is a utopia!”
A round of applause greeted her pronouncement. And Constance understood that Honour’s message had made no more impact on the Nine than on the tightrope-walker statue outside.
Innocence continued, “The rules were man-made, now they’re woman-made. And the result? Collective serenity and well-being. Universal sisterhood.”
Nine hands reached out to their neighbours. “A universal sisterhood!” they chorused. The Shaper Mother and Sistercentral attendants joined in the chant.
After the echo died away, Gracious leaned forward, her gaze intent. “Constance, did you intuit anything about the Nine from Honour? She said nothing outright, but I sensed something.”
Constance’s forehead furrowed.
“Go on,” urged Gracious.
Surfacing in Constance’s mind were Honour’s whispered words when the connection between their sigs had been paused. But they couldn’t be spoken aloud. Shouldn’t be spoken aloud.
About Sisterland Page 16