Beyond Binary

by Brit Mandelo

  In general, the baths were reconciled with the “Eighteenth Century” mores by the simple solution of leaving them in the hands of the lower classes. Gentlemen were known to attend such places in order to meet with lovers and prostitutes; respectable ladies were not.

  “The boy shouldn’t be here,” said Savon. “It’s the height of folly to risk one of the Lady Governor’s children to rescue the other.”

  “Bianca will not come away with either of you without making a fuss,” Conrad argued.

  “He’s right,” I agreed. “If we had La Duchesse with us, she could talk to the girl, but Bianca De Vries doesn’t know either of us from a statue of Pan.”

  “All or nothing, then,” said Savon.

  ∞

  We stepped through the cool stone arches, and found several burly factotums barring our way. “Invitation only,” said one.

  I palmed a card that I showed him, but did not hand over. “Duchesse Claudine Augustille Recherche Dubois sends us with her compliments to attend upon Mme. Dray.” It was a likely gamble. Mme. Dray had been attempting to cultivate La Duchesse for years, and regularly sent invitations to her.

  My mistress’s name conjured its usual magic, and we were waved through to a disrobing chamber. Every available surface was draped with clothing, not only the low garb and gentleman’s suits that might be expected, but whole racks of fine ladies’ gowns.

  “Never mind the Lumoscenti,” I said to Conrad, untying my cravat. “You do realise your sister will be socially ruined, if it is ever revealed that she attended this place?”

  Gulping, Conrad pulled off his boots.

  Savon gave me a darting sort of look, and conversed lightly with Conrad as they stripped. I knew why he was trying to keep the lad’s attention away from me, and why he had given me the opportunity to send him away. It was hardly the time for it, but I was never going to have another opportunity to demonstrate so visibly that there was nothing for Savon to worry about. I removed every piece of my clothing, folded them all neatly, and waited by the doorway for my companions.

  Savon looked up first, and had a violent coughing fit.

  Conrad, skinny and vulnerable without his fine suit to bulk him, clapped the other man uncomfortably between the shoulder blades. “Are you well, Monsieur?”

  “I’ll live,” gasped Savon.

  “Let us not tarry,” I said, motioning Conrad through the doors to the tepidarium beyond. “We have little time to waste.”

  I did not intend to give Savon a chance to talk to me without the boy overhearing, but he physically restrained me from following Conrad. “Where did you get that body?” he demanded, barely breathing the words aloud as he gripped my arm.

  “I have a male name and a male body,” I hissed back, concentrating all my energies on restraining my maleness from responding to the touch of his skin against mine. “What precisely, Monsieur, is the contradiction in that?”

  “You are Philippa Cervantes, daughter of Dominic Cervantes,” he accused. “You were born a woman on Mars.”

  “That was a long time ago,” I replied. “I was a different person then, as you can probably tell.”

  Damn it, my cock had hardened. I was a bare inch from brushing his hip with it, which would hardly be conducive to civil conversation.

  Conrad turned back, looking at us strangely, and Savon released my arm. He stared at me as if a stranger — though of course I was a stranger. We barely knew each other. His reaction was startling to say the least, and I considered it as we walked towards the lad. I was relieved when my body quieted once more, in the cool air and dancing green shadows of the tepidarium. “Are you going to tell my father?” I asked quietly, as we walked along.

  Savon laughed shortly. “You think I want to be on the same planet as him when he finds out? No, M. Pepin. I have told you before. I do not work for your father, and I did not come to New Ceres looking for you.”

  “Then why are you here?” I asked, as we crossed into the next room of the baths. “You have lingered in and around Prosperine for six months, why?”

  Conrad jerked in surprise, and I was just as startled. It should have been a caldarium — a steamy pool of water heated by pipes. Some liked to cool themselves first, then plunge into the heat, while others preferred the reverse.

  Instead, the pool bubbled with hot, dark volcanic mud.

  “I didn’t realise Prosperine was built over actual mud springs,” said Savon, and it did not escape my notice that he had avoided answering my question.

  “It’s not,” I said. “The nearest spa is on the south east coast. They must have imported the stuff, to heat with the water piping system.”

  “Expensive,” suggested Savon.

  “Exorbitant,” I agreed.

  The next room was full of sand. Hot, marbled pink sand.

  “Sacred Minerva,” choked Conrad.

  “Literally,” I added. “Savon, this is Minervan sand.”

  He frowned. “Who would import sand between planets?”

  “No one,” I said. “Plants, yes — Minerva grows foodstuffs that New Ceres cannot. But no one trades interplanetary minerals in this kind of quantity.”

  “They imported white stone from the other worlds once, when there weren’t enough light veins here to build the cities,” said Conrad, trailing his fingers in a fortune to rival a Sultan’s wet dream.

  “By ‘they’ you mean the Government,” I said shortly. “I doubt somehow that your mother and the Peers have moved into the business of indulging wayward socialites.”

  The sand shivered. As we watched, the grains danced and rose before our eyes, colliding upwards to form a solid giantess of a statue.

  Mme. Lucilla Dray stood before us, carved from solid pink stone, teasing and joyful in her nakedness. She made every Venus nude I had ever seen look as modest as a Vestal Virgin. Her sand finger beckoned us closer.

  “That is the most amazing thing I have ever seen,” said Conrad in awe.

  “Forget about the Lumoscenti,” said Drusus Savon, his face and voice equally grim. “This is a matter for ITHACA.” Without another word, he strode through to the next room.

  Conrad looked at me, enquiring.

  I sighed, giving up all hope of pretending I was a native New Ceresian. “The Interplanetary Taskforce of Humanity Against the Corruption of Aliens. The technology Mme. Dray used to create that little statue isn’t just too recent to be legal on New Ceres. It’s inhuman.”

  The tragedy of humanity was that we never managed to develop nanotech beyond theory and infant steps. Not in time to save the Earth from the aliens who ravaged and transformed our source planet to suit their own biology. Ironically, if New Ceres had nanotech, we could far more effectively mimic an eighteenth century society. Our own terraforming technologies were decidedly clunky and intrusive by comparison.

  But the aliens only shared their wares when they wanted something in return. Earth learned that lesson, far too late. You never invite the bastards in.

  When we caught up to Savon, he had located the party. A horde of languid bodies filled a wide gymnasium that overlooked the river. There was no music, no grapes or wine — none of the usual trappings of an orgy. Just naked people, streaked with mud and wet sand, tangled on the cold stone floor. Some were still lazily copulating, but most merely lay there, grinning at nothing, deliriously happy.

  Conrad made a choking noise.

  “Your sister wanted to be outrageous?” I said. “Looks like she found the right place for it.”

  “I didn’t know it would be anything like this,” he said, sounding sick. “Jules never…. I didn’t know!”

  “I think you’ll be a little more careful in future, choosing your friends,” I said.

  Savon dug his fingernails into the underside of his right arm and pulled an implant sheath open, revealing a hidden cavity inside his flesh. “Take these now,” he said, drawing a small container of pills out and handing them to me. “One each.”

  I didn’t even hes
itate, something I wondered about later. Just because this man held all my secrets was no reason for me to trust him, but I did. I flipped the container open and swallowed a tiny white grain, lifting another to Conrad’s mouth. He licked it off, nervously. “What is that?”

  “Antidote,” said Savon. “The queens of their species exude a certain pheromone when they’re pregnant. Humans get high on it, until the toxin levels reach their peak. Then their skin starts dissolving.” He drew a small digital console from the compartment in his arm, and scanned the room with it.

  “There’s an alien here on New Ceres?” said Conrad, alarmed.

  “A pregnant alien,” said Savon. “Bask in the possibilities.” His eyes were dark on mine. “If not for this comedy of errors tonight, I might never have happened across her. If the eggs hatch, the planet falls. You’re a miracle, Pepin.”

  I shivered. “You’re welcome.”

  Green light filtered through narrow slit windows in the gymnasium, moonlight bouncing off the green water of the river Prosperine.

  Conrad was searching the bodies with distaste, looking for his sister.

  “Where is it?” I asked, looking around. “Does it know we’re here?”

  Savon waded through the bodies as well, lifting limbs and hair to peer underneath. “She’ll be small. The females of their species are tiny. Easier to conceal the eggs.” He gave me a knowing look. “I expect the ones you met were male. They’re a similar size to humans.”

  Demme it, he had figured out the last of my secrets. Trust me to reveal myself to the one man on New Ceres who knew alien technology when he saw it. La Duchesse would be slapping herself in the forehead if she could see how I had crumpled in the face of discovery.

  I did not know enough to recognize an alien female or Conrad’s sister. Instead, I stared out of the window slits, to the river below. A slow flotilla of golden ferryboats advanced upon us, across the green water. “Lumoscenti,” I said, wondering if it still mattered.

  “Bianca,” yelled Conrad, sorting one limp human girl out from the mass of drugged flesh.

  “This, I think, is for my custody,” said Savon, staring down a small pearly slug that lay on the cold stone of the gymnasium floor. He scooped the slug up in a small forcefield that emanated from his hand console. “Pat yourself on the back, Pepin. We just saved your world.”

  “I’d like to be pleased about that,” I said. “But we still have the Lady Governor’s two children to save from a political scandal. Any more miracles in that arm of yours?”

  “Oh, no,” said Savon, relaxing into a wicked grin. “But I have a few ideas. We may want to get our clothes back on before this place fills up with priests.”

  Until that moment, I had not realised how alike he was to La Duchesse. That should have worried me more than it did, but instead I felt as if I were in the best of hands.

  ∞

  The next morning, La Duchesse rose early, leaving her latest lover asleep in bed while she joined me for pastries and the Prosperine Times on the balcony of our hotel suite. “He’s a sharp one, that Savon,” she noted of the reportage about the night’s events. “A kidnapping plot was an excellent explanation for the night’s dramas. I particularly like the way he gave young Conrad the credit for rescuing his sister.”

  “And not a word of queen aliens or naked drug orgies,” I replied, biting into a croissant.

  “Mm,” said La Duchesse. “I see that Jules Gambon is being questioned for his role in Bianca’s kidnap — his father has preemptively disowned the boy.”

  “I don’t think Jules or M. Gambon actually intended to aid an alien invasion,” I said. “But it’s hard to be sympathetic. They had no qualms about trying to destroy the reputation of the Lady Governor’s children.”

  “Not that the brats didn’t bring it on themselves,” said my mistress.

  “I was refraining from such a comment,” I mumbled into my dish of chocolate.

  La Duchesse smiled and stretched. “Well, no matter what the Times declares, I know whom the true hero of the hour was. I was impressed that Savon arranged for me to be released from La Policia’s cells by midnight — and before they handed me over to the Lumoscenti, no less. I’m not quite sure how he convinced them that I was at the speakeasy to aid his investigations, but his documentation seemed to impress them.”

  “He has a smooth tongue, I’ll give him that.”

  La Duchess gave me a covert look. “I’m not used to owing favors to men whom I’m not sleeping with.”

  “There’s still time for you,” I said brightly. “I’m not sure when he plans on leaving, but there isn’t another flight offworld until at least this afternoon.”

  “I rather thought it was you he was interested in, my dear.”

  I did not meet her eyes. “Not after last night’s revelations, I expect.”

  “Ah,” she said, with a world of understanding in her voice. “He saw the secret matter, did he? Well, if he’ll let a little thing like that get in the way….”

  “Hah,” I said, and ground my croissant into crumbs.

  My mistress’s lover joined us then: a tall lady with fair hair and a rather pointed nose. “M. Pepin,” she said warmly. “I must thank you for your service last night — somewhat above and beyond the call of duty, I believe.”

  “Where my mistress leads, I follow,” I said lightly, accepting the compliments with a bow of my head.

  “Well, then, Pepin,” said my mistress with a gleam in her eye. “I intend to spend the day in pleasure and indulgence. I entreat you do the same.” With that, she hooked her arm into that of the Lady Governor, and took her back to bed.

  ∞

  An hour later, a manservant brought a calling card on a salver, and I allowed M. Drusus Savon, Gentleman, to attend me in the suite’s main parlour. As two men, we could meet without chaperone, and no one would blink an eye. How I should hate to be a woman on this planet, even one with the privilege and resources of La Duchesse.

  Savon refused tea, or a glass of madeira. It was a little early in the morning, but I would have liked the excuse to imbibe, myself. His discomfort was making me nervous.

  We made a pleasantry or two, and then silence fell between us. Finally, he abandoned all pretence that this was a social visit. “No scars. Your whole body shape…not even Martian microsurgery can produce those kind of results in sex change operations. Whatever changed you from a woman to a man is not human technology.” It was not quite an accusation, but there was something in his voice I did not entirely recognize.

  I spoke quietly, aware that we were not alone in the suite. “Do you speak as a friend? As a concerned citizen? Or as an agent of ITHACA?”

  Savon blew out a long breath. “I think it must be evident that I am off duty. As you said last night, I would have a devil of a time proving my guess.”

  “I lied,” I said. “You could prove it in an instant. DNA records, my birth tissues…I was not changed so totally as you might imagine. I am living evidence of the crime I committed. Receiver of alien technology is the official term, is it not? Certainly one of interest to the interplanetary judicial system.”

  “I’m not here to arrest you,” said Drusus Savon, looking genuinely miserable. “I just want to understand. I thought you ran away from your father, not…your biology.”

  I took a deep breath. “On Mars, thanks to the Population Control and Dispersal statutes, every woman must bear a child. No exceptions, no allowances. Full citizenship, immigration, advanced education…none of these are possible without having acted as an incubator. A piece of machinery. Whereas a man can just jump on a ship whenever he chooses.”

  Savon paled. “They’re on Mars? The things that did this to you are on Mars?”

  “I left Mars on a falsified tourist visa,” I assured him. “The…dealer, I suppose you would call it, approached me en route here. The irony had already struck me that I was running from the biological laws on Mars to a planet that had no birth control beyond lemon-soaked spon
ges. They played on my weakness, my insecurities. And I bought myself the only freedom I really wanted.”

  Savon stood, pacing the floor. “Didn’t they have…less drastic solutions?”

  “They did. I could have simply let them sterilise me. Demme, I didn’t need aliens for that, there are planets where sterilisation is practically compulsory. But I wanted a disguise, as well.” I ran my hands a little down my firm chest, laid them on my thighs. “This is what I wanted. I did not sell my soul for it but the price was high. And worth every credit point.”

  Savon stopped moving, remarkably still as he looked down at me. “We’ve been chasing and eliminating their freelance surgeons for years now. There aren’t many left that offer the service you took — they’re using other methods now, to infiltrate us. You’re unlikely to ever find one to reverse the process.”

  I almost laughed, but swallowed it for the sake of his ego. Men do so hate to be mocked. “I don’t want to go back. Not to Mars, not to Philippa’s breasts and hips and ovaries. I like this body and who I am in it. I like the fact that people see me as male. It may be a little strange, but it works for me.”

  He looked at me as if trying to really see me — for the first time, though he was not entirely sure what, or who, he was hoping to see. Finally, he made his confession. “I came to this world to integrate with it, to learn how New Ceres worked so that I could be an effective agent here. That was my only remit. I could have gone anywhere on this world, but I have stayed in Prosperine because….” and here, he hesitated. I waited, every breath a struggle. “Because I wanted to see you again.”

  Breathing, it seemed, was indeed to be a difficult thing this morning.

  “I was half in love with you,” said Savon, seating himself again, deeply uncomfortable at this revelation. “When I thought you were a woman in disguise.”

  I leaned closer to him, close enough to touch without any effort. “I am a woman in disguise. But I will never let that disguise fall. I love it too much.”