The door near us opened. I entered quickly, unable to bear the sight of Button any longer. Mother and I were in a large room; the walls were covered with screens. Two women sat in one corner, while another sat near the center of one wall; all three wore circlets. One woman removed hers, stared at the screen while she rubbed her temples, then put on her circlet again.
I followed Mother to a screen; we sat down in front of it. “Do we have to stay here?” I asked. “Couldn’t we go back to your rooms?”
She reached over and punched out a few numbers. “There they are.”
The screen showed me a blond, bearded man and a younger unbearded one lying unconscious on beds. When I was able to gaze at them without flinching, I recognized the younger one as my twin. They wore circlets, and their naked bodies were covered by the thin wires of the webbing that would stimulate their muscles and keep them from growing weaker. Their mouths sucked at the tubes that fed them nourishment. I studied the younger one’s even features. His cheekbones were a little higher and broader than mine, his chin more prominent, his straight nose larger, but he resembled me; the similarity made me uneasy.
“The man is Tal, your father. We’ve taken sperm samples from Arvil as well. They’re both strong and seem resistant to disease—we had to tend to only minor infections when they entered, so we were able to convey them to that room right away. Some will probably choose Arvil as a progenitor, in spite of his youth.”
The feeding tubes retracted from their mouths and slid into the wall behind them. I felt only repulsion as I gazed at these images. “Are they all so hairy?” I asked, noting the feathery hairs on my twin’s arms and legs and the chest curls and thick beard of the man.
“A lot of them are. A few aren’t. They’re tall, even taller than you or I. They tend to be taller than most women.”
They had once ruled by brute strength, and by force; they had needed no other tools. I tried to imagine Birana among them and shuddered. Living among them would be worse than death; maybe Birana would not mind dying. The men before me, with their flat chests and larger, more sharply defined muscles, seemed deformed.
Mother pressed a key; the images vanished. I said, “Why did you bring me here?”
She picked up a circlet. “I must speak to them now.”
“Mother…”
She put on the circlet. I got up and began to pace, longing to be away from the wall. There was no reason for me to stay, but I was afraid to leave my mother alone. Why had she brought me here? Did she want to harden me to what I would have to do someday, or did she want me to share her pain at losing Button?
I thought of the women the Mothers of the City served. They would never have to sit in this room or see the image of a man. They would give birth to no boys; men to them were no more than fabled, distant creatures, beasts of the earth. They were shielded from the difficult, painful decisions the city’s Mothers had to make.
Now I was beginning to see those we served as our means to keep our own power. By shielding them, so that they would accept our decisions, we had kept them from the doubts that might have led them to question our ways. By protecting them, we had made them weaker. It seemed uncomfortably close to what men had done to women in the past.
Two of the other women had left the room; one still sat alone. She took off her circlet and looked up at me; I was surprised to see the brown eyes of Fari, my mentor in history.
She beckoned to me; I took a seat next to her. “Fari,” I said.
She raised a brow. “You look familiar.” She tapped a finger against one cheek. “Of course—you’re Laissa. How is your reading coming along?”
“Fine. I’m already learning quite a bit.”
“You’re young to be here, Laissa.”
“My mother’s sending her boy out today. I think she wanted me to come along, so I’d know what it’s like.”
“I see. I suppose she knows what she’s doing, but I think it’s easier to handle when you’re older. It’s hard to look at them so directly, even if it is only a screen image. I don’t much care to come here myself, but I’ll be preparing to have another daughter before long and have to select a progenitor.”
“Have you had a boy yet?” I blushed, wondering if I should have asked the question.
“Oh, yes.” Fari’s reddish-gold curls bobbed as she nodded her head. “A few years ago. I cried when I sent him out.”
“You did?”
“It’s not so uncommon. It’s not something one talks about readily, but it happens. One grows attached. That’s why the penalties for disobedience are often so severe—if we behaved as we should easily, without hesitation, there would be no need for harsh punishment, or punishment at all.”
“I wonder…” I said, then paused.
“Go on.”
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
“You’re supposed to wonder, Laissa, and share your questions with your mentors—that’s what we’re for. What did you want to say?”
“It seems to me,” I said, “that we could take all the sperm we needed for ages to come and never call in men again. One man can father thousands.”
“It’s been considered from time to time, but then we’d lack diversity, which is essential. Biological organisms must be adaptable, and diversity aids that adaptability.”
I had, of course, expected that response, but now found it unsatisfactory. “We could take enough samples to insure diversity,” I replied. “Anyway, we’ve been as we are for ages. We don’t need to adapt to anything else.”
“Conditions could change. Also, men need the reinforcement of being allowed inside the wall occasionally—they hope for it as a reward and might begin to doubt the faith we’ve given them without it. And women enjoy having some say in who the father of their child is to be. It’s an old instinct with us even now. Do you know what I think?”
I shook my head.
“No society can live without change forever,” Fari continued. “At least that’s what I believe, even though we’ve been as we are for so long. Eventually we may choose another way, and men may vanish from the world. There are already fewer than once existed, and perhaps it would be better if we went on without them—less cruel to them as well. We cannot possibly live with them, not as we are and they are—we couldn’t share our lives. So it might be better if they died out completely.”
“I don’t know what to think,” I said cautiously.
“We’re becoming more rigid, more bound by custom. The essentials of our lives haven’t changed for centuries. And we can’t change too much, or too rapidly, without affecting how we deal with those outside. Therefore, we don’t progress, and don’t become what we might be. We’re still bound by our biology to the men outside and don’t develop the tools we could to change that fact. We only elaborate on what’s already been done.”
I shrank back in my chair. This conversation was taking a dangerous turn. She was saying out loud what I had been thinking as I read.
“We may be in decline,” my mentor went on. “We have fewer children. We build no new cities, for some of us would have to go outside to do so. Doesn’t it follow that we must either free ourselves by developing ways to reproduce without men, or change the way in which we deal with them, or even alter our natures and theirs as well?”
“No,” I said forcefully, but I was unable to counter her with an argument. My mentor, it seemed, was unorthodox.
“Once,” Fari said, “we dreamed of leaving the earth, of traveling to the stars, yet now we no longer probe the space nearest our world. Do you know why we abandoned that dream?”
I said nothing.
“Because to go on such voyages, we would have to become something other than we are now. We might have to live much longer than we do, perhaps, but that is possible. Or we would have to bring up new generations aboard ship, and that too is possible. We might even be able to train a few men to make the journey with us if that was thought to be necessary. But we don’t, for such a project would alter too much. Those who retu
rned to Earth might be changed also, might make us question how we are. We would be reaching out, instead of conserving and protecting what we have, and that might result in our repeating the sins that almost destroyed us long ago.”
“We could never make such a journey,” I said. “To think of never seeing Earth again, of possibly never returning—no one could do that.” But I was also thinking that one might not be content with Earth once one had gone so far from it.
“Men sinned in the past by denying us a full life, by ruling over us. They justified this by saying that we were incapable of such rule ourselves. Now we rule over them and call it right.”
“It was to save what was left to us,” I said. “Had we done otherwise, men might be ruling over us now. They might be threatening our world once again.”
Fari frowned. “Are you saying that we’re so feeble that this would have been inevitable? Do all our accomplishments show, not our strength, but a need to cloak our weakness? There were those who once thought another way was possible, that true love and friendship could exist between a man and a woman. I’m not talking about an enslaving love, or its sordid physical expression, but a love in which each could draw on the strengths of the other and become more than each might have been alone.”
“Men made that impossible,” I said. “Only women are capable of such a love.”
“And yet men are born of our bodies and share certain traits. Are they as they must be, or have the lives they must lead made them that way? We might have kept a few inside our wall and seen what emerged.”
“Never,” I said, shocked by her words.
“Never. Of course. Because I discuss a possibility doesn’t mean I seek it. But one should face such ideas instead of shying away from them. I consider possible changes, even while hoping they don’t happen too soon.”
I was suddenly sure that meeting Fari here was no accident. She might have called my room, or learned where I was going; she might have decided to observe me or draw me out. Perhaps she wanted to see what sorts of thoughts I harbored; she would have seen my records. She might be aware of my mother’s unusually strong attachment to Button and be wondering how that was affecting me.
I said, “I wouldn’t want our lives to change. Things are better as they are.”
“Why?”
“We’ve survived. We’ve preserved the knowledge and accomplishments of our kind. You know what we have, Fari. To gamble on change would be reckless—we could lose everything we’ve built.”
“Perhaps.” She rose, looking oddly disappointed. “I must go, Laissa. I’ll look forward to our future discussions.” She walked away, leaving me to puzzle over her words.
A cart was waiting for us in the hall. Mother motioned to me; I glanced at her uncertainly as we climbed into the cart. “Where are we going?” I asked.
She keyed in her destination and leaned back. “To the south exit, to see Button off.”
“But why?”
She did not reply. She was clenching her teeth, and her hands trembled. She was tormenting herself needlessly; I was afraid of what she might do. We rode through the hall, passing other carts as well as women on foot. The exit was on our left; several patrolwomen were standing by a cart. As we came nearer, I saw that three bodies lay in the cart—my progenitor, my twin, and Button.
I wanted to run from them. I had never been so close to grown men before and understood why members of the patrol spent only short periods on duty inside the wall. The three males were unconscious, yet I felt that they might awaken at any moment, might leap from the cart and strike at us before they saw who we were. The two men stretched out on the cart’s seats were clothed in their hides and leather garments, which had been cleaned and mended; Button was wearing woolen pants, a sweater, and a brown coat. All three wore circlets.
Our cart rolled to a stop; Mother and I climbed out. One patrolwoman was holding two spears, another had bows, quivers of arrows, and slings; still another wore knives in her belt and carried a few small pouches. Men had made these weapons, used them against one another without a qualm. Birana had been expelled here, at this same place; now a man would be sent out to kill her. I gripped Mother’s hand; her fingers were cold.
The door slid open, revealing a large chamber. The cart wheeled the males inside, lifted them with its arms, and laid each on a couch. While the metal arms were still lifting Button, the patrolwomen hurried inside and put the weapons and pouches on the floor.
The three seemed at peace as they slept; Button wore a smile. The mindwasher had done its work; he had forgotten us already.
Suddenly Mother pushed past me and ran to the boy, laying a hand on his head. A patrolwoman tugged at her sleeve. “You must come away. It isn’t wise to get too close to them.”
Mother shook her head and sat down on the floor.
“Come away,” the patrolwoman continued. “We have to run a scanner check, make sure they have a clear path to the trees before they leave. We have to go—they’ll awaken soon.”
“No,” Mother said. “No, no, no, no.”
“What’s wrong with you, woman?”
“I’ve done what I’m supposed to do,” Mother said. “You can’t say I haven’t. I wanted him safe. I want him to live, and he’ll live, but she’ll die. I haven’t failed you. I’ve done my duty to the city, but you asked too much of me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Mother.” I went to her quickly, held out a hand, and then drew back, afraid to touch her. Her eyes were glazed, her jaw tense; a muscle twitched near her mouth. “Come to your senses.” My voice was harsher than I had intended. “You have to leave.”
One patrolwoman waved an arm. “Take her out.” Two women dragged Mother up by the arms and led her from the room. As we entered the hall, Mother twisted away and struck one woman, nearly knocking her down.
“Hold her!” A tall woman gripped Mother’s arms, pinning them behind her back. Not now, I thought: Please, Mother, not now. One woman pulled out a pocket speaker and muttered into it while the others led my mother into another room.
I said, “She’ll be all right. She’s been under strain. This isn’t like her. She’ll be all right.”
“I’ve seen a few cry,” the patrolwoman said. “I’ve never seen a display like this. The woman’s ill.”
“You don’t understand. It isn’t just…” I choked back my words. “I have to go to her.”
The patrolwoman held up a hand. “That wouldn’t be wise. We’ve got to calm her down. You wouldn’t be much help.”
“She’s my mother!”
“All the more reason for you to stay out of it. A daughter shouldn’t see such scenes. You can visit her when she’s better.”
I backed away helplessly, then fled down the hall.
The sky was red in the west, casting a pink glow over the brown land. A few green shoots had poked their way out of the earth, and a flock of black birds had alighted on the ground far below. I peered down at them and then saw that they had landed near the remains of a few corpses. I shuddered as I turned away.
Ever since coming to the wall with Zoreen, I had begun to have nightmares about the outside, imagining that I was out there, alone, trapped far away from the city and unable to get back. My dream would be real for Birana. Her nightmare would end not with awakening, but with her death at Arvil’s hands.
The wind bit at my face. I would freeze if I stayed up on the wall. Zoreen would be wondering where I was. My mother might need me at her side soon.
I walked back to the inner railing and stopped near the entrance to the lift. I knew why Mother had brought me to the wall. She had wanted me to help her cling to her reason, and I had failed her. She had tried to convince herself that she was right in doing her duty, and she had not persuaded herself in the end. Her mind had broken under the strain. She might have endured the inevitable loss of Button, but having to send her other son out to murder a young woman had been more than she could bear.
I might
have sympathized with Mother, might have been a kindred spirit to whom she could have turned. Instead, with my cruel words, I had only added to her sorrow and isolation.
The lift door opened; the silhouette of a woman appeared in the rectangle of light. I did not speak until she stood before me. She was wearing a cape; a hood framed her old face.
“What do you want, Eilaan?” I asked.
“You were seen entering this lift. You didn’t stop at any of the floors. I knew I would find you here.”
“What do you want?”
“We must speak. We should go inside, away from the cold.”
“You may speak to me here,” I said, wanting the wind to chill her old bones. “What is going to happen to Mother?”
“Dorlei needs to rest. She’ll be taken back to her rooms, and we’ll find women to tend to her. She’ll be better in time.”
“You’re going to punish her.”
Eilaan shook her head. “There’s no need for punishment. Dorlei has done nothing wrong—quite the contrary. To do what one must in spite of one’s feelings, in spite of one’s inner struggle, is always praiseworthy, is it not?”
“What do you want with me?”
She pulled her cloak more tightly around herself. “We have a slight problem now. Your mother will be unable to see to certain matters for us. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. She said she was going to speak to you about it, and I agreed to allow her to do so. I thought it might ease her a little.”
You wanted to test us both, I thought. You wanted to see if I might be unreliable. “She spoke to me,” I said.
“I can’t tend to this matter alone. I may need your help, Laissa.”
I drew back. “You’ve got the Council to help you. Mother did all she had to do when she told you Birana was alive. You didn’t have to involve her in what you decided. You didn’t need my mother, and you don’t need me now.”
“But I do. Why should others on the Council hear of this until it’s necessary? It would be better for me to present them with an accomplished fact—otherwise, there might be unpleasant consequences.” Eilaan paused. “The one called Arvil has been told to go to a shrine and report to us when he has taken care of our problem. It would be best if you were the only one to pick up that message.”
The Shore of Women Page 15
