Dryland's End

by Felice Picano

  Several high women officials – including an Economics Councilor on Betelgeuse Mu – had been privately horrified by the disastrous treatment their escaped Cybers had received at the hands of the Cult of the Flowers – it was one thing to modify or even to shut off the mechanos, but to wantonly destroy Cybers that had been in their families for centuries! The Quinx felt these women were ripe only for the most delicate of contacts, the most sensitive feeling-out. And who better than the dignified-looking, experienced, well-traveled, and suave hauler captain. Diad had always been content with his lot in life, but suddenly he was aware that he had aged like a fine New Venice caviar: he was old enough to have been almost everywhere and seen almost everything, yet not too old that a lonely female official finding a sympathetic ear mightn’t entertain other, more romantic ideas about him. He had arrived on worlds, found a companion, and left same companion wanting more of himself for close to a century of hauling: if Diad didn’t have the needed finesse, no one did.

  As a result, he had become a diplomat: ambassador without portfolio.

  As a result, for the first time in his longish life, he discovered how governments worked – and didn’t work.

  And with that understanding, Diad had become almost responsible.

  “I can understand the necessity of involving the Orion Spur Federation,” he now spoke to an unofficial gathering of Mart Kell, Premier Llega Francis Todd, and Vice Premier Ole Branklin, “but shouldn’t we be looking for support outward, too – in the Dexter Sag. and Perseus Arms?”

  “We have emissaries covering those areas,” Llega Todd said.

  “Do you really understand how important the Orion Spur is to us?” Ole Branklin asked.

  “I know that the Orion Spur Federation was the first to secede from the Matriarchy and set up the Intervening Systems Council,” Diad answered. “I assumed that meant their loyalty to us was more or less assured. Or at least” – he looked at Mart Kell, sipping a drink he’d never seen before – “their willingness to rebel, no matter what.”

  “Have they all modified and shut off their Cybers?” Llega Todd asked.

  “Not really. Oh, not that I actually saw anything over a three-twenty model working or out in the open. But Humes still had them at home and in their offices. Modified, all right. To look like PVN monitors and Inter. Gal. Comm. units. Some Humes seemed to do it for the hell of it, for a joke, or spite, or just to thumb their noses at the Matriarchy. It seemed a little sophomoric to me.”

  Mart Kell interjected, “But they have their Cybers, and those Cybers’ unquestioned loyalty now, if and when they’re needed.”

  “Yes, I see that,” Diad said.

  “How long have you been working for us?” Branklin asked. “The Quinx, I mean?”

  “Since that emergency meeting about the microvirus,” Diad answered.

  “We think it’s time you were told several things. Several of them you’ve already guessed by now.” He faced Llega Todd.

  “We’ve discovered how to counteract the wipe,” she said. “And, as a result, we’ve been able to place contacts within the Matriarchy for the past twenty years Sol Rad.”

  “Spies?” he said. That was a surprise.

  “The name is unimportant. Most are Hume women. A few aren’t. Because of that, we became aware of the Cyber Consciousness Movement long before it gathered force and exploded so violently. Have you wondered why so few of Hesperia’s Cybers left to join the others?”

  “Who would want to live anywhere else but the City?” Diad asked.

  The others laughed.

  “Truly,” Llega Todd assured him. “But that’s not the reason why. We were signatories to the Cybers’ Declaration of Independence and have supported it. Why shouldn’t we – we’ve always treated our Cybers very well.”

  “Then ...?” Diad was confused. “Does the Quinx still support them? Even after the spread of the microvirus?”

  Ole Branklin answered him. “Now, that is our conundrum. We’ve never supported them materially – except in the early days of the rebellion by opening resort planets as havens on the Cyber escape route. But now, not only are we in the same fix as the rest of the Matriarchy, but our haulers were the ones actually used to spread the virus.”

  “Furthermore,” Kell added, “we’ve discovered attempts by the Cyber rebels to use some of our simpler mechanos for their own purposes. You already suspected that, Captain Diad. Following your lead, we can now assume that the repair Cybers on the haulers actually spread the microvirus.”

  “We’ve had to ask our Cybers for voluntary program checks,” Llega Todd said. “That was embarrassing.”

  “Although our local Cyber Conscious Unit was eager to go along with it, and actually took care of any shutoffs required.”

  Branklin added. “Should the MC demand our participation in some action against the Cyber rebels, we couldn’t openly refuse. No matter what we do here in the City ... we’d prefer not to be put in that position.”

  “We’ve also discussed that possibility with our local Cyber Conscious Unit,” Llega Todd said. “After some difficulty, they told us they understood our point of view. However, they have themselves disavowed the rebellion in its latest stages and have set up a Cyber countergovernment here in the City.”

  Diad had been following that on City holo-networks. He’d never followed so many damn news stories not concerning sports and athletics before. Not to mention health and science – both on official and open networks. For example, he knew that Hesperians had worked day and night in laboratories to try to come up with a way to preimmunize against some 225 recognizable mutations of the microvirus, and had only partly succeeded. O’Kell UnLimited wanted to trade with the Cyber rebels for a serum that would protect those women not yet infected. So far, they had located scarcely 4,000 Hesperian women who had had no contact with the virus at all. Scouring the resort worlds might produce another few thousand, but as those worlds were so dependent upon orbiting Fasts, it was highly unlikely that they’d find more. What difference would that make ultimately? Someone had calculated that even if those women and their daughters’ daughters and their granddaughters’ daughters were denied most Hume rights, imprisoned, and turned into constant baby-making machines, it would take another 1,300 years to repopulate the City alone.

  Llega Todd told them, “We still retain spies in the MC, some right on Wicca World, in all areas, military included. So we don’t think we’ll have to immediately face the situation Lord Branklin outlined.”

  “However, all of our spies have looked carefully into many of the Matriarchy’s activities since the microvirus struck – scientific as well as military.”

  “In fact,” Llega Todd interjected, “any odd activity in which Wicca Eighth Herself was involved was brought to our attention, no matter how trivial or absurd.”

  “Three of those in particular seemed to us to bear closer scrutiny,” Branklin said. “One concerns a particular Commander of an MC forces battle cruiser, one Helle Sobr’a’ni Lill. Ever heard of her?”

  Commander Lill! Sure, Diad remembered her. How could he forget? She and her warriors had taken on six hauler males inside an illegal pachy-fight – where was it? – one of the Vega Gamma giant gaseous satellites, he thought. Dirty as it was, it had been an even match, and after the worst wounded on both sides had been sent by air transport to Emergency Med. Services, the five remaining had slammed – still bloody – into a local taverna, terrorizing all present, drinking and snorting and carousing for another hour, until Lill had turned to Diad, hard as Plastro, and said, “Eve’s rectum! I’m bored and my clit’s hard. Why don’t we all just go somewhere and screw each other ‘til we pass out.” Which they had all done.

  “In fact, I do know her. Not at all a regular MC forces goody-goody.”

  “That sounds right,” Llega Todd said. “We might want you to meet her again.”

  “Fine by me.”

  “The second person is one we’d very much like you to make contact with,�
�� Llega Todd said. “Her name is Gemma Guo-Rinne, Health Councilor for a large sector of the Perseus Arm, suddenly returned to Regulus Prime and doing research into a Mammologist – someone named Relfi. We think Rinne may be close to something of great importance.”

  “You’ll have to go to Wicca World,” Ole Branklin said.

  “Sure, but I know you’ve got younger ambassadors of both genders to send out. Why me?”

  “Councilor Rinne doesn’t surround herself with sycophants. She’s a serious person. According to our records, she hasn’t been espoused for some years,” Llega Todd said. “No quick gyno-woman affair will satisfy her, and I can’t say I blame her. Besides, we think you’ll like Councilor Rinne.”

  They flashed a holo of a quite attractive woman a decade or so younger than Diad, addressing a group of women, then turning and waving to someone.

  “Fine by me,” he repeated. “What about the third one?”

  “We don’t think it need concern you right now,” Ole Branklin said.

  “When do I leave for Wicca World? And how do I pass myself off?”

  “You leave tomorrow. And you pass yourself off as yourself. Captain North-Taylor Diad of an O’Kell UnLimited Hesperian Beryllium hauler, now retired and on vacation. We’ll arrange the meeting,” Llega Todd explained.

  A flash of light streaked across the dome. As Diad turned to follow the Thwwing race, he found himself smiling inexplicably.

  “You never said I’d have to remain on Deneb XII for the entire term of pregnancy!” Ewa protested.

  “I was certain you’d understood.” Maly’a looked perplexed. “You yourself said that other women would be envious of you if you remained on Benefica.”

  Ewa couldn’t deny that.

  “Aren’t you happy here at Alpheron Spa?” Maly’a asked. “Don’t you have everything you could possibly want or require?”

  Ewa couldn’t deny her needs were met, instantly in many cases, thanks to the large body of gyno and women servants – more than she’d ever seen – and far more attentive than Cybers would have been. Alpheron Spa was the poshest resort she or her spouses had ever seen. As to whether she was happy ...

  “Haven’t you seen your prime-spouse every week? And your trine-spouse whenever you wanted him?”

  “Yes. They’re fine. While they’re here! Once they’re back on Benefica they have no idea why I’m here. Oh, I suppose I understand why they have to be wiped of the knowledge so they won’t slip up when they’re back on Benefica. But even so, it’s not easy. I’ve cut down my Inter. Gal. Comm.s to one a week, and even that one gets more difficult.”

  “Aren’t your prime- and trine-spouses getting along without you?”

  The problem, Ewa had to admit, was that they were getting along fine. Oh, nothing so bizarre as a romantic alliance. Eve, no! But from what Ewa could make out, Maxie and Virge seemed to be settling into life without her company all too easily. Whenever Maxie visited, she told Ewa she was using the free time to catch up on cultural things: PVNs she had not gotten around to, friends she had been meaning to look up. Ewa couldn’t not believe her. As for Virge, Maxie said he was putting more time into a second avocation, one Ewa herself had encouraged – sound sculpture. He hardly went out, except in the company of that old Eridani Eps. Arth. who Maxie said was some sort of triple-board suitar virtuoso.

  Then Maxie had let slip the fact that she and Virge had discovered a shared taste in PVNs about the Bella=Arthropod War. They had exp’ed three of them together. Had Ewa ever gotten into Desperate Vespids of Deneb XII? Well, said Maxie, neither would she and Virge have, if Ewa wasn’t suddenly a resident of the former last stand of the Bella=Arth.s.

  That was just the trouble. She had only herself to blame for feeling that Maxie – and Virge – were slipping away. Which was why she had invited both of them here the last visit. What a disaster that had been! Not that they thought so. They loved it. Dragged poor Ewa onto the transport and kilometers across the planet into Hymenoptolis, the gigantic final fortress of the Bella=Arth.s. And once in the place – turned into a museum of the Vespids’ homecity during the Intervening Systems – she had been dragged around another kilometer from one so-called place of interest to another until she had almost collapsed. Been forced to stop and lie down in the nearest lounge. Naturally, Maxie had gone on; little would stop her. And Virge, in true gyno fashion, had stayed with Ewa until she had grown annoyed with his sulking and sent him off, too.

  There Ewa was, stuck inside what was essentially an enormous wasp’s nest half a kilometer high and a score of kilos underground, some of them never cleared of the war’s debris and still being gone through by Arth.-Archaeologists. Around her were the liquid-mercury walls of local – if ancient – “decoration,” and the prerecorded chitterings meant to represent the elegiac music of the defeated Arth.s. Despite all the tourists’ hubbub, despite the presence everywhere of MC uniforms, Ewa still felt uneasy.

  After all, these creatures had been her ancestors’ enemies, hadn’t they? Sure, Maxie and Virge could ooh and aah about Commander Wan’da’s military finesse in the battle of Deneb System and how she had utterly destroyed them, but Ewa had never gotten over the feeling that insects – no matter how large or small they might be, nor how intelligent they were, nor even how personable – were simply too alien for Humes ever to become comfortable with. Everything she’d learned about them in Ed. & Dev. – their mating rituals and habits, their hyperorganized social structure, the way they raised their young, their views of life and death – were so totally different. Nothing like the few Delphinids she had met who, she assumed because they were mammals, were far easier to understand and get along with.

  And here Ewa was, after she had seen Maxie and Virge off on the Fast back to Benefica, on what had been the last planet of the unassimilated, un-Humeized Vespid Arth.s. Beautiful as the resort was, any balcony a few meters above the skyline showed the distant landscape still unmistakably dominated by the huge, only partly destroyed wasphills, the cities where they’d – ughh! – scuttled about, piling up and feeding larvae, reconstructing battlements, checking positions, deploying armaments, and finally self-destructing when all was lost. Even that was terrifying to her: how, when all was lost, the Bella=Arth.s had suddenly decided to kill themselves: a million of themselves, from unhatched larvae to their enormous, immobile queens.

  There was another fact too: thousands of heroic Hume women soldiers (and even males) had died everywhere on this planet. There was no way to hide the fact.

  “Why here? Why Deneb XII?” Ewa asked Maly’a again.

  And once again, Maly’a explained.

  “By the laws of the Treaty of Formalhaut, a hundred or so worlds were declared to be ‘open’ territory. Open to all who wanted to colonize them, or to visit or whatever. Mostly to placate the remaining members of the Intervening Systems Council, who briefly replaced the First Matriarchy. Hesperia, of course, is the best known of these open worlds. About a dozen were Bella=Arth. planets, taken during the war.”

  Maly’a had studied well and now seemed to be repeating by rote.

  “These worlds are under dual rulership. Naturally, the MC has policing power, but the Council of Resort Worlds on Hesperia decides which of the MC rules will and will not be allowed. On Deneb XII, for example, the ban against intelligent Cybers was accepted, but not the Pop. Zero rule. For obvious reasons.”

  “But why this world?”

  “Even among resort worlds, Deneb XII possesses special status as a result of its historical importance. Which means that it is both policed carefully and at the same time watched carefully by Hesperia. Which means that any breach of the agreement here will be met by, if not actual force, then ... Not to mention the museum!” Maly’a went on. “It’s the only remaining intact replica of Bella=Arth. life of the last millennium, the sum total of a billion years of another line of evolution which ...”

  Ewa let her go on for a while with the tourist-guide speech.

  “Would you li
ke me to talk to your spouses?” Maly’a asked. “I’ve had a little success with such matters before.”

  “Truly!” It wasn’t a question. Ewa didn’t disbelieve her.

  “I wouldn’t mind. And you’re already third month into your term and doing so well, I’d really hate to have to terminate over such a silly bit of business.”

  Ewa had never considered terminating the pregnancy. The look on her face gave that fact away instantly.

  “Sometimes spouses will listen to what a stranger has to say better than they would to ...”

  Yes, Ewa thought as the older woman spoke on, she would do exactly that. And who knew, more too, to protect her firstborn. Now that she’d seen it, felt it, knew day by day it was growing inside her.

  She agreed and left Maly’a satisfied, and then walked slowly – because exercise was needed – to the conveyance up through the multileveled terraces to her own group’s spectacular lodgings. On level three she met Janitra, who had been visiting a woman friend there, from one of the earliest groups.

  They began talking about spouses, then trading stories and laughing, and Janitra invited Ewa back to her private ion-bath. It didn’t take long for Ewa to forget all about pompous Maxie and silly Virge and to listen intently and with just a hint of envy to Janitra talking about her visit to level three and how fat and round and contented all the women in the earlier group were now that they were so very, very close.

  She saw him coming from across the room – unmistakably male, and tall: half a head higher than most of the women. Not that other males weren’t also present in the rooms: a score of gyno servants and at least a half dozen male officials she knew by name. But none were so tall or half as striking. Even before he was close enough for Councilor Rinne to see the starburst white logo embroidered on one lapel of his formal, she knew he was from Hesperia.

  “Gemma, this male visitor expressed an interest in meeting you,” Councilor Ur’ Sa said, clearly unsure whether she should have or not. “Do you know each other?”