Nuggets of implanted information glittered in the back of Renee’s mind, suddenly becoming available. “It isn’t quite what you think,” she said. “Among some humanoid species, females do not have the ability to deny intromission to their males nor the option of conceiving — or not — as they will.”
Zia’s perfectly shaped eyebrows rose. “Truly? Our creators of fantasy have speculated on such a … a perverse concept, imagining that it might exist elsewhere in the galaxy. But I had not …”
Renee forced a superior smile, playing the part of the experienced star traveler. “It is true. Such arrangements produce a very different interplay between the sexes than you have always known, Eminence.”
The revelation shook the princess badly.
As that background data Tae planted in my head is shaking me! Renee realized. I don’t dare admit to Zia how flabbergasted I am by this evolutionary flip-flop! Homo sapiens might have taken this reproductive strategy, millions of years ago, when we were still halfway between apes and hominids, but we didn’t.
Unbidden, a stream of information welled up and flooded her mind.
The Niandians’ evolution followed the path some species of birds and animals did on Earth. Niandian females couldn’t be raped. Unless they voluntarily relaxed certain genital muscle groups, the male got nowhere. And they had considerable control over conception, as well. That probably developed in a stressful geologic age, so Niandian females could prevent birth and lactation when food was scarce. And as their species evolved and became an interstellar power, that biological fact has determined the entire course of Niandian culture …
Not a reversal of Homo sapiens. A strange, angling parallel track. The Niandian males still had a more than ample supply of testosterone — deeper voices, bigger and heavier structures, and secondary sexual characteristics like beards. But coming on strongly to a Niandian female didn’t work. It wouldn’t have when they were still pre-hominids, and it didn’t now. If the Niandian male hoped to be reproductively successful and pass on his genes, he had to, quite literally, win the favor of a female, put on a display, perhaps — wheedle, coax, bring her presents, defer to her. Without her consent, the race died. No forcible entry, here. A Niandian female wouldn’t be receptive even while unconscious — except to mayhem. And even if she survived the “mayhem,” she wouldn’t conceive, and her rapist’s genes would die with him.
So they had gone in another direction, and their whole society went with them. A matriarchy, with special overtones. Women here felt free to interrupt men, not the other way around, as was common in Earth’s Western cultures. And that was just a tiny giveaway to biology-determined customs permeating Niandian habit and thought …
Zia seemed to be going through the same sort of inner upheaval Renee was. The princess had been remarkably silent for some time. Martil broke the awkward moment, butting in and saying, “My apologies, Eminence, but it is time for us to leave. We are going to survey an area stricken by your enemies. It is necessary to assess the war’s effects, for our report.”
The princess recoiled in dismay, and Martil’s earlier announcement of this same plan was creating consternation among the matriarch and her cabinet.
“It is far too unsafe, Arbiters …”
“We cannot permit it …”
“Only if Vunj and an armed force accompany you will …”
“We are going!” Martil repeated loudly. The queen blinked, taken aback. Zia glanced at Renee, nodding as if to say, “I begin to see what you meant. This Martil of the Bright Suns does not have the personality of Niandian males. Not at all!” As if to underline his independence, the Arbiter added, “Do not worry that reprisals would be taken should anything untoward happen to us. I give you my word, that is not our way. Prince Chayo, you will act as our guide?”
“It is my duty to do that,” Zia protested. “It is my place, as my mother’s heir and chief minister …”
With a vulpine leer, Martil turned down her offer. “Ah! But Prince Chayo has been the intermediary in these truce discussions. It was he who first made contact with the Arbiters —”
“On our command,” the matriarch said testily.
Martil shook his head, refusing to acknowledge that nitpicking detail. “Chayo made the contact and therefore he will be our guide and no one else. That is part of the terms of our deal, Most High, Eminence, ladies, gentlemen.” He bowed mockingly, then said sotto voice, “Renamos, lead off. Back the way we came.”
She did, feeling boorish and ungracious every step of the way. Renee muttered out of the corner of her mouth, “Don’t you think a politer good-bye was in order?”
It wasn’t until the four of them were in the corridor outside the matriarch’s boudoir-war room that Martil said, “Not really. Kowtowing past a reasonable limit is not on our agenda. Never forget, Renamos, now that you’re on the team, who’s in charge here.”
She worried that Prince Chayo was going to lose brownie points for agreeing to leave the royal presence on such short notice. But Renee couldn’t hang on to the thought. She muffled a yawn, trotting along with the men. Her stomach growled. Damn, she wanted a snack! About now, normally, she’d be watching the late news — which would be a hell of a lot less frightening and wild than what had been happening to her these past few hours.
Martil was talking to Chayo, softly, as if afraid of being overheard. “Not the matter-relay system. No. It’s too dangerous.”
Ah, yes, Renee mused. Let’s avoid anything else dangerous. Please!
Up and down ramps. Riding in open-sided elevators. Turning right and left again and again. Renee hoped no one was expecting her to keep a log of this journey. She’d always been a lousy Girl Scout.
She had also never been an ant, and this whole screwy Niandian home world was composed of ant tunnels!
But apparently they weren’t going to walk the whole way to wherever it was they were going. Prince Chayo led them out of a ramp exit, into the brightly lit cave. An “egg” whipped to a stop in front of them almost on cue. Had Chayo ordered it, special? The four of them climbed in, and the vehicle zipped silently off on its trackless course.
Renee sank back in the magically appearing cushions and tried to recapture visions of dull old reality — coming home from the Metro Council sessions; thinking about Evy’s words about taking it slow and diplomatically, that they’d get the job done, sooner or later; the expressway; plans for supper.
Giving those memories any solidity was almost impossible.
“Anything?”
She’d closed her eyes. Hearing that, she opened them, and saw Tae methodically examining the interior of the “egg,” his long fingers splayed out and probing. He was terribly intent on the chore, and Renee giggled. Martil’s mouth quirked in amused understanding. “Think of him as a living detector of potential nasty surprises. We’ve had quite enough of those, thank you. By the way, how is your headache?”
“Hmm? Oh, I guess it’s still there, sort of,” Renee said. “But I can ignore it.” She eyed Martil with gratitude.
“My Lady Renamos is discomfited?” Chayo asked.
“She said her headache was bearable,” Martil snapped. So much for sympathy! Tae quit prodding the wall of the “egg” and sat on the floor. Either the vehicle couldn’t pick up his wavelengths and manufacture an instant seat to his specifications, or he didn’t want to sit on one. “All right,” his fox-faced partner said. “We have no listeners, and no tracking devices or destructive implants that Tae can find. So … Chayo, I appreciate your backing us up, there in the matriarch’s war chamber. And for agreeing to accompany us on this survey trip. We desperately need a friendly communicant while we’re on Niand.”
“How did you know that I would —”
“That’s why I’ve been appointed an Arbiter to humanoid worlds,” Martil said, flashing a knowing, slightly evil smile.
“If I’m not butting in,” Renee said, “why do you want to look at the planet’s surface? It’s nothing but caves, g
ray stone walls, and a steady downpour. And exactly where are we going?”
Martil’s smile turned into a sneer. “Not half a hemisphere away from the capital, that’s where we’re going, isn’t it, Chayo?” The prince nodded, and the darker man’s expression sobered. “Tae says Vunj may have connections with the Gevari rebels, your idiotic fight-to-the-death faction.”
Renee hadn’t heard Tae say anything of the sort. As a matter of fact, she hadn’t heard Tae say anything period. She felt left out. Of what? Did she really want to be in on every awful tidbit of info regarding what was shaping up to be the Last Trump for this world? Did she want to know right when the bomb would land, to the second? No.
Chayo’s eyes were pained. “It is possible, though I pray he is not.”
“There was a definite flash of guilt in his mind when you mentioned that the Gevari had wrecked your quarters.”
“Guilty?” Renee said with a derisive snort. “He acted like he’d have been a whole lot happier if we’d all been blown up, particularly Chayo.”
“It is possible,” the prince repeated. He slid down in his cushiony chair. “I hope he is only a sympathizer, not an activist. He is director of Niand’s defenses, and undoubtedly it disturbs him to contemplate peace without achieving a military victory first. But if he is secretly a Gevari …! How ironic! That I should be the one to contact you, Arbiters. I’ve always suspected Vunj was my father and Zia’s. Of course, that’s not the sort of thing you can ever be sure of.”
“Your mouth is open, Renamos,” Martil needled.
“You bet it is!”
“A true member of the Sisterhood of the Nine Worlds would not have been so shocked by the logical result of Niand’s sexual patterns,” he added, jabbing in another needle.
“Oh, shut up! And I want to have a talk with you, later, about that corny title you laid on me.” Renee turned to Chayo and asked, “Isn’t there some way you can find out if this Generalissimo Vunj is your father or not?” The prince stared at her blankly.
“Niand is a matriarchy for good reasons,” Martil said, his tone impatient. “Sexual domination among this species is biologically determined. Those basics have been relayed to you, Renamos. Don’t tell me you haven’t grasped them yet.”
“Intellectually, I have,” she said, shaking her head. “Emotionally, it’s another case. This is an inversion of the age-old setup my Sisterhood, among other groups, has been fighting. But Niand’s system is as bad in another way. That hem-kissing ritual. It’s disgusting! And Chayo’s mother patting him on the head. Like she was saying, ‘don’t worry your handsome, empty little head about it, boy.’ What kind of mother behaves like that?”
“My Lady, please don’t,” the prince pleaded.
Martil warned, “Doesn’t your species have any proverbs about adapting to your host’s customs, Renamos?”
“Yes, but …”
From his seat on the floor, Tae reached out with a gorilla-length arm and plonked his big fingertips against Renee’s elaborate new coiffure. The info he’d already fed her was underlined by a torrent of further data.
Skewed. That was what the Niandians’ biology had done to their civilization and their species’ attitudes. Renee once had thought it would be a treat to see the cultural majority, white males in particular, getting a dose of what it was like to change places with women, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and other cultural minorities. However, that wasn’t exactly what was going on in Chayo’s world. Images flowed through her mind’s eye, a confusing melange of the familiar and the bizarre. This was no feminist utopia, despite the power wielded by Niandian females. Some humanoid instincts for domination seemed constant, no matter which sex ended up ruling the culture. And wars, too, were universal, unfortunately. The Niandians had practiced slavery, though they’d never had certain aspects of that loathsome system. Property inheritance, tribal decision making, allocating resources — all had been drastically affected by Niandian biology. There had been no harems, in the usual sense. But there had been often cruel power wielding by successful breeding females over the women of conquered tribes. Niandian women had sometimes been as vindictive and bloodthirsty as the worst of Earth’s male warlords of previous centuries. In the end, though, survival of the race had demanded the best from the Niandian female’s urge to give birth to the next generation and to nurture. Indeed, the matriarch served as a living symbol of Niand’s ancient deity, the Great Nurturer. And the mothers had eventually prevailed on the home world, for the sake of the children, Niand’s future. Their technology had grown faster and faster, to lengthen and improve life and make things better for each subsequent generation of Niandian kids.
But the deep-seated humanoid instinct to defend the “nest” had arisen again when Niand, now an interstellar federation, had run into an alien civilization. Defend the Motherland! Kill the Green Union monsters! Protect Niand! Protect the children!
Maybe humanoids never did outgrow that drive, a relic from their pre-hominid days, when they had to fight to the death against other predators encroaching on their caves — their territories.
Tae removed his hand from her head and Renee muttered, “I see. That’s the way it is. Different. No better, no worse.”
“Very good,” Martil said.
“Chayo, I — I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that about your mother. It was narrow-minded and ungracious of me.”
The prince accepted her apology absently. “You are kind, my Lady. But it doesn’t matter. I think the Gevari are going to win. They and Vunj are going to get their continuation of the war to its bloody conclusion, whether or not he and they are working together.”
“That would menace a hundred billion others, innocent beings,” Martil said. “We will not permit them to die with your combatants.”
“Over our dead bodies,” Renee said, without thinking.
“If it comes to that, yes: Over our dead bodies.”
She winced. “Martil, I wish you wouldn’t use expressions like that.”
“It was your expression, and it happens to be true.”
“I didn’t know I was volunteering for a suicide mission …”
Martil sighed. “I explained the alternatives.” A smile teased at his mouth. “I am glad you did volunteer, though. You’re turning out to be surprisingly useful. Dealing with a matriarchy is always tricky. We’re never sure where the control lies.”
“The control lies here, with my mother,” Chayo said testily.
The black-haired man grunted. “Control. Mmph! Your communication to us indicated that your Federation encompassed approximately twenty-five colony worlds throughout ten solar systems —”
“Eleven!”
“Eleven,” Martil amended, waving a hand as if shooing flies. “And we are to believe one word from your mother produces instant compliance everywhere in this far-flung civilization?”
“She is the Most High.” Chayo hunched forward in his seat, his posture rigid.
Tae eyed Martil thoughtfully, but didn’t try to break things up. Renee wondered if she should step in. No, let it go. They’re both big boys.
Martil crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Ah, yes! The Most High Matriarch — of one planet.”
“Of all Niand! You fail to understand. This is the home world, the mother world, the birthing of Niand. Her roots! When the Most High of the home world orders, everyone obeys.”
“Of course! And that’s why your mother has to request extra time to convene your Federation’s leaders and discuss a truce. She’s known the Arbiters demanded such a meeting for some time. She knew when we were coming; the conference should already be assembling.”
“If you had responded when we first begged for arbitration, it would have been otherwise,” Chayo retorted. “How long ago, by your time reckoning, was our plea received? In the interim, the war has worsened. Many have died who need not have, if you had responded with alacrity! So much for the Arbiters’ claims of altruism!”
Tae cradled his chin
in his hand and looked morose. Martil squirmed and said bitterly, “We responded as fast as we could. Your message was not received as promptly as you seem to think. Niand’s primitive subspace communications methods take forever to traverse —”
“Primitive!” Chayo half stood, breathing fire, and Renee decided she’d better get into this after all.
“Hey! Aren’t you supposed to be on the same side?”
Chayo immediately sat down. “My Lady Renamos, a thousand apologies for my crude words and behavior. If I have offended —”
“Only my ears. Knock it off, will you? You, too, Martil.”
The fox-faced man took that with a toothy grin, his shoulders heaving in silent laughter. “Ah! The tempering female peacemaker! Indeed, you are correct. We should concentrate on more important — and less personal — matters. Prince, when did the last major surface attack take place?”
Chayo was happy to recite dates and locations, and he and Martil soon settled in for a heavy shoptalk session. Renee listened with half an ear, relaxing now that the two men had stopped hitting on each other verbally. She stared at the passing scenery. Somewhere along the line, the egg vehicle had emerged from the underground subway. Now it was tooling along through miles and miles of city skylines alternating with rural horizons, a night scene illuminated by Liths and the glow of three small moons. Seeing those moons flattened any remaining doubts Renee had about the alienness of where she’d landed.
The scenery and the conversation started to blur. She felt her head tipping sideways — and the vehicle’s cushiony seats instantly created a pillow for her to rest on.
Her thoughts drifted. Useful. So that’s what she was. Not a bad compliment, actually. But how was she useful? By serving as a voice for Tae, who didn’t seem to need a voice? Telepaths bypassed mere talk.
A matriarchy. Evy and the other SOS staffers would have loved this situation on Niand. Susan had a degree in history; she’d have been enthralled. When the mood was on her, Susan dripped quotations from Mill and Friedan and tossed around terms like “matrist” and “patrist eras.” They might have enjoyed this whole weird trip. But if it had been Evy or Susan caught in the Ka-Eens’ transfer beam, it wouldn’t have been Renee, and …
The Sisterhood Page 6
