by IGMS
As his teacher talked, Bann could feel blood rising to his face, and his stomach tightening, making him sick.
"Correct," the muysafed said. "It is testosterone that turns boys into men. Among people, boys turn to men slowly. But with these chickens, we will speed the process by giving some of them large amounts of synthetic testosterone, so you can better witness the reaction."
She drew out a syringe and injected three chicks. One got a little testosterone. Maya's got three times as much, and Bann's got ten times more than Maya's. At the end of the day, Bann got to take his chick home.
That evening, when Bann reached the grotto where he lived with his mother Tuyallah, he raced in with Yusaf. Just as he got inside, the chick pooped. Its mess was white and stringy, with bits of yellow and gray in it. Nothing like the poop that humans made, but Bann was astonished to see how much like a person a chick could be.
"Mom, look what I got!" he shouted as he barged through the door, holding the chick out to see. Yusaf was trembling, as if sick with a fever. "It's just a temporary reaction," the muysafed had assured Bann, "from the shot."
Bann grinned broadly, giddy having his own chicken, but his mother only smiled tiredly, a forced smile that didn't even feign happiness.
"So, they're doing the chicken experiment at school," she said.
"You know about it?" Bann asked.
"We did it when I was young," Tuyallah said. She frowned and looked away. "Let's go out tonight, to celebrate," she suggested. "We'll get dinner in the market.
Bann was delighted. Most of the time, his mother fixed dinner at home. So they put the chick away, and began to walk to the market.
The evening was hot. Even in the dead of winter, it could reach a hundred and twenty degrees during the day. Little red-eared lizards -- remnants of an ancient attempt to terraform the planet -- would race out in front of them, shiver their whole bodies, and bury themselves in the sand.
When they reached the market, it was still too early to buy food. The baker woman had just fired up her clay ovens and was stamping the loaves with the word peace before putting them in to cook. The lamb woman was still burning her sweet-smelling saxaul wood down to coals before putting on the skewers of shish kabob.
Bann's mother said little as she walked, only greeting other women with falsely enthusiastic, "Peace in your mind, sister, and joy in year heart," as they passed. Few of them bothered to return the greeting to a woman who was of such low social standing.
Since dinner was not ready, his mother stopped at a stall and bought some cold green tea. She sweetened it with white grapes, the kind that are so honeyed that you can only eat two, which she squeezed right into the tea.
When she was done, she led Bann down a road to the far side of the sanctuary, a place where Bann had never been.
When the road was empty, his mother said softly. "I hear that you and Maya were caught up on the wall today."
"We were just walking to school," Bann said, "like we always do."
His mother took a deep breath. "Did she touch you?"
"She always holds my hand," Bann answered. "She's my best friend."
They walked farther down the road, which now switched back and dropped at a steep angle, so that they were walking deep in the shadows.
"Of course she's your friend." Tuyallah slipped her arm through his and took his hand, gripping it tightly, almost as if she were afraid to let him go.
"Did she ask you to touch her?" Bann's mother asked, "Between the legs?" she added hurriedly. "Or on the breasts? Or to kiss her?"
The thought was repulsive, and Bann wanted to shrink into the ground as he answered. "No. Never."
"Good," his mother said. "You should never do those things. Sometimes, even girls will want that. And you should never do that for them. Do you understand?"
Bann didn't really understand, but his stomach was clenching again, and he felt so uncomfortable that he just nodded yes so that he wouldn't have to talk anymore.
He saw some girls playing Baku, kicking their balls at one another and then rushing for the safe stones.
"I'm the best in my class at Baku now," Bann said, thinking that he'd like to go play with the strange girls.
"That doesn't surprise me," his mother said. "You're growing up so fast."
She kept walking down the street. It was leading down into the lower quarters now, beneath the rust-colored clouds. When they dropped far enough, the reddish fog colored everything like blood, and the smell of yicksh -- the microscopic life-forms that lived in the humidity -- got thick in the air. It tasted like bitter melon.
Down they walked, past switchback after switchback. The darkness grew more imposing with each step downward. Bann had heard that if you descended far enough, you could reach the violet jungles down in the valleys, where even the light of Lucien's bright sun could not penetrate the clouds.
Tuyallah kept descending the steep road, and Bann followed, unsure where they were headed, until they reached a gate. A cadre of Valkyries stood by, armed with magnetic pulse rifles to repel alien creatures, and plasma weapons to fight off any incursions by men.
"Peace to you, sisters," one of the Valkyries said as they neared, using a greeting that was common even if a boy was in the group. "Shall we escort you beyond the gate?"
"Thank you, sister," Bann's mother replied. "It would be welcome."
The droid began to open the gate. The electric motors had failed centuries ago, and the technicians here could only afford to repair equipment vital to the sanctuary, so the droid removed the gate's crossbars and pushed it open.
Bann found himself breathing hard. He had never imagined leaving the city. He'd heard too many stories of cutthroats and wildmen to feel safe outside the gates.
"Where are we going?" Bann asked.
"To visit your father," Tuyallah replied.
Bann's jaw dropped. "I have a father?"
"All boys have fathers," Tuyallah answered. "But few girls do."
"Did he hurt you?" Bann asked. "Did he force you to make me?"
"No," his mother said. "Nothing like that. I met him here, outside the city. Just once. I . . . asked him to sleep with me, to make a baby."
"Why?" Bann asked. His mind was racing furiously.
"I was curious," she said. "I'd heard that men could be so . . . alluring. And the thought of meeting a male lover excited me. I guess . . . I was foolish."
"For having me?" Bann asked.
"No," his mother said, squeezing his hand. "Never for having you." She cleared her throat. "I was foolish to think that I could change the way that things are."
The droid finished opening the gate, and timidly Bann stepped outside, following his mother. A pair of Valkyries led the way.
Almost immediately a shadow fell over them. Bann looked up as a pod of sky-whales slowly swam through the fog overhead, their wide wings undulating as they fed on micro-organisms in the sky.
Bann wondered what his father would look like. He'd never seen a man.
They walked down a trail, into the gloom, and soon strange pseudo-plants began to rise all around them. Violet-colored vines twined around each other madly, forming a canopy overhead. Bann could hear three vines straining, making cracking sounds, as they sought to pull down a larger tree. It suddenly shattered, and light opened in the canopy. But almost as soon as it opened, the competing vines and trees leaned in to claim the meager sunlight.
Enormous beasts could be heard in the shadows, so the Valkyries powered up their rifles and slowed.
"You'll have a decision to make soon," Tuyallah told Bann. "I want you to think hard."
What decision, he was going to say. But suddenly they turned a corner, and reached a small wooden fortress made of sharpened poles. It wasn't large, perhaps only big enough to hold a couple of hundred sisters. A creature sat atop the wall, bearing a magnetic rifle. Bann had seen pictures of apes and chimps, hairy creatures that once lived in trees on Earth. This looked like one. Long hair covered its face, an
d it wore a tunic that left its chest, arms, and legs exposed. Hair covered them, too -- not as thick as a goat's hair, but the creature was obviously more animal than human.
"Ohhh," it crooned in a deep voice, eyes going wide at the sight of Bann and Tuyallah. "Now there's a likely pair of screamers. Come for a thick one, have ya, ladies?"
Bann stared at the creature, and fear seized his tongue. He hadn't heard that apes could speak.
"No, thank you," Bann's mother said. "I'm looking for a man. His name is Bann. Bann McKenzie. He's a pilot."
The ape grunted, scratched at its crotch. "Bann, Bann the sailor man. Haven't seen him in years. But if it's a man you want, I'm hard enough for you, and you know what they say, 'A hard man is good to find.'"
Bann gaped. He had assumed that the creature was an ape, but it claimed to be a man!
"Bann McKenzie is the one I want," his mother said.
"Maybe his ship is in port. Or maybe someone else knows where to look. Go right on in." The creature kicked a lever, and a wooden door flung open beneath him. Bann and his mother entered.
The fortress was small indeed. A shanty town made of rough wood opened onto an empty square. One stall held a man who was skinning goats in the open air.
Bann heard a cry and glanced to his right. Two boys, little older than Bann, were tussling in the street. One cried out in pain, and Bann shouted, "Mother!"
Both boys looked up at the sound of his voice and grinned, as if to prove that no harm had been done.
"It's all right," his mother said. "They're just playing.
"But . . . someone could get hurt," Bann objected.
His mother said softly, "Boys often play . . . by fighting each other."
The boys continued to wrestle, and Bann watched, heart hammering. Such violence was forbidden in the sanctuary.
"Come along," Tullayah whispered. "The Valkyries are getting too far ahead."
Indeed the droids had taken a good lead. They were heading to the far side of the fortress, where a pair of Floater ships hung at port. Some rough-looking men were loading bales of Kara Kune cotton on one of the gondolas, along with crates of electronics.
Tuyallah hurried down the mud street, past men who came out the shops to gawk at her and her son. Bann saw a woman, too, a feral woman dressed in men's leather pants, with daggers sheathed in her boots, an open leather vest barely concealing her breasts. She watched Bann knowingly, smiled and blew a kiss at him.
Bann's mother stopped just beneath the stabilizer bar on the first Floater, a scarred old ship called "The Ether Sea." She did not seem to know who to address, so she clapped her hands for attention and called out, "I am looking for a man, a pilot, named Bann McKenzie."
One rough man who was wrestling a barrel up a ramp peered at her. His eyebrows were so thick that they looked like an extension of his beard, but the hair on top of his head seemed to have fallen off. Bann wondered what illness would cause such a hair loss.
"McKenzie? Haven't crossed paths with that old scoundrel in what -- five years? Back then he was runnin' guns between Buddha's Reef and King's Tit."
Bann had never heard of Buddha's Reef, but King's Tit was pirate country -- a mountain base hidden beneath the fog. It was high enough so that there was still some light, low enough so that it couldn't be seen from the air.
Bann's mother bit her lip, frustrated. "Can you send him a message? Tell him that he has a son?" She clenched Bann's shoulder. "A fine son."
The man smiled sadly, studied Bann. "A son is it?" he said, shaking his head. "Not much of a boy. Looks more like a girl to me. Not fit for a man's work -- at least not yet."
"Nevertheless, his time is coming," Tuyallah said.
The man shook his head, as if there was little that he could do. "I'll beam a few messages to passing ships, but I can't guarantee anything. Haven't seen McKenzie in years. Pirates could have got him. Or maybe he crossed the Sizzle to Far-And-Away. Why don't you take the boy home? Forget about McKenzie."
"You will deliver the message?" Tullayah begged.
"For all of the good it will do."
"Thank you, brother," Bann's mother said, bowing her head in gratitude. Of all the strange things that Bann had seen that day, this last was the strangest of all -- his mother bowing to the grizzled old ape-like man.
She turned quietly, pulled Bann behind her, and they began the long climb back uphill.
Bann was too stunned to say much for a long time. They walked up through the trees, and as they did, the sun dipped below the horizon, leaving the jungle in darkness. One Valkyrie took the lead and the other walked behind, both cranking their running lights to bright, so that the group traveled in a haze of glory.
"Why did you bow to that man?" Bann asked as they walked. "He didn't deserve such honor. You can't trust him to help you."
"All people deserve respect," Tuyallah said. "Besides, he is already helping us. His ship carries goods between the sanctuaries. His troops in their little fortress keep monsters from the lower reaches of the mountain and frighten off pirates. It's men like him that do our dirty work. And they do it because they are noble and generous, despite what some of our sisters may say."
Bann had never heard such talk before. Men could be noble and generous? It was a daring thing to say, blasphemous.
They reached their own market after sundown, and Bann ate four skewers of shish kabob and half of a honeydew. He danced with the girls in the town square, drinking peach juice sweetened with cotton-blossom honey. He got so full that he felt "drunk on food," as the saying went.
Well after dark, Maya came out. She wore a white sleeveless tunic, cut low in the front. The white contrasted sharply with her dark skin.
Bann was eager to tell her of his adventures, but she seemed timid, as if she wanted to talk later, in private. A group of women came out to play music, and many of the women began to dance.
Maya seemed to reach some decision, and she put bells on her anklets, as women do when seeking a girlfriend, and she pulled Bann into the street.
She clapped her hands above her head to the sounds of shrill pipes, and danced around him, whirling, eyes riveted on him, her white teeth flashing in a smile.
Her face was radiant, her rosewater perfume intoxicating. Bann raised his hands and clapped, too, as Maya danced for him.
For the first time in his life, Bann wondered what it would be like to take her as a lover. Many sisters took each other for lovers, but Bann was too young for such a thing. Indeed, he had no idea what he would do with her. Hold her? Kiss her? Caress her.
Cherish her.
He longed to kiss her, and as she danced, her pert young breasts bouncing and swaying, for the first time he wondered what it would be like to touch them, to stroke them, or to explore the sacred place between her legs.
He gritted his teeth as he danced, fearing that others might somehow guess at his shameful thoughts, his desires were so strong.
She smiled, drawing so close to that her breasts brushed his chest, then whirling away. "What?" she laughed. "What is it?"
Bann wanted to speak, to tell her what he was feeling, but couldn't find the words.
Suddenly her expression changed and her eyes went wide, as if she had guessed at his thoughts. She drew close and whispered, "After the dance. Meet me behind the flower-seller's stall."
Bann made no answer, but when the dancing ended and the shadows got deep and the stars lit the bowl of heaven, he made his way to the flower-seller's stall. In the shadows behind it, Maya was waiting.
Up on the towers of the fortress, the city's beacon's were ablaze. A beam of light flashed over them, and Maya pushed Bann a little, nudging him forward, and laughed. "I know," she said. "I know."
"Know what?" Bann asked.
"I love you, too," she said.
She leaned forward then, and Bann could smell her sweat, and the sweet oils in her hair, and for one moment the weight of her chest was fully against his, and he felt intoxicated by her presence. Almost
, he wished to reach out and put his arms around her, to claim her, the way that women did when they married. She leaned into him and kissed his lips.
He reached up and stroked her hair, pulling her close, enjoying the moment. But his heart was beating so fast that he could not really savor it.
Fearfully, he reached up and touched her breast. It yielded beneath his touch like the softest clay. He explored it, running his fingers from her armpit down to her nipple.
Maya's eyes went wide and she smiled broadly, as if at a shared secret. She pulled him roughly, pressing her lips into his, as if by pushing hard enough they could join permanently. She hugged him, her whole body melting into him.
"Someday," she whispered fiercely in his ear. "Someday . . . you and I will build our spirit temple together." She pulled back as the sanctuary's beacon pulsed again. He saw tears sparkling in her eyes.
Then Maya pushed his chest and ran away, giggling.
It was not until he was lying in bed late at night, after having relived his moments with Maya over and over, trying to make sense of them, that Bann thought back to the ugly men that he had seen, and recalled that his mother had told him that he would have to make a decision soon.
But what had she been warning him about? He had never heard. He reminded himself to ask her in the morning.
Bann forgot to ask in the morning. He got too involved in playing with his chick, Yusaf.
Over the next two weeks, the chick became the center of Bann's life. Yusaf, Bann soon learned, loved to go to the fruit seller's stalls, where he strutted atop the melons and flapped his stubby wings.
The chick grew fast. Yusaf's legs grew long and yellow. Soon, grotesque little pinion feathers sprouted from this wings, as did an ugly little cock's comb above his eyes. And to Bann's surprise, Yusaf started growing two little bags beneath his beak -- testicles, Bann decided, just like his.
Bann felt sure that he was taking good care of Yusaf, for every few days, he would bring the chick back to school for another injection, and Bann's chick was growing faster than all of the rest.
His teacher kept it separated from the smaller chicks, and then announced one day, "It is time for the second part of our experiment."
