by Greg Chase
Eager to focus on anything other than the whooshing plants below and the infinite space outside the transparent wall of the agro pod, Sam flexed his atrophied voice box. “You work here?”
The girl raised her chin as she looked down her nose at him. “Yes, of course. What else would I be doing?”
Sam shrugged. “School?”
She peered at him and laughed. “You think I’m something like sixteen years old, don’t you? I’m twenty-five. I suspect spending so much of my life weightless has kept me from, well, sagging. And I suppose I didn’t make the most mature first impression. Well, never mind. You’ll get to know me. I’m a botanist, in charge of vegetable and fruit generation.”
Sam’s stomach hadn’t known solid food in six months. Nausea was setting in hard with the motion through the agro pod. “What do the rest of the colonists do? I mean what other work goes on?”
Her caring smile of understanding, offset by her swept-back hair, reminded Sam he was in physical contact with a woman—even if it was just holding hands as she pulled them from vine to bamboo pole.
“Well, this is Yoshi’s team. They’re working on the effects of growing building materials in a weightless environment.”
Jess grabbed a bamboo rod, which had been twisted into a spiral, and guided him down the middle of the floating tubular hallway. Reluctantly, he let go of her hand as she placed his against the bamboo handrail.
“Our buildings are his creations. Most start out like this—long, spiraling bamboo. He’s worked with various trees too, but bamboo grows the fastest. Kind of a cliché, but I suspect he holds onto some cultural roots regarding bamboo. He can train the stalks to grow into just about any shape he wants.”
Sam had to admire the ingenuity of the living buildings, even if some of them did remind him of piles of yard waste.
Jess rambled on as she again pulled him along the vegetation, clearly happy to have someone admire the wonders of her village. “Doc runs engineering. His team’s in charge of supplying light, water, really all the basic elements needed for life.”
For all her rebellious nature, the pride Jess felt for her father showed through. He had to admit the environment was quite the engineering feat. “In addition to the daily jobs of keeping the village functional, we all are also parts of domestic groups—cooking, cleaning, the basics. That’s why Doc thought I should take you in. I’m part of the group that deals with clothing our people and looking after their health.”
Jess pulled up, inspecting his face. Her tone reverted from the proud guide describing the wonders of her home to a concerned caregiver. “We’re almost home. Hang on just a little longer. You look terrible. I’m sorry to have dragged you so far through weightless space. We tend to forget how disorienting it can be, floating around in the plants. I live just at the top of those poles. Think you can make it?”
Sam hadn’t realized how much the trip had exhausted him. His breath came in deep gulps. He was sure he looked like walking death. He nodded, fearful of how his voice might sound. What use could he be to such an organized society? How could he possibly fit in here?
His angel guide wrapped an arm around him and gave a strong pull on a vine that descended from the living pod above. His mind set a downward reference as being toward the plant life and main core of Leviathan and upward being anything that led away from the comfort of vines and activity.
A large, gaping hole led into Jess’s living chamber. To his surprise, instead of a cavernous, empty space, the overgrown peapod was filled with rooms and passages, each only two or three times the size of the builder’s-pod coffin he’d been confined to for so long.
“I live in one of the larger people chambers. That’s another reason Doc thought it’d be good for you to stay with me. My place is the closest to affording personal privacy that you’ll find out here.”
“Don’t want to impose, make you uncomfortable.” His voice hurt from the activity.
Jess tilted her head to the side as she squinted. “Why would I be uncomfortable?”
Such an innocent question. For a moment, he saw her again as the little girl she so clearly wasn’t. “Maybe you have a boyfriend?” Last thing he wanted was to get into a zero-gravity fight with atrophied muscles over a girl entirely too trusting.
Jess snickered. “Boy, you have a lot to learn about our society.”
Thin braided vines floated out from the walls of her sleeping room. Her nimble fingers secured them to his waist. “These will keep you from floating away. Tomorrow, I’ll get you some clothes that will make life easier around here. But for now you need sleep. Real sleep, not some induced coma. I’ll be right here with you so you won’t feel alone.”
Her pretty face faded from his consciousness as everything suddenly turned black. It’d been six months since he’d slept, really slept, and it didn’t so much come peacefully as knock him over the head.
6
Waking up, Sam thought he was back in the computer core. His leg flexed but failed to move. A vine was wrapped loosely around his hand, and a cloud of soft, lavender-scented hair enveloped his face.
Jess. Her arm held him around the waist. The lightweight fabric of her shirt and pants floated with his grungy jumpsuit. The intimacy of the small sleeping pod soothed his initial fears.
Her sleepy voice came softly into his ear. “Good morning. I hope you don’t mind me here. When you passed out, I feared you might have relapsed into a coma. Even when it was clear you were just asleep, I didn’t want to be too far away.”
She reminded him of a mother not wanting to be out of physical contact with her newborn. In Sam’s present state, he welcomed her protectiveness.
“I’m just concerned I could get too used to this.” He’d never been smooth with women, and he really hoped he hadn’t offended her. But this early in the morning, his internal filters hadn’t kicked in to tell him he was being inappropriate.
She snuggled her face to his back. “Why would that be a problem? I like holding someone while I sleep.”
He wondered if he’d ever get used to that trusting innocence.
“Doc’s expecting you for breakfast,” she said. “And I have a new garden to transplant. But I’ll check in with you throughout the day. You can take a sponge bath in the next compartment, and there are some clothes in the bag at the end of the pod.”
Sam attempted to discreetly gauge how badly he stank from six months closed up in a technological coffin. To his only slight relief, he smelled more of disinfectant than body odor.
The couple eating breakfast with Doc left Sam wondering if there’d been a mistake. “Jess said you wanted to see me, but if I’m intruding, I can come back later.”
Doc waved his hand toward the table. “Just a couple of people I wanted you to meet. This little fella in the light-green pajamas is Yoshi. And the ravishing woman is his wife, Mira. I thought it’d be easier if all three of us helped explain our little experiment out here in space.”
The wrinkles around Yoshi’s eyes made it clear the smile seldom left his face. But it was Mira who captivated Sam’s attention. Her deep-set brown eyes locked into his, a look so penetrating he couldn’t turn away. Her long black hair disappeared behind the chair but not before it framed her amble breasts. If the couple had moved into the pod as adults, they had to be in their late forties to early fifties, but as with Jess, they didn’t look their age.
Without breaking eye contact, Mira reached out an arm, indicating Sam was to sit next to her. “Let me strap you in. Eating in a weightless environment can take some getting used to.”
Swimming had never been a strong sport for Sam. He proved even less graceful flailing around without even water to push against. Not the best first impression. The free-flowing outfit Jess had left for him didn’t help. The pajama-like garment fought his every movement in the weightless space.
Her long fingers worked the restraining vines around his waist and a little lower down the hip bone than he thought appropriate. “Don’t feel to
o self-conscious. Without gravity, little pesky things like crumbs and liquid want to wander aimlessly. The little ventilation filter at the edge of the table takes care of most messes.”
As she pulled back from him, her long hair caressed his arm.
Doc smiled as Sam blushed from the contact. “Mira’s field of study was primatology. A lot of what we’re trying to do out here is based on her research. But before she gets wound up about what’s wrong with humanity, there are a couple of items that might help. Or not.”
Sam tried to focus on Doc’s face, but from the corner of his eye he could still see Mira’s intense stare. From his history on Earth, he knew her attention should make him uncomfortable. But in this strange new society, he began to lose some of his long-held inhibitions. Smiling at the beautiful older woman elicited a nod of encouragement from her husband.
Doc continued. “We’re a sexually liberated society. My ancestral hippies would’ve called it free love, but the term implies that sex and love are connected. We see sex as lowering boundaries, and love is more than just a physical act. Secondly, we’re a female-dominated society.”
Mira’s eyes left Sam for the first time as she turned her head to Doc with such speed that her hair made a whirlwind about her face. “We dominate equally, Doc. You say things like that, and it sounds like we’re a society of Amazons. That’s not the intention.”
Doc smiled at what must have been a long-running discussion. “We’re all ears, Mira.”
The small woman puffed up her chest. Sam had no option but to admire her well-shaped breasts. Her eyes crinkled at the edges as she caught him looking. “I made an in-depth study of our nearest relatives, the common chimpanzee and the bonobo chimp.”
He’d once seen monkeys on a zoo field trip. They gave him the creeps—too much like little misshapen people. He took it personally when one threw poop at him. But he feared mentioning the incident and further damaging Mira’s impression of him. “I’m not familiar with the bonobo.”
Her smile warmed something inside him, as did any woman’s when he hit on a topic of conversation that stimulated her. “Not many people know about it. The Congo River separates the two species. But in spite of their close proximity to each other, they developed along very different paths.”
As he watched her get into her dissertation, Sam took a bite out of a ripe peach from the floating fruit basket. Juice squirted out in all directions but quickly got sucked down to the filter.
The granola bar in Mira’s hand didn’t look as if it would be eaten anytime soon. “The common chimp is easy to understand. Male dominated, aggressive, violent, power hungry, all characteristics human societies have shared with chimps since the dawn of civilization. But to quote Dr. de Waal in his book Bonobo, ‘The chimpanzee resolves sexual issues with power; the bonobo resolves power issues with sex.’”
Sam stopped mid-bite. “How do they manage that?”
Mira’s free hand came to rest on his arm. “Sexual equality. Though, as Doc pointed out, it can look more like female dominance to a male-dominated culture. Imagine if sex were used to ease all the social anxieties and arguments, to help tribal members bond, basically any interaction where tensions might be present.”
Sam snorted some peach juice through his nose. “Sure, sounds great. So long as my only problems are with women.”
Mira’s smile only touched half her face. “Well, the bonobo are less repressed than most humans. They perform almost any combination of sex acts you can imagine. It leaves them with empathy for others. Females aren’t as prone to certain tendencies as males, so social characteristics of ownership, aggression, and tribal mistrust are less of an issue. Female bonobos are more likely to form alliances than stake out territory. And as the competition for females is lessened in the males, the natural aggression and mistrust is also reduced. You might be surprised to find most of your inhibitions regarding homosexual activity stem from those basic animal reactions.”
“Must make for one hell of a population explosion.” Sam had trouble envisioning a society based on chimps.
Mira’s eyes didn’t leave his as she shook her head. “Not all sex is about copulation. For the bonobo, it’s not even all about orgasmic release. Our genitals are the most nerve-packed areas of our bodies. Pressing them to each other, stimulating them, displaying them are all ways of expressing acceptance.”
He had trouble looking her in the eye as she spoke so freely about sexual contact. In desperation, Sam turned to Doc. “So this is what you mean by a female-dominated—or rather, an equally dominated—society?”
Doc set his thermos of coffee into its restraining cup on the table. “The two chimpanzee species were our starting point. But like the bonobo, we knew we’d have to develop this different form of society in isolation. Exposed to the aggressive nature of life on Earth, such an experiment wouldn’t last long. War is always easier than peace.”
“Why not take the idea to its logical conclusion? Why have clothes at all? Wouldn’t a nudist colony make more sense if sex isn’t to be repressed?” Sam took in his companions’ flowing outfits for the first time. They were similar to the clothing Jess had given him. The garment fit loose about his chest, legs, and arms but cinched in close around his ankles, wrists, and waist. He’d thought of it as sleeping attire, but it appeared to be the regular uniform.
Yoshi played with the ties on Mira’s shirt. “Everyone likes opening packages. Sometimes that’s the best part of getting something new.”
Instead of swatting his hand away, she puffed out her chest, daring him to continue. To Sam’s slight disappointment, Yoshi declined the offer. “We wouldn’t want to distract Sam too much from our conversation.”
Doc smiled at the diminutive gardener. “Yoshi’s horticulture skills came later in life. Originally, he was a scholar of Earth’s religions. His insights on man’s struggle meshed nicely with Mira’s ideas on the bonobo.”
Wrinkles eased on Yoshi’s face, giving Sam his first glimpse of the dark-blue eyes that nestled inside the good humor. “Your Caucasian ancestors believed in the Judeo-Christian church?”
Sam nodded. “My parents still attend, though I haven’t since I was a kid.”
Yoshi took on the look of a sage as he put his fingertips together. “I’ve always been fond of the story of Adam and Eve. Not for all the normal dogmatic reasons the church uses to instill guilt in its members but for the very simple concept of being aware that they were naked.”
“So we wear clothes because we’re embarrassed—is that your point?” Sam asked.
Yoshi slowly shook his head. “Eating from the tree of knowledge informed them that they were exposed to each other. So they covered up. And all of mankind’s advances stem from that simple act.”
Sam took a long drink of coffee then set it down to stare hard at the small gardener. “Explain.”
The man’s mysterious smile reminded Sam of his father’s when he knew he’d just won a game of chess. “Any other human need couldn’t be restrained without doing harm to the body. Lack of food or water, the need for the body to perform its biological requirements, you can’t deny those things to an individual. But sex, that you can live without. It’s hormone driven, not something you can ignore, but you can live without performing the deed. So cover up what you desire.”
“Well, humanity wouldn’t last long without sex, but okay. On an individual level, I can see what you’re saying,” Sam said.
“You wonder what’s under that garment,” Yoshi said. “Curiosity. You try to envision what she looks like naked. Imagination. You come up with ways to get her out of those coverings. Creativity. Mankind can trace all of its development into the modern, space-traveling monkeys that we are back to that simple realization of our naked bodies.”
Doc looked at the two cocreators of his budding society. “We speculated that the more the sexual urge was repressed, the bigger the effects on a society. Too much repression resulted in aggression, a lust for power, and a general lack of
learning. Too little, and we end up sleeping, eating, and fucking all day.”
Yoshi tossed a sly wink at Doc, who nodded in reply. “And getting high. Take away all the normal fears and drives of any animal, and that’s pretty much where they end up: sleepy, satisfied, and stoned.”
Sam failed to control his laugh. “Doesn’t sound so bad to me.”
Mira lightly placed her hand on his thigh. The act came so naturally to her, and Sam again wondered at his lack of embarrassment by the obvious flirtation. “But without growth, without some betterment of humanity, what would we have to offer the future?”
Sam looked into her inviting deep-brown eyes. “Are you trying to offer something to the future? I had the impression this society wanted no part of the rest of human culture.”
Instead of being offended, she contemplated her granola bar for a moment. “For now. To build what we want may take a generation or two of isolation. We need the idea to sprout in our children. Then when they have their children, free of the remnants of a violent, selfish society, maybe we can return to Earth with something to offer.”
Doc nodded. “It’s still an experiment, Sam. Those of us who started this society are constantly dealing with our old human conditioning. Twenty years may sound like a long time, but Jess’s generation is just coming into its own. And there is a naïvety among them that we’re struggling with.”
Could it be that simple? Separate a group of people for a generation who devote themselves to the goal of better human interactions, and thus create a society free from all the old Earth repressions? “Why take me in? I know, Lev vouched for me. But why? What can I do here? Wouldn’t I just be infecting this society with that old conditioning?” Sam knew he had many failings, but ego wasn’t one of them.
Doc grew serious as his dark-blue eyes bored into Sam. “We can use you. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, everyone here has at least two jobs: one for our agriculture experiment and one to keep our little tribe together. For the first, Yoshi is always complaining he doesn’t have enough hands to tie the bamboo, redirect the lights, and manage the water flow that’s needed on a daily basis. Not terribly complicated work, but there is a great deal of fulfillment in seeing a living thing slowly take shape. As for the second, well, Lev thought you might serve us well as a shaman.”
