by James Gunn
“Why do the females treat you so poorly?” she asked.
“Life is never easy,” he said.
“Males are slaves?”
“That is the way it has always been.”
“It just got worse,” Asha said. “It is not just that the other males died. The females killed them all.”
The information took a moment to register, and then the Lemnian began to tremble. Asha placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him. “Why?” he asked.
“It was a moment of madness,” Asha said.
“The females are never mad,” the Lemnian said. “They can be mean and they can be cruel, but they always have reasons.”
“They say they received instructions from ancient gods,” Asha said.
“There are no gods,” the Lemnian said. “That’s what you told me.”
“If I am right,” Asha said, “they only seem like gods. They are powerful creatures from places beyond the world you know. But the females were confused. They thought the ancient gods had returned and had commanded them to kill the males.”
“From another world?” the Lemnian asked.
“You know about other worlds?”
“I have heard the females talk about ships that fly above the sky, about worlds like ours but different, with different kinds of people who live on them, even of organizations that govern the ways in which such worlds relate. But I have never seen such things. That is female business.”
“Not any longer, apparently.”
“You, too, are from another world.”
“Yes, and I have come here to find out why your females have forgotten everything they have learned about their world and its place in the universe.”
The Lemnian displayed the kind of helplessness that he had shown when Asha first encountered him. “If they have forgotten,” he said, “there is no hope for Lemnia. Only death and extinction.”
“That may be true,” Asha said, “and my task may be to determine how it happened and prevent it from happening to another world. But there is one possibility for Lemnian salvation.”
“What?”
“You,” Asha said.
“What can one worthless male do when the females have failed,” the Lemnian said.
“I don’t know,” Asha said, “but I’ll think of something. Meanwhile, rest and don’t worry. This female hasn’t failed yet.”
The Lemnian lay back and closed his eyes. After a few moments he seemed to have gone to sleep. “All right,” she said softly to the medallion, “what has been going on aboard the ship?”
“Adithya has left the ship and come to rescue you,” the Pedia said.
“That’s ridiculous!” Asha said. “Why didn’t they stop him?”
“Tordor tried, but Adithya insisted and Riley allowed him to have his way. The young human is impatient, and it may be that Riley thought action might make him wiser.”
Asha considered the long history of conflict between Latha’s group of Anons and Earth’s Pedia. “Now I will have to rescue Adithya as well.”
“Adithya has entered the city. On the ship Riley and Tordor are disputing who is responsible for making your task more difficult and whether they should proceed with actions to rescue you both.”
“They must do nothing yet,” Asha said, and then, to herself, “Males!,” before she recognized that she was committing the same mistake that she had ascribed to the female Lemnians.
* * *
Adithya had made his way only a couple of kilometers into the city when a squadron of Lemnians mounted on their oversized birds swooped down upon him, alerted, perhaps, by sightings of the ship’s landing but unintimidated by its appearance. There were seven of them, as there had been for Asha. Perhaps that was the standard squad for a Lemnian patrol or perhaps they were the same seven with responsibilities for dealing with aliens, gods, and demons. They surrounded Adithya. He thought of resisting, but they were sturdy and seemed athletic, and perhaps they would take him where he needed to be. They twittered among themselves. Adithya imagined they were telling each other that another stranger had appeared on their world, like the previous one but with a different shape. Perhaps this visitor was a god coming from the sky, they might be telling each other, but more likely a demon.
“They are discussing whether to kill you now,” his earring whisphered, “or wait and kill you later.”
They dragged Adithya to a bird and forced him to sit upon it until a Lemnian got on behind him and held him in place. She was strong. Adithya thought he could break away if necessary. He was slender but he had always been athletic, and life in Latha’s commune had involved labor as well as games and exercise. Still, he needed to go where Asha had been imprisoned, and his captors might be his best means to join her.
He was heavier than Asha, and the bird he was riding had difficulty getting airborne. Soon he was experiencing the same terrifying passage through the sky as Asha, only over city roofs and spires rather than countryside. In a few minutes, however, his flock landed on a tall building, the bird he was on staggering and almost falling as it came to a stop. If everything had gone as he hoped, it was the same building to which Asha had been brought. The oversized cages on the circumference of the roof seemed similar to the ones the Pedia had described and the sliding door and the steps down to a corridor as well, though these circumstances might have been the same on a number of buildings they had passed over in their flight.
He was shoved into a room, perhaps the same room that Asha had occupied, though he could not detect any evidence that she had been here. The door slid shut behind him. He was alone in a prison on an alien world, and he didn’t know what he should do next.
“Asha did not think this was a good idea,” the Pedia said from his earring, its uninflected words echoing strangely in this unlikely location. “It seems she was right.”
“For a thinking machine you are quick to make premature judgments.” Adithya had reached a truce with the Pedia, recognizing its part in enabling the investigation of a possible alien invasion, but he could not entirely rid himself of the animosities of a lifetime.
“Even a thinking machine must evaluate the possibilities of success,” the Pedia said. “But I am speaking for Asha. She has been informed that you are confined and instructs you to do nothing that will interfere with her plans.”
“And what are those plans?”
“She has not confided in me.”
“And until she does, I don’t know what interference means, and I must take whatever action seems appropriate,” Adithya said. “Open the door.”
“That does not seem consistent—”
“We don’t know what is consistent, do we? Open the door.” Adithya put his ear against the door. The door clicked and slid aside. He found himself facing a Lemnian, who was not happy to see him. She twittered at him as she pushed him back and followed him into the room. The door slid shut. She stood in front of him, her back to the door as if challenging him to get through her, glaring at him, her arms folded across her chest.
“What did she say?” Adithya asked.
“It may be unwise—” the Pedia began softly.
The Lemnian’s eyes focused on Adithya’s ear, as if she had heard something.
“We need information,” Adithya said. “It is a chance worth taking.”
“She is saying that you are a demon like the other, but you are worse because you seem to be a male, though she would like to make sure of that.”
“At least we know there is a connection with Asha,” Adithya said. “Maybe she is nearby.”
The Lemnian twittered at him and pointed at his ear.
“She wants to know what I am,” the Pedia said.
“Tell her you are my translation device.”
The earring twittered and fell silent. The Lemnian came forward, anger or distrust apparently put aside for the moment, and touched Adithya’s ear before grasping it in her hand as if she were going to tear it away. Adithya put his hand on top of hers, holding
it in place.
“Tell her,” he said, “that the translation device is a part of me, and that it would be dangerous for both of us if it were removed.”
A muffled twitter came from beneath the joined hands. Adithya felt the Lemnian’s hand loosen. He removed his hand. The Lemnian’s hand fell away, but Adithya noticed that it had lingered on his chest.
“Tell her,” Adithya said, “that I am neither god nor demon. I am a person, though of a different shape than persons here, and I have come to her world from the sky to bring help to her people.”
The earring twittered and the Lemnian responded. She had her arms folded across her chest again and her twitters seemed more measured.
“She says,” the Pedia reported, “that her people do not need any help. Particularly they do not need help from someone who is not a god or a demon but a male.”
“Tell her,” Adithya said, “that she is very attractive and that if the world was fair she would have a large and attractive family and become a leader among her people.”
* * *
The male Lemnian stirred and sat up without Asha’s help. He seemed startled to see her nearby, where she had been waiting patiently for his wakening, and then he seemed to remember what had happened. She had a bowl of gruel in her hands and started to feed him again, but he took the bowl and implement from her and began to feed himself. Clearly he was feeling better.
When he had finished, Asha said, “Now you must tell me how to send a message to the other Lemnians—the females.”
“I do not know what you mean by a ‘message,’” he said.
“Some communication other than speech,” Asha said.
“I know of none.”
“Some marks inscribed on a surface,” Asha said. “Disposable, like clothing, or permanent like glass or metal.”
“Sometimes I have seen the females drawing,” the Lemnian said, “but this is female business.”
“You have never learned to write?” Asha said. “Or to read?”
“I do not know what these words mean.”
Asha tried another approach. “If the females received a message from the ancient gods, how would it come?”
“There are no gods,” the Lemnian said.
“But if there were,” Asha persisted, “would the message come as a voice from the sky? Words from a box? Inscriptions on a surface?”
“There are no gods,” the Lemnian said again.
Asha heard some noise on the other side of the door. It sounded like a scuffle. A moment later the door slid open and Adithya was thrust into the room by two sturdy Lemnians. He was bruised, but he was smiling. “Hello, Asha,” he said.
The Lemnian guards glared at the three of them before they backed into the corridor and closed the door.
“Are you all right?” Asha asked. She was pleased to see him, but she did not want him to forget that he had ignored her instructions.
“I’m fine,” Adithya said cheerfully. “I thought the Lemnians might throw me in with you if I made a disturbance, and that’s how it worked out.”
“At least,” Asha admitted, “I don’t have to find you.”
“Nor I you,” Adithya said.
Adithya was assuming an equality of judgment that Asha didn’t think was justified by his age or experience, but she decided that was an issue for another time. “I have found out everything I’m going to discover in these circumstances,” she said. “Apparently these Lemnians were invaded some long-cycles ago, by creatures they couldn’t understand so they considered them gods, and the invaders told them to kill the males.”
“An unusual tactic for invaders,” Adithya said.
“But an efficient way to wipe out a people in a generation or two,” Asha said. “Neat, too, without the need to dispose of bodies.”
“But that doesn’t seem to fit the other two situations we’ve seen,” Adithya said.
“No,” Asha admitted, “and for that reason I think the message, if it was a message, was misinterpreted, that the invaders affect the dominant species on each world in different ways, depending on the physiology and culture of each species, as if they are implanting mental toxins tailored to each situation. In some instances it is fatal. In others it wipes out higher mental functions. In still others, it eliminates cultural memories and implants instructions leading to species suicide.”
“Unless that part is a mistake,” Adithya said.
“Yes,” Asha said.
“So you have learned something important,” Adithya said. “And we can leave without feeling that the investigation has been a failure.”
“That’s true,” Asha said and felt pleased that Adithya had felt the need to support her work here. It showed a level of maturity that she had not noticed in him before. “But I would like to do something to help the Lemnians and this particular Lemnian.” She indicated the male who had been watching each of them in turn, as if he were trying to learn their language. “He’s had a bad experience and a worse one awaits, and a better treatment might mean survival for the Lemnian species.”
“How were you going to do that?”
“I was planning to leave a message for the Lemnians,” Asha said. “As if it were from the gods who instructed them to kill the males. Telling them that they had done wrong and that they had to respect the male and treat him properly.”
“Then why don’t you?”Adithya asked.
“I don’t know how,” Asha said.
“As for that,” Adithya said, “the Lemnians have a kind of electronic communication system, the sort of thing that is essential to a technological civilization, though the Lemnians have forgotten how to maintain it or that they built it in the first place. That’s why they have reverted to using the birds for transportation. And that’s how the so-called gods delivered their revelation. The Pedia ought to be able to figure it out.”
“How do you know this?” Asha asked.
“There was a guard—” Adithya began.
“Never mind,” Asha said. She turned to the Lemnian and twittered at him. “We’re going to leave here in a few moments, but the females will treat you better if you insist upon your rights. Make them teach you and your male offspring to read and write. After all, you are going to be the father of your people.”
She lifted the medallion from her chest. “Inform Riley where we are located, and that we will meet him on the roof in fifteen minutes,” she said.
Adithya looked at her with respect. “Fifteen minutes?”
Asha did not reply. She placed the medallion against the door. When it clicked and slid open, she took the surprised guards by their throats and pulled them into the room, knocked aside their raised arms, and struck each across the side of the neck with the stiffened palm of her hands. The blows were as effective on Lemnians as they would have been on humans. They dropped unconscious to the floor. Asha pulled each one to the side of the table on which the male Lemnian was sitting, astonished and aghast.
“When they wake,” Asha twittered at him, “tell them the gods have appointed you their savior, and good luck with everything. Now it’s up to you.”
She nodded to Adithya. They ran down the corridor, up the stairs, and out the sliding door onto the roof. Asha found a metal bar to prop the door shut, just as the red sphere descended, shattering some of the cages and freeing big, startled birds to flutter into the sky.
Asha and Adithya pushed their way into the ship. Riley took Asha in his arms. “Welcome back,” he said, and then he gave his hand to Adithya. “You too.”
“We’ve got to send a message to the Lemnians,” Asha said.
“I know,” Riley said.
“The Pedia told us,” Tordor said. “It already has its means of transmission established.”
Asha turned to Adithya. “But you shouldn’t have come.”
“As for that,” Adithya said, “I have something else for you.”
“What?”
“The message the ancient gods sent.”
“How—�
�� Asha begin.
“There was this guard—” Adithya began.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Once the ship was beyond the atmosphere of Lemnia and on its way out of the Lemnian solar system headed toward a nexus point, Asha filled in the details of her encounters with the militant Lemnian females, their disposal of the Lemnian males, who had always, it seemed, been regarded as mere sperm donors, and their discovery and mistreatment of a single male.
“What happened on Lemnia,” Asha said, “was a consequence of the Lemnian evolutionary path and its subsequent cultural development. The attack by whatever is causing these widespread symptoms focused on a Lemnian weak point, by accident or intent, wiping out memories of recent Lemnian history, including its entry into space and contact with the Federation. The Lemnians reverted to earlier supernatural explanations, and a state of mind was created for a ‘revelation,’ whatever it was, to be interpreted as a command from ancient gods to kill all the males.”
“The revelation seems to have been a message,” Adithya said.
“And how do you know that?” Riley asked.
“A guard told me.”
“Why would a guard tell you anything?” Tordor asked. “Or could, since you didn’t speak or understand Lemnian.”
“There are other ways to communicate,” Adithya said. “And I had the Pedia to translate for me.”
It was the first time he had said something good about the Pedia, and Asha considered that a sign of better working conditions. “You mean she found you attractive?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“You are a good-looking man,” Asha said, “but you were a human and she was a Lemnian.”
“But I am male,” Adithya said, “and she was female.”
“In the unlikely circumstance of cross-species attraction,” Asha said, “there is the additional handicap on Lemnia of female dominance and male extermination.”
“That only made our situation more intense,” Adithya said. “Intensity sometimes enhances attraction.”
“Attraction?” Asha said.
“You mean you had sexual relations with a Lemnian?” Riley said.
