by Nora Olsen
“I can hear you, you know,” Salmon Jo said, without opening her eyes.
Chapter Nineteen
The Barbarous woman had arrived in a little red cart pulled by an animal. Salmon Jo sat in the cart with the Barbarous woman and their bags, while Rubric and Dream walked behind it. The animal—it looked like a small horse, but with long ears like a rabbit—wasn’t very fast, but Rubric and Dream did have to walk quickly to keep up with it. Its hooves kicked up dust that went right up Rubric’s nostrils, even if she pulled her collar up over her nose. The journey seemed to take forever, and Rubric was dead tired by the time they reached their destination. She barely took in any impression of the village.
The Barbarous woman had introduced herself as Theodorica, and Rubric supposed it was her house they went to. Like the other buildings they had passed, it had incredibly thick walls that seemed to be made of mud, and a low roof with grass and flowers growing on the top.
Rubric had to help Salmon Jo out of the cart. “That was a bumpy ride. Someone needs to pave that road. That quadruped is called a molly,” Salmon Jo added, proving that the seizure hadn’t stopped Salmon Jo’s unquenchable thirst to classify everything she saw.
“Welcome to my home,” Theodorica said and made a spiraling gesture with her hands. She said it in a very formal way, and Rubric couldn’t tell if she really meant it. “I hope you will enjoy a good night’s rest here.”
“Salmon Jo and I have a tent,” Rubric said. “We can sleep outside.” She just wasn’t ready to sleep in a Barbarous house.
“That is fortunate,” Theodorica said. “I have to stable the molly. Would you like to bathe, Salmon Jo? You’ve been through a lot.”
“Yes, please.”
“You others are welcome to bathe as well, but I must ask you not to use too much hot water. We have only a very limited amount. Perhaps you can share the same bathwater?”
What a stingy offer, Rubric thought. “No, thank you,” she said. She did not want to be beholden to the Barbarous Ones for anything, not even some hot water.
She set up the tent while Salmon Jo took a bath, and Dream helped Theodorica with the molly. An urgent need led Rubric to the composting toilet, which was in a small outbuilding. It didn’t foam like the composting toilets at home; she had to throw sawdust into the toilet. Rubric was pleased she had figured out the strange system and also pleased it didn’t smell.
Salmon Jo was stretched out in the tent when Rubric returned. Now that Rubric had peed, a new need that had been masked by the other surged to the fore: she was terribly thirsty. She didn’t want to go into Theodorica’s house, but she didn’t think she could wait until morning for a drink.
“Salmon Jo, where’s the kitchen in that house?”
“It’s all the way at the back,” Salmon Jo murmured. “Theodorica gave me an apple, that’s how I know. But there’s a back door.”
That was exactly what Rubric needed to know. She first searched in vain for a well, which she imagined primitive people would have, and then headed for the back door.
Inside, the kitchen was dark, cool, and surprisingly spacious. A jug of water and some earthenware cups sat enticingly right on the table. Rubric poured a cup, downed it immediately, then poured another.
A shuffling noise made her look up. At the other end of the kitchen, by the unlit woodstove, was a rocking chair. In the chair sat what could only be a Cretinous Male. It was so foreign and repulsive looking that Rubric started, splashing water all over her feet.
The Cretinous Male was taller and broader than any person Rubric had ever seen. It seemed poorly constructed, as though it had no hips or waist. Its cheeks were covered with dark, forbidding stubble. She could see more hair peeking out of the top of its tunic. Even its hands and knuckles seemed to be covered with the bristling hairs. And look—there were hairs in its revoltingly large nose. The throat had some kind of lump in it, like a tumor. In one hand it clutched a toy. The Cretinous Male was staring at her with bright, curious eyes. It shook the toy, which made a jingling noise. Suddenly, the Cretinous Male laughed.
Rubric shuddered and took a step back. The thing that terrified her most was the deep timbre of that laugh. The laugh sounded violent, strong, and—of course—completely cretinous.
The back door opened behind her. Rubric heard Theodorica’s voice, but she was too afraid to take her eyes off the Male.
“I see you’ve met my son, Branknor. Branknor, this is Rubric. Can you say hello?”
“Huh-lo!” Branknor boomed.
Rubric knew it was rude, but she couldn’t help herself. She turned and shoved past Theodorica. The door banged shut behind her. In her agitation, she dropped the cup onto the grass as she ran past the house. In one fluid movement she unzipped the tent and dove inside. With shaking fingers she closed the tent behind her.
“There’s a Cretinous Male in the house,” she hissed.
“What? Where?”
“It’s lurking in the kitchen.”
“Wow, I’ve gotta see this,” Salmon Jo said. “That’s amazing!”
“Salmon Jo, wait. Don’t go in there. It’s really scary!”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “And I think they’re called he.”
Rubric left the flashlight on. There was no way she could sleep in the dark, knowing Branknor was in that house only a few yards away. How many others like him were there in this town of horror? She waited and waited for Salmon Jo. She took the longest time, and when she finally came back, her only comment was, “Cool!”
Chapter Twenty
Rubric and Salmon Jo sat on the grass in front of Theodorica’s house, eating some kind of porridge for breakfast. Rubric didn’t want to go into the house, but Dream was in there, helping Theodorica with some menial task.
“If you’re feeling well enough, let’s leave right after breakfast,” Rubric said. “This whole place gives me the creeps.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready to face the fence again so soon,” Salmon Jo said. “And aren’t you even a little bit curious about the Land of the Barbarous Ones?”
Theodorica’s house had seemed so isolated and rural, but women were passing by on the dirt road all the time. Now a pretty girl with short red hair was running up to the house. She had a wild look in her eyes.
“Dream?” she asked, reaching for Rubric. She looked like she was about to kiss her.
“No, no, no,” Rubric and Salmon Jo yelled. “She’s in there!”
The girl ran toward the house, shouting Dream’s name.
“Prospect!” Dream ran out, flinging porridge from a wooden bowl as she threw her arms around the young woman. They began to hug and kiss and laugh and murmur to each other. Theodorica came out of the kitchen too, to see what was going on. Dream was standing in her porridge and grinding it into the grass as she stood on tiptoe to kiss the taller girl.
Theodorica walked up to them, her lined face split by a smile, and swatted them with a dish towel. “Go inside, young lovers. You can have your tender reunion in my sitting room.” The girls went inside, still glued to each other. Theodorica came and sat down beside Rubric and Salmon Jo.
She started explaining something about how she was responsible for their welfare because she had been the first to find them after they crossed the fence. But Rubric stopped listening when she caught sight of two women walking down the street. One had her arm around the other’s back, supporting her because she was hugely…pregnant. It was the most obscene thing Rubric had ever seen. The woman was wearing a tunic that rose up on her swollen, distended belly. Her skin was stretched tight over her lump of a tummy. It looked like she had swallowed a giant pumpkin, one that might suddenly explode out. Rubric tore her eyes from the woman’s belly to look at her face. How could she look so proud and happy when she was using her own body as a gestation tank? Rubric wasn’t sure which was more repulsive, the Cretinous Male or this pregnant woman. She deeply regretted the chain of events that had led her to come to this bizarre village.
&nb
sp; “Does everyone who lives in your land have to become pregnant?” Rubric blurted out.
Theodorica smiled. “Your people have many myths about my people. No one who lives here is forced to bear a child. But to us, this is the greatest fulfillment a woman can ever have. It is the cornerstone of our communities and our spiritual beliefs. We have a strict replacement policy, to control our population, with the result that not everyone who wants to become implanted with an embryo may do so.”
Rubric was just staggered that women would be vying to get pregnant, the most disgusting thing in the universe. The Barbarous Ones were as Barbarous as described.
“Excuse me, Panna Theodorica,” Rubric said. “But you say implanted with embryos. Does that mean no one has to mate with the Cretinous Males?”
Theodorica’s face darkened. “Rubric,” she said, “I know you just arrived in our land, and you know no better. But the first and most important thing you need to know is we do not call our Sons Cretinous Males. That is a degrading and rude name. When you want to refer to them, you must call them the Sons.”
“I’m sorry,” Rubric said. But she didn’t feel sorry.
“No one mates with our Sons,” Theodorica said. “They are in a protected class, like children. I understand that even in your own slave-owning land there are taboos of that kind.”
“Of course,” Rubric said.
“You will learn the ways of Society,” Theodorica said in a softer tone.
“Of what?”
“Society. That’s what our country is called.”
“But my country is called Society,” Rubric spluttered. “Your country is called—” She stopped. The Barbarous Ones would hardly describe themselves as barbarous, no matter how true it was.
“We call your country the Land of Our Slave-Owning Neighbors,” Theodorica said.
Rubric thought it was thicko to have two countries both named Society. She resolved to keep on calling this place the Land of the Barbarous Ones.
“We are not so different,” Theodorica said. “Reflect that we all speak the same language.”
Salmon Jo shrugged. “Doesn’t everyone?”
Actually, Rubric thought Theodorica spoke a little bit oddly, but she was too polite to point it out.
“No, my dear Salmon Jo. On this vast planet, there are many languages, many ways, many customs.”
Rubric and Salmon Jo glanced uneasily at each other. There were more people out there besides the Barbarous Ones?
“I know the size of our planet from studying astronomy, but I thought it was only us left,” Salmon Jo said. “No one ever said anything about a land other than ours and the Land of the Barbarous Ones. I thought the human race had died out in all the other places, with the advent of cret—with, you know. The mitochondrial disorder your Sons have.”
Theodorica laughed heartily. “No, there are pockets of humanity all around the globe. But don’t be ashamed of your ignorance. You were deliberately kept in the dark about so much. Here, you can learn, now that you are no longer enslaved, forced to labor for cruel, selfish aristos.”
“Actually, we weren’t Klons,” Salmon Jo said awkwardly. “We were the cruel, selfish—I mean, we were designated human.”
There was a silence. “Indeed? Why, then, are you here?”
“Because we were freeing Klons. Dream is the first one we freed, and she wanted to come here.”
“To be frank, I am a little alarmed by what you say,” said Theodorica. “We are happy to help escaped slaves because we feel compassion for them, but I don’t like the idea of disenchanted aristos coming too. I’m not sure we can absorb many of you. Why can’t you stay home and fix your own country?”
“We’re not staying long,” Rubric said. “We only wanted to escort Dream here.”
“I am curious to learn about the Cretinous Males and the biology of how you grow fetuses in yourselves instead of tanks,” Salmon Jo said in a rush. “I would love to find out more while I’m here, if you don’t mind, Theodorica.”
She stared. “You plan to cross the Barrier again?”
“Well, yes. Is there any other way?”
“No, there is no other way. But, Salmon Jo, perhaps you do not realize that those who have seizures once when they cross the Barrier will most likely have them again if they repeat the experience.”
Rubric’s heart sank. She didn’t think she could watch Salmon Jo go through that again.
“Would I…?” Salmon Jo faltered. “Is that, is that guaranteed?”
“I can’t say that,” Theodorica said slowly. “But it’s happened enough times that I can’t recommend that anyone who’s had a seizure should ever cross again. We have too much experience with seizures here, as many of our Sons have them. You must know there are times when the outcome of a seizure can be fatal.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Prospect had taken Dream away with her to her home in Hot Buttered Toast Town, a nearby village made up entirely of former Klons. But Rubric and Salmon Jo stayed at Theodorica’s. The following morning, Rubric and Salmon Jo were awoken by Theodorica, rapping on their tent poles with a stick. She had come to bring them to work picking apples. She didn’t explain why they had to do this. “It’s better to get it done before the full heat of the day,” was all she said.
The girls sleepily followed Theodorica down a dusty road. Many other women and some Cretinous Males joined them. Their walk ended in a lush orchard. The apple trees were surrounded by beds of flowers, mostly past their prime and wilted, as well as herbs and other plants. A few women were picking from ladders, but most people were just walking around plucking apples and placing them in woven baskets. Some women were leading children and Cretinous Males by the hand. The Cretinous Male children were less disturbing to Rubric than the adults. They looked almost exactly like girls, without the hairiness, gigantism, and strange anatomy that characterized the adults. Most of the male children had spacey expressions or walked with difficulty. Some were in pushchairs. But others were running around, and Rubric only knew they were males by the fact that their hair was unbraided and they wore the same peaked visors as grown males.
Rubric was surprised to see Dream and Prospect arrive, and she made her way over to them.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “I thought you went to Hot Buttered Toast Town.”
“We did,” Prospect said. “The two towns share this orchard.”
Dream stared about her at the orchard. Rubric could almost see her comparing it to the toast trees of legend.
“I picked enough fruit already,” she said. “What’s the difference between here and home if I have to pick fruit?”
“Here no one lies idle while others toil for them,” Prospect said.
Dream pointed wordlessly at a group of Cretinous Males of all ages lying in the shade, staring at the sky while women fanned them. “They don’t eat apples?”
“Okay, everyone who can must pick apples,” Prospect amended. “Look at it this way. If we don’t pick apples, we have no fruit to eat all winter. Besides, we just work for a few hours a day here. It’s a snap.”
“Fine,” Dream said and started picking.
Rubric began to pick apples. Picking one apple was easy, but keeping on doing it was hard work. Dream and Prospect were like apple-picking machines, filling their baskets twice as fast as Rubric. Beside her was a woman with a teenaged Cretinous Male, probably her son. He picked apples very slowly and kept dropping them, or laughing at nothing. His mother kept rubbing his back and telling him what a great job he was doing. When he laughed, sometimes she did too. Clearly all these people were insane.
Salmon Jo came over to join Rubric. She looked flushed and happy.
“I am so pleased with myself,” Salmon Jo said. “I’ve never done anything like this before. This might be better than running!”
“Maybe you should be taking it easy today,” Rubric suggested.
“Actually, I feel great. Guess what, Theodorica was telling me why there are
all these other plants around the trees. The flowers attract bees, and there’s a kind of plant called artichoke that provides soil-building mulch. She says artichokes are tasty. The Barbarous Ones are trying to create a natural ecosystem in their orchards.”
“Fascinating,” Rubric said flatly. “You may feel great, but I’m sick of this.” She sat down under the tree where Dream and Prospect were working. She folded her tired arms.
Dream laughed at her. “We just barely got started! I bet Theodorica is sorry she got stuck with two lazy Pannas who are allergic to working. Have you even lifted a finger to help her with her chores?”
Then everyone started talking at once.
“They’re Pannas?” said Prospect, taking a step back. “Are you kidding me?”
“I’m not lazy,” Salmon Jo said. “I’m very energetic. I worked in the Hatchery. They must have some primitive lab here to create the embryos. I could work there. And Rubric is an artist. She could make this town a little nicer looking. Even I can see it could use a little something.”
“They’re okay,” Dream told Prospect. “I wouldn’t have been able to escape without them and their electric bikes. They want to be mutinous renegades or something.”
“I never thought I would have to look at Pannas again,” Prospect said. “And I thought if I did, it would only be to spit on them.”
That was too much for Rubric. “Well, don’t spit on me. That’s thicko. And, Salmon Jo, we’re going to be leaving soon. You’re not going to have time to work in their lab.”
“How is it going to help Theodorica if you work in a lab?” Dream asked.
“Hmm,” said Salmon Jo. “Good point. I don’t know how to do chores, though.”
Dream laughed. “It’s not that hard. You might be smart enough to learn. You would have to be better at it than the Cretinous Male. While I was there, I saw her Son mixing a bowl of fruit salad. He’s a menace to fruit everywhere. Theodorica could have done it twice as fast if she’d done it herself without him, ’cause she had to help him every minute. And then she was telling him what a good job he did!”
