Six Moon Dance (64 page)

“So you accept the system?”

She frowned. “As D’Jevier pointed out to me, the population is generally healthy, the lifespan is long, the average intelligence is rising. I would recommend corrective action, not punishment.”

“Ah,” murmured Mouche. “I’m glad of that.”

Questioner gave him a very direct and imperious look. “All this is purely argumentative, however, for my decision to sterilize this planet is based upon the fact that the Hags are doing away with half the girl babies born on this world. Believe me, that is all I need to decide as I have done.”

She kept her eyes on him, waiting for a reaction. She’d anticipated his being shocked by this, but he showed no evidence of surprise.

“Oh, is that so?” he asked, raising his eyebrows only slightly.

“That’s an odd reaction!”

“Well, Questy … may I call you Questy? Ma’am seems so … formal. As I’ve said a time or two, what Flowing Green knew, I know. And Flowing Green knew everything there was to know that could be found out listening and watching through holes in the wall. When did you learn of this?”

She said in an exasperated voice, “I’ve known there was something out of line almost from the first. The actions of this alleged virus seemed entirely too dependent upon where one had one’s children and what family one came from. Calvy has eight, four boys, four girls. Marool Mantelby was one of eight daughters. Both Marool’s mother and Carezza bore their children at home. It became glaringly obvious that the Hags were keeping tight control on the woman supply in order to remain in power, and that some men like Calvy, who had figured it out, were letting them do it.”

“You think staying in power is why they do it?”

“That’s usually the reason for arbitrary cruelty.”

“You think it’s cruel?”

“Don’t you?” she cried, stung.

“Do you know what happens to the babies?”

“They do away with them! I said as much to the Hags, there at the Fauxi-dizalonz, and they didn’t deny it. Not even when your friend Madame begged them to.”

He reached forward to lay his hand on her own, just for a moment, stroke. “They didn’t deny what you said, which is true. But they didn’t understand what you
meant
by it. You meant by ‘done away with’ that the babies are killed.”

“Of course,” she cried. “What else?”

“Everything else! They’re put in stasis and sent off planet, to newly settled worlds where women are in short supply and where every little girl will be very much valued and honored. As they are here. The Hags exact a good price for them, and the profits support old women here on Newholme who could be in great need otherwise.”

Questioner found herself momentarily speechless. She had never considered any other outcome than death. She had assumed … she who had long ago learned never to assume. She sat for a long moment silent before whispering, “Why didn’t they explain?”

“Because you were angry, and you told them not to attempt explanation.”

“By all the follies of Flagia, why did I assume they killed the babies?”

“Because of your own suffering children who were killed,” murmured Mouche. “You were angry on their behalf. Madame says when we focus on our anger, our vision begins to constrict. Soon we are caught up in fury, and we turn it upon everyone.”

She complained, “But the Hags didn’t have to choose that way of doing things. Surely there’s a better solution!”

“If you can suggest one, I know they’d be happy to hear it. They aren’t monsters, Questy. They’re the descendants of the cultural historians on the second ship, and their ancestresses knew very well that surpluses breed contempt. Too many of anything reduces the honor in which it is held: too many men, too many women, too many children, too many people.

“The Hags saw their duty as taking care of women, and they did it. There’s no female prostitution or slavery on Newholme. There are no poor elderly widows. There are no poor, unwed mothers. If I were calling the game, I’d call that a trump card.” He took up the card from one side of his hand, the ten of love, and laid it face up on the table.

Questioner frowned at the table, spreading her own hand, face up. Not a love card among them. Only shovels and clubs, labor and management. Duty and efficiency. Her life. “An artificial shortage surely isn’t what Harald-son had in mind—”

Mouche interrupted her. “I know. I thought you’d say that. But I’ve been talking to Calvy. He’s one of the few men on Newholme who actually reads the COW journals, including your reports. He told me to remind you about Beltran Four.”

“Beltran Four!”

“Miran.”

“It’s a very warlike planet.”

“Many fewer men than women?”

“Yes. Because so many men are killed in the battles.”

“And the warrior elite keep the battles going. For honor. For reputation. For rapine.”

She said reluctantly, “Yes.”

“And did you sterilize all mankind on Beltran Four? Because half their young men are slaughtered in battle?”

She frowned at him. “Calvy told you to ask me this.”

“He did. He said he’d been following your career for some decades, reading your recommendations and the reports you’d made to COW. He said to ask you which was worse, slaughtering half the young men in battles, or selling half the girl babies to planets where they’ll be appreciated? On Beltran Four, a male hierarchy guarantees that they will have their choice of women. On Newholme, a female hierarchy guarantees that women will have a choice of men. In both cases, the surplus is eliminated, but here, at least, no one dies.”

He turned up the jack of love and laid it beside the ten. “Another point for Newholme, Questy?”

Questioner shifted uncomfortably. When she had assessed Beltran Four a quarter-century before, she had not recommended any punishment. What went on there was all too common. Though Haraldson had hated war, he had known it would happen. War was natural. Men being killed in war was natural. Why was this situation worse? She had no sooner thought the question than Mouche answered it.

“You’re holding women to a higher standard than men,” he said. “Madame used to tell us that this is traditional, for men have usually been the judges, and they put women either in the gutter or upon a pedestal. Men have traditionally forgiven one another, for they know and excuse their own failings, but they do not forgive women for falling off the pedestal.”

She thought, of course, and of course. For a woman to be respected she must burn on a pyre like M’Tafa, be immured in solitude like Mathilla, submit to being buried alive like Tiu; for a woman to be respected, she must take the pain of life without demanding the joys, she must sacrifice herself, preferably without complaint. She may have no pleasure except what she is granted by father, or husband, or son. Damn Calvy!

“Are you finished with your argument?” she asked, her voice giving no indication of yielding.

“Not yet,” he said, taking a deep breath, for there was more at stake here than she knew. “I have the Kaorugi card to play.”

“Which is?”

“Will you agree that Kaorugi is a lifeform?”

“Kaorugi is a lifeform, certainly.”

“And will you agree that Haraldson’s edicts prohibit the torture or harassment of lifeforms?”

“I agree. I’m not intending to interfere with Kaorugi or any of its subparts. Quite the contrary.”

“Ah, but Bofusdiaga says you are. All his life until Quaggima, Kaorugi was singular and alone. Then Quaggima came, and Kaorugi had a companion. He delighted in that companionship, strange though it was. Then mankind came, and Kaorugi had still other creatures to learn about and from. He learned new feelings: vanity, pride, ecstacy, disgust—a whole volume of emotions.

“Now Quaggima is gone. It’s partly due to you that he’s gone, you know; you helped take him away, and you’ve left Kaorugi, who is virtually immortal, with mankind only. If you sterilize the planet of all mankind, Kaorugi will be sentenced to solitary confinement. Kaorugi doesn’t want that. So, if you take away mankind, you are torturing Kaorugi.”

He turned up the queen of love, laying it next to the jack and ten. “The Kaorugi card.”

“And that’s why I should change my mind?” she cried. “I should evade my duty so Kaorugi can have some company and learn more about the universe?”

“Not only for that, also because Haraldson would not approve of your interfering with the lifeform on this planet,” Mouche murmured. He hadn’t said all he could have said about the lifeform on the planet. If Questioner insisted on sterilization and managed somehow to get off planet to do it, Bofusdiaga would not let mankind die. They would become something else, of course. Rather as Mouche had become, though without some of the elements that had made that becoming successful, assuming it was successful. It would not necessarily be a bad thing or bad in all cases, but still that part of Mouche that was purely mankind preferred that his people be allowed to choose what they would be.

“You seem to have innumerable arguments,” she said in a grumpy voice.

“Not innumerable, no. I have played all my cards but two.”

“Well, play them,” she said impatiently. “Get on with it.”

“This is one you should like, Questy. Now that your political appointees are out of your hair, not that they were ever any good to you, you should demand the liberty of choosing your own aides. Competent ones. People who will work with you.”

“Competent aides,” she murmured, intrigued despite herself. “I must admit, that has its attractions. Could I possibly have a competent ship’s crew, as well?”

“We could work on that. Ornery might be just the person to assure it. We, that is Ellin and Bao and Ornery and I, would like to be your aides, Questy. We’ve held off discussing it with you, for there’s been a lot to think about, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. Ellin can’t go back to History House, she’s beyond that, and so is Bao. Ornery needs wider seas than the ones she’s been traveling, and I can’t be a planetbound Consort now. I know too much. I’ve seen too much, felt too much. I can’t do it even by serving my Hagion, for the Hagion I served is part of me, and that part of me isn’t interested in an eternity of Consorthood on Newholme….”

“An eternity?”

He bit his lip. He hadn’t been going to mention that just yet. “So it seems. We’ve been through the Fauxidizalonz, Questy. We could still perish, far from here and unable to return, but if no accident catches up with us, and if we get back here to Newholme every few hundred years or so, we’re in for a very long haul. It might be nice for you to have some friends who remember when you were only a youngster, two or three hundred years old.”

She stared, open-mouthed, as he placed the king beside the queen.

“Besides,” he said, “Kaorugi wants the four of us to go with you, for then, at intervals, when we return to the Fauxi-dizalonz, Kaorugi will experience the whole galaxy, or as much of it as we have seen in the interim.”

“So you have it all figured out,” she said helplessly.

“All four or five of us have figured it out. You offer me and Ornery and Ellin and Bao adventure and exploration, we, including Flowing Green, offer you comradeship—and another point of view, which is always valuable.”

“I’m not sure my life is that adventurous. You may get the short end of the deal.”

“Well then, even the score. Give us something we all want. Approve of Newholme, as it is. Let our friends and families alone. No sterilization.”

“You’re trying to suborn me.”

He swallowed a sigh. Kaorugi preferred the presence of independent, alien creatures, but if Kaorugi could not have that, Kaorugi would have something else. Kaorugi did not like what it had learned of the sterilization order. Kaorugi felt, as had been foreseen, that justice was simply the last straw, but the Timmy part of Mouche would not let him speak of that. The Timmy part of him would not allow Kaorugi’s contingency plans to be forestalled.

Well, if Questioner were to be moved, it had to be with eloquence. Or …

“I’m trying to convince you, Questioner. Why not just agree?”

“Because,” she said angrily, “I was created for a purpose, and I feel my purpose is being undermined here.”

Or …

He fingered the last card in his hand. The ace of love. “Is that really what you feel?”

She fumed. She wasn’t sure what she felt. Sadness, certainly. And anger. She muttered, “You’re probably right about my feelings, coming from what I know about the three children. The buffers were there for a reason, and I shouldn’t have gone around them.”

“It’s not only the three children,” Mouche murmured. “The council loads you down with work, then saddles you with incompetent people and still expects you to work miracles.”

“While constantly cutting my budget,” she said furiously. “They even interfere with my technical support. That’s why I couldn’t get in touch with the ship when I needed to! Parts failure! That idiot! Can you believe that?”

He did not believe it. Flowing Green knew there had been no failure of parts, only Bofusdiaga, determined to give them no alternative to solving the Quaggian dilemma. Not even Flowing Green knew the extent of what Bofusdiaga could do.

Focus, Mouche told himself. As Madame had always said, Focus!

“Part of it is that you work very hard, and no one really appreciates what you do,” he said softly, moving his chair a bit closer to hers.

“I was designed for it,” she sniffed. “But it is hard, yes. I’m human enough to feel that.”

“Of course you feel it. You must get terribly annoyed.”

“It’s what I was created for,” she said less forcefully. “But none of us like to feel our efforts are wasted….”

“True. And even when we know our efforts aren’t wasted, we like to be appreciated.”

“Yes,” she admitted, almost in a murmur. “It would be nice.”

“I admire you so greatly,” he said. “We all do.”

“Really?” She laughed, rather sadly. “That’s something new.”

“You aren’t admired by the members of the council?”

“By and large they treat me like a computer. It’s understandable, I suppose.”

“They disregard your humanity, because it makes them feel uncomfortable, I imagine.” He put his hand on top of her own. “It probably surpasses their own. But we … I think of you as a friend. And I’m honoring myself when I give you that title.”