Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19 (26 page)

 
          
Dal
laid a hand on his shoulder. He said, with
a warmth
that astonished Cendri, "Rhu, my friend—look at me." Cendri could not
see his hands; he kept them out of sight; but she guessed quickly at the
gesture as he said softly, "You were not born in chains—"

 
          
Rhu
looked, in terror, at Cendri. He said, "No, no—not here—"

 
          
Dal
was motionless for a moment. He said, "Cendri is not—" then sighed.
"Very well.
When we arrive at the
Residence, if you wish."

           
Shocked and hurt by this mark of
distrust, Cendri realized she should have known it all along. Dal had a mission
here which had nothing to do with the Ruins.

 
          
I
knew it, that day when the fugitive Bak was caught_____

 
          
This
is against
the laws of the Unity!
she
thought,
then berated herself as naive. Who but the Unity could have sent Dal on such a
mission, primed with the passwords he would need? So much, she thought
wrathfully, for the University code of ethics, of noninterference in the basic
codes of a society!

 
          
Are
they
going to interfere in
the Matharchate, try to twist it their
way?
She wondered how Dal could stoop to this—to entangle himself in Unity
politics. Dal was a scientist! The ethics of a Scholar of University should
certainly supersede the political struggles of the Unity!
Isis
had a right to structure their society in
their own way! How could the Unity dare to send agents dedicated to destroying
it, altering it, arbitrarily, to fit Unity standards?

 
          
She
turned away, afraid that Dal could see the anger in her face, relieved as the
car drew to a halt and Rhu said, "This is the Residence of the
pro-Matriarch Mahala."

 
          
It
was, in its own way, as imposing a dwelling as Vaniya's home, although
longer,
lower, all on one floor. There were wide lawns and
flower and herb gardens, shrubbery and playgrounds where a group of half-naked
children were playing. The walls were decorated with murals, as usual on Isis,
but the quality of the painting was so much better that Cendri
surmised—rightly, as she later discovered—that Mahala had gone against custom and
had her walls decorated by a professional painter rather than by members of the
household.

 
          
There
were no steps here. Cendri remembered that most houses in Ariadne were built
without stairs or upper rooms because of the constant danger of earthquake. In
the large front hall, a young woman greeted them formally and ushered them
inside, saying, "The honored guests from University, Mother Mahala."
Rhu was ignored as if he had been one of the small children on the lawns.

 
          
The
Pro-Matriarch Mahala rose easily from a large cushion where she had been
sitting, examining some papers, and came toward them. She was a small, wiry,
dark-haired woman, in a brief kilt that left her withered breasts bare; but,
perhaps in deference to Unity custom, she had thrown a scarf about her upper
body. Her voice was light, low and quick.

 
          
"It
is a pleasure; you honor me, Scholar Dame, and you, Master Scholar of the
Unity." Cendri blinked; it was the first time in their stay on
Isis
that Dai's position had been spontaneously
recognized.

 
          
And
yet this was the woman who had sent a message forbidding the women of the
college
of
Ariadne
to associate with male scholarship? Cendri
felt completely confused.

 
          
"I
had hoped to meet you before," Mahala said, in her quick light voice.
"I do not know how much my colleague Vaniya—how she hates me!—has told you
about the political situation, but I presume it is not much."

 
          
"She
has told us that your High Matriarch lies at the point of death and that she
has not named either of you as her successor," Cendri said.

 
          
"That
is true. Unfortunately, before lapsing into unconsciousness, Mother Rezali
insisted you must be lodged with Vaniya, because her Residence is so near to
the Ruins of We-were-guided. I have tried to encourage you to visit me, but I
do not suppose my messages reached you; finally I was forced to arrange things
in a way even Vaniya could not ignore. I apologize for placing you in this
position, Scholar Dame." She smiled, then looked at Dal and said, with a
sudden grin, "And I suppose I should also apologize on behalf of my people
for the position in which you have been placed all along, Master Scholar, but
the customs of the Matriarchy are what they are, and I could not abate them for
the sake of a single guest, no matter how worthy. I trust it has not been too
much of an inconvenience, Scholar Malocq."

 
          
Dal
said, politely, "No more than any Scholar would accept for the privilege
of exploring the ruins of the ancient people who built the site, Mother
Mahala." Cendri noted that he used the title spontaneously and with ease,
as he had never seemed able to do with Vaniya. Cendri, too, was not immune to
Mahala's charm. If Vaniya was, as Cendri had occasionally thought her, a
magnificent golden lioness, Mahala was like a small friendly kitten; but Cendri
warned herself not to underrate this woman's intelligence or shrewdness.

 
          
Mahala
waved them both to seats on the cushions at her side. She said, "Now we
will talk a little before this entertainment. I am sorry that you chose not to
compete, Scholar Malocq—" her eyes dwelt for a moment, appreciatively, on
Dal. "You are handsome enough to give us all a treat on the field of
competition; but I suppose you felt you could not join in the unfamiliar
contest.
A pity.
Another time, perhaps, you will give
us that pleasure." As food was brought in by women of her household, she
served them herself, and said, "I had thought that my message denying you
the assistance of the women of the college would have brought you to me at once,
Scholar Dame."

 
          
"It
did not occur to me," Cendri confessed. "I am not very skilled in
politics; I thought it simply an expression of hostility."

           
Mahala laughed. "I was too
subtle, then; I was hoping to create a situation which would bring you to me,
to confront me—even in anger—so that I could see you away from Vaniya's
influence. I am quite aware that she holds the ruins of We-were-guided in a
completely superstitious awe, and I feared she might attempt to delay
exploration indefinitely." She gestured. "Do eat while we talk, we do
not have a great deal of time. I don't suppose you know why I am anxious to see
the ruins explored?"

 
          
It
was Dal who said, "Surely you don't have any scientific curiosity about
the Builders, Lady?"

 
          
"Not
a smidgin of it," Mahal said frankly, "but if they are genuinely the
ruins of a race which seeded the entire Galaxy, then Isis will become the
center of scientific interest all over the Unity. We are a poor planet, Scholar
Dame—" Cendri noted that in spite of her defiant decision to treat Dal as
an equal, and her attempt to include him in the conversation, she found herself
automatically addressing Cendri; even to the enlightened Mahala, it did not
come easy to speak directly to a man. "We are a poor planet. We have few
exports. And you have experienced our earthquakes, though we can deal with them
and even predict them a little.
And, worse, our terrible
tidal waves."

 
          
Cendri
said, "Yes; I saw a village wiped out by one, it was terrible
indeed!"

 
          
"I
heard about that," Mahala said. "So you know that our pearl harvest
for this year is reduced by at least a third, until the pearl-divers can
rebuild their boats and their nets. We need the kind of predictive seismic
equipment the Unity can give us. Yet we are caught—caught between the quake and
the great wave! We need, we desperately need, what the Unity can give us. We
cannot afford to buy it—you have seen that, I think!"

 
          
It
was Dal who said, "Lady, the Unity has grants for member worlds, to allow
them to rebuild their worlds and bring a homestead world up to the necessary
level of efficiency. Surely the predictive equipment would so much improve your
agriculture and your industry, freeing you from the continual destruction of
quakes and tsunami, that it would pay for itself within a very few of your Long
Years."

 
          
"This
may be true," Mahala said, "but we are not a member world of the
Unity, Master Scholar, nor likely to become one, for reasons I am sure you are
intelligent enough to understand have no personal insult. We are what we are.
We cannot accept the conditions under which the Unity would grant us
membership."

 
          
Cendri
said quietly, "Respect, Pro-Matriarch, but I do not quite understand. What
is it that you cannot accept about the Unity conditions?"

 
          
"They
would demand that we re-structure our society to admit males to a completely
equal franchise. We cannot accept that the Unity has a right to decide whom we
shall admit to citizenship. Our history tells us that every society where men
are admitted to equality soon comes under their domination. Males—again, please
understand, this is no offense to you personally, Master Scholar— are not
content with equality; they cannot endure a society where they do not dominate.
And every society dominated by men has soon come to accept male values of
aggression, competition, and, eventually, war. And this has destroyed every
culture known in the Galaxy, one after another—you are a scientist, Scholar
Dame, you are familiar with Rakmall's Limit?"

 
          
The
question was put to Cendri, but it was Dal who answered, "I know what
Rakmall's Limit is; it is the extreme outside margin of the time during which a
culture can resist entropy. But—with respect, Mother Mahala—I do not believe
Rakmall's Limit is determined by the position of men in a culture."

 
          
"The
scientific research done on Persephone has determined otherwise," Mahala
said. "A culture rises from the animal into matriarchy; as the matriarchy
decays, men take over, entropy begins under the name of progress,
technostructures and entities multiply needlessly, social experiments begin,
and from there the political, historical and evolutionary process appears to be
predetermined. It was upon this research that the Matriarchate began the
Persephone experiment, an attempt to build a culture which could resist decay,
progress, and entropy, by indefinitely delaying or eliminating the stage at
which males seized power from the primitive mother-right. Patrilineal cultures
always signal the beginning of entropy and decay, and the death of a culture by
aggression and war."

 
          
Cendri
listened with fascination. In a few minutes, Mahala had told her more of the
basic assumptions behind the culture of
Isis
than she had learned from Vaniya's
household and her own observation in many days. But she found herself quite
unable to agree with Mahala's analysis.

 
          
Damn,
she thought, I wish
1 were
here as an anthropologist, openly. I could
talk
to Mahala and
she would understand. She felt a pang of disloyalty
to Vaniya.

 
          
She
said, hesitating, "I am—I am something of a historian, Pro-
 
Matriarch. In primitive pre-space
cultures, the matriarchal
 
societies, too, underwent degeneration,
when they in turn began to
 
oppress men__
_ "

 
          
Mahala
smiled. "But we do not oppress our men," she said, "Our men are
completely content and happy, because they know they live under a rational
culture which will never destroy itself, and that we are here to protect them
from their baser impulses, and free them for what they are best suited to
do." She gestured to a hovering servant, and added kindly, "Let me
help you to a little more of this delicious melon, my dear Scholar Dame."

 
          
Dal
said, "Are you aware, Mother Mahala, that the Unity has been instrumental
in reversing some of the very abuses of which you accuse it? On my world of
Pioneer, which joined the Unity approximately four hundred years ago, the Unity
demanded the enfranchisement of women as a condition of admission for Pioneer,
and the men of Pioneer agreed; not cheerfully, but we agreed, and women on
Pioneer are now free to be the equals of men. Are you saying that cultural
customs are so sacred that Pioneer should have refused to enfranchise our
women, to preserve our customs of long standing?"