Six Moon Dance Part 2

The House of Legislation and Investigation was charged with the periodic a.s.sessment of all mankind worlds for conformity to the edicts. During the first few decades of Haraldson's reign, these a.s.sessments were done in an orderly and timely way, producing tranquility and openness of opportunity and serving to increase general knowledge about the worlds in question.

Eventually Haraldson grew weary of his long years at the helm. He desired to leave the post of Exemplary and spend his last years in the study of non-mankind intelligences. The Council of Worlds, however, appealed to Haraldson's sense of duty, claiming that no candidate could possibly take his place. After a period of reflection, the aged Haraldson addressed the public.

He said he was not immortal, he had found his task arduous, and he felt that no holder of an elective office, including himself, could be relied upon to continue indefinitely a course which ran counter to so many human urges. Age or appet.i.te would inevitably corrupt good intentions, he said, and therefore an unbiased and incorruptible agency must be created to continue the a.s.sessments of human settlements around the galaxy.

COW referred the matter to HoLI, who decided no committee or council of persons could be totally incorruptible. HoLI referred the matter to the House of Technical Advancement (HoTA) whose staff came up with an answer. They would develop a bionic construct that contained a human mind or minds, a construct infallibly programmed with Haraldson's edicts. The construct would be capable of learning, applying, and adapting those edicts while retaining their spirit and sense. Even though the technicians would start with one or more human brains-a more ideal interface could not be found-human memories and emotions would be repressed. The construct would have no vanity or greed, it would be incapable of pique or sloth, and would, thus, be immune to influence. The brains within it would be harvested from among persons who were already dying. Haraldson, on being approached, refused the honor of being among them.

HoTA was fortunate at that time to employ a number of exceptional scientists who, even more fortunately, worked well together. When the a.s.semblage was completed it turned out to be a conceptual and technological tour de force, decades if not centuries ahead of its time. Because it held three human brains and unlimited memory, complicated corpora callosa and storage units of enormous capacity were required, but the solutions to these and other problems of structure and design were uniformly inspired.

In fact, the most knotty problem encountered by the technicians had been not the brain but the body. There had been no conception of what the Questioner-as it was now being called-should look like. Eventually, the team agreed on a motherly image, anethnic in appearance and, since the machinery was ma.s.sive, Brunhildian.

Questioner I was finished and programmed, and Haraldson himself attended the dedication. On that occasion, with his usual foresight, he advised the chief of HoTA that it would be prudent for the House to undertake a continuous update of Questioner plans and specifications in the event that Questioner ever met with a fatal accident.

Questioner I worked well among the worlds for several hundred years. Questioner was able, in many cases, to bring imperfect societies into conformity with the edicts, and it was also able to dispose of societies which were totally unacceptable. After lengthy argument, the Council of Worlds agreed that Questioner had proven flawless and might, therefore, see to such matters on its own initiative. At first COW wanted advise and consent status, but after the first few interminable debates, COW felt it best to get out of the loop and was, accordingly, bypa.s.sed.

The ruthless sentences of the Questioner were carried out rarely but thoroughly. Many were the docudramas produced concerning the final years of intransigent populations. Questioner I perished at last in the Flagian Miscalculation, the cataclysm of self-mortification that destroyed the Flagian Sector. Due to Haraldson's foresight, however, the technical specifications and many of the core components for a new device were ready and waiting, including technical advances that had been made in the intervening centuries.

Questioner II had all the abilities of its predecessor but a slightly less ma.s.sive housing and a slightly expanded mission. On the basis of Questioner I's tantalizing reports, COW wished to know more about the non-mankind races: the horn-headed Gablians; the inscrutable Quaggi; the individualistic Borash; the numerous Korm.

At no time during the first or second construction of the Questioner had anyone in the Council of Worlds thought to specify that the brains used in Questioner should come from member planets that were subject to the edicts. In the welcome absence of such directives, the technicians had chosen brains that would make their jobs easiest: those easiest to get, with the least information and the fewest treasured memories. One technician, in fact, was heard to comment on the irony of selecting Questioner brains from cultures that forbade asking any questions at all.

4.

Orientation to the Amatory Arts.

During orientation, which is what Madame Genevois called the sessions conducted with each new boy in the small cla.s.sroom, Mouche was required to memorize certain information that Madame categorized as "essential to your understanding of your role in life." These rules, regulations, laws, and customs were read aloud and explained by Madame, after which Mouche was drilled until letter perfect by Simon, one of the instructors, a former Hunk who had been improvident and was now required to earn a living in his later years.

The first thing drummed into him was the Dower Law.

"Section one," parroted Mouche, "provides that a family wishing to continue through the male line, usually through the eldest son, must pay dowry to a girl's family for the use of the girl as a wife."

"And this is called?" asked Simon.

Mouche responded promptly, "This is called dowering in, as the wife comes into the man's family and takes his name. Section two provides that a younger son who also wishes to continue his biological line may set up a new ..."

"With the support," prompted Simon.

"May, with the support of his family, set up a new line, under a new name, and pay dower for a wife under that name ..."

"Which is called?"

"Dowering off. Because his new name is an off-shoot of the old family name. Like, say, the family name is Vintner, he could set up as family Vineyard. Or he may buy his way into a family that has a daughter but no son, where he takes her family name, and that's called dowering out."

"Dowering in, off, or out," explained Simon, with a m.u.f.fled yawn, "is always seen from the groom's parents' point of view, as they are the ones who pay. Now, section three?"

"Section three states that any attempt to evade the law through elopement, rapine, or abduction is punishable by blue-bodying and consequent death. Simon, what's rapine?"

"Forcing s.e.x upon a woman, often with the intent of getting her pregnant."

"I didn't know you could do that."

"Used to be a good bit of it, but no more. Not unless you want to end up dead."

"When was there a good bit of it?"

Simon settled himself. "Well, it was like this. Our ancestors came to this world in ten ships. The first ship had the male workers, the livestock ova, and the reproducer, but it didn't have any women on it at all. That was so the men could get things whipped into shape, shelters made weathertight, crops planted, things like that, before the women and children came on the second ship. But the second ship was delayed, and instead they sent the support ship, the one that had the machines...."

"What machines? I didn't think we had machines?"

"Of course we had machines. What do you think the Denti-med is? And the sensor array that keeps track of the volcanoes? And the stuff at the s.p.a.ce port that lets us talk to the ships?"

"Oh. I guess I never thought those were machines."

"Well, they are. Our people didn't bring many, they had limited resources, but they chose not to do without medicine or geological and weather sensors or a s.p.a.ce port. So, anyhow, the technology ship was the one that set down second, and it was full of technicians and scholars, a lot of them women, but most all of them were, so to speak, spoken for."

"They had husbands?"

"Right. Or as much as. Anyhow, the first ship men were feeling pretty randy by then, so they started raiding, stealing the women, and some of them got hurt."

"Some of the women?"

"Right. Some even got killed, which made their friends and colleagues very angry, so the others, the scientists and professors and technicians, men and women both, they moved the machines and the supplies and the libraries into the half-built fortress in Sendoph, and all the women stayed in there where they couldn't get abducted. Most of the people on that second ship were Gaeans, like Harald-son, worshippers of the Life-mother, and they were the ones who set up the Council of Hags."

"And they wrote the Dower Laws."

"Well, not right away. The laws sort of developed. But the key thing was, n.o.body got a wife without paying for her, and wives got the right to satisfactions for themselves. When the ship with all the women arrived, two or three years later, the Dower Laws were already in effect. Including section four, which you may now quote."

Mouche nodded. "Section four provides that every Family Man must have a unique family name for his genetic line, as it is to guarantee the uniqueness of each male line that this system was designed by the Revered Hags to meet the needs of the men of Newholme." Mouche swallowed a yawn.

"And, finally, section five."

"Section five says that every marriage contract must provide that once the wife has fulfilled her contractual obligations in providing her husband with his own, specific lineage, she has the right to one or more well trained Consorts to make her life more pleasant."

"Which is why you're here," said Simon, cuffing him lightly over the ear. "Recite it one more time, then you can be excused."

5.

Life as a Lobster.

During Mouche's first days at House Genevois, he stayed in the welcome suite where his life seemed to consist of nothing but orientation and baths. Dirt that had taken twelve years to acc.u.mulate was loosened over a period of days, pried from beneath finger and toenails, rasped off of h.o.r.n.y calluses, steamed out of pores he had not known he had in places he had never bothered to wash.

"You know what we call new boys?" said Simon. "We call them lobsters, because they're always in hot water."

"What's a lobster?" asked Mouche.

"A kind of Old Earthian critter," Simon replied. "Eaten after boiling. Like a crustfish, sort of, but with more legs."

Even while Mouche soaked in the hot water there were snacks, bits of this and that, little plates and bowls brought by silent, invisible creatures at whom one never looked directly. They took away the empty plates and refilled them and brought them back again, but no one noticed the plates until they were set down, because when they were being carried, they too were invisible.

Bodies could not be properly contoured, according to Madame, unless they were well fed. There was also ma.s.sage, which was embarra.s.sing, though he soon learned to disregard the invisible creatures pounding away at him. When the staff of the House weren't washing him or pounding on him, or feeding him, or correcting his speech, he could read anything he liked from a great library full of real books.

"Am I the only one here?" he asked Simon. "I haven't seen anyone else."

"No, boy, and you won't, not until you're clean as a plucked goose, and fat as one. New boys are always the b.u.t.t of jokes and hazing. That's life. It's always been that way. But there's no point letting a new boy in for the kind of labeling that will make training him or selling him more difficult. Too many good Hunks have been ruined by being called Fatty or s...o...b.. or Stinky. So, you don't meet anyone until you meet them on equal footing, so far as cleanliness and elementary courtesy goes. We'll have no nasty nicknames here. Propriety, boy. That's what Madame wants. Our clients want Consorts they can take anywhere: to the theater, to the festivals, to the forecourt of the Temple, even. Our graduates must have no lingering taint of the pigpen or the tanners."

"Decorum," said Madame. "You'll behave in gentlemanly fashion, and you'll do it not only when you're being observed by one of us"-by which she meant the staff of Genevois House-"but also when you're alone with your colleagues. It must become second nature to you, a habit unbreakable as a vow."

So it was Mouche wasn't totally surprised when, clad in a white linen tunic, soft stockings and sandals, he was introduced to a similarly clad group of young men so polite it near took his breath away.

"You are welcome, Mouche," said one. "We are happy to have you among us," said another, and such like other syrupy phrases that made him more than merely worried. His concern was justified, for when the lights were out and the monitors had left the dormitory, Mouche came in for rather different treatment. The habit unbreakable as a vow was, like most vows, quite breakable when no one was watching. Still, it was no worse a bruising than he'd had from the cow when she'd resented milking, or from the buck of the plow when it had hit a root. Next day he was able to say with a straight face that he'd fallen on the stairs, and Simon was able with a straight face to accept that explanation.

Genevois House was all gray stone and iron grilles on the outside. On the inside it was white plaster and carved wood and marble and velvet. The bare gymnasia were cavernous and echoing; but even there mirrors towered between gold-leaf piers and the floors were set in wood mosaic. The stuffy parlors were small and hushed and elegant. In the former, Mouche learned to fight hand to hand, to dance, and to fence with a sword. In the other, he learned from the conversation mistress to fence with words. Learning to fence in the bedroom would come later, though he was soon started on erotic exercises. Simon said boys his age all did erotic exercises anyhow, so better put it to some use.

As before, he spent hours in the library, reading all manner of books which were commonly read among the better cla.s.ses of women, some of them written centuries before on Old Earth or the old colonial worlds, and all of them imported from worlds that had had time to develop the arts past the purely provincial. There were other hours in the kitchen, being lectured by the chef and the wine master. Not that Newholme had many vintages to brag of, but those they did should be properly appreciated. There were hours at the table, learning how to discriminate among foods, how to eat them elegantly, and how to manage veils of various weights while one carried on charming and amusing conversation. It became second nature: the left hand up to catch the veil at the right side; the upward sweep of the fingers to lift the veil from the mouth; the release, letting the veil drop as one chewed and swallowed. Not that the gauzy stuff Hunks usually wore was much of an impediment. Only respectable men wore real veils, and respectable men did not eat with their wives in public. They stayed in their offices at home or at their businesses among other men, where they belonged. "Or should be at," so the saying went. "Men of Business should be at business." Or else.

Several times each tenday-forty tendays the year, divided into four seasons-the new boys, who were not yet s.e.xually mature and therefore not yet veiled, walked with their teachers to the park to watch the show put on by the advanced students. The older boys rode gracefully on horseback, glittering like gems. They picked quarrels with one another, and debated eloquently, declaiming dramatically, with many references to honor. Sometimes they fought with swords, brilliantly but inconsequentially, until one of the uniformed Housemasters stopped the battle and made them shake hands. The new boys were not the only ones watching. From closed carriages along the bridle paths, eyes watched and hands took notes, and it was for these watchers that the charades were played. The merchandise, so Simon said, had to go on display, for House Genevois often received bids for certain Consorts years before they were fully trained.

When the short nights of summertime came, the advanced students went off in all directions: the tongue-tied to summer conversation cla.s.ses; the lazy to remedial fencing school; the merely awkward to dancing school. There were no remedial courses in amatory arts. One either did well in those or one was given one's pension money and dismissed. Very few were dismissed, said Simon. Madame had an instinct for boys who would do well in amatory arts.

Almost all the newest boys were sent to the equestrian school owned by House Genevois, where Mouche rode horseback, at first a few hours each day, then all day every day, until he could stay on anything with legs, whether bareback or asaddle. By this time he had friends among the students-as Madame called them-and had himself taken part in the hara.s.sment of several new boys. He had also grown taller by a handspan and added weight to match, had found the first pale hairs sprouting near his groin, and had heard his voice crack on at least three occasions.

"So, Mouche," said Madame, the day after he returned to Sendoph, "today you are one year with us. As of today, you are no longer a new boy."

Mouche swept her a bow in which no hint of servility was allowed. He would learn about groveling, Simon said, but not until later. Groveling was sometimes necessary for Hunks, but the dangers inherent in the practice had to be weighed in the light of experience, which Mouche had none of at this stage.

"Yes, Madame," he said.

Madame acknowledged him with a gracious nod. "You graduate to your own suite today. Simon will take you to it."

Simon did so, through the main hall, past the low-ceilinged dining room with its open hearth and smell of sausages, up the broad marble stairs onto the wide landing with its tall windows overlooking the street between great swags of wine-colored fabric and its equally tall doors leading to the apartments of the staff, and up a flight more, through the deeply carved doors that led into Consort Country.

"No galloping on these stairs," warned Simon. "Ma-dame's orders. You gallop on these stairs, Madame may rethink letting you go up."

"I didn't think I'd go this year," said Mouche in wonderment. "I thought you had to be veiled first."

"Ordinarily, yes. But the way you're growing, you will be veiled by the end of the year. Fact is, Mouche, we need to increase dormitory s.p.a.ce for the younger students, but we've several empty suites in Consort Country."

Something funny in Simon's voice when he mentioned increasing dormitory s.p.a.ce, Mouche thought. Something a bit tentative and uncertain. He didn't have long to think about it, for Simon pushed upon the door, revealing a table set with tapers and a long, narrow, very dark hallway. At Simon's direction, Mouche lit them each a candle before the door swung closed.

The front part of House Genevois, so Simon said, had been rebuilt and added to during the last century in accordance with modern rules of architecture, and that was the part people saw when they visited. Once through the door into Consort Country, however, one went back into a sprawling maze made up of many separate buildings, some of them dating back to the first settlement, that had been acquired, remodeled, and joined together in stages and in accordance with no overall plan or direction. The suites of the Consorts presumptive were scattered throughout this labyrinth, like lumps of fat in a black pudding, for though windows and skylights had once lit the corridors, most of them had been built over, leaving the pa.s.sageways in darkness.

Mouche followed Simon, bearing his own dim sphere of light, through which he could catch only a glimpse of the dark, velvety runners on the corridor floors, the carved wagon-panel along the walls, the shadowed ceilings high above with the gilded cornices, the gold of the ornate frames surrounding huge, dark pictures that lined every wall. The subject matter was at first indiscernible, but then, when the light caught one such painting at the right angle, all too obvious.

Mouche grunted, not sure whether to laugh or gag.

"Pay no attention to them, boy," said Simon. "Some persons wish to be immortalized in this fashion, though the Hagions know why. Perhaps they use these images to t.i.tillate themselves. Perhaps the paintings stir them to unaccustomed l.u.s.t."

"I wouldn't l.u.s.t over that," that," said Mouche, indignantly. "And their faces are said Mouche, indignantly. "And their faces are bare!" bare!"

"Faces are usually bare in the bedroom, boy. I wouldn't l.u.s.t over such activities either, but there are some who will, and that's a matter for us all to keep in mind, Mouche. There are always some who will." His voice resonated with that same tentative unease Mouche had noticed earlier. "Madame collects these paintings, from estate sales, mostly. If there is material of this kind, the auctioneers call her in before the public viewing. She regards such stuff as cautionary, not erotic."

The paintings did serve as landmarks. He had only to go past the flagellation, averting his eyes from certain terrible details, turn at the corner where the undines were busy at their putrid liquefactions, go on past several debas.e.m.e.nts too awful to contemplate, and up the stairs nearest the serial sodomites, turning the corner at a depiction of a particularly nasty machine doing indescribable things to a struggling young man at the direction of a gloating woman.

This last picture stopped Mouche in his tracks, possibly because he could see it clearly. It was newer than the others; the varnish had not yet yellowed, to obscure the details. "This is fantasy, right?" he asked. "This did not really happen." He leaned forward to see the label, which read, Mantelby, at her pleasures Mantelby, at her pleasures.

Simon twitched uncomfortably. "We believe it was fantasy, yes. However, the painter disappeared under mysterious circ.u.mstances. It has been alleged that he attempted blackmail of his patroness."

"It doesn't look old, like the others."

"No. Madame bought it from the artist's heirs. The person who had commissioned it hadn't claimed it."

"And that would be Mantelby, right?"

"Shh," said Simon. "No names, Mouche. We didn't label it. The label is just as it was when the painting was bought. I said the paintings were cautionary. Be cautioned."

The door, Mouche's door, with his name already neatly lettered on the plate, opened into a suite of three rooms: a small sleeping chamber furnished with bed, armoire and fireplace; a comfortable study with tall bookcases and windows that looked out onto the courtyard; and a privy closet with washbasin, the privy water provided from a tank on the roof to which water was pumped by a water mill built into the river wall. Electric power was limited on Newholme, though there were plans for much hydroelectric development within the next generation.

Clean wash water would be provided daily, said Simon, not specifying by whom, and the Consort baths were on the next level down. Simon also suggested that Mouches hould practice getting out of the suite by the quickest route in case the Lady on the Scarp Blew Her Top, then departed to let Mouche get settled.

Mouche decided that in case the volcano did explode, causing earthquake or fire or both, he would escape through the windows down into the courtyard, this decision suggested by the presence of a rope ladder already in place. The previous occupant had had similar intentions. That decision disposed of, Mouche fetched his books, his clothing, and his athletic equipment from the dormitory and distributed the items in his new quarters. He then went down to the laundry to check out linens and was behind the door, hunting for pillow cases, when he heard Madame and Simon come into the outer room, already in conversation.

"I just don't want to take them," said Madame, sounding resentful and angry. "They're terrible prospects. They'll be years too old, for one thing."

Mouche could hear her footsteps, the fretful to and froing she did when upset, tappy tap one way, tappy tap the other, the heels of her shoes coming down like little hammers. Madame wore shiny black shoes and shiny black skirts and blindingly white shirts under tight, b.u.t.toned jackets that shut her in like a caterpillar in a coc.o.o.n. Madame had black hair and white skin and pale gray eyes that could see through six inches of oak, so said Simon.

Madame went on: "I don't like the looks of those Dutter boys. There's something dreadful about them, Simon, something more than merely boorishness. It's a kind of deadliness. Evil. Like ... like someone else I know of. That's why I turned them down when Dutter tried to sell them to House Genevois last year."

"But now the Dutter boys come with a guaranteed buyer who will pay you at once, in advance, no matter how they turn out," said Simon in an expressionless voice. "He offers an astonishing fee. And that same buyer has talked to your investors. Behind your back, if one may say so, Madame. And your investors, being good Men of Business, want you to take the offer."

"Which makes me like it even less," said Madame. "Who makes a deal like that? It's not out of love, Simon. It's not out of good sense. Take out love and good sense and what's left? Anger. Hate. Revenge. I don't like it. I don't like them. And why is the deal anonymous?"

"You're not asked to take them immediately."

"Four years from now they'll be worse! And they'll be too old for me to do anything with!"

"The eventual buyer says he will guarantee their deportment while they are with us. That same buyer will make a large downpayment now, he tells us all he wants is a gloss, not real training, and your investors say the funds are needed, Madame. They wish to buy the property next north in order to expand the House, in order to take younger boys...."