Very good, Elana. Now, from Miaree let us turn to the Artonuee society. Tomax?
A matriarchy, sir. With no real equality between the sexes. The males, I gather, are lesser creatures, unable to do some of the skilled things done by the females. The males are slower of reflex and exhibit some of the weaknesses usually associated with women.
Weaknesses? Ha!
Please don't interrupt, Cecile. Go on, Tomax.
The males are involved in the religion to a greater extent than the females; in fact, they seem to have put brakes on the development of Artonuee technology by imposing a set of taboos. I get the impression that since the Artonuee are acutely aware of a very slow process of destruction of their galaxy, they are an old race. We know, for example, that the city of Nirrar is almost two thousand years old, and the Artonuee went out to the planets from their home world at least two thousand years before the time of the story. So, their technology, although spectacular in some areas—notably the development of the convertors which reduce the mass and inertial forces of the flyers—must have developed slowly. I would guess that the beauty-loving females, although curious, showed little interest in technology prior to the invention of the flyer. The slow and dependable drivers are, I'd think, the products of the male mind. Yet, the males, in the hold of their superstitions, refuse to think in terms of overcoming the limitation of the speed of light, or, as they call it, God's Constant. There is evidence, in the reading so far, that the females, somewhat less inhibited by the burden of their God, are thinking in terms of advancements; but they, too, being products of their own civilization with its built-in limitations, find it difficult to accept, even in their irreverence, the possibility of God's being proven wrong in something so basic as the Constant. I think they're in for one hell of a cultural shock when the word gets out beyond government circles that someone, the men from Delan, has bested God's Constant.
Anything to add to that, Alaxender?
The females seem to be happy, sir, in their little flyers, loafing around the system like Sunday sailors on a lake. In a very feminine way, I think, they actually rather enjoy the drama of being doomed and aren't too eager to change the status quo.
Yes, Elizabeth.
I don't want to make this a battle of the sexes, but it is the females who are advancing the civilization. Not the males. They, pardon the expression, man the Research Quad and the government and they have the sense of adventure. The males plod and pray.
Who do you think wrote about Miaree? Yes, Martha.
A female, obviously. Otherwise, the flying segment could not have been so vividly described. A male who had never flown in a flyer could not have done it.
And the purpose of the book? Leslie.
It has the ring of truth. And it was obviously left purposely. One structure on a planet and one object inside. I think the Artonuee left behind the book as a history of their race. As a message to anyone who might come after they were gone.
Only the Artonuee?
Sir, since the structure housing the book withstood some considerable heat for a long period of time, since it was unlike anything described in the Artonuee culture, I think that leaving the book was a joint effort by the Artonuee and the Delanians.
Perhaps. But I see that our time is up. Tomorrow, we will study the next segment. Please reread it, keeping in mind our discussion of today. As you have already noted, no doubt, there is a change in viewpoint; before our discussion period begins, I will want you to consider why this was desirable. And give some thought, please, since this is a literature class, to the artistic integrity of the abrupt change of view. And one more request. Please remember my age, my young friends, and do not trample me on the way to the dining hall.
Chapter Seven
There was no sense of urgency. It was dreamlike, unreal; but no problem to Rei, for man conquers. Daily man vanquishes all the ills to which he is heir. He had that sort of confidence here. Where? Brown atmosphere. Sand. Water somewhere.
He was there and his friend was there. Who? There was a warm feeling of comradeship. They had to get the hell out of there, but they could do it.
There was a tunnel arrowing into blackness. It was lined with light. He went, confident, flying. The tunnel closed and filled. Huge forces shook him. His friend was gone, swallowed up by blackness. There was no face, only an awareness, a knowledge that his friend had surrendered.
Outside the tunnel the world was brown. There was water somewhere. The sky was there, but unseen.
He knew immediately that they were mother and daughter. The younger one was attractively slim with a multicolored soft fur for skin. The older one was woman with a trace of the hardness which sometimes comes with maturity, but still woman, convincing, alluring. They didn’t speak. It was a long time before he heard them, but they were telling him.
'Come, come.'
He was not ready.
With no sense of urgency he was in a long room. Ahead of him stretched stainless steel cases, boxes, all on legs to raise them to face- and chest-level. He understood that he was to progress from station to station. He stood before the first case, the line of steel enclosures perspecting away to the far end of the room where a man in a white lab coat puttered, clipboard in hand.
An automated hypodermic needle swung out from the steel and jabbed at him. He sensed, feared evil. He pushed. There was no sound as the case fell. He pushed, pushed, fighting now, for he knew that it was urgent. He knew this place. Case after case fell with no sound, crashing noiselessly, surprisingly fragile, dominoing case after case until, near the end of the
long room, he stood in the shambles as the white-smocked man advanced, a long needle menacingly ready.
He ran. A door opened into a cul-de-sac, a molding, musty, cement-walled room of damp threat with corpses, and they were there, the two women, one young and full-lipped and beautiful, although strange, the other only slightly less beautiful but possessed of that warning hint of mastery.
They clung to him. He knew the woman-warmth was hypocrisy, far removed from reality, a force holding him through the engendered male response to femininity. The long, shining needle pierced his arm, going deep; no, his thigh. On each side. He was walking, one of them on either side, clinging, immobilizing his arms, leaving them to hang weakly as they moved timelessly across the brown with water somewhere and the sky not seen and they were thinking, feeling.
'Come, come.'
There was the aura of cruelty about the mother, a beautiful and mature being. Her daughter, young, fresh, gave him something approaching empathy. She cared. She didn’t like what she was doing, but it was the nature of things. There was something between them, him and the daughter, something indefinable. Her grasp was less possessive, less limpet-like.
He had to get away.
He could fly. By pumping his legs he built something, compressions, something, underneath. He went up. Three trees stood apart from the forest. The younger one seized on. He tried to dislodge her before the cruel one came.
'Come. Come.'
She was almost gentle, but there was the older one, clamping onto his bare thigh, making herself one huge mouth which sucked, buried itself leech-like in the thin pad of flesh over his hip joint. Pain. Not blood being sucked but something more vital. They were bearing him down, weighting him, ending the flying. Almost reluctantly the young one ceased being a woman and became that leech-mouth feeding on something vital, digging hurtingly into the flesh over the opposite hip joint, and he was going, hearing them more clearly, although there were no
