Bertran said, “You’re talking about some kind of hive mind? People lost their own personalities? Their own minds?”
Fringe nodded slowly. She hadn’t thought about it in those terms before, but that sounded right. “No diversity,” she added. “They were all alike. Not like here.” All of Enarae— all of Elsewhere—believed this was true. It was the ultimate horror. “They all thought, believed, acted the same.”
The twins regarded each other with a measure of skepticism. “In our world,” said Nela at last, “there were certain authoritarian regimes that regulated what beliefs people could have. At least, the beliefs that could be publicly spoken of.”
“We have those too,” said Danivon. “Molock, for example. Also Derbeck. And there’s a whole bunch of totalitarian provinces over by the Throckian Gulf.”
“People could be imprisoned, or tortured and executed, for saying or writing things indicative of the wrong attitude?” asked Nela.
Danivon nodded. “Yes, that’s true in Molock and Derbeck too.”
“Or for trying to escape?”
“Yes. That’s also true in Thrasis.”
“We had some societies that were divided along racial lines, with one race being enslaved by another,” Bertran went on.
“Derbeck again,” said Curvis. “Where the High Houm lord it over the Murrey, and the chimi-hounds over them all.”
“Or where the military ruled the civilians….”
“Frick,” said Danivon. “In Frick if you’re not from a military family, you’re nothing.”
Nela took up the inventory. “Though there were also some supposedly freedom-loving countries, though they had rather burdensome bureaucracies….”
“New Athens,” said Danivon. “They make a big thing out of freedom in New Athens, but even they know they’re slaves to their bureaucracy. They make jokes about it, but they don’t really think it’s funny.”
“We had so-called benevolent despotism in some places. Where a strong man ran the country but most of the people approved of the way he did it.”
“Sandylwaith,” said Curvis. “High Lord Say-so in Sandylwaith. You obey the law—and the law’s sensible mostly, for it’s a peaceful, lovely place, Sandylwaith—and you get along fine. But if you break the law, there’s no second chance. High Lord Say-so will have your ears off first, then your feet and your eyes next, with what’s left of you sitting in the square as a warning to the populace.”
“Dreadful,” shuddered Nela.
“Well,” Danivon offered judiciously, “there’s no crime or violence to speak of in Sandylwaith. No thievery. No rape. The people there like the system, even though you might say they’re all slaves of the Lord. Of course, what happens when the current High Lord Say-so dies, who knows? Some of them haven’t been so sensible.”
“We had religious dictatorships, run by old men, hereditary cultists, where women had no rights at all,” Bertran said.
“Thrasis,” said Curvis. “We don’t even send female Enforcers to Thrasis. Women go veiled in Thrasis; they are property, first of their begetters and then of whoever they’re sold to. If their owners die, they go into the towers of the prophet, for the prophet owns all otherwise unattached females in the country.”
“They are all his property,” said Fringe, making a face.
“Enforcers do not have opinions on the internal matters of provinces,” said Danivon in a mocking tone. “Don’t make faces, Enforcer!”
He was right! She hadn’t even realized she was doing it. She flushed.
“Of course,” Danivon went on, “in Beanfields, men have about the same status as women do in Thrasis. Mother-dear rules in Beanfields, and every man is owned by his mother. Not his real mother, but his surro-mother. Whoever his real mother gives him to. When male Enforcers go there, a female Enforcer always goes along as their mother. Otherwise they’re up for grabs.”
“And this is the diversity you are sworn to preserve?” asked Nela.
“There are one thousand and three provinces,” said Fringe. “We have mentioned only a tiny few of them. On Elsewhere, mankind is free to be whatever he can, or will.”
The twins thought about this for a time before Bertran asked, “Let us suppose one of the women of Thrasis wishes to escape. Or one of the—what did you call them? The Murrey?—one of the Murrey from Derbeck? Let us suppose a civilian from Frick grows weary of being ruled by soldiers. What recourse have they?”
“I don’t understand,” said Danivon. “Recourse?”
“Are they free to leave?”
“Of course not,” said Fringe. “Persons must stay in their own place, in the diversity to which they were born.”
“But …” Nela offered, “if they try to escape, aren’t they being diverse? I mean, even more diverse, when they choose to be something else?”
“Where would they go?” asked Fringe gently. “There’s no place for them. Except for the middle of Panubi, all the places are taken up.”
“Whether there is any place for them or not, if they cannot leave, then Elsewhere is not devoted to what I would call diversity,” said Bertran. “All of its people are imprisoned in their own systems, though each system may be different.”
“What would you call it then?” asked Danivon curiously.
The twins thought about this for a time. It was Nela who spoke at last.
“I’d call it a people zoo,” she said. “Just like zoos on Earth of long ago, with all the people in habitats.”
Fringe and Danivon shared a pitying glance. Poor things. They had no idea what they were talking about at all.
THREE
7
The sideshow arrived in Shallow late one afternoon when the ship dropped anchor near a lagoon of blue lilies, a scene of such tranquillity that it was only the muttering among the sailors that told the travelers something was amiss.
“What are they going on about?” Curvis asked of the captain.
“They’re wonderin’ where the people are,” he said in a puzzled voice. “And so am I.”
“People?”
“The folk of Shallow. Every time we come in here they’re swarmin’ about in those little round gossle boats, but today’s like there was a sign on us sayin’ ‘plague.’ Where are they?”
The question was partially answered after some little time when
