Ascending

to watch your back.'

He reached out quickly, grabbed Lajoolie’s hand, and gave it a quick squeeze. Then he and Festina vanished out the door, leaving the rest of us on our own.

17: WHEREIN I AM SWALLOWED BY DARKNESS

Alone In The Dark

If you have been paying attention — and for your sake, I hope you have, so when persons of High Social Standing accost you in the street, saying, 'Have you read Oar’s book?' you will be able to answer, 'Yes, especially the part where she and Lajoolie were left alone with Nimbus' — if you have been paying attention, you will realize our party had only possessed two glow-wands. One belonged to the captain, the other to my friend Festina; therefore, when the captain departed in one direction and Festina went the other, Lajoolie and I were left with a conspicuous absence of light. Also a conspicuous absence of food. I still had not eaten a bite in the past four years, and being in the dark always makes me famished. Quite literally. Especially an enclosed darkness without even the tiny sustenance of starshine. If I did not get food or light soon, I would lapse into the torpid state that befalls my species when deprived of the necessities of life. It had only happened to me once, when I drowned in a great river and remained stuporous under dark water until the current washed me ashore… but I did not enjoy the experience, and was keen not to repeat it.

Therefore, to conserve energy I settled myself onto the floor and attempted to relax every muscle. Lajoolie must have heard me moving, for she asked, 'What are you doing?'

'Saving my strength,' I said.

'For what?'

'To avoid enforced hibernation. I do not suppose you have any foodstuffs with you? It could even be opaque if that was all you had.'

'Sorry,' Lajoolie said. 'When the captain or admiral gets back, you can ask them for something. The ship’s food synthesizers won’t be working, but I understand there’s a hydroponics facility; that’s a place that grows fresh produce.'

'I know what a hydroponics is,' I told her untruthfully. 'I was taught such things in school. Also the elevenses table.'

'You went to school?' Lajoolie asked. 'I always thought your planet was… well…'

'Filled with ignorant savages who knew absolutely nothing?'

'Sorry,' Lajoolie said.

It was the second time she had said, 'Sorry,' in the past minute… and she had a most abject manner of saying it. I could not see her in the dark, but the way she spoke, I imagined her dropping her head in a posture of crushed self-esteem. Of course, Lajoolie might actually be making rude gestures at me in the blackness; but I did not think so.

I am not such a one as beats around the bush when a person’s behavior puzzles me. 'Is there something wrong with you, Lajoolie?' I asked. 'Are you psychologically damaged in some way, or do you simply act submissive to put others off their guard? I think it most strange that a muscular woman should constantly quail before the eyes of others, or feign an aura of fragility when she is clearly not fragile at all. Was your spirit broken somehow or is this simply a sham, wherein you pretend to be dainty for some foolish alien reason?'

Off in the darkness, Lajoolie began to cry.

Lajoolie’s Tears

I had never imagined I would make her weep. Though I am clever and warm and most well-intentioned, it turns out I am not always adept at saying the right things to people. As you must know by now, I have not had a great deal of experience in social circumstances; I spent much of my early life with no one to talk with but my sister, and she never burst into tears. At least not until the Explorers came.

So perhaps there are times when my words have an adverse effect. I do not mean to be upsetting; but sometimes it happens, and then I am upset too. It is quite most dismaying to find you have accidentally hurt someone’s feelings. I never intend that ever. And it is just too bad that some people (especially alien people) are so unexpectedly vulnerable.

I never intend to be cruel.

Though I had wanted to conserve my remaining energy, I rose immediately and let myself be guided by the sound of Lajoolie’s whimpers: shuffling blindly through the darkness until I could wrap her in my arms. When I did, the big woman did not push me away. She was seated on the cabin’s unused bed, so I sat beside her and let her sob into my jacket.

After a time, when her tears began to ease, I murmured, 'Why are you crying, foolish one? Tell me, and I shall try to make it better.'

'It’s just…' Lajoolie whispered. 'It’s just…' She succumbed to more sniffles.

'Come,' I said, 'let us talk about this. I inquired whether you were mentally disturbed, and then you began all this fuss. Does that mean you are emotionally damaged? You have been tormented and abused?'

'No,' she answered in a small voice. 'I was never abused.' Sniffle, sniffle. 'By anyone.' Sniffle, sniffle. 'But you thought… you said I was putting on an act, pretending to be… something I’m not. And I am putting on an act, but I must be terrible at it if I can’t fool some alien who’s only known me a few hours.'

'Ah, but I am more perceptive than most of the universe. Especially the parts of the universe that are vacuum.' I paused. 'What precise type of act are you putting on?'

She did not answer right away. I was beginning to realize Lajoolie never did anything right away; she preferred to ruminate at length before committing herself to action. At last, however, she said in a low voice, 'Have you heard of arranged marriages?'

'Of course,' I told her. 'They are a narrative device found in works of fiction — designed to explain why persons who lust after each other cannot consummate their passion until the end of the book.'[10]

[10] — I hope you are not surprised that I was familiar with Tales of Romantic Longing. Under the tutelage of the teaching machines in my village, I learned much more than arithmetic and the social graces. Indeed, there was a time when my planet had a thriving literature, rife with tales of Star-Crossed Lovers Separated By Fate… who either pined in stoic silence their whole lives or else threw caution to the winds and thereby precipitated great social upheavals, but either way ended tragically there inches from each other in the same Ancestral Tower, with their brains too Tired to realize they were together at last.

'Arranged marriages aren’t just fictitious, Oar. They’re quite popular in some cultures.'

'Popular with whom?' I asked. 'Those who rent rooms for illicit affairs?'

Lajoolie tried to pull away from me, but I held on. She stopped struggling after a moment, but said mostangrily, 'This isn’t about affairs, Oar! It’s not about sex at all.'

'Then what is it about?'

'It’s about… oh, you’ll never understand.'

'Do you believe me stupid or deficient in some way? Or is it that you think an alien can never comprehend your niceties of emotion?'

'I don’t mean that. I just…'

'Tell me,' I said. 'Tell me everything, and I shall be a sympathetic listener. Or if I am not a sympathetic listener, you can say to yourself, I was right that Oar cannot understand. Then you will feel better for being correct all along, and you will find you have stopped crying.'

Her next sniffle sounded slightly like a laugh… and in time, with many Lajoolie-like pauses, she explained her Dire Position.

On Being A Wide Woman

According to Lajoolie, all Divian men (including Tye-Tyes, Freeps, and myriad other sub-breeds) are attracted to females with broad shoulders. There is an evolutionary reason for this liking — in ancient days, muscular bodies indicated good health and breeding potential — but that is not what Divian men think about when they slaver over the width of a woman; they simply think how fine it would be to nuzzle such luxuriant flesh.

Therefore, Tye-Tye women are much in demand on Divian worlds. Tye-Tyes were originally engineered to live on a planet with high gravitation, so they had to be inordinately strong just to keep moving; but after Tye-Tyes were created, Divian men from other breeds took one look at the muscular Tye-Tye women and went most thoroughly goggle-eyed.

Though slavery had been outlawed for centuries, non-Tye-Tye males of wealth and privilege found ways to purchase desirable Tye-Tye girls for purposes of matrimony. Or simply for sex. This practice became a major component of the Tye-Tye economy… which led to a thriving industry wherein young girls were put through Diverse Regimens Of Training in order to make them more salable. This meant, for example, that brides produced for the off-world market were educated in useful skills: they learned many languages; they became adept at social graces such as music, witty conversation, and how to berate servants; and of course they lifted heavy weights in all directions so as to increase their natural charms.

Most of the girls sold as brides submitted quite willingly — they were young and impressionable, not to mention they had been told from birth what an honor it was, being purchased by strangers because of one’s appearance. These girls Did Not Know Any Better. But after marrying rich husbands (or being sold as mistresses), they seldom remained in the same state of ignorance; inevitably, they met other women who enjoyed very different circumstances, and they also met men who whispered such words as 'Freedom' and 'Love' and 'Meet me behind the house when everyone else is asleep.' As time went on, an unquestioning girl-bride became an established woman-wife who was not so naive and controllable as she once was. The woman’s husband/master/owner would try to control her anyway, at which point he would discover an important truth: These women were very strong.

Not just a little bit strong — they were prodigiously strong, with muscles on muscles on muscles. Men lusted after them for that very reason. But these muscles made the women exceedingly dangerous in bed (which is where the men fervently wanted them). A few men endeavored to deal with the situation by resorting to chains, manacles, and other forms of restraint, not to mention embarking on schemes to crush the women psychologically… but the logistics of this are fraught with complications when your intended victim is muscular in the extreme, not to mention that it takes a certain kind of male to implement such a program with sufficient ruthlessness. Most men who acquired Tye-Tye brides did not want the women as punching bags; they simply desired wives who looked jaw-