LAISSA

 

My friends began to arrive for my party. I greeted them while trying to forget my worries. After they had sung the traditional song of approaching womanhood, and I had accepted their gifts, we sat down on the carpet and began to nibble at candies and fruit.

All of my friends had already passed menarche, and they had advice to offer. “Find a room in the north quadrant, Laissa, but not in one of the outside towers.”

“If you decide to follow your mother and study medicine, stick to research. Doctors and nurses have to go to the wall sometimes and deal with men.”

“I’m thinking of joining the patrol for a while when I’m through with my studies. The work isn’t much, but it’s a chance to meet a lot of women and help them.”

“I’m concentrating on astronomy and astrophysics. It’s exciting to look at all those plates and records, to understand what was discovered in the past.”

“Get some pilot training if you’re suited for it. The cyberpilot does most of the piloting anyway, and you’ll get to see other cities. We went as far as the Ridge on a training flight once.”

“Cybernetics is interesting, and it’s a good way to win a place on the Council someday.”

“Cybernetics.” Zoreen, in her low voice, almost spat out the word. “Isn’t everything cybernetics, in a way? How much real work do we have? The doctors stare at a lot of screens and scanners, the pilot stares at a screen, and the cybernetic intelligences tell us what to do. The cyberminds do most of the work, and we don’t do anything new. We don’t know anything that wasn’t known two centuries or more ago. We probably know less. We hold ourselves back.”

The other young women looked away from Zoreen; a few made faces, while others pretended they hadn’t heard. I hadn’t wanted to invite Zoreen, but we had been close once, and she had invited me to her celebration.

“We have to understand what the cyberminds do,” Shayl responded. “They just save us the trouble of doing a lot of tedious tasks they can manage more quickly.”

Zoreen’s mouth curved into a half smile. “And it makes things easier for us, too. Do what was done, follow past procedures. Once there were satellites scanning the heavens, and now we’re content to stare at astronomical plates made centuries ago. Once our ships flew over the oceans, and now we’re content if they fly as far as the Ridge. We build no new cities. Even on our own continent, there are lands almost unknown to us now.”

Shayl sat up straight and pointed her chin at Zoreen. “Would you want us to be like the ancients?” she asked. “They nearly destroyed the world with their overreaching. You, of all people, ought to know that.”

“We might do more,” Zoreen said.

“We have obligations,” Shayl replied. “We’ll be the Mothers of the City. We have to serve all those women here who depend on us, we have a duty to them to keep their lives as peaceful and untroubled as they are. I wouldn’t wish to change that.”

Shayl, my best friend, had been studying physics. Her life was already planned; she would master her work, perhaps elaborate a little on what was already known, have her children, and then divide her time between her work and tutoring in a girls’ dormitory. Thinking of the dormitories, I became solemn; my life there, and in Mother’s rooms, was over. Soon, I would move to my own rooms. Shayl and I had already planned to live together until it was time to have children and perhaps even after that; but I hadn’t seen much of her since her party and wondered if she had changed her mind. Jenna and Carlea, still inseparable, sat together holding hands, and I felt a pang.

“What are you going to do, Laissa?” Carlea asked.

I said, “I don’t really know.”

“An adviser’ll talk to you after the tests,” Jenna said in her lilting voice. “You should follow her suggestions.”

“Do the general science course,” Carlea said as she shook back her dark curls. “It’s a good choice for anyone who’s uncertain. You really can’t go wrong, and it’s useful as a base.”

“There’s always history and human culture,” Zoreen offered. Another girl giggled; I felt myself blushing. “It would certainly enliven your days of study.” She leaned forward; her green eyes glittered. “Men and wars. Boys and girls together, without any protection. No insemination—they actually had to touch the men.” Zoreen, it appeared, was deliberately being offensive; she must have known that the others hadn’t wanted her there.

“It sounds disgusting,” Shayl said loftily. With her large brown eyes and dark brown skin, she had always been the most beautiful girl I had known. “I think a lot of perverts and disturbed women do history.”

Zoreen looked down. My cheeks burned. I had read some history, finding myself oddly drawn to a few of the old stories, but had never intended to study it.

Shayl glanced at me. “You should do physics,” she went on. “That way, we could study together.” I gazed uncertainly at her. “Well, we are going to share rooms, aren’t we? I thought we’d decided that a while ago.”

She spoke casually. I wanted to leap up and throw my arms around her but only smiled instead. “Of course.”

“Look!” Miri shouted.

Button had wandered out of his room. He rubbed his eyes sleepily as he watched us and pulled at his brown nightshirt with his other hand.

“Come here,” Jenna said as she held out her arms.

Button toddled to her. As he reached out to touch her long brown hair, Jenna pushed him away with both hands. He sat down hard on the carpet. “What a little beast he is. He looks even uglier than my brother.”

“Do you know what’s going to happen to you?” Carlea murmured as she crawled over to him. “Do you know?”

Button’s eyes widened; he did not speak.

“You’re going to get sent outside,” Carlea shouted triumphantly. “You’re going to live with big, hairy, wild men, and, if you don’t do what they say, they’ll kick you and beat you.”

“Look at him,” Shayl said as she leaned over and lifted Button’s shirt. “Isn’t it wretched? It just hangs there like a little sausage.”

Everyone giggled. Button turned toward me; his gray eyes glistened. I wanted to get up and lead him back to his room, where I could have comforted him a little, but couldn’t bring myself to move.

Carlea got to her feet and lifted Button, swinging him in a circle before throwing him to Shayl. Zoreen watched silently; unlike the others, she was not laughing. Shayl swung Button in an arc, and he screamed. As she set him down, he kicked her leg hard with his bare foot and then slapped her hands away.

“Button!” I cried out.

“He’s already getting nasty,” Miri said. “He should have been sent out a long time ago.”

Button glared at me. I did not speak. He ran back to his room and shot an angry glance at me before the door slid shut.

“Of all the things we’ll have to do,” I heard myself say, “bearing boys is by far the worst.”

Everyone began to murmur in agreement, but I hated myself for saying it.

 

 

I began to worry again after my friends had left. I should have been happy, but I was thinking of Button and was suddenly angry with Mother for not sending him away sooner. Because she had grown to care about Button too much, she had brought me to care about him, too, and had endangered us both in the process.

I found Mother in her study. She was slumped in a chair by the mindspeaker console; her long auburn hair hid her face.

“I came to say good night.”

She looked up at me. Her eyes were red; her face seemed swollen. “Did you have a nice party?” she asked.

“Oh, yes. Shayl still wants us to live together. Her rooms are in the south quadrant, too, so we’ll be close by.”

She stared at the floor. “Button’s father has already received my message. He should reach the wall in a few days, and then Button…” Her voice shook a little. “He’s looked after your twin. Button will have two men to look out for him.” She stared past me. “I did what I had to do. There won’t be any more warnings from Eilaan. We needn’t concern ourselves with that any more. I did it for you, Laissa. I wanted you to have your celebration without worrying about this.”

I kissed her and went to my room, then remembered that I had left a jade bracelet, Shayl’s present, in the outer chamber.

My door slid open. Mother stood in front of Button’s room, weeping.

 

 

Both Shayl and my tests dominated the next few days.

When I got up, I walked through the botanical gardens near my tower to a training center and sat before screens and scanners while cyberminds tested my brain chemistry, reactions, and reflexes, then displayed questions for me to answer. The lenses and lights of the artificial intelligences winked at me as their questions and diagrams danced across the screen, and their soft but stilted voices chattered. I had been tested often enough before and could not imagine what else they would learn about me, but these tests were longer and more extensive than those I had undergone earlier.

During the afternoon, I would put on a circlet and find myself in a ship about to crash, then in a garden tending flowers, then with a small infant, then with a patrolwoman aiding a lost child. I moved through so many scenarios that I soon lost track of the number.

At the end of each day, several old women, all psychologists, questioned me; their inquiries seemed either obvious or silly.

“What is a boy?”

“Which would you rather be, an architect or a veterinarian, and why?”

“If a close friend lied to you about a trivial matter, and you discovered the lie, what would you do about it?”

“If you were in love with someone, and she didn’t love you, what would you do about it?”

“Why must men live outside?”

In the evening, I came home to dinner and then a visit from Shayl. One night, she took me over to her rooms, which were near the top of her tower, and we stood on her balcony and looked up at the stars. On another night, we went through my possessions as she advised me on what I should leave behind.

I had no time to think of Mother. She was a silent presence at dinner, and withdrawn at other times. I assumed that she was trying to reconcile herself to the loss of Button whenever I thought about her at all.

 

 

On the last day of my tests, I was sent through the curving corridors of the center to a small room.

An old woman I hadn’t met before was sitting behind a desk. Her face was wrinkled, her chin sagged, and her hair was gray. She, like Eilaan, had reached that time in her life when rejuvenation begins to fail and a woman starts to prepare for death. This woman, I was sure, had seen almost two centuries of life, and I wondered if she would be sorry to leave it. Then I asked myself why, if we could live this long, we could not find a way to live as long as we chose. Before I could ruminate on an answer to that question, I was thinking of the men outside and of how short their lives were in comparison to ours.

“My name is Bren,” the old woman said as she stood up and led me to the couch. A console with a small screen sat on the table before us; Bren pressed a few keys, gazed at the lettering, then turned toward me. “I am to be your adviser, Laissa. I’m here to deal with any problems you might have during this time of transition, when you’re preparing for the future course of your life.”

I said, “I’ve already decided to do physics.”

“Let me ask you something, then. Are you planning to do physics because you really want to, because something in you cries out for a deep understanding of the physical universe, or because your friend Shayl is studying that subject?”

I hesitated. At last I said, “I would have considered it anyway, but I’ll do better at it with a friend to help me.”

Bren’s smile seemed stiff; her small black eyes were glassy. “I recommend that you consider the general science course instead. You’ll get some physics there, and you can always explore the subject in more depth later. But I would also suggest that you supplement your studies with some work in history and human culture.”

I was stunned. Swallowing hard, I tried to compose myself. “I’m not interested in that, Bren.”

“That isn’t what your tests show.”

“Anyway, you know how everyone feels about that. They think it’s odd to study those things, that a normal woman wouldn’t be interested in them.”

“I once expected to hear such talk only from those we serve, but it seems more and more of the Mothers of the City feel the same way.” She leaned back. “I did some work in human culture myself, and you might be surprised at some of the others who have dabbled in it. Oh, I know that many young ones find it strange and disturbing—they can’t imagine what it has to do with their lives now, and they want to fit in. When one gets older, though, one sometimes wants to understand the past, and what made us as we are.”

I brushed at my sleeve nervously. “Well, I’m not old. Besides, what would I use it for? I don’t want to be a recordkeeper or a historian, and I’d have to learn at least a couple of the old languages to read the records anyway.”

“There are translations, but your tests indicate that you have an aptitude for languages. And a knowledge of history and human culture can be useful.”

“But what would I use it for?” I repeated.

Bren put her hand on my shoulder. The gesture seemed rehearsed. I imagined her thinking: Now I should pat her on the shoulder, now I should smile and look reassuring. She smiled and tilted her head to one side. “Everything on your tests shows that you might make a fine chronicler. By looking at the past, you will come to understand why we are as we are. By writing about your feelings, your perspective on our life, you might illuminate…”

“But I don’t want to be a chronicler. I never thought of doing that, ever.”

Bren drew back. “Some seem to be born with the desire, while others come to it later. I can only tell you what your tests show. Chroniclers are rare, and their stories now are often repetitions of what has often been told.” She paused. “Be honest, Laissa. Do you passionately long to understand the principles of matter, the underlying structure of the universe, or are your questions about us and our ways?”

I leaned away from her.

“Don’t you sometimes feel as though you’re an observer, someone apart?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“Don’t you have your doubts about the way we live?”

“No,” I said forcefully. “Not really. Not any more than anyone else.”

“You can’t lie to me, Laissa. I know that you doubt. Your responses to many questions show that.”

I wondered how that could be. I had answered carefully, going out of my way to seem conventional.

“Listen,” Bren continued, “you’re not alone. There are others who doubt. They ask why we cannot live outside our cities, why men cannot live as we do, why some women rebel, why we have grown complacent and unadventurous. Some of those who doubt chronicle their feelings or embody them in stories, and others read them and are enlightened. They come to see our world as an outsider might see it and thus gain a perspective on our lives. They come to see what we have kept of the past and what we have rejected. They question and, by questioning, may come up with a way to make things better. Sometimes, one has to doubt, go through a painful questioning of everything one holds dear, in order to come to acceptance of our way. You see, we can make use of doubt—expose it to the light, so to speak—so that it doesn’t fester below the surface and poison us. Chroniclers—good chroniclers—are usually doubters. They show others who have questions that they are not alone, and aid them in reaching an acceptance of our way in the end.”

The conversation was making me uneasy. If a chronicler’s doubts were supposed to lead to acceptance, then what would happen to a chronicler who could not overcome her doubts? I pushed that question aside.

Bren was making me doubt. It was another test; it had to be. I had read some of the tales of chroniclers; their stories were little more than recollections of individual lives, mingled with dubious ideas, or recountings of experiences they had never had or had made up altogether. There could be nothing in my tests to show that I was such a person; Bren was only trying to see if I knew my own mind.

“I know your mother, Dorlei, has had her own questions,” Bren was saying. “Perhaps that has influenced you. Or maybe it’s a quality you carry in your genes. Diversity is important for survival—we must have doubters, as well as followers and leaders. Doubt can show us how we might make things better.”

“Mother doesn’t doubt, not really.” I felt that I had to say it. “She does what she must. And I don’t want to be a chronicler.”

“I cannot force you to be one. Force would be useless for such work in any case. I simply advise. We give our tests so that we can save young women from painfully attempting work for which they aren’t suited. You may not believe this now, but in time you are likely to find yourself growing more interested in our history, and wanting to record your thoughts, and then you’ll regret the time you lost. Study physics, if you must, but you may find that it’s not where your true talents lie.” She waved a hand, dismissing me.

My life was beginning, and I was suddenly afraid of what it might hold.