Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19 (3 page)

 
          
And
so Cendri had been qualified; hastily, and provisionally, as Acting Dame for
the term of her stay on Isis/Cinderella; and here she was.

 
          
The
young pilot spoke into her intercom, meaningless technical phrases to Cendri,
then
said, "We are now flying at an altitude of six
thousand Universal Meters over the shoreline of Ariadne, Scholar Dame, if you
would care to see an aerial view of the harbors and coastlines. There is a
viewport directly at the side of your couch; the latch releases upward."

 
          
Cendri
thumbed the latch, and the cabin of the shuttle ship was quickly flooded with
orange sunlight. She slitted her lids against the light of the sun, and looked
down at a surface of sea which, from this distance, looked one even green
color. Small islands were scattered, thick greenish patches, or dark rocky
outcrops; then she made out the shoreline, with brownish edgings which she knew
were sandy beaches, and dark patches of some kind of vegetation. She could see
boats, at this distance only tiny toylike shapes, in the harbor and out on the
waves; there were, further inland, smooth rolling hills, and strips which might
have been ploughed fields under cultivation, a blackish-purple color.

 
          
As
they flew along the coast, Cendri noticed black shapes, sharp-edged and
regular, thrusting upward in a curious pattern. There seemed a kind of geometry
to their arrangement, although she could not identify it.

 
          
She
asked, "Those towers—is that the city of
Ariadne
?"

 
          
The
pilot made a negative gesture. "No, indeed!" she said, "Could
intelligent women live at such heights? When the ground shakes, what would
happen? Directly below us is the territory known as We-were-guided; in my
grandmother's day, or so we are told by the Elders, the ship which brought our
foremothers to
Isis
was guided here to these ancient
ruins."

           
Dal sat up, craning his neck toward
the viewport at Cendri's side; Cendri could understand how he felt. She,
Cendri, couldsee the mysterious Ruins—were they those of the Builders?—which
had brought Dal here; and he, Dal, swaddled in blankets and wedged into a spare
seat like unregarded cargo, could not! Her heart ached for him, but there was a
part to be played, and already the pilot was frowning disapprovingly at Dal
over her shoulder.

 
          
"Tell
it to lie down and be quiet or it may be hurt," she said, not as if she
cared, and Cendri, felling she would choke on the words, said, "Lie down,
Dal. It won't be long now."

 
          
As
if she
were
speaking to a troublesome dog. Just like
that. And Dal was the Scholar for whom the Matriarchs had sent—but they didn't
know it!

 
          
Cendri
had never felt so much like an imposter as she did at that moment. She tried to
catch Dai's eye; but he would not look at her.

 
          
All
this had seemed like a joke, on University. Now it did not seem funny at all.

 
 
          
Cendri
had seen many spaceports through the Unity; mostly, they were very much alike.
Chaotic, confusing, with hurrying hordes of passengers, uniformed
personnel everywhere, and all manner of concessions and services.
By
contrast, this seemed hardly a spaceport at all. A low concrete wall surrounded
a long expanse of thickly planted vegetation which felt soft and springy
underfoot; paths were worn in the sand here and there, and there was one big
area where there was no vegetation at all, only a blackened spot where the
shuttleship had landed. There were about half a dozen other small shuttleships
at one side of the enclosure, inside a long, low, roofed building open at one
side to the weather; beyond the concrete wall was a view of distant hills, grey
in the distance.

 
          
There
were only two other buildings inside the enclosure; one looked like an enormous
warehouse of plastic prefab; the other was a good-sized building with an
assortment of vanes, antennas and other instrumentation protruding from a sort
of dome on top.

 
          
Cendri
and Dal were the only passengers anywhere in sight. There were no slidewalks; the
pilot herself helped Cendri down the steps of the shuttle ship (Dal was left to
scramble down as best he could) and beckoned to a tall, thin man in a loose,
whitish pajama suit, a red baldric tied around his shoulder. He was wheeling a
small motorized dolly-platform.

 
          
 
The pilot said, "The personal belongings
of the Scholar Dame from University are to be sent to the home of the
pro-Matriarch Vaniya. Will you make certain of that when a conveyance is
available?"

 
          
He
bowed without speaking, and Cendri, staring at the red baldric—she could not
think of any world in the Unity where men habitually decorated themselves in
this way—happened to intercept a glance between the man wheeling the
platform—some kind of porter, apparently—and Dal. The man stared until he was
sure he had Dai's attention; then, with one hand, taking care to avoid being
seen by the pilot, made a curious gesture. He held his right hand with all four
fingers, bunched, touching the thumb; then slowly drew the thumb apart from
them, murmuring something too low for Cendri to hear.

 
          
The
pilot was waiting, and Cendri started and hurried after her. The anthropologist
within her was taking notes. Of course; in a society where women dominated,
there would be many kinds of male bonds, secret societies and recognition
symbols among men. Male bonding in groups appeared to be universal—Cendri was
too good a scholar to say that anything, in a Galaxy-wide civilization, was
actually
universal, but male bonding was certainly a widespread phenomenon, and, Cendri
had been taught, was the major form of social cohesion. That was one reason why
such planets as Isis/Cinderella, with women socially dominant, were extremely
rare. She could think of only two, in fact; this world where she now stood, and
its own mother colony.
Persephone.
Except for the
ill-fated Labrys experiment, she could remember no others.

 
          
Dal
would have to help her study the male groups. If she was doing archaeological
work for him, he would have to make up his mind to doing some of her work. She
followed the pilot along the path, lifting her thin-sandalled feet
fastidiously. She had not expected a world quite so primitive, and had been
prepared for
slidewalks.,
at least.

 
          
Why
had the man with the red baldric greeted Dal? Was it simply a universal
greeting between males?

 
          
Inside,
the building with the instrument domes on top was divided into several separate
areas by what looked like low, movable screens of translucent paper or plastic,
painted with landscapes and flowers in bright colors. Beyond one such screen
she saw an office filled with instrument consoles and television monitors;
there was a low buzz of people, machinery,
low
-voiced
conversation. In the larger space, a variety of people were coming and going,
and it was here that Cendri finally decided what seemed so strange about the
place.

 
          
It
was
  not
entirely the absence of enormous
expanses of concrete and skyscrapers; Cendri had been on other worlds with
little travel and no funds for expensive installations. Nor was it the absence
of passenger traffic; there were many worlds whose citizens were content to
remain at home, for cultural or psychological reasons. No, it was something
else which made this world
seem
completely different.
It was the absence of uniforms.

 
          
Two
or three people were dressed like the shuttleship pilot, in brief
metallic-cloth bands across breast and hip; but one of them was behind some
kind of booth providing a service Cendri was not yet fluent enough in the
written language to identify, and the other was emptying a trash container, so
that this dress did not signify "shuttle ship pilot" or even
"spaceport officer." There were many people coming and going on
unidentifiable errands, but so far she had seen so many different costumes that
it was dizzying. Many were dressed in a sort of loose pajama suit, shirt and
trousers, making it hard to tell at once whether the wearer was male or female.
Besides the pajama suits, and the brief functional breast-and-hip bands (she
even saw a man wearing one such costume) there were loose, flowing robes, some
hooded and some not; a few in kilts to the knee, leaving breasts bare (no
sexual taboo on this, for both men and women wore them). She noted one or two
men with elaborately curled and coiffed hair, but some of the women, too wore
this kind of hair-dress. There seemed to be no specific dress difference
between males and females. Cendri felt confused. How could you tell anyone's
function or status without some kind of uniform to mark what they were doing?
On the Unity ship which had brought them here, one could immediately tell
ship's officers and functionaries, from stewards or service personnel. But
everyone here seemed to be dressed chaotically, without regard to function or
even to gender. Cendri was used to this on University—where most people
followed the dress of their native world, except actually within official
University areas—and at spaceports where men and women of various cultures
mingled. But such diversity within citizens of a single culture group was
unusual; Cendri had been on field trips to many different societies, and she
could not think of a single one where it was not immediately possible to tell
men from women by some immediate cue of dress, hair style or manner.

 
          
How
do
they tell the
men from
the women?
she
wondered. There must be some cultural clue; she simply wasn't experienced
enough in this society, yet, to guess what it was.

 
          
She
wanted to ask a million questions; she wished she were here "on a normal
research assignment in cross-cultural anthropology. But she remembered that
the Matriarchate had put themselves on record about that, a long time ago, in
one of their very few communications with the Unity:

 
          
"The
Matriarchate of Isis is not an experimental society, and we will not allow
ourselves to be studied by scientists as if we were one of those glass-sided
insect colonies we give to our little daughters for toys!"

 
          
Hurrying
through a long corridor at one edge of the building-she noted that it, too, was
only semi-divided from the offices and waiting rooms, by the thin, translucent
screens which looked movable—she thought about that.

 
          
Cendri's
Mentor
, Dr. Lakshmann,
had
grumbled a
lot
about this. A most unscientific
attitude, he had
called it; unworthy of
any society; ungrateful, anti-social. Cendri had protested
—she had been
only a Student then.
Surely it was their own society, she had said, and they
had the right to keep people out if they
wanted to. Lakshmann hadn't been
convinced.
Paranoid, he had called the
Matriarchate. But then a
society
which had convinced itself that
women
were mistreated
within any
society as enlightened as
the
Unity,
would have to be paranoid.
Cendri had tended to
agree.
After all,
women were
the equal of
men,
by
law, on University,
which represented
the
Unity
at its
best, its official policy. If there were fewer Scholar Dames than Master
Scholars
and Scholar
Doctors, surely it was only that fewer
women
were willing
to compete for these advanced academic prizes. Psychologically, Cendri had
learned,
women
were less competitive; she had
seen it
in herself
after her marriage to Dal. Cendri herself had had no trouble
attaining Scholar rank; she was
acknowledged—and
by men—to be the
superior of most
men
of that rank. Most
women
who became Scholars, and Scholar Dames, were superior; there were no
mediocre Scholars,
the mediocre woman Students dropped out. Didn't
that
prove that
women, in the Unity,
were actually regarded
as
somewhat
superior?
Cendri knew
that she herself
would
have attained
her
quals
for an advanced degree if she hadn't
done
what
women
were
too likely to do, and taken time off after her marriage.

 
          
Obviously,
then, the Matriarchate's attitude was pure paranoia
....

 
          
They
had reached the end of the corridor; the pilot gestured Cendri into a small
room, inside the translucent semi-divided screens, and made again the gesture
of salute within the Unity, hands clasped before her face. Then, with a smile
that made her look, for the first time, like the young girl she actually was,
she said, "It has been my honor and pleasure, Scholar Dame, to escort you
and conduct you to the Chamber-of-reception-for-honored-guests. I truly hope I
shall see you again while you honor
Isis
with
your presence. The Pro-Matriarch Vaniya has been informed of your arrival; if
you will be content to rest here and make yourself comfortable, Scholar Dame,
she will soon send someone to welcome you. If you desire refreshment—" she
indicated a console against the wall, "the control at the top will
dispense hot liquids for your pleasure, and the control at the bottom, cold
ones. I myself, unfortunately, must return to my assigned duties. Will the
Scholar Dame give me leave to go?"

 
          
Cendri
said, "Certainly, and thank you very much," and the pilot withdrew.

 
          
There
was no furniture in the Chamber-of-reception-for-important-guests, but a few
thick cushions were scattered about the floor, which was covered with a soft
rug in neutral colors. Cendri went to examine the screens; she had thought the
landscapes were printed on, but they were actually painted, not very
skillfully. Behind her Dal said, "Well, how does it feel to be a VIP,
Cendri?"

 
          
Immediately
she was contrite, apologetic. She had almost forgotten Dal! She said hurriedly,
"Oh, darling, I'm so sorry. The reception should have been for you—this is
awful, isn't it? She was atrociously rude—she treated you like a dog, or
something!"

 
          
Dal
laughed, and Cendri was enormously relieved. They could manage to weather this
somehow, if Dal could continue to treat it as a joke. She honestly didn't see
how she could endure it otherwise.

 
          
"I
gather men here
are
treated pretty much like dogs. Even five hundred
years ago on Pioneer, we never branded our women, or made them wear property
tags!" He chuckled as he fingered the numbered tag around his neck.
"But I suppose a world of women would have to go to extremes."

 
          
"They
certainly do," Cendri agreed indignantly, "I don't think I'm going to
like it here, Dal!"

 
          
"Well,
that's lucky! I had to take a lot of kidding in the Scholar's Room in the
College
of
Archaeology
—saying you'd get to like it, that if I had
half a brain I'd never let my wife loose here to see what it was like with
women on top... that sort of thing. I told them I trusted you and you were a
sensible girl, but just the same—every one of those bastards thought it was
funny!" He shook his head, ruefully.
"Laughing
stock of the whole Department, those last weeks before we left!"