Choices (12 page)

But the ‘Graven gift worked through light as
waves, as I experienced directly every day, at prayers and at my
tasks of signal station and cell. We have specialized neurons,
brain cells that respond to light received through the eyes. The
inner eyelids that protect us from the full force of radiant light
also polarize and filter it, so that we receive each wave length
with a different set of receptors. That intense nausea I had
suffered when my
crypta
was switched on during my test was
a reaction to the sudden strain on my body’s energy, like an
enormous factory going online all at once.

Each wavelength powers a different skill or
trait: dawn blue is best for memory and learning; evening reds
promote empathy. The multiple reflections of eclipses and moonlight
produce subtle effects that enhance the more complex gifts, which
is why the phenomena are traditionally associated with magic and
sorcery.

A cell is many things: a biological cell,
with a nucleus to control it and plasma to power it, the membrane
like skin to hold it together; every atom is like a cell, with a
nucleus of protons and neutrons and shells of electrons revolving
or pulsing around it. It’s this atomic cell that embodies the
wave/particle dichotomy, quantum physics having determined that the
electrons appear and disappear at different locations, in a pattern
that looks like an orbit, a wave, but that can only be observed, if
at all, as discrete points, or particles. And then there are
political cells, anarchists and terrorists, loose associations of
individuals acting toward a common purpose, and the cells that
store energy, like batteries, and power devices like computers.

Our cell was all of these. Its power was our
mental abilities, combined by the skill of our “nucleus,” Matilda,
amplified by the effect of the polarized light on her neurons; its
plasma the electrical field of that telepathic energy, contained
within the “membrane” of the encircling bodies, linked by the
simple physicality of holding hands. We scheduled our work
immediately after the daily eclipse, so that our powers would
always be at their height.

It was fascinating, and wonderful, to be
standing in a room with a few small high windows, and at the same
time to be floating over the treetops, on a beautiful bright day in
early winter, without having to be strapped into a flying tube of
metal and plastic. It was like being on a clear-bottomed boat to
see the ocean, but better, because there was no boat, nothing
between us and the air. I could see the sky, the horizon, and the
first hint of stars becoming visible over dark-green tips of the
evergreen forests. It was like the time I had visited Dominic, only
now it wasn’t furtive or rushed. We seemed to meander, although
following an itinerary, and because of our skills, we felt no cold,
were not aware of our bodies at all. That was why I was there.

After an hour or two everyone, even Matilda,
was tired. I could sense the heavier breathing, the sweating, the
fatigue and need for food. But before I had to do anything,
Matilda, recognizing her own and the others’ exhaustion, brought
the cell back to La Sapienza, into the room, slowly relinquishing
the bonds among the five members. Each of them dropped out,
exhausted, the women sitting down quickly on chairs, head hanging,
Paolo and Tomasz sprawling on the floor.

They hadn’t made much progress, but Raquel
said that was normal. “We’re in the experimental phase, trying to
figure out what works. Mostly our job is just to eliminate, to test
the various hypotheses and disprove them. It’s really the most
useful thing of all, when you think about it, saving others from
wasting what might be years of research on a dead-end path.” She
smiled, but her words sounded more hopeful than she looked. She had
fine, thin skin, and there were wrinkles forming at the corners of
her eyes and mouth, although she was no older than me.

Raquel, like Cassandra and the other women,
had chosen a career in a seminary, enjoying the work and the
prestige, rather than marrying into what she saw as a life of
drudgery. I learned something of Raquel’s view of marriage now, as
she sat regaining her strength, thinking that at least she was here
at La Sapienza, not locked into an unbreakable marriage, bearing
children, hoping each would inherit something of her gift, or her
husband’s, managing the domestic side of things, using her
crypta
only as an overseer, in a way, to keep her family
healthy.

It was all or nothing for gifted women, all
family or all academic work, nothing in between. Matilda’s lucky
arrangement was an exception, because of her powerful gift and the
willingness on the part of her family and her future husband to let
her continue her training well past the age of normal first
marriage. Edwige herself had followed a similar path, returning to
the seminary only after her many failed pregnancies had made
married life unendurable and, by Eclipsian standards,
pointless.

I wondered which I would choose. On Terra
such a question was absurd. Everybody, man or woman, has a job,
elevated to the status of “career” if one is pretentious or has a
genuine talent. Adoption is the accepted way of creating a family,
for single people, couples and other arrangements. Women have the
option of bearing and raising a child, if they can afford the taxes
imposed for adding to the population and don’t mind all the extra
work, but marriage was long since uncoupled from the idea of
childbearing. A woman does not expect to have a man’s help merely
because she decides to bear his child.

Most Eclipsian women have the choice made for
them. Those without
crypta
, the majority, marry young and
bear many children while continuing to do farm labor or housework,
domestic service or keeping shop. The minority, ‘Graven and gentry,
follow a similar pattern, entering early into arranged marriages.
If two people love each other, like Tomasz and Alicia, no one
stands in their way if they are of equal social rank.

Gifted women are valuable, in or out of a
seminary. Bearing children who might possess
crypta
is as
important as working in a cell, and the two jobs cannot be done at
the same time. As I’d been warned repeatedly, the radiation we
generated, even in a small cell like ours, was dangerous to a
developing fetus. We had our eyelids, our shields, to protect us
from the worst of it, and the more work we did, the stronger our
own electric fields became, enveloping our body in a kind of
sheath.

A baby in the womb has no protection. Even if
the mother has a powerful gift—especially if she does—the
protection she generates works only on adult bodies, adult
biological cells. A developing creature is affected by every
telepathic force, both outside and inside its own mother, and is
vulnerable to every form of radiant energy.

When a woman becomes pregnant in a
seminary—and it does happen occasionally—she is sent home, although
not in disgrace. In most cases she is applauded for bringing a
potentially gifted child into the world, and the father is only too
happy to claim it. It’s considered an acceptable, even admirable
way for marriages between the gifted to begin. Alicia and Tomasz
were waiting for Alicia to conceive. After a brief honeymoon,
Alicia would stay home with her child to run the large household of
extended family and servants, while Tomasz would return to La
Sapienza.

‘Graven and gentry women have servants. That
was a fact that changed the whole equation. A woman who marries
into one of these families has a household. It carries great
responsibility, like managing a business on Terra, but it also
provides help. The heavy labor of cooking and heating with wood
fires, of maintaining the house, work that doesn’t exist on Terra,
is a real problem here. But the gentry have people to do the worst
of it. And a wife has people to help her care for the children,
nursemaids for the babies and a governess or tutor for older
children. If she is healthy, a married woman in the gentry or
nobility can have several children without wearing herself
down.

Which would I choose?
I asked myself
again. As soon as I formed the question I thought of Dominic, but
just as quickly I laughed at myself for my foolishness. Marriage to
a man like Dominic was not a simple thing. Dominic wasn’t gentry;
he was ‘Graven. I had only an impression, less than vague, of what
it might mean to be ‘Gravina Aranyi, but there must be many duties
that came with such a position. I suspected that none of my Terran
jobs had been half as challenging.

And there was the idea of marriage itself.
Marriage on Terra was more a word than a condition. People married
or not depending on the fashion that year. Eclipsis takes marriage
seriously. There are different forms of marriage on Eclipsis, some
like Terran serial monogamy, easy to enter into, just as easy to
leave, some much stricter. ‘Graven marry for life under the most
inflexible, unbreakable rite, tattooing their partner’s name on
their upper arm in a painful dual process of incision, called
scarification, and burning, called cauterization. Divorce is
supposedly impossible, as no surgery can remove the impressions
that penetrate the layers of muscle tissue, into the bones. When
‘Graven die and are laid in their tomb, it is said, the tattoos are
the last part of the flesh to decompose.

I had seen Edwige’s tattoo, a wide band of
elaborate calligraphy that carved the soft flesh of her upper arm,
pulling it into crevices and dimples. Matilda told me that it’s
customary for the couple to get tattooed at the same time, without
anesthetic, holding hands and forming telepathic communion. “If
their bond isn’t strong enough, if they can’t stand the pain, it’s
proof that their love isn’t true. Even if they want to go ahead
with the wedding, their families call it off.”

That was the least of it
. I knew
Dominic wouldn’t expect me to undergo torture in some outlandish
ritual. The only barriers between Dominic and me were practical
ones. The ‘Graven have strict rules about who can marry whom. Even
if I were willing to take on a lifetime of responsibility, no
retirement until death, I doubted that, as a Terran, I would be
acceptable, regardless of my silver inner eyelids or whatever gifts
of
crypta
I might possess.

No
, I decided,
marriage is not
for me
. It never occurred to me to contemplate marriage with
anyone but Dominic.

As I fell into bed that night I was still
brooding on the question, unable to leave it alone. Dominic did
love me, I was convinced of it, but he was essentially
vir
, uninterested in maintaining a traditional household.
There was no need to worry about marriage. Being with Dominic
didn’t have to mean getting locked into a lifelong partnership. He
had never wanted a family, despite his elation when I had hinted
that I wished to bear his child. After all, he had already fathered
two children and hadn’t married their mothers either.

Suppose I could get pregnant
.
Dominic would acknowledge the child, help me care for it. I had
learned enough from talking with the other women to know that a
‘Graven lord would usually support the mother of his child so that
she wouldn’t have to work while rearing it. The thought was
absurdly, slothfully appealing: years of freedom, devoting myself
to a beloved child, not having to go without sleep and drag myself
exhausted to a job while parking my baby in the inadequate
substitute for a mother euphemistically called “family day
care.”

I was almost asleep when the horrible thought
hit me. When the child was old enough, Dominic would claim it. If
it was a boy, it would be heir to Aranyi, or could be, if Dominic
so decreed. Dominic would take the child, at some absurdly young
age, like seven years old, or even five, to bring him up as the
future Margrave Aranyi. I would never see my child again unless
Dominic was gracious and permitted me visits. In the vivid drama of
semi-consciousness, I imagined a small redheaded boy with silver
inner eyelids wailing with terror as Dominic wrenched him from my
arms. I sat up in terror, soaked with sweat, my stomach heaving, as
if all this had really happened.

Get a grip
, I told myself. Even if
Dominic “visited” me every night for the next four months, I could
not get pregnant through
crypta
. And I wasn’t going to be
visiting with Dominic, or anybody. I was going to oversee the cell,
and take my shifts on the signal scope, and join the cell as a full
member soon. At the end of my six months, if I performed to
expectations, I would be invited to stay.
That’s what I would
choose
. I would stay and train to become a sibyl. Perhaps I
could have a few real visits with Dominic eventually, a reward for
good behavior. But I would make the sensible choice, the kind of
choice I had made on Terra. Everything else was
nonsense—ridiculous, romantic rubbish.
Tripe
.

The next morning I was depressed, slow and
lethargic getting ready for breakfast.
It must be my period
coming
. I picking up a common thought from the women. It
wasn’t, though. Thanks to the hormone implant, the contraception
that had mystified ‘Graven Assembly, I hadn’t had a period in
years. I was learning to observe myself now, examine my own body
internally, and I saw no physical cause for the way I was feeling.
Idiot
, I told myself,
moping about because you won’t
be marrying some medieval warlord swordsman, and because you’re not
pregnant
. Later on I thought, half serious,
Maybe it’s the
clothes
. The clothes accentuated my progression, every day
feeling less like Terran Amelia and more like Eclipsian Amalie.

Paolo had a more realistic theory. “You’re
worn out from your first day overseeing the cell,” he said,
suffering through my bizarre mood himself in empathy. He convinced
me to take the day off. “You don’t need to ask permission. We’re
all adults.” Slowly, without being aware, it seems I had graduated
from high school, leaving the teenagers behind, and become the
newest member of the permanent, adult staff.