Six Moon Dance (13 page)

“That twisty wind is great,” one candy-smeared small boy had exulted to Ellin—or rather, to Dorothy. “Why don’t they let tornadoes happen for real?”

Ellin had told him why, but the boy had seemed unconvinced. Later, Ellin had thought maybe he was right to be so. There was something terrifying about the tornado, even here on stage, but oh, it lent wings to the dancing! Many old books had dangers and excitements in them, but all natural violence was controlled now. Everything was domed over. If there were excitements, they were out on the frontier, which is where, she told herself firmly, she was going to go as soon as her contract was paid off. She was going to find a primitive planet way out there, where the people had no dancers, where she could teach them all about it until she was too old to move.

No one on Earth worked very late in life. History House never kept anyone after they were forty, but Ellin would not quit at forty and spend the rest of her life on her pension, in a cubicle somewhere! Not even if she had to save up and save up and skimp on disposables and serve her whole twenty years to use her money for a ticket out! She dreamed about it all the time, finding a place with real trees, real grass, real creatures. A place that lasted.

Warmup was short, a kind of abbreviated class. Out in the lobby, people were already lined up as Ellin and the others took their places in the wings. The orchestra was tuning up. All History Houses used real people, keeping the various talents alive. A man’s voice spoke her name from behind her, and for a moment it sounded like Par’s voice, but when she turned, it was a stranger, one of two, both dressed in management blue. That meant they had a right to be here. Or anywhere.

Her mind raced over recent days’ activities, searching for something, anything she might have done, might have said. Had someone heard her complaining about the restrictions or the food? Maybe someone had seen her take that cup….

One of the men returned her panicky look with the fractional upturn of lips allowed government functionaries. Since he’d smiled, it probably wasn’t anything she’d done. Snow? Par? Who? Then she noticed their lapels and insignias: red-and-gold instead of the green-and-white of the civility monitors. They were from Planetary Compliance!

“Ellin?” one of them asked. “Ellin Nordic-Quota, 2980–4653?”

She nodded, afraid to trust her voice. Planetary Compliance. You couldn’t get any more threatening than that.

He smiled again. “Will you call your substitute, please. We have a requisition for you.”

“Requis …”

“From the Questioner.”

Her mouth dropped open. The man who had smiled uttered a brief, official chuckle, three precise ha’s. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror through the classroom door and shut her mouth. No wonder he laughed. She looked witless! Actually stupid, and when men in blue were talking at you, it was not the time to be stupid.

Summoning all available poise, she tried to draw herself up and out of character to ask, “The Questioner, gentlemen?” Try though she had, the words came out in what she thought of as Dorothy’s voice—wondering and very naive.

The fatter one said,
“The
Questioner, yes.” He actually grinned. “Today, girly. This morning. If you’ll call your substitute, please.”

He had just committed an incivility, calling her girly, but now probably wasn’t a good time to report him. Maybe it would be better to ignore it. Even forget it. Trying not to fumble or seem hesitant, she went to the nearest com and spoke to the panel: “Corps de ballet. Director’s office, please. Dorothy character has been called away from backstage by PC officers. Substitute needed immediately.”

“How long will it take?” the man asked.

“Once they call me back, not long,” she murmured. “One of the human alternates will have to be dressed for the part. They only use androids in emergencies.”

“You have to wait?”

“Once the orchestra starts, no character is supposed to leave the wings, sir. In case the entrance cue comes up….” She stared at the floor, trying to keep her breathing steady. What had she done? What had someone claimed she’d done? Had Par accused her of something?

Down the hallway a door opened and Par Reznikoff came through. “That’s Madame’s deputy,” murmured Ellin, pointing. “I guess you’ll have to talk to him.”

The two men moved away from her and intercepted Par in mid-stride. Ellin couldn’t hear them from where she stood, still poised for the music. Madame’s deputy didn’t like it, whatever he was hearing. He shook off their reaching hands and came to the wings, where she was standing, pointing his finger at her and saying: “You’ll stay right where you are….”

“Reznikoff, perhaps you’d like to call the nearest PCO,” said one of the men in blue, who had followed him.

Par turned quite pale, though his mouth was still chewing at the words he hadn’t said yet. Evidently he didn’t like the idea of the Planetary Compliance Office.

“I suggest, before you say anything actionable, that you do so.” The other man in blue looked amused, which would send Par around the far turn. He began furiously punching up com numbers on the panel. Ellin caught one of the men in blue staring at her and she flushed.

“That’s all right,” he said in a calming voice. “He’ll get the word. You’re the lead in this ballet, aren’t you? The records on you said you were a dancer.”

She didn’t ask what records. She was saved from having to say anything for Par turned from the com with his jaw set and his lips pale from being pressed together. He stormed away.

“You can change your clothes now,” said the less-talkative man in blue, gesturing down the hall. “And you’ll want to bring an overnight case.”

She shifted uncertainly.

He smiled the government smile once again. “It’s all right, dear, really. There’s your replacement at the end of the hall. You’re not in any trouble. We’ll meet you at the gate.”

Both of them had been uncivil, calling her girly, calling her dear. She was not a nus, someone with No Useful Skills. She was an honorable, just as they were! She passed the substitute without a glance and went back to wardrobe in what she hoped was a dignified manner. As she removed the wig and the dress, the Dorothy thoughts and worries seemed to dissolve, leaving an aching space to be filled with some other thought or worry. It didn’t take long. As she dropped a clean tunic over her head, she found plenty to worry about in being approached by PCO and requisitioned by the Questioner.

“O
ne of the most important things you will learn,” said Madame, “is how to give a woman what she wants, whether she knows what she wants or not. If you have read your assignment, you know that mankind has a stratified mentality. The ancient lizard mind lies below the mammalian mind, which lies below a primate mind, which is modified by a mind adapted to language, and since these layers have developed in response to differing evolutionary pressures, they often do not function efficiently together. Human civility tries to control ape dominance, human rationality tries to control mammalian sexuality, human social conscience tries to ameliorate reptilian greed, never with total success. Some individuals who could be human give up the struggle and remain mere speaking animals.

“Add to this the complex endocrine makeup of women that drives their cyclical biological systems, and add to
that
the fact that women are more likely than men to ‘think about situations’ in words and symbols which themselves have imprecise meanings, and you will begin to get an idea why women cannot always say, even to themselves, what they desire at any given time.”

Madame took a sip of water. Mouche sat very still, pen poised, hoping he could figure out what Madame desired at any given time. Keeping up with her was very difficult. Keeping one step ahead was impossible. He looked up to catch her gimlet eye, as though she had read his mind, and flushed, bending quickly over his notebook.

She went on. “At the prelinguistic levels, young females are no different from their brothers. They all eat, sleep, and play in the same way. The female’s physical growth is as rapid, her bones and muscles are as strong. The prelinguistic mother makes no differentiation between the male and the female infant.

“Both male and female young play in accordance with their genetic pattern; they run and jump and make noise and copy adult behavior. Primate males, as a group, are more active and noisy and less thoughtful. Primate females, as a group, have longer attention spans and are less likely to engage in rough play. Individual males and females, however, are found at the extremes of both groups, so we must regard these differences not as sex-determined but as gender and culture influenced.

“It is at sexual maturity that real differentiation begins. Among many primates, including primitive hominids, females begin to cluster around infant and nurturing activities, and maturing males tend to assemble into gaming gangs that spend their time in group competitions and rivalries …

“Fentrys! Pay attention. You and Egon may finish your quarrel in fencing class!

“… and the groups are stratified, with one or more leaders and the rest as followers. This pattern continues even today, though the acquisition of language allows such groups to be institutionalized as tribes, armies, political parties, commercial empires, religious hierarches, or sports teams. All of these have rules requiring defense and extension of territory by carrying some play object—a ball, flag, icon, trademark, or belief system—into someone else’s territory. From the psychological point of view, there is very little difference between making religious converts, kicking the winning goal, or cornering the market on Thor-bian gigarums.

“Proper gang activity requires the control of members. Gangs cannot tolerate ‘loose’ persons wandering around. One is either with the church or against it; with the company or against it; with the team or against it. A phrase long in use on Old Earth was, ‘Are you with it?’ meaning, ‘Do you comprehend the behaviors necessary for membership?’ Persons inside the group are ‘us.’ All significant entities outside the group, including females, are ‘them,’ and all them are either property, prey, or opponents.

“Outside persons who have needed or desired talents become property; persons who aren’t useful or won’t submit become prey. Powerful people and groups, male, may be opponents. Females are not usually regarded as opponents, and on many worlds if a woman acts as an opponent, she risks being raped or maimed in order to redefine her as a prey animal and restore balance to the system.

“Females who agree to be property are the survivors. Belonging to a mature, powerful male guarantees his protection for her and her children and raises the female’s rank in the primate society. The higher the rank, the less she is harassed and the more she gets to eat. Over millions of years, therefore, it has become instinctive for females to mate with the most dangerous, most dominant male they can attract.

“Male hominid group leaders really are dangerous. When they cease being dangerous, they will be overthrown. This too has carried over into current time. Men who are physically dangerous—sports stars, murderers, rapists—often enjoy great sexual success. Even imprisoned serial killers are known to acquire female followers who send them gifts and invent romances about them. The aura of danger was and is sexually stimulating, and the attraction of and ‘taming’ of a dangerous man lies at the heart of all romance literature.

“While civilized males no longer publicly categorize females as prey or property, the instinct to do so remains strong….”

Mouche wriggled again, fighting boredom. His father had not treated his mother as either prey or property, and he probably didn’t think of her as an opponent, either. This time he kept his head down, evading Madame’s glance.

“How does this apply to you, Mouche?”

He looked up startled, but she had turned away.

“How does it apply to any of you? You will learn to impart an aura of danger because women find it thrilling, though it is only the aura, not the reality that we seek to achieve. It may take no more than a wicked smile to convey a delicious threat that will increase a woman’s feeling of vulnerability to you while at the same time increasing her feeling of safety. Don’t expect this to make sense at the rational level, it doesn’t. It makes sense only in the bestial basements of women’s minds, where a mate strong enough to fight off a cave bear was a plus, even if he occasionally knocked his mate into the fire.

“Don’t confuse fantasy and reality. It is all too possible to be so swept up in the fantasy that one continues into reality, but the Consort who crosses that line is lost. We never speak of them by name, but I could tell you of more than one who injured a patroness and died in shame and obloquy. Learn your own danger signals. Learn how to control yourselves.

“In your training, you will learn to use these instincts. You will learn how to look and sound dangerous. For example, we stage duels that appear quite real, but we intervene at a point when the combatants are equally advantaged so that both participants can be made to seem dangerous. Each one will then say to his own particular audience, ‘They made us stop because they had a lot invested in him, and they were afraid I would kill him.’ Properly said, with a choke in the voice and furious tears in the eyes, this goes over well. Danger whispers to a woman, ‘He’s so strong, he’s so fearless, he can protect me.’

“This is the effect you will be trained to convey. You will seem larger than life, dangerous and perilous, while really being self-controlled. When a woman buys a Consort, she wants something larger than life. If you were mere Men of Business, you would not be tempting to your patronesses.”

She fell silent, took a sip of water, looked up to see a hand respectfully raised.

“Yes, Mouche? You have a question?”

“Why must we never hurt a woman, Madame? My mother made my father very unhappy sometimes. I used to think if he would hit her, he would feel better.” There. He had proved he’d been listening.

Madame nodded. “That raises several issues: