The Kanshou (Earthkeep) (16 page)

Dicken anger diffused.  She shook her head.  "Too much," she whispered, tiredly.  She found Jez's eyes.  "I just know I feel released.  Like I'm getting out of a bailiwick after serving a long sentence."  She studied her lover's face.  "You're knocked out by it," she breathed.  "Aren't you?"

"I am knocked out by it," Jez agreed, "beyond what I'm able to understand."  She wrapped the big towel around Dicken's shoulders.  "So let's don't try to process it now." 

Dicken stood and held out her hand.  They spoke in whispers as they made their way over the starlit sand back to their quarters.  On the narrow pallet they folded themselves into spoon position, Jezebel behind Dicken, holding her loosely.  They spoke the incantation in Arabic and fell at once into sleep. 

7 – Bombay - [2087 C.E.]

In the words of Mother Monique, "There was a time when

you were not a slave."  In the words of Mother

Bhodrapona, "There will come a time when you are no

longer a slave."  And in the words of Mother Babette,

"The reign of men is a no between two yeses,

a death between two lives, an unfortunate pause

in the course of Love."

--The Mother Right Manifesto, circa 1978

"Jezebel, I have broken bread with those whose insight is most clear.  They offer little hope.  They say the Testing and the Protocols are doomed, that neither will ever make the Central Web's consensus."  Dhamni Diu Pradesh, Rememorante Afortunada and Central Webster from the Asia Satrapy, was massaging her guest's feet.  "The Websters I have heard from feel that their constituencies are against us," she continued, as her strong hands worked their magic, "or at least that they lean toward protofobia.  Flossie Yotoma Lutu and your old classmate, Zella Terremoto Adverb, are a formidable pair.  They stand as a bulwark against the Protocols and have the staunch support of all the individual rights groups -- at least in their two tri-satrapies."

Jez put her hands behind her head, trying to relax into Dhamni's healing pressures.  "You'll have more hope after I share some of Dicken's and my information.  But," she observed equably, "you're right about Zude, at least.  She would never countenance a world that came to peace through violent means." 

"
Violent
means," Dhamni mused, shaking her head.  "Like the Protocols.  Or the Testing."

"Exactly."   

There was a long silence.  "You know," the older woman said calmly, "we may just have to let it go."

Jez's eyes flew open.  "Let it go!"  She relaxed once more, still trying for ease.  "Dhamni, old friend, you amaze me.  How can you talk so blithely about letting it go?  After all your work!"

Her host smiled, her strong hands still hard at their task.  "Because I make a distinction between
wanting to change things
and
wanting things to change." 
She concentrated on the big toe.  "Jezebel, you know I want the Testing and the Protocols to be made into law.  But our way of trying to make it happen may not be appropriate. 
Wanting to change things
," she mused, "is also violence.  It's just a
little less
violent than persuasion, which is just a
little less
violent than physical force."

"Live and let live," Jez sighed.  "You're a purist, Dhamni, a real card-carrying, hands-off purist."

"Perhaps," said her host.  "I state my case passionately.  I earnestly listen to others as they state their cases with equal passion.  I admit that they have their truth just as I have mine.  I look for a bigger perspective.  And without losing my passion or my vision, I stop beating my head against the wall.  That's letting go."

"That's giving up!"  Jez held up a second foot for its share of Dhamni's ministrations.  "Dhamni, I confess that I sometimes find myself trying to persuade people, but you know me and you know that in all these years, in all our work for the Testing and the Protocols, I've tried
always
to find a way that coerces nobody, a way that
hopes for change
without
pushing someone to change.
"  She deliberately breathed deeply, still seeking ease.  "But I can't argue passionately in one breath and in the next simply be indifferent about it all."

Dhamni kneaded and rubbed in silence.  She shook her head.  "It's not about indifference," she mused.  Long moments later she added, "Letting go is more about you yourself being willing to change."  She pressed ease into Jez's heel. 

"I
am
willing, Dhamni," her guest said quietly.  "I am willing to give and give and give, to change and change and change."  She sat up straight.  "There's only one thing that I think I'll will never change, one bedrock belief."

"Which is?"  She sat very still, holding Jez's foot

Reluctantly Jez extricated her foot.  She brushed her masseuse's cheek with a kiss, then stood up and stretched, moving slowly toward the courtyard.  After a moment, she turned to her host.  "The Protocols," she said at last, "and the Testing.  In this case the end does justify the means.  Just once, Dhamni, just this one time!"

Dhamni's eyes were closed, and she was frowning.  Still she nodded her head.  "The bomb to end all bombing, the war to end all wars, the violence . . . "

"To end all violence," Jez finished.  She picked up a hand-sized statue of a nilgai and stroked its blue-grey belly.  "Violence drove the animals away, and nearly destroyed every inch of the Earth.  And it hasn't stopped."  She slid her fingers across the tiny antelope horns, then set the statue down again.  "Watch any three males, Dhamni -- any age, on any street corner, in any country.  'Oh, they're just having fun,' some twitter, or, 'boys will be boys!'  But that tight feeling in your belly tells you that it's not just fun.  They're  hostile, and they'd like to do something
to
some person or
to
some thing that is weaker than they are.  Their very stance suggests the kick they'll get out of blowing it up or torturing it or at least making some kind of mockery of it.  They are a danger," she finished, "to all of life."

Before she stood, Dhamni spoke encouragingly to her hips and knees.  Then slowly, she rose and stepped behind her guest.  "You are forgetting," she whispered, "it's not all men.  Not anymore.  There has been some improvement." 

Jez shrugged, nodding reluctantly.

Dhamni put her arms around Jez and looked over her shoulder into the green-filled courtyard.  "I sometimes wonder how the women a century ago survived," she said, her breath brushing Jez's cheek.  "Everywhere they turned it was men.  Men's bodies, men's guns, men's wars, men's movies, men's needs, men's property, men's power.  There was no escape from it.  I cannot imagine having a man in my house, much less one who assumed he owned me, that I was his possession."

Jez sighed.  They stood on the high-polish tiles in the morning sun, staring at intricately climbing ferns and mossed rocks.  "I learned something in Asir," she said, "from a boy just moving into his manhood.  Dhamni, men are terrified they will lose their individuality.  They see women as a sameness that will obliterate their individual identity."  The women stood, one behind the other, swaying lightly.

Out of the long silence a tangle bell sounded.  And sounded again.  The two women did not move.  There was a bustle from the street side of the house, voices in formal conversation.  A bamboo curtain rattled closed. 

Sulankisha found her great-grandmother and the visitor apparently tranced out by the sight of a boontree root.  She wiped her hands on her light raineralls and spoke.  "Moet."   Dhamni turned.  "Moet, there was a runner at the door when I came in.  She gave me a message for Jezebel Stronglaces."

"I'm Jezebel."  She held out her hands.  "And you're Sulan. I met you years ago.  On the island."

Sulan stepped back hastily.  "I have the wastes of Bombay all over me," she explained.  "Garbage rotation.  But I remember you.  You taught us scrying."

"A version of it," Jez agreed, dropping her hands.  "You have become very beautiful."

Sulan did not hide her pleasure or her blush.  "Your message is from Bess Dicken.  She says you can't reach her until after three.  But then you must call her at the Trade Center.  At Key 1765-8 L."

Jez frowned.  "Did she indicate any urgency?"

"The runner just said to tell you that it is one of Dicken's premonitions."  She smiled.  "Moet says you will be with us a few days.  I look forward to that."

"Thank you, Sulan."

"We are working until late afternoon," Dhamni added, "and I have set a privacy ward.  But at dusk, will you eat with us?"

"I wouldn't miss it."  Sulan waved as she left for the showerhouse.

The older woman picked up her teacup and the pot.  She

made her way toward the cookery.  "Before we get into our work I have some tell-all for you.  Do you want to hear it?" 

Jez followed her, relaxed at last.  "What do you think?"

"I think you always want to know how you are perceived."

The cookery was an old-fashioned kitchen, with last-century freeze-and-heat units, and no transmog.  Jez set her cup on a small round table and sank into a pillowed chair.  She settled back.  "So," she said, "the tell-all."

Dhamni rinsed her cup and spoon, spreading them on the solar tray for drying.  "The word here on the streets and in the fields," she said, "is that Jezebel Stronglaces is a dedicated, charismatic witch whose integrity, on the whole, is intact."  Jez raised her cup in salute to herself.  Dhamni set a plate of snacks on the table.  "And," she continued, "she's very eloquent, highly persuasive."

Jezebel reached for a celery stick filled with cashew nut spread.  "Guilty," she said.  "I probably spent too much time as an Amah cadet, Dhamni.  The Kanshou believe in persuasion, you know, or at least their
Labrys Manual
recommends it as the best alternative to physical force."  She grinned.  "Actually, I think some Kanshou suspect that persuasion is violence, and feel guilty about using it."

"Still, it
is
a lesser evil."

Jez bit into the celery.  "And fun," she added, chewing loudly.  "Admit it, Dham.  You can get plenty high on a good argumentative encounter.  I may even have seen that happen . . ."  She frowned and looked into the distance, as if trying to recall an instance.

Dhamni laughed, holding up a cellusponge in protest. "It must have been a long time ago, Jezebel."  She began wiping up drops of water in the ridges of the splashboard.  "The worst that is said of you," she resumed, "and only a few say it -- is that your protofile stance on the Testing and the Protocols borders on the fanatic; they insist that you are a Mother Righter."

"That's not true!"

The older woman had her sponge hand on her hip.  "Some think that anyone who supports the Testing and the Protocols must be a man-hater, ergo she is also a Mother Righter."

Jez laughed and finished off the celery stick.  "Oh, my good friend, I have lived with Mother Righters, and much as I understand
and
respect them I can't accurately be labelled as one.  Real Mother Righters, Dhamni, think the Testing and Protocols are a joke!  They don't believ
e
men
can
be cured of their violence, not even by the Protocols!  The only way to get rid of violence, they would say, is to get rid of men completely.  From their point of view, men are evolutionary blunders and must be bred out of existence as soon as possible." 

"Ironic then," Dhamni observed softly, "that anyone should associate them at all with the Testing and Protocols." 

"True," Jez agreed.  "Anyway, I can't admit to the label.  Men, slaves though they are to their unfortunate biology, do add some variety to the world, and heterosexual women should be able to choose them as mates.  And the Protocols will take care of their violence."  She drained her tea.  "I guess the reason I can't be called a Mother Righter is that I have too much hope for men."  She paused.  "And too much hope in the Testing and Protocols." 

Both women were seated now at the worktable.  Jez drew the fabric of the noon hour into familiar pleats.  "And now, old friend," she sighed loudly, scanning the settings on the compuboard, "is it true that the Big Web itself sometimes acts with less than consensus?" 

Dhamni shuffled through comcubes and flatcopies.  "Often," she answered.  "Consensus is the Central Web's ideal, but if the agenda is full, or if the matters are more local than global, or if the particular policy will affect only a few, then yes, the Web can resort to majority decisions."  She looked at Jez.  "This decision will have to be consensus.  Nothing more important than this has ever come before the Web." 

There was no more to be said.  The two women exhaled a common ending breath, activated the humming computer terminal, and adjusted their sights for the work at hand.  They shared Dhamni's reports and the news of Jez's travels.  Both were heartened by the projections that Jez and Dicken had compiled with women from demesne webs.

They plunged on into the long afternoon, exploring multiple strategies.  Most likely, the Web would entertain the proposal for Habitante Testing first, as a matter of prudence.  Until research had ascertained that there was indeed an organic, physiological center of violence in the brain for which protocols could be formulated, caution had to be the watchword.  The matter of individual freedom was nested deep in the global psyche. 

In regard to Adult Protocols, the question of acting against another's will was the issue.  To be sure, violent people could choose to change their behaviors, but the point was to
require
the Protocols by global law, to assure that
all
violent offenders -- who by their very acts of violence had given up their rights as citizens -- would be subjected to the procedure.  "Violence" itself would have to be defined far more explicitly than at present.

A barrage of doubts assailed Jez.  "Dhamni," she whispered, "Dhamni, what if . . ."  She inhaled deeply.  "What if . . . what if we don't find it?  Any physical cause?"