The Dark Design (9 page)
He looked surprised, but he shrugged again. As soon as they had stepped out, however, he lit it. And he moved from her left side to upwind, puffing vigorously, blowing in her direction.
Jill repressed the remark she wanted so much to make. It would be indiscreet to offend him too much, to give him a chance to black-mark her. After all, she was on probation; she was a woman; she wouldn’t needlessly antagonize a man with such a high position, a good friend of Firebrass’. But she would bend her principles, her neck, only so far.
Or would she? She had taken a lot of crap on Earth because she had wanted to be an airship officer. And smiled and gone home and smashed dishes and pottery and written dirty words on the wall. Childish, but satisfactory. And here she was, in a similar situation, undreamed of until several years ago. She couldn’t go someplace else, because there wasn’t any other place. Here was where the only airship in the world would be built. And that was to be a one-shot, a single-voyage phenomenon.
Schwartz stopped on top of the hill. He pointed at an avenue formed by ridgepole pines. At its end, halfway down the hill opposite, was a long shed.
“The latrine for your neighborhood,” he said. “You’ll dump your nightpots in it first thing every morning. The urine in one hole and the excrement in the one next to it.”
He paused, smiled, and said, “Probationers are usually given the task of removing the stuff every other day. They take it up the mountain to the gunpowder factory. The excrement is fed to the powderworms. The end product of their digestion is potassium nitrate, and…”
“I know,” she said, speaking between clamped teeth. “I’m not a dummy. Anyway, that process is used wherever sulfur is available.”
Schwartz teetered on his heels, happily puffing his cigar, tilted upward. If he had had suspenders, he would have snapped them.
“Most probationers put in at least a month working in the factory. It’s unpleasant, but it’s good discipline. It also weeds out those who aren’t dedicated.”
“Non carborundum illegitimatus,”
she said.
“What?” he said out of the side of his mouth.
“A Yank saying. Jack-Latin. Translation:
Don’t let the bastards grind you down.
I can take any crap handed me—if it’s worth doing it. Then it’s my turn.”
“Too right. You have to be if you survive in a man’s world. I thought perhaps things would be different here. They weren’t, and aren’t, but they will be.
“We’ve all changed,” he said slowly and somewhat sadly. “Not always for the better. If you’d told me in 1893 that I’d be listening to a woman, an upper-class woman, not a whore or a millhand, mind you, spewing filth and subversive…”
“Instead of subservient, you mean,” she said harshly.
“Allow me to finish. Subversive suffragette rot. And if you’d told me that it wouldn’t particularly bother me, I’d have said you were a liar. But live and learn. Or, in our case, die and learn.”
He paused and looked at her. The right side of her mouth jerked; her eyes narrowed.
“I could tell you to stick it,” she said. “But I must get along with you. I will take only so much, however.”
“You didn’t understand all I said,” he replied. “I said it doesn’t bother me now. And I said, live and learn. I am not the David Schwartz of 1893. I hope you are not the Jill Gulbirra of… when did you die?”
“In 1983.”
They walked down the hill in silence, Jill carrying her grail on the end of her spear, which was on her shoulder. Schwartz stopped once to point out a stream that ran down from the hills. Its source was a cataract in the mountains. They came to a small lake between two hills. A man sat in a rowboat in the middle of the lake, a bamboo fishing pole in his hand, the float drifting toward a bush overhanging the bank. Jill thought he looked Japanese.
Schwartz said, “Your neighbor. His real name is Ohara, but he prefers to be called Piscator. He’s crazy about Izaak Walton, whom he can quote verbatim. He says a man needs only one name in this world, and he’s chosen Piscator. Latin for fisher. He’s a fish freak, as you can see. Which is why he’s in charge of the Parolando Riverdragon fishing. But today’s his day off.”
“That’s interesting,” she said. He was, she believed, leading up to something unpleasant for her. The slight smile looked sadistic.
“He’ll probably be the first mate of the airship,” he said. “He was a Japanese naval officer and during the first part of World War I he was attached to the British Navy as an observer and trainee on dirigibles. Later, he was a trainee-observer on an Italian Navy airship which made bombing raids on Austrian bases. So, you see, he’s had enough experience to rank him very high on the list.”
“And he is a man.” She smiled, though seething inside. “And though my experience is much much more than his, still, he’s a man.”
Schwartz backed away from her. “I’m sure Firebrass will appoint officers according to their merits only.”
She did not reply.
Schwartz waved at the man in the boat. He rose from his seat and, smiling, bowed. Then he sat down, but not before giving her a look that seemed to sweep over her like a metaphysical radar beam, locating her place in the world, identifying her psychic construction.
Imagination, of course. But she thought that Schwartz was right when he said, “An extraordinary man, that Piscator.”
The Japanese’s black eyes seemed to burn holes in her back as she walked away.
Blackness outside. Inside, a night writhing with snakes of pale lightning, twisty and fuzzy. Some time later, in a place where there was no time, a bright beam ahead shone as if from the lens of a movie projector. The light was a whisper in the air; in her mind, it was bellowing. The film was being shown on a cathode-ray oscilloscope; it was a series of letters, broken words, signs, and symbols, all part of an undeciphered code. Perhaps: undecipherable.
Worse, it seemed to run backward, spun back into the reel(ity?). It was a documentary made for television, for the boobish (boobed?) viewer of the boob tube. Yet, backward was an excellent technique. Images flashed to suggest, to reverberate, to echo, to evoke, to flap intimation upon intimation with electronic quickness. Like flipping the pages of an illustrated book from back to beginning. But the text, where was the text? And what was she thinking of when she thought of images? There were no images. No plot. Yes, there was a plot, but it had to be put together from many pieces. Ah, many pieces. She almost had it, but it had slipped away.
Moaning, she awoke. She opened her eyes and listened to the rain beating upon the thatched roof.
Now she remembered the first part of the dream. It was a dream of a dream, or what she thought was a dream but was not sure. It was raining, and she had half-awakened or had seemed to do so. The hut was 20,000 kilometers from this one, but it was almost identical, and the world outside the hut, as seen by occasional flashes of lightning, would not have differed much. She had turned, and her hand had not felt the expected flesh.
She had sat up and looked around. A lightning streak, close enough to make her jump, showed that Jack was not in the hut.
She had got up and lit a fish-oil lamp. Not only was he not there, his cloths, weapons, and grail were gone.
She had run out into the stormy night to look for him.
She never found him. He was gone, and no one knew where or why.
The only one who might have been able to tell her had also sneaked out that same night. He, too, had left his hutmate without saying a word about his intentions. It was apparent to Jill that the two had run off together. Yet, as far as she knew, they had been only casual acquaintances.
Why had Jack left her, so silently and heartlessly?
What had she done?
Was it just that Jack had decided that he did not want to put up with a woman who wouldn’t play second fiddle in their relationship? Also, had the wanderlust gotten him again? With both motives pushing him, had he just up and went, to use one of his corny Americanisms?
Whatever was the truth, she was living with no man anymore, ever again. Jack was the best, and the last was the best, as it should be, but he had not been good enough.
She was on the rebound when she met Fatima, the little sloe-eyed Turk. Fatima, one of the hundreds of concubines of Mohammed IV (ruled Turkey from 1648–1687), had never gone to bed with him. She had, however, not suffered overmuch from lack of sexual satisfaction. There were plenty of fellow prisoners of the Seraglio who preferred their own sex as lovers, either through natural inclinations or conditioning. She became a favorite of Kosem, Mohammed’s grandmother, though there was nothing overtly homosexual in their relationship.
But Turhan, Mohammed’s mother, sought to get control of the government from Kosem, and eventually Kosem was caught by a party of Turhan’s assassins and strangled to death with the cords from her own bed curtain. It was Fatima’s bad fortune to be attending Kosem when this happened and so she had to share her fate.
Jill took the sexy little Turk in as hutmate after Fatima had quarreled with her lover, a French ballet danseuse (died 1873). Jill was not in love with her, but she was sexually exciting and, after a while, she became fond of her. Fatima, however, was ignorant and, worse, unteachable. She was selfish and would remain so, was infantile and would remain so. Jill got tired of her after a year. Even so, she was grief-stricken when Fatima was raped and then beaten to death by three drunken Sikeli (born 1000
B.C.
?). Her grief was intensified by the knowledge (or belief, since there was no proof) that Fatima was truly dead. Resurrection had apparently stopped. No more would a dead person rise the next day at dawn far, far from the scene of his or her demise.
Before succumbing to her sorrow, however, Jill had put an arrow into each of Fatima’s murderers. They were not going to rise elsewhere either.
Years later, she had heard rumors of the great dirigible that was being built upRiver. She did not know if they were true or not, but there was only one way to find out.
So here she was, though it had taken a long time to get here.
From
The Daily Leak
, a five-page newspaper. Owner and publisher: the state of Parolando. Editor: S.C. Bagg. In the upper-left-hand corner above the headline is the standard notice:
CAVEAT LECTOR
By law, the reader must place this journal in a public recycling barrel the day after receipt. In case of emergency, it may be used for toilet paper. We recommend the
Letters to the Editor
page as most appropriate for this purpose. First offense: a public reprimand. Second: confiscation of all booze, tobacco, and dreamgum for a week. Third: permanent exile.
Prominent in the
Newcomers
section:
JILL GULBIRRA
We welcome, in spite of the advice of many, our latest female candidate for citizenship. On Sunday last, this tall drink of water appeared out of the predawn fog and accosted four of our leading public figures. Despite their certain state of inebriation and possibly lecherous thoughts, two conditions leading to mental fogginess, the quartet finally comprehended that their unexpected guest had traveled approximately 32,180 kilometers (or 20,000 miles, for you dummies and dodos). She had done this alone and in a canoe (and not been raped or dunked once) and all this odyssey was performed just to make sure that our airship project proceeds on proper lines. While not exactly demanding that she be appointed commander of the dirigible when it is commissioned, she did intimate that it would be to everybody’s good if she did obtain this post.
After a few snorts of the divine product of Caledonia, the quartet partially recovered from this onslaught. (One witness thus describes her appearance: “Amazonly, with a demeanor of sheer brass nerves and ironclad guts, unseemly in any woman worthy of the name.”)
The famous four inquired as to her credentials. She furnished these, which, if valid, are impressive indeed. A prominent citizen interviewed on the subject by our intrepid reporter, Roger “Nellie” Bligh, affirms that she is indeed what she claims to be. Though never having met her in his Terrestrial existence, he did read about her in various periodicals and once viewed her on television (a mid-twentieth-century invention which your editor did not live long enough to see and from all accounts was fortunate to have missed).
It seems that, unless this woman bears a remarkable physical resemblance to the genuine Jill Gulbirra, she is not one of the numerous phonies that have plagued this Rivervalley for far too long a time.
The Office of Vital (some say Deadly) Statistics has furnished us with the following information. Gulbirra, Jill (no middle name). Female. Natal name: Johnetta Georgette Redd. Born February 12, 1953, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. Father: John George Redd. Mother: Marie Bronze Redd. Heredity: Scotch-Irish, French (Jewish), Australian aborigine. Unmarried on Earth. Attended schools in Canberra and Melbourne. Graduated 1973 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, master’s degree in aeronautical engineering. Commercial aviator’s license, four-motor. Free balloonist’s license. Engineer-navigator on West German freighter blimp serving Nigerian government, 1977–78. Blimp pilot for Goodyear, United States, 1979. Blimp pilot for the Sheik of Kuwait, 1980–81. Blimp instructor for British Airways Systems, 1982. Became in 1983 the only qualified woman airship captain in the Western world. Logged 8342 hours airship flight time.
Died April 1, 1983
A.D.
, automobile accident near Howden, England, just before assuming command of the newly commissioned rigid airship
Willows-Goodens.
Profession: obvious from above.
Skills: flute, archery, fencing, kendo, quarterstaff, martial arts, badmouthing.
She is pretty good with her dukes, too, having slammed a distinguished citizen, Cyrano “Schnozzola” de Bergerac, in the breadbasket, following with a knee to the jaw, rendering him
hors de combat
and speechless. This phenomenon occurred as a result of his having laid hands (without permission) upon her teat. Normally, the fiery Frenchman would have challenged anyone who handled him so savagely to a duel to the death (across the Parolando boundary, of course, since dueling is illegal in our fair state). But he is so old-fashioned that he would feel, as he put it,
“comme un imbécile,”
if he were to fight a woman. Moreover, he feels that he was in the wrong for having made advances without invitation “verbal” or “ocular.”
An hour after suppertime yesterday, your enterprising intrepid appeared at the door of Gulbirra’s hut and knocked. There were some grunts and then a querulous voice called, “What in hell do you want?” Apparently, the would-be interviewee didn’t give a hoot about the identity of her caller.
“Miss Gulbirra, I’m Roger Bligh, reporter for
The Daily Leak.
I’d like to interview you.”
“Well, you’ll have to wait. I’m on the pot.”
Your journalist lit up a cigar to pass the time. He also planned to use its burning tip later to clear out the fumes in the hut. After some time, during which he heard splashing of water in a basin, he heard, “Come on in. But leave the door open.”
“Gladly,” said your dauntless.
He found the subject seated at a chair by the table and smoking a joint. What with the cigar and maryjane and residue of the subject’s recent occupation and the smoke from several fishwax candles, neither visibility nor olfactoriness were at an optimum.
“Miss Gulbirra?”
“No. Miz.”
“What does the title mean?”
“Are you asking just to get my views or don’t you really know? There are plenty of people of my time around. Surely, you’ve encountered
Miz
before?”
Your reporter confessed his ignorance.
Instead of enlightening Mr. Bligh, the subject said, “What is the position of women in Parolando?”
“In the daytime or at night?” Mr. Bligh said.
“Don’t get smart with me,” Miz Gulbirra said. “Let me put it simply so your mind can grasp exactly what I’m talking about. Legally, that is, theoretically, women have equal rights here. But in practice, in reality, what is the male attitude toward females?”
“Mainly lecherous, I’m afraid,” the intrepid replied.
“I’ll give you one more chance,” the subject said. “Then it’ll be a question of chance and gravity which strikes the ground first outside the door, your ass or your stinking cigar.”
“My apologies,” the intrepid said. “But, after all, I am here to interview you, not vice versa. Why don’t you ask our female citizens what they think of the male attitude toward them? Anyway, are you here to conduct a suffragette crusade or to build and to man (if I may use the word) the proposed dirigible?”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“The farthest thing from my mind,” the dauntless said hastily. “We are quite modern here, even though the late-twentieth-centurians constitute only a small percentage of the population. The state is dedicated to the construction of the airship. To that goal, strict discipline during working hours is maintained. But a citizen may do what he damn well pleases on his hours off, as long as he doesn’t hurt anybody else. So, let’s get down to business. What is a Miz, not to be confused with amiss?”
“You aren’t putting me on?”
“I’d swear by a stack of Bibles, if any existed.”
“Briefly, it’s a title which the members of the women’s liberation movement in the sixties adopted.
Miss
and
Mrs.
were too indicative of male sexual attitudes. To be a
Miss
was to be unmarried, which automatically evoked contempt, consciously or unconsciously, on the part of the male,
if
the Miss were past marriageable age. It implied that something was lacking in the woman, and also that the Miss must be dying to be referred to as Mrs. That is, without an identity of her own, regarded as an appendage to her husband, a second-class citizen. Why should a Miss, for that matter, be known by her father’s name? Why not her mother’s?”
“In the latter case,” our intrepid replied, “the name would still be a man’s, the woman’s father’s name.”
“Exactly. That is why I changed my name from Johnetta Georgette Redd—you’ll notice that both my so-called Christian names are feminizations of masculine names—I changed it to Jill Gulbirra. My father raised hell about that, even my mother protested strongly. But she was a typical Aunt Dora—brainwashed.”
“Interesting,” Mr. Bligh said, “Gulbirra? What kind of a name is that? Slavic? And why did you choose it?”
“No, it’s Australian aborigine, you dummy. A
gulbirra
is a kangaroo that catches dogs and eats them.”
“A carnivorous kangaroo? I thought they were all vegetarians?”
“Well, actually, it may not have existed. But the abos claimed that it did exist in the outlands. It may have been mythical, but what’s the difference? It’s the symbolism that counts.”
“So you identify with the gulbirra? I can imagine what the dogs symbolize.”
At this point, Miz Gulbirra smiled so terrifyingly that your correspondent felt compelled to down a snort of the Dutch courage he always carries in his shoulderbag.
“Not that I chose that name because I identify with, or sympathize with, blackfellow culture,” the Miz said. “I am one-quarter abo, but so what? It was a male chauvinist culture through and through, women were mere objects, subject to slavery; they did all the hard work and they were often beaten by their fathers and husbands. A lot of Caucasian males have sentimentalized about the destruction of abo society, but I personally thought it was a good thing. Of course, I deplore the suffering that went along with its disintegration.”
“Deploration, unlike defloration, is usually managed without pain,” Mr. Bligh said.
“Virginity! That’s another male myth, invented solely to aggrandize the male ego and enforce his opinions about his property rights,” Miz Gulbirra said bitterly. “Fortunately, that attitude changed considerably during my lifetime. But there are still plenty of pigs around, fossil boars, I called them, who…”
“That’s all very interesting,” the dauntless dared to interrupt. “But you can reserve your opinion for the
Letters to the Editor
page. Mr. Bagg will print anything you say, no matter how scurrilous. Our readers just now would like to know what your professional plans are. Just how do you see yourself as contributing to Project Airship, as it’s officially called? Just where do you think you’ll fit into the hierarchy?”
By now, the heavy acrid fumes of marijuana overrode all others. A wild, fierce light glittered in her drug-expanded pupils. Your correspondent felt it necessary to expand his rapidly shrinking dauntless state with another pull on the divine bottle.
“By all logic and by right of superior knowledge, experience, and capability,” she said slowly but loudly, “I should be in charge of the project. And I should be captain of the airship! I’ve checked out everybody’s qualifications, and there’s no doubt at all that I am by far the best qualified.
“So why am I not put in charge of the construction? Why am I not even considered as a candidate for the captaincy? Why?”
“Don’t tell me,” your intrepid answered. Possibly he was overly emboldened by the liquid lava coursing through his veins and dulling his otherwise fine sensibilities. “Don’t tell me. Let me hazard a guess. Could it be, I’m just groping for an explanation, mind you, could it be that you are relegated to an inferior position because you are only a woman?”
The subject stared at your correspondent, took another puff, drew it deep into her lungs, causing a slight lifting of slight breasts, and finally, face bluish with lack of oxygen, discharged the tag ends of fumes through her nostrils. Your intrepid was reminded of pictures of dragons he had seen during his Terrestrial existence. He, however, thought of the better part of valor and did not remark upon the similarity.
“You’ve got it,” she said. “Maybe you’re not so dense after all.”
Then, gripping the edge of the table as if she’d squeeze the wood, she sat up straight. “But just what do you mean by
only
a woman?”
“Oh, that’s only my verbalization of your thoughts,” the intrepid said hastily. “I was being ironic. Or whatever…”
“If I were a man,” she said, “which, thank God I am not, I’d have been made at least first mate on the spot. And you wouldn’t be sitting there sneering at me.”
“Oh, you’re mistaken about that,” your dauntless said. “I am not sneering at you. However, there is a point that you may have overlooked. It wouldn’t make any difference what your sex is; you could have the biggest balls for forty thousand kilometers around, and you still wouldn’t be put in charge.
“Long before the Riverboat was built—the second one, I mean, not the one King John stole—it was agreed that Firebrass would be in charge of the airship project. It’s even in the Parolando constitution, which you must know, since he himself recited it chapter and verse to you. You were aware of that and by taking the oath you accepted that. So, tell me, why all the bitching?”
“You don’t understand after all, do you, you clown?” she said. “The point is that that rule, that arrogantly imperious law, should never have been made.”
Your correspondent swallowed some more of the stuff that encourages—and stupefies—and said, “The point is that it
was
made. And if a man came along twice as qualified as you, he’d still have to accept the fact that he could never be higher than second. He could be Captain Firebrass’ chief construction assistant and first mate on the ship. But that’s all.”
“There isn’t any such creature as twice as qualified as me,” she said, “unless an officer from the
Graf Zeppelin
should show up. Listen, I’m getting tired of this.”
“It is rather hot and smoky in here,” your correspondent said, wiping the sweat off his brow. “However, I would like to get more of your background, details of your earthly life, you know, human interest stuff. And also the story of what happened to you right after Resurrection Day. And…”
“And you’re hoping I’ll get turned on by this joint and by your overwhelming male charm and virility?” she said. “Are you getting ready to make a pass at me?”
“God forbid,” I said. “This is a strictly professional visit. Besides…”
“Besides,” she said, and she was the one sneering now, “you’re scared of me, aren’t you? You’re all alike. You have to be dominant, the superior. If you meet a woman with more brains, one who is able to handle you in a fight, who is clearly the superior, then the hot air whistles out of you like a pricked balloon. A balloon with a prick.”
“Now, really, Miz Gulbirra,” your dauntless said, feeling his face heat up.
“Bug off, little man,” the subject said.
Your correspondent thought it was wise to obey this imperative. The interview, though not complete from our viewpoint, was terminated.