The Totems of Abydos (25 page)

But if conditioning programs are so effective, how is it that they are ever changed, or transcended, even over periods of generations? The answer to this is at least fourfold. First, they are not, as yet, at least, that effective. Second, not all conditioning programs are identical. Accordingly, the inconsistency generated by the collision of competitive conditioning programs necessitates adjustments, not all of which can be resolved easily by exterminating the adherents of the alternative program. Thirdly, such programs often encounter difficulties, such as reality. Fourthly, some individuals can think.

“If you think this is feminine,” she laughed, “you should see some of the diaphanous silks in the wardrobe.” She indicated a wardrobe against one wall. “Would you like me to silk myself in such?” she asked.

“No!” said Brenner. “Of course not.”

“You must understand,” she said, “that we are given no choice in what we wear upon the floor.”

“If you had your choice, what would you wear?” asked Brenner.

“This,” she smiled, “or such, or less.”

“It is rather brief,” he said.

“Do you object?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“Nor do I,” she said.

“You are a very strange woman,” he said.

“How so?” she asked, puzzled.

“It seems you do not mind being a woman,” he said.

“I love being a woman,” she said. “I rejoice that I am a woman. I want to be a woman. But I want to be a true woman, a real woman, a loving woman, a feminine woman, not some political travesty that would make my very nature and body an embarrassment or an irrelevance.”

“I see,” said Brenner.

“My silk disturbs you, does it not?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Brenner. Or, perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that she, in such silk, disturbed him.

“I am sorry,” she said.

“Are you wearing anything under it?” asked Brenner.

“A bold question,” she said, “coming from one from the home world.”

“Are you?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

Her response confirmed his conjectures.

“It exhibits you—like an animal,” he said.

“I am an animal,” she said, “biologically.” She looked up at him. “It is my hope that you are one also.”

He looked at her.

“I am not an animal legally, of course,” she said, “as I am a free woman, and not a slave.” Slaves are legally animals, domestic animals.

“Save, of course,” said he, “that animals are no longer exhibited.” He referred, of course, to the home world.

“Say, then,” she said, “that it exhibits me—like a
woman
.”

“Yes,” he said. “It exhibits you—like a
woman
.”

“Yes!” she laughed.

“Do you enjoy being exhibited?” he asked.

“I enjoy being beautiful,” she said.

“Do you enjoy being displayed—exhibited?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I enjoy being displayed. I enjoy being exhibited.”

“I see,” said Brenner.

“It is my hope,” she said, “that you like what you see.”

He looked at her.

“Do you?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“You may do with me what you want, you know,” she said.

“Within reason,” said Brenner.

“Yes,” she smiled.

“Reason as determined by the zard,” said Brenner.

“Where females of our species are concerned,” she said, “he is tolerant and has a very broad concept of reasonableness.”

Brenner did not doubt it.

“Do you want me to like what I see?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Because you then think that your chances of being punished might be less?” he asked.

She put down her head. “That, too,” she said.

“How did you come to be under contract?” asked Brenner.

“Surely you can guess,” she said.

“You were in debt?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“You needed money?”

“No,” she said.

“But surely you placed yourself under contract?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“I do not understand,” he said.

“It was done to me,” she said. “I was sentenced to contract.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I liked men,” she said.

“Of course you liked men,” said Brenner. “On the home world we not only like all life forms, men, women, sponges, insects, grubs, and such, but we love them. It has to do with the brotherhood of life.”

“No,” she said. “I liked
men
.”

“Oh,” said Brenner.

“I wanted to be submissive to men, and docile in their presence.”

“As you were earlier today?” said Brenner.

“Certainly you find me submissive and docile now,” she said.

“Yes,” said Brenner.

“I do not speak of fits of anger, or petulance,” she said, “lapses to which I am occasionally susceptible, particularly under conditions of stress, as might be anyone, and for which, if you wish, I may be severely disciplined, but of fundamental, genetically determined, attitudes, and dispositions.”

“Genetically determined?” asked Brenner.

“One supposes so,” she said, “as they were utterly at odds with the prescriptions of my cultural milieu.”

“You do not believe in the “blank tablet” or “hollow body” theory?” asked Brenner.

“No,” she said. “I believe there are genetically coded dispositions to respond, and genetically coded criteria for what will fulfill the organism, doubtless the result of natural selections over millions of years, as well as genetic codings for hair and eye color, and such things. Too, I find the alternative frightful, for that would suggest, whether it is true or false, that the human being is nothing in itself, but is empty, and meaningless, that it has no nature, and, as a consequence, that it may be turned into anything those with power wish, and there is no measuring rod or standard internal to the organism with which to appraise these subsequently produced human artifacts. For example, those of the home world, the behavioral engineers, and such, seem to suppose that everyone would choose to produce the same engineered products as themselves, but that is certainly not necessarily the case. It would be just as easy, it seems, if what they believe is true, to produce populations with values quite other than those which they approve, indeed, populations with quite diverse, and perhaps even antithetical, sets of values. Moreover, there would seem to be, from their point of view, no more justification for one of these value sets than for another, except perhaps that one might be found distasteful to them, given their values, as theirs might be found distasteful to others, given their values. It is as easy to fill the hollow body with venom as it is syrup. It is as easy to write cruelty and terror upon the blank tablet as platitudes and nursery rhymes.”

“Go on,” said Brenner.

“I was curious about men,” she said. “I wondered what it would be, to be touched by them, to be held in their arms, to serve them, to have to obey them, to be owned by them.”

“Such are forbidden feminine impulses,” said Brenner, shocked.

“‘Feminine’ in the old sense,” she said.

“Yes,” agreed Brenner. ‘Feminine’ in the new sense meant, in effect, what ‘masculine’ used to mean in the old sense. On the other hand, as would be expected, ‘masculine’ on the home world now meant, in effect, what ‘feminine’ used to mean, in the old sense. These linguistic alterations were portions of the conditioning programs through which children were forced. To be sure, as we have suggested, these linguistic “reforms,” despite their political expedience, had not been successful. People tended to find new words for the old things. People, on the whole, continued to fit language to reality rather than reality to language. In such matters, reality continued to have the last word, so to speak.

“And forbidden, of course,” she said, “because they are very real.”

“Else there would be no point in disparaging such impulses, or attempting to prohibit them,” said Brenner.

“Precisely,” she said.

“But surely you are an unusual woman,” said Brenner, “that you would have such disgusting and terrible attitudes, or needs, or impulses.”

“Why are they disgusting or terrible?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” said Brenner. Once again, he didn’t. Once again, it seemed, something had spoken from him, which was not him. “But undoubtedly,” he said, “you are almost unique.”

“But why then the pervasiveness of the denunciations, all the social care taken to deny, or, if that is unsuccessful, to frustrate, suppress, and thwart such impulses?”

“I do not know,” said Brenner.

“I am sure they are widespread,” she said. “To be sure, most women live in terror of them, in fear of them. They are taught to pretend that such things, deep and meaningful within them, do not exist, or, if they sense them in themselves, that they must be ashamed of themselves, for being what they are. So the women think they are alone, and each feels isolated and miserable.”

“You think there are others like you?”

“Of course!” she said.

“Why then do we not hear more of this?” asked Brenner.

“Surely you do not mean in the media, which is controlled by the parties, by the establishments?”

“No,” he said.

“Many women fear to express these things,” she said, “and even those in whom they are recurrent and powerful, not just latent and insinuative, lurking in the shadows. Indeed, these things are so fearful to many that they attempt to prohibit them from even reaching consciousness, and they must do so in distorted ways, in mistakes of the tongue and pen, in recurrent images and thoughts, and, of course, in dreams, those doors to half-kept secrets.”

“How came you to contract?” asked Brenner.

“I made the mistake, if mistake it was,” she said, “of speaking of these things privately to certain friends, or those I thought were friends. I was reported to the local morality board. I should have denied everything, I suppose, but I did not. Rather I sought advice and counsel. I was given a stern scolding, and warning. Later, when I again appeared before the board, as was required, as I had been placed on probation, I was remanded to therapy, and, months later, by a higher board, to institutionalization. I tried to cure myself, but could not. Perhaps I should have pretended to be cured, but I was too honest, too frightened, too worried, to do so. I knew I was not cured. I still had impulses and feelings which I, at that time, interpreted as being symptoms of iniquity or disease. Why could I not be like others, a true person? Eventually I came under the care of a woman who was kind to me, and informed me that it was not wrong to have such impulses, only that in my case they were directed to the wrong objects, that, as I was a female, they should be directed toward other females, such as herself. I did not know what to make of this. I did not even, really, understand it. I was frightened. I had heard of such things, hints and such, but had always thought them strange, or, at least, uncongenial. Too, it did not seem to fit in with the personism I has been taught, which, presumably, she should exemplify, though she assured me, fervently, it not only did, but fulfilled exactly that personism. It seemed to me rather, however, that both of us, as females, belonged at the feet of men. She flew into a great rage at this and I realized I had touched something deep in her. I do not know if she rejected her sex and wished to be a man, having a woman at her feet, or if she, as a woman, frightened, was reacting hysterically, even savagely, against her own feelings and impulses.”

“You resisted her advances?” asked Brenner.

“Yes,” she said. “I was then, shortly thereafter, barefoot and in a hospital smock, called up before a disposition board. Based on her report, I was characterized as incurable, and as unfit to remain on the home world. I had to be dragged screaming from the room. Later, by a court, I was sentenced to contract. Months later my contract was put up for sale in Damascus, which is where my contract holder purchased it.”

Brenner regarded her. She was lovely. To be sure, he supposed it was wrong to be lovely, or, at least, a failing to be overcome. “So you are unfit to remain on the home world?” said Brenner.

“It seems so,” she said. “At any rate, it seems they do not want women like myself on the home world.”

“Are such things often done?” asked Brenner.

“It is my impression, gathered from cellmates, and such, that the home world rids itself of many women such as myself.”

Brenner thought of the tribute levies mentioned to him by Rodriguez. He supposed that they might play some similar role. Certainly the women chosen were supposed to be, at least upon the whole, if he could believe Rodriguez, sexually responsive, a feature, or defect, which would doubtless jeopardize their careers on the home world, at least if noted, or publicized. On the other hand, he supposed that many women on the home world might be sexually responsive. To be sure, it was one thing to be sexually responsive, and quite another to say anything about it, or do anything about it.