The Totems of Abydos (26 page)

“I did see the woman under whose care I had been again,” said the brunette. “I saw her on home world, weeks later, at the holding area. We were both inside the wire, in camisks, and shackled. We pretended not to see one another.”

“What was she doing there?” asked Brenner.

“I expect it had to do with some political fallings out, or manipulations,” she said. “Competitions, eliminations of rivals, and such things. I suspect more than one woman, even highly placed women, has suffered such a fate.”

“At the hands of other women?”

“Of course,” she said.

“Perhaps the other women found it amusing.”

“Perhaps,” she said.

“Do you know what became of her?” asked Brenner.

“No,” she said. “I trust she is happy.”

“You do not hold your own contracting against her?”

“No,” she said.

Brenner nodded.

“Besides,” she said, “I have no doubt that I would have eventually, given my nature, and the openness of my case, and such, even without her, have been consigned to contract.”

Brenner nodded. That did not seem unlikely to him, given what he had heard.

“The other woman,” he said.

“She in whose care I had been placed?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Brenner. “Was she, or her contract, sold on Damascus?”

“I do not know,” she said. “But I do not think so.”

“If her fate were as you seem to conjecture,” said Brenner, “that she, too, had been contracted, and that hers was a contracting to which she was an involuntary party, then it seems that she, or her contract, would have been disposed of in a market from which she, or it, could not be traced.”

“Yes,” she said.

“You know that your contract was vended in such a market,” said Brenner.

“Yes,” she said.

“And that you cannot be traced?”

“Yes,” she said.

Brenner looked down at the liqueur, which he had not yet touched.

“There are many such markets,” she said, “Naxos, for example, and Sybaris, and Megara.”

Brenner did not take his eyes from the soft, ruby fluid in the small glass. He could see a lamp obliquely reflected in its surface. “And doubtless women might be shipped from such worlds to other worlds,” he said.

“Of course,” she said, “as I was brought to Abydos from Damascus.”

“It is interesting to conjecture the fate of such a woman on, say, an openly stratified world.”

She looked at him, puzzled.

“A world, for example,” he said, “in which pretenses are not maintained with respect to rank and hierarchy.”

“A world on which there might be slaves?” she said.

“Yes,” said Brenner.

“Doubtless on such a world she would learn quickly to obey and serve well,” she said.

“As would you?” asked Brenner.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

He gazed upon her. He found her very beautiful. She put her head down.

“Do you regard yourself as iniquitous, or ill?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I regard myself as a woman.”

“That was your crime?”

“Yes,” she smiled. “That was my crime.”

“Sexual needs do not exist,” said Brenner, quoting one of the slogans of the home world.

“I have sexual needs,” she said. “And they are such that only one such as you can satisfy them.” She looked up at Brenner. “This, you see,” she said, “puts me much at your mercy.”

“You should have knelt before my friend, Rodriguez,” said Brenner.

“He is not of the home world, is he?” she asked.

“Once, I think,” said Brenner. “But he has been many places.”

“That seems clear,” she said.

Instantly Brenner was jealous of Rodriguez.

“It is before him that you should have knelt,” he said, angrily.

“No,” she said.

“No?” asked Brenner.

“I am not discontented,” she said, “that I was called forth to kneel before you.”

“Oh?” said Brenner.

“No,” she said. “I had no choice in the matter, but had I choice, it would have been before you that I would have knelt.”

“Better Rodriguez,” said Brenner, angrily. “He knows what to do with a woman there.”

“I am sure he does,” she said.

“You would fit in well with him,” said Brenner. Then he laughed.

“What is wrong?” she asked.

“I was thinking of the women of the home world,” he said.

“In what way?” she asked.

“It is absurd!” he laughed.

“What is?” she asked.

“Think of the women of the home world,” said Brenner.

“Yes?” she said.

“Rodriguez thinks that women wish to be dominated, to be subdued, to be subjugated.”

“Perhaps they do,” she said.

“He thinks it is what females want! Can you believe that?”

“Yes,” she said.

“How can you believe that?” he asked.

“I am a female,” she said.

“Surely it is not what you want,” he said.

“I am a female,” she said.

“It is what you want?” he asked.

“Do not make me say it,” she whispered.

“Speak,” he said.

“Yes!” she whispered.

“You want it?”

“Yes!” she said.

“Do not expect such from me,” he said.

“No, sir,” she said.

“I shall respect you,” he assured her.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

He looked at her.

“You chained me well!” she said.

He shrugged, angrily.

“Quite well,” she said. “And when you unchained me you freed the clip on the floor ring first. Do you not know why you did that?”

“Why?” asked Brenner, angrily.

“To have me in the collar, and on the chain leash, longer,” she said.

“Nonsense,” said Brenner, angrily.

“And you ordered me upstairs, a female, in suitable fashion, decisively, familiarily, even vulgarly.”

“It just slipped out,” said Brenner.

“It is interesting that it slipped out that way,” she said. “Too, I liked it. I oiled when you said it.”

“‘Oiled’?” said Brenner.

“Never mind,” she said. She put down her head. She blushed scarlet.

“I must be leaving,” said Brenner.

She looked up at him, suddenly, genuinely frightened. “No!” she said.

“Yes,” said Brenner.

She crawled quickly to him and put her hands, pleadingly, at the sides of his knees. “You cannot leave!” she said. “It will be thought that I have failed, that you do not like me, that I was not found pleasing! Please show me mercy! I am sorry if I was cross with you today. Forgive me! I am on my knees before you, contrite and helpless! I beg it on my knees, helplessly! Please do not go away! Do not abandon me now, unless it be your intent to see me severely punished! Is this your vengeance upon me? To so arrange matters that I shall be severely punished? Please, no! I do not want to be punished! Have pity on me! I am a woman of your own species! If you wish to see me punished, tie me, and do so yourself! It is, after all, you whom I have offended! Teach me then that my behavior will not be overlooked. Teach me then that I may not do such things with impunity! I acknowledge that I behaved badly! I acknowledge that I deserve punishment! But I beg you to be kind, and not to turn me over to the mercies of the zard!”

Brenner regarded her, sternly.

Swiftly she knelt back, removing her hands from his knees, putting them, palms down, on her thighs, bowing her head, submissively.

“I beg you to stay here tonight,” she said. “I beg it, weeping, on my knees! The room is warm. The bed is soft. You need do nothing! I will not trouble you! You will not even know I am here.”

Brenner smiled to himself. He thought it might be difficult to overlook the fact that such a creature was with him.

“Sleep me naked, uncovered, on the floor beside your bed, or on the floor at the foot of your bed, where you would be less likely to see me,” she said.

He rather thought he would prefer to see her on the floor at the side of his bed, where he might occasionally, as it pleased him, look upon her.

“Please, sir,” she said. It pleased him to be addressed with respect by a woman. It was not an experience which he had had on the home world. Indeed, in several of the states of the home world legislation prohibited the tendering of such terms of respect by females to males. It was claimed by the morality officers, whose opinions and decisions were often fraught with significant consequences for careers, incomes and such, that they were demeaning, degrading, debasing, devolved, and such things, the usual epithets the intention of which was not to describe the world but to influence behavior. Whereas Brenner, some months ago, might have been willing to regard such terms as perilous anachronisms, or dangerous throwbacks to more primitive, violent times, he was no longer sure of it. What if it were acceptable, or even appropriate, for females to show males respect, he wondered. Certainly he knew enough ethology to recognize that deference behaviors, submission behaviors, and such, were pervasive in the animal kingdom, and were particularly prominent amongstst mammals, and amongstst them, amongstst primates. To be sure, it is one thing for something to be a fact and another for it to be morally justified, and such. For example, from the fact that a human being needs oxygen to live, as a fact, it does not follow logically that it has a right to breathe. That is an independent question. Similarly, from the fact that a male requires dominance to actualize his masculinity, rather than deny it, and thereby render himself miserable and shorten his life, it does not follow that he has any right to be himself. On the other hand, by parity of reason, it does not follow, either, that he has a duty to suffocate or shorten his own life. Two different sorts of things are involved, two realms, so to speak, that of fact and that of morality. These realms appear to be logically independent. It is not logically inconsistent, for example, to prefer the destruction of the cosmos to the fulfillment of one’s own nature. Indeed, perhaps it is better, or morally superior, or more fitting, that the cosmos be destroyed than that one be true to oneself. To be sure, Brenner was not satisfied with this approach to matters. Certainly more than logic was involved. There was even the question, an interesting one, as to whether or not there was a moral realm, so to speak, a moral order of existence, objective rights and wrongs, moral facts, like planets and stars, but intangible and invisible, etc., as opposed to preferences, rhetorics, and such. It seemed to be one thing to measure mountains and quite another to take the volume of value, one thing to ascertain the location of iron and another the coordinates of right, one thing to weigh sand and another to weigh competitive moralities. Indeed, who shall we trust to design the scales for such comparisons? But Brenner was certainly not willing to relinquish the familiar stanchions of good and right. He was rather concerned with whether or not they had been viewed askew, or misrepresented, or mislocated, or twisted into odd shapes, to become instrumentalities, or tools, for certain parties. The way people were might also be worth considering, thought Brenner, heretical though the thought was, and the way they really were, he had in mind, as opposed to how it was insisted that they be, to answer to one political purpose or another, purposes externally imposed, purposes subserving the ends of one idiosyncratic, aggressive, organized, power-grasping group or another. Perhaps there was no logical connection between, say, nature, and morality, but there were at least two interesting empirical possibilities. For example, what of a real connection, in virtue of law, such as that between a nature and what would satisfy it, just as there might be a real connection, in virtue of law, between the nature of an organism and a sort of nourishment, given which it would thrive? If there were no moral facts, thought Brenner, short of stipulating them, or creating them, there seemed as much reason to stipulate the facts conducive to health and fulfillment as those inducing to sickness and frustration. And if there are moral facts, as Brenner rather hoped, rationally or irrationally, why should this mysterious moral realm not be, one,
empirically
or, two,
rationally
correlated with nature, if not logically? Such things did not seem actually impossible. Consider, first, the interesting possibility of an
empirical
correlation between nature and a generated morality. Analogously, consider the mystery of the emergence of consciousness, whether in birds, frogs, or men, which seemed an order of being quite unlike that of organic circuitry. There are thoughts. Where are they in the brain? Is a thought four centimeters long? Does it weigh seven grams? If the brain could generate thought, why could nature not generate a morality? Is that any more mysterious? To be sure, the fact would not logically entail the value, any more than matter logically entails the thought. The connection would not be one of logic, one of meanings, unless one rigged the meanings, unless one, so to speak, begged the question. Rather the relationship would be one of reality. This possibility, of course, would at best generate a natural morality in the sense of a natural
conception
of morality. In short, strictly, nature would have it such, in virtue of law, that a given organism would
conceive
of right and wrong in a certain way, at least under certain conditions, such as the possession of suitable information, and such. The naturally generated morality, or
conception
of morality, might or might not be in the creature’s best interest. For example, if nature generated, say, a conception of morality which required the organism to commit suicide, this would not be in the creature’s best interest, at least if the creature were moral, according to its own lights. Given natural selections, of course, it is unlikely such an unusual morality would be perpetuated. There are, of course, millions of extinct species. Some of these may, in effect, throughout the galaxy, have committed moral suicide, sacrificing themselves to others, starving themselves, denying themselves, and such. Perhaps this could be the consequence of a sort of degenerative momentum, rather analogous to the incurving of a predator’s canines, which development, past a certain point, becomes not only useless but destructive, leading to extinction. The other possibility, connected with nature, is more interesting and plausible. On this approach, one
devises
a morality in the light of reflective consciousness, a morality which is natural in the sense of being compatible with nature and designed to fulfill it, but which is not an uncritical consequence of nature. On this approach there is a
rational
correlation between nature and morality, rather than a simple empirical one. This approach would possess at least four desiderata: it would preserve the requirement of commitment, the act whereby one accepts a morality; it would produce a morality subject to rational review, treating it neither as merely another myth, as another obsolescent absolutism, nor as a mere reflexive product of organic interactions; it would preserve a distinction between the realms of “is” and “ought,” i.e., between the descriptive and the normative; and it would be not only congenial to nature, but designed with its fulfillment in mind, which, to be sure, in itself, represents a value commitment, but one not obviously inferior to others. In such a morality there would be a place for values commonly neglected by other moralities, such as pride, honor, discipline, responsibility, glory, adventure and victory. Moralities need not have as their object the pacification and taming of men; they may also have as their object their heroism and greatness. To be sure, there are many other possibilities, as well, in such matters. One might accept a morality on authority, for example, one of the numerous moralities purportedly handed down by one god or another, who seem concerned, on the whole, to tell their respective priesthoods what they wish to hear. Another obvious possibility is to accept the morality of one’s milieu, as absurd as it may be. This possibility is popular with the ignorant, the simple, and the stupid. Another possibility, of course, is to
pretend
to accept the morality of one’s milieu, as absurd as it may be. This possibility is popular with the informed, the complex, and the wise.