[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
naked body. He closed the chald in his fist. No," I lied. "Good," he grunted, and dragged me by the chald across the floor and up on my Astrian couch. He was superb, and I told him so, over and over, as he used me. He had the skill of taking a woman out of herself, and I was truly lost to him. Only in the pre-dawn did I have a chance to deliver to him an Astrian lovemaking, and even in that he directed me. Then we slept, and I missed my appointment at sun's rise with M'lennin. Dellin wakened me with his renewed interest, and afterward I lay on my back in the crook of his arm, staring at the lofty ceiling. The midmorning light streamed through the crystal windows. He kissed my temple. "Tell me about life in the Well," he said in an odd voice. I extended my right leg as high as I could in the air, pointing my toes. I studied the play of shadow along my inner thigh. I sighed. "You wish to know what a fine girl like me is doing in a place like this, do you not?" "It is not the place," said he, fondling my breast, "but the situation. Yes, I suppose that is what I want to know," he admitted. I wiggled my toes. "I understand," he continued, "the economics. of Silistra. I realize that each Well is autonomous, and that each Well-area has its Liaison, acting indepen-dently of the other. I can even accept that I shall be one. I have studied my tapes and committed the four major Silistran languages to memory. I have also stu-died all the available data on your time theory and your Day-Keepers and your genetic manipulation. I understand your concern with your low birthrate, your unwillingness to use drugs to alter your natural-selection system, a system that puts the woman in a centralized location of sexual activity until that pre-cious and unpredictable egg drops and is fertilized. I can even swallow that bit about only the egg know-ing the right sperm, and that a Silistran woman ovulates only upon the presentation of desirable sperm, and then only two or three times in her life. I find the concept of shipping your best psychics off to the Day-Keepers, that they might conceive only with other psychics, hard to take. It must be even harder for Silistran men. And the costs of access to the Well! Have you not priced yourselves out of the local mar-ket? How about the fine physical specimens who can't get up the couch-price?" He was up on one elbow, staring down into my face. I said nothing. "Why do Silistran women commit themselves into public usage, and then, when pregnant, become will-ingly the property of the men who impregnate them, giving to those men title to all they have gained in their years in the Wells?" "Why not?" I retorted. "You will never understand Silistra if you take the facets of the culture out of context. That is M'lennin's mistake. Chaldra. All is chaldra. There is great chaldra attached to the Wells." "I had a tape on chaldra," he interrupted. "It did not explain the Wells." Page 20 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html I sighed. The sun was getting higher, and I had to find M'lennin. "I shall try to show you, then. A girl, when she reaches puberty, takes a number of examinations. Her scores on these, she submits to the Wells. From this information on her physical, psychical, and mental potential, the Wells either accept or reject the girl. Astria has first choice, Arlet second, and so on. Astria will take a highly intelligent girl with a strong fore-reader index, if she is attractive; Arlet will take a high hormonal index, for they specialize in exotic sex. Each Well has a character. It is a great honor to be an Astrian girl, and wear the silver chain with white inter-woven. Once a girl is accepted by a Well, the security of her family is assured. They are gifted by the Well and benefited in many ways. The girl's earnings are invested by the Well, and we are very good with money. A woman goes out of Astria with a great for-tune. She is also educated continually and thorough-ly. She learns comparative cultures, the known lan-guages of the galaxy, musics, dances, a large number of required subjects, and others, of her choice. She learns the ways of love. She becomes cultured and sophisticated. She has opportunities to mate with some of the most powerful and brilliant men in the known galaxy. Should a woman, given a choice between such a life and the lot of the farmgirl on the plains, choose to churn bondrex milk and slop parr? And meet per-haps a hundred men in her life? Should she risk bearing the unfulfilled chaldra of reproduction to her grave? The chances of an isolated Silistran woman conceiving are sixty to one. "As for the men," I continued, "I believe our men are content. Only four "percent of Astrian women con-ceive by off-worlders. A man need not have money to partake of the Well if he is Silistran. There are games once a set, and festivals once a pass, where the men may earn silver and gold well tokens. These games range from physical to psychical, and any man with a talent or skill may gain entrance to the Well in this manner. Men love the gamble as they love wealth. A man knows that should he bring child on a girl in the Well, he will acquire not only a sensual, beautiful woman, but the money to enjoy her at his leisure in luxurious surroundings. If he can impregnate two, then two women and two fortunes are his. The men control much on Silistra. Both the dependent and in-dependent cities draw great revenue from the Well and the traffic they bring. The traders and the mer-chants and the slayers and the hunters, and the weav-ers, and more, prosper from the Wells. Thousand of years ago the Day-Keepers and the forereaders de-termined the social structure of Silistra, building upon the ruins of past mistakes. It has endured." "You are angry," he said, tracing my lips with his finger. "No," said I, "but I have said this say many times." "What if a woman falls in love with a man without him having impregnated her?" he asked thoughtfully., "There is the pressure of chaldra to consider," I re-minded him. "Perhaps she would stay in the Well un-til she conceived, and petition that the father's right to her body be waived. If the Well accepted this, they would pay the father double the birth-price, and the woman would, once having repaid the Well, be free to leave and go to her lover. The Well would gift them and absorb the loss. I have never heard of a woman leaving the Well without conceiving. She goes to the Well to become pregnant. Why would she leave without fulfilling her purpose?" "You have not conceived," said he, "but you have left the Well." "Oh," said I. "I have taken on the chaldra of the mother; to find my father. I [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |