Slow Train to Arcturus Read online

  "I'd just kicked you in the belly and in the balls," she said. "And I did mean to hurt you."

  He shrugged. "I should have turned the other cheek."

  She swatted him. Playfully, across the behind. "Right. Consider the other cheek hit."

  He backed off, looking very fearful.

  "Oh, for goodness sake! I didn't hurt you."

  "No." He bit his lip. "But it is not right that you should touch me, flesh on flesh, exposing me to the temptations of the flesh. I.. . the Society of Brethren do not believe a man should have… uh, knowledge of a woman unless they are man and wife."

  He was turning her down? It wasn't exactly something he had any choice about! The court, acting as his mother, had accepted her bid. It was a woman's right! She'd noticed that he wasn't entirely disinterested. That did add a certain… piquancy to it all. She was used to young men physically desiring her. She'd bitterly come to accept that they regarded her as fine for a bit of experience, just not old enough, or wealthy and powerful enough, to really tempt them or their mothers into signing a bond.

  She decided on a direct approach. "Don't you find me attractive?" she asked.

  He blushed to the roots of his hair. "It's not the same thing," he mumbled, and looked terribly embarrassed. "It's not right, and nothing will ever change my mind."

  "Really?" said Lani, feeling something of a challenge here. "We'll just have to see."

  She gave him her best smile. This was something entirely new. It gave her a rather perverted little frisson of excitement. This sort of chase… was different. Diana the huntress would approve. She doubted if the rest of the society of the Matriarchal Republic would, but they didn't have to know what she was doing inside the walls of her own home.

  "Anyway," she pointed to the screen, activated it with the other hand. "We don't still have books. We have this. There are several hundred thousand texts available. Let's see if I can find a manual for the scoot." She flicked to search. "Ah. Here."

  "The letters are so clear! They're… wonderful!" Looking up at him she realized that she might have serious trouble seducing him from these bizarre ideas of his… as long as he could have something to read. His face was rapt, and he was plainly entranced by the dull technical text. He looked like a child with the most wonderful toy.

  Rather cute, really. She didn't bother to ask if he wanted vox. He, like her, obviously read faster than the machine could say the words.

  "There is more?" he asked hopefully.

  "Millions of pages. Oh, you mean of this document? Just hit this button to scroll down."

  He did, almost devouring the words with hungry eyes.

  At length he shook himself. "It is strange to read something that isn't holy writ. The letters are so regular! How do they do this?"

  "I've never really thought about it. There'll be a book on it somewhere. Or I can ask someone at the university for you. My mother didn't have the money to send me, but I know a few people."

  He sighed. "It is very wonderful. I have seen so much today that my mind is almost numb with wonder. But this… this is one of the most wonderful. I don't understand all the words, but it is like a door opening. Thank you."

  It was so obviously heartfelt that she could hardly refuse to show him how to use the dictionary by highlighting the word. She was, she admitted to herself, totally unprepared for his delight at that. It was rather sweet, really.

  They found the numbered part together and ordered it. It was surprisingly cheap.

  Eventually, she looked at her wall-clock. "So late already. We'd better eat." She jerked a thumb at the kitchen. Howard looked blank. Lani started to get angry and then… checked. "Can you cook?" she asked warily. "I suppose that's something else you might not have learned to do."

  Howard beamed, straightening up from leaning over the chair, and almost bumping his head on her ceiling. "I'm a good cook," he said. "Well, that's what Sister Thirsdaughter said. I can't cook anything like as well as my mother could, of course. But for a man, I can cook well." He looked faintly embarrassed. "It comes of being a bachelor still at nine-and-twenty. Most men marry much younger-often straight from living with their parents, and have never touched a skillet."

  Lani looked at him suspiciously. "Your mother cooked?"

  Howard nodded, his blue eyes innocent. "Didn't yours?"

  "I'm damn sure she never touched the inside of a kitchen. Next thing you'd be suggesting that she washed plates or changed diapers." She caught the look on Howard's face. "I suppose your mother did?"

  Howard nodded. "My father did help. He cooked on Sundays, and took his turn in the chores list with the dish-washing. But many people in New Eden consider cooking and housekeeping to be women's work. I did it because I lived alone, of course. But I would have expected my wife to do the bulk of it if I married."

  Lani pushed open the kitchen door. "Things are very much the same here. Except that it is you who are expected to do the cooking. And, as a woman living alone, I've been looking forward to it. I can burn nearly anything. I suppose I should show you where things are."

  She was a little embarrassed by the state of the kitchen. But then she hadn't expected to be bringing home a man when she started her day. "It's a bit primitive," she said, gruffly. "But we can improve it one day when I have a bit more money."

  Howard was unprepared for the kitchen she propelled him into. He didn't really mind the cooking part, that she seemed to expect him to do. It was abnormal, but then, so was their society. And he wasn't planning to spend very long here. Just long enough to find Kretz and get out of this piece of Gomorrah. It could have been worse, he supposed. It could have been Sodom.

  But how was he expected to cook without a methane-burner? What were these glass-fronted cupboards with dials? And where were the essentials of a good kitchen: the sides of bacon, the hams, the strings of onions and bunches of garlic? He didn't even see a single crock or any preserves, let alone wicker baskets full of fresh produce hung where they would catch the cool tunnel-breeze. Perhaps there was a pantry? The only thing he felt familiar with was the sink.

  She was obviously watching his face. "We could get food from a take-out, but we're too far from town for anyone to deliver, and the scoot still needs fixing," she said, her voice defensive. "I've got a fair number of instant meal-for-ones in the freezer, but I haven't got around to doing much food-shopping lately."

  "I don't understand all these things," he said humbly. He seemed to spend a lot of time being humbled. "In New Eden almost everyone grows their own food and barters with their neighbors. I have never bought any food."

  It was her turn to gape at him. "Grow your own? Do you each have your own harvesters and plant-tender robots then?"

  "I'm not sure what this 'robot' you mention is. If it is a machine, we have no machines. God gave us hands to work with. I plant, tend and harvest my crops. I tend, feed, milk and slaughter my animals."

  Her mouth hung open. "Really? With your own hands? Doesn't it take a lot of time?"

  "Yes. But we have no machines. It is good honest work."

  "Well," said Lani, obviously trying to take something positive out of this, "I guess they can't break down then. I suppose I'll have to show you how to work all this stuff." She sighed. "I'm not really very good at men's work, you know."

  She opened a chest full of coldness, and took out two square packs. Took a look at Howard and took out a third. "You're going to be expensive to feed."

  "I'm sorry," he said. He supposed that he would be, compared to the tiny little men he'd seen.

  "Don't be so damned humble!" she snapped. "You make me feel guilty, always apologizing like that."

  "I'm sorry," he said again, before he realized what he was doing, and felt foolish. "It's a habit. I am always in trouble back… among my people."

  She laughed. "Probably for picking up women and breaking things."

  Howard was acutely uncomfortable. "No. I've never even touched a woman before, well, except my own mother and my a
unt, and Sister Thirsdaughter. I mostly got into trouble for fixing things. For taking apart mechanical devices too. And for going to places I wasn't supposed to."

  "Who is this 'Sister Thirsdaughter'?" she asked, head tilted.

  "The healer and midwife for our community. We are blessed indeed to have such a wonderful woman with us," he explained.

  "Pretty, is she?" asked Lani.

  Howard blinked, suddenly getting the drift of the woman's questions. "She brought me into this world. And my father and mother before me," he said.

  She had the grace to look a little embarrassed. "Oh. Well, look you put these into the micro. Here. You set it on three minutes thaw and one reheat for each. Have you got that? To think I'd be teaching cooking!"

  It wasn't much like any kind of cooking Howard had encountered. He had it fixed in his memory, but he also had no idea what it meant. And he wished that the kitchen was a bigger room and that she wouldn't lean on him like that. He wished that he could get a bit farther away from the temptations of her body. He had found himself reciting psalms to keep his thoughts from straying. There weren't enough psalms. And by the look on her face, she'd noticed.

  The light went off in the square glass-fronted box she'd put the icy blocks into.

  She opened the door of the device, and took them out. Slightly fragrant steam curled up from them. She put the now obviously hot blocks onto plates she took down from a cupboard. At last-something familiar, although these were not made of wood.

  "I normally just eat out of the container," she said guiltily. "It saves on washing up. But I suppose we'll get used to using plates now."

  The knives and forks were just knives and forks. The food, revealed once the cover was pulled back, was like nothing Howard had ever seen. It had been cut to fit the shape of the container. Square meat. Square-ended vegetables.

  It wasn't like anything he'd ever tasted, either.

  He prodded the square of meat. "What sort of animal does this come from?" he asked, trying hard not to sound critical.

  "It's vat-protein beef."

  "Ah." Howard desperately struggled for something polite to say about it. "It's… very tender. They don't run about much, these beasts."

  "It's not really an animal. It's a cell-culture. We don't actually have any animals in the Matriarchy, although I've read about them and seen pictures." She looked a little wary. "You actually have them running around? And then you kill them?"

  Howard nodded. "It is the normal thing, yes. Of course we keep cows for milk, butter and cheese too, and chickens for eggs and meat."

  She shuddered. "It sounds barbaric."

  Howard, fresh from his new meeting with technology, felt a bit embarrassed. "It… tastes good. There is a certain satisfaction to it too, raising and providing your own food. Of course it isn't as quick as this."

  "Well, you can buy unprocessed stuff. It's very cheap. I have no idea what to do with it, though. I'll get you some and you can try."

  Howard wasn't planning to stay here that long. But, although it was not quite honest, he had a feeling that he'd better not tell her that. At least the food filled the gaping hole in his belly.

  She yawned. "Leave the dishes for the morning," she said. "Let's go to bed. You'd probably like to wash first. I would."

  It was the kind of invitation that part of Howard thought would be worth a fall from grace. And he wasn't thinking of the opportunity to wash.

  "Can I draw and heat the water?" he said. A cold bath would help him anyway. "Where do find the buckets?" Maybe here they would not frown on his bucket-yoke.

  She looked at him very oddly. He held his head up high. Some were born to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. There was no shame in that. "I still have working faucets, Howard. And hot water," she said, leading him into another room, overfull of bath.

  He found the idea that hot water could come out of a tap fascinating, and a little threatening too. What was a man to do if machines did all the work? Still, the bath was convenient and a welcome thing after the sort of day he'd had. The bubbles were… odd, but fragrant. Howard felt he ought to disapprove of them because of their frivolity, but then he wasn't too sure that they were frivolous. Maybe they served some purpose that he knew nothing about. He got that feeling about half the things in this world.

  He climbed into the warm fragrant water, sat back, relaxed, and closing his eyes, let the troubles and complexities of this new world ebb away.

  "Move up," she said. "You occupy a wholly indecent amount of a bath, you know."

  Howard sat up hastily, as she stepped into the bath. He tried to get out, slipped and nearly submerged. Fortunately, it was quite a large bath without that much water in it.

  She laughed, and, while sitting down into the water, pushed him back with a hand on his shoulder. "Don't be sillier than you have to be," she said calmly.

  "It's not… decent. Not right," he spluttered, reverting to trying to avert his eyes.

  "I don't have a problem with it, and it's my world. Nobody wears clothes here. Now relax. You still need to wash. And I want you to do my back. And open your eyes. It's not as if you hadn't seen me already."

  "You are making it very hard for me," he pleaded. "I had never even seen a naked woman until today."

  She smiled at him in a very alarming way. It reminded him of a cat, stalking a chick when the hen wasn't watching. "I intend to make things very hard for you. You'll just have get used to it."

  "I feel I have seen too many naked women today," he said gloomily.

  "That wasn't quite what I meant. Anyway. I need my back washed."

  "Yes, mistress."

  "I told you to call me Lani. It's a privilege, you know."

  "The mistress's privilege and slave's view of the same thing are not alike."

  "You're not a slave."

  "You paid for me. That's slavery."

  "Actually, the money is held in trust for your care if I throw you out, and also to pay for your children's maintenance. I pay it in installments every month."

  "It still feels like slavery," said Howard, taking the loofah.

  ***

  Lani looked at him sleeping. On the floor on a rug, the big lunk. He'd point blank balked at sharing the bed. This was proving to be quite a challenge. Not something she'd ever experienced before. But he was so innocent and helplessly naive that she felt rather maternal about him. She'd have to stop him getting locked up and gelded with his crazy ideas and behavior, though. And, she thought, practically, he might actually be quite useful at some things. She wasn't one of those immoral cows that made money out of their men, making them work while claiming the income and sitting on their broad behinds, but.. . he did say that he liked fixing things. At least he could save her money, to make up for feeding him.

  A laughable bid put in as a sour joke with the others in the station, saying that if she got him, she'd teach him how to behave, had backfired in her face. Maybe, she thought, as she looked at him breathing slowly and rhythmically, his big chest rising and falling easily, for once she'd done the right thing, out of malice.

  It was going to be rather nice, finding out. She was still smiling when sleep took her.

  Her waking was not peaceful.

  A crash… and then, "There he is! Kill him!"

  The sound of breaking things, and yells. The sound of flesh being struck. Lani lunged out of her bedroom and plunged into her small lounge. Right at her door, Howard was down, being viciously attacked by three of her fellow officers.

  Lani used her velocity to kick one over him, and a straight arm to knock the turning one so hard into the wall, that the picture above her fell down. The corner of it hit her head and picture-glass sprayed.

  Lani stood over her fallen man, hands at the ready. "What in hell are you playing at?" she demanded of the sole standing officer.

  "L… Lani?" the nightstick tip dropped along with her jaw.

  "Who the hell did you think it was, Madeline? The Matriarch? This is my house, da
mn it! You know that. Why are you beating him up? What the hell is going on here?"

  Captain Madeline Rodgers looked in horror at the smashed door, the broken chair, the picture, and her colleague, looking very ready to kill someone, standing over the man she'd just hit. "We… we have been hunting for you. You're m… missing."

  Howard groaned and tried to sit up. Slumped again.

  "We thought we were rescuing you," said Lieutenant Rubia, from where she sat against the wall amongst the glass-shards. Lani was already on her knees, checking for a pulse, making sure his airway was open.

  "Where did you get that idiotic idea?" she snapped. "Get me my first-aid kit from the cupboard in the hall, Madeline, instead of standing there like an idiot."

  "Your scoot was reported wrecked, by one of the harvester crews," explained the captain. "She said there was lots of blood on the scene-and you didn't call in. Major Nalzac assumed… Well, we've been searching the upper levels for you. We thought he might have carried you off to the runaways in the dead sections. Then early this morning we got a report in that someone had seen a large unaccompanied male near here. We stalked the place and heard a male speak, so we hit the place hard and fast. He's big and we didn't take any chances. I'm sorry."

  "The scoot broke down. Axle broke. I cut my head in the accident and Howard carried me home. He's big but he's just a baby, and the gentlest thing alive, damn you, Madeline." Lani realized that she was crying, but right now she didn't care. "We'd better get him to hospital. And if he dies I'll kill all three of you."

  Howard sat up. Saw her and saw Madeline-still with her nightstick. He staggered to his feet, and Lani found herself pushed back by a hamlike hand. "Get out the back, lass," he said muzzily. "I'll hold them off."

  "Don't be an idiot, Howard," said Lani pulling him towards the chair. "Sit down before you fall down."

  "They're attacking you…"

  "It was a mistake. Now sit down before I attack you. And I'm a lot more dangerous than these clowns." It sounded tough, but her chin wobbled slightly as she said it, looking at her lunkhead. He was big, but barely able to stand right now. She pulled him down into a chair.