[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

how tricky such things might be to cope with.
Tim Cadeland, Dr. Sharla Gill's freemate of several years' standing, had held
counseling sessions for our group, the first to be moving Outside. To cope
with sociosexual pressures, several strategies had been proposed. For
instance, the easy way for two "females" would be to pose as Lesbians.
"But that might not be such a good idea," Tim said, talking fast as usual.
A tall, skinny beanpole, with sandy hair and an Adam's apple that might make
the
Guinness Book of World Records
, even when he stood still he looked to be in a hurry. "These things go in
cycles."
"Like us, you mean?" Dale Carson said it deadpan.
Cadeland grinned. "Only not so rapidly." He went on to cite, back in the
previous century, the Sexual Revolution of the sixties and seventies, the next
decade's backlash, and, " the pendulum keeps swinging. Right now, with regard
to deviant sex we're in a longer-than-average repressive period, due largely
to the Sterility Plague. So I wouldn't advise the Lesbian camouflage; among
other possible consequences, it might just lose you your jobs." So Eden and I,
at least, gave up on the idea.
The trouble was that we'd been planning to use that option, and
Cadeland didn't throw the cold water on it until shortly before we moved
Outside. Which didn't really give us much time to think of an alternate ruse.
So when in my third week with PDQ Systems, Barry Taylor at work asked me for a
date, he caught me flat-footed.
Barry was about twenty-five, I think. Eden and I were eighteen, but in order
to make the Enclave's accelerated education program look reasonable to Mark
Ones, our IDs added two years to our ages. So the apparent difference wasn't
any kind of barrier.
I don't know whether Barry Taylor was naturally pale-blond or if he gave
Nature some help. He followed a then-current fad of using Smooth to depilate
his temples and the sideburn area; from his forehead, on either side the
hairline slanted in a smooth curve to just above the front of each ear. He
looked all right, I suppose, but the result struck me as affected.
I wasn't used to the way Mark One males think. Barry's system was to ask in
such a way that compliance with his wish was assumed; to say No,
you had to work at it.
The "trap" aspect angered me, but I knew that showing my reaction would be
foolish. So, lacking any clear-cut plan, I said I was busy for the first two
dates he proposed, and wasn't sure of anything further ahead.
By the next week, though, Eden and I had figured out a good way to handle all
of it.
We got engaged.
Not to each other, of course. Our troths were plighted, if I remember the
medieval terms correctly from Fifth Term, to real identifiable persons in the
Feen's employ. Their major virtues were that (1) they had reasonable ages, (2)
both Craig Merritt and Asa Jerome were on extended-service contracts in
overseas locations, and (3) for moderate bonuses they were willing to be
officially engaged to a pair of Stateside
Page 72
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
M-2's they'd probably never meet.
So if Eden and I chose to look a bit prissy, we had the society's unqualified
sanction to do just that.
"In their eyes," said Moss Frantz, "I've given in. Totally surrendered.
Because I had no choice." Out on the shrub-girded terrace, the group sat in
fading twilight, limned against the ghostly luminous blue-green glow that
preceded imminent darkness.
"I know they threatened you." Sloane's voice. "You said that much, already.
But not how, not the details."
Thinking back, Moss suppressed a shudder. "They tried it on the rats.
Produced Mark Twos, then cut them back to Mark Ones, some M and some F. And
said, next move we make against the Feen, that's what could happen to us."
"And so?" Brook said it. "I could live either way."
"No ! You don't understand." How to say this? Frantz paused, then said, "In
our cycle, the female segment governs. So if they cut out our male parts, we'd
be F for half a cycle and neuter for the other half. But if they left us M,
only, then when that segment ended we could go neuter. And never come back."
Over the next half hour, the cabal rearranged its plans completely.
There'd be no more agitation for public recognition of Mark Twos, no bitching
about being forced to hide. Oh no; from now on, said Moss
Frantz, " we'll be the nicest little repentant people they ever saw."
Frantz grinned. "So we'll get assigned Outside, just like all the others.
And mostly we'll behave ourselves. Of course if we happen, over the next few
years, to get horny in M-mode and knock up some Mark One floozies with Mark
Two kids " The gesture swung both arms wide. "It's not easy, my friends, to
unhatch an egg!"
At this point, Moss felt no need to mention that the confiscated batch of
oral-effective pseudogene was only one of two, nor that the second was safely
stowed for later distribution.
Moss Frantz had waited for a long time. The way the situation stood, that wait
might need stretching quite a lot longer. But eventually&
Chapter Seventeen
The Tri-V press liked to joke that Uther Stanton Archer became the country's
forty-seventh President on the strength of his initials. As Thane
Cogdill saw it, there may have been something to that view; certainly the
picture of Archer's head peering over an Uncle Sam cardboard cutout, and
wearing the appropriate hat, made an effective, good-humored poster.
But "Uncle Sam" had more going for him. The Archer fortune, for one thing; it
was both "old money" and impressively to be large, bearing with it prestige
and connections clout, precise in a degree difficult to overestimate.
Another thing he had was a solid lock on the state of Massachusetts with a
gradient of influence through the rest of New England, and resonance well into
New York circles. These things accrued to Archer when after he had spent years
of dutiful service to his party structure, first at the state level and then
in each house of Congress, for the first time in decades the state ran out of
politically minded Kennedys.
All in all, Cogdill thought the country could have picked a lot worse than U.
S. Archer.
"Sit down, Paige, sit down." Before his new Cabinet secretary for HEW
could begin her presentation, Archer said, "Have you ever read much about
Winston Churchill?"
Under strong, heavy brows, her hazel eyes blinked once. Paige Barnard, not
quite as slim as she once had been but still with the advantages of smooth
complexion and coppery hair, looked considerably less than her near-fifty age.
After a moment she said, "The novelist or the politician?"
"Novelist?"
Page 73
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Barnard's laugh came briefly. "There was one, really. With a middle initial S. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]