The Alejandra Variations (20 page)

The man behind him was much shorter, and his hair was a russet color. His arms were as thick as tree stumps and his chest, while of the same bronze tint, boasted a mat of hair like twisted nails. They were a strange pair, but had Nick seen them first upon waking in the stasis couch, he would have assumed it was they who were in command.

"Nicholas," Holte said, by way of greeting.

The shorter man, grinning like a mandrill ape, shuffled along in the turf behind him. "Hi!" he waved gregariously.

Cesya stepped between them.

"Holte," she said sternly to the tall man, "you understand that the Law must not be violated during the celebration."

Holte sighed heavily, mimicking frustration. Despite his obviously secondary role in the Clan, he seemed a man of humor.

"Yes, mistress," he said.

The squat red-haired man winked at Nick, grinning foolishly. Nick thought he recognized that grin, but he hadn't been to a zoo in years.

He could see that Holte held what little authority there was among the men. Cesya spoke. "I don't want anything left behind for a Keeper to stumble upon. Nothing must be forcibly removed from the forest or the meadow itself."

"I understand," Holte acknowledged. He kept looking at Nicholas, but his smile was remarkably guarded, his face blank as a rock.

Cesya ignored the men's expressions and continued giving Holte his orders of the day. "I want plenty of fruits and nuts, if you can find them," she said. "I've instructed some other servants to assist you in this chore."

"Yes, mistress. It will be done. Is there anything else?"

"That is all for now," she said in a stately fashion. "There is only one hour before twilight, so be off with you."

"Yes, Cesya," Holte bowed. "I'll see to it immediately."

Holte waved to Nicholas in a friendly manner. "Talk with you later," he said.

"Maybe," Cesya reminded him of his station.

"Whatever," Holte concluded. "There is time." The short, stumpy man stumbled backward as Holte turned to go. "This way, Zane," he commanded as if ordering a dog. "We have much work to do!"

Zane clapped his hands once and called, "See you later!" to Nick. They bounded off like prairie animals, pleased to be set free.
See you later?
It was a voice Nicholas thought he'd heard before.

"They know me," he said to Cesya who'd already turned away from them, returning to her duties for the celebration.

"Everyone knows you, Heart. Just ignore them. They are not important." But her tone was defensive, as if he'd just witnessed something he shouldn't have.

"How can I ignore them? You treat them like slaves."

In Nick's mind the implications were clear. By extension, logic suggested that if all of the men of the Clan were slaves in some way, then he too was a slave.

But Cesya laughed with genuine innocence. "Slaves? Nicholas, my Heart, we are all slaves to the Keepers of the Law. It's just that the men have certain things to do right now. There will be time later to get to know them better."

Nicholas lowered himself onto a large, satin pillow next to Cesya. The
gohhe
was exhausting him. "That's not what I meant, exactly," he informed her.

Cesya rubbed him on the shoulders and leaned over to plant a kiss on his cheek. "Nicholas, we all have our places in the scheme of things. None of the men mind their roles. Nor will you." She hugged him tightly. "I will see to it personally," she whispered.

The servant girls around them giggled.

His original impression that these women were Amazons had not been entirely correct. Certain fears and taboos governed their lives to such a powerful degree that they had no true control over their destinies, despite their apparent freedom to roam. It was clear that neither Holte nor Zane were slaves as he would have used the term.

It was possible that Holte and the others were not meant for the women of this Clan. Nicholas knew enough about human nature to realize that where men and women were mixed together, there was always an undercurrent of sexual interaction.

Still, neither man had given beautiful Cesya the once-over. He couldn't understand it. For as simple a life as they led, there seemed to be a metaphysic he could not penetrate—some internal logic to their actions. His degree had been in philosophy, not anthropology, but at this late date neither discipline seemed relevant.

Cesya continued giving orders to the girls, and Nicholas watched them bounce through the meadow. To him, they all seemed like vestal virgins—a whole race of untainted nymphs.

Cesya turned to him. "Now, I want you to relax, Nicholas. This whole evening is entirely for you. Or for us, I should say." She smiled, sitting beside him. She was covered with a fine sweat which made her come alive to him. "Let none of what you see bother you. We shall handle everything."

He looked inquiringly at her. "I can't help what I feel. There is so much that I need to know about you people."

"The answers will come when they are truly needed," she said.

Which Nicholas took to mean: "They'll arrive when I say they are ready to arrive."

He had a curious urge to reply, "Yes, mistress."

He shivered slightly in the face of her directness. It was clear that she was the Boss—and that he was the Clan's sacred cow. The
gohhe
in his system made it easier to suppress his anxieties, but he knew that cows had a tendency to find themselves at some point swinging upside down from a meathook.

By the time the aging sun had sunk behind the forested hills, a mountain of wood had been assembled by the collective efforts of the men and women of the Clan. The twilight had gone from orange to red to purple, but the land became no cooler as the night gently set.

The women of the Clan had surrounded the pile of timber with small plastic tables at which pillows and cushions were placed. Blankets of a synthetic material covered the ground beneath them. The ambience of the scene reminded Nicholas of a bacchanalia, except that it wasn't ancient Greece. The image was so apt, though, that he wondered if mankind had progressed any in these thousands upon thousands of years. What were the cultural measuring rods of a civilization such as this?

Then he realized again how lucky the Clans were. To recover from a full-scale nuclear war was thought impossible in his own time. He was thankful that he was out in the open breathing fresh air, even if it did seem like a scene out of
Daphnis and Chloe.

Then the effects of the drug took him back to the loved ones he had left behind in the long spiral of time. His friends, his family were so far lost to the past that they weren't even dust anymore. Their bones would have returned to their elementary atoms by now. And Rhoanna…

A wave of pity and sorrow swelled up inside him, for he felt profoundly guilty that it had been he who had survived. The whole thing seemed like a dream, the mushroom clouds so distant.

A purple arc of light was all that was left of the day. A scattering of diamondlike stars graced the evening sky, when Cesya rose suddenly, in the midst of Nicholas's heartbreaking thoughts, and commanded everyone's attention. A torch was handed to her by a young servant girl.

"Tonight, we of the Tejada Clan celebrate the awakening of our Heart!" she shouted for all around the wood pile to hear. Her voice was strong and husky. "It is only fitting that in this sacred place of Blossoming we should herald a new beginning for our Clan. Tonight we rejoice in our great good fortune. Let the festivities begin!"

She spun around and tossed the torch into the gathered firewood. Her symbolic gesture was followed by other torches, and soon the bonfire soared.

Shouts of joy went up among the members of the Clan, and Nicholas squinted in the yellow light of the gargantuan fire. All eyes were upon him. Cesya leaped back to her place next to him. A trill of glee escaped her, and she hugged him to much applause and approval from the Clan.

The evening meal began. Nicholas started to relax a bit as woman after woman came to have an audience with Cesya. Cesya introduced each one to him formally, and told him of their respective functions within the Clan.

Nicholas noticed that the men were stationed here and there among the large circle that surrounded the bonfire. They shared tables and mats with the women, and nowhere was he given the overt impression that they were second-class citizens. In fact, they chatted with their neighbors amiably and didn't appear in any way resentful of their segregation.

The physician, Ariuzu, was seated to Cesya's left. She had dressed ornately for the celebration. She was very dignified. In the fire's dancing light she looked as Cesya might in years to come. She watched over Nicholas as he continued to sample the palatable wine.

The pilot of the lead Clantram came out of the darkness behind them and crouched where she could whisper to Cesya. Cesya was holding a goblet of wine.

"Mistress," the pilot began, still wearing her eye-gear. "We are secure for the night. The Unit has reported that a Keeper is three days to the north."

Cesya took a meditative sip of elixir, considering the pilot's words. "Did the Unit say who the Keeper is tracking? It doesn't sound close enough to be on our trail."

The pilot said, "We have no violations that warrant the presence of a Keeper. The Unit was quite clear on that count, mistress. The Unit says that only two other Clans are in the vicinity, the Zaffina Clan and the Mitsios Clan. The Keeper might be confused."

"Or it just might be wandering," Ariuzu said calmly.

Cesya concurred. "Yes, it could just be wandering about, looking for violations at random. Three days is a very good sign, though. If we're secure for the night, then you may join us."

"Thank you, mistress," the pilot said, standing. "A little relaxation would do me good." The pilot removed her strange eye-patch and shook out the folds of her hair. Nicholas watched her bountiful tresses sway hypnotically in the firelight. She then ran off and found some associates—other Clan pilots, Nicholas noticed.

A bit drunk, he turned toward Cesya and the aged physician.

"Just who are these Keepers you people are so afraid or? I don't get it." He reached for another goblet of wine.

Cesya stared off into the entrancing yellow-gold of the fire. Shadows played across her face in such a way that Nicholas could not determine her mood. She certainly wasn't drunk yet. She nodded distantly, then looked at him.

"You don't really want to know," she said.

"Trust me," he responded, licking the wine from his lips. The goblet struck the table soundly as he set it down.

"Allow me, mistress," Ariuzu said, placing a discreet hand upon her leader's bare shoulder. She began, "Cesya has informed you of our fertility cycles and the Judgment?"

Nicholas broke open the strange fruit in front of him. "Yes," he said. "We discussed population control. Was it something that the Keepers came up with on their own?"

"No, the Keepers are only watching over us. The Judgment was handed down centuries ago. So long ago, Nicholas, that no one really knows when it first started. We have been simply allowed to wander the earth until there is no more need for the Keepers of the Law."

"Sure," Nick began. "But what I want to know is
who
are they? Are they policemen? Hell, why can't you people reason with them?" He was feeling suddenly bold.

It was Cesya who answered this time. "Because the very sight of a Keeper means death. We must always keep out of the path of a Keeper, or at least avoid the places where one is known to lurk."

Nicholas pondered his goblet. In the few weeks he had been awake, he had grown a mustache and beard, and on the convex sides of the silver goblet he resembled a portrait of Francis Bacon—wise, fiercely intellectual man hopelessly at odds with the times which had fostered him.

"Well, hasn't anyone ever tried to stop them? There's no reason for you to live in Clantrams all of your lives, is there?"

Ariuzu adjusted the folds of her elegant robe. She spoke with the sure voice of matriarchal authority. "There are many legends among our Clans about those who have attempted to conquer the Keepers, or of those who have defied the Laws by living upon the earth in cities. But they've always come to the same end. The Keepers are here to prevent any more wars. The Makers of the Laws decreed that there should be no more war. And the Keepers obey that Law."

The singular perversity of the concept of forced migration in order to prevent wars impressed him. If ownership of land, and the subsequent human need for more, was the usual reason for hostilities, then it followed that the ownership of land should be absolutely forbidden. There would be no cities, no states, no nations. Unfortunately, as Nicholas could see, there would also be no advancement of science or technology. And if mating was allowed only at certain times of the year, then the species itself would not progress genetically—regardless of the size of the gene pool.

With a touch of horror—and anger—Nicholas realized that these people were a sterile legacy given to the future by a past so remote that its chief representatives, the Keepers, had become spectres, tribal ghosts whose duty it was to prevent them from making the same mistakes all over again. What made things worse was the fact that Ariuzu and Cesya—and the whole wandering bunch of them—accepted the situation. The Law was the Law, no matter how one considered it.

He pushed away a plate of sweetmeats. A servant girl refilled his glass. "Well, damn it, I still think that—"

Cesya stopped him. "Heart," she whispered kindly but firmly, "your place isn't to think. No one is to do the thinking but me. Trust in our ways and customs. You've been sleeping for so very long, and we don't want to crush you with the weight of responsibilities that are not yours."

Nicholas glared openly at her.

Her eyes glistened not only with sincerity, but with authority. He'd seen those eyes before, he suddenly realized. Rhoanna had laid down the law like this. Surely Cesya didn't think that he was a threat to her leadership?

Or perhaps wars had been reduced, by some quirk of circumstances, from an intercontinental level down to a personal, more emotional, one. Wars like these had been fought forever and no manner of Keeper could keep the combatants away from each other's throats. This was the war between the sexes.