[perhaps I should have explained at the beginning that Chapter titles do not indicate endings for blog posts. One chapter can contain several blog posts. For example this post begins with a chapter title that will make sense only in the next blog post…]
[begin blog post #25]
Chapter 12 – The Dark Sun; a Few Explanations
“We owe each other some serious explanations, I think,” says the doctor.
“Yes sir.” I return to my subservient mode as a precaution to this conversation. I cannot forget how the last one ended and I have Deirdre to worry about now.
“Look, you don’t need to take that subservient tone with me now.” He says as he feels my reluctance and fear of his changing moods. “I know I must do more than apologize for striking you but see, I’ve been on this world so long I’ve taken on some of its patterns within myself. I have great difficulty fighting back the terrible disease of this place. On this world, women are ectohormonal all the time. That creates sexual lust beyond any male’s power to assimilate. Because of the social taboos on sex, the repression results in a deadly combination of fear, anger and violent hatred towards the females. As an anthropologist, I came here in part to identify and isolate the source of it but I have had no success, rather the opposite. This world is dragging me down with it.
“I hated myself for striking you, and for having sex with you without asking, yet another part of me said that to do less under the circumstances was to deny my manhood and my rights. I could not allow a woman to flaunt her power, any kind of power, over me. I reacted as any normal male would react here. Basically, from the programming here, you were the one responsible for me striking you in anger and hate. If you are asked a direct question, you must answer immediately and truthfully at all times. Never try to shrug it off, that shows disrespect and truly enrages men.
“Love-hate, love-hate. It bangs in our head, hearts and loins all the time. It’s not so bad if we can avoid contact with females, but it rages the closer we get to one. Utterly irrational feelings arise and boil over into emotional outbursts. But at least I am able to demonstrate to you that I am still somehow different?
“After I sent you out I came in this place and got totally, disgustingly drunk! I remained in here for two days without food or washing until my Cydroid servants brought me out and restored me to some semblance of sanity. I hate this place…”
“Doctor, why did you call your people “Cydroids” and not androids?”
“Ah that, well, I cannot explain now. Why don’t I let the Cydroids themselves explain it all to you later? Just think of them as androids if that makes it easier for you until it is explained properly. Now, Antierra, I want you to speak to me freely, as an equal. At the moment my mind is free and as long as the Cholradil is with us you are safe. She seems to provide a dampening cushion to this world’s energies.” And with a sudden change of tone, almost beseeching for forgiveness, he asks, “Do you object I had sex with her? Please answer me as a person to a person.”
What an unexpected question! “There is no jealousy in me in that respect. In fact I think it was a very good thing for her. I think the Cholradil is equipped to do this with any number of men and women without arousing more than surface jealousy in others. When she is with me, she is not with anyone else. However she is not immune to jealousy in herself. There are human feelings there also.”
“I found the same to be true. When we made love she was entirely mine, even with you lying but a few meters away in the auto-medic. She is a fascinating creature: there seem to be few contradictions in her mind.”
“Isn’t it strange, doctor, that we speak of her as if she wasn’t here, listening to us speak?”
“Watch her.” He makes me notice Deirdre in a new light. “She isn’t really listening to our conversation. Notice her expressions. She is in full empath mode searching your body for any weakness the auto-medic may have missed. She can hear us, of course, but our conversation is meaningless to her because it doesn’t concern her personally. Cholradils do not care what others think of them as a general rule. They exist on separate neural pathways of emotion-feeling. She would make an interesting case study on my world.”
“On your world, doctor? So I was right in thinking that you and your Cydroids are not from T’Sing Tarleyn but actually from another world; another planet? You have just made the statement I was hoping to hear from you. If you are not from here, then you must have the means to leave this place, a ship? Could you maybe consider getting her to your world, or at least off this one and onto some safe place? I don’t know if you are aware of her predicament: Cholradils cannot fight. They cannot hurt others for when they do, they feel the full impact of it within their own minds and suffer even more than the other. Consequently doctor, she cannot fight. Her first arena combat is a sentence of violent torture and death for her.”
“I was aware of that, yes, but thank you for the reminder. Antierra, I would like to help both of you. The Cydroids take the trip to our home world fairly regularly and taking her on the ship would not be a great burden. Travel there incurs only a little over six months of transit time debt. The real problem is getting her admitted to our world. She may be refused entry, in which case what can the Cydroids do with her? They must land before they can return here. If they land her illegally she will be put in cryogenic freeze unless I can somehow guarantee some sort of refugee status for her. Our world does not, as yet, have any clear policy on granting such status to off-world aliens. Our ability to travel space is relatively new and harboring refugees from other worlds has not been needed or considered to date.
“Taking Deirdre there would be to put her at the mercy of pure goodwill unless it could be demonstrated that this Cholradil is a paragon of intellectual prowess. If that were the case, no problem. She would become an instant celebrity in our society. Our fledgling World Court ( which I helped establish before I posted myself to this world) would accept her without question.
“There is another, most obvious and more pressing problem before us: getting her out of this compound alive and without endangering the lives of many others, mostly innocent bystanders if there is an escape. You know how they react to their security being breached here.
“For me there is also a personal aspect to this venture. If you want me to seriously consider taking such a risk for you and the Choradil I must insist on a fair exchange for my costs and troubles. You will owe me something in return. You will have to tell me exactly and truthfully who you are and what you are doing here, as well as how you got here – I want the real story. Further to that you must agree to join with us whatever be the cost to you personally. Can I hold you to that?”
[end blog post #25]