“And you’re not interested in anyone else’s opinions,” she said with a nod. “You’re the type who has to see for herself if the paint really is still wet, or if it’s raining out the way everyone says it is. That’s not a bad way to be, I’m that way myself more often than not, but- Did it ever occur to you that all they have to do is tie you down to a bed, and then send the parade in your direction? I’m not saying it is what they do, because I’ve never seen it or heard about it happening. The question I want you to think about is why they don’t do that, why they never find it necessary to be that crude. We’ve had more girls through here than I know the number of, but they’ve never once had to do that. If you come up with an answer, I’d be interested in hearing it. I’m Finner, and I’m here on most day shifts. Right now, you go in that direction.”
She gestured toward the ramp, then got off the desk to lead the way, asking nothing more from me in the way of response. I followed without feeling an urge to respond, but not because she had convinced me of anything. They were all really good at talking people out of intentions they didn’t approve of, which might be the reason no one had won against them. It was like having two equal forces of Kabrans facing each other in the field. Everyone knew neither side could win against the other, so most often they didn’t even bother to fight. It would have been a waste of good fighting men to have them go at it anyway, or at least so most people believed. I knew one Kabran who didn’t agree with that, Colonel Garth R’Hem Solohr, and I also knew Garth had tried doing something about it. I knew he had—I’d been there when he had—but what he’d done I couldn’t quite reach
“The sanitary facilities are through those double doors,” the woman Finner said, pointing to a short downramp that led to an access point for the area under the circling balcony. “Nothing but the bare necessities, plus shower stalls. If you want anything better, you have to make your own arrangements.”
“Who do you make arrangements with?” I asked, wondering how long I’d be able to hold out if they tried trading me a bath for my cooperation. For some reason, it seemed so long . . . “Is that woman in yellow I met in charge of that, too?”
“Quatry?” Finner asked, for some reason amused again. “No, Quatry is your section leader, and deals with other sorts of arrangements. The ones you have to talk to about a softer life are the men you’ll be meeting, the Prime trainees you’re here to-get together with. Every one of them has his own apartment, and unless he’s officially paired with one of the girls during her fertile period, he can choose any girl he pleases to spend the night with him. Or, possibly I should say, ‘any girl who pleases him.’ I would have put that a little more delicately, but you’re strong enough to take the facts of life as they come, aren’t you?”
She glanced at me where I walked to her left and a little behind, following through the maze of cots, but I didn’t give her anything to add to her amusement, at least not voluntarily. She seemed to notice and enjoy the faint flush I could feel in my cheeks, but didn’t press the point any harder than she already had.
“And here we are,” she announced after another couple of minutes of walking, stopping beside a cot no different from any of the others in the room. “The number is on a disk hanging at the foot, so you shouldn’t have much trouble finding your way back. If you do happen to get lost, just ask one of the guards around the wall to guide you. If you turn out to be one of those here at lights out, remember that you have to be in bed, not next to it or on your way to it, or in the sanfax thinking about it. Your night-duty guards won’t listen to reasons or excuses about why you aren’t, they’ll just ask the assistant section leader for punishment permission. From what I hear they usually get it, so don’t let the point slip your mind. There’s a box under your bed with a comb and brush in it, and you have just enough time before lunch to make use of them. And maybe even enough time to do a little thinking.”
The look she gave me didn’t have much amusement left in it and then she was gone, threading her way back through the cots toward the balcony ramp wed come down. I turned away before she reached the ramp, looked around at what I’d been brought to, then sank down on the cot with one leg folded under me. There were occasional, very soft conversations going on in different parts of the big room but the women nearest me were too busy seeing to their hair to be distracted by talk. They looked deliriously happy and eager to be on about their business, and the empty cot next to mine seemed more real than they did. Didn’t they know what was being done to them, and didn’t they care even a little? How could they just sit there, prettying themselves up for sanctioned rape. . . ?
I gave it up and lay back on the cot, draping one arm over my eyes to blot out a world I could no longer bear to look at. Of course the rest of them knew what was being done to them, and of course they cared. They knew they were being honored, and they cared so much they would do whatever they had to in order to continue being honored. And out of gratitude as well, let’s not forget about gratitude. I felt so ill it was all I could do to keep from throwing up, but I couldn’t give them the satisfaction of that, I just couldn’t. It would be the first step toward letting them win, and that was one thing I refused to do.
Again one thing. If I hadn’t felt so terrible I would have laughed at myself, constantly listing a dozen different items and then calling them one thing. Maybe it was the first sign that I was going crazy, that I was about to lose all touch with reality and the world around me, and if that was so then I wished it would hurry up. It was just me against what felt like an entire world, and they were all so sure they would win, that I didn’t have the least chance against them. If I went insane I would no longer know what they were doing to me, no longer need to fight a battle that even I was beginning to believe I’d lose. I was so tired, as though I’d already fought a battle like that, and had learned that there were things a good deal worse than losing. What I wanted-what I wanted was
What I wanted was an end to everything, not just the end to struggle that madness would bring but the absolute end of everything. I took my arm down from my eyes but kept them closed, making no effort to chase myself out of the warm, embracing darkness I’d found. The cot I lay on was more comfortable than I’d thought it would be, but it was too narrow and only just long enough. Less privacy than an exotic animal on public display, the bare minimum in sanitary facilities, no personal possessions other than a comb and brush in a box, strict rules and guaranteed punishment for breaking them-everything necessary for encouraging me to find a man whose private apartment I could share, even for a single night at a time. It might have gone quite a way toward working, but instead it had backfired on them and had helped me to find what I really wanted. I had no idea why the conviction was so strong and steady, but what I wanted more than anything was to die.
I stirred just a little on the cot, wondering why that thought didn’t frighten me. It should be frightening to discover that you want nothing more than to die, but I couldn’t find fear anywhere inside me. It was as though I had more of a reason than simply being at that facility, that I had considered the question calmly and objectively and had come to the only conclusion possible. I had no urge to change my mind, not even a mild preference covering a desire to think about it a little longer. All decided, all bottom line, no indication of the least amount of hesitation.
What the hell could possibly have done that?
I stirred on the cot again, annoyance and frustration filling up the spaces left vacant by the absence of fear. It was the stupidest situation I’d come across in a long while, and it was really beginning to make me angry. Those miserable people whose prisoner I was had taken away so much of my memory that I couldn’t remember why I wanted to die! Since I still knew I wanted to die that meant they didn’t know it, otherwise they would have taken it away with the rest. If you stretched a point you could say they were working toward saving my life, but I didn’t seem to want my life saved. And how could I know one way or the other, when I couldn’t remember why I wanted to die in the first place? What right did they have, interfering in things that were none of their business? How did they dare to—