“All you’re doing is rationalizing,” I told the girl Mera, able to see it where she couldn’t. “They talked you into believing you had no chance fighting them, so you rationalized your decision to back down. I’m not interested in their opinions one way or the other, so I don’t have to rationalize anything.”
“Garbage,” she came back with a snort, leaning forward to put her brush back into the box under her cot. “I’m not rationalizing anything, but you haven’t been here long enough to know that. Once you are, you’ll see I’m right. Now listen, when we go into the dining room, I want you to stay right next to me. That way you won’t have to worry about being noticed, which should speed things up a little. Some of the guys don’t want anything but those icky, cooing, clingy types who still believe they’re being honored, but most of them prefer a woman who knows a little something about flirting. They don’t believe what I say any more than I do, but they get a kick out of hearing it and always come back for more. Let me tell you, I haven’t spent a night in this menagerie since they brought me back straight, and with just a little effort you won’t have to either. And in case you’re wondering, you don’t want to spend a night here.”
She gave me a look of solemn assurance, the voice of experience instructing innocence, and all I could do was blink a little. She had enough self-possession for someone twice her size, and I couldn’t ever remember being taken over like that before. After the surprise passed I found I didn’t like it much and was about to say so, but she wasn’t through imparting the store of information shed gathered.
“And don’t let these stupid cover-ups bother you,” she went on, flicking a finger at the smock she wore. “These are just for daytime use, and to be worn to places like Medical and the General Offices. If you get asked to stay in someone’s apartment for the night, they’ll give you one of the dress-up outfits as a reward for your efforts. You may end up having it ripped off you and then you’ll need to come back bare, but that isn’t anything to worry about. The male Sees in the men’s sector won’t ever. put a finger on you, and the Sees in our own areas are all female. I happen to think the male Securities are drugged or conditioned against touching any of us, and not just for our protection. We’re special, and meant only for the guys. I hate to think what they would do to a Sec who tried to touch what was theirs.”
Her shudder wasn’t completely muffled as she shifted to sitting on the cot, and somehow I knew she was right to be upset at the thought. We who were Primes could do terrible things to people, worse than just about anyone knew, so bad I didn’t want anyone to know. That was something else I couldn’t get the details on, something else gone with the rest, but enough was left for me to know better than to comment. Mera began talking again, back to giving me information and advice, but this time I had no interest in listening. I lay down again on my cot, and stared up at the ceiling stretching high above me.
Only a few more minutes went by before a sound suddenly began echoing through the room, a very low, pleasant gonging that awoke eager movement everywhere it touched. Women began putting their brushes and combs away and getting to their feet, and Mera broke off her monologue to lean forward and tap my arm.
“Lunchtime,” she announced, standing up to stretch high. “And since I took care of my exercises this morning, I can spend the time after lunch having fun. Come on, Terry, we don’t want to be last.”
“Since I’m not very hungry, I think I’ll stay right here,” I answered as I looked up at her, making no effort to get off the cot. “You go ahead and have a great time for both of us.”
“Terry, why do you have to be so thick?” she asked in exasperation, putting her fists to her hips. “They’re not going to let you skip lunch, so why bother pretending? If you don’t walk to the dining room alone they’ll drag you, and that’s not the kind of first impression you want to make. Let’s go in now and get something to eat and meet the guys, and just save the defiance for some other time. ”
The suggestion was so reasonable I smiled, but not with anything like real amusement. If I cooperated now to avoid an unnecessary confrontation I could always resist later, but if I went along with that line of thinking I’d find that later was always ahead, never at a place of arrival. I’d cooperated to the point of letting them put me in that zoo of a dormitory room, but that was as far as I was willing to go.
“I’ve always been really bad at saving things,” I said, letting my smile fade. “And what’s that saying about putting things off? It would be a shame to start developing bad habits after living so long without them.”
“People who won’t listen to good advice are dumb,” she pronounced, leaning forward a little to emphasize the opinion. “You’re lucky I like you, or I’d leave you to get into all the trouble you’re looking for. If you’re all that good at fighting you’d better get started now, otherwise we’re about to go in to lunch.”
Just for a moment I didn’t understand what she was talking about, and then the two big women in security white reached my cot and leaned down to take my arms. I struggled and tried to keep from being pulled to my feet, but as far as fighting ability went I didn’t have any. The two women were about as distant as it’s possible to get from the bumbling incompetence of the man Gearing, and each one of them alone weighed more than I did. I was pulled along between them behind a calmly strolling Mera, cursing under my breath, wishing I had learned how to use a sword
You can’t really stiffen when you’ve been straining with all your strength to get loose and you certainly can’t stop short, but I know I made a respectable effort to do both. Where in the name of everything that’s real had that thought about a sword come from? Me, learn how to use a sword? When? How? And even above that, why? What in hell was going on with my mind, and if I knew all those things were there, why couldn’t I remember?
The frustration flared so sharply through me that I barely saw the ramp I was dragged up and the double swinging doors I was hauled through. There was a short, wide corridor beyond the doors and another set of doors at the end of the corridor, and then I was in a room even larger than the dormitory room. The walls had pastel designs with dark-colored accents, the floor was softly carpeted, low, pleasant music was playing, and large, round tables were scattered from one end to the other. As involuntary as my entrance was it took me a moment to notice, but the tables closest to the doors I’d come in by weren’t quite the same as the ones farther away. The nearer ones were just as large but plain, with ordinary-looking chairs circling them in an uninteresting way. The closer I looked at the ones toward the far end of the room, however, the more attractively designed they and their chairs appeared. The tables had brightly colored cloths and rich-looking settings, the chairs were more like overstuffed and contoured armchairs, the carpeting seemed thicker, the . . .
“Well, what do you think of them?” Mera murmured to me over her shoulder, just as though I’d accompanied her willingly and now stood without being held there. “Aren’t they yummy and delicious?”
The “they” she referred to were the men, of course, and I’d been trying very hard not to look at them. They had been filling the room even as we came in, talking and laughing together and strolling casually in our direction, and the women I stood among were so anxious and eager they were practically holding their breath. I could almost feel a hum in the air from their hovering, and I hadn’t missed the fact that none of them were moving toward -any of the tables. It was as though they first needed permission before they could sit and eat, and I hated the thought. I kept my eyes on the inanimate parts of the room or looked down at my feet, making no answer to Mera’s question, but I should have known better than to think that would stop her.