There was one side effect of the meddling no one knew about yet. The women had been getting sperm from short men born of short parents. With no standard but their own, they did not realize they tended to be small.
Robin pushed through the swinging door to the shower room, stripping off her suit as she went. One woman was sitting on the wooden bench between the two walls of lockers, drying her hair. At the far end of the room another stood motionless with water spraying into her hands, cupped beneath her chin. Robin put her suit in her locker and got Nasu out of the drawer in the bottom. Nasu was her demon, her familiar: a 110-centimeter anaconda. The snake coiled around Robin's arm and darted her tongue; she approved of the damp heat of the shower room.
"Me, too," Robin said. She went to the shower, ignoring the woman who looked sidelong at her tattoos. The two painted snakes were common enough in the Coven, where tattooing was universal. The design on her belly, however, was uniquely her own.
As soon as she got the taps turned on and had endured a chilling blast of water, there was a great clanging of pipes and the showers stopped. The woman next to her groaned. Robin bounced up to the nozzle and put a death grip on it, wringing it like a chicken neck. Then she dropped down and began to scream. Her companion joined in, and eventually the third woman did, too. Robin put her guts into it, trying, as she did in all things, to scream louder than anyone else. Soon they were coughing and chuckling, and Robin realized someone had been calling her name.
"Yeah, what is it?" A woman she knew slightly-perhaps her name was Zynda-was leaning around the edge of the door.
"The shuttle just brought a letter for you."
Robin's jaw dropped, and for a moment she looked blank. Mail was a rare thing in the Coven, whose members, put together, knew no more than a hundred outsiders. Most of it was packages ordered through catalog sales, and the bulk of that came from Luna. It could be only one thing.
She sprinted for the door.
It was nervousness, not her affliction, that caused her hands to shake as she handled the flimsy white envelope. The postmark over the kangaroo stamp read "Sydney," and it was addressed to "Robin Nine-fingers, The Coven, LaGrange Two." The return address was engraved and read "The Gaean Embassy, Old Opera House, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, AS 109-348, Indo-Pacific." It had been more than a year since she had written.
She managed to get it open and unfolded, and read:
Dear Robin,
Sorry to be so long in answering.
Your plight has touched me, though perhaps I shouldn't say it as you made it clear in your letter that you aren't looking for sympathy. This is well, as Gaea never grants cures for nothing.
She has informed me that she wishes to see representatives of Earthly religions. She mentioned a group of witches in orbit. It sounded unlikely, and then your letter arrived, almost as if some divine providence had intervened. Perhaps your deity had a hand in it; come to think of it, I know mine did.
You should take the first available transportation. Please write and tell me how it all came out.
Sincerely,
Didjeridu (Hypoaeolian duet) Fugue
Ambassador
"Billea tells me Nasu ate her demon."
"It wasn't her demon yet, Ma. It was just a kitten. And she didn't eat it. She squeezed it. It was too big to eat."
Robin was in a hurry. Her duffel bag stood half full on her bunk, and she was tearing through her dresser drawers, tossing unwanted items left and right, throwing the things she would take in a pile beside her mother.
"Whatever the story is, the kitten is dead. Billea wants compensation."
"I'll say it was my kitten."
"Child." Robin recognized that tone. Constance was the only one who could still use it with her.
"I didn't mean it," Robin conceded. "Take care of it, will you? Give her anything of mine."
"Here, let me see that. What are you taking with you?"
"This?" Robin turned and held the blouse over herself.
"It's only a half-blouse, child. Put it back."
"Well, of course it's a half. Practically everything I own is, Ma. Are you forgetting your bloodrite gift?" She held out her left arm with the snake tattoo coiling around it from little finger to shoulder.
"You don't think I'm going to Gaea and not show it off, do you?"
"It leaves your breast bare, child. Come here. There are some things I need to talk to you about."
"But, Ma, I'm in a-"
"Sit." She patted the bed. Robin dragged her feet, but she sat. Constance waited until she was sure she had Robin's attention. She put her arm around her daughter. Constance was a big dark woman. Robin was small, even for the Coven. She stood 145 centimeters in her bare feet and massed 35 kilos. There was little of her mother in her. She had the face and hair of her anonymous father.
"Robin," Constance began, "there never seemed a need to speak to you of these things, but now I must. You're going into a world very different from ours. There are creatures out there known as men. They're ... not like us at all. Between their legs they have -"
"Ma, I already know that." Robin squirmed and tried to shake off her mother's arm. Absently, Constance squeezed her shoulder. She looked at her daughter curiously.
"Are you sure?"
"I saw a picture. I don't see how they could ever get it in if you didn't want them to."
Constance nodded. "I often wondered myself." She looked away for a moment, coughing nervously. "Never mind. The truth of it is, life on the outside is based on the desires of these men. They think of nothing else but inserting their penis into you. The thing swells up to be as long as your forearm, and twice as thick. They hit you over the head and drag you into an alley... or, I guess, into an empty room or something like that." She frowned and hurried on.
"You must never turn your back on one of them, or they will rape you. They can do you permanent damage. Just remember, you're not at home, but out in the peckish world. Everyone out there is peckish, men and women alike."
"I'll remember, Ma."
"Promise me you'll always cover your breasts and wear pants in public."
"Well, I probably would wear pants anyhow, among strangers." Robin frowned. The concept of strangers was not a familiar one. While she did not know all the Coven by name, they all were by definition her sisters. She had anticipated meeting men in Gaea, but not peckish women. What an odd thought.
"Promise me."
"I promise, Ma." Robin was startled by the strength of her mother's embrace. They kissed, and Constance hurried from the room.
Robin looked at the empty doorway for a moment. Then she turned and finished her packing.
5 Prince Charming
Chris had taken the Titanide ambassador's advice and done some reading on Gaea before boarding the ship that would take him there. He was not a stupid man, but planning was not his long suit. He had seen so many of his plans ruined by attacks of insanity that he had fallen out of the habit.
He discovered that Gaea was not high on the list of places to visit in the solar system. There were many reasons for this, ranging from dehumanizing customs procedures to the lack of first-class tourist accommodations. He found an interesting statistic: on the average, 150 people arrived at Gaea daily. Something fewer than that number left. Some of the missing were people who decided to stay. Emigrating was informal, and Gaea had a resident human population of several thousand. But some were fatalities.
Gaea tended to attract the young and adventurous. Men and women came who were bored with the sameness of Earth. Often they arrived after a tour of human habitats around the solar system, where they found more of the same but in pressurized domes. Gaea offered an Earthlike climate. That meant freedom from the regimentation found on more hostile planets and elbow room that Earth no longer could provide.