FATAL LANDSCAPES

- by Darcy Moore

Lucretia Boadecia eased into the inclined body mould, pressed a disk on the outer side-panel and gasped as the mould hummed, sending vibrations over her body through her light robe. Overhead, the hemispherical viewing screen swirled through pastel colours, and an invigorating blend of Spring fragrances pulsed from the wall-mounted olfactory units.
    The warm, measured voice of the Mother began. "To all sisters, especially the novices, welcome to Gaia's Window where we may look into the souls of her children, and so more faithfully be her handmaidens. Three months ago our surgeons fitted a sensile net, a jelly-like permeable membrane, beneath the subject's skull. The subject remembers only the first drink of a lost weekend; our standard unfailing routine."
    While they laughed, the Mother waited.
    "The sensile net consists of billions of receptors and transmitters. When Gaia activates it with a discrete signal it monitors and transmits the subject's autonomic and sensory responses and, most importantly, what passes for cognition. Gaia stores this considerable mass of data for later analysis. What you will observe shortly is that portion constituting the subject's sights, sounds, smells and thoughts. There may be moments when the signals appear quite indecipherable; at such times the subject will be emotionally or physiologically unstable, and his reasoning ability and recording of outside stimuli will be distorted. For those of us blessed with a lifetime of professional curiosity these are challenging and magical moments in the human marrow.
    "When transmission commences the subject experiences a severe headache lasting until his brain adjusts to the extra electrical activity, an interval of approximately fifty seconds. In this critical period we have maximised our control through implanted, and quite irrational, suggestions."
    Then, a pseudo-human voice that Lucretia had heard all her life on wake-calls, oven timers and edu-tutors, announced, "Sixty seconds to contact." Its synthetic friendliness grated on her.
    Dick Laycock, the pilot, warned him, "Okay son, we'll get the aircraft right over it for you, but it's on your head. The Asthmanks patrol the clearings, I reckon it'll be like lining up boys for the nick 'n time! But it's your balls, and," he laughed, "they're a particular delicacy. Think it makes them potent. Mmmmhh." He made a stiff forearm. Randy Hardman grunted, unamused. Though he was wary of the clearing, he was more mindful of a recurring nightmare accompanied by a crippling headache. That, and his mendicant's advice.
    "Thanks, and I hope when you get yours you see it coming a long way off," he replied.
    The pilot shrugged. "Flying and dying. Better than getting served up on a plate by the bitches." Randy Hardman knew he didn't mean the Asthmanks.
    He leapt into space, savoured the involuntary scream of his nerves as his body plummeted; then he braced and flicked the switch of the propulsion unit. When he had adjusted the counterthrust and steadied himself he laughed - at the sky, at the earth he had thwarted, at the aircraft already hardly bigger than a butterfly. Invincible! It was a golden morning and he a god descending from heaven. And the rainforest? With its shades of cushioning green it looked a giant bedcover for an Elysian romp. He did not believe everything the Sisterhood said - he would be a Zeus among the nymphs.
    "Bitches." Yes, that's what they were and he shouted it fearlessly.
    He flexed his muscles, feeling his youth and virility, and, determined to ignore the madness of his dreams and the counsel of his mendicant, activated a side jet. As he began to move away from the exposed clearing the pain hit him, like a cold hand pressing on his brain. He'd never had it in daylight before. The dreams poured over him in suffocating leaves and stabbing branches. He fumbled for the other side switch as the canopy below appeared to rush up, smothering him in green, dark writhing.
    The pain left suddenly, and he was above the clearing! His own scream rang in his ears. Why couldn't the geneticists explain the dreams and the pain, his mendicant do something? Yes, this was it, this was the fatal flaw, and the pilot was right, they had sent him to die. Well, better a quick death from a spear and his false tooth than those bloody trees!
    The ground came up too quickly and instead of setting off in the evasive weave he'd rehearsed, he slumped over with jarred knees. He could do nothing but wait for the arrow or spear to splay his perfect flesh.
     But neither came, and when the earthy tang of the morning shocked his strong body to life he struggled to his feet and scanned the perimeter of trees. This clearing, once used as a base for trekkers, was the highest point on the plateau. The forest had grown back and strangled the abandoned buildings, but the Asthmanks stubbornly tended this small glade and the northern down slope which exposed the surrounding country.
    Nobody.
    Randy Hardman threw off the straps of the propulsion system and let it slide gently to the ground. He manoeuvred the surpack off his chest and around to his back, feeling on its side a puny pistol and a cartridge belt. Bloody unfair, giving him this toy!
    They said it was a selection trial, the women wanted only the very best men to father their babies. But he had already proved himself, and not just with one thousand two hundred and nineteen verified births! The more than one hundred thousand human genes had been mapped long ago, all genetic diseases eliminated through cutting and pasting DNA segments. But with his antecedents, in the field and the laboratory, the geneticists had gone much further - his physical and mental attributes represented the best available from the entire pool of human genetic tissue. He was the supreme product of proactive evolution. Fuck, his sperm was pure gold! Didn't they understand what they were risking sending him here? All it took was one mistake, a slip and a sprained ankle on an incline, an arrow in the head before you had a chance - he looked quickly around again but could see no movement - and his magnificent body was meat for putrefying savages. He had an IQ of 150 for Gaiasake, although he rarely had the inclination for cerebral pursuits since he'd graduated as a full patriarch.
     The old bitch who briefed him had explained it to her own satisfaction, not his. "The Survival Factor, Mr Hardman. It is more than either the quality of the genes, or what we currently measure as intelligence. Intelligence, put simply, is the ability to survive, to ensure the survival of one's progeny in any situation, and to ensure the future. We can not yet quantify intelligence to our own satisfaction, but we are constantly refining our data. Mr Hardman, your services are in considerable demand. As more and more of your progeny stand to inherit the future it is imperative you demonstrate your capacity to adapt, and to respond, to the unknown.
    "It will be your first encounter with the Asthmanks. Although they are neither large nor quick do not underestimate them. That they have survived at all in such exposed conditions is an enigma. If you live to reach the safety zone we will welcome your insights.
    "A warning! Although the females are of degenerate stock some may still be physically attractive, and there is the temptation of forbidden fruit. Yes Mr Hardman!"
    He knew a woman's body backwards, forwards and inside out, he could smell their rutting pheneromes in a crowded street and this old one, scientist or not, was exciting herself. What would she be like? Atrophied and dry no doubt, but with sensile lubricants she'd hoot like a barn owl. He'd never tasted old flesh. No, the idea was obscene and Randy was shocked at himself.
     Mistaking the cause of his revulsion, she nodded approval. "Good! Good! But should your resolution waver, remember that the Asthmank females carry lice, and genital diseases that will poison your blood."
    He took out the compass and set his bearings on a northern pinnacle on his homeward path. Then, bending over the propulsion unit, he set the timer on the body-heat detector which would activate the 'Jellymaker', attached to the tank. The first sputum-soaked bastards who got to the glade would spit out their hearts, courtesy of the Precautionary Control Unit. Their latest device sent an orchestra of shock waves that resonated perfectly with bone and tissue - bodies collapsed and broke open like eggs.
    Two minutes to put a wall of trees behind him!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Although the trees in the high, ancient part of the forest had little undergrowth, he hated them for the death he expected behind each. The sound of the aircraft would have drawn Asthmanks like females to Patriarch House, and this was their element. He stepped quickly, trying to avoid the dry litter, and, sighting on distinctive trees, checked the compass regularly.
    A scratching sound sent him body-flat to earth. Clutching his pistol he raised his head. An ugly thing with a long, boiled-red neck - he remembered it from zoology, a scrub turkey! He stood and wiped the leafmould off his clothes. Its musty smell was in his nostrils and all over his hands, and he had to cover his mouth to keep from retching. The turkey ignored him totally.
    Slowly, he adjusted to the patterned clawings and pipings of forest creatures, even the grating call of the mountain parrots. What he feared now were the cold pockets of silence that came unexpectedly. There were many such silences, and their affect was cumulative. When, after a particularly long spell, he stumbled on a satin bower-bird's lair he gathered its excremental mix and whirled around, flinging it before him in a cathartic frenzy.
    A distant but distinct human scream sobered him. It turned to a high-pitched wail, then a broken gurgle. Of course! The clearing, the jellymaker. He laughed and looked at the strangler vines and the huge trees rooted in that same dumb insolence as the creatures. He jeered, and attacked them with his fists, taking pleasure, feeling his power running to their alien hearts. Smack! Smack! Smack! He could continue all day, he could wear down wood.
    Exhilarated and feeling super-human, Randy Hardman set off running. Ten minutes lead on any who'd survived, with an iron body and a ruthless, cunning mind! Even if they could contact others they had seen his power and would cower before him.
    The morning was late when he found a gully running with water. He scooped it greedily in his hands; then spat it out. It wasn't the coldness, it was the taste of life feeding on itself. Yes they all drank from this, and all bled into it - tree roots, animals, the Asthmanks. But he forced himself to drink. He would survive.
    "Who are you?" He swung around low, gun in hand and finger flickering - but it was female voice, and female smell. Strong. She was thin, no more than fifteen, and dressed in a patchwork rag. Her skull was recently shaved, the new hair growth making a meagre, fuzzy halo.
    Should he shoot her now? She was very young, a virgin. Two days since his last ejaculation and his testicles felt bloody uncomfortable. He'd rape her first, a first for him too, for the bitches watched everything. He laughed. They'd never know when he got back, he'd smuggled six sensile sheaths in his anal cavity.
    As he put the gun away and clambered up the bank the girl watched him quizzically, but made no move to flee. She remained still while he expertly mapped her body with his hands; he was excited by the unfamiliar gauntness.
    She relaxed and pushed against his hands. "I know, you must be the lonely one," she murmured, "the one who fell out of the sky. You're very pretty. My father said the all the lonely ones were pretty, like tragic princes."
    The voice was guttural, the words running together and hard to understand, just like the people on the heritage disks in the Historia.. But the siren lilt of youthfulness survived and he began to ache. Then the words hit him. Tragic prince? Lonely one? So he was expected, and these people were not afraid. He looked about, suddenly suspicious.
    "Where's your father?" he said, darkly.
    "Oh, you sound so beautiful too. My mother said no women could resist you, and she was right. You have come for us. Me first. And after me, all my sisters."
    She put a hand on his golden head, but he pushed it away. Her smell was quite revolting now, that same smell of the water but mixed with her unscented body. Yet he found himself pressing against her, and she reached down quite naturally. Even before she had found the zip above his buttocks he shuddered and emptied into his clothing.
    What had the witch done to him? This was a trap! He groped for control as his body continued its involuntary spasms.
    "Shit! What are you doing?" he finally exploded. "Where's your bloody father?"
    "Don't worry my tragic prince," she cooed, making light of his confusion.
    Then she broke into a throaty chant:
    "A lonely one is a man like no other,
    he will pour out his life for the making of mother.
    He will shine in the deepest forest shade
    He will spend his last strength to rapture the maid."
    She smiled coquettishly and said, "There, do you like that? It is an old rhyme we have. All my sisters sing it. Our mothers taught it to us, and their mothers before them. And it came true for them, those that lived. Even toothless old Evelyn who missed out when she was a girl. She can't talk or hear." She clapped her hands. "Yes, even Evelyn had the lonely one. My mother said she was jealous, for Evelyn was laughing so with her eyes and her face for days and days."
    Her hand ran the zip across his abdomen, and slid in over his stomach; he quivered, his flesh leaping painfully again. His mind revolted and, biting deeply into his cheeks until he felt shreds and the warm saltiness of his own blood, he stepped hastily back.
    "Where's your father?" he demanded.
    She looked puzzled, then brightened. "You do not need to ask his permission, he has waited for this day. He longs to be a grandfather before he goes back to the forest."
    "Back to the forest?" he asked warily.
    She knelt and squeezed earth and leaves in her hand, held the pressed clump to her face and breathed deeply. "We live on the bodies of our ancestors, through sister tree and brother parrot that give us our food." She stood and offered him the earth, but he shook his head violently. Smiling, she opened her hand. "But my father is not yet old! He still makes my mother laugh, and cry out in the night. And he has other girlfriends too. You will like him, he was once like you." She clapped her hands again, "And he has gone with my mother to get you, and bring you to us. And I have you here all the time! I ..."
    Her eyes grew wide. She watched silently as, with deliberate and savage slowness, he drew the pistol and raised it. With a look of sad incomprehension she bowed her head. At first he thought he'd missed, for her body folded gracefully into the leaves. No, there was a spot of red in the centre of her forehead, and a mess behind. Randy Hardman had only a moment to gloat before revulsion rose up his throat and he began to ejaculate, his sperm flooding like blood from an opened artery. He was stupefied by its fury.
    The overhead screen resolved to unfocussed, exploding images fading to pale coloured striations, and the sounds converged to squeals, cries, clicks and finally silence. The lighting altered gradually and the smells of sex, fear and decay were sucked away and replaced with fresh air. Lucretia pressed the disk; her body ached with overstimulation.
    A striking, white-haired woman in a blood-red robe stood on a small platform which rose into the air. The Mother! The novices had never seen, in the flesh, the face that had adorned console and screen for the second half of their lives. "Perhaps now you understand why we set what might appear to be such ruthless constraints on the male of our species, and why we dedicate ourselves to Gaia. Colleagues, a break is in order."
    They began to stand and stretch.
    "The less-disciplined of you," the Mother added in a more familiar tone, "had better take yourselves in hand! This morning was a mere aperitif. Reception will resume at 1600 hours."
    With a smatter of embarrassed laughs they filed out.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    As a brilliant behavioural scientist Lucretia Boadecia had been admitted to the Sisterhood Science Council at twenty-five years of age, and she accepted the invitation to her first 'Watch' with pride. Yet now she was quite disturbed - the subject had fathered her three daughters and the son she had given to the care of the Sisterhood. It was not that she had any strong feelings for Randy Hardman - he was so conceited any one of the hundreds she had sampled from the Recreational Order was more sensitive and skillful. But his genetic makeup ran through her daughters, and the son she had hardly known. If Hardman was to be terminated all his progeny would be sterilised. Her daughters would never know motherhood and her son become another barren prostitute or be trained for one of the brief, high-risk 'careers'. She could do nothing for her son, but her daughters!
    While she recognised Randy's capacity for cruelty, his lack of compassion and his deceitfulness she refused to accept these as intrinsic characteristics. No! Like a prince he was intentionally spoilt and perverted. His aggression was genetic, yes, yet like many women she could not respond sexually to simpering feminine males, or Sisters for that matter. Aggression could be contained and channelled and, besides, males did not have a monopoly on that characteristic. By Gaia, she was an authority on the subject!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    Pain dragged him into consciousness, and headlong into vines and tree roots snaking along the ground, foliage stooping and pushing, shaking its green into his brain. He closed his eyes, and ground knuckles into eyeballs; but they remained, and the vines began to close on his legs. He heard his bones snap with the power of earth, and he sank into his death.
    No pain, only black. He opened his eyes and saw the trees again, but they were still now. He breathed slowly and looked about him. A corpse! Yes, he remembered. In a break in the canopy the sun poured out that golden light peculiar to late afternoon, though he knew it had been midday when he came to this place.
    The Asthmank girl had changed, her flesh was darker than it should have been. Ants! Thousands ran over her face mining the moist flesh of her lips, her nostrils, and the bullet hole. Behind her was a seething black carpet.
    Ants crawled on him, he felt their bodies over his stomach. He shook himself to his feet, ran to the creek, pulled off his surpack, stripped out of his clothes, and flushed his body with the damnable water. After he'd rubbed and washed the dried semen off his clothing, he dressed immediately, ignoring the cold and wet, for his nakedness brought him too close to the dead thing on the bank.
    There must be more Asthmanks, most likely down hill where the water collected into a pool, and they would be a pushover. They must have food and some type of shelter for the night. A mild breeze followed him, carrying his scent. Let them smell him, let them hear him! Yet within the minute he had to stop and rest. Why was he so bloody tired?
    The afternoon shadow moved across him. At the thought of night among these trees he forced himself forward and down. The gully broadened and became a creek with stepping stones, as rills converged along banks disappearing in undergrowth. Turning past a large boulder he almost walked into a group of more than a dozen, all females, and waiting.
    "What the fuck ..?"
    One, totally bald with a dark moustache, held up the propulsion unit accusingly. She spoke in guttural tones. "Why did you do this Lonely One? And why did you kill Alweuth, our sister? We do not understand. Firm has prepared us, but now there is no more Firm, or Julna. Only!"
    He followed the turn of their faces to two formless, red lumps on a bier of sticks and bark. Disgusted, he strode forward and kicked the supports. The lumps splashed onto the ground, the women grunting and rolling eyes at his sacrilege. When the mad unwanted desire rose in him he grasped the pistol in a fury. But they had scattered into the trees, except for the bald one who ran to a collection of rough huts in an area cleared of undergrowth. He felt his body settle and walked to the nearest hut. Inside were three low beds of woven leaves, and three sewn coats of parrot feathers hooked on an upright section of a dead tree.
    The older woman stood at the door and said, "This one is not for you Lonely One. Yours is prepared and awaits you."
    "Stop calling me lonely one!" But she was gone. He hurried after her, saw her disappear into the central hut and, determined to shoot her, rushed in. Natural light poured through a gap in the roof - it was empty. By their standards it was furnished luxuriously. One large bed, covered in small animal skins, occupied the centre; a table and chair hewn out of a tree trunk were set to one side of it. Around the walls were rough shelves carrying ornaments, utensils and food.
    He sat on the chair, but sprang up, for the wood seemed alive. A yellowish drink sat on the table; he sniffed it, dipped his fingers and tasted it. It was very sweet, and the taste seemed to revive him. He hesitated. No, the fools had obviously pegged him as a god, so he was quite safe, at least until they began their deviltry. What lies the bitches told, the old women in their white coats! He was prepared this time and he would not weaken. As he drank he noticed a small, sealed metallic case on the table: a message box - a favourite childhood plaything. He rubbed the ends furiously until the box hummed and a jovial masculine voice spoke.
    "Welcome to my rubbish heap. I bet that's what you think of it. I'm Stan Firm, another failed prototype. This, by the way, is in case I get bitten by a funnel web spider or a death-adder, or, most likely, that you kill me. You've got a pretty strong urge to kill haven't you? How many so far?
    "Since you're listening to this you don't have any chance. You see, you've been doctored - there's something in your head so they know everything about you. They've done something to you to kill off your male sperm too; notice there's no men around. They don't want any Lokis turning up in Valhalla one day! But the real killer is the drug in your system. You're primed for sexual overload Brother. You get a sniff of an aroused female and you're done for. I know, because I was sent out like you with a one-way ticket to Pluto. Take some pikkies for the Sisters, then get swallowed up. But I had a lucky break.
    "When I was thirteen a career psychologist inducted me into the intelligent application of the male imperative. Do they still call it that? I was crazy about her. It wasn't just the sex, she was like a mother to me. Maybe it was because she'd never had a child. When she took her vows I thought that was it, and cried her away in the bosom of the next thousand. But the night before my big test she turned up again, was waiting for me in my quarters. I hardly recognised her, a proper matron - all sewn up and sterilised. She told me everything, said there was nothing I could do about the implant or the sperm, but I was to get rid of the drink at breakfast, which I did with a funnel and a plastic bag down my front. She risked a lot for me.
    "The day of the big jump I decided to come down among the trees, I hoped to avoid the Asthmanks altogether, but I got tangled in branches and whacked my head. Next I knew I'm laid out with a cracked skull and a brain going crazy, and all this chanting.
    "I was a disappointment to the women, and they would have left me to die but Julna took pity. She knocked me out with a plant concoction that put me into a kind of coma for weeks. When she brought me round the buzz had stopped - she'd pulled out stuff that oozed through the crack in my skull."
    "Most of the women around here never accepted me as a lonely one because I buggered up their ceremony. But they've had their consolation since. Quantity rather than quality I tell them! Without me it won't do you any good though, and I'm not sure I could have stopped them. See it's a spiritual thing, a gift from their high and mighty sisters. Comes once a generation and there are rituals to be observed. They're terrified their granddaughters or great granddaughters will miss out altogether.
    "So why bother you with any of this? You're only getting what you deserve! Well, I've gotten sentimental. Before she left me that last night my psychologist said something peculiar. She said, "Whatever happens Stan, at least you know the landscape of your fate." Ditto, Brother. I'm sorry, but under the circumstances it's the best I can do for you.
    "By the way the fluid on the table's part of the ceremony and it'll make you as helpless as a lamb."
    Randy Hardman lay slumped on the floor.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    The chanting began in a chasm, groping its way up a steep incline until it looked into a clear blue sky. Pain sliced it, flaking one part into Randy Hardman, the other into a jungle of noise and colour. The Randy Hardman part looked along its body, trembled at the remote erection, then gawked in reverence at the brown, naked female, lips pursed making throaty noises. Another female swept past, one-hand joined, and another, and another, forming a daisy chain around the now-bare framework of the hut,.
    "The lonely one wakes!"
    He saw the faces as they cheered - not like the girl's. These had mad, staring eyes, painted throats, and their cheeks were gouged and blood-encrusted. Then he lifted his eyes to the trees behind them, the patient trees. In his mind, with his heart, he struggled but nothing responded - neither arm, nor leg, nor head. That was when he knew he was dreaming.
    When the first woman approached he smiled. He was still smiling at the fifth, the twelfth, the eighteenth as his body clawed deeper and deeper into its life force.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    Though blunted and anonymous the final image, with swollen breasts and rounded belly, was unmistakably the upper half of a mother. Quivering rhythmically, as if to the throb of a drum, it faded uncertainly, like a ghost losing its substance to a winter's slow dawn. Light and words were long coming to Gaia's Window. The Mother did not appear, neither did she speak.
    During the four sessions Lucretia Boadecia's confusion and fear had hardened to revulsion and cynicism. For the moment her sisters were moved to pity, but it was pity for a lesser creature. On reflection they would agree the subject had, as well as condemning himself, condemned his sex anew. But for Lucretia the Sisterhood had revealed itself as voyeuristic, manipulative, insensitive. On behalf of her two daughters and herself she rejected it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    But the authority of the Sisterhood had its uses. Lucretia arranged with the Mentor Institute to release her daughters for an 'extracurricular life experience'. And she learnt the procedures for using aircraft, organising transport for three. Getting pregnant was more difficult: parturition was so closely screened it was a testing trial by officialdom even for females with a perfect genetic map in the optimum age window of 17 to 22.
    Golda Thatcher was the solution - she paralleled Lucretia's ovulation cycle. Lucretia was responsible for the girl's emotional stability and Golda trusted her totally. Like all females about to be impregnated for the first time she was most forthcoming - who, what, where, and much good humour about how. She had never seen the future father, nor he her but, with guidance, had chosen him for the characteristics of the forty-three children he had fathered, that and a particularly high male sperm count.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    To the Sisterhood the phallus-shaped Patriarch House was a long-standing joke, and a fitting summation of male achievement. Not so to the immature sisters, the jostling would-be mothers keeping their half-seven appointments in the foyer. Copulation and pregnancy were hardly discretionary matters, and men were still objects of pleasure, so they indulged in playful bawdiness.
    "That'd tickle your ribs."
    "What a way to die!"
    "Whose cast do you think?"
    "Hercules?"
    "No, no. It must be Errol Flynn's."
    "Hell no, it's JFK for sure. Remember how it goes?" And several voices broke into a ragged chorus, "There was once a President Kennedy
    who knew every fair maid in Americky
    from her succulent toes
    to the hairs up her nose
    via all her internal amenities."
    A slightly nervous girl nudged Lucretia and said, "Not your first time?"
    "No," she replied, and smiled. "Don't worry, you've had lots of practice. Just go for deep penetration, like they tell you."
    "Go to your places Sisters." It was the glad voice again. "And remember, he is here to service all your needs." The women found their positions around the foyer and monitors switched on displaying their consorts for the evening.
    Lucretia scanned the 14th floor names and found "Buster Hymen". It matched an eager-to-please young face barely given to shaving. She pushed the maternity key into his metal pouch and stepped in the path of the lens.
    "Golda Thatcher?" he asked, clearly disappointed.
    "That's right, like the key says."
    "You're getting on a bit aren't you?"
    "Do you want to argue with the Sisterhood about this?" That shut him up.
    Thoughtfully, she withdrew the key - a figurine shaped like a baby, and turned it over in her hand. Yes, she'd love to have just one more and Golda would be alright, she was only drugged.
    When Buster Hymen opened his door on the twenty-second storey he was chastened and very polite. After preparing the nuptial cocktails, he asked her about herself then preceded her to the Chamber of Life. Lucretia stopped outside and cut the audit conduit with the Defender laser issued to all sexually-active women. She stepped quickly into the chamber.
    "Hey, the monitor just cut out," he said in a frightened voice. "Hadn't we better tell someone. Shit I don't want to get into trouble, no one believes anything a man says if you can't show it."
    . "Forget it, I will" she said as she shed her clothes. "Just think Buster, for once in your life you can make love without a symposium of scientists watching you. Now, isn't that some turn-on!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    At first Lucretia's daughters grumbled about missed comforts, piped entertainment and having to work to earn their right to eat; but they were won by the immediacy and intimacy with which the women treated them, and then by the forest with its secrets and animals
    At her lying-in, Lucretia was well-attended. For although she followed hard on the pink toes of a dozen female babies, she was from outside, and the fruit of her womb a marvellous mystery. Also, she was fat. "Like a sow" they laughed; so fat the older women assured her she would have twins.
    She thought the pain would kill her, but the women knew better. They guided her through the contractions with a constant call of commands, and a chatter of comfort and ribaldry that had her laughing as she cried and groaned. But when the first shoulders thrust through, and the rest of it came with a rush, they fell silent. They stared; some wept quietly. Finally the eldest, totally bald with a dark moustache, rushed to the opening of the hut and shouted to the beneficent spirits in the trees, "A penis, a penis."
    When the second boy came the old woman could think of nothing more exalted than "Another penis. Two penises."
    Reverentially they passed the afterbirth amongst them - Lucretia learnt later it was ceremoniously dissected and eaten raw - then they cleaned her and put a baby to each breast, coaxing and massaging her to give "the first milk, the milk to protect from evil".

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    Lucretia swam with her daughters and the other mothers in the lower mountain pool, washing away weeks of gritty, consuming motherhood. She looked, constantly, to the cleared ground under the trees where the older women cossetted her babies, all the babies. "You silly cow," she said out loud, "they'll take better care than you." A young mother, nearby, laughed and splashed her. She spluttered and took revenge with whoops and waves of water, rejoicing in a new youth and joy.
    The pain cut across her skull and, screaming, she sank into the water. The others rushed to hold her up and pull her to the rocky edge of the pool. Her vision cleared and the pain stopped as her brain gritted out the last number, fifty.
    "We're getting a good reception," announced the technician.
    "Yes," said the Mother gravely. "And so we begin a new phase in ensuring the survival of our species, and its female domination." She continued in a lighter voice, "As we know dear Sisters the two concepts are synonymous. We refer to it in the trade as contingency genetics. In simple, and general, terms we have not put all our eggs in one ovary."
    They saw the fecund mothers with swollen breasts crowded in fright at the water's edge, and the abundant supply of fresh genetic material resting on withered, leathery laps and chests; they saw the wispy male genitals. Then the word "Bitches," turned over and over through the air. The scene shifted to trees, moving quickly, but the word persisted - stabbing and accusing, rising in intensity.
    A tentative voice sounded in the brainlit den of Gaia's Window. "Is there not a danger, Mother, that the subject will become irrational? Suicide?"
    "There is no risk my dear," the Mother's voice reassured. "Sister Lucretia will calm and accept it, for she has her babes. And she has, at least, the consolation of knowing the landscape of her fate."