Six Moon Dance by Sheri S. Tepper Read Free Book Online Page B

point of view, as they are the ones who pay. Now, section three?”
    “Section three states that any attempt to evade the law through elopement, rapine, or abduction is punishable by blue-bodying and consequent death. Simon, what’s rapine?”
    “Forcing sex upon a woman, often with the intent of getting her pregnant.”
    “I didn’t know you could do that.”
    “Used to be a good bit of it, but no more. Not unless you want to end up dead.”
    “When was there a good bit of it?”
    Simon settled himself. “Well, it was like this. Our ancestors came to this world in ten ships. The first ship had the male workers, the livestock ova, and the reproducer, but it didn’t have any women on it at all. That was so the men could get things whipped into shape, shelters made weathertight, crops planted, things like that, before the women and children came on the second ship. But the second ship was delayed, and instead they sent the support ship, the one that had the machines….”
    “What machines? I didn’t think we had machines?”
    “Of course we had machines. What do you think the Denti-med is? And the sensor array that keeps track of the volcanoes? And the stuff at the space port that lets us talk to the ships?”
    “Oh. I guess I never thought those were machines.”
    “Well, they are. Our people didn’t bring many, they had limited resources, but they chose not to do without medicine or geological and weather sensors or a space port. So, anyhow, the technology ship was the one that set down second, and it was full of technicians and scholars, a lot of them women, but most all of them were, so to speak, spoken for.”
    “They had husbands?”
    “Right. Or as much as. Anyhow, the first ship men were feeling pretty randy by then, so they started raiding, stealing the women, and some of them got hurt.”
    “Some of the women?”
    “Right. Some even got killed, which made their friends and colleagues very angry, so the others, the scientists and professors and technicians, men and women both, they moved the machines and the supplies and the libraries into the half-built fortress in Sendoph, and all the women stayed in there where they couldn’t get abducted. Most of the people on that second ship were Gaeans, like Harald-son, worshippers of the Life-mother, and they were the ones who set up the Council of Hags.”
    “And they wrote the Dower Laws.”
    “Well, not right away. The laws sort of developed. But the key thing was, nobody got a wife without paying for her, and wives got the right to satisfactions for themselves. When the ship with all the women arrived, two or three years later, the Dower Laws were already in effect. Including section four, which you may now quote.”
    Mouche nodded. “Section four provides that every Family Man must have a unique family name for his genetic line, as it is to guarantee the uniqueness of each male line that this system was designed by the Revered Hags to meet the needs of the men of Newholme.” Mouche swallowed a yawn.
    “And, finally, section five.”
    “Section five says that every marriage contract must provide that once the wife has fulfilled her contractual obligations in providing her husband with his own, specific lineage, she has the right to one or more well trained Consorts to make her life more pleasant.”
    “Which is why you’re here,” said Simon, cuffing him lightly over the ear. “Recite it one more time, then you can be excused.”

5
Life as a Lobster
    D uring Mouche’s first days at House Genevois, he stayed in the welcome suite where his life seemed to consist of nothing but orientation and baths. Dirt that had taken twelve years to accumulate was loosened over a period of days, pried from beneath finger and toenails, rasped off of horny calluses, steamed out of pores he had not known he had in places he had never bothered to wash.
    “You know what we call new boys?” said Simon. “We call them lobsters, because they’re always in hot