Young Rissa by F.M. Busby Read Free Book Online Page A

relating only the first or most memorable among similar events. She hardly noticed when a young woman brought a tray with coffee and thin slices of dark, pungent bread — but all the same, talking between bites, she ate and drank.  
    When she reached the point of her transfer to Postpube, and the surgery, Erika said, “Pause a moment. They said things you didn’t understand? Can you remember any of it?”  
    â€œUh — magnetic something — and the Underground making a stink. I — ”  
    â€œAnd your uncle had entered a lawsuit! Ha!” Erika clapped her hands together. “You’re not sterilized, girl — not permanently. Twenty to one, you’re not!”  
    â€œBut how — ?”  
    â€œIt’s called a ‘reversible.’ Your Fallopian tubes — do you know what those are?” Rissa nodded. “Well, instead of tying them off in the usual way, a short length of each is replaced by plastic tubing, magnetically polarized. They’re left sealed off, of course, but Welfare — the Committee — what the scheiss, it’s all UET! — they have specially designed magnetic devices. Hold one of those against you at the proper spot, push the right buttons and turn the right dials — those magnetic sections open and close like faucets.” She frowned. “They’re hard to get, those machines — it’s going to cost you — but with patience and bribery you’ll control your own womb again!”  
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    Rissa's story continued. When it came to Gerard — the rape when she was near death, later the compulsory morning services — Erika shook her head. “So that’s how Welfare teaches love. I imagine you don’t care much for sex, do you?”  
    â€œNo — except what I do by myself. Does any woman?”  
    Erika laughed, then sobered. “I don’t mean to make fun of your misfortune. But — you’ll learn, Rissa. Here, you’ll learn! And now — go on with it.”  
    â€œThere’s not much more.” The lottery winning, the press interview, Camilla Altworth, and the escape. She laughed. “And is it my turn to ask?”  
    â€œWhat do you want to know?”  
    â€œWell — what happens now?”  
    Like gulls’ wings, Erika’s eyebrows lifted. “Camilla didn’t tell you? Well, it’s up to you, of course. You owe me nothing — Camilla arranged your way this far. So you could take your money — the documents that give you control of it — and go to the city or elsewhere, and build your own life. You’d be safe enough. Whether I actually own this country is open to debate, but I have enough power to keep UET’s hands out of it, and I do just that.”  
    â€œBut there is something more, isn’t there? What didn’t Camilla tell me?”  
    â€œWhat it is that I’m offering you. It doesn’t come cheaply and it takes time — a million Weltmarks and at least a year.” Erika raised a hand. “Let me finish. That million and that year buys you the best survival training package available on this planet. Here are some of the parts of it. . . .”  
    When Erika had finished, Rissa said, “If you — your Establishment — can teach me all that, the price seems cheap enough. Especially since it’s quite obvious that if you wanted to, you could take all I have and leave me nothing.”  
    â€œHa! You’re learning already. Shall we have lunch now?”  
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    Next day it began. How it could all be done in one year, Rissa could not imagine. Mastery of several languages including variant speech patterns. Three distinct approaches to the art of political corruption. Proficiency at controlling vehicles on land or water, or in air — not in space, though, for Erika had no starship. Yet, Rissa reminded herself . . .