but I was too honest, too frightened, too worried, to do so. I knew I was not cured. I still had impulses and feelings which I, at that time, interpreted as being symptoms of iniquity or disease. Why could I not be like others, a true person? Eventually I came under the care of a woman who was kind to me, and informed me that it was not wrong to have such impulses, only that in my case they were directed to the wrong objects, that, as I was a female, they should be directed toward other females, such as herself. I did not know what to make of this. I did not even, really, understand it. I was frightened. I had heard of such things, hints and such, but had always thought them strange, or, at least, uncongenial. Too, it did not seem to fit in with the personism I has been taught, which, presumably, she should exemplify, though she assured me, fervently, it not only did, but fulfilled exactly that personism. It seemed to me rather, however, that both of us, as females, belonged at the feet of men. She flew into a great rage at this and I realized I had touched something deep in her. I do not know if she rejected her sex and wished to be a man, having a woman at her feet, or if she, as a woman, frightened, was reacting hysterically, even savagely, against her own feelings and impulses.”
“You resisted her advances?” asked Brenner.
“Yes,” she said. “I was then, shortly thereafter, barefoot and in a hospital smock, called up before a disposition board. Based on her report, I was characterized as incurable, and as unfit to remain on the home world. I had to be dragged screaming from the room. Later, by a court, I was sentenced to contract. Months later my contract was put up for sale in Damascus, which is where my contract holder purchased it.”
Brenner regarded her. She was lovely. To be sure, he supposed it was wrong to be lovely, or, at least, a failing to be overcome. “So you are unfit to remain on the home world?” said Brenner.
“It seems so,” she said. “At any rate, it seems they do not want women like myself on the home world.”
“Are such things often done?” asked Brenner.
“It is my impression, gathered from cellmates, and such, that the home world rids itself of many women such as myself.”
Brenner thought of the tribute levies mentioned to him by Rodriguez. He supposed that they might play some similar role. Certainly the women chosen were supposed to be, at least upon the whole, if he could believe Rodriguez, sexually responsive, a feature, or defect, which would doubtless jeopardize their careers on the home world, at least if noted, or publicized. On the other hand, he supposed that many women on the home world might be sexually responsive. To be sure, it was one thing to be sexually responsive, and quite another to say anything about it, or do anything about it.
“I did see the woman under whose care I had been again,” said the brunette. “I saw her on home world, weeks later, at the holding area. We were both inside the wire, in camisks, and shackled. We pretended not to see one another.”
“What was she doing there?” asked Brenner.
“I expect it had to do with some political fallings out, or manipulations,” she said. “Competitions, eliminations of rivals, and such things. I suspect more than one woman, even highly placed women, has suffered such a fate.”
“At the hands of other women?”
“Of course,” she said.
“Perhaps the other women found it amusing.”
“Perhaps,” she said.
“Do you know what became of her?” asked Brenner.
“No,” she said. “I trust she is happy.”
“You do not hold your own contracting against her?”
“No,” she said.
Brenner nodded.
“Besides,” she said, “I have no doubt that I would have eventually, given my nature, and the openness of my case, and such, even without her, have been consigned to contract.”
Brenner nodded. That did not seem unlikely to him, given what he had heard.
“The other woman,” he said.
“She in whose care I had been placed?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Brenner. “Was she, or her contract, sold on Damascus?”
“I do not know,” she said. “But I do not think so.”
“If her fate were as you seem to conjecture,” said Brenner, “that she, too, had been contracted, and that hers was a contracting to which she was an involuntary party, then it seems that she, or her contract,