No, no, I thought! I am a woman of Earth! I must repudiate my heart! I have been taught so! Should not biology crumble before political injunctions? What rights has she before rules, invented to thwart and subvert her? Dismiss nature. What has she to justify herself, save reality, blood, and need? I knew what I had been taught, in a thousand ways, a thousand times. Why had it seemed to me so false, and so alien, even on my former dismal, unhappy, polluted, awry world? What were its motivations, what ends did it seek, whose programs was it intended to promote? Surely not mine, surely none I recognized or found congenial. Is it appropriate that a culture be founded on division, and hate? Nature denied is nature poisoned. The weather, the tides, the circulation of the blood are without ideology; they are themselves, clean, innocent, and honest.
Would it be so wrong, I wondered, for humans, too, to be themselves?
It was now late in the afternoon.
I was no longer sure how far I might be from Shipcamp, and the Alexandra.
Let the great ship sail. I would be far away. I would be chained in no hold; I would not be penned like a verr.
I looked back at the thick tangle of vines and pods, which I was sure was a thick stand of leech plants.
I understood that it might be the fate of a displeasing slave to find herself cast, naked and bound, to such hungry, alert growths.
And I was suddenly terrified to realize that I, in my flight, might be accounted just such a displeasing slave.
No matter.
I would not be recaptured.
I was clever. I would not permit it.
I must hurry on.
Yet I was not eager to travel through the night.
What if, in the darkness, I might inadvertently stumble into another stand of such hungry, alert growths?
I was hungry, but saw nothing about to eat.
It seemed dark now, for the time of day. The wind was rising, and some leaves fell from the nearby branches. It was time, at Shipcamp, that the slaves of Kennel Five would be given their warm slave gruel, before they would be returned to their chains in the low, heavy enclosure. Usually we were permitted to feed ourselves, but sometimes we must eat on all fours, head down, not using our hands. This is useful in reminding a girl that she is a slave. Often enough we are given bread and fruit. In some kennels the girls, kneeling, feed from a trough, not using their hands, which are often tied behind them, but not in our kennel, Kennel Five. My training group had occasionally been put to a trough for our feeding. Once, to help us keep in mind what we were, we shared the trough with tarsks. Our common drink was water. Private slaves, I understand, fare much better. Some are the pets of their masters, but the whip is always on its peg. One hopes to keep it there. Occasionally we are given a handful of slave pellets. I do not know what is in them, but they are nourishing. Our diet, our exercises, our rest periods, and such, are carefully regulated, as would be expected, given that we are stock. Attention is given to our health, vitality, and desirability. Masters concern themselves with our weight, and figures, even to scales and measures. We each have our “block measurements,” and are expected to keep closely to them. We are to be such that we could be brought responsibly, and plausibly, to the block, at any time, not that we are to be sold but that we are to be such as are obviously vendible. We are to keep ourselves clean and well-groomed. Our posture, our carriage, and our figures are to be such as would be likely to inspire envy and hatred in a free woman. Our bodies are commonly much exposed, and this makes it imperative to carry them well. Whereas there is a considerable variety in the figures of slaves, with respect to the presence or absence of a pound here and there, there are few, if any, obese slaves. We are not free women, who may be as unclean, unkempt, disgusting, and fat as they wish. Indeed, it is one of the transitions faced by the free woman reduced to bondage, that she must now, tunicked, even camisked, certainly well displayed, become exciting, attractive, and desirable. She might now, after all, be marketed. To be