Adventure stories; Science fiction; Sex role -- Fiction
The Jovians had been very courteous, apologized in a stiff way for the
unfortunate misunderstanding aboard ship, and assigned her a brawny
young sergeant as guide. Their armament was much more in evidence and
much more interesting than Earth's but granting that spaceships and
atomic bombs and guided missiles were more effective than swords and
bows and mounted lancers, they took all the fun out of war and left
nothing to plunder. She missed the brawling mirth of the war-camps of
Varann among these bleak-faced and endlessly marching men in their drab
uniforms.
The civilians were almost as depressingly clad, and even more orderly
and obedient than those of Earth. Only the arrogant, bemedaled officer
caste had any touch of dash or glamor about it. The Terrestrial concept
of sexual equality had been interesting, even exciting in a way, but
these Jovians had inverted the natural order of things to a repulsive
extent.
She had seen the sights, and those were impressive enough--the grim
rocky face of Ganymede, with mighty Jupiter eternally high in the dusky
heavens; the bustling, crowded, machine-crammed underground cities,
level after level of apartments, farms, factories, shops, barracks--but
Earth could show more. Her guide promised to take her to the other
moons of the Jovian Confederacy but she felt as bored by the thought as
he seemed to be.
She got the impression that she was hurried along, from sight to sight
and speech to speech, without ever a chance to talk to anyone and find
out what really was dreamed and striven for on this land. To be sure,
the Jovians all talked endlessly about a superior way of life and their
right to return to the green vales of Earth whence their forefathers
had been cruelly made to flee. But if they were going to fight why
didn't they just hop in their ships and go there?
The dictator's face seemed to be framed wherever she turned, a small
and puffy-eyed man in an elaborate uniform. Martin Wilder the Great.
Her guide the sergeant, one Robert Hamand, said in an awed tone that
she might be introduced to the dictator. He looked hurt when she yawned.
And what had become of Ray? Hamand knew nothing and seemed to care
less. The secret police officer had said he would be held for a short
time as a lesson and then released but surely he'd look her up if he
were free. She contrasted the Earthling's liveliness with the quiet men
of Varann and thought that he would be an ornament to anyone's harem
even if there couldn't be issue between the two species.
On the third day, as she got up, she decided to ask counsel of Ormun.
She washed, singing a cheerful song of clattering swords and sundering
skulls, stowed away a breakfast that would have sufficed two humans,
and walked into the sitting room of the apartment assigned her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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