Geomancer

'Where are we going?' Tiaan asked anxiously.

'To my office. There's nothing to worry about.'

Tiaan was worried. Matron's grip on her wrist was unshakeable. They went along the corridor, up a flight of stairs, around a corner and through a heavy door. The small room contained a desk piled with papers, documents, a large tray of biscuits and several mugs, partly full of some dark, oily brew.

'Sit down!' Matron slumped into a chair on the other side of the table. Taking a biscuit, she pushed the tray towards Tiaan. 'Have a handful. They'll do you good.' She turned to a cupboard which she unlocked with a small key. There were a number of books and ledgers inside, though evidently not the one she was looking for. 'Where is the damn thing?' she muttered, sorting distractedly through the piles on the table.

Her excavations uncovered another ledger which she picked up, frowned at, then put down as someone rapped on the door. An aged attendant put his head around. 'Yes?' she snapped.

'It's… one of the clients is making rather a fuss, matron. Too much to drink. And little Zizza is quite hysterical. You'd better come quickly.'

Matron looked furious, but heaved her bulk out of the chair, glancing at Tiaan. 'I'll just take her back…'

A scream came echoing down the corridor, followed by drunken roars and the sound of breaking glass being smashed. Matron was through the door in an instant. 'Wait here, Tiaan. Don't touch anything.' She disappeared.

Tiaan sat for a while, then bored, began to flip through the papers on the table. They were all tedious administrative or financial documents. She put them back as she had found them, uncovering the ledger. On the front it said Bloodline Register 4102, Tiksi.

Inside she found a list of women's names with numbers after them. Page numbers, presumably. Tiaan turned the first page. The name at the top was Numini Tisde, a woman she had met here once. The page was ruled into columns, with dates, notes on her monthly cycle, health, male names with descriptions as well as lists of abilities, talents and ancestral details, baldly intimate details about sexual congress, and a variety of symbols and abbreviations that meant nothing to Tiaan. Occasional rows contained details related to pregnancy – weight changes, complications, miscarriages and births: six in eleven years, though only four were still living.

She turned the page. A different name was at the top, though the same kinds of entries were present. Tiaan closed the cover, appalled. It was a stud book!

It had just occurred to her to look up her mother's entry when she heard Matron's voice outside. Tiaan sat back in the chair and tried to assume a bored air.

Matron thrust the door open, red-faced and breathing heavily. Stamping across the room, she fell into her chair. 'Some people just aren't worth feeding!' Her eyes raked Tiaan. 'I hope you're not one of them.'

Tiaan lowered her eyes in what she hoped was modest incomprehension.

Matron went through the litter again. 'What the blazes was I doing?' She pulled out a stamped and sealed parchment, stared at it for a moment then tossed it aside. 'Ah, I remember.' With an air of triumph she withdrew a set of documents pinned together at one corner. 'Your indenture.' Turning to the back page, she said, 'Sign here!'

Tiaan took the sheets and began to read.

'Just sign!' Matron snarled.

'I'm not signing anything I haven't read,' Tiaan said. 'I know my rights.'

'Give me back the indenture.' Matron looked ferocious.

Tiaan passed it to her, quaking.

Matron placed it carefully on the cabinet behind her and stood up. Tiaan did too, wondering what was going to happen. Matron came around the desk and lashed out with her left fist. Tiaan ducked out of the way only to be clouted over the side of the head by the other hand. It knocked her sideways onto hands and knees.

Matron loomed over her. 'Will you sign?' she panted, her cheeks like slices of bloody liver.

'No!' Tiaan scrabbled out of the way, expecting more blows.

Matron's anger disappeared just as quickly. 'No matter!' She now seemed grimly indifferent.

'You can't keep me here without my signature. I'm not a child.'

Matron looked irritated. 'You have been certified insane by your own healers. I have the record here. It's properly drawn up and witnessed by the manufactory legalist, Chicanist Runne, and our own, Shyster Dusin. I don't need your signature.'

'I'm not insane!' Tiaan said vehemently.

'Do you have a certificate to prove your sanity?'

'No one does,' said Tiaan.

'Then you're still insane. It says so right here.' Matron was growing bored with the business. She rang a bell on her desk. The attendant appeared. 'Take Virgin Tiaan to her room. And keep a firm hold on her, just in case.'

Tiaan went scarlet. The title was mortifying.

'Please,' she said plaintively. 'I'd like to see my mother.' She felt lost. She needed the familiarity of Marnie.

'Good idea! She's an absolute corker is Marnie. Almost past it, but she still pulls in her regulars, and punches out a child every year. Nothing like old Marnie for convincing reluctant virgins. Take her dinner down there.' Marnie was on her bed, as always, leafing through an illuminated book. As soon as Tiaan was ushered in, her mother tossed it aside with a bored frown. She always looked bored, unless she was eating or preening.

'Tiaan!' she exclaimed. 'What trouble you've caused me. I had no end of work to get you in here.'

Tiaan doubted if her mother had anything to do with it, but let that pass. 'You're looking well, mother.'

'I'm not! The effort it takes to maintain my position is incredible. But somehow I manage it. There's a dozen begging for my favours tonight. Not many women can say that, at my age.'

Vain cow, Tiaan thought. Her mother had probably not been outside the breeding factory in twenty years. Her skin was so pale that she looked like a fat slug crawling across the bedcovers.

'Mother…?'

'Marnie, dear. Call me Marnie, I do so loathe the word mother.'

That was odd, since mother was the very description of her life. 'Marnie, I need to ask you a few questions about this place.'

Marnie waved a plump hand. 'Ask me anything, daughter. Oh, I'm so happy you've come. We'll have such times together.'

'It's just that – what do I do?'

'You mate, and you have babies.'

'And the rest of the time?'

'Bathe, eat, be pampered. Talk to the baby. Read. You can do anything you want.'

'What else?' Tiaan felt rather alarmed.

'You don't have to do anything. That's what's so wonderful.'

'What about work? I can't do nothing, Marnie. I'll turn into a mindless idiot…' She broke off, not quickly enough.

'How dare you!' Marnie flung a vase of flowers at her.

Tiaan ducked and the vase shattered against the wall. She began mopping up the water with a hand towel.

'Leave it!' Marnie screeched. 'That's not work fit for one of us.'

Tiaan did it anyway. 'I'm sorry, Marnie, I didn't mean to sound rude.'

Marnie sniffed and turned her vast back. Tiaan went round the other side, got down on her knees and stroked her mother's hand. She knew how to placate her.

'I'm sorry. I do appreciate how hard you've worked for me,' she said untruthfully. 'I – I'm afraid, mother. About what happens… with a client.'

'You don't know?' Marnie's eyebrows danced in astonishment.

'Of course I know. It's just that I've never done anything with a man.'

'But you're…' Marnie calculated, using her fingers, 'you're twenty!' She said it accusingly.

Nice of you to remember your firstborn! 'There's always more work than I can get done.'

'And to think I was worried about your virtue up at that horrible place. No wonder you had a breakdown.' Marnie sniffed. 'You have to live, child. You can't just work. Women can't do without it any more than men can. Of course you went mad, holding it in like that. Now, this is what's going to happen for your first time. You lie on the bed, open your legs, then the man…'

'I know how it's done, mother!' Tiaan snapped. 'I'm not a complete idiot. I want to know what's expected of me. How often do we mate? Once a year? Once a month? How long does it take to get a baby?'