But to see who Muskie is, let us look at the three principal faces she wears to show the sultry and satisfied world of Jem.
The first of these is Muskie the nurturer. She provides more than a tenth of the food for Boyne-Feng, and nearly all of it that comes from underground. She does not do it by herself, of course. See her as she stands in the gallery gate. The morning shift is coming on duty. The bad old days of “owners” died when government did. Muskie is not an owner. She is only one among equals. But she is a special one.
You might think she looks like a Virginia planter overseeing slaves, or perhaps like a Shensi landlord accepting squeeze from the tenant farmers in her paddies. This would be deceiving. There is no ownership. There is not even any compulsion. The tokens the Krinpit laborers give her one by one as they scuttle past to the underground farms are not extorted. They are gifts. They are freely given. If Muskie is not pleased with the gift of one of them, she does not reproach him or order him to give more. She simply refuses it. Then the Krinpit chooses to go back to his village, where he may freely starve. A meter or two past Muskie’s station the Creepie overseers spray the Krinpit with anti-allergen lacquer. No force is employed here, either. If the Krinpit do not choose to make gifts to the overseers, they need not turn back. The overseers will then choose not to spray them. The Krinpit will then itch or molt or die as a consequence of exposure to the terraborn crops they handle. It is the Krinpits’ right to choose this if they wish. There is absolutely no compulsion, by anyone, of anyone, at any time. That is part of the Six Precepts.
The Krinpit know this and rejoice in their freedom — not to mention rejoicing in the radios, the gaily raucous drums and zithers, the chemical intoxicants, beads and metal tools that they prize. These are freely given to them when they freely give up the tokens that Muskie has freely given to them at the end of each voluntary work shift. The Creepies also know that this is true. They are also grateful, especially for the Two-Legs’ improvements on their savage old burrows, and they freely assist the stronger, bigger Krinpit laborers by instructing them in where to plant the floor crops of mushrooms and the roof crops of potato and yam. They too now rejoice in the possession of beads, devices, and intoxicants their rude progenitors never knew. The balloonists know it — what fun they have with their taped music and their repeated orgasms! And, of course, Muskrat Greencloud An-Guyen knows it really well. She has everything she wants. Perhaps the best part of what she has is the certain knowledge that the Six Precepts are always followed, and so justice is always served, and everybody else on Jem — and that means everybody, Krip or balloonist, stranger or son — has everything, too. Though not usually as much of everything as she.
Then there is Muskie the civil volunteer. Not merely a discussant or a participator, like everyone else. She is a selection judge who gives freely of her time to serve the whole community, even at holidays.
She leaves the agricultural galleries and goes aboveground into the warm, bright dome of Fat City. Muskie is still a sturdily beautiful woman. She is tanned by the ultraviolet lights of the pool-grotto, tall, solid rather than plump; she weighs sixty standard kilos, but she has a fifty-centimeter waist, and her lovers prefer her to partners half her age. Eyes follow her as she comes smiling into Remembrance Hall, removes her slacks and slicks for comfort, gives Ring-Greeting to all, and reclines on a foam couch. “I would like to begin,” she says sunnily. The other six volunteer selection judges agree that they, too, would like to discuss the issues of the day.
Most of the issues are routine, and consensus appears at once. (They are all saving themselves for the big one.) From his place under the bust of Mother Kristianides, wide-browed and serene as she looks down on them, Roanoke t’Schreiber describes the progress in cleaning up Lake Hell. All the city’s sewage is being pumped there. The native aquatic life is being satisfactorily killed off, since Escherichia coli is antibiotic against most forms of Jemman life. “Another two million bowel movements and we’ll have it sparkly clean,” he comments. Sod House Flareborn looks up from inspecting her ten-centimeter fingernails to wonder if the militia should be freely given extra tokens, since so many of them have unfortunately (though voluntarily) given up their lives in the exploration of additional Creepy burrows and the liberation of distant camps of Krinpit. All agree that this seems desirable. The woman in militia fatigues who has been hovering by the door leaves with a smile of satisfaction.
Then Muskie’s face clouds and she observes, “I have heard that there has been another tactran from Alphabase.”
There is silence in the chamber. This is the issue that holds the seeds of dissent, and even change. No one really wants to get into it. All the judges stir uncomfortably on the couches under the busts of the ancestors, each waiting for the others to speak.
At last t’Schreiber offers an opinion. “I, for one, think it was unwise of our predecessors to attempt to resume space exploration. They freely gave much value to put new tactran satellites in orbit. What have we gained? Sorrow and confusion.” He lists the contacts made: a garble that might have been from the Martian colony; pitiful pleas for help from old Earth itself; a dozen cocky messages from the base at Alpha Centauri suggesting an attempt at an actual flight to and from Jem. From the rest of the universe, nothing.
Muskie waits uncomfortably, shifting position and scratching just above the plaque of her string bikini. Then she says, “I wonder if we should answer messages from Alphabase anymore.”
No one responds.
Therefore it is agreed; and the judges turn to speaking of the gratifying growth in human population — from one hundred eighty survivors to eighteen hundred in the third generation, and now nearly a quarter of a million in the sixth. There is no longer a fear that humanity might not survive. On Jem Man flourishes.
This reminds Muskie that her newest baby is about ready to be born. She speaks softly into her telephone to the hospital. The mare is in the delivery room even at that moment, but the news is bad. The baby was born dead.
“I blame myself,” says Muskie to the doctor remorsefully. “Sarah Glowbag — was that her name?”
“Mary Glowbag,” the doctor corrects her.
“Yes, Mary. She was nearly sixty years old I should have invited a younger mare to brood my baby.”
“Don’t let it spoil your day.” consoles the doctor. “One must expect a failure now and then. Nearly all of your children have lived, and remember, you have three others in the oven right now.”
“You’re very kind.” Muskie hangs up with a smile. But the news has upset her — and just at Christmas, too. “I would like to leave now,” she tells the other judges, and of course they also wish to close the discussion and return to their homes.
And then there is Muskrat the mother, the honored one at the head of her family.
This is no small part of her. Her family is huge. Forty-four living children, the dozen oldest long since having made her a multiple grandmother, the three youngest still unborn in the borrowed wombs of other women. (She reminds herself to make a voluntary gift to Sarah, or Mary, Glowbag for her kindness in carrying her most recent implanted ovum to term. Not as large as usual, of course; after all, the child had been born dead.) At Christmas all of them will come to give her Ring-Greeting, and she looks forward to the day with pleasure.