“Our agenda today,” he said smoothly, “is a single topic, and a most unusual one. The last meeting of this particular kind was held in 2088, when the decision was made to build Chornyak Barren House, and we were fewer in number in those days. I’ve called the meeting only because the time I was having to spend listening to complaints from all of you about this matter had begun to take up an absurd proportion of my days — and my nights. And I insisted on having all of you here in person because leaks to the media would have been more than usually unacceptable in this case. Security on the comset network isn’t adequate, as all of you know to your sorrow — and it would be very distasteful to have this affair become a topic for the popnews commentators.”
“Damn right,” said half a dozen men heartily, and the rest made noises of agreement.
“Very well, then,” said James Nathan. “Since we understand one another, we will move at once to discussion. Our subject today, gentlemen, is… the women.”
“Where are they, by the way?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well,” said the man from Verdi Household, “talking of leaks and distasteful indiscretions and so on… where are the Chornyak women while this meeting is going on?”
James Nathan answered in a tone that made his resentment of the question clear. “Arrangements have been made,” he said stiffly. “You needn’t concern yourself.”
“Arrangements? What sort of arrangements?”
Verdi was damned rude, and he’d have to be set right at the first opportunity. But not now, thought James Nathan, not now; this was not the place for personal discussions.
“Most of the women are at negotiations,” he said. “Those who were free have been given a variety of assignments off the grounds. There are no females at Chornyak Household today except those under two years of age — I assume my colleague will trust us to prevent any serious indiscretions in those infants.”
Point scored; Luke Verdi flushed slightly, and said no more.
“Now,” James Nathan went on, “I’ve heard essentially the same story, and the same complaints, from every one of you. I am personally aware of the situation as well; this Household is not immune. But we need a summary from someone, to make sure that we are in fact dealing with a general problem; this is far too grave a matter to be settled hastily. I need not remind you that we must anticipate a strong reaction from the public, no matter what we decide to do.”
“The hell with the public,” said a junior man from Jefferson Household.
“We’re in no position to take that stance,” James Nathan told him, “even if it were consistent with the policies of the Lines — which it is not.”
“It’s none of the public’s damn business, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you, and I won’t. But I am going to ask for that summary, and I know precisely whom to ask. Dano, would you do the honors?”
Dano Mbal, of Mbal Household, was an imposing man and one accustomed to narration. He was very good at it. Narration, oration, declamation — all male linguists were trained for those, as they were trained in phonetics or political strategy; all three were essential skills in the use of the voice as a mechanism of power. But Dano had gifts that went beyond the training. He could read you a list of agricultural chemicals and keep you on the edge of the chair. And he inclined his head slightly now, to indicate that he was willing to be spokesman.
“The problem,” he said, “is not difficult to summarize. It can in fact be done in three words, thus: WOMEN ARE EXTINCT.”
He waited a moment, to let that sink in and to let the laughter subside around the room. And then he went on.
“Real women, that is. We have living females of the species homo sapiens moving about our Households, but that is all that can be said for them. They are homo sapiens, they are female, and they are alive. Nothing more, gentlemen, nothing more.”
One of the younger men opened his mouth to ask a question, but James Nathan was alert for interruptions, and he silenced him before he could make a sound, raising one hand.
“Please go on, Dano,” he said, underlining the message that the man was not to be interrupted.
“I believe,” said Mbal, nodding at James Nathan, “that we all first began to realize that something odd was happening with the women on the night that Thomas Blair Chornyak was so brutally murdered… I remember well that it was a subject of discussion that night. Except that we all thought, then, that it signalled some sort of change for the better! Gentlemen, we were quite wrong.”
He paused just long enough to fill a pipe with the aromatic tobacco he was addicted to, and to light it, and then he said, “Gentlemen, our women have become intolerable. And what is most astonishing about this is that we find ourselves curiously… helpless? Yes, I think helpless is the word… helpless to bring any accusation against them.”
This brought a murmur of protest too widely scattered to be silenced by a gesture. The idea of men helpless against women was absurd, and the men were quick to say so. Dano listened to them courteously, and then he raised his broad shoulders and spread his open hands in a gesture of helplessness.
“Well, gentlemen!” he said. “I will stop, then, and hear the accusations. As you would phrase them.”
He waited while they shuffled and muttered, and then he grinned at them.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “Just as I thought! You are eager enough to have them accused — but you are no more able to give those accusations surface shape than I am. Can a man ‘accuse’ a woman of being unfailingly and exquisitely courteous? Can a man ‘accuse’ a woman of being a flawless mother or grandmother or daughter? Can a man, gentlemen, ‘accuse’ a woman of being an ever willing and skillful sexual partner? Tell me… can a man point a finger at a woman and say to her, ‘I accuse you of never frowning, or never complaining, of never weeping, of never nagging, of never so much as pouting?’ Can a man demand of a woman that she nag? Can he demand that she sulk and bitch and argue — in short, that she behave as women used to behave? In the name of sweet reason, gentlemen, I ask you — can one accuse a woman, name her guilty, for ceasing to do every last thing he has demanded that she not do, all his life long?”
The silence was thick, heavy in the air; they were all thinking, and they had forgotten that they were cramped and crowded into this room. Each of them had his own women in mind, and each of them had an image of those women listening to him as he made some sort of speech about how they were so goddam COURTEOUS and COOPERATIVE and REASONABLE and PLEASANT… Oh, no. It was true. There was no way to accuse them of those things. A man would look and sound like an idiot. A kind of sigh, a sigh of being burdened and oppressed, went round the room.
“I take it it is a general problem, then?” asked James Nathan. “None of you disagrees with Dano Mbal’s description?”