“It could be done,” said a senior man cautiously.
“Of course it could.”
James Nathan could see the relief spreading over them, the loosening of the tension that had held them when they first came into this room. They were thinking what it would be like… to have the women out of their lives and yet close enough for those times when only a woman would do.
The objection that he was waiting for, the one about the cost, came almost immediately.
“I was waiting for that,” he said.
“Chornyak, it would cost millions. Thirteen separate residences? There are a hell of a lot of women in the Lines, man. You’re talking about an immense sum of money.”
“I don’t give one scrawny damn,” he told them.
“But, Chornyak — ”
“I don’t care what it costs,” he went on grimly. “We have the money. God knows, we’ve never spent any. We have money to build ten Women’s Houses for each of the Lines and not even dent our accounts. You know it, and I know it — that’s one of the very rare benefits of a hundred years of avoiding all conspicuous consumption. The money is there. We have always lived in ostentatious austerity to keep the public happy… we’ve done enough, and we’re entitled. Let’s spend that money, before we all go raving mad.”
“It’s the public that will go raving mad,” said one of the men, “They’ll never stand for it. There’ll be riots again, Chornyak! Remember the 25th Amendment to the Constitution? No mistreatment of women allowed. We’ll never get away with it!”
“Perceive this,” James Nathan insisted. “There won’t be any real problem. Not if we do this properly. We point to the precedent, to the Barren Houses… we go on and on about how happy our women are to go to them, which is true. And we take pains, gentlemen, we take exquisite pains, to make these Women’s Houses superb places to be. We will not leave ourselves open to even the hint of a charge that we are abusing or neglecting our women! We spend whatever it costs to build them fine houses, beautiful houses, houses furnished and equipped with all the crap women always want, everything they could possibly need within the limits of reason. Our comsets are falling apart, for example, we’ve let that go on as an ecomony measure — we’ll put brand new systems in for the women. We’ll give them gardens — they’re all crazy for gardens. Fountains. Whatever. We’ll build them residences that the public can go through, if they insist, and satisfy themselves that we are providing the women with every comfort, every convenience, every facility. Let them send teams of inspectors out if they like… they’ll find nothing to criticize. And gentlemen, the public will envy us.”
They thought about that, and he saw a few grins as they began to understand.
“The men will envy us,” he said simply, “because we get to live every man’s dream. No women in our houses to foul up our lives and interfere with us — but women in abundance just a few steps away, when we choose to enjoy their company.”
“The men will envy us,” said Dano Mbal. “The men.”
“Isn’t that what matters?”
“It brings the obvious to mind, Chornyak.”
“Explain it to me… it may not be as obvious to me as it is to you.”
“Mention the men,” said Dano, “one thinks of the women. Their women will not envy ours, shut off in separate buildings in that fashion. They will pity our poor women — you know they will. And that is a good thing in its way, since the smaller the population that envies us the less trouble there will be. But what about our women, James Nathan? They’re not going to just smile and curtsey and move next door into an upgraded harem, man! This is going to put a considerable dent in their saintly demeanor, because they are going to fight like tigresses.”
“Let them fight, then,” said James Nathan. “What can they do? They have no legal rights in this matter, so long as they cannot claim that they’re being deprived of anything — and I have explained to you that we would make absolutely certain they couldn’t make that claim. Nothing but the best for our women, I promise you! So they fight it, so they have hysterics, so what, Dano? Men have been able to control women without difficulty since the beginning of time — surely we are not such poor examples of the male homo sapiens that we cannot continue in the ancient tradition? Are you suggesting, Dano Mbal, that we men of the Lines are not capable of controlling our women?”
“Of course not, Chornyak. You know I am suggesting no such thing.”
“Very well, then. The women have only themselves to blame for this, my friends. They have decided, in some incomprehensible female way, to turn themselves into multilingual robots — it was not we men who set them on that course. They’ve made their beds, as the saying goes; let them lie in them. They have no money, they are legally not even of age… what can they do to stop us?”
“They can bitch. They can raise hell.”
“Then the more quickly we get this done, the more quickly we’ll be rid of their bitching and their hell-raising. I move we vote. At once. Time’s a-wasting, gentlemen.”
There was a certain amount of discussion, a few objections, some grudging compromises had to be made… that was to be anticipated. It was how the game was played. But in the end they agreed unanimously, as James Nathan had known from the start they would. And when that point was reached, and the vote properly recorded, he punched the keys that would display the holos he’d had prepared especially for this meeting. He intended to spend plenty of credits; they had the money, they could afford to spend it, and he’d been serious about that. But there was no reason to waste money, and he’d spent many careful hours with David, the two of them working out every detail of the basic plan. There was no reason at all why the residences couldn’t be sufficiently uniform to allow for purchasing all the materials in huge quantities, at correspondingly huge savings.
In the Barren Houses, when the announcement was made, the women first sat shocked into total silence, staring at one another. And then their eyes began dancing, and they smiled, and then they laughed until they had no strength left to laugh any more.
“We were going to flee into the woods…”
“With babies on our backs…”
“Dig ourselves forts in the desert…”
“Oh, dear heaven…”
“We were going to be shut up in the attics… oh, lord…”
Even Aquina had to admit that it was funny, although she felt obligated to warn them that this was probably all just a trick to lull them into a sense of false security. Before the men began the real action against them.
First they said, “Oh, Aquina, don’t start!”