“You’re drugged,” Lawrence said. “You must have some sort of real reasons for doing this. When you’ve slept off the anesthetic, perhaps you’ll be so good as to explain.”
Bron’s eyes opened. “I have explained. I ... the horrors of war. Lawrence, they brought home something to me. We call the race ... what? Humanity. When we went to rescue the kids, at Audri’s co-op ... to save those children and their mothers? I really thought I was doing it to save humanity—I certainly wasn’t doing it for myself. I was uncomfortable, I kept wanting to turn away, to leave them there, to quit—but I didn’t ... ! Humanity. They used to call it ‘mankind’. And I remember reading once that some women objected to that as too exclusive. Basically, though, it wasn’t exclusive enough! Lawrence, regardless of the human race, what gives the species the only value it has are men, and particularly those men who can do what I did.”
“Change sex?”
“What I did before ... before, when I was a man. I’m not a man any more, so I don’t need to be modest about it What I’ve been through in the war, and the torture and terror leading up to it, the bravery demanded there, because of it. That showed me what real manhood was.
“And it’s the most important thing the species has going for it. Oh, I know, to a lot of you, it’s all silly. Yes, Alfred’s dead. So is that crazy Christian. And that’s terribly tragic—both of them. It’s tragic when men die; it’s that simple. But even in the face of such tragedy, though you can’t think of any logical necessity to go out and save a house full of children and their mothers, there are metalogical ones: reasons, they’re called. I guess my doing that or keeping my mouth shut under torture probably looks very dumb to you. But I swear to you, Lawrence, I know the way I know that here is my own hand—with every subjective atom of my being—it isn’t dumb; and it’s the only thing that isn’t. And in the same way, I know that only the people who know it like I know it, real men (because there’s no other way to have it; that’s part of what I know), really deserve more than second-class member—
ship in the species ...” Bron sighed. “And the species is dying out.” Her mouth felt dry and the ghost of a cramp pulsed between her legs. “I also know that that kind of man can’t be happy with an ordinary woman, the kind that’s around today. When I was a man, I tried. It can’t be done.” She shook her head. “One out of five thousand isn’t enough ... Why did I do it?” Bron opened her eyes again and frowned at the frowning Lawrence. “I did it to preserve the species.”
“Well, I must say, my dear, you have the courage of your convictions! But didn’t it occur to you that—?”
“Lawrence, I’m tired. Go away. Shall I be cruel? All right. I’m just not interested in doddering, old homosexuals. I never was, and I’m particularly not interested in them now.”
“That’s not cruel. In your position, it’s just silly. Well, I’ve never thought your sense of personal tact was anything but a disaster zone. That obviously hasn’t changed. Nevertheless, I am still your friend. You know of course, you won’t be able to stay here now. I mean, except as a guest. I’ll register you as mine as soon as I leave. I’m sure they’ll let you keep the room for a while, but if they get another application from some guy, you’ll have to move out. If that happens and you haven’t found a place by then, you can bunk in with me—till one or the other of us threatens murder. It’s been a while since I slept chastely beside a fair young thing, but then, I’ve never—”
“Lawrence, please.”
Lawrence clucked out the door, ducked back. “As I said, I’ll be back in to talk to you again when you’ve slept it off.”
Which was about seven o’clock that evening. Bron woke up feeling like her insides would fall out if she stood up.
Fifteen minutes later, Lawrence came in, announcing: “We’re going to move you this evening. Now don’t complain. I’ll brook no protests. I’ve been running around all afternoon, and I’ve got a room for you in the women’s house of detention—forgive me, that’s my pet name for it—that’s Cheetah, the women’s co-op right behind us. Then I’m going to dip into my geriatric widow’s mite and take you out to a quiet, calm dinner, on my credit. Now don’t start putting up a fuss. I want you to know I have nursed three people through this operation before and you all say the craziest things under the anesthetic—though Lord knows, their reasons seemed a lot more sensible than yours. Really, it’s just like having a baby, only the baby—as one of my more articulate friends commented, when in your situation not twenty years ago—is you. You’ve got to get into walking and exercising as much as you can take as quickly as possible, or there’ll be hell to pay. Come on, up and at ’em. Lean on me if you want to.”
She didn’t want to.
But protest was as painful as compliance. And besides—she figured this out only when they were seated in a dining-booth (two other places they’d tried were closed: because of the war) behind a stained-glass partition in a restaurant Bron had never known was thirty yards from the Snake Pit’s door (but then, four-fifths of the patrons were Lawrence’s age or over, and nudity seemed to be de rigeur)—despite his age and predilections, after all, Lawrence was a man. And a real woman had to relinquish certain rights. Wasn’t that, she told herself silently, the one thing that, from her life before, she now, honestly knew?
Dinner was simple, unpretentious, and vegetarian. And, despite the soreness, with Lawrence’s gentle chatter it was pleasanter than any meal she’d had on Earth.
7. Tiresias Descending, Or Trouble On Triton
Coming across it thus again, in the light of what we had to do to render it acceptable, we see that our journey was, in its preconception, unnecessary, although its formal course, once we had set out upon it, was inevitable.
Her first minutes back at work, Bron was very nervous. She had considered the all-black outfit. But no, that would only be delaying things. The previous afternoon, she and Lawrence had gone to Lawrence’s(I) design-rental house and spent an amusing two hours during which Lawrence had had the house make up (among other things) a pair of his-and-hers breast bangles, glittering crimson with dozens of tiny mirrors on wriggly antennae. “Lawrence,” she had protested, “I’m just not the type to wear anything like this!” Lawrence had countered: “But I am, dear. At least in the privacy of my own room. They’re cunning!” She had taken hers home and put them in the cupboard as a memento of the day. Save the short gray shoulder cloak, she had rented no new clothing with her new image in mind.
Bron wore the cloak to work.
She had been in her office about an hour when Audri came by to prop herself, with one elbow, on the doorjamb. “Hey, Bron, could you ...” Audri stopped, frowned. “Bron ... ?”
“Yes?” She looked up nervously.
Audri began to grin. “You are kidding me—?”
“About what?”
Audri laughed. “And it looks good, too! Hey—” She came in—“what I wanted to get was that information about Day Star minus.” She stepped around the corner of the desk, put a folder down. “Oh, did you see that memo from the Art Department—?” which Bron finally found on the floor beside her desk. Some sculptor had arrived in the cafeteria that morning with a pile of large, thin, polished, metal plates, demanding to build a sculpture, floor to ceiling, then and there. The Art Department had sent around its memo, which included an incomprehensible statement by the artist, explaining how the plates would be moved within the sculptural space on small motors, according to an arcane series of mystical numbers. The whole was intended as some sort of war memorial. And could you please let us have a yes or no response before ten-thirty, as the artist wished to have the work completed by lunch.
“I suppose I’m feeling positively disposed to change today,” Bron told Audri, and sent the Art Department a yes on the console—though she had always felt a mild distrust of mystical art. Back at the desk, with Audri, she ran over more logical/topological specifications.