Time Slave

9

“More wine, Doctor Hamilton?” inquired Herjellsen. “Yes,” said Brenda Hamilton. Herjellsen nodded, and one of the blacks, in a white jacket, stepped discreetly forward and filled her glass. “Thank you,” said Brenda Hamilton. The black did not reply. “May I smoke?” asked William, drawing out a cigarette. “Certainly,” said Hamilton.

He lit the cigarette. “Would you like one?” he asked.

“No,” said Hamilton.

They sat at table in Herjellsen’s quarters, where, in earlier weeks, they had commonly dined together, a continental supper, served at nine P.M., after the heat of the day.

Herjellsen, and William and Gunther, wore evening clothing, black tie.

Brenda Hamilton wore an evening gown, a slim, white sheath, off the shoulder. She had never worn such a gown before. It fitted perfectly. Except for a string of pearls, and two pearl earrings, it was all she wore. Gunther, standing behind her, had put the pearls about her neck.

Her ankles, her wrists, were free of fetters.

Hamilton looked down at the white linen tablecloth, the napkin, the silverware.

There was candlelight.

The evening was comfortable.

The conversation, mostly unimportant talk, had not been unpleasant.

Hamilton sipped the wine.

“A toast,” said Herjellsen, lifting his glass toward Hamilton. “I had forgotten until now,” he said, “how beautiful a European woman could be.” He used “European” in the African sense.

Gunther, with William, and Herjellsen, lifted their glasses to her.

“Thank you,” said Hamilton.

She blushed, and lowered her head, pleased in spite of herself, in the depth of her new-found womanness, which they had released in her, at being the object of their admiration. William, she had seen, had not taken his eyes from her all evening. Even in Gunther’s eyes she had detected a grudging admiration. This had stirred her, helplessly, deeply. He was the most exciting man she had ever seen. She knew she was his for the asking, even though she knew he despised her, and had, as her jailer, treated her with contempt, with harshness, and even cruelty. She sat among them as a slim, erect, elegant young woman, educated, beautiful, and civilized, in a white sheath gown and pearls, but she knew that if Gunther wanted her, she would yield to him on his own terms, whatever they might be. If he so much as snapped his fingers, she would prepare herself, eagerly, for him. She wanted to serve him, intimately, desperately, at length, even if he, in his cruelty, forced her to take payment for doing so, a cigarette, or a shilling. She sat across the table from him, looking at him, over the candlelight. “Do you know, Gunther,” she asked him, silently, to herself, “that I, sitting here, elegant in my white silk and pearls, am your whore?” She regarded him. He smiled. She put down her head. She knew that he knew.

She sipped her wine, finishing it.

“More wine?” asked Herjellsen, attentively.

“No, thank you,” said Hamilton.

“Coffee,” said Herjellsen to one of the blacks, standing nearby, in his white jacket. The fellow left the dining area.

“I had thought,” said Hamilton, to Herjellsen, “that I was not to be permitted cosmetics, perfume.”

Tastefully, and fully, beautifully, she had adorned herself this evening. She had, of course, been instructed to do so.

“Tonight,” said Herjellsen, “is a night on which we are celebrating. We have worked hard. We have been successful. You would not begrudge us our wine, surely, our supper, the stimulation of your lovely presence.”

“Of course not,” she said. She smiled.

“We have treated you rather harshly,” said Herjellsen, apologetically. “But we have done so in the hope that we may have, thereby, increased your chances of survival.”

“I find it difficult to follow your reasoning,” said Hamilton.

The coffee was brought, black, hot, bitter, in small cups. On the tray there was a small container of assorted sugars, with tiny spoons.

“I have made a positive identification,” said Herjellsen, “of the rodent, which you observed being brought into the translation cubicle. The family is obviously Muridae. It is a species similar to, but not precisely identical to, the widely spread, cunning, vicious, highly successful Rattus norvegicus, the common brown rat, or Norway rat. It is doubtless an ancestral form, the only actual difference being that the teeth are more substantially rooted.”

“Does this identification have significance?” asked Hamilton.

“Of course,” said Herjellsen. “It is a commensal.”

“I-I do not know the word,” said Hamilton.

“A companion at meals,” laughed William.

“A commensal,” said Gunther, “is an animal or plant that lives in, on or with another, sharing its food, but is neither a parasite to the other, nor, normally, is injured by the presence of the other.”

“It thrived in the Pleistocene,” said William, “and thrives today, one of the most successful forms of life the world has ever seen.”

“It supplants allied species,” said Gunther. “It is a swift, curious, aggressive, savage animal, with the beginnings of a tradition, older animals instructing the younger, particularly in avoidance behaviors, as in preventing their consumption of dangerous or poisoned food.”

“A very successful co-inhabitant of our Earth, my dear,” said Herjellsen, “but, more importantly for our purposes, a commensal.”

“It entered Western Europe from Asia in prehistory,” said Gunther, “as an accompanier of migrations.”

“The current brown rat,” said Hamilton, “is a commensal of man.”

“Precisely,” said Herjellsen. “And so, too, was it in the beginning.”

Hamilton could not speak.

“You see now the significance of the catch?” he asked.

She shook her head, not wanting to speak.

“It gives us the coordinates of a human group, a living human group,” smiled Herjellsen.

“This is much more accurate than a stone tool,” said William. “Such a tool, particularly if adequately protected from weathering, and patination, might have been abandoned or dropped hundreds of years ago, or years earlier.”

“Where the brown rat is found,” said Herjellsen, “there, too, will we find man. They are companions in history.”

“You said,” said Hamilton, “that you treated me harshly, that my chances of survival might be improved.”

“Yes,” said Herjellsen. “It is our anticipation that these men do not live in an environment so hostile and cruel that they need fear, in practice, only the scarcity of game, or so remote and impenetrable that no others would care to live there. Eskimos, for example, are a kindly people, trusting, helpful, affectionate, and, in a very different environment, so, too, are the Pygmies of the Congo.”

“Such peoples, you note,” said Gunther, “have been driven from choicer lands by more aggressive competitors.”

“What are you trying to tell me?” asked Hamilton.

“Xenophobia,” said Herjellsen, “or the hatred of the stranger, is an almost universal human phenomenon, at one time, judging by its pervasiveness, of important evolutionary import. Groups who did not distrust strangers were either destroyed, or driven into the remoter and harsher portions of the Earth. Too often, in the history of the world has the stranger meant ambush, treachery, disaster.”

“Interestingly,” said William, “this suspicion tends to be somewhat reduced during the prime mating years, particularly those of adolescence and the early twenties.”

“That, too, doubtless,” said Herjellsen, “has played its role in mixing and distributing genes among diverse populations.”

“Why don’t you transmit a man?” begged Hamilton.

“We think,” said Herjellsen, calmly, “they would kill a man.”

“Kill?” asked Hamilton.

“Surely,” said Herjellsen.

“That is why we are transmitting a woman,” said Gunther, “and one who is young and not unattractive.”

Hamilton looked down. It was the closest Gunther had ever come to complimenting her.

She looked up at Herjellsen. “How do you know they will not kill me?” she asked.

“We do not know,” said Herjellsen.

“What do you expect them to do with me?” asked Hamilton.

“If they have a language,” said Herjellsen, “you will not be able to speak it. You will be to them a stranger. You will not be known to them. You will have no kinship ties, no blood ties, with the group. You will be to them an outsider-a complete outsider. You will not be a member of their group.” Herjellsen smiled at her through the thick lenses. “Do you understand, my dear,” asked Herjellsen, “what that might mean-in a primitive situation-not being a member of the group?”

“What do you expect them to do with me!” demanded Hamilton.

“You will be transmitted naked,” he said, “and, as Gunther has observed, you are not unattractive.”

“What will they do with me?” whispered Hamilton.

“Make you a slave,” said Herjellsen.

Hamilton looked down, miserable.

“Drink your coffee,” said Gunther. Hamilton sipped the coffee.

“If you were a man,” said William, “they would probably kill you.”

“I do not want to be a slave,” whispered Hamilton. Then she looked up. “Slavery,” she said, “is a complex societal institution. Surely it could not exist in such a primitive society.”

“Apache Indians,” said Gunther, “in your own country, kept slaves.”

“Semantics is unimportant,” said Herjellsen.

“You will be an out-group female,” said Gunther. “Doubtless you will live, if you are permitted to live, on their sufferance, depending presumably on how well you please and serve them. You would be, of course, subject to barter and exchange.”

“-I would be a slave,” whispered Hamilton.

“Yes,” said Herjellsen.

“You have been training me for that?” asked Hamilton.

“When a man enters your room, what now is your inclination?” asked Herjellsen.

“Unthinkingly,” said Hamilton, “I feel an impulse to kneel.” She reddened. “You have made me kneel, as a prisoner, in the presence of males,” she said.

“This is to accustom you to deference and subservience to men,” said William.

“You must understand,” said Herjellsen, “that if you were transmitted as a modern woman, irritable, sexless, hostile, competitive, hating men, your opportunities for survival might be considerably less.”

“We do not know the patience of these men,” said Gunther. “They might not choose to tolerate such women.”

Hamilton shuddered.

“We have tried to teach you various things in your training, my dear,” said Herjellsen, not unkindly. “First we have tried to teach you that you are a beautiful female, which you are, and that this is a glorious and precious thing in its own right, and that being a woman is not the same as being a man. Each sex is astonishing and marvelous, but they are not the same. We have tried to teach you the weakness, the beauty, the vulnerability, the desirability of your womanhood. We have tried to teach you that you are a woman, and that this is deeply precious.”

Hamilton, though she did not speak, knew that in her incarceration, she had for the first time in her life, accepted herself as a woman, and had found joy in doing so.

These men, cruel as they might have been, had given her to herself.

She was grateful to them. She was no longer the little girl who had wanted to be a little boy, nor the young woman who had pretended her sex was unimportant, and had secretly wanted to be a man. She was now a woman happy in her womanhood. She looked at Gunther. She rejoiced that he was a man, not she. She wanted to be held by him, and had, helplessly, yieldingly. She wanted to be a woman in his arms.

Herjellsen put down his coffee. “It is our hope,” said Herjellsen, “that we have improved your chances for survival in an environment of primitive realities.”

“Other aspects of your training,” said William, “were reasonably straightforward. For example, the cleaning of the floor and walls of your quarters accustomed you to manual labor. The alignment of the cot was intended to induce discipline, attention to detail, neatness, compliance with the arbitrary will of a male.”

“Your punishments,” said Gunther, “have taught you to expect humiliation and pain if you are disobedient or insubordinate.”

“You have been very thorough, Gentlemen,” smiled Hamilton.

“We have perhaps saved your life,” said Herjellsen.

“It might all have gone for naught,” said Hamilton, “if I had escaped.”

“You had no opportunity to escape,” said Herjellsen.

Hamilton looked at him, puzzled.

“You were given utensils,” he said, “that you might attempt escape.”

“Oh,” said Hamilton.

“The first time, of course, we did not permit you to escape. I used muscle reading to locate the missing utensil. This was to induce a feeling of psychological helplessness in you. We were interested to see if this would crush you. Happily, it did not. That very evening, with a second utensil, you attempted your escape. You are a brave, fine woman, intelligent and resourceful. We were proud of you.”

“I told William, that night,” she said, “that no fork had been brought with the tray.”

William smiled.

“I thought I had fooled him,” she said.

“You were an excellent actress,” said William. “I had been informed, however, that your escape attempt would take place that night. Indeed, that is why the second fork was provided with your food that evening.”

“How did you know I would try that night?” asked Hamilton.

“It was simple, my dear,” said Herjellsen. “You were anxious to escape. You did not know how long you might have, before your portion of the experiment began. You would attempt to escape as soon as possible. Further, you would know that the missing fork would be noted, at least by morning. You would know, too, that its location, if hidden, could be revealed by the technique of muscle reading. Thus your attempt to escape, and a brave one it was, to essay the bush at night, alone, would take place that night.”

“We heard you digging out,” said William.

“We even interrupted the guard in his rounds,” said Herjellsen, “that you would have time to dig under the fence.”

“I hoped you weren’t shocked too severely,” said William.

“No,” she said. She looked at Gunther. “I was clumsy to touch the wire, wasn’t I, Gunther?” she said.

Gunther shrugged.

“We thought you would strike out for the road,” said Herjellsen.

“But Gunther, with a dark lantern, followed the trail for some time, to ascertain this,” said William.

“You followed me, Gunther?” she asked.

“For a time,” he said. “I then returned to the compound”

“It was not difficult to pick you up in the Land Rover,” said William.

“I left the road,” she said. “You followed.”

She recalled the frantic flight through the bush, the headlights of the Land Rover, the searchlight on its side, the sting of the anesthetic bullet.

“You were not difficult to take,” said Gunther. “But the hunt was enjoyable.”

“I’m pleased,” she said, acidly, “that I gave you sport.”

“It is pleasant,” said Gunther, “to hunt women.”

She recalled falling in the bush, crawling, being unable to crawl further, then being captured,. her wrists dragged behind her, their being locked in Gunther’s cuffs.

She recalled being lifted, thrown, secured, over his shoulder, and being carried to the Land Rover. She had then lost consciousness.

“And, doubtless,” she said, “it is pleasant, after bringing your catch home, to make them slaves.”

“Yes,” said Gunther, “doubtless that would be pleasant.”

“You are a beast, Gunther,” she said.

He smiled. He shrugged. “I am a man,” he said.

“Finish your coffee, Doctor Hamilton,” suggested Herjellsen.

Hamilton finished the small cup of bitter, black fluid.

Brandy was brought for the men. Herjellsen, and William and Gunther, lit cigars.

“Would you like a liqueur?” asked Herjellsen.

“Yes,” said Hamilton.

It was brought. It was thick, heavily syruped, flavored with peach.

Hamilton sipped it.

“The escape phase of the experiment,” said Herjellsen, “permitted us to test your cunning and your initiative. Both proved themselves satisfactory.”

“Thank you,” said Hamilton.

“In the bush itself, of course, as we expected,” said Herjeljsen, “you behaved like a frightened, ignorant woman.”

“I suppose,” said Hamilton, sipping the liqueur, “that my `training’ was also enhanced in some way by my escape attempt?”

“Yes,” said Herjellsen. “We regarded it as important to give you the experience of being a fleeing, hunted, then captured woman.”

“It is a very helpless, frightened feeling,” said Hamilton.

“We wished you to have it,” said Herjellsen.

“The most important lesson of the escape phase, or perhaps I should say, the `failure-to-escape’ phase,” said Gunther, smiling, “was to imprint, and imprint deeply, in your consciousness the incontrovertible recognition that you had not escaped-that you had been caught-and were once again, and more securely than ever, the prisoner of men.”