Free Walk to the End of the World by Suzy McKee Charnas Page B

cub. If a dam’s capacity is high, she stays here in the milkery. Some stay all their lives, for fems have a great need of this milk now, in their well deserved deprivation.’ She was referring to the drastic reduction of the seaweed ration allotted to the fems, which dated back several five-years. At that time, successive failures of the laver harvest had earned a rather freehanded rage from the men, resulting in fewer fems (and the deaths of the witches responsible for the blight, since the crops had stabilized again, though at lower levels). Now the fem population was built back up in number, but their food supply had not been expanded. Apparently they were finding their own sources of sustenance, as Fossa explained.
    ‘The masters entered through the curding room, where the milk from these fems is made into the curdcake which fems eat.’
    Kelmz said grimly, ‘If I’d known so many of them could talk I’d have been more careful working around them. But this old bitch can’t even describe what we saw with our own eyes without lying: that stuff they eat is brown and gelid, not white.’
    The old fem responded, after a pause, ‘Other things are added, to give fems strength for the tasks set them by the masters.’
    An alcove at the far end of the dormitory complex served as an office. Strings of tally-beads hung from pegs in the walls, presumably to keep track of the workings of the milkery. Here they stopped. Servan drew up a worn sitting-block, turning so that he could look back the way they had come. The place fascinated him. It was a DarkDreamer’s dream, with its sleep-heavy air, its quiet, the lumpish figures large and small under their coarse, gray covers, the dull light from basket-shaded lamps.
    Kelmz used the pause to get better control of the Pennelton Rovers, rubbing them down carefully with his hands as their officer would do, to check for injuries that their inflamed minds would never notice. He kept them facing away from the milkery.
    ‘“The moon’s unpredictable daughters”,’ Servan quoted softly. ‘That’s from the fems’ own songs. And here they are, in full mystery. Eykar, turn your back; you’re just a boy where these creatures are concerned; you have no defenses. They might witch you right out of your high purpose.’
    Eykar stopped pacing and turned his pale gaze on Servan. ‘In pursuit of which, do you think you might bring yourself to find out what we came to find out?’
    Doing so turned out to be simple. Servan asked Fossa about Raff Maggomas, and she told them. He had come; he had stayed with the Quarterback Company assigned here at the time (a hard time, marked by laver failures); he had returned to the City with the Quarterbacks when the five-year was over.
    Years later, word had gotten about that Maggomas’ son was in trouble in the Boyhouse. The son had been sent to become Endtendant, and Maggomas had vanished. At once, a new scandal had broken. Maggomas had apparently had a lover across the age-line, a Junior Quarterback who was moreover much sought after (however covertly) by an Angelist Company Senior superior to Maggomas; a Boardman, some said. The young man, whose name was Karz Kambl, had also disappeared, presumably to join Maggomas in hiding. Enraged by this turn of events, the Board had passed a resolution barring Maggomas from returning to any company of the City in any capacity.
    So far as was known, he had never tried to return and had not been seen or heard of since by any reliable witness. And that had been six years ago. The younger man, now a Senior, was said to be
living more or less in hiding in the City.
    Aside from one or two breaks (profusely apologized for) when Fossa was called to confer with some fem in the dormitory, the report was a model of concise information, clearly delivered. Servan complimented the old fem on the effectiveness of her intelligence network. She was remarkably well informed. These rumors of an affair had never come to Servan’s