A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [83]
Those had been the best years in her life…
Now, a man began coughing, and his chosen wife put him to bed, then went to fill out a requisition for the medicine he needed. Nira looked around at the other bunks, at the clustered family groups the people had instinctively formed even under circumstances such as these. They seemed to believe they had a normal life.
On Dobro, men and women still fell in love, bonded with each other, and had children—though, at any time, a female might be chosen for her genetic characteristics and be sent off to the breeder barracks. Their husbands might not be happy when it happened, but they accepted it. They had been trained for generations to live within this new and unnatural social order.
In turn, the male human prisoners were forced to mate with dozens, even hundreds, of Ildiran women. The guards and medical kithmen dealt with any man who refused to perform his duty by repeatedly “harvesting” his sperm, and eventually returning him to the work gangs as a eunuch…
Nira felt more anguish for their plight than they themselves did. She knew that humans were resilient and could learn to accept many things. The strength and endurance she saw in these prisoners was not what saddened her, however—it was that they had forgotten what life was supposed to be like.
Though darkness had fallen hours ago, and the beautiful stars had come out in the clear sky, the lights would never go off in the crowded barracks. In keeping with Ildiran practice, darkness was never allowed inside the buildings except as a form of punishment. By now, the human prisoners were well conditioned to sleep under full light. Many of the children had already gone to bed, while the adults remained awake, talking and relaxing.
It was the best time for her to speak to them. The prisoners knew little of the generation ships from Earth, nothing of the overall Ildiran Empire or the Terran Hanseatic League. The people here had never been taught their origins except for an ever-more-fanciful oral history that retained glimmers of truth, passed from one generation to the next. Nira, with her knowledge of story cycles and the Ildiran Saga, found the distorted tales interesting in the rare moments when she could detach herself.
Now she edged forward, listening to seven men and women who sat together in a loose circle, exchanging stories, jokes, and gossip. Benn Stoner, a gruff-voiced man whose skin looked as if it had been sandblasted, noticed her interest. “Go ahead, Nira Khali. What story do you have for us this evening?”
“Make it a good one!”
“She’s had all day under the hot sun to think of some new nonsense—” a younger man said, but his words cut off when Stoner glared at him.
Nira pretended not to notice. Even if the other Dobro prisoners rarely believed the things she said, at least they listened. Her tales helped them to pass the time.
“I will tell you the story of Thara Wen and how she became the first green priest on Theroc.” She waited a moment for the answering smiles, knowing that the people were amused by her tales about “fantasy lands.”
“Thara was born on the Caillié only a few years before the Ildirans found our generation ship and set us down in the worldforest. Theroc was beautiful and temperate, full of food and resources. From the beginning, our colony was peaceful. There was little crime, for there was no need.”
“Just like here on Dobro,” said the snide young man.
“No. Not like Dobro. Not at all.” Nira drew a deep breath. “But from time to time, for reasons we cannot understand, a person carries darkness in his heart. One such man attacked Thara Wen in the thickest worldforest, chasing her, intending to kill her. He had already killed