Five to Twelve Read online

  They were, numerically, in an unassailable position. Physically and psychologically also, they were in an unassailable position. For, except by consent, and for the first time in a million years they were—both in the literal and in the metaphorical sense—impregnable.

  The orthodox western concept of marriage took a beating. During the latter decades of the twentieth century the disintegration had been hastened both by easy divorce and by the more efficient and widespread birth control. With the development of greater social security and a noticeable numerical imbalance between the sexes, marriage—as a social institution—fell apart. It became socially acceptable for women to live with men as and when they wished. It became socially acceptable for women to have babies without declaring or involving the father. Promiscuity was no longer a social crime: carried to excess, it was merely regarded as slightly vulgar—rather more acceptable than gluttony and infinitely more acceptable than prudery.

  Female prostitution vanished. Male prostitution began to grow. Marriage became, for the old and the rich, a status symbol For the lonely, it was just a temporary refuge—a sort of friendship with the fringe benefit of instant sex.

  As the twenty-first century progressed another kind of pill came on the scene. It was a longevity pill; and though it did, in fact, slow down the ageing process, it also had some peculiar side-effects—such as a tendency to induce satyriasis, nymphomania or infantile regression in certain types of individual or in anyone who over-indulged.

  The longevity pill—under-researched and oversold—was a costly failure resulting, during its brief exploitation, in the damage or destruction of hundreds of thousands of individuals of both sexes. Compared to spare-part surgery—which had progressed to such a degree that practically anything except the brain and the endocrine system could be replaced—it was no more than a dangerous experiment.

  It did, however, trigger off a great international effort to extend human life by artificial means. The most successful system developed consisted of a complex programme of enzyme stimulation, in turn triggered by an equally complex pattern of injections which varied according to the body chemistry of the individual. The drawbacks to the system were that it was expensive and that it had to be aligned with the psychosomatic history of each person undergoing treatment.

  Inevitably, after a brief and disastrous period of exploitation by private enterprise, it passed under state control—thus providing the government with a convenient means of increasing revenue while at the same time maintaining comprehensive records of individuals. Whoever desired and could afford the longevity treatments—or time shots, as they came to be known—was at the mercy of the state. If you observed the basic rules of society and if you had an income of five thousand lions a year or more (the devalued pounds, marks and francs had long since been superseded by the European lion) your expectation of life could be extended to more than one hundred and fifty years. If you were politically or socially undesirable, or if you were just plain poor, you would be denied time shots; and your expectation would be no more than ninety-five years at the most.

  It was into this woman-dominated world of change that, in 2025, Dion Quern was born. He was the son of an infra—one of the steadily dwindling minority of regressive women who had no talent for anything but loving and child-bearing—and a wild Irishman who had no talent for anything but alcoholism and drank himself to death a month before Dion was born.

  In a society already controlled by dominas, the new type of super-women who had already demonstrated their ability to triumph against masculine opposition, Dion’s mother could only earn enough money to keep him out of a state orphanage by becoming a brood mare.

  So she sent him to a private nursery and retired to one of the numerous baby farms patronized by the more prosperous doms and their squires. It had become fashionable for dominas to have babies by proxy. Dion’s mother became a professional proxy. It earned her two thousand lions a pregnancy and enabled her to pay for her son’s progress from nursery to public school.

  While he was a baby, she went to visit him regularly. When he was at public school, he went to visit her regularly. They got on well together; and despite an unhealthy real-mother—real-son relationship, they had a lasting affection for each other.

  Dion rarely saw his mother when she was not pregnant. And so he came to think of her as a large rock-like creature, whereas, in fact, she had been basically small and finely formed.

  She managed seventeen successful pregnancies (eleven girls and six boys) before she died of melancholia, an embolism and a totally overloaded heart. She might have been resuscitated, of course, if she had been sufficiently important or if there had been enough lions in her bank account. But thirty-four thousand lions had been just sufficient to buy Dion an education to the point where, against stiff female competition, he won a state scholarship in cybernetics.

  He never took up the scholarship. He attended the funeral, saw the oddly frail body consigned to a cleansing furnace of atomic fire, and felt the shamefully obscene tears course down his cheeks. Then he thumbed his nose at the kind of world that could do this to the only person he had ever loved, and decided to live by his wits.

  He was, at the time, just eighteen years old. He had a long way to go. By the time he had matured, the ratio of men to women was five to twelve.

  Three

  DION QUERN was drunk and not a little bewildered. He was drunk because he had disposed of more than half a bottle of hock before he had started on the cold chicken. He was bewildered because he was at the mercy of a big blonde Peace Officer who did not look as if she had the slightest intention of calling the dry-cleaners.

  Presently, with a sizeable portion of cold chicken and green salad inside him, he began to feel a little better. Well enough to appreciate the brandy and the black coffee. Well enough to realize that Juno Locke was merely playing with him on a short string. When he ceased to amuse her she would let the dry-cleaners cart him off to another dose of psychoanalysis.

  So what? So it didn’t matter a coprolite. He’d had a grade three analysis before. The psychos were further out and deeper down than the paper dolls they treated. All you had to do was toss them a few pubic shock images, or get all twisted with submission neurosis or womb envy, and they would lay polysyllabic eggs all over the place. Then you got three decent meals a day for a month, ten shots of partial recall, fifty lions and a year’s probation. It was a bit boring, really, but not too inconvenient. Providing you didn’t fracture the probation.

  He tried to remember when he’d had his last grade three. He tried to remember in case the present contretemps was a breach of probation. That could be serious. Grade two analysis. Three months and the wide screen treatment, including, maybe, the electronic twitcher. Less than idyllic… But he couldn’t remember. The last dose seemed quite a long time ago. But so did yesterday’s breakfast…

  Juno Locke sipped her brandy and coffee, and read his thoughts.

  “I’d say not less than six months, and not more than a year. Bad luck, stripling. It could be a grade two.”

  He jumped as if she had put another laser hole in him. “How the Stopes do you know?”

  “I’ve seen the look before, little one, many times. When a sport falls flat, usually the first thing that happens is the far look. He’s trying to remember when he had the last analysis. He’s trying to work out if he’ll move up a grade… Not being able to remember is a bad sign. It’s a sign of not wanting remember… Now, have some more brandy and make me laugh.”

  “Bulldozer!” he shouted furiously. “Sex zombie! Shrivel-womb!”

  She smiled. “Please. You’re bruising my ego.”

  “I’d prefer it to be your throat.”

  Juno surveyed him calmly. “You’re quite a big little meistersihger, really, I suppose. Care to try?”

  “Nobody is worth a one—not even a Peace Officer.”

  “So,” she said gaily, “at last we’re getting sensible. Have some more brandy…” She p
oured a large measure into his glass. “Let there be civility all round.” She picked up a light house tunic and slipped it on, covering her breasts. “There, how’s that?”

  “Thank you,” said Dion. “It seems rather fair.”

  “Aha, I thought you were old-fashioned.”

  He smiled. “Let’s say just quaint. Eccentric would be an even better word.”

  “And you really do write poetry ?”

  “It has been called that, chiefly by me. I have a most appreciative readership—of one.”

  “Widen your horizon, then. Expand it to two.”

  “The time is out of joint,” he said drily.

  “O cursed spite,” she retorted, laughing, “that ever I was born to set it right… But were you born to set it right? In the twenty-first century, Hamlet would rate a grade one analysis on about ten separate counts.”

  Dion’s mouth fell open.

  “Please don’t be too amazed. It might offend. Not all doms are illiterate.”

  “Not even Peace Officers?” he managed to say.

  “Especially not Peace Officers… The job is almost a sinecure. Sports like you tend to have a built-in death wish. You dig nothing but a one-inch epitaph.”

  Again he was nonplussed.

  “The query is,” she went on, “what to do with a doomed meistersinger? Shall I keep you-or shall I let them hang you out to dry?”

  “Have fun,” he said, trying to sound indifferent. “It’s a sweet and lovely world.”

  “Then I’ll keep you. The horizon shall be expanded.”

  “How much a lay?” he demanded coldly.

  “Or how much a roundelay?” she countered. “Sex before sonnets, or sonnets before sex? Perhaps even sex and sonnets. Orgasm, rhyme and rhythm in a package deal. Twee, grotty and deviant, withal.”

  Dion sighed and stood up—somewhat unsteadily. “Send for the cleaners, and we’ll sing a duet. You’re a paper doll yourself. Thank you for the brandy, chicken and all such; and I’ll bid you a very good night.”

  “Sit down, dimhead!”

  He blinked at her and sat.

  “Now listen carefully. Pm sixty-two and less than ugly, and that makes you twice lucky. You, I’d say, are late forties and needing time shots. You’ve got as much future as I care to allow. A single word, and a few cuts and bruises on each of us-less than difficult to arrange-and you’re fully programmed for a grade two with a five-year denial of shots. Do I make the signals clear?”

  “Loud and pellucid.”

  “Then keep the short wave channel open, love, and don’t make a sound like unrestrained mirth or I’ll chop you in two. Pm sixty plus—in the first bloom, no less, on my ageing sequence t- beautiful rather than ugly, even by your depraved standards, and my credit key is good for ten thousand lions. I am also a little lonely—not too much, but a little. I have an insatiable curiosity, and I don’t worry greatly about how much time I spend or don’t spend with my legs apart. I like to take reasonable chances, and I think I’d like to find out what happens, if anything, inside a reconditioned meistersinger… Still receiving signals?”

  Dion hiccupped. “Locked on the beam.”

  “If you want independence, stripling, I’ll buy it for you. Squire me, that’s all. Sex is your problem, not mine. Scribble verse, if you wish, and stick it in a radio locker. I won’t pry. All I require are civilized motions—and an absence of analysable crime… Now, drink another brandy, rattle the marbles in your head, and don’t speak for two minutes.”

  Dion did as he was told. The marbles rattled with a most peculiar sound.

  Juno Locke, Peace Officer, blonde, sixty-two, was less than scrutable. No rape, no dry-cleaners, no flesh wounds—except a couple of introductory laser holes. Most interesting.

  She had a nice box, no recent signs of squiredom and a voice that was softer than many.

  He yawned. “Stopes, Fm tired. It’s been a nocturne plus.”

  Juno smiled. “Less than elegant, but it’s an honest answer.

  Let’s go to bed.”

  Four

  THE bar was called Vive le Sport. It was a drab little place on the Piccadilly sub-level, occupying some of the space that had been taken up about a century before by the London Pavilion dream house.

  Dion had more than enough trove in his pocket to cover an evening of serious drinking—which was not his primary intention, but merely plan seven, in case the first six serendipities fell flat.

  He had squired Juno for the best part of a week, not unpleasantly. Off duty, and that was most of the time, they had cavorted cautiously, observing each other’s psychic profile, noting when to hit the go button and when to reach for the abort switch. Aberrations were minimal: they matched velocities well enough.

  One evening, just for repercussions, they had hovered through the tunnel to Paris simply because Dion wanted to walk by the Seine and then eat raw onions and fresh French bread. Juno was amused, but only just. Afterwards they went to one of the absolute music spots on the Champs Elysefe.

  But tonight, tonight the dom was in her Peace Officer guise—or, at least, improving her career by personal attendance at a scholarly little conclave on Prerecognition of Deviance in Adjustment Feedback. The conclave was at the Cambridge Psycholab, and would doubtless consist of a twittering of profs and big-breasted P.O.S with nary a sport in sight. He wished her great joy of it.

  Meanwhile, the night needed no time shots—and here he was at the Vive le Sporty, complete with its sun room, hourly rented bed-chambers and basement steam bath.

  The bar itself was almost deserted—a long, wonderfully hideous bar of genuine twentieth century tiles, instant antique oak and dull red neon tubes. There was even a century-old juke box (for ornamental purposes only) and synthetic sawdust on the floor. It was, thought Dion, as near as you could get to the age of the masculine pre-twilight.

  He was, however, fascinated by the Vive le Sport in spite of itself and because of its bartender.

  The bartender was simply called No Name—because, more often than not, he couldn’t remember it. He was a fat, blank-faced man, looking just like anyone aged a hundred and seventy-three who had run out of time shots half a century before. In fact, he was exactly Dion’s own age, and the last living political assassin in England. Just about ten years ago, he had cut the Minister of Creative Activity in two with a laser rifle. So he had collected total recall, a grade one analysis and suspension of time shots in perpetuity.

  No Name was a celebrity and something of a hero among unattached sports. One entire wall of the bar was covered by a badly scrawled citation which described his crime and punishment and wound up by proclaiming him to be a Heroine Mother of the Soviet Union, Tenth Class. It had become a tradition of the house that sports visiting the bar for the first time should add their signatures to the citation, thus endorsing No Name’s Canute-like gesture against the advancing tide of women. It wasn’t that he had ever had anything personal against the previous Minister for Creative Activity (who, inevitably, now rested in the Abbey). But she had been a dom’s dom, and she had been responsible for the Restrictive Employment Act. And both reasons were excellent.

  According to legend, No Name had once been a slightly brilliant architect. But that, of course, was woman’s work. Hence the big joke with the laser rifle—and the subsequent nocturnal après-midi of a quasi-human monolith.

  “Beer,” said Dion, propping himself up at the deserted end of the bar. “Lowenbrau Special. Cold.”

  Expressionless, No Name found the bottle, selected a glass with the care a brain surgeon might take in choosing his scalpel, and poured. “One lion fifty.”

  Dion slapped some mobile money on the bar. “You, too?”

  “Danke schön, sport. That makes three. Best goddam gnat piss. Who can afford to drink it but you, me and slumming doms? Here’s lead in your pencil.” Expertly, No Name downed the Löwenbrau in one.

  The three sports at the other end of the bar unsubtly moved a little nearer. They liked
the sound of the word Löwenbrau. Clearly the lad with largesse was a squire playing truant.

  “The bestest,” said one with a carrying voice, “is to sterilize all infras. It needs big battalions, of course. But it’s a surefire bestseller. That way the doms drop flat.”

  “Square root of nix,” said another, “on behalf of the human race.”

  “He’s right, matey,” said the third. “Leave us snatch selected top doms, shoot them full of contra-contra, pump a few squires full of afrodiz to fertilize same with high speed enthusiasm, and then watch their bellies grow. Hara-kiri for top people. Haw haw.”

  “Switch channels,” said No Name. “Crap talk. They want to ride you.”

  Dion surveyed the three sports. “So I’ve squired, jacks,” he said. “So I have lions aplenty. Make an edifice of it. What shall it be—free style, karate or kunq-fu? Or Löwenbrau Specials for any who care to drink with the fallen?”

  “Spoken like a sport,” retorted the would-be sterilizer. “Lozvenbraus five, No Name. Let there be a glad sound in Israel.”

  Dion emptied his glass and nodded. Fresh glasses appeared on the bar, bottle caps whooshed and the three sports became temporary blood brothers.

  “Gents,” said Dion, raising his second glass, “I give you Renaissance man.”

  “Renaissance man,” said the three in unison.

  “And you know what you can do with him,” went on Dion, putting down his glass. “Because you and I, dear drinking friends, are jackals. We have outstayed our welcome. We are craven bloody cowards. We are the ultimate excreta of mankind. Because the doms made it and we didn’t.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” said No Name, with some enthusiasm.