John Brosnan - The Sky Lords

“Yes, of course. It means to feel sad or miserable.”

“Do you feel that way often?”

“Well, not often , but sometimes. More so lately. …”

He smiled. “But not at this exact moment, right? Even though your present situation is a bleak one you feel mellow, at ease—yes?”

She admitted she did. He said, “The lingering effects of the hormone I gave you. But you are physiologically incapable of experiencing depression of the kind familiar to many pre-Prime Standard people, thanks to the genetic modification your ancestors underwent. In the days before the genetic era many were prone to a condition known as manic depression. The condition was regarded as an illness—the result of either a psychological flaw or a physical one. It was then considered ‘normal’ not to suffer such a state of mind; that the natural state of the human mind was a kind of emotional equilibrium with an innate leaning towards an underlying feeling of well-being and vague optimism, depending on exterior circumstances, of course.”

“But that’s natural, isn’t it?” she asked.

“That’s the point,” he said. “The scientists had made the discovery that Nature had ensured that human beings were continually drugged up to the eyeballs, in a manner of speaking, in order to cope with life. The normal ones, anyway. The abnormal ones, those prone to manic-depression or other chronic mental problems, did indeed suffer from an organic malfunction in the brain, but their brains were failing to produce enough of the neurotransmitters to ensure that they possessed the somewhat rosy, if distorted, outlook on life experienced by ‘ordinary’ people. As a result these abnormal individuals apparently experienced a more objective viewpoint of reality, given the human condition as it is. …”

She shook her head wonderingly. “You do talk a lot of nonsense.”

“Well, that’s exactly what a lot of people said when this theory was first made public—that it was nonsense. It is human nature for an individual to believe that his, or her, perception of reality is objective. But the sad truth is that our perception of anything—and everything we think and feel—is at the mercy of our genetic programming, which in turn controls the manufacture of all the hormones that in their turn dictate the play of the chemical activities within our brains. Even our very perception of time itself is a product of these processes. The human concept of time is a biologically-induced illusion; there is no such thing as linear time, instead time is. …” He looked at her and didn’t continue. “Forgive me,” he said wearily. “My need to be able to talk to someone again got the better of me. I keep forgetting that for all your native intelligence you’re still a savage, like the rest of them in this place.”

“I’m no savage!” she protested.

“No? So you understand what I’m saying?” he asked, teasingly.

“Well, not much of it,” she admitted. “But I do know that you are wrong about the mind. It is part of the Minervan creed that the mind is separate from the body . It is the property of the Mother God and when we die she reclaims it. She will either keep it as a part of her in paradise or if it needs a further spiritual cleansing she will send it back to Earth to live out another life.”

“So much for Minervan theology,” he sneered. “Heaven and Earth reduced to a giant laundry.”

His words infuriated her. “It makes more sense than all that rubbish you speak!”

“My poor little amazon, you yourself are a product of all that so-called ‘rubbish’. As I told you before, your very own Minervan genegineers saw to that. Your ancestors were modified past the specifications set down in the Prime Standard ruling. Both physically and mentally you are different, not only from the pre-gene era women of the past but also the women on this airship. Your female ancestors, thanks to the genetic tinkering with the hormonal balances, became not only bigger physically but slightly more masculine in emotional outlook. Your men subsequently underwent a more drastic modification. The end product was a smaller, non-aggressive, non-competitive, non-threatening human male—in short the feminist ideal of what a man should be.”

“It’s unthinkable that any Minervan would ever make use of genetic engineering but it’s true, I admit, that Minervan men were changed,” said Jan.

“By magic, eh?”

“The Mother God changed them. After the Gene Wars a group of them came to Minerva and begged forgiveness. They also begged for sanctuary. The Headwomen asked the Mother God what they should do. The Mother God spoke to them and said she would transform every man who truly begged forgiveness, and their sons would be transformed as well and their sons too and so on. …”

“Like I said, by magic.” Milo stood up and slowly stretched, raising his arms straight above his head. “But have it your way. At least we agree that Minervan men aren’t normal men. Nicer men, maybe, but not normal. And the big drawback for your early Minervans is that the idea didn’t catch on outside the Minervan state. Sure, a lot of men, who supported the Minervan ideal of a feminist state, gladly volunteered to be modified, but the majority of the world’s male population didn’t show any inclination to join the queue.

“The problem was that to rewire a man’s brain to the point where all the unwanted masculine traits could either be tuned down or eradicated completely you had to radically alter his sexuality—the hormonal programming for masculine sexuality and masculine behaviour traits are one and the same. So your transformed Minervan man, though still physically male, was very undersexed compared to the average untransformed man. Which is why they became known as ‘eunuchs’, and even worse, by the outside world.”

“They’re not eunuchs,” said Jan quickly.

He raised his eyebrows. “You speak from personal experience, do you?”

She felt her face grow hot. “That’s none of your business.”

“On the contrary, everything to do with you is my business now, little amazon. But no matter. Tell me instead how you felt about Minervan men in general.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I liked them. My father I loved .”

“As much as you loved your mother?”

“Well, no. …”

“What was the main difference between Minervan men and women? I don’t mean the obvious physical differences—I mean temperamentally.”

Jan frowned. “Well, I suppose the men were less … less complicated than all the women I knew. Their attitude to life could be a little annoying at times—they were always cheerful, placid, happy. …”

Milo gave a triumphant grin. “Which proves my point, and goes back to what I was saying about the manipulation of mental states. Your genegineers were obliged to up the dose of those natural happy drugs we’ve all got in our heads as a way of keeping your men contented with their changed lot in life. You Minervans may not have actually cut their balls off but you neutered them just the same.”

“All I know is that I’d rather be with a Minervan man than with you .”

He grinned down at her. “You don’t find me stimulating company?”

“No Minervan man has ever raped a woman in the whole history of Minerva.”

“Have I threatened to rape you?”

“Yes,” she said coldly.

His grin turned into a scowl. “Oh, not that again.” He gestured that she should get up. “Come on. We’ll go and get some food. There’s only an hour or so before we’ll be taken up top to go to work.”

She got to her feet. “What is our work? I heard the overseers say that I was going to be a glass walker. What is that?”