Read Online The Shore of Women by Pamela Sargent - Free Book Online

at me. I went to the screen in the corner; Shayl had left a message saying that she had to study that evening but would visit next day to hear all about my tests.
    Button said, “You’re sending me away, you and Mother.”
    “You should be in your exerciser, not sitting here with a puzzle. You have to get strong.”
    “You’re sending me away. You hate me.”
    “I don’t hate you, Button.”
    “You do, and so does Mother. You’re sending me away.” I went over to him and sat at one end of the couch; he recoiled from me. “I’m going away, too. I’m going to live with my friend Shayl, and I’ll have to work hard at my studies. All of us have to go and live somewhere else someday.”
    “I don’t want to go.”
    “You have to, Button. You’re a big boy now. A man will come for you, and he’ll take care of you. You’ll go outside, and meet other boys, and learn lots of new things from them. You’ll be with your own kind. You’ll like it a lot more than here.”
    “No, I won’t. I want to stay here.”
    “Well, you can’t.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you’re a boy, and boys have to go outside.”
    “Why don’t girls have to go?”
    “Because this is our home.” I tapped my knee impatiently. “And sometimes girls have to go, too, if they’re very bad.”
    “I have to go away because I’m bad.”
    “No,” I said. “You go because you’re a boy, and you wouldn’t like it here later on—really, you wouldn’t. You see, girls who are very bad go outside, but boys who are good go outside so they can be with other boys, you know that. And girls have to stay here and look after the city. That’s hard work. You can go outside and see new places, and you don’t have to worry about the problems we have.”
    “You’re lying, Laissa.”
    I wanted to hit him. What good would his questions do? “I’m not lying. And you’ll forget all about us anyway, wait and see. They put a mindwasher on your head before you go, and you forget us, so there.”
    Button screamed. I had said the wrong thing.
    “It doesn’t hurt,” I shouted. He dived at me and pounded me with his fists; I slapped him. “If you’re going to act like that, go to your room.”
    “No!”
    “Yes!” I got to my feet and pushed him toward his door. He walked away stiffly, his head up.
    I picked up his puzzle and peered at the maze. I could not have solved that puzzle at his age, and yet Button had. I threw the puzzle onto the couch, then went to the study; I didn’t want to sit in my disorderly room, where I was still sorting out what I would take to Shayl’s.
    The door slid open. A light on the wall had lit up; someone was calling from outside the city. Our mindspeaker could pick up transmissions from any of the shrines outside, but Mother had long ago set it so that it would signal to her only when the brain pattern registered was that of my progenitor or my twin. My father had, according to Mother, already entered the wall, so my twin had to be calling.
    I had practiced on a mindspeaker often enough and knew some of the ritual for men, but had never spoken to one directly. I thought of the boy I barely remembered, wondering if he had been like Button. I went to the table, picked up the circlet, and put it on my head.
    A voice screamed at me; I felt an overwhelming fear. Somehow I found the modulator and pressed it. The voice softened.
    I closed my eyes and saw a tall young man stretched out on a couch. I tried to concentrate on what the mindspeaker was showing me, on the lifelike image it had created with the aid of the lenses and sensors in the shrine. Only the couch was visible to me. The young man’s shoulder-length, blond hair was matted and his even-featured face was dirty; his hands were covered by filthy leather gloves. He wore brown leather leggings and a coat of hide; the opened coat revealed a worn leather shirt.
    I reached out with one hand and felt his face, then drew back, telling myself that I was not actually