Chapter 9

"Weep not for your loss, for the males have lost much more than you." --The Teachings of Gran Ch. 12 Line 1

Dahra waited in the wings for Lissa to finish her introduction. In Dahra's opinion, Lissa was doing a remarkable job, speaking in front of such a large audience.

Dahra had originally intended for the symposium opening meeting to be held in classroom one, like all the other of her little meetings; but the response was so over-whelming, she had no choice but change its venue to the university's main auditorium, where most of the interscholastic sports events were held. In the audience were over two thousand conference attendees, members of the media, and a few dozen portals, held open by master portalers, hovering over the audience, giving their illicit customers the best seats in the house. Only the people who had paid the conference fee, and people with the media were allowed in the hall, but a few always found a way around it. There was really no need to crash the meeting, though. The computer network was beaming the same pictures live to all connected computers worldwide, and with their many cameras, portal mounted and otherwise, the computer audience had the best view of all.

Lissa, who was just finishing her account of the discovery of the find and the building's layout, had sweat-soaked the armpits and neckline of her loose tan and dark brown leotard, mostly due to the hot lights on her. Her long blonde hair was hanging loose, with the ends tied together by a matching dark brown ribbon, and attached to the crown of her head, thereby halving its length.

During these three months, Lissa had completed her ipse, and already been offered jobs with several academic institutions and major mining companies. She was studying offers from the colleges, and already decided against going commercial.

Like mother, like daughter, Dahra thought.

Dahra broke off her musings when she realized that Lissa was wrapping up her introductions.

"... so it is a really great pleasure to introduce my mother, friend, and inspiration Dahra Cahlaripsefelgis."

Dahra walked out into the blinding spotlights and thunderous applause. She hugged Lissa on the way to the podium.

"Good luck," whispered Lissa.

"Thanks."

Dahra walked up to the podium and waited for the applause to die.

"Thank you. As most of you know, Lissa and I discovered a building buried under ten meters of rock, three months ago." Dahra took a deep breath and let the secret out. "It is located on the east end of Fvoglu, under a hill next to the coast. I will be happy to show anybody the exact hill after this syposium is finished."

A low murmur echoed through the hall.

"Given its location, I have been told that excavating the find will be a long and expensive undertaking, and potentially dangerous to the buildings structural integrity. It is a given that, at this time, portaling is the only reasonable way to enter. Since the contents of this building are priceless and irreplaceable, it has been determined by the university at Fahrlot, the controlling institution, that access to the building will remain restricted. Select portalers, who need access, will be keyed into the security field. All applications for permission should be made through the archeology college at Fahrlot."

Another murmur rumbled through the auditorium. This one, a little louder and angrier than the first. Dahra took several deep breathes. The easy part was over, here comes the hard part.

"Esteemed colleagues, what I am about to tell you is going to shock you. Many of you will think that I have made all this up. I assure you that this is not so, and is easily verifiable by an ancient computer at the find, which we are just now starting to under- stand."

Dahra paused for a moment, and took another deep breath. "We have been taught in our first month at school about the history of our people. How males and women lived in harmony, until the great disaster two hundred and twenty-nine years ago, where the males went to sleep and never woke. The nature of this disaster has been speculated on innumerable times. 'The Teachings of Gran' says 'the males were removed so that women would learn self-reliance.'

"Well, I have learned exactly what happened. It is not an easy story, so please bear with me.

"To understand what really happened, one needs to know what the world was like before the disaster. It is not like anything we've been told; but that is understandable once you've heard what happened.

"Before the great disaster, the world was much more populous than today. According to the last census taken, there were over three billion males... I mean men, women, and children." A low murmur rose from the audience.

"Quite a difference from our four million, today, eh, ladies? But the reason for this will soon be obvious.

"Another difference was that before the great disaster there were no portalers, emoters, healers, movers, or minders. There were no abilities with either males or women. The notion that males could fly or had multiple abilities is completely false.

"Back then, the world was not unified. There were many small countries, some that were as small as an island. Of these countries, two of them were much more powerful than the rest. They ruled many archipelagoes, and hundreds of millions of people. They had the largest military, and the most sophisticated weapons of war. One had its capital here on Fahrlot, the other on the island of Carn... though not where the major cities are today."

A murmur of recognition spread through the audience. Carn was on the opposite side of the planet, about twenty degrees north of the equator. There were also many scholars from Carn present.

"They built all those weapons, because the two great countries hated each other. They had different languages, and different cultures. Both were convinced that the other one was bent on world domination, that the other would take away their beloved country, language, and culture through conquest.

"They intimidated the smaller countries, making them choose sides in this conflict. While the small countries retained their seeming 'independence', they in fact ended up being puppets to one of the large two. Only a few managed to maintain genuine neutrality.

"As I said earlier, both countries built weapons to protect themselves. The continued threat of war drove them to continually build weapons of ever greater sophistication. A few months before the disaster, one of the two powerful countries, it is not clear which, built a weapon of mass destruction.

"As you will hear later, from our biology college's report, in ancient times scientists had discovered what makes heredity work. There is a molecular structure in every living cell that dictates the qualities of the creature it belongs to. For example, a skin cell on my hand has this structure that says 'this is Dahra Cahlarfelgis' cell, she has brown hair, lavender eyes, and a lovely singing voice.'"

A brief titter swept through the audience. Many of her colleagues had heard her sing. It was no great thing of beauty.

"They also learned how to alter this structure, altering the very nature of any organism. With this knowledge, the ancient scientists took bacterium, and altered it to be even more deadly. Using this new bacterium, they altered it further, building a whole new disease that would swiftly kill all the males in that country, leaving the women alive.

"Now, why would they want to do this? Leave the women alive while killing all the males. This puzzled me, too. So I did some research on Docre's ancient culture."

Dahra took a deep breath and took the plunge. "It turns out that in the ancient world, women were not considered intelligent creatures."

A loud roar of shouts overwhelmed Dahra. Women sprang to their feet and accused her of blasphemy.

"Ladies, please!" Dahra shouted over the tumult. "I know this is hard to believe. I had trouble believing it myself. But I found it so many times, from so many sources, that I had no choice but to believe it. If you still don't believe me, wait a few days. An independent panel of archaeologists will be verifying all my finds, starting tomorrow."

The audience quieted down and took their seats.

Dahra waved a piece of paper. "Here is just one example of my evidence: an entry in an ancient encyclopedia under the heading 'Woman':

"'Women are a subspecies of males, necessary for procreation. While similar to males in many ways, they are different from males in their reproductive structure, and intelligence... They are more intelligent than an ahd, in that they are capable of speech, but much less intelligent than males, since that they are incapable of reasoning and reading... The main purpose of women is to bear children and please male'

"Women were treated like pets; highly valued pets, granted, but pets none the less. The more women you owned, the higher your prestige.

"A woman's life consisted mostly of lounging around a house, primping and preening themselves, making sure their body didn't have a single blemish or bunion visible, and mating with their male. They also did some simple chores like dusting and sweeping, but nothing as complicated as cooking. They were not believed to be capable of performing such complex skills without extensive assistance from a male.

"Women were taught from day one that they were inferior to males, that males were God's representatives on Docre. They could do no wrong. As a result, women revered men and obeyed them unquestioningly.

"Girls were raised exclusively by their mother and the other women in their family. They were taught how to do simple chores, make themselves look desirable to males, and please males in mating.

"When girls reached puberty, they were either sold to a male, traded for a new wife, or given as a gift.

"Infant males were only raised by their mother until they were weaned. After which time, they were raised by their father, and given an education much like we women receive today.

"When young males reached puberty, were either given to the youngest of his father's wives, that was not his mother, or a pubescent girl from outside the family, the later being preferred.

"While women were thought to be mentally inferior to males, they were also prized and loved. Many poems were written in praise of a woman's beauty, grace and love. And history texts record numerous duels to the death to protect a woman from another male. Even a few wars had been started by a ruler who wanted another ruler's woman.