Chapter 115

Dear Sister-in-law Marissa,

I read Lily's letter and if its true there are some men who I hope to have close enough to strange someday. Not that I expect I'd ever get the chance. Men who are that evil just don't score well on the CAP and I can't imagine anyone dumb enough to take them as concubines. I guess I can feel confident that they will be Sa'arm droppings in a few years.

That is one thing that many of the people here on Wadi believe. We expect that humanity will go on, and even accept that Earth might be able to fight back against the Sa'arm and eventually kick them off, but after the fight we've had here, we expect humanity to suffer really high casualties on Earth. We're talking that of every ten people left behind, we expect at least eight to die before the Sa'arm are stopped. The environment will be pretty badly damaged as well.

In fact, a couple of the men here are asking if there is going to be any attempt to salvage more plants and animals from Earth. The Sa'arm pretty much strip a planet bare, so if they land and hold out for a few years, they could devastate the ecology for generations.

I know, I'm writing about depressing things, but anything to keep from thinking about what Lily has gone through. Erica and I do try very hard to allow our concubines to be family members. Sure they can't leave the planet without an escort. (Not that Erica or I can unless we're on a mission since Wadi doesn't own any spaceships.) But beyond that we give our concubines as much freedom as possible.

The one thing I noticed was you said that Lily might retest and improve her score. That is so different from the way things work on Wadi. Maybe it's the fact that we have fought the Sa'arm directly, but I can't think of a single concubine on Trinary Island that is really excited by the prospect of becoming a sponsor. Even the ones we inherited from dead sponsors rarely want to raise their score.

And its not a lack of bravery or ability. Katya is a great example. I remember writing about how she broke down crying during my pickup which was part of how I ended up asking for the right to take an extra concubine. She was crying about losing her sister to a pickup, months before. The thing was that Katya is amazingly brave when it involves protecting her family and friends. I've watched her wade into the ocean holding a stick trying to strike one of the large predator fish that was eyeing some of the young children on the island. Professor Svenson showed us some film of an Orca actually deliberately beaching itself to catch a seal, and Katya took it on herself to protect any young children who wander too close to the water. We haven't lost anyone, but there have been a couple of scary moments where a large fish has charged the beach.

There is no one on the island who can't tell a similar tale about a concubine. The concubines on the island are spry, spunky and very well educated. Having seven professor's wives on the island, all as concubines, provided a huge knowledge base, and the women took it as a challenge to get every concubine educated. Some of our fish grill days have the most fascinating conversation, since we can go from fighting the Sa'arm to volleyball and roller derby, to talking about the ecology of Wadi's oceans. Well, I'll admit I don't do so well if the conversation heads into the last territory. I'm just a simple girl who never went to high school, and when the start talking about oceanic currents, continental shelfs and the effects of underwater volcanoes on the acidity of the oceans, I get lost.

All I know is that our oceans are teaming with life, and that some of the creatures in our waters are big and always hungry. But they often don't look all that much different from fish on Earth.

I brought that up during a recent company feast and Professor Svenson actually smiled. He reminded me that evolution might cause the fish to be colored a bit differently. Since our sun is a bit dimmer than Sol and the light it gives off is a bit darker than the light we remember from Earth. The fish would be colored based on the light they are used to, but that other than that, they were still fish and the principles of moving in the ocean don't change from planet to planet.