Chapter 43

Dear Willow,

Your letter as usual lately leaves me breathless. What do I signify? Sometimes when I'm in a down mood I tell people that I signify the canary in the coal mine. I am part of that thin gray line trying to remind humanity that those who have been transported to the stars as concubines remain human. That is not easy as you have noted. After all there are quite a few men (especially men I think) who seem to think that the fact that someone failed to obtain a 6.5 makes them permanently subhuman. If we cannot quell that tendency we shall pay a price much higher than the conquest of the Sa'arm in blood shed between men.

Mrs. Whitefeather saw my letter (I don't know if that was to make sure I'm not passing information that I shouldn't or to review any technical innovations I may pass along) to you and reminds me that I should stay on subject. I was explaining that I was a bit maudlin and that Lily helped disrupt that mood. But somewhere in that explanation of Lily breaking my mood I failed to complete my thought and explain why it seemed to me as if the diaspora was like the wild geese flying from Ireland. I bet you would never believe that somehow I had a memory chip with most of Dad's old Irish rebel songs on it. So I was listening to the songs of the Irish struggle and thinking that once more we have become members of an army fighting far from our homeland. Granted even Dad really had nothing more than his grandfather's stories to recall Ireland ... Yet I wonder if we'll finish this war before I'm forgotten by my great-great grandchildren? So listening to old music of a struggle long over caused me to think about what this current struggle means to mankind.

Will we forget that all of us are human because of the CAP divide? Will we tend to make slaves out of women while pretending to protect them? What will this war do to us? I've asked these questions many different ways and practically been appointed the official asker of hard questions by Governor Haywood. He says there are too many bloody fools who seem to really believe that a sub 6.5 CAP score relegates a person to being something less than human. So if he could he would have many more Civil service officers on Atlantis-At. Part of the reason for that is that the projected population here is in excess of forty million people when all of the geofronts are built and inhabited. That will be a while but really once we get well established here the issue will be building faster than the population increases due to pregnancy. In fact he says he wishes that he could convince the planetary AI that Marissa's way of spacing our children would be better for the planet and the families that will form.

Families are of course the most important building block in the war against the Sa'arm. This is because if we don't have effective families that raise children who grow up to be sponsors we will at best be throwing concubines at the Sa'arm. If the AI's that run the Confederacy doesn’t entirely give up on the human race when we fail to produce sponsor level offspring. Yet to be honest it is my opinion that the very institution of concubinage puts that question in a great deal of stress. For there will certainly be those who believe that all children born of a concubine must necessarily remain concubines as well. Just as once those who were born of a slave remained slaves. If such a divide is allowed to develop we shall have the worst of all worlds. An implacable enemy without and an implacable enemy within our very midst.

Some of those people (the ones who believe that a non sponsor level CAP score makes a person subhuman) are the first to complain when Lily insists on wearing her leash. I have a hard time convincing them that for Lily the leash is a choice. What they want for their concubines is to remove that element of choice. Every day it seems that I have to take a squad of marines to enforce the Governor's order that all concubines be allowed to retake the CAP test annually. They seem to have a hard time understanding that for Lily wearing her collar and leash is like wearing clothing for most people. When she has it on she feels protected and cherished. And since I love her dearly I really do want to make sure that she feels safe and loved. When her next year is up it is going to be very difficult for me to insist that she must take the CAP test once more. That is because I know that for Lily the last thing she wants is to ever be anything other than a pet to Marissa and I. Sure the others in the house do a lot of petting on her too but Marissa and I are the ones who provide the house for them all.