Chapter 98

Dear Willow and family,

I've never thought of my becoming a Civil Service Officer as part of protecting people, but I suppose that it is exactly that. I think that it is why I have concentrated on inventing weapons and armor to improve your safety while you're on the battlefield. That is my desire to protect you focuses that way because I can't think of another way to protect you while you go out and kill Sa'arm.

The unfortunate fact is that I can do nothing about interpersonal relations because how other people treat one another is a matter of their choice. The only time I can affect someone else's relationship is when it has gotten so bad that people outside of the relationship recognize the fact that things are off the rails.

Bombs, guns, armor, those I can improve. Maybe not as much as a dedicated research team, but I can hope that what I create will help shorten the war so that we can put aside the rather dubious help of the Confederacy. I'm sure there are people who believe that humanity is getting the better deal out of tour association with the races of the Confederacy. I do not.

Exhibit 'A' in my objection to the line of thinking that the Confederacy races have essentially reintroduced chattel slavery. Not only that but the most often acquired person in their scheme is a woman with little other choice but to sell herself to the lowest bidder as it were.

Indeed it seems to me from what I saw while I was picked up that women had to pay an awfully high price for the dubious safety of becoming a sex slave. And what was the upside? They got away from the Sa'arm only to be consider potential protein on the hoof among their fellow humans. Honestly it is bad enough to put our dead (from murder or other causes) into our food chain without holding the threat of death over the heads of the men and women who failed to have a CAP score that matched the ideas of some AI's and other utterly alien entities had of what was necessary for a good sheepdog.

Of course this is all ground we've covered before. So I suppose I should get on with telling you what I've been up to ... Marissa was right. Several of the women have been politicking with Holly to try out my prowess as a lover. In some ways that is embarrassing. After all I'm here to make sure they get to their new masters safely, not to entertain them with my body. I mean Marissa might have picked me as her gigolo, but she never farmed me out to anyone except Dana. And eventually Dana became a member of our family, so that really doesn't count in my mind.

All I know is that feeling like the only reason someone wants to get close to me is for sex is an ugly feeling. I've carefully considered some of the requests that I've received. I will probably invite one or two of the women to my apartment. Not because I need any more sex. Believe me, Holly does her best to keep me well drained!

But to be honest I doubt that sex is really on the minds of the women who have asked to have some alone time with me. Neither of them is unattractive. Indeed one of them has been 'remodeled to look like a famous supermodel. I have kept my nose out of her file and don't choose to discover what she looked like upon pickup. After all her new master can change her looks in any way he chooses. Still I think that I can cuddle with her or simply tell her that to me she seems desirable.

Of course I could have what she desires entirely backward. After all there are only a couple of available men among the concubines that we have taken on board. So I suppose there could be a hankering for something other than dildos among some of the women...

I suspect that many women feel that the most unsolvable mystery of the universe is men. Of course me being male I'm convinced that the most unsolvable mystery in the universe is women. The main question that I have is this: Why do they sometimes act as if they hate sex? I think it is because that their mothers taught them that sort of behavior made men feel guilty and gave them power. Not that women don't usually hold the power to deny men sex in a civilized society. Again the reduction of the power of women to choose when to have sex (except for the exceedingly small number of female sponsors) seems to me to be a mark against the Confederacy as 'good' for humanity.

Of course it could be argued that we weren't very good for one another either! After all it seems as I read history that the favorite sport for humans is to take by force what other humans have created. And if you can't get what the other person (or village, or nation) has created then by all means destroy it! After all how dare one village have something better than another. If a man works hard and creates a bee hive then captures a swarm of bees, the bee hive must be destroyed.

And if the people who have manipulated their way into leadership positions are at all conniving they will have convinced their people that all the destruction and theft is in the name of fairness. So far as I can see, fairness is when everyone plays by the same rules and the rules are enforced evenly on all people. Of course that is always hard to do. First those who enforce the rules must be able to violate the rules in very carefully defined situations. But the fact that they (the enforcers) can violate the rules often makes them think that they are much better and different than other people. Then soon they are making up rules and complicating them in order to create opportunities to harass those with whom they disagree.

Yet there must be rules. And the rules that we make for ourselves must be enforced without exception. Thus we should be very careful as to what we set the penalty to be for breaking any rule except murder. Yet as I noted previously, by considering women (and a few men) chattel we utterly discount their right to live and to not be killed at the whim of some person who is having a bad hair day... !

And don't you dare tell me that at least some men don't have bad hair days! 'Cause I know they do. I do my best not to have my decisions at work affected by what happens at home, nor for my decisions at home to be affected by what happens at work. I also try not to transfer my frustration with one of the women in the house to another.