Earth Enslaved by E. C. Tubb

Author:E. C. Tubb [Tubb, E. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction
ISBN: 9780575107816
Publisher: DAW Books
Published: 2011-09-29T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

It was big, sprawling, sections of housing interspersed with industries, shops and manufacturing plants mixed with offices. And it held slums.

From the window of a sleazy hotel Kennedy looked at the morning light. For three days now they had roved the city. The money taken from Royce had been quickly dissipated, but more was obtained by the sale of gems they had carried from the Mordain. In those three days they had learned the mores, rules, and politics of a new world.

Luden sighed as he closed the last of a heap of books.

“As far as I can determine, Cap, the divergence from our own history took place shortly after the Debacle. More proof if we needed it that we are on an alternate world to our own. In our own history we managed to survive and went on to establish the Pax Terra. Here, apparently, there were complications.”

Militant feminists had risen to spread fresh havoc among the ruins. In the war the male population, already depleted by the conflict, had fallen victim to a plague which induced early death and monstrous change. The virus attacked the prostate and destroyed essential male hormones. It was a bad time during which had come a second dark age, when vast areas of technology were lost and forgotten, the population reduced to a fragment of what it had once been, the race struggling to survive against crushing odds.

And Luden had called it a complication!

“The development of parthenogenesis was of prime importance,” he continued in his thin, dry tones, “and was extremely successful, but, of course, could only perpetuate the females of the species. If it hadn’t been for a few males who were immune to the plague this would be now a literal world of women. However, the masculine semen was used, despite violent opposition from the more extreme of the militants, to provide artificial insemination of a number of low-echelon females. They became, in effect, brood mares and were despised because of it.”

“Nice,” Kennedy said dryly. He wondered what it had been like to be a potent male during that period. The literature gave the impression that, far from being valued and pampered members of the community, they had been treated like stud bulls, imprisoned, restrained, used only to provide seed. “At least a few of them had sense, even though parthenogenesis was so successful. They recognized the need to maintain the available gene pool.”

“Exactly, Cap. They realized the dead end they were entering and did something about it. But not without opposition. The pro-path and the pro-seed had a war in which a compromise was reached. Fertilized ova were placed in artificial wombs to reach maturity. Women were therefore freed of what they termed the tyranny of pregnancy and yet the race could still survive.”

Rising, Luden joined Kennedy at the window. Both men now wore dull gray denims devoid of any insignia.

“A strange society, Cap,” he mused. “A matriarchy based on a feudal system of estates and Houses. Men are considered to be inferior and are used only to perform menial tasks.

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