Julia, Skydaughter by Robin Wyatt Dunn

Author:Robin Wyatt Dunn
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: science fiction novella, feminist sf, sf novella, feminist science fiction, science fiction, adventure, religion in science fiction, novella

The Desert. 6:30 p.m.

What about Sarah and Hamid? I hope they’re okay. My mission is a failure. We are on radio silence for another nine hours.

I was supposed to penetrate the inner sanctum, the holy of holies, and record its architecture. From its geometry we could have planned a line of attack on the defenses of the entire palace. But that will have to wait now. Likely my village is already being burned...

I’m crying in the sunset but one of the women puts her hand over my mouth. There are tears in her eyes too.

The camels are getting tired and our leader urges the formation to land at the first oasis.

We’ll only be able to stay an hour. The fighters, our men, will delay them at least that long.

Before the hour is up, we’re back in the air again.

The priests say that Pharaoh, our Sarah, is a simulation, just a computer program. But I actually met her. When I was seven years old. I still carry her picture in my pocket. She’s shorter than I am. And hard as a tree.

The priests say women are meant to serve because God said so. They say women are a man’s property because God said so. They say women are evil, the servant of Satan. They say our menstrual blood is a pollution. They say our breasts nourish serpents. (But they can... that’s what the Sphinx is...)

Below Mother Sphinx, we enter Pharaoh’s Central Command, leaving the camels to rest and oil their wings by the waterfall--more a water-trickle, here in summer.

Blue lights hover over our heads. The head woman takes me to a bed, and lays me down. I want to be in the meeting. I want to tell Pharaoh what I saw...

“Tomorrow,” says the head woman, pulling the blanket over my chest.

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