Suzette Haden Elgin - Coyote Jones 04 - Star Anchored, Star Angered.pdf

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Star Anchored, Star Angered
Suzette Haden Elgin
Contents
Chapter One .3
Chapter Two .10
Chapter Three .15
Chapter Four 20
Chapter Five .25
Chapter Six .32
Chapter Seven .36
Chapter Eight 39
Chapter Nine .41
Chapter Ten .46
Chapter Eleven .49
Chapter Twelve .50
Chapter Thirteen .53
Chapter Fourteen .56
Chapter Fifteen .60
Chapter Sixteen .64
Chapter One
Even when the evidence had become overwhelming, supported by so many sets of statistics and so
many superbly motivated arguments that there was no ground left to stand on, teachers refused to accept
the obvious truth—that they were not needed in the classroom. With the perfection of inexpensive
two-way cable television in the 1970s even their baby-sitting function ceased to have value. The sad
result was the infamous Teachers Riots of 2002, in which hundreds of teachers and administrators died
and thousands more suffered serious injury.
(It is of course important to remember that "teacher," as it was used during the Industrial Age of Old
 
Earth and well into the beginning of the Electronic Age, did not have in any but the most general sense the
meaning that we give the word "Teacher" today.)
—Encyclopedia Galactica Fifth Edition, Volume V, p. 1134
Harvard was so exceedingly small an asteroid that its curvature was obvious at all times. Like standing
on a well-landscaped billiard ball. Coyote was not quite willing to admit that it made him nervous; on the
other hand, in spite of all scientific adjustments that eliminated sensations of motion, equalized gravity, and
generally kept the thing suitable for Planet & Asteroid , he had the uncomfortable sensation that it ought
to be easy to fall off of. The trees, for example, had a decided tilt. Those at a distance tilted away from
him.
"This world," he said to nobody, "is not flat. It is round." As was of course true of all worlds with which
he was familiar, but on none of the others had he longed for a safety line.
The Student who had come up behind him must have been used to this reaction. He greeted Coyote
from a distance obviously intended not to startle the already-uneasy visitor.
"After a day or two, Citizen Jones," he said soothingly, "you get used to it and it seems just as big as any
other place you've ever lived. All a matter of perception, you know."
"I find that hard to believe," Coyote grumbled. He grabbed his beard, for want of anything else to hold
on to, and tugged at it ferociously.
"It's true, though," said the Student, smiling at Coyote as his visitor turned—carefully—to face him.
"Unfortunately, since your visit is to be so brief, you won't have a chance to put my claim to the test."
"You're a kind of official greeting committee," Coyote said.
"A committee of one, Citizen. Here to welcome you to Multiversity Two. May your visit be productive."
Coyote had discovered that there was a certain angle, just beyond the Student's shoulder, at which he
could fix his eyes without being able to see the horizon. He looked fixedly at the spot and tried smiling
back.
"It's all right to be scared, you know," said the Student gently. "People always are. Why don't we go
indoors where you can be more comfortable?"
"How much more ... outdoors ... is there?"
The Student waved a vague arm to the left, then to the right. "Just a park," he said. "A small waterfall,
run by solar energy. An artificial lake for swimming. A few gardens."
Coyote braced himself, took his eyes away from the security spot, and looked around. Trees. Flowering
hedges. Paths leading away, all leading downhill, under more trees. Wildflowers, mostly Old Earth
varieties so far as he could tell, waving in tilted banks of purple, white, and gold.
"It's pretty," he said. "Prettier than Mars-Central. But I think you need guard rails all around it."
 
The Student grinned. "You'll come inside, then?"
Coyote nodded. "Please."
Ahead of them was a half-circle of large domes, connected by a tubular corridor, all of it the blinding
white of pyroceramic, and relieved by no decoration whatsoever. Whoever had designed this institution
of learning had not wanted anyone to be confused by its appearance.
"This," said the Student, leading the way toward the nearest of the domes, "is the College of Religious
Science. There are one hundred and thirty Students living here."
"Why so many?"
The Student shrugged. "Religious Science is a popular major right now," he said.
"Any special reason for that, you think?"
He smiled, and Coyote realized that he was a very handsome young man in spite of the bizarre
outfit—consisting entirely of pseudo-tattoos—that he was wearing. It wasn't easy to disregard the dozens
of tattoos of yellow roses the Student had seen fit to apply to his person ... wreaths and garlands and
swags and sprays of them, complete with leaves, thorns, and tastefully executed bees. The fact that his
skin was a rich dark brown helped; Coyote assumed that white-skinned Students stuck to red roses. Out
of the small spray that circled the Student's eyes and trailed artistically down his nose and over his chin
looked a fine honest face, with brown eyes, a good mouth, and high strong cheekbones. All hidden
among the foliage.
"Fads in majors come and go," he was saying. "Just like they do in anything else."
"Clothes, for example," Coyote observed, following him along the corridor that circled the domes.
"Clothes?"
"Mm-hmm."
"You should see some of the others."
"What?"
"If you think I'm strangely dressed, Citizen, you should see some of the others."
"It doesn't bother you to have a bee crawling up your penis?"
"What bee?"
Coyote pointed.
"That's only a tattoo, Citizen, it's not alive."
Coyote shuddered. "It would make me nervous," he said, and was rewarded by hearty laughter that
indicated to him what a funny fellow he was. Him and his conservative navy blue loincloth. With a narrow
white pinstripe.
 
He couldn't decide exactly what he thought of this corridor they were following. It showed no signs of
the reckless expenditure of taxpayers' money that had been mentioned to him in his briefing for this
mission. Bare synthowood floors, and rather poor imitations of washed pine, if he was any judge. Light
globes suspended in suitable places. Banks of plants, an occasional sculpture flickering in a niche.
Nothing ostentatious. Nothing to indicate that this was the dwelling-place of hundreds of the most brilliant
citizens of the Three Galaxies.
"Where is the Dean's office?" he said abruptly, tearing his eyes away from a mobile that seemed
determined to turn his head inside out. "I'd like to get this over with."
"Certainly, Citizen Jones," the Student said. "Follow the corridor on round, and you'll come to Room
Thirty-nine—that's Citizen Dean O'Halloran's quarters. She's expecting you."
"Thank you, Citizen Student."
"Not at all. I'm pleased to have met you—it's not every day, after all, that one meets a specialist in
Twentieth-Century Ballads."
"The Dean has wide interests," said Coyote carefully, and was rewarded with an enthusiastic nod from
his guide.
"I wonder ... " said the Student.
"Yes?"
"Could I ask you a personal question?"
"There still are some?" Coyote's eyebrows went up, and he waited, but he kept on walking.
"Is it true that you own a guitar made of real Old Earth wood, Citizen Jones? That's what they told us,
but Student news sources are not always as trustworthy as they might be."
"It's true," said Coyote. "My guitar is rosewood. Real rosewood, not synthowood."
"Ah," sighed the Student. "Now, that's impressive. That is impressive. Perhaps some of us could see it
later, when you've finished speaking with the Dean. Or perhaps you don't have time ... "
Coyote shrugged. "If you want to see it," he said, "just go look. It's in my flyer, in a case behind the
pilot's seat. Be careful, though."
"Just like that?"
"Well? Are you likely to destroy it as a protest against the eating of pork on Blythe-6 or something of
that kind?"
The blossoms and leaves leaped around the young man's eyes, registering his outrage spectacularly.
"Certainly not," he snapped.
"Then please help yourself," said Coyote. "And your friends as well. Carefully."
 
The Student actually bowed. Coyote hadn't seen anyone bow since he had had the good fortune to
leave the planet Abba, that bastion of sexism and antiquated etiquette, for the last time. But he managed
to bow back, and continued toward #39. The Student did seem to him to be a little odd, but not as odd
as the articles in the news would have you believe. And, so far as that went, if you knew that you were
one of the elitist of all elite, second in rarity only to the Communipaths themselves, one of one thousand
chosen out of countless billions of prospects, surely you had a right to get a little scramble-brained about
it. Common motif in Twentieth-Century Ballads was the rose-covered cottage; now we find ourselves
with rose-covered Students. Time marches, of course, on.
The door of #39 had no palm-screen, no electronic eye, only a bare surface. He considered it a
moment, and then knocked, at which it slid open without a sound. He stepped over the threshold and
almost broke his neck.
Nobody, including the be-flowered and be-mannered Student, had bothered to warn him that there
were three steps down to be negotiated on the other side of the door. Just like intellectuals to put steps in
a place where there was no need for them and then cut a door high enough in the wall to justify their
existence.
Still no sign of the fabled luxury. True, the walls were lined with thousands of microfilms and microfiche
trays, but that could hardly be considered an extravagance here. The floor was covered with mats in a
shabby synthostraw he hadn't seen in fifteen years; apparently the Dean was old-fashioned in her tastes.
Or perhaps sensitive to the criticism about wasting tax revenues. And where, for that matter, was the
Dean?
She came out of a window at the far end of the room, vaulting handily over its sill and extending a
welcoming hand.
"Citizen Jones!" she boomed. He backed off a step. It was difficult to accept the small woman greeting
him as the source of that enormous husky voice. And it was clear that Dean Shandalynne O'Halloran was
old-fashioned about more than floor coverings, too; she apparently didn't concern herself with cosmetic
injections. Since she wore not even a loincloth, it was vividly obvious that she sagged in all the places
where women of her age had sagged in the past, before science liberated them from the gravitational
effects of time.
"No," she said, "no, you're wrong."
"Mmmm," said Coyote.
"I've just been too busy," she assured him briskly. "Come the end of this term, I'll haul me off to the
nearest urban medcenter and have my poor body renovated. I'm not totally indifferent to the shocking
effects I have on the eye ... No, that's a lie. I take it back, Citizen Jones, I am totally indifferent. But
people remind me. My Students, for instance, remind me. Faces like yours, when I meet a stranger,
remind me."
"My dear Citizen Dean—"
She ignored him and dropped cross-legged to the mats beside a low table.
"A needle here, a needle there," she went on, oblivious to his discomfort, "and I'll look just like my
granddaughters again. Which, I might add, is perfectly ridiculous."
 

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