“I wasn’t, not really.” He grinned sheepishly. “When I hurry I don’t have to speak to as many people . . . and I usually don’t know how.”
“Ah, yes. Thorby, I have photographs, names, family classification, ship’s job, on everyone. Would it help?”
“Huh? I should say so! Fritz thinks it’s enough just to point somebody out once and say who he is.”
“Then come to my room. It’s all right; I have a dispensation to interview anyone there. The door opens into a public corridor; you don’t cross purdah line.”
Arranged by case cards with photographs, the data Thorby had had trouble learning piecemeal he soaked up in half an hour — thanks to Baslim’s training and Doctor Mader’s orderliness. In addition, she had prepared a family tree for the Sisu; it was the first he had seen; his relatives did not need diagrams, they simply knew.
She showed him his own place. “The plus mark means that while you are in the direct sept, you were not born there. Here are a couple more, transferred from collateral branches to sept . . . to put them into line of command I suspect. You people call yourselves a ‘family’ but the grouping is a phratry.”
“A what?”
“A related group without a common ancestor which practices exogamy — that means marrying outside the group. “The exogamy taboo holds, modified by rule of moiety. You know how the two moieties work?”
“They take turns having the day’s duty.”
“Yes, but do you know why the starboard watch has more bachelors and the port watch more single women?”
“Uh, I don’t think so.”
“Females adopted from other ships are in port moiety; native bachelors are starboard. Every girl in your side must be exchanged . . . unless she can find a husband among a very few eligible men. You should have been adopted on this side, but that would have required a different foster father. See the names with a blue circle-and-cross? One of those girls is your future wife . . . unless you find a bride on another ship.”
Thorby felt dismayed at the thought. “Do I have to?”
“If you gain ship’s rank to match your family rank, you’ll have to carry a club to beat them off.”
It fretted him. Swamped with family, he felt more need for a third leg than he did for a wife.
“Most societies,” she went on, “practice both exogamy and endogamy — a man must marry outside his family but inside his nation, race, religion, or some large group, and you Free Traders are no exception; you must cross to another moiety but you can’t marry fraki. But your rules produce an unusual setup; each ship is a patrilocal matriarchy.”
“A what?”
” ‘Patrilocal’ means that wives join their husbands’ families; a matriarchy . . . well, who bosses this ship?”
“Why, the Captain.”
“He does?”
“Well, Father listens to Grandmother, but she is getting old and –”
“No ‘buts.’ The Chief Officer is boss. It surprised me; I thought it must be just this ship. But it extends all through the People. Men do the trading, conn the ship and mind its power plant — but a woman always is boss. It makes sense within its framework; it makes your marriage customs tolerable.”
Thorby wished she would not keep referring to marriage.
“You haven’t seen ships trade daughters. Girls leaving weep and wail and almost have to be dragged . . . but girls arriving have dried their eyes and are ready to smile and flirt, eyes open for husbands. If a girl catches the right man and pushes him, someday she can be sovereign of an Independent state. Until she leaves her native ship, she isn’t anybody — which is why her tears dry quickly. But if men were boss, girl-swapping would be slavery; as it is, it’s a girl’s big chance.”
Doctor Mader turned away from the chart. “Human customs that help people live together are almost never planned. But they are useful, or they don’t survive. Thorby, you have been fretted about how to behave toward your relatives.”
“I certainly have!”
“What’s the most important thing to a Trader?”