The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

“You ever heard of a woman at a council of war? The first thing you know, she’ll be wanting to run us. Them petticoats take an inch if ye give ’em a mile.”

“Women don’t wear petticoats anymore,” Sam said. “In fact, they don’t wear much of anything, as you must’ve noticed.”

The vote was two to one. Johnston said, “Okay. But you make her keep her legs crossed when she sits down, Sam.”

“It’s a strain just getting her to cover her breasts,” Sam said. “She’s a caution. But it ain’t her fault. Anyway, just about every­body swims naked. So what’s the difference if she is a little careless about how many square inches of flesh she exposes?”

“It ain’t the flesh, it’s the hair,” Johnston said. “Don’t it bother you none?”

“It used to. After all, I lived about the same time as you. But I didn’t spend my life among the Rocky Mountain Indians. We’ve been here thirty-four years, John, on a planet where even Queen Victoria is traipsing around in an outfit that would’ve given her heart failure followed by diarrhoea if she’d seen it worn in front of Buckingham Palace. Now nudity seems as natural as sleeping in church.”

64

Gwenafra, forewarned by Sam, was wearing a loincloth under her kilt. She sat in a chair and listened wide-eyed while Sam explained why she had been admitted to the council.

After she had heard Sam out, she sat silently for a while, sipping from a cup of tea. Then she said, “I knew more than you thought I did. You’ve talked a lot in your sleep. I knew you were keeping something very serious from me. That hurt me very much. In fact, I was going to tell you, Sam, that you must tell me what was going on. Otherwise, I was going to leave you.”

“Why didn’t you say so? I had no idea you felt that way.”

“Because I supposed that you must have a very good reason for keeping it from me. But I was getting to the point where I couldn’t stand it anymore. Haven’t you noticed how cross I’ve been lately?”

“It hadn’t escaped me. I thought you were just being moody. One of the mysteries of woman. But this is no place to discuss our personal affairs.”

“What is the place, then? I know I would have said something if you’d been so irritable. Anyway, women are about as mysterious as a tin mine. All you have to do is carry a lantern into the dark places, and you see everything. But men like to think women are the eternally mysterious. That saves men the trouble of asking ques­tions, taking a little time and effort.”

“The eternally loquacious, then,” Sam said. “You take as long to get to the point as a broken pencil.” “You’re both gabby,” Johnston said, scowling.

“There are other extremes,” she said, glaring at Johnston. “But you’re right. Maybe ‘there’s one thing that you could consider as a key to the mystery of the tower. That is, what kind of a person was Piscator?”

“Ah, hmmm,” Sam said. “I see what you mean. Why was he able to enter the tower while the others couldn’t? Well, for one thing, he could have been an agent. But if agents can get through the barrier, why couldn’t Thorn?

“Besides, why should Thorn have to Use the Parseval to get to the tower? The Ethicals and their agents have their own methods of transportation, some kind of flying machine.”

“I don’t know,” Gwenafra said. “Let’s concentrate on Piscator. How was he different from the others? It couldn’t be a physical element-clothing, say-that was the key to entry. All tried to get in naked, yet only Piscator got in.

“Also, there was a difference in how far each was able to advance into the entrance. What were the elements in character that made some advance further than others?”

“We’d need a computer to figure that out,” Sam said. “How­ever, Gulbirra knows the men in the airship. She can describe them when she gets here. Anyway, to be scientific, the exact distance each person traveled would have to be known. And that would have to be compared to each person’s character. Nobody was taking measurements there, so that’s out.”