Short Fiction by Mack Reynolds (ready to read books .TXT) 📕

us. While we fought to protect our husband, the life of our clan, we hold no rancor against them. In their position, we would have done the same. Much rather would we see you taken by them, than to see you dead. Even though the Wolf clan might die, the race must go on.” She added, but not very believably, “If they had captured you, perhaps we could have, in our turn, captured a husband from some other clan.”

“The reason we probably couldn’t,” Vivian said mildly, “is that since we’ve turned to agriculture and settled, our numbers have dropped off by half. We had more than sixty warriors while we were hunter-foragers.”

“That’s enough, Vivian,” Sally snapped. “The question isn’t being discussed this afternoon.”

“Ought to be,” somebody whispered down in front.

“Order,” Alan said. He knew it was a growing belief in the clan that giving up the nomadic life had been a mistake. From raiders, they had become the raided.

Sally said, “The second order of business is the disposal of the Horse and Crow prisoners captured in the action today.”

Vivian said, “We can’t afford to waste valuable ammunition. I say shove them into the canyon.”

Most of those seated in the hall approved of that. Some were puzzled of face, wondering why the matter hadn’t been left simply in the scout chief’s hands.

Sally said, dryly, “I haven’t formed an opinion myself. However, our chairman has some words to say.”

Vivian looked at Alan as though he was a precocious child. She shook her head. “You cutie, you. You’re getting bigger and bigger for your britches every day.”

Two or three of the warriors echoed her by chuckling fondly.

Alan said nothing to that, needing to maintain what dignity and prestige he could muster.

He stood and faced them and waited for their silence before saying, “You feminine members of the clan are too busy with work and with defense to pursue some of the studies for which we men find time.”

Vivian murmured, “You ain’t just a whistlin’, honey. But we don’t mind. You do what you want with your time, honey.”

He tried to smile politely, but went on. “It has come to the point where few women read to any extent and most learning has fallen into the hands of the men⁠—few as we are.”

Sally said impatiently, “What has this got to do with the prisoners, Alan dear?”

It would seem that he had ignored her when he said, “I have been discussing the matter with Warren of the Turtle clan and two or three other men with whom I occasionally come in contact. At the rate the race is going, there will be no men left at all in another few generations.”

There was quiet in the long hall. Deathly quiet.

Sally said, “How⁠ ⁠… how do you mean, dear?”

“I mean our present system can’t go on. It isn’t working.”

“Of course it’s working,” Vivian snapped. “Here we are aren’t we? It’s always worked, it always will. Here’s the clan. You’re our husband. After we’ve had you for twenty years, we’ll trade you to another clan for their husband⁠—prevents interbreeding. If you have a fertile son, the clan will either split, each half taking one husband, or we’ll trade him off for land, or guns, or whatever else is valuable. Of course, it works.”

He shook his head, stubbornly. “Things are changing. For a generation or two after bomb day, we were in chaos. By time things cleared we were divided as we are now, in clans. However, we were still largely able to exist on the canned goods, the animals, left over from the old days. There was food and guns for all and only a few of the men were sterilies.”

Vivian began to say something again, but he shook a hand negatively at her, pleading for silence. “No, I’m not talking about myth-legend now. Warren’s great-grandfather, whom he knew as a boy, remembers when there were four times or more the number of men we have today and when the sterilies were very few.”

Vivian said impatiently, “What’s this got to do with the prisoners? There they are. We can kill them or let them go. If we let them go, they’ll be coming back, six months from now, to take another crack at us. Alan is cute as a button, but I don’t think he should meddle in women’s affairs.”

But most of them were silent. They looked up at him, waiting for him to go on.

“I suppose,” Sally said, “that you’re coming to a point, dear?”

He nodded, his face tight. “I’m coming to the point. The point is that we’ve got to change the basis of clan society. This isn’t working any more⁠—if it ever did. There’s such a thing as planned breeding⁠ ⁠…” it had been hard to say this, and the younger women in the audience, in particular, tittered “… and we’re going to have to think in terms of it.”

Sally had flushed. She said now, “A certain dignity is expected at a clan meeting, Alan dear. But just what did you mean?”

Vivian said, “This is nonsense, I’m leaving,” and she was up from the speaker’s table and away. Two or three of her younger girls looked after, scowling, but they didn’t follow her out of the hall.

“I mean,” Alan said doggedly, “that one of those Crow women has been the mother of two fertile men. To my knowledge she is the only woman within hundreds of miles this can be said about. We men have been keeping records of such things.”

Sally was as mystified as the rest of the clan.

Alan said, “I say bring these women into the clan. Unite with the Turtles and the Burros so that we’ll have three clans, five counting the Horses and Crows. Then we’ll have enough strength to fight off the forager-hunters, and we’ll have enough men to experiment in selective breeding.”

Half of the hall was on its feet in a roar.

“Share you with these⁠ ⁠… these desert rats who just raided us, who killed eight of our clan?” Sally snapped, flabbergasted.

He stood