Ship of Mustard
I wrote this one in 1963, and it had such a history that I wrote a five-page introduction to it for my first collection of stories. That was Anthonology, not the volume published under that name, but the 1969 original, which was a compilation of all my unsold stories.
Naturally, that, too, bounced. Once an editor learns that a story has been rejected elsewhere, his limited mind locks into the reject mode, and the game is over. "Ship of Mustard" suffered, in the course of five versions, some nineteen rejections. Now, after a couple more decades, I'm finally getting this spicy story into print. I'm ornery; I just don't give up easily on my stories or novels.
I got the notion for the story when I pondered what it would be like if women had the sex drives of men, and vice versa. Actually, the foolproof verification of paternity mentioned in the story has been developed in the intervening years, but it doesn't seem to have changed male or female nature. Ah, well.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"What's a four-letter word for a mustard plant used for feeding cattle?" Phai asked, attractive brown eyes intent upon her crossword.
"Flax?" Isys offered helpfully.
Phai shook her head. "It ends in E," she said. "Blank A blank E. And I don't think flax is a mustard, anyway."
The others gathered slimly around. "I didn't know they fed mustard to cattle," Annye said.
"It's an Earth crossword," Phai explained. "They do strange things on the home planet.
Maybe the hot stuff gives their bulls more vigor."
"We'd better grow a few tons soon, in that case," Annye said. There was a general titter of agreement.
Glorie turned away. "It's bad enough being cooped up in an orbiting space station with the does outnumbering the bucks five to one, but when the bucks are kids—"
"Orbiting henhouse, you mean," Bethe said. "And the roosters are chicken."
Their added off-color speculations were interrupted by a hesitant knock on the door. "It's a public office, you barren mare!" Isys called nastily. "Don't knock—barge in like the rest of us."
The door eased open tentatively. "I was assigned to the, er, 'shack,' " a nervously masculine voice said. "I'm not sure I'm in the right—"
Five pairs of eyes met across the outer desk. "A man!" Isys whispered, stricken. "And I went and called him a—" She bounced off the desk and tripped forward, smoothing out a shapely derriere and flinging back long tresses. "Battle stations, girls—I'll snare him."
"I was looking for the—" the man repeated uncertainly. He was fair, young, and naive. Isys took him gently but very firmly by the arm, not missing the opportunity to clasp his hand in hers.
"This is the Radio Monitor Section of station Athena," she said brightly. "Otherwise known as the shack. Which reminds me—what can we do for you, you handsome hunk?"
The man made an ineffective effort to recover his arm. "My—my name is Billiam Kandric,"
he stammered. "I was retrained as an office h-handyman. This is my first day off hydroponics. They told me to report to the sha—the Monitor Section."
"Why, how nice!" Isys exclaimed, kneading his arm suggestively, "we see so few members of the handsome sex here at the shack. Fresh off the farm, too. I'm sure you'll be very...
handy, once we get you broken in. There are five of us, you know." She squeezed his biceps and pulled him to the center of the room. "Girls," she called cheerily. "Girls, you can stop soldiering now. This is Mister Billiam, our brand-new man."
Billiam found himself the cynosure of an inquisitively feminine circle. "So tall," Phai purred, rubbing against him. "I'm sure he's... capable," Annye put in, capturing his other hand. "I think I'll give him a welcoming kiss," Glorie said eagerly.
Billiam backed off in alarm. "Th-thank you," he said, twisting away from the approaching lips. "But I mustn't keep you from your w-work."
Bethe hooked his head from behind and nibbled on his right ear. "Don't you worry about a thing, honey man," she breathed comfortingly. "We hardly ever get a call. There's plenty of time..."
"Cut it out, you in-heats," Isys said, her voice much sharper than it had been when she addressed the man. "I saw him first."
"Oh no you don't!" Phai retorted. "Share and share alike, in this office."
"But we can't share him all at once," Glorie said, clutching the subject so determinedly that her nubile bosom almost smothered him.
Billiam wrenched free heroically, sacrificing a lower button, and fell against the wall.
"Please, please," he said, eyes searching for some escape.
"We could draw lots for him," Annye suggested.
"Somebody lock the door while we thrash this out," Isys said.
"I'm only here for odd jobs. If you don't n-need me—"
"We need you," Phai assured him. "We haven't had a man in the sack, uh, shack for three months."
"I have it!" Bethe cried. "The gal who fills in that missing crossword word gets first crack at the meat!"
Billiam blushed furiously and sidled toward the exit. Glorie dived in front of him, slammed the door and turned the key. "You can't get out without this," she said, dropping the key ostentatiously into her cleavage. "Just like the late show. All you have to do is come and get it."
"I've got it!" Phai trilled. "Kale. That's the word!"
"That's not mustard," Bethe said. "That's a vegetable. If you don't know a vegetable by this time—"
"Mustard is a vegetable," Phai said. "I think. Let me check the dictionary."
"Uh-uh. Only a disinterested party gets to look at the book."
"What disinterested party?" Glorie demanded. "There's a whole man-day at stake."
"If only you'll let me—" Billiam said, vainly trying the door.
Eyes met again. "Can't get any more disinterested than that," Bethe murmured. "At least we're getting some use out of that archaic lock-and-key system. If only there were some men in this orbit."
"Oh, Mister Bill-yum," Annye called. "We have a nice little job for you."
"You do?" Billiam stumbled forward, pathetically eager.
Annye handed him the dictionary. "Look up 'kale' and tell us whether it's a mustard."
"But why—"
"You'll find out soon enough."
Billiam thumbed through the volume. "It says—it says kale is a mustard."
Phai smiled beatifically. "You'll never regret this, sir," she said, approaching him with gleam in eye.
"But I thought you had something for me to do."
"That's right, man-baby. If you will just loosen your collar a bit and come over here to the corner..."
"Let me see that crossword," Isys said with bad grace.
Static sounded over the loudspeaker. "That's mine!" Bethe said. "There must be a ship coming in for groceries." She rushed to her stool and began twiddling dials.
Two were left at the center desk. "Things are back to normal," Annye said.
"Dull," Glorie agreed.
"They just don't put the old fire into the handsome sex anymore."
"Oh, I don't know," Glorie demurred. "It's there, if you manage to arouse it. I heard that only last week someone slipped a little Iberian beetle into a chap's glass of milk, down at the dock restaurant."
"Was he a good specimen?"
"Certainly—for Athena. Think they're going to waste a culture like that on an anemic stamen? He wasn't muscular, but he had the waviest thatch of red hair. The waitresses were fawning over him disgustingly, but he was a true-blue virgin. Wouldn't even look at them."
Annye sailed slowly. "So one of them—"
"She sure did. They managed to clear out the other customers before it took effect... then, sister! They all stripped down, casual as you please, and just waited for nature. He got sort of uncomfortable—didn't know what it was, you see—but when he saw those young musclebusted nudes parading by he tore loose and planted three of them before getting control over himself. I never heard of anything like it."
"Right there in the restaurant?"
"Would you quibble if you had a chance like that? He wasn't chaperoned..."
Annye smiled dreamily, "Is there any of that beetle around the shack?"
"The stuffs illegal. Too bad; I had a powerful one on the line last month, but he lost his nerve. I told him he was absolutely safe; I'd keep his secret and he could use any protection he liked. But maybe he suspected that everything in the apartment was placebo. Couldn't get a rise out of him."
"It's getting so a girl can't get planted once in six months," Annye complained. "No wonder so many of us are stuck with menial positions. Twenty years ago there might have been a reason for it. If a man sowed too much garden, he could be in debt for the rest of his life because he was economically liable for his offspring. But now the average gal covers the expense, just to get the proper mileage. Still that old conservatism makes him insist on a wedding band before he puts out."
"Except for the hybrids..."
"Who'd touch one of them? There's no challenge when you know he's sterile. I'd as soon make love to a carrot. A girl's got to believe that it can sprout."
"I know what you mean," Glorie said. "A man just isn't male without live seed. That's his whole attraction—the potential to fertilize. Oh, for the privileges of matronhood! Take away that promise, and the act isn't worth the trouble."
"Sometimes I regret living in a matriarchy," Annye said. "It has its advantages, and I know the men aren't fit for technical responsibilities. But when reproduction is the chief and only route to success—"
"Well, the station will collapse entirely if the birthrate drops any more. And what will happen to all those longdistance ships needing hydroponic renovation then? We have to keep up our personnel."
"If only Earth would allow some replacements. We need renovation, too, and not hydroponic."
"Uh-uh. Take an act of the World Congress, and you know how long that takes. They set this up two generations ago as a self-sustaining vegetable stand on the theory that lifetime tenure would increase efficiency, or something. So we have to grow our own replacements.
Now it's a matter of individual initiative."
"But what good is initiative without a man?" Annye glanced into the corner. "Say, look at Phai work him over!"
Phai had her blouse unbuttoned. "Men are visually stimulated—I hear," she said in a conversational tone. "Come on now, Bill-yum, manchild—admit it. Wouldn't you like to lay your handsome head on that?"
Glorie watched with clinical interest. "She certainly keeps herself in fighting trim."
"Pretty good technique, too. I think he's yielding."
"I've heard that back on Earth the men actually chase the women," Glorie said.
"Well, back on Earth the situation is different. There are almost as many men as women, so landing one isn't so much of a status symbol. And they call Paternityping a violation of privacy."
"Violation of privates, you mean. So the man isn't responsible for his seed?"
"He's responsible, all right—if they catch him. But their crude blood typing only proves that he could be the father, not that he is. So the mother is stuck with the progeny. She has to raise the kids. Most women can't afford the cost of incubation in Earth gravity, so they can't preserve their figures by aborting three months after conception. Can you imagine carrying a fetus to full term, and then giving natural birth?"
"Ugh," Glorie said, making a face.
"But here in Athena, with the foolproof Paternic analysis, the man is nailed proper. He knows what he's in for."
"It's a funny system, you know. If there were too many men, or overpopulation... but Paternityping just makes things worse. We need bold men, not frightened boys."
"They miscalculated. No Earthman would hesitate half an iota if he saw Phai spread out like that. But here a man really has to watch his step."
"Watch his what?"
Annye looked into the corner again. "Speaking of which—sister! She's darn near grounded him already."
Glorie's mouth dropped open, but she wasn't looking at the corner. "Annye—what you said—"
"It's the plain truth. He's really standing tall."
"No—I mean about Earth-women not having incubation, and all. We do—but only one-fifth as many manbabies come out of those machines as girls."
"That's the whole problem. Did it take you this long to notice, dearie?"
"But there has to be a reason. Those first-generation matrons have control over the incubation ward. Do you think they're cheating?"
"You mean, killing off the males before birth, so there'd be no possible threat to the matriarchy?" Annye frowned. "I wouldn't put it past them—but this particular wrinkle has been checked out. My friend in Nursery says there's absolutely no funny business there.
The birthrate is just plain low, and skewed to the distaff. The few males born are anemically sexed, too."
Glorie still wasn't satisfied. "But there should be just as many boys as—"
"On Earth, yes. Athena, no. My guess is that some kind of space radiation screws the he-sperms and invigorates the she-sperms, so—"
"That's almost as disgusting as natural birth!"
Annye shrugged. "Earth doctors claim it's all in our minds, so nothing is done."
"Our minds! Rampant transvestism among the X-Y chromosomes, and all they say is—"
Isys came over, waving the crossword. "Look—I've filled in another vertical. R A blank E.
Kale doesn't fit."
The other two pored over it. "You're right, dearie. It's no go."
The three faced the corner. "We'd better break that off before she finds something that does fit," Isys said, alarmed.
"Field's open again."
"Barely in time, too. Phai! Get your hand off his—" Bethe had to put on her earphones to blank out the ensuing scuffle in the corner. A man's voice came through the intermittent static with startling clarity, "...calling station Athena... Earthship Spaceward Ho! calling station Athena..."
Bethe's dark eyes lighted. "This is Athena Radio Monitor. Are you docking here?"
In a moment the others were jostling behind her. Billiam was free to reassemble himself, relief and disappointment smeared across his face.
"A genuine purebred Earth ship?" Annye asked. "With men in it? Not an outspace shuttle?"
"Shut up," Bethe snapped, not entirely pleased with the audience.
Isys turned up the gain on the loudspeaker.
"...regulations require me to inform you before docking that Spaceward Ho! is a prison ship... 351 young men sentenced for sexual aggression..."
"Excuse me," Glorie said, leaving the huddle.
"You mean they're oversexed!" Bethe said.
"Three-time losers," the ship captain's voice said grimly. "Uncontrollable around women of any age. We're bound for—"
"How about granting them indefinite parole right here? They can't get away from Athena!"
"Madame," the captain said, "such humor is in dubious taste. I'll list our supply requirements now so that there is no dangerous delay. As follows: three tons potatoes, five hundred pounds fresh lettuce, two—"
"Captain, that was no joke. We can arrange—"
"I'm afraid I haven't made clear that these men are extremely—" The captain faltered, exhibiting the quaint Earthly disinclination to speak bluntly in mixed company, even by radio. "Of course, they've all been sterilized, but—"
The excitement collapsed. "Wouldn't you know it," Isys groaned, "hybridized. Dead seed..."
"Captain, what are you doing tonight?" Bethe began, as the others drifted disconsolately away.
"Well, we still have Billiam," Annye said philosophically. "Phai had him about ready to break ground—where is he?"
"The door's open. He's gone!"
"But Glorie had the key—"
Isys picked up the crossword and studied it. "Forget it, girls," she said, looking tired.
"She's got him." She held up the paper without further comment.
There, neatly printed in the four spaces, with the open dictionary lying nearby for verification, was the name of the mustard plant: RAPE.