"2570-09" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jerome Bigge - Warlady 8 - The Queen Of Time)THE QUEEN OF TIME 2570 A.D.! A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE By Jerome B. Bigge Chapter Nine "Lorraine," Hope whispered to me in the darkness, the Moon shining down into my eyes as I huddled beneath my blanket. Its position in the sky leaving no doubt that it was after midnight. "Yes?" I asked, wondering why she'd awakened me now here. "You were `right' in doing what you did," she announced. "Let us `hope' that I was," I answered, rolling over. I have over the time since these events happened often won- dered myself if I did "right" here or not. I "took" or had taken the lives of four men carrying out their own duties to recover a runaway slave girl. Did my moral justification under the "laws" of my own 26th Century Trelandar "justify" my actions in a "Tre- landar" I did not rule, a Trelandar with far different laws than my own? I have reviewed the caste codes of the Warrioresses, the teachings of the Priestesses of Lys as given in THE BOOK OF LYS, and have not yet found an "answer" here that satisfies me. There is also the "question" whether or not I should have let the men take Karen back upon the grounds that I did not have the "right" to keep her when she was not my "property". Nor did the laws of 24th Century Trelandar recognize the concept of "slave abuse" as we now recognize here in the 26th Century. In the "legal sense" of the question then I did not have the "right" to do what I did, making me a "murderess" on the basis I took life without "cause". On the other hand it is doubtful that the men would have let Hope and me just walk off and leave Karen kneeling there waiting. They would have wanted to know "who" we were, and as we were not of their era, we would have fallen under the unwritten laws that allowed men to take women of other societies as their own slaves. Hope and I would have then been forced to fight, to kill, to de- fend our "RIGHT TO SELF-POSSESSION" which is the basis of all po- litical freedom in all the eras in which Mankind has yet existed. Thus, Hope and I would have been forced to kill them to "protect" ourselves, which would have given us same "outcome" here then... When I presented this "question" to First Priestess Tais, she too was unable to give me a satisfactory answer to my moral dilemma.* * It is noteworthy here that SHE saw me as a sinner because of my own "arrogance" towards others, not for the actions I have done. Telling me that I have another reincarnation to "go" before I've learned the proper humility to become worthy of "unity" with HER. This is also a "question" quite different from the issue of the "crossbowman" that I had Lady Tirana torture back in 2565 AD. In that matter there was first an attempt on my life, and I was then "justified" under the law in taking the actions that I had. However in this case I made an attack upon men who had not as yet shown any hostile intent towards me, although given what Karen had told me about her society, there was no doubt that they would have attempted to take Hope and I as slaves, using the justifica- tion here that we were not of their own society, Hope being from 21st Century America and I in turn from 26th Century Trelandar. This in turn would have given us the moral justification of kill- ing them in "self defense" to protect our own "RIGHT OF SELF- POSSESSION", which actually dates back to the 20th Century when I gave Janet Rogers the concept, which she later on expanded on in her book, "MORAL PHILOSOPHY", which is well worth reading here... ***************************************************************** "Let's see if I can't get us some meat," I said, picking up my bow and a quiver of arrows as the birds now greeted the day. Karen building up the fire, the blonde's steel gray eyes looking up into mine as Hope now helped her in the chill of the morning. "And Hope," I added, "Try to teach Karen the basics of swordsman- ship while I'm gone," the brownette's hazel eyes then meeting my own as she nodded. I didn't expect too much, but I felt it best that Karen knew at least something about the basics of fighting. It takes months to build real skill with the sword in most cases, although I do know of "exceptions", the late Sa-she-ra being one. The doe lifted up her head, her ears flicking as I drew back the arrow to my cheek, the bow a bit too "stiff" for my liking... The deer taking the arrow in her side, running off humped up now! Going perhaps a hundred yards or so before then falling to earth. Dashing up to the still breathing kicking animal, I drove my sword deep into her heart, putting an "end" to her misery. Then with my dagger I quickly partially skinned her. Cutting off then what meat we could eat before it went bad, leaving the rest of the carcass there for the predators. Carrying back the meat in the section of the hide I'd cut previously from the doe's body, my stylish leather skirt now as "blood stained" as any butchers! "The `Huntress' returns," I smiled, hoping that Hope and Ka- ren wouldn't expect me to be this "successful" all the time here! The blonde giving me a big grin, no doubt happy to be "free" at least for this short period of time regardless of what the future held for us all. The sword she wore at her hip left no "doubts". "She catches on quickly," Hope added, Karen taking the meat. Like most women of this era she was capable of doing things that Hope would have been totally helpless at, things that I myself too would have found considerable difficulty in doing here now... "We'll start `working' on these bows, get the pulls down," I answered, studying my own weapon. "Shave down the sides of these a bit so that we can use them effectively if we need to here." It had taken "everything" I'd had to "draw" the weapon I'd used. "Why didn't you bring the rest of the deer?" Hope asked. "The odor of blood brings predators...," I smiled back. "Why can't people make guns here?" Hope ventured now. "The Lorr will not allow it," Karen said to her then. "We are living under the `EDICT' now," I pointed out. "Those `ants' that you said lived on Mars?" Hope asked. "For the next two centuries they `rule' this world," I said, getting out my dagger, and starting on my bow, "lightening" it... "And there is nothing anyone can `do'?" Hope ventured, aware from what I'd told her that Priestesses had eventually "defeated" the Lorr, although not by actual military conflict as such here. "Let's just `HOPE' they don't learn of us," I warned her. "Never thought of that!" Hope breathed, looking up now! "We'll try to keep them from `finding out'," I smiled. The Peasant looked up from his hoeing as I rode up to him, giving him "greetings" and a smile. I had a dozen silver eagles. Enough I hoped to buy ourselves some fresh fruit, a bit to eat. "I have money," I said to him, the man staring up at me. "That is something I don't have," he grinned back at me. "But you have food, which I don't," I retorted right back. "I think we can come to mutual terms, Warrioress," he said. "You did well," Karen said to me, giving me a smile as I showed her what I'd gotten. Hope and the former slave girl hav- ing waited here in the woods while I rode across the field to the Peasant's hovel. I had selected his because it had been the closest to the forest. The man and his worn out looking wife had asked few questions despite my to them no doubt "odd" attire now. A boy in his early teens, a girl of perhaps five or six their own children. The wife had been pregnant with a third on the way. Peasant families tend to number a child larger than usual, due to the high rate of infant mortality that is a part of their life. The Priestesses of Lys regulating population growth as they did in my era, as well as seeing to it that "mutations" didn't live.* * This last was just changed, as I'm sure my readers all know, by an agreement made between the Priestesses and Queen Joyce of Los Angeles, Queen Joyce being of course the monarch of the mutants, her own underground "country" being a separate part of Trelandar. "I traded him that extra bow of ours," I smiled, the Peasant no doubt glad to obtain such a fine weapon at such a low "cost". The carrots and potatoes would keep us going for a few days more. "Like the Middle Ages," Hope observed, giving me a smile. "Same level of `technology' anyway," I smiled back at her. "A stable, stagnant society," Carol Simmons' daughter said. "Life for them is little `different' in my time," I replied, well aware of the "truth" of the words that I spoke just then... It was only in last part of the Nineteenth Century and in the Twentieth and the first half of the Twenty First that those who farmed the land made anything "more" than a "subsistence" level of living off of it. Otherwise the life of Peasants here in 26th Century Trelandar is probably really little different in most ways from that of Peasants in say 12th Century Europe. Those who have lived "off the land" have always been "poor". This was no doubt true in the time of the Pharaohs of Egypt, just as it is "true" today now here in 26th Century Trelandar under me. I fear there are some things that never "change", despite everything... "There are `things' you could `do'," Hope pointed out to me. "Such decisions are not mine to make," I pointed out to her. Nor did I wish to repeat the "mistakes" of the past here either. The idea of "price supports", while "workable" in the past, wouldn't ever "work" here in a society where over eighty percent of the population "lived on the land", or the next step removed. There is not enough "economic surplus" in my own society to allow such "luxuries" as those of the past could "afford" to have then. Or so they believed then until the United States of America went "bankrupt" in 2007 A.D. as a "proof" of their economic "follies"! The "national debt" at that time having reached such levels (over ten trillion dollars!) that it would have taken a century or more to have paid it off! The "losers" of course being those who had "believed" the politicians who had made promises that could never be paid for. Government employees who found that their pensions, never "funded", were now going to be far less than they'd planned on. People on Social Security who found that the "Trust Fund" had been "drained", that there was no more money to "back" their monthly checks. They were the true "losers" in the "bankruptcy"! Thanks to Janet Rogers no one "starved", but millions of people found it necessary to re-enter the labor force once again here! Taking whatever part time jobs were available to make ends meet!! THE QUEEN OF TIME 2570 A.D.! A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE By Jerome B. Bigge Chapter Nine "Lorraine," Hope whispered to me in the darkness, the Moon shining down into my eyes as I huddled beneath my blanket. Its position in the sky leaving no doubt that it was after midnight. "Yes?" I asked, wondering why she'd awakened me now here. "You were `right' in doing what you did," she announced. "Let us `hope' that I was," I answered, rolling over. I have over the time since these events happened often won- dered myself if I did "right" here or not. I "took" or had taken the lives of four men carrying out their own duties to recover a runaway slave girl. Did my moral justification under the "laws" of my own 26th Century Trelandar "justify" my actions in a "Tre- landar" I did not rule, a Trelandar with far different laws than my own? I have reviewed the caste codes of the Warrioresses, the teachings of the Priestesses of Lys as given in THE BOOK OF LYS, and have not yet found an "answer" here that satisfies me. There is also the "question" whether or not I should have let the men take Karen back upon the grounds that I did not have the "right" to keep her when she was not my "property". Nor did the laws of 24th Century Trelandar recognize the concept of "slave abuse" as we now recognize here in the 26th Century. In the "legal sense" of the question then I did not have the "right" to do what I did, making me a "murderess" on the basis I took life without "cause". On the other hand it is doubtful that the men would have let Hope and me just walk off and leave Karen kneeling there waiting. They would have wanted to know "who" we were, and as we were not of their era, we would have fallen under the unwritten laws that allowed men to take women of other societies as their own slaves. Hope and I would have then been forced to fight, to kill, to de- fend our "RIGHT TO SELF-POSSESSION" which is the basis of all po- litical freedom in all the eras in which Mankind has yet existed. Thus, Hope and I would have been forced to kill them to "protect" ourselves, which would have given us same "outcome" here then... When I presented this "question" to First Priestess Tais, she too was unable to give me a satisfactory answer to my moral dilemma.* * It is noteworthy here that SHE saw me as a sinner because of my own "arrogance" towards others, not for the actions I have done. Telling me that I have another reincarnation to "go" before I've learned the proper humility to become worthy of "unity" with HER. This is also a "question" quite different from the issue of the "crossbowman" that I had Lady Tirana torture back in 2565 AD. In that matter there was first an attempt on my life, and I was then "justified" under the law in taking the actions that I had. However in this case I made an attack upon men who had not as yet shown any hostile intent towards me, although given what Karen had told me about her society, there was no doubt that they would have attempted to take Hope and I as slaves, using the justifica- tion here that we were not of their own society, Hope being from 21st Century America and I in turn from 26th Century Trelandar. This in turn would have given us the moral justification of kill- ing them in "self defense" to protect our own "RIGHT OF SELF- POSSESSION", which actually dates back to the 20th Century when I gave Janet Rogers the concept, which she later on expanded on in her book, "MORAL PHILOSOPHY", which is well worth reading here... ***************************************************************** "Let's see if I can't get us some meat," I said, picking up my bow and a quiver of arrows as the birds now greeted the day. Karen building up the fire, the blonde's steel gray eyes looking up into mine as Hope now helped her in the chill of the morning. "And Hope," I added, "Try to teach Karen the basics of swordsman- ship while I'm gone," the brownette's hazel eyes then meeting my own as she nodded. I didn't expect too much, but I felt it best that Karen knew at least something about the basics of fighting. It takes months to build real skill with the sword in most cases, although I do know of "exceptions", the late Sa-she-ra being one. The doe lifted up her head, her ears flicking as I drew back the arrow to my cheek, the bow a bit too "stiff" for my liking... The deer taking the arrow in her side, running off humped up now! Going perhaps a hundred yards or so before then falling to earth. Dashing up to the still breathing kicking animal, I drove my sword deep into her heart, putting an "end" to her misery. Then with my dagger I quickly partially skinned her. Cutting off then what meat we could eat before it went bad, leaving the rest of the carcass there for the predators. Carrying back the meat in the section of the hide I'd cut previously from the doe's body, my stylish leather skirt now as "blood stained" as any butchers! "The `Huntress' returns," I smiled, hoping that Hope and Ka- ren wouldn't expect me to be this "successful" all the time here! The blonde giving me a big grin, no doubt happy to be "free" at least for this short period of time regardless of what the future held for us all. The sword she wore at her hip left no "doubts". "She catches on quickly," Hope added, Karen taking the meat. Like most women of this era she was capable of doing things that Hope would have been totally helpless at, things that I myself too would have found considerable difficulty in doing here now... "We'll start `working' on these bows, get the pulls down," I answered, studying my own weapon. "Shave down the sides of these a bit so that we can use them effectively if we need to here." It had taken "everything" I'd had to "draw" the weapon I'd used. "Why didn't you bring the rest of the deer?" Hope asked. "The odor of blood brings predators...," I smiled back. "Why can't people make guns here?" Hope ventured now. "The Lorr will not allow it," Karen said to her then. "We are living under the `EDICT' now," I pointed out. "Those `ants' that you said lived on Mars?" Hope asked. "For the next two centuries they `rule' this world," I said, getting out my dagger, and starting on my bow, "lightening" it... "And there is nothing anyone can `do'?" Hope ventured, aware from what I'd told her that Priestesses had eventually "defeated" the Lorr, although not by actual military conflict as such here. "Let's just `HOPE' they don't learn of us," I warned her. "Never thought of that!" Hope breathed, looking up now! "We'll try to keep them from `finding out'," I smiled. The Peasant looked up from his hoeing as I rode up to him, giving him "greetings" and a smile. I had a dozen silver eagles. Enough I hoped to buy ourselves some fresh fruit, a bit to eat. "I have money," I said to him, the man staring up at me. "That is something I don't have," he grinned back at me. "But you have food, which I don't," I retorted right back. "I think we can come to mutual terms, Warrioress," he said. "You did well," Karen said to me, giving me a smile as I showed her what I'd gotten. Hope and the former slave girl hav- ing waited here in the woods while I rode across the field to the Peasant's hovel. I had selected his because it had been the closest to the forest. The man and his worn out looking wife had asked few questions despite my to them no doubt "odd" attire now. A boy in his early teens, a girl of perhaps five or six their own children. The wife had been pregnant with a third on the way. Peasant families tend to number a child larger than usual, due to the high rate of infant mortality that is a part of their life. The Priestesses of Lys regulating population growth as they did in my era, as well as seeing to it that "mutations" didn't live.* * This last was just changed, as I'm sure my readers all know, by an agreement made between the Priestesses and Queen Joyce of Los Angeles, Queen Joyce being of course the monarch of the mutants, her own underground "country" being a separate part of Trelandar. "I traded him that extra bow of ours," I smiled, the Peasant no doubt glad to obtain such a fine weapon at such a low "cost". The carrots and potatoes would keep us going for a few days more. "Like the Middle Ages," Hope observed, giving me a smile. "Same level of `technology' anyway," I smiled back at her. "A stable, stagnant society," Carol Simmons' daughter said. "Life for them is little `different' in my time," I replied, well aware of the "truth" of the words that I spoke just then... It was only in last part of the Nineteenth Century and in the Twentieth and the first half of the Twenty First that those who farmed the land made anything "more" than a "subsistence" level of living off of it. Otherwise the life of Peasants here in 26th Century Trelandar is probably really little different in most ways from that of Peasants in say 12th Century Europe. Those who have lived "off the land" have always been "poor". This was no doubt true in the time of the Pharaohs of Egypt, just as it is "true" today now here in 26th Century Trelandar under me. I fear there are some things that never "change", despite everything... "There are `things' you could `do'," Hope pointed out to me. "Such decisions are not mine to make," I pointed out to her. Nor did I wish to repeat the "mistakes" of the past here either. The idea of "price supports", while "workable" in the past, wouldn't ever "work" here in a society where over eighty percent of the population "lived on the land", or the next step removed. There is not enough "economic surplus" in my own society to allow such "luxuries" as those of the past could "afford" to have then. Or so they believed then until the United States of America went "bankrupt" in 2007 A.D. as a "proof" of their economic "follies"! The "national debt" at that time having reached such levels (over ten trillion dollars!) that it would have taken a century or more to have paid it off! The "losers" of course being those who had "believed" the politicians who had made promises that could never be paid for. Government employees who found that their pensions, never "funded", were now going to be far less than they'd planned on. People on Social Security who found that the "Trust Fund" had been "drained", that there was no more money to "back" their monthly checks. They were the true "losers" in the "bankruptcy"! Thanks to Janet Rogers no one "starved", but millions of people found it necessary to re-enter the labor force once again here! Taking whatever part time jobs were available to make ends meet!! |
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