26. Sullha
SULLHA
By ten o'clock, Sullha's living room was full of women.
They came for their English lessons with their notebooks and pencils, and with complaints that English was an impossible language to learn and that it sounded like people were chewing on noodles while speaking.
The lesson was real, and Sullha had made a list of twenty new words she was going to teach them today. But she had invited guest speakers who were going to change these women's lives.
"I brought hibiscus tea," Zohara said. "I found it in the village store." They didn't need it anymore, but there was something nostalgic about drinking it, a taste of the old rebellion.
Tomek had been bribed into Leehy's room with cartoons, a cup of chocolate milk, and the promise of the playground after lunch. Since it was the same bribe Sullha used when she needed him occupied so she could run her English classes, he didn't think anything about today was special.
When Margaret arrived, she wasn't alone. The clinic nurse was with her, which made the whole thing feel much more official.
"What's going on?" Mirumah asked. "Why are Bowen's mate and the other woman here?"
"Guest speakers," Sullha said.
"This is Hildegard." Margaret introduced the nurse. "She works with Doctor Bridget and is better qualified to answer your questions. She knows much more than I do."
Sullha translated.
Mirumah frowned. "What does she think we want to ask?"
Sullha took a deep breath. "There's something Margaret told me a week ago, and I've been summoning the courage to tell the rest of you.
It's a good thing, but it's not easy to relay, and I'm not really qualified to provide all the answers.
I asked Margaret to come and explain it, and she brought Nurse Hildegard because she doesn't feel she's qualified enough either. "
"Qualified for what?" Baruha asked.
"We can become immortal. We were led to believe only our sons could transition into immortality. We can be immortal too, and so can our daughters, but we have been denied that."
For a long moment, no one moved. The only sound was the cartoon music coming from Leehy's room because the door wasn’t closed all the way.
"Who told you this?" Zohara asked.
"Margaret. And Hildegard is here to answer what she can't." She took a deep breath. "So, this is how it works." She continued to tell them what she'd learned from Margaret and what she'd already told her mother.
Shaking her head, Zohara set down her cup.
"Of course, they told you that. Think, Sullha.
They want willing women in their beds, which is a huge improvement over how we were treated in the breeding enclosure, but it's manipulative of them to feed us such an outlandish story just so we would ask for it.
They probably think that they are more civilized because they don't just take what they want, but if they think we are going to fall for that, they don't know who they are dealing with. "
Baruha laughed. "You are talking crazy, Zohara.
Look at us." She swept a hand over herself, then over the rest of them.
"Who is going to want this? The males here all look young and beautiful.
They are not short of willing women. If you've been watching any television since we got here, you must have realized that women in America don't need much convincing to jump into bed with good-looking men? "
Mirumah pursed her lips. "They didn't even want us as breeders anymore, and some of us are still fertile. We are just no longer young and pretty."
Margaret and Hildegard looked from one speaker to the next, trying to understand what everyone was saying, then turned to Sullha for a translation.
She translated it for them without sugarcoating a word.
"I was not young when I met Bowen," Margaret said.
"I already had a grown daughter, and I didn't look as good as I look now.
" She waved a hand over her face and body.
"Life hadn't been kind to me either, and it showed.
But the Fates brought Bowen and me together, and the pull was immediate and undeniable.
We fell in love, we became intimate, and I transitioned.
It can happen to you too. I know that none of you ever dreamt that it was possible, but you can have immortality, and you can have love.
Everything you were told about females being unworthy of immortality was fabricated by a male who knowingly lied to you because he needed you human and fertile.
Human women can bear many children while immortal women rarely conceive.
You weren't unworthy. You were inventory. "
Sullha translated, and she didn't try to find a softer word for inventory. It was already a more palatable one than breeding stock.
"Ask her about the syringe," Leehy said.
Sullha had forgotten about that. "My mother raised a valid point." She addressed Hildegard. "Can the venom be extracted and injected with a syringe?"
"We tried," the nurse said. "It doesn't work. If the venom doesn't enter a live blood vessel right away, it turns inert once it leaves the fangs."
Sullha translated.
"What about the other component?" Leehy pressed. "Can it be extracted and injected?"
Hildegard's answer was thorough, clinical, and involved words Sullha didn't understand and some that she didn't have the words for in her own language. She did the best she could with the vocabulary she had.
Mirumah squinted at her. "That sounded much longer in English."
"I summarized."
"What are they saying?" Hildegard asked.
"They are complaining that I didn't tell them everything because what you said sounded much longer.
The truth is that some of it I didn't understand, some I didn't know how to translate, and some I was just uncomfortable repeating.
You were very clinical in your explanation.
" Blunt was the better word to describe it, but Sullha was trying to be diplomatic with everyone.
"I see." The nurse nodded. "So, here is the simplified version you can tell them.
The venom and the semen must arrive together, and the venom is only made in response to arousal.
They don't have to come from the same male, but they need to come at the same time.
" She snorted. "I guess that would be even more scandalous for you to repeat, so you can skip that part.
It happened only under very specific circumstances: when the female Dormant was mated to a male who had recently transitioned and didn't have active venom glands yet.
Another male supplied the venom at the critical moment. "
If Sullha skipped that part, the women would complain again that her translation sounded much shorter than what the nurse had said. So, she just repeated all of it.
A stunned silence followed.
Saphira, who had been writing in her notebook the whole time, looked up.
"I don't understand. You said that in the old times the bite was enough, and that no sex was required. Did the venom lose its potency over the generations?"
Sullha translated.
"It still works like that for pubescent girls," Hildegard said. "Their bodies are still changing, still malleable, so the venom is enough. Adult women need both vectors to activate their dormant genes."
Saphira nodded. "That's what I thought I understood, but it didn't sound right," she said in heavily accented English this time. "Thank you for explaining."
Hildegard arched a brow. "I thought that Sullha was the only one who spoke English."
"Asira and I speak a little," Saphira said. "Not good enough." She smiled apologetically, then sighed. "It breaks my heart," she switched to the island tongue, "All these girls we left behind could become immortal, but will not unless the clan gets all of them out. Is that ever going to happen?"
"Yes," Sullha said. "Fates willing."
Rohilah arched a brow. "Fates willing? Where did that come from?"
"What do you want me to say, Mortdh willing? The same god who declared females unworthy of immortality?"
"No, of course not," Rohilah murmured. "But the Fates?"
"Why not?" Sullha spread her arms. "The clan believes that the Fates are in charge of people's destinies, and since the Fates were kind to us and brought us out of slavery, I have no problem accepting them as my higher power and thanking them for what they have done for us."
Rohilah nodded. "I'm thankful Bianca will never see the inside of the breeding building. Praised be the Fates?"
"Sounds good to me," Zohara said. "Praised be the Fates."
As the others repeated the phrase, some with less enthusiasm and some with more, the door to Leehy's room opened. Everyone fell silent at the sound of little feet padding toward the living room.
Tomek emerged with an empty glass in his hand. "The chocolate milk is all gone."
"What do we say?" Sullha said in English.
"More, please," Tomek said, to a chorus of approval from women who had been discussing sex and venom moments ago.
After he collected his refill and a cookie, he padded back to Leehy's room and closed the door behind him.
"Now the part you won't like," Hildegard said.
Sullha's stomach dipped. She'd thought they had covered all the uncomfortable parts.
"Some of you may be too old to attempt transition," the nurse continued.
"The transition is not easy on the body.
It takes a tremendous toll. A young, healthy body manages.
An older body, or a sick one, may not. The clan hasn't lost a transitioning Dormant yet, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. "
Sullha's eyes found her mother's as she translated, and there was nothing she could say to soften it. The words were a verdict no matter in which language they were delivered.
Nobody laughed now.
When they'd joked that they were too old to be desired, it hadn't occurred to any of them that desire might not be the problem, but their age might.
"How old is too old?" Leehy asked.
"There's no set number. It depends on your physical condition, and you can improve it with proper nutrition and exercise.
Doctor Bridget will examine you, and Doctor Merlin will design an individual plan for each of you.
He has developed all kinds of elixirs to strengthen the body.
His mate was in her mid-fifties when they met, and he did everything he could to increase her chances of a successful transition. "
That lifted the women's spirits. None of them was older than that, which meant there was still hope for all of them.
"When can I get an appointment with Doctor Merlin?" Zohara asked.