Dragon in the Dark (Kindred Tales)

“I’m, er, very happy for you,” Iyanna said. She was realizing that she hadn’t understood the depths of the Lix’dorians misogyny until just now. “So let me get this straight,” she said to Yanni. “A man can elevate his wife to a higher status, but can he also, uh, demote her? I heard that a husband here can rip his wife’s modesty patches off and then she becomes a pleasure slave again.”

Yannie’s eyes widened.

“Oh yes—that’s true!” she told Iyanna. “In fact, that has happened to several of my friends.” She shook her head. “I feel so sad for them. Once a female is demoted from cherished wife back down to pleasure slave, she can never be elevated again.”

“What—never?” Iyanna demanded. “What if he changes his mind?”

Yanni shook her head.

“He’s not allowed to. By Lix’dorian law, once a female has been stripped of her modesty patches—for whatever reason—she can never be restored to a higher status. To try and elevate her again is considered a crime and it comes with a very high penalty—not just for the woman but for her man as well. So I’m sure you can see why it almost never happens that a man will even try to re-elevate his woman.”

“Yeah, that’s, uh, a pretty harsh law,” Iyanna murmured. She was thinking less and less of Lix’dorian culture by the minute and she hadn’t even cleared their version of customs yet.

At last she reached the head of the line. Ahead of her, Yanni was waved through easily—maybe because she was obviously Lix’dorian.

And then it was Iyanna’s turn. Bracing herself she stepped to the front of the checkpoint, where a bored looking guard with pale blue skin and orange hair was holding what looked like some kind of holo-clipboard. It was being projected from a device on his wrist and he was checking off items with a swoop of one long, pale blue finger.

“Name,” he said, barely looking up at Iyanna.

“Dr. Iyanna Washington,” she said quickly.

“Doctor? As in physician?” The guard looked up from his clipboard, frowning.

“Oh, no,” Iyanna explained hastily. “It’s a title I earned when I got my PhD in Botany—that’s a degree of advanced learning you get after studying a particular subject at a university for years on my planet,” she added, thinking he might not understand.

The guard’s frown deepened.

“Are you saying that females are allowed to go to universities and earn degrees on your planet?”

There was an unmistakable sneer in his voice, as though he’d asked if they taught cats to do math or instructed dogs in how to do ballet on her home world.

“Well…yes,” Iyanna said stiffly. “That’s how we do things on Earth—that’s my home planet.”

“Never heard of it before.” The guard had lowered his clipboard completely now and was glaring at her—not a good sign, Iyanna thought nervously. “And I’ve never seen anyone who looks like you either, female.” he spoke as though her sex was a curse word. “Who do you belong to, anyway?” he snapped, raising one orange eyebrow menacingly.

“I don’t belong to anyone!” Iyanna said, offended at the idea.

“Then why are you dressed as a cherished wife?” the guard demanded.

Suddenly Iyanna understood what he meant.

“My husband, Commander Dra’vik of the Monstrum Kindred, is in the other line,” she said stiffly. She wanted to add that she didn’t belong to the big Drake, but she didn’t think that would go over very well. “He’s just over there—he’s the one with horns and yellow eyes,” she added and turned to point at the line across the room.

But when she looked, Dra’vik was gone from his place in line.

The guard looked with her and then turned back to her, frowning.

“I don’t see any male fitting that description.”

“He was there just a minute ago!” Iyanna exclaimed. “I swear he was—we rode on the shuttle together and shared a seat! Ask the woman who just went ahead of me—Yanni—she and her husband, Yorg, were sitting right across the aisle from us!”

But Yanni and her husband were also long gone, having apparently disappeared down the long, curving corridor that led from the checkpoint to the rest of the spaceport.

The guard shook his head.

“It seems to me you have no one to vouch for you, female. Why did you come here to Lix’dor Prime anyway? Who are you seeing and where are you staying?”

“I…I came to meet the Lix’dorian Minister of Botany,” Iyanna faltered. “He’s got some special plants the Monstrum Mother Ship needs.”

“So you’re telling me a top government official is going to meet with a female?” The guard raised his eyebrows in disbelief and grunted a laugh. “You’re not serious!”

At this point, Iyanna began to lose her temper. She had unfortunately encountered plenty of racism and sexism in her life, and she was usually able to deal with it, but this smirking guard was pushing all her buttons.