Illoia collapsed into bed. She had been informed that she was not experienced enough to stand night watch over the patients so she, and most of the others, had left and she had gotten to freshen in the male fresher, which had been set on a timer for male versus female use, and the come gratefully, if still reluctantly, to bed.
“My husband?” she asked, after the two had lain side by side for a few minutes, Tom staring at the ceiling and humming, and Illoia trying to recollect her thoughts after the very, very full day.
“Yes?”
“When you… back in the med room, you said you spoke an oath?”
“Yes?”
“What was it? What did it mean?”
There was a long pause, and then Tom said, “It means… it means, ‘Now you are mine, and my grip will be cold before one can take you from me. If I be hot, they shalt be dead.' oath”
Illoia cried, overwhelmed. Tom awkwardly held her but said nothing. Only humming.
“Tom?” she asked again, “Do you know, how were these rescued?”
“As part of the attack against us. I have some friends in a scout unit near here and I warned them to be ready. When things heated up they took advantage of the confusion and marked an alien base where we knew they had taken these prisoners. The rescue squad flew in and got them back.
Most of the rest of the scouts were pretty busy, too, and we destroyed at least twelve more bases. Overall a good day.”
“I don’t understand,” Illoia said. “If we’re more powerful than they are, why can’t we just win?”
“We aren’t more powerful than they are. If anything they are much more powerful than we are. But they are more… disorganized than we are. They operate like an old Earth ant colony. Very efficient, very productive, but no long range planning or truly coordinated action. On the large scale. On a small scale they are supremely coordinated.”
“They are more powerful than we are?”
“Yes. They have an extremely efficient system. Again, like old Earth ants. They move somewhere, build, breed, fill the area, and move somewhere else. They live with the area they live in. Their only weakness as far as that goes is they are reluctant to live anywhere too hot or too cold for them. They wear armor to protect them from our attacks but are very reluctant to wear clothes just to live.”
—
Illoia opened one bleary eye and looked at her comp. And then opened both eyes, wide. It was late! She had overslept! She had missed her sim time and… but then her scrolling finger showed her that her sim had been canceled, as had her wake up call. By her husband, of course. No one else had that authority.
She got up and headed off to the fresher simmering with anger. It was just like him to do that. Who knows why? An executive decision about her tiredness level? Concern about the adoption? A response to yesterday’s medical work? All good reasons, but he could have told her! Discussed it with her!
“Illioa?” she heard, and turned to see her mother.
“Mother!” she said, running forward and hugging her.
“Lia?” she heard and she looked down to see several of her sisters and brothers following their mother down the hallway.
“Look at you all!” she said, for each of her siblings was in their own uniform. A couple of minutes later she was done hugging them. “Are you all going off to the fresher? “ she asked. “We only have a few minutes before it shifts back to being men only. Then we can do breakfast.”
“So, tell me about this man you married,” her mother said, an hour later, when they all finally sat at breakfast. Illoia had forgotten how long it could take to get a bunch of littles through the fresher, dressed, and off to breakfast. And that was with them all wearing uniforms. Heaven forced that they had needed to dress in formal dress.
“Well, he’s a hero…”
“I know that part,” her mother said. “Tell me who he is, personally!”
“Impossible!” Illoia said. “Outside of being a hero, brilliant with military affairs, and beloved by the lower ranks… he is impossible. Like this morning, when he just canceled my morning routine without telling me.”
“After yesterday I’m not surprised.”
“He should have asked me!”
“Woken you up to ask you if you wanted to sleep in? Be serious, Illoia.”
“OK, so maybe that’s not the best example. But he is annoyingly anti-social.”
“Yes, I read that in his profile. That makes you a rather good fit, since you are excellent at social functions.”
“That’s not the point, Mother!”
“What is the point, then?”
“Aren’t new brides allowed to complain about their husbands?”
“It is traditional, I suppose, but I don’t think it is very helpful. And I don’t think you have all that much to complain about, from what I’ve seen.”
“I’m not pregnant yet.”
“Oh, and is that his fault?”
Illoia blushed, “Well, no. The med techs say both of us are OK… and, yes, he’s been doing his duty.”
“It’s only been seven months, dear. And you have had a very stressful time. The female body doesn’t like that. And it isn’t his fault…”
“He isn’t making it easier! He never explains anything! He just leaves everything for me to figure out.”
“And if he did explain everything you would be complaining about that. What is really bothering you, my daughter is that you are used to being in control, and marriage changes all of that. And this marriage more than most. Back home you could have treated your husband as an accessory… or perhaps you believed you could have. It doesn’t really work like that, not with a good marriage, anyway.”
“With a good marriage you are both all in. You lose control… in one sense. But you gain everything else. Children, a new place in society, the place you were designed for. And you gain a husband. The most important person in your life.”
“Until I have children, maybe,” Illoia aside. “You know the saying, … husbands are for enduring…”
“That is a horrible saying.”
“You told me once it was true!”
“It is true, but it isn’t the whole truth. It is only one small portion of the truth. Indeed it is sort of intended to get at the very issue you are struggling with. You want control. You would like to remodel your husband in the image you have for him. Altho if you ever did so you would then despise him for being such a mollycoddle as to let you do that to him.
That very bad phrase is meant to express the truth that that is not what having a husband is about. That a husband is not meant to be changed, but ‘endured’. Or, better, to be loved, and served, with the gifts and talents that he has, not the ones he wishes he had, or the ones you want to give him.
You are behaving the fool, Darling. Most lasses, including pretty much all of your spoiled rich set, would give their left arms to have a husband like yours: brave, smart, respected, with honor and power from the dictator himself. Don’t think we haven’t heard all of the rumors… and had several of them confirmed to us, directly, by the Ash. You need to get off your pretty little bottom and start honoring your husband.
Illoia stared at her mother. They had had many ‘frank discussions’ but never one quite this frank. Or, rather, well… yes, they had, but they had been over more juvenile issues, not how she was to treat the man who was sleeping with her.
“Now, I’m sorry that you haven’t conceived yet. But I am pleased that you have adopted, at any rate. I did some asking around, and that was a brilliant move, however you arrived at it. The lower ranks, yes, they will love you for it. But I found out that even the upper ranks have a very fundamental respect for any soldier who adopts a war orphan. But you will have to do a good job at it. And that will be difficult. Have you seen him yet today?”
“No, no, I had just gotten up when you met me in the hallway.”
“Well, let’s go do that. I am his grandmother, after all, and these are all his new aunts and uncles and all.” She raised her voice, “Children, hurry and finish eating. We need to go see your new nephew.”
Article 17
Article 17 is a military science fiction story with aliens and romance. It is set in a future reminiscent of Napoleon era Britain. The war was going very poorly until the military installed a dictator. This story follows one of the dictator’s great men: Cladin Tomirosh, Leader, and thrice decorated hero.
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Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!
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Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von