INTERLUDE
TWO
The intensity of sensation is, of course, the primary lure
of sex, even for those who include the act within their lives only in its
proper place.
I, for some time after my capture, didn't have that luxury.
My mother and father had warned me throughout my youth that
I had to take the “medicine” they gave me without fail—that I was sick, and
that to miss even a single dose could have terrible consequences for me. I
obeyed and never questioned it (odd, since I questioned everything else),
because I loved and trusted them, as children do caring parents.
They, however, never told me what was wrong with me.
Though I’d never seen one, I had, of course, heard about my
kind. All Orions do. The term for “green” is a pejorative in our language. It
means, in various contexts, as you might guess, “animal,” “slut,” and various
other highly complimentary labels. It's a general use word, somewhat like
“fuck” for humans, possessing both virulence and malleability. Greens are dull,
vicious, good for nothing—nothing but sex, that is—and not quite sentient. In
essence, we are a throwback… a sub-species.
Anyone who has read much about the history of Terra’s
interracial relations until the late 21st century is all too
familiar with the above phrases. In some ways, such prejudices have not fully
disappeared today, even on a now “enlightened” Earth—though the pollyannaish
gloss the Federation gives everything might seem to contradict that.
To be green on Rigel, thus, was to be black, or yellow, or
red on Earth, when such things were still a crippling handicap.
You can probably imagine how I felt when awakening the
second day of my captivity to find that, in the absence of my “medicine,” my
skin had darkened to a verdant shade of green. I screamed, and wept, and was
certain that the gods had cursed me for allowing myself to enjoy what I'd
experienced the day before…
…and for not killing myself after I'd been so dirtied.
I had made myself a pariah, I thought, and deserved what
would happen to me.
I
understand now, with the wisdom of adulthood, that my parents were only
attempting to protect me—to allow me my childhood so long as they might. But I
don't think anyone will blame me if I say that it would perhaps have been
better to learn of this truth other than how I did.