Who Needs Men?

by Edmund Cooper

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Post-Apocalyptic sci-fi; Space Opera

Synopsis

IT WAS EXTERMINATION DAY - THE REMAINING MEN WERE TO BE HUNTED DOWN Rura Alexandra, Madam Exterminator, had recently graduated into a 25th century world where men had become biologically less important, where women could reproduce as they wished by cloning and parthenogenesis. Her task was simple - in theory, if not in practice: to wipe out the last few thousand men who had taken refuge in the Highlands of Scotland. But an ambush near Lock Lomond led to rape, and the killing of her fellow-exterminators. And Diarmid MacDiarmid, the last remaining rebel chieftain, proved too much of a fascination . . .

Release date: May 20, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 192

Sample

IT WAS A fine summer morning—perfect for Extermination Day. Rura had the gefcar on medium lift, medium cruise, which was about right for the rugged Cumberland valleys. One hundred and fifty kilometres per hour, one metre above the ground. At that speed, one would be unlikely to encounter any surprises. There was plenty of time to get to the Scottish Highlands and show blood before darkness. In any case, the spotter chopper that circled lazily overhead might report suitable targets long before they got to the Highlands. Some of the regressives were getting bold enough to advance south.

Rura was tired. So, probably, were her companions, Moryn and Olane. The traditional Extermination Eve orgy had been a record breaker. No doubt it would go down in college history as one of the great ones of the twenty-fifth century. Rura could remember making love to three girls. After that, things became hazy. Goddess knew how many girls had then made love to her.

Now the gefcar was hissing along the side of Windermere. Sunlight slanted on the fells, translating hills, rocks and moorland into textures of infinite beauty. On such a day as this … On such a day as this, thought Rura, what a drag it was to have to hunt down men and daub one’s self in their revolting blood. But tradition was tradition. Graduation Day at the College of Exterminators had always involved this symbolic blooding. It was an affirmation of faith, and the end of two years of intensive training.

‘In two more weeks,’ thought Rura, ‘I shall be twenty years old. I shall be entitled to full Womanhood. I shall wear the gold skull and crossbones of a qualified exterminator. Women will desire me. I shall be able to choose.’

Rura felt guilty. She should have been happy. But she felt guilty. Guilty because not happy? Then why not happy? She did not know. She tried to remember the girls she had held and loved. She tried to remember the wide look of surprise in their eyes. She tried to remember lips, breasts, touch, closeness, giving, receiving. But the only thing she could remember was emptiness. Perhaps she had been working too hard.

“Take to the water,” said Moryn. “Darling, take to the water. Let’s make a valley of foam all along Windermere. Let’s make foam in the sunlight. Let’s leave a trail behind us to mark Extermination Day.”

Rura smiled, and swung the ground effect car on to the lake. It had been such a still lake, like a sheet of glass. But now the blast of air from the gefcar gouged into it, flinging up walls of fine spray through which the sunlight made transient rainbows.

Olane looked back at the dying wake. “We write in water, we write in air,” she said strangely. “None of us will ever write in rock.”

Olane was one of the girls that Rura had kissed and held and driven to ecstasy on Extermination Eve. She glanced at her, saw the sadness in her eyes, instantly became depressed.

“Olane, darling, we cannot live for ever.”

“Sometimes,” said Olane, “I think we simply cannot live.”

Moryn sensed the melancholy and combatted it with instant gaiety. “I have a bottle of brandy with me,” she said. “Let us all drink to a fine blooding.”

Rura was surprised. “Alcohol is strictly forbidden on Extermination Day. We could be expelled.”

“Who will know? There will be blood on our faces, and the brandy bottle will be at the bottom of some Scottish loch. Let us drink and be merry, for today we kill.”

Rura spilled her brandy as she pulled away from Windermere and lifted over the mountains. Altogether, there were five gefcars and fifteen novices on the hunt. But no other gefcars were in sight. Only the chopper, circling and hovering like a bird of prey, as indeed it was. Lieutenant Kayt was in the chopper. Rumour had it that she could spot a man at five kilometres.

Olane was hitting the brandy pretty hard. “Darlings, don’t think me silly, but I’m afraid of the blooding. I don’t know why. I’m just afraid.”

Moryn kissed her. “Sweet, there is nothing to be afraid of. I speak truly. There is nothing to be afraid of. The pigs have nothing but swords, knives, spears. Maybe crossbows if they are lucky. We have grenades, we have gas, we have laser guns. So who can harm us?”

“Perhaps we shall harm ourselves.”

“Don’t be silly. Do you hate men?”

“Of course I hate men.”

“Then there is no problem. Kayt will give us a target. We shall blood ourselves and go home. End of Extermination Day. End of two hard years.”

“Two years.” Olane sighed. “I never really wanted to be an exterminator. My mother was ambitious for me. It was what she had always wanted.”

Moryn raised an eyebrow. “You have a womb mother?”

“Don’t be catty,” snapped Olane. “You know I was cloned — one of a four-clone. It doesn’t make any difference. I still think of Siriol as my mother.”

“She is only your clone senior.”

“Rot you! She’s my mother!”

“Children! Children!” soothed Rura. “Are you going to quarrel, today of all days?”

Moryn poured more brandy. “Darling, I’m sorry. If you want Siriol to be your mother, she shall be your mother.”

Olane was contrite. “My fault. I shouldn’t be so edgy. I’ll feel better when this wretched blooding is over.”

“I’m going to call Kayt,” said Rura. “Find out what’s happening.” She flicked the transceiver switch and spoke to the chopper.

In the rear seats of the gefcar, Moryn and Olane relaxed, drank brandy, watched the mountains and moors of Cumberland flash by, looked ahead towards Scotland, impatient to reach the Southern Uplands — the beginning of regressive country. Pig country.

“Kayt says the other four are about ten kilometres ahead of us,” said Rura.

“Damn! They will blood before we do!” Moryn looked at the map. “Rura, let’s take a short cut. Ask Kayt for permission to go over the Solway Firth. If we take the sea route, we can save fifty kilometres.”

Rura conferred with the chopper. “Permission granted. But Kayt says she must stay with the other four. If there are any targets before we rendezvous in the Southern Uplands, the others will get the benefit.”

“Pouff! We’ll find our own targets. You can go flat out across Solway and put us half an hour ahead. We’ll be blooded before the rest get there. Besides, the sea will be lovely this morning. Have some more brandy.”

“No thank you.” Rura was emphatic. “I have to pilot this thing. If the blood on our faces turned out to be our own, we should be the laughing stock of London.”

Rura swung the gefcar in a tight turn, lifting it over the thousand-metre heights of Skiddaw. It was a clear morning. Fifteen kilometres ahead was the sea, blinding in sunlight, beautiful.

With Skiddaw behind, Rura put her foot down. The gefcar leaped forward. One hundred and eighty kilometres per hour. Two hundred. Two hundred and twenty. Maximum speed, medium high lift. It was wonderful to be racing like this on a column of air to the sea.

It was a golden day. What a pity to spoil it with death, even if only the death of a man.

“Goddess be praised,” shouted Moryn, drinking more brandy. “Goddess be praised. We are the élite, the invincibles, the immortals. This day men will die at our hands. I know it. This day we shall remember for ever.”

The sea was not as flat as Windermere. But it was a gentle sea with the lightest of swells. The gefcar pitched a little, but no one was sick. The sea was gold and blue and hypnotic.

Olane began to cry as the coast of Scotland loomed ahead. “I don’t want to kill anyone,” she sobbed. “The day is too lovely for death.”

“You will not be killing anyone,” said Moryn. “You will only be killing men. A man. A man is nothing. A man is an animal. Do you want an animal to lie on top of you? Do you want it to force your legs open, bite your breasts, fill your womb with the seed of destruction?”

“No! No! No!”

“Then listen to me, little one. We shall find our animal. We shall hunt it and kill it. We shall feel its blood upon our faces. And then we shall return to London like conquerors, like true women. We shall be free in our minds and in our hearts. We shall have destroyed the great confidence trick, the million-year degradation.”

“I don’t want to kill.”

“Rest easy. Rura and I will do the killing.”

Rura said, “Shall I follow this river, or shall I turn east to rendezvous with the others?”

Moryn looked at the map. “It is only about thirty or forty kilometres out of our way. Follow the river. Men need fresh water, and — for once — we need men.”

IT WAS PLEASANT skimming up the river in sunshine and with the Scottish hills rearing on either side, thought Rura. It was the sort of day on which one ought to be having a picnic — a lazy picnic on the coast; and afterwards one would swim naked in the sea and then run along the sand and feel salt crystals forming as your flesh dried in the warm air. She sighed. Olane was right. The day was too lovely for death.

The chopper had been out of sight for some time now. It was way over to the east, spotting for the other four gefcars. The odds were that Kayt would find targets for them within the next couple of hours. Then they would blood themselves and turn for home. On the other hand, there was certainly more distinction in finding one’s own target. It would be noted in the log. It would be remembered when the question of promotion arose.

Every now and then, Rura called Lieutenant Kayt for a state of the chase report. There had been one sighting. A solitary, kilted male, lucky enough to be near trees. One gefcar had grounded while the three exterminators had hunted him on foot; but he had passed through the wood and taken to the heather. It was almost impossible to find a man lying in the heather on a Scottish hillside. Impossible and dangerous, for you wouldn’t see him until you trod on him; and then you would have a dirk in your stomach before you could press a trigger.

Moryn had checked the equipment and was now scanning the sides of the river through binoculars. Olane was still hitting the brandy. Poor Olane! She was right. She never would make an exterminator. She didn’t have the temperament. And now she was drinking herself into insensibility; and somehow Rura and Moryn would have to cover for her.

“The river leads to Castle Douglas and then to Loch Carlingwark,” said Moryn. “We are on a good run, Rura. I smell it.”

“What is Castle Douglas?”

“A ghost town. Dead two centuries or more. But there may still be metal in the ruins. The pigs need metal badly. Metal for their dirks and arrowheads, metal for pans for their filthy sows. We shall find targets near Castle Douglas. Bet you twenty Euros.”

“How is Olane?”

“Stinking happy. Let her stay that way. She’s good in bed, but she doesn’t have the stomach for woman’s work.”

Rura glanced at the pilot’s mirror. Olane lay half sprawled along the rear seat, clutching the brandy bottle. She had unbuttoned her black exterminator shirt and bared her breasts. As the gefcar bounced on wavelets, so her breasts bounced. Last night they had been quite lovely breasts, firm, vibrant, responsive. But now the alcohol had slackened them. They were just lumps of flesh on the body of a girl whose eyes rolled, who was afraid to blood herself on a bright day in summer.

“Take the brandy away from her. Moryn, take it away.”

“Screw you, bitch. I heard that,” said Olane thickly. “You were cloned from a pig-lover. Your mother grunted while she was being laid.”

“Take it away from her!”

“Easy, Rura. Easy. We’ll look after her. We’ll put the blood on her face while she is sleeping. She won’t know a thing.”

“I am the pilot of this gefcar. Throw the bottle overboard. That is an order.”

A futile order because, as Rura saw, Olane had almost emptied the bottle.

“Sow, bitch!” screamed Olane. “You had me last night. Wasn’t I good enough? Weren’t my breasts to your liking? Didn’t I do the right things with my tongue?”

“Moryn, take it away.”

Moryn snatched the bottle. Olane feebly protested, then closed her eyes, sank back and began to snore.

“You were stupid to bring it.”

“Darling, how was I to know that Olane was so far gone? Anyway, it will be better for her like this. She won’t know a thing.”

“You planned it!”

“Of course I planned it,” said Moryn. “I love her. Do you hear, I love her! You may have laid her, but I love her.”

“All right, Moryn. I receive the message loud and clear … We are still friends.”

“We are still friends.”

“Then find us a bloody target. The day is going sour.”

Moryn took the glasses once more and searched the banks of the river.

Time passed, the sun beat down. Despite air-conditioning, the gefcar was getting stuffy. Rura lowered the windows, letting the warm Scottish breeze and the cold Scottish spray refresh her. Olane groaned in her stupor. Moryn searched the banks with ferocious intensity.

“I can smell the pigs. They are somewhere around; but I can’t see them. The trouble is, they can hear us coming.”

“I’ll cut down to thirty k.p.h.,” said Rura. “At that speed, it is barely more than a whisper.”

“Blood and afterbirth,” said Moryn. “If we don’t find something soon, we’ll have to go back to the herd.”

But even as she spoke, the gefcar swung round a sharp bend in the river; and there was a sudden brief glimpse of movement on the left bank. Movement in the heather.

“Tally ho!” shouted Moryn. “Pigs for the sticking! Ten o’clock high. Put your fo. . .