Contre nodded. “Don’t worry! Soon you will be back on duty!” He turned and sailed triumphantly from the room.

Bucacis turned her head and watched Contre exit. “I can’t get over how much he improves a social situation just by leaving.”

Coloratura, surprised, barked out a laugh. “You’re the first Maker I’ve ever heard criticize someone’s social skills!”

Bucacis smiled. “Healers have to be a bit more socialized than most to even consider a career in medicine. People need a lot of coddling when they are sick.”

“Contre does not seem to feel that way.”

Bucacis shrugged. “He’s really more of a researcher than a Healer. He was one of the lead developers on you Goldens. That’s why he’s here, in case something unexpected happened.”

“Like it did.”

“The Master likes to plan for all contingencies.”

Bucacis cocked her head to one side and examined Coloratura. “I think we need to talk. Do you like Ai and cookies?”

“Extra sweet?”

“Of course!”

Coloratura smiled. “Yes, I suppose I could force myself.”

Bucacis spoke into her communicator for a moment, pulled up a chair and sat next to the table. Coloratura squatted in the tripod stance, staring into the Maker doctor’s brown eyes. “So. You think we need to talk. About what?”

Bucacis leaned back. “Like I said, I am a Healer. Unlike Contre, I noticed you seemed to be more than a little distressed by what he said. Do you want to talk about it?”

Coloratura hesitated.

Bucacis raised her hand. “I understand you are afraid I would use what you say to keep you here, where you could not harm anyone. Let me assure you if I thought you were a threat to yourself or others, I would do just that. But I doubt very much that will happen. I think you would insist on being locked up if you thought you were a threat to your crewmates. You did an eight-day ago. I think you would do it again, if you had to.”

Bucacis leaned forward, meeting Coloratura’s gaze unflinchingly.

“So. Something is bothering you. Sometimes it helps to talk about things. We call it ‘the talking cure’. What is bothering you, Coloratura?”

Coloratura’s hands wrestled each other for several minutes while Bucacis waited patiently. “It’s . . . it’s about sex . . .”

“Hm. How so?”

“Before today, I thought sex, mating, having children was civilized, gentle, loving. I thought the way Makers conducted their sex lives was, well, silly and time consuming, that the way Singers did things was far superior.”

Coloratura struggled against breaking down into tears for a few moments before continuing.

“Then I found out sex for us is brutal, murderous, not playful and funny like it is for you Makers. I found out if another woman, any other woman stood between me and my having sex with a man, any man, I would fight her, kill her if I could. I found out when I was in heat, I would kill my best friend, my sister, my mother, even my daughter, if I had one, to have sex with some stranger, or with a group of strange men.”

Coloratura took a deep breath before spitting out “And I found out that is normal for my kind.”

Coloratura bowed her head and was silent for a moment. “I found out we had been killing our kinswomen and being killed by them for millions of years before someone found out how to control the monster in our genitals!”

Coloratura began to keen in grief, rocking back and forth. “I found out everything I thought I knew about love, about mating, about us is just a pretty lie!”

Bucacis leaned forward. “No! Not a lie! Merely . . . incomplete. Let me ask you a few questions. I understand you have a younger sister?”

“Y . . . yes, Dugazon.”

“Do you remember what happened before she was born?”

“Well . . . Mom and Dad explained there would soon be a new member of our family, but they had to go away for a while to make the baby. I . . . I wanted to go with them, but they explained only the mother and father could go and make the new baby. They said I had to stay behind for an eight-day or two and let the staff at the Embassy take care of me and my older sister. Mom was Ambassador to the Makers then, and she had the Assistant Ambassador fill in while she was gone.”

“How did she act towards the other Singer females?”

“Like . . . like always. Friendly, cheerful, helpful. Professional.”[WD1] 

“I’ve done a bit of research on this subject; I find it fascinating. Your anti-heat drugs, the ones you have been using since shortly after the Mastery formed, are long lasting but can be neutralized within hours. Once neutralized, the female goes into heat. If, if there is another female Singer close enough for her to perceive, she would go into a frenzy, drive off or kill the other female. But if there is no other female, and only one male in the immediate area, she immediately . . . I believe the best phrase is ‘gets down to business’. So, since you have had even the earliest anti-heat drugs, a mated pair goes into isolation, waits for the drug to either wear off or be neutralized and then breeds with their chosen mates. Once pregnant and for several years thereafter, the female Singer does not go into heat again. You Singers have been very cautious, very careful. There have been occasional incidents such as happened to you, but they are rare, almost non-existent.”

Bucacis reached across the table and held one of Coloratura’s massive hands in both of hers.

“I very much admire the determination, the drive, the genius of your ancestors. Even before some unknown medicine woman created the first anti-heat drug, you tried to control your madness. Did you know that the earliest villages your archeologists can find had a multitude of containment cells, just large enough for two adult Singers? We speculate that when they were not in heat, they realized the necessity of preventing themselves from murdering each other. They came up with the idea of isolating the females in heat from each other and imprisoning them with a mate chosen when they were not in heat. Before the Master modified you Singers to have a longer life, your females experienced something called menopause; at a sufficiently advanced age they no longer went into heat. We suspect these elder females, aided perhaps by immature Singers, pregnant or recently pregnant females and surplus males, kept the breeding pairs locked away, isolated. They fed them, watered them, and released them when the madness passed. Since before your history began, you have been fighting the monster in your genitals, and you have won!”

The door to the isolation room slid open and a med-droid rolled in carrying a tray with two large dishes full of cookies, a large pot of Ai and two cups, one Maker sized, one Singer sized. Bucacis picked up one dish full of cookies and slid half of them onto the other dish. She paused for a second, and then half of the remainder followed. “For you. Eat!”

“Oh, no! That’s too much for me! Take some back!”

Bucacis laughed. “You’ve been starving yourself for the last five days. Eat your cookies! Doctor’s orders!”

Bucacis poured some hot Ai into the two cups and leaned back, nibbling on a cookie and smiling while Coloratura, at first hesitantly, then with increasing fervor began to devour her cookies, washing them down with mouthfuls of steaming Ai.

Both women were silent until most of the cookies and half of the Ai were gone.

Coloratura spoke first. “I do feel better. Thank you.”

“Just doing my job. But . . . you’re welcome. I’m glad I could help you.”