And she was now paying for it.
Dr. Catterly informed her that she believed the planet's
gravity was slightly lighter than Earth but it was small comfort to a spacer.
The gravity was still heavier than what Williams was used to in space.
“Come on, you’re almost there.”
Williams looked up to the top of the hill where Kettle was
waiting. It has been 3 days since she first saw the woman and since then Kettle
had been the 3 survivors’ guide to their strange new world. Seeing her at the
top of the hill, Williams couldn’t help but wonder how Kettle managed to get up
there so quickly. Looking at Kettle’s pink jacket, black baggy pants, scarf,
veil and straw conical hat, Williams (not for the first time) couldn’t help but
wonder how she could be so comfortable in such a comical outfit.
Although her spacesuit has been dirtied, Williams had
refused all attempts to wear the strange outfit of the locals and was currently
wearing her sport top and short shorts. She had been wearing them underneath
her spacesuit and she was glad of it. She knew that it had scandalized the
locals when she said she would be going out in the outfit but they had been
gracious hosts and accepted her request. There was just no way she was going to
wear the conical hat and veils of the locals.
Looking at Kettle however did make Williams realize just how
close to the top of the hill she was. Ignoring the fire in her calves and back,
Williams pushed on.
The moment she reached the top, the breeze hit her almost
immediately.
Williams' gaze drifted out and saw, to her immense surprise,
an ocean. The golden light of the sun shone brightly on the ocean and Williams
found that she could not look away from it. It took a while before she
recovered.
“What…is that a sea?” Williams did not care if her shock was
evident in her voice. She never realized they were so close to the ocean. “There
are oceans on this world?”
“Of course,” Kettle said. “Fishing is one of the main
sources of food here. Look over there!”
Williams look where Kettle was pointing. Although she did
not have a watch, she figured that it had been an hour since they had set out on
the walk and the hill she was on offered a good view of the landscape. Williams
could see that the city they had been in was small and that not only was the
city close to the sea, there was also a winding river that cut through the
city.
“That’s the Kami
River. We use it both for
power and to travel into the interior.” Kettle looked at Williams and Williams
could sense that she was smiling behind her veil. “Beautiful, isn’t it? I love
this view.”
Williams couldn’t help but nod her head in agreement. A spacer
she may be but even she could appreciate the view. Not only that, her body was
glistening with the sweat from the long walk and the cold breeze from the sea was
welcome against her face and skin.
Williams looked around the hilltop and saw that outside the
path where they walked up, there was another bigger path on the other side of
the hill. However they were the only ones up there. She was surprised and kind
of glad no one else was up there with them.
“Yes, this is great.” Williams replied to Kettle. “But next
time, let’s drive here. This walk is too much for me.” Williams’ laugh was cut short
by the horror in Kettle’s eyes. “Uh,,,did I say something wrong?”
“Wo…women don’t drive. We walked!”
For the first time, Williams could hear angry in Kettle’s
voice and she could not understand why. “What do you mean? Women don’t drive
here? We’re not allowed to?”
“No, it’ll be wrong. Only men drive.”
“But…that’s..,” Williams tried to think of the right word to
use here. “That’s so strange. Everyone drives where I come from. Don’t you ever
want to drive before?”
“No,” Kettle’s left no room to debate on that. “Women suffer
the whip, we do not take it!”
The conversation was getting stranger and stranger for
Williams but before she could make a bigger fool of her self, she heard the
sound of creaking wheels. She looked at the other side of the hill and saw the
strangest thing she had ever seen.
A man and a woman had come up to the hilltop from the other path
and both of them were staring at her. Williams was staring right back.
The woman was in a black bodysuit with red knee high boots
and she was pulling a cart that a man was sitting in. For a few seconds, the
duo was just staring at Williams but the man recovered. He cracked the whip in
his hand and Williams twitched when she heard the sound of the whip hitting the
woman.
The women quickly got back to pulling the cart and as they
got closer to Williams, she managed to get a good look at them. Williams saw
that the black bodysuit on the woman was total with only an open hood for her
face. It reached from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet, leaving
only her face uncovered. However she was wearing some sort of harness around
her head that locked a bit across her mouth. At the end of the mouth bit were 2
leashes that the man in the cart was holding. Williams immediately understood
the leashes were actually reins that the man used to control the woman pulling
the cart. As they went pass her, Williams couldn’t take her eyes off them and
belatedly saw that the man in the cat was wearing a tunic with a pair of normal
pants.
The duo ran to the other side of the hilltop where the man
pulled on the reins to stop the woman. The woman knelt on the ground and
lowered the poles of the cart. The man, reins in hand, got up from the cart and
guided the woman to a rail like an animal. He then put the leashes onto the
rail. Williams then realized the rail was a hitching rail.
Shaking, she turned to Kettle who was looking at her with
eyes of concern.
“Are you alright?” Kettle asked. “You suddenly looked pale.”
Williams quickly realized she was having problems breathing.
Taking a few breaths, she asked, “What is that?” Williams pointed at the duo.
She saw that the man was now wiping the woman’s face with a towel and the woman
looked like she was loving every moment of it.
“What’s what?” Kettle asked.
“What’s that?” Williams asked again, this time with more
heat in her voice. “That woman was pulling that man like an animal! What do you
call that?”
Even with the veil covering the lower half of her face,
Williams could see that Kettle had no idea what’s wrong with the picture.
Finally giving up, Kettle shrugged her shoulders and said a word that bought
the world down on Williams, “Transportation?”
