A Question of Culture Read online

deleterious means just to engage in her preferred activity.” He paused, gazing at me expectantly.

  “Yeah?” I tried to prompt. Thresh narrowed his eyes.

  “You don’t find that fascinating?”

  I shrugged hesitantly.

  “Not really. There’s historical precedent for using cross-dressing as a method for engaging in activities seen as gender non-conforming. Women dressing as men to join the military, men dressing as women for theatrical purposes. It’s pretty common.”

  “Among human populations,” he specified.

  “Yeah, among humans,” I agreed.

  “And have you taken even a moment to examine why that may be the case?”

  “Not really.”

  “That’s a shame. Because, honestly, to build your social hierarchy on the presence or absence of a single chromosome is a bit...un-enlightened, don’t you think? Seems humans could do a bit better than that.”

  “Now that’s not entirely fair.” I set down my water glass hard in protest.

  Thresh leaned back and probably would have raised an eyebrow if he had them. He had some very difficult facial expressions to read.

  “Humans aren’t some...monolithic tribe of savages. We’re a population of many many billion spread across five worlds with a handful of subspecies and I don’t even know how many millions of cultures and sub-cultures and counter-cultures and ethnic and racial groups. And not a one is identical to another. Differences in social structures and mores and...just...everything. Religion, political and judiciary systems, economies...it’s just….you’re an anthropologist! A scientist. And you’re really going to sit there and make the sweeping generalization that because one girl was pressured into non-compliance that ALL humans are...I don’t know...socially backward? Elves ostracize members of their community all the time for having ‘genetic impurities,’ and yet they’re held up as some kind of paragon of reason and scientific progress.”

  He waved a hand at me.

  “In my defense, I personally made no such claims. I find the general pseudo-eugenic philosophies of wood elves to be equally repugnant, if not more so.” He continued waving his hands as he tried to come up with the words he wanted. “And, contrary to popular belief, they actually make terrible research scientists. For all their-uh-elitism and scientific imperiousness they’re too intransigent as a whole. A scientist has to be flexible. Willing to explore new ideas.”

  “And yet, here you are, making broad generalizations. How is that any better?”

  “Yes, my assumptions may be broad, but they’re based on observed data. I, also, don’t try to impose my views on species and cultures other than my own through legislation and economic dependency. There are elven settlements that will detain you for breaking dress code, even if you’re just passing through. At our very own library, there was a policy on the books for years that barred humans from checking out elven language texts and vice versa. That’s the kind of social isolationism we’re talking about.”

  I chuffed despite my lingering irritation with his assumptions about humanity. Commiserating about elves was too easy a trap to fall into.

  “Yeah. I know. Do you know how long that Dewey-Cutter system changeover was in the queue? It was the four elven board members. They were convinced that the High Carolean system was inherently better because it was elven, completely ignoring the fact that it was perfected for elven language libraries, which, of course, Tomar Library, is not.”

  And then, thankfully, the conversation went somewhere else. A few shared stories of unfavorable encounters with elven kind, then something interesting he had discovered about anthropomorphic renderings of fertility in a pre-writing civilization. I wasn’t sure. It all became a blur.

  Two weeks later, I was called into the director’s office.

  “What in the seven realms of hell did you do?” she asked me by way of introduction to the matter at hand.

  “I don’t know?” I replied, taking a seat in the big leather chair across the desk from her.  

  “There was a meeting this morning and Gor or Scholar or whatever Thresh is going to be partly moving in over at Thessaloniki. He needs to use our labs and resources to do research on some of the mysterious discoveries he made this summer. It’s all very clandestine.” She sighed in exasperation.

  “I’m being told about this for a reason, aren’t I?”

  “He insists he needs an assistant.”

  I melted down into my chair.

  “No no no no no noooooooooo.” I dragged out that last one out as long as I could. “Really? Do I have a choice in the matter?”

  “Technically yes. I strongly suggest you not turn it down, though. It’s a raise and a promotion. You might be alright with rejecting it for personal reasons, but it will go into your employee record that you turned down a lucrative position. If in a few years you want to move into another position, there might be a question of your ambition.”

  “You’ve met Thresh, right? I’m not unreasonable in not wanting to work under him. We had a fairly enjoyable lunch, but I don’t think anyone could do that every day.”

  “I heard about that, actually, and I suspect that is the very reason you’ve been put into this position to begin with. What did you talk about? Did you bond over something?”

  So I wouldn’t have to look her in the eye, I looked at the director’s ears...her pointed ears...her elven, pointed ears. I felt a change of heart coming on. I bit the flesh on the inside of my bottom lip to keep from smirking. I coughed to keep the smile out of my voice.

  “When-er-would I need to report for duty?”

  Other works by this author

  The Latolan Series

  A Red Ring of Light

  Connect with Ashe Thurman

  I really appreciate you reading my work! Here are my social media coordinates:

  Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/pixelsandpins

  Visit the Latolan blog for illustrations, updates, and more: latolan.wordpress.com