Beyond the Stars by Ray Cummings

It was from Sonya that we first learned any tangible details of this new realm. She and I, with Dolores and Alice, were seated by Dr. Weatherby's bedside. Two days had passed. His condition was unchanged. We were sure now that he would never regain consciousness.

The old king too, was more gravely ill than before. He had sent for us so that at his bedside we might take the oath of service. Jim had gone with Ren. The rest of us remained beside the dying doctor. The end would come soon, at any time now, doubtless.

Sonya was talking softly. I turned from the bedside to regard her earnest face.

"This city," she was saying, "we call Kalima. There was an ancient tribe dwelt here; the chief, they thought he was a god, the god Kali. " She was addressing Alice, but now she turned to me. "Our land lies in a great depression of this globe's surface. Once, perhaps, it was the bottom of some great sea. It rises into mountains everywhere. It is not large; we are less than a quarter of a million people. The caves are at the foothills.

"You will hear more of them later. " She had waved aside a question of Dolores'. "On the Great Island, not far from here, is what we call the Village of the Virgins, where now about three hundred of our girls are living in rebellion."

"Rebellion against the government? " I asked.

"Yes. Against the man-made laws. " She smiled her quiet, grave smile. "You have come, you strangers, at a time to find our nation in what we girls think is a condition very grave. You, my friends, will understand very well what we girls are protesting against. And now, with our prince and princess vanished, and our king about to die, the time has come to-"

She checked herself suddenly.

Alice was regarding her with a blue-eyed gaze of quite obvious admiration. Dolores moved over on the low couch; her hand plucked at the hem of Sonya's smock as it lay just above her knees and touched the smooth white metal band that encircled her leg.

"Sonya, what is that? Just for ornament? It's very pretty."

"No," she said. "Not altogether for ornament. Every woman wears one. " She brushed her fingers across it; her smile was quizzical. "It is, in fact, well. it had become almost a symbol of what we girls are striving for. The virgins' band. You see, it is quite unmarked. No man's name is engraved there. I'll explain in a moment."

"Our king, with twenty of his counsellors-my cousin Ren is one of them-rule the nation. They make no new laws. The old laws are good enough for them. The guards, you would call them police, are all the army we have.

"They are all men, young, sturdy fellows who have no thought but to do what they are told. Which is right, of course. It is the laws which are wrong, inhuman. They are very old laws. They have now become customs, traditions, handed down from father to son."

Her tone was suddenly bitter. She gestured with a slim, expressive hand. "I must talk more calmly. These things against which we have now come to open rebellion, were doubtless necessary at the beginning. The laws were made by men who knew no better.

"The difficulty is in the sex of our children. Out of three births, two on the average are females and only one a male. We have, therefore, twice as many females as males-twice as many women as men. Or at least, there would be twice as many if-" She checked herself again.

"Thus we have. I think Ren said that on earth it was termed polygamy. A man may marry more than one woman."

Dolores said impulsively, "Oh, I would not like that! It used to be a custom in many parts of the earth, but there is almost none of it now."

"We girls of this generation do not like it either," said Sonya.

Her voice turned very grave. "What we are rebelling against is far worse. Often our girl children, if they seem not destined to be beautiful, are killed. The father does not wish the expense of too many girls.

"Girls or women are never allowed to work. They must only strive to be beautiful. And when they have at last reached the proper age, to get rid of them by marriage, the father must pay a large tax to the state.