Chapter Eleven

• “Yesterday morning I went to the doctor. Was taken, by a Guardian”
• “The snakes and the sword are bits of broken symbolism left over from the time before.”
• “At neck level there’s another sheet, suspended from the ceiling. It intersects me so that the doctor will never se my face. He deals with a torso only.”
• ““Any pain, honey?” He calls me honey.”
• “I almost gasp: he’s said a forbidden word. Sterile. There is no such thing as a sterile man any more, not officially. There are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren, that’s the law.”
• “Give me children, or else I die. There’s more than one meaning to it.”
• “It’s genuine, genuine sympathy; and yet he’s enjoying this, sympathy and all.”
• “He could fake the tests, report me for cancer, for infertility, have me shipped off to the Colonies, with the Unwomen. None of this has been said, but the knowledge of his power hangs nevertheless in the air”
• “Why am I frightened? I’ve crossed no boundaries, I’ve given no trust, taken no risk, all is safe. It’s the choice that terrifies me. A way out, salvation.”