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HIGH COUCH
OF SILISTRA
(RETURNING CREATION)
by
Janet E. Morris
HIGH COUCH OF SILISTRA
A Bantam Book / May 1977
All rights reserved. Copyright © 1977 by Janet Morris
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by
mimeograph or any other means, without permission.
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Herewith I do discharge both the chaldra of the Mother, and that of the Father.
I.
Chaldra of the Mother
I am Estri Hadeath diet Estrazi, former Well-Keepress of Astria on the planet Silistra. I have begun three times to tell
this story, and three times I have been interrupted. This, then, the fourth at-tempt, will surely prove successful.
Perhaps you have heard of Silistra, the planet that was catalyst to the sexual revolution in the year twenty-two
thousand, seven hundred and four Bi-pedal Federate Standard Time, or of the Silistran serums that lengthen life and
restore vitality in virtual-ly any bipedal life form, or perhaps you have at some time contracted the services of a
Silistran telepath, or a precognitive, or a deep reader. It is possible that you haye in your own home the scintillating,
indestructible web-cloth woven by our domestic arachnids, or have seen holograms of our golachits, those intelligent
builder-beatles who exude from their mouths that translucent superhard substance called gol and create from this gol,
under the guid-ance of the chit-guards, the formidable and resplen-dent structures in which we live and work.
And perhaps you have seen no web-cloth, no gol, never been ill, and are not interested in sex. If so, you may never
have heard of Silistra.
I carry Silistra in my mind's eye, here under this alien sun. In my mind alone can I look out the east window of my
beloved exercise hall in Well Astria and see the sun's rising burst upon the jewellike towers
and keeps of the Inner Well and a thousand rainbows arc and dance in the greening sky.
I was Well-Keepress. Seven thousand people thrived under the aegis of my Well. I was sought and celebrated for my
beauty and lineage, for I was great-granddaughter to Astria Barina diet Hadrath, the Well-Keepress who seduced
M'Glarenn, Liaison First for the Bipedal Federation, and changed the sexual habits of bipeds on one hundred and
forty-' eight worlds. I was high-couch in the greatest house of pleasure in the civilized stars. I commanded a great
price.
Any being who was capable of desiring me, I could fulfill. I was fluent in the language and customs of fifty worlds. I
had more than a passing acquain-tance with the other ninety-eight. I was reasonably happy, happier than I knew.
I must speak briefly of chaldra and chaldric chains, for it is chaldra that brought me here, to this strange and
frightening world, so far from all that I hold dear.
It is a Silistran saying that we are all bound, the least of us no more than the greatest, and a Silistran would have it no
other way. The bonds of which the saying speaks are bonds of the spirit, of responsibility and duty and custom, and
these are called chaldra. Upon the body of each Silistran, proudly displayed in twisted belts called chalds, are the thin,
supple, many-colored chaldric chains of precious metals. A Silistran without chaldra is a person bereft of pur-pose and
self-respect, and often such unfortunate in-dividuals, when unable to acquire ennobling chaldra, choose to take on the
chaldra of the soil—by their death gaining that which was denied to them in life%
There is high-chaldra and low-chaldra. An exam-ple of high-chaldra is the chaldra of reproduction, of begetting one
child, no easy task among Silistrans, which is symbolized by the bronze chain before the chaldra is met, and the golden