She sat down with us, and Chili asked her what the next step would be.
“It’s all been planned,” she replied. “First, we’ll mount a saturation publicity campaign announcing that population stasis has been reached. Since this has been forecast by politicians and proliferators for the past century, it will surprise no one and mollify many. We will announce that the population has crested and is now beginning to decline, very slowly. Newssheets will cover this event. There will be interviews with prominent pronatalist officials and religious leaders telling us how gratified they are. Our polls indicate that virtually all humans will be delighted with the news.
“At the end of the first year, population will indeed have declined by between one and two percent. We will issue frequent glowing reports on how well this is going. We do not plan any outreach effort among those who are infertile, but every childbirth will serve to identify those who are immune. The immunes must be provided with intensive reeducation. Meantime, the two-three-four rule will continue to be observed. Outshipment will continue.”
“Must it?” I asked, a little fretfully, I’m afraid.
Sister Lorpa’s faceplate turned toward me. “Your government has contracts with the Federation and the Combine. Unless you want a war of retribution, those contracts must be honored…”
“Well then, if outshipment is to proceed, will intensive education really be necessary?” I wondered aloud.
She did not answer, for we were being approached by a tall, dark man dressed in velvets, brocades, and gems.
“Sister Lorpa,” he said, half bowing.
“Delegate from Chottem, Von Goldereau d’Lornschilde,” she said, turning toward me as if to introduce me.
He did not wait for this. “May I once again plead with your people to find my kinswoman, the heiress of Bray! She would be an adult woman now, some twenty Earth-years old! She is needed in Bray, and if she no longer lives, then evidence of that is needed in Bray! Our economic future depends upon it!”
Sister Lorpa said expressionlessly, “We are aware of your concerns, Delegate. Be assured, if we can assist in finding your kinswoman, we will do so.”
He half bowed again and nodded to Chili, totally ignoring me.
“You asked about the need for education,” Sister Lorpa said, when he had departed. “Delegate d’Lornschilde is from Chottem. He is a descendent of the founders of that colony, and he is claimant to the estate of Stentor d’Lorn, which, in truth, represents a large part of the gross planetary wealth. He pretends he doesn’t care about the estate. At every meeting he urges us to find Stentor’s granddaughter and return her to Bray! It is all pretence and bluster; his real interest is in finding evidence of her death so he can claim the estate, for, like the rest of his family, he is interested in nothing but money and power. Despite the fact that he and all his kinfolk had to leave Earth because Earth had been destroyed by money and power, he has already asked the Dominion Central Authority for permission to exceed the population limits set for Chottem, excusing this on the basis that construction creates many of their jobs, which means more profit for him.
“Earth listened to that ‘we have to make room’ kind of nonsense for hundreds of years, and look where Earth is now! That man has taken no lesson from it. Human beings are incapable of learning anything outside their own lifetimes! We fight against this disability constantly! Oh, if only…” She sighed. “Well, ‘if only’ butters no beans, as you humans used to say.”
“Sister, you’re not going to tell the people of Earth about the sterilant, are you?” I asked, unthinking. I put my hand over my mouth. “Oh, forgive me…”
“There is nothing to forgive. No. We will not tell them. Siblinghood has a definition of evil that our group has tried to keep in mind during our deliberations. ‘To cause any creature willful pain is evil; to pretend that another sentient creature cannot feel pain is evil; to enjoy the pain of another, sentient or insentient, is ultimate evil.’ We would be causing willful pain if we told them; we would be committing evil if we allowed the slaughter of mankind through our own inaction. The population drop will not be sudden. Those who die will be those one would expect to die, the aged, victims of accidents, the chronically ill. The human population will dwindle gradually over the next century, slightly over one percent of the original population per year, with only a tiny fraction of that number being born. At some point, when living conditions have improved, we will set the record straight for future generations.”
I asked, “What about those who want to have children and can’t?”
The mirrored hood turned in my direction, showing me my own troubled face. “Some couples may be disappointed not to have children, but in most cases they will not speak of it, and neither will anyone else. It has been a long time since any pregnant woman showed herself in public on Earth. Since the plague, the war, and the Lifer-Limiter uprising of ’81 and ’82, people on Earth have not spoken of reproductive matters except behind closed doors, and very rarely even then.”
She was perfectly right. People would not speak of it. They would be glad to have a little more water in their ration, a little different food to eat. Perhaps two “admit-to-the-park” permission slips each year instead of only one.
Sister Lorpa left us, and I asked Chili something that had been on my mind since the session. “What is this Siblinghood everyone refers to?”
She frowned, shaking her head. “They don’t define it. One gets the impression it’s a kind of lodge or secret society that does very technical, scientifically advanced work. It has both humans and Gentherans as members, and it is alleged to have members from other races as well. Their financing is secret. Their work is secret. When they have something to offer, they offer it. They’re the ones who found out why mankind always destroys his environment…”
“What?” I demanded in astonishment. “There’s a known cause?”
Chili gritted her teeth. “Margaret, forget I mentioned it! Remember, you’re under a vow of silence. Yes, there is a reason, but it’s not to be mentioned. You may learn of in time.”
She returned to the table as the group reconvened, and several Gentherans spoke of the plans for rehabilitation of Earth. Much of it would be done by the Gentheran-Human Rehabilitation Corps, a body organized by the Siblinghood (here they were again). As soon as five percent of housing space opened up in any city, people would be moved into that space from suburbs of that city. The suburbs, when emptied, would be razed, highways leading to them would be removed, the land would be reseeded and reforested. These would be enormous jobs, so we were told, that would offer full employment to anyone wishing to work. Merely replanting desert provinces such as those formerly known as Brazil, Canada, Central Africa, and Indonesia would occupy several centuries’ worth of effort.
Since cities were more efficient and easier to maintain as habitat than extensive, land-consuming suburbs, they would continue to absorb smaller urbs until all of them were gone. As space opened up in the cities, dwellings would be consolidated, and buildings would be razed to create parklands within the cities themselves, so that no dwelling would be far from open, green space. Outside the cities, reclaimed land would not be farmed until the population had dropped to the point that some or all of the algae factories could be closed.
Eventually, dairy animals would be returned to Earth, they said, and the seas would be restocked with fish and other living things. “It is possible even whales may be restored in time,” a Gentheran said, visibly moved by the idea. “We have the genetic information, and it is not beyond our capabilities. When natural space is restored, human people will be allowed to wander through it at will, so long as they do so on foot or on muscle-powered vehicles, taking with them only what they can carry. The use of destructive, noisy machinery for recreational purposes must become anathema to humans, as unthinkable as eating one’s young.”
We were referred to the reports and studies supporting the plan, and to the specifications for each separate area, availab
le in the document department together with a timeline of the expected stages of rehabilitation. I was not allowed to see or receive the documents, of course, just as I was not allowed to take notes or speak with anyone about what I had learned. All very strange and frightening.
The most frightening part, however, came the following day. The other three students who had attended the meeting were not in class. It took me only a split second to decide it would be inappropriate to ask where they were. Later that day, the Provost sent for me, and I found her sitting at her desk, looking rather pale.
“You wanted to see me, Provost?”
“We have had a…great loss,” she said. “I wanted you, particularly, to know of it. It seems the others of your class who attended yesterday’s meeting announced to one of the participants that they intended to tell the media what had occurred there.”
I started to exclaim, and she put up her hand. “Please do not inadvertently mention anything that did occur.”
I swallowed. “I would not do so, Provost. Perhaps my classmates thought the secrecy agreement did not…apply to them.”
“No rule or standard has applied to them since birth,” she said. “Great wealth breeds great arrogance, Margaret. Some months ago, each of the three was handpicked by the Directors to take junior but very important posts at Earthgov after graduation. If I were of a suspicious nature, I might guess that those three were picked to attend yesterday’s meeting in order that their arrogance could be assessed under…controlled conditions.”
“But…surely I wasn’t picked for that reason.”
“No,” she said. “Someone else picked you, and before you ask, I am not to say who it was.”
Though I had imagined Bryan’s face if I told him what had happened, I was not about to commit suicide. I would, however, have given a great deal to have been enlightened. The thought that I, Margaret, had been picked by someone(s) to attend a meeting I couldn’t talk about, that I, Margaret, knew what was going to happen to Earth, a secret known only to a handful of other people, was terrifying, and not the least of the terror was that there was no possible, ascribable reason why I should be involved at all!
I Am Ongamar/on Cantardene
Adille, the K’Famira, had said she would not wear the necklace again, yet it hung across her throat pouch the next day, seeming rather larger than before. She wore it the day after that, also, moving restlessly about the house as though something troubled her.
“Let’s go for a walk,” she demanded. We went out into the city, and I followed Adille’s restless feet here and there, without direction, pausing wherever voices were raised or threatening gestures were made. A few days later, Adille dragged me to a public execution, which Adille had always sworn was only for rabble. I hid my face in my lap, winding my arms around my head to keep from hearing the accused screaming as his lower arms and legs were lopped off. It was not mere horror I was hiding from, it was the pain itself that I felt, no matter how I hid my eyes. The day after that we attended the baiting of a dozen traitors’ families by wild klazaks, the sand of the arena running green and a dozen or more young K’Famira ululating from quivering pouches as the klazaks tore first the traitorous parents, then the young…
“Please don’t make me go,” I begged her the following day. “It hurts me, Great Lady. It hurts me to see people killed.” I was taking a risk in saying it wasn’t mere dislike, that it was torment? “I feel it…it hurts…”
“I know, I know,” Adille said distractedly. “Of course, yes, but I must…I must see it. Or something. Something different. Something new. I must…”
“You always said the executions were for the rabble,” I cried. “Are we not rabble if we watch?”
“I don’t know,” Adille said, her mouths set in ugly lines. “But I must. I must. And it wants you with me.”
Bargom disapproved of her wearing the necklace. He told Adille it was ruining her appearance, making her look old and tired. Several times he tried to take the necklace away, but he could not approach it. Each time he tried, he found himself headed out the door, away from it. In the end, he went out the door and simply kept going. During all this time, Adille complained that the beads grew heavier, until they achieved such a weight they could no longer be worn.
Then the sharing began. Adille explained it. She had to go out and find the things the necklace wanted to see, always in my company, then she had to return and lay hands upon the necklace to let it see the horrors through her memory. Mornings we went, and nights. Adille grew too weak to force me to go with her, but still she went alone, returning to lay hands upon the necklace, to which I was now inexorably drawn so that I, too, heard, saw, smelled everything. Years went by as Adille wandered, coming home each night to fall exhausted into bed, eating little, growing thinner with each day, while I eked out our existence by selling the ornaments of the house, then the furniture. The time came that Adille was seen watching something that should not have been watched by anyone. She had warned me that this might happen.
“It sends me places people aren’t supposed to be. It makes me hide and watch, when no one is supposed to watch. It makes me climb walls, hide outside windows. I saw what my clan leader, Draug B’lanjo, did to the Omniont Ambassador. They sent his body to the Federation, claiming it had been done by the Hrass. I heard them talking. They want to stir trouble between the Omniont and the Hrass so they can take over the Hrass shipping routes.”
“Doesn’t that disturb you, Great Lady?” I asked. “The thing that happened to the Ambassador?”
“Him. Oh. I suppose it might have disturbed me if I hadn’t been so worried about being seen.”
I had always wondered if Adille felt anything at all for the victims she saw tortured and slain. Seemingly not.
She went on, “Someday, they will see me. Someday, I won’t come home…”
And one day, she did not. Counting over the seasons I had been with Adille, I estimated it at somewhere between three and four Cantardene years. I myself was then seventeen, or eighteen.
The K’Famir who came to the house some days later told me to clean the house before Adille’s father, Progzo, arrived to dispose of Adille’s belongings. The necklace box lay on the dressing trough, and when I reached out to close the lid, the thing inside lashed out at me like a whip, wrapping itself around my arm. Frantically, I tried to pull it loose, to no avail, as it crawled across my body to plaster itself against my breast, seemingly rooted into the flesh. I could not escape the thing that had killed Adille. Because I had touched it, because I had lived in proximity to it, it had the same power over me it had had over her.
I was young and strong, however, which was lucky, for it took all my strength to bear the thing. Adille had made no provision for me, and her family did not want me. When the bondservant agency reclaimed me, the thing was wrapped against my skin, under my clothes, a bead or two showing at the throat or poking through a buttonhole. I wore a high-collared dress to hide it, and for a wonder, the bondage merchant did not require me to strip. I soon learned why. I had already been sold to House Mouselline as a seamstress, a creature to alter lingerie, a fitter who could work quietly and virtually unnoticed. I had had much experience at being unnoticed. Afterward I gained more.
The fitters, mostly Earthian, wore wigs of short gray hair that covered the lobes of their ears. The thinner of us had our bodies padded, and we were clad in sensible dark dresses, high-necked, ankle-length, and long-sleeved. Our feet were shod in shapeless shoes. We carried pincushions on our wrists and a measuring rod in one hand. It was claimed by House Mouselline that we were the heirs of an ancient Earth guild that had borne these symbols of craftsmanship through the centuries. Though rough and callused hands would have matched the rest of the image, our hands were, in fact, kept as soft as the fabrics we touched, for House Mouselline dealt in ultrasilk and vivilon and mazatec, all produced, so the labels said, on the Isles of Delight. At 250 credits or more a span, no one, not even Ephedra Mouselline herself, could af
ford their being snagged by some fitter’s abraded knuckle.
Those Mercans who saw us, or more likely looked across us, saw human bolsters with lowered eyes and mouths full of pins: Miss This; Miss That; Miss Ongamar. The “Miss” was a courtesy title, a calculated oddity. Titles were not usually given to bondspeople, but in the intimacy of the fitting room, one did not want to disturb the mood of serene luxury by kicking or hitting a servant or even commanding them in the ugly lingua Mercan of the plantation. Fitters, therefore, were selected from among the few bondservants who were skilled at sewing and understood the language. They were spoken to with condescending politeness.
“Miss Ongamar, the Lady Mirabel wants three of the vivilon chemises, in violet and puce, and they need just a tuck under the lower arms.” “Oh, Miss Ongamar, Princess Delibia has ordered the gold-mesh games gown by Verdul, and it needs an underdress by tomorrow afternoon. The Princess is green-fleshed, about a number four shade, so be sure you pick fabric to match.” “Oh, Miss Ongamar, the Baron’s plaything has ordered twelve pair of vivilon pantaloons, and they must be monogrammed with the Baron’s crest over all four orifices.”
Miss Ongamar’s fingers nipped and pinned and basted. Her, my, hands darted. This to be seamed invisibly. That to be embroidered, very visibly. This to be let out just a bit, to drape a touch better over Dowager Queen Dagabon’s ever-enlarging pouch; that to be taken in to fit the young neuter the Baron was currently amusing himself with. And when the showroom was closed and the workroom silent, even then I might be there, finishing up this little task or that one before going home.
Home. I actually had one.
One of the few privileges of being employed by House Mouselline was the housing allowance, actual money, to pay rent, to buy food. House Mouselline had no interest in maintaining a bondslave dormitory and kitchen. Those who worked for the house were expected to fend for themselves. The allowance was small; for the innovative, it was sufficient. So it was I went out the back service door into the Baka Narak, which I translated to myself, “Allee Sensual,” and turned left to the corner. Another left would take me into the turmoil and clutter of Bak-Zandig-g’Shadup, “Street of Many Worlds,” which was thronged with people of many races at all hours of the day and night. If I turned right, however, the way led down a short block to the service tunnel, and down the tunnel to the Crafter’s and Seamer’s Residential Compound for Bond and Free, where most of the employees lived. I, however, did not enter the compound. Instead, I went along the narrow service walk that ran beside it and into the cobbled courtyard at the rear, where the refuse bins were kept. Past their lidded bulks, next to the rear wall and the alley gate, a narrow door opened into home.