Jumping off the Planet

POPULATION CONTROL

Weird and I didn't get too much more chance to talk about what Dad was planning. Or why. Or even if he was planning anything at all. Maybe insanity was hereditary—or at least contagious. All we had to go on was what Mom had told Weird, and we already knew that Mom hated Dad so much she'd say anything. Weird said that was why she'd lost in court this time, when she'd tried to deny Dad custody rights. Because the judge caught her lying.

In the bathroom once, I asked Weird what he thought we should do. Should we call Mom or what? He shrugged. What could Mom do? We were over the border. Seven borders now. Eight if you counted Guatemala, even though we hadn't really gone through Guatemala, but around it. By the time anyone could do anything, we'd be up the Line. And besides, Dad hadn't done anything illegal. Yet. So all we had were Mom's suspicions living rent-free in our heads. Just because Dad had mused aloud about going off to one of the star-colonies.

But I could see why Dad and Weird were angry with each other.

It goes back to when Dad and Mom got married. In return for certain tax credits, they'd agreed to have only boy children. The Population Control Authority had determined that reducing the ratio of girls to boys would reduce the worldwide birth rate. The target was to reduce the world population to ten billion people in three generations. That meant we had seven billion too many and everybody had to have fewer children. Or at least, fewer female children. In order to get international monetary credits, a lot of the fourth world countries had adopted such strict breeding policies they were almost totalitarian.

What we were taught in school was that in some countries, the people didn't think girl children were valuable, they only wanted sons. So parents would kill female babies before they were born. So letting those parents have two sons, but no daughters, was a popular idea in those places. In our country, the government didn't have that kind of power, so instead they passed a law giving extra tax credits for male births and parents would decide for themselves.

In one of our classes, we were told that some women thought these policies were the equivalent of genocide. I suppose, maybe, they had a point—but it sounded more angry than sensible. They were saying that it was men who were irrelevant and we should be making more girl babies and less boys. I guess, if you were a girl, you might feel that way, but you could just as easily argue the other side of it. With less girls than boys, girls were more valuable now—and a girl could choose who she wanted to marry from the very best. She wouldn't have to take whoever came along. Of course, it might not be so good for the boys if there weren't enough girls to go around, but lotsa guys never get married anyway. I couldn't see myself getting married. I mean, I wouldn't rule out the possibility altogether, but I really didn't know very many girls, and most of them were in separate classes—but the ones I did know, well, they all seemed like they were from another planet or something. Dad said I'd probably feel different about girls when I got older, but if the way he and Mom ended up is any example, I'd just as soon not bother.

But anyway, that wasn't good for Weird. There were now six boys for every four girls, which was supposed to be okay for economic productivity in some areas, and not so good in others—but since the time he was born and the time he grew up, the PC A had come up with another one of their good ideas for slowing down the birth rate. They had lots of good ideas that way.

This time, they were offering college scholarships or tax credits for guys who went in for rechanneling and had their sexual orientations reversed. That's what Weird had said he wanted to do. Dad was against it, but Weird said it was the only way he could afford school. So that was a big part of why they were angry at each other. Mom didn't have any money, and neither did Dad. At least not enough to pay for college for all three kids. So maybe from Weird's point of view it made sense, selling off what he probably would never get a chance to use anyway. I dunno. The whole thing made me uneasy and I spent a lot of time looking at Douglas when he didn't know I was watching, trying to figure out what kind of difference it would make in him, if he'd look or talk different or if he'd even still be my brother.

And what about me when it came time for me to go to college? Would I have to do the same thing? I didn't know what it was and I didn't like it already.

I didn't want anybody trying to change me. Even for my own good. I didn't even know who I was and already everybody else had made decisions that it was the wrong way to be, that there were too many of us anyway, that there should be more of one than the other, and that I shouldn't even be here at all, but now that I was, I shouldn't be the way I was going to be, whatever it was, we still didn't know, but whatever I was, somebody was sure to tell me it was wrong. Probably Dad. Or Mom. One of them first. And then everybody else.

That's what I hated about all of this. Adults were supposed to take care of their own problems, not pass them onto the kids. But it felt like Mom and Dad and now Doug were all passing the load onto me—as if somehow I should have to carry it too. It wasn't fair. They all kept telling me to act my age. Well, why the hell didn't they act theirs?

And it wasn't just Mom and Dad. It was all adults. I mean, kids get born into this world, and as soon as we're old enough to understand the smallest piece of it, adults start talking about the mess we're going to inherit and maybe we'll do a better job than they did. That's real smart. Think about it. How the hell are we going to do a better job if all we've got to go on is the stuff they taught us? Where's the place you go to get some real answers?

And then they wonder why kids are so confused and moody all the time.

So it wasn't exactly a fun trip. This part, at least.

And maybe it was because none of us were feeling very comfortable. This close to the equator, everything was hot and muggy and very bright. Even inside the train, we could feel it. And it was especially bad whenever we had to make a stop and all the doors were opened. We got out once to stretch our legs, but decided not to do that again. How did people live in this heat day after day after day?

Once we got into Ecuador, the train tracks ran down the center of the Intercontinental Expressway, so whatever view there was, there were always cars and trucks in the way. Occasionally, we saw a train going the other way—it whooshed past so fast that we could feel the impact of the wind like a shotgun blast against the side of the train.

After the fortieth round of "no, we're not there yet," Stinky started whining about not having anything to do at which Dad reminded him of his monkey and Stinky complained that it didn't do anything. Dad looked real annoyed for a minute, as if he was going to lose his temper, but he didn't. Instead he said, "That's right, you have to teach it. That's what makes it fun. Douglas, will you help him?"

Then I said something to Weird about what a waste it was spending all that hard cash for a toy that has to be taught. Weird grunted something about Dad not wanting to use his credit cards. "So what?" I asked. Then he asked if I'd noticed that Dad had paid for the train tickets with cash too. And I said, "Yeah? So what?" And Weird said that if he'd paid by credit card and someone wanted to find us—like Mom—it'd be real easy to look up the account transactions to see where we were going. Dad heard that, and said that it was also cheaper to pay cash because you didn't have international transaction fees and you didn't have to worry about flexi-dollars going up suddenly either, and that way we could save money and do more. So there I was, with two more conflicting stories and one more reason to be as paranoid as Mom.

Vacations are supposed to be fun—except vacations with Dad were never fun; they were just this thing we had to do every year, and this one wasn't turning out any different—so whoever made up that crap about vacations being fun didn't know what he was talking about, or maybe he'd never been on a vacation with Dad. And besides, I kept thinking about what Dad had said back in the crater: "Don't go anywhere unless you know how you're going to get back."

See, that was the point.

I didn't know if I wanted to go back.

What if Weird was right?

If he was, I wasn't sure I wanted to stop Dad—because part of me was starting to think that maybe Dad was right, that going to the stars was the only way to get out.

It sure couldn't be worse than here.