“Who's that?”
“You'll find out when we meet him.”
“I want to know now!” Broohnin shouted and sprang from his chair. He wanted to pace the floor but there was no room for more than two steps in any direction. “Every time I ask a question you put me off! Am I to be a part of this or not?”
“In time you will be privy to everything. But you must proceed in stages. A certain basic education must be acquired before you can fully understand and effectively participate in the workings of my plan.”
“I'm as educated as I need to be!”
“Are you? What do you know about out-world-Sol System trade?”
“Enough. I know the out-worlds are the bread basket for Sol System. It's grain runs like the one we're on right now that keep Earth from starving.”
“Kept Earth from starving,” LaNague said. “The need for an extraterrestrial protein source is rapidly diminishing. She'll soon be able to feed her own and these grain runs will become a thing of the past before too long. The out-worlds will no longer be Earth's bread basket.”
Broohnin shrugged. “So? That'll just leave more for the rest of us to eat.”
LaNague's laugh was irritating in its condescension. “You've a lot to Learn…a lot to learn.” He leaned forward in his chair, his long-fingered hands slicing the air before him as he spoke. “Look at it this way: think of a country or a planet or a system of planets as a factory. The people within work to produce something to sell to other people outside the factory. Their market is in constant flux. They find new customers, lose old ones, and generally keep production and profits on an even keel. But every once in a while a factory makes the mistake of selling too much of its production to one customer. It's convenient, yes, and certainly profitable. But after a while it comes to depend on that customer too much. And should that customer find a better deal elsewhere, what do you think happens to the factory?”
“Trouble.”
“Trouble,” LaNague said, nodding. “Big trouble. Perhaps even bankruptcy. That's what's happening to the out-worlds. You-I exclude Tolive and Flint because neither of those two planets joined the out-world trade network when Earth was in command, preferring to become self-supporting and thus sparing ourselves dependency on Sol-System trade-you members of the Outworld Imperium are a large factory with one product and one customer. And that customer is learning how to live without you. Before too long you'll all be up to your ears in grain which everyone is growing but no one will be buying. You won't be able to eat it fast enough.”
“Just how long is ‘before too long’?”
“Eighteen to twenty standard years.”
“I think you're wrong,” Broohnin said. Although he found the idea of a chaotic economic collapse strangely appealing, he could not buy it. “Sol System has always depended on the out-worlds for food. They can't produce enough of their own, so where else can they get it?”
“They've developed a new protein source…and they're not feeding as many,” LaNague said, leaning back in his chair now.
The pollution in the seas of Earth had long ago excluded them from ever being a source of food. What could be grown on land and in the multilevel warehouse farms was what humanity would eat. Yet as the population curve had continued on its ever-steepening upward climb, slowing briefly now and then, but moving ever upward, available land space for agriculture shrank. As the number of hungry mouths increased and took up more and more living space, Earth's Bureau of Farms was strained to its utmost to squeeze greater and greater yields out of fewer and fewer acres. The orbiting oneils helped somewhat, but the crush of people and the weight of their hunger surpassed all projections. Synthetic foods that could be processed in abundance were violently rejected; palatable staples could not be supplied in sufficient quantities.
And so the out-world trade network was formed. The colonies were recruited and made over into huge farms. Since a whole ring of grain pods could be dropped in and out of subspace almost as cheaply as one, the out-world-Sol System grain runs were begun and it appeared that a satisfactory solution had at last been found.
For a while, it worked. Came the out-world revolution and everything changed. Sol System still received grain from the out-worlds, but at a fair market price. Too broke to start settling and developing new farm colonies, Earth turned inward and began setting its own house in order.
First step was genetic registry. Anyone discovered to have a defective, or even potentially defective, genotype-this included myriad recessive traits-was sterilized. Howls and threats of domestic revolution arose, but the Earth government was not to be moved this time. It gave the newly formed Bureau of Population Control police powers and expected it to use them.
An example was made of Arna Miffler: a woman with a genotype previously declared free of dangerous traits. She was young, childless, single, and idealistic. She began a campaign of protest against the BPC and its policies, a successful one in its early stages, one that was quickly gathering momentum. At that time, the BPC re-examined Arna Miffler's genotype and discovered a definite trait for one of the rare mucopolysaccharide disorders. She was arrested at her home one night and led off to a BPC clinic. When released the next morning, she was sterile.
Lawyers, geneticists, activists who came to her aid soon learned that their own genotypes, and those of their families, were undergoing scrutiny. As some of Arna's supporters here and there were dragged off to BPC clinics and sterilized, the protest movement faltered, then stalled, then died. It was quite clear that the Bureau of Population Control had muscle and was not afraid to use it. Resistance was reduced to a whisper.
It rose to a scream again when the next step was announced: reproduction was to be limited to the status quo. Two people were only allowed to engender two more new people. A male was allowed to father two children and no more; a female was allowed to deliver or supply ova for two children and no more. After the live birth of the second child, each was to report for voluntary sterilization.
The option for sterilization after fathering or mothering a second child was about as voluntary as Earth's voluntary tax system: comply or else. The genotype of every newborn was entered into a computer which cross-analyzed each parent's genetic contribution. Once the analysis indicated the existence of a second child derived from a certain genotype, that individual's number was registered and he or she was immediately located and escorted to the nearest BPC clinic, where a single injection eliminated forever the possibility of producing another viable gamete.
The BPC looked on this approach as a masterful compromise. Each citizen was still allowed to replace himself or herself via a child, something many-too many-considered an inalienable right. But no more than self-replacement was permitted. Fathering or mothering a child was a capital offense, the male or the female parent being chosen for death by lot in order to “make room” for the newborn child.
The population thus decreased by attrition. Death from disease, although rare, still whittled away at the numbers. Accidental deaths did the same at a faster rate. Children who died after birth-even if they were only seconds old-could not be replaced. The one-person/one-child rule was adhered to dogmatically. Special tax incentives were offered to those who would submit to sterilization before giving rise to new life, higher taxes levied on those who insisted on reproduction.
It worked. After two centuries of harsh controls, the motherworld's population was well into an accelerating decline. There were still food riots now and again in a megalopolis, but nowhere near as frequently as before. There was breathing space again; not much, but after what the planet had been through, it seemed like wide open spaces.