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As Lucas and I were getting dressed the next morning, there was a thunderous thumping sound followed by a sudden crash. “What’s that?” I asked nervously.
“The installation team for your bird and animal area carried out a detailed assessment of the expansion section yesterday,” said Lucas. “I expect the noise is because they’ve started work.”
Lucas took out his dataview and worked on it. “Yes, the installation team are carrying out the main structural alterations today, and the planting and animal care teams will arrive to join them tomorrow.”
“Megan’s arranged that amazingly quickly.”
“We need that area available as fast as possible to help you relax,” said Lucas. “You’ve been suffering a massive amount of stress over both Gregas and Tobias. I’m wondering if we should arrange a trip Outside for you to cleanse yourself of echoes.”
“I was Outside only a few days ago, and cleansed my mind of every remaining trace of my targets’ thoughts. The only emergency run I’ve been on since then was the one hunting Alvin, and he wasn’t the type of strong-willed wild bee that leaves a long-lasting echo behind in a telepath’s mind.”
“What’s worrying me is the cumulative effect of you reading the minds of Wesley, Gregas, and Tobias.”
I frowned. “Wesley is so lost in fantasy that I’d be in more danger hugging a fluffy toy than reading his mind, and my brother has many faults, including a total lack of common sense, but he’s not a wild bee.”
“I agree that Wesley and Gregas aren’t dangerous in themselves, but the fact Gregas is your brother greatly increased the stress of reading their minds. That would have left you more vulnerable than usual when you read Tobias’s thoughts. You weren’t prepared for Tobias to have turned full wild bee, and his mind must have been exactly the type to leave a powerful echo on your consciousness, whether you’re aware of that echo’s existence or not.”
“I’m getting better at recognizing the invading influences of wild bees lurking in my mind,” I said. “I only read Tobias’s thoughts very briefly, but I admit that his mind was obsessive and fuelled by bitter anger. I’m fully aware of the echo he’s left in the back of my mind. You’re right about it being powerful, and it has its claws digging deep into me, so it won’t fade away.”
I paused. “The echo of one wild bee is never a serious threat to a telepath’s own personality though. It’s when you’ve got a whole pack of them tearing away at your mind, that you suffer from fragmentation.”
There was the high-pitched screeching of a tool cutting through metal. I winced and put my hands protectively over my ears.
“I suggest we take refuge in the bookette room to eat breakfast,” said Lucas. “Bookette rooms are built with multiple layers of soundproofing, so people can play loud concerts without disturbing their neighbours. I’m hoping that if the soundproofing stops sound getting out, then it will stop sound getting in too.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“You go ahead and pick a bookette for us to play,” said Lucas. “I’ll order our regular breakfasts from the kitchen unit, and be along to join you soon.”
I nodded, went into the bookette room, and started battling with the furniture controls. My parents were Level 27, so I’d never encountered the luxury of a dedicated bookette room until I came out of Lottery. I was still hazy on the commands which made a variety of furniture emerge from the bookette room walls, and tried a few random guesses. I’d been aiming for a table and chairs but got a set of shelves. My second attempt produced a basket of artificial flowers. On the third attempt, I got a couch with twin side tables, which I decided was close enough.
“Bookette random sequence with park background,” I said.
The bookette room’s lights dimmed, and the holos started. I’d asked for a random bookette with a park background and had assumed the suns would be shining. I was surprised to find myself standing in a night-time park, with the ceiling lights on the moons and stars setting. Even more startling, I was standing on a makeshift stage with a spotlight on me, brandishing a sword, and facing a crowd in silver and gold Carnival costumes.
A man dressed in red and black, with dramatically outstretched wings, was on his knees before me. “Spare my life,” he pleaded.
“Why should I spare you?” I heard my own character reply. “We are forever divided by our choices.”
The traditional words told me this was the end sequence of a Light and Dark pageant. I was playing the silver-winged light angel, and had clearly just defeated the dark angel in the sword fight.
The dark angel was shaking his head. “We are forever divided, but forever one. There can be no light without darkness, and no darkness without light.”
I tossed away the sword that was in my hand. “Go then.”
The dark angel scrambled to his feet and ran away, while the Carnival crowd shouted in triumph.
“High up!”
“Light is victorious,” I cried. “Go forth and tell the Hive to celebrate with Carnival!”
Shimmering streamers were blowing through the air. The people in the crowd reached up to grab them, before running off through the park, still shouting the words. “High up!”
I automatically reached up a hand to try to catch a streamer too. I laughed when it flew straight through my hand.
“Shouldn’t we start the bookette at the beginning rather than the end?” asked Lucas’s amused voice from behind me.
I turned, saw him putting a tray of food and drinks on one of the side tables, and laughed again. “Bookette restart.”
I’d forgotten that the bookette room was still set to randomize. It swathed Lucas in the holo red and black costume of the dark angel, and restarted at a new random point. It was earlier in the pageant now, with the two of us facing each other, swords poised ready for combat.
“We were lovers once. Join me in the darkness.”
The dark angel character’s voice was swiftly followed by Lucas’s own voice and words. “Oh, no. Bookette stop.”
The holo park background and our costumes vanished. “I don’t want us playing the roles of the dark and light angels,” said Lucas harshly. “They were forever divided by their choices. I don’t want our relationship ending like theirs. Do you?”
The words seemed like an accusation, but his face showed his distress, and I moved to take his hands. “I don’t want our relationship ending at all. You should know that.”
“Yes, I should know that. I do know that.” Lucas shook his head. “I warned you that I’m a mess at this time of year and will overreact to the silliest things. I just hope I don’t do something to ruin your New Year celebrations with your family.”
“There shouldn’t be a problem now that you’ve explained the situation to my mother.”
“She was very kind about it,” said Lucas.
I remembered an oddity. “There was one bit of your explanation that puzzled me. You told my mother that you were a duty child. The tone of your voice was strange when you said that. It sounded as if you weren’t just saying that your parents had you out of duty to the Hive, but using a term with a specific meaning.”
“You’re right that duty child is a term with a specific meaning.” Lucas sighed. “I shouldn’t have used it to your mother. The words wouldn’t mean anything to someone from Level 27, but I was too emotional to think properly.”
“So what does duty child mean?”
Lucas hesitated. “Do you remember we had a conversation about family sizes? I explained that the standard family size on most levels of the Hive is two children, but the Hive encourages people on the elite top ten levels to have larger families by offering them incentives like bigger apartments.”
I nodded.
“I suggested you should discuss the issue further with Megan. I gather that you didn’t do that, because she’d have gone on to explain duty children to you.”
I pulled a guilty face. “I don’t like discussing personal things with Megan.”
Lucas let go of my hands and ran his fingers through his hair. “Now I stop and think about it, this would be a bad time for Megan to explain duty children to you anyway. I’d like to refer you to Buzz, but she grew up on Level 36, so she won’t know about it herself yet. My impression is that Buzz is a far more skilled borderline telepath than most, so she’s probably been selected, but she isn’t old enough to have received her official invitation.”
He groaned. “All right, I’ll explain this to you, but please don’t read my mind during this conversation. You don’t want to have to deal with my emotions on top of your own.”
I was feeling nervous now. “Maybe we should forget the whole thing.”
“No, it’s better for someone to explain this to you properly before you stumble across the information by accident.” Lucas moved to the couch. “Let’s sit down.”
We settled ourselves comfortably on the couch, and Lucas took a deep breath before speaking.
“When we first met, I told you a little about how people started living in Hive cities to avoid pollution, extreme weather, crime, and other dangers.”
I gave Lucas a bewildered look. I couldn’t see what the history of Hive civilization had to do with his childhood.
“I said there was a period of time when our Hive didn’t allow people classed as criminals or socially undesirable to have children,” said Lucas. “While that resulted in a generally more cooperative Hive population, it also caused major problems, including a massive population drop and the accidental removal of some desirable characteristics from the gene pool.”
He made a despairing noise. “Most Hives had made the same mistake. Many, particularly those in the genetics group such as Hive Genex, added to their problems by using artificial means to allow selected genetically valuable citizens to have hundreds of children.”
I frowned at the mention of the Hive that had tried to kidnap me. “I don’t see how anyone could have hundreds of children.”
“I’ll explain that bit in a minute,” said Lucas. “One of the worst effects of these policies was a widespread reduction in disease resistance, which led to some Hives suffering devastating epidemics. Our Hive just had to reabsorb the population of its seed Hive to be viable. Other Hives had to merge populations with one or more entirely unrelated Hives to survive.”
I grimaced. “I hadn’t realized the situation got that bad.”
“Our schools teach children there was a world population drop, so most seed Hives were reabsorbed by parent Hives,” said Lucas. “Our Hive feels the full information about mass deaths and decimated populations being evacuated to strange Hives would be too frightening for most adults let alone children. It’s only included in selected imprints, such as mine as Tactical Commander.”
I didn’t like our Hive’s policy of restricting information, but I had to agree with the point about these facts being too frightening. I’d rather not have heard about them myself, but it was too late to object now.
“At the peak of the crisis,” Lucas continued, “Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement cited its duty to protect the survival of the human race, and invoked its emergency powers. It imposed new rules to prevent further narrowing of the human gene pool, with brutal punishments for offending Hives.”
Lucas paused. “Eventually, a slightly modified version of those rules was added to the main Joint Hive Treaty, and signed by the remaining one hundred and seven Hive cities worldwide. That modified version includes the right of each Hive to run a strictly limited duty child programme.”
“So duty child is a term used in the Joint Hive Treaty?”
“Yes,” said Lucas. “I’ve been explaining the past history so you understand why the rules about children are so strict. Joint Hive Treaty states that all Hive citizens must be allowed to have at least two children if they wish, and Hives are permitted to provide them with what’s classed as standard fertility assistance. That’s how Fertility Support is helping Megan to have her husband’s twins. Joint Hive Treaty limits Hives to selecting one in a thousand of their most valuable citizens to take part in their duty child programme though.”
Lucas waved both hands. “Our Hive naturally chooses most of its one in a thousand citizens from among those who are Level 1, but there’s sometimes a good reason to choose a few lower level people.”
“So this duty child programme affects about one in ten of Level 1 people,” I said nervously. “That one in ten would include you and me. You think it probably includes Buzz too.”
“And it included my father,” said Lucas grimly. “On his twenty-fifth birthday, he got the official invitation to an important counselling session. That session was about the value of his genes to the Hive, and his obligation to have children. He was then invited to have up to six children using the duty child programme.”
“Six children!” I blinked. “That would be a very large family.”
“And those six children would be in addition to any children born conventionally. Well, my parents didn’t want any children at all, but my father kept getting official reminders on every birthday, with the wording changing each time to increase the pressure. My parents finally agreed to use the duty child programme to have a single child.”
He stared down at his hands. “The duty child programme is different from standard fertility assistance, because it allows methods like surrogate mothers and pre-planned adoption. That meant my parents just had to donate tissue samples to Fertility Support, a surrogate mother would have the baby, and my parents could decide whether to keep it or have it adopted. My parents intended to go for pre-planned adoption of course, but things went wrong at the last moment.”
I gave a dazed shake of my head. “So that’s what duty child means. What went wrong with the plan? Nobody wanted to adopt you?”
“That wasn’t the problem. The duty child programme selects suitable adoptive parents between Level 11 and Level 19, and offers them the chance to adopt a child. Most enthusiastically accept, because they know there’s a high chance of the child coming out of Lottery as Level 1. Adoption records are restricted, and most adoptive parents choose to keep their secret, so they’ll have all the glory of having a Level 1 son or daughter.”
Lucas shrugged. “A Level 18 couple were waiting to adopt me, but I was born when my parents were in the middle of a major argument. I’m not sure which of them decided to cancel the adoption in a moment of spite. It doesn’t really matter. Whatever happened back then, my parents kept their duty child past the thirty-day deadline, so they were stuck with raising me themselves.”
“So that’s what you meant about being an unwanted duty child.” I tried to absorb the fact that Lucas had had two genetic parents, a surrogate mother, and had narrowly missed having two adoptive parents as well.
“Yes. I must sound very bitter about this, but I spent a lot of my childhood wishing that the adoption had gone ahead, and I’d grown up on Level 18 with loving parents.” Lucas pulled a pained face. “Now you know how the duty child issue affected me in the past, but we also need to discuss how it will affect you in the future.”
“On my twenty-fifth birthday, the Hive will start pressuring me to have children,” I muttered.
“The Joint Hive Treaty rules state that people must register their consent before taking part in a duty child programme,” said Lucas. “The Hive won’t dare to pressure a telepath into registering consent, but it will eagerly encourage you to take part if you wish. Joint Hive Treaty rules have a regular limit of six children under the duty child system for each person, but Hives are allowed to select one in a million citizens for a higher limit.”
Lucas hesitated. “You can have as many as twenty-five children if you wish, Amber. You can raise any duty children yourself or have them adopted. There’s just the slight complicating factor that the Hive can’t allow you to have any children conventionally. All your children will have to be born through the duty child programme to surrogate mothers.”
I stared at him, and was about to ask a question when I realized the answer was obvious. “That’s because being pregnant would interfere with my work.”
“Yes. There would also be a tiny risk to your life, and the Hive can’t afford for you to take any risks at all.”
I tugged at my hair. I’d grown up thinking I’d have two children one day, and worked hard to adjust to the idea of having three. Now I knew that the Hive would encourage me to have far more children, but I would never give birth to a child myself.
Lucas had said this would be a bad time for Megan to explain duty children to me. Now I understood why. Megan was joyfully expecting twins, while the Hive forbade me from ever being pregnant.
