Variations on Humanity

by Paul Eslinger

Keene looked as startled as a deer in the headlights of a car. “Do you think you’re pregnant? If so, that’s incredibly good news.”

  “I don’t know.” Rhona patted her flat belly. “I’ll talk to Nanda.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “I’m feeling better already, so I doubt I’m pregnant. I’ll talk to Nanda and let you know what she said.”

  Rhona wasn’t the only one taking daily shots in the infirmary, so it was a few minutes before she managed to get Nanda alone. “I didn’t take my contraceptive shot on schedule,” she confessed.

  “I know,” Nanda responded with a smile. “Dulcis reminded you, so I thought the omission was intentional.”

  A nervous reaction caused Rhona’s hands to flutter back and forth. “I intended to take it, but…”

  “Do you want one now?”

  Her cheeks grew hot while Rhona considered her emotional and physical feelings. “Yes, but only after you run a pregnancy check.”

  The check was quick and painless. Nanda looked at Rhona and raised one eyebrow. “I’m glad you asked. You’re pregnant.”

  “How can that be?” Rhona blurted. She slapped her hands to her cheeks, knowing her face was bright red from a combination of embarrassment and excitement.

  “I think you know how it happened.” Nanda chuckled. “Congratulations.”

  “Wow.” Rhona turned towards the door, shaking her head. She spun back around and waved her hands excitedly. “I haven’t been thinking about a baby–at least, not about me having one. The others are doing that. It can’t be true.”

  “It is.”

  Once in the hall, Rhona turned towards the apartment she shared with Keene rather than towards the Intelligence Center. She would talk to Keene, but she needed a few moments alone to wrap her head around the news.

  Once in the apartment, she flopped in a reclining chair and leaned back. She was the fourth woman to get pregnant among those living in the underground facility. She looked up at the ceiling. “Dulcis, what is the birth rate?”

  “It varies by country, age and category. The birth rate runs from about 6.7 per thousand people in the population in Monaco to 45 in Niger.”

  “I understand the dependence on age and country,” Rhona said. “What do you mean by category?”

  “Whether or not the woman has taken life-extending medication.”

  Rhona frowned. “Use of the medication has just started, hasn’t it? No one who has taken it has yet had a baby.”

  “Correct,” Dulcis replied. “However, it has been in use for four months in several regions. That is enough time to estimate the revised birth rate.”

  “Go ahead and estimate.”

  “The data are still variable, but the change will be about twenty.”

  The words made no sense. “Twenty? Twenty what?” Rhona asked.

  “The overall birth rate will drop by a factor of twenty, averaged across the entire world.”

  “Whoa,” Rhona exclaimed. “That’s a huge change.”

  “Yes, but necessary to prevent overpopulation if everyone lives a lot longer.”

  Rhona sat up straighter in the chair. “That doesn’t make sense.” She continued talking, ticking off each name on a different finger while she did so. “Beverly is pregnant, as is Diana, Mother, and now, me. That’s not a low birth rate!”

  The AI didn’t respond. Rhona leaned back again with her muscles tense and tried to think. Clues gathered over the last nine months about different levels of medication lined up in neat patterns. She closed her eyes as she spoke to Dulcis again. “Are there three different types of longevity medication, each with a different treatment time line?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do they have different target birth rates?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are they?” Rhona demanded.

  “We have already discussed the supplement type. The birth rate goes down by a factor of twenty.”

  “What’s the next type?”

  “The birth rate for the genome type goes down by a factor of two.”

  Rhona knew she was on a roll. She didn’t know if Laura had intended to sequester the information, but she would keep asking questions if Dulcis would answer them. “What are the projected life spans for the supplement and genome types?”

  “They are 350 and 1,200 years.”

  The information caused shivers to run up and down Rhona’s spine. She was almost afraid to ask the next question even though she was sure she already knew the answer. “What is the third type?”

  “The third type is the Abantu type. The birth rate increases by a factor of five.”

  “That’s why I’m pregnant,” Rhona blurted.

  “Yes. You refused the contraceptives.”

  “I have to ask, what is the projected lifespan for my type?”

  “At least as long as an Abantu.”

  Rhona took a deep breath. She had to ask the next question. “Does assignment to a treatment level depend on the human’s Karthi Index score?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there flexibility in the assignment?”

  “Laura has the authority to change the treatment by one level.”

  Rhona’s trepidation changed to excitement while she headed for the Intelligence Center. She could just call Keene and tell him, but some things needed the personal touch.

  Once in the Intelligence Center, Rhona dashed across the room with her hair flowing behind her. She took both of Keene’s hands in her own and danced up and down. “I’m pregnant,” she squealed.

  He hugged her and whirled around in a circle. “That’s wonderful.”

  She returned the hug so fiercely she almost hurt her own ribs. She could see others heading their way as she whispered in his ear, “We need a human council tonight.”

  “Okay,” he said. He loosened his arms and stepped away in self-defense when the women closed in. The Abantu females loved children as much as any human woman, but they didn’t have any, and most of them were convinced they never would.

  * * *

  Two dozen humans gathered in Keene and Rhona’s room after dinner that night. Keene whistled for attention when Rhona stood. She began, “Thank you all for coming. As you know, I am pregnant.”

  A chorus of cheerful affirmative responses filled the room. Finally, Rhona smiled and held up her hand for quiet. “I found out something new today. There are three levels of medical treatments.”

  Glances passed from person to person around the room. Judith finally spoke up. “We already know that. We’re manufacturing three different kinds.”

  “But not contraceptives,” Rhona responded.

  Judith looked puzzled. “No. Why did you bring that up?”

  “The medical treatments you are selling to the general public produces good health and greatly increased productive life spans. It will also reduce the birth rate by about a factor of twenty.”

  Charles sat up straight with a puzzled look. “You need to explain.”

  Rhona started explaining. A barrage of questions fragmented her planned presentation, but finally, everyone understood the implications.

  At the end, Keene looked around the room. “I’ve never totally understood something. Why did Laura hire a self-employed dentist and two out-of-work intelligence consultants when she could have hired anyone?”

  “I have an idea,” Rhona said. She snapped her mouth shut and whirled around when the apartment door opened. Laura strolled in with a calm look on her face.

  “Uh … hello,” Rhona said.

  Laura sank down on the floor at the end of a couch and sat cross-legged. She looked at Rhona. “You were speaking, please continue.”

  Rhona had never been bashful, and today was no different. She focused her attention on Laura. “Okay, it goes like this. Many, eve
n most, humans can be violent and vicious. You can accurately assess which people have more or less of those tendencies. Philosophically you won’t kill humans, so war or genocide is off the table. You want peace-loving, long-lived human leaders who will be favorable to the Abantu, thus you set it up to suppress the birth rate of the unfavorable majority and increase the birth rate of the favorable minority. You also endow the favorable minority with incredibly long life spans. With time, that will cause vast shifts in human society.”

  Every eye impaled Laura. She sat quietly for a few moments and then she nodded with a pleased look on her face. “That was Nanda’s recommendation to the Evacuation Council when she returned home from her first visit here. Her confession a few months ago that Chaim fathered human children helps me understand her lifelong devotion to this concept.”

  Laura stood and slowly turned in a circle, making eye contact with each person in the room. “You are the future leaders of your race. I am proud to call you my friends.”

  Silence fell like a curtain. Rhona shifted from thinking about Laura’s plans to thinking about her own past. Cowardly assassins had tried to snuff out her life more than once. Her thoughts returned to the present and the unborn child she was carrying. She would do anything in her power to give that child a good future. Understanding blossomed and a new purpose started growing.

  Rhona’s eyes darted from face to face and she realized the silence was an indicator of intense contemplation rather than a rejection of Laura’s confession. No one else seemed inclined to speak, so Rhona looked at Laura and gestured with her extended index finger.

  Laura smiled and chuckled. “Yes, Madam President?”

  “Uh…” Rhona choked at Laura’s unexpected use of a title. “A year ago, I would have said you were insane. Now, however, I like what you are proposing. Humanity needs to grow up.”

  Rhona stood and faced her husband, parents and friends with her hands on her hips. “What do you say?”

  Keene rose and took her hand. “I agree,” he said as solemnly as he had spoken the vows during their wedding. One by one, the rest stood and expressed their support.

  “Thank you,” Laura said and rose to her feet. She moved to the door and looked back with a smile. “I’ll let you continue your celebration.”

  Multiple comments fractured the silence when the door closed behind Laura. Keene’s voice rose louder than the others. He turned and faced Rhona with his hands on his hips. “What aren’t you telling us?” he demanded.

  “I’ll tell you in a minute,” she replied. “But first, ask Dulcis to give us some privacy.”

  “Does that work?” Judith asked.

  “It will, for about ten minutes, if everyone in the room verbalizes the same request.” Rhona held up her hand and spoke clearly. “Dulcis, give us privacy.” Every person repeated the request when Rhona pointed at them in sequence.

  “I learned a couple things today that are vitally important for our future well-being,” Rhona said as she looked from face to face. “First, even though we suspected it, we finally discovered a clue that Senator Harper ordered the hit on Glenn and Helen out of pure spite. He also instigated the situation where the fake nurse tried to kill Helen.”

  Her green eyes grew harder as she continued. “The fake nurse visited Harper’s headquarters in person a few days ago. It took us a while because of other priorities, but we recognized her when we correlated the sensor data with pictures we captured in the hospital.”

  “Are we sure?” Sam asked.

  Rhona tapped herself on the chest. “I’m sure, but you may want to check my analysis. Anyway, she was one of the so-called double-minded or demon-possessed people.”

  “Why so-called?” Elaine asked with a frown. “Or was?”

  “Harper wasn’t happy she visited his headquarters. Someone killed her two days later. The police report called it a mugging.”

  “Serves her right,” Sam muttered, shaking his head.

  “I’m not so sure, after checking the autopsy records,” Rhona replied quickly. “We scanned her body before she was cremated and confirmed the coroner’s report that there were faint traces of foreign substances in her brain. After training the analysis program to search for that substance, it shows up in our scans of every double-minded person but not in anyone else.”

  Mutters spread around the room.

  “Wait,” Rhona shouted, trying to restore order. “The substance has a structure that collapses when we pulse someone with the overloaded mind-detector sensors. I haven’t proven it yet, but I think the structure is a receiver or transmitter, maybe both.”

  Keene gagged and then cleared his throat noisily. “Ah, they weren’t demons, at least in the sense we were thinking of disembodied demons. But one thing is clear. Someone with a terrible attitude is infecting humans with a remote control device. We’re puppets and they’re pulling our strings.”

  Rhona put her arm around Keene’s waist and pulled him close. “That brings me to the punch line. I don’t know who is using this nefarious approach to pit humans against humans, but I don’t think it’s the Abantu. We have to figure out who the real enemy is and how to defend ourselves, and we can’t afford to spend our energy fighting each other. Let’s learn from the Abantu while thanking them for giving us a stable societal framework and the time to develop long-term defense tactics.”

  “I like the way you think,” Keene said and hugged Rhona with both arms. His booming voice penetrated every corner of the room when he spoke over her shoulder. “Skepticism is alive and well. Long live the human race!”

  The End

  About the Author

  Paul lives in south central Washington with his wife, son, and the family dog, Daisy. Three delightful grandchildren regularly swarm through the house and over the dog. Paul is a mathematician and statistician by formal training and he applies those scientific disciplines in his day job.

  While in the third grade, Paul discovered a science fiction book with fascinating characters and exciting new empires scattered across the cosmos. An enchantment with science fiction began that day and continued into adulthood.

  Writing fiction is a hobby that fills otherwise empty niches in time. Nursing a nub of an idea into a full-length novel set in familiar or alien cultures provides lasting satisfaction.

  Author Notes

  I hope you enjoyed this book. If you did, please return to Amazon where you purchased it to find other volumes in this series. In addition, I would appreciate any reviews you are willing to post on Amazon.

  If you have any comments–good or bad–about my writing, please feel free to contact me on my personal email at peslinger393@gmail.com. I currently respond to all emails.