“But…but, Provost, that would have been recorded! It would have been in the…in the files…I would have known…Mother would have known…”
She shook her head, patted my hand, and said compassionately, “You really didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”
“Mother thought Hy was her uncle!”
“She may have been told he was. The record of your family’s enrollment session is in the permanent files. This year, when the emigration rule was moved back a generation, all the modules were instructed to fact-check and recompute. The module noticed an anomaly, a person named Hyram living on Luna. Original records established that Hyram was a twin of George, who died at birth. Your mother was a six, therefore neither you nor your mother may be registered among two-fours any longer.”
“But…I’m still a four.”
“Though it makes no difference, you really aren’t. You were also a twin, whose sister died at birth. It is very rare to have twins in successive generations on both sides of the family, and your father begot twins, which means you’re a three on your father’s side, a two on your mother’s, so you yourself are a five, the child of a two and a six.” She looked at the papers in front of her. “Strange. If you hadn’t mentioned the name of Hyram during your registration session, no one might have caught that part of it.”
I had mentioned it? I sagged, catching myself on the edge of her desk. She rose, put her hand on my shoulder, whispered, “There’s nothing I can do, Margaret. There is no appeal. But I insisted they bring you here because I want you to know something. I said you were selected to be at that meeting, and you were, by the Third Order of the Siblinghood. I doubt you’ve heard of it, and I know nothing more than the name, but that very fact may be important to you in the future. Say it?”
I gaped. “The Third Order of…the Siblinghood?”
She opened the door, saying brusquely, “Proctor? Take this woman to the Resources Office for outprocessing.”
I was driven home in a Resources floater, black, with the gold symbol on the doors: a stream running down a hill, a tree on the hill, above that a cloud, a sun, the words ENOUGH FOR ALL. That symbol always reminded me of that historic educational effort called “No child left behind,” which actually meant “No child gets ahead,” for compliance meant dumbing everything down so no one would learn more than the least capable. “Enough for all” really meant “Too little for everybody.” As we went, the false windows displayed pictures of tree-lined streets, the vents emitted the smells and sounds of summer: flowers and cut grass, birds singing, children playing. All false. All mere pretense. There was no water for trees, grass, flowers, and solar radiation would kill any child who played outside.
Halfway home, I suddenly thought of Bryan. Bryan! What could I say to Bryan! Sybil was in the class the proctor had just taken me from, and she would tell him! Bryan was a third generation two, a first child of first children, so he might feel that I was too shameful to…He might even think it best not to tell me good-bye…
In that, I misjudged him, for he arrived at my home almost immediately after I did.
“Margaret, I just heard. Sybil told me. Where’s your mother? Did you have any idea about this?”
“No,” I had said, tears streaming down my face. “I hadn’t. Mother is already gone. She left me a note.”
“What did they tell you?”
“Seventy-two hours to prepare for shipment out.”
“I had no idea it would happen that fast! Listen to me, get your things together, but don’t sign any bondage agreement or do anything until I get back to you…”
He was abruptly gone. What did he mean, until he got back to me? What on earth did he think he could do? The agreements were pro forma. They would take me regardless. Still, it was typical of him to try fixing things. He had become a doctor because he had always wanted to fix things. Well, this wasn’t something he could fix, and I wished he had stayed with me, held me close, pretended for a little while this wasn’t happening.
In the meantime, I stood in the middle of the room, tears streaming down my face as I told myself what I had to do. I had to pack. I couldn’t go off without anything to wear. At least I was strong and healthy. At my age I would live through the fifteen years. Mother, though. Mother had never done a day’s hard labor in her life, and she was…what? Fifty. I moved witlessly around the apartment, into my cubicle and out of it. I opened the closet door, took things out of drawers, put them back, thinking distractedly that Bryan needn’t have ordered me to do nothing, for nothing seemed to be all I was capable of. I focused on what I was doing for all of thirty seconds, then forgot whatever it was. I found myself sitting, unable to react in any way to the chaos going on inside me.
In early evening my father came home and fell crying upon my shoulder.
“She told them I didn’t know,” he said. “I did know, Margaret. I just never thought it would make any difference. On Phobos it didn’t make any difference, and we never planned to come back here…”
I put my fingers over his mouth. “Don’t tell them that, Father. If Mother told them you didn’t know, she did it for you. Let her do it. Let her at least feel good about that.”
“I should be with her!” he cried.
“You’re thirteen years older than Mother is. They won’t take you
