And, after all, who cares? Who has any need to go in there? Nothing comes out of the mire and the viny trees to do anyone harm, and nothing has been seen in the swamp that anyone wants. From above, the great trees look like the restless billows of a miles-wide gray-green sea. From afar, they are a wall shutting Commoner Town inside and keeping the restless energies of its tradesmen and craftsmen from erupting. From inside, they are a wall against the inexorable grasses, keeping them at bay. North, south, east, and west, all sides of the town are closed off by the swamp forest. No road in, no road out, and the depths of the forest inviolable, the depths of its trees and waters unknown and unseen, though so wide and ramified that—even though no one has ever seen anything of the kind—everyone in Commoner Town believes there is a something there that will emerge, someday, to the astonishment of them all.
The streets of St. Magdalen’s were, as usual, deep in mud. Marjorie Westriding Yrarier had to leave her hover at the hamlet gate, next to the population post, and go slogging through mire which came almost to her ankles as she went past the chapel and the soup kitchen to the hovel that had been assigned to Bellalou Benice and her children. One child now: Lily Anne. The two legal children had publicly repudiated their mother a month ago, so they were well out of it. The phrase set up an ugly resonance, and Marjorie flushed, angry at herself for being angry at the two almost adult Benices. “Well out of it” was accurate, and Bellalou herself had probably encouraged her offspring to execute the demeaning ceremony as soon as both were old enough. On Terra, both the planetary and most of the provincial governments claimed a Judeo-Christian heritage, but “honor thy father and thy mother” had no meaning for illegals or for their parents.
At the hovel Marjorie set her pack on the stoop while she scraped her boots on the step edge, kicking the gluey clods off into the morass. There was no excuse for this. It would take less money to pave the streets than it took to lay temporary sidewalks during the quarterly visitations by the board, but Marjorie was a minority voice on the Board of Governors, which had “no frills” policy vis-à-vis its charitable endeavor. Most of the board members made their decisions about Breedertown without ever seeing the place or any of the people in it. Not that they didn’t coo and flutter around Marjorie for being so “dedicated,”, so “brave.” She had taken considerable satisfaction in that, once. Some time ago. Before she knew as much as she knew now.
The hovel door opened a crack, disclosing Bellalou’s swollen face. Someone had hit her again. Not her putative husband. He’d been shot last year for illegal procreation.
“Ma’am,” said Bellalou.
“Good morning, Bellalou.” Marjorie smiled her visitation smile, carefully not patronizing. “How’s Lily?”
“Fine,” the woman said. “She’s fine.”
Lily Anne was not fine, of course. When Marjorie came into the slovenly room, the illegal glared at her out of a sullen face as bruised as her mother’s. “You checkin’ up on me agin.”
“Trying to keep you alive until the ship goes, Lily.”
“Maybe I’d rather be dead, you ever think of that?”
Marjorie nodded soberly. Oh, indeed. She had thought of that. Maybe Lily would rather be dead. Maybe most illegal people would rather be dead than shipped away to Repentance, where two thirds of them would die before they were thirty anyhow. Though Marjorie had undertaken this work out of the religious conviction that life at any price was worth living, that was before she had seen certain documentaries, read certain exposés. Even she was no longer sure Repentance was preferable to simple death.
“You don’ mean that, Lily,” Bellalou remonstrated.
“Fuck I don’t.”
Marjorie intervened, trying to convince herself as much as the girl. “Look at it this way, Lily. You can have all the babies you want on Repentance.” That, at least, was true. Population was as much needed on Repentance as it was now rigidly controlled here on Terra. Babies born on Repentance would be citizens of that planet.
“Don’t want babies there. Want my baby you took.” It was the most recent plaint, since the abortion Marjorie had arranged, risking her own freedom and possibly her marriage in the process. Neither Rigo nor the local law would have looked kindly on that particular act of charity. Marjorie’s confessor, Father Sandoval, wouldn’t have been precisely cheery about it, either, had he known. Taking another step down a path she had prayed was not irreversible, Marjorie hadn’t told him.
“Lady Wesridin’ din take your baby, Lily. If you din have that abortion you’duh been shot by the pop’lation as soon as you showed, you know that.” Bellalou looked pleadingly at her daughter. “Illegals can’t do that.” Only third and subsequent living children were actually illegal. Though Bellalou herself was not an illegal, her status made little difference. As the parent of one she had been stripped of her civil rights. She went on, as though to claim a future joy for her daughter, “It’ll be better on Repentance.”
“Don’t want Repentance. Rather be shot,” the girl cried.
Neither Marjorie nor Bellalou contradicted her. Marjorie found herself wondering why she simply hadn’t let it happen. Poor little beast. Ignorant as a chicken. Half her teeth were falling out already and she couldn’t read or write. No one was allowed
