Summer of Love, a Time Travel (51 page)

“But”--Susan
recollects the holoids he showed her and Ruby--“wasn’t Mars one of the
inventors of telespace? Didn’t you say he and Calliope married in 2246?”

“Yes.”

“But
you’re from 2467! You’re only twenty-one!”

And
he gives her such a haunted, sorrowful look, Susan pushes her bowl of food away
and folds her hands, listening.

*  
*   *

The
world population had reached twelve billion, Chi says. In spite of unexpected global
changes and the First and Second Atomic Wars, in spite of radiation sickness
and pandemics, fifteen billion people inhabited the Earth. Even the wealthy
hiding beneath their private domes couldn’t escape the impact of fifteen billion
people on our small blue planet.

The
strain was evident everywhere: water shortages, food shortages, energy
shortages. Five thousand wars, if you added gang wars and local revolutions to
international disputes. Pollution and diseases resistant to medicine when
medicine
could
be had. People had been talking about a population crisis
for centuries. Back in the 2100s, Mary Alexander expressed her concern and founded
the World Birth Limits Organization. But birth limits movements back then were
voluntary. No nation in the world, except Communist China, enforced a population
limits policy.

That
was then.

“I
believe in the infinite holiness of life,” Ruby says.

Which
makes Susan squirm. Ruby knows very well what she did this summer.

“So
do we,” Chi says and sighs. “See, population growth is exponential. It’s like
the pond with its lily pads that double their numbers each time they grow. By
the time the pond is half covered, it’s too late.”

“Because
when the pond is half covered, and the lily pads double again, then the pond is
completely covered?” Susan says.

“That’s
right, my Starbright,” Chi says.

“Smart
girl,” Ruby says.

Among
practicing cosmicists, Chi continues, voluntary childlessness was the right
choice. But when, in 2250, Calliope Alexander-Herbert proposed mandating
childlessness before the World Birth Limits Organization, she met with outraged
resistance, even among cosmicists.

“Who
wanted to forfeit the right to pass on their genes to another generation?” Chi
says. “Who wanted to forfeit the possibility of producing another genius or a
saint? Who wanted to be left without an heir?”

When
the world population exceeded fifteen billion, enforced childlessness became
the only way. But everyone had to compromise on the heirs issue.

“The
World Birth Limits Organization convened an international meeting,” Chi
continues. “After three terrorist attacks and two assassination attempts, the
WBLO passed the Generation-Skipping Law. The plan was this. Randomly chosen
couples from all over the world would have their genetic material—sperm and
eggs—harvested and frozen by cryopreservation, a technique well mastered by
that time. From their harvest, the couple could choose and create their child.
Skipparents would be arranged for the child, typically from future family members.
After a statutory period passed, the child would be birthed in a lab or by
implantation in the skipmother’s womb.”

And
then another random pool of couples throughout the world were chosen to skip a
generation.

“The
goal was to reduce our numbers to six billion, which was the last time people
had a reasonable quality of life,” Chi says, with another sigh.

“So
Calliope and Mars were chosen?” Susan says. “Your mom and dad had to skip?”

“Oh,
no,” Chi tells her. “They were good cosmicists. They volunteered. You know,” he
says, “sometimes I feel like I know them from the holoids they left me. And
don’t get me wrong, I love my skipparents, and they love me. But sometimes I
feel this sadness. Like I’ve lost something I can never get back.”

“You
never met your parents
at all?
” Susan says.

“They
died,” Chi says, “a hundred years before I was born.”

“Hi,”
Susan says into the telephone. Silence, a sputter of static. Her hand shakes so
hard, the mouthpiece bumps against her teeth. “It’s me.”

A
long deep sigh. A snuffle. Noises knocking around in the background. Her
mother’s voice. Then the clatter of someone picking up the phone in the den. A
second breath, a second breathlessness.

“Hi,
it’s you,” her father says. “Do you have any idea what you have put us through,
young lady?”

God!
Her heart pounds in her throat. She braces herself.

“Where
are you now?” her mother asks shrilly.

A
nervous giggle spills from Susan’s mouth. “I’m, ah, well, I’m in San Francisco.
It’s really far out, you should see it, ha ha ha.”

“Any
idea at all?”

“Are
you all right, dear?”

“I’m
okay, Mom. I know you’re pissed at me, but—”

“Pissed.
Pissed. Pissed is not the word, young lady.”

“Susan,
don’t you use that kind of language with your father.”

“Gloria,
I think you better—”

“Or
when you’re talking—”

“Get
off the phone, Gloria, and let me handle—”

“Just
because she’s calling doesn’t mean. . . .Susan, just because you’re calling
doesn’t mean--”

“Let
me handle this, goddamn it, Gloria!”

Susan
almost laughs out loud at her parents’ tangling voices. Then she’s infuriated.
She hasn’t seen them or spoken to them in over two months.

“This
is so typical. You haven’t changed one bit, but I have. I’ve changed, and I
can’t stand the way you hassle over every stupid thing. That’s the reason I
left. Why can’t you just
talk
to me?”

Shocked
silence.

She
hears a
click.
Her mother has hung up the phone.

“If
you can’t talk to me, Dad, I’m going to hang up, okay?”

Her
father sighs. “Don’t hang up, Susan.”

“Then
stop
it!”

He
sighs again, a bone-weary sigh. “You’re starting school next week. I want you
back here right now.”

“Sorry,
I ran out of money. I can’t afford a plane ticket. Guess I’ll have to
hitchhike.”

“I’ll
buy the ticket. It’ll be waiting for you at the airport.”

“What
if I don’t want to come back?”

“You
don’t want to come home?”

“I
don’t know. Why should I?”

A
pause, another snuffle. It suddenly occurs to her that her father is crying.
“Because we love you, Susan.”

“You
do?”

Now
she
is crying, and this makes her mad, because she swore she wouldn’t, no matter
what. She wipes her cheek on the back of her hand. Ruby looks up from across
the kitchen table and tosses her a paper napkin.

“Of
course we do. You know we do.”

“Maybe
I
don’t
know. Dad, Nance died. She burned to death.”

“We
know. We heard from her mother.” More silence, muffled sighs. “So I’m not Daddy
anymore?”

“I’m
not a little girl anymore.”

He
thinks that over. “Tell you what,” her father says. “Your mother and I are going
to get on a plane and meet you in San Francisco tonight.”

“You
don’t have to do that.”

“Yes.
Yes, I think we do. We can talk on the flight home.”

He
takes down Ruby’s number, hangs up, and calls Susan back. They’re flying out on
Pan Am flight 524, to arrive thirty minutes after midnight. He wants to pick
her up wherever she’s staying, but Susan chickens out on that. She asks Ruby if
she’ll drive her to airport. Ruby nods.

“We
saw you on TV,” her father says. “I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

“Oh,
everyone here thinks ‘The Hippie Temptation’ was a shuck. Harry Reasoner
doesn’t know the first thing about the Haight-Ashbury.”

“Your
mother thinks you’ve gotten too thin.”

“She
would.”

He
clears his throat. “Susan, you didn’t. . . .you wouldn’t. . . .did you, um. Did
you take that LSD drug they’re talking about?”

That
LSD
drug?
Which
LSD drug? Owsley white lightning or purple double barrels or
dragon’s blood? She doesn’t know which LSD drug he means.

“No,”
Susan implies, not lying. Her father’s sigh of relief makes the implication
worthwhile. “Listen, Dad. Don’t ever call me stupid again.”

“I
know you’re not stupid, Susan. You’re in the ninety-eighth percentile. You’re
one of the smartest kids in your school.”

“Because
the Summer of Love hasn’t been stupid, Dad,” she persists. “This has been the
most amazing summer I’ve ever had in my life.”

*  
*   *

Susan
hangs up the phone to find Chi staring at her, his troubled look darker. He takes
the oblong stone-thing from his jacket pocket and gingerly lays it on the
kitchen table. He gazes into her eyes so intently, she fidgets with the last of
her lunch. Ruby whisks the bowls away.

“Starbright,”
he says, “Katie tells me I need to verify your identity. Will you please place
the fingers of your right hand on my scanner?”

“Okay.”
She does. Thumb, too.

“Left
hand?”

She
does the same.

“Starbright,”
he says, his voice husky. “Will you please tell me your true and legal name?”

“I’m
Susan Bell.”

“How
old are you, Susan?”

“I’m.
. . .going on fifteen.” She blushes at Ruby’s look of surprise. “I’m fourteen,
okay?”

“Mega.”
Chi heaves a sigh. “That’s prime. Now, one last thing. I’m going to press the
scanner on your chest, right here. You’ll feel a little prick like before,
okay?”

He
tenderly presses the stone to her breastbone. She feels that prick again, like
the poke of a tiny needle.

“
Oh,
no!
” Chi leaps to his feet, knocking over the kitchen chair.

Susan
screams.

The
cats scatter.

Ruby
drops the bowls.

“No,
no,
no!
” He shakes the scanner, rereading it again and again. “This
can’t be!”

He
lunges for her. She ducks behind the table. He lunges again. He seizes her,
pressing the scanner to her chest.

Ruby
tears him away from her. “Chiron Cat’s Eye in Draco! Have you gone off your
rocker?”

He
collapses in a chair. He stares at Susan with haunted eyes. “You’re not
pregnant.”

Susan
and Ruby trade glances, astonished and wary.

“Well,
of course I’m not pregnant,” she says indignantly. “Why should I be?”

“But
you
were.
You were in July, weren’t you?
Weren’t
you?”

Susan
burns scarlet. “Y-yes, but it was Stan the Man’s. I couldn’t have it. I didn’t
want it and I couldn’t have it, and that’s that!”

“It?”
he says. “
It?
”

“This
is none of your business, man from Mars,” Ruby snaps.

“It
is
my business. Susan, tell me what happened.”

“I—I—I
got an abortion.”

“Dig
it, Chi,” Ruby says. “It’s very simple. She’s fourteen years old. It’s not
likely the drug-dealing SOB who statutorily raped her would have given a damn. She
was less than two weeks pregnant. She didn’t want to identify herself and anyway
the new law is crap. So I took her to a doctor who does D and Cs, all right? We
talked it over first, so she was sure she was making the right decision, and
why the hell do you
care?
”

“She
can’t
have had an abortion!”

Susan
watches, confused, as Ruby seizes Chi by his shirt collar.

“Yes—she—can,”
Ruby says. “She can, and she did. I thought you just got through telling us
your sex police enforce birth limits in the future.”