The Kanshou (Earthkeep) (27 page)

Yotoma concealed her relief at Lin-ci's manner of address, and spoke to staff members outside the holofield.  Her holosize was reduced by a fraction so as to accommodate screens of scrolling statistics on each side of her for the attention of her Co-Magisters.  "How often do you two check population statistics?" she asked.

"Twice daily," said Lin-ci, "like cleaning my teeth." 
"I guessed as much, and I feel a bit presumptuous in bringing up the matter.  Lin-ci, you're one of the world's experts on population, and I hear that in Asia and China,  population-watching is an entrenched ritual."

Lin-ci nodded acceptance of the compliment.  "Sometimes," she noted, "the eye closest to the microscope misses the larger landscape.  To answer your question: we are holding, overall, at some 558,000,000.  No meaningful increase."

"Total over Nueva Tierra Sur, Central, and Norte," Zude offered, "is 285,000,000.  Just under normal on the Sablove Percentage Scales.  No alarming increases anywhere, not even in new cities."

"My own tri-satrapy also maintains safety status," Yotoma added.  She activated a series of cartograms.  "But our analysis teams have picked up a change that worries me, in figures on the quarter-trap and demesne levels."  The continent of Africa bloomed out of the Africa-Europe-Mideast Tri-Satrapy, only to be replaced by a magnification of its southern half, then by a further cut to its lowest tip, and a freeze on New Cape Province with its lakes and rivers.  Statistics in accompanying insets announced the total number of female, male, and doublesexed births and deaths.  Another displayed the infant mortality rates, still another the breakdown of the statistics for each major historical community -- Zulu, Xhosa, Sesotho, Afrikaan, South Asian, White.  Further insets available for magnification cross-referenced current changes in food production, housing, water tables, employment, education, literacy, manufacture, health services, and familial patterning.

Yotoma talked as she pulled up statistics on school populations.  "You both have in mind the upper danger zone figures, and Size Central itself is alert only for population increases."

Zude lit a cigarillo.  "What are you saying, Flossie?"

"Just that you get what you look for.  When you look for assurances that we're not overpopulating, you usually get assurances that we're not overpopulating.  Or you see us increasing into the danger zone and you respond accordingly with investigation.  But watch."  She split the screen to compare current schoolroom statistics in New Cape Province with those of a year ago, then with those of five years ago.  She read aloud the stats as they appeared on the monitor.  "Schooling citizens in Pretoria at present 19,640, a year ago 19,986, five years ago, 20,517.  In Johannesburg at present 47,262 in school, a year ago 47,743, five years ago 49,924.  Benon at present 5,556, a year ago 5,627, five years ago 5,764."

Lin-ci Win sat up straight.  Zude doused her cigarillo.

Yotoma wiped New Cape Province and flooded the screen with data from Western Africa.  "Bobo Dioulasso, more subtle but still creeping downward: 7,866 today, 7,936 a year ago, 8,249 five years ago.  Dakar today 26,606, last year 26,717, five years ago 27,457.  Bissau 3,686 today, last year 3,728, five--"

Zude stopped her.  "Wait.  Can we voice activate?"  When Yotoma nodded, Zude commanded the computer, "Harriet, give us Size Central, population, Rio De Janeiro, school population now, a year ago, five years ago." 

The flatfield to Yotoma's other side came alive with Nueva Tierra Sur's hump and split-screen data: at present 304,077 schooling citizens in Rio De Janeiro, the year before 307,006, five years before 318,769.  "Harriet, give us Houston!"  Zude fairly shouted.  The flatscreen obliged with the Texas coast: at present 96,845 students, the year before 97,813, five years before 100,875.

Lin-ci Win studied the field.  "That is almost a full percent decrease each year.  Harriet, Shanghai please, same path."

Yotoma activated the computer voice to reinforce the information on the visual field which now revealed the China coast.  "At present, 366,000 schooling in Shanghai," said Harriet.  "In 2086 C.E., 369,571.  In 2081, 384,593."

As Yotoma knew they would, her colleagues called up several more cities.  As she knew it would be, the same pattern was borne out time and again.  Yotoma watched patiently.  Then, as she knew they would, her Co-Magisters called up full global population figures, found some hint of overall decline, and sought percentages.

"There is a drop," Zude said.  "Significant.  From  1,240,000,000 to 1,237,000,000."

Lin-ci Win differed.  "Not that significant.  When we failed to contain the Fourth Virus seventy years ago, the drop was over a third of a percent.  This one represents less than a quarter of a percent.  Not that significant."

"But global schooling figures," Zude protested, "is down close to a full percent as you pointed out.  That's the population still largely under twenty, even with universal adult education.  Deaths?  Among the young and the strong?  Floss, what's going on?  Why haven't we discovered this drop?"

The Femmedarme Magister allowed herself a rueful smile. "Let me point out that we
have
discovered it.  We've just discovered it late.  Shall I name you four factors that contributed to our ignorance?"  Hardly pausing for permission, she continued.

"First, we haven't been looking for
declines
in population or even in birth rates.  And we've been busy focusing on the Testing and the Protocols to the exclusion of almost everything else.  Second, Lin-ci is right.  Even if we had noted the declines, we wouldn't be worried.  We've had more extreme global dips before, several times, and no serious consequences.  Third, like you've started to understand just this evening, the most marked decline is within a discrete population, with no corollaries that I can find with any other group.

"Finally, and most important," said Magister Lutu, "there was a shake-up three years ago in the programming of the education sector of the Size Bureau.  If you'll remember, half-trap web decisions in at least seven satrapies drove statistical teams crazy and put whole blocks of information in limbo for months.  The dispute was, I believe, over the definition of the word, 'student.'  It's clarified now and the bureaucracy has resumed its intrepid operation.  But I suspect that the figures we presently see attached to schooling citizens may not until recently have been made official.  Over the years we may well have been looking at other figures entirely, figures that did not reflect a decline.  We can probably make a more accurate assessment if we measure specific age-groups instead of 'schooling citizens.'  That's a calculation that, believe it or not, has never been a part of Size Center's population program.  I've got my staff at work on that now."

Lin-ci Win was leaning forward.  "Harriet," she said, "let us see the global figures for population since the year 2000 of the Common Era."  She pushed back her cowl to reveal close-shaven ebony hair, then looked at her Kanshoumates.  "We need to determine if any particular decrease occurred among school children over those years.  As opposed to overall population."

They studied the turn-of-the-millennium figures from large cities and small hamlets, for pre-adolescents and trade-school enrollees, all cross-referenced and compared internally by sex, ethnic background, age, and Nurturance Quotient.  Set against the decline of overall population during those years, the school figures were boringly consistent.  Inquiries into manner-of-death statistics for the present decline yielded no reported increase, much less any pattern, in the incidence of illness, accident, or suicide among children or youth.  The Magisters worked on -- digging, speculating, searching for some key to a nagging puzzle.  An hour later, Yotoma closed down the flatfields and Zude lit another cigarillo. 

"We need more information," Lin-ci Win muttered, rubbing the stubble on her head.  "Flossie, your analysis team there in Tripoli needs to lead the way with what it's already uncovered.  Then we can model your paths.  I'll send you the best we've got in systems design to help spark the process."

Zude risked an earlier familiarity.  "Lin-ci," she said, "we could also use some of your trained clairsentients, operators who can read others' feelings.  I'll bet my pension that our best leads will come from school children themselves -- that is, if some significant number of such children are curling up to die."

"Curling up to -- that's not what's happening, Zella,"
Lin-ci began.  Then, in an uncharacteristic display of doubt, she looked at Yotoma and back to Zude.  "That's not what's happening.  Is it?"

Zude prematurely smothered her cigarillo.  "What else can it be?  Do three million school kids just disappear from the face of the Earth?  Or, allowing for older schoolers and normal deaths among our youngest age group, even two million?  Or a million?"

Yotoma maintained an enigmatic silence.  Lin-ci Win stared at Zude.  "You're right, of course.  Whatever is happening, children and adolescents themselves will be best able to identify it."  She scratched her head and then drew her neck cowl up, resuming her nun-like appearance.  "I am unfortunately distant from any small ones except the three in our household.  They seem fine . . . ."  The Magister subsided into a reverie.  Then suddenly she uttered an oath from an obscure language and leaned toward Flossie.  "My chosen grandaughter.  She's six.  She told me the other day of a little friend who had died.  When I asked her how that had happened she said, 'I don't know.  She just decided to die.'" 

The three Magisters looked at each other.  Then Zude stood up in her holopocket.  She stretched her arms above her head.  "Well, we may be making a mountain out of the proverbial molehill.  Like as not, we'll discover tomorrow some rational explanation for it all."  She looked at the other two and they looked back at her in silence. 

Zude sank into her chair again.  "It's no good, is it?" she admitted.  "I can't talk myself out of this.  Can't shake this feeling, this crazy feeling. . . ."

Yotoma did not speak.  She shook her head. 

As if by common consent, and without another word, all three women nodded in courteous farewell to one another. Then their respective Peace Rooms redeemed their holo-images from the ether and each was left alone, staring at the emptiness that had held her colleagues.

* * * * * * *

As each Magister returned to the duties of her own tri-satrapy, Jezebel Stronglaces in Bombay had just learned of the bailiwick outbreaks.  In the dying sunlight of Dhamni's courtyard she sat, in open trance.

"Jez!"  Dicken's voice prodded her gently.  "Are you back?"

Jezebel moved her body in small but deliberate stretches.  "Just visiting," she sighed, "with some snakes and eagles.  And," she added with a slight frown, "with . . . a calico cat, I think . . . ."  Her eyes were fixed on the garden wall beyond the boontree root, even as she spoke to the woman on the bench beside her.  "Can you hear the singing, Dicken?"

"Singing?"

"Yes."  Jez's eyes were soft.  "Lots of children . . . singing."

Dicken closed her eyes.  "I'm not hearing them."  Then she whispered, "Love, Dhamni and I are on flatfone with some women in Hanoi.  Do you want to join us?"

Jez shook her head.  "Later," she said.  "There's something here, something I must do . . . . "  She felt Dicken slip away from her, back into the house.

The song called to her, its cadences distant and strange but, like the chantings of her ancestors, also hauntingly familiar.  She sank again into her expanded awareness.

She could not explain to Dicken just yet the summons of the sounds and images that flooded her mind . . . the tiny flashes of incandescent light, this song, the calico cat, and the image half a world away of the figure in a Vigilante uniform who could only be one woman . . . .

* * * * * * *

Later that night in her darkened office, Zude stood with her hand on the back of the taxidermed calico cat.  "If you were here," she said softly, "I'd ask you to sleep on my bed tonight, and walk with me in my dreams."   The yellow eyes flickered, and Zude cocked her head, urging her ears toward words just a shiver beyond their grasp.  She listened in vain.   

Reluctantly, she withdrew her hand from the crouching cat's body and stepped to the depaqued window that framed her city.  Below her, the lights lay like jewels strewn by a bountiful god, each sparkling its separate story, each rich with life.  She followed the illuminated paths of cushcars and the city's Rolling Beltway.  In the urban glow she could make out a Vigilante gert descending from the Shrievalty's roof, dipping lightly toward the streets.  Were the two women called to some small crisis, some domestic strife, perhaps?  At least the Los Angeles Bailiwick had not erupted into violence today . . . the gert was not headed for clean-up or incident inquiry.  Maybe, she thought, the two Kanshou were simply going off-duty, home to their private lives.

Zude remembered painfully her first assignment as a newly graduated Kanshou: Amah Lieutenant Adverb and two companion Foot-Shrieves of Calcutta's Maiden Precinct were dispatched to a rapidly escalating barroom brawl in which several of the combatants slashed at each other with switchblades.  The Kanshou quelled the row but could not save the life of one of the men.  Zude had almost disarmed one assailant only to feel him break free of her hold at the last moment.  She watched helplessly as he drove his knife deep into his adversary's solar plexus.  She was a full-fledged peacekeeper; but what peace, she asked herself now, had she brought to those two men who so fiercely
wanted
to kill each other?  Would their lives have been different if they had had some magical surgery, some medical protocols that might have divested them of their violence? 

She leaned against the window's edge.  What if all those sordid human urges
could
be physiologically controlled?  If the protofiles were right, and if they had their way, men like those in the bar might never strike at each other in the first place.

"It's still too big a price to pay," she muttered aloud.  "Let them die in their own blood if necessary, but let them die untampered with and free.