Soldier at the Door by Trish Mercer Read Free Book Online Page A

still feeling some irrational effects of birthing. “Stop it!” Mahrree exclaimed in a loud whisper.
    Perrin clamped shut his mouth and analyzed his wife. “What is this all about, Mahrree?”
    She couldn’t put it off any longer. Her time was growing short. The date was already set.
    “Perrin, what if I don’t take The Drink? What if we have a third baby instead? I don’t believe my body would be maimed or my mind destroyed. If other women can still have fifteen, then I’m sure I could handle a third. I just need to rest first, then—”
    Perrin was suddenly right in her face, on all fours straddling her, and glaring with horror and confusion.
    Jaytsy lay sprawled on the blanket wondering what happened to her pillow.
    “Mahrree Peto Shin, I must inform you that are sounding at this moment like a traitor.” His voice was cold and fierce. “ Not my wife. Not my wife!”
    Mahrree had expected this response. He played it out quite as she imagined he would. A part of him— Captain Shin —was loyal to the Administrators, and she knew the captain would rear up as soon as she confessed her idea. But she didn’t burst into tears or shrink away.
    Perrin’s eyebrows furrowed in surprise at her lack of it.
    She was overly calm, like a crazed person who had been planning a bizarre scheme for seasons.
    Which she had.
    “Perrin,” she said steadily, “just consider it for a moment. The Writings tell us to bring more into the World, so all can have an opportunity to go through The Test. We should have more children—”
    “Why are you saying these things?!” he whispered severely, and looked around to see if anyone was near enough to hear.
    “Because our ancestors had many more than two,” she insisted. “And there are others that still have up to fifteen! I’ve done the math— I know I’m right.”
    He shook his head.
    “Only consider this for a minute, please,” she begged. “The world began with one thousand and the Creator. Then He paired them up to populate the land.”
    “Yes,” he said slowly, trying to put his shock in his back pocket for a moment.
    “Now, one thousand people means five hundred pairs. If they have an average of 6.5 children in each family—”
    “Where did you get that number ?” he whispered fiercely.
    She was a bit startled by his exclamation, but decided it was a natural reaction to the onslaught she was throwing at him. “It’s just an average, all right? You can say six then, or seven—”
    “Still, six?!” he exclaimed hoarsely. “You can barely keep track of Jaytsy while Peto is feeding! How could anyone keep track of six children?”
    She would not be deterred. “Couldn’t the older help care for the younger?”
    He looked down for a moment. “I suppose,” he conceded, “but how would they know what to do?”
    “Learn from their mothers? I don’t know. That’s not the point. Besides, some could have less, and some could have more.”
    Perrin stared at her, wild-eyed.
    “So at a rate of 6.5 children—I ran scenarios for four and eight as well,” she explained, “but this seems to be the most accurate average—”
    “You really have been thinking about this.”
    “There’s little else to do when I’m nursing a baby! So, 500 co uples have 6.5 children for 3250 people. Pair them up for another generation and at 6.5 children per couple, that becomes about 10, 500. The third generation at the same rate becomes around 34,000. The fourth generation is, what was it? Oh yes—110,500. Fifth generation means almost 360,000, and by the sixth generation we have over a million and one hundred thousand people. Give or take.”
    Perrin only blinked.
    “The Great War broke out during the seventh generation. Perrin, how many people were in the world then? Does the army have any good estimates?”
    He shook his head slightly, likely trying to catch up to her ca lculations and frantically trying to figure out the dangerous direction his wife was headed. “Uh, not any