"I just have a question," he said. "Couldn't there be an advantage in having an excess of males?"
"It must not be an important one," said Ms. Brown, "because the vast majority of human communities--especially the ones that survive longest--have shown a willingness to throw away males, not females. Besides, killing female babies gives you a higher proportion of males, but a lower absolute number of males, because there are fewer females to give birth to them."
"But what about when resources are scarce?" a student asked.
"What about it?" said Ms. Brown.
"I mean, don't you have to reduce the population to sustainable levels?"
Suddenly the room was very quiet.
Ms. Brown laughed. "Anyone want to try an answer to that?"
No one spoke.
"And why have we suddenly become silent?" she asked.
She waited.
Finally someone murmured, "The population laws."
"Ah," she said. "Politics. We have a worldwide decision to decrease the human population by limiting the number of births to two per couple. And you don't want to talk about it."
The silence said that they didn't even want to talk about the fact that they didn't want to talk about it.
"The human race is fighting for its survival against an alien invasion," she said, "and in the process, we have decided to limit our reproduction."
"Somebody named Br
own," said John Paul, "ought to know how dangerous it can be to go on record as opposing the population laws."
She looked at him icily. "This is a science class, not a political debate," she said. "There are community traits that promote survival of the individual, and individual traits that promote the survival of the community. In this class, we are not afraid to go where the evidence takes us."
"What if it takes us out of any chance of getting a job?" asked a student.
"I'm here to teach the students who want to learn what I know," she said. "If you're one of that happy number, then aren't we both lucky. If you're not, I don't much care. But I'm not going to not teach you something because knowing it might somehow make you less employable."
"So is it true," asked a girl in the front row, "that he really is your father?"
"Who?" asked Ms. Brown.
"You know," the girl said. "Hinckley Brown."
Hinckley Brown. The military strategist whose book was still the bible of the International Fleet--but who resigned from the I.F. and went into seclusion because he refused to go along with the population laws.
"And this would be relevant to you because...?" asked Ms. Brown.
The answer was belligerent. "Because we have a right to know if you're teaching us science or your religion."
That's right, thought John Paul. Hinckley Brown was a Mormon, and they were noncompliant.
Noncompliant like John Paul's own parents, who were Polish Catholics.
Noncompliant like John Paul intended to be, as soon as he found somebody he wanted to marry. Somebody who also wanted to stick it to the Hegemony and their two-children-per-family law.
"What if," said Ms. Brown, "the findings of science happen to coincide, on a particular point, with the beliefs of a religion? Do we reject the science in order to reject the religion?"
"What if the science gets influenced by the religion?" demanded the student.