some of the green hairy creatures. That surprised me a little because the ones I’d seen earlier had seemed frightened and unhappy and certainly had given no sign of the ability to count to one, let alone do any work, even with somebody directing them. It relieved my mind a little, though. I’d thought they might be meat animals and they were too humanoid for that to seem acceptable.
The road widened in the valley and was cut twice by smaller crossroads. I overtook more people and was passed once by a fast-stepping pair of horses and a carriage. I met wagons and horses and people on foot. I passed what seemed to be a roadside camp set between road and field. There was a wagon there and a tent with a woman hanging laundry outside. There was a well and a great empty roofless wooden structure. As I traveled, nobody questioned me. I overtook a wagon loaded heavily, covered bales in the back, driven by the oldest man I’d ever seen. He had white hair and a seamed red face. As I trotted past on Ninc he raised a rough old hand and waved.
“Hello,” he said.
I waved back, “Hello.” He smiled.
Then in the afternoon, I came to the town. It was just an uncertain dot at first, but at last I came to it, one final doll. I came down the brown dirt road and rode into the town of stone and brick and wood. By the time I came out on the other side, I felt thoroughly shaken. My hands weren’t happily sweaty. They were cold and sweaty and my head was spinning.
There was a sign at the edge of the town that said MIDLAND. The town looked handmade, cobbled together. Out of date. Out of time, really, as though nothing but the simplest machines had been heard of here.
I passed some boys playing tag in the dirt of the street and saw that one of the buildings was a newspaper. There was a large strip of paper in the window with the word INVASION! in great letters. A man in rough clothes was standing outside puzzling the word out.
I looked at everything as I rode through the town, but I looked most closely at the people. There were boys playing, but I saw only a couple of little girls and they were walking primly with their families.
There are a number of things that I’m not fond of, as you know. Wearing pants is one. I’d been glad to have them here because they kept my legs warm and protected, but I wouldn’t wear them except from necessity. The men and boys that I saw here were wearing pants. The women and girls weren’t. They were wearing clothes that struck my eye as odd, but flattering. However, they were as hampering as bound feet and I wouldn’t have undertaken to walk a hundred yards in them. Riding would have been a complete impossibility. I decided then that pants might be preferable to some hypothetical alternatives.
The number of kids that I saw was overwhelming. They swarmed. They played in the street by squads and bunches. And these were just boys.
The only girls I saw were a troop wearing uniforms and hobbling along under the eyes of a pack of guardians. Schoolgirls, I guessed.
More than half of the people I saw were kids—far more than half. When I saw a family together, the answer hit me. There was a father, a mother, and a whole brigade of children—eight of them. The family resemblance was unmistakable.
These people were Free Birthers! The idea struck me hard. The very first thing you learn as a child is the consequences of a Free Birth policy. We couldn’t last a generation if we bred like animals. A planet is just an oversized Ship and these people, as much as we, were the heirs of a planet destroyed by Free Birth. They ought to know better.
A planet is different enough from a Ship that we wouldn’t expect population to be restricted as tightly as ours, but some planning is necessary. There is no excuse for eight children in one family—and this just counted those present and walking. Who knows how many older and younger ones there were? It was sickening immorality.
It frightened me and filled me with revulsion. I was frantic. There were too many things going on that I couldn’t like or understand. I held Ninc to a walk to the far edge of town, but