a gigantic cigar set on wheels, a sign advertising Sloat’s Smoke Shoppe & Sundries on Montgomery. The emaciated driver, clad in tobacco brown, is no doubt his own best patron. With a whip and the reins clutched in his pointed little hands, he looks a lot like a weevil perched on the end of the huge cigar.
The whimsical cigar wagon turns the corner, advertising Smythe’s Sundries & Smoke Shoppe on Sansome. Zhu chuckles to herself. Almighty advertising. She doesn’t smoke but wonders what clever sundries Mr. Smythe may stock.
But, wait a minute.
The gilt lettering across the giant cigar said Montgomery, not Sansome. Smoke Shoppe & Sundries, not the other way around. And Sloat’s. She’s quite sure she saw Sloat’s, not Smythe’s.
What the hell? Is she suffering from tachyonic lag, a common side effect of a t-port? A disturbance of the mind and the body caused by superluminal drift during the crossing over? Inducing fatigue, disorientation, even hallucinations?
“Muse?” she whispers. “Excuse me, what’s going on?”
Muse is silent.
Oh, come on. Maybe the sign is like the woman wearing the face glove in Golden Gate Park. Zhu was fooled by the illusion of a clear complexion till the sun exposed her mask. Or maybe Zhu saw the other side of the wagon when the driver turned the corner and two smoke shops advertise on this wagon.
She dashes to the corner before the wagon can clatter out of sight. On the right side, she sees Smythe’s Sundries & Smoke Shoppe on Sansome. She dashes around to the other side. On the left, the same ad. The driver, who now is positively stout and clad in an olive green suit, smiles and tips his bowler, pleased at her attention.
“Damn it, Muse,” she whispers to the monitor. “What’s happening to the cigar wagon?”
“I tried to warn you,” Muse whispers. “He’s a man of 1895. A social Darwinist.”
Zhu stops in her tracks at the monitor’s nonresponsive answer. “Excuse me again. What are you talking about?”
“I told you he had designs on you. He thinks he’s entitled.”
“You said no such thing!”
“Of course I did. I warned you to be careful. He cares nothing for you. To him, you are less than an animal.”
“Oh, really. He said he adores me.”
“You of all women should be outraged.”
“He was forceful. And you know? I didn’t mind. I enjoyed it. Paul”—that was her one-time lover in her twenties—“was always so hesitant. So unsure of himself.” Now she’s irritated. “Why are you opposing me, Muse? You’re supposed to monitor my progress with the project. You’re supposed to help me.”
“I’m not opposing you. I am helping you.”
“Oh, really? What about Wing Sing? How can I find her?”
Muse posts a calendar in her peripheral vision. “The package you ordered should arrive at the Mansion today.” Another non sequitur? Or maybe not.
Yes, the package. Maybe what the package contains will help her in her search for Wing Sing. “All right,” she says, weary of Muse’s weird behavior. “But what about the cigar wagon?”
“What cigar wagon?”
Right. She trudges up the long, slow slope, silent and troubled. Is the monitor deliberately being cruel?
How much more cruelty can she bear?
* * *
The Generation-Skipping Law was cruel, but a population of twelve billion people inhabiting this frail Earth caused even more cruelty. Too many pollutants in the air and the water and the soil. Climate change had whittled away rich coastlines, waste clogged rivers and streams, salt water contaminated fresh. Chemicals, radiation, and heavy metals degraded food and drinking water. Desperate poverty crushed eight billion people. Disease wracked their lives. Hunger and thirst dogged their days and nights.
Yet still the population increased, due to the phenomenon of exponential growth. Fertility outpaced mortality in a cruel game of statistical tag.
At last the World Birth Control Organization held an emergency meeting and issued a mandate to the nations of the world--control growth. The cosmicists—the movement founded after the turn of the millennium by the second woman president of the United States—proposed a slogan--Live Responsibly or Die. Zero population growth—two children per couple—wasn’t enough. One child per couple was still too many. The world needed negative growth. Fast.
In an unprecedented act of cooperation and self-sacrifice by all of humanity, the Generation-Skipping Law was set into place. Under the law, two billion people were randomly chosen by lottery to forego having children within their lifetimes. They would skip a generation.
But countless people decried the plan. Charges of genetic discrimination were leveled. Some suggested genocide, especially when the lottery happened to choose more citizens of