"How old are you?" He asks without answering.
"Twenty-nine." Two years older than Sabine. Old enough to be worried that it will not be long before the leaders demand I have my first child.
"And you are not mated? You have no children?"
"Did Sabine mention that there are more women than men?" He seems aware of the imbalance.
He smiles. "She did. And it irked her that she couldn't choose her own mate."
"So she chose one of your brothers. And what about the rest of the women you took?"
"Rescued."
"Rescued…but didn't return. That's the same as taking."
"They can choose a warrior if they want, or when my brothers return home over the ocean, they can choose from one of the many other warriors who aren't banished. No one will force them to do anything, if that is what you are suggesting. A warrior that does would be banished."
"You are already banished, so why do you follow those rules?"
"If we return to our tribe with a woman, we are welcomed back. For some banished warriors, the hope of returning home is the only thing that keeps their heart beating." He taps his chest where I assume his heart is. I need to check that is where it is.
"And to go home you need to bring a woman who will join your tribe…because you don't have enough women." It's starting to make sense now. "Why would another tribe let you take a woman?"
"They don't, which is why many banished are killed in the first year."
Oh, they are killed because they raid another tribe, trying to take a woman so they can return home. From a scientific point of view, I can see how that would work both to reduce the problem of having too many single males, while also bringing genetic diversity to the tribe should the man be successful in returning with a woman.
I make another note to follow up on the mating situation, and also how much traffic and trade there is between tribes. How many people are in a tribe? How many tribes are there on the other continent?
"What do you do with your excess women?" Tiril asks.
I laugh and shake my head. "The people in charge made sure there were plenty of women, so that we can increase our population rapidly. On Earth, there is a much more equal split between men and women."
"How did they make sure?"
"We have ways of…"
He steps forward and grips the bars. "You can determine if a child is male or female?"
"We can, and we can also choose." As soon as the translation reaches his ear, wonder, the hope, and unspoken questions cross his face.
"How?"
I don't know how to explain ultrasound, any more than I know how to explain how embryos are selected. "It is a complicated science that won't be used after my generation has children."
If I had my way, it wouldn't be used at all. Already there is too much damage from the imbalance. People want connection and love and family. They don't want children for the colony, if they're being honest. But most people are afraid to step outside the rules because they don't want to be banished.
We aren’t that much different from his tribe.
8
TIRIL
Istare at her. If the humans can create an imbalance, then they can also fix it. I try to imagine what it would be like if they were no more banished warriors. If there were an equal number of men and women. But I don't know how that would work. And she doesn't seem to think the knowledge should be used.
"Why wouldn't you use the science?" Are use her word because I don't have that word and I'm not sure what it means.
"Because what we brought with us from Earth will eventually fail, and we will have to survive without it." She lifts the tablet and sighs. "We don't have the skills or the materials to make this again."
