The doctor sipped her drink. I copied her, and almost spat the burning liquid out. She chuckled. “Haven’t had spirits before?”
“No. My friend did once, but he wouldn’t let me try it.” Good thing, too, or I would have yelled and brought unwelcome attention.
“It’s an acquired taste. The burn down your throat and the numbing warmth in your stomach becomes a pleasant experience.”
Knowing what to expect, I swallowed the second sip without choking. The doctor rested her head on the back of the chair, closing her eyes.
“I do have a question.” I ventured.
Without opening her eyes, she raised her glass in a swirl. “Go ahead.”
“Why is the woman so upset?”
Her eyes snapped open and she fixed me with an incredulous expression. “You don’t know?” Seeing my evident confusion, she straightened. “Aren’t the women in the lower levels upset when they give their babies away?”
“Some are, I guess. But this is the upper level. You have families.”
Understanding smoothed her sharp features before lines of grief deepened. “Yes, we have families, but, up here the rule isone couple, one child. We don’t have enough room for more people, so if a couple has an accident, and conceives another child, the child is sent to the lower levels.”
The unexpected information slogged through my brain. Had she just said the child was sent to be a scrub?
The doctor continued, “The woman was upset because the baby is her second, and the infant will be sent to a care facility in the lower levels.”
CHAPTER 19
The doctor’sexplanation slammed into me, shattering my beliefs. “Uppers are only allowed one child?” The foreign concept refused to find an empty seat in my logic.
“Yes. We have limited space, so the Travas have made it a law.” The doctor peered at me in concern.
Perhaps if I broke down her information into manageable bits. “You mentioned the couple having an accident. How can getting pregnant be an accident? If you have sex, you’re bound to have a baby in time.”
“We have birth control, Ella. Women can choose if they want a baby or not. I’m guessing by your horrified surprise, scrubs don’t have that option.”
The revelation made perfect sense and yet made no sense at all. My mind grappled with it. It explained why Riley only saw his brother once, why he had said you don’thaveto have a child, and it meant perhaps my mother hadn’t abandoned me. I could have been a second or third child—an astounding notion! Finally Domotor’s comment about my blue eyes made sense.
“Those drops?” I asked.
“Drops?”
“In the baby’s eyes.”
“Oh. To change the color so the babies blend in with the scrubs and don’t get teased for being different.”
It didn’t always work. I mulled over what she had said about birth control. Why not let the scrubs use birth control? With the overcrowding conditions getting worse every hour, why not limit the number of children born?
“Ella, are you all right?” Doctor Lamont stood beside me. She placed a cold hand on my forehead. “You lost all color in your cheeks. Take another sip of your drink.”
I gulped the spirits, welcoming the harsh sting as it ripped down my throat. I asked Lamont why scrubs didn’t have birth control.
“Truthfully, I’m surprised they don’t. The uppers have assumed scrubs don’t cherish their offspring. That they keep having babies because they don’t have to care for them. Basically, we all thought the crowding in the lower levels was your own fault.” She returned to her seat. “Interesting how certain facts have been ignored in the computer. Or deleted.”
I mulled over the ignorance on both sides. The results created two groups of people who distrusted each other, which would be ideal if you didn’t want them to join forces. Again my contemplations looped back to why they let the scrubs grow in numbers.
We did the grunge work, but even if we limited births, there still would be plenty of scrubs to work. Another theory popped into mind. “Is the birth control hard to make? Or of limited quantity?”
“Not really. It’s grown in hydroponics. You only need to ingest it when you’re planning to be intimate.” She jerked her head as if struck with a sudden thought. “You didn’t seem concerned about your damaged ovary. Was it because you don’t want children?”
“Yes. I’m not going to be intimate with anyone so that,” I waved toward the infirmary, “doesn’t happen to me or to a child.”
