There was a great deal to be learned here, and already new developments.
“Looks like I got here just in time,” Zenos whispered with a smile.
---
Two men sat in a darkened room.
“Any news?” Mal began.
“You mean, any more bodies or canoes wash ashore?” Brisack smirked. It really had been one of Nicko Mal’s more ridiculous ideas.
Mal clasped his hands so tightly his knuckles turned white. “We weren’t to bring that up again, remember?”
“That’s what you decided, not me,” the good doctor pointed out. Mal was an easy target tonight.
“What I was asking was, any news from Edge?” Mal tried to recover his casual tone.
“What kind of news, specifically?” Dr. Brisack said with teasing smile.
Mal sighed loudly. “You know what I mean! I saw Relf leaving the Administrative Headquarters, and he was smiling. I didn’t have time to ask him myself so . . .?”
“Yes, he’s a grandfather again. Got the news this afternoon,” was all Brisack told him. Antagonizing Mal was one of the simple joys of his life.
“Well?!” Mal steamed.
“Well,” Brisack said slowly, enjoying the tension building in his companion’s face, “it’s a good thing Mrs. Shin survived your little Guarder raid. She’s delivered a healthy son. Another male Shin that can grow up to become a High General Shin. Just what you wanted, correct? He could be the fourth general.”
Mal growled quietly and massaged his hands.
“Shin got lucky,” he mumbled. “He always gets lucky. Speaking of women delivering babies, did you finish your research about the dangers of women birthing too often?”
“That’s nearly finished,” Brisack smiled at the shift in topic. “Just need to summarize the findings and print it for the villages, should anyone else question the need to keep families small.”
Mal shrugged at that. “Still think you made too much of it. Gadiman had things under control—”
“Under control?!” Brisack spat, his joyful moment over. “He was ready to execute that midwife! How’s that ‘under control’?!”
“That’s why we have him, my good doctor. To sniff out potential threats. Question those who question us. Find those who would unravel the cloth that weaves our society together,” Mal slipped into a practiced speech. “Yank one thread inappropriately, and it all comes apart.”
“I know the rationale,” Brisack said impatiently, “I helped you write it! But people simply want knowledge. They’ll follow laws more willingly if they understand why they exist. It’s not merely about population control. What I’ve done is demonstrate to that midwife, and everyone else, that childbirth truly is a grave danger to women. That’s why I never let my wife subject herself to it.”
Mal opened his mouth in a vain attempt to stop the speech he dreaded was coming, but once Brisack started, it was easier to end a stampede.
“We improve women’s lives by birthing fewer babies!” the good doctor exclaimed. “To birth once is a tremendous risk. Twice? It’s nearly unconscionable to submit a woman to such strain and suffering. To allow a woman to endure it a third time? Through accident or an oppressive husband or her own misguided sense of duty or desire?” He shook his head sadly. “Expecting changes a woman’s mind. Have you ever heard a new mother talking?”
The bored frown of Mal told him the question was completely unnecessary, and Brisack should have known that.
“Well—” Brisack continued undeterred and eager to reveal his findings.
Mal just made himself comfortable for the duration.
“—I’ve heard enough of them state how their entire view of the world changes once they become a mother. I realize they generally mean it in a constructive way, but child birthing alters their mental state, turns normally logical women into emotional creatures that can’t think clearly. Such irrationality is manifested even more dramatically after the birth of the second child, moving some women to become so severely imbalanced so as to desire the experience again, even while knowing the government strictly forbids it.”
Mal examined his fingernails, as if he could see them in the dark.
“And on occasion they drag their husbands into this state of defiance,” Brisack blathered on, “and he becomes as manic as she does in a desire for a third child, despite all evidence, all laws, and all logic! Tragic.” He sighed sadly.
Mal nibbled at a hangnail.
“So unnecessary. Amazing, really, that they can even raise their children to adulthood after such alterations,” Brisack said in genuine wonder. “I simply can’t figure out why they put their bodies through so much torment and their minds into such a state of frenzy. Can you imagine the frame of mind of a woman with four children? Or eight? She’d be a lunatic!”