“No further questions, Your Honor.”
Juna got up slowly, feeling almost giddy with relief at getting off the stand. Sohelia helped her sit down.
“You did great, Juna! That was wonderful!” Sohelia whispered in her ear.
Juna nodded, too nervous to speak. She felt tears sliding down her nose. Her lawyer handed her a handkerchief.
“Are there any further witnesses?” the judge asked. Both attorneys said no. “Well, then, I think we have just enough time for closing statements. Counselor Parker, are you ready?”
“Yes, Your Honor. I am.”
“Your Honor, we have a population regulation system that works. Since Population Control was imposed a century ago, our numbers have declined slowly and steadily. There are a billion less people on Earth now than there were when the population regulations were put in place. In space, our numbers are growing at a steady, but sustainable pace. In the next century, Terra Nova will be opened up for colonization, giving us yet another world to expand into. We are making progress, but it is still a precarious balance. Every year, over ten million illegal pregnancies occur on Earth. And over a million illegal babies are born. Each illegal child slows our return to a greener, healthier planet.
“This is a high-profile case. If we let this case go, will we have twenty million illegal pregnancies to contend with next year? And forty million the year after that? We must draw the line here and now. Or once again we will be awash in people, once again we will be the victims of our own fertility. Regardless of our feelings for Dr. Saari, we must take a stand against the tide of fecundity that threatens to overwhelm us. We must not make an exception for even one case. The future of our planet is at stake.”
“Thank you, Counselor Parker. Counselor Gheisar?”
Sohelia got up to speak. She approached the judge’s bench, turned, and stood looking at Juna for a long, thoughtful moment. Then she turned again and looked up at the judge.
“Your Honor,” she said, “our system of population control is inherently coercive. We must never forget this. We render almost every person on Earth infertile when they reach puberty. Each pregnancy must be approved by Population Control. Punishment for evading the law is harsh and absolute.
“And yet, despite this coercion, Population Control is successful. It even has widespread public support. If the Pop Con program did not enjoy this support, it would not work. There would be hundreds of millions of illegal pregnancies, and tens of millions of unauthorized babies.
“Why then, does Pop Con work? Why does it enjoy this wide support? The ecological and social devastation of the Slump convinced most of humanity that a drastic solution was necessary. But more importantly, Pop Con is viewed as harsh, but fair. A family that can afford more children can have them. A poor family can have one child and sell off the remaining fractional child-right to ensure a future for that child. The system is rarely abused, and when such abuse is discovered, punishment is severe and reparations to the injured parties are swift.
“But before the contraceptive vaccine was perfected, Pop Con made exceptions for contraceptive failure. Those regulations are still on the books, even if they have not been used in decades. Dr. Saari’s case is truly an accident, improbable as it may seem. If we treat this one accident as a crime, then will people view the Population Control system as fair? I don’t think so. How many illegal pregnancies will occur if people begin to rebel against the population regulations?
“But there is another reason for leniency. As you have seen, we have a great deal to gain from good relations with the Tendu. But in order to do that, we need to better understand them. Dr. Saari’s child may be an important bridge between the Tendu and humans. Humanity has little to lose and everything to gain from this experiment. A decision to terminate Dr. Saari’s pregnancy would also terminate this experiment in Human-Tendu relations.
“Can we afford to throw this chance away?” Sohelia asked. “Your Honor, I urge you to allow this accidental pregnancy, in the name of fairness and decency, and for the sake of the future of Human-Tendu relations. Thank you, Your Honor.”
“Court is adjourned until I have a verdict,” the judge said. “I hope to be ready sometime tomorrow.” She banged her gavel down, gathered her papers, and vanished into her chambers.
“Well, all that’s left is the waiting,” Sohelia said.
“Let’s go home,” Juna said. What she really wanted was to open a door and magically be back at her family’s house on Berry. She wanted the warmth and solidity and familiarity of home. Instead, she was going back to another one of the anonymous rooms she’d lived in for most of her adult life.
Toivo, Analin, and Dr. Engle were waiting for them outside the courtroom. They swept Juna and the others off to a private room in one of Snyder Station’s finest restaurants. The conversation was lively and the food excellent. Toivo praised the wine, flown up from France.
“I traded them three mixed cases of our reserve wines for this dinner,” Toivo confided. “I told them that you and the Tendu would autograph the labels after dessert.”
“Toivo, you’re awful!” Juna laughed.
“Will you do it?” he asked.
“Only if you’ll autograph them too,” she said. “You had more to do with making the wine than I did. Actually, hi is the person who should sign the labels. You just grow the grapes. He’s the artist who crafts the wine.”
Toivo sighed. “I know. I wish I had his gift for it.”
“Well, he’s only been doing it for fifty years. You’ll get better over time.” Juna sipped at her glass of water. “How is he doing?”
“Since you left, he’s been running around like a man half his age. I’d worry, but he looks so good.” Toivo glanced over at the Tendu. “I’ve been wondering if one of those two worked on him,” he confided in Amharic, his voice low. “When word of what those two can do gets out— ” Toivo shook his head. “Be careful, Juna.”
“We will be,” she assured him. “We’re keeping this stuff under wraps, and we have security escorts.”
“Still— ” he began.
Just then the manager of the restaurant came over and asked if he could take a picture of Juna and the Tendu, and the subject was dropped.
Juna lay down on the bed, exhausted. Toivo and the others had kept her too busy to think about the verdict, but now, alone in the dark, the buoyant mood of relief that had sustained her all through dinner had evaporated. She rested a sheltering hand on her rounded abdomen. What if the verdict went against her? How could she live without her daughter?
“Oh, little one,” she murmured into the darkness. She lay there, feeling tears stream from her eyes into her hair, and then trickle down onto the pillow. Finally she could remain silent no longer. She rolled over, buried her face in the pillow and keened into its muffling softness until there were no tears left in her body, and she fell into an exhausted doze.
She was dreaming that she was holding the baby. Her daughter had reached up a small brown starfish hand to touch her cheek. Juna woke to find Moki gently pushing a strand of hair away from her face.
She smiled sleepily up at her bami for a moment. Then she realized that today the judge would render a decision. She closed her eyes, and turned her face into the pillow.
“Siti, Sohelia just called. She’s on her way over with breakfast.”
“Mmm,” Juna murmured. She wanted to go back to sleep and wake up to find that this day was all a dream.