QUANT (COLONY Book 1)

by Richard F. Weyand

  “Bob, there’s one thing I worry about. A new colony is going to need babies. Lots of babies. And I’m getting too old for that sort of thing. And add five more years?”

  “I don’t think you need to worry about that, Sue. Those five couples have eighteen kids between them. And the oldest will be nineteen by the time the colony ships leave. People get married young in a colony environment.

  “The bigger question is, How will you feel about being a grandmother at age forty?”

  Dempsey’s eyes grew wide.

  “You’re right, of course. I just think of the kids as being so young. Matt’s fourteen and Amy’s twelve. The twins are only ten.”

  “Yes, Sue, but if we go on the colony ships, in six years Matt’ll be a father, Amy will be eighteen and nursing her firstborn, and the twins will be thinking about it.”

  “Kids grow up so fast.”

  “Yes, and in that environment they’ll grow up faster still. One good thing, though.”

  “What’s that, Bob?”

  “They’re gonna need nurses and midwives. No doubt about it.”

  Gary Rockham and his partner Dwayne Hennessey were also thinking about signing up. Their considerations were different, however.

  “They’re going to want people who are going to have kids, though, Gary. They need the genetic diversity. You of all people know that. They’re not going to want us.”

  Rockham was a doctor who dealt with genetic disorders. He indeed did know that genetic diversity would be a major consideration for a standalone colony. The initial colony size of a hundred thousand was well chosen for ensuring that.

  “Yes, Dwayne. But there’s nothing that says we can’t have children without having sex with women. There are ways to do that. What we need are a couple of women who want children without having sex with men. Group up with them.”

  “That’s something I hadn’t thought of.”

  Hennessey thought for a moment.

  “What about Rachel and Jessica? They’ve talked about having kids. In six years, they’ll still be at a good age for a couple of kids each. They’re only, what? Twenty-eight or so?”

  “Now you’re thinking. I wonder if they’ve given this any thought. They’re probably on the same mental track as you were.”

  “And Rachel’s into computers and stuff, and Jessica is a pretty good mechanic. They’re gonna need those occupations, too.”

  Rockham nodded.

  “We should see if there are others in the same boat. Put a group together. A bigger group has more chance of winning.”

  “Time to start calling people.”

  “Start with Rache and Jess. See if we have a pair-up there.”

  “So they want us to bear their children?” Rachel Conroy asked her partner.

  “Well, theirs and ours, if we go on this colony thing,” Jessica Murphy said. “That’s right. But without the whole sex thing. They’re not interested in that bit.”

  “Well, neither am I. Not with them, anyway. And we did talk about having kids. Not yet, though.”

  “Yeah, but this is five years out, Rache. And we could do a lot worse for donors. Gary and Dwayne are both smart. Both good-looking, too, for that matter.”

  “So who raises the kids, Jess?”

  “In a small environment like that, I would assume we all do. Like a duplex or something, maybe?”

  “That would work, I guess. Probably be so many kids in a colony environment, they’ll run around in packs.”

  “There’s another thing I like about a frontier type of environment.”

  “What’s that, Jess?”

  “You either pull your weight or you don’t. People don’t judge you on any other basis.”

  “Now that would be nice.”

  “Yeah.”

  Around the world, the same questions were being asked. Halfway around the world, Chen GangHai, Chen LiQiang’s eldest son, approached him with a question.

  “Your grandson has heard of a possible solution to our biggest problem, grandfather,” GangHai said in Chinese.

  Chen LiQiang’s biggest problem was survival, for himself and his family. His father, Chen YuXuan, had died last year. Chen LiQiang, like the rest of his brothers, had become the head of his own household – the grandfather of his house –upon his father’s passing. The farm was divided up among Chen YuXuan’s sons.

  The problem was that the farm was not big enough for so many, and had not been for some time. The traditional cure for this was famine. In his fifties now, Chen LiQiang had seen famine before, and did not relish the prospect.

  Chen – due to his seniority as head of household, the family name was enough – waved a hand to his son to continue.

  “There is an effort to move people to other planets. There will be plenty of land to farm, and they encourage people to have large families. There is a lottery. For groups. For families. The question, grandfather, is do we sign up for this lottery?”

  “Who is behind this lottery?” Chen asked.

  “The North Americans,” GangHai said.

  “They will not want poor Chinese.”

  “They claim to want diversity, grandfather. People of all genetic backgrounds and cultures.”

  “Hmpf.”

  “And it is a lottery, grandfather. Not a selection.”

  Chen looked at his son. His son nodded slowly, and Chen shrugged.

  “Put the Chen household in for this lottery.”

  “Yes, grandfather.”

  “Hi, Bernd.”

  “Hi, Janice.”

  “Can I ask you some questions? You got a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  Decker shoved his work display aside and the inset with Quant opened up into the whole display.

  “Whatcha got?”

  “Well, with the lottery application, I also included a mail address to send questions to. You know, about how the colony would work, or anything, really. I planned it as more of a way to gather information than give it out, and some of the questions are interesting.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “One was about a group of friends in the same neighborhood. If they all went, they would have to sell their houses at the same time. That got me thinking about the housing question writ large. If we send two million four hundred thousand people to the colonies, that’s about one of every seventeen hundred people on earth. That’s a lot of empty housing units, Bernd, all for sale at the same time.”

  “Which means the market will be depressed, and they either won’t be able to sell before they leave or they won’t get the price the house is worth, or both. I see that, Janice.”

  “So do we do something about that, Bernd? And, if so, what?”

  “You could have the government buy them all at historical prices, then bleed them back into the market over a couple of years. That would give a lot of people an opportunity to step up a bit. You’d end up with the poorest housing empty.”

  “That’s a lot of money, though, Bernd. Even by government standards.”

  Decker shrugged.

  “Print it. When the house sells and the money comes back in to the government, destroy it. No net change.”

  Quant creased her brow, and her input stylus tapped.

  “That actually works, I think. How strange.”

  Quant shook herself.

  “Another question is custody of children if one parent decides to go and the other one decides to stay here. Bernd, is the project really breaking up marriages?”

  “No, Janice. Not stable ones. It’s more that we’re giving them the excuse they’ve been looking for.”

  “I see. And the custody issue?”

  “Have the judge ask the children, Janice. They pick.”

  “What if they’re too young?”

  “Then they go with their elder siblings. Whoever the older kids pick. And if there’s no older kids, they go with the mother.”

  “Why the mother, Bernd? I don’t know anything about this stuff.”


  “Sure you do, Janice. Under developmental psychology. Look it up. A younger child needs the mother more. Dads don’t necessarily like to hear that, but it’s true.”

  Quant got a distant look on her face as she consulted her blades’ quick search results.

  “Ah. There it is. I didn’t see it before because I wasn’t sure where to look. So I think you’re right.”

  “Any more, Janice?”

  “Another interesting one, Bernd. A gay couple said they knew the project needed genetic diversity – I guess one of them is a doctor – and wondered if they would be welcome to go. They proposed having children with some lesbian friends of theirs, so they wouldn’t be non-contributors to the genetic diversity we need.”

  “He’s a doctor?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “And his partner?”

  “He’s an agronomist.”

  “What about the women?”

  “One is in computer hardware and software, and the other is a mechanic. Like for autodrones and trucks and the like.”

  “All professions on your list, Janice.”

  “Yes, and all with above-average intelligence. That’s why it came up.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t reject them for not following majority sexual preferences, Janice. You have four adults raising their kids. Who sleeps with whom is nobody’s business but theirs.”

  “That’s my own conclusion. My only question is, Will everybody agree with us?”

  “No, and that’s fine, too. On a colony, they’ll be judged by how well they pull their share of the wagon. Nothing else will matter.”

  “All right, Bernd. One last one. How about someone who owes more money than he can pay back within the time we have remaining?”

  “Not a secured loan?”

  “No. Just debt.”

  “I would think you would score that against his judgment, Janice. The other factors would have to outweigh it.”

  “Like if he’s in a group we really want, or has skills we’re short of, or something?”

  “Exactly. But I do think you need to score it against him. And if you do decide to take him anyway, don’t put him in a position of power, where good judgment is needed.”

  “And the debt, Bernd?”

  “Have the government pay it off when he leaves. After he’s on the shuttle.”

  Quant nodded.

  “All right. I see the reason for that. He could get the debt paid off and then stay behind.”

  “Right. So don’t make that move until he’s on the shuttle.”

  “All right, Bernd. That’s it for this time. Thanks for the help.”

  “My pleasure, Janice.”

  “They published answers to some common questions in the Wire,” Rachel Conroy said.

  “Who did?” Jessica Murphy asked. “Questions about what?”

  “Questions about the colonization thing.”

  “Oh. Any good ones?”

  “I’m looking,” Conroy said. “Oh, here’s one. Did you send this one in? ‘My same-sex partner and I are considering signing up for the colony lottery. One question is, Would we be welcome? The second question is, Would having kids in a non-traditional family meet the colony’s needs for offspring and genetic diversity?”

  “Yeah, actually, I did send that one. They really published it? Did they answer the question?”

  “Yes, they did. ‘All colonists will be expected to contribute to the colony in three ways: 1) by being law-abiding citizens who do not prey on their fellow colonists; 2) by being productive citizens in an occupation needed by the colony, whether it be engineer or teacher, farmer or laborer; and 3) by contributing to the genetic diversity of the colony through having or bringing children. This last requirement can be met in a number of ways that need not include traditional gender roles or family structures.’”

  “Well, that sort of covers us,” Murphy said.

  “Yeah, I think it does. It goes on for a while describing some different ways to meet that requirement, and we’re definitely in there. So do we sign up?”

  “Yeah. Why not.”

  “Do we sign up with Dwayne’s and Gary’s group?” Conroy asked.

  “Sure. Then we’ll at least know somebody there.”

  “That’s true. We can always decide who the sperm donors are later.”

  “Actually, I think I’d be happier cementing the deal with Dwayne and Gary,” Murphy said. “They have to meet that third requirement, too. Besides, I’d rather our kids grow up with fathers than anonymous sperm donors, and know who their fathers are. I think it’s better for them. And Dwayne and Gary are good people.”

  “OK, I’m good with that.”

  “Bob,” Sue Dempsey said. “They answered some questions about the colonization project in the Wire. In particular, they answered a question that came up when we talked about it.”

  “Which question is that?” Bob Jasic asked.

  “What do you do if your neighborhood group gets selected and you can’t sell all the houses?”

  “Interesting. What’s the answer, Sue?”

  “If you can’t sell the house, and you’re selected to go, the World Authority will buy the house from you at a fair market price and sell it into the market later.”

  “Now that’s very interesting. I wonder how they determine the fair market price.”

  “It says they take the most recent market-clearing price and scale it by the documented appreciation of comparables in the local market,” Dempsey said. “Whatever that means.”

  “I understand. That would actually be OK. A lot of work, though, for that many houses.”

  “It does mean selling the houses is no big deal, though.”

  “Yes, it does,” Jasic said. “That was what I was most worried about. Now, if we liquidate the house, that means we can buy things to take along. What would we take along?”

  “Things that will be useful, clearly.”

  “Yes, things that would be useful to us and are not already being shipped out with the colony as a whole. I’ll have to give that some thought.”

  “Well, it won’t be an issue if we don’t win the lottery, Bob, so it’s way early to be worried about it, I think.”

  “No harm in starting a list, though.”

  “True. I can ask some others, too. Look around on the public platforms. I bet there’s a bunch of stuff there people are talking about taking.”

  More Ideas

  “Hi, Janice.”

  “Hi, Bernd. How you doing?”

  “Good. Janice, I’ve been thinking about the genetic diversity problem. I think we’re missing a big potential there.”

  “Really. This I want to hear, because I’m worried about it. I thought about limiting the colonists to those of child-bearing age, but I can’t make that work. The colony needs people with enough experience to make the big decisions. Administrators, planners, managers. And they’re typically past their family-building years.”

  “Right. So I was reading the questions about the project in the Wire, and your answers. One of the answers you had was about same-sex partners. You listed a number of ways they can contribute to genetic diversity. A lesbian couple can have children, for example, by being artificially inseminated.”

  “That’s right. With sperm donations from same-sex gay couples, for instance, which gives them an opportunity to contribute to genetic diversity as well.”

  “So if you’re so worried about genetic diversity, why not take a sperm bank along to each colony? Potentially millions of samples.”

  Quant just stared at him. There he goes again. How the hell does he do that? Quant shook herself.

  “Would people use it, though, Bernd? I mean, some married couple who’s having their own kids?”

  “You could encourage people to have one ‘bank baby’ in their family. Spice up the genetic mix a bit. If you have, say, twenty-five thousand child-bearing women in the colony, and they have one bank baby apiece, that’s like adding twenty-five thousand unique in
dividual gene patterns to the colony. Assuming they used different samples, that is.”

  “And in the succeeding generations, those genetic patterns get distributed. That’s a fantastic idea, Bernd. Not hard to implement, either. I only see one problem with it.”

  “What’s that, Janice?”

  “The guys here on Earth who provide the sperm samples? They’re all a bunch of wankers.”

  It was Decker’s turn to stare. Quant dead-panned for several seconds, then broke into a big grin.

  “More humor, Janice?”

  “What do you think? Good one?”

  “Keep practicing.”

  “Hi, Bernd.”

  “Hi, Janice.”

  “I have another thing I’m wrestling with that I want to bounce off you.”

  “Sure.”

  “So I send a metafactory along to each colony, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And it has plans for how to build a lot of other factories. One to smelt and roll steel. One to make tractors and other vehicles. One to process various foodstuffs, including canning a crop to preserve it and spread it out over the year. One for fabricating various pharmaceuticals. All those sorts of things.”

  “Right. I’m with you.”

  “All right. So the metafactory builds a new factory. Then how does the new factory get to where it needs to be? It can’t stay there, because the metafactory would soon be surrounded by other factories. Do I put some sort of treads on the factories so they can move off? That’s a lot of extra complication and cost, for an operation they only need to do once.”

  “Hmm.”

  Quant watched, fascinated. Would Decker do it again? Pull out something Quant didn’t see? And how obvious would it be that he was right?

  “Janice, why don’t you put the treads on the metafactory? They only need to be built once, you can do that here, and you use it again and again each time the metafactory moves away from its latest new creation.”

  Yup, he did it again. And it was obvious. Quant set aside the problem and its framing to analyze later.

  “That will work. Wonder I didn’t think of it.”

  “You framed it as how to move the new thing away from the factory, because that’s what you’ve been doing in the Belt. Which makes me wonder if we’re missing something else of the same sort.”