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"But men still rule," a student protested.
"Yes, they do," said Ms. Brown. "The handful of alpha males rule, while all the other males become tools. But even the ruling males know that the most vital resource of the community is the women, and any community that is going to survive has to bend all its efforts to one primary task—to promote the ability of women to reproduce and bring their offspring to adulthood."
"So what about societies that selectively abort or kill off their girl children?" insisted a student.
"Those would be societies that had decided to die, wouldn't they?" said Ms. Brown.
Consternation. Uproar.
It was an interesting model. Communities that killed off their girls would have fewer girls reach reproductive age. Therefore they would be less successful in maintaining a high population. He raised his hand.
"Enlighten us, Mr. Wiggin," she said.
"I just have a question," he said. "Couldn't there be an advantage in having an excess of males?"
"It must not be an important one," said Ms. Brown, "because the vast majority of human communities
—especially the ones that survive longest—have shown a willingness to throw away males, not females. Besides, killing female babies gives you a higher proportion of males, but a lower absolute number of males, because there are fewer females to give birth to them."
"But what about when resources are scarce?" a student asked.
"What about it?" said Ms. Brown.
"I mean, don't you have to reduce the population to sustainable levels?"
Suddenly the room was very quiet.
Ms. Brown laughed. "Anyone want to try an answer to that?"
No one spoke.
"And why have we suddenly become silent?" she asked.
She waited.
Finally someone murmured, "The population laws."
"Ah," she said. "Politics. We have a worldwide decision to decrease the human population by limiting the number of births to two per couple. And you don't want to talk about it."
The silence said that they didn't even want to talk about the fact that they didn't want to talk about it.
"The human race is fighting for its survival against an alien invasion," she said, "and in the process, we have decided to limit our reproduction."
"Somebody named Brown," said John Paul, "ought to know how dangerous it can be to go on record as opposing the population laws."
She looked at him icily. "This is a science class, not a political debate," she said. "There are community traits that promote survival of the individual, and individual traits that promote the survival of the community. In this class, we are not afraid to go where the evidence takes us.
"What if it takes us out of any chance of getting a job?" asked a student.
"I'm here to teach the students who want to learn what I know," she said. "If you're one of that happy number, then aren't we both lucky. If you're not, I don't much care. But I'm not going to not teach you something because knowing it might somehow make you less employable."
"So is it true," asked a girl in the front row, "that he really is your father?"
"Who?" asked Ms. Brown.
"You know," the girl said. "Hinckley Brown."
Hinckley Brown. The military strategist whose book was still the bible of the International Fleet—
but who resigned from the I.F. and went into seclusion because he refused to go along with the population laws.
"And this would be relevant to you because...?" asked Ms. Brown.
The answer was belligerent. "Because we have a right to know if you're teaching us science or your religion."
That's right, thought John Paul. Hinckley Brown was a Mormon, and they were noncompliant.
Noncompliant like John Paul's own parents, who were Polish Catholics.
Noncompliant like John Paul intended to be, as soon as he found somebody he wanted to marry.
Somebody who also wanted to stick it to the Hegemony and their two-children-per-family law.
"What if," said Ms. Brown, "the findings of science happen to coincide, on a particular point, with the beliefs of a religion? Do we reject the science in order to reject the religion?"
"What if the science gets influenced by the religion?" demanded the student.
"Fortunately," said Ms. Brown, "the question is not only stupid and offensive, it's also moot. Because whatever blood relationship I might or might not have with the famous Admiral Brown, the only thing that matters is my science and, if you happen to be suspicious, my religion."
"So what is your religion?" the student said.
"My religion," said Ms. Brown, "is to try to falsify all hypotheses. Including your hypothesis that teachers should be judged according to their parentage or their membership in a group. If you find me teaching something that ca
By the end of the sentence she was jabbing instructions at her desk, which was sitting atop the podium. She looked up. "There. You can leave now and go to the department offices to arrange to be admitted to a different section of this class."
The student was flabbergasted. "I don't want to drop this class."
"I don't recall asking you what you wanted," said Ms. Brown. "You're a bigot and a troublemaker, and I don't have to keep you in my class. That goes for the rest of you. We will follow the evidence, we will challenge ideas, but we will not challenge the personal life of the teacher. Anyone else want to drop?"
In that moment, John Paul Wiggin fell in love.
Theresa let the exhilaration of Human Community carry her for several hours. The class hadn't started well—the Wiggin boy looked to be a troublemaker. But it turned out he was as smart as he was arrogant, and it sparked the brightest kids in the class, and all in all it was exactly the kind of thing Theresa had always loved about teaching: a group of people thinking the same thoughts, conceiving the same universe, becoming, for just a few moments, one.
The Wiggin "boy." She had to laugh at her own attitude. She was probably younger than he was. But she felt so old. She'd been in grad school for several years now, and it felt as if the weight of the world were on her shoulders. It wasn't enough to have her own career to worry about, there was the constant pressure of her father's crusade. Everything she did was interpreted by everyone as if her father were speaking through her, as if he somehow controlled her mind and heart.
Why shouldn't they think so? He did.
But she refused to think about him. She was a scientist, even if she was a bit on the theoretical side.
She was not a child anymore. More to the point, she was not a soldier in his army, a fact that he had never recognized and never would—especially now that his "army" was so small and weak.
Then she got beeped for a meeting with the dean.
Grad students didn't get called in for meetings with the dean. And the fact that the secretary claimed to have no idea what the meeting was about or who else would be there filled her with foreboding.
The late summer weather was quite warm, even this far north, but since Theresa lived an indoor life she rarely noticed it. Certainly she hadn't dressed for the afternoon temperature. She was dripping with sweat by the time she got to the graduate school offices, and instead of having a few minutes in the air-conditioning to cool down, the secretary rushed her right into the dean's office.
Worse and worse.
There was the dean and her entire dissertation committee. And Dr. Howell, who had apparently returned from retirement just for this occasion. Whatever this occasion was.
They barely took time for the basic courtesies before they broke the news to her. "The foundation has decided to withdraw funding unless we remove you from the project."