Jumping off the Planet

DECISIONS POSTPONED

When you're a kid, you just keep on going like you're going to be a kid forever. And every time someone calls you young man or young adult or talks about grownup responsibilities, you just blink and wonder what they're talking about. How can a kid make that kind of decision? But that's what Dad was asking me to do now.

Would the grownup I was going to become feel that I had done the right thing? Or would he hate me for condemning him to whatever bad consequences came of this decision? What was I supposed to choose here?

Weird tried to help. In his clumsy way. He punched up some programs on the TV to give me an idea of what the options were.

One program was about the different colonies. What it was like to live and work there. None of the colonies really looked like a fun place to live—they were either too hot or too cold. The sky was the wrong color on all of them. And none of the colony planets had any life at all, except what you brought with you and grew in your own indoor farms. What was true about all of them was that it took a lot of work just to stay alive. Hard work.

On the other hand, none of the colonies had seventeen billion people all competing for the same jobs and the same houses and the same mouthfuls of food. The per capita comparisons were astonishing. Dad said that on Earth the chances of becoming a millionaire were one in seventeen million. On any of the colonies, right now, the chances were one in twenty. All you had to do was survive.

"Why don't they use robots?" I asked.

"They do," Dad said. "But robots can't do it all. They need people to do the hard part—make decisions and babies. In that order."

"But Douglas can't make babies—"

"Yes, I can," said Douglas. "It's the how that's different."

I shook my head. I didn't want to argue about that stuff.

"Look, kiddo," Dad said. "The human race has eaten the Earth. We're walking an ecological tightrope. A crop failure here, a plague there, a war somewhere else—and every time the system collapses a little bit more, we patch it up somehow and keep on going for a little bit longer. We add a few more mechanisms around the edges to help keep it from collapsing quite the same way the next time, but the basic inequilibrium just keeps on going. The whole thing is staggering like a drunken sailor—sooner or later he's going to fall down. It's not a question of if; it's a question of when. There are sixteen billion people too many on the planet and there's no telling how long that condition can be sustained. But whether it's sustained or whether it collapses, either way, most of those people aren't going to have the kind of freedom in their lives that you can have out in the colonies. The freedom to design your own possibilities."

"We have freedom—" I started to say.

"No." Dad shook his head. "We don't have freedom. The only freedom you have is inside your head, and there's not too much of that left anymore. We can't have freedom the way Earth is presently constituted. If freedom is the ability to swing your fist, there are seventeen billion places on Earth where your freedom stops. In order to keep all of those people alive, we've sacrificed all kinds of individual liberties—including the right to be who you want to be. The more people you have, the more accommodations you have to make to society. But good grief, Charles! What do you think my argument with Douglas was all about? It wasn't about what he would be—it was about the fact that he was being pushed into it. And someday, you're going to be pushed in that same direction. And Bobby too. That's when I started thinking about getting you boys offworld somehow. Someplace where you wouldn't have to make any concessions or accommodations to anyone else."

"What about loyalty to the community and the other stuff like that?"

"All that stuff they teach you in school?" He snorted. "They have to teach you that, Charles—their job is to make you fit in. But loyalty to the community means one thing when the community is seventeen thousand people and quite another thing when it's seventeen billion. The global community is too vast, Chigger. It's out of control. Who do you think goes out to the stars? People who are satisfied with the way things are? Or people who are so dissatisfied with the constraints on their lives that they're willing to put up with colossal hardship so they can have a chance at something better?"

For the first time in a long time, Dad sounded like he cared about something. But I still wasn't sure.

I think Dad could see it on my face, because he stopped himself and said, "Think about this another way. Where do you think you'll be in five years? In ten years? In fifteen years? What is it you want to do most? More than anything else in the world—this world or any other? What do you want, Charles?"

"I don't know—" I started to say, but then I saw the look in his eyes, the desperate look that I hadn't seen since the day he'd moved out of the house and tried to say good-bye to us kids. I hadn't said to him then what I'd wanted to say ever since. I almost said it now. But I swallowed hard and looked away. My throat was starting to hurt. Kids don't know how to think about these things or make these kinds of choices. Why do grownups push us into these conversations? Finally, I just blurted, "I just want to be someplace where people treat each other nice. Whatever that's like."

"That's a good wish, Chigger." He put his hand on my shoulder. "I want the same thing too. Especially for you. Because you're the only son I've got who loves the music as much as I do."

I turned around and stared at him. I never knew he'd noticed.

"I see you with the earphones pressed to your head. I notice what you're listening to. I'd love to talk to you about the music, the way we used to. But there's this wall between us now. Just know that I love you, Charles. I want you to have the best life you can. Please don't hate me so much. I'm trying so hard—"

That did it. The tears flooded up into my eyes and I fell into his arms, sobbing. And I finally said it, after all these years: "Daddy, please don't leave me. I'll be good. Please don't leave me again!"

He held me for a long time, and finally he whispered into my ear, "I want to be here for you, son. I really do. Just please give me a chance."

I wanted to say yes to that. I really did. But I couldn't. Not yet. First I had to know that this time wasn't like all the other times.