38 "You wouldn't dare!" North snapped, but knew
all too well he would. "That's blackmail, Doctor, pure unquestioned,
without a doubt, blackmail!"
39 "Sure is!" the Doctor laughed. "No doubt about it, it's blackmail!
Look son, it's for your own good, and it's for these peoples' good. It
may seem like a dirty business, but it's really not. The birthrates are
all wrong. The way the Empire's expanding, we need many more births.
The figures look right on paper, but they're not right in reality.
There's too many things they don't account for. Unless these colonies
can sneak by The Laws, increase their population, they can't make it.
They have to withdraw and combine with other colonies."
40 "I guess you're right, Doc," North sighed, "but I just think there
ought to be some other way of doing it. Tell me one thing, though. How
do they make the births legal?"
41 "Oh, there's all KINDS of ways! " explained the Doctor. "Say old
Grandpa dies, and Grandma does soon after. Now, the government comes to
the family and says 'Hey, look, we don't bury the old folks, not right
away. We put them in storage and say they're enjoying their retirement
and doing some travelling. Then, you just casually mention around that
Grandma's got pregnant out there, and had a baby, but they don't want
to cart it around. So they're sending it back to you to take care of.
42 A year later the sad news that Grandma and Grandpa died, and their
bodies are shipped home. The family gets a much needed child, the
husband probably gets a nice little promotion, and Grandpa and Grandma
get laid to rest,
after doing one more service for their beloved colony. It works just
as well with a live Grandma and Grandpa, too. Only if they don't want
to have a child they can still claim they did and get some obliging
ship's Doctor to sign a birth certificate, sometimes in sixty years
Grandma can have three children like that."
43 North was listening to everything Doc said, but was thinking how he
could use it himself. He could expand