Larry Niven: Ringworld

"No, Louis. My orders come from the Hindmost himself, from the one who leads us all. His sanity is not in question. May I explain?"

For human beings, birth control had long been an easy matter. Nowadays a tiny crystal was inserted under the skin of the patient's forearm. The crystal took a year to dissolve. During that year the patient would be unable to conceive a child. In earlier centuries clumsier methods had been used.

Earth's population had been stabilized, about the middle of the twenty-first century, at eighteen billion. The Fertility Board, a subsection of the United Nations, made and enforced the birth control laws. For more than half a thousand years those laws had remained the same: two children to a couple, subject to the judgment of the Fertility Board. The Board decided who might be a parent how many times. The Board might award extra children to one couple, deny any children at all to another, all on the basis of desirable or undesirable genes.

"Incredible," said the kzin.

"Why? Things were getting pretty tanj crowded, with eighteen billion people trapped in a primitive technology."

"If the Patriarchy tried to force such a law on kzinti, we would exterminate the Patriarchy for its insolence."

But men were not kzinti. For half a thousand years the laws had held good. Then, two hundred years ago, had come rumors of chicanery in the Fertility Board. The scandal had ultimately resulted in drastic changes in the birth control laws:

Every human being now had the right to be a parent once, regardless of the state of his genes. In addition, the Birthrights Second and Third could come automatically: for a high tested IQ, or for proven, useful psychic powers, such as Plateau eyes or absolute direction, or for survival genes, like telepathy or natural longevity or perfect teeth.

One could buy the birthrights at a million stars a shot. Why not? The knack for making money was a tested, proven survival factor. Besides, it cut down on bribery attempts.

One could fight for the Birthrights in the arena, if one had not yet used up his Birthright First. Winner to earn his Birthrights Second and Third; loser to lose his Birthright First and his life. It evened out.

"I have seen such battles on your entertainment shows," said Speaker. "I thought they were fighting for fun."

"Nope, they're serious," said Louis. Teela giggled.

"And the lotteries?"

"It comes out short," said Nessus. "Even with boosterspice to prevent aging in humans, more die on Earth than are born in any given year … "

And so each year the Fertility Board totaled up the year's deaths and emigrations, subtracted the year's births and immigrations, and put the resulting number of Birthrights into the New Year's Day lottery.

Anyone could enter. With luck you could have ten or twenty children — if that was luck. Even convicted criminals could not be excluded from the Birthright Lotteries.

"I've had four children myself," said Louis Wu. "One by lottery. You'd have met three of them if you'd come twelve hours earlier."

"It sounds very strange and complex. When the population of Kzin grows too great, we -"

"Attack the nearest human world."

"Not at all, Louis. We fight each other. The more crowded we grow, the more opportunity exists for one kzin to take offense at another. Our population problem adjusts itself. We have never been within an order of magnitude of your two times eight to the tenth humans on a single planet!"

"I think I begin to get it," said Teela Brown. "My parents were both lottery winners." She laughed somewhat nervously. "Otherwise I wouldn't even have been born. Come to think of it, my grandfather -"

"All of your ancestors for five generations were born by reason of winning lottery tickets."

"Really! I never knew that!"

"The records are quite clear," Nessus assured her.

"The question remains," said Louis Wu. "So what?"

"Those-who-rule in the puppeteer fleet have speculated that the people of Earth are breeding for luck."

"Huh!"

Teela Brown leaned forward in her chair, intensely curious. Doubtless she had never before seen a mad puppeteer.

"Think of the lotteries, Louis. Think of evolution. For seven hundred years your people bred by the numbers: two birthrights per person, two children per couple. Here and there one might win a third birthright, or be refused his first on adequate grounds: diabetic genes or the like. But most of humanity had two children.

"Then the law was changed. For the past two centuries, between ten and thirteen percent of each human generation has been born by right of a winning lottery ticket. What determines who will survive and breed? On Earth, luck.

"And Teela Brown is the daughter of six generations of winning gamblers …"

Teela was giggling helplessly.

"Come off it," said Louis Wu. "You can't breed for luck the way you breed for shaggy eyebrows!"

"Yet you breed for telepathy."

"That's not the same. Telepathy isn't a psychic power. The mechanisms in the right parietal lobe are well mapped. They just don't work for most people."

"Telepathy was once thought to be a form of psi. Now you claim that luck is not."

"Luck is luck." The situation would have been funny, as funny as Teela thought it was; but Louis realized what she did not. The puppeteer was serious. "The law of averages swings back and forth. The odds shift wrong and you're out of the game, like the dinosaurs. The dice fall your way and -"

"It is thought that some humans can direct the fall of a die."

"So I picked a bad metaphor. The point is -"

"Yes," the kzin rumbled. He had a voice to shake walls when he chose to use it. "The point is that we will accept whom Nessus chooses. You own the ship, Nessus. Where, then, is our fourth crewman?"

"Here in this room!"

"Now just a tanj minute!" Teela stood up. The silver netting flashed like real metal across her blue skin; her hair floated flaming in the draft from the air conditioner. "This whole thing is ridiculous. I'm not going anywhere. Why should I?"

"Pick someone else, Nessus. There must be millions of qualified candidates. Where's the hang-up?"

"Not millions, Louis. We have a few thousand names, and phone numbers or private transfer booth numbers for most of them. Each can claim five generations of ancestors born by virtue of winning lottery tickets."

"Well?"

Nessus began to pace the floor. "Many disqualify themselves by obvious bad luck. Of the rest, none seem to be available. When we call, they are out. When we call back, the phone computer gives us a bad connection. When we ask for any member of the Brandt family, every phone in South America rings. There have been complaints. It is very frustrating." Taptaptap, taptaptap.

Teela said, "You haven't even told me where you're going."

"I cannot name our destination, Teela. However, you may -"

"Finagle's red claws! You won't even tell us that?"

"You may examine the holo Louis Wu is carrying. That is the only information I can give you at this time."

Louis handed her the holo, the one that showed a baby-blue stripe crossing a black background behind a disc of blazing white. She took her time looking it over; and only Louis noticed how the angry blood flowed into her face.

When she spoke, she spit the words out one at a time, like the seeds of a tangerine. "This is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of. You expect Louis and me to go charging out beyond known space with a kzin and a puppeteer for company, and all we know about where were going is a length of blue ribbon and a bright -spot! That's — ridiculous!"

"I take it, then, that you refuse to join us."

The girl's eyebrows went up.