Chapter 24
Eva
A light chime sounded, alerting me that there was a visitor at the door.
“Are you expecting someone, my queen?” Willem asked politely as he packed away his medical scanner. “I can make myself scarce.”
“No, Willem, please stay. You’re one of the few people I know here,” I assured him, “I always enjoy your visits, and now I have several questions for you.” I raised my voice slightly. “Geoffrey?”
His soft voice replied to me, “Yes, madam?”
“Who’s at the door? Am I expecting them?” With everything going on, I had to be cautious. “I believe her name is Linnea, madam. She is a historian of some renown.” The computer concierge that had been my almost constant companion since I’d been removed from the clinical side of the Peace Opportunity Program had also become my electronic secretary and appointment keeper.
“Linnea?” Willem inquired. “My queen, did you send for an historian?”
“Do you know her? I’m a little nervous to be meeting a female Juhlian,” I admitted. “I’ve only met the Grand Mother, and she was a bit intimidating.”
Willem smiled. “I believe you will like Linnea, my queen.”
I smoothed the soft fabrics that draped lightly about my curves and reached up to make sure my curls were all in place, or as much as they could be in their natural abandon. I had to laugh a bit at how ridiculously nervous I felt to be meeting a female, but there were so very few of them on Juhl. I felt like I was meeting a celebrity or luminary of some kind. In a sense, I guess I was.
Since my arrival here on Juhl nine weeks previously, I’d only ever seen two females…the local—and supreme—Grand Mother and Acidi.
With Willem giving this Linnea a positive reference, I was hopeful we’d get along well. So far, no one had said anything positive about Acidi except that she was beautiful—which I saw with my own eyes—and quite smart. I always wondered how dangerous she really was.
I shook my head, determined to stay in this moment. Willem was here and had just given me the very best news. For now, I’d keep it close to my heart until the perfect moment to share it with Raevu later. I wasn’t terribly sure what my feelings for him were, but he had a right to hear this before anyone else did.
“Please let her in, Geoffrey,” I requested.
“Willowy” was the first word that popped into my head when the lady walked in. Tall, long, and lean, of course, as most of the people I’d seen on Juhl were, she had straight, pale green hair past her hips, and she exuded energy and curiosity. She began talking almost as soon as she was through the door.
“Hello! I’m Linnea. I heard you wanted a historian, and I volunteered.” She took both my hands in hers and searched my face with her eyes. She seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place my finger on why. “And, Willem,” she continued, without stopping her study of me, “she is just as lovely as you described.”
Startled, I glanced over at Willem, who just smiled serenely at me.
“Please,” I said, remembering my manners and finding my voice, “have a seat.”
“Absolutely. And don’t be formal with me, Eva. May I call you Eva? I feel like I know you already. Between Willem and Father’s stories of you, I’ve gotten a pretty good picture.”
“Okay, wait. Stop.” I shook my head, trying to wrap my mind around the implications of what she was saying. “Who’s been telling you stories about me? Willem?” I sat down on the comfortable lounge next to Linnea, who was still holding one of my hands, and glanced over at Willem archly.
He smiled, unfazed. “Linnea and I are in a contract together at the moment. It started just before we left to go get you. We’d like to make it permanent. I think, with your news today, the council will allow more Earth females to come here, and Linnea can leave the jalkavaimas and bond with me.”
Linnea’s hold on my hand tightened. “You’re pregnant? Really? Already?” Her jade green skin paled, then flushed. “I am so happy for you.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “So quickly! That’s so much more than we could have hoped, but Brother Etsija did say you were ‘the one.’ Father says you’re well matched with Raevu.” She released my hand, finally, to swipe at tears she wouldn’t let fall from her gray-green eyes.
“Father? Do I know him?” I felt a little lost.
“Yes.” Linnea gave a teary smile. “Baelon is my father.”
“Oh, he just must have not brought it up.” No wonder she looked a little familiar.
“They aren’t supposed to. We have an unusual relationship. My great-grandmother was the previous Grand Mother. Like her, the current one, my father’s mother, she wants progress and change. She wants families again. She encourages the jalkavaimas to stay with their progeny until the child is two or three and can have memories of her, but tradition is hard to break. That’s how I came about.” Linnea leaned back against Willem, who’d moved over to be near her when she’d become upset.
I nodded, interested to learn more about this strange society of women. “What happened?”
Linnea started rambling, all overexcited intellectual mixed with happy daughter. “Mother stayed with Father until my brother was nearing his third birthday, and she discovered she was expecting me. So, she stayed longer. I got to stay with Father until I was five years old, which is unheard of, and I get to see him anytime I wish. Most jalkavaimas don’t even know who their fathers are, it’s buried in the records somewhere. I suppose so that preference can’t be given to males who already have female offspring. Historically, though, that might be wise, to try to continue breeding with males who have proven themselves to be able to sire female babies.”
“Now, she’s talking history,” Willem chuckled, “and you’ll never get her to stop.” The look in his eyes belied his light words. It was obvious he was trying to distract her.
“Are your children with their fathers, then?” I inquired. “How old are they?”
“Willem is my fourth contract” —tears welled up again— “and I have no children. Since he’s a medic, we’re trying some fertilization techniques. We have high hopes.”
I flushed, mortified. A woman in her profession who was infertile? I felt so bad. Here in this faltering culture where being a female meant that your imperative was to bear children, and yet to be unable to bear children? What could she possibly be going through? I’d really stuck my foot in it. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be, my queen,” Willem said softly as he let his large hand run gently over Linnea’s shoulder. “We’ve been friends for a very long time, and we thought we’d give this a try. We also just discovered that we have deeper feelings for each other. Your news is wonderful and comes at the perfect time. If we can get more human women to come here, the pressure to bear as many children as possible is removed from the Juhlian females, and more research can be focused on fertility.” He kissed the back of her head.
“At any rate, my fertility isn’t why I am here.” Linnea cleared her throat and straightened her back. “My message from A’dam said you wanted to know more about when we first noticed the decline in female births?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I am sure your historians and researchers have looked into it. I just thought maybe, with some fresh eyes and ears on it…” I trailed off. Surely, these people had thought of everything I could possibly come up with. In the last couple hundred years, the number of female births had declined until now it was only one in roughly two thousand. Females born now were immediately placed into their own rank in this society. They became jalkavaima, and men applied for and interviewed with them in order to attempt to become fathers.
The jalkavaima contract was a sacred one, and she held much of the power. So far as the relationship with the child and father went, the jalkavaima could stay with the male as long as she pleased: until the child’s birth, up to the child’s first birthday, or could have even less contact, having the child delivered to its father after its birth. If the child was a girl, the father gave up all rights. She belonged to her mother and the local Grand Mother of the jalkavaimas and would be raised in their company.
“No, Eva,” Willem interjected. “I agree with you. We study what’s been tried before with our history. We haven’t looked at it with someone else’s history.”
Linnea spoke next. “The first census records where there are definitely fewer females than males in the populace are from about forty generations ago at the end of the Hattennen Dynasty.”
I interrupted Linnea’s obvious lecture mode. “What we need is what happened before all of that. This is surely a cause-and-effect type of situation. What happened a few generations before then? Something that would have to have been planet-wide or that started small but became planet-wide since it affected your entire populace.”
“Oh, of course.” Linnea seemed to think hard about my question and was having a difficult time coming up with an immediate answer. It would have surprised me if she had. They’d been dealing with this situation for generations; I couldn’t solve it in an afternoon.
Suddenly, Raevu burst through the door, and my heart did its now customary little bump and flutter when I saw him. “Willem, there you are. It’s happening. Grab your bag.”
Without asking questions, Willem did just that. I stared after him, gaping slightly, annoyed as hell that my big announcement was being one-upped by something else.
Linnea and I made eye contact and stood up. Whatever was going on, neither of us was going to be left out. We followed the men out the door.