The 2084 Precept (45 page)

In her place was a small, blond, frail
looking girl. But the important part of her body wasn't frail. You
could see it was nicely rounded, very sexy in a comfortable,
motherly sort of way if you know what I mean. Just the kind of girl
who can be of great value when there is the need for emotional
rehabilitation. And she gave me a really big smile. I have noticed
that lots of small girls really go for tall men—right, and some do
not—for reasons which would make a good subject for psychological
research by some university or other one day. Or maybe it
wouldn’t.

I managed a smile, told her I knew the way
and walked along past the offices and into the meeting room. Jeremy
stood up to greet me. Business suit as always, striped shirt, dark
red tie, and wearing a smile, seemed to be in a good mood.

"Good morning, Peter," he said, "I am afraid
Miss Goodall is not here today. She has a week's vacation. But
hopefully you were received in the proper manner by our Miss
Monroe?"

"Certainly," I said. If he was expecting me
to show some disappointment, I had none to show.

"An interesting meeting you had yesterday,"
he continued.

"Yes," I replied. "And as I explained, I
expect to be contacted again very soon."

Actually, whether a meeting with the prime
minister happened or not, I was anticipating being able to remove
myself from this crazy saga fairly soon. I would be driving back to
Germany at the weekend and perhaps I could hop off to Spain on the
Monday. They would trace me there of course, several ways for them
to go about that. But if I drove, and if I didn't take my mobile,
and if I parked my car in a public car park in Barcelona, and then
used the ferry to get to the island, it would take them some time
to find me. First the country, then Mallorca, then me. I was just
chewing it over. I needed to give it some more thought. In
particular, about how to ensure I could still meet the requirements
for being paid in full by Jeremy.

"Good, that is very good," said Jeremy.

"The show you put on was also good," I said,
"manipulating the minds of so many people simultaneously."

"Oh, that wasn't actually the case," he
replied. "If you think about it, I only had to influence a couple
of brains at the front of each line of traffic. It is just a form
of hypnosis, as we've discussed."

Oh well, that was alright then. Only had to
influence a couple of brains. Mere hypnosis, about as difficult as
drinking a cup of coffee. I wouldn't mind being able to do that,
I'd be the world chess champion.

"Then perhaps we could move on without delay
to today's agenda item?" he continued.

"Fine," I said. "
’Environmental
management.
’"

I took a deep breath. Here we go again.

"We have no environmental management,
Jeremy. Quite the contrary to what our birdbrains tell us, flap,
flap. On the one hand we are completely destroying the environment
on this planet, and on the other hand we are doing so at a
constantly accelerating pace."

"Not again," interrupted Jeremy, "it seems
that no matter what topic we select, it is always negative,
catastrophically so."

"Yes, and this is another one which is
pretty horrific—as I am sure you will agree when you have heard
some of the facts. The facts that I know about, that is. I don't
have the full story."

He sighed. The poor guy really would love to
hear some positive opinions to further enhance his deluded
fantasies, instead of which all he is getting are the facts.
Perhaps I should suggest I go out and find a politician and a
bishop for him, they would both be happy to provide him with
thousands of positive scenarios, make him happy. "O.K., then," he
said, "off you go."

"First of all," I said, "I have to explain
the major cause for what is happening. That way you will understand
it better. The major cause is overpopulation. The planet used to be
able to handle the quantity of filth and pollution and detritus
produced by a limited number of human beings. But now it can no
longer handle it. The planet is groaning, it is sighing, it is
weeping. But we don’t care about that. We just continue reproducing
at an alarming and unsustainable rate."

Jeremy interrupted me with a smile. "No
offence, Peter, but facts would move us along faster than groanings
and sighings do you think?"

"Sure Jeremy, my apologies. But listen to
this first: it took us about 200,000 years from the time we started
to exist to reach a world population of around 300 million, i.e. at
about the time Jesus Christ was born. It took us less than 2,000
years after that or, more precisely, until around the time of World
War II, to reach a world population of 2 billion. Wow! That’s
enough, you might think? No. It is not enough. See if you can
believe this: in only 70 years since then, that is to say within
some people's lifetimes, the 2 billion number has become over 7
billion. And it will have become more than 11 billion before I die.
Facts. Irreversible facts."

"Irreversible?"

"Yes, because of the way we are. About 132
million new human beings are being born each year. Roughly 4 per
second. And each one, according to our various religions, is
appropriately supplied with a soul to help him or her better
appreciate the few decades for which they are going to be around.
But if 132 million humans are being born, only 56 million are
dying. I have included the 1 million suicides in that figure, but I
have excluded the 45 million abortions each year, in order to
maintain a factual comparison between actual births and the deaths.
For the same reason I have also excluded the 2.1 million stillborn
babies per year. After all, if you are born dead, you cannot
truthfully be said to have been born at all."

"Hmm…what is a soul?"

"I don't know, Jeremy. Some kind of spirit
or so they say."

"And you have one as well?"

"Apparently. So they say. I have no idea
where it is. And how it is supposed to interact with my brain and
my central nervous system, I have no idea. Nor, since I have no
idea what my soul and its intended function is, can I even make a
guess."

"Hmm…" said Jeremy

"Now, on the one hand, we have China, which,
having watched its population grow to 1.3 billion, took a decision
to stop the madness. It forbade and prohibited, with some few
exceptions, more than one child per family. Of course this has a
negative side to it. This resulted in many of the females being
aborted before birth or butchered shortly thereafter, their
usefulness being deemed inferior to that of the male. However, the
overall positive effects of this law are considered to far outweigh
the negative ones. The problem is with the rest of the world."

"The rest of the world doesn't do this?"

"No, not at all. India, for a start, will
soon overtake China as the world's most populated nation; it may
already have done so for all I know. And other countries positively
encourage
more births. It is a human right to be able to
reproduce as much as we want, so they say. And then of course, you
have our friends again, the elected clowns. Many of these believe
that the bigger their populations, the more influence and power,
including economic power, they and their nations are going to have.
It is a case of 'more means better' again. Take Russia and Germany
for example. Both sets of clowns are downright horrified at the
lack of population growth."

"Choose one of them and tell me about it,
Peter."

"Fine, Peter. I’ll make it easy for myself
and choose Germany and more or less repeat what I told you in our
last meeting. For me, it is worth the repetition just to
re-emphasize in your mind the question of human reproduction in
return for money. Germany has created a law whereby you get money
for each new successful act of reproduction! And the more children
you create, the more money you get! You don't want more children?
Hah, well how about doing it for money? If we pay you, will you do
it? Money, say the clowns, is a superb justification for getting
the masses to reproduce if they don't want to do it for any other
reason."

"But surely," said Jeremy, "money is not an
inducement for the upper and middle classes, for those who have
sufficient income already?"

"Quite correct. But it
is
an
inducement to the poor, the less educated and the immigrants,
including the millions already living off the welfare state. No
problem, have four, five, six or more children, WE WILL PAY YOU FOR
IT! Or rather, we, the clowns, won't. But our taxpayers
will—including the ones who have determined that they themselves
can't reasonably afford to have more children, or simply don't want
to—hey, THEY will pay you for it (with, at the same time, the
optimistic desire that you, the reproducer, will spend the money on
your babies and not in your pub)."

"But…"

"Sure, Jeremy, the consequences are logical
and do not need to be discussed. This law, coincidentally, was
pushed by a female minister who has seven children of her own—maybe
eight, I can't remember exactly. I repeat that this was a
coincidence—she was not trying to push her minority views onto
others in order to validate her personal sentiments in this regard.
It was just another case of 'more is better'. If they will only do
it for money, well…so be it. And—can you believe this—last year the
German clowns were formally discussing a separate law for an
additional punitive tax
on all married persons
without
children!"

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. It's a fact. Check it out. So as
you can see, Jeremy, the human race cannot agree on this matter
either and the population of human beings on the planet continues
to spiral at a disastrous and deadly pace. Before, by the way, we
have even solved the problem of how to feed the ones already
existing. Millions die of hunger each year, mainly children. Yes,
this is an easy enough problem to solve. But we are too stupid to
do so. Our lack of intelligence stands in the way."

"But that doesn't make sense."

"No."

"So why do you do allow your species’
reproduction volumes to continue to spiral out of control??"

"Jeremy, it's your fault for asking the
question. We do it because that's the way we are."

He chuckled. "I walked straight into that
one again, Peter, didn't I?"

"Yup," I said. "And the result of all this,
among other things, is that we have a large number of vast
megacities of over 20 million people. The biggest is Tokyo-Yokohama
with 37 million humans, all crammed together, 6,000 humans per
km
²
staring out of the tiny holes in their high-rise
blocks, squashed in like bees in a beehive. One of many twentieth
century science fiction scenarios which are already with us.
Needless to say, many parts of these cities are run-down ghettos,
crime-breeding areas of unimaginable poverty, ready-made
territories for the thriving drug and prostitution trades among
others."

"But you still continue."

"Yes, Jeremy, we still continue. We continue
to cover our planet with concrete at an unheard of and massive
pace: housing, roads, factories, hospitals, schools, sport
stadiums, restaurants, bars, government buildings, bank buildings,
airports, hotels, shopping malls, industrial parks, and so on. The
elected clowns call this growth; it is very necessary,
oh
yes,
flap, flap. It cannot be allowed to stop,
oh no
, it
can
never
be allowed to stop. Thousands of construction
companies would go out of business, there would be millions of
unemployed. The snowball has to be kept rolling, getting bigger and
bigger and heavier and heavier. The poor planet can't handle it
anymore. It tries to, but we have already passed the mathematical
limit of how many humans can decently live on this small lump of
rock. But since we don't realize that, we don't slow down in any
way, let alone put a stop to it. And even the elected Chinese
birdbrains, flap, flap, are now seriously thinking of relaxing
their one child per family rule. It's all very sad."

"Very sad," said Jeremy, clearly at a loss
for further comment.

"And this finally brings us to environmental
matters. The rabbit-like breeding I have just outlined to you,
Jeremy, will assist you in understanding the enormity of what we
are doing."

"I have read," said Jeremy, "that a number
of your researchers say your species is both mad and stupid if it
believes it can pump its very thin atmosphere full of carbon
dioxide, sulphur, methane gas and other toxic poisons, destroy vast
areas of compensatory forest, poison its oceans with its defecation
and a whole host of deadly chemicals, and yet not destroy its
habitat within next to no time. Would you agree with those
people?"

"Indeed I would and I do, Jeremy. Both mad
and stupid as said. Nevertheless, this is precisely what we are
doing. And at the same we are digging out what remains of our
planet's guts for minerals, fuel resources and so on. At a frenzied
and unprecedented rate."

"Well…it's your planet of course, but it
sounds as if not all of you believe your activities to be
dangerous. Otherwise you would stop them."

"You think so, Jeremy? Well, let me divide
this up into land, sea and air. As usual, my knowledge is severely
limited and I am therefore restricted to those few facts and
examples of which I am aware."

"Understood as usual, Peter."

"O.K., Jeremy. Now…our species currently
produces about 12 billion tons of waste per year. And that includes
way over one trillion plastic bags, by the way…"

"Did you say 12
billion
tons? And
over one
trillion
plastic bags? Every year? Why do you need
so many?"

"We don't need so many, Jeremy. But we don't
let that worry us."