Youth is Wasted on the Young p.2
Outside the hospital doors dawn had washed a pearly light over the land. They could see the hospital was a sprawling complex, riddled with car parks and sided by a major highway.
“That's what it was,” Amy said, as she got a good look around for the first time in full light. Everything around her was perfectly normal looking for a human city, except that everything was built on a 3/4 scale.
In the dark it had just made the perspectives look a bit off, as if everything was a little farther away than it should be. In fact, everything was just a bit smaller.
Except the sheriff’s truck. The short sheriff led them up to an SUV not much smaller than the utility truck. He opened the back door and gestured them in and hiked himself up into the front seat. Amy, Rory and the Doctor climbed inside. They actually managed to fit without scrunching down.
“116,” the boy said into a mic in the front seat. He punched something into the computer screen built into the dashboard and started the truck, throwing a glance back at his passengers. The Doctor saw the look and touched a control on the door, abruptly Amy felt herself sucked back against the seat cushions as if she’d been strapped in. The sheriff nodded.
“Janine?” he said into the mic as he reversed the truck out of his parking spot and cruised out of the parking lot.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Were you able to get in touch with my boys?”
“I got hold of Chad, but Elliot didn’t answer his phone. Chad’s on his way, he said he’d stop by Elliot's and roust him out of bed. How’s Janet?”
The boy wheeled the car expertly out into the early morning traffic. “She’s fine. Busted her leg. The doctors are setting it now. I’ve got a trio of grown-ups I’m taking to the Hostel at the spaceport then I’m coming back. Any calls?”
“No, you lucked out, it’s been a slow night. I called Jeff in, he’ll cover for you.”
“Thanks Janine, you’re a peach.”
“And don’t you know it. Give Janet a kiss for me.”
“Will do. 120 Out.” He turned off the mic and relaxed with a sigh. A puzzled noise from Rory, as Rory glared at the Doctor for explanations, drew his attention back to his passengers. “So what are you all on planet for?”
Twenty minutes later he dropped them at a normal sized twenty story building at the edge of a high tech spaceport. The Doctor waved him off gaily and led Amy and Rory into the lobby. Everything here was built to their size. He flashed the psychic paper, and a charming grin, at the sweet brunette receptionist (who looked all of ten years old) and they soon found themselves settling into a tourist suite complete with a panoramic view of the spaceport and the city beyond.
“Okay, Doctor. Spill it,” Amy demanded, crossing her arms and giving him a determined look.
“A whole planet of kids?” Rory sputtered incredulously, glaring at the Doctor as if he was pulling some huge hoax.
“Yep,” the Doctor said. “Welcome to Feyanora, one of the 700 wonders of the galaxy. Well, this galaxy.”
“That’s not possible,” Rory declared.
“Oh, everything is possible,” the Doctor said, he lounged down on one of the beds, propping his head on one hand. They plopped into chairs, sensing a long story coming on.
“You humans are infinitely adaptable. Feyanora is one of the new planets colonized in the first years after the last starburst.”
“Starburst?” Amy asked.
The Doctor waved that off. “Earth has been evacuated and reclaimed several times in its history. Feyanora is one of the worlds the colonists claimed. Actually, it wasn’t one of the earliest, but it’s one of the farthest out. Anyway, rich world, plenty of water, minerals, good gravity, air, and lots and lots of space to spread out in.” He stretched his arms wide and flopped backward on the bed. For a minute Amy thought he was going to go to sleep.
“Doctor,” she said in a warning tone.
“Right,” the Doctor propped himself up on his elbows. “Feyanora is the only known human world where humans don’t mature past puberty. Actually, they never even enter puberty.“
“That’s not possible,” Rory said. “Where would the children come from?”
“Government run creches,” the Doctor said. “Each Feyanoran has the right to one conception a year from the age of 26 to 56. No discrimination given due to age, income, educational level, disability, or marital status.”
“Married!” Rory yelped. “These kids are married?”
The Doctor rolled his head to look at him. “Sure, just because they don’t mature physically doesn’t mean they don’t mature mentally or emotionally. How old were you the first time you fell in love with a girl?”
Rory ducked his head and peeked at Amy. The Doctor grinned.
“But thirty kids!” Amy protested.
“No, thirty conceptions. Even with technology things go wrong. They get one try a year, and most don’t go for the whole shebang. Kids take a lot of work, most people are happy with two or three. They’re only constitutionally guaranteed the right to try every year. It’s not required.”
“But, kids raising kids, how’s that work?” Rory asked.
“The same as anywhere else. Older siblings help take care of younger siblings on most frontier planets. Most civilized ones too.”
“But, they don’t age, how did that happen?” Rory asked. “Did they find the Fountain of Youth?”
“In a way,” the Doctor said, in a tone that said it hadn’t been a happy discovery.
He sat up. “Have you ever heard of progeria?”
Rory nodded. “The aging disease. Little kids die of old age.”
“The opposite of progeria is anageria,” the Doctor said. “When the first settlers on Feyanora started having kids, everything seemed fine at first, until they realized their children weren’t aging. Something in the biosphere here was affecting them. The first generation of native Feyanorans never aged past two years old. And the oldest of them lived to be fifty.”
Amy stared at him in disbelief. “Oh my god.”
“Exactly,” the Doctor said. “Unfortunately, this was true anageria. The children not only didn’t grow up, they didn’t mature mentally either. They stayed infants. And anageria comes rife with a whole host of medical problems. Underdeveloped lungs, tendency toward infection, organ dysfunction, you name it. Most of them didn’t live past the first few years.”
"Why didn't they just leave?" Amy asked.
"By the time they realized the problem the other colony worlds were at war, and there wasn't another world close enough for them to reach. They had no choice but to stay and find a solution."
"But if something was affecting the babies, wasn’t it affecting the adults too?” Rory asked.
"Yes,” the Doctor said. “They retreated back into the ship. It was a colony ship, it could sustain them for a long time, but not forever. As long as they stayed inside, living off the hydroponic gardens and recycled air they were safe.” He went introspective for a moment, looking out the windows. “All that verdant world out there, all that life beyond their windows, and they could never go outside. It must have driven them mad."
"But they eventually found a solution," Amy said, calling him back to the subject.
"Yes,” he jumped up and started pacing, gesturing with his hands. “It took them 40 years. They narrowed down the causes to local influences that were inhibiting the proper formation of certain hormones. The body could produce a certain amount of them, but never enough, and it only seemed to affect certain hormones, estrogen, testosterone, growth hormones were all inhibited to certain extents. The causes were endemic, they couldn't just reengineer the substances out of the plants and air, the local biosphere were dependent on them.
“They were never able to find a complete cure,” the Doctor said, "but they did find a balance. Their children were able to mature mentally at a normal rate, and have a normal lifespan with most of the health problems fixed, but they would never be able to physically mature. The local contaminants simply wouldn't allow them to produce enough estrogen or testosterone to trigger puberty."
"Then how do they make the babies, without sperm or eggs?" Rory asked, craning his neck to watch the Doctor.
"All the cells of the body contain complete DNA information, you don't actually need gametes to reproduce." the Doctor absently rubbed the back of his hand.
"So they just stay young forever," Amy said, "they never grow old?"
"They never "grow up."" The Doctor said, raising a hand to indicate mature growth. "They never physically mature.”
Rory shook his head. "Then why did he call us "grown-ups?"
"Ah, well, grown-ups has a bit of a different meaning here. It doesn't mean adults, it means non-Feyanorans, the other races of humans, like you two, who actually grow "up."
“But why are we sitting around in here talking about it?” the Doctor demanded, shooing them towards the door. “There’s a whole world out there to explore!”
"Why are you so excited?" Rory asked, not moving. "You already know all about it."
The Doctor waved it away. "Book learning. A synopsis written by a race of fusty old men who watched and took notes. Just because you know the Eiffel Tower is in Paris and was built for the Great Exhibition, does that mean you wouldn't want to go see it?"
Rory looked at Amy. Amy grinned back. Rory stood up. "Well, let's go!"
In the lobby, just before they reached the glass front doors, Rory grabbed the Doctor by the sleeve and stopped him.
“If the atmosphere here inhibits hormones, are Amy and I safe?” Rory asked quietly, not wanting to alarm Amy, who was trotting on ahead of them.
“You’re fine,” the Doctor said. “It takes months of exposure before an adult is adversely affected. That’s one of the reasons they have “grown-ups” register at the hostel.” He waved around at the lobby. “It’s not just so they’ll have beds long enough. It’s also to monitor how long they’ve been on planet for health reasons. We’ll be gone long before it can affect you two.”
“Come on!” Amy yelled, pushing out into the summer sunlight.
Previous Chapter
Next Chapter