"Your pregnancy is going well, sis," Amelia Oregon said, as Joss and Gabi sat in her exam room three months later. "Abraham should be here right on time, in seven months. I'm so looking forward to meeting my nephew."

"That's great," said Gabi. "We're getting our rooms ready for him. Mom and Dad have contributed most of the furniture.

"I'll cover the costs of delivery."

"Thanks again. You're doing so much."

"My pleasure. Birth licenses are down again this year. I've got an A2 rating, and I had to fight to get a birth license."

"There's lots of babies born every year," said Gabi.

Amelia shook her head. "Lots of babies, sure, but twenty-five, thirty years ago, there were almost twice as many."

"That can't be true," Gabi said. Joss sat up straight, surprised.

"True," said Amelia. "I deliver babies; I know the numbers." She smiled softly at her twin. "Think about it. How many other people do you know with a brother or sister?"

"Why, I know the chief of police has a brother. The Mayor. The grocery inspector."

"They're all at least 40," said Amelia. "You don't know them; you know of them."

"Yeah," said Gabi.

The room darkened and Joss jumped up and looked around.

"It's OK, Joss," said Amelia. A nightshield is passing over."

"One passed over a few months ago. They're usually two or three years apart."

"The Rim Management Office said flyovers are going to happen more often. At least every year, and last longer. Didn't you hear? You're an engineer with a second in Astro engineering."

"Yeah," said Joss, sitting down. "I've been so busy—so happy about the baby and marrying, I've just been dedicated to us and my job."

"OK," said Amelia. "I'll see you next here next month, Gabi. In the meantime, dinner at Mom and Dad's this weekend."

They walked out in the temporary false night of the shield and caught the monorail to their new family rooms. Joss sat silently, events and gossip and news he'd heard rolling through his mind. Pieces were fitting together and heading towards a revelation he didn't want to know.

Amelia was right about the birth rate. He was an only child. His mother was an only child. His father had a brother who could not get a marriage or birth license. They were dead. He had no parents, aunts, uncles, cousins. His closest relative was a distant cousin who shared a great-great grandfather. He didn't know the woman. Renny was like a brother to him, but if not for Gabi, he wouldn't have a family.

As a 2B rating, he could have gone to graduate school and eventually gotten marriage and birth licenses. Twenty-odd years ago, he almost certainly would have, but these days he couldn't afford the fees.

He and Gabi had gotten a generous five-room family unit when he  expected a three-room. His old residence had many empty rooms. Delia, Renny's frequent nightmate, had gotten a room in the city center, something her rating wouldn't have permitted five or ten years ago.

The nightshields. A piece passed over every four or five years, but now came a few times a year. Young school graduates who didn't earn a rating that gave licenses had the marriage age of 40. His parents had been 35. Such single people were encouraged to find temporary partners and take new ones frequently. Meeting places such as the Falling Star were popular and big business. Recycling was down, and he knew that meant people were using up more of production. Less waste food, energy, clothes. Less people filled the bars and clubs, and rush hour was less packed. He rubbed his forehead. He needed to figure out what it meant.

"Does your head hurt," Gabi asked?

"No, love," he smiled at her. "Just thinking about the job and what Amelia told us. Here's our stop."

That night when Gabi was asleep, he went in the small living room. He opened computer files and checked the data reports for the things that worried him.

Birth rate was down 41.32% in the last sixteen years. Less rain fell, reducing crops. Food production was down 25%, but with the population reduced by 37% already, famine was not a problem. Yet. Hotter, drier weather had damaged Montana Province, with its forests producing wood.

When the architects and engineers built the ring to circle Anelon, their small G2V sun, they build a half ring to orbit inside Anela to create night. The nightshield. Anela was complete and self-sufficient with green lands, waters, even a small sea, mountains, forests. Cities and their suburbs were built in the most efficient locations.

The war with the Grolon and Doxite Federations had intensified, so the designers and builders were recalled to the Solon Federation. They hadn't returned in 121 years. The official Government reports said both rings were complete and in working order. Only the Anelan System spacers were left to transport across the orbit from one part of Anela to another.

One year after the interspace crews left the Nightshield broke apart. Some pieces disappeared into the sun or out into space, but some chunks bigger than provinces continued orbiting. Night fell every couple of years, and the Anelonians got used to endless day.

Joss pulled out information about the chunks of Nightshield and determined their orbits over the last twenty years and projected the next few years. The orbits had become erratic, and the chunks were closing in on the ringworld. Nineteen months, one week, one day, give or take a few hours, and CX-2 would crash into Anela, breaking the ring, and knocking it out of orbit.

He trembled and fought nausea. He checked and rechecked his figures. CX-2 would crash into the Anela Ring within two years. The crash would shatter and break the ring, destroying the life support system the architects had put in place. It didn't matter, Joss told himself, because the collision would knock the ring out of orbit and destroy life anyway. No escape, no way to avoid it, nowhere to go.

He sat watching the figures on the screen. Finally, he turned the computer off and went to bed. He slipped in beside Gabi, resting against her warmth, but shivering with cold. He wrapped his arm around her and rested his hand against her baby bump. Abraham would be ten months, give or take a few weeks. Toddling, calling them Mama and Dada. Joss let the tears run down his cheeks.