“Please, Madam! I said you could have your own doctor. And I am required to review each applicant’s proposal.”
“Then get your lazy arse out of that comfortable chair and give it to me! You come sit in this ducking stool.”
“Very well, Ma’am.” They exchanged chairs. Shortly he said, “I see that you are putting almost all of the other fifty percent of your fortune into starship research and development.”
“It’s none of your business what I do with it.”
“I didn’t say it was. It just struck me as…unusual.”
“Why? My child may want to go in a starship. I want that research to move. Mr. Barnes, you’ve had time to look at that proposal; if you hadn’t talked so much, you could have it memorized by now. Do whatever it is you do. Mark your X, or stamp your chop. Or hand it back and let me out of here. Now! Not five minutes from now—but now. My back still hurts. You’re a pain in the back, Mr. Barnes, you and your petty ‘policy’ and your worthless talk.”
He signed it. “Through that door, Madam Salomon.”
“Thank you.” She started toward it.
“You’re barely welcome—you ancient bitch!”
Joan Eunice stopped, turned back, and smiled her best golden-sunrise smile. “Why, thank you, dear! That’s the best thing you’ve said to me. Because it is utterly honest. Of course I’m not welcome, the way I’ve stormed at you—and answered your bullying with worse bullying. And I am indeed both a bitch and ancient.”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Oh, but you should have. I richly deserved it. But I would never have tried to get your job—truly, I’m not that petty. That was just backache bad temper talking. I admire your spunk in telling me off. What is your first name?”
“Uh, ‘Matthew.’”
“A good name, Matthew. A strong name.” Joan Eunice came back, stood close to him. “Matthew, I’m going to the Moon. I’ll never be back this way again. Will you forgive this ancient bitch and let us part friends? Will you kiss me good-bye? I’ve no one to see me off, Matthew—will you kiss me good-bye as I leave for the Moon?”
“Uh—”
“Please, Matthew. Uh, mind the big belly; turn me a little sideways—that’s better.” She wet her lips, lifted her face, and closed her eyes.
Presently she sighed and nestled closer. “Matthew? Will you let me love you? Oh, I don’t mean seduce you, it’s too late for that, I’m about benched. Just tell me that I may think of you with love as I go to the Moon. It’s a long way off and I’m a little scared—and I lived too long without love and want to love everyone who will let me…any who will love me back even a little. Will you, dear? Or is this bitch too ancient?”
“Uh, Madam Salomon—”
“‘Eunice,’ Matthew.”
“Eunice. Eunice, you’re a sparky little bitch, you really are. But I kept you sitting there—even before I realized who you are—because I like looking at you. Hell, honey, my wife says I can love any woman I want to-ten percent of what I love her.”
“Ten percent is a good return on any investment, Matthew. All right, please love me that ten percent—and I’ll love you ten percent of what I loved—still love!—my darling husband. Is there enough love in that ten percent for a second kiss? It’s a long way to the Moon—they must keep me warm all the way.” She closed her eyes and waited.
(Hey, twin, lover boy is doing better this time.) (Don’t bother me now, I’m busy!)
Presently Mr. Barnes murmured, “Lovely.”
“All swollen and fat now, that’s why I wear styles that cover them. But you should have seen Eunice—the first Eunice, my benefactrix—at her lovely best…in styles to show it.”
“I still say they’re lovely. I guess we had better stop this, I’ve got a roomful of people waiting out there. And you have almost four hours of processing before you go on to quarantine. If you want to go to Andes Port with your own doctor, you had better go now.”
“Yes, Matthew. I love you—ten percent—and I’ll still be loving you on the Moon. At compound interest. Through that door?”
“Through there and follow the signs. Good bye, Eunice. Take care of yourself.”
(Boss, that’s either a new high or a new low. Was he kissing us? Or a billion dollars?) (It seemed to me—though I’m still learning compared with you two trollops—that the young man started out kissing a billion dollars…and wound up kissing Joan. Us. Quite well, too. Dears, I find that my animal nature has been considerably stirred—I’m looking forward to us being back in circulation again.) (Hell, yes, Jock darling, we all are. It occurs to me, Joan, that there must be lots of homesick out-migrants who will appreciate a simple country girl who learned clear back in junior high to kiss with her eyes closed and her lips open.) (Eunice, that’s what I’m counting on. Seven billion people makes Earth a terribly lonely place…but there are only a few thousand on Luna and, if we try, we can get to know all of them and love most of them. What do you think, Jake?) (Johann, we can try. We will. Wups, here’s our first stop. ‘Physical.’ Goose bumps and indignities. But what the hell?—somebody kissed us good-bye.)
29
As re-reported in the Christian Science Monitor, Izvestia condemned the announcement (Daily Selenite, year 35, day 69) of the Lunar Commission’s call for proposal studies for terraforming Ganymede as “one more provocative example of the insatiable territorial aggressions of the mad-dog alliance of the two major imperialist, counterrevolutionary, genocidal powers, the United States of America and the so-called People’s Democratic Republic of China” and demanded that the UN Security Council take action before it was too late. In Sequoia National Park three families (or possibly one extended-family) were discovered living two hundred feet up in a giant redwood. The group (seven adults, five children—two less than a year old) claimed to have been up the tree more than three years; extensive arrangements for their unique style of living lent substance to the claim. They were booked on a variety of charges but the U.S. district attorney declined to prosecute: “I ain’t about to waste my time and taxpayers’ money on a bunch of monkeys. Let’s chase ’em back up the tree!”
The Iowa State Annual Picnic in Long Beach, California, suffered 243 cases of acute food poisoning (botulism-D), 17 muggings, 3 rapes, and was rained out. “—from the great State of New York knows that slum clearance is no answer. Must we hear the death rattle before we admit that any organism, be it man, or city, or civilization, in time grows old and dies?” In a letter in Nature (UK) it was claimed that scientists in Novosibirsk had solved both the problem of twinning replication and of extrauterine fetal development in vitro and must now be reckoned as back in the Great-Powers race with a potentially unlimited supply of workers, soldiers, and peasants. An editorial in the same issue urged the Nobel letter-writer to give up writing science-fiction or at least change his brand of hashish. Debate on proposed legislation for control of neo-psychedelics continued: “Has the gentleman on the other side of the aisle ever given thought to the potentially disastrous effect on our economy of actually enforcing the narcotics laws we already have? Or is he talking for the video audience?” Experienced observers predicted no vote this session.
In Luna City Mrs. Salomon, as with everywoman, reached the end of her nine lunar months. Her lovely navel had long since extruded, her belly was an arching dome of life pushing up the sheet. She waited in the Community Hospital eight levels down. The nurse seated near her was pregnant also but not nearly so far along.
“Winnie?”
“Yes, dear?”
“If it’s a boy it must be Jacob Eunice…a girl must be Eunice Jacob. Promise me.”
“I did promise, dear; I wrote it down as you asked me to. And I promised to take care of your baby—and that is all done, too, already recorded—I take care of yours, you take care of mine. Only we won’t need to, dear; both of us are going to be all right—we’ll raise them together.”
“Promise me, it’s important.” (Johann, don’t name that
baby ‘Jake.’ Call him ‘Johann’—‘Johann Eunice.’) (Jake, I will not load down a boy with ‘Johann’—it forced me to learn to fight too young) (Jock, don’t argue with Boss. She’s always right, you know that.) (Then call him ‘John!’) (His name is ‘Jacob,’ Jake—I won’t have it any other way.) (Joan, you’re the most stubborn old bastard in the entire Solar System—and turning you into a woman didn’t change you. All right already!) (I love you, my husband.) (We both love you, Boss—and Jake is as proud about the names as I am.)
“I do promise you, Joan. Cross my heart.”
“My sweet Winsome. We’ve come a long way together, you and I and Roberto.”
“Yes, we have, dear.”
“I’m ill. Am I not?”
“Joan, you’re not ill. A woman never feels good just before she has a baby—I know, I’ve seen hundreds of them. I told you that tube was just for glucose.”
“What tube? Winnie, come close and listen. This is important. My baby’s name must be......”
“—rejection syndrome, Doctor. Atypical but unmistakable.”
“Dr. Garcia, why do you say ‘atypical’?”
“Mmm. Sometimes, when she’s irrational, she speaks in three different voices and—well, two of them are dead. Split personality.”
“So? I’m not a psychiatrist, Dr. Garcia; ‘split personality’ means little to me. But I don’t see that it necessarily affects pregnancy. I’ve delivered some fine, healthy babies from women who were quite irrational.”
“Nor am I a psychiatrist, sir. Let it stand that she is irrational much of the time…and that I see this as part of the total clinical picture, which—in my opinion—gives a prognosis of transplant rejection.”
“Dr. Garcia, you know more about transplants than I do; I’ve never managed a transplant case in my life. But this patient seems in fair shape to me. Right here in this hospital I have seen women who appeared to be in much worse shape…who had their babies and were up and working in three days. With our low gravity they recover quickly. Did you think this patient was hurt on the trip up from Earth?”
“Oh, no! Those flotation acceleration cells are wonderful. Mrs. Salomon rode in one, so did my wife. I monitored them; Joan took it even better than Winnie did. I envied them, as I found the ride in a standard chair pretty rough. No, I see no connection; rejection symptoms did not show until this week.” Garcia frowned. “She doesn’t know that her mind isn’t clear—she’s lucid off and on. But motor control is decaying. That strong young body sustains her metabolism—but truthfully, Doctor, I can’t guess how long.” He frowned again. “It could let go any moment—damn it, I wish I had proper support equipment!”
The older doctor shook his head. “This is a frontier, son. I’m not running down your specialty—but this is not the place for it. Here we set bones and take out appendixes and try to keep contagious diseases from racing through the colony. But when it comes time to die, we die—you, me, anybody—and get out of the way of the living. Now suppose we had all of Johns Hopkins here with Jefferson Medical thrown in—could you stop it? Reverse it? Possibility of spontaneous remission if you had your fancy support equipment?”
“No. The best we could do would be to extend the time.”
“So the literature says, but I wanted to hear you say it. Well, Doctor? Your patient.”
“We take the baby.”
“Let’s get busy.”
Joan Eunice came awake as they were wheeling her down the corridor. “Roberto?”
“Right here, dear.”
“Where are they taking me? Am I going in for surgery again?”
“Yes, Joan.”
“Why, dear?”
“Because you haven’t gone into labor when you should have. So now we do it the easy way—Caesarean section.” He added, “There’s nothing to worry about. It’s as routine as taking out an appendix.”
“Roberto, you know I never worry. You’re doing it?”
“No, the chief of surgery. He’s far more skilled than I am. Dr. Frankel. You met him, he examined you this morning.”
“Did he? It’s slipped my mind. Roberto, I must tell Winnie something very important. It’s about the name of my baby.”
“She knows, dear, she wrote it down. ‘Jacob Eunice, or Eunice Jacob.’”
“Oh, good! Then everything’s all right. But tell them to make it quick, Roberto; I never liked waiting around at a beachhead.”
“It’ll be quick, you’ll never notice it. Spinal and a wagonload of barbiturate, Joan.”
“That’s funny, you called me ‘Joan.’ My name’s ‘Johann,’ Doctor. Agnes is going to be all right—she is, isn’t she?”
“Yes, Johann. Agnes—is going to be all right.”
“I told her she would be all right. Doctor, I feel dreamy. If I fall asleep, will you wake me when Agnes goes in to have her baby?”
“Yes, Johann.”
“Thank . . you . . Mrs . . . Wicklund. I didn’t . . know . . could be so . . wonderful.”
“Roberto? Where are you? I can’t see you.”
“Right here, dear.”
“Touch me. Touch my face, I can’t feel anything lower down. Roberto, what I bought was a wonderful year—and I have no regrets. Have they started?”
“Not quite. Do you want to go to sleep, dear?”
“Must I? I’d rather not. I feel sleepy—dreamy and good . . . but I’d rather not go to sleep just yet. It’s on the knees of the gods now, isn’t it? Time to bite the bullet and chin up and all that. But I don’t need that, I’m happy. Come close, dear, I must tell you why. Closer . . can’t talk . . very loud.”
“Clamp! Damn it, Nurse, stay out of my way!”
“Everything always hurts, Roberto—everything. Always. But some things are worth all the hurts. ‘Tie me kangeroo down, mite, tie me kangeroo down!’ That . . wasn’t . . what I meant to say; that’s Jake, he’s singing again. Always sings when he’s happy. Lean very close . . so I can tell you . . before—I sleep. Thank you, Roberto, for letting me welcome you into my body. It is good to touch—to fuck—be fucked. It’s—not good—to be—too much alone. You have blessed me . . with your body, dear. Now I’ll sleep a while if I may . . but first I had to tell you that. Om Mani Padme Hum. Now I lay me down to sleep—”
“Surgeon, she’s failing.”
A baby cried, a world began.
“Heart action dropping!”
(Jake? Eunice?) (Here, Boss! Grab on! There! We’ve got you.) (Is it a boy or a girl?) (Who cares, Johann—it’s a baby! ‘One for all and all for one!’)
An old world vanished and then there was none.
Robert A. Heinlein, I Will Fear No Evil
(Series: # )
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