The preliminary steps had gone without a hitch: by a miracle I didn't wish - yet - to subject too much scientific discussion, the successful transplantation of the fertilized ovum had been accomplished by the third attempt. I had fervently believed that the little plastic film trap would be superior to any form of flushing, but if it hadn't done the trick the third time, I would've been forced by Chuck's arguments to try flushing. Three times he had made the trip across the state to act as anesthetist at odd early hours in our cottage hospital.

 

 

"To think I'm being dictated to by a thermometer's variations," he'd growl.

 

 

We were lucky, too, in that there were no questions in the minds of the hospital administration. Cecily Kellogg had had three spontaneous abortions within those walls: if she was willing to keep trying to carry to term, the hospital couldn't care less - so long as her bills were paid. Pat showed up in the record as a blood donor. Chuck and I would take Pat home each time directly she came out of the anesthesia to preserve the fiction, while Cecily rested on in the ward. At Chuck's insistence, we both kept complete, chronological records of our procedures, and, for added veracity, punched them in on the staff time clock.

 

 

"Remember," he cautioned me more than once, "we will definitely not be able, or want, to keep this a secret. Let's just hope there's no premature slipup."

 

 

I recall groaning at this choice of phrase.

 

 

"Sorry about that, Ali. I just shudder to think of the holy medical hell that's going to break loose when this gets out."

 

 

"We're not doing anything illegal."

 

 

He gave me a patient, forbearing look. "No, we're not, Allison, love. But we are doing something that hasn't been done before, and that is always suspect. I grant you the techniques and theories are pretty well known and understood, but no... one... has... done... it on, of all sanctities, the human body." He reverently folded his hands and assumed a pious attitude for a split second. "May I remind you that exogenesis smacks marvelously of the blasphemous?"

 

 

"I never considered you to be particularly religious, Chuck."

 

 

"Heaven forbid!" He was in one of those contrary moods, which could be allowed a man who'd worked a solid day, driven speedily for 250 miles of wearing highway, assisted at some very tricky surgery, and, at three-thirty in the morning, had to face a return trip of 250 miles. "You're no longer naive, Ali, but for God's sake just equate the State Senate debates on legalized abortion with what we're doing, and think what will fall on our humbled heads."

 

 

"Ah, but we're giving life, not taking it."

 

 

"A distinction, but you've got asses who balk at heart massage, resuscitation; you know the furor heart and organ transplants made, to save lives."

 

 

"I'm thinking of the hundreds of women who are dying to have kids, who could, by proxy, if this works."

 

 

"Great! Great! I'm almost glad you've retained your altruism after - how many years in a small town?" He was disgusted with me. "At least I'm here to set your feet on solid earth once in a while. Now I must into my iron chariot and wend my homeward way. I left my poor overworked partner with the probability of three to five deliveries, one of them almost certainly bass-ackward. Before he has a spasm, I hope number three of the G.E. takes. Let me know the minute there's any clinical proof. I will even put you on the short list of those who are permitted to break my slumbers."

 

 

He thumped me a little too soundly on the back and departed with a wicked "Fare thee well."

 

 

Pat had been a twenty-eight-day regular, almost to the hour, so fifteen days after the third implantation, we held our collective breaths. The next ten days reduced even me to taking tranquilizers. I had to give Cecily the strongest I dared, and I was about to prescribe some for Peter and Wizard. At slightly under four weeks, I gave in and did a pelvic on Pat. The change was definitely apparent. I phoned Chuck. He was in the delivery room, but the nurse promised faithfully to have him call me.

 

 

When he rang back, I blurted out the glad news and was taken aback by his total lack of response.

 

 

"Sorry, Ali, to sour your big moment," he said so wearily I could almost picture the slump of his lanky body. "Perhaps I'm not as irreligious as I thought. Or perhaps it's just because I delivered a hydrocephalic half an hour ago."

 

 

I could sympathize. I'd delivered one as an intern, and it took a long time for me to shake off the shock of that particular abnormality and the illogical sense of guilt I felt, that I had been instrumental in bringing such grief to two perfectly normal, healthy people. Every practicing obstetrician holds his breath as he delivers the child from the womb and unconsciously prays to see the healthy form and condition of a normal baby.

 

 

"Maybe we have no right to tamper with conception," Chuck said bitterly. "God knows what we might inadvertently have helped to propagate."

 

 

"You know the percentage of spontaneous abortions for damaged or imperfect fetuses..."

 

 

"Yeah, yeah. I know. But what about damaged cells, blurred chromosomes... And for Christ's sake, Ali, how can we be sure that Pete's sperm fertilizes only Cecily's ovum? I mean, artificial insemination is not as risky as letting those little fellas find their own route up. It could be Pat's that took... and then we've got a charming case of consanguinity and real nasty new batch of genetic problems."

 

 

I couldn't say that I hadn't spent some anxious moments worrying about just that. Now I limited my remarks to reminding him that from what we had on Cecily's records of her previous abortions, the fetuses had been in normal growth, with no sign of abnormalities, at the time of abortion; that it was her peculiar uterine construction that interrupted the pregnancies, and not faulty ova. We'd done chromosome checks on all three: never a sign of blurred or damaged cells. But I couldn't argue with him about the virility of Peter's spermatozoa.

 

 

"Chuck, you need a stiff drink."

 

 

"Sorry to be a wet blanket, Ali, but I guess you do know how I feel, and what I worry about."

 

 

"I do. Now get that drink and climb into bed."

 

 

"Damned thing's always cold!"

 

 

"A condition you ought to have no trouble remedying, Casanova. What about that dulcet-toned nurse of yours?"

 

 

"Dulcet tones, yes, but oh, the face!" He was speaking with more of his usual brashness. "I'll spin up there and see the little mother myself soon... in the role of consultant, of course." That's what he said, but his laugh put a different interpretation on the words.

 

 

After I hung up, I got to wondering if the Big Time Obstetrician might be interested in Guinea Pig Kellogg. But the idea of Chuck Henderson courting a pregnant virgin overrode my sense of proportion, and I only wished that I could call him back and tease him. I didn't, but I did laugh.

 

 

After the initial exultation simmered down, things progressed normally, almost boringly, with Pat's proxy pregnancy. I began to appreciate for the first time why some of my patients bemoaned three-quarters of a year of waiting. Nine months was no longer a matter of ten appointments with one fetal heartbeat, but a damn long stretch.

 

 

Peter told me one evening that Cecily was in a constant state of anoxia; she came to me for relief from dizzy fits. It was not sympathetic-pregnancy symptoms with Pat: it was pure and simple anoxia. Mutual friends had begun to remark how radiant Cecily was: one armchair psychiatrist pontificated the opinion that she had finally accepted her childlessness. Then she took up knitting. And took up wearing bulky sweaters and fabrics and bought maternity slacks and skirts.

 

 

Pat continued her job as a mathematics teacher in the local high school. Our plan for her to have a sudden emergency leave in the spring did not have to be put into action. She carried almost unnoticeably until the end of the school year, when she was a scant six months. The prevailing fashion of blousy dresses came to our aid, so that her thickening waistline and abdominal bulge were fashionably concealed. One or two unkind friends remarked that she was putting on a little weight, to which she blithely replied that she'd lose it in the summer, before Labor Day. Even if Mrs. Baxter had seen Pat during her brief explosive visit, the pregnancy was barely discernible. But Cecily, when her mother had phoned her from the railway station, had thickened her middle with carefully folded toweling.

 

 

Louise Baxter's violent negative reaction shocked both Peter and Cecily - who had been so happy to tell her mother the good news. When Peter called me to give warning of my impending collision with the reluctant grandmother-to-be, I could hear Cecily sobbing in the background.

 

 

There is little point in recounting that explosive interview from beginning to end. Suffice it to say that Louise Baxter left me with the distinct impression that her daughter's dearest wish was an abomination to her. Her agitation was not for my supposed hoaxing but a genuine - I'll say it - psychotic fear of ultimate success.

 

 

I made a mental note to learn more about the woman from either Pat or Peter. The one time Pat had made a mildly derogatory remark about Louise, Cecily had retorted with an angry defense. I'd encountered such misplaced loyalty once before when the mother sweetly dominated her fatherless son into a psychiatric ward in a catatonic state. With Cecily's emotional balance under severe stress already, I didn't like to see her loyalties torn.

 

 

Pat's gestation was calculated to end by August 25. No baby is late, but even with the date of conception known, there are possibilities for error. The habits of the Kelloggs suited our needs to keep the birth unremarkable. They always spent their vacation months together, usually traveling, and occasionally, when Peter was working on a book, sequestering themselves in a quiet upstate village. We hoped for a punctual delivery so that Pat would be recovered and able to return to school. That would make fewer waves.

 

 

Chuck suggested a small town in the Finger Lake district which boasted not only a well-equipped hospital but a chief of staff who had been a classmate of ours: Arnold Avery.

 

 

Everything was going splendidly, except that Pat did put on more weight than I liked. I didn't suspect a thing, and I can still kick myself that, for all my experience in the field, I could blithely ignore so obvious a clue. Perhaps it was an unwitting desire to discount Chuck's gloomy misgivings. Still, the fetal position was good, the heartbeat strong, about 150. Pat's condition was excellent, and, if she was heavy, she was a fair-sized girl with a good pelvic arch, and a big baby was not unlikely.

 

 

However, what was to be known as the Transplantation Split came into existence early the morning of August 15. I'd managed to blackmail a colleague to cover my practice the last three weeks of August and was actually having a nonworking vacation in the pleasant company of the Kelloggs. So when Pat woke with abdominal contractions, she roused me to time them. They were a businesslike three minutes apart. It's not unheard of for a primipara to deliver quickly, so I hospitalized her and phoned Chuck to get the hell up there.

 

 

If he'd driven instead of hiring that damned helicopter, I'd have been all right. I tell myself, and him when he brings the matter up, as he often does, that I wasn't hogging all the glory for myself. He had a right to some.

 

 

At any rate, the helicopter set him down on the hospital grounds just as Pat went into second-stage labor, and he assisted me in the delivery room along with the regular nurse. I hadn't been able to wrangle Esther in there, but she was more valuable in the waiting room keeping the parents from exploding.

 

 

Chuck and I couldn't restrain our shout of triumph as, at 8:02 A.M., I delivered the six-pound, seven-ounce, perfectly normal, bright red daughter of Peter and Cecily Kellogg from the womb of another woman. I brushed aside the nurse who reached for the newborn and made my own breathless examination of her squalling wrinkled person. I left Chuck to deliver the afterbirth and suture the episiotomy.

 

 

"Hey, Doc," Chuck drawled with infuriating irreverence, disrupting my delighted examination, "you forgot something."

 

 

Half-angry at his aspersions about my competence, I turned to see him delivering the butt end of another girl child, as healthy as her precipitous sister. I stared transfixed as he eased the head through with deft hands and slapped breath into the mite, who weighed in at a scant five pounds, three ounces.

 

 

"You didn't tell me about this," said Chuck, all innocence.

 

 

If I'd thought more quickly, I could have told him that I felt he deserved something for all his help.

 

 

"I didn't know," I admitted instead.

 

 

"God bless you, but I love an honest woman, Ali. It's such a relief."

 

 

Then he went over the new girl as carefully as I'd done her sister.

 

 

I do feel obliged to add to this account that the heartbeats of identical twins are often synchronized. My mistake lay in assuming a single birth and in not taking a precautionary X ray, as I ordinarily did when the mother appeared to gain more weight than normal or was carrying a large fetus.

 

 

My oversight is a family joke, but the most felicitous kind for the Kelloggs. The Transplantation Split is now a familiar medical fact: some minute change in temperature (perhaps moving Pat to my house after the implantation) caused the egg to split, yielding twins. It doesn't always occur in exogenetic pregnancies, but the incidence is proportionately higher than with regular pregnancies.

 

 

We were hard put to explain our jubilation to the deliver-room nurse. We made sure that Pat had delivered the after-birth and would rouse satisfactorily from the anesthesia. Then we literally burst into the waiting room, simultaneously yelling:

 

 

"It's a girl!"

 

 

"No, it's-"

 

 

"What?" demanded Esther, irritated.

 

 

I remember that Cecily looked as if she were about to faint, but Peter caught on quickly.

 

 

"Twins?"

 

 

"Ali outdid herself. It's twins!" cried Chuck. "She delivered your first daughter, a spanking six pounds, seven ounces..."

 

 

"And I gave Chuck the honor of ushering your second daughter into the world."

 

 

"A very dainty miss at five pounds, three ounces. As healthy a pair as any parents could wish."

 

 

"Pat's all right?" asked Cecily, tears streaming down her cheeks.

 

 

"Right as rain."

 

 

"When can we see the children?" asked Peter.

 

 

I know I stopped talking and stared at Peter, stunned with the sad realization that he would never see his children, and wishing that another miracle would occur for him.

 

 

Chuck covered my gaffe. "They'll be in the nursery by now. Go see the modern product of a virgin birth."

 

 

"Dr. Henderson, you ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Esther, but she wasn't really angry and was far too eager to see the twins to argue with him. Champagne is not recommended by any dietitian to break a night's fast; but we were all back at the vacation cottage, getting pleasantly polluted with toasts to Pat, the parents, Esther, ourselves, never for a minute suspecting that the hardest part was just beginning. Not even when the phone rang.

 

 

Esther, being nearest, answered it. I just happened to be looking in her direction, so I saw the abrupt change in her expression and realized that something was wrong. My first thought was for the children, then for Pat. Was she hemorrhaging... ?

 

 

Esther only listened, openmouthed and sheet-white, and then dazedly but the receiver down.

 

 

"Mrs. Baxter's in town," she said, which was sufficient to silence everyone. "A friend of hers saw Peter and Cecily in the supermarket last week and told her. I don't know how she found out about the births...."'

 

 

"We weren't exactly closemouthed about twins," Chuck said, remembering our hilarity when we brought champagne in the town at ten o'clock.

 

 

"Well, she went to the hospital, she saw Pat, she saw the twins. She's crazy, the things she said. She told the whole blooming hospital. But it isn't the truth. It isn't the truth at all."

 

 

I've never sobered faster in my life. Cecily dashed to the kitchen sink to be ill.

 

 

It was a good thing I had medical license plates, because we passed three cops on the way to the hospital at a speed that was unwise even for doctors.

 

 

Chuck went for Avery, who was already trying to explain the situation to the village-sheet's reporter who had been informed of this tidbit of malicious gossip. Esther and I dashed to the maternity wing. I could hear Pat's sobbing voice as we turned the corner. I snapped an order for a sedative to the floor supervisor, who made the mistake of not concealing her snide expression.

 

 

"Crafty, Crafty," cried Pat as she saw me enter the room. Her two roommates had poisonous expressions on their faces. She was trying to get out of the bed, clutching her tummy. I pushed her back, shoved her legs horizontal and yelled at the nurse to get the hell in there with the hypo.

 

 

"Crafty," sobbed Pat in weeping distress, "you can't imagine the horrible things she said. She didn't give me a chance to say anything. I don't think she wanted a logical explanation. She hates Peter! She hates him! She hates Cecily for being so happy with him. And she despises you for giving Cecily her children. I've never seen anyone so full of hate. She must know the children aren't mine and Peter's, but that's what she said. And she kept on saying it, and saying it" - Pat was covering her ears to shut out the sound of that vengeful slander - "and everybody heard it. It's ghastly, Crafty. Oh, Crafty, what will Cecily do?"

 

 

I swabbed her arm and gave her the sedative as she was talking - rather, babbling. I also gave orders for her to be moved to a private room. Pat's words became incoherent as the drug took effect. Even as I was pushing her bed toward the private room, I thought of how very characteristic of Pat to worry about Cecily rather than the equivocal position into which Cecily's mother had put herself and her brother. I do not recall ever before being so consumed with anger as I was at that hour in my life. Had I known where Louise Baxter could be found, I think I would have strangled her with my bare hands.

 

 

Talk of feathers in the wind, there was no way of stopping the slander. It was obviously all over the hospital and would undoubtedly precede us back into town. I was in such a state of impotent wrath that it was all I could do to keep from lashing out at the floor nurse and the orderly, to wipe the smug expressions from their faces as we shifted Pat. Pat was mumbling herself into a drugged slumber, and the floor nurse was fussing unnecessarily about the room, when Chuck came stalking through the hall.

 

 

"All that fuss because Pat's brother and his wife are helping the girl cover an indiscretion," he said with commendable poise. "What some people will think!" He shook his head over the frailties of mankind and then imperiously gestured the nurse out of the room.

 

 

When she'd left he indulged himself in a spate of curses as inventive as they were satisfying, and all relative to the slow and painful demise of one Louise Baxter.

 

 

"You've sedated her?" he asked, feeling for Pat's pulse and then stroking her disordered hair back from her face. "Let her sleep."

 

 

He turned from the bed and perched his rump against the windowsill, trying to light a cigarette with shaking hands. He finally got it lit and inhaled deeply.

 

 

"Is that what you told Avery? That Pat was indiscreet?"

 

 

"No, I told him the truth. I've a hunch it might be important later. I can't say he believed me," and Chuck let out a harsh snort of laughter, "but I've convinced him that the charge of - ha! - incestuous fornication is the accusation of a psychotic. He's quite ready to believe that, judging from the way Her Ladyship Baxter carried on. He does think, and he subscribes to making it informally the truth, that we're covering up an illegitimate birth and that Peter and Cecily are going to adopt the children. He's a good man, Avery, but I'm afraid our revolutionary and irreligious fact is beyond his comprehension."

 

 

"Illegitimacy is a lot more palatable than" - I couldn't even say it - "the other."

 

 

"Our public fiction depends on a cooperative grand-mother, and I can't see the likes other cooperating with you or me, or the Kelloggs. Christ, how I'd love to get my hands on her. I'd have her committed so fast... But Avery will handle matters here - neurotic grandmother, hates to admit her age - he's smooth as silk. He's having a long talk with that floor supervisor - one for letting Baxter in, two for not shutting her up the moment she started, and three for half believing her." He walked back to Pat, feeling her abdomen.

 

 

"No, it's hard," I said.

 

 

"I'd like to move her out of here, quickly."

 

 

"Will Avery let Esther stay on as special?" I asked.

 

 

"You just bet he will," said Esther from the door, grim- lipped. She was in her whites, starched and ready for action. I was inordinately relieved. "What else do you expect from provincial hospitals?" She checked Pat, smoothed the bed-clothes unnecessarily, and began checking the room's equipment, as if she hoped to find fault with it. "They don't have rooming in or I'd bring the babies right here. But she's all right with me. You'd better get back to the cottage. Oh, and Dr. Craft, I administered a strong sedative to Cecily before I came out. You look as if you need one, too, Allison," she added and then settled herself on the chair by the sleeping Pat.

 

 

As we passed Avery's office on the way out, we heard him administering quite a lecture to some unfortunate person.

 

 

Wizard's angry barking alerted us before we turned off the main road into the lane that led to the cottage. Two of the group hovering by the path evidently had urgent business somewhere else.

 

 

"My God! People! I hate 'em," muttered Chuck, staring belligerently back at the four hangers-on as we parked the car.

 

 

"Don't go in there," one of the men told Chuck. "That dog's dangerous!"

 

 

"Is he?" asked Chuck with innocent mildness, and we walked right past the snarling dog. "Howd'ya like that?" someone muttered.

 

 

Peter was in the shadows of the small screened porch.

 

 

"Esther gave Cecily something. She'd made herself ill with weeping," he said. "Is Pat all right?"

 

 

"Esther's with her. Avery's handling the hospital staff." Chuck wearily combed his hair back from his forehead. "He doesn't believe in exogenesis, but the notion that you and Cecily are going to adopt your sister's indiscretion is acceptable."

 

 

"What?"

 

 

Perhaps it was a trick of the sun, but I thought I saw a glint of anger in Peter's dead eyes.

 

 

"How long do Pat and the babies have to stay here?"

 

 

"We'll leave as soon as Pat can stand the trip," I said, sagging against the wall.

 

 

Chuck sort of maneuvered me into the nearest chair, but it faced the pathway and the curious faces parading by. I tried to tell myself it was reaction to the whole nasty scene, but I was depressed by the notion that if Louise Baxter had spread her filth this fast in a small vacation village, she'd sure as hell go on to pollute the more rewarding atmosphere of our university town. Though what she stood to gain by such slander, I couldn't understand.

 

 

Before we all got very drunk. Chuck sat me down at the dining-room table, and we wrote up our notes on the delivery. I could see that they were going to be very important documents, but the clinical reportage sure as hell took the glamour out of the achievement, just as surely as Louise Baxter had tarnished the greatest gift of love.

 

 

The third day after her delivery, we took Pat and the babies home downstate in an ambulance. As I was still nominally on my vacation and I certainly didn't want Pat alone in her apartment in her psychological condition, I insisted that she stay in my house. So Chuck, who was following the ambulance in my station wagon, turned off to go to Pat's apartment to pick up a list of unmatemity clothing for her. Peter, Cecily, Wizard, and the babies dropped out of the cavalcade for their place.

 

 

Esther and I had suitably settled Pat when first Chuck, brakes squealing viciously, then Cecily and company pulled up in my driveway.

 

 

I had thought in the hospital three days earlier that Chuck had a superb vocabulary of invective, but he had evidently kept a supply in reserve, which he now employed as he helped Peter out of the car with the babies.

 

 

"What happened?" I asked, rather inanely, because it took little guessing.

 

 

"That blankety-blank female is not going to have an incestuous woman living in her respectable house. And to think that she had once admired her. And to think that all along that adulterous woman had been poisoning the minds of helpless youngsters and - Do I really need to read further from that script?" asked Chuck, now at the top of his strong baritone voice. He woke young Anne Kellogg.

 

 

"Mrs. Baxter's got to town?"

 

 

"Quod erat demonstrandum! Only I'd say that the bitch has gone to town!" Incongruously, Chuck was deftly soothing the frightened baby before he passed her on to Esther.

 

 

Peter's usually calm face was etched with grief as he helped Cecily up the steps. Wizard, head down, tail limp, followed them to the steps, then turned and settled himself on the paving, watching the front gate.

 

 

"We are no longer welcomed by the management of the apartment house," was all Peter said.

 

 

"Good Lord," said Esther, "did she use a bullhorn?"

 

 

Then the phone rang. Jiggling Anne, Esther answered it. She listened for a moment, then with grave pleasure firmly replaced the handset.

 

 

"I think it would be better to have the phone disconnected or the number changed immediately. Dr. Craft. Shall I put in the request?"

 

 

I nodded numbly.

 

 

Wizard uttered a warning bark, and Chuck peered out the window.

 

 

"Who're they?" he asked me, and I glanced out at three militant figures about to enter the yard.

 

 

I shook my head.

 

 

"Peter, is Wizard on the guard?"

 

 

Peter nodded sadly. So we watched as the trio opened the gate. Wizard advanced menacingly, slowly, but his intention was quite plain. The visitors hesitated, conferred together, withdrew. Wizard took up a new position, twenty yards from the gate.

 

 

In the next few hours I would not have traded Wizard's presence for a cordon of unpolluted police. An irate mob might charge a police line (I don't say we had the quantities of a mob), but our visitors had not the courage to face 125 pounds of belligerent unleashed German shepherd. It was incredible to me, or maybe just naive of me, that so many people could believe such a thing of Pat and Peter Kellogg, but the traffic past my house was inordinately heavy. I like to think that those who paused and were not growled at by Wizard had friendly intentions, but they were very few. I still can't figure out why people have to descend in such mobs on the unusual.

 

 

At any rate, the only one who entered the house until the police came was the telephone man, and he wouldn't pass the gate until Peter had snapped the choke-chain lead on Wizard.

 

 

I frankly don't remember much of the next few hours. I think we all sat around in a semi-stupor, with the exception of the practical Esther. We had brought some of the food left over in the cottage, but it wasn't enough, and more formula mixture was needed, so Esther went out …. the back way. She returned shortly afterward and grumbled angrily under her breath the entire time she cooked lunch, though I don't know what it was she served us. Fortunately there were lusty, hungry, healthy babies to care for, and I think they saved our sanity. If I heard Chuck mutter it once, I heard it fifty times:

 

 

"We got the kids!"

 

 

With Wizard to guard the house, none of us paid any attention to our whilom visitors or hecklers until we heard the police siren whine down to inaudibility right outside the house.

 

 

"Well, they took their time," said Esther with righteous indignation.

 

 

Innocently we all filed out onto the porch. Wizard was impartial enough to resent police intrusion.

 

 

"Call off the dog. We're on official business," the first man ordered.

 

 

Wizard obediently retreated to Peter's side at command.

 

 

"You certainly took your time coming," Esther said acidly. "We've been plagued by..."

 

 

"Which one of you is Peter Kellogg?" the policeman interrupted her arrogantly.

 

 

Peter raised his hand.

 

 

"I have a warrant for your arrest. Incestuous fornication and adultery is a crime in this state, buddy." There was no doubt of his private opinion of such an offense. "Which of you women is Patricia Kellogg? I've got a warrant for her arrest on the same charge."

 

 

Chuck snatched the second warrant out of the cop's hand. When the policeman stepped forward to retrieve it, Wizard gave a warning snarl. Chuck read the document hastily.

 

 

"Christ! It is in order, Peter." Chuck had been angry before; now he looked defeated.

 

 

"Can't he read his own, mister?" sneered one of the cops. The other man jabbed him in the ribs and pointed to the dog.

 

 

"As you so perfectly well know, Joseph Craig," Esther replied, her fury so plain that Policeman Joseph Craig stepped back, "Professor Kellogg was blinded in Vietnam."

 

 

"I'm Dr. Henderson, Miss Kellogg's physician. I cannot permit her to answer this summons in person. She's under heavy sedation and incapable of supporting any additional strain."

 

 

"You can come with me then. Doctor, and tell it to the judge." Then the man informed Peter of his rights and gestured him off the porch.

 

 

Chuck turned to me. "Call"- he gave me a number - "and ask for Jasper Johnson and get him to work immediately."

 

 

"Hey, that dog can't come," the arresting officer complained, backing hurriedly away from Wizard's path.

 

 

"He's Professor Kellogg's Seeing Eye dog, and he..."

 

 

"Hell, he won't need any eyes where he's going!"

 

 

"Wizard had better stay here. Chuck," Peter said with quiet meaning. He bent down and cradled the dog's head in his hands. Wizard whined quizzically as if he already understood. Hard not to, with the atmosphere crackling with suppressed emotions.

 

 

"Wizard, guard Cecily. Guard the babies. Obey Crafty. Understand?"

 

 

Wizard whined, sneezed, and bowed his head but made no move to follow Peter, Chuck, and the policemen. But the moment some of the bystanders tried to crowd in at the gate, he renewed his vigilance with savage growls and risen hackles.

 

 

It seemed to take forever to get Johnson's number, and then they must have done an office-to-office search for this Jasper Johnson before his brisk voice came on the line. I explained the situation as tersely as possible. "For this I joined a fraternity ten years ago?" was his cryptic comment; then I heard him mmm-ing to himself for a moment or two. "For such extraordinary charges I'd better get up there. They have to accept bail, but I can do that by phone. I should be able to make it to your place in about two hours at this time of day." Then he groaned. "But my wife's going to hate me again."

 

 

His flippancy was oddly reassuring, and as I cradled the phone, the awful depression began to lift.

 

 

Chuck and Peter came home in a taxi about an hour later.

 

 

"Under the circumstances, I'm sure the neighbors would have preferred another four-alarm fanfare," Chuck said snidely as they came up the walk.

 

 

"You're forgetting what Sergeant Weyman said," Peter remarked.

 

 

"Yeah," and Chuck's expression brightened.

 

 

"George Weyman better be on our side," said Esther, her eyes blazing. "After all Allison did to save his wife and baby. So what did George say?"

 

 

"That this was the biggest load of shit he'd ever seen made official," said Peter with a grin.

 

 

"He read the riot act to Craig and his cohort and treated us with more courtesy than is customary in police routines. However, I can't be as charitable about His Honor."

 

 

"Who?" asked Esther.

 

 

"Colston."

 

 

That didn't surprise either of us.

 

 

"I assume by virtue of our speedy release on bail that you contacted Jasper. Is he coming up?"

 

 

"He gave himself two hours."

 

 

"Two hours? Well, I suppose he has to obey speed limits. He's only got a Mercury, poor deprived lad." Chuck gave one of his wicked laughs. "His last three babies paid for my Lincoln." His amusement faded, and he barged toward the kitchen. "I need a drink. We all need a drink to celebrate this third day of P.P.E."

 

 

"P.P.E.?" asked Peter.

 

 

"Yeah," Chuck called from the kitchen, where he was rattling bottles and glasses. He came back in with a laden tray. "Postpartum exogenesis."

 

 

Conversation lagged, and Peter, Chuck, Esther, and I sipped our drinks fairly meditatively. I knew I was trying to numb my perceptions even while I knew that drinking at this pace wouldn't do the trick. Then one of the babies started crying and just as suddenly stopped. Pat wandered in from the kitchen with Carla and a bottle.

 

 

"Hey," Chuck said, ushering her to a seat, "you shouldn't be awake yet."

 

 

Pat shrugged indifferently and settled the baby in the crook of her arm, smiling as her hungry wail was cut off by the nipple.

 

 

"I see that my job doesn't end with producing them," she said. "Funny thing. You know. Crafty, I miss their kicking. I waited for it as I was waking up, and I got a little panicky when I didn't feel it, and then I remembered I'd had the babies." Her tender reminiscent smile faded abruptly. "Ah, well. Good thing I'm their aunt, I can tell you. I'd just hate to have to give up all title to them."

 

 

Chuck and I exchanged worried frowns over her bent head. In all the unpleasantness I'd forgotten about the emotional impact of maternity on Pat. She was a mother, and she wasn't. She had had all the emotional, biological, and psychological distortion of pregnancy, and if the problem was not handled carefully, her involvement could become critical. In the ill-wind department perhaps this flap would provide sufficient, if salacious, distraction, and she might be damned glad - both psychologically and emotionally - to be relieved of any relationship with the two kids she'd borne.

 

 

"Let me hear you say that in another week of sleep-torn nights, m'dear," said Chuck wryly. The twins had different internal clocks.

 

 

"Ha," Pat said with some disgust. "With all the professional help around here, you have to have a priority rating to get close to one of them."

 

 

Peter moved over to the couch to sit beside her. He touched the child's head where it rested on her arm, cupping the downy scalp in his big hand, his thumb hovering over the fontanel and its gentle pulse. With fingertips, he "read" Carla's face and one waggling arm.

 

 

"There are advantages to being blind. I can truthfully say to Cecily that she grows not a day older." Peter smiled gently. "She's truthful, too, and tells me of her wrinkles and graying hair, but I don't see them, any more than I can see the changes they say have occurred all around me. Visual time has stopped forever for me, and I 'see' only my memories." His hand cupped the warm little head. "I've seen a lot of babies. I know what one usually looks like..." What he didn't say was palpable in the room. Esther wasn't the only who made hurried use of a Kleenex.

 

 

Chuck cleared his throat and remarked with a broad professional pomposity, "I assure you, sir, your daughter is most beautiful for one so newly born, which, truthfully, isn't very beautiful. She is losing the lobster shade of red, her chin has come forward, the head bones are gradually assuming a normal..."

 

 

"Charles Henderson, how can you?" cried Pat, outraged. "Carla is a perfectly beautiful child. Ignore this clinical lout, Peter. He's just plain jealous."

 

 

"Truer word was never spoken," Chuck said in a doleful tone.

 

 

"Couldn't you have made an honest woman out of any of them," I asked, plaintively, "and acknowledged a child or two?"

 

 

Chuck negligently waved aside my suggestion of wholesale philandering. "A baby for A, a baby for B, but never, oh never, a baby for me," he warbled slightly off pitch.

 

 

"Oh, you mean, 'always the deliverer, never the delivered'?" asked Pat, all innocence as she deftly burped Carla over one shoulder.

 

 

"You can say that about Ali here, not me," said Chuck with simulated indignation.

 

 

"Thank heavens you're here," said a voice at the door. "I got home only half an hour ago, and your number doesn't seem to ring."

 

 

We all turned.

 

 

"Dr. Dickson!" cried Peter, rising to his feet, since he had identified the voice before we could turn to see who could possibly have got past Wizard. "Trust that dog to know our friends."

 

 

"Indeed, indeed. Wizard and I are the best of good friends. Such a magnificent beast, such intelligence, such sympathy. I wish I could get along as well with some of the human members of my congregation as I do with Wiz."

 

 

Peregrine Dickson, the minister of my Presbyterian church, entered the room, simultaneously mopping a perspiring face and shaking each of our hands with a warm but firm grip. He was a medium-sized, middle-aged, slightly overweight, slightly balding man, but only his physical appearance was mediocre or slight. His whole personality exuded inexhaustible good humor, patience, and empathy, and his kindly face, with alert twinkling eyes, was well wrinkled with laugh lines.

 

 

"My dear Peter, how happy I am for you! Allison, my dear girl, but I'd expect you to help!" He shook my hand, passed on to Esther, and grasped Chuck's hand so that I had to make an introduction instead of an explanation. Then Perry Dickson was bending over Carla. "What a remarkable handsome baby! Her sister sleeps? Twins! Well, my word, my smart Pat never does things by halves, does she? I always like to baptize twins. I feel it puts me ahead two steps in the Good Book instead of the usual one. But what an extraordinary resemblance," and he paused, backing off slightly from Carla and narrowing his eyes much as a painter does for perspective. He looked at Pat with an expression akin to awe. "However did you manage that, Pat? But bless you for carrying through with it and giving Peter and Cecily the children. Is Cecily resting?" He looked about hopefully and then collapsed beside Pat on the sofa, mopping his sweating face with his limp handkerchief. "I shouldn't wonder. Such a hot, close day."

 

 

At that point Esther appeared with a glass of lemonade for him.

 

 

"Thank you, Esther. You are always beforehand. Really, it seems as if I've been hurrying for hours. It's a relief to get here and sit!" Dr. Dickson took a sip or two and then put his glass down to continue his monologue. "I was overcome with joy for you, Peter, when I heard the news. After all, I did baptize you, did confirm you, did marry you, and now I shall be able to start that comforting cycle with the new generation...."

 

 

Perry Dickson could rattle on so engagingly that you didn't have time to organize your own thoughts or rebuttals. I was beginning to realize that Perry was telling Peter that the irregularity of the children's births would be no bar to their admission in church.

 

 

"Perry," I tried to get a word in edgewise, "I don't think you've heard what..."

 

 

"Tut, Allison, I hear everything, you know. Someone always tells me. As I'm a minister, there is always something they think I should hear. That may be one reason why I am impelled to talk so much, so no one else will have a chance to tell me something they think I ought to know.

 

 

"In this instance, a kind parishioner - she is very charitable... with her purse - actually telephoned me at the Retreat House with such an exceptional interpretation of a really unexceptional occurrence," and he smiled sweetly at Pat, "that I realized I had better return forthwith. I was already packed when Father Ryan phoned."

 

 

"Father Ryan?" Peter and I exclaimed together.

 

 

Beside me. Chuck shuddered, groaned, and covered his eyes with his hand. "We're in trouble with the ecclesiastical as well as the secular?"

 

 

"Oh, I hardly think so. I assure you. Father Ryan gave me no details, but he was so emphatic that I return because of the... tone... of the gossip..." And now Perry Dickson faltered, as though in the rush the truth had not had a chance to catch up with him. He looked blankly at me, only I didn't know how to start.

 

 

"Then you do not believe. Dr. Dickson," Peter asked deliberately, "that the children are mine and Pat's?"

 

 

"Good heavens, no!" Perry Dickson lifted voice, eyes and hands upward in horrified repudiation of the thought. Then he gave Pat the kindest possible smile. "I can only hope, Patricia, that you were indiscreet just to give Peter and Cecily the child they've longed for."

 

 

"He simply hasn't tumbled," said Chuck to the rest of us, almost annoyed.

 

 

"I haven't what?" and Perry looked at the solid sofa as if it were expected to collapse under him.

 

 

"Pat was not indiscreet. Dr. Dickson," said Peter in his quietly emphatic way. "She is not an illegitimate mother. She acted as the host-mother for Cecily's and my progeny." And he gestured toward Chuck and me.

 

 

"She was... the... host? Mother?" Perry's face was absolutely still. He held his breath while the words made sense to him. He blinked his eyes once, twice, and then gave such a triumphant crow that Carla jerked partially awake and whimpered. "Exogenesis?" His eyes went so wide that his brows joined his receding hairline. "Exogenesis!" He grabbed at Chuck for reassurance, and, grinning, Chuck nodded vigorously.

 

 

"Exogenesis documented and done!"

 

 

"Exogenesis! Exogenesis!" Perry said in wild excitement. "Oh, absolutely magnificent. Patricia! My dear girl, greater love hath no woman! My dear child!" He was embracing her in an excess of emotion. He pumped Chuck's hand, grabbed Peter in an exultant hug, all the while mumbling "exogenesis" in every sort of tone, from excited, incredulous, and relieved to prayerful.

 

 

While we were still grinning delightedly at the effect of our revelation on the good doctor, he collapsed again on the sofa, fanning himself with the soaked handkerchief. "Oh, my dear people, my dear, dear friends..." Then he clapped his hands together and stared down at Carla. "Well, that would, of course, explain it. Wouldn't it?" Then another thought struck his reeling brain. "Oh, good heavens, poor Father Ryan!" At that exclamation. Chuck started to howl with laughter. "Whatever will he say? Oh, my word!" There was, however, an unholy look of gleeful anticipation in Perry's eyes despite the humble dismay in his voice. "This is going to strike him at a very fundamental point in his dogma. How ever is he going to explain this away? Oh, my dear friends, how could you?" As if we'd achieved only to discomfort Father Ryan.

 

 

"I'd be glad to provide you with the records," Chuck said, and then took a wild look at Pat but obviously could not re- strain himself, "because they prove that it's an undisputable virgin birth! My dear Patricia, I could not resist!"

 

 

We all pounced on Chuck for that, while he kept demanding what was wrong with the guys in this burg and begging Pat's forgiveness. She was so torn between laughter and embarrassment that she couldn't say a thing, but the general confusion roused the baby in her arms. She made that an excuse to leave the room, saying that the conversation had taken a damned crude turn for her virgin ears and it was not fit talk for her niece's impressionable mind.

 

 

When we had calmed down, wiping the tears of mirth from our cheeks - we had needed that laugh - Perry pressed us for details. We had no hesitation in being candid with him: it was to our advantage.

 

 

"To go back a bit," he suggested when he'd absorbed the important facts and points of the exogenetic technique, "you said something about being in trouble with the ecclesiastical as well as the secular. Now, exactly what did you mean?"

 

 

"Your kind parishioners didn't have all the news, Dr. Dickson," said Chuck. "Warrants were served on Peter and Pat about two hours ago for incestuous fornication and adultery."

 

 

Perry's eyes went out of focus, and his jaw dropped.

 

 

"Oh, my word! How terrible! I mean, who would possibly..."

 

 

"My mother," said Cecily from the hall door. She was pale but composed. Pat came in behind her.

 

 

Dr. Dickson was on his feet instantly, and after giving her the gentlest, most affectionate of embraces, he drew her and Pat back to the couch to sit on either side of him. He was patting their hands consolingly.

 

 

"My dear child, are you positive it was Louise?"

 

 

"Oh, yes," Pat answered. "Mrs. Baxter visited the cottage hospital where I was registered as Cecily Kellogg... so the birth certificate would show the real parents. It was Louise."

 

 

"I have never understood your mother's antagonism toward Peter," Perry said to Cecily, "particularly since he is so like your own dear father, but for her to... to scandalize her own daughter... I shudder!"

 

 

Cecily was doing just that, and then Wizard's warning bark caught her and us up short.

 

 

"Hey, call off this dog before I have to shoot him!" yelled an irate male voice. We looked out the front windows. A police car, without sirens, had pulled up to the curb behind an equally official-looking white station wagon. I couldn't see the emblem on its side, but there was a uniformed nurse sitting on the passenger side. The policemen were in their car, just watching the perspiring seersucker-suited man held at bay by Wizard.

 

 

"You oughta tie up a vicious animal like that," he said to me as Peter and I got to the porch ahead of the others.

 

 

"The shepherd is here to keep off trespassers," I told the man.

 

 

"Well, I ain't trespassing. I'm on official business."

 

 

"What kind?" asked Chuck, solidly planting himself in the doorway.

 

 

"Call off that dog first."

 

 

"Only after you state your business."

 

 

Dr. Dickson tugged at Chuck's sleeve but kept back in the shadow of the doorway.

 

 

"He's a process server," Perry whispered. "I don't usually interfere with the grinding of legal wheels, but stall him!"

 

 

"Why?" Pat asked in an urgent low voice.

 

 

Perry pulled her back into the house, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Cecily join them and disappear down the hall. Then my attention was engaged by this latest emissary of law and order.

 

 

"Look, call off that dog. I got a court order here to take into protective custody the infants" - he turned the paper right-side up so he could read it - "Carla and Anne Kellogg."

 

 

Peter groaned, his shoulders sagging hopelessly. Chuck threw a protecting arm about him.

 

 

"You'll never take those children from me," Peter said in low but distinct tones.

 

 

"Buddy, you gonna be in contempt of court, too?" He beckoned toward the police car, and the officers got out and ranged themselves behind him.

 

 

"Mr. Kellogg, you better give up those kids, unless you want to be in more trouble than you already are," one of them advised. "I'd hate like hell to shoot Wizard, but you're resisting a court order."

 

 

"Issued by whom?" demanded Peter.

 

 

"That don't matter, Mr. Kellogg. We got a writ for the kids, and we're gonna have to take 'em."

 

 

"Oh, really?" asked a suave voice cheerfully.

 

 

"Jasper, thank God," cried Chuck, leaping off the porch to greet the tall, excessively thin man turning in at the gate. We had been so engrossed with the threat of the process server that we hadn't noticed the sleek black Mercury convertible pull up to the curb. "Legal eagle, do your stuff, now if ever!"

 

 

Jasper held out an array of long white bones and snapped them negligently for the warrant, which he examined very closely, whistling as he handed it back.

 

 

" 'Fraid it's all too legal and binding, folks," he said dolefully, and, grabbing Chuck by the arm, he propelled him past Wizard to gather us into a conference group on the porch.

 

 

The process server tried to follow, only to stare at bared teeth. The policeman stepped forward, too, his hand on his revolver butt.

 

 

"For God's sake, man, I must confer with my clients," said Jasper, waving peremptorily at them to keep their distance.

 

 

"Let them proceed. Let them search the house," he told us in a low voice. "Oh, it's all right. I know what I'm doing," he said at our shocked reactions. "Someone control that dog, huh?"

 

 

Reluctantly, Peter called Wizard to him. The dog's whining protest echoed my feelings precisely as we numbly watched the odious little man enter the house and trudge toward the hall.

 

 

"You've some powerful enemies, to get that kind of writ served so damned quick," Jasper said to us sotto voce.

 

 

"Goddammit, Johnson," Chuck said, but at that moment the process server came storming back into the living room, holding up an empty carry cot.

 

 

"Where are they? I saw a woman holding a baby when I drove up here. Now where are they?"

 

 

"Where are who?" asked Pat as she and Cecily came in from the kitchen. "Who's this? What's he doing storming around here?" Pat sounded quite indignant.

 

 

"Where are those babies? I got a writ!"

 

 

"There are no babies in this house," said Cecily quietly. "Go ahead, look!"

 

 

"There were babies!" The empty carry cot was brandished and then flung onto the couch.

 

 

"How the hell did you do that?" Chuck muttered to Jasper, and then all of us had to keep our questions and our emotions to ourselves, for the process server came charging back into the room.

 

 

"I want those kids. Where are they?"

 

 

"You'll have a stroke, rushing around like this in all the heat," Chuck said dispassionately.

 

 

"Mr. Kellogg, you're in enough trouble," one of the cops said.

 

 

"I'll get those kids, you incestuous bast-"

 

 

Peter's fist was cocked, but Chuck was quicker. His punch landed with a satisfactory crunch that sent the process server toppling over the sofa arm, onto the edge of the carry cot, which tipped onto his head, smothering him briefly in, I hoped, smelly sheeting.

 

 

"That's assault, mister," one of the cops said severely, and started for Chuck. Wizard crouched, growling.

 

 

"With four impartial witnesses to testify to undue provocation?" asked Jasper. "I think not." The crispness and authority in Jasper's manner cooled the situation. He gestured to the policeman to help the groaning man to his feet, at which point Jasper relieved him of the piece of paper he was still clutching. "You are only required to serve the court's warrants, summonses, and writs, in a manner befitting the dignity of your position, which does not include slanderous remarks. As there are no babies, infants, kids on these premises. Officers, I suggest you search elsewhere." He handed back the summons.

 

 

The two policemen and the server conferred briefly and, after hovering for a few minutes indecisively, finally left, Wizard hurrying their gateward way.

 

 

The moment they were out of earshot, we turned on the girls for an explanation. Pat was grinning triumphantly, but Cecily was gravely sad.

 

 

"Peregrine Dickson spirited them out the back door, muttering something about the instruments of the Lord, divine timing, the FBI, and his conscience," Pat told us. "If you could have seen him, trailing receiving blankets, the bag of formula bounding on his hip, ducking through the garden..." and she covered her mouth to smother her laughter.

 

 

"That was the sight I caught as I drove around the corner," said Jasper, smiling as broadly.

 

 

"I apologize for all my recent foul thoughts, Jasper," said Chuck earnestly. "I was afraid that when Ed cured you of your last ulcer, he'd also removed the milk of human kindness from your scrawny breast."

 

 

Jasper shuddered. "For God's sake. Chuck, don't mention milk again," and he made a show of retching. "Now, which is which of you two charming ladies? I can't tell the real mother without an introduction, and, frankly, you both look like death warmed over."

 

 

"Best lawyer in the world!" said Chuck. "Always tells the truth!"

 

 

"I'm Cecily Kellogg," Cecily said, shaking Jasper's hand warmly, "and if you can do anything to keep them from taking my children away from me..."

 

 

"I've already made myself an accessory after the fact, my dear Mrs. Kellogg, though I must confess I never suspected they'd move that far this fast. It's a rare instance that the children are removed from the care of their parents until actual guilt is established. Even then, the state hesitates. The worst parent is considered preferable to none at all. I'd say that whoever's after you has some very influential friends."

 

 

"It's Mother, then," said Cecily, sinking to the sofa as if her legs had given way. Peter reached for and found her hands and held them firmly.

 

 

"Your mother?" Jasper's urbane manner was briefly shattered.

 

 

"Mother has always managed to have influential friends, and she's always used them whenever necessary."

 

 

"She's ruthless," Chuck said.

 

 

"Ra-ther," replied Jasper.

 

 

"And psychotic as all hell."

 

 

"Obviously. Therefore twice as dangerous." Jasper spun on his heel, one hand shoved into his pocket, the other absently smoothing down the hair across the back of his head as he paced. "Dr. Craft gave me a splendid outline, but now I want full details, please."

 

 

While we recounted the events of the last year, he continuously paced, apologizing at one point by saying the walking helped him concentrate. I was later to be amazed at the accuracy of his total recall. When we had given him the whole story, he made one more complete circuit and halted in front of the couch, looking down at Peter and Cecily.

 

 

"The action against you revolves around a morality charge."

 

 

" 'Incestuous fornication is against the law in this state, buddy,'" repeated Chuck.

 

 

"Yes, it is," Jasper said, "but d'you know, I had to look it up?" He smoothed his hair again. "You sure picked a dilly. Did you have to be related to him?" he asked Pat in a petulant tone.

 

 

"It's not at all the thing you do for total strangers," she replied blandly.

 

 

"So we disprove the moral issue, also the consanguinity - although how they hoped to remedy that by depriving you of the children, I can't guess, and the charge must, by definition, be dropped."

 

 

"The charge, yes," said Pat gloomily. "But how about the slander?" She gestured toward the front of the house.

 

 

"Yes." Jasper heaved a sigh. "I don't suppose you object to the procedures becoming public knowledge?" he asked me.

 

 

"Exogenesis will have to be admitted into the record - even though it will mean that hordes of childless women will descend on Ali," Chuck replied - before I could answer.

 

 

"Well, they'd be preferable to sensation-seekers," I said.

 

 

"True, true. We shall have to bide our time," Jasper said gently, apologetically, "before we spring that explanation, so I'm afraid you all will remain under an unenviable cloud for a bit. Did you keep medical records of this medical tour de force?"

 

 

"By God, we did - every temperature drop, every milligram of medication," said Chuck.

 

 

"They can be admitted as evidence."

 

 

"Even from prejudiced sources?" I asked. "I expect I'm considered one of your accessories to facts, too."

 

 

"And me? Don't forget me," said Chuck belligerently.

 

 

"Or me," spoke up Esther, her jaw set as determinedly.

 

 

"Oh, you're all so wonderful," said Cecily, and then dissolved into tears, apologizing through hiccuping sobs. Chuck exchanged looks with me, but Cecily refused sedation and pulled herself together.

 

 

"I'm sorry to seem callous or brutal, Mrs. Kellogg, but I've always operated on a completely candid basis with my clients. I can, however, promise you that I can move for an emergency hearing on this. I'm not without a few influential friends myself. Now, to resume. Medical records. Dr. Craft, no matter the source, are considered reliable information by the court. The hospital where the twins were born, your own institution here, will certainly have corroborative records?" We nodded, and he said he could subpoena them. "Now, I'll need the blood types of the three principals and the children. That should prove conclusively whose children they are, shouldn't it?"

 

 

Chuck caught my dubious glance and shrugged.

 

 

"Well, won't it?" Jasper asked. "In paternity cases, I know..."

 

 

"Man, this is a maternity case," Chuck said.

 

 

"Yes, but..."

 

 

"Blood types only prove that the person could or could not be the parent, not that he or she is."

 

 

"Yes, but..."

 

 

"In fact, since we are being brutally frank, and damn well have to be," Chuck went on grimly, "until we know what the twins' types are, we don't actually know that Pat couldn't be the mother."

 

 

Pat gasped, and Cecily snuggled closer to Peter, hiding her head in his shoulder.

 

 

"You mean, that awful charge that I had my brother's children could be true?"

 

 

"Wait a minute. Pat." Chuck reached across the coffee table to hold her down on the sofa. "Not by incestuous fornication, however. The medical records absolve you of the morality charge right there. But, God damn it, it is possible - not probable" - he paused to let his emphasis sink in - "that the active sperm of the father could have fertilized ova of both the intended mother and the carrier."

 

 

"The twins are identical," I reminded Chuck as well as the others.

 

 

"True, so they both came from one fertilized ovum. Both Ali and I have worried about that possibility..."

 

 

"And I had twins..." breathed Pat, horrified.

 

 

"No, no, Pat, you've missed the point. You and Peter are fraternal twins, two eggs fertilized at the same time. This is an egg split, an entirely different process. And to keep you from turning neurotic, with such a close linkage, genetically speaking, it is unlikely you'd have had such healthy kids. Inbreeding multiplies defective and recessive genes, and an in-bred child generally shows visible proof of the problem - frailness, sickliness. Those kids are beautiful, perfect, healthy."

 

 

"Look," began Jasper authoritatively, and something in his attitude gave Pat and Cecily reassurance, "it doesn't take long to have blood types tested, so we can take you three off that particular tenterhook pretty quickly. Okay? So tell me how to get in touch with our clerical kidnapper. By the way, I'm sorry to have to advise you that it is better that you don't know where the children have been taken. I do promise that I'll do everything I can to see that you have them back in a very short time."

 

 

I gave him Dr. Dickson's home address, and he glanced around the room.

 

 

"I wish I had met you people under slightly happier circumstances, but let me say that it'll be my pleasure to represent you. By God, exogenesis!" His eyes held the same stunned, incredulous expression that Perry Dickson's had. "Wait till the Catholic Church gets hold of this one."

 

 

"In a sense, it has," Dr. Dickson said from the doorway. He had a new handkerchief, which he used as vigorously on his face as he had the other. "When I returned... well, from where I went" - he smiled at Jasper as the lawyer quickly gestured to him not to be specific-"Father Ryan had called. I haven't seen the poor man so distressed since the day we both arrived to preach a burial service over the same grave. It was a grisly joke, because the man had been an atheist of the most vehement sort... a fact we both knew. His relatives - tsk, tsk, terrible people; no wonder he was an atheist. I digress, a fault I cannot correct even when I'm not sermonizing....

 

 

"Father Ryan, yes. He had heard of the incredible charges being made against the Kelloggs, and he wished to know if there was any way in which he could help...."

 

 

"Father Ryan?" Peter asked, surprised and, I could see, rather gratified.

 

 

"Oh, yes. Father Ryan has the highest regard for you, Peter. His exact words were. 'There is nothing Byronic about that young man in his poems or his personality.' So! There! He is quite willing to testify to your moral fiber if his presence would be of any help. Indeed, he insists on it."

 

 

"Does he know about the exogenetic twins?" asked Peter with wry humor.

 

 

"Well, as to that, I'm afraid to... Peter, I just couldn't tell him yet." It was the first time I'd known Perry Dickson to be at a loss for words. "Just think, Peter, this renders a major, an essential, Catholic mystery a mere surgical technique. But you know, it has occurred to me that such a possibility merely enlarges the mystery rather than explodes it." The handkerchief was flourished to provide the appropriate gestures. "For was not our Lord Jesus remarkable because of the person He was, not just because of His holy origin? And surely, does not such a miraculous method of arousing our instincts for good give evidence to even the most confirmed unbeliever that there is an agency, a being - God, who does care and who directs our petty ways?"

 

 

"Oh, my oh my, and this is only Tuesday. At all events, the babies are safely bestowed"-and his face was painfully earnest - "where, I assure you, they will have the most loving and competent care, and," he went on more briskly, mopping his forehead, "complete anonymity." He sighed. "Poor Father Ryan. But I did do right in spiriting the children away, didn't I?"

 

 

"Morally, yes," Jasper said. "Legally, no. If you hadn't, I should have tried to snatch them myself." He looked at us. "I realized what was up when I saw the nurse in the Red Cross wagon. And you know how I prefer to operate, Chuck: strictly on the up-and-up."

 

 

"I sometimes suspect that the up-and-up has a little bit of down in it in the middle," remarked the minister. "Now what's to be done?"

 

 

Jasper explained about the necessity for blood tests.

 

 

"Oh, I don't see that that will matter," Perry said. "However, for the legal minds, one must produce documents. But it won't, in the final analysis, matter if the blood types are similar."

 

 

"Why on earth not?" demanded Jasper, surprised.

 

 

"You doctors and lawyers consider legal and scientific proof the only essentials, but I fear you forget the power of human conceit. All those weighty clinical and notarized statements look most imposing on the record, and show that the lawyer has been worthy of his hire. Indeed, this sort of event needs all the documentation possible. But have no fears." He rose to his feet, gesturing. "All is resolved for the righteous. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. It's unchristian of me, I know, but such justice, such divine justice... No, I digress again. Mr. Johnson, if you'll just come with me, we can settle the matter of blood types from the children, and then I shall have to be about other of my Father's business. Old Mrs. Rothman, you know..."

 

 

He had bustled Jasper out of the house like a dinghy pushing a sleek yacht.

 

 

"I wonder how Father Ryan will take the news," said Peter as he stroked Wizard's head. Jasper was as good as his word about obtaining an emergency hearing with the Juvenile Court. He did remark that they had no opposition from the prosecution. He had commented again on the influence of our enemy's friends because the State of New York was the complainant, not an individual.

 

 

"Of course, the sovereign State of New York is the guardian of all children within its borders, but it's a neat piece of legal eagling."

 

 

It was good to know that our ordeal had limits, because the atmosphere in town was, to use the so apt teenage phrase, "hairy."

 

 

"Sure takes a moral crisis to tell the sheep from the goats," Esther remarked as she scratched off another patient from my books. "Just as well; McCluskey, Derwent, Patterson, and Foster were all due the same day."

 

 

"Whom does it leave me with?"

 

 

"Oddly enough, Patterson. You wouldn't think such a quiet little thing would buck the tide."

 

 

"You've never heard her in the PTA meetings, have you? A strong libber. God bless her."

 

 

Perry Dickson insisted we grace his church Sunday - that was his phrase. The ushers greeted us effusively, but some of their smiles were strained. Perry preached one of his most inspired, and shortest, sermons on prejudgment, prejudice, and persecution. That his words were taken to heart was noticeable by the numbers of our acquaintances who came up to speak to the Kelloggs, Esther, and me. I heard that Father Ryan took the same chapter and verse for his sermon. I promised that I would get to know that good man better in the very near future. If, after the exogenetic bit, he was still willing to speak to me.

 

 

The "slander" had fractionated people into those who were willing to believe incest, those who thought Peter and Cecily were adopting Pat's indiscretions, and those who were for or against unwed mothers, for or against abortion, for or against women's right to have complete say in what they chose to do with their own bodies.

 

 

"By God," Chuck said, for he insisted on coming up every Friday night, though it meant a mad streak down the Throughway on Monday mornings for his first appointments, "you've wiped drugs, moon shots, the Middle East, not to mention elections, right out of conversations. And most of my colleagues tell me exogenesis is impossible."

 

 

We all greeted the day of the hearing with more relief than anxiety; such is the power of the easy conscience.

 

 

Since this was a hearing involving minors, it had to be held in camera. 'I would have preferred a public coverage so that when we were exonerated, as many people as possible would know. Because of the number of principals involved, we were assigned to one of the large chambers. Unusual for such hearings, there were police officers, a bailiff, and a court secretary, Louise Baxter was conspicuous by her absence, which was as welcome to us as it was puzzling. Nor had all Jasper's probings elicited the name of the original complainant.

 

 

Judge Robert Forsyth was presiding, and he entered the chamber scowling - not a good sign, but he hated anything that smacked of the sensational, particularly when it involved children. He was, however, extremely perceptive and commonsensical.

 

 

"Oyez, oyez," rang the bailiff's cry as we got to our feet at Judge Forsyth's entrance. The rest of the initial proceedings were spewed out in a bored mumble. I noticed, cringing a bit, that when he cited the charge of "incestuous fornication and adultery," his enunciation promptly clarified and his delivery was strong. "Yes, yes," said Judge Forsyth, waving him aside. "How do you plead?" he demanded of Pat and Peter.

 

 

"Not guilty. Your Honor," they said quietly.

 

 

"Is the presence of that animal in this courtroom necessary?" he asked, testily pointing to Wizard, who was sitting by Peter's side.

 

 

"Yes, Your Honor," said Jasper, rising. "Wizard is Mr. Kellogg's guide dog."

 

 

"Oh, indeed." It was obvious that Peter's deficiency had not been mentioned, nor had he heard the sly jibe circulating in town that Wizard had escorted Peter to the wrong bed one night.

 

 

The county prosecutor, Emmett Hasbrough, was an average-looking man with an above-average reputation for court-room fireworks and results. His prefacing remarks were few, as he merely stated that he could easily prove that the charges were true and would like to proceed by calling the first witness. The judge waved assent and settled back in his chair, apparently far more engrossed in the water damage on the ceiling.

 

 

The delivery-room nurse, looking both frightened and important, took the stand and gave the oath, her name, her occupation, and her current place of employment.

 

 

"On the morning of August 15, 1976, at 8:02 A.M., did you assist at the birth of twin girls?"

 

 

She nodded.

 

 

"To whom were these children born? Will you identify the mother if she is in the courtroom?"

 

 

"She is. She's sitting right there," said the nurse, pointing to Patricia.

 

 

"Now, is the father of the children in the courtroom?" Hasbrough glanced sideways at Jasper as if he expected an objection.

 

 

"Yes," said the nurse, and pointed at Peter.

 

 

"How do you know he is the father of the children?"

 

 

"I was still in the nursery where I had taken the children after their birth when he, and the other woman there, came to see them. He said he was their father."

 

 

"Thank you."

 

 

Smiling broadly, Hasbrough excused her and asked the admissions clerk of the hospital to take the stand.

 

 

"Were you on the admissions desk the morning of August 15, 1976, at the Mount Pleasant Hospital?"

 

 

"Yes, sir."

 

 

"Did you admit as maternity patient any woman seated in this court?"

 

 

Pat was duly pointed out.

 

 

"By what name was she admitted?"

 

 

"As Mrs. Cecily Kellogg."

 

 

Hasbrough shrugged as if to underscore his point and gestured toward Jasper that the clerk was his to cross-examine. Jasper rose, his pose thoughtful.

 

 

"Sir, I don't believe that you have reported that incident truthfully."

 

 

"Huh?" The clerk, clearly startled, glanced toward the prosecutor. Hasbrough shrugged again.

 

 

"Did this woman answer the questions herself?"

 

 

"Oh, well, no. Not actually. Uh, she was in labor, you see....

 

 

"Come to think of it" - the clerk was embarrassed - "Mr. Kellogg did all the talking."

 

 

"Think carefully, now. When you asked him the patient's name, what precisely was his answer?"

 

 

The clerk thought a moment, confused. "But she's listed as Cecily Kellogg."

 

 

The judge advised him to answer the question to the best of his ability.

 

 

"It was some time ago...." Then his face brightened. "Yeah. He said, 'My wife's name is Cecily Kellogg,' but I thought he meant her!" And again the man pointed to Pat.

 

 

"So Mr. Kellogg did not actually say that the woman he brought to you was Cecily Kellogg? Nor did she?"

 

 

"Well, no, put like that, I guess he didn't. But who else would I expect it to be?"

 

 

Jasper was finished making the point. Other members of the hospital staff were called, all substantiating the fact that Pat had been delivered of twins, and that Peter had openly admitted to being the father of the twins.

 

 

"That, Your Honor, is the case for the prosecution," said Hasbrough, not particularly bothered by the clerk's recital.

 

 

Judge Forsyth sighed, pursed his lips, and then turned inquiringly to Jasper. Beside me Cecily had torn the border from her handkerchief and was knotting it so tightly around her index finger that it was nearly cutting off the circulation. I carefully released it, and she smiled wanly at me.

 

 

"Your Honor, I move for a directed verdict," Jasper said, and Hasbrough gave a start of amazement.

 

 

"On what grounds. Counselor?" demanded the judge, frowning.

 

 

"On the grounds that no incestuous fornication or adultery has yet been proved by the prosecution," replied Jasper, all innocence at the judge's reaction.

 

 

Judge Forsyth leaned toward him. "You have heard the testimony of several witnesses that Patricia Kellogg was delivered of two children whose paternity her brother, Peter, has not denied - in fact, has openly and unashamedly admitted. And you have the unutterable gall to tell me that no incest or adultery took place? I'm all ears, Counselor," he said.

 

 

"I claim, Your Honor, that no incestuous fornication has been proved by these statements. The witnesses have confirmed that Patricia Kellogg gave birth to twins, the father of whom is Peter Kellogg. No one has proved that Peter Kellogg fornicated and committed adultery with his sister."

 

 

"If you can give me another logical explanation that satisfies my credulity, I wish you'd proceed. However, I will point out that consanguinity is also a felony in this state," and while the judge leaned back he was challenging Jasper to prove there was no inbreeding.

 

 

"Very well. Your Honor. I will now prove, irrevocably, that there was no act of fornication or adultery, nor are they guilty of producing children within the criminal degrees of consanguinity."

 

 

"Proceed, by all means," said the judge, steepling his fingers.

 

 

Jasper called Patricia to the stand. She took the oath with quiet dignity.

 

 

"Were you delivered of twin children on the morning of August 15, Miss Kellogg?"

 

 

"I was," Pat answered bravely and unashamedly.

 

 

"Who was the father of these children?"

 

 

"Peter Kellogg." The quiet answer fell on the silent room.

 

 

"Who was the mother?"

 

 

"Cecily Kellogg."

 

 

There was an audible reaction of disbelief from the prosecution's side.

 

 

"You, can, of course," the judge drawled slowly, "substantiate that second statement?"

 

 

Jasper went on. "These are the separately kept records of Drs. Allison Seymour Craft, obstetrician of this town, and Charles Irving Henderson, consultant obstetrician of New York City. They have all been time-stamped, you will notice, on the hospital's time clock."

 

 

The judge made a moue of appreciation for that point and gestured for them to be brought to him. He leafed through several pages in each, frowning at the clinical details.

 

 

"The initial chapter," Jasper said, "in both accounts describes the process of exogenesis by which this birth was made possible. The actual propagation took place in the hospital operating room with both women under anesthesia and the father of the children in an anteroom, scarcely in a position to commit fornication and adultery with his sister. Even with the help of a guide dog."

 

 

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Johnson," the judge admonished him sternly, closing the record books with some force.

 

 

"Your Honor, I must object to the way this court's patience is being tried by the inclusion of these alleged records as proof of the innocence of the defendants. It's a preposterous alibi for an incredibly obscene act," said Emmett Hasbrough, on his feet with indignation.

 

 

"I shall admit the evidence. However, Mr. Johnson, I'm afraid this court is by no means convinced."

 

 

"I'll proceed with further evidence. Your Honor. Will Dr. Samuel Parker take the stand?"

 

 

Jasper quickly established Dr. Parker as the serologist of the University Medical School Hospital, thoroughly qualified to testify on his specialty. Dr. Parker admitted taking blood samples from Patricia, Cecily, and Peter Kellogg, as well as from twin girls, four days old, whose footprints corresponded with those taken at the births of the Kellogg children. Dr. Parker admitted that he had been asked by Mr. Johnson to type these blood samples.

 

 

"Will you please tell the court the results of your tests?"

 

 

"Briefly, the man, Peter Kellogg, is a Type B negative, with a Pe factor. Cecily Kellogg is a Type B positive with a C factor, and Patricia Kellogg is a Type 0 negative with a Pa factor."

 

 

"You make a point of the difference in the additional factors?" asked the judge.

 

 

"Yes, I do, sir. We are able to type blood in more detail now than just A, AB, B, and 0, These additional 'factors,' as we call them, are every bit as important as the different types."

 

 

"I see. And what type were the children you examined?" asked Jasper.

 

 

"Both of them were Type B positive."

 

 

"Well, then, from her blood type, would Miss Kellogg possibly be the mother of the two children she delivered?" asked Jasper.

 

 

"I'm afraid to say it - but she couldn't be their mother," answered the serologist, puzzled by Iris own conclusion.

 

 

"Do you mean to tell me that the children could be Mrs. Kellogg's?" asked the judge, sitting bolt upright.

 

 

"I couldn't swear to that," the man admitted. "But I do most emphatically know that Miss Kellogg, that one, the defendant, could not be the mother of those children in spite of what I've heard today."

 

 

"How do you arrive at that conclusion?"

 

 

"Without getting too technical, although there are several substantiating factors besides the prime one, all children of a C and Pe blood factor must be Rh positive or heterozygous. All children of Pa and Pe factors must be Rh negative, which is homozygous, a recessive trait. So that Miss Kellogg, who is Pa, could not have had children with a positive Rh factor from Mr. Kellogg, who is Pe. So, while the blood types don't prove that Mrs. Kellogg is the mother from a serological standpoint, they prove that it is absolutely impossible for the babies' mother to have been Miss Kellogg. But that, of course, is itself impossible."

 

 

"Is there any chance the blood types were mixed, or that the infants differed from those in question?" asked the judge.

 

 

Instead of taking offense, Dr. Parker sighed.

 

 

"No, Your Honor. I checked my findings thoroughly - the children's footprints, everything involved. I had my assistant and one of the lab technicians check my findings and run two more complete serologies. Our results were identical."

 

 

"You may retire."

 

 

"Your Honor," said Jasper in the silence that ensued while the bench pondered the evidence, "I admit, that the scientific proof is perhaps indigestible to the court. I would like to present one final piece of incontrovertible, and easily accepted, proof." Judge Forsyth gave a curt wave of his hand to indicate permission. "Bailiff, will you call Mrs. Louise Baxter to the stand?"

 

 

Cecily gasped and clutched at me. I could only stare at the unperturbed Jasper. None of us had had any notion that he'd call her as a witness for us.

 

 

Louise Baxter walked down the center aisle, staring straight in front of us, two angry spots of red on her cheeks, her mouth firmly closed, her eyes flashing with suppressed emotion, and every inch of her trim, elegantly attired body protesting the indignity. When she took the stand, she refused to look at anyone. Her voice when she gave the oath and her name trembled with anger and was so low the judge asked her to repeat her name.

 

 

"You have one child, Mrs. Baxter, a daughter named Cecily Baxter Kellogg, is that correct?"

 

 

Her lips pursed firmly as if she were about to repudiate Cecily.

 

 

"Answer the counselor, if you please, Mrs. Baxter," said the judge.

 

 

"Yes!" One tight word, and she spat it.

 

 

"Bailiff, please direct the attendants to bring in the persons of Carla and Anne Kellogg."

 

 

Cecily half rose as a nun (and I now remembered Dr. Dickson's enigmatic reference to the church's help) and the woman warden brought in the babies. Jasper had got around Dr. Dickson's kidnapping by saying that the parents, when they realized what a furor was being caused, had arranged for the girls to be placed in an institution, where they were being anonymously cared for by qualified people. This was the first time Cecily had seen her children in almost three weeks, and she was perilously close to a complete emotional breakdown. "Easy," I told her, putting my arm about her. "It's only a few moments more."

 

 

As the attendants reached the front of the chamber, Wizard rose and placed himself between the babies and Mrs. Baxter. I hadn't seen a hand signal from Peter. Fortunately, the judge was too preoccupied to notice the dog's insubordination.

 

 

"Your Honor," said Jasper, "it has been said by wise men that all the scientific proof in the world on paper is not worth one second's visual proof. Will you and Mr. Hasbrough please take a careful look at the two infants, and then at Mrs. Baxter?"

 

 

The judge peered over the high bench at the babies, who were held up toward him. They were just beginning to rouse from sleep. He glanced at Mrs. Baxter, sitting rigid on the witness stand. He looked quickly back at the twins, muttering something inaudible to me, although the startled bailiff and Hasbrough both stepped closer to the babies. I craned my neck to try to see what they could be looking at.

 

 

"Oh, what is it?" breathed Cecily. "Why did Jasper bring Mother here?"

 

 

"Your Honor, I renew my motion for a directed verdict," said Jasper, with none of the inner satisfaction he must have been feeling.

 

 

The judge leaned back, staring with considerable respect at Jasper's tall, lean figure.

 

 

"You have made your point. Counselor, and your motion is granted. As a matter of law, I hold that the evidence adduced by the defense is admirably sufficient to dismiss any hint of incestuous fornication or adultery, or consanguinity, that may have risen from the evidence produced by the prosecution. Therefore, there is in fact no issue for determination. The defendants are not guilty as charged!"

 

 

He banged his gavel. Wizard barked twice, and we were all on our feet, yelling and crying, and I wasn't the only one weeping for joy.

 

 

Cecily scrambled to the babies. She all but grabbed Carla from the nun's arms and then turned with astonishment toward her mother. By that time, Chuck, Esther, and I were beside her. And we all saw what the judge had seen.

 

 

Dr. Dickson's mutterings hadn't registered with me on that frantic day, and I realized now that he had immediately seen that the twins were the spit and image of their maternal grandmother. From eyebrow tilt to the slight cleft in their little chins, they were miniatures of Louise Baxter. All the scientific documentation in the world was unnecessary in the face (I should say, faces) of such a strong familial resemblance. What a trick of fate!

 

 

Cecily suddenly moved forward toward her mother, sitting motionless on the stand.

 

 

"Look well, Mrs. Baxter," she said in a low voice, rich with the accumulated bitterness and uncertainty of the past weeks. "So help me God, it is the only time you will ever look on your granddaughters."

 

 

The only indication Mrs. Baxter gave that she had heard her daughter was to turn her head away.

 

 

Pat took Anne from the arms of the warden, and it was a measure of her acquitted innocence that she received a warm smile from the woman. The nun was assuring Cecily that the children had gained weight at a most satisfactory rate and she'd be glad to discuss their "vacation," as she sweetly put it, with Cecily at any time.

 

 

Chuck gave up pounding Jasper on the back and started shooing us all toward the door. "Back home where we belong," he said.

 

 

No one had left the courtroom, so I don't know how word had reached the reporters, but when the officer at the door opened it, the hall outside was crowded, and the flashbulbs and the noise woke the startled babies. "Miss Kellogg, will you do this again - for your brother and his wife?"

 

 

"Will you be a proxy mother for other deserving childless women?"

 

 

"Mr. Kellogg, how do you feel about..."

 

 

Jasper pushed his way to the front as Chuck protectingly put himself between Pat and the surging crowd.

 

 

"Now, now, boys," Jasper said, loudly but amiably. "We got some small girls here who need to get fed. Just let us through."

 

 

He and Chuck bowled their way past while Esther and I rear-guarded Cecily and Pat, my arm linked into Peter's.

 

 

"Please, now, this has been a trying experience for my clients. Later, fellas, later."

 

 

"Aw, come on, Mr. Johnson!" Several of the more aggressive were keeping pace with us, the others swarming in behind.

 

 

We were only to the cross-corridors when someone stepped on Wizard's paw, and he let out a hurt yipe, effectively halting our getaway.

 

 

"Esther, you take the babies to the car," said Pat, handing over Anne. "Let's get this over with, and they'll leave us alone."

 

 

"I didn't mean to step on the dog," the offender said earnestly, but he ruined the apology by getting a full-face shot of Pat in a very angry pose.

 

 

"Yes, let's," said Cecily, and handed Carla over to Esther, who hurried away, unhindered.

 

 

"No, I don't think my brother and sister-in-law would allow me to help them again," said Pat, "Once is enough. No, the next child I have will be my own. It's a lot easier socially to be the mother of the child you bear." She was grimly humorous.

 

 

"Do you think other women will consent to being host-mothers?"

 

 

"I wouldn't presume to say. But if people can be bought to take life, I expect there are some who can be paid to give life - She was making a terrific impression on the reporters.

 

 

"How did you feel about having these babies?"

 

 

"It's not the most comfortable way to spend nine months," Pat said dryly.

 

 

"I mean," said the reporter insistently, "how you feel? Psychologically."

 

 

"My psychological reactions are my own."

 

 

"Oh, c'mon, Miss Kellogg, be a sport. There are millions of people waiting for the personal story behind this exogenesis."

 

 

"You forget," she reminded the reporter acidly, her eye-brows raising, "I have been a sport"- one of the group laughed at her double entendre -"and the personal story is much too personal. The facts are all I'll give. My brother's wife couldn't carry a child to term. There was no reason to suppose I couldn't. There was only one way in which that end could be achieved. I did it - with the medical help of Dr. Craft and Dr. Henderson. That's all."

 

 

She turned purposefully away, but one of the women reporters grabbed her arm.

 

 

"Do you support Women's Lib?"

 

 

Pat let out a forbearing sigh. "My philosophy is also private," and she broke through the group and went down the corridor as fast as she could. We tried to follow, with some success, but we were still being bombarded with questions.

 

 

"Will you set up in practice as an exogenic specialist. Dr. Craft?"

 

 

"I haven't had time to think about it."

 

 

"Had any offers from clinics and laboratories?"

 

 

"No comment," Chuck said grimly, and pushed Cecily and me on, while Jasper helped Peter.

 

 

"Do you plan to have children by exogenesis, Dr. Craft?"

 

 

"She won't have to," said Chuck, gripping my arm firmly as he hurried Cecily and me down the steps to my station wagon.

 

 

That was as much of a proposal as I ever did get from Charles Irving Henderson, but later, in private, he made his intentions so abundantly clear that I finally realized that his faithfulness had been prompted by an attachment to me, not to Pat or the Kelloggs.

 

 

Wizard made an excellent rear guard. He turned, darted, and snapped, and everyone fell back so that we got into the car without further harassment. Then Wizard daintily jumped into the open back window, his tongue hanging on one side of his mouth in a canine laugh.

 

 

"Home, 0 noble Ali," Chuck said to me, settling his arm around my shoulders as I turned the ignition key.

 

 

As we pulled away from the curb, Pat took young Anne from Esther, at which point the baby let out a squall of protest.

 

 

"Good heavens," exclaimed Patricia Kellogg with mock pique, "is that gratitude to the woman who gave you birth?"

 

 

A Quiet One

 

 

"Have you never ridden a live horse?"

 

 

"I achieved the maximum level..."

 

 

"Have you ever ridden a live horse?" the Interviewing Representative had repeated.

 

 

Remembering her hours on the mechanical surrogate where she'd learned the basic equitational skills. Peri said, "I haven't had the opportunity..."

 

 

"Yes, quite. Well, I suppose that can't be helped.

 

 

"There will be a trial period, you realize?" He kept scrolling through her file on the recessed screen, which she could not see.

 

 

"Yes, I do."

 

 

"Well, then, that's all now, young Peri. You'll receive notification of the decision in two weeks." The Interviewer stood, gave her one of those formal little rictus smiles that Interviewers seemed to cultivate, and she had left with the sense that she had not quite won the last argument. But Peri felt that she had won another major battle in her long, private, quiet struggle to have the career of her choice. Modern parents as well as modern educational systems had, as their aim, fitted young people to rewarding, fulfilling careers in the widest variety of professions in a space-traveling society.

 

 

Class trips constantly introduced students to possible career opportunities, taking them to aquaculture farms, space stations, laboratories, hydroponic installations. From the day that ten-year-old Peri had visited the Working Farm, her ambition had been to work with horses, whose very existence had recently been under threat. The others on the class trip had fussed and complained about the "smells," the "stinks," the "stenches," but Peri had rapturously inhaled them... especially the lovely odor of the horses. She'd always liked watching them move in the training films or the oldie movies. They were so proud, so regal, so wild.

 

 

Alone of her class, she had asked to touch a horse, which had responded to her tentative caresses with a soft nicker that had somehow thrilled her. The feel of the warm muscles under the skin, the bright and intelligent eye of the animal on her, its response to her tentative caress when it snuffled in her hand, its velvet nose nuzzling her palm: that had been the single most enthralling experience in her life.

 

 

Through the ensuing years that sudden fascination did not fade. Indeed, she accessed all the information about the equine species that the data banks in her Linear Residence Complex possessed. She even found ancient books about horses, read all available disks by the currently acknowledged experts, like T. King-Sangster-Mahmood III, and, with avid eyes, watched every tape of equestrian sports available.

 

 

When Peri discovered that their Residential exercise facility included simulated horseback riding, she had asked permission from her mother to attend regularly. Peri, in her quiet way, simply hadn't mentioned that she had concentrated on one activity. The construct was subtly disappointing - like all things mechanical - although it performed as a living horse would. On it she had learned the basic equitational skills, had gone on to show jump on an advanced model. At least her instructor had recognized her enthusiasm and encouraged her to achieve the maximum skills available on the surrogate. But the simulations were just that, and she was constantly frustrated by the sense that she was ineluctably missing the most important facet.

 

 

So, with her goal in mind, she had tailored all her courses, even her special assignments, toward the end of qualifying for the Idaho Preserve. In zoology she had done an extensive survey into the propagation of breed animals. She had studied the stresses now attacking both equines and bovines, and was fully cognizant of the perilous future that needed no probability curve to trace. She had joined the lobby that wished to send specimens of the endangered species out to new worlds where they could flourish and regain the strengths and numbers they had once enjoyed.

 

 

When her acceptance to the Idaho Preserve had arrived, complete with hotel travel voucher, Peri was ecstatic. Her mother was horrified that her daughter had applied for a career in such a bizarre occupation.

 

 

"What on earth made you choose an-i-mals?" her mother demanded, syllabifying the word to express her disgust.

 

 

"You brought me up to think for myself, Mother," Peri said, hoping for a kinder farewell, "and I have done so. If you can be proud of my brother terraforming worlds, please be proud of me for breeding the animals meant to inhabit terraformed places."

 

 

"But to do so without discussing it with me at all! And you're leaving today? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You've always been a quiet, self-contained child." With that, her mother had left the room, not quite slamming the door.

 

 

Peri resumed her task of emptying her cabinets and drawers, realizing that there was very little in them that would be useful in her new life. On the Idaho Preserve, where would she need the gauzes of social life: the platformed heels, the decorative face patches, the baubles and bangles, even the security belt? That might deter a grown man, but it would be useless riding a horse!

 

 

Her few real treasures of booktapes, holograms of her family, and her comfortable riding gear were all that she packed. Her mother had left a note on the fax-"Do write! Do right!" Her mother had a slogan for everything. But Peri sensed both the outrage and the disappointment in those crisp injunctions.

 

 

The journey to the Idaho Preserve was not direct, since the nearest station was relatively unfrequented, and she had to change twice to feeder lines. She arrived at the Preserve in full dark, annoyed at being deprived of her first view - said to be spectacular - of the natural mountains and valleys. The station was also small, dirty, and unoccupied. No one was there to meet her.

 

 

The dispenser refused to supply a beverage and the slots for sandwich or snack bar were empty. Disgusted, she blew away enough dust to settle herself on one of the hard benches - wooden? - and ran through a meditation exercise. It wouldn't do to appear disgruntled in her first contact with her new life.

 

 

"Yoo-o!" The loud call roused her from a light doze and Peri shot upright, disoriented. "You the tenderfoot?" The tall man in dusty clothes, hat shading his face in the dimly lit station, hauled a scrap of - could it be real paper? - from under his belt. "Peri Schon-Danver-Keyes? Man, that's a lot of name for a li'l thing like you." Stiffly Peri rose and, discarding other reactions to his unexpected approach, smiled. "Peri's enough!" She extended her hand and had it engulfed in a worn leather glove and a moment of viselike grip. No one in polite society ever did more than press fingers. Her hand was numb.

 

 

"Monty! That all your gear?" He pushed his hat back and she saw that his face was seamed with lines, tanned a leathery brown, which made his very blue eyes startling. His slight grin somehow told her that she had surprised him.

 

 

"Yes." Peri had never been particularly talkative, but her laconic answer surprised even her.

 

 

"Wal, how 'bout that!" Unexpectedly he swooped the pak up and started for the door. "C'mon! Time's awasting. Got a long drive." He stopped, one hand on the door. "You can ride a horse, can't you?" Peri nodded, not trusting herself to words as the memory of that interview bobbed up. His expression was slightly skeptical and she psyched herself up for that moment of truth. "Last one couldn't!" He sounded both amused and sour. "Great on theory, lousy in practice."

 

 

He went on through the door and she followed into a night the like of which she had never seen. She stood for a moment, face turned up to the starry sky, inhaling the crisp chill air, gasping as a breeze actually flowed across her face and body. She coughed.

 

 

"Gotta take it easy, city girl." Monty's voice came out of the darkness and suddenly lights came on, showing the aged ground-effects machine. It was something out of a Vehicular Museum - a straight-sided rectangle with funny windows, great wheels all muddy, and flip-up side seats in the back half. There was even a spare wheel on the front of it, a long narrow package tied to its roof rack. And not a horse in sight.

 

 

Peri felt an intense deflation. So his question had been idle curiosity.

 

 

"C'mon, Peri. I don't have all night. Morning comes early in these parts. And we'll both be rising and shining with the others."

 

 

She hiked herself awkwardly into the high seat and pulled the door shut. A slight shower of dust settled to her clothing and she was halfway to brushing it off when she realized he was watching her out of the corner of his eye. She saw the seat harness and managed to secure it without too much fumbling. He already worked the foot pedals and the vehicle jumped forward with a belch and a roar.

 

 

Peri scrabbled for something to hang on to as the vehicle jolted them from side to side. Assuming that the ground-effects machine was operating properly, since the driver seemed unconcerned with its antics, she realized that she must relax. When she felt secure enough among handhold, seat belt, and braced feet, she looked out the dusty window, trying to pick out landmarks in the headlights.

 

 

Dark shadows loomed and things seemed to arch over the roadway-if you could call it that, all ruts and stones and untreated surface. It was quite the eeriest experience Peri had ever had.

 

 

Suddenly two huge orange orbs loomed out of the darkness and the vehicle swerved violently away from them.

 

 

"Damned critter!" Monty muttered. "We'll have to do some fence riding, that's fer sure!"

 

 

"You permit your animals out at night?" Peri was astounded.

 

 

"You betcha. Now don't tell me you're one of the bleeding hearts? Wrap 'em up in cotton wool and doan let 'em so much as sneeze or stale on their own-i-os."

 

 

"No, I am not a bleeding heart," Peri said firmly. "Animals thrive in their proper natural environment. It is mankind who has restricted them to artificial habitats, not always suitable for the species."

 

 

"Lordee, those are mighty big words for a li'l girl."

 

 

"I wish you would stop with such affectations, Monty, or whatever your name really is," Peri said in a caustic tone. "If you are employed by the Idaho Preserve, then you have to have received an education and training that allows you to deal with its complexity and problems. Don't patronize me."

 

 

"Just a touch of local color. Most appreciate it." This time his speech was uncolored by drawl and sloppy enunciation. He almost sounded contrite.

 

 

She could think of nothing to say so she continued to peer out the window, trying to identify the natural landscape they passed. Monty did something with what she now realized were antiquated gears, and the engine of the vehicle changed pitch to a deeper tone. The vehicle began to climb. The roadway was narrow, dirt and gravel, pitted with ruts and holes that caused the vehicle to bounce and sway. To her right there seemed to be nothing but black space. To her left the slope of a mountain.

 

 

"Rather a spectacular view by day," Monty said in an agreeable tone. "Unless you're agoraphobic."

 

 

"I'm not."

 

 

Peri wondered if the journey would ever end, for having gone up the side of the mountain, they came down on the other, around a second and third. She was also incredibly relieved that she had not been required to make such a long trip her first time on a real horse.

 

 

"Is there a reason the station is so far from your head-quarters?" Peri asked.

 

 

"It's not as if we have the heli in service, but one of the vanes has crazed. I picked up the replacement from the cargo bay." He pumped a thumb toward the roof. "The primitive contributes to the sophisticated from time to time." He grinned at her and pointed to a bright tangle of lights some distance ahead of them. "We're nearly there."

 

 

As they neared their destination, the orange of the main illumination surrounding the crippled heli also lit up some of the other buildings in the complex. Several were familiar to her from her reading - large barns, feedstores, the stark rails and posts of pastures, and long low buildings, some showing lighted windows.

 

 

"I'll drop you off first," Monty said as if conferring a favor.

 

 

Peri did not take offense. If the Preserve had only the one airborne vehicle, naturally its repair would take priority over a lowly recruit.

 

 

But she was pleasantly surprised when the vehicle stopped at the door of what was obviously a row of individual accommodations.

 

 

"We may work rough and hard, but you got your own pad and the chow's top quality," Monty said. "Get your sleep. You'll rise and shine with the rest of us in the morning."

 

 

Peri unbuckled the safety harness and got out stiffly, grabbing her pak. Reaching across her vacated seat, Monty hauled the door shut, leaving her standing in the roadway, coughing in the dust the tires churned up. She walked up the three steps onto the long covered porch and felt around for the door's thumb plate. She couldn't find one in the dark and was beginning to be irritated when she noticed a knob on the left-hand side of the door. With nothing to lose, she turned it and the door swung in,

 

 

To her surprise, lights came up immediately. Compared to her family's quarters in Jerhattan, this was palatial. Two big rooms, three by four meters each, separated by a small food dispensary and a sanitary unit. The first room was clearly a living space, complete with a communications center in one wall, and the second was for sleeping with all its amenities clearly displayed. No wall units here. The bed looked terribly inviting. Peri made short work of her necessary ablutions, removed her footgear, pulled up the covering, and laid herself down with a grateful sigh on the bed.

 

 

...

 

 

In what seemed the shortest possible space of time, a klaxon startled her into full wakefulness.

 

 

"Wakey-wakey-wakey! All hands ready at oh-six-thirty at the barn." The voice was inescapable and shock had Peri stumbling out of the bed, pawing through her pack to find work clothing.

 

 

An odd noise and appetizing odor made her inspect the food dispenser to discover a mug of dark brown liquid. The liquid was scaldingly hot and rather bitter, but she recognized and welcomed the caffeine jolt it contained.

 

 

As she stepped out of her quarters, she was even more surprised to see only the faintest tinge of light in the eastern sky. Lights were on all over the complex, figures purposefully heading toward the biggest barn. The air chilled her through the light fabric of her shirt. Why had she not realized this place would not be element-protected? Shivering, she took time to retrieve the only outer garment she possessed and then ran, for the warmth, slightly out of breath as she joined the others.

 

 

"Okay, folks," said a big man, jumping to a crate, holding up his hands. "Monty says there's fencin' down on the station road and there's buffaloes loose. Josh, take a team an' check it out. Main job today is rounding up beef stock for the Centauri shipment. We'll work the north two hundred. Before the heli vane cracked, Barty spotted most of what we need in Crooked Canyon." A groan rippled through the twenty or so facing him. "Tam, Peri arrived last night so she's yours. You others can meet the pretty li'l gal later. Right now, roll 'em"

 

 

To Peri's shock, no one went into the barn for a horse. They moved to the right as lights came up over extensive parking racks for two- and three-wheeled vehicles, some with sidecars already loaded with fencing and other equipment. Helmets and goggles were donned and the vehicles revved up, spoiling the air with exhaust fumes as the bikes - yes, the archaic name popped into Peri's mind - crisscrossed each other's paths with seeming disregard for safety before they split into two groups: one going down the right-hand road and the other straight across the grassy land that headed north.

 

 

"I'm Tambor," a voice said beside her, and a hand, gloved as they all seemed to be on this Preserve, was jutted at her.

 

 

She took the hand, steeling herself for another viselike grip, and gave as good as she received. Tambor was a wizened man, his face grooved with lines so that his age could not be determined. He wore the same worn workgarb as the others, the broad-brimmed hat, and the gloves.

 

 

"You look a strong young 'un," he said, appraising her with shrewd if bloodshot eyes. "Let's see if you're worth your salt."

 

 

Did everyone use ungrammatic speech, well sprinkled with archaic idioms? Considering the strong scientific background required by the Preserve, she had not expected the vernacular to be so conspicuous.

 

 

"You're lucky," he added, gesturing for her to accompany him to the barn. "We've only one more passel of mares to ship out. Just got this one lot left to be conditioned for their ride to Centauri. Cattle are put in coldsleep, but the bosses ride first class. With a li'l help from us."

 

 

They entered the barn now by the inset door. Simultaneously lights came up along the aisle and the odor, long remembered, of horse and manure assailed Peri's olfactory senses. Then she stared, for her recollection of stabling facilities from textbooks did not match with those she now beheld.

 

 

There were fifteen very narrow straight stalls on either side of the main aisle, which was not more than a meter wide. She had assumed that the Preserve would follow the traditional ways of stable management: big loose boxes filled with straw, high ceilings, and wide corridors. In confusion, she turned to Tambor, who had been waiting for some reaction from her.

 

 

"This is a conditioning barn, gal," he said. "So we gotta get these critters used to the shipboard facilities, hygiene, and exercise. This is where they lam how. C'mon."

 

 

He beckoned for her to follow him up a narrow steel ladder to an open control facility. There was one chair at the console and a stool, which he motioned for her to pull up beside him. Below, the horses were nickering.

 

 

"They know what's up. Okay down there, gals? Time for your dance step."

 

 

He initiated a program and as Peri watched, astounded, jets of water sprayed over the rubber matting under the animals. Then from the front of each stall a bar began a slow passage to the aisle, pausing briefly as it touched the front hooves, which the horses dutifully lifted - just like a dance step, in fact. The bars continued sweeping toward the aisle where flaps suddenly opened to receive both droppings and soiled water. The bars retracted, the horses politely lifting their feet over it. The flaps closed and Peri could hear the faint rumbling of conveyor belts.

 

 

"On the ship the muck is processed, moisture recycled and the roughage compressed into cubes about so big" - he encompassed the appropriate space between thumb and forefinger -"and stored to introduce Terran bacteria into the new soil. We just compress it and use it as fertilizer in the spring. Now," he went on as the nickering below became insistent, "they get their reward."

 

 

His gnarled fingers ran over the keys and initiated another rumbling, this time over the horses' heads. They looked up expectantly. Feed cascaded into mangers and the horses began eating with stampings of pleasure and much shifting of their haunches.

 

 

"Now we gotta do the same in the sheep and goat house. Then, by the time we're finished, it'll be time for a snack fer us. After that, we exercise 'em."

 

 

"We do?" Peri caught her breath at the prospect of riding a real live horse. She also began to psych herself up again, to prove that her surrogate training would suffice.

 

 

However, after she nearly gagged on the concentrated stench of goat and sheep in their conditioning barn, Tambor marched her back to the horse barn and up the steps, where he dialed for the snack of more hot coffee and hot muffins, which must have been freshly baked. No programmed breadstuff matched this light texture or enticing odor.

 

 

"Now we exercise our beauties. Where d'you think you're going, li'l gal?" Tambor demanded when she jumped to her feet. "We exercise them" - and his gloved forefinger emphatically indicated the mares below them - "just where they stand. Watch!" He tapped out a sequence, folded his arms across his chest, and followed his own advice.

 

 

To her amazement, each of the horses was beginning to move, first at a walk, then gradually into trot, and finally, into the canter gait... all in place on the rubber floor mats, which were also treadmills.

 

 

Peri sat down, totally deflated. How naive of her to assume that horses would be exercised by humans. If fencing was done from bikes, and stock was rounded up by heli, why did anyone need to ride the poor beasts just to conform to historical precedents!

 

 

"Now, doan look so glum, li'l gal," Tambor said, reaching across to pat her hand. "This is special conditioning for this extra-special shipment. The mares gotta get used to this sort of carry-on until they finally get to the meadows of Centauri. We want them, and the foals they carry, to come through the long journey fit as a fiddle and rarin' to go. This lot is about ready to graduate. They done real good. They won't suffer from a long period of inactivity. They won't spook from the sounds of a spaceship or go bananas. If you'll notice, the halters give accurate readings of their vital signs." He pointed to the display on the monitor, which she'd been too stunned to notice. "Now they got twenty minutes on the treadmill. Then" - and he presented this option as a reward to her - "we go down and give each mare a lot of TLC."

 

 

"TLC?"

 

 

"Tender loving care: a lot of stroking, petting, making much of 'em, and just generally making them feel pretty good. Horses like human contact. The grooms going along will do that, two-three times a day to keep 'em jollied along. Machines don't do all the work that's necessary to keep a horse happy. Not by a long shot, they don't."

 

 

That part of the morning routine Peri really did like, once she got over feeling sorry for the horses stuck in such cramped conditions. They had, as Tambor pointed out, enough space to lie down if the urge. took them.

 

 

"Horses spend a lot of time on their feet. They don't really need to take the weight off 'em, but they'll want a change of position now and again and we've allowed for it. Mind you, we had to reject some of the bigger-boned mares." He chuckled. "Can't have 'em castin' themselves in outer space, now can we? Did yer books tell ya how to groom a hoss?" Tambor abruptly became more rustic. "They did? Well, here's your kit. Give 'em a good grooming. You take one side of the barn, and I'll take the other. Slap 'em on the rump and tell 'em you're coming in. They like to hear voices."

 

 

Dutifully Peri slapped a rusty red rump.

 

 

"Nah, gal, not like that. These ain't fragile shrinking violets. They's hosses, with thick hides that won't feel no fly tap!" He demonstrated with a hearty whack and the brown mare moved to one side.

 

 

Peri slapped with more vigor and now the chestnut took notice of her. But knowing how to groom a horse properly did not explain how tiring the process was. By the second side of the chestnut. Peri was panting with her exertions. By the fourth mare, she was dripping with sweat and her shoulders, back, and ribs ached. Her strokes got slower and slower until she saw that she was three horses behind Tambor.

 

 

"I'll just lend you a hand this morning, being as how you're new at all this," he said, moving in beside the gray mare.

 

 

She redoubled her efforts and finished two in the same time it took him to do two. But by then she was exhausted.

 

 

Just then the noon bell rang and Tambor guided her to the quaintly named mess hall. There was a cuttingly cold wind sweeping down from the mountains and she hugged her arms around her.

 

 

"Just you, me, and Cookie t'day," Tambor said with obvious satisfaction as they burst into the big room, a huge fireplace throwing out additional warmth. "Admin crew eat up at the main house noontimes, stallion barn crew are busy up there today, and everyone else is out. Cookie knows what I like so you're in for a treat, gal"

 

 

Cookie was an incredibly thin tall man with a hooked nose (which. Peri thought in surprise, anyone else in this world would have had modified), a wide smile, and a cheerful disposition.

 

 

"Stew and dumplings, as ordered. Tam ol' buddy," he said as they entered. "Hi there, Peri, glad to meetcha. Just belly up to the table and pitch in!"

 

 

"Apple pie too?" Tambor asked, his expression like an expectant juvenile's.

 

 

"You got it." Then Cookie affected a solemn expression. "Poor gal. Havin' to eat what this here human disposal unit wants."

 

 

"The aroma is very appetizing," Peri remarked politely, determined not to judge the food by its color and lumpy texture. She could not recall ever having eaten "stew and dumplings" or anything that resembled this.

 

 

"Hey, gal, yore hands is sure in a state!" Cookie said, grabbing her right hand halfway to her mouth with her first forkful. "Git over there and put 'em into that there box! Why'nt you say somethin' 'bout 'em? Tambor, you ain't takin' good care of the help!"

 

 

"Lordee, I plumb forgot she'd need skinning. She didn't say a thing." That last was added in a tone of approval.

 

 

Tambor dragged her off the bench and propelled her into the small treatment room off the kitchen facility. He flicked a switch as he entered and then hauled Peri by her

 

 

Shirt-sleeve to the familiar sight of an extremities-treatment rectangle. He shoved her hands in, glaring at her so fiercely that she grinned, recognizing his look as paternal. She rotated her hands and felt the healing vibrations rejuvenating the abused tissue, smoothing away the blisters raised by the grooming tools.

 

 

"Yore hands'll toughen but you better get yoreself some gloves right smart. Come to think of it, gal, you need a few more clothes. You ain't ever lived outside a weather-regulated facility, have you?"

 

 

When Peri sat down again to eat, the stew had cooled sufficiently and, even if the textures were unfamiliar to tongue and tooth, she found it delicious. The apple pie - and she had eaten fresh apples as a special treat from time to time - was an experience for her. She expressed her pleasure to Cookie, who beamed with fatuous pride.

 

 

Tambor ate two more slices of pie before he left the table. He gestured for her to follow him to the appropriate slot that would cleanse their dishes. Evidently one did not take a long luncheon respite, but the meal had revived Peri. Tambor then took her to the Commissary outlet, just off the mess hall, where she was outfitted with real leather gloves ("nothin's better than real leather") and fleece-lined waist- length jacket ("we grow our own, y'know"), and a long weatherized coat, with straps to secure her legs ("we get all kinds of weather up here; you'll need this soon enough").

 

 

"That about takes care of your first week's wage," Tambor said as they left the Commissary booth. "Lib'ry, rec facilities, lounge are down this hall. You can meander down there later. Now we gotta get those animals tested, hoof, blood, and hide! They're serial tested until the day we lead 'em on board."

 

 

While Peri was familiar with the necessary laboratory tests required for any animals to be shipped off planet, she found it odd to be working at this task with Tambor. When he was discussing the procedures and going over the results of blood, skin, saliva, feces, and urine tests with her, he seemed to slip into another personality entirely: methodical, precise, and quite professional. He gave her a satisfied nod when she had finished her lab work.

 

 

Then they went back to the conditioning barn for another session of mucking out and TLCing the mares. This time she asked Tambor for their names.

 

 

"Don't get too fond of these, gal. We spin 'em out in job lots. You could break your heart getting fond o' one or another."

 

 

"But you said 'tender loving care'..."

 

 

"Of the objective kind, gal. Be objective with this bunch."

 

 

By the end of the day, when the fencing and roundup crews returned, she was so tired, it required an effort to respond to the pleasantries. She counted about forty people seated at the rough tables in the mess hall - all dressed in utilitarian gear, with weathered faces and jaunty, self-confident attitudes. Her immediate neighbors asked her to join them in some of the recreational activities, but she was too tired to accept.

 

 

"First day's the roughest," the long-legged brunette, Chelsea, agreed. " 'Specially if you're working with Tam. He's fair but he's tough."

 

 

Chelsea was correct on all counts. Tam was tough, he kept moving every minute of the day, and never mind if she had to run to keep up. She would or die trying. Her hands hardened, she grew to enjoy that early-morning grooming, as much for the olfactory gratification that had lured her into this in the first place. The unique fragrance of horse, the tactile sensations of warm flesh under her hands, her growing realization of the individual personalities of the various animals was the reward she had anticipated. And yet... she became increasingly dissatisfied. Horses, horses all around, and not a one for her to ride.

 

 

The hands were sent here and there, on the bikes, in the big trucks, on horseback to perform the necessary tasks of the Preserve. She began to resent her very basic duties and was mollified only by the fact that Tambor was treated with great respect by everyone, including the administrators. Not even that trio were called by any titles that she ever heard in the relaxed and informal atmosphere that pervaded the Preserve. Even the exercise facilities in her Residential, where everyone worked to achieve the same goal of physical fitness, were not as casual.

 

 

By the first week, Peri had had a chance to orient herself, calling up the Preserve "spread" on the computer in her quarters and memorizing the various areas and the twists and turns of the access roads and track. The Preserve extended over an impressive sector of mountain range and valleys, a bastion of the natural, three hundred square kilometers that were not quite squared, having to take into account the vagaries of mountain contours. She noticed where the base camps and forestry stations and the educational farm were located, separate from the headquarters so that ponderous tour-helis did not disrupt the daily routine or disturb the animals in pasture. She was amazed that some ten thousand horses, cows, sheep, goats, and a small herd of buffalo were resident on the Preserve as well as other small animals and fowl whose natural habitat was this mountainous area.

 

 

The main base had once been a dude ranch, Tambor told her, where people would vacation in natural beauty and ride out on long treks. Her quarters had originally been one of the guest accommodations. The mess hall was original, and the barn by the corral as well as the paddock complex. The conditioning barns, the stallion quarters, lab, storage and garage facilities, heli hangar, and the other smaller buildings had been added as need arose.

 

 

She had been there two weeks when Monty borrowed her from Tam and started to teach her the fundamentals of bike riding, an experience she found wildly exhilarating and unnerving. Imagine a vehicle that was not voice-activated! Why, it could be dangerous with no single command safeguards for speed, direction, and braking.

 

 

"Wal, it's true hosses listen to you, and you tell 'em a lot with your tone of voice," Monty agreed, "but all your experience is closer to mechanical things. Learn to ride this bucking bronco first. You can't do it much harm."

 

 

She fell off the mechanical thing several times, stalling, forgetting to shift gears, forgetting to brake in time, although she caught on to steering easily enough. She scraped her elbows and the calves of her legs but she finally managed to put the bike around the obstacle course behind the garage.

 

 

"Not bad," Monty said with faint praise as she stripped off the protective helmet and mopped her sweaty face. "Larn the tracks and roads now from the main map. You gotta be able to get anywhere on the spread in an emergency." She was borrowed frequently then, generally about the time she should have been having a brief respite from her work with Tambor. One day she took some tools to one base camp; another, additional lab supplies to the men up at Crooked Canyon who were scoping this year's crop of calves. She fell off twice on the rough roads until she got the knack of watching the terrain ahead of her. She boxed herself when she got back and so no one noticed her new bruises or scrapes.

 

 

But her greatest desire - to ride a live horse - seemed as distant as ever.

 

 

Whenever she could, she would spend a few moments, hanging over the corral rail, watching the mounts used by the teams: Monty's big Appie, with its spectacular blanket of cream and roan splotches; Chelsea's paint; Barty's dun; Pedro's dappled blue roan. It occurred to her that most of the hands had chosen the sport colors. There were three palominos, two pintos, a leopard spot, three grays - flea-specked, dappled, and iron - two more roans, and the very elegant bright sorrel chestnut she'd seen Tambor on from time to time. Was there some kind of competition to choose the unusual from the breeding herd? They were certainly easily identifiable as they grazed. It was then she noticed that they moved among animals with the more traditional colors, bay, chestnut, brown... and one so dark it was nearly black. She liked it best - for no reason she could have explained.

 

 

"Does anyone ever ride these mares?" she asked Tambor as casually as she could when she had been two weeks at the Preserve. She hoped the little quaver in her voice was not too obvious.

 

 

"Yup. We break 'em all in case they'd be needed where they're going. Reckon we say hasta la vista to this lot to- morrow!"

 

 

"Tomorrow?" She couldn't suppress her surprised and regretful tone.

 

 

"Told ya not to get attached to the critters."

 

 

Peri swallowed the lump in her throat, patting the neck of the bay mare she'd been grooming.

 

 

"There'll be another set in here soon's they rig the stalls," he added. "Git used to it. This's what we're here to do, and do well." Somehow Tambor implied that she, too, had done well, and that eased the pang. "We'll just give 'em a bath 's afternoon on account there won't be no water available fer such nonsense on board." Then he snorted. "Not that they'll like it much 'cause we gotta use debuggers and that stuff stinks."

 

 

It did. Halfway through washing twenty mares, Peri could no longer bear the stench and put on a filter mask. Tambor didn't say anything but she felt she had lost his good opinion. She couldn't quite rid herself of the odor even after a long shower and much lather.

 

 

"Pugh! Stink! Goldurnit, Tambor, you and Peri sit down at the far end" was the order from the other diners.

 

 

"If that's the way you feel about it, we'll raise you one," Tambor said and, with a broad wink for Peri to join him, they moved to the bar to eat their dinner.

 

 

"We really do stink," Peri said as she settled herself with her back to the dining room. "I washed real good and I can still smell myself."

 

 

"Doesn't last long but I gotta admit it is a powerful stench. But then, it's efficient. Most colonies prefer to leave the parasites back here. Ever think of shipping out?"

 

 

"You mean, as a groom?" Peri glanced at him but his expression gave no hint of any ulterior motive for the question.

 

 

"Nah, as a settler. Purty li'l gal like you'd do well out there."

 

 

"If there were horses," she began tentatively. Tambor grinned at her. "Yore shore gone on horseflesh, ain't you?"

 

 

Peri nodded slowly, not able to confide the depth of that fascination to anyone, even to someone like Tambor, who had evidently spent his life with the creatures.

 

 

The next day, while Peri did feel the wrench of watching animals she had cared for and grown fond of being shipped out, she was also fascinated by the process. The entire unit of stalls, complete with treadmill and cleansing bars (which would be reattached to appropriate outlets in the cargo hold of the spaceship), were slipped out on well-oiled runners into the maw of the transport.

 

 

She, Tambor, and the three handlers who would be traveling with the mares to their new world stood on the center aisle, ready to go to any animal that showed distress. But the mechanical noises had been part of the conditioning and the transfer was so smoothly made that none of the horses demonstrated any strong reaction.

 

 

"A nice healthy bunch, Tambor," the head groom said, passing over the consignment note for his signature. "You do yourself proud. This your new offsider?" Peri was given a broad grin.

 

 

"This is Peri. Good li'l worker."

 

 

Peri felt herself blush with pride at Tambor's unexpected praise. She had an errant urge to wave good-bye as the immense cargo-heli lifted. She did watch it until it was out of sight over the foothills, and only then realized that Tambor had, too. He gave a sigh but she didn't hear exactly what he muttered under his breath.

 

 

"Yore on the main workforce tomorrow, Peri. Take the rest of the day off." Tambor strode quickly away, followed by her burble of thanks. His shoulders were slumped and his head down; he kicked a rock out of his way and suddenly Peri realized that Tambor should listen to his own advice. Behind her was the empty shell of the conditioning barn, all cables and rollers, a strangely gutted organism. With aimless steps she wandered over to the pasture where stock were having a rest day. Her little blackie was racing, head up and tail carried high, with two bays. She'd never seen anyone riding the little black, but maybe it hadn't been broken yet. She'd heard enough now to know that horses were broken and backed at four or five, depending on the need for them. Most of the animals used by the teams were mares expected to breed foals at some time in their lives. Sperm from stallions of all breeds had been preserved against need, and only if a colony required an entire horse was one bred.

 

 

Working so closely with the stalled animals had given Peri confidence. Now, prompted by that still-unsatisfied desire to ride a horse, she ducked in between the rails and walked down to the nearest group. They lifted their heads, eyeing her. Monty's big Appie softly nickered what she translated as a query.

 

 

"No, you're not needed. Splodge," she replied, and moved on a zigzag course toward the black mare who was standing, hipshot, head to tail with one of the yearlings, each tail whisking flies from the other's head. "Easy there, gal," Peri said as she approached, holding one hand out, palm up.

 

 

Sleepily the mare raised one eyelid. Peri moved closer, being careful to move toward her left side, as Tambor had instructed her, keeping away from the yearling and its quick hind feet. The mare was not in a stable, was not haltered to a ring, could move away the moment she suspected danger.

 

 

"Hi, there, gal," Peri continued not realizing that she was falling into the prevalent drawl, "how're ya doin'? You're sure a pretty thing! All shiny black, like satin - dusty satin."

 

 

Curious, the mare stretched out her neck, nostrils flaring slightly as she made identification of Peri. Her nose whiskers tickled and Peri took another cautious step forward. The yearling poked its head over the black's back to take notice of the intruder, but it also wasn't startled.

 

 

"Hello, there, li'l gal," Peri went on, close enough now to stroke the nose. Another slow step and she was at the mare's side, one hand still under her nose, the other stroking her neck and down her shoulder. The mare whuffled into her hand, then abruptly raised her head and pulled her lips back from her teeth, shaking her muzzle in the air.

 

 

"Don't tell me I still stink of disinfectant?"

 

 

The mare stamped but drew back when Peri attempted to stroke her again. Suddenly her ears pricked up, her head went erect, and she stared off to the foothills.

 

 

Faintly Peri heard the distant sound of an airborne vehicle and judiciously stepped away. While most of the horses on the Preserve were well accustomed to such noises, they could all spook, and she'd be smart to retreat.

 

 

By the time Peri reached the corral fence again, the aerial disturbance had passed off to the northwest. She stood for a long while, watching the little mare move, noting her conformation, everything about her. Then she went back to her quarters. Maybe a good long soak would eradicate the last of the medicinal stink. One good thing about the Preserve: there was no water rationing when artesian wells drew upon hidden reserves deep in the mountains.

 

 

After some desultory lounging about after her long shower, Peri realized how busy she had been: healthily tired at night in a way that was never possible in the Linear, no matter how hard one exercised or worked. She also didn't like doing nothing. In just three weeks she was attuned to the pulse of the Preserve in a way she had never been to the Residential rhythms. How odd!

 

 

She could put this time to better use than napping, so she dressed and went up to the mess hall. Since she hadn't even had time to explore the research library, she went right to its shelves of tapes on the history of the Preserve. She was in one corner when she heard the voices. Then a phrase stood out and, shamelessly, she listened.

 

 

"So far so good, but you know the percentage of failure, Steve." Tambor was speaking and not in his drawl.

 

 

"Wouldn't much matter if she failed the last test," she heard the other man say in a rueful tone, "she's good enough on the practical. Seems to fit in."

 

 

There was a snort. "Who'd know? She doesn't say much - just sits there with those big eyes of hers watching. A real Residential graduate."

 

 

"Hmm. What's wrong with being quiet? That's better than those motormouths you always complain about. All wind and no substance. You said she does whatever she's asked, does it well and no complaints. Not even when the bike pitched her off. Cookie saw her using the box, and from the reading it was a bad fall. Did the mares like her?"

 

 

Tambor laughed. "Yes, and she really liked working with them. All but wept to see 'em loaded."

 

 

"Isn't that your usual criterion, Tambor King-Sangster-Mahmood?" asked the other man ironically.

 

 

"I just wish she was a tad more outgoing. She's too self-contained. The quiet ones can surprise you."

 

 

"Are you talking horses or humans, Tam?"

 

 

The two men moved off down the corridor and Peri didn't hear Tam's response. She remained stock-still, one hand on the spine of a tape, the hairs risen on the nape of her neck and a sick sort of cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. There wasn't anyone else they could have been talking about but herself. Tambor had been testing her all along and she hadn't realized it?

 

 

A second shock jolted through her. Tambor King-Sangster-Mahmood? The tape she had been reaching for - one of the foundation texts. Adaptation Techniques for Equine Types on Colonial Worlds - had been compiled and taped by T. King-Sangster-Mahmood. She'd read every tape he'd produced before she got here. Drawl and all, that undistinguished man who had worked her butt off was the real boss of Idaho Preserve. She gulped.

 

 

"But he did say I was a good little worker." She clutched at that praise as she crept back to her quarters. What was wrong with being quiet? If she had something to say, she said it... except not to ask if you could ride a horse. You were afraid to ask that, weren't you? Maybe if you had...

 

 

She couldn't just suddenly talk a blue streak at dinner; that would have been too out of character. Especially in the vicinity of Steve or Tambor. That'd be a real giveaway.

 

 

And this final test? What could it be? If she'd been tested all along and hadn't realized it... Worry made her more silent than ever. She wished she could ask someone but, as she looked over those in the mess hall, she realized now that she'd had very little contact with anyone but -Tambor.

 

 

"That's a deep sigh for a li'l gal," Monty said, slipping into the seat beside her.

 

 

She managed a genuine smile, frantically casting about in her mind for something to add, for she couldn't just grin at him like a fool.

 

 

"The mares left today. I was sort of sorry to see the last of them."

 

 

"Glutton for punishment, huh?" Monty grinned at her. "Conditioning's not my favorite chore but we all gotta do it. Didn't I see you out in the pasture?"

 

 

"I had a half day," she said, almost apologetically. "Splodge was friendly."

 

 

"He likes pretty gals too." Monty had a very winning smile. "Saw you with that black mare. Didja like her?"

 

 

"I couldn't get near her," Peri said ruefully. "Do I still smell of debugger?" she asked him.

 

 

"Nope! Or I wouldn't be sitting this close to you!" His grin got broader. "Say" - and he cocked his head at her - "wouldja care to have a go at the big board?"

 

 

"With you?" She was astonished.

 

 

Monty was a formidable gamesplayer, the solo champion of the Preserve. She had watched his lightning reflexes often enough and admired his strategy, but the game board was a popular evening occupation and she hadn't wanted to put herself forward.

 

 

Monty grinned, full of devilment. "Wal, I don't rightly think you'd want to go agin me, but I've a bet on with Pedro and Chelsea and you're the only partner they'll allow me."

 

 

She exhaled with gusto. "I think they're rigging it"

 

 

"Could be. But I've a notion you aren't as slack a player as you make out."

 

 

"I'll do my best!"

 

 

"S'all anyone can ask of you."

 

 

She didn't disappoint him nor did she grin at the chagrin suffered by Pedro and Chelsea.

 

 

"We demand a rematch," the two losers chanted.

 

 

"Late to start another one." Tambor spoke up, having joined the audience about the board and players. "We've got some ponies to break tomorrow an' you-all's gonna need your wits fer sure."

 

 

"An' I sure as shootin' don't want no soreheads breakin' bones on me," Monty added.

 

 

"Rematch tomorrow then, Monty!" Pedro eyed him with a stern eye.

 

 

"Sure" Right, pardner?" And Monty gave Peri a friendly clout on the shoulder.

 

 

"Sure!" she said, not at all certain.

 

 

She lay awake far too late, worrying about the final test and her incurable taciturnity, hearing owlhoot until the rhythmic sound finally lulled her to sleep. There was a buzz of excitement the next morning in the mess hall - an excitement to which Peri, despite her fretting, was not immune. Not everyone was to take part in the breaking, so those assigned elsewhere shouted cheerful encouragements and Peri heard wagers laid. There were evidently four in the breaking team, Monty, Pedro, the dark-haired Chelsea, and a lanky girl named Beth.

 

 

"You might as well come watch too," Tambor told Peri, who hadn't been assigned to any duty. "See how it's done."

 

 

When she reached the smaller corral, Tambor gestured for her to take a seat on the rail as others were doing, but unlike them, she could think of no banter or jokes to exchange. She noticed her little black satin mare in the pen just beyond the corral with ten or twelve others that were milling about uneasily.

 

 

Then Monty entered the pen, gracefully swinging his lariat loop over his head, and the animals began to canter about, whinnying in alarm. She thought he was aiming to catch a sturdy piebald but, instead, at the last moment, the little black mare seemed to run into the noose.

 

 

"Change your mind, Monty?" someone yelled in a bantering tone.

 

 

"She'll do as well," Tambor called.

 

 

The black had other ideas and valiantly tried to run away from this sudden restriction, head down and bucking, but Monty had snubbed the rope on a post. With his quarry captured, the others were let into the next pen.

 

 

"It's the old-fashioned way." Tambor said, appearing beside Peri, arms draped over the top rail. "She'll be a range horse. Doesn't have the quality for one of the advanced schooling saddle stock. Nice enough conformation, a shade too short in the back, a trifle more bone, but that's all to the good in these parts."

 

 

Fascinated, Peri watched as Monty walked his hands up the rope to the rigidly straining mare. He stroked and talked to her and gradually slack appeared in the rope. The mare was still tense, head held high, nostrils flaring, but Monty persisted, stroking and then slapping her more casually - neck, shoulders, withers, rump - until she stood more easily.

 

 

Before either Peri or the mare was aware of what he intended, he had a blindfold on her. Chelsea and Pedro approached with breaking tackle and the little mare, trembling now, was saddled and a hackamore slipped over her head. Chelsea stood at her head, one hand on the blindfold. Pedro hovered on the same side, stroking the mare's shoulder.

 

 

"At my word," Monty said, taking up the thick reins and springing lightly to her back, not quite putting his full weight in the saddle. The little mare tensed on her splayed legs. Peri held her breath. Then Monty sat down. "Let 'er rip!"

 

 

Blindfold whipped off, Chelsea and Pedro sprang back and the mare sprang up, all four feet off the ground. Head down between her knees, she bucked and twisted, turned and sunfished, trying to remove the weight on her back. Everyone along the corral was yelling, whistling, shouting. Peri wasn't sure whether they were encouraging the mare or Monty, who kept kicking her forward.

 

 

He looked far too big to ride that little mare. Peri thought. It just wasn't fair.

 

 

"Nope, it isn't," Tambor said, and Peri was appalled that she had spoken out loud. "But he's a great hand at riding 'em out. She's spunky but she's smart. See, she's had a chance to figure out that she can't buck him off. Now she'll start running."

 

 

"I don't think so." Some perversity made Peri say this just as the mare planted her feet and came to a jarring halt. And refused to move despite Monty's heels and the shouts and yells from the onlookers.

 

 

"Hmm. How'd you figure that one out?" Tambor asked. She grinned at him. "She's smart, too smart to wear herself out running around in circles."

 

 

Monty, with Chelsea at the mare's head, dismounted. She snorted, sweat staining her neck and flanks, but her legs remained stiff, propped like an immovable scaffolding.

 

 

"G'wan down there, Peri," Tambor said, and before she knew what he was about, he'd shoved her off the rail into the corral. "G'wan! Monty's taken the buck out of her for you. Your turn now."

 

 

Pedro was beside Peri, slapping a crash helmet on her head, propelling her inexorably to the mare, who was again blindfolded. Monty grabbed her by the leg and hoisted her toward the saddle. Reflex actions found her settling into the deepest part, finding the stirrups, responding to drills learned on inanimate surrogates. But there was a vast difference to the feel of the mare between her legs, the trembling under her buttocks, the acrid aroma of sweaty fear rising up to her nostrils. Mixed with her own.

 

 

"When you're ready. Peri. Now's the time to put theory into practice," Monty said, his grin encouraging.

 

 

Gulping, Peri managed a short nod of her head and Chelsea whipped off the blindfold. The others stood back.

 

 

"Easy, girl. Easy now, girl!" Peri said, her voice trembling as much as the mare.

 

 

"G'wan there," roared Pedro, and he must have swatted the mare with the rope end for she barged forward with an incredible surge.

 

 

This was totally unlike anything Peri had ever experienced, even when the surrogate had been programmed for random and violent movements. Peri's teeth jarred together and she felt the jolt through her entire body, but those long hours of practice saved her as her thighs tightened and she leaned back, against the forward motion of the bucking mare.

 

 

Buck! Buck! Switch! The mare was determined to relieve her back of its burden. Rear!

 

 

Unexpectedly the black neck came up and cracked Peri painfully across her nose. She grabbed for mane, feeling her leg grip loosen in surprise at the shock. Grimly she clung, one hand on the rein, the other on the mane, struggling to regain her seat, but she was off balance and the mare wasn't underneath her anymore but to one side of her and she was falling....

 

 

For a frantic moment Peri was afraid she'd never be able to breathe again. That ground, for all the sand, had been very hard. Much harder than occasional tosses to the matting around the surrogate had ever been. She was aware of the sudden silence from the onlookers, a congregate bated breath, waiting for her reaction to the fall. She elbowed herself to a sitting position, smearing blood and dust across her face as she looked around for her recent mount.

 

 

"Grab her, someone! Don't stand there eating flies!" She climbed to her feet, aware that her shoulder ached, her ribs, that her nose was leaking blood. And very much aware that this was her final test. She rubbed her bloody face on her sleeve as she strode purposefully across the little corral to where the mare was backing away from Pedro as fast as she could. Peri intercepted her circuit, jammed her foot in the stirrup, and hauled herself back up into the saddle before the mare or Pedro realized what she had done. Before she herself realized what she had done. But no flesh-and-blood critter was going to get the better of her. Not when she had practiced and practiced and practiced. All that time and effort was not going to be wasted by one lucky buck of a range-bred mustang. Settling herself as deep as she could, Peri grabbed the rein from Pedro's hand and dug both heels in the mare's heaving flanks. "C'mon, you mangy wall-eyed bangtail, show me your worst!"

 

 

"Kick her. Peri! Ride her, cowgirl! Yahooo! Keep her moving! Ride her out! Give her what for!"

 

 

Advice came from all sides and Peri, determined not to measure her length in the sand again in front of this audience, kept after the mare until she settled to a weary trot, her sides pumping with exertion, and finally reeled to a halt, head down.

 

 

She got a rousing cheer from her audience but, wiping her face in her sleeve, Peri swiveled to face Tambor.

 

 

"Well, now, Tambor King-Sangster-Mahmood, it appears to me that it isn't only the hosses you rough-break here. Do I pass muster now?"

 

 

There were a few hoots and good-natured hollers at her question. From the corner of her eye, she saw Monty grinning, sheer devilment in his eyes. Pedro had flung his hat to the ground in a sort of triumphant way. Chelsea was slapping her legs at her impudence. Obscurely encouraged by their demonstrations, Peri kept her eyes fixed on Tambor. He glanced around as if taking in the attitudes of the assembled, but Peri knew it was his verdict that mattered, that he'd been her examiner in all the skills she would need here at the Preserve. She couldn't stand it if she were rejected. She'd never felt more alive than at this moment, with a heaving mare between her legs, sweat and blood trickling down her face, the hot sun above and the mountains around. She waited, aware that her breath was no less ragged than the mare's.

 

 

"Wal, Tam, do I?" She'd never been so bold before in her life. But this time it mattered too much to remain silently, obediently waiting.

 

 

Deliberately he pushed the hat to the back of his head and slowly let a grin break over his weathered face. "I reckon you do at that. For all you're a quiet li'l gal, you're full o' grit. I reckon we just better sign you on permanent."

 

 

And Peri let fly with a wild yell that startled even the tired black mare.

 

 

"Did I say 'quiet'?" Tam asked. "Now you put that mare up and I doan wanta find a single sweaty hair left on her hide. Didn't I larn you nothing in that barn?"

 

 

If Madam Likes You..

 

 

It's green for go, fellas," said the Systems Engineer, his bony face wreathed with a weary but satisfied expression. He leaned back in the chair, arching his spine until all heard a muted crack.

 

 

Migonigal, the Portmaster, winced and grinned comically at his assistant, Sakerson; his shipmate, Ella Em; and Rando Cleem, who manned the suspect glitched main-frame.

 

 

"And?" Migonigal prompted.

 

 

"And what? You had a couple of sour chips, five worn circuits, a wonky board, and some faulty connections - according to my diagnostics. Nothing serious."

 

 

"Nothing serious! Nothing serious?" Migonigal echoed himself as he turned a stunned expression to the others.

 

 

"But what caused the..." Sakerson began, but Migonigal cut him off with a sharp slice of his thick fist.

 

 

"Your basic system is jolly good," the SysEng said, rising and stretching his arms over his head. This time a crick in his neck went pop. He patted the console affectionately. "Well designed. However, I upgraded your mainframe with a couple of new programs. An internal systems check so this won't happen again. You know how cost-conscious the Space Station Services are," he went on as he packed up his service kit. "And I installed new holographics software to help you guys dock faster."

 

 

"Docking isn't a problem," Migonigal said, disgruntled, but he signed the others not to pursue the matter. "Look, need any fresh tucker from our hydro garden?" he asked ingratiatingly as the SysEng zipped himself into his space gear. "We've got some beaut..."

 

 

The SysEng gave a scornful snort. "I got better'n they issue you lot, and I don't have to share." He beckoned closer to Migonigal in a conspiratorial fashion. "The ghost I hear tell you guys got..." Migonigal leaned away from the man in denial. "Just a sour chip in the visualization program. You won't have trouble now."

 

 

"A sour chip?" Migonigal's bass voice traveled incredulously up an octave to end on a despairing note. Sakerson crossed his fingers behind his back and he noticed Rando making an odd warding gesture. Ella grunted her disgust with the SysEng.

 

 

"Hey, what's this?" The SysEng had picked up his helmet, in which now reposed a yellow banana. "Hey, maybe you guys got something I haven't at that? Got any more where this came from?"

 

 

Migonigal stifled a groan and shrugged again, spreading his hands and grinning. "Could be. But I'm hoping that is the last one."

 

 

"Yeah, well, ta very," and, peeling the fruit, the SysEng bit off a hunk, chewing with pleasure. "Hey, just ripe too. Okay, I'm off. Check me out, will you, mate? I'm due at Wheel Four in two days. Gotta bum it!" Migonigal signaled for Sakerson to escort the specialist to his vehicle, moored at Dock 4, which was nearest the control module.

 

 

"Anything we should know about the updates?" Sakerson asked as he followed the SysEng down the corridor, his felt slippers making no noise on the plasrub flooring.

 

 

"All I did was wipe the glitches and load the new programs. Same general format as the old..." A wicked grin over his shoulder at Sakerson. "And exorcised your ghoulies and ghosties." He chuckled his amusement.

 

 

"Fine. Thanks!" Sakerson could not keep the sarcasm out of his voice as he paused at the control module.

 

 

"Catch," the SysEng added, flipping the empty banana skin at Sakerson. "Biodegradable, you know! This station needs all it can get." The portal closed on his healthy guffaw, and with Sakerson bereft of any suitable rejoinder.

 

 

It had been ignominious enough to have had to call in a systems engineer to check the mainframe, in the unlikely case that... recent developments were a systems malfunction. While all the stationers had examined their... inexplicable problem among themselves at great length... no one was bass-ackward enough to let a whisper of it off Three. Just like a SysEng to "know" it all before he'd even docked.

 

 

With a sigh. Assistant Portmaster Sakerson threw the skin at the nearest disposal hatch on his way back to the control center, wishing it were something else that apparently wasn't biodegradable.

 

 

When Sakerson reentered the control room, Ella was on Console, completing the debarkation routines. The SysEng's flashy little FTL drifted down-away from Space Station Three's Wheel before ignition and the flare vanished quickly in the twinkle of star blaze. Sakerson registered, and appreciated, the Portmaster's sour expression. "Well?" Migonigal asked his spacemate.

 

 

"Well," Ella replied with a shrug, giving the console one more tap. "Program sure ran smooth. But it always did. I just can't see how she could materialize, or whatever she does, in a mainframe built a hundred years after she breathed her last. It doesn't compute. It also doesn't make any sense." She rose and gave the disconsolate Migonigal a hug and a kiss, winking over his shoulder at Sakerson. "Little enough to titillate folks stuck out in the Void. Been kinda fun to have something to puzzle out."

 

 

Migonigal gave her a wide-eyed look of dismay. "But if that wag-winged SysEng spreads this around..."

 

 

"You're a good portmaster, sir, with a clean record," Sakerson said stoutly. "SS-Three's never had any effups, bleeds, crashes, or leaks. It's a good station and a good crew. Besides, we can always say it's just a new game."

 

 

To relieve the boredom of off-duty, "leisure" hours, Space Stations, Wheels, and Mining Platforms were immensely creative, given their limited recreational facilities. There was an ongoing informal competition to invent new "games," physical or mental! The good ones circulated.

 

 

"That's it, Sakersonboy, you tell him," Ella said, grinning. "He won't believe me and I've been his mate for yonks!" She glanced at the chrono. "Your watch, Sakersonboy. C'mon, Miggy, Rando says his new war starts at twenty-one hundred, and I'm gonna whip that war-ace no matter how long it takes me."

 

 

In self-defense, and to keep from thinking about their apparition and "her" habits - Rando Cleem had started a long drawn-out "war," winning battle after battle no matter who was his opponent.

 

 

"Us," Migonigal corrected her, letting himself be drawn out of the control room. "I figured out the tactics that had his forces retreating last watch..." The panel slid shut over the rest. Sakerson grinned ruefully. He envied Migonigal for Ella. She was all that a fellow could want in a spacemate. Trouble was that, when Sakerson had been assigned to Space Station Three six months ago, everyone was paired off, one way or another, with the exception of Sigi Tang, who was near retirement, and Iko Mesmet, who never left the spin-chambers. Sakerson tried not to feel like odd man out but his singleness was beginning to get to him.

 

 

He took the console seat, for it was now time for the routine station status check. When Sakerson began to log the results in, he really did see an improvement in the speed at which the data was reported. Once the report was finished, Sakerson altered his password. SysEngs were supposed to be discreet but no one liked to think that even the most closemouthed head in the galaxy had accessed personal data. There were fifty-nine minutes before any further routine, no scheduled arrivals, and his relief was not due for another two hours.

 

 

Rubbing his hands together, Sakerson ran a test check, to familiarize himself with the new internal systems check. That activity soon palled because, despite his proficiency and a half year's familiarity with SS-3's mainframe, he could not discern the subtle minor alterations. He had his hand halfway to the switch to looksee what was happening to Rando's war in the staff leisure facility, but he wasn't really that interested. Rando always won. He had reactions like the station's cat and must have been sleeping on

 

 

military history and strategy tapes. Great man, Rando, even if he did see ghosts. Girl ghosts. Pretty girl ghosts. Cuddly girl ghosts! Sakerson hadn't seen a manifestation, though he'd found a lot of cherries in his bunkspace. Rando had pronounced her vivaciously attractive, which had annoyed his spacemate, Cliona, considerably.

 

 

Sakerson liked a calmer, dignified type of girl, but not as phlegmatic as Sinithia, the unflappable station medic. Tilda, who was Trev's mate, was aggressive and went in for tae kwon do with an enthusiasm only Rando matched. Trev usually watched. It didn't do, he'd told Sakerson privately, for two spacemates to get too physical with each other. (Having watched Tilda spar, Sakerson decided that she could deck Trev anytime she liked. It was shrewd of Trev to let her work steam off on Rando.) In any event, while there were some very good-looking female persons on board, not one had indicated they might prefer his company to that of their present attachment.

 

 

A green flashing light on the visual pad caught his attention. SPECIFY. Sakerson blinked. He didn't remember turning on the holography program but the amber-lit pad was on.

 

 

SPECIFY WHAT? APPEARANCE.

 

 

Some had said that the Carmen Miranda ghost had been generated by the holography circuits. The SysEng had put paid to that theory. But Sakerson gulped because he hadn't, to his knowledge, accessed the pad.

 

 

Then he grinned. Well, he could check the new software out, and have a bit of fun. He'd program the girl of his dreams and see what came up. He wouldn't mind a ghost of his own creation. Preferably one that didn't leave bananas where a guy could slip on the mushy things.

 

 

He entered in the spirit of the exercise so completely that the bells of change of watch sounded before he had quite finished the holograph. He just had time to name the file, "Chiquita," thinking of the SysEng's banana skin, before he filed it away under his new password. He grinned as Rando arrived, certain that would be one of the first things the war-ace would also do.

 

 

"Did you win, Rando?"

 

 

"No contest," Rando replied, slipping into the chair Sakerson vacated.

 

 

"How many does that make?"