(Omitted)
—not quite that bad, Minerva; I simply wanted to keep her in purdah without arousing her suspicions. Actually I had bought two pairs of those gaudy boots, one pair her correct size—and switched them on her at the end of that first day, while she was soaking her poor tired feet. Later I suggested that her trouble had been that she had never worn shoes or boots in her life—so why not wear them around the ship until she got the hang of it?
So she did and was surprised at how easy it was. I explained with a straight face that her feet had swelled the first time, so take it easy, an hour today, a little more each day, until she felt comfortable in them all day long. In a week she was wearing them even if she wore nothing else; she was more comfortable in them than barefooted—not surprising as they were arch-support footwear I had picked most carefully—between pregnancy and the difference in surface gravity of the two planets—point ninety-five gee for her home planet; one point fourteen for Valhalla—she weighed about twenty kilos more than she ever had in her life; she needed contoured foot supports.
I had to caution her not to wear them to bed.
I took her to town a couple of times while I was selecting cargo, but I coddled her—not much walking or standing around. She came along when I invited her but was always willing to stay aboard and read.
In the meantime Joe worked long hours, only one day off in seven. So just before we left, I had him quit his job and I took my kids on a proper holiday; a sleigh hired for the day, with reindeer instead of power, sightseeing that was truly sightseeing on a clear, sunny day that was almost warm, lunch in the country at a fine restaurant with a view of snowcovered crags of Jotunheimen range, dinner at a still finer restaurant in the city, one with live music and entertainment as well as superb food—and a stop for tea at the little gourmet spot where Joe had labored so that he could be addressed as “Friherr Lang” by our host, instead of “Hey, you!”—and have a chance to show off his beautiful, bulging bride.
And beautiful she was, Minerva. On Valhalla both sexes wear, under heavy outdoor clothes, indoor clothes that are essentially pajamas. The difference between those worn by women and by men lies in material, cut, and such. I had bought one party outfit for each of them. Joe looked smart and so did I, but all eyes were on Llita. She was covered from shoulders to boots—but only technically. The cloth of that harem outfit shimmered with changing lights, orange and green and gold, without obstructing the view. Anyone who cared to look could see that her nipples were crinkled with excitement—and everyone cared to look. That she clearly had only a couple of months to go gave her a large bonus vote toward being picked as “Miss Valhalla.”
She looked grand and knew it, and her face showed her happiness. She was self-confident, too, as I had coached her in local table manners, and how to stand and how to sit and how to behave and such, and she had already got through lunch without a bobble.
It was all right to let her display herself and enjoy the silent, or sometimes not silent, applause; not only were we leaving right away, but also Joe and I had our knives in sight in our boot tops. True, Joe was no knife fighter. But the wolves there didn’t know that, and not one was inclined to bother our beautiful bitch when she was flanked by wolves of her own.
—early next morning despite a short night. We loaded all day long, with Llita handling manifests and Joe checking numbers while I made sure I wasn’t being robbed. Late that night I had us in n-space, with my pilot computer sniffing out the last decimal places for the first leg to Landfall. I set the gravistat to bring us slowly down from Valhalla surfacenormal to a comfortable quarter gee—no more free-fall until Llita had her baby—then locked the control room and headed down to my cabin, stinking and tired and trying to kid myself that tomorrow was soon enough for a bath.
Their door was open—their bedroom door, the room that had been Joe’s before I turned their rooms into a suite. Door open and them in bed—they had never done that before.
I soon learned why. They piled out of bed and paddled toward me; they wanted me to join their fun—they wanted to thank me . . for that party day, for buying them, for everything else. His idea? Hers? Both? I didn’t try to find out; I just thanked them and told them that I was whipped to the red, worn out, and dirty—all I wanted was soap and hot water and twelve hours of shut-eye-and for them to sleep late; we’d set up ship’s routine after we were rested.
I did let them bathe me and massage me to sleep. That did not break discipline; I had taught them a bit about massage, and Joe in particular had a firmly gentle touch; he had been massaging her daily during her pregnancy—even while working long hours in that restaurant.
But, Minerva, had I not been so bushed, I might have broken my rule about dependent females.
(Omitted)
—every tape, every book available in Torheim for a refresher in obstetrics and gynecology, plus instruments and supplies I had not expected to need aboard ship. I kept to my cabin until I had mastered all new art and was at least as skilled in baby-cotching; as I had been as a country doctor on Ormuzd long before.
I kept a close eye on my patient, watched her diet, made her exercise, checked her gizzards daily—and permitted no undue familiarity.
Dr. Lafayette Hubert, MD, aka Captain Aaron Sheffield aka The Senior, et al., worried excessively over his one patient. But he kept her and her husband from seeing it and applied his worry constructively in planning for every obstetric emergency known to the art at that time. Hardware and supplies he had obtained on Valhalla paralleled in every major respect the equipment of Frigg Temple in Torheim, where fifty births a day were not uncommon.
He smiled to himself at the mass of junk he had taken aboard, recalling a country doctor on Ormuzd who had delivered many a baby with nothing but bare hands, while the mother sat in her husband’s lap, knees pulled high and wide by her husband so that old Doc Hubert could kneel in front of them and catch the baby.
True—but he had always had with him all the gear a husky pacing borri could tote, even though he might never open a saddlebag if everything went right. That was the point: to have the stuff at hand if things did not go right.
One item purchased in Torheim was not for emergency: the latest improved-model delivery chair—hand grips, padded support arms; leg, foot, and back supports adjustable independently in three axes of translation and rotation with controls accessible both to midwife and patient, quick-release restraints. It was a marvelously flexible piece of mechanical engineering to enable the mother to position herself—or be positioned—so that her birth canal was vertical and as wide open as possible at the moment of truth.
Dr. Hubert-Sheffield had it set up in his cabin, checked its many adjustments before signing for it—then looked at it and frowned. A good gadget, and he had paid its high price without a quiver. But it had no love in it; it was as impersonal as a guillotine.
A husband’s arms, a husband’s lap, were not as efficient—but there was much to be said, in his opinion, for having parents go through the ordeal together, she with her husband’s arms holding her, comforting her, while he gave both muscular and emotional support that left the midwife free to concentrate on physical aspects.
A husband who had done this had no doubt that he was a father. Even if some passing stranger had slipped her the juice, such fact became irrelevant, swallowed up by this greater experience.
So how about it, Doc? This gadget? Or Joe’s arms? Did the kids need this second “marriage ceremony”? Could Joe take it, physically and emotionally? There was no doubt that Llita was the more rugged member of the team although Joe outmassed her even when she was near term. What if Joe fainted and dropped her—at the exact wrong instant?
Sheffield worried these matters while he led auxiliary controls from the gravistat in the control room to the delivery chair. He had decided that, nuisance though it was, his cabin had to be the delivery room; it was the only compartment with enough deck space, a bed at hand, and its own bath. Oh, well, he could sta
nd the nuisance of squeezing past the pesky thing to reach his desk and wardrobe for the next fifty days—sixty at the outside, if he had Llita’s date of conception right and had judged her progress correctly. Then he could disassemble it and stow it.
Perhaps he could sell it at a profit on Landfall; it was in advance of the art there, he felt sure.
He positioned the chair, bolted it to the deck, ran it up to maximum height, placed its midwife’s stool in front of it, adjusted the stool until he was comfortable in it, found he could lower the delivery chair ten or twelve centimeters and still have room to work. That done, he climbed into the delivery chair and fiddled with its adjustments—found that it could be made to fit even a person of his height—predictable; some women on Valhalla were taller than he was.
Minerva, by my figures Llita was about ten days late—which did not worry them, as I had been carefully vague about it, and worried me only a touch, as she checked out normal and healthy in all respects. I prepared them not only with instruction and drill, but also with hypnosis, and had prepared her with exercises designed to make it as easy on her as possible—I dislike postpartum repairs; that canal should stretch, not tear.
What was really fretting me was possibility that I was going to have to break the neck of a monster. Kill a baby, I mean—I shouldn’t dodge the blunt truth. All calculations I had done one sleepless night still left this chance open—and if I had been wrong in any assumption, the chance might be higher than I like to think about.
If I had to do it, I wanted to get it over with.
I was far more worried than she was. I don’t think she worried at all; I had worked hard on that hypnotic preparation.
If I had to do this grisly thing, I was going to have to do it fast, while their attentions were elsewhere—then never let them see it and space the pitiful remains at once. Then tackle the horrid job of trying to put them back together emotionally. As a married couple? I did not know. Maybe I would have an opinion after I saw what she was carrying.
At last her contractions were coming close together, so I had them get into the delivery chair—easy, one-quarter gravity. The chair was already adjusted, and they were used to the position, from drill. Joe climbed in, sat with his thighs stretched wide, knees over the rests, heels braced—not too comfortable as he was not angleworm-limber the way she was. Then I picked her up and sat her in his lap—no trouble, she weighed less than forty pounds at that pseudo-acceleration. Call it eighteen kilos.
She spread her legs almost in a horizontal split and scooted forward in his lap while Joe kept her from falling between his thighs. “Is that far enough, Captain?” she asked.
“Just fine,” I said. The chair might have positioned her a touch better—but she would not have had Joe’s arms around her. I had never told them that there was any other way to do it. “Give her a kiss, Joe, while I get the straps.”
Left knee strap around both their left knees together, same for right knees, and with her feet braced on additional supports I had added—chest and shoulder and thigh straps on him so firmly that he would stay in that chair even if the ship fell apart, but no such straps on her. Her hands on the hand grips, while his hands and arms were a living, warm, and loving safety belt, just under her tits, just over the bulge but not on it. He knew how, we had practiced. If I wanted pressure on her belly, I would tell him—otherwise leave well enough alone.
My stool was bolted to the deck, I had added a seat belt. As I strapped myself down, I reminded them that we had a rough ride coming—and this we had not been able to practice; it would have risked miscarriage. “Lock your fingers, Joe, but let her breathe. Comfortable, Llita?”
“Uh—” she said breathlessly. “I—I’m starting another one!”
“Bear down, dear!” I made sure my left foot was positioned for the gravistat control and watched her belly.
Big one! As it peaked, I switched from one-quarter gravity up to two gravities almost in one motion—and Llita let out a yip and the baby squirted like a watermelon seed right into my hands.
I dragged my foot back to allow the gravistat to put us back on low gee even as I made a nearly instantaneous inspection of the brat. A normal boy, red and wrinkled and ugly—so I slapped his tochis and he bawled.
VIII
Landfall
(Omitted)
—girl I had intended to marry had married again and had another baby. Not surprising; I had been off Landfall two standard years. Not tragic, either, as we had been married once about a hundred years earlier. Old friends. So I talked it over with her and her new husband, then married one of her granddaughters, one not descended from me. Both gals Howards, of course, and Laura, the one I married that time, being of the Foote Family.14
We were a good match, Minerva; Laura was twenty, and I was freshly rejuvenated and holding my cosmetic age at the early thirties. We had several children—nine, I think—then she got bored with me forty-odd years later, and wanted to marry my 5th/7th cousin15 Roger Sperling—which did not
J.F. 45th
grieve me as I was getting restless as a country squire. Anyhow, when a woman wants to go, let her go. I stood up for her at their wedding.
Roger was surprised to learn that my plantation was not community property. Or possibly did not think that I would hold Laura to the marriage settlement she had signed—but that wasn’t the first time I had been wealthy; I had learned. It took a tedious suit to convince him that Laura owned her wedding dower plus appreciation, not those thousands of hectares that were mine before I married her. In many ways it is simpler to be poor.
Then I shipped out again.
But this is about my kids who weren’t really mine. Before we reached Landfall, Joseph Aaron Long looked more like a cherub and less like a monkey but was still young enough to wet on anyone reckless enough to pick him up—which his grandpappy did, several times a day. I was fond of him; he was not only a merry baby but was also, to me, a most satisfying triumph.
By the time we grounded, his father had shaped up into a really good cook.
Minerva, I could have set those kids up in style; that was as profitable a triangle trip as I ever made. But you don’t cause ex-slaves to stand tall and free and proud by giving them things. What I did was to enable them to get out and scratch. Like this—
I credited them with half-time apprentice wages, Blessed to Valhalla, on the assumption that their other half-time was taken up by studies. This I had Llita figure in Valhalla kroner, at Valhalla wage rates. I had her add to this Joe’s wages as kitchen help on Valhalla, minus what he had spent there. This total was credited to them as a share in cargo on the third leg, Valhalla to Landfall—which amounted to less than one-half of 1 percent of that cargo. I made Llita work this out.
To this we added ship’s-cook wages for Joe, Valhalla to Landfall, payable in Landfall bucks at Landfall wage scales—but only as wages not as a share in cargo. I had to explain to Llita why Joe’s wages for that leg could not be invested retroactively in cargo lifted at Valhalla. Once she understood it, she had a grasp of the notions of venture and risk and profit—but I did not pay her for this accounting; I was durned if I would pay purser’s wages to figure her own money when I was not only having to check everything she did but was giving her a lesson in economics as well.
I did not pay Llita for the leg to Landfall; she was a passenger, busy having a baby and then still busier learning to care for it. But I did not charge her for passage; she deadheaded.
You see what I was doing—rigging the accounts so that I would owe them something once I sold my cargo, while making it appear that they had earned it. They hadn’t been worth any wages; on the contrary I had spent quite a chunk on them—aside from buying them, which I never charged against them even in my head. On the other hand, I was paid in deep satisfaction—especially if they learned to stand on their own feet. But I discussed none of this; I just had Llita figure their share—my way.
(Omitted)
—came to a couple
of thousand, not enough to support them very long. But I took time to find a hole-in-the-wall luncheon, on which I took option through a third party, after satisfying myself that a couple of strivers could stay afloat with it, if the price was right and they were willing to work. Then I told them that they had better start job hunting as I was putting the Libby up for sale or bond-and-lease. It was root, hog, or die. They were really free—free to starve.
Llita didn’t pout, she just looked solemn and went on nursing little J.A. Joe looked scared. But later I saw them with their heads together over a newspaper I had brought aboard; they were checking “help wanted” ads.
After much whispering Llita asked diffidently if I could baby-sit while they went job hunting?—but if I was busy, J.A. could ride her hip.
I said I wasn’t going anywhere—but had they checked “business opportunities”? Jobs for untrained people didn’t lead anywhere.
She looked startled; it was a new idea. But that hint was enough. There was more looking and whispering; then she fetched the paper to me and pointed to an ad—my own but not so marked—and asked what “five-year amortization” meant?
I sniffed at it and told her it was a way to go broke slowly, especially if she spent money on clothes—and there must be something wrong or the owner wouldn’t want to sell.
She looked as sad as Joe did and said that the other business opportunities called for investing lots of money. I grudgingly admitted that it could not hurt to look—but watch out for booby traps.
They came back full of enthusiasm—they were sure they could buy it and make it pay! Joe was twice as good a cook as that fry cook who had it—he used too much grease and it was rancid and the coffee was terrible and he didn’t even keep the place clean. But best of all, behind the storeroom was a bedroom where they could live and—
I squelched them. What were the gross receipts? How about taxes? What licenses and inspections and what squeeze on each? What did they know about buying food wholesale? No, I would not go look at it; they had to make up their own minds and quit leaning on me and, anyhow, I didn’t know anything about restaurant business.