Robert Heinlein - Beyond This Horizon

"I shan't. Really, he's quite useful to me. You know how impossible most specialists are, and how pedantic most of our brother synthesists."

"Tut, tut. Such heresy."

"Isn't it, though? But Felix is useful to me. He has an active, uninhibited mind. His mind prowls."

"I told you he was a star line."

"Yes, you did. Every now and then you genetics laddies come out with the right answer."

"May your bed spring a leak," Mordan answered. "We can't always be wrong. The Great Egg must love human beings, he made a lot of them."

"Same argument applies to oysters, only more so."

"That's different," said Mordan. "I'm the one who loves oysters. Have you had dinner?" Felix sat up with a start. The house phone at his elbow was chiming. He flipped the come-along tab and heard Phyllis's voice. "Felix, my dear, will you come in and say goodbye to Madame Espartero?" "Coming, dear."

He returned to the lounge, feeling vaguely unsettled. He had forgotten the presence of the ancient Planner. "Madame, will you graciously permit-" "Come here, lad!" she said sharply. "I want to see you in the light." He came forward and stood before her, feeling somewhat as he always had as a child when the development center therapists checked over his growth and physical development. Damnation, he thought, she looks at me as if I were a horse and she a buyer.

She stood up suddenly and grasped her stick. "You'll do," she stated, as if the knowledge somehow annoyed her. She extracted a fresh cigar from somewhere about her person, turned to Phyllis, and said, "Goodbye, child. And thank you." Whereupon she started for the door.

Felix had to hurry to catch up with her and let her out. Felix returned to Phyllis, and said savagely, "A man that'ud do that 'ud be challenged." "Why, Felix!"

"I detest," he stated, "these damned emphatic old women. I have never seen why politeness should be the obligation of the young and rudeness the privilege of age."

"Why, Felix, she's not like that at all. I think she's a dear."

"She doesn't act like it."

"Oh, she doesn't mean anything by that. I think she's just always in a hurry."

"Why should she be?"

"Wouldn't you be-at her age?"

He hadn't thought of it from that point of view. "Maybe you're right. Sands of time, and so forth. What did the two of you talk about?"

"Oh-lots of things. When I expected the baby and what we were going to name him and what plans we had for him and things."

"I'll bet she did most of the talking." "No, I did. Occasionally she put in a question."

"Do you know, Phyllis," he said soberly, "one of the things I like least about the whole business of you and me and him is the quivering interest that outsiders take in it. No more privacy than a guppy in an aquarium."

"I know what you mean, but I didn't feel that way with her. We talked women talk. It was nice."

"Hrummph!"

"Anyway, she didn't talk much about Theobald. I told her we intended to have a little sister for Theobald presently. She was very much interested. She wanted to know when, and what plans we had for her, and what we intended to name her. I hadn't thought about that. What do you think would be a nice name, Felix?"

"Egg knows-seems to me that's rushing matters a little. I hope you told her that it would be a long, long tune."

"I did, but she seemed a little disappointed. But I want to be myself for a while, after Theobald comes. How do you like the name 'Justina'?"

"Seems all right," he answered. "What about it?"

"She suggested it."

"She did? Whose baby does she think it's going to be?"

"-and beat him when he sneezes"'

"Now, Felix, don't get yourself excited."

"But dammit, Claude, she's been in there a long time!"

"Not very long. First babies are often a little slow arriving."

"But-Claude, you biologist johnnies should have worked out something better than this. Women shouldn't have to go through with this."

"Such as?"

"How should I know? Ectogenesis, maybe."

"We could practice ectogenesis," Mordan answered imperturbably, "if we wished. It has been done. But it would be a mistake."

"Egg's sake-why?"

"Contra-survival in nature. The race would be dependent on complex mechanical assistance to reproduce. The time might come when it wasn't available. Survivor types are types that survive in difficult times as well as easy times. An ectogenetic race couldn't cope with really hard, primitive conditions. But ectogenesis isn't new-it's been in use for millions of years."

"No, I suppose it-Huh? How long did you say?"

"Millions of years. What is egg-laying but ectogenesis? It's not efficient; it risks the infant zygotes too hazardously. The great auk and the dodo might still be alive today, if they had not been ectogenetic. No, Felix, we mammals have a better method."

"That's all right for you to say," Felix replied glumly. "It's not your wife that's concerned."

Mordan forebore to answer this. He went on, making conversation. "The same applies to any technique which makes life easier at the expense of hardiness. Ever hear of a bottle-baby, Felix? No, you would not have-it's an obsolete term. But it has to do with why the barbarians nearly died out after the Second Genetic War. They weren't all killed, you know-there are always survivors, no matter how fierce the war. But they were mostly bottle-babies, and the infant-generation thinned out to almost nothing. Not enough bottles and not enough cows. Their mothers could not feed them."

Hamilton raised a hand irritably. Mordan's serene detachment-for such he assumed it to be-from the events at hand annoyed him.

"The deuce with that stuff. Got another cigaret?"

"You have one in your hand," Mordan pointed out.

"Eh? So I have!" Quite unconsciously he snuffed it out, and took another one from his own pouch. Mordan smiled and said nothing.

"What time is it?"

"Fifteen-forty."

"Is that all? It must be later."

"Wouldn't you be less jumpy if you were inside?"

"Phyllis won't let me. You know how she is, Claude-a whim of steel." He smiled, but there was no gayety in it.

"You are both rather dynamic and positive."

"Oh, we get along. She lets me have my own way, and later I find out I've done just what she wanted me to do."

Mordan had no difficulty in repressing his smile. He was beginning to wonder at the delay himself. He told himself that his interest was detached, impersonal, scientific. But he had to go on telling himself.

The door dilated; an attendant showed herself. "You may come in now," she announced with brisk cheeriness.

Mordan was closer to the door; he started to go in first. Hamilton made a long arm, grabbed him by the shoulder. "Hey! What goes on here? Who's the father in this deal, anyhow?" He pushed himself into the lead. "You wait your turn."

She looked a little pale. "Hello, Felix."

"Hello, Phil." He bent over her. "You all right?"

"Of course I'm all right-this is what I'm for." She looked at him. "And get that silly smirk off your face. After all, you didn't invent fatherhood."

"You're sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine. But I must look a fright."

"You look beautiful."

A voice at his ear said, "Don't you want to see your son?"

"Eh? Oh-sure!" He turned and looked. Mordan straightened up and stood out of the way. The attendant held the baby up, half inviting him to hold it, but he kept his arms down and looked it over gingerly. It seemed to have the usual number of arms and legs, he thought, but that bright orange color-well, he didn't know. Maybe it was normal.

"Don't you approve of him?" Phyllis asked sharply.

"Huh? Sure, sure. It's a beautiful baby. He looks like you."

"Babies," said Phyllis, "don't look like anyone, except other babies."