Дэймон Найт - Orbit 3

Only by the sheerest of luck, he felt, did he avoid the claws and fangs long enough to plunge first one knife then the other into the beast’s heart.

As its death struggles subsided he lay there, his face buried in the back of its neck, hugging the thing he’d killed, a sadness coming over him as he felt the fading heartbeat.

Later he skinned the beast. He and Siss ate the meat and slept under the pelt. But first he had buried the head, in tribute to a worthy antagonist, a kind of salute to another male.

And unto them was born a son.

Siss seemed to know just what to do, by instinct. Clumsily he helped. He cut the umbilical with a boiled pair of scissors. Made a knot. Washed the red little thing.

Eventually Siss lay quiet, dry, serene, holding her swaddled child. He sat on the floor next to the bed and looked and looked at the mother and child. A holy picture, he thought. He sat for hours, staring, wondering. She looked back at him, silent, wondering.

The new human being slept, serene.

It could not have been more perfect.

His son. His boy. His and hers but, he felt it fair enough to say, mostly his.

His son Adam. What else had there been to name him? Adam. Trite but noble. He had considered calling him Ralph, but only briefly. It would be too comical to have his mother go around introducing him to their near circle of friends—relatives all, come to think of it—as Ralph Ralph.

There’d be no need for introductions for many years, of course, in a closed society such as theirs. The years did pass.

There was his son, tall for his age, straight, brown, good with his hands ...

But bright? Intelligent? How was a father to know? A prejudiced parent sees only the good, ignores what he doesn’t want to accept, can be oblivious to faults obvious to anyone else.

He talked to him and got gratifying responses. But wouldn’t almost any response be gratifying to a parent? Parents are easily satisfied. Especially fathers of sons.

Had he conditioned himself to the point where he would be satisfied if his son showed more than animal intelligence? The conditioning encompassed an agony of watching as his son grew—watching for signs of mental retardation, of idiocy, of dullness, or bigheadedness, of torpor.

And then they had a daughter.

From his notebooks:

My son. Brown as a penny. Naked as a jaybird. Slender, muscled, handsome, active, good with his hands.

Bright? Seems so. Obviously too soon to really tell.

Five years old and just made his first kill. Wild dog, attacking our goat. Got him in the right eye with a .30-30 at________yards (measure and fill in).

Strong and brave and skilled and good looking.

Let’s hope intelligent, too.

Please, God.

My daughter. My precious, my beauty. What a delight you are, with your serene smile and your loving way of wrapping your arms around my leg and looking up at Old Daddy. You’re your mother’s child, aren’t you? So good, so quiet. But you’re quick on your feet and your reflexes (I’ve tested them) are sound. I think we’re all right.

The Diary of Siss

(Siss was not very faithful about her diary. The printed word was not her medium. Although her intentions were obviously good, there are fewer than a dozen entries in all, and they are reproduced below. She did not date them. The handwriting in the last entry is slightly better than that of the first, but maybe only because she was using a sharper pencil. A more revealing diary probably would be found in her heart, if that could be read, or in her children.)

Mr. Ralph told me write things down when they big & inportant I will start now. Today Mr. Ralph married me.

Very happy today. Learning to please my husband.

Very very happy. Today moved to our country house I like it better than the big city.

Today I had a baby, a boy.

My word for today is contentment. I have to spell it and tell what it means. Mr. Ralph says I need an eddukaton, he will eddukate me.

My word for today is education. Mr. Ralph seen what I wrote in my dairy yestdy.

I have 2 words for today diary & yesterday. Also saw not seen.

Today I had a baby, a girl. Ralph said now everything is going to be alright.

And presumably it was. Having doubled the population, the human race seemed to be on a firm footing. There was love in the world; a growing, proud family, and a new self-assurance in Siss—note that he was Ralph now, not Mr. Ralph. We may be sure, though, that the strict if loving father gave her two words for tomorrow: all right. A father, a mother, a son, a daughter. A little learning, a lot of love.

In the summer of his eighth year Adam and his father were in the woods back of the pasture, in the little clearing at the side of the stream that ran pure and sparkling before it broadened into the shallow muddy pond the livestock used. Martin and the boy were eating lunch after a morning of woodcutting and conversation.

Adam, naked like his father, had asked: “Am I going to grow some more hair, like you?”

And Martin said: “Sure, when you get bigger. When you begin to be a man.”

And Adam had compared his smooth skin with his father’s hard, muscled, hairy body and said: “Mom’s got hair in that place, too, but she’s different.”

So Martin explained, sweating even though he was sitting still now, and his son took it all in, nodding, just as if it were no more important than knowing why the cow had her calf. It was obvious that until now Adam had not connected the function of the bull with the dropping of the calf. Martin explained, in human terms.

“That’s pretty neat,” Adam said. “When do I get to do it?”

Martin tried to keep his voice matter-of-fact. How do you instruct your son in incest?

The explanation was completed, finally, and it was Martin’s turn to ask a question. “Think carefully about this, son. If you could save the life of one person—your mother or me but not the other—which would you save?”

Adam answered without hesitation. “I’d save Mother, of course.”

Martin looked hard at his strong, handsome son and asked the second part of the question. “Why?”

Adam said: “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Dad. I’d save both of you if I could—”

“I know you would. You’ve been a crack shot since you were five. But there might be only one chance. Your answer is the only possible one, but I have to know why you gave it.”

The boy frowned as he struggled to reason out the reply he had made instinctively. “Because—if necessary —she and I could—” Then it came out in a rush: “Because she could be the mother to the world and I could be the father.”

Martin shuddered as if a long chill had just passed. It was all right. He embraced his fine, strong, intelligent son and wept.

After a little while Siss appeared, walking the path beside the stream, naked as die two of them but different, as Adam had said, and riding the naked baby on her hip.

“Thought we’d join the menfolks for lunch,” she said. “I picked some berries for dessert.” She carried the blackberries in a mesh bag and some had been bruised, staining the tanned skin a delicate blue just below her slim waist.

Martin said: “You sure make a good-looking picture, you two. Come here and give me a kiss.”

The baby kissed him first, then toddled off to smooch up for Adam, who gave her a dutiful peck.

Their father held open his arms and Siss sat beside him, putting the berries aside. She rested her head on his shoulder, serene. Martin folded her to him and kissed her eyes and cheeks and hair and neck and finally her lips, there in the sunshine, by the side of the pure stream, in the presence of all the world.

“Do you think—” she started to say, but Martin said “Hush, now. It’s all right. Everything’s all right, Siss darling.” She sighed and relaxed against him. He had never called her darling before. He kissed her again for a long time and she gradually lay back on the soft ground and raised one knee and bent the other to accommodate her husband.