Frederik Pohl - O Pioneer!

He stood on his little porch, gazing unseeingly out at the street. Down the road a pair of Slugs were running a digging machine, checking some problem with the drains. One of them turned an eyestalk on Giyt, who waved a greeting, admiring their dexterity with the tiny limbs usually concealed inside their slimy integument. He wasn’t really paying attention. Something had changed about his relationship with Rina. Was it just the fact that now they were “married”? He hadn’t thought very much about that before he popped the question, and maybe—

He turned, startled. From the kitchen Rina was screaming his name. “It’s the baby, Shammy! He’s choking! Come help me, please!”

It wasn’t really a big problem. From high school days Giyt remembered the old Heimlich maneuver, remembered to be gentle with the baby’s tiny body, on the first try got the child to cough a plug of something wet and nasty halfway across the room, and then he was fine. But Rina wasn’t satisfied. Was overcome with guilt, in fact; begged Giyt to help her rush the baby to the hospital for a checkup. Then she got on the communicator and told Lupe what had happened, wringing her hands until Lupe arrived and the doctor had reassured them both. “Ah, no, Rina,” Lupe said consolingly, “it’s not your fault. I made the damn goo; I must’ve left some lumps in it. But you did just the right thing, Evesham, and Matya and I owe you.”

And on the way out of the hospital Rina paused in front of the nursery—two tiny infants in the twenty beds for newborns—deep in thought.

“The baby’s fine,” Giyt informed her, holding her hand.

“Yes, I know,” she said, and then looked up at him. “Shammy? I might as well tell you now. I hope you won’t get sore. I’m pregnant.”

That stopped him in his tracks. “You’re pregnant ?”

She looked embarrassed. “What can I tell you? I guess I forgot to renew the patch.” Then she corrected herself bravely. “No, Shammy, that’s a lie. I didn’t forget. I threw the damn things away a month ago.”

For Evesham Giyt the news of Rina’s pregnancy took considerable thinking over. He had dreamed many dreams in his life, but not one of those dreams, ever, had been about fatherhood.

Giyt didn’t find the prospect overwhelming, quite, but it was certainly well and truly whelming. It contained so many consequences and ramifications: The raising of a kid. The changing of its diapers. Teaching it the facts of life. Teaching it how to throw a ball. Carving the bird at the head of the table at Sunday dinners, with the wife at the other end and the kid in between (or might it not be the kids, plural? because once you started on that track, didn’t it get harder and harder to stop?). Babysitters; school; helping with homework; nursing through usual childhood diseases. The list was endless, because this baby business wasn’t one of those things you could just grit your teeth and get through. It entailed a total reconsideration of your whole life, and it was permanent —or at least it was likely to last as long as Giyt himself did. What it came to was a whole and totally demanding new career, and Giyt was a long way from sure how he felt about it. Sometimes he glowered dismally at the wall as he thought of all that time taken up. Sometimes he felt a curious and wholly unexpected thrill of excitement.

He wasn’t even really sure how Rina felt about it. Oh, she was conspicuously happy about being pregnant, sure. She smiled a lot, kissed him a lot, went out of her way to find excuses to mind the neighbor kids for Matya and Lupe a lot. But how did pregnancy feel ? He kept stealing glances at Rina when she was looking the other way to see if she showed any signs of—of what? Of morning sickness? Of strange food cravings? Actually, of being different in any detectable way at all. He couldn’t find any such signs. Except for this boundless affectionate cheer—not all that different from her usual state—she was just the same as ever. She kept right on with her studies and her volunteer work at the human hospital and her attempts to coax the bizarre plants in their front yard to produce flowers. She hadn’t changed a thing.

That fact puzzled Giyt quite a lot. He was sure that if he had some organism growing inside of him he would spend a lot of time staring into space and trying to feel the damn thing grow.

But Rina didn’t seem to be doing that. As far as he could tell she simply went on with her life just as before, as though this business of pregnancy were something, well, normal.

When it came time for the next Joint Governance Commission meeting, Giyt greeted it with pleasure. It was tangible work to do, and thus a relaxing change from worrying over the perils of approaching parenthood. Besides, he had some actual business to propose.

As he took his seat, the Petty-Prime Responsible One was already in the chair—well, in his tree—and fussily chirping for order. The Responsible One ran a tight meeting. All in favor of the municipal reports accepted as read, yes; all old business continued for next meeting, yes; then, if there is no new business—

That was when Giyt hastily put his hand up. “I have some new business, honored chairperson,” he said, and launched into his sales talk.

It didn’t go well. The other mayors listened tepidly, or more likely hardly listened at all, to his graphic description of the predators of Ocean. But when he reached the point of formally requesting permission to import a few weapons for the protection of downed chopper crews he had the commission’s instant attention. There was a mumbling from all five of the other seats, too low-pitched for the translator to make sense of, but the Slug had two limbs in the air before he finished speaking. “Is against all rules!” the Slug declared, slobbering at maximum volume. “No one imports weaponry to Peace Planet ever anyhow, for sure!”

Hagbarth’s briefing had prepared Giyt for that. “It is not a case of weapons, Principal Slug. It is merely for protection in case of accident. It is precisely analogous to the harpoons the Delts carry.”

And of course that got the Delt into it. “Not to be compared! Harpoons vital accessory for skimmers, for purpose providing protein to feed hungry persons.”

Giyt had an answer ready for that, too; surprisingly, someone else made it for him. It was the Petty-Prime chairperson who spoke up: “You have of skimmers, General Manager, only three in total. You have of self-launching harpoons more than one hundred eighty.”

“Needed! For spares in case of losses or damages, which are frequent! And, repeating remark already spoken here, are also used for fishing purposes, not merely protection, same as Kalkaboos.”