Podkayne of Mars

But I have wandered far from my tragic tale.

We aren't going to have twins.

We already have triplets.

Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon, throughout all my former life mere topics of conversation, are now Grace, Duncan, and Elspeth in all too solid flesh-unless Daddy again changes his mind before final registration; they've had three sets of names already. But what's in a name?-they are here, already in our home with a nursery room sealed on to shelter them... three helpless unfinished humans about canal-worm pink in color and no features worthy of the name. Their limbs squirm aimlessly, their eyes don't track, and a faint, queasy odor of sour milk permeates every room even when they are freshly bathed. Appalling sounds come from one end of each-in which they heterodyne each other-and even more appalling conditions prevail at

the other ends. (I've yet to find all three of them dry at the same time.)

And yet there is something decidedly engaging about the little things; were it not that they are the proximate cause of my tragedy I could easily grow quite fond of them. I'm sure Duncan is begi

But, if I am begi

First consequence: she won't even discuss going to Earth, with or without the triplets.

Second consequence: Daddy won't go if she won't go-he spoke quite sharply to Clark for even suggesting it.

Third consequence: since they won't go, we can't go. Clark and me, I mean. It is conceivably possible that I might have been permitted to travel alone (since Daddy agrees that I am now a "young adult" in maturity and judgment even though my ninth birthday lies still some months in the fttture), but the question is formal and without content since I am not considered quite old enough to accept full responsible control of my brother with both my parents some millions of kilometers away (nor am I sure that I would wish to, unless armed with something at least as convincing as a morning star) and Daddy is so dismayingly fair with that he would not even discuss permitting one of us to go and not the other when both of us had been promised the trip.

Fairness is a priceless virtue in a parent-but just at the moment I could stand being spoiled and favored instead.

But the above is why I am sure that Clark does not

have a time machine concealed in his wardrobe. This incredible contretemps, this idiot's dream of interlocking mishaps, is as much to his disadvantage as it is to mine.

How did it happen? Gather ye round- Little did we dream that, when the question of a family trip to Earth was being pla

In consequence, we Marsmen (not "Martians," please!-Martians are a non-human race, now almost extinct)-Marsmen tend to marry early, have a full quota of babies quickly, then rear them later, as money and time permit. It reconciles that discrepancy, so increasingly and glaringly evident ever since the Terran Industrial Revolution, between the best biological age for having children and the best social age for supporting and rearing them.

A couple named Breeze did just that, some ten years ago-married on her ninth birthday and just past his tenth, while he was still a pilot cadet and she was attending Ares U. They applied for three babies, were pegged accordingly, and got them all out of the way while they were both finishing school. Very sensible.

The years roll past, he as a pilot and later as master, she as a finance clerk in his ship and later as purser- a happy life. The spacelines like such an arrangement;

married couples spacing together mean a taut, happy ship.

Captain and Mrs. Breeze serve their ten-and-a-half (twenty Terran) years and put in for half-pay retirement, have it confirmed-and immediately radio the crèche to uncork their babies, all three of them.

The radio order is received, relayed back for confirmation; the crèche accepts it. Five weeks later the happy couple pick up three babies, sign for them, and start the second half of a perfect life.

So they thought- But what they had deposited was two boys and a

girl; what they got was two girls and a boy. Ours.

Believe this you must-it took them the better part of a week to notice it. I will readily concede that the difference between a brand-new boy baby and a brand-new girl baby is, at the time, almost irrelevant. Nevertheless there is a slight difference. Apparently it was a case of too much help-between a mother, a mother-in-law, a temporary nurse, and a helpful neighbor, and much ru

So we suddenly had month-old triplets.

The lawyer man from the crèche was very vague about how it happened; he obviously did not want to discuss how their "foolproof" identification system could result in such a mixup. So I don't know myself- but it seems logically certain that, for all their serial numbers, babies' footprints, record machines, et cetera, there is some point in the system where one clerk read aloud "Breeze" from the radioed order and

another clerk checked a file, then punched "Fries" into a machine that did the rest.

But the fixer man did not say. He was simply achingly anxious to get Mother and Daddy to settle out of court-accept a check and sign a release under which they agreed not to publicize the error.

They settled for three years of Mother's established professional earning power while the little fixer man gulped and looked relieved.

But nobody offered to pay me for the mayhem that had been committed on my life, my hopes, and my ambitions.

Clark did offer a suggestion that was almost a sensible one, for him. He proposed that we swap even with the Breezes, let them keep the warm ones, we could keep the cold ones. Everybody happy-and we all go to Earth.

My brother is far too self-centered to realize it, but the Angel of Death brushed him with its wings at that point. Daddy is a truly noble soul ... but he had had almost more than he could stand.

And so have I. I had expected today to be actually on my way to Earth, my first space trip farther than Phobos-which was merely a school field trip, our "Class Honeymoon." A nothing thing.

Instead, guess what I'm doing.

Do you have any idea how many times a day three babies have to be changed?