I Will Fear No Evil

"Through there and follow the signs. Good-bye, Eunice. Take care of yourself."

(Boss, that's either a new high or a new low. Was he kissing us? Or a billion dollars?) (It seemed to me—though I'm still learning compared with you two trollops—that the young man started out kissing a billion dollars... and wound up kissing Joan. Us. Quite well, too. Dears, I find that my animal nature has been considerably stirred—I'm looking forward to us being back in circulation again.) (Hell, yes, Jock darling, we all are. It occurs to me, Joan, that there must be lots of homesick out-migrants who will appreciate a simple country girl who learned clear back in junior high to kiss with her eyes closed and her lips open.) (Eunice, that's what I'm counting on. Seven billion people makes Earth a terribly lonely place...but there are only a few thousand on Luna and, if we try, we can get to know all of them and love most of them. What do you think, Jake?) (Joha

29

As re-reported in the Christian Science Monitor, Izvestia condemned the a

The Iowa State A

In Luna City Mrs. Salomon, as with everywoman, reached the end of her nine lunar months. Her lovely navel had long since extruded, her belly was an arching dome of life pushing up the sheet. She waited in the Community Hospital eight levels down. The nurse seated near her was pregnant also but not nearly so far along.

"Wi

"Yes, dear?"

"If it's a boy it must be Jacob Eunice... a girl must be Eunice Jacob. Promise me."

"I did promise, dear; I wrote it down as you asked me to. And I promised to take care of your baby—and that is all done, too, already recorded—I take care of yours, you take care of mine. Only we won't need to, dear; both of us are going to be all right—we'll raise them together."

"Promise me, it's important." (Joha

"I do promise you, Joan. Cross my heart."

"My sweet Winsome. We've come a long way together, you and I and Roberto."

"Yes, we have, dear."

"I'm ill. Am I not?"

"Joan, you're not ill. A woman never feels good just before she has a baby—I know, I've seen hundreds of them. I told you that tube was just for glucose."

"What tube? Wi

"—rejection syndrome, Doctor. Atypical but unmis­takable."

"Dr. Garcia, why do you say ‘atypical'?"

"Mmm. Sometimes, when she's irrational, she speaks in three different voices and—well, two of them are dead. Split personality."

"So? I'm not a psychiatrist, Dr. Garcia; ‘split personality' means little to me. But I don't see that it necessarily affects pregnancy. I've delivered some fine, healthy babies from women who were quite irrational."

"Nor am I a psychiatrist, sir. Let it stand that she is irrational much of the time... and that I see this as part of the total clinical picture, which—in my opinion—gives a prognosis of transplant rejection."

"Dr. Garcia, you know more about transplants than I do; I've never managed a transplant case in my life. But this patient seems in fair shape to me. Right here in this hospital I have seen women who appeared to be in much worse shape... who had their babies and were up and working in three days. With our low gravity they recover quickly. Did you think this patient was hurt on the trip up from Earth?"

"Oh, no! Those flotation, acceleration cells are wonderful. Mrs. Salomon rode in one, so did my wife. I monitored them; Joan took it even better than Wi

The older doctor shook his head. "This is a frontier, son. I'm not ru

"No. The best we could do would be to extend the time."

"So the literature says, but I wanted to hear you say it. Well, Doctor? Your patient"

"We take the baby."

"Let's get busy."

Joan Eunice came awake as they were wheeling her down the corridor. "Roberto?"