Minerva, by my figures Llita was about ten days late-which did not worry them, as I had been carefully vague about it, and worried me only a touch, as she checked out normal and healthy in all respects. I prepared them not only with instruction and drill, but also with hypnosis, and had prepared her with exercises designed to make it as easy on her as possible-I dislike postpartum repairs; that canal should stretch, not tear.

What was really fretting me was possibility that I was going to have to break the neck of a monster, Kill a baby, I mean- I shouldn't dodge the blunt truth. All calculations I had done one sleepless night still left this chance open-and if I had been wrong in any assumption, the chance might be higher than I like to think about.

If I had to do it, I wanted to get it over with.

I was far more worried than she was. I don't think she worried at all; I had worked hard on that hypnotic preparation.

If I had to do this grisly thing, I was going to have to do it fast, while their attentions were elsewhere-then never let them see it and space the pitiful remains at once. Then tackle the horrid job of trying to put them back together emotionally. As a married couple? I did not know. Maybe I would have an opinion after I saw what she was carrying.

At last her contractions were coming close together, so I had them get into the delivery chair-easy, one-quarter gravity. The chair was already adjusted, and they were used to the position, from drill. Joe climbed in, sat with his thighs stretched wide, knees over the rests, heels braced-not too comfortable as he was not angleworm-limber the way she was. Then I picked her up and sat her in his lap-no trouble, she weighed less than forty pounds at that pseudo-acceleration. Call it eighteen kilos.

She spread her legs almost in a horizontal split and scooted forward in his lap while Joe kept her from falling between his thighs. "Is that far enough, Captain?" she asked.

"Just fine," I said. The chair might have positioned her a touch better-but she would not have had Joe's arms around her. I had never told them that there was any other way to do it. "Give her a kiss, Joe, while I get the straps."

Left knee strap around both their left knees together, same for right knees, and with her feet braced on additional supports I had added-chest and shoulder and thigh straps on him so firmly that he would stay in that chair even if the ship fell apart, but no such straps on her. Her hands on the hand grips, while his hands and arms were a living, warm, and loving safety belt, just under her tits, just over the bulge but not on it. He knew how, we had practiced. If I wanted pressure on her belly, I would tell him-otherwise leave well enough alone.

My stool was bolted to the deck, I had added a seat belt. As I strapped myself down, I reminded them that we had a rough ride coming-and this we had not been able to practice; it would have risked miscarriage. "Lock your fingers, Joe, but let her breathe. Comfortable, Llita?"

"Uh-" she said breathlessly. "I-I'm starting another one!"

"Bear down, dear!" I made sure my left foot - was positioned for the gravistat control and watched her belly.

Big one! As it peaked, I switched from one-quarter gravity up to two gravities almost in one motion-and Llita let out a yip and the baby squirted like a watermelon seed right into my hands.

I dragged my foot back to allow the gravistat to put us back on low gee even as I made a nearly instantaneous inspection of the brat. A normal boy, red and wrinkled and ugly-so I slapped his tochis and he bawled.

VARIATIONS ON A THEME-VIII

Landfall

(Omitted)

-girl I had intended to marry had married again and had another baby. Not surprising; I had been off Landfall two standard years. Not tragic, either, as we had been married once about a hundred years earlier. Old friends. So I talked it over with her and her new husband, then married one of her granddaughters, one not descended from me. Both gals Howards, of course, and Laura, the one I married that time, being of the Foote Family.* (* Correction: Hedrick Family. This woman Laura (one of the ancestors of the undersigned) did carry the surname "Foote" under the archaic patriliheal tradition-a source of confusion in old records, as the more logical matrilineal system has always been used in the Families in assigning clan membership. But the genealogies were not revised to show this until Gregorian Year 3307. This misnomer offers a means of dating this memoir...were it not that other records show that reindeer were not introduced onto Valhalla until approximately a century and a half after the date that the Senior- beyond question-did marry Laura Foote-Hedrick.

But more interesting is the Senior's allegation that he used a pseudogravity field in that year to facilitate childbirth. Was he the first tocologist to use this (now standard) method? Nowhere does he assert this, and the technique - is usually associated with Dr. Virginius Briggs of Secundus Howard Clinic and a much later date. J.F. 45th)

We were a good match, Minerva; Laura was twenty, and I was freshly rejuvenated and holding my cosmetic age at the early thirties. We had several children-nine, I think- then she got bored with me forty-odd years later, and wanted to marry my 5th/7th cousin* * (* *And descended from the Senior as well (through Edmund Hardy 2099-2259) although the Senior may not have been aware of it. J.F. 45th) Roger Sperling-which did not grieve me as I was getting restless as a country squire. Anyhow, when a woman wants to go, let her go. I stood up for her at their wedding.

Roger was surprised to learn that my plantation was not community property. Or possibly did not think that I would hold Laura to the marriage settlement she had signed-but that wasn't the first time I had been wealthy; I had learned. It took a tedious suit to convince him that Laura owned her wedding dower plus appreciation, not those thousands of hectares that were mine before I married her. In many ways it is simpler to be poor.

Then I shipped out again.

But this is about my kids who weren't really mine. Before we reached Landfall, Joseph Aaron Long looked more like a cherub and less like a monkey but was still young enough to wet on anyone reckless enough to pick him up-which his grandpappy did, several times a day. I was fond of him; he was not only a merry baby but was also, to me, a most satisfying triumph.

By the time we grounded, his father had shaped up into a really good cook.

Minerva, I could have set those kids up in style; that was as profitable a triangle trip as I ever made. But you don't cause ex-slaves to stand tall and free and proud by giving them things. What I did was to enable them to get out and scratch. Like this- I credited them with half-time apprentice wages, Blessed to Valhalla, on the assumption that their other half-time was taken up by studies. This I had Llita figure in Valhalla kroner, at Valhalla wage rates. I had her add to this Joe's wages as kitchen help on Valhalla, minus what he had spent there. This total was credited to them as a share in cargo on the third leg, Valhalla to Landfall-which amounted to less than one-half of 1 percent of that cargo. I made Llita work this out.

To this we added ship's-cook wages for Joe, Valhalla to Landfall, payable in Landfall bucks at Landfall wage scales- but only as wages not as a share in cargo. I had to explain to Llita why Joe's wages for that leg could not be invested retroactively in cargo lifted at Valhalla. Once she understood it, she had a grasp of the notions of venture and risk and profit-but I did not pay her for this accounting I was durned if I would pay purser's wages to figure her own money when I was not only having to check everything she did but was giving her a lesson in economics as well.