"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?) (Johann, we can try. We will. Wups, here's our first stop. ‘Physical.' Goose bumps and indignities. But what the hell?—somebody kissed us good-bye.)

29

As re-reported in the Christian Science Monitor, Izvestia condemned the announcement (Daily Selenite, year 35, day 69) of the Lunar Commission's call for proposal studies for terraforming Ganymede as "one more provocative example of the insatiable territorial aggressions of the mad-dog alliance of the two major imperialist, coun­terrevolutionary, genocidal powers, the United States of America and the so-called People's Democratic Republic of China and demanded that the UN Security Council take action before it was too late. In Sequoia National Park three families (or possibly one extended family) were discovered living two hundred feet up in a giant redwood. The group (seven adults, five children—two less than a year old) claimed to have been up the tree more than three years; extensive arrangements for their unique style of living lent substance to the claim. They were booked on a variety of charges but the U.S. district attorney declined to prosecute: "I ain't about to waste my time and taxpayers' money on a bunch of monkeys. Let's chase ‘em back up the tree!"

The Iowa State Annual Picnic in Long Beach, California, suffered 243 cases of acute food poisoning (botulism-D), 17 muggings, 3 rapes, and was rained out. "—from the great State of New York knows that slum clearance is no answer. Must we hear the death rattle before we admit that any organism, be it man, or city, or civilization, in time grows old and dies?" In a letter in Nature (UK) it was claimed that scientists in Novosibirsk had solved both the problem of twinning replication and of extrauterine fetal development in vitro and must now be reckoned as back in the Great Powers race with a potentially unlimited supply of workers, soldiers, and peasants. An editorial in the same issue urged the Nobel letter-writer to give up writing science-fiction or at least change his brand of hashish. Debate on proposed legislation for control of neo-psychedelics continued: "Has the gentleman on the other side of the aisle ever given thought to the potentially disastrous effect on our economy of actually enforcing the narcotics laws we already have? Or is he talking for the video audience?" Experienced observers predicted no vote this session.

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.

"Winnie?"

"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." (Johann, don't name that baby ‘Jake.' Call him ‘Johann—'Johann Eunice.') (Jake, I will not load down a boy with, ‘Johann'—it forced me to learn to fight too young) (Jock, don't argue with Boss. She's always right, you know that.) (Then call him ‘John!') (His name is ‘Jacob,' Jake—I won't have it any other way.) (Joan, you're the most stubborn old bastard in the entire Solar System—and turning you into a woman didn't change you. All right already!) (I love you, my husband.) (We both love you, Boss—and Jake is as proud about the names as am.)

"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? Winnie, come close and listen. This is important. My baby's name must be…"

"—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 Winnie did. I envied them, as I found the ride in a standard chair pretty rough. No, I see no connection; rejection symptoms did not show until this week." Garcia frowned. "She doesn't know that her mind isn't clear—she's lucid off and on. But motor control is decaying. That strong young body sustains her metabolism—but truthfully, Doctor, I can't guess how long." He frowned again. "It could let go any moment—damn it, I wish I had proper support equipment!"

The older doctor shook his head. "This is a frontier, son. I'm not running down your specialty—but this is not the place for it. Here we set bones and take out appendixes and try to keep contagious diseases from racing through the colony. But when it comes time to die, we die—you, me, anybody—and get out of the way of the living. Now suppose we had all of Johns Hopkins here with Jefferson Medical thrown in—could you stop it? Reverse it? Possibility of spontaneous remission if you had your fancy support equipment?"

"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?"