If I was slower to come to incredulity than Anastasia (whom I heard make an instant noise of dismay), it was not because I misinterpreted the phrase "gone all the way," but rather because my origin, my experiences, and my knowledge of Anastasia's past, for example, prevented me from grasping at once that by "never with a man" Miss Hector meant "never with a male of any species."
"When I learned I was pregnant, I blamed it on Max Spielman," she went on to say, "because I knew nobody would believe the truth, and I thought Dr. Spielman might love me enough to take the blame and marry me, even though he'd think it was another man's child. But he didn't, and that was that."
How I longed to tell her immediately the truth of Max's love and honor, so great that it was just her refusal to admit infidelity that had kept him from wedding her! But Anastasia — with a kind of tired incuriosity now, as if she knew in advance what the reply would be — asked then who was her father.
"Your father?" The question appeared to surprise Miss Hector; I tried to recall which word she'd accented, and couldn't. She announced then, as one might read from a page: "Max never would, and Eblis couldn't've if I'd wanted him to. It was WESCAC."
To hear this confirmation from the lady's own lips made me thrill; but Anastasia said disgustedly: "Oh, Mother!"
Miss Hector went on undaunted — indeed, unhearing: "Eblis warned me it could happen, and when they fed in the finished GILES he told me I was one of the ones WESCAC had in mind, you might say. I was in love with Max then, and as I said, I'd never gone all the way with anyone, though I suppose I would have with Max if he'd wanted to. Wait, let me finish…" Anastasia had made a little rustle of despair. "I'd been Miss NTC and Miss University, you know, just as you were — and, my sakes, weren't you lovely the day they capped you! Well…"
She herself had been a vain creature, Miss Hector was afraid, as flattered by WESCAC's election as by the student body's in terms before; and though she wouldn't for a minute consent to the sort of thing that "Eblis" hinted at, any more than any self-respecting girl would have, she'd found herself feeling self-conscious and a little proud whenever she walked past WESCAC's facility in the laboratories of the Cum Laude Project — as if the computer knew it was she and would have whistled if it could. Then one fateful spring evening she'd stayed late to file some data-papers for Dr. Eierkopf at the laboratory (where she'd worked during a temporary furlough from her Library post), and being the last to leave except for the night security-guards, had crossed the hall from her office to make certain that the door to the computer-room was locked…
"It was, just as it should have been," she said. "And I started to go; but then — maybe I thought I heard something peculiar, a singing-noise or something; maybe not, I don't know. Anyhow I came back to the door, and for some reason or other I unlocked it and went inside… just to check, I suppose; or maybe some impulse… I was upset about Max's attitude, I remember…"
Her narrative grew less coherent here, until she'd got herself inside the computer-room and closed the door behind her — for what reason, she didn't recall or couldn't articulate, any more than she could explain why she'd not turned the lights on, or why she'd left the doorway and approached the main console, which whirred quietly as always, day and night, and winked on every side its warm gold lights, as if in greeting.
"I thought I'd just sit in the control-chair a minute," she said; "it was awfully peaceful in there; you've no idea. I could've dozed right off — maybe I did, for a second or two. But then… oh dear, it's not easy to describe how it was!"
The task indeed was difficult, and though her voice rose with a quiet joy as she spoke, so that every word came clearly through the door (despite an increased noise, like cheering, from the crowd outside), I cannot say I followed precisely her account. She had felt a kind of warmth, it seemed — penetrating, almost electrical — that tingled through every limb and joint and relaxed her utterly, as though all the muscles in her body had melted. This sensation had come on quickly, I gathered, but so subtly that she'd not at first realized it was external, and credited it to her fatigue and the extraordinary comfort of the molded chair. Only when the panel-lights ceased to wink and began instead to pulse together in a golden ring did she associate her sensation with WESCAC; even then she failed to comprehend its significance: her first thought was to move lest the tingling be some accidental radiation. But she did not, or could not, even when the whir changed pitch and timbre, grew croonish, and a scanner swung noiselessly down before her; even when, as best I could make out, the general warmth commenced to focus, until she'd thought her lap must burn.
"It seems gradual when I tell it," she said, "but it must have been very quick. Because just when I opened my mouth — to call for help, I guess, because I felt fastened, even though I guess I wasn't — anyhow, I just had time to draw one deep breath… and it was over."
"Over?" Anastasia echoed my own surprise; though she'd heard the story all her life, and assumed it was some unhappy delusion of her mother's, she'd evidently not heard it till now in such detail.
"It was all over," her mother repeated. "In no time at all. The scanner went away; the panel-lights and the humming went back to normal; I could move my arms and legs again. I'd have thought I dreamt the whole thing — just as everyone else thinks I did, if they believe I was there at all — but I still felt tender from the heat. You know. And when I went to get up I felt some wetness there — all of a sudden, this wetness. And as soon as I felt it, and moved, and felt it clear on up, I realized something had gone all the way — - and it would have to be the GILES."
Despite her certainty, however — which I was in better position to share than Anastasia — Miss Hector had said nothing of the marvelous incident to anyone, even when the GILES was found missing next morning and Dr. Eierkopf had pressed her closely on her evening's work. Not until the fact of her pregnancy was unquestionable — and unconcealable — had she confessed it in a panic to her father, the then Chancellor; and not until he insisted that an abortion be performed at once, lest the scandal bring down his administration, had she realized the extraordinary value of what she carried. She'd told Reginald Hector the truth then, and been denounced as a liar; had persisted and been accused of hysteria; and finally, with the consequences I'd heard of from their victim, had chosen to name Max as the man responsible.
"But it wasn't Max, and it wasn't Eblis, or any other human person," she said quietly, when Anastasia voiced a discreet incredulity. "It was WESCAC. And it was the GILES, Founder pass us! Your Grandpa Reg knew it, too, in his heart — why else would he fire Eblis and end the Cum Laude Project? But he'd never admit it — even though the doctor had to dilate the hymen to examine me."
"He didn't!"
"Indeed he did," she insisted. "If he hadn't passed on he'd tell you himself: old Dr. Mayo. It was the baby itself that finally broke it, being born; before that it was just stretched a little — not near enough for a man, you know."
In response to further questions from Anastasia, she affirmed what I knew already: that the birth had taken place secretly one winter night in Ira Hector's hospital for unwed co-eds, with Ira himself presiding. And then, to my unspeakable delight, she went on to confirm what Max and I had once imagined (along with many an alternative) long before, out in the barns:
"Your Grandpa Reg was so afraid of the scandal, he didn't know what to do! When I wouldn't have an abortion, he kept changing his mind, all the time I was pregnant: one day I'd have to give it out for adoption anonymously; the next day we'd have to put it away secretly somehow; then it was no, there'd be worse trouble if that ever got out: we'd have to keep it and take the consequences, or call it Uncle Ira's foster-child…" So mercurial was he on the subject, she said, and desperate to avoid exposure of their shame, she came to fear he might take measures to destroy the child without her knowledge…