“Is there a terminal I can use?” Theresa asked a woman who might have been a nurse, or a cleaning lady, or a murderer. Government regulatory agencies had all but disappeared. Ordinarily Theresa never thought about this; it was a given. But now she was seeing things through Lillie’s eyes.
The terminal was even older than the one at the farm, and slower. Theresa had few contacts on the local Net site, and none in the UnderNet, that shadowy information reached only through secret data atolls that changed constantly. But Scott had told her what to do, although he wouldn’t do it from the farm computer. “Too dangerous,” he’d said, without explaining.
“There’s no one to enforce laws,” Theresa had told Madison, but that wasn’t strictly true. There were organizations as shadowy as the UnderNet, vigilantes and religious groups and supremacist groups and anti-science groups and God-knew-what-all. The religious groups were the least vicious but the most pervasive. A vindictive God was apparently a great comfort to some when the planet itself seemed to turn vindictive. Theresa didn’t understand the reasoning, but it was widespread enough to earn respectful caution.
Nonetheless, she found an abortionist in Amarillo, messaged with her, and set up an appointment for Madison and Jessie. More credit spent, plus three more train tickets. Although only Theresa’s would be round-trip. Still, facing Senni would be no fun.
Theresa walked back to the living room. None of the old people had changed position or expression. She took a chair and pulled out the sewing she’d brought. They couldn’t start back until sunset, when the wind would die down. Trips away from the farm were usually measured in day-long units.
Maybe Lillie would want to stay here with Keith. Work for room and board, one less mouth to feed at the farm… until the triplets were born. If Keith lasted that long.
She started sewing a maternity dress for Emily.
“I asked to stay there,” Lillie said on the way home. The sky had clouded over, and Theresa was pushing the horse to make the farm before all light faded. She had a halogen torch but hoped to save it. They had spent a few hours in Wenton, checking on the kids working there to earn tickets home: Bonnie, Sophie, Julie, Jason, Derek, Mike. Julie had cried when Lillie and Theresa left.
Theresa said, “Why didn’t you stay in Amarillo, then?”
“Uncle Keith said no.”
“Did he say why?”
“He wants me with you and Scott. He said he can’t help me if anything goes even a little bit wrong, and you can.”
“That’s sensible.”
“I won’t see him again, I don’t think,” Lillie said. “He’s close to dying.”
Theresa didn’t deny it. “You can keep in touch on the Net.”
“It isn’t the same.”
Of course not. Nothing was the same. The horse plodded through the pearly, inadequate light.
“Tess,” Lillie said after a long while, “I don’t want to be a mother.”
Not Lillie, too. “Are you saying you want an abortion?”
“No. I talked it over with Uncle Keith and… no. He said I don’t understand now how precious the continuing of life is, but I will someday.”
Theresa thought of Jody, Carlo, Spring, and her dead daughter. Of Senni and Dolly and the child Senni carried. Yes.
“Maybe he’s right,” Lillie said, with her odd mix of measured judiciousness and child’s complaint, “but I don’t want to be a mother anyway. I’m not interested in babies. And I don’t think… I don’t think I can love them like Uncle Keith loved me.”
Theresa suddenly saw that this was true. Lillie was too detached, or too young, or too something. She was many good qualities, but not tender.
“We’ll all help you,” Theresa said, inwardly groaning. More work.
“Thank you. And I’ll do the best I can. For Uncle Keith.”
The light was gone. Theresa switched on the torch. A sudden breeze brought a faint, pungent odor, and she gave a cry of pleasure. Cattle. Her sons were home!
Her heart lifted, and the night seemed much brighter.
The abortionist operated in a clean, windowless basement divided by curtains into “rooms.” Theresa brought Jessica, defiant, and Madison, scared, on the Wednesday train. “If you would help, we wouldn’t have to do this,” she told Scott accusingly before they left.
He didn’t meet her eyes. “I can’t. I know you don’t understand, Theresa.”
“Fucking right I don’t. This woman isn’t even an M.D. And you of all people should know that a bunch of genes aren’t sacred!”
Scott lost his temper. “It’s because I know how temporary a ‘bunch of genes,’ as you disparagingly call it, can be that I believe what I do! Those are people those girls are carrying, damn it, no matter what you say! If those engineered babies aren’t people, then neither are you or me!”
“Shut up, they’ll hear you in there. So what are you going to do, Scott, alert a vigilante religious group? Abortions in progress! Murder the killers so they can’t murder a bunch of non-breathing tissue!”
Scott turned away. “Let me be, Theresa. You know damn well I won’t say anything to anybody. But let me have my beliefs. You have yours.”
“Mine don’t make two frightened girls spread their legs for an unlicensed stranger.”
“Let me be!”
“Okay, Scott,” Theresa said wearily. “I’ll let you be. I need you. The other girls need you. Just so long as you know that you’re clinging to a selfish, irrational, superstitious belief for your own comfort, no matter who else suffers.”
Scott strode away, toward the open range. Almost sunrise—he shouldn’t go too far. Fuck it. Let him get lost and roast in the sun that was as unrelenting as he was.
In Amarillo, Theresa waited upstairs with Madison while the abortionist took Jessica downstairs. Jessica, her bravado stretched thin, scowled and tossed her head. Madison sat completely still, saying nothing, eyes wide and frozen.
“Maddy,” Theresa said, the old name rising, unbidden, from some well of memory, “it won’t hurt. She has good equipment and reasonable pharms.” Which was why it cost so much.
Madison didn’t answer.
Half an hour later they were called down. Jessica lay on a mattress on the floor, covered with a light blanket. She was smiling. “I’m all right.”
‘Yes,” Theresa said, wondering what she was feeling. She had borne five children, all joyously. Even Spring, born in such a hard time that the season he was named for had been the only good thing happening anywhere around Theresa.
“And I’m not pregnant,” Jessie said, without ambivalence.
“It went very well,” the woman said crisply. “She can travel in a few hours, I think. Do you want the tissue?”
“No!” Theresa said.
The woman shrugged. “Some people do. Now you, young lady. This way.”
“Wait,” Theresa said, “I do want it.” She needed to look. She knew what a three-month fetus looked like; this was her only chance to see if what the girls carried was indeed normal, or if it was some sort of… what?
The woman pointed to another curtain and led Madison away.
Theresa made herself go through the curtain. A dark blue plastic box sat on a table, its cover beside it. She peered in, and her eyes filled with relieved tears. Normal.
She should take one of the fetuses for Scott, she realized belatedly. He would want the genes. No, he wouldn’t, not this way… not Scott. Or would he? Which was stronger, the religious or the scientist?