“No, Mamma, I’m sure you’re—you’re going to do fine.” Frank swallowed hard. “But if the baby is going to be so weak and small…!”
“We will take good care of it. Now do go and talk on the phone to Lalendi. Have sent a car. Get to help me a good English-type doctor and say what is the trouble. Once I saw in Lalendi a special cradle with very strong air in big cans which is good for babies.”
Christ. Long ago and far away before that damned Eugenics Board ruling, I was planning to have Sheena take hyperbaric oxygen therapy during the pregnancy …
But techniques like that seemed unbelievable in the setting of this village built of timber and scrap with only a handful of modern houses in the centre: the school, this bungalow, the clinic, the library … Even those not modern, slab-sided huts on a grand scale made of concrete in cheap standard panels. Here where TV was something the whole village gathered to watch in a sort of crude cinema, here where there was one phone, no street-lighting, nothing but fluorescents in the homes instead of luminous ceilings, no this, no that …
How many thousand years of history could a man bridge in a day? Here he stood, nominally a citizen of a country whose wealth made the fabled powers of antiquity seem like beggars, sharing with naked cavemen the same sense of terror before the incomprehensible process of man becoming man.
He looked at the window. The word had got around. In the rain, eyes large and round under their improvised hoods, the women of the village were gathering as though to join in the traditional rituals which he had seen accompanying all the births since his arrival. His fist clenched and began to rise, framing a threatening gesture to drive them away. It stopped at hip-height and the fingers straightened.
At home they denied me the right to be a father. It is not home any longer, cannot be. I’ve thrown in my lot with these people. I like them. Some of them are becoming good friends. If I have to suffer a few of the things they endure—well, a man must pay for what his heart desires …
He went to the door and stepped out. One of the women gathered called uncertainly the formula for good luck at the time of a birth: “Brother, may you have a child like Begi!”
He was not yet fluent in Shinka, though he had been studying it diligently in his limited spare time, but he had heard the ritual exchange often enough to give the traditional answer.
“Begi brought good fortune wherever he went—if he comes to us let all share the joy!”
They relaxed and grinned and nudged one another. He smiled back and added in English, “Here, don’t stand in the rain. Come up on the verandah.”
And there, pushing through the women from the far side, were Chief Letli and his oldest son, who both bore the remarkable name of Bruce after a District Officer who had once been stationed at Lalendi. The chief called out.
“Mr. Potter, you are going to the phone? There is no need—my son spoke to the hospital and they will send out a hovercraft with a nurse and all the medicines!”
For an instant the words did not register; he continued forward until he was about to step off the the verandah. Then he stopped dead.
But I didn’t even have to ask. I never thought of asking anyone to do it for me. Something’s wrong with me. In a time of trouble should people not be able to ask help without feeling demeaned?
He thought about that a lot while he was waiting by the bed for his child to emerge into the world.
* * *
It was a girl. She was still alive when they got her into the oxygen tent, and the nurse who had come from Lalendi did terrifying things with pipes and needles connected to a buzzing machine driven from the ambulance’s engine. The local women watched with awe, some of them praying audibly. Words like “intravenous nourishment” and “maintenance of the uterine environment” meant nothing to them, and little more to Frank. But eventually he understood that what was being done to the helpless mite was making her welcome in a hostile world, restoring her to the warmth and support she had enjoyed inside her mother’s body.
He said to Sheena, pale and weak, “It’s been a long time since the cavemen.”
She didn’t understand. But she smiled at him anyway.
continuity (42)
AND SAY WHICH SEED WILL GROW
Months had gone by since Norman had spared Donald more than a passing thought. He had wondered occasionally what had become of him; once, someone had commented on the political crisis developing between the States and Yatakang, which had briefly extended to a rupture of diplomatic relations and then somehow been smoothed over, and mentioned in passing the possible relevance of the backpedalling Engrelay Satelserv had indulged in to cover the cessation of the dispatches from Gongilung under Donald’s byline, which had begun spectacularly and ended even more so.
At that point Norman had made a mental note to try and find out, perhaps to ask Elihu to sound out State—and the next moment a problem had arisen and he had never acted on the intention.
Chad had said, rightly, that from now on Shalmaneser would be running Beninian affairs. But one could not abdicate all the responsibility to a machine. Some of it had to be processed, at least, by a human being empowered to make human decisions, and Norman was that person. For months he had moved in a state like a waking dream, barely concerned at what he ate or wore, impatient of his body when it grew tired, angry when its hormones imposed desires on him. All that counted was that the project should move smoothly, and in that at least he was well satisfied.
Ahead of schedule, they were transferring the control centre to an inflated dome on the outskirts of Port Mey. A new wide road connected it to the harbour, where dredgers had increased the draft of the ships it could accept by over a hundred per cent. Moles and sea-walls were going up: a colossal sludge-reservoir was being carved out of the coast a mile or two distant so that raw material from MAMP could be pumped up in slurry form through pipes bigger than a man was tall. Those pipes now were being reeled out on to the bed of the ocean by a fleet of five ships.
The proportion of coloured to white in Port Mey had suddenly been transformed as volunteers from a dozen countries outside Africa and GT staffers mingled with the natives. Housing developments, power-stations, vehicles, people—somehow, he had to keep their relationships clear in his mind.
So, when the message arrived on his desk one morning, he at first stared at it blankly.
Donald, it stated, had heard about the Beninia project and wanted to see it since it was being run by an old friend of his. Would Mr. House be so kind as to indicate whether a visit from Mr. Hogan would be convenient?
There was a signature appended. Also there was a call code—somewhere in Washington, by the pattern of the numbers. Norman told an operator to get him a circuit and went back to what he was doing.
Eventually the screen lit with a reply, on a poor satellite connection suffering much interference from a storm in progress. However, Norman could determine that he was speaking to someone in a hospital office, wearing a white coverall.
“I’m Dr. Oldham, Mr. House. I gathered you received my message about your friend Donald Hogan.”
“Yes, of course. What I wanted to know was why he has to go through you to find out if he can call on me? I’d be delighted to see him again.”
There was a pause. “I should perhaps explain,” Dr. Oldham said at length, “that I’m calling from St. Faith’s Hospital, not from Washington as you may have suspected from the code we use. I don’t know if the name means anything to you?”
Norman said slowly, “Yes, of course. You’re the army psychiatric centre, aren’t you?”
“That is correct.” Oldham coughed. “Your friend underwent some very disturbing experiences while he was in—ah—yes, of course, his presence in Yatakang was public knowledge, wasn’t it? To be candid, he’s been insane for a considerable time and he’s even now suffering from the after-effects. This was why I wanted to sound you out.”