"I raised four of the kids Roger had by his second wife- she is a medical doctor and needed a resident grandmother. I got three of them married off, all but the baby, who is now chief surgeon at Ceres General and may never get married as he is handsome and quite self-centered and believes the old saw about 'Why keep a cow?'
"Then I started taking the vegetable compound, and here I am, fertile again and ready to raise another family." She smiled and patted her belly. "Let's go back to bed."
"God damn it, wench; that won't solve anything!"
"No, but it's a swell way to pass the time. And sometimes it puts a stop to recurrent bleeding. Which reminds me- If Gretchen ever shows up, I won't interfere a second time. I just did not fancy having my great great granddaughter crowding in on my honeymoon-a honeymoon already crowded by too many people and too much excitement."
"Gretchen is just a child."
"You think so? She is physically as mature as I was at fourteen... when I married and got pregnant at once. Virgin at marriage, Richard; happens oftener here than anywhere else. Mama Mimi was strict and Mama Wyoh was charged with keeping an eye on me, and I wasn't inclined to stray anyhow, as the Davis family was socially as high as you could be in Luna City in those days and I appreciated having been adopted by them. Beloved, I'm not going to tell you another word about me until you check my chop and print on the Declaration. I can feel your disbelief... and it humiliates me."
(What do you do when your wife persists? Marriage is the greatest human art.. .when it works.) "Sweetheart, I don't want to humiliate you. But I'm not competent to match thumb-prints. But there is more than one way to cook a wolf. This second wife of your son Roger: Is she still alive?"
"Very much so. Dr. Edith Stone."
"Then there is probably a record right here in Luna City of her marriage to your son and- Is he the Roger Stone who was once mayor?"
"Yes. From 2122 to 2130. But he's not available; he left here in 2148."
"Where is he now?"
"Several light years away. Edith and Roger out-migrated, to Fiddler's Green. None of that branch of my family is around any longer. It won't work, dear-you're looking for someone who can identify me as Hazel Stone. Aren't you?"
"Well... yes. I thought Dr. Edith Stone would be an expert and unbiased witness."
"Mmm,.. she still can be."
"How?"
"Blood typing, Richard."
"Look, Gwen, blood typing is a subject I've had to know something about, because of field surgery. I saw to it that every man in my regiment was typed. Blood typing can show who you are not; it cannot prove who you are. In a number as small as a regiment even the rare AB negative will be matched more than once; they run one in two hundred. I remember because I am one."
She nodded agreement. "And I'm 0 positive, the commonest type of all. But that's not the whole story. If you type for all thirty-odd blood groups, a blood type is as unique as a fingerprint or a retinal pattern. Richard, during the Revolution lots of our people died because they had not been blood-typed. Oh, we knew how to transfuse blood but safe donors could be found only by cross-matching, then and there. Without typing this was often too slow; many-no, most-of our wounded who needed blood died because a donor could not be identified in time.
"After peace and independence Mama Wyoh-Wyoming Knott Davis, the hospital in Kong-you know?"
"I noticed."
"Mama Wyoh had been a professional host mother, in Kong, and knew about such things. She started the first blood bank, with money raised by Major Watenabe, another Founding Father. There may be a half liter of my blood frozen in Kong even today... but what is certain is that a complete typing of my blood is on file there, because Edith saw to it that each one of us had a full typing, all known groups, before we all started a Wanderjahr in 2148."
Gwen smiled happily. "So take a sample of my blood, Richard; have it typed at Galileo University Medical Center. Get a full work-up, I'll pay for it. Compare it with my typing done in 2148, filed at Wyoming Knott Memorial. Anyone who can read English can tell whether or not the two work-ups match;
it doesn't take the sort of expertise required to match fingerprints. If that doesn't say I am me, then send for a straitjacket;
it'll be time to put me away."
"Gwen, we're not going back to Kong. Not for anything."
"No need to. We pay the blood bank at Galileo to have a transcript from Kong printed out by terminal." Her face clouded. "But it will blow my cover as Mistress Novak. Once those two records are side by side they'll know that Grandmother Hazel has returned to the scene of her crimes. I don't know what that will do to my mission; it was not supposed to happen. But I do know that convincing you is absolutely essential to my mission."
"Gwen, assume that you've convinced me."
'Truly, dear? You wouldn't lie to me?"
(Yes, I would, little love. But I must admit that your words are persuasive. All that you have said matches my own careful study of Lunar history... and you deal with little details as if you had been there. It all is convincing but the physical impossibility-you are young, darling; you are not an old crone of more than a century.) "Sweetheart, you've given me two positive ways to identify you. So let's assume that I've checked out one or the other or both. Let's stipulate that you're Hazel. Do you prefer to be called Hazel?"
"I answer to both names, darling. Suit yourself."
"All right. The sticky point is your appearance. If you were old and dried up instead of young and juicy-"
"Are you complaining?"
"No. Merely descriptive. Stipulating that you are Hazel Stone, bom 2063, how do you account for your youthful appearance? And don't give me any guff about a legendary patent medicine."
"You'll find the truth hard to believe, Richard. I have undergone rejuvenation. Twice in fact. The first time to bring me back in appearance to late middle age... while restoring my bodily economy to youthful maturity. The second time was mostly cosmetic, to make me desirable in appearance. To recruit you, sir."
"Be damned. Monkey face, is that your own face?"
"Yes. It can be changed if you would like me to look otherwise."
"Oh, no! I'm not one to insist on prettiness as long as a girl's heart is pure."
"Why, you louse!"
"But since your heart isn't all that pure, it's nice that you're pretty."
"You can't talk yourself out of it that easily!"
"Okay, you're gorgeous and sexy and evil. But 'rejuvenation' explains without explaining. So far as I've ever heard, rejuvenation is for flatworms but not for anything higher up the evolutionary ladder."
"Richard, this part you'll have to take on faith-for now, at least. I was rejuvenated at a clinic a couple of thousand years away and in an odd direction."
"Hmm. It sounds like a gimmick I might have dreamed up when I was writing fantasies."
"Yes, it does, doesn't it? Not convincing. Merely true."
"So I see no way to investigate it. Perhaps I'll have to get that blood-type transcript. Uh- Hazel Stone, Roger Stone- The Scourge of the Spaceways!"
"My God, my past has caught up with me! Richard, did you ever watch my show?"
"Every episode, unless I had been caught doing something that called for drastic punishment. Captain John Sterling was my childhood hero. And you wrote it?"
"My son Roger started it. I started writing it in 2148 but I didn't put my name on it until the following year-then it was 'Roger and Hazel Stone'-"
"I remember! But I don't remember that Roger Stone ever wrote it by himself."
"Oh, yes, he did-until he got tired of the golden treadmill. I took it over from him, intending to kill it off-"