“Graham?” The doctor stood up. “All I can do is try to get him on our side. He’s friendly anyhow; he asked me to have supper with him Out of his private stock of genuine synthetic Earthside protein.”
“You don’t sound too hopeful,” Gracey ventured.
“I’m not. Did I tell you what his favorite story is so far? Brownies!”
“You mean he’s passing up a yarn like the killing at Pittco, and he wants to write about Brownies?” Nick asked incredulously.
“You think he’s going to step on Pittco’s toes?” Tony retorted. “Not that smart boy! Okay, I might as well get back and make my try.” He started across the darkening desert, and Nick fell into step beside him.
“Why don’t you come along?” the doctor suggested. “Maybe you could talk his language better than I do. You might get a decent meal out of it, too.”
“It’s a thought. A good one. Only Marian’s probably got supper all ready by now. I better check in at home first. I don’t know—would you say it was official Council business?”
“That’s between you and your hunger,” the doctor told him. “What do you want most—meat or Marian?”
“Damned if I know,” Nick admitted, grinning.
“Doc!” It was Jim Kandro, running down the street toward them. “Hey, Tony! I just came from the hospital—looking all over . . .”
“What’s up?”
“The baby! He’s having convulsions.”
“I’ll go right over. Pick up my bag at the hospital, will you?”
JIM set off in one direction, and Tony in the other. “See you later,” Nick called out to the doctor’s rapidly retreating back.
At the Kandros, he found Polly, near-hysterical, with a struggling infant in her arms. Sunny was obviously in acute discomfort; the veins were standing out on his fuzzy scalp, he was struggling and straining feebly, his belly was distended and his cheeks puffed out uncomfortably.
“How’s he been eating?” the doctor demanded, scrubbing his hands.
“The way you saw before,” said Polly. “Better and better, but just the way you saw before, wiggling and pushing so half the time he was sucking on nothing at all. He was crying and crying, so I fed him three or four times and each time he got more—”
She fell silent as Tony picked up the baby and patted and stroked it. It burped loudly. The alarming red color faded and the tense limbs relaxed. With a whimper Sunny collapsed on the doctor’s shoulder and fell asleep before he was back in his crib.
“But you said—” Polly gasped. “I guess Sunny didn’t hear me,” Tony said.
“Here you are, Doc.” Jim came in and looked from Polly’s empty arms to the quiescent baby in the crib. “‘I guess you didn’t need the bag. What was it?”
“Colic,” Tony grinned. “Good, old-fashioned, Earthside colic.”
“But you told me . . .” Jim turned accusingly on his wife.
“And I told Polly,” Tony put in quickly. ”It doesn’t usually happen. Babies don’t have to be burped on Mars—most of them, that is. The mask feeds richer air into a Mars baby’s nose so he just naturally breathes through his nose all the time and doesn’t swallow air and get colic when he feeds. But I guess Sunny had his heart set on a bellyache. Was he crying when he fed, Polly?”
“Why, yes, a little bit. Not really crying, a kind of whimper every now and then.”
“That could explain it. All right, now you know it isn’t serious. Just be sure to bubble him after feeding. Thank the Lord he’s nursing. That young man of yours gave us all a bad time, but I think we’re out of the woods now.”
Sunny was going to be all right; for the first time, Tony really believed it.
Somehow that changed the whole dismal picture.
iii
TONY entered his own house and found Graham still sitting in front of his typewriter, not writing now, but reading through a pile of onionskin pages.
“Hi. I was waiting for you.” The journalist looked pleased with himself. “I’ll fix us some sandwiches if you’ll do something about that coffee of yours. When you make it, it’s almost drinkable.”
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Tony called out.
“Oh, am I busting in on something?” Nick asked innocently.
“No, of course not. Glad to see you. Doug, this is Nick Cantrella.
I don’t know if you met him before. He’s in charge of maintenance and equipment in the Lab, and a member of our Council. Nick, you know who Doug Graham is.”
“Uh-huh. My rival. My wife’s only true love.”
“And you should see his wife,” Tony added.
“This gets more and more interesting. You’re not married to that lady pilot by any chance?” Graham extended a greasy hand. “No? Too bad. Join us? We’re eating meat!”
“Don’t mind if I do. How’s the baby, Tony? Anything really wrong?”
“Yes and no. Colic. Good old colic,” the doctor gloated. “It shouldn’t happen, but, by God, it’s something I know how to cope with; I think the kid’s going to be all right. Coffee’s ready. Where’s the food?”
They munched sandwiches, and had “coffee” which Graham pronounced a very slight improvement over his own efforts. The two Sun Lakers were more than happy with it; it was sweetened with gratings from a brick of sugar produced by the gunther from his wonder-packed luggage. The same suitcase turned out to hold another bottle of Earthside liquor, and Graham poured drinks all around.
“It’s a celebration,” the writer insisted, when Tony, remembering his hangover, would have demurred. “I got a week’s work done today. Whole first chapter—complete draft of the trip out and impressions of Marsport!” He fanned out a sheaf of pages covered with single-spaced typing, and corked the bottle.
Nick took a long deep swallow, settled back blissfully on the bunk where he was sitting. “Marcaine,” he said at last. “That could explain it.”
“What?”
“I’ve been sitting here imagining I was eating meat and drinking whiskey. Can you beat that?” He sipped more slowly this time, savoring the drink, and said determinedly to Graham, “You’re just about up to Sun Lake in your notes then?”
“That’s right,” Graham said. In the silence that followed, he asked brightly: “Say, aren’t you the guy who saw the brownie tracks.”
“Brownie tracks? Who, me? You’re sure you weren’t thinking of unicorns?”
“Do unicorns leave little footprints?”
“Oh, that. Yeah, I saw something out around the caves in the Rimrock Hills. That’s where the kids take the goats to graze.”
“Are they allowed to go barefoot around there?” Graham asked.
“Allowed!” Nick exploded.
“You haven’t been ten years old for quite a long time, have you? How much attention do you think they pay?”
QUITE a bit, Tony thought, remembering his talk with Tad, but he didn’t bring it up. Out loud he said: “I’ve got a theory about that. I’ve been thinking about it since last night, Doug. Maybe you can use it in your book.” It wasn’t smart, maybe, to keep riding the writer about it, but he’d had enough of brownies for awhile. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think some kids who weren’t supposed to do it went exploring in a cave, and one of them got lost. Then the rest wouldn’t admit what happened, and all the search party could find was kid-sized footprints. So we have ‘brownies’. And a couple of dozen retired prospectors back on Earth are coining money telling lies about them,” he finished, more sharply than he meant to.
“I guess that squelches me,” Graham laughed boisterously, picked up his papers, and stood up. “I better be getting along. Have to find out about getting this stuff radioed out.” He started for the door, and almost collided with Anna coming in.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot you had company, Tony. They kept me busy all day out at the Lab, and I thought maybe I could get some work done here this evening, but . . .” She smiled apologetically at Tony and Nick, then t
urned to Graham. “Were you going out?”
“Shouldn’t I?”
“Of course not,” said Tony. “Not when Anna’s just come in. Stick around, and you’ll see something.”
“What does she do?” Graham asked. “Song and dance routine? Prestidigitation?”
Nick said from his perch on the wall bunk: “Graham, if you had an ounce of Earthside chivalry in your bloodstream, you’d uncork that bottle and offer the lady a drink.”
“You’re right. I’ll even offer you one.” Tony got another glass, and the writer poured. Then he turned to Anna, and asked again, “Well, what do you do?”
“I’m a glassblower, that’s all. Tony likes to watch it, and he couldn’t possibly understand that other people might not enjoy it as much.”
“Oh. You do your work over here?”
“Yes,” the doctor said testily. “Anna is also my assistant, if you recall—neither one is a full-time job, so she keeps her equipment here, and combines the two.”
For a few minutes, the four of them sat talking inconsequentially, the three Sun Lakers answering Graham’s endless variety of questions. Finally, Anna got up.
“If I’m going to get any work done, I better get started.” She opened the cupboards and began pulling out equipment.
Graham stood up, too. “Well . . .” He picked up his sheaf of papers.
“Tony!”
ALL three men focused their attention on Anna, who stood facing them, her arms full of assorted junk.
“Tony,” she said bluntly, “Have you told Mr. Graham about our problem here? Don’t you think he might be able to help?”
“Well!” Graham sat down again, and suddenly grinned. “Tell me, what can I do for dear old Sun Lake?”
“You can save our necks,” Nick told him soberly. “At least I think you can, if you want to. You’re going back on the rocket,” he explained, “and that rocket won’t have our shipment on it, because—actually because—we didn’t steal some marcaine we’re accused of stealing. It’s not here, so we couldn’t find it, and that means Bell will throw a cordon around us on Shipment Day. You know Bell from way back. You could raise such a stink about what he’s doing to us—if you wanted to—that there’d be orders recalling him to Earth on the next rocket that comes in. You’re big enough to do it. And we don’t know any other way.”
“You’re very flattering,” the writer said, “and also too damn brief. I already know that much. Suppose you fill me in on some of the details.”
“Bell tramped in three days ago,” the doctor began carefully, and went through the story, step by step, not omitting the information he had picked up in Marsport, and reminding Graham at the same time about the Cham’s new regulations against marcaine.
“Brenner wants to get his hands on the Sun Lake Lab,” Tony wound up. “You got Bell kicked out of a good job once for crooked dealing. You could do it again. Unless Bell’s got religion, and I see no sign of it, Brenner could easily hire him to kick us off Mars and then see that Brenner Pharmaceutical got the assets of the busted Sun Lake Colony—including the Lab—in a rigged auction.”
The writer pondered, and then told them slowly: “I think I can do something about it. It’s a good story, anyhow. The least I can do is try.”
Nick let out a wild: “Wa-hoo!” and Tony slumped with relief. He looked back to Anna’s work bench, smiling—but she was gone.
“Now that that’s settled,” said Graham, “I want a favor myself.”
“Up to but not including my beautiful blonde wife,” promised Nick fervently.
“If it was women, I’d want that lady airplane pilot. But it isn’t women. I still want to get this stuff filed to Marsport by your radio. I’m going to have a crowded schedule before takeoff and every minute I clip off in advance, like getting this stuff typed and microfilmed, will help.”
“Sure, pal! Sure!” Nick stood up and shook the writer’s hand earnestly. “I’ll take you to the radio shack myself and give you the blanchest carte you ever saw!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It’s, a li’l Mars baby
It’s a it’l Mars baby,
It’s a li’l Mars baby,
Li’l Mars baby
All—our—own!
IT WAS midnight, and Polly sang her song very softly, so as not to awaken Jim. Her hand, on the baby’s back, caressed the tiny, clearly defined muscles, rigid now with concentration of effort. Her eyes filled with wonder as she watched Sunny nuzzle awkwardly, but successfully, against her breast.
He was eating! He was swallowing the milk, and not choking on it or spitting it back!
With a touch of awe at the thought that she was the only mother on Mars who had the privilege, she laid the baby over her shoulder and gently patted. Sunny bubbled and subsided. She laid him in the basket and sat watching him raptly. Jim rolled over and muttered, so she decided not to sing her song again. She was hungry, anyway. She touched her lips to the baby’s forehead, straightened his mathematically straight blanket and went to the little pantry cupboard in the living room.
A dish of left over navy beans would settle her for two or three more hours of sleep. She found a spoon and began to eat, happily. She cleaned the dish and licked the spoon, put them away and started back for bed.
She was halfway to the bedroom door when it happened.
EVERYTHING went slower and slower and came to a stop. She was frozen to the floor, giggling—and she was also somewhere else, watching herself giggle. The reddish walls turned the most beautiful apple-green, her favorite color, and put forth vines and branches. They were apple tree branches, and they began to bear apples that were baby’s heads—severed baby’s heads, dripping rich delicious juice. The babies sang her song in a cheeping chorus, and she saw and heard herself giggle and sing with them, and pluck the heads from the branches, open her mouth—
“Jim!” she shrieked, and it all collapsed.
Her husband stood in the doorway, looked at her and leaped to catch her.
“Get Dr. Tony,” she gasped after she had vomited and he had carried her to a chair. “I think I’m going crazy. There were these—get Dr. Tony, please, Jim!”
The thought of being left alone horrified her, but she clutched the chair arms, afraid to close her eyes while he was gone. She counted to more than a hundred, lost track and was starting again when Jim and the doctor burst in.
“Polly, what is it? What happened?”
“I don’t know, Doctor, I don’t know! It’s all over now, but I don’t know if it’s going to come back. I saw things. I think . . . Tony, I think I’m crazy.”
“You threw up,” he reminded her. “Did you eat anything?”
“I was hungry after I nursed Sunny. I ate some beans . . . cold beans. And then it was horrible. It was like a nightmare, only I was watching myself . . .”
“This happened right after you ate the beans?” he demanded. “You didn’t eat the beans earlier?”
“No, it was right after. I fed Sunny, and then I ate, and then it happened. I was frozen to the floor and I watched myself. I was going to do something horrible. I was going to . . .” She couldn’t say it; she remembered it too clearly.
“That’s too quick for food poisoning,” the doctor said. “You froze, you say. And you watched yourself. And there were hallucinations.”
““Yes, like the worst nightmare in the world, yet I was awake.”
“Stay with her, Jim. I’ve got to get something. Can you clean up in here?”
Jim clenched his wife’s hand in his big, red fist and then began to mop.
Tony came back with a black box they all knew—the electroencephalograph.
“Look here, Tony,” growled Kandro. “If you’re thinking that Polly’s a drug addict, you’re crazy.”
Tony ignored him and strapped the electrodes to the woman’s head. Three times he took traces, and they were identical. Positive brain waves.
“You were full of marcaine,” he told her flatly. “Where did you
get it?”
“Well, I never—” and “God damn it all, Doc—” the couple began simultaneously.
Tony relaxed. “I don’t need a lie-detector,” he said. “It must have been put on the beans. Lord knows how or why.”
Polly asked incredulously: “You mean people go through that for pleasure?”
“You had the reaction of a well-balanced person. It’s the neurotic who enjoys the stuff.”
Polly shook her head dazedly.
“But what are we going to do?” demanded Jim.
“First thing is to get some bottles and nipples, and goat’s milk for you. Breast-feeding is out for at least the next week, Polly. There’d be marcaine in your milk. You don’t want to wean Sunny now?”
“Oh, no!”
Tony smiled. “We’ll have to get a breast pump made, too, to keep your supply going. But that can wait till morning.”
“But—” protested Jim.
The doctor swung around to face him. “All right, what do you suggest we do?”
Jim thought and said hopelessly: “I don’t know.”
“NEITHER do I. I’m a doctor, not a detective. All I can do is write a formula for the baby, and get people moving right now turning out the stuff you need.”
He stepped into the nursery for a moment to peer at Sunny, in tire crib—a beautiful, healthy child. Tony wondered for a moment whether Polly’s earlier fantasy about a menacing brownie had also been caused by her food being doped. There had been no nausea that time, but it might have been a smaller dose.
Time enough later to figure all that out; Sunny would be hungry again in a few hours.
“Jim,”, he directed, “you better beat it over to Anna Willendorf’s and tell her we’ll need bottles right away. And get some milk while you’re out. If you move fast, we’ll have time to boil it and make the first formula before Sunny wakes up again.”
“Milk?” Jim said, dazed.
“Milk. From one of the goats. Don’t you know how?”
“I’ve milked cows,” Kandro said. “Couldn’t be much different.”
Collected Short Fiction Page 121