Rescued From Paradise

by Robert L. Forward

  "Thomas, Red, and Sam. I want you to use the leftover Ascent Module vehicles to carry out surface exploration missions to the small airless moons of Gargantua, Zwingli, Zoroaster, Zeus; and, if James calculates that it is safe to do so, the asteroid-sized ones, Zen and Zion.

  "Linda, Deirdre, Tony, Caroline, and Katrina. I want you to maintain daily contact with the flouwen on Eau, the gummies on Roche, and the icerugs on Zulu. I don't want them to forget us. That's in addition to your usual science and support duties, of course.

  "The rest of us down here will continue collecting information about the Jollys and this island. Once we have preliminary reports back from Spritz on the neighboring islands, we'll build rafts for Spritz to tow, and explore them in more detail in person."

  She paused to look around, pleased that she had things running smoothly again.

  "That should keep us productively busy for a while." She picked up the small recorder and looked at the image of the nine people up on Prometheus, all sitting around a table, drinking the last drops of the Cabernet Sauvignon '66 from their squeezers.

  "Don't sit there like a pack of pixilated poodles!" she exploded. "Get busy!"

  George, taken aback, leaped to attention and almost floated away, but was brought back by the long arm of Sam.

  "Yes, ma'am!" George replied, then turned to Tony. "Man the helm, Mr. Roma. Set sail for Zapotec." Tony left the table and the dinner was over.

  "See you in six years for the second drop," said Jinjur. She turned to look expectantly at those around her. Shirley, knowing that look, immediately scrambled to her feet and went over to close the doors on Spritz, while the others, following her lead, finished dinner and started cleaning up.

  "Prometheus will be in communication range for a day or so," said Jinjur. "After that, the round-trip delay time will make ordinary conversation impossible, although we can still transmit data and messages back and forth. So ... make sure you say your 'good-byes' through the video link on Spritz soon. Any of you who have private messages for special friends can walk down to the beach and use the communicator on Crash where you'll have more privacy."

  She looked around to make sure there were no questions, then headed down the beach toward Crash herself. It wouldn't do to have the troops see tears as she said her own good-byes. High above her in the sky, the gigantic aluminum-foil moon slowly tilted and Prometheus sailed away.

  BIRTHS

  WHEN THE first true contraction gripped Cinnamon, her reaction was one of anger. She didn't have time for this, not now. There was too much going on, and Junior would simply have to wait. For the last seventeen hours Cinnamon had been coaching Jinjur through her labor and the Marine was anything but stoic. Now, just as the General was going through transition, Arielle's water had broken.

  When Shirley had first helped Jinjur into the "Shack" that John had set up as the clinic, John, acting as doctor, had allowed everyone to help, hoping for an easy delivery that would calm the women's fears about their own upcoming deliveries. As Jinjur's labor went on and on, the others had become only more anxious and frustrated. It was demoralizing to see their leader, usually so thoroughly in command of any situation, reduced by pain and exhaustion to a sweating shaking thing. Jinjur now had no strength left, able only to curse softly under her breath, and this was more than they could bear.

  First Reiki, who knew that this was not a place for crowds, had slipped back to her tepee and Richard had joined her. Then, David, who had secretly harbored expectations of a beautiful natural celebration of life, had been brought rudely back to earth. Cinnamon could see the "You're Havin' My Baby" song being driven from his mind in the face of this new evidence. When Arielle announced that she was going back to her bed, David had gone with her. Carmen had tried to stay out of the way and had spent several hours in a far corner quietly whispering the rosary over and over, but after a time Jinjur became aware of what she was doing.

  "Purple-pizzled Popes!" she swore in the bluest phrase Cinnamon had ever heard Jinjur use. "Carmen! Do your pestiferous praying somewhere where I can't hear it!"

  John had left orders for them to wake him as soon as it was time for Jinjur to deliver, and for the last several hours now it had been just Cinnamon and Shirley talking the laboring woman through each contraction.

  "I want to push!" Jinjur insisted.

  "Jinjur? You have to listen to me," said Cinnamon soothingly. "I know it feels like you should push, but you're not fully dilated yet. If you push too soon, you'll only be pushing the baby against your cervix. You might tear yourself—"

  "Peripatetic porcupines! That's why there are sutures! Just get this baby out of me!"

  "The baby can't get past your cervix until ..."

  "He can if he tries! Come on little guy! Adapt! Overcome!" Jinjur was speaking through clenched teeth as she pushed with the contraction.

  "No!" yelled Cinnamon, startling her into following orders. "Blow! Blow! Like this!" she said, blowing little puffs of breath into the General's face. Jinjur joined in and the straining stopped.

  "You're in transition," said Cinnamon calmly, as Jinjur fought to regain herself in the few seconds she had between contractions. "Things are really moving along now and I promise ... it won't be much longer. Three more contractions and I'll check your progress again." Cinnamon noticed that she was losing Jinjur's attention to a building contraction. "Try and stay limp ... it's just like a wave ... relax and glide over it ... it won't be much longer ... I'll even send for John. Shirley?"

  "No!" Jinjur grabbed for her lovers hand. The movement cost her dearly as tension spread instantly throughout her body, and she was lost completely to the pain. "Don't leave me!" she sobbed.

  "I'm right here ... I'm not going anywhere ..." crooned Shirley, stroking Jinjur's arms and shoulders, reminding her to relax again. She wiped the sweat from Jinjur's brow, pulling her back away from despair. "Go on, Cinnamon. I'll keep her from pushing," said Shirley quietly.

  Cinnamon slipped out into the warm night air. Overhead, Gargantua was a huge pink ball filling much of the sky above her. A crescent of darkness had been taken out of one side, making the time well past midnight. Cinnamon's back twinged in protest as she stooped to get through the small door to her own cozy hut, where John was sleeping. She paused for a moment, letting her eyes adapt to the darkness. John had heard her enter and was sitting up.

  "Jinjur ready for me?" he asked over a yawn.

  "She feels the need to push and she's almost at ten centimeters, but I can feel the baby's head and it's really big. I know that you and the flouwen have been using their sonar to keep an eye on the babies' development ..."

  "Yeah, I knew Jinjur was carrying a pretty good-sized hero. But it shouldn't make that much difference ..."

  "Every centimeter counts! We both know that!"

  "Hey! That's my son you're talking about! I know you're tired and I thank you for handling things up to now. But Jinjur's going to do fine." John moved away dismissively. "I don't want to argue in front of her. You just stay here and I'll handle things from now on."

  "And just how many babies have you delivered!?"

  John was taken aback, startled by Cinnamon's challenge. Usually she was the quietest person on the island.

  "That baby is huge and the mother is about worn out! She still has hours of hard work ahead of her! She's going to need an episiotomy, maybe the forceps, and stitches regardless ... I've delivered dozens of babies."

  "And she's going to need you," agreed John, "but not like this. You can't help her unless you get a grip on yourself. Take a few minutes and pull yourself together. I'll be with Jinjur."

  "It's not like you're the one in labor," he mumbled as he ducked out the doorway.

  He's right, Cinnamon thought. I'm no help to anyone if I can't keep my head. She lit a fish-oil lamp made with an upside-down peekoo shell and sat down on her soft pallet, surrounded with the little comforts that made this her own home. The flickering light twinkled off the thin metal rods of the
mobile imp that used to be her link with James. It had ridden on her hair like headphones for so many years, watching over her as it played old songs to her softly. Now it was just an intricate cascade of iciclelike strands sparkling over the doorway. In the highest curve of the roof hung drying herbs, giving the air a scent that was warm and personal. A quilt stitched from the ragged pieces left of their original clothes was spread on the bed beneath her, and coloring the walls were small squares of the Jolly's feltlike barkcloth that David had decorated with native dyes. These were rejects to him and she doubted he knew she had them, but she enjoyed these first efforts in his experiments with the local colors.

  Cinnamon took a deep breath and felt herself come back into focus. She was just tired. Even without the stress factor, she had been working harder physically today than she had in months. And to top it all off, all the time she had been bending over Jinjur her back had been acting up. It had never bothered her before, and she resented it calling attention to itself now, sending sharp twinges from low down on her last vertebra, almost to her legs. She stretched, but nothing loosened. Just then she heard the gentle scratching that took the place of a doorbell here.

  "Yes?" she called getting to her feet. She rubbed her belly. The pain in her back seemed to be reaching long fingers around to her groin.

  "Is me, Arielle," said the thin blonde as she ducked through the doorway. "David, he put me out of the bed. I made everything wet."

  "Your water broke?"

  "Is wet, anyway."

  "Are you having any pa—contractions?" Cinnamon asked, reaching out to stroke Arielle's belly. It felt hard as a rock beneath her fingers, and then gradually softened.

  "Some squeezing," Arielle admitted with her usual aplomb, "but no pains ..."

  "Are you sure?" Cinnamon asked. "We had better get you over to the Shack anyway and let John check you out as soon as he can. Once the water breaks things can start moving quickly."

  She slipped a supporting arm around the other woman's waist just in case a sudden pain caused the slender pilot to stumble. Instead, Cinnamon's own back spasms came back to bother her and she was glad of Arielle's support. Again Arielle's belly grew hard and Cinnamon counted silently. Thirty seconds later it was still as solid as a rock.

  "It feels like you are contracting now," said Cinnamon puzzled. "Are you sure you don't feel that?"

  "It is a bit squeeze, a little harder to breathe ... it is contraction?"

  "Usually there is no mistaking labor pains, but sometimes they can be deceptive. Some women have very little pain, some women have back labor ..." As the words left her mouth, Cinnamon felt the back pain tighten into a strong pressure outward against the very bottom of her back and travel gradually around to her lower belly. They had reached the clinic and she clutched the doorframe reflexively.

  "Go on in," Cinnamon said, striving to keep her voice even. "Tell John I'll be there in a second." From the doorway they could hear him telling Jinjur to push and the inhuman-sounding groan as Jinjur began to bear down.

  "He sounds busy ... " said Arielle doubtfully.

  "Well, if those contractions aren't bothering you ..." Cinnamon had to think about each word as her own pain slowly increased, "then you might as well just keep out of the way. But things could get worse quickly and it would be better if you at least were in the building." The pain passed and she straightened up. "Come on in and I'll get you a place to rest and wait."

  Together they entered the Shack. It was lit up with the solar-rechargeable permalights that had come down in the first lander. Shirley was holding Jinjur's shoulder, curling her into a pushing position in the chairlike platform that they had designed for this months ago.

  "Eight ... nine ... ten ... take a quick breath and push again! One ... two ... three ..." John was seated on the floor between Jinjur's legs, his eyes and light trained on the relevant area.

  "Good, good, the head is crowning! Is the contraction over?"

  Jinjur didn't answer, but slumped back in the chair, her dark face gray-brown with fatigue. Cinnamon stood behind John and handed him a scalpel. "Time for that episiotomy, John. She'll never stretch enough, and a straight cut will heal better."

  Carefully John cut the taut tissue, blood welling up behind the knife. Jinjur paid no attention, looking inwardly to the building contraction. Shirley recognized her change in breathing and again gathered her up to push. "Come on, Jinjur, you can do this. Once more for the Corps!"

  Cinnamon leaned against the wall, trying to relax and breathe her way through her own building contraction as Jinjur bore down. "One ... two ... three ..." counted John and Shirley together. Then John broke off as his son's head was pushed clear and he gently wiped the mucus from the nose and mouth. Wet, dark hair curled all over the large head. Two pairs of blue eyes, linking these two Kennedys to all those still on Earth, locked on each other, and for a moment John forgot where he was.

  "... eight ... nine ... ten." Shirley's voice called him back.

  "Deep breath and push again, while I turn him so you can deliver his shoulders," he said.

  Jinjur felt herself rally. She was sore and tired, more tired than she had ever been, but the searing pain was gone and the pushing had given her focus. She could feel the otherness between her legs and the terrible stretching had been relieved with the passing of the head. She closed her eyes and pushed with everything she had.

  "Eerrarrggg!"

  John twisted the slippery person in his hands, easing out the broad rounded shoulders. Suddenly, the baby slipped free and John was holding his son in his lap. Jinjur flopped back, knowing her part was over. The baby, his lungs free of the constriction of the birth canal, drew in his first deep breath and sounded his challenge to the world.

  John took the soft barkcloth towel Cinnamon handed him and gently wiped most of the wetness from the babe. Then he cut the cord and lay the still squalling baby in his mother's arms. Jinjur looked down at that angry red face, and all the aches and pains melted away. She nuzzled his warm damp curls, savoring the smell, even the taste of him.

  "Good work," said John tenderly.

  "You too." Jinjur looked from her baby's blue eyes to those of his father. Although they had never been lovers, each knew that they now shared a bond almost as great, because both had instantly and irrevocably fallen in love with the son they shared.

  "Umm, Jinjur?" said Cinnamon quietly a few minutes later. "I hate to interrupt, but if you'll give just one more push, we can deliver the placenta and John can take care of these stitches."

  "Can you do that, Cinnamon? I want to hold the baby, too," said John.

  "Sorry, John, but my contractions are less than a minute apart now, and I might not sew straight. Jinjur, I don't want to rush you, but between Arielle and myself, your chair is needed!"

  "Arielle?" John asked.

  "Her waters have broken."

  "Christ!" muttered John as he carefully pulled the placenta free and sutured swiftly. Then he and Shirley helped Jinjur into a soft bed near Arielle. The baby had stopped crying and was already trying to nurse. Jinjur grimaced as he latched on to her nipple.

  "Well, you lead rest of us again," said Arielle. "You have firstborn. First man of Eden. What you name him?"

  Shirley, John, and Jinjur looked at each other. "Adam!" they all said together.

  WHEN JOHN looked back later on those hectic few days, although the feelings seemed to blur into a mélange of joy, fear, frustration, and fatigue, each birth remained crystal clear, separate, and special.

  Cinnamon delivered a daughter less than an hour after Adam's birth. The fast labor led to a bad tear in Cinnamon's cervix, and while John stitched her up carefully, he became aware that he was being watched. He had looked up to find himself staring into the baby's deep brown eyes as she lay on her mother's belly. Cinnamon was stroking the downy fuzz that covered her back while the baby looked around, her initial cry stilled almost instantly by her apparent curiosity. Named Eve, of course, Cinnamon and Nels's child
seemed to be the quiet, watchful type; even her cries were more a gentle reminder than the furious demand for attention that sprang from his own son's lungs.

  Shannon, the daughter of David and Arielle, slipped into the world in the easiest delivery John had ever seen. Arielle "labored" quietly while John got Cinnamon and Eve tucked in together at home. Before he had even examined her, she said that she felt like she "need to shit" and he found her to be fully dilated. The blunt-spoken Canadian never evidenced any pain, while she calmly delivered a blue-eyed redhead. Tiny but healthy, the baby's good looks seemed more elfin than human. David had come in looking for his lover just in time to help cut the cord, and had taken over the baby completely. Arielle was given the baby only to nurse, but considering her rather haphazard approach to domestic chores, the arrangement seemed to suit the couple best.

  John used the break in the action to get some sleep. He fell on his pallet exhausted. Richard woke him ten hours later with the news that Reiki needed him. Reiki, not wishing to disrupt the others with anything as simple and natural as childbirth, had quietly labored in the privacy of the tepee. Richard had left to go hunting without even knowing her labor had begun. When he returned for the noontime siesta, he discovered the prim anthropologist was unable to walk. He swept her up in his arms, where she almost vanished in his weight-lifter's muscles, and carried her into the Shack.

  John had hardly rubbed the sleep out of his eyes when he was once again guiding another person into the world. The labor was complicated by the noontime darkness. As Eden slipped into the shadow cast by the huge planet above them, John had to expend again the jealously hoarded energy stored in the solar batteries. He had used the permalights too recklessly the night before, and nobody had remembered to take them out in the sunlight to recharge, so the beam from the flashlight was feeble. Fortunately, the darkness, although deep, was always shortlived. By the time the baby boy slipped into his arms, the first bright beams of reddish light were peeking around Gargantua, spilling into the open face of the Shack. John, surprised that the baby wasn't crying, quickly inverted him and gave him a smack. Still, the baby didn't cry, but in the growing light it was clear that he was breathing well and looking at John alertly and with what John could have sworn was reproach.