by Damon Knight
novel--"
"It wasn't Thorne Smith's and it wasn't a novel," she saiddogmatically.
"But it sold. What one writer starts, another can finish."
"Nobody ever finished _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_."
"Oh, hell."
"Len, it's impossible. It is! Let me finish--if you're thinking wecould have somebody rewrite the last part Leo did--"
"Yeah, I just thought of that."
"--even that wouldn't do any good. You'd have to go all the way back,almost to page one. It would be another story when you got through.Let's go to bed."
"Moy, do you remember when we used to worry about the law ofopposites?"
"Mm?"
"The law of _opposites_. When we used to be afraid the kid would turnout to be a pick-and-shovel man with a pointy head."
"Uh. Mm."
He turned. Moira was standing with one hand on her belly and the otherbehind her back. She looked as if she were about to start practicing alow bow and doubted she could make it.
"What's the matter now?" he asked.
"Pain in the small of my back."
"Bad one?"
"No...."
"Belly hurt, too?"
She frowned. "Don't be foolish. I'm feeling for the contraction. Thereit comes."
"The--but you just said the small of your back."
"Where do you think labor pains usually start?"
* * * * *
The pains were coming at twenty-minute intervals and the taxi had notarrived. Moira was packed and ready. Len was trying to set her a goodexample by remaining calm. He strolled over to the wall calendar,gazed at it in an offhand manner, and turned away.
"Len, I know it's only the fifteenth of July," she said impatiently.
"Huh? I didn't say anything about that."
"You said it seven times. Sit down. You're making me nervous."
Len perched on the corner of the table, folded his arms, andimmediately got up to look out the window. On the way back, he circledthe table in an aimless way, picked up a bottle of ink and shook it tosee if the cap was on tight, stumbled over a wastebasket, carefullyup-ended it, and sat down with an air of _Ici je suis, ici je reste_.
"Nothing to worry about," he said firmly. "Women have kids all thetime."
"True."
"What for?" he demanded violently.
Moira grinned at him, then winced slightly and looked at the clock."Eighteen minutes this time. They're getting closer."
When she relaxed, Len put a cigarette in his mouth and lighted it inonly two tries. "How's Leo taking it?"
"Isn't saying. He feels--" she concentrated--"apprehensive. He tellsme he's feeling strange and he doesn't like it. I don't think he'sentirely awake. Funny--"
"I'm glad this is happening now," Len announced.
"So am I, but--"
"Look," said Len, moving energetically to the arm of her chair. "We'vealways had it pretty good, haven't we? Not that it hasn't been toughat times, but--you know."
"I know."
"Well, that's the way it'll be again, once this is over. I don't carehow much of a superbrain he is, once he's born--you know what I mean?The only reason he's had the edge on us all this time is he could getat us and we couldn't get at him. If he's got the mind of an adult, hecan learn to act like one. It's that simple."
Moira hesitated. "You can't take him out to the woodshed. He's goingto be a helpless baby, physically, like anybody else's. He has to betaken care of."
"All right, there are plenty of other ways. If he behaves, he getsread to. Things like that."
"That's right, but there's one other thing I thought of. You rememberwhen you said suppose he's asleep and dreaming, and what happens if hewakes up?"
"Yeah."
"That reminded me of something else, or maybe it's the same thing. Didyou know that a fetus in the womb only gets about half the amount ofoxygen in his blood that he'll have when he starts to breathe?"
Len looked thoughtful. "I forgot. Well, that's just one more thing Leodoes that babies aren't supposed to do."
"Use as much energy as he does, you mean. What I'm getting at is, itcan't be because he's getting more than the normal amount of oxygen,can it? I mean he's the prodigy, not me. He must be using it moreefficiently. And if that's it, what will happen when he gets twice asmuch?"
* * * * *
They had prepared and disinfected her, along with other indignities,and now she could see herself in the reflector of the bigdelivery-table light--the image clear and bright, like everythingelse, but very haloed and swimmy, and looking like a bad statue ofSita. She had no idea how long she had been here--that was the dope,probably--but she was getting pretty tired.
"Bear down," said the staff doctor kindly, and before she couldanswer, the pain came up like violins and she had to gulp at thetingly coldness of laughing gas.
When the mask lifted, she said, "I _am_ bearing down," but the doctorhad gone back to work and wasn't listening.
Anyhow, she had Leo. _How are you feeling?_
His answer was muddled--because of the anesthetic?--but she didn'treally need it. Her perception of him was clear: darkness andpressure, impatience, a slow Satanic anger ... and something else.Uncertainty? Dread?
"Two or three more ought to do it. Bear down."
Fear. Unmistakable now. And a desperate determination--
"Doctor, he doesn't want to be born!"
"Seems that way sometimes, doesn't it? Now bear down good and hard."
_Tell him stop blurrrr too dangerrrr stop I feel worrrr stop Itellrrrr stop_
"What, Leo? What?"
"Bear down," the doctor said abstractedly.
Faintly, like a voice under water, gasping before it drowns: _Hurry Ihate you tell him sealed incubator tenth oxygen nine-tenths inertgases hurry hurry hurry_
"An incubator!" she panted. "He'll need an incubator ... to live ...won't he?"
"Not this baby. A fine, normal, healthy one."
_He's idiot lying stupid fool need incubator tenth oxygen tenth tenthhurry before it's_
The pressure abruptly ceased.
Leo was born.
The doctor was holding him up by the heels, red, wrinkled, puny. Butthe voice was still there, very small, very far away: _Too late sameas death_
Then a hint of the old cold arrogance: _Now you'll never know whokilled Cyrus._
The doctor slapped him smartly on the minuscule behind. The wizened,malevolent face writhed open, but it was only the angry squall of anordinary infant that came out.
Leo was gone, like a light turned off beneath the measureless ocean.
Moira raised her head weakly.
"Give him one for me," she said.
--DAMON KNIGHT
* * * * *