The Stork Factor

by Zach Hughes

  heal a pain in the side. «Heal,» he said, shaking the soft female flesh under his hand, knowing a sensuous power as he felt her warmth, heard her excited breathing. «The pain is slowly going away,» he told her, his face close to hers. The crowd was silent, watching in awe. «Oh, God,» she screamed, «it's going away!» «Heal!» Luke shouted joyfully. «Let the devil out and let the Lord in!» «Oh, God,» the Fare screamed. «I can feel the devil leaving!» An old Fare woman with a cancerous nose was pressing her sickening face close to Luke. He pulled away. Another of the ones he couldn't help. But he had to put on a show. «Faith, sister!» he told the cancerous woman. «And slowly, slowly, the Lord will help.» He put his hand on her head, shook her head vigorously. «Let the Lord in!» he shouted. «Don't expect instant miracles, sister, but wait until morning. Then you'll see a change. Let the Lord in. Kick the devil out!» And then it was time to make the pitch. «I am but a poor, wandering Brother,» he told the crowd, after working his miracles. He'd felt it with the Negro Fare and the pain in the side. He'd actually felt the little, wrinkled think deep inside which was causing her pain and he'd ironed out the wrinkles and he'd felt the pain subside. He'd had the gift during

  the brief moment, and he'd tried to feel it with the more serious cases, the lungs, the cancers, the slobbering, retarded child which they'd pushed into his arms. He had put his hand on the jerking, spastic head. He'd said the magic words. He'd felt the sheer idiocy radiating from the jumbled brain of the idiot. And he'd said, «This is too much, friends. The devil in this child is too strong!» And now he was making his pitch, holding out his

  hands. «All I need is food,» he said. «Just a few dollars for the basic needs of life, for even a man of God must eat.» And they dug into frayed pockets and gave him useless coins. Dimes, quarters, half-dollars, two metal dollars. You'd need a truckload to buy a steak. «Help me, friends,» he pleaded. «Don't let me starve because I serve our God.» There was one dollar bill, more coins. He sighed. Not even enough for a bottle of Soul Lifter. Then two Fares carried a man into the park. He was bleeding. Blood dripped and splattered onto the sidewalk and soaked the sick grass at Luke's feet when they placed him there. It was the big Fare who had first challenged the smartaleck Techs. He was holding his stomach. His eyes were glazed. «Got a blade in the gut,» one of the bearers said. «Can you do anything for him, you'd better do it fast. Brother. He was helping you, making those bastards keep quiet so's you could preach.» «He will have his reward in heaven.» Luke said, recognizing the glaze of death in the Fare's eyes. «That don't cut it, man,» the bearer said. «He needs help here. He's got a wife and a new baby and with him gone the Fare checks drop fifty percent.» «I'll do my best,» Luke said, kneeling. He took the dying man's hands. When he lifted them, obscene things tumbled out of the vast slit in cloth and flesh, pulpy, purple things with pulsing veins and an overwhelming carnal smell. «Oh, God,» Luke said. «Brother,» the dying man whispered. «Brother.» «Oh, God,» Luke prayed, hopelessly, his face upturned to the glare of reflected light on the blanket of smog. «Oh, God, help this poor brother. Make him whole. Mend his wounds. Heal him.» But his voice was soft, hopeless. It trailed off. He felt the man spasm under his hands. He looked mindlessly at the lighted white curtain over the city. And a mindless anger filled him. The man was dying. Pain was making his face white. His breath was coming in hard, choking gasps. And for what? Mindless, blithering bastards of Techs going around making asses of themselves because they thought they were better than anyone, proud of their mindless little jobs where they sat or stood beside belts and tightened screws on endless moving pieces of new cars or refrigerators. Mindless everyone to let the world be so fouled up that a fight to the death in Old Town didn't even bring the Brotherfuzz. Mindless, bleeding man with his guts hanging out expecting him to do something, expecting the impossible. As if he could undo the vast, bleeding slit in the gut. As if he could put the intestines back in place. He was a healer, but he wasn't Jesus Christ. He could, sometimes, feel the cause of pain and, sometimes, when all things were right, he could remedy the cause. Sometimes it was as if he actually did have the divine power and could look into the vitals of a suffering fellow human and know, instinctively, what to do and be able to send something, a thought, a force, into the heart of the area and heal and now they all stood and looked and expected him to work a miracle and he was no miracle man, just a healer who could do it sometimes and the man. was dying, gasping. «Bro—» His voice weak. Begging for help. Luke felt tears trickle warmly down his cheeks. They cleaned white paths through the accumulation of soot on his skin. «Oh, God,» he said, his

  voice choked. «Help him.» And, to himself, bitterly, praying sincerely, give me the power! Give it to me! Goddamn you, if you're up there, you mindless, spastic sonofabitch, don't let this poor bastard die! Do you hear, you bloody, cruel, heartless prick? And, lo, the heavens were alight! A blaze of glory. Gutting through the eternal smog, lighting the sky. A vast, blooming, flowering explosion of awesome dimension, covering the sky, making the lights of Old Town dim. And it was God, speaking to him, warning him of his blasphemy. But he didn't care. If the goddamned yokel could light up the whole sky in indignation because some sod of a faith healer cursed him, then he could make that gut go back in and close that slit and— «Do it, you bastard,» Luke was screaming, floods of adrenal fluid glowing, bursting in him. «Help him, you prick. Give me the power. Don't just light up the friggin' sky. Save some of it for this poor bastard who needs you.» And the glandular action, the result of awed fear, anger, all the tumult of emotions, made Luke's hands tremble. «Heal!» he screamed. And he felt it. He looked down and he knew the workings, the pipings, the convolutions of the ruptured guts. He knew their place and he was pushing, shoving while the man jerked in terminal agony and the crowd, screaming, running, terrified by the vast blaze of light, ignored the maddened faith healer and the dead man and Luke was punching guts back into the slit, cursing, crying saying, «Heal, heal,» and then things were there. He felt it in his mind. «Heal,» he moaned, expecting the Lord to strike him down, knowing that his blasphemy had evoked the blaze of light, knowing bitterness that He would go to such lengths to punish one errant servant and not move a pinkie to heal a dying man who had fought so that Luke could preach. «Heal,» he screamed, and his eyes widened as

  he felt the pull of cellular action, saw the slit gradually close, saw the flow of blood cease, and then, racing heart in his throat, putting his hand down to wipe away the blood and gore from the taut stomach to feel undamaged skin there and the gradual rise and fall of the diaphragm in normal breathing. «My, God,» Luke said. He looked up. The sky was a soft glow, a blanket of smog lit by the lights from below. «Whatchu doing?» the dead man asked, sitting up. «Why you got my shirt off?» Then, «Hey!» His hand in the blood. «I was cut!» «Yes,» Luke whispered, feeling weak, feeling very, very small. «I was cut from here to here,» the man said, feeling the undamaged surface of his stomach. «How—» «I don't know,» Luke said. «I don't know at all, brother.» CHAPTER THREE Colonel Ed Baxley cursed himself as a sentimental fool. He paced the deep carpet of the observation room atop his quarters, a huge, Neo-Victorian house on the south end of the campus. Through the vast span of glass he could see the parade grounds. Trim ranks of crew-cut young Brothers in gleaming white uniforms stood there, waiting. He would have to go out. After all, the review was in honor of his son. His son! The worst of it was that there wasn't even a body to mourn, not a particle of the bright-eyed boy who had been his life. Not even a body. Somewhere out in near space Ronnie might be floating. Baxley passed a hand over his eyes to wipe away a sudden vision of his son's mutilated body wheeling, wheeling, wheeling toward the cold, distant stars. Colonel Ed Baxley could not afford to become a public weeper. Therefore, since his eyes would not stay dry, he could not go to stand before his cadets. He could not stand before that group of the Second Republic's finest and let the tears run down his cheeks, not Ed Baxley. Baxley was too much man to cry in public. Baxley,
who had saved the Republic, could not face his superbly disciplined student body, his hand-picked group of outstanding minds, and weep. The man who was still called The Colonel a full thirty years after the two-day revolution which threw the Socialistic bastards out would not, could not weep. Baxley waded the deep carpet. He thought about his son with wet eyes. And he thought about Skeerzy. If Skeerzy were only here, he told himself, he could handle things. Skeerzy had a natural line of patter. He always knew the problem instinctively and could think of the right things to say. Yes, he mourned Skeerzy, too. And that cute little bride of his. Old Skeerzy, full of commonsense and solid, old-fashioned morals. Skeerzy, who gave the practical young scientists of University One, The Brothers, a God-sent gift of religious logic, who taught the Golden Rule. Skeerzy, who was almost a second father to Ronnie. Skeerzy was dead. There was a low, musical gong. Baxley turned to the videophone. He pushed a button. «Baxley here,» he said, as his image was transmitted back to the image-making machine which showed him a nurse in a smart, off-white uniform. He noted the black armband on the nurse's uniform and, once again, reminded, he felt the sting of tears. He was a big man,

  thick in the shoulders, narrowing only slightly at the waist, but without an ounce of surplus. His kinky hair was cut tightly to his scalp. His eyebrows were full, his nose strong, his teeth perfect. He looked the part. And he looked not much older than he had looked on the day, thirty years ago, when he'd led his small contingent of Brothers into Washington, armed with a half dozen hurriedly handmade fire guns. The nurse smiled pleasantly. «Your wife is in the delivery room, sir. The doctor says that it will be only a matter of minutes now.» He had almost forgotten. His life, which had ended at the North American Gate, could begin again in the delivery room of the University Hospital. He thanked the nurse. He pushed a code into the phone.

  «Express my appreciation to the cadets,» he told his executive office. «Tell them I regret not being able to address them personally. Tell them,» and

  he smiled for the first time since the news from space, «that my wife is, at this moment, giving birth to a son.» But the matter of minutes became hours. Baxley paced in traditional fashion. His joy faded in the face of delay. He felt a sharp edge of pain, thinking of Ronnie. It seemed as if it were only yesterday when he was pacing the halls of another hospital awaiting the birth of his first son. Ronald Edward Baxley, Jr. A fine name. He had shouted his news to the entire Republic by way of a nationwide network. The people had not forgotten the man who gave them peace, who delivered them from the red-tape corruption of the decadent First Republic. They remembered The Colonel. He had, with one technological breakthrough, presented them with security. No longer were they threatened by nuclear war. The ultimate weapon, the fire gun, had never been duplicated. Because the Second Republic was run securely by the Brothers, there had been no danger of anyone leaking the secret of the ultimate weapon to the Godless Commies. Yes, the world, especially the Republic, owed much to Colonel Ed Baxley. So when the best of modern medicine and admirable genetics allowed Baxley to start a family at an age when most men were dying, the world rejoiced. And it seemed fitting, somehow, that the colonel should look so unchanged. Seeing him on the screens, the Republic shared his youth. Little did it matter to the Tireds with their putrid lungs, to the Fares with their life expectancy of less than forty years, that Baxley upon

  the birth of his first child, had already loved and lived longer than any of them could hope to do. Baxley had saved the world. Thus it was fitting for him to receive the care, the medicines, the treatments which would keep him alive to the incredible age of seventy or even eighty. Since it was impossible to give such miracles to the teeming masses, it was only fitting that Baxley, the hero, be allowed the best of medical care. Now, the Brothers—that was different. Brother President, yes. Public servants such as Senators, who took decades to learn the complexities of government, yes, they deserved the treatments. But the regular run of Brothers? That caused some minor discontent in the country at large and was always an issue when, once every eight years, the Lays had an opportunity to pick Brother President from a Brother-selected list of great men. Candidates were always promising better medicine for the masses, but all the masses got was Newasper, a combination of that ancient healing drug, aspirin,

  and one of the less harmful hallucinogens and, in severe cases of overactive adrenal glands, shakeshock. But that wasn't the important thing. The important thing was that Colonel Ed Baxley had, almost singlehandedly, overturned the Godless First Republic. Colonel Ed Baxley had kicked out the rascals who had, long, long ago, brought Commie sex education into schools while outlawing Godfearing prayer. Baxley had, without having to fire a shot from his massive fire cannon, the most terrible weapon ever devised, kicked out the rascals who wanted to tax Holy Mother Church. So Baxley deserved all the best, for he had returned the Republic to the people and to God. One Nation, under God and the Brothers indivisible. As the long minutes of waiting stretched into an hour, then two, the colonel paced. His mind, trying to steer away from painful memories, relived the moment, such a short while past, when he had helped his wife from the hospital to the waiting air car with LaVerne, his niece, walking behind them holding little Ronnie in her arms. He had made a short statement to the waiting press. «This one will be reared as a man of God,» he said. The small crowd cheered. «He will be taught at home by a Brother tutor.» Some raised eyebrows from the Lays, who couldn't afford, mostly, to send their children to public school. Ah, it was pleasant and it was painful. The colonel paced. He remembered. He would not let his pain rob him of the sheer pleasure of Ronnie's memory. An amazingly developed boy, a paragon from the first. At four he had his own horse, could ride like a twentieth-century movie cowboy. At five, he shot a respectable pattern with a conventional rifle on the firing range, much to Skeerzy's chagrin. And Baxley had told Skeerzy, «You teach him about God. I'll teach him about guns.» Because hadn't it been necessary for him, Colonel Ed Baxley, to know about guns? The colonel taught his son well. The boy was all boy, detesting all females except his mother and barely tolerating her. He could perform destruction upon the anatomy of all children with whom he came into contact. He adored his hero father with a single-minded intensity. He tolerated Skeerzy. His preaching teacher was a necessary evil, thrust upon him by his father. Being with Skeerzy was slightly better than falling into the hands of women. The colonel smiled fondly as he remembered Ronnie's favorite costume, a combination of Kit Carson and Captain Flash of the Interplanetary Patrol. And a toy gun was an integral part of the costume. The colonel saw no harm in a toy gun. The manufacture of toys of war had long since been outlawed for the Lay population, but Ronnie wasn't Lay. He was Brother from the moment of his birth, one of the ruling elite by right of birth to the wife of the world saver. The gun was an exact model of a hand fire-gun. And Ronnie knew how to work it, for the Colonel took him, not once, but a half dozen times, to

  the vast, cold, brightly lit arsenal caverns where a constantly alert group of peace keepers practiced with the fire gun. Ronnie fired the gun well, using its narrow, hand-held beam with a grim precision which made older men frown with jealousy. Skeerzy objected, of course. «Richard, my boy, «said the Colonel, «if the Lays ever rebel we'll need a few boys like my Ronnie. A few could make the difference. There are not a half dozen men outside of the Peace Corps who have fired a fire gun.» Ah, memories… Only a few days before the Nebulous disaster at the North American Gate, Ronnie had begged to be taken to the caverns. Skeerzy went along. He frowned with distaste. The colonel chuckled. His wife, Ronnie's mother, had gone into false labor that morning. As she moaned with pain, Ronnie asked her why she was moaning. «Never you mind, young fella,» the colonel said. You didn't tell kids

  things like that, like birth and all. They were not ready for the sordid facts of life. But then, his wife said, «Haven't you told him, Ed?» Baxley frowned. «Not yet.» «Told me what?» Ronnie asked. «You're going to have a little brother,» his mother said. Ronnie's
face clouded. «You're putting me on.» «No, darling,» his mother said. «Wouldn't you like to have a little brother to play with?» «No,» Ronnie screamed. And for two days he'd pitched tantrum after tantrum. The colonel, uncomfortable about talking of birth and distasteful subjects with his son, would only say that God had seen fit to bless them with another boy. He tried to convince Ronnie that having a little brother would be fun. But Ronnie didn't want to share a moment of his father's time with a brother. He'd seen kids with baby brothers or sisters, forgotten, ignored, while the adults clucked and cooed over the squalling, dirty-ended little brats. So, to soothe Ronnie, Baxley took him to the arsenal caverns and let him fire a whole magazine of fire at solid rock, cutting a tunnel a hundred

  yards deep into the earth. Fine little boy with sturdy body dressed like Kit Carson and Captain Flash, toy gun in his holster, real gun in hand, blasting, eating, chewing solid rock. But nevertheless, the colonel had to call for help. «He's all concerned about his little brother,» he told Skeerzy. «You'd better talk to him.» Skeerzy did a magnificent job. Ronnie had been taught a healthy respect for Him who did the Universe with a sweep of his hand. If a fellow like that wanted him to love a little brother, he allowed, he would love a little brother. Yes, the colonel thought, as he paced the hospital waiting room, Skeerzy did a wonderful job. He chuckled. It was funny thinking of Skeerzy's face when Ronnie, seemingly reconciled to the coming of his little brother, asked Skeerzy how his brother was going to get through space from heaven. He could almost hear Skeerzy's answer. «But how is my little brother going to get through space.» Ronnie insisted. «Yes,» Baxley chuckled, «tell the boy, Skeerzy.» The colonel chuckled as he remembered. Then he wasn't chuckling anymore. He stopped in midstride. Cold beads of perspiration formed on his upper lip. He burst into a lumbering run which carried him to the roof, to his air car. His driver snapped to attention. «Get me the arsenal!» Baxley snapped. With the commander of the arsenal on the phone, secure from eavesdropping by even the most powerful of Brothers, Baxley wiped his face. «Check the guns,» he said. «They are checked daily, sir,» the Commander said, standing stiffly at attention. «Check the goddamned guns,» Baxley roared. «I'll hold.» And while he waited, dread was a weight in his stomach. He had wondered why Ronnie had been so insistent on meeting Richard Skeerzy at the North American Gate on Skeerzy's return from his honeymoon trip. It was totally unlike Ronnie. He'd given up seeing a cadet football game to go up on the shuttle. He waited in dread. The commander of the arsenal was back, white-faced, grim. «I don't understand,» the commander was saying. He was holding a fire gun. It looked very realistic. «I cannot understand how this happened.» «When my son fired last,» the colonel said, «did he field strip and clean his own weapon?» «Just as he always did, sir,» said the commander nervously. «And the guard allowed him to place the weapon in its rack and lock it?» «Just as always, sir.» «And that is Ronnie's toy weapon,» said the colonel sadly. «I don't understand it,» the commander said. Baxley broke off. He walked to the edge of the roof, looked down. Far below the traffic was clogged. A gray haze of pollution rose from the canyon. He knew, then, why Ronnie had insisted on going to the North American Gate. He knew, then, why Ronnie had been a victim of the Nebulous disaster. No. He corrected himself. Ronnie had not been a victim. Not a victim. «But how is my little brother going to get through space?» Ronnie had demanded. And Richard Skeerzy, with a wink at the colonel, and because a true Christian gentleman doesn't talk about vulgar things like birth and animal functions, had answered. «He's coming on the moon rocket,» Skeerzy said. Down below the, smog-making ground cars halted in a massive jam. The sound of their horns drifted up to the colonel. CHAPTER FOUR Luke Parker was one terrified Apprentice Brother, Third Class. He had witnessed a miracle, had, indeed, been the doing of that miracle. He'd watched the very heaven's door open. He'd seen the white, glaring face of God. He, Luke Parker, had done a miracle. He, like Jesus Christ, had brought a man back from the dead. Oh, the man had been breathing, but he had been dead, dead, dead, gasping, bleeding, his guts spilled out on his clothing. And Luke had sutured the cuts with faith, replaced the ruptured intestines with that inbuilt instinct of Tightness. Flash, God talked, and splat, things went oozing back into place, and zipppp, the slit closed and his hands felt wholeness under a slime of blood and the stinking contents of a leaking intestine. And now, awed, terrified, he was still kneeling beside his bed, the little room in darkness, his face lifted to the flaking ceiling. Praying, thanking Him. For he'd cursed Him and He had rewarded him, not with burning punishment, but with the power. Somewhere down there on the streets or somewhere in a Fare hovel-room in a stacked building a poor joker was whole who had been slit from a to a. Prayer, Apprentice Brother, Third Class. Pray and look for a faith you've never had but which has now been forced upon you by a miracle; and God lives. God walks in mysterious ways. Flash and speak and then the power, the knowledge. He prayed and he tried to feel as he'd felt. He tried to know the grumbling movements of his own intestines, filled now with a dull, acid ache. Adrenal glands had pumped fear and awe and power into him leaving him empty, for he had not eaten. An almost empty bottle of bootleg Soul Lifter was on the plain, board shelf over the tiny sink and he didn't even think about it, didn't want or need it. He was high on power. And awe. And fear. And hope. Back in the beginning, as told to him by his late father, the first Brother President had possessed the power of healing. During the march into Washington, John Parker, Luke's father, had been hit by a brickbat, sinking to his knees under the blow. He had risen to march on, but there was blood on his clothing and a terrible ache in his skull and, once the revolution had been completed, John Parker had fainted and they'd put him down on the old Capitol steps and Colonel Ed Baxley, himself, had knelt beside John Parker to feel the big knot on the skull and to wipe blood, then, from his hand. And then Brother President, who wasn't President then, but who became the Second Republic's first after Colonel Baxley declined the honor, came and healed the wounded man. Help for pain. That was a gift that the Brotherhood emphasized. And the first Brother President had healed John Parker, with the help of magic ointments, wrapping the wounded head in white cloth to hide the miracle-working of the healing. The story had been told to Luke Parker time and time again. He knew it by heart. It had been inspiration to him during his youth when John Parker, as an original, fire-gun bearing member of Baxley's Army, lived on a lofty government pension and drank Soul Lifter with impunity and talked about the good old days and the way his son, Luke, was to be a genuine Brother. For all first sons of the members of the Army had automatic appointments to the new Academy, University One, The Brothers, founded by Baxley himself and used as a breeding ground for the leaders of tomorrow. University One. And Luke a tender kid of ten going in for the first time with all the sons of the Brothers looking down their noses at him because he was common Lay. John Parker had never bothered to take his study to become a Brother. It had been enough, the pension, the unlimited supplies of Soul Lifter. So Luke was not Brother, but just Army and that made him a target for pure hell. The cadets, Brothers by birth, scorned him, taunted him, drove him into an isolation which ended when he discovered the power of Soul Lifter, found that there are no troubles which cannot be at least temporarily conquered by old S.L., himself. He was called before the Dean Brother after the second time he made formation while still high. He was warned. He was lectured. The cadets laughed. He poured his last bottle of Soul Lifter, stolen from his father, down the sink in his shared room and worked hard. He completed his first year and was awarded the magnificent rank of Apprentice Brother, Third Class. Then Kyle Murrel decided he wanted Luke's doll. All of it came back to Luke as he knelt beside his bed, praying sincerely for the first time in a great number of years. The two-day war seemed like ancient history to Luke when he was first old enough to listen to the tales his father told. But in a world of color cartoons on television, rough-and-tumble play on the crowded streets of Old Town, long hikes down the crumbling canyons on ste
amy August days when smog and the fetid vapors of massed people made the air seem thick like old-fashioned molasses, a delicacy Luke tasted once, the glorious march into Washington to throw the rascals out, made for exciting listening. The fact that John Parker's role in the bloodless revolution was enlarged with each telling only pleased young Luke the more. He was the only kid in his section of Old Town whose father had contributed to the new freedom. The fathers of other kids drove buses or worked on the subway or moved garbage for the city. A few of them worked in the plants doing jobs which could have been done better, and were done better in the more modern facilities, by machines. Some parents were old and gray Tired, having put in their twenty, and now drew well-earned pensions. But