Heinlein, Robert A – Friday

“The only. . .” When I got her out of the oven, I asked Georges to reverse my sterility. He and Freddie examined me and told me that I could get it done. . . on Earth. Not in New Brisbane. Not for years and years. That settled thatÄand I found that I was somewhat relieved. I’ve done it once; I don’t really need to do it again. We have babies and dogs and kittens underfoot; the babies don’t have to be from my body any more than the kittens do. A baby is a baby and Tilly makes good ones and so does Janet and so does Betty.

And so does Wendy. Were it not impossible I would guess that she gets her hominess from her motherÄme, I mean. She had not yet turned fourteen the first time she came home and said, “Mum, I guess I’m pregnant.” I told her, “Don’t guess about it, dear. Go see Uncle Freddie and get a mouse test.”

She announced the result at dinner, which turned it into a party because, by long custom, in our family whenever a female is officially pregnant is occasion for rejoicing and merriment. So Wendy had her first pregnancy party at fourteenÄand her next one at sixteenÄand her next one at eighteenÄand her latest one just last week. I’m glad she spaced them because I reared them, all but the newest one; she got married for that one. So I have never been short

of babies to pet, even if we didn’t have fourÄnow fiveÄno, sixÄ mothers in this household.

Matilda’s first baby has a number-one fatherÄexcellent stock. Dr. Jerry Madsen. So she tells me. So I believe. Like this: Her former master had just had her sterility reversed, intending to breed her, when he got this chance to sell her services for a high-pay fourmonths’ job. So she became “Shizuko” with the shy smile and the modest bow and chaperoned meÄbut conversely I chaperoned her without intending to. Oh, had she tried, she might have found a little night life in the daytime . . . but the fact was that she spent almost twenty-four hours of each day in cabin BB to be sure to be there whenever I came back.

So when? The only time that it could happen. While I was huddled under that turbogenerator, half frozen, with Percival, my “maid” was in my bed with my doctor. So that young man has fine parents! Joke: Jerry now lives in New Brisbane with his sweet wife, DianÄbut Tilly has not let him suspect that he has a son in our household. Is this another “startling coincidence”? I don’t think so. “Medical doctor” is one of the contribution-free professions here; Jerry wanted to get married and stop spacingÄand why would anyone choose to settle down on Earth when he has had opportunity to shop the colonies?

Most of our family go to Jerry now; he’s a good doctor. Yes, we have two M.D.s in our family but they have never practiced; they used to be gene surgeons, experimental biologists, genetic engineersÄand now they are farmers.

Janet knows who are the fathers of her first child, tooÄboth her husbands of that time, Ian and Georges. Why both? Because she wanted it that way and Janet has a whim of steel. I’ve heard several versions but it is my belief that she would not choose between them for her first child.

Betty’s first one is almost certainly not a knife job and may be legitimate. But Betty is such a slashing outlaw that she would rather have you believe that she caught that child at a gang bang during a masquerade ball. New Brisbane is a very quiet place but no household that has Betty Frances in it can ever be dull.

You may know more about the return of the Black Death than I

do. Gloria credits my warning with having saved Luna City but it is more nearly correct to credit it to BossÄmy short career as soothsayer was as Trilby to his Svengali. –

Plague did not get off Earth; that was surely Boss’s doing. . . although once, at the critical time, New Brisbane signaled that a landing boat could not land unless it was first exposed to vacuum, then repressurized. Sure enough, this treatment killed some rats and miceÄand fleas. Its captain stopped talking about charging the drill to the colony after this showed up.