“It happened that a great calamity struck the planet, and it became impossible to survive on the land. Many millions of creatures died and only those octospiders who could live comfortably in the water survived the thousands of years that the planet was laid waste.
“When eventually the planet recovered and a few of the ocean octospiders ventured out on land, they found none of
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their kindred—and none of the Precursors either. That local optimizer who had lived thousands of years before had been visionary. Without his action, every single octospider might have perished. And that’s why, even today, smart octospi-ders retain their capability to live either on land or in water.”
Nicole had recognized, early in the story, that Archie was sharing with them something altogether different from anything he had ever told them before. Was it because of their conversation that morning, when she had told Archie that they wanted to return to New Eden soon after the Puckett child was bom? She wasn’t certain. But she did know that the legend Archie had related told them things about the octospiders that the humans could never have figured out in any other way.
“That was truly marvelous,” Nicole said, touching Archie lightly. “I don’t know if the children enjoyed it—”
“I thought it was neat,” Kepler said. “I didn’t know you guys could breathe water.”
“Just like an unborn baby,” Nai was saying, when an excited Max Puckett raced through the door.
“Come quickly, Nicole,” Max said. ‘The contractions are only four minutes apart.”
As Nicole rose, she turned to Archie. “Please tell Dr. Blue to bring the image engineer and the quadroid system. And hurry!”
It was amazing to watch a birth from the outside and inside’simultaneously. Nicole was giving directions to both Eponine and the octospider image engineer through Dr. Blue. “Breathe—you must breathe through your contractions,” she would shout at Eponine. “Move them closer, lower in the birth canal, with a little more light,” she would say to Dr. Blue.
Richard was absolutely fascinated. He stood out of the way, over to one side of the bedroom, his eyes darting back and forth from the pictures on the wall to the two octospiders and their equipment. What was being shown in the images was delayed an entire contraction from what was happening on the bed. At the end of each contraction, Dr.
Blue would hand Nicole a small round patch, which Nicole would stick on the inside of Eponine’s upper thigh. Within seconds the tiny quadroids that had been inside Eponine for the last contraction would race to the patch, and the new ones would then scramble up the birth canal. After a twenty-or thirty-second delay for data processing, another set of pictures would appear on the wall.
Max was driving everybody crazy. When he heard Eponine scream or moan, as she occasionally did near the peak of each contraction, he would rush over to her side and grab her hand. “She’s in terrible pain,” he would say to Nicole. “You must do something to help her.”
Between contractions, when at Nicole’s suggestion Eponine would stand up beside the bed to let the artificial gravity help with the birthing process, Max was even worse. The image of his unborn son wedged tightly in the birth canal, struggling with discomfort from the pressure of the previous contraction, would send him into a tirade. “Oh, my God, look, look,” Max said after a particularly severe contraction. “His head is squashed. Oh, fuck. There’s not enough room. He’s not going to make it.”
Nicole made a couple of major decisions a few minutes before Marius Clyde Puckett entered the universe. First, she concluded that the baby boy was not going to be born without some help. It would be necessary, she decided, for her to perform an episiotomy to mitigate the pain and tearing of the actual birth. Nicole also concluded that Max should be removed from the bedroom before he became hysterical and/or did something that might interfere with the birthing process.
Ellie sterilized the scalpel at Nicole’s request. Max looked at the scalpel with wild eyes. “What are you going to do with thatT he asked Nicole.
“Max,” Nicole said calmly as Eponine felt the advent of another contraction, “I love you dearly, but I want you to leave the room. Please. What I am about to do will make it easier for Marius to be bora, but it won’t look pretty.”
Max didn’t move. Patrick, who was standing in the doorway, put a hand on his friend’s shoulder as Eponine
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began to moan again. The baby’s head was clearly pressing against the vaginal opening. Nicole began to cut. Eponine screamed in pain. “No,” a frantic Max cried at the first sight of blood. “No . . . Oh, shit … oh, shit.”
“Now . . . leave now,” Nicole yelled imperiously as she concluded the episiotomy. Ellie was swabbing up the blood as fast as she could. Patrick turned Max around, gave him a hug, and led him into the living room.
Nicole checked the picture on the wall as soon as it was available. Little Marius was in perfect position. What a fantastic technology, she thought fleetingly. // would change birthing altogether.
She had no more time to reflect. Another contraction was beginning. Nicole reached up and took Eponine’s hand. “This could be it,” she said. “I want you to push with all your might. All the way through the whole contraction.” Nicole told Dr. Blue that no more images would be needed.
“Push,” Nicole and Ellie yelled together.
The baby crowned. They could see swatches of light brown hair.
“Again,” Nicole said. “Push again.”
“I can’t,” Eponine wailed.
“Yes, you can. . . . Push.”
Eponine arched her back, took a deep breath, and moments later baby Marius squirted into Nicole’s hands. Ellie was ready with the scissors to cut the umbilical cord. The boy cried naturally, without needing to be incited. Max rushed into the room.
“Your son has arrived,” Nicole said. She finished wiping off the excess fluid, tied off the umbilical, and- handed the baby to the proud father.
“Oh my … oh my … What do I do now?” said the flustered but beaming Max, who was holding the child as if Marius were as fragile as glass and as precious as diamonds.
“You could kiss him,” Nicole said with a smile. “That would be a good start.”
Max lowered his head and kissed Marius very gently. “And you might bring him over to meet his mother,” Eponine said.
Tears of joy were streaming down the new mother’s cheeks when she looked at her baby boy close up for the first time. Nicole helped Max lay the child across Eponine’s chest. “Oh, Frenchie,” Max then said, squeezing Eponine’s hand, “how I love you . . . how very much I love you.”
Marius, who had been crying steadily since moments after his birth, quieted down in his new position on his mother’s chest. Eponine reached down with the hand that Max was not holding and tenderly caressed her new son. Suddenly Max’s eyes exploded with tears. ‘Thank you, honey,” he said to Eponine. “Thank you, Nicole. Thanks, Ellie.”
Max thanked everybody in the room multiple times, including the two octospiders. For the next five minutes Max was also a veritable hugging machine. Not even the octospiders escaped from his grateful embraces.
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6
M
i icole knocked lightly on the I M door and then stuck her head into the room. “Excuse me,” she said. “Is anybody awake?”
Eponine and Max both stirred, but no eyes opened to greet Nicole. Little Marius was nestled between his parents, sleeping contentedly. At length Max mumbled, “What time is it?”
“Fifteen minutes after the scheduled time for our examination of Marius,” Nicole said. “Dr. Blue wilt be back in a little while.”
Max groaned and nudged Eponine. “Come on in,” he said to Nicole. Max looked terrible. His eyes were red and puffy and both of them had double bags underneath. “Why do babies not sleep for more than two hours at a time?” he asked with a yawn.
Nicole stood in the doorway. “Some do, Max. But every baby is different. Just after they’re born, they usually follow the same routine they were comfortable with in the womb.”
“What are you complaining about anyway?” Eponine
said, struggling to sit up. “All you have to do is listen to some cries, change a diaper occasionally, and go back to sleep. I have to stay awake while he nurses. Have you ever tried to fall asleep while a little munchkin is sucking on your nipples?”
“What’s this?” said Nicole, laughing. “Have our new parents lost their neophyte aura in only four days?”
“Not really,” said Eponine, forcing a smile as she put on her clothes. “But Jesus, I am so tired!”