And that was why Waring was a spoiled, insufferable, simpering brat.
Watching his white-lipped face and clenched fists, O’Mara smiled. He had never let Waring win at anything if he could possibly help it, and the first time the tractor-beam man had started a fight with him had also been the last. Not that he had hurt him, he had been just tough enough to demonstrate that fighting O’Mara was not a good idea.
“Go in and have a look,” O’Mara said eventually. “Do what Ca-Ca Caxton says.
They went in, observed the gently twitching infant briefly and came out. Stammering, Waring said that he had to go and headed for the airlock. He didn’t often stutter these days, O’Mara knew; probably he was scared the subject of the accident would be brought up.
“Just a minute,” said O’Mara. “I’m running out of food compound, will you bring-”
“G-get it yourself!”
O’Mara stared at him until Waring looked away, then he said quietly, “Caxton can’t have it both ways. If this infant has to be cared for so thoroughly that I’m not allowed to either feed or keep it in airless conditions, it would be negligence on my part to go away and leave it for a couple of hours to get food. Surely you see that. The Lord alone knows what harm the kid might come to if it was left alone. I’ve been made responsible for this infant’s welfare so I insist. .
“B-b-but it won’t-”
“It only means an hour or so of your rest period every second or third day,” said O’Mara sharply. “Cut the bellyaching. And stop sputtering at me, you’re old enough to talk properly.”
Waring’s teeth came together with a click. He took a deep, shuddering breath then with his jaws still clenched furiously together he exhaled. The sound was like an airlock valve being cracked. He said:
“It… will. . . take. . . all of. . . my next two rest periods. The FROB quarters… where the food is kept.. . are being fitted to the main assembly the day after tomorrow. The food compound will have to be transferred before then.”
“See how easy it is when you try,” said O’Mara, grinning. “You were a bit jerky at first there, but I understood every word. You’re doing fine. And by the way, when you’re stacking the food tanks outside the airlock will you try not to make too much noise in case you wake the baby?”
For the next two minutes Waring called O’Mara dirty names without repeating himself or stuttering once.
“I said you were doing fine,” said O’Mara reprovingly. “You don’t have to show off.”
III
After Waring left, O’Mara thought about the dismantling of the Hudlarian’s quarters. With gravity grids set to four Gs and what few other amenities they required the FROBs had been living in one of the key sections. If it was about to be fitted to the main assembly then the completion of the hospital structure itself could only be five or six weeks off. The final stages, he knew, would be exciting. Tractor men at their safe positions- depressions actually on the joining faces-tossing thousand-ton loads about the sky, bringing them together gently while fitters checked alignment or adjusted or prepared the slowly closing faces for joining. Many of them would disregard the warning lights until the last possible moment, and take the most hair-raising risks imaginable, just to save the time and trouble of having their sections pulled apart and rejoined again for a possible re-fitting.
O’Mara would have liked to be in on the finish, instead of babysitting!
Thought of the infant brought back the worry he had been concealing from Waring. It had never slept this long before-it must be twenty hours since it had gone to sleep or he had kicked it to sleep. FROBs were tough, of course, but wasn’t it possible that the infant was not simply asleep but unconscious through concussion…?
O’Mara reached for the book which Pelting had sent and began to read.
It was slow, heavy going, but at the end of two hours O’Mara knew a little about the handling of Hudlarian babies, and the knowledge brought both relief and despair. Apparently his fit of temper and subsequent kicking had been a good thing-FROB babies needed constant petting and a quick calculation of the amount of force used by an adult of the species administering a gentle pat to its offspring showed that O’Mara’s furious attack had been a very weak pat indeed. But the book warned against the dangers of over-feeding, and O’Mara was definitely guilty on this count. Seemingly the proper thing to do was to feed it every five or six hours during its waking period and use physical methods of soothing-patting, that was-if it appeared restless or still hungry. Also it appeared that FROB infants required, at fairly frequent intervals, a bath.