Seed of Stars (22 page)

George Maseba massaged one lean cheek with the tips of his delicate surgeon's fingers. "You're suggesting that this could be some form of protest?"

"Against what, for God's sake?" snorted Bruce.

Ichiwara raised his shoulders in a very un-Oriental shrug. "One can only guess at this stage, but President Kido is a very devious man, that much is certain."

"And Sato was, without doubt, a man under considerable stress—very near to breaking point," said Maseba. "It's quite clear now that he must have engineered the preselection of the random sample expressly in order to conceal the facts about the incidence of Johannsen's disease—but I find it difficult to believe that he could have undertaken- such a serious course of deception completely on his own initiative. On the other hand, if he were acting on orders from above ..."

"You're suggesting that Kido knew all along about the deception?" said Magnus.

"I'll buy that," cut in Bruce. "That Kido is the smoothest slug I ever met, even for a politician."

Magnus nodded thoughtfully. "I must say I'm inclined to agree with you there, Commander."

"Well, in that case, you're surely not going to let him get away with it, are you?" Bruce said. "It looks very much to me as though Sato is nothing more than a scapegoat."

"There may be something in what you say, Commander, but one must also take into account the stakes involved," Magnus said. "Kido is not a medical man, and he may well have been led by Sato to believe that the existence of this disease on Kepler would constitute a barrier to the granting of independence."

"And it doesn't?" said Bruce.

"Well, that depends on Lieutenant Maseba," Magnus said. "But if the outbreak can be stamped out within a reasonable time, I would be very loathe to let it stand in the way of a satisfactory conclusion to the independence investigation." He looked towards the medic.

Maseba frowned. "I don't want to be pushed into making a snap judgment on a matter as important as this. I'll have to check with stores, but I doubt if we shall have sufficient supplies of a suitable attenuated virus to immunize more than a tenth of the Keplerian population—and this has to be a hundred percent operation to be certain of success."

"Which means?"

"Well, we can hardly walk down to the corner drug store and buy the rest of what we need, can we?" said Maseba. "On the other hand, if the Keplerian pharmaceutical industry is in any kind of shape, it is possible that we could make arrangements to have further supplies cultivated. Always supposing, of course, that they would be prepared to cooperate."

"I don't think you need have any doubts about that," Magnus assured him. "Assuming full cooperation and adequate laboratory facilities, how long would it take to produce the quantities necessary and to carry out your immunization program?"

Maseba made a rapid calculation. "Two . . . three months, providing everything goes without a hitch . . . which it hardly ever does, I might add."

Bruce glowered as he saw his provisional schedule once more shot to hell.

Piet had decided to head for Hukayan, the city in the northeastern corner of the continent. The main thing initially was to put as much distance as possible between them and any connection with Doctor Sato. In a new city they would be strangers, but with their in

creased knowledge of Keplerian ways they would soon be accepted and he would be able to get some kind of job. In the meantime they had sufficient money for food and lodging for several weeks.

Once they had left the fertile plain of Main City province the country became much wilder, with crags and chasms torn from gray volcanic rock by ancient upheavals in the cooling crust of the planet. Vegetation was sparse and cactuslike. The only sign of man's influence was the great transcontinental highway. Built eight decades previously at tremendous cost, improved air transport using the anti-grav principle had now rendered the road obsolete, and in places it was being gradually reclaimed as part of the wilderness by rock-falls. However, it was still passable, and from the point of view of Piet and Mia the fact that they met only one other vehicle was a point in favor of this method of transport. The owner of the battered ground truck, a tattered man, equally as decrepit as his means of transport, passed them by with a cheery wave, and Piet guessed from the nature of the assorted gear piled in the back of the vehicle that he was some kind of prospector.

It was early afternoon when, having covered some 250 kilometers, Piet decided to stop at a parking place where the highway hugged the side of a hill in a long, outward-veering curve, giving a fine view of a valley beyond, the lushness of which showed that the character of the land had changed once again. After the bleakness of the landscape through which they had been passing for the past three hours it was reassuring to view the patchwork of farmlands which lay between them and the small town of Nisuno.

Mia clapped her hands. "Oh, how lovely! Let's have a picnic right here. I'm hungry."

Piet grinned. "Both of you." He pulled onto the parking place and dived into the back of the car for the food basket, while Mia got out and walked towards the edge of the steep slope. The basket had jammed somehow against the back of a seat, and he had to kneel on the seat to get it out. Eventually, heaving it up, he placed it down beside him and looked across towards where he had last seen Mia.

She was not there.

For a moment he thought nothing of it; then with a whimper of fear, he leaped from the car, the door crashing behind him. His feet rattled on the rocky debris as he dashed to the edge and looked down.

The slope was, maybe, sixty degrees at its steepest, with stunted bushes and outcrops of rock. Twenty meters down, buttressed by a rock, Mia lay with arms outspread, her eyes closed and her swollen belly an awful reminder of the complications which could result from such an accident.

Should we not sound them,

Assume they care there, and call into the black?

But we have—and no one answers back.

There's this conclusion then, that if they hear,

They're saying nothing. More than this,

Maybe they don't have to say a word,

Maybe they can just listen, and so learn

All they want.

Are you shivering?

Kilroy
: I. Kavanin

Jiro Osuragi, the local doctor in Nisuno, was a small, gray-haired man in his late fifties. Quietly matter-of-fact in his attitude, he took in the situation at a glance, and Mia was soon installed in a private ward of the small local clinic.

At first he seemed inclined to reject Piet's claim to be a doctor, but as, on Piet's insistence, they examined the patient together, he was gradually convinced. Her injuries were fortunately minor, amounting to nothing more than a suspected cracked rib, multiple bruises of the legs and a slight concussion.

She recovered consciousness. "Oh, Piet, love, I'm an old silly. I leaned on that boulder and it just rolled away—and I rolled with it. Am I... ooh!" Her hand moved upwards towards the rib.

"You'll live," Piet said, smiling his reassurance. "But just scare me like that once more and I'll sue for divorce. My nerves won't stand it"

He had just finished attending to the cracked rib and dressed her abrasions when she had the first contraction.

"Piet, love, I think. . . ." She gritted her teeth against the pain.

"Don't try to talk," he said. "You're in a safe place, with two doctors in attendance. Everything is going to be all right"

Leaving her for a moment he went outside the ward to confer with Doctor Osuragi on preparations for the delivery. When he came back she was lying still, her face screwed up with anxiety.

"Am I going to be all right?"

"Of course," he reassured her.

"How long?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if you managed it in three hours."

She shuddered and stiffened as a second contraction hit her. "Ooh—there it goes again," she gasped.

"Nothing to worry about." He saw that she was tense, and determined to give her something to relax her. "You know, Mia, there were times when—" he smiled broadly at her—"when I thought maybe you didn't need me much. It's good in a way to be quite sure again that you do."

"You thought I didn't—oh, Piet, how could you?"

"Well, never mind. I know you do now."

She gave a little shudder, and a gasp. "Oh . .. what was that?"

"You're doing fine. Cervical dilation beginning." He cleaned up, and Osuragi brought in the rest of the hardware he needed for the delivery, excusing himself afterwards to attend to other patients, now that he was confident that Mia was in capable hands.

After the doctor had gone, Piet said: "Now, let's get this trembling done with, shall we? A little jab, and then you'll feel all warm and cozy, and we can talk and squeeze, and talk and squeeze together."

Some time later, he said: "You're presenting fine."

A dozy giggle. "I'm what?"

"Presenting. He's in the right position. Exactly."

"A doctor's son, naturally."

"Like the tide coming in, Mia."

"What?"

"A little further each time, love, and he goes back a little."

He was so occupied with her needs that he mentally glimpsed only in the tiniest flashes who he was, and what he was—a man of Earth who had deserted his companions with a woman who had done the same. But she—she was now in her finest moment. His beloved Mia, strained, messy, utterly dependent on him, and he loved her more deeply than ever before....

It was odd. Sometimes he saw himself doing a textbook job of delivery, sometimes as the loving husband who was miraculously able to do this important thing for his wife, and at others he saw himself as a man trapped by elemental forces, trapped by the very act that he had regarded as an exciting sport from his early teens—copulation.

She slid her hand down her belly. "Hey—what happened here?"

"What do you expect, girl? I shaved you."

She giggled again, and then her face twisted. When the spasm was past she relaxed again, and said: "I can't remember that."

And so it went on. The doctor was satisfied with his patient's progress. He could hear the textbook in his head . . . extension round subpubic arch begun . . . forward movement of the head satisfactory . .. time to move her left lateral, buttocks over edge ... she was so light to him... and the first sight of the top of the little head, with the birth canal a tight ring....

She was in a gentle, painless haze, but the husband thought in agony, God, what a terrible thing to be woman! and refused to be comforted by the assurances of the doctor....

And then, with the next contraction, the confidence of the doctor too was shattered, as he saw that, easy though the birth might be, that which was being born was an offense to humanity.

She had a small shivering attack after the baby was out, but it soon passed. She was deeper in her hazy sleep, and he attended to her carefully. No tearing, blood clot out, cleaned and comfortable.

The noise he kept hearing was the grinding of his own teeth, as he did what was necessary. He felt the tears start at the thought that when she awoke she would want to hold her baby....

He steeled himself to look again on what she had borne, trying to maintain the calm of the impartial doctor as he stared at the awful thing that had sprung from his seed.

Mia was not infected with Johannsen's disease, could not have been, as far as he knew. And himself—was he, perhaps, responsible?

Or was it perhaps that Sato had been completely wrong about the connection between Johannsen's disease and the monstrous births on Kepler III? Piet had no way of knowing it, but the ugly, short-legged, thick-bodied, four-armed thing which lay pink and quivering before him was the same kind of creature to which the unhappy Yoko had given birth.

Then, as he looked, it came to Piet what this thing really was. And with that knowledge, he knew quite clearly what he had to do. To him, with his medical training not long behind him, the hideous truth was apparent, and that truth must be told, whatever the cost.

Mia . . . there could be no question of moving her for the time being. She would have to remain here under the care of Doctor Osuragi while
he
did what he must.

Killing the nonhuman thing was not difficult. He no longer looked on it as part of himself or Mia.

She was still sleeping when he wrapped the body in a plastic sheet, and put it in a bag. He looked at her for a moment, then hurried out with his burden to the car.

Within five minutes he was out of the fertile valley, driving at top speed along the highway south, through the bleak, volcanic landscape. And he found himself wondering which was the more important; the call of duty that he, Piet Huygens, deserter, was obeying by returning in this way—or the escape that he, Piet Huygens, coward, was making from the questioning eyes of Mia when she awoke and asked for her baby. Perhaps it was neither, he reflected, perhaps what he was really obeying was a masochistic need to be punished for the crime he had committed in the name of love, because he was going to be punished, wanted it, and deserved it, and wanted to deserve it