"Yeah. I guess that's it."
For a moment the two of them were thoughtfully silent. Presently
Haywood stopped drumming his fingers.
"How would it be," he said, "if we made their baby a very special baby
in some way? All parents are fond of the notion that their first child
is the most extraordinary child ever born. Suppose we find some way to
make this anniversary baby really unusual?"
"Why sure!" Mac said jubilantly. "That's it! I always said you had
brains, Haywood."
"Thank you, Mac," Haywood said uncertainly. "But what special quality
shall we give this child? Can you think of anything?"
For a moment they stared at each other blankly. Mac twitched a wing.
"How about three hands?" he asked. "People are always saying how they
wished they had three hands. It would make the kid a big help around
the house."
"You've been away from Earth too long, Mac," Haywood said gently. "You
know how unpleasant people can be to freaks."
"Oh, yeah," Mac said deflatedly. "I forgot."
"I don't think a physical difference is wise," Haywood went on. "I
think something more from within would be better. Mortals are always
wishing to be completely good and honest. At least they pray about it a
good deal...."
Mac shook his head. "You can't be too good or too honest down there,
Haywood. Sometimes it turns into a vice. Besides, people get suspicious
and make things very hard for you. That's why the good ones never stay
too long."
"You're quite right," Haywood conceded. "But we've got to think of
something. I should be finishing up the dispatch right now. If I'm
going to add anything to the orders I'd better do it."
"There must be something," Mac said anxiously. "What else do people
always wish for?"
"Well ..." Haywood mused. Then, quite unexpectedly, he smiled one of
his rare smiles. "I have it! How many times have you heard people wish
that they had known at some previous point in their lives something
that they have only managed to find out later?"
"Huh?" Mac said.
"You know the expression, 'if I had only known then what I know now.'
People are constantly saying how much better things would be if they
had only been born with the knowledge of a lifetime. How would it be
if we arrange to have this child born knowing everything that he's
destined to learn throughout all his earthly years?"
"You mean so he can see into the future?"
"No, no, nothing so trite as that. Just let him know at the outset all
the things that he will eventually learn so that he may apply them to
his life as he goes along."
Mac slapped his broad hands together with enthusiastic approval. "Hey,
that's wonderful!" he said. "It sounds classy, too. We make this
million quadrillionth baby the most wised-up kid any pair of parents
ever had. Write that down, Haywood, just like you said it. Put it in
the special specifications part."
"All right," Haywood said, rather pleased with himself, "then, that's
what it'll be." He turned carefully back to the cloud bank, wriggled
his knees into its fleecy confines and took up his pen. "I'll have to
word it carefully so there won't be any oversight."
"Gosh!" Mac grinned rapturously, "just think how tickled those parents
are going to be. It makes you feel good just thinking about it!"
* * * * *
Hair rumpled and necktie askew, Lester sat in the hospital waiting room
and smoked endless cigarettes. Across from him sat another young man in
a similar state of disheveled conflagration, but the two of them did
not speak. The situation was understood and words would only make it
worse. Time passed.
At last a door swung open and a nurse with a starched expression and a
severe uniform stepped flat-footedly into the room. In unison Lester
and his companion sat up and looked around like a pair of beagles
alerted to the scent of the fox. There was an ominous pause while the
nurse, indulging a sadistic sense of the dramatic, looked questioningly
from one to the other.
"Mr. Holmes?" she asked crisply.
"Yes!" Lester said, leaping from his chair. "Yes, yes! That's me!"
The nurse regarded him slowly, as though finding only what she had
expected, which wasn't much. "Your wife," she announced thinly, "has
just given birth to a healthy six pound boy." She edged back toward the
door, then stopped. "Congratulations," she added grudgingly.
"Holy smoke!" Lester said. "Can I see Ginny?"
The nurse eyed him levelly. "Ginny?" she enquired.
"My mother!" Lester said confusedly, making a Freudian slip. "I mean,
my wife, the mother of my son. You know...." he ended lamely.
"Mrs. Holmes will be resting for the next couple of hours," the nurse
said, "and she mustn't be disturbed. Meanwhile, if you'd care to see
your son, he will appear shortly in the nursery, in the crib marked
with your name. You may view him through the glass partition."
"Oh," Lester said. "Oh, sure. But, Ginny--Mrs. Holmes--how is she?"
"She came through the delivery splendidly," the nurse told him and left.
Grinning, Lester turned to the other young man who looked back at him
numbly. "Well...." he said. "Golly!" He waited for a moment, then
shrugged happily and started toward the door.
* * * * *
He paced back and forth in front of the plate glass window, nervously
eyeing the first row of metal cribs which contained the one marked
"Holmes." His crib, or rather the crib of his son, was exactly like
all the others in the line, except that it had remained starkly
unoccupied for some time now and for that reason seemed somehow larger
and more ominous than the others. Absently, Lester was aware of other
sleepy-eyed fathers along the window, and of the occasional presence,
within the panelled confines of the nursery, of nurses, moving back and
forth like the masked ladies of some frightfully pristine and hygenic
India.
From time to time, these last would bring a baby forward to the
viewing window for the inspection of the fathers who were already
planning complications for the little newcomer's life. Lester watched
as a sandy-haired young man with dark shadows under his eyes moved
to the speaking tube at the side of the window and briefly requested
an introduction to his new-born daughter. Within the nursery one of
the nurses nodded to him and said a polite "yes, sir," which was
communicated to the young man over a concealed speaker. Waiting until
the young man had departed, Lester followed his example and edged up to
the tube. There was another nurse conveniently at hand.
"Miss," he said mildly. "Nurse."
The young lady turned and regarded him from over her mask with a pair
of large brown eyes. "Yes?" she asked. "Are you one of the fathers?"
"I--yes," Lester nodded. "Only my baby isn't in the nursery yet, and
it's been quite a while now since they sent me here to see him."
A flicker of puzzlement showed in the nurse's eyes. "What is the name,
please?" she asked.
"Holmes," Lester said. "Lester Holmes. It's a boy. Six pounds. If that
helps you any."
The brown eyes changed expression swiftly and unexpectedly. They raked
Lester's face hastily, as though passing over some object too loathsome
for closer observation. It seemed to Lester that the exposed part of
the nurse's complexion turned a ghastly white.
"Good grief!" the girl said over the speaker and hurried out of the
room.
"Hey!" Lester said, bending closer to the tube. "Hey, nurse!"
He stood there for a moment, feeling vague stirrings of impending
doom, then he moved back. Inside the nursery the door opened and two
nurses, neither with large brown eyes, stepped inside, stared hauntedly
in his direction for a moment, then disappeared again. Lester watched
this denouement with utter bewilderment. He retreated to the far side
of the room and sat down in a chair with iron legs and slippery red
plastic cushions.
Lester was still sitting there, without benefit of spurs, when the
doctor came in. He was a tall, pinkish sort of man, balding of head and
jittery of manner. He leaned down to Lester as though preparing to say
a very confidential and filthy word.
"Holmes?" he enquired.
"Yes!" Lester said, starting. "That's me."
"Would you just step out here in the hall for a moment?"
Lester got up and silently followed the doctor outside. The door to
the waiting room sighed shut behind them, and for a moment they stood
looking at each other.
"Mr. Holmes ..." the doctor said, then lapsed into undecided silence.
Lester made a small gesture with his hand. "Look, doctor," he said. "I
know I'm not familiar with the way things are done around a hospital,
but frankly I'm beginning to get a little worried."
"Of course you are," the doctor said emphatically.
"Huh?" Lester said.
"Expectant fathers are always worried," the doctor said and smiled
stiffly.
"I'm not expectant any more," Lester said. "The nurse said everything
was all right, that the baby was healthy and Ginny was doing fine."
The doctor looked at him, as though with sudden inspiration. "Would you
like to see your wife, Mr. Holmes?" he asked quickly.
"Yes," Lester said. "I'd like to see _someone_."
A look of momentary relief lighted the doctor's face. "Fine," he said,
"fine. And when you've finished we'll have a little talk, eh? Now, just
come along this way."
* * * * *
Ginny, in the tall, awkward hospital bed, looked kind of pinched and
stringy, like she always did in the summer when she'd spent a day
canning fruit. As Lester entered, she smiled in a slack-mouthed sort of
way.
"Hello, dear," she said weakly.
"Hi," Lester said.
"Daddy," Ginny said dreamily. "You're a daddy now."
"And you're a mother," Lester said foolishly.
"Yes," Ginny murmured. "You are a daddy and I'm a mother. Both at the
same time." She smiled again. "It's funny."
"Funny?" Lester said. He sat down on the edge of the bed and took her
hand. "How do you mean?"
"The anesthetic was funny," Ginny said, and suddenly she giggled.
Lester looked at her worriedly. "Did anything happen?" he asked.
"Besides the baby, I mean?"
"Oh, just something I imagined," Ginny said. "But it was so clear it
was like it was real." She looked at him from between half-closed lids
and giggled again. "When the doctor spanked the baby--you know how they
do--he said, 'Stop that, you big ape! Try swatting someone your own
size!'"
"The doctor said that?"
"No, the baby," Ginny said. "Wasn't it funny the way I imagined all
that?"