_Inhabited only by whispering winds,
Robin's World was a paradise for the
wrong two people--Eve and her son...._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1959.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It had been a long layover for the _Starholm's_ crew, hunting heavy
elements for fuel--eight months, on an idyllic green paradise of a
planet; a soft, windy, whispering world, inhabited only by trees and
winds. But in the end it presented its own unique problem.
Specifically, it presented Captain Merrihew with the problem of Robin,
male, father unknown, who had been born the day before, and a month
prematurely, to Dr. Helen Murray.
Merrihew found her lying abed in the laboratory shelter, pale and calm,
with the child beside her.
The little shelter, constructed roughly of green planks, looked out
on the clearing which the _Starholm_ had used as a base of operations
during the layover; a beautiful place at the bottom of a wide valley,
in the curve of a broad, deep-flowing river. The crew, tired of being
shipbound, had built half a dozen such huts and shacks in these eight
months.
Merrihew glared down at Helen. He snorted, "This is a fine situation.
You, of all the people in the whole damned crew--the ship's doctor!
It's--it's--" Inarticulate with rage, he fell back on a ridiculously
inadequate phrase. "It's--criminal carelessness!"
"I know." Helen Murray, too young and far too lovely for a ship's
officer on a ten-year cruise, still looked weak and white, and her
voice was a gentle shadow of its crisp self. "I'm afraid four years in
space made me careless."
Merrihew brooded, looking down at her. Something about ship-gravity
conditions, while not affecting potency, made conception impossible; no
child had ever been conceived in space and none ever would. On planet
layovers, the effect wore off very slowly; only after three months
aground had Dr. Murray started routine administration of anticeptin to
the twenty-two women of the crew, herself included. At that time she
had been still unaware that she herself was already carrying a child.
Outside, the leafy forest whispered and rustled, and Merrihew knew
Helen had forgotten his existence again. The day-old child was tucked
up in one of her rolled coveralls at her side. To Merrihew, he looked
like a skinned monkey, but Helen's eyes smoldered as her hands moved
gently over the tiny round head.
He stood and listened to the winds and said at random, "These shacks
will fall to pieces in another month. It doesn't matter, we'll have
taken off by then."
Dr. Chao Lin came into the shack, an angular woman of thirty-five. She
said, "Company, Helen? Well, it's about time. Here, let me take Robin."