Lynne Marcein rapped on the green plastic door of the three-room suite
where Tony and Rana Willis, and their infant daughter made their home,
and entered in response to a cheery, “Come in!”
The first baby ever to be born on Mars was in the process of having
a bath. Its parents--plump, amiable Tony Willis and tiny, vivacious
Rana Spinelli--were cooing over the small portable tub like any two of
the hundreds of millions of doting new parents on Earth. The bedroom,
where the bath had been set up, smelled of talcum and soap and, of
course--baby.
Rana looked up quickly at Lynne and said, “Well! How goes it with you,
little mother?”
“_Little_ mother!” exclaimed Tony, who was standing by with the
towel. “Aren’t you being medically inexact?”
“Don’t be conceited,” Lynne snapped at him. “You had little enough to
do with her,” she nodded toward the infant, who was cooing contentedly
in her tiny plastic tub.
“Well, I did what I could,” he replied with false male modesty. “Watch
out, _vinral_--or you’ll get soap in its eye.”
“I’ll thank you not to refer to our daughter as ‘it,’” said Rana
loftily, lifting the baby out and allowing her husband to wrap the
towel around her glowing, plump little pink limbs.
Operation bath completed, and the infant safely deposited in its crib
with a bottle, the Willises joined Lynne in a cola-fizz and cigarettes.
“When is Rolf coming back?” Tony asked.
“He doesn’t know,” said Lynne. “At least, he didn’t say. As usual, the
transmission time ran out before he could really discuss his plans.”
“Those _ferkab_ stuffed-shirts at the Earth-end!” Rana exclaimed,
inhaling and blowing twin plumes of blue smoke through her nostrils.
“How are you--holding out? You look simply _zwirchy. Farbish
zwirchy_.”
“I feel like a three-headed monster,” said Lynne. “Everybody stares at
me. I envy you, Rana--getting through it on outpost assignment beyond
New Walla Walla.”
“And I envy you,” said Rana, her eyes sparkling. “Here I have the first
baby on Mars, and you get virtually all the attention. It got pretty
lonely out there during the final weeks.”
“I can imagine,” said Lynne, with open admiration. What the tiny
Italo-Indian girl had done seemed to her akin to the greatest epics
of human heroism. Once Mars had ceased to be a raw frontier the
induced-twin method had been dropped in favor of natural reproduction
on the Red Planet. But since Martian environmental conditions prevented
normal births, it was necessary--once a woman was known to be carrying
a child--to ship her to Earth for pregnancy care and the actual birth
of her baby.
It was an expensive process, not only in the strain it put on
domestic relations, but because it used up cargo space sadly needed
for supplies. Already Mars had built up a thriving export trade in
lichenwassers, lean Martian boarmeat, archeological products and rare
minerals.
A brilliant telepath--which her husband was not in spite of his not
inconsiderable virtues as an executive and organizer--Rana had been
assigned to the lonely Thule station beyond New Walla Walla in the
far Southern Polar district. Her task was to install and supervise
a new trans-polar tele-communications unit that had cut and greatly
simplified complex relays around the Red Planet’s top. Not even Tony
had known his wife was pregnant.
“I decided, since I was a Martian, that my baby was going to be Martian
too,” was what the tiny slip of a woman had told an almost raging Rolf
and Tony. Incredible had seemed her courage when her condition had been
finally discovered--much too late for the usual transport to Earth.
When the male protests continued, Rana said quietly, “No woman on Mars
has ever carried a child more than four months. I’m already in my
seventh. Now will you stop worrying?”
At this stage, Lynne had intervened, firm in her conviction that Rana
had accomplished a miracle. “How?” she asked.
Rana’s reply had been as original as it had been unexpected. “A trained
telepath must be able to attain total concentration at will. To achieve
such concentration we need complete mental control. That in itself is
inseparably tied up with complete control of our bodies. And a baby is
closer than breathing to its own mother.”
“But I still don’t see how--”
“_Crehut!_” had been Rana’s reply. “You remind me of the
Indian chief who said to the mermaid in the old Earth-joke: ‘_I
did exercises_.’” Then, growing serious, she had explained the
process--a well conceived combination of TP and yoga, practiced at
regular intervals, that had thus far assured the child’s safety.
Later, noting the detached look in Lynne’s eye, Rolf had protested,
“If you think for a moment, _vinral_, that you’re going to put me
through what poor Tony’s enduring, you’re out of your mind.”
“We’ll have plenty of time to talk about that,” Lynne had affirmed,
“_after_ Rana’s baby is born.”
“_If_ Rana’s baby is born,” had been Rolf’s tormented comment.
But the baby had been born, and was thriving. Now Lynne was carrying
the second Mars-child, with only two weeks to go unless Dr. Smetana was
grievously mistaken. She had found the “exercises” which enabled her to
protect the child curiously restful--once she had mastered the task of
attaining close rapport between her body’s precious new burden and the
universe around her.
Despite the awkwardness of advanced pregnancy, she felt strangely at
peace with herself and the infinite. Even Rolf’s enforced absence
didn’t matter too much--though she longed to have him with her. She
moved through her daily work at the Depot--the task of seeking new
telepathic relays which would detect the existence of other, alien
intellects in the cosmos--almost as if it were being done by a complete
stranger.
She finished her second cola-fizz, glanced at her wristwatch and rose,
a trifle clumsily, even though the light gravity of Mars made the
weight within her comparatively light. “Well, chilluns,” she said,
“it’s time for this little mother-to-be to go home and commune with
nature.”
Tony was about to ask her a question, when a choking wail from the
bedroom sent him flying. “Honestly--_men!_” exclaimed Rana.
“They’re such idiots about babies!”