Picnic on Nearside (22 page)

“Birds?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said, simply. “I suspect that the whole concept of the sexes is part of the game. It’s such an unlikely thing. Why should we need two? One is enough.”

Leaves flexibility
, she wrote. But no, she hadn’t written, had she? The notebook was lost again. She burrowed down into the pile of blankets or furs on the cot, feeling warm and secure. She heard a sliding sound.

There in the peephole, ghostly in the candlelight, was a man’s
face. It was the attendant, looking in on them. She gasped, and started to sit up as the light got brighter around her. There was the sound of a key grating in a lock.

Barbara was kneeling at the side of the bed. Her robe was still open, and her belly was huge. She took Evelyn’s hands and held them tight.

“The biggest giveaway of all is childbirth,” she whispered. The light wavered for a moment and the metallic scraping and jiggling of the doorknob lost pitch, growled and guttered like a turntable losing speed. Barbara took Evelyn’s head in her arms and pulled her down to her breasts. Evelyn closed her eyes and felt the taut skin and the movement of something inside the woman. It got darker.

“Pain. Why should giving birth involve pain? Why should we so often
die
reproducing ourselves? It doesn’t feel right. I won’t say it’s illogical; it doesn’t feel right. My intuition tells me that it isn’t so. It’s not the way it was meant to be. Do you want to know why we die in childbirth?”

“Yes Barbara, tell me that.” She closed her eyes and nuzzled easily into the warmth.

“It’s the poison they inject into us.” She gently rubbed Evelyn’s hair as she spoke. “The white stuff, the waste product. They tell us it’s the stuff that makes us pregnant, but that’s a lie. It warps us, even those of us they do not inhabit. It pollutes the womb, causes us to grow too large for the birth canal. When it comes time for us to be born, girl and half-girl, we must come through a passage that has been savaged by this poison. The result is pain, and sometimes death.”

“Ummm.” It was very quiet in the room. Outside, the crickets were starting to chirp. She opened her eyes once more, looked for the door and the man. She couldn’t find them. She saw a candle sitting on a wooden table. Was that a fireplace in the other room?

“But it doesn’t have to be that way. It doesn’t. Virgin birth is quite painless. I know. I’ll know again very soon. Do you remember now, Eve? Do you remember?”

“What? I . . .” She sat up a little, still holding to the comforting warmth of the other woman. Where was the cell? Where was the concrete floor and barred window? She felt her heart beating faster
and began to struggle, but Barbara was strong. She held her tight to her belly.

“Listen, Eve. Listen, it’s happening.”

Eve put her hand on the swollen belly and felt it move. Barbara shifted slightly, reached down and cradled something wet and warm, something that moved in her hand. She brought it up to the light. Virgin birth. A little girl, tiny, only a pound or two, who didn’t cry but looked around her in curiosity.

“Can I hold her?” she sniffed, and then the tears flowed over the little human. There were other people crowding around, but she couldn’t see them. She didn’t care. She was home.

“Are you feeling any better now?” Barbara asked. “Can you remember what happened?”

“Only a little,” Eve whispered. “I was . . . I remember it now. I thought I was . . . it was awful. Oh, Barbara, it was terrible. I thought . . .”

“I know. But you’re back. There’s no need to be ashamed. It still happens to all of us. We go crazy. We’re programmed to go crazy, all of us in the infected generation. But not our children. You relax and hold the baby, darling. You’ll forget it. It was a bad dream.”

“But it was so
real
!”

“It was what you used to be. Now you’re back with your friends, and we’re winning the struggle. We have to win; we’ve got the wombs. There’s more of our children every day.”

Our children
. Her own, and Barbara’s and . . . and Karen’s, yes, Karen. She looked up and saw her old friend, smiling down at her. And Clara, and there was June, and Laura. And over there with her children was Sacha. And . . . who was that? It’s . . .

“Hello, Mother. Do you feel better now?”

“Much better, dear. I’m all right. Barbara helped me through it. I hope it won’t happen again.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. She sat up, still cradling the tiny baby. “What are you naming her, Barb?”

Barbara grinned, and for the last time Eve could see the ghostly outline of that cell, the blue robe, Doctor Burroughs. It faded out forever.

“Let’s call her Evelyn.”

T
HE PREGNANT WOMAN HAD
been following us for over an hour when Cathay did the unspeakable thing.

At first it had been fun. Me and Denver didn’t know what it was about, just that she had some sort of beef with Cathay. She and Cathay had gone off together and talked. The woman started yelling, and it was not too long before Cathay was yelling, too. Finally Cathay said something I couldn’t hear and came back to join the class. That was me, Denver, Trigger, and Cathay, the last two being the teachers, me and Denver being the students. I know, you’re not supposed to be able to tell which is which, but believe me, you usually know.

That’s when the chase started. This woman wouldn’t take no for an answer, and she followed us wherever we went. She was about as awkward an animal as you could imagine, and I certainly wasn’t feeling sorry for her after the way she had talked to Cathay, who is my friend. Every time she slipped and landed on her behind, we all had a good laugh.

For a while. After an hour, she started to seem a little frightening. I had never seen anyone so determined.

The reason she kept slipping was that she was chasing us through Beatnik Bayou, which is Trigger’s home. Trigger herself describes it as “twelve acres of mud, mosquitoes, and moonshine.” Some of her visitors had been less poetic but more colorful. I don’t know what an acre is, but the bayou is fairly large. Trigger makes the moonshine in a copper and aluminum still in the middle
of a canebrake. The mosquitoes don’t bite, but they buzz a lot. The mud is just plain old mississippi mud, suitable for beating your feet. Most people see the place and hate it instantly, but it suits me fine.

Pretty soon the woman was covered in mud. She had three things working against her. One was her ankle-length maternity gown, which covered all of her except for face, feet, and bulging belly and breasts. She kept stepping on the long skirt and going down. After a while, I winced every time she did that.

Another handicap was her tummy, which made her walk with her weight back on her heels. That’s not the best way to go through mud, and every so often she sat down real hard, proving it.

Her third problem was the Birthgirdle pelvic bone, which must have just been installed. It was one of those which sets the legs far apart and is hinged in the middle so when the baby comes it opens out and gives more room. She needed it, because she was tall and thin, the sort of build that might have died in childbirth back when such things were a problem. But it made her waddle like a duck.

“Quack, quack,” Denver said, with an attempt at a smile. We both looked back at the woman, still following, still waddling. She went down, and struggled to her feet. Denver wasn’t smiling when she met my eyes. She muttered something.

“What’s that?” I said.

“She’s unnerving,” Denver repeated. “I wonder what the hell she wants?”

“Something pretty powerful.”

Cathay and Trigger were a few paces ahead of us, and I saw Trigger glance back. She spoke to Cathay. I don’t think I was supposed to hear it, but I did. I’ve got good ears.

“This is starting to upset the kids.”

“I know,” he said, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. All four of us watched her as she toiled her way up the far side of the last rise. Only her head and shoulders were visible.

“Damn. I thought she’d give up pretty soon.” He groaned, but then his face became expressionless. “There’s no help for it. We’ll have to have a confrontation.”

“I thought you already did,” Trigger said, lifting an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Well, it wasn’t enough, apparently. Come on, people.
This is part of your lives, too.” He meant me and Denver, and when he said that we knew this was supposed to be a “learning experience.” Cathay can turn the strangest things into learning experiences. He started back toward the shallow stream we had just waded across, and the three of us followed him.

If I sounded hard on Cathay, I really shouldn’t have been. Actually, he was one damn fine teacher. He was able to take those old saws about learning by doing, seeing is believing, one-on-one instruction, integration of life experiences—all the conventional wisdom of the educational establishment—and make it work better than any teacher I’d ever seen. I knew he was a counterfeit child. I had known that since I first met him, when I was seven, but it hadn’t started to matter until lately. And that was just the natural cynicism of my age-group, as Trigger kept pointing out in that smug way of hers.

Okay, so he was really forty-eight years old. Physically he was just my age, which was almost thirteen: a short, slightly chubby kid with curly blond hair and an androgenous face, just starting to grow a little fuzz around his balls. When he turned to face that huge, threatening woman and stood facing her calmly, I was moved.

I was also fascinated. Mentally, I settled back on my haunches to watch and wait and observe. I was sure I’d be learning something about “life” real soon now. Class was in session.

When she saw us coming back, the woman hesitated. She picked her footing carefully as she came down the slight rise to stand at the edge of the water, then waited for a moment to see if Cathay was going to join her. He wasn’t. She made an awful face, lifted her skirt up around her waist, and waded in.

The water lapped around her thighs. She nearly fell over when she tried to dodge some dangling Spanish moss. Her lace dress was festooned with twigs and leaves and smeared with mud.

“Why don’t you turn around?” Trigger yelled, standing beside me and Denver and shaking her fist. “It’s not going to do you any good.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she yelled back. Her voice was harsh and ugly and what had probably been a sweet face was now set in a scowl. An alligator was swimming up to look her over. She swung at it with her fist, nearly losing her balance. “Get out
of here, you slimy lizard!” she screamed. The reptile recalled urgent business on the other side of the swamp, and hurried out of her way.

She clambered ashore and stood ankle-deep in ooze, breathing hard. She was a mess, and beneath her anger I could now see fear. Her lips trembled for a moment. I wished she would sit down; just looking at her exhausted me.

“You’ve got to help me,” she said, simply.

“Believe me, if I could, I would,” Cathay said.

“Then tell me somebody who can.”

“I told you, if the Educational Exchange can’t help you, I certainly can’t. Those few people I know who are available for a contract are listed on the exchange.”

“But none of them are available any sooner than three years.”

“I know. It’s the shortage.”

“Then help me,” she said, miserably. “Help me.”

Cathay slowly rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger, then squared his shoulders and put his hands on his hips.

“I’ll go over it once more. Somebody gave you my name and said I was available for a primary stage teaching contract. I—”

“He did! He said you’d—”

“I never heard of this person,” Cathay said, raising his voice. “Judging from what you’re putting me through, he gave you my name from the Teacher’s Association listings just to get you off his back. I guess I could do something like that, but frankly, I don’t think I have the right to subject another teacher to the sort of abuse you’ve heaped on me.” He paused, and for once she didn’t say anything.

“Right,” he said, finally. “I’m truly sorry that the man you contracted with for your child’s education went to Pluto instead. From what you told me, what he did was legal, which is not to say ethical.” He grimaced at the thought of a teacher who would run out on an ethical obligation. “All I can say is you should have had the contract analyzed, you should have had a standby contract drawn up
three years ago
. . . oh, hell. What’s the use? That doesn’t do you any good. You have my sympathy, I hope you believe that.”

“Then help me,” she whispered, and the last word turned into
a sob. She began to cry quietly. Her shoulders shook and tears leaked from her eyes, but she never looked away from Cathay.

“There’s nothing I can do.”

“You have to.”

“Once more. I have obligations of my own. In another month, when I’ve fulfilled my contract with Argus’ mother,” he gestured toward me, “I’ll be regressing to seven again. Don’t you understand? I’ve already got an intermediate contract. The child will be seven in a few months. I contracted for her education four years ago. There’s no way I can back out of that, legally or morally.”

Her face was twisting again, filling with hate.

“Why not?” she rasped. “Why the hell not? He ran out on
my
contract. Why the hell should I be the only one to suffer? Why me, huh? Listen to me, you shitsucking little son of a blowout. You’re all I’ve got left. After you, there’s nothing but the public educator. Or trying to raise him all by myself, all alone, with no guidance. You want to be responsible for that? What the hell kind of start in life does that give him?”

She went on like that for a good ten minutes, getting more illogical and abusive with every sentence. I’d vacillated between a sort of queasy sympathy for her—she
was
in a hell of a mess, even though she had no one to blame but herself—and outright hostility. Just then she scared me. I couldn’t look into those tortured eyes without cringing. My gaze wandered down to her fat belly, and the glass eye of the wombscope set into her navel. I didn’t need to look into it to know she was due, and overdue. She’d been having the labor postponed while she tried to line up a teacher. Not that it made much sense; the kid’s education didn’t start until his sixth month. But it was a measure of her desperation, and of her illogical thinking under stress.