LEONARD RYSDYK

SO TENDER AND MILD

Everyone who came to the NICU shivered with pleasure and shone with pride: Nora
and Dick glowed as they came through the airlock. Misha and Dolores, bounding to
make their shift, grinned in mid-glide. Even Nicky and Nicola, who had been
through this so many times they had won an award for reproduction, were cooing
over their new son. And why not? What greater pleasure was there than to be
licensed as a parent and visit your tiny, red offspring until he or she was fat
and pink enough to take home? Brahms played incessantly while bright mobiles
wobbled from monitor stands and the madonnas blinked serenely. All was right on
the Moon.

Marina and Beaumont leaned forward so their faces, as bright with bliss as any
of the other parents', were close to the dark bubble of Stefan's isolette. Past
their distorted reflections, they could see the dim shape of their son hanging
upside down, his head huge, his tiny hands and feet twitching vigorously. Just
out of reach, a blue snap connected two red tubes and one blue tube from the
ECMO unit to the two arteries and one vein of Stefan's umbilical cord. As
visiting hours ended, Angela, the nurse practitioner, squeezed her ample hips
between the crowded isolettes to check the madonna. When she smiled, her white
teeth shone from her dark face almost as brightly as the expressions of the
proud parents. Beaumont held up a tiny New York Mets jersey before his son's
still-sealed eyes.

"Isn't he beautiful?" Marina said to Angela.

"He looks like a little deep-sea diver in there," Beaumont said.

"He?" Angela said. She reached forward quickly and checked the chart. Then she
looked at the parents whose faces were full of confusion and fear and said
calmly, "Oops!"

"What do you mean, 'oops'?" Beaumont said angrily.

"If there's something wrong with my baby, I want to know now," Marina said.

"It's so crowded in here," Angela said, "and I didn't see you come in --"

"Tell me!" Marina said.

"Stefan's been moved. He's over there in number eighteen. This is Nazli
Nazarian. I'm sure she enjoyed your visit as much as Stefan would have. Sorry."
The tone sounded and visiting hours were over.

Life support systems were turned down in the compartments during sleep shift,
and they felt as small and cold as igloos, but Marina sat up in bed, staring
into the dark. The covers had slid down to her waist and her nipples were so
hard they hurt. Beaumont's hand touched her thigh. He stirred and asked her what
was the matter.

"I didn't know my own child," Marina said. "I couldn't even tell what sex it
was. This can't be right."

"I'm sorry we missed Stefan, too, Marina," Beaumont said in his thin, calm
voice. "But the isolettes are dark, and the babies are so young. Through the
glass, they all look alike."

"I gave Stefan life. I'm supposed to be his mother but I don't know anything
more about him than a fish in a bowl."

"He does look a little like a fish, doesn't he?"

"Beaumont!"

"You'd rather carry him?" Beaumont sat up beside her and hugged his arms to his
chest against the cold. "Seriously?"

Marina didn't answer.

"We chose early delivery when we came to the moon. It's the only way to have
babies here, just like in space. Regular childbirth just isn't safe --"

"They've never proved that."

"Do you want to be the guinea pig? After all the miscarriages the Japanese had
on L-5? Besides, the real point about ED is that it sets you free. Makes you
biologically equal to men. That's what you used to tell me, isn't it? It's one
of the reasons we decided to come here, and for the money."

"It's unnatural."

"We're on the moon, Marina. Everything here is unnatural."

Marina pounded her fists against her knees, one hard sudden blow that the cold
made sting. "I am really upset about this, Beaumont. I think something is
terribly wrong."

Beaumont rubbed her knees for her to take away the hurt. "It's a tradeoff, like
everything else in life, a compromise. Every freedom has its price."

She leaned against him and felt his skin was stiff with cold. "Tonight it seems
like a high price."

He put a thin arm around her shoulders. "Angela said he's thriving. In a little
while, he'll be out of the isolette. You can hold him in the Growers-and-Gainers
room. We'll be his mom and dad. We'll pick him up at daycare and struggle to get
him to eat his vegetables. Just like we planned. It'll be all right. Really."

He tried to draw her down under the covers, but she tensed up as if she were
frozen. Finally, she said, "I'm going back to the NICU in the morning before my
shift."

"That's against policy."

"But not against the rules."

"I'll go too. Now, come under the covers before you freeze." She settled in next
to him and pulled the crisp metallic hood of her pillow over her head. "Your
mother told me you were stubborn," Beaumont said.

She pressed herself against him. "You never listened to my mother any more than
I did."

"Good thing." He held her in the curve of his body until they both were warm.

The nurse practitioner's round black face drooped when she saw them early the
next morning. "This may not be a good time," Angela said. She stood between the
parents and the darkened bubble in which their son floated.

Beaumont said, "If he's sleeping, we'll just ogle him from a distance." He was
already wearing the cowl of his space suit and it made his face look even longer
and thinner than usual.

"He's all right, isn't he?" Marina said and her hair shook slowly in the low
gravity as she tried to peer past Angela.

"Actually, he's doing a little less well than we would like," Angela said.

"Less well?" Marina's small body twitched as if ice had been poured down her
shirt. An IV pole rattled as she squeezed passed Angela and in between the
crowded isolettes. On a stainless steel cart, in his plastic bubble of synthetic
amniotic fluid, her son Stefan floated, aged twenty-two weeks. His limbs were
still and his head hung down like a stone.

"There's arrythmia," Angela explained gently, dispensing each datum like a pill
to parents whose mouths gaped. "His potassium is high; the kidneys are shutting
down." The madonna whirred agitatedly, desperately trying to adjust Stefan's
electrolytes.

"How long?" Marina said. She touched the bubble. It was warmer than her hand.

"Since last night," Angela said. She put her large hands in the pockets of her
lime-green scrubs and shifted her weight. Her white shoes gave a little squeak
on the pink and blue linoleum tiles. "It's very unusual."

"I mean until he's well," Marina said.

Angela almost whispered, "Hours, maybe days. After that . . . " her voice became
formal, as if taking its tone from the cool blue monitoring machines " . . . the
unit will have to assess its options."

"What does that mean?" Beaumont said.

Angela looked at him angrily; she was the one who had to do the dirty work.
"What do you think it means?" she said.

"Stefan!" Marina shrieked. The other nurse looked up from the changing table.

"You hush, now," Angela hissed. She put her fists on her ample hips. "Take your
hands off the glass. You think he can't hear you?"

"I want to stay with him," Marina said.

"Impossible."

"He's my child. He came out of my body." Her face flushed and wrinkled like a
dishrag.

"I'll call the union," Beaumont said.

"Don't you threaten me;" Angela said. Then she sighed and turned up her pale
palms. "I'll see what I can do."

Marina sat in a folding chair and watched the madonna's needles twitch. She
still wore her plastic-piped sub-suit. She had come directly from her shift
without showering and she could smell her perspiration coming up through the
collar. At the end of the unit, Georgine sat in the rocker cooing to a
thirty-four weeker. The bentwood antique looked out of place and it sent a
rhythmic creek through the NICU that gleamed and smelled of disinfectant. An
alarm went off. Georgine got up with the premie in her arms and punched
instructions into a madonna. "Won't poop," she said quietly. Georgine's plump
face was white as a bleach bottle.

"Poor thing" Marina said and turned her eyes back to Stefan.

Marina could count the bumps of her son's spine and she counted them over and
over like rosary beads. His nose protruded and his large eyes were
smooth-skinned spheres. At twenty-one weeks, Stefan's skin was so transparent,
Marina could see the dark red lines of his blood vessels pulse twice each
second. The heart monitor traced its own thin red line that flared and subsided
erratically. Numbers shot up the scale, then receded as the madonna intervened.
Then shot up again until the madonna headed off another emergency. The labels on
the dials meant little to Marina: blood oxygen saturation, PaO[sub 2], PaCO[sub
2], but she knew they said PAIN! and DANGER! and she knew it should not be a
machine that protected Stefan, but her own encircling body. She felt an aching
in her womb for the child she should be carrying there. She imagined Stefan
inside her, nestled by her hips, floating under the dome of her taut belly and
kicking with delight. Marina hugged her waist and leaned over. She brought her
head close to his. Stefan reached out his hand; he tried to reach through her
uterus. The lids peeled back from his eyes and as he looked at her, his lips
moved. A hand touched her shoulder and she snapped awake.

"Oh -- sorry," Marina said.

"It's okay. Drink some of this." Georgine gave her a cup of tea.

They stayed the night, one woman on her shift, the other on her vigil, and time
crept by. Marina was half asleep when Stefan's heart fibrillated and the monitor
went crazy. No signal was given when Stefan ceased to live. The madonna's LED's
simply went out and the roller pump stopped turning.

The company man's demeanor was just right, serious but not somber, friendly but
not familiar. A tall thin man in a crisply folded gray suit, he sat on the edge
of his desk and listened attentively with his head tilted at just the right
angle. When Marina sniffled, his long limp hand offered a tissue from a
convenient box. When she sobbed, he gripped her shoulder with a cool touch.

"You're very brave, Marina," he said, his voice resonant and calming. "They say
you stayed with little Stefan right to the end-- and didn't miss an hour of
shift besides. Now you've filed for another license. You should get a
commendation!" He raised his hand magnanimously like a televangelist invoking
the Lord. "Hell, if we can give a plaque for doubling the efficiency of a
payloader-- well, you know what I mean. It's people like you that make the Sea
of Serenity more than a mining operation. It's a community.

"Nevertheless," he continued, folding his hands modestly on his lap, "we'd like
to defer your request for a while. Nature gives you time to come to grips with
tragedy, but with our techniques, that interval shrinks to days. Your body is
ready, Marina. As early as this afternoon, you could accept and carry a child
the full twenty weeks --"

Her body become taut. "I want to! I mean, I have a right to choose."

The company man held out his hands. "Oe prevalent network protocol, the demand
for such capabilities will increase, Ten Eyck said. Accugraph Corp. and
Quadritek Systems Inc. are among the companies with similar offerings.

NetManage officials said NewtWatch 4.6 would ship by the end of this month for
$495.

NetManage can be reached at http://www.netmanagwhere our lives are so
inextricably intertwined." She glared at him but he looked at her with
unquenchable kindness and she wondered for a moment what kind of psychiatrist
bills his kids must pay. His kids!

"Please," she said.

He reached for her hand and slowly, she gave it up. "The soul takes its own time
to mend. We want you to give it that time, the way nature would." His hands were
twice as large as hers and damp, despite the climate control.

"We're not saying 'no,' Marina. Just 'not yet.'"

Beaumont moaned, quivered, then settled on her with a sigh. With Beaumont at
one-sixth his Earthly weight, Marina could hold him on top of her most of the
night and often did. She breathed slowly, lifting him with each breath.

When he caught his breath, he said, "I like this part of your plan a lot,
Marina." He kissed the inside of her ear and she heard a loud popping sound like
radio static. "But what will you do after you get pregnant? What about pre-natal
care and what about transfer? You're going to need help, and not just from me."

Marina wiggled her hips so he would roll off. She turned to him, leaning her
head on her arm, resting her face close to his so she could feel the warmth of
his face.

"I didn't want to tell you," she whispered, "at least until I had worked out the
details. I'm not going to transfer the baby."

"What?"

"I'm going to have it myself. I'm going to give birth."

"But that's impossible."

"They tell us it's impossible. And it's true there are problems in space, in
zero-g, but we're on the Moon and there's gravity here."

A tone sounded from the air duct. It indicated that life-support was shifting to
minimal, that the heat would be turned down and air flow reduced. They would
have to get through the night on rest-level rations or pay for full service.
Beaumont pulled the thermal blankets up under his chin and thought over her
answer.

"Then why would the company go through the expense of early delivery? The NICU
is the second most expensive medical technology available. Just the personnel
involved --"

"Because it's not an expense; it's a savings. I've been thinking about this a
lot. At twenty weeks, a woman barely shows she's pregnant. She can do every
aspect of her job. Then one Friday after work, she goes in for ED. A weekend to
rest and she's fit again for service. The company doesn't lose a minute's work
and in an understaffed operation like this, that means real money. Sure, it
costs them some hardware and consumables and they have to hire practs, but in
the long run they increase their line workers. Wait a minute." She called out,
"Central! Five more minutes full life support." The computer answered with a
chime and the fan clicked on again. "And half lights. Damn the money. I want to
look at you when I'm talking to you." In the yellow light, she appeared propped
on her elbow, the hood of the pillow encircling her face. The clock on the night
table marked the cost.

Beaumont said, "It's cheaper to get new workers from Earth, like they got us."

"If they just want bodies, sure. But this way, they get people raised at company
expense, according to company policy. And they get a population that can't work
anywhere else -- moon children have 60% less calcium in their bones. Those kids
will be stuck here. The company says they are doing ED for us, that it gives
women reproductive equality, that it's the best thing since the ERA. I said it
myself: Now we are truly equal, biologically as well as socially. I even
believed I didn't want to go through pregnancy and the pain of childbirth. But
now I see the company doesn't provide early delivery as a personal favor and I
think I knew that even then."

"You didn't say anything."

"No, but when I sat up watching Stefan, I knew I'd been fooling myself. And when
he died, it hurt like I was being punished."

"Renal failure killed him, Marina, not you."

"But mostly, I'm doing this for myself, Beau. I want to feel my baby kick inside
me. I want to ache with it while it's a part of me. And I want the pain of
childbirth, maybe to make amends for giving up Stefan --" The fan stopped and
the lights went off.

Beaumont's voice came from a dark place beside her. "I'm as much apart of
Stefan's life -- "

"No man is, Beau, though it's sweet of you to think so." Under the sheets, she
touched his hand. "More than any of that, I want-- to earn--this one."

"You don't have to."

"Every woman does, Beau. That was the problem."

"When are you due?" said the company man. Instead of meeting her eyes, he ran a
finger along one of his suit's crisp folds and watched the fabric fall into
place. Withholding approval, Marina thought.

"December." Marina was sitting in the same deep chair feeling tiny as before; he
leaned over her again, perched on his desk.

"No one has ever attempted to give birth in lunar gravity before. After the
tragedies of the zero-g miscarriages, the hemorrhaging-- augh! No one had the
guts -- pardon the expression. You'll go down in history no matter what happens.
You're a small woman, Marina, but there's a strength in you like steel. I knew
it when I first saw you." The hard stare in his watery blue eyes did not show
admiration. And you're wound as tight as a spring, Marina thought.

"You can't talk me out of this," she said. "The contract spells out the benefits
I'm entitled to: the prenatal care, the maternity leave."

"And a paid period of convalescence, of course. And when you're ready to return
to work we'll provide day care until the child is of age. It's not just a
generous contract; it's the only one conscionable. Neighbors helping neighbors."
His deep voice was full of kindness. But he's wringing his hands, Marina
thought. That's not in the manual.

"I was thinking I'd like to raise him myself, too."

The company man hesitated, then smiled agreeably. "What could be more natural?"
Then he wrinkled his brow, took his elbow in one hand and touched his lips with
the forefinger of the other, as if doing calculations in his head. "With young
families, it always comes down to the same question, though, doesn't it?" he
said. "Money. You'll pardon me for talking like this, but I started out as an
accountant. You and Beaumont will have to make do, but my wife and I made
sacrifices when we were starting out. I still think those were the best years of
my life. Of course, that was on Earth. What we so often overlook, Marina, no
matter how long we are on Luna, is air. You're not used to paying it's deducted
automatically from your check, but believe me it's substantial. Look at your
last stub. You'll see that almost forty per cent-- but that's because we breathe
all the time. I don't see how Beaumont can support the air budget for the three
of you."

"Beaumont is with me on this."

"A good man, Beaumont, by all reports." He walked around behind her, a subtle
threat, she reminded herself, but again, it worked. "But the reason I wanted to
see you was just this: If things get tough, I want you to know that we will be
beside you the whole way. If you need us, we'll be there."

"What do you mean?"

He stood close by her chair so she had to lean her head way back and his gentle
voice came out of his lined old face like reassurance from on high. "Anytime you
say so, everything can be put back to normal. We can forget the whole thing."

"You mean my child?"

The company man held out his hands. "Your child, yes. But ours, too, the way
every child is part of his community. The usual way here is for the community,
for us, to take care of him for you. Now, in many ways, you are simply taking
care of him for us. But remember, we are always ready to return the favor." He
was at the door, holding it open for her. The interview was over.

Nearly last in the line at the canteen, Marina reached for breakfast items
listlessly. Morning sickness made feeding herself hardly worth the effort, but
she needed to keep up her strength for her job and for her child. Her child: the
thought gave meaning to her nausea. She took a bowl of rice crisps (the bran
flakes already gone, dammit) and surveyed the commons while Max ran her card
through the register. "Credit's gettin' a little low," he said as he handed her
the slip.

She waded among the tables to her usual spot where Eveline and Tom and Niti were
dawdling over empty bowls. "You look great," Niti said and got up. "See you
later."

"The more it shows, the better you look," said Tom, pointing to her stomach and
rising. "Come on, Evvy."

Eveline hesitated. She looked at Marina, then felt Tom tugging at the back of
her chair with antique politeness. "I'll call you," she said.

What else could she expect? Marina thought. She sighed and looked at the bowl.
Half-buffed by the crisps, a piece of paper was sticking up at her unsanitarily.
She looked at it. Neatly printed in the register's usual font were the words,
"Get out while you can."

Her hands shook so all through her shift, she kept on hitting wrong keys on the
console. When she got three error messages in a row, she almost burst into
tears. Her payloaders stood idle in the sun long enough for Carl to look over to
her for a moment, then reach over and press her reset button. "Hang in there,"
he said.

When she told Beaumont that evening. he paced back and forth across the
compartment, a long step, a quick turn at the wall, then a long step back and
turn again. "They're jealous," he said. "That's obvious. You're doing what they
want to do, but they're afraid to cross the company. What I don't understand is
'get out'? Where can you go?"

"But what if it is a threat? I'd be a perfect target."

"I'll protect you," Beaumont said, but neither of them could imagine how.

All through the checkup, Angela seemed nervous. First, she dropped the doppler
head. When she bent to pick it up, she jostled the instrument tray with her hip.
"What's the matter?" Marina said.

"Your blood pressure is a little high," Angela said without looking at her. She
fumbled with the drape from Marina's knees and had to shake it out and fold it
again. "Nothing critical -- but I'm going to have to recommend you take it easy
for a while." She smoothed the drape fussily.

"What do you mean, 'take it easy'?"

Angela put the cloth away in a tall closet. "Avoid anything strenuous. Take a
nap every afternoon." She was so deep in the closet, her words were muffled. She
could have been hiding in it. "Take some time off work."

"Time off? Beaumont is doing double overtime to build up savings; we're counting
on my paycheck up to the 30th or 32nd week!"

Angela dithered and fussed, while holding her plump arms close to her thick body
as if bound at the elbows by ropes. "Under normal circumstances -- be extra
careful -- and the radiation --" She would not look at Marina.

"But can't I just hang on another month ? I've already arranged for Indira's job
when she retires; I'll be in the control tower then. What's going on?"

Angela's accent was rich with history, of grandmothers who were inner city
midwives, of great grandmothers many generations removed who comforted scared
slave girls in labor, while the rest of the world looked out for itself.
"Partly, we don't know what will happen to fetuses that are carried to term on
Luna -- or to their mothers."

"What's the other part?" Angela looked to the side, then down at the floor and
Marina could see that what the pract had to say was in direct conflict with her
tradition. Marina said, "Angela, I'm depending on you. You have a sacred trust."

"I'm doing everything I can do to make sure you come through okay." She looked
at Marina for the first time, her eyes wide and white. "That's why I am
preventing you from going outside for the rest of your pregnancy."

"That's eighteen weeks!"

"Why don't you get dressed now and go have some lunch." Angela left the room
quickly; her rubber-soled shoes squeaked as she hurried away.

Marina called, "Angela!" but as she gestured for the tech to come back, she
realized there was a piece of paper in her hand. It said, "Follow the footprints
to the orange door."

Beaumont threw himself into the hammock as if he carried his full earthly
weight. "So that's it," he said. "You're on unpaid leave and we have one hundred
and fifty ECU's in the bank. Great!"

"I'm sorry." Marina wondered why she was apologizing.

"Well, I can't work any more; there are no more shifts available." He stabbed at
his calculator watch. "I make exactly enough from my overtime to pay for your
air."

"And we had been hoping to get ahead of ourselves."

"Once you go into labor, the company will pick up the tab, same as usual, and
after you leave the infirmary, well, I'll keep my extra hours, I guess."

"You can't go on like this indefinitely. Besides, I never see you. I'll go back
to work sooner, that's all. Once the baby's born, I'll put him in daycare like
the other mothers."

"I thought you wanted to raise him yourself -- the two of us together, like back
on Earth?"

Marina raised her voice, "Well, we just can't afford to, can we?"

"And there's nothing inside, or part-time?"

"Surprise: Indira's decided to put in another year. I wonder how they screwed
her out of her early retirement benefits."

"Around here, the loopholes have loopholes."

Marina sighed and said a little desperately, "Beaumont, we can always. just give
in. I mean, we came up here with our eyes open. We knew transferral was the only
way to have a family."

"Stefan was my son, too. I know I can never feel the same pain, but --" Stefan's
photo looked down on them from the shelf, his tiny arms curled up close to his
lidded eyes. "We made our plan. We'll stick to it."

On the way to the shower, Marina looked sideways at herself in the big mirror.
Not "round," she thought as she passed a hand over her abdomen. Taut, though. As
she turned under the soapy water and scrubbed herself with the cloth, the steam
got into her lungs and shortened her breath. Around her, vague outlines of other
women soaped and stretched like scrupulous ghosts. Six months gone, Marina
thought. A wet flank slapped against her briefly. "Sorry," she said. A hand
touched her back, but as she turned, she was pushed. She slipped a little on the
grating of the floor. Other hands caught her, but they pushed her too. With the
water slamming down like distant applause, she heard words -- not shouts, but
statements, not loud, but clear: curses,

"Yours made of gold?"

"Endanger us all."

"Bitch."

"Whore."

With each curse, they passed her around like a medicine ball. She felt the long,
slim muscles of the other women as she recoiled against their bodies. She felt
the self. propagating hatred and with each shove she felt the inertia of the
baby swinging inside her like the clapper in a bell. "Stop. STOP! I'm PREGNANT!"
she said, but her voice was lost among the other voices and the hissing showers
and Marina stumbled farther with each shove until finally she fell heavily onto
one buttock, felt her skin cut and her muscles bruise. She curled up on the
rough grating expecting blows and kicks, but the women disappeared into the
mist, left her sobbing in the sizzling fog. Slowly, she picked herself up.
Slowly, she walked out to face them, but they were gone as if by magic, or more
likely, by plan. In the mirror, Marina turned to examine her bruises, but a
different mark caught her eye. She looked at her shoulder and saw a yellow
stickynote. Leave NOW, it said. She looked in the mirror and saw another sticker
on her hip. This month or next-- or NEVER!, and on her flank, We don't WANT you
here. She had to reach around to peel a third sticker off her back. Beware the
terminator, it said.

She was going to vomit. With a hand over her mouth, she rushed to dress, to get
home, fighting back bile and tears.

"Who the hell is the terminator!" Beaumont said.

In her reflection in the computer screen, Marina saw the skin sag under her
eyes. Worry, she thought and waited for the topo map to zoom in on the
coordinates she had found pinned to a pair of her briefs when they came back
from the laundry. She touched SURVEY under the INFO menu and a window opened
onto a text field.

"That's where the old KREEP mine was," Marina said.

"Call up the photo survey," Beaumont said, "and hurry." In the upper left of the
screen, ECU's were accumulating like split seconds. The map was replaced by a
photograph of the same region.

"Nothing," said Beaumont and he slammed the table. Suddenly, the cursor took on
a life of its own. It tracked over to the company logo in the upper left hand
comer and pulled down the NOTEPAD. A window appeared with the words, "What's
keeping you?! Leave before the 15th or the terminator will pass over the colony.
It's too dangerous to go in sunlight."

"Oh, that terminator," Beaumont said.

"From airlock 3, head north until you reach Sulpicius Gallus crater. Skirt its
rim until you are heading due west. Go straight into the mountains. We're
expecting you."

"Who's 'we'?" Beaumont said. Marina shrugged and logged off. "Well, I know one
thing: the company owns that computer, so they know what's on the system."

Marina leaned back in the chair and curled an end of her thin black hair around
her small, graceful forefinger. After a minute, she said, "What if there's
something going on? What if there's a refuge out in the Montes Haemus? A group
of women who escaped the company, went to the old mine and made a
self-sustaining colony like we have here -- hydroponics, solar energy cells, all
stuff left over from the mine."

"Why there? Why not at the UN telescope or the Japanese mine? Why hadn't we
heard about it?"

"We're hearing about it now. Before this, we were loyal employees of the
company. We didn't need to know."

Beaumont leaned on the computer desk and bent over Marina. His skin was lined
from weariness, worry and overwork. "Does it make sense?" he said. "A group of
renegade mothers hiding out there? And they have a bright orange door-- how
about a 'welcome' sign?" Marina shrugged. "If there are women out there, the
company must know about them."

"Maybe."

"And if the company knows, they must be condoning it, silently maybe, but still
. . ." Beaumont held out his hands. "What's their purpose? What's the point?"

"I don't know!" Marina covered her face and drew her hands slowly down. The
fingertips revealed her creased forehead, her sandbagged eyes, her pale lips.
She stared, looking for an answer in the pinpricks of the acoustic panel.

"They have to do something with me, don't you see ?" she said. "If I have my
baby here, it'll mean anyone can do it and then they lose control. So they need
a way to get rid of me, like a release valve. But if they even admit there's
another place to have children and live, then they lose control again. Now they
know when children will be born, how to staff the NICU, how to set a budget. Why
give women a choice? Most may still want early delivery, but some won't. And
some may change their minds. Why should the company want to deal with all those
contingencies? Now everyone believes she's been spared labor pains and possible
tragedy. And they follow the manual in blissful ignorance."

"Why don't they just say 'no'?"

"And start a rebellion? Better to let us think we are free. Better to kill us
with kindness," Marina said.

The lights dimmed and Marina stood wearily. "Let's go home and rest," she said.

Beaumont rubbed his forehead. "Suppose there is a refuge, how are you supposed
to get there? I can't imagine somebody will give you a ride in a rollagon."

"I don't know," she said. She reached for his hand and saw it was shaking. "Run,
I guess, if I'm supposed to escape."

"That's a long way in a space suit. What if you don't find the place. You have
to risk your life."

"I don't have to, that's the point. If I go, then I've proven my resolve and
they could never have a person like me --"

Marina thought about the women in the shower. They knew about the refuge; they
had told her about it. But they had not gone. They had conformed, given in.
Chickened out. That's why they hated her even while they helped her.

"What if you don't make it?" Beaumont said morosely. "Will they let you die on
the moon? Will that be good for morale?"

"A company doctor will do the autopsy. They'll say my hormones went crazy. I ran
off after some fantasy about a refuge for renegade mothers. Who'd believe that?
Everybody would shake their heads and go on with their lives because whether
they believe the company or not, believing is in their interest."

"I'd tell them. I'd make them believe."

"The distraught husband of the maniac wife. The louder you talk, the crazier
you'll sound. If the company knows anything it's how to cover its ass."

"Wait a minute. That re. cans there doesn't even have to be a refuge. It could
just as easily be a trap," Beaumont said. "Either way, the company gets rid of
you. It gets what it wants. Control."

Marina nodded and looked at the floor.

Beaumont embraced her and Marina saw his skin was gray as if in the past weeks,
he had aged ten years. "If you ED the fetus," he said quietly, his face close to
her ear, "chances are it'll be all right. We can go back to normal. But this
other way -- I lose you and the baby. I know I agreed, but now the time's
coming. . . ." She could feel his trembling in her bones as he held her. "I feel
alone already."

"I don't have to decide yet," Marina said. She put her hand on his shoulder. The
message had told her where to go, but not how she would get out of the colony.

Marina turned in her sleep and the crackle of her metallic pillow-hood stirred
her closer to wakefulness. She had to decide, she thought. The baby moved inside
her. Did it sleep, she wondered. Did it dream? Her room was cold and silent; the
baby's was warm and loud with the beating of her heart. It stirred again and she
jerked as it gave her a kick. It wanted her to decide, too, one way or the other
about its future. She felt it reaching out, straining, prying its way out of her
womb. Its fingers curled around her labia. It pushed its head against her cervix
and she screamed. Where was Beaumont? Maybe on his way to get Angela; she had to
be strong for just a few more-- but then the baby pushed his shoulder past her
cervix and she squirmed and screamed again. Her chest heaved and she felt hot
and sweaty. She threw back the covers. In the dim light of her alarm clock's
LED's she saw the baby half-emerged from between her legs. A boy! He put his
hands on the points of her hips and contorted his face and PUSHED down with his
arms until his hips burst free from her cervix with a watery POP! and Marina
screamed louder even than before while the boy rolled off the bed. "Lights!"
Marina called, then, "Beaumont!" and with her head swimming and her body
drained, she rolled off the bed after her son. He was lying near the foot of the
bed looking up at her. His eyes were a watery blue; his face was long and lined
and his hair was thin. His lips made a circle and she drew him to her breast.
Her nipple went hard and a feeling of peace and accomplishment filled her as she
gave suck to her newborn son. I didn't have to leave after all, she thought. We
did it without the company's help. and now we're a fait accompli. They'll have
to make room for us. We won. She smirked as her son fed. If only Beaumont would
get here to see this.

The baby snuggled and grew larger in her arms. Her nipple began to ache and now
she knew that it was blood that flowed through her breast, not mother's milk.
The boy's shoulders broadened and his legs grew long. She felt his tiny hand
encircle hers with a damp touch. And with that touch, she felt herself shrink.
Now she was the infant and the baby was holding her. The company man bent his
head to her tiny breast, held her close and sucked hungrily. Blue shapes swirled
before her eyes. She felt her body jerk and her legs kick in one last spasm. And
she felt herself fall.

Beaumont was beside her, calling her name, telling her to wake up. It was cold
on the floor, the wall was cold against her bare skin, and the fan whirred to
replace the stuffy air. The light hurt her eyes. "It's okay," Beaumont said as
he held her. She felt the hairs on his chest move as he breathed deeply, sucking
in the stale air. "You don't have to go out there," he said. "They can't make
you."

There was a knock on the door. She opened it to see the company man. He wore a
gray LUNA BOOMS T-shirt and glasses aided his watery eyes instead of contacts.

"I'm sorry about what happened," he said and looked furtively up and down the
hall.

"Happened?" Marina said. "Did something happen to Beaumont?"

"I'm not here officially, you understand." The company man looked as if he were
paging through the manager's handbook in his mind; his hands were flopping
around trying to find the right gesture. "There's nothing in the manual -- " He
held out a yellow notepaper. "These numbers will open the north airlock at 19:00
tonight," he said quickly, tonelessly. "There is a suit in the locker. The
override will be disarmed."

"Where's my husband?" Marina said.

"I'm not supposed -- I don't know how to say --" Finally, as if he had mentally
thrown the book out the window, his hands fell to his sides and he said, "Good
luck."

The door fell shut and Marina ran to the telephone. She was still trying to get
through to Beaumont when he came in and slammed down his bag. "Goddamnit!" he
said. "They dropped me. I'm on straight time from here on in." The second
mass-driver had been shut down for repairs and the whole shift laid off. Marina
just stared at him, a sickness rising in her throat. "Beaumont," she said and
nothing else, but she held out the piece of paper the company man had given her.
Beaumont fell into a chair. He covered his sobs with his big hand.

Outside the airlock, only earthlight eased the darkness. Marina looked up at the
huge blue womb and wished it had a higher albedo.

She started slowly, the baby bouncing loosely in the basket of her hips. She
lengthened her strides until she glided like a pregnant sprinter coasting in
slow motion across the Mare Serenitatis. Her shoulder lights turned the black
regolith gray. Any second, she expected to hear a voice order her back or a
light from a jet sled to pin her. But her radio remained silent. Something
tickled her nose and she realized she was sweating. All that extra weight, she
thought. That other person. The baby fussed a little in her belly. Don't kick
hard, she thought, as she leaped a small boulder with all the grace of a battle
tank. She heard her breath rush against her faceplate. She was panting. Finally,
she had to stop and wait for the satellites to overfly. Her bladder burned and
as she caught her breath, she relieved herself into her bag and the baby seemed
to stretch out and relax. More room now? she whispered. She checked the dial on
her wrist. She was on course.

She found the crater rim by stumbling on it, the ground rising more rapidly than
her suit lights showed. She turned left and moved slowly, carefully, feeling her
way on the broken, sloping ground, stopping every time the polar satellite
overflew to be sure she would be traveling due west. She was on her second
bottle of oxygen and she felt like she was crawling.

Sound crackled in her helmet. "Shuttle to moonwalker, please identify yourself."
Marina turned and saw the running lights of a jet craft, coming on fast at high
altitude. "Are you all right?" Sub-orbital, she thought. He won't brake for me.
She shut down her lights and continued to grope around the crater looking for
the west. Don't help me, she thought. Please don't help me.

"Shuttle to moonwalker. Assume your radio is out. Hold your position; I'm
sending for help. Mayday! Mayday! Man down on west rim of S. Gallus. 19 degrees,
30 minutes, 20 seconds north, 11 degrees, 40 minutes, 10 seconds west. Hang in
there, buddy." Marina saw the tail lights disappear over the horizon. She was
still a little south of west, but she had to get away from the crater.

To the west, the ground was broken. She crept over the rocks in the dark, her
shoulder lights out. Her stomach twisted with nervousness and the baby shifted
uncomfortably. As she hauled the one hundred and thirteen kilograms of herself,
her suit and her child up a slope, the sweat streamed and her faceplate began to
fog. She had to stop and let her suit cool her. As the mask cleared, the navsat
made her still a little south of west. Before she started again, though, she
checked the eastern horizon.

It glowed. Dawn was coming after her at two hundred and sixty-seven meters per
second and she and her baby were without radiation armor. She scrambled away
from the rocky rim of the crater. As the ground flattened, she lengthened her
strides. She slanted northwest hoping she was getting close. She sprinted. She
flew.

Dawn moves across the moon about as fast as a good sprinter. Marina had a good
lead on the sun, but she did not know how fast she was going or where. She
imagined herself running endlessly, through the mountains and onto the Mare
Vaporum beyond, one foot in the shadow, one in the light, half a step ahead of
the dawn. She was panting again. This must remain an aerobic exercise, she told
herself, but no matter how hard she breathed, her chest demanded air.

Acidosis, she thought. Her oxygen was low and while her re-breather continued to
filter CO[sub 2], her lungs demanded more oxygen than they were getting. There
were foothills on the horizon; she could probably reach them, short of breath or
not. But was the orange door there, or kilometers east or west? They said she
was expected; they did not say they would come get her.

A pain shot through her abdomen and she remembered a curious fact from her
training: acidosis could induce labor. She shivered and tried to keep up a
steady pace and conserve her strength or she would give birth in her suit on the
surface of the moon and mother and child would die in a spasm of pain. Where
were the footsteps of the women who had come this way before?

A male voice with an accent like Beaumont's crackled in her ear, "Moonwalker!
Moonwalker! This is rescue sled Delta Gamma Six. Do you read? We are flying a
spiral search from your last location. Can you send a beacon? Talk to me, buddy.
Do you read?"

The foothills approached and the un-nourishing air rasped in her lungs. Where
were the mysterious women who would save her and her child? She saw them, bodies
big as the hills, faces gray as the Moon. Their mouths moved but the sound they
uttered was the shrill scream of the madonna's alarm. Their arms stretched out.
Their fingers slid into her belly and reached for her child.

The pain shot through her lower abdomen, a contraction. This is where her body
at last would betray her.

"Moonwalker, do you read?"

"Don't help me," she sobbed into her dead microphone. "Don't take me back."

Another spasm and the hills melted like cheese. The ground came up and struck
her knee; her vision was obscured by sand. For a moment she was unconscious,
then the sun swept over her and its light glowed through her eyelids, made her
helmet expand with sharp ticking sounds. The third contraction made her cry out.

"Gimme a sign buddy and I'll get you home. People are waitin' for you. This is
rescue sled Delta Gamma Six --"

Weakly, Marina reached with her right hand to her left wrist. She had failed
Beaumont and she had failed herself. She slid back the safety and touched the
red button. She had failed her child. Her helmet rang with the white noise of
the emergency beacon.

"Beacon read! And . . . fixed! We are locked on to your signal, moonwalker. Hang
on, buddy, we're comin' to get you."

"You're awake," said a woman's voice. A round gray face leaned over Marina. "Do
you speak Russian?"

Marina moved her mouth, but words did not come out. "Take a sip of water," the
voice said. A plastic tube touched Marina's lips. They were very dry and Marina
sucked urgently. "I have a baby here from Spassky. Her mother's sedated.
C-section," the woman said like she was sharing a secret. "It would be good form
to quiet him in Russian, I think, even if he doesn't understand. We're big on
development here."

Marina spat out the straw and said, "Where's Beaumont?"

"What?" said the voice.

"What time is it?" Marina's heart sank as she realized Beaumont was on shift.

"It's fifteen hundred." The woman had gray streaks in her smooth brown hair. She
moved slowly and seemed incredibly calm. "Roland's not here, Marina."

"Beaumont. But where --?"

"You're at Maculate Conception." The woman wore a yellow polo shirt and baggy
jeans, not hospital scrubs. "It's a terrible name. We think of better ones all
the time, but this one sticks."

"But the refuge -- I never found the orange door. I pressed my beacon. I
failed."

"We heard your signal and we came out to get you. We knew you were coming, but
couldn't tell when you'd arrive. There's no orange door, of course. The company
puts up with us, but they'd never let us have an orange door. That's just
something to picture, something to give you the courage to keep coming into the
mountains."

"The company knows about you? But why?"

"We're an R&D project. The company wants to know if it can switch to natural
childbirth to save money in the long run. We have to maintain a plausible
deniability, keep it from the stockholders, the government regulators, most of
the employees, too. We can't have a beacon, either, but we can pick up yours."
She looked at Marina. "Why did you say you failed?"

"The fetus --"

"Is fine."

"He's alive? But the pain? I had a baby and I didn't feel a thing."

"We used anesthetics; it was an emergency procedure." The woman looked at
Marina. "It's not the pain that counts, Marina. It's what comes after. You have
a beautiful baby girl. She's about a month early, but she's strong. When you
hear her cry --"

"Where is she?"

"Right there." The woman nodded toward the foot of the bed. "Where else would
she be?" Weakly, Marina pushed herself up on her elbows, looked past the white
hill of her knees and saw the crib.

"Can I --" Marino began, but then said firmly, "I want to hold my baby."

"Of course." The woman went to the crib and brought the child to her mother.
"That's what she's for."

Marina took the tiny bundle of white cloth. The baby felt tiny in her arms,
fragile, helpless. It was the first time Marina had ever held a baby and she was
a little frightened. The thirty-four weeker weighed as much as a cat; her skin
had a healthy pink glow. Marina looked into her dark eyes and saw Beaumont. She
wanted to show him his daughter, and she hurt like she was being clenched in a
huge fist because she could not. But she could almost hear his voice reminding
her that every freedom has a price.

Marina called to the woman who was folding a sheet. "So we're free here, right?"
she said. "Free of the company. Free?"

The woman thought a moment, then nodded her head and shrugged. "Sure," she said.
"As free as anybody."