Upsetting the Balance

Straha came out of his room to see what was going on in the hall. He kept his body paint unsmeared and in the magnificent shiplord’s pattern he’d worn when defecting: no Official American Prisoner markings for him. He came skittering up to the nurse. She drew back a pace, as if to protect the baby from him. “It’s okay,” Sam said quickly. “We’re friends. Let him see Jonathan.”

The nurse looked dubious, but held out the baby boy. As Straha examined it, he looked dubious, too. “This is a Tosevite hatchling?” he said in his own hissing language. “It is a Little Ugly, not a Big Ugly.” His mouth fell open in appreciation of his own wit.

Barbara answered in the same tongue: “Shiplord, that ismy hatchling, and it is not ugly.” For good measure, she tacked on an emphatic cough. Yeager added one of his own, to show he agreed. Among the Lizards, that was grammatically uncouth, but it got the message across.

“Familial attachments,” Straha said, as if reminding himself. “No insult was intended, I assure you. For a Tosevite hatchling, this is undoubtedly a paragon.”

“What’s he talking about?” the doctor asked.

“He says we’ve got a cute kid,” Sam answered. He was skeptical about Straha’s sincerity, but the Lizard was too big a cheese for him to make a fuss over it. Besides, except for an exaggerated sense of his own brilliance and worth-hardly a trait unique to Lizards-he was a pretty good fellow.

Barbara returned to English: “I may be able to walk, but I can’t stand in one place very long. I’m going inside and lying down.” She waddled the last few steps toward their door and started to go into the room. The nurse followed with the baby.

Before she got there, Ristin and Ullhass came out to look over the new arrival. They were politer than Straha, but still curious. When Jonathan opened his mouth to squawk, Ristin exclaimed, “The hatchling has no teeth! How can it eat if it has no teeth?”

Barbara rolled her eyes. “If the baby did have teeth, it wouldn’t eat from me,” she said feelingly.

“That’s right-you Tosevites nourish your hatchlings yourself.” Ullhass was more thoughtful, less high-spirited than Ristin. “I am sure you will do everything you can to make this little-is it a male or a female? — this little male an upstanding member of your race.”

“Thank you, Ullhass,” Barbara said, “but if I’m on my feet another minute, I’m going to be a downfalling member of my race.” She went into the room she and Sam would now share with their son.

The nurse brought in the baby. “Y’all holier if there’s anything we can do,” she said as she gave it to Barbara. “Good luck to you, honey.” Then she left, and closed the door behind her. All at once, in spite of what the nurse had said, it seemed to Sam that he, his wife, and their child were the only people left in the world. He gulped. Could he handle responsibility like that? After a moment, he realized the question hardly mattered. He wouldn’t get that much chance to handle the responsibility of being a father, not when Jonathan was here and he’d be heading back up to Missouri.

Barbara set Jonathan in the crib he’d bought at a secondhand store in Hot Springs. The crib wasn’t very large-even if it did crowd the already-crowded room-but the baby all but disappeared in it With a long, shuddering sigh, Barbara lay down. “You all right, hon?” Sam asked anxiously.

“I think so,” she said. “I don’t know for sure, though. I’ve never done this before. Am I supposed to feel as if a steamroller just mashed me?”

“I can’t tell you from what I know myself, but by everything my mother used to say, that is how you’re supposed to feel.”

“That’s good. I’m going to sleep for a while, I think, while the baby’s resting, and then, if he’s still asleep, I’ll stagger down the hall and take a shower. Thank heavens the hot springs give us all the hot water we need, because I don’t think I’ve ever felt so… greasy in my whole life. That was hard work.”

“I love you, honey.” He bent down and kissed her on the cheek, then turned and shook a severe finger at Jonathan. “And you, buster, keep it quiet for a while.” He laughed. “There, I’m already showing our kid who’s boss.”

“That’s easy-he is.” Barbara closed her eyes.

Sam sat down in the one chair the room boasted. Barbara dropped off almost at once. Her slow, deep breaths mixed oddly with Jonathan’s quick, uncertain ones. The baby was a restless sleeper, wiggling and thrashing and sometimes trying to suck at the sheets or the blanket that covered him. Every so often, Yeager got up to peer at him. He tried to figure out whom the baby looked like. He couldn’t tell. What Jonathan mostly looked was squashed. Even his head almost came to a point at the top. None of the doctors or nurses had got upset about that, so Sam supposed it was normal.

After an hour or so, Barbara woke up, stretched, and said. “Isn’t he a little angel, sleeping like that? I am going to get clean. I won’t be long. Pick him up and hold him if he fusses while I’m gone.”