Chapter II

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!”