away, tall and futile as a wet reed.
"You slipped up, husband. Your child ... you've denied me ... and denied me, and kept ... me ... waiting, so I kept you waiting and now ... the waiting's done." She gasped as a new pain gripped her. Gaston Tenebrae fluttered and flustered like a tiny, pathetic bird in a grenhouse. "Get me to Quinsana ... Marya Quinsana."
She collected her remaining dignity and walked to the door. There the fiercest set of contractions yet racked her.
"Help me, you good-for-nothing pig," she moaned, and Gaston Tenebrae came and helped her through the cold dark night to Quinsana's Dental and Veterinary Surgery.
Seeing it loom out of post-anaesthetic torpor, Marya Quinsana's face looked rather like a llama's, thought Genevieve Tenebrae. This plangent thought circled in the superconducting circuit of her mind until the gift-wrapped bundle of baby was placed in her arms and she remembered everything.
"Not that much harder than delivering a goat," said Marya Quinsana, smiling all over her llama face. "But I thought it best to knock you right out anyway."
"Gaston, where is Gaston?" asked Genevieve Tenebrae. Her husband's goateed face bent close to hers.
It said to her in a confidential whisper, "I'll speak to you when we're alone."
Genevieve Tenebrae smiled distantly, her husband of no more importance than an irritating fly. What mattered was the child in her arms, her child; had she not borne it herself, carried it within her for nine months, made it a part of her for almost half a year?
"Arnie Nicolodea," she whispered. "Little Arnie."
When the news of the surprise birth of the third natural citizen of Desolation Road broke in the Bethlehem Ares Railroad/Hotel, Persis Tatterdemalion declared drinks all round and there was toasting and merrymaking by all save Grandfather Haran, who came to realize as the night passed into morning exactly what had been done to him. He also came to realize that he could never prove anything.
"Isn't it strange," commented Rajandra Das, made loquacious by maize beer and wine from the hotel fermentory, "that the couple who wanted the baby didn't get one and the couple who didn't did?" Everyone thought that a pithy summarization.
ajandra Das had once lived in a hole under Meridian Main station. He still lived in a hole: in the Great Desert. Rajandra Das had once been prince of gutterboys, tramps, beggars, freebooters, goondahs and bums. He still was prince of gutterboys, tramps, beggars, freebooters, goondahs and bums. There was no one to compete with him for the honour. Too lazy to farm, he lived by his wits and the charity of his neighbours, charming their broken cultivators and faulty sun-tracker units to renewed vigour, aiding Ed Gallacelli in the construction of mechanical devices of little practical value save the utilization of too much time. Once he had fixed a Bethlehem Ares Railroads Locomotive: a Class 19, he remembered; it had limped into Desolation Road with a badly tuned tokamak. It had felt like the old days again. In a fit of nostalgia he had almost asked the engineers for a ride: to Wisdom, shining dream of his heart.
Then he thought of the guard who had thrown him off the train and the hardships, hard kicks, and work, hard work he would encounter on such a journey. Desolation Road was quiet, Desolation Road was isolated, but Desolation Road was comfortable and the fruit could be picked fresh from the tree. He would stay awhile yet.
Upon the winter solstice, when the sun stood low upon the horizon and the red dust glistened with frost, Adam Black returned to Desolation Road. His coming was as welcome as spring to the winter-weary farming folk.
"Roll up, roll up," he bawled. "Adam Black's Travelling Chautauqua and Educational 'Stravaganza once again " (and here he banged his goldtopped cane on a small block for emphasis) "presents to you the wonders of the four quarters of the world in an all new " (bang bang) "show! Featuring for your
"You slipped up, husband. Your child ... you've denied me ... and denied me, and kept ... me ... waiting, so I kept you waiting and now ... the waiting's done." She gasped as a new pain gripped her. Gaston Tenebrae fluttered and flustered like a tiny, pathetic bird in a grenhouse. "Get me to Quinsana ... Marya Quinsana."
She collected her remaining dignity and walked to the door. There the fiercest set of contractions yet racked her.
"Help me, you good-for-nothing pig," she moaned, and Gaston Tenebrae came and helped her through the cold dark night to Quinsana's Dental and Veterinary Surgery.
Seeing it loom out of post-anaesthetic torpor, Marya Quinsana's face looked rather like a llama's, thought Genevieve Tenebrae. This plangent thought circled in the superconducting circuit of her mind until the gift-wrapped bundle of baby was placed in her arms and she remembered everything.
"Not that much harder than delivering a goat," said Marya Quinsana, smiling all over her llama face. "But I thought it best to knock you right out anyway."
"Gaston, where is Gaston?" asked Genevieve Tenebrae. Her husband's goateed face bent close to hers.
It said to her in a confidential whisper, "I'll speak to you when we're alone."
Genevieve Tenebrae smiled distantly, her husband of no more importance than an irritating fly. What mattered was the child in her arms, her child; had she not borne it herself, carried it within her for nine months, made it a part of her for almost half a year?
"Arnie Nicolodea," she whispered. "Little Arnie."
When the news of the surprise birth of the third natural citizen of Desolation Road broke in the Bethlehem Ares Railroad/Hotel, Persis Tatterdemalion declared drinks all round and there was toasting and merrymaking by all save Grandfather Haran, who came to realize as the night passed into morning exactly what had been done to him. He also came to realize that he could never prove anything.
"Isn't it strange," commented Rajandra Das, made loquacious by maize beer and wine from the hotel fermentory, "that the couple who wanted the baby didn't get one and the couple who didn't did?" Everyone thought that a pithy summarization.
ajandra Das had once lived in a hole under Meridian Main station. He still lived in a hole: in the Great Desert. Rajandra Das had once been prince of gutterboys, tramps, beggars, freebooters, goondahs and bums. He still was prince of gutterboys, tramps, beggars, freebooters, goondahs and bums. There was no one to compete with him for the honour. Too lazy to farm, he lived by his wits and the charity of his neighbours, charming their broken cultivators and faulty sun-tracker units to renewed vigour, aiding Ed Gallacelli in the construction of mechanical devices of little practical value save the utilization of too much time. Once he had fixed a Bethlehem Ares Railroads Locomotive: a Class 19, he remembered; it had limped into Desolation Road with a badly tuned tokamak. It had felt like the old days again. In a fit of nostalgia he had almost asked the engineers for a ride: to Wisdom, shining dream of his heart.
Then he thought of the guard who had thrown him off the train and the hardships, hard kicks, and work, hard work he would encounter on such a journey. Desolation Road was quiet, Desolation Road was isolated, but Desolation Road was comfortable and the fruit could be picked fresh from the tree. He would stay awhile yet.
Upon the winter solstice, when the sun stood low upon the horizon and the red dust glistened with frost, Adam Black returned to Desolation Road. His coming was as welcome as spring to the winter-weary farming folk.
"Roll up, roll up," he bawled. "Adam Black's Travelling Chautauqua and Educational 'Stravaganza once again " (and here he banged his goldtopped cane on a small block for emphasis) "presents to you the wonders of the four quarters of the world in an all new " (bang bang) "show! Featuring for your
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