That fact puzzled Giyt quite a lot. He was sure that if he had some organism growing inside of him he would spend a lot of time staring into space and trying to feel the damn thing grow.
But Rina didn’t seem to be doing that. As far as he could tell she simply went on with her life just as before, as though this business of pregnancy were something, well, normal.
When it came time for the next Joint Governance Commission meeting, Giyt greeted it with pleasure. It was tangible work to do, and thus a relaxing change from worrying over the perils of approaching parenthood. Besides, he had some actual business to propose.
As he took his seat, the Petty-Prime Responsible One was already in the chair—well, in his tree—and fussily chirping for order. The Responsible One ran a tight meeting. All in favor of the municipal reports accepted as read, yes; all old business continued for next meeting, yes; then, if there is no new business—
That was when Giyt hastily put his hand up. “I have some new business, honored chairperson,” he said, and launched into his sales talk.
It didn’t go well. The other mayors listened tepidly, or more likely hardly listened at all, to his graphic description of the predators of Ocean. But when he reached the point of formally requesting permission to import a few weapons for the protection of downed chopper crews he had the commission’s instant attention. There was a mumbling from all five of the other seats, too low-pitched for the translator to make sense of, but the Slug had two limbs in the air before he finished speaking. “Is against all rules!” the Slug declared, slobbering at maximum volume. “No one imports weaponry to Peace Planet ever anyhow, for sure!”
Hagbarth’s briefing had prepared Giyt for that. “It is not a case of weapons, Principal Slug. It is merely for protection in case of accident. It is precisely analogous to the harpoons the Delts carry.”
And of course that got the Delt into it. “Not to be compared! Harpoons vital accessory for skimmers, for purpose providing protein to feed hungry persons.”
Giyt had an answer ready for that, too; surprisingly, someone else made it for him. It was the Petty-Prime chairperson who spoke up: “You have of skimmers, General Manager, only three in total. You have of self-launching harpoons more than one hundred eighty.”
“Needed! For spares in case of losses or damages, which are frequent! And, repeating remark already spoken here, are also used for fishing purposes, not merely protection, same as Kalkaboos.”
The Kalkaboo High Champion jumped in: “Kalkaboo practice is primarily using of nets for fishing purposes.”
“Oh, yes,” the Delt sneered. “Poison nets! Also harpoons as well.”
“Very small harpoons, very few in number,” the Kalkaboo protested; and then it got worse. Several of them were talking at once, the translation phone in Giyt’s ear totally unable to cope. Not only Giyt’s phone, either. Nobody’s translator was making any sense of the chorus of gurgling, baying, moaning, chirping, and screeching until the Petty-Prime rattled his doll-sized drumstick on his doll-sized drum. And kept it up until all the others had quieted down and the Petty-Prime declared the subject deferred for future study and the meeting adjourned.
The funny thing was that, through it all, Mrs. Brownbenttalon hadn’t said a word. She simply crouched there, eyes half closed, looking almost as though she were asleep; but from his position on her shoulder her tiny husband was raised up and staring. He never took his eyes off Giyt. And when Giyt said good-bye to them as everyone was leaving, neither he nor his giant wife replied.
When Giyt got home a message from Hoak Hagbarth was waiting for him on the net. “You made a start, at least,” Hagbarth told him consolingly. “Who thought they’d go along right away? It’s a big decision for them. They need time to get over their outmoded prejudices and face up to the real needs of the present day. So we’ll bring it up again next time. Then we’ll just keep on bringing it up until they say yes. And listen, Giyt, you haven’t forgotten about the safety codes for the portal, have you?”
When Giyt hung up he stared glumly at his screen for a moment, considering what use to make of the rest of his day. What he needed to do was to try to catch up on his homework. He had a lot on his plate, and figuring out how Hoak Hagbarth could circumvent the portal’s safety circuits was low on the stack. He had to read all the reports nobody had read at the joint governance meeting. Or he could tackle some of the accumulated petitions that kept silting up in his file. That particular part of the job was even tougher than it looked, because a lot of those requests dealt with questions Giyt still didn’t really know much about, and so he had to educate himself first. For instance, the guy who had been turned down on moving to the polar mines was now demanding to know why at least the mines couldn’t be located just as well on one of the neighbor islands so he wouldn’t have to travel so far. Was that a sensible idea? Giyt had no way of telling. Probably he should begin to look it up . . . and at the same time repair the other gaps in his education, too. The history of Tupelo. The reason it had so many islands and so few continents. Et one damn cetera after another.
But first, and most of all, there was one special subject he could not put off learning more about. So what he began accessing on his screen wasn’t any of the problems of Tupelo and its people. It was medical files, the ones that dealt with the dangers and problems associated with pregnancy. Of which, it turned out, there were a lot more than he was really prepared to face. When he got to the part about teratogenesis and how every once in a while a seemingly normal fetus would fail to develop a head, or turn out to have a partly developed Siamese twin, he shuddered, closed the file, and went looking for Rina to reassure himself.
She was cooking him lunch, and Lupe was in the kitchen with her. When Giyt came in Lupe beamed up at him. “Congratulations, Evesham,” she said as she got up to kiss him chastely on the cheek. “The little monsters’re a hell of a lot of bother, but, you’ll see, they’re worth it.”
“Thanks,” he said, giving Rina an accusing look. It hadn’t occurred to him that she would tell some outsider about their new problem—their situation, he corrected himself.
But neither Lupe nor Rina seemed to think there was anything odd about it, and Lupe had something on her mind. “Listen,” she said, “the reason I came over was to tell you what’s going to be happening at the firehouse. You know when there’s a fire you’ll get a call on your carry-phone; then you drop everything and go.”
“Go to do what? Wasn’t I supposed to be having some training first?”
“Well, that’s the thing I wanted to tell you. The chief just decided we’re going to have a wetdown today. It’s like a practice run, you know? So you’ll just get your first lessons on the job. So when we get the signal don’t get too shaken up. It won’t be a real fire, this time, but we have to show up anyway.”
“I thought Matya didn’t want you doing that.”
“I got an extension, just until the Taste of Tupelo’s over; they’ll need everybody for that . . . Ah, there’s the call now. Let’s go.”
And Rina, composedly ladling something into a container, said: “Stew’s ready, so take some with you. You can eat it on the way.”
When Lupe and Giyt got to the firehouse all five of the gleaming fire trucks were pulled out onto the apron of the garage, motors going, tiremen and women from all over the town clambering aboard. “Here,” said one of them, handing something to Giyt. “Put this on.”
It was a genuine fireman’s hat, like the one he’d owned when he was five years old. Although the shape was the same, this one was bigger and heavier. Also there was an inset square of fabric on the front for Giyt to pin his chrome badge, as soon as they finished making him one. As he clung to the outside of Pumper 3, careening through the streets of the town, the driver—it was that Colly Detslider man from the Energy Island—stole a look over his shoulder and frowned at Giyt. He shouted something Giyt couldn’t make out, but Lupe, clinging to the other side of the truck, apparently did. She pulled a slicker from a locker in the side of the truck and passed it to Giyt. “Don’t try to put it on now,” she bawled, “but you’ll need it later—why do you think it’s called a wetdown?”