Stan found himself displeased. He had felt a lot more important when he and Estrella were rarer than they were now. Any time now, he thought, human beings they didn't even know might be dropping in on them in person.
What he hadn't expected was that one of those follow humans would arrive at their apartment that very day. But one did.
The doorbell (they couldn't think of what else to call it) told them that someone was waiting outside. It didn't tell them that the person was female, good-looking, blonde, blue-eyed, carrying a little black bag and, above all, human. "Hello," she said brightly. "Dr. von Shrink said I should come out and check you over. I'm an ob-gyny. My name is Dr. Dorothy Kusmeroglu."
An electric shock went through Stan when he heard the name. "Kusmeroglu? Really? You're Turkish? Maybe from Istanbul—"
"Oh, no. Not me. That could've been where my couple-of-greats-grandfather came from, though," she said, looking around the apartment as though she were preparing to make an offer on it. "Somewhere on Earth, anyway, but I've never been there. I'm third-generation Martian. Can we use the bedroom, Estrella? And I think it's better if Stan stays out here."
So Stan was again left to bite his fingernails while he waited for whatever had to be done with Estrella, now clearly the alpha star of their little constellation. It didn't take long. When they came out both were smiling. "Everything is perfect, Stan," the doctor told him. "You can see it for yourself, because I've got a little present for you." She rummaged in her bag, pulled out an iridescent, olive-colored bracelet. "Put this on, Estrella. It's the latest thing from Outside to see how your baby's doing—I hear they call it 'Stork,' there, but maybe that's too cute for you? Anyway, when you want to make it work you just say, 'Stork, display.'" And then, when Estrella didn't act at once, she said impatiently, "Come on, hon. I haven't got all day."
Estrella looked at Stan, got no help there and finally sighed. "All right. Stork. Display."
A faint cloud of pale pink swirled beside Estrella's body and immediately collapsed into a minute, doll-like figure. It floated in the air a meter or so from Estrella's face, making her draw back in sudden surprise. It didn't look like a baby to Stan. It looked like something you might step on in the street, and immediately try to scrub off your shoe.
But then, as it slowly rotated before their eyes, it began to look like— well, not like anything you'd call human, but a little like one of those crude, prehistoric attempts to capture a human form in stone. There was a head—eyeless, earless, but with something rather like a chin. There were spindly limbs and tiny hands and feet. And there was—
"My God," Stan breathed. "Has he got an erection already?"
Dr. Kusmeroglu gave him a patient little laugh. "That's the umbilical cord. He hasn't got a penis yet—hold on," she interrupted herself, peering hard at the tiny animalcule. "Huh,' she said. "Never will have, either. You see the external genitalia, up there in the crotch? Well, up to now the embryo hasn't had any gender, but around now is when the genitalia migrate. If they go up it's a girl, down they turn into testicles and it's a boy. And this one's migrating up." She lifted her eyes to meet Estrella's. "So you've got a little girl, hon. Congratulations."
While Stan was trying to get used to the proposition that he was not only becoming a father, but a father to an actual, visible (if not yet fully formed) human being, complete with arms, legs and gender, Dr. Kusmeroglu snapped her bag shut. "By the way," she said, "she isn't an embryo anymore. From now on she's a fetus. Now I have to get moving. I don't want to miss my flight to Mostly Water Planet of Bright Yellow Star."
"You came in a spaceship? Just to see us?" Stan marveled.
"Of course. There aren't that many pregnant human beings in the Core right now, are there? Now, when we move to the implantation procedure—" She paused, biting her lip in thought.
That scared Stan. "Is something the matter?" he demanded.
"Oh, no, of course not. Not really. It's just that I don't think there are any suitable implantation animals here. That kind of thing is usually done earlier in the pregnancy, but that's mostly for the mother's convenience. There's no great hurry. We can order a suitable surrogate from Outside—"
"Stop!" Estrella commanded. "What are you talking about?"
Dr. Kosmeroglu looked faintly bewildered. "Didn't I make myself clear? I'm talking about a surrogate mother, of course, what else? A mammal large enough to carry your baby to term—of course, one that has been genetically modified so that it won't reject the fetus. So the question is, what kind would you prefer? In most of the world it's usually water buffalo. They're a good size, and they're cheap and plentiful. I prefer to use cows, myself."
Estrella was looking at the woman in horror. "My baby? Inside an animal?"
"Of course inside an animal," the doctor said impatiently. "What else would you do? You don't want to go through parturition yourself, do you? All that pain and mess? Not to mention nine months of trying to get comfortable with a belly that keeps getting bigger and bigger every day? Nobody does now, except—Oh, wait." She paused and gave Estrella a more appraising look. "Listen, you're not one of those religious fanatics, are you?"
Estrella tried to answer but couldn't. She settled for just shaking her head.
The doctor sighed and stood up. "Look," she said kindly, "I know this is a big step for you. Talk it over, the two of you. If you've got something against using bovids, there are other mammalian choices. One or two species of bear are good, and sometimes we can time the pregnancy to coincide with their hibernation so there's not even the slight risk of accident you get when your surrogate is left out to feed and so on. That bear procedure, or the water buffalo, is done mostly in Hindu areas, because, you know, they've got that cow thing. I've even heard of people using one of the marine mammals, now and then, though I can't imagine why. Not on Mars, of course; even now we don't have that kind of bodies of water, so I don't have any personal experience. Anyway, I think it would be pretty troublesome to try to bring an orca here. Excuse me." She turned away, raising her hand apologetically. To the air she said, "Time?" She listened for a moment, then grimaced. "I really have to get going, and anyway I guess you've got the picture. Call me if you have any questions—and, of course, when you've made up your mind about the surrogate."
And she was gone. Stan and Estrella looked at each other. Stan said, "What do you think, would you want to do something like that?"
"Over my dead body," Estrella said firmly. "Let's get something to eat. If we're going to keep that baby inside me where it belongs, we'd better feed it."
II
Stork was a wonderful toy. Surprisingly, more for Stan than for Estrella; she was interested in seeing it four or five times a day but not much more, while Stan would sit, studying the tiny molecule, for an hour or two at a time, until Estrella got tired of doing odds and ends without him and informed him she wasn't getting enough exercise for the baby's good. So they went for more of those long walks in the countryside, enjoying the fragrance of growing things, pleased by the beauty of the tall trees with their frizzy crown of branches. On this day, the little animals that pretended to be plants were flowering, yellow and blue and red, and the ruse was working for them. Clouds of tiny flying things hovered around them, not evidently discouraged by the fact that so many of them were being eaten. There were fish in the pond, too, nasty snakelike things with bright orange eyes. If Estrella had had some thought of a quick swim she gave that up as soon as she saw them writhing around, just below the surface.