The caller wasn't any of their first choices. It was Achiever. Without preamble he asked, "Have asked on earlier occasion if you had been asked. Now I ask again. Well? What is your answer?"
"Oh, hell," Stan said. "I don't have any idea what you're talking about. Answer to what?"
The muscles under Achiever's cheekbones were twitching madly. "How can you ask me answer to what? Have recently experienced significant event, somewhat pleasurable but very tiring, have retained little patience. Is it possible you have not yet been asked?"
"Asked what?" Stan demanded, now well on the way to becoming belligerent. But so was Achiever. He stomped a few steps away from the door, the fur at the back of his neck erect with anger, then stepped back. "This is not to any degree acceptable!" he shouted. "I am greatly enraged. Therefore I shut you off without customary convention of good-bye!" And he turned on his narrow heel and stomped away.
Estrella and Stan were in their bedroom, no longer fully dressed and no more than half-heartedly picking at their latest consignment of the marginally edible, not talking much, really, about Achiever because what was there still to say about that volatile and unlikeable Heechee?—when the door growled and the visitor turned out to be Salt, looking somehow radiant and in no respect purple. "Possibly can come in?" she asked, and took their silence as affirmative.
"Oh, absolutely," Stan assured her, a little tardily—she was already perched in their living room and looking expectantly from one to the other of them. "You have been speaking with Achiever," she told them. "I know this because he so informed me. It is partly relevant to him that I come to see you."
Stan pulled the robe he had grabbed up tighter around him. "Is anything wrong?"
"Nothing is in the least wrong of any description," Salt said, the tone of her voice sounding as though that were true. If she had been human, Stan would have said she was beaming. "Quite in actuality contrariwise. First must apologize to you for did not invite you to ceremony. Reason for this: other party and I well aware of your cultural modesty tabus."
"What ceremony?" Stan asked, baffled.
Estrella was quicker on the uptake. "What are you saying? Are you actually—have you been—"
"Have exactly been, yes," Salt confirmed delightedly. "And also have exactly done, with use of Achiever as fertilizing person. Am therefore quite knocked up, I say in particular to Estrella, just like you!"
15
Happiness
I
For Stan, one pregnant woman had been interesting, even (since it was his own baby she was pregnant with) absorbing. Two weren't twice as good. They weren't even half as good. Suddenly it was Salt, not Stan, that Estrella reported every twinge or queasiness to. Not only that; one day Salt spoke a few sentences in her own languages to Stork, and from then on, on demand, it displayed the contents of either's womb.
To a degree that was interesting enough to Stan. Heechee biology was not the same as human. Heechee owned a pair of hearts apiece, Stan knew, as well as heaven knew what other bizarre kinds of internal plumbing. All the same, there were basic architectural plans in common. For both species, a single egg, once fertilized, multiplied to become many, and then the baby was born. For Stan, observing how Salt's early cells divided and took new shapes sort of filled in what his own daughter must have looked like before Stork came along. Salt's embryo, of course, was tiny— indeed nearly invisible, until Stork was ordered to magnify it for them. And it wasn't much to look at even then, either, especially when compared with the far more advanced little being in Estrella's belly.
All the same, Stan had more time to himself these days. So when Yellow Jade showed up, a tottering son on either side, Stan was glad to accept his offer to help them know their neighbors. The son named Warm spoke Mandarin and Vietnamese, the one named Ionic Solvent Korean and Japanese, but neither English. So when they did visit the newcomers conversation was a challenging task.
The new neighbors were housed well. The room they were received in was larger than any in Stan and Estrella's flat, and it was pretty full— eighteen or twenty of the neighbors, mostly elderly, separated into half a dozen clutches of the various ethnicities. When, say, the plump little woman who spoke for the Koreans wanted to wish Estrella a healthy, happy and an easy birth, the appropriate brother translated it into Heechee. Then the other made it into his own languages, one after another, while Yellow Jade was rendering it into English for Stan and Estrella and, simultaneously, the first brother was translating it into his second language, so there was a constant buzz of multilingual translation going on all the time.
It was not an efficient way of communicating. All the same, Stan enjoyed it tolerably well, and even more enjoyed the food. A two-meter lazy Susan rotated before them, constantly replenished from the dispenser with new dishes, hot and cold, sour and sweet. They were almost as puzzling to Stan and Estrella as their former Heechee CHON-food rations. But human. And, often enough, delicious.
It made the sorry messes the dispenser had been giving them even more repellent. Later on, when Salt dropped in, they were mournfully forcing down another helping of the current muck.
Salt was apologetic about intruding. "Did not perceive you both feeding before entering in your house. Please continue to feed. Will absent self in other regions of this home." And then, when they had swallowed as much as they could, she returned. "Have observed tooth-cleaning growth in washing place," she told them. "Is better thing now. Growth no longer in use. Have imported formula for, plus directions for preparation of, new preparation of, how would one call it, soup of edible microorganisms. Very latest thing from Outside. Does cleaning, oiling, desmelling teeth all at one time, very efficient." Then, as she came close enough to get a good look at the remains of their meal, she stopped short. She hesitated a moment, then said politely, "Have question, not intending make criticism. Question is: is possible these foodstuffs enjoyable to you?"
Stan gave her an unamused grunt. "No. It isn't possible. It's just all we have."
"What, have not possessed even appropriate communicating with chef service? But explain this," Salt demanded. And when they did explain she sniffed. "I deal with for you," she said, stood up and addressed the air with a few emphatic Heechee sentences.
Her explanation of what she had done took longer. When they closed their home off to the rest of the world, it had meant that no one could call and, among other things, that the food service couldn't learn their desires. They had marooned themselves.
But now, she said, they could have their privacy when they wanted it—"Simply to saying when desired 'Privacy now!' and, when not, 'No longer requiring privacy' and such will be accomplished." But actually Stan and Estrella hardly heard the explanations, because they had already told the air they wanted lunch, and were listening eagerly for a response.
And the very next day Hypatia of Alexandria popped crossly into their flat. "You two," she said frostily. "Klara's been trying to call you, but you'd cut yourself off. Anyway, she would like you to come and visit her. There are some people she'd like you to meet."
"People?" Stan asked, but Estrella only asked, "When?" It was Estrella she chose to answer. "Now. Whenever you want to get over there."
When they arrived it was Hypatia again who let them in. Without preamble she ordered, "Stand still for one moment, please, Estrella." For that moment she seemed to be looking at nothing at all, then nodded toward Klara's abdomen. "I took the liberty of an internal examination. It is a beautiful fetus. Now please sit down. Klara is dressing for her company."