The Number of the Beast

XXXI

"-the first ghosts ever to search for an obstetrician."

Hilda:

If Zebbie and Jacob have a fault in common, it is overprotectiveness. Having always been the runt, I am habitually willing to accept protection. But Deety ~ rebels.

When Zebbie asked Jacob whether or not they were justified in exposing us to unknown dangers, Deety stuck her oar in-and Zebbie tried to hush her.

Zebbie should have known better.

But he is barely getting acquainted with her, whereas I've known her since her diaper days. Once when Deety was, oh, possibly four, I started to tie her shoes. She pulled away. "Deety do!" she announced indignantly-and Deety did: on one shoe a loose half bow that came apart almost at once, on the other a Gordian knot that required the Alexandrian solution.

It's been "Deety do!" ever since, backed by genius and indomitable will.

Deety told him, "Zebadiah, concerning completing this schedule: Is there some reason to exclude Hilda and me from the decision?"

"Damn it, Deety, this is one time when husbands have to decide!"

"Damn it, Zebadiah, this is one time when wives must be consulted!"

Zebbie was shocked. But Deety had simply matched his manner and rhetoric. Zebbie is no fool; he backed down. "I'm sorry, hon," he said soberly. "Go ahead."

"Yessir. I'm sorry I answered the way I did. But I do have something to say-and Hilda, too. I know I speak for both of us when I say that we appreciate

that you and Pop would die for us... and that you feel this more intensely now that we are pregnant.

"But we have not been pregnant long enough to be handicapped. Our bellies do not bulge. They will bulge, and that gives us a deadline. But for that very reason we will either sample those rotation universes today... or we will never sample them."

"Why do you say 'never,' Deety?"

"That deadline. We've sampled five and, scary as some have been, I wouldn't have missed it! We can look at the other ten in the next few hours. But if we start searching Teh axis there is no way to guess how long it will take. Thousands of universes along Teh axis and it seems likely that each holds an analog of Earth. We may check hundreds before we find what we are looking for. Let's say we find it and Hilda and I have babies with skilled medical attention. Then what? Zebadiah, are you going to be more willing to take women with babies into strange universes than you are without babies?"

"Uh... that's not the way to put it, Deety."

"How would you put it, sir? Are you thinking that you and Pop might check those ten while Hilda and I stay home with the kids?"

"Well... yes, I suppose I am. Something of the sort."

"Zebadiah, I married you for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. I did not marry to walk the Widow's Walk! Where you go, I go!.-till death do us part."

"Deety speaks for me," I said, and shut up. Deety had it figured: If Jacob and Zebbie didn't finish those rotations today, they would have that "far horizons" look for the rest of their lives-and they wouldn't want us along. Not with kids. Sharpie wasn't going to hold still for that. No, sir!

"Deety, are you through?"

"Not quite, sir. All humans are created unequal. You are bigger and stronger than Pop; I am bigger and stronger than Hilda. I have the least years of experience; Pop has the most. Pop is a supergenius... but he concentrates so hard that he forgets to eat-unless he has a nursemaid to watch him-as Mama did, as I did, as Hilda now does. You, sir, are the most all-around competent man I've ever met, whether driving a duo, or dancing, or telling outrageous tales. Three of us have eight or nine earned degrees... but Aunt Hilda with none is a walking encyclopedia from insatiable curiosity and extraordinary memory. We two are baby factories and you two are not-but two men can impregnate fifty women-or five hundred. There is no end to the ways that we four are unequal. But in one supremely important way all of us are equals.

"We are pioneers.

"Men alone are not pioneers; they can't be. Pioneer mothers share the dangers of pioneer fathers and go on having babies. Babies were born in the Mayflower, lots were born in covered wagons-and lots died, too. Women didn't stay home; they went along.

"Zebadiah, I do not ask to be taken to those next ten universes-"

"It sounds like it."

"You didn't listen, sir. I would like to finish sampling those fifteen. It's my preference but not my demand. What I do demand I have stated: Where you go, I go. Today and to the end of our lives. Unless you tell me to get out, that you don't want me anymore. I have spoken."

"You certainly have, dear. Hilda?"

Fish or cut bait, Sharpie-what do you want? I didn't care; any new universe was bound to be strange. But Deety had laid down the party line; I didn't want to fuzz it up-so I answered instantly, "Deety speaks for me in every word."

"Jake? Back to my original question: 'Are we justified in exposing our wives to conditions we can't even imagine?"

"Zeb, you are the one who convinced me that it would be prudent to sample the universes accessible through rotation before searching by translation."

"True. But that was before we sampled five of them."

"I don't see that the situation has changed. An imaginable danger is not necessarily better than an unimaginable one; it may be worse. Our home planet had grave shortcomings before we tangled with the vermin. No need to list them; we all know that the Four Horsemen are ready to ride again. But I can think of a very close analog of our home planet that would be far worse than Earth-zero even if it didn't have a single 'Black-Hat' vermin on it."

"Go on."

"One in which Hitler got atomic weapons but we did not. I can't see that vermin are more to be dreaded than Hitler's S.S. Corps. The sadism of some human beings-not just Storm Troopers; you can find sadists in any country including the United States-is more frightening to me than any monster."

"Not to me!" Deety blurted it out.

"But, my dear, we don't know that those vermin are cruel. We got in their way; they tried to kill us. They did not try to torture us. There is a world of difference."

"Maybe there is, Pop, but those things give me the creeps. I'll bet they'd torture us if they could!"

"My very dear daughter, that's muddy thinking. How old are you?"

"Huh? Pop, you know if anybody does."

"I was reminding you ~f what you said: you have the least years of experience. I was much older than you are before I was cured of that sort of muddy thinking. By Jane, your mother. Hilda?"

"Jacob is telling you not to judge a book by its cover," I said. "I learned it from Jane, too, as Jacob knows. A creature's appearance tells nothing about its capacity for sadism."

Jacob said, "Does anyone have anything to add? Since it appears that I am not permitted to resign now, I must rule on it. We will complete the scheduled rotations." Jacob cleared his throat loudly, looked at Deety. "During my remaining hours in what Zeb so accurately calls the 'Worry Seat,' I will endeavor to keep my orders straight....ut, should I fail, I ask that my attention be invited to it at once -not saved up for a scolding later. Daughter?"

"Okay, Pop. Aye aye, Captain."

"Thank you, my dear. Is anyone tired or hungry?" No one spoke up; Jacob continued, "Hilda, will you take the conn?"

"No, Captain"-I'll omit the internal debate I held with myself; Jacob on his best behavior is hard to refuse.

"Very well, my beloved; I won't press you. It's an odd situation. Copilot, by schedule, set to rotate."

"Second group, first of four-set, sir."

"Check seat belts, stand by to rotate. Execute!"

We were in sunlight in a blue sky and upside down. For a few seconds we were thrown around a bit-Deety isn't the pilot Zebbie is. But she did get us leveled off. I heard Deety say, "Gay Deceiver."

"Hi, Deety!"

"Hold course, speed, and height-above-ground."

"Got it, girl!"

"You're a Smart Girl, Gay."

"But we can't go on meeting like this! Over."

"Roger and out, Gay. Whew! Time out while the Chief Pilot has a nervous breakdown. Zebadiah, what does that altimeter say?"

"Seven klicks H-above-G."

"Pop, what's the probability of winding up this close to a planet without getting killed?"

"Impossible to theorize, Deety. Maybe we're dead and don't know it. Copilot, deadman switch; I'm going to check the air."

'Captain!" I yelped.

"Not now, Hilda, I'm-"

"NOW! Am I still second-in-command? If I am, I must advise you; you are about to make a bad mistake!"

Jacob hesitated. I think he was counting. "My dear one, if I am about to make a bad mistake, I want your advice no matter what your status is."

"Thank you, Jacob. You should not be guinea pig. I should be. I-"

"Hilda, you're pregnant."

"All the more reason why I want the most competent and least expendable- you, Zebbie, and Deety-to take care of yourselves in order to take care of me. It's my duty as science officer in any case, whether I'm number two or not. But, Jacob, you are doing it just the way Zebbie did it when we landed on Mars-ten-and that's all wrong!"

"Thank you, Sharpie!"

"Zebbie dear! You risked your life and it's not necessary-" Zebbie interrupted me. "Not necessary to waste juice this way! Yack-yackyack!"

"Copilot, pipe down!" Jacob said sharply. "Gay Bounce! Chief Pilot, when we reenter, place the car on dead-stick glide, manual or automatic. Don't use juice. Now, All Hands, listen to the Science Officer. Go ahead, Hilda."

"Yes, Captain. Three days ago it was necessary for somebody to be the

canary-but it should have been me, not Zebbie. What was necessary three days ago is reckless today. That deadman switch- Unless it has been rewired, it takes us back two klicks over a crater-and that's not what we want. The correct scram for this is T, E, R, M, I, T, E. But that's just half of it. Deety has taught the S.G. how to ground herself no-power on any level bit of ground. We can ground first. Then anyone can be guinea pig, doesn't matter. Whoosh back to our stream bank-bang, open the doors."

Zebbie said, "Captain, that makes sense. Sharpie-I mean 'Science Officer.' May I apologize with a back rub?"

"You can apologize with a kiss. But I'll take the back rub, too."

"Zebadiah, don't commit yourself too far; an air test isn't necessary. Pop! Captain Pop, may I take her up thirty klicks?"

"I suppose so. May I ask why?"

"Captain, I know where we are. From that high I can prove it."

"Deety, that's imp-"

"Don't say 'impossible,' Captain-I'll refer you to my father."

"Miss Smarty Pants. Take her up."

"Thanks, Pop. GayBounceGayBounceGayBounce. Gay Deceiver, vertical dive, execute. Everybody tell me where we are."

I had noticed earlier what pretty countryside was under us. Now I studied it in detail. Zebbie said, "Be durned. Big rectangular oasis completely surrounded by desert. Populated, too. That's a fair-sized town in the middle."

"Yes," I agreed. "Don't you recognize it, Zebbie? From a map."

My husband said, "Now, Hilda, this is an unexplored universe. How could you have seen a-"

"Pop!" interrupted Deety. "You've seen the map. See the Yellow Brick Road off to the left? Try the binoculars; you can follow it clear to Emerald City."

"Deety my love," said Zebbie, "you are out of your mind. Or I am. Either way, somebody call an ambulance. Don't forget the straitjacket. Sharpie, something worries me. I failed to get my warning... yet we came so close to hitting that real estate I'm still shaking."

"That means there wasn't any danger, Zebbie."

"Then why am I trembling?"

"You're a fraud, dear. We've all been dead quite a while now-killed in my parking lot. Deety and I may be the first ghosts ever to search for an obstetrician. In further support of my theory I am having a pregnancy with no morning sickness-a miracle that makes the Land of Oz as commonplace as faithful husbands."

"I don't think I want to analyze that. Is that the Castle of the Tin Woodman there in the east?"

"Yes, but that's the west, dear. Deety, is that sun rising or setting?"

"Setting. Directions are reversed here. Everybody knows that."

"A retrograde planet," my husband commented. "Nothing dangerous about that."

"Pop, admit it. You know the Oz books almost as well as I do-"

"Better. Don't give yourself airs, Daughter. I agree that this appears to

match stories and map, while trying to reserve judgment. Deety, how would you like to raise kids in the Land of Oz?"

"Pop, I'd love it!"

"Are you certain? As I recall, nobody dies in the Land of Oz yet the population doesn't increase. I don't recall babies being born in Oz stories. I don't recall M.D.'s or hospitals. Or machinery. Zeb, that inside-out universe had different physical laws from those of our universe. If we ground here, will we be able to leave? Oz works by magic, not by engineering." Jacob added, "Copilot, I want your professional opinion."

"Captain, you see a difference between magic and engineering. I don't."

"Oh, come now, Zeb!"

"I believe in just two things: Murphy's Law, and Place Not Your Faith in an Ace Kicker. Permit me to point out that we are already in the Land of Oz, even though at altitude. I can think of worse places to be stranded. No common cold. No income tax. No political candidates. No smog. No churches. No wars. No inflation. No-"

Deety interrupted. "We are now passing over the Palace of Glinda the Good."

"Why pass over it?" I asked. "Jacob, why aren't we grounding?"

"Me, too," Deety added. "Captain Pop, I request permission to ground near the Palace. I'm certain that nothing can upset Glinda the Good; she already knows about it from her Book. Besides, a palace that size must have plumbing... and I'm beginning to feel as if I had attended a watermelon picnic."

"Methinks a bush would suffice," said Zebbie. "Even in another universe and with an armed guard. How about it, Captain?"

"Chief Pilot, ground at will. Hilda, do the Oz books have bathrooms in them? I don't recall."

"Nor do I, Jacob," I answered. "But there are plenty of bushes."

In three or four minutes Deety had us grounded, with Gay using Deety's new program. I thanked my husband for deciding to ground. "There was never any doubt," he said. "Not only would you and Deety never have spoken to me again, I would never have spoken to me again. But if I meet a living scarecrow, I may go stark, raving mad."