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                                                     ISSN 1054-0695
        
                       SHAREDEBATE INTERNATIONAL
                       =========================
                        Extract from Volume 2(2)
                    Originally issued Winter 1991-92
                      Extract released Summer 1993
        
                           Diskette number 8X
                        (BBS Filename: DBATE08X)
        
                       Roleigh H. Martin, Editor
                Copyright 1993 by Applied Foresight Inc.
                          All Rights Reserved.
        
                    (Material by Individual Authors
                    May Be Copyrighted Differently)
        
                              Published by
                        Applied Foresight, Inc.
                             P.O. Box 20607
                       Bloomington MN 55420, USA
                       CompuServe ID: 71510,1042
        
        -----------------------------------------------------------
        -- A Freeware Diskette-Magazine of Nonfiction & Fiction ---
        ------- Original & Reprints -- Published Quarterly  -------
        ------                                               ------
        ----- "An International Debate Forum for Computer Users ---
        -------- Concerned about the Present and the Future" ------
        -----------------------------------------------------------
        -----------------------------------------------------------
        
                        From the Editor's Desk:
        
        Hello again!  This special release carries the first
        part of what is continued in issue 10 of ShareDebate
        International -- it is nothing more than an extract
        from issue 8 of ShareDebate International and is being
        re-released because Compuserve did not carry the full
        issue 8 because of it's lengthy filesize.
        
            The extract is part one of the lengthy excerpt from
        the book that won the Prometheus award for science-
        fiction author, Victor Koman.  Part one reprints
        chapters 1-8.  The book is 23 chapters long and
        ordering information for the whole book, electronic or
        paper, is provided at the end of the each excerpt.
        
            A word about editorial philosophy.  Just because an
        entry appears in ShareDebate International doesn't mean
        that I wholly or partially endorse what that writer is
        proposing.  The article might be included because I
        think the writer uses good writing and/or argumentative
        techniques, or the writer addresses points needing
        addressing (regardless of the writer's
        recommendations), or otherwise.
        
            For instance, because abortion is such a tremendous
        controversy, Victor Koman's novel is being presented
        not because I think his solution is flawless and
        without problems---I doubt if he would assert that--but
        it shows how what many consider a two-sided argument
        can have additional sides.  I'll present my own
        viewpoints on Abortion someday--not now. Suffice it to
        say, I take the Christian Libertarian stance on
        abortion, which is also another independent stance that
        differs from the normally-media-presented two-sides of
        the abortion debate.
        
        -----------------------------------------------------------
        
                            SOLOMON'S KNIFE
        
                   An Excerpt from the Original Novel
              (Chapters 1-15 of the original 23 chapters)
        
           (This issue of ShareDebate International presents
                 chapters 1-8.  Chapters 9-15 appear in
                issue 10 of ShareDebate International.)
                            by Victor Koman
                   Copyright (c) 1989 by Victor Koman
                          All rights reserved.
                   Logoright (L) 1989 by Victor Koman
        
                Reprinted by permission of Victor Koman
        
        
                            SOLOMON'S KNIFE
                                a novel
                                   by
                              Victor Koman
        
          Solomon's Knife is currently available in a diskette
           and modem-downloadable format from KoPubCo and is
                      distributed exclusively by:
        
                   SoftServ Publishing Services, Inc.
                              P.O. Box 94
                       Long Beach, CA 90801-0094
        
                    Copyright 1989 by Victor Koman.
            Hardback edition available from Franklin Watts.
                  First edition published April, 1989.
        
              Library of Congress Catalog Number 88-34900
        
        
                             "Dust Jacket"
        
            The controversial novel that won the Prometheus
        Award for 1990!
        
            Dr. Evelyn Fletcher is a surgeon caught in a
        maelstrom of controversy. She has secretly devised a
        surgical procedure that could alter the lives of
        millions. When the beautiful and successful Valerie
        Dalton walks into Fletcher's office for a routine
        abortion, the doctor realizes that she has found the
        perfect experimental subject.
        
            Karen Chandler and her husband sought pregnancy for
        years with no success. They greet Fletcher's offer of a
        radically new procedure as a miracle. Karen, with no
        hesitation, agrees to undergo the clandestine surgery.
        
            When little Renata is born and then falls deathly
        ill, only one person can save her life. A woman who
        does not even know her daughter exists. Under a barrage
        of media scrutiny, Valerie Dalton must face the courts
        with her lover in an unprecedented custody battle.
        Ultimately, she plumbs the depths of her shattered soul
        to find the answer to the conflict that rages within
        her and all society.
        
            SOLOMON'S KNIFE is a masterful and fiery mixture
        of medical thriller and courtroom drama that fuses
        every facet of the most violently debated issue of our
        age. The reality it foreshadows is only years --
        perhaps months -- away.
        
        
                       PRAISE FOR SOLOMON'S KNIFE
        
            "SOLOMON'S KNIFE... is a species of that too-rare
        genus, moral fiction. But it is inhabited by real
        people instead of cut-outs stenciled with a specific
        point-of-view. I cared about these people even as I was
        swept up in the fascinating legal/ethical/ moral
        conundrum they faced. Riveting, spellbinding,
        intellectually challenging, and emotionally
        satisfying."
                                               --F. Paul Wilson
        
            "...an exciting page-turner sure to offend readers
        of all views.... Rousing pulp-fiction-cum social-
        prophecy."
                                                       --Kirkus
        
            "...'transoption' would neatly put to rest all the
        outrage surrounding abortion."
                                            --Publishers Weekly
        
            "Gripping.... SOLOMON'S KNIFE is a novel that does
        what only a great novel can do: It gives us a new
        context."
                                 --Atlanta Journal-Constitution
        
            "SOLOMON'S KNIFE is that rare accomplishment, a
        philosophical novel with characters who seem like real
        people you can come to care about. Victor Koman has
        managed to fuse a serious, fair-minded, and sensitive
        explication of one of the more emotional issues of our
        time with a page-turner of a story.... Koman's novel
        will not only entertain readers, it will help those on
        all sides of the abortion issue clarify their
        thinking."
                         --Alan W. Bock, Orange County Register
        
            "Aptly named for the biblical story of King
        Solomon, this novel will be a welcome addition... in
        light of all the ethical questions it addresses."
                                              --Library Journal
        
            "Koman writes with depth and clarity. He gives us
        three-dimensional characters that we can care about,
        and he crafts a story with plenty of fireworks--one
        that is guaranteed to knock your vision out of any
        tunnel."
                                        --Michael Reed, Liberty
        
        
                           ABOUT VICTOR KOMAN
        
            Victor Koman is the author of six novels and is at
        this moment working on his seventh. He is also a Vice
        President of SoftServ Publishing.  He currently resides
        in Southern California with his beautiful wife and
        wonderful daughter.
        
            His first published work was a short story in New
        Libertarian, edited by Samuel Edward Konkin III. He
        sold a story entitled "Death's Dimensions" to Galaxy
        Magazine in 1978, which served as the beginning of a
        novel by the same name soon to appear as a SoftServ
        Paperless Book. His satirical novel of erotic Science
        Fiction, SAUCER SLUTS, was serialized in a Los Angeles
        tabloid and published by Hustler Books as STARSHIP
        WOMEN in 1980. Meanwhile, Koman co-wrote (with Teny
        Zuber) two educational audiocassette space adventures
        for Roger Elwood.
        
            SOLOMON'S KNIFE, was written in 1988. Politically
        potent, it is a medical thriller and courtroom drama
        that shatters the moribund philosophies clinging to the
        abortion dilemma and creates a radical fusion of Pro-
        Life and Pro-Choice forces when a new medical technique
        threatens to make abortion obsolete.
        
            THE JEHOVAH CONTRACT, also available on SoftServ,
        was written in 1978 and '79 and was effectively
        censored in the U.S. by publishers' cowardice. It was
        first published in 1985--in Bavaria--as a German
        language paperback titled DER JEHOVA-VERTRAG (by Heyne
        Verlag). Eventually, British editor Charles Platt--
        working for U.S. publisher Franklin Watts--bought the
        book for 1987 hardback publication. It won the
        Prometheus Award in 1988 for best novel.
        
            In addition to his writing, Koman still finds time
        to do such things as convince the Walt Disney Company
        to preserve its old-style bubble-topped monorail for
        future generations, write pro-civil rights articles for
        gun owners and drug users, appear as an extra in STAR
        TREK--THE MOTION PICTURE, maintain his fleet of vintage
        cars and motorcycles, hone his flying skills, edit
        TACTICS OF THE MOVEMENT OF THE LIBERTARIAN LEFT, co-
        chair the VOTE FOR NOBODY counter-campaigns, collect
        rare books, publish pamphlets and books on paper and
        via SoftServ, and spearhead THE ALEXANDRIA PROJECT, an
        effort to preserve rare books by converting them to
        electronic text.
        
            In conjunction with composer/songwriter Kim Rich
        Norton, he is working on a musical version of THE
        JEHOVAH CONTRACT.
        
        
                           FORMAT CONVENTION
        
        Italics  or  underlining are represented by a
        \backslash\  flush against the beginning and end of
        material being \emphasized\, and slashes should come
        before \punctuation\.
        
        \\Boldface\\ is represented by double backslashes.
        
        \\\Boldface-italic\\\ is three backslashes.
        
        
                          Also by Victor Koman
                         Available on SoftServ
        
                                 Novels
        
                          DEATH'S DIMENSIONS*
                             SAUCER SLUTS*
                          THE JEHOVAH CONTRACT
        
            *A SoftServ Exclusive Available ONLY on SoftServ
        
                          Also by Victor Koman
        
                                 Novels
        
                     SPACEWAYS #13: JONUTA RISING!
            (with Andrew J. Offutt writing as "John Cleve")
                   SPACEWAYS #17: THE CARNADYNE HORDE
            (with Andrew J. Offutt writing as "John Cleve")
        
                               Nonfiction
        
                  PUBLISH YOUR OWN BOOK FOR UNDER $50!
        
                               Published
                                   by
                                KoPubCo
        
                        Distributed Exclusively
                                   by
                   SoftServ Publishing Services, Inc.
                              P.O. Box 94
                       Long Beach, CA 90801-0094
        
        
                   Logoright (L) 1989 by Victor Koman
        
            The logos in this work is its material identity, an
        "information object," separate from the materials upon
        which it may be imposed or observed, which has been
        created as a unique structured artifact by its author's
        labors.  Since each artifact resulting from the labor
        of a person is, by natural right, by decency, and by
        common law, beyond all limitations of sovereign force,
        the morally claimable property of that being, each use
        of that property must be authorized by its owner, and
        all unauthorized uses of it are trespasses of a
        person's natural rights and a violation of that
        person's spirit.  The Logoright notice is an explicit
        marking of that object to declare to all that it is
        owned.  This Work is licensed for reading purposes
        only.  All other rights and uses, including the right
        to make copies, are reserved to its Owner.
        
        
                      Dedicated to my wife, lover,
                         friend, and companion,
                               Veronica,
                        who through faith, love,
                          labor, and courage,
                    served as midwife to this work.
        
        
            SOLOMON'S KNIFE is a work of fiction. All names,
        places, and institutions are either completely
        imaginary or used fictitiously. While the medical
        procedure described herein is not known to have been
        performed, it lurks on the borderland of technical
        feasibility. Any resemblance to actual persons--living,
        dead, or in limbo--or to actual events, locales, secret
        experiments, or curiously worded contracts is purely
        coincidental.
                                                           V.K.
        
        
                            SOLOMON'S KNIFE
        
                                   I
        
            A cool breeze blew from the ocean over the hills of
        Palos Verdes, carrying the scent of salt and clean air
        with it. Valerie Dalton took a deep breath, held it,
        let it out. It smelled like the winds that caressed the
        Rocky Mountains in winter. Fresh and pure. It reminded
        her of home.
        
            She'd lived in the Los Angeles area for ten years
        since leaving home to attend UCLA. This was home now,
        not Colorado. This was where she had chosen to come.
        This is where she chose to stay.
        
            The man she chose to stay with slumbered in bed,
        his dark hair tousled, face buried in the pillows. She
        watched him for a moment. It gave her a certain warm
        pleasure to know that by rising first to shower, she
        could allow him a few moments more to sleep. A moment
        or two more to recover from their late evening of
        lovemaking.
        
             A lawyer of Ron Czernek's ambition needed all the
        rest he could get.
        
             Valerie stepped quietly into the bathroom. First
        stop was the mirror atop the vanity for a survey of the
        night's damage. She gazed at the flesh around her blue-
        gray eyes. At twenty-eight, she feared the onslaught of
        crinkles with an apprehension usually reserved for
        toxic pollution or nuclear war.
        
             \Safe for now\, she thought, reaching for her
        hairbrush. She plucked a few blond strands from the
        bristles, laid them in a tissue, and balled it up. A
        light toss sent the ball sailing into the wastebasket.
        
             \Two points\. She smiled at the thought of how
        she'd picked up the phrase from Ron. That, and the line
        about punting. Or was it bunting?
        
             Long nails clacking against the shower tiles, she
        twisted the hot water on full, waiting outside for the
        chill to abate. As she slipped out of her peach silk
        teddy, her thoughts turned to the problems she'd face
        at work. She wanted to have Shirley fired. It wouldn't
        look good, though, for a new office manager to flex her
        recently acquired authority that quickly. Perhaps a
        discussion with her about her absenteeism. And the
        condition of her desk.
        
             \That's it\, she thought as she stepped into the
        hot, tingling spray. \A quiet, private talk\.
        
             She languished for a precious moment in the
        swirling warmth of the shower. It became a waterfall
        off a mountain hot spring. She was successful,
        comfortable, and in love with a gentle, considerate
        man. The future lay before her, exciting and sweet.
        With a smile and closed eyes, she thrust her head into
        the cascade. Her long golden hair carried the waterfall
        down her back.
        
             Valerie Dalton was happy. As happy as she'd ever
        been.
        
             Soaped, shampooed, conditioned, and rinsed, she
        stepped a few moments later from the shower. The bath
        sheet felt warm from basking under the heat lamps. She
        wrapped her hair in a smaller towel, twisting it up and
        over. \Queena Sheba\, she thought, looking in the
        soaped portion of an otherwise fogged mirror. Her
        mother had always called her that whenever drying her.
        It was years before she realized that Queena was not a
        first name.
        
             Valerie sat at her vanity. A quick check for water
        damage to her nails came before anything else. They'd
        survived.
        
             She had everything timed. Ten minutes for the
        shower, ten for the hair, twenty-five for dressing and
        makeup. That left fifteen minutes for emergencies
        before she gave Ron a last kiss and squeeze. Then he
        hit the shower, and she hit the road.
        
             When she finished blow-drying her hair to full-
        bodied, soft-waved completion, she moved on to makeup.
        Rummaging for that new bottle of foundation she'd
        bought the other day, she uncovered her Hallmark date
        book.
        
             Valerie felt a childish glow whenever she opened
        it. Her mother had always used one and had instilled
        the tradition in little Val from day one. As long as
        she could remember, she picked up the giveaway every
        year while buying Christmas cards. As a child, it had
        been filled by her mother with important dates. Later,
        she used it to keep track of friends' birthdays. When
        she turned eleven, the little book took on a new
        meaning.
        
             "Now that you're a woman," her mother said, "it's
        important that you keep track of your friend." She
        showed Valerie how to put an inconspicuous dot next to
        the date of her period.
        
             "See?" she said, marking the page on Valerie's
        date book with a tiny black spot. "No one will know
        what it means except you."
        
             "And you," Valerie added with a child's
        seriousness.
        
             "It'll be our secret."
        
             When Valerie turned fourteen, she very daringly
        chose to use a red pen to make the dots. And she made
        them just a little bit larger.
        
             Every year at Christmastime she still picked up
        the date book at whatever card shop she visited. And
        even though she used her Day-Timer for all other
        matters of import, she still took a red pen to the page
        of the date book. Every month. Every...
        
             Curious, she opened the book to the page for
        February. Even though it was the first of March, no
        spot of red glowed from the previous month's white-and-
        blue surface. She flipped back to January.
        
             And stared in quiet shock.
        
             She tried to remember everything that had happened
        in the last month. Her promotion had so occupied her
        time that she hadn't given any thought to much outside
        of her work. If anything, the freedom from aches and
        cramps had enabled her to handle the transition with
        ease.
        
             She gazed at January's mark. The third. She
        counted. Eight weeks. Over eight. It can't be.
        
             She begged herself to remember something. The week
        or two before Valentine's Day. Spotting, maybe.
        
             Nothing. Nothing at all.
        
             She opened a drawer to check her tampons. The box
        was nearly full. When did she buy it?
        
             Looking up in the mirror, Valerie saw a different
        woman staring back.
        
             She missed work that day.
        
                                   #
        
        Dr. Evelyn Fletcher's eyes opened three minutes before
        her alarm went off. Thoughts immediately began their
        daily churn. Concerns about luteinizing hormones,
        estradiol, and catheters intertwined with musings over
        synchronization, scheduling, and budgets.
        
             She rolled naked out of the narrow single bed and,
        after a perfunctory glance at herself in the bathroom
        mirror, climbed into the frigid bathtub and turned on
        the water.
        
             The first blast brought a shudder of cold,
        followed by a gradual warming. The tub was an antique
        ball-and-claw design, devoid of curtains and open to
        the small bathroom. Here, amidst brass and porcelain
        fixtures, mauve and lavender tiles, grey-and-black
        curtains, she began and ended her working days. The hot
        water soothed her. The long soak gave her time to
        think.
        
             Thinking time was what Evelyn cherished most.
        While soaking in the steaming tub, she paid no mind to
        her body. It mattered little to her that forty-seven
        years of life steadily left their tracks on her. The
        face that lined a bit more with every frown of deep
        concentration, the hair that turned relentlessly from
        black to frost, the flesh that would someday slowly
        surrender to the pull of gravity--these were invisible
        to her.
        
             The unceasing thoughts continued to buzz within
        her. Inside, she was eternally young, unaging in her
        enthusiasm.
        
             After half an hour spent in meditation, the water
        had become chilly. In that time, Evelyn had reviewed
        her schedule for the day and given further thought to
        the ramifications of her research. She turned on the
        tap to fill a stoneware pitcher with tepid water. A
        loud, sloshing waterfall substituted for the tub's
        nonexistent shower. After a few jugs worth of rinsing,
        she toweled dry and dressed for the day in her usual
        clothes.
        
             She favored dark clothing. She'd once commented to
        a colleague that she preferred primary colors such as
        white and black. Or blends--grey, off-white, and off-
        black.
        
             Today she wore black. Only a small triangular
        wedge showed through at the apex of her lab coat's
        lapels. The coat--as clean and white as modern
        laundering could offer--was one of seven that she
        owned. One for each workday, plus a spare for emergency
        calls.
        
             With a grunt, Dr. Fletcher hefted a heavy
        briefcase, filled to its tattered limits with papers,
        charts, abstracts, and research. Her right hand
        clutched her black instrument bag. She had never owned
        a purse on the theory that carrying feminine items
        would only weigh her down.
        
             As she did every workday, she locked her apartment
        door's triple set of deadbolts, dropped the oversized
        ring of keys into her lab coat pocket, toted her burden
        down to a faded blue Saab that was only half her age,
        and threw the bags into the back seat. They landed with
        satisfying squeaks on the torn upholstery.
        
             She hesitated before climbing into the driver's
        seat. Gazing out of the carport, she saw that the sun
        had come up over feathery white cirrus clouds. A breeze
        from the sea blew smog inland from Torrance, bringing
        with it a fresh smell. Dew from the night before misted
        on shake roofs, cool night air surrendering to
        morning's warmth.
        
             It would be a good day.
        
        
                                   II
        
        Valerie Dalton stared blankly at the line of men and
        women before her. She hadn't seen them from the parking
        lot. Only when she reached the level of the sidewalk
        leading to the Reproductive Endocrinology wing of
        Bayside University Medical Center did she realize that
        some sort of protest was in progress.
        
             The men and women dressed in the casual style
        endemic in Southern California. Their children
        accompanied them in an elliptical march along the
        sidewalk. The signs they carried were neatly printed in
        bright DayGlo colors.
        
             ABORTION IS MURDER read several of the signs. END
        THE SILENT HOLOCAUST read another. One, held by a young
        woman, said ABORTION KILLS UNBORN FEMINISTS, TOO!
        
             Valerie took a deep breath. She had seen such
        displays on TV but hadn't considered that she would
        ever need to cross such a line or even encounter such
        people.
        
             The continuing orbit brought new signs into view.
        FERTILITY CLINICS PLAY GOD--GOD IS ANGRY. A small boy
        carried a sign obviously printed by someone trying to
        imitate a child's lettering. It read I KNOW WHO MY
        MOMMY AND DADDY ARE, with a couple of letters drawn
        backward for authenticity.
        
             \They've covered both sides\, Valerie thought. \I
        can't lie my way through\. She let go her breath and
        walked forward.
        
             "Please don't kill your child," a man in a dark
        suit said as she passed between the marchers.
        
             "I'm not," she said. "I'm just going for a test."
        She didn't understand why she felt the need to explain
        anything at all to him.
        
             A woman stopped to join them. She was older,
        already gray. She stared at Valerie with a flat, cold
        gaze. "There are other clinics you can go to. They'll
        provide the same tests \and\ give you any counseling
        you need."
        
             Valerie pushed her way past the pair. "Please,"
        she said. "I just need a test."
        
             Another woman stepped in her way, smiling warmly.
        "We want to help you avoid making a tragic decision. We
        know you don't want your baby to end up like \this\."
        She turned her sign around to thrust it in Valerie's
        face. She stared at the bloody, mangled remains of an
        aborted fetus. The photograph had been printed in the
        brightest, most lurid colors. Reds, yellows, grisly
        black tones swirled through the image.
        
             Valerie's vision faltered for a moment. Her breath
        hung sickly in her lungs, threatening to drop to her
        stomach in an elevator rush of shock, as if she were
        watching a real murder on the evening news.
        
             A firm hand grasped her arm. "Back off!" a woman's
        voice shouted with military intensity. "You know the
        rules. You touch anyone \or\ interfere with free
        passage and your permit goes up in smoke."
        
             Dr. Evelyn Fletcher stared at the assembled group
        for a long moment before releasing Valerie's arm. "You
        use laws to keep us from throwing you off our property.
        Just be damn sure you follow them yourselves." She
        turned to Valerie. "Come on, miss. The receptionist's
        right inside."
        
             Picking up her two bags, the doctor led Valerie
        through the automatic doors. Before they closed, she
        shot another glance back at the pickets. Her eyes
        softened from anger to a weary kind of sadness.
        Turning, she strode silently past the receptionist and
        into her office.
        
                                   #
        
        Valerie always felt uneasy waiting in an examination
        room. The cool white walls, the antiseptic scent, the
        indecipherable buzz of voices outside imparted the same
        sense of mystery and mysticism she had felt since
        childhood. A doctor's office was like a church. One
        stepped in from the street into a hushed, different
        world, with its own unique smells and quiet intrigues.
        It made sense to her somehow. Priests struggled for the
        salvation of human souls. Doctors fought for the health
        of the body. Both listened to their charges with the
        same inscrutable expression.
        
             Valerie had given up attending church long ago.
        She tried just as much to limit her visits to doctors.
        She fingered the wad of cotton in the crook of her left
        arm. Priests want tithes. Doctors demand blood.
        
             A crisp set of footsteps approached her door,
        followed by the zip of a folder being removed from the
        door tray. A long moment of silence--pierced only by
        the faint sound of pages turning--ended with the sharp
        crank of the doorknob.
        
             "Oh--it's you." The tallish greying woman who had
        come to Valerie's aid stepped in. "I'm Dr. Fletcher.
        Evelyn. May I call you Valerie?"
        
             The doctor extended her hand to her patient.
        Valerie stood to clasp it, returned the light shake,
        nodded, and sat down nervously.
        
             "Should I get undressed?" she asked.
        
             Dr. Fletcher shook her head while glancing at the
        forms in Valerie's folder. "Not for today. First I want
        to let you know that our test confirms your home test.
        It's positive, too. You're pregnant." She said it
        without any congratulatory smile, knowing from the
        younger woman's demeanor that the answer would not be
        greeted as the best of news. Valerie's deep breath and
        slight lowering of the head confirmed her diagnosis.
        
             "What I'd like to discuss with you is your
        feelings about that and what you'd like to do."
        
             Valerie looked up with wet, panicked eyes. "This
        is the wrong time. I don't know what happened. Ron and
        I use the sponge. It's not supposed to happen. I just
        got a promotion where I work and I can't see my boss
        just letting me have a few months off to go have a baby
        which Ron and I weren't planning to do anyway. I mean,
        babies are nice and all, but we're not even married and
        we still haven't been to Europe and you can't just go
        running around Europe changing diapers and expect to
        have any fun. Not when you have your whole life ahead
        of you. We both have to work. I can't take any time
        off. We wanted to have a honeymoon and all that first--
        "
        
             Evelyn laid a hand on Valerie's arm. "The worst
        thing you can do," she said slowly, calmly, "is to feel
        trapped by pregnancy. It won't make anything easier.
        There are options available for you, especially since
        we caught this at an early stage."
        
             "I know." She unconsciously pulled her arm away
        from Fletcher's touch to restore the customary distance
        between a patient and her physician.
        
             The doctor nodded toward the door. "Ignore those
        boors outside. They're here once in a while when they
        can get a reporter to show up." She sat down beside
        Valerie and took her hand gently. "Whether to keep or
        end a pregnancy is one of the hardest decisions a woman
        can make. You have to deal with all the `what ifs' that
        arise. And I don't mean the medical uncertainties; a
        pregnancy termination is a lot safer now than giving
        birth. I mean \your\ uncertainties."
        
             The older woman's voice softened. "When I was
        about nineteen, I had an abortion. I was a first-year
        premed student and couldn't be bothered with pregnancy.
        I regretted my decision almost immediately afterward. I
        used to wonder what sort of child I might have had.
        Pregnancy is the first step on the road to forever. If
        you decide to give birth to a child, it will affect you
        all your life."
        
             She looked directly into Valerie's eyes with the
        gentle gaze of hard experience. "The decision to
        terminate the pregnancy will be with you forever, too,
        though. It's a rare woman that can put such an action
        completely behind her and get on with her life." She
        touched Valerie's arm again with soothing reassurance.
        "I suffered a great deal of guilt and wondering when I
        had my abortion." Her fingers tightened. "If there were
        any way that I could let you make your decision without
        pain or fear or guilt, I would. Believe me." Her
        fingers released their grip the instant she realized
        that the contact unnerved Valerie more than it
        comforted her.
        
             Valerie gazed at the doctor with puzzlement. "You
        sound as if I've already made my choice."
        
             "Haven't you?"
        
             She stared at Dr. Fletcher with unchecked
        surprise. Her eyes lowered just a bit in realization.
        "Yes, I guess so. I don't think--I mean, I can't have a
        baby right now. If it had only been a couple of years
        from now, I--"
        
             "Valerie." Evelyn spoke quietly. "Don't let the
        \if onlys\ sneak up on you. You're pregnant \right
        now\. You have to decide based on what your life is
        like right now. You have the right to terminate your
        pregnancy. It was a hard-won right and the battle"--she
        nodded again toward the outside world--"is still being
        fought." She gave Valerie's arm another reassuring
        squeeze, then turned her attention to the folder. "How
        does this Thursday sound? You've got a new job, so how
        about six-thirty in the evening?"
        
             "For--?"
        
             "The procedure."
        
             Valerie felt a strange panic overwhelm her. The
        bloody image on the picket sign flashed crimson in her
        mind. "The abortion?"
        
             Dr. Fletcher let go a shallow, disapproving huff.
        "The pregnancy termination. That's really all it is. If
        you don't want to be pregnant right now, we can grant
        your wish. Believe me, there are almost as many women
        in the fertility program here trying to become
        pregnant. It all evens out. We try to give everyone
        what she wants."
        
             After a moment, Valerie quietly said, "Six-thirty
        is all right."
        
             Dr. Fletcher made a few notes in the folder.
        "Fine. You might want to have someone drive you here
        and back. Are you going to discuss this with the
        father?"
        
             Valerie nodded.
        
             "Good. It's always best for a relationship not to
        have any secrets. Can you tell me a little bit about
        him?"
        
             Valerie took a tissue from her purse and worried
        at it. "He's just a wonderfully caring man--"
        
             Fletcher cut her off. "I mean his physical
        characteristics."
        
             "Well..." Valerie thought the question curious.
        "He's tall. Black hair. Brown eyes. He has a beard."
        
             "White?"
        
             Valerie frowned. "No, it's the same color as the
        rest of his hair."
        
             "I mean his race."
        
             Valerie answered slowly, unsettled by the nature
        of the question. People didn't \ask\ questions like
        that anymore. Did they? "He's the son of Russian
        immigrants. You can't get much whiter than that. Why?"
        
             Dr. Fletcher sighed and looked up with a weary
        smile. "These damned federal forms are getting nosier
        every year, aren't they?"
        
                                   #
        
        \So quickly\, Valerie thought, driving along the
        Pacific Coast Highway. \Five minutes for a test, boom--
        you know you're pregnant. Then you're scheduled for an
        abortion\. She took a deep breath, urged her yellow
        Porsche 914 into fourth gear, and raced through the
        amber light at PCH and Crenshaw. Light aircraft buzzed
        around Torrance Airport, dancing in the warmth of late
        morning. She looked out the passenger side of the car
        to steal quick glances at them. Small airplanes had
        always fascinated her, though she had never been up in
        one. They looked like toys, like kites, like wobbly
        little playthings. She always felt sad when she read or
        heard about one crashing, as if the people onboard had
        been punished cruelly and unjustly for wanting to have
        fun.
        
             She pulled over to the side of the road to watch
        the planes and suddenly began to cry.
        
                                   #
        
        Ron Czernek listened quietly. Sitting in the corner of
        the living-room sofa group, he held Valerie in his
        muscular arms while she told him of her decision.
        
             He was a large man, with black hair and beard
        trimmed for business and well-tailored suits to match.
        She had given him time to change into casual clothes
        and have a drink before telling him about her day.
        
             "I was a little subdued when you left this
        morning," she said, safely wrapped inside his embrace.
        "I'd realized that I'd missed my period." She turned to
        gaze up at him. "I went to the clinic at Bayside for a
        test." She lowered her head, closing her eyes. "I
        passed. I'm pregnant."
        
             Before Ron could say anything, she added, "I can't
        be pregnant. Not right now. Too much is going on with
        us for me to throw the brakes on and become a mother."
        
             He nodded. Even speaking in quiet, intimate tones,
        his voice resonated. "You know that whatever choice you
        make, I'm with you all the way. It's our baby, but it's
        your body." He held her tighter. "You've got your job
        to think about. I've got mine. We haven't paid off the
        BMW yet." His voice caught for an instant. "I'm sure we
        could make it all work, anyway. I'm with you one
        hundred percent if you decide to. The classes, being
        there, everything."
        
             Her body began to tremble against his. He quickly
        added, "The same goes for the... other choice. I'll be
        with you. The whole nine yards." He smiled and ran a
        hand over her golden hair. "I'm a lawyer, not a judge.
        I only want to help you do what \you\ want to do."
        
             "I love you, Ron." She pulled herself deeper into
        his arms. She could smell the scent of a day's work on
        him. The smoke from the office, the faint odor of self-
        serve gasoline, the aroma of her lover's flesh. He was
        eight years older than she, but she felt as if they
        were high school sweethearts.
        
             She clung to him as she did to her father so long
        ago. "Please go with me Thursday evening."
        
             "Of course."
        
             They sat together, silent.
        
        
                                  III
        
             Dr. Fletcher sorted through the charts kept in a
        fat, locking file folder on her desk. A cigarette
        glowed in the plastic ashtray--a giveaway from some
        medical supply company whose logo in the bottom had
        long since been stubbed, melted, and ashed into
        illegibility. The cigarette itself was a Defiant, the
        brand with the highest dose of nicotine per milligram
        of tar. She had long ago decided that nicotine was the
        drug she sought in smoking, so logically she should get
        as much of it per cigarette as she could while
        minimizing the amount of other contaminants. She had
        even convinced some of her chain-smoking colleagues to
        cut down from three packs a day of low-nicotine
        cigarettes to her half pack of high-nic.
        
             She took occasional drags on the stick
        absentmindedly, giving her sole attention to the papers
        before her. She had someone now. Someone who matched
        well enough for everything to work. If she could pull
        this off, it would change everything. \Everything\. The
        medical advance would be almost trivial compared to the
        social revolution.
        
             She took another puff and sat back. Valerie Dalton
        was a superb prospect for Karen Chandler. Fletcher's
        quick eyes scanned Karen's file. Dark haired, but
        that's all right; her husband's blond. Gray eyes to her
        husband's brown. She glanced back to Valerie's New
        Patient form for the answers she had innocently given
        to Fletcher's questions.
        
             The father of the child was Caucasian, dark hair,
        dark eyes. Evelyn nodded. Blood tests rushed through
        indicated that serologies were negative. Good. Both
        women Rh positive--no problems there.
        
             She picked up the phone and punched the number on
        one of the forms.
        
             "Hello, Karen? Evelyn Fletcher... Fine, thanks. Do
        you think you could come to the office at six forty-
        five this Thursday evening?" She listened for a moment,
        then said, "Yes. I think we do.... Yes. Well, just be
        here on time and we'll do that."
        
             She hung up the phone, took a final, long drag on
        her cigarette, stubbed it, and leaned back in her
        leather chair, smiling.
        
                                   #
        
        The Saab sounded better on the short drive home.
        
             Dr. Fletcher lived just five miles from Bayside.
        The drive, which usually took around ten minutes, was
        slowed by the presence of a stalled car and tow truck
        on Crenshaw. She waited out the delay listening to
        music on the car radio. Whenever the sound degenerated
        into crackling fuzz, she fisted the dashboard gently a
        few times to restore it. The rapid movement of the Bach
        fugue amused her with its contrast to the snail's pace
        of evening traffic.
        
             Her thoughts again returned to the world of her
        work. Putting her driving skills on automatic, Evelyn
        mentally rehearsed Thursday's operations to anticipate
        any possible difficulties. The roar of anxious engines
        and the throb of city noise faded as she envisioned the
        movements of her hands, the position of the equipment,
        the delicate feel of the tissues she'd be handling. And
        blood. Always blood.
        
                                   #
        
        \So much blood\. The image on the picket sign haunted
        Valerie. She had used a different door to leave the
        hospital, but she could not cause the picture to depart
        her mind. In bed, she lay beside the warmth of her
        lover's body and spoke to him in low tones, as if they
        might be overheard.
        
             "She shoved it in my face. It was awful. It looked
        like a baby all cut up and dumped and covered with
        blood." She buried her face in the crook of his arm.
        
             Ron stroked her hair. "Don't think about it. I've
        read the trespass cases against their sort. They use
        pictures of third-trimester abortions to gross people
        out. A seventh-week embryo is probably the size of your
        thumb. It really isn't anything more than a bit of your
        tissue. It'll be painless."
        
             She squeezed him tighter. "The pamphlet says we
        won't be able to make love for six weeks."
        
             His hand snaked around her to touch a soft breast.
        "That depends on what you mean by `making love.'"
        
             "Make love to me tonight, Ron. Right now."
        
             With a single fluid motion, he slid easily,
        happily, hungrily, into her. She clung to him
        gratefully, just as hungrily, her need satisfied with
        every movement of their bodies.
        
                                   #
        
        Wednesday passed for Valerie like a day spent numbed at
        the dentist. She tried to concentrate on her job, but
        the little red square she had drawn around Thursday in
        her Hallmark date book seemed to be seared into her
        optic nerve. The image of it followed her at every
        turn.
        
             She sat in her cubicle facing Shirley, the new
        word processor they had permanently hired from the temp
        agency. She studied their contrast. As the new office
        manager, Valerie dressed in her most conservative
        creme-colored Oscar de la Renta suit. Her salon tan
        complemented the color nicely. The dark-haired twenty-
        year-old's flesh was white as death. She wore a black
        cowpunk outfit with silver steer-skull bolo and chain
        bracelets. Even Valerie, who had never been into the
        club scene, knew that the costume was outmoded. After
        all, she still read the \L.A. Weekly\.
        
             "Shirley," Valerie began without any preface,
        "your work here since we hired you from DayJob has not
        been as good as when you were a temp." She couldn't
        shake the impression that she was discussing something
        very minor in light of what would be happening
        tomorrow. "You've let your desk get cluttered with..."
        She looked at Shirley. Had this girl from Lawndale ever
        been pregnant, ever had an abortion?
        
             "With what?" Shirley asked, staring at her manager
        with impatient puzzlement.
        
             "Stuff. Just all those buttons and things. We
        don't appreciate stickers for groups such as Uranium
        Holocaust and Stark Fist slapped all over our desks."
        
             Shirley looked out at her workstation, made the
        sort of face teenagers make when acquiescing to Mom,
        and said, "Can I just stick them on my Wang?"
        
             Valerie felt an odd sort of flush envelop her. She
        fought it back.
        
             "Being absent three days in your first month also
        looks bad. Why don't you..." She found no words to
        complete the sentence, merely sat with her mouth half-
        open, gazing speechlessly across her desk.
        
             "Are you on something, Ms. Dalton?"
        
             Valerie recovered quickly, saying, "It's been a
        tough morning, Shirley. Just get back to work and see
        that you're not unavoidably absent again."
        
             When Shirley had left the cubicle, Valerie took a
        deep breath and leaned back in her chair. Telling her
        boss that she needed a second day off this week was
        going to be tough. She felt a knotting in her stomach
        that any number of deep breaths would not alleviate.
        For a moment, the chill thought that there was
        something \alive\ in her making that knot sent an
        unbidden shudder through her shoulders and back.
        
             She walked over to the vice president's office and
        knocked, then opened the door.
        
             "Ernie," she said, "I need another favor."
        
             Ernest Sewell sat on the couch across from his
        desk, legs stretched out, a sheaf of printout resting
        on his shins and held from spilling onto the floor by
        upturned feet. As if reading a scroll, he looked over
        each page, then pulled up another from the stack below,
        gathering the remainder in his hands. He wore a rust-
        colored polo shirt and dark beige slacks that
        pleasantly enhanced his milk-chocolate skin. Laying the
        computer paper on his lap, he looked at Valerie.
        
             "If it's another day off, Val, that'll be a
        problem. How was your doctor visit?"
        
             She took a deep breath. "I may be out on Friday. I
        have to have some surgery tomorrow evening."
        
             Her boss set the stack of paper on the floor and
        rose to walk over to her. "What's wrong, Valerie?"
        
             "It's nothing. It's outpatient surgery. Just
        something I have to take care of right away. I'm sorry
        that it--"
        
             "Never mind about a thing, Val." He put a hand on
        her shoulder. "If you need tomorrow \and\ Friday, take
        them both. Just take care of yourself. You're no good
        to me sick."
        
             Relieved that she didn't have to explain anything
        further, she returned to her cubicle and telephoned
        Ron. He was in court, his secretary said. Could she
        take a message?
        
             "Just tell him that Thursday is on."
        
             The two major crises out of the way, Valerie moved
        through the day mechanically, performing only the most
        necessary activities. She tried not to look over the
        edge of her cubicle at the clock on the wall a few
        yards away, but every time her eyes reflexively glanced
        up, her stomach clenched as she realized that so little
        time had passed. Yet the end of the day caught her by
        surprise, and she noticed that she had accomplished
        very little in eight hours.
        
             Knuckles rapped as best they could against the
        grey, brushed fabric that lined the outside of her
        cramped enclosure. Sewell stood in the opening,
        clutching a stack of floppy disks in one hand, a thick
        programming book in the other.
        
             "Your sentence has been served, Val. You're a free
        woman."
        
             "Thanks, Warden. I just want to finish up the Pro-
        Dos team roster that Paul gave me."
        
             Sewell hesitated for a moment, his dark eyes
        gazing around Valerie's office as if looking for clues.
        His voice softened.
        
             "If it's anything serious," he said, "maybe we
        should talk."
        
             "What?" Her voice almost cracked.
        
             "You're so full of high tension I'm afraid to
        bring these disks near you. One touch and you'd degauss
        them. Is this surgery something serious?"
        
             Under her desk, Valerie's right leg began to shake
        with slight uncontrollable movements. Her stomach
        fluttered. Taking a sharp breath that was almost a
        snort, she tried to sound dismissive.
        
             "It's nothing. Abdominal surgery. A small growth.
        I hear they do it with lasers now. In and out. You
        know."
        
             Her boss mulled it for a moment. "If this new
        position is giving you an ulcer already, take my
        advice. Self-fulfillment isn't worth it if you kill
        yourself."
        
             "I'm not killing"--she caught her breath--
        "\myself\. I'm fine. I'll be back in on Monday. Friday,
        even, if all goes well." She pointed to her bulging
        briefcase. "And I'm taking that home to work on over
        the weekend."
        
             Sewell frowned. "Don't even think of it. I don't
        want you carrying that in Monday and blowing your
        stitches or seals or whatever they'll close you up
        with. Just rest."
        
             "Thank you," she said softly. Realizing that she
        didn't sound too managerial, she cleared her throat and
        reached for the briefcase. "I'll need something fun to
        read in the waiting room. If I need any assistance
        carrying it, I'll use the hired help."
        
             He snorted a mild laugh and smiled. "Good night,
        Val."
        
             "Good night, Ernie."
        
             When he had gone, she let out a sigh of tired
        relief. \It'll be over tomorrow\, she thought, trying
        to comfort herself as she gathered together her
        belongings. The briefcase in one hand counterbalanced a
        stack of progress reports in the other. A series of
        "Good night" murmurs followed her out of the office
        area. She made a point of returning each one, even
        though her thoughts darted feverishly around to her
        plans for Thursday.
        
             \Maybe I should take the day off\. "Good night,
        Marcie." \I can't eat beforehand\. "Good night, Jer."
        \I'll leave a Top Shelf or two for Ron to heat up\.
        "G'night, LeRoy." \I wonder if I\ will \be able to do
        any work this weekend\. "'Night, Faouzi."
        
             She took her favorite scenic route home, up to
        Malaga Cove, where towering eucalyptus trees swayed in
        the sea breeze to conceal million-dollar homes. A quick
        spin past the sea-cliff estates on Paseo del Mar. She
        had not yet found out which one belonged to Frank
        Sinatra, but she would keep at it until she did. Every
        new rumor she overheard mentioned a different mansion,
        and she thought it too snoopy to ask. Palos Verdes
        people never pried, and after just three years of
        owning a small, older house in the Lunada Bay area, she
        and Ron considered themselves consummate residents.
        They were not aware whether anyone else considered them
        so. After all, they were now Palos Verdes people. And
        Palos Verdes people never pry.
        
        
                                   IV
        
        Valerie spent Thursday watching old movies on the VCR.
        Following the instructions in the pamphlet Dr. Fletcher
        had given her, she ate a light breakfast--unusual for
        her, since she generally skipped morning meals. She
        knew, though, that she'd be ravenous by lunchtime
        without it.
        
             Wrapped in a mountain-sky-blue satin peignoir
        she'd just the month before bought at Victoria's
        Secret, she sat in bed with a serving tray over her
        lap, the VCR remote reposing in the magazine caddy. She
        had decided that morning, after Ron had left early for
        Century City, to pamper herself without guilt. With
        Daddy gone five years now and her mother still in
        Colorado Springs, she needed to feel as if she were
        home from school.
        
             The bloated briefcase sat atop the progress
        reports in the third bedroom, which they had converted
        into an office. Out of sight, out of mind.
        
             Fred Astaire swirled fluidly across the dance
        floor, with Ginger held gracefully in his slender arms.
        She watched them move in tones of gray on the screen
        atop Ron's bedroom dresser. The dancer's death had
        saddened her more than the usual regret she felt at
        hearing of the passing of other aging movie stars. She
        felt that he could have, \should\ have, kept dancing
        forever, that the world had benefited gloriously by his
        being here and had suffered greatly at his loss.
        
             Her finger punched the remote, stopping the tape
        and switching to cable. It had been set for "CNN
        Headline News." Another anencephalic baby had been
        delivered to a nearby hospital in a recently revived
        organ harvesting project. It was to be put on life
        support. Parents of other children nervously awaited
        its brain death so that its vital parts might be used
        to save their own children's lives.
        
             Valerie shuddered at the thought of a baby born
        without a brain. She'd inadvertently seen a photograph
        of one on the news but hadn't turned away fast enough:
        sunken skull, like a doll that had been stepped on,
        seemingly golfball-sized eyes protruding.
        
             A chill trembled across the backs of her arms and
        shoulders. What pain the mother must have felt to have
        gone for so long, gone all the way, and then...
        
             She climbed out of bed to change tapes. \Forbidden
        Planet\. Leslie Neilsen, Anne Francis, and Walter
        Pidgeon. That will be fun. She hit the Play button and
        climbed back into bed.
        
             \It's better this way\, she thought. \You never
        know what might happen\. She was not certain that she
        would be a good enough mother to tolerate even a
        moderately sickly child. She feared that she would not
        be strong enough to endure a child deformed or dying.
        
             Abortion was best.
        
             She found that she could think of the word without
        hesitation, without substituting a euphemism such as
        "pregnancy termination."
        
             She imagined her life spreading before her like a
        river. She could take any one of an infinite number of
        streams that branched away. Some paralleled the main
        flow; others turned sharply away into unknown darkness,
        still others meandered aimlessly into dry lake beds. A
        child at this point in her life would break her away
        from the flow, push her into a backwater, stop the
        momentum her life had gained.
        
             The M-G-M lion roared. Eerie electronic tonalities
        filled the room. She ceased thinking about her life,
        content to finish her egg and back bacon on toasted
        muffin, drink her orange juice, and watch the
        Technicolor world of robots, lust, and Monsters from
        the Id.
        
             There were no children on Altair IV.
        
                                   #
        
        The opening and shutting of the front door awakened
        Valerie from a slumber. At first, she thought it was
        morning. The outside world was dark, she was in bed.
        The TV, though, was on. Then she remembered closing her
        eyes while watching Rossano Brazzi profess his love for
        Alida Valli in \Noi Vivi\. The tape must have run out,
        for the TV had switched back to cable.
        
             Ron stepped into the bedroom. "It's five-thirty,
        Val." He saw her staring at the TV. "Are you okay?"
        
             Valerie nodded sleepily. It always took her longer
        to awaken from a nap than it did from a full night's
        sleep. She took a deep draught of water from the
        Waterford set on her nightstand, sat up, and smiled at
        him.
        
             "I'm fine, honey. I just drifted off. I'll be
        ready in time."
        
             He moved to her side of the bed, threw his arms
        around her, and squeezed with loving tenderness. "You
        don't have to go through with this if you don't want
        to."
        
             She returned the hug. "If I don't, you won't be
        able to say the same thing in the delivery room."
        
             A silence passed between them for a moment.
        
             "Then you'd better get dressed," Ron said, giving
        her a pat on her backside.
        
                                   #
        
        They drove to Bayside in Ron's silver-gray BMW 320i.
        Valerie wore a loose-fitting cotton sarong skirt in
        understated forest green purchased just the week before
        at Banana Republic. The pamphlet told her to avoid
        tight pants or anything encumbering. Her Costa Brava
        shirt in the same shade came from the identical source.
        
             Though the March evening was warm and the sun had
        only just set, she wore a mock-aviator's jacket of dark
        olive cotton and still felt a shiver coming on.
        
             Ron had not bothered to change from his charcoal-
        gray business suit. He drove silently, not attempting
        to engage her in any conversation. For her part,
        Valerie stared out the window, watching the planes fly
        in and out of Torrance, their lights bright and
        fairylike in the twilight.
        
             As the car smoothly turned off PCH into the
        parking lot, past the white and blue sign that read
        BAYSIDE UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER, Valerie broke the
        silence by quietly asking, "This \is\ what you want,
        isn't it?"
        
             He pulled into the nearest available parking
        space. "I want what's best for you, Valerie. You're not
        ready to be a mother, and I don't think I'm ready to be
        a father. Maybe in a few years. We have time to think
        about it. This will give us time to plan it, save for
        it, prepare our heads." He killed the engine, pulled
        the keys, and shut down the lights. "It's your body.
        You have to make the final decision."
        
             Valerie nodded and stepped out of the car.
        
             They moved quietly up the walkway to the
        Reproductive Endocrinology Department. Valerie glanced
        around, relieved to see that the line of picketers had
        dispersed for the night. A cool evening breeze ruffled
        the palms and the trio of giant bird-of-paradise
        plants, brushing their leaves against the office
        windows on the second story. The yellow-orange light
        from low-pressure sodium vapor lamps imparted harsh
        shadows to the dark corners of the entrance. Only a few
        lights glowed from the windows.
        
             She was so grateful that she would not be walking
        back to the car alone. She felt that she might have
        been able to enter the building, moving toward its
        marginal warmth and protection. To leave it after her
        surgery, though, to step out into the eerie darkness of
        a nearly empty, windy parking lot, was something she
        doubted she could do without a nagging murmur of fear.
        
             Ron held her hand in his warm, firm grasp. The
        doors opened before them with a pneumatic hiss.
        Overhead, a tiny red light winked like a knowing,
        vulgar eye. \We know what you're here for\.
        
             The receptionist, a tired old woman with gray-blue
        hair and gravity-worn face, checked the calendar, then
        handed Valerie a clipboard, pen, and form.
        
             "Fill this out, honey," she said in a voice that
        could sand furniture, "and give it back to me when
        you're done."
        
             Valerie glanced over the release form, searching
        for the blanks to fill in. All it required was the
        date, a few initials, and her signature.
        
             "Wait." Ron took the form from her. "Professional
        curiosity," he said, carefully reading each paragraph.
        
             "Looks like a standard waiver and release from
        responsibility," he muttered. "Four pages is probably
        longer than standard, but if those pickets outside have
        tried any legal mischief, they're probably trying to
        cover their asses."
        
             Valerie nodded, reaching for the papers. He held
        it back to read the last page. He looked up at the
        receptionist.
        
             "What's this `waiver of claim to any tissues
        removed' part?"
        
             The receptionist eyed him with bored weariness.
        "If you want to take it home with you, hon, you'll have
        to ask the doctor."
        
             It took a moment for Ron to realize what she
        meant. Valerie had already turned white at the thought
        of the nurse's suggestion. She seized the papers from
        his hands and signed them.
        
             "Thanks, honey." The receptionist's tone was flat,
        almost mechanical.
        
             "What a gross--" Ron began to whisper before
        Valerie shushed him.
        
             "You do that every time I have to sign something,"
        she said in a low, clipped tone. "This is a university
        hospital, for God's sake. They're not going to have me
        sign my soul away."
        
             "You haven't heard about as many malpractice cases
        as I have." He looked up at the receptionist. Her gray-
        blue hair shimmered oddly in the fluorescent lights.
        "Excuse me," he said in a commanding lawyer's voice.
        
             "Yes?"
        
             "We'd like a copy of this." He handed her the
        form.
        
             "Sure, hon," she said without looking up.
        
             They sat in the waiting room. No one else was
        there. Occasionally, an elevator door would open
        somewhere nearby, and an orderly or resident would come
        around the corner to pass through wordlessly. Valerie
        felt strange, as if she were moving through her paces
        in some sort of low-grade horror film set in a
        hospital. Everything seemed to acquire altered
        meanings. The glance of an orderly, the clatter of
        gurney wheels against linoleum, the smell of Lysol and
        formaldehyde.
        
             She put her arm through Ron's and held tightly.
        His other hand stroked her blond head.
        
             A tan, leggy nurse entered through a doorway. She
        appeared to be in her mid-thirties, with deep auburn
        hair and hazel eyes. She looked as if she should have
        been in some vaudeville skit as a beautiful yet
        brainless comic foil. She carried herself with grace
        and dignity, though, and her icepick gaze belied any
        sense of vacuity.
        
             She picked up a folder from the receptionist and
        said, in a voice with just the barest trace of a
        European accent, "Valerie Dalton, please follow me."
        
             "May I be there?" Ron asked, standing.
        
             "I'm sorry, sir. The doctor doesn't allow that."
        
             Valerie rose, paused, then hugged Ron as hard as
        she could. "I love you," she said.
        
             "I love you, too, sweetheart. I'll be right here."
        
             "And I'll be right back."
        
             He nodded, a sudden look of concern on his face.
        He tried to smile. "You do that."
        
             She turned to join the woman. The pair disappeared
        behind the light green door.
        
             "They never let the man in there, hon," the
        receptionist said in her tobacco-scoured voice. "You
        guys just keep fainting."
        
             He gave her a withering glance that went nowhere,
        since she wasn't looking up at the moment. He sat back
        and picked through the magazines on the table. \If men
        spend their time out here\, he thought, \how come all
        they have is\ Redbook \and\ Cosmopolitan?
        
             The outer doors opened. Another couple walked in.
        The woman was in her twenties, brown haired, sweet
        looking. She wore a loose-fitting kaftan in a natural
        beige tone. Her purse was a leather hobo sack that hung
        lightly from her shoulder. She was about Valerie's
        height and seemed imbued with a nervous good cheer. She
        kept an arm around her escort.
        
             The man she was with was a sort of sandy blond.
        His skin was sunburned pink, with the characteristic
        white zone around his eyes that marked him as a skier
        recently returned from the slopes. An aquamarine cotton
        windbreaker covered a blue shirt and jeans. He was
        muscular without being husky and radiated a ready
        enthusiasm.
        
             \Probably do this all the time\, Ron thought with
        minimal charity.
        
             The receptionist looked up and smiled. "Head right
        in. Nurse Dyer will get you ready."
        
             He frowned, his suspicion confirmed. Preferred
        customers. The blond man sat at the far side of the
        room, pulled a paperback novel from his jacket, and
        calmly started to read.
        
             Ron shook his head. Some people could be too
        cavalier about it.
        
                                   #
        
        Valerie followed the nurse into a larger than normal
        examination room containing white enamel cabinets and
        medical equipment.
        
             "Is this where she'll do it?" she asked the nurse.
        
             "Yes. Please undress and put this on." The tall
        woman handed Valerie a blue dressing gown. Valerie took
        it, thanked her, and waited for her to leave before
        disrobing. She hung her skirt and shirt on a hanger
        behind the door, put her panties in her purse, and
        slipped into the dressing gown. The rough fabric was
        cold to the touch.
        
             She looked at the centerpiece of the room--a
        padded table with padded metal stirrups, padded metal
        armrests, handgrips, and headrest, all in dark green.
        
             \Is this right\? she wondered. \I can't back out
        now. I'd just be up on that thing again in seven months
        with a bigger problem\.
        
             She tried to envision being a mother to a crying,
        demanding baby. She didn't think she possessed the
        necessary calm patience that child care required. \I
        could never be like Mom. No one could be that loving
        and kind all the time anymore\.
        
             The door opened. In stepped Dr. Fletcher wearing a
        crisp white paper surgical gown, her hair tucked under
        an equally white cap. She wore light green paper
        slacks, and on her feet were light green paper shoes.
        The tall nurse followed, similarly dressed.
        
             "Good evening, Valerie," Dr. Fletcher said with a
        warm smile. "How are you feeling?"
        
             "Fine."
        
             "Nurse Dyer will assist me tonight. I think you've
        met."
        
             Valerie nodded. The nurse gazed back with cool
        efficiency.
        
             "While we're getting ready here," the doctor said,
        "could you please climb onto the table?"
        
             Valerie sat up on the paper-covered cushion,
        leaned back, and lifted her legs up to the stirrups
        with Nurse Dyer's guidance. While Dr. Fletcher pulled
        on a pair of latex gloves, then slipped another pair
        over them, Nurse Dyer stepped over to the far side of
        the room to unlock a closet. There, on small rubber
        wheels, stood a white and gleaming object the size of a
        small refrigerator. On one side was a control panel
        with switches, dials, lights, and a small video screen.
        On the other side was a long, white, flexible plastic
        tube terminating in a stiff, clear segment with a small
        opaque ridge on one side.
        
             Nurse Dyer wheeled the device into position a few
        feet back from where Valerie's legs spread. She hooked
        a foot to slide a chair under Fletcher as the doctor
        slipped a mask over her mouth and nose. Dyer pulled a
        light down from the ceiling, switched its brilliant
        lamp on, and positioned the beam directly between
        Valerie's legs.
        
             The rays warmed Valerie like the sun. It brought
        to her an old memory of a camping trip with her first
        boyfriend in high school. They had biked up to
        Flagstaff from Grand Junction. Below them spread the
        town of Boulder and the endless plains of eastern
        Colorado. They both disrobed and lay in the sun, its
        heat tickling parts of them that seldom basked in its
        radiance.
        
             Valerie let out a startled gasp. The cold touch of
        a thermometer entering her brought her back to the
        present.
        
             "Okay," the doctor said, sliding on a pair of
        goggles. "Hold that in there for a moment."
        
             Nurse Dyer donned two sets of gloves and her own
        goggles. Silent, well rehearsed, she performed her
        duties with a practiced efficiency that wasted no
        motions of her shapely frame. She switched on the
        machine. It hummed and gurgled. The end of it made a
        sucking sound for a moment.
        
             "Dulbeco's medium ready," the nurse said. "Pump
        on. Ham's F-10 warming."
        
             "Buminate?" asked Fletcher.
        
             "Five percent."
        
             Dr. Fletcher turned her attention to Valerie.
        "Since you're only about seven weeks, Valerie, we're
        going to use the suction method. This is the latest
        equipment, and it's very gentle."
        
             "Will it hurt much?" She craned her neck to see
        what was going on. She saw Dr. Fletcher lubricating the
        tube with K-Y jelly.
        
             Fletcher withdrew the thermometer. "Thirty-seven
        point five." The nurse took it from her hand. She
        grasped the suction tube, bent the hysteroscope into
        position, and peered into an eyepiece on the end.
        "Well," she said, "the uterus itself doesn't have too
        many nerve endings, but it'll feel a little
        uncomfortable when we dilate your cervix."
        
             She grasped the syringe Dyer pressed into her
        hand. "We're going to give you a pericervical block.
        It'll numb you up like Novocain at the dentist's so it
        won't hurt as much."
        
             Using the fingers of a speculum to open the way,
        Fletcher guided the needle to its destination and
        pushed gently. The sharp sensation caused Valerie to
        twitch.
        
             "Easy," Fletcher said, emptying the syringe into
        Valerie's flesh. "There. All done." The hypo withdrew.
        She reached next for the suction tube.
        
             "What makes this device better than the older
        models is that I can see what I'm doing through this
        hysteroscope. Here we go."
        
             Valerie felt the cool intrusion of the tube as it
        slid into her. There was a pause, then she felt a blunt
        pressure against her cervix. The end of the tube moved
        slowly around, Fletcher peering head down into the
        scope like a submarine commander seeking an enemy ship.
        
             "Just relax, Valerie," her soothing voice
        entreated. "I'm getting it lined up."
        
             A slow, insistent pressure gave way to the pain of
        numbed tissues and muscle being stretched. Valerie
        clenched her teeth. If it hurt this much under the
        painkiller for just a little tube, what must childbirth
        feel like? In that instant, she experienced an
        agonizing relief at her choice.
        
             "Relax. Loosen up. We're almost there."
        
             A pain like a fiery knife stab pierced her as a
        final, firm push drove the tube home.
        
             "Transcervical," Nurse Dyer noted, watching the
        image on the video screen.
        
             "Now we look around a bit," the doctor said in her
        most conversational tone. "The uterine walls--I don't
        know if you've ever seen a picture of one--look like an
        ocean filled with drifting fronds of seaweed. Nestled
        in there somewhere is the embryo."
        
             "Go back," Dyer interjected.
        
             "Saw it," Fletcher murmured, gently maneuvering
        the probe. She continued to speak soothingly to her
        patient.
        
             "Now what we're going to do, Valerie, is turn on
        the suction. It's not noisy, and you won't feel any
        pressure. What we'll do is dislodge the embryo and
        remove it. This is a very gentle method that doesn't
        damage much tissue. You'll have a little bit of
        spotting when we're done but virtually no scarring."
        
             Valerie nodded. She didn't know what else to do.
        She lay back and stared at the soft green color of the
        ceiling. A fire sprinkler head hung directly over her,
        right next to the smoke detector. There was a little
        brown spatter on the ceiling. She wondered what it was.
        Could it possibly be blood? How? Maybe it was a water
        stain. Rust.
        
             She felt something indistinct rip within her. Deep
        and far away, like a plant being uprooted in the
        distance.
        
             "Lavage," the doctor called out.
        
             "Cycling," replied the nurse.
        
             "Hold it." She moved the tube around slightly,
        then withdrew it an inch. "All right. Suction." Her
        hands held the tube rock steady.
        
             "This is the slow part," Fletcher said in a
        pleasant voice. "It takes a minute or two to get
        everything out." She peered and probed gently. "We
        don't want to leave any foreign tissue in there where
        it could cause problems."
        
             "Transoptus nominal," Nurse Dyer said, flicking
        some switches and turning a dial or two. "Capture."
        
             "Okay" was the doctor's terse reply. "Cleaning
        up."
        
             "Tanking out lavage."
        
             Dr. Fletcher slowly pulled the tube back. "While I
        have you here, Valerie, would you want me to fix this
        so it doesn't happen again?"
        
             Valerie looked between her knees at the woman's
        masked face.
        
             "What? You mean tie me off?"
        
             The doctor nodded. "I can do a laproscopic
        sterilization when we're done here."
        
             "Oh, no. I still want to be a mother. Just not
        right now. Maybe later." She grunted at the sensation
        of the suction tube's withdrawal. Her cervix throbbed;
        her vaginal walls ached.
        
             "Then we're done." Fletcher placed the instrument
        in a small tray on the side of the machine. It was
        coated with smears of bright red blood. Blood covered
        the fingertips that reached for cotton gauze.
        
             Valerie did not feel as if she was bleeding. She
        felt nothing at all now but a dull ache in her abdomen
        and an impression of finality. There was no going back
        now. No chance to change her mind.
        
             The gauze rubbed roughly against her tender flesh.
        Dr. Fletcher removed her goggles, then stripped off her
        outer set of gloves and threw them in a metal waste
        can.
        
             Nurse Dyer wheeled the suction device out of the
        room, switches still on, lights still glowing, a faint
        hum still emanating from its interior. She used a door
        that led to a short hallway with another door at the
        end. Closing the door from the other side, she left Dr.
        Fletcher to finish up with Valerie.
        
             The doctor lifted her patient's legs out of the
        stirrups and rotated her to a sitting position.
        
             "That's all there is to it," Dr. Fletcher said
        cheerfully, stripping the second pair of gloves off.
        "Expect some cramping and spotting. Use pads rather
        than tampons until your next period. No vaginal
        intercourse for six weeks." She handed Valerie three
        sample packets and a prescription slip. "This is an
        antibiotic. This one's to control the bleeding. And
        this one's for the pain. Fill the prescription, take
        all the medication, and get plenty of rest. Then see us
        in ten days or so for a follow-up." She turned to
        follow Nurse Dyer's path out of the room, untying her
        paper gown and removing her hat to throw both into a
        can by the door.
        
             "Someone will be by when you're dressed to walk
        you back."
        
             With that, she closed the door behind her. Valerie
        stared at the emptiness and listened to the silence.
        She hurt inside. Pulling on her light yellow panties,
        she was aware of a growing regret. Without deliberately
        thinking about it, she pulled a Maxi-Pad from her purse
        and slipped it into place.
        
             She was free. Free but hollowed. Free of
        obligation, but burdened with a sudden doubt.
        
             The outer door opened. Ron stuck his head in.
        
             "Val?"
        
             She turned toward him, buttoning her shirt. He
        smiled with soothing warmth.
        
             "Hi, babe. Miss Tact out there told me I could
        come take you home. Need a hug and a ride?"
        
             She nodded sadly.
        
             His arms wrapped around her like the warm folds of
        a thick wooly sweater. Gently, he lifted her from the
        table to lower her to the ground. She leaned against
        him, woozy at the change in position.
        
             "I'm starving," she said.
        
             "What should you eat?"
        
             "I don't know. I just don't want anything that
        bleeds."
        
        
                                   V
        
        Nurse Dyer rolled the cart into the short hallway, stopped to
        close the door, then quickly stripped off her gloves
        and removed her gown. These went into a receptacle on
        the side of the cart. Opening the opposite door, she
        wheeled the cart into another operating room. This one
        possessed far more electronic equipment and medical
        implements than the other. On the table, swathed in a
        paper gown, feet dangling over the edge between the
        stirrups, lay a brunette with an expectant smile and
        steely grey eyes staring up at the nurse.
        
             "The doctor will join us in a moment," Dyer said,
        handing the woman a small plastic probe wired to a
        computer console. "Hold that under your tongue for a
        minute." She dressed again for surgery, slipped on a
        pair of surgical gloves, added another pair, and
        reached for a second probe.
        
             "Please put your feet up. I'll be taking your
        vaginal temperature, too."
        
             "I know," the patient said around her oral
        thermometer, a smile forming like that of a child's
        around a lollipop stick. "I've been doing this for long
        enough."
        
             Nurse Dyer smiled. "Right. And tonight's the big
        night."
        
             Just then, the door opened to admit a smiling
        Evelyn Fletcher.
        
             "Well, Karen, it's taken us a while, but I think
        we have a baby for you." Opening a cabinet on the wall,
        she dressed for surgery.
        
             Nurse Dyer carefully removed a white cylinder
        about the size of a two-liter soft drink bottle from
        the suction instrument. She hefted it as if it were
        filled with a dense liquid.
        
             "This is the most wonderful moment of my life,"
        Karen Chandler said.
        
             "It won't feel like that when I start," Dr.
        Fletcher said. "We've loosened you up with the
        appropriate hormones, but I've got to insert a
        hysteroscope and microsurgical instruments into your
        uterus." She snapped on the second pair of gloves.
        "This will give you a little preview of what to expect
        in seven or eight months."
        
             "I'm ready." Karen Chandler watched Nurse Dyer
        carry the white cylinder from one machine to another,
        similar-looking unit. Sliding the small object into a
        receiver on the top, the nurse punched a few buttons on
        the console, switched on the video screen, gazed at
        dials, and said, "Adding serum to Ham's F-10, seventy
        percent."
        
             "Check," said the doctor, pulling an instrument
        tray toward her with one foot. She administered the
        pericervical block, then picked a sterile tube from an
        assortment of various diameters and lengths on the
        tray, lubricated it lightly, and slowly inserted it
        into Karen.
        
             "Right out of the fridge," Karen murmured. "Can I
        get frostbite from that?"
        
             Fletcher smiled without distraction. When she
        reached the cervical area, she slid the hysteroscope
        into the tube, locked it in place, and gently sought
        her way into Karen's uterus.
        
             Karen grunted as the probe spread apart her flesh.
        In a moment, the shock of entry had subsided to a dull,
        throbbing ache.
        
             "How's that?" Fletcher asked.
        
             "Fine," Karen moaned, taking a deep breath.
        
             "Don't strain," the doctor said urgently. "Just
        relax. We've got lots of work to do."
        
             Nurse Dyer stared intently at the video monitor.
        She moved a tube on the machine's side with slow,
        deliberate motions. A soft sucking noise grew and
        subsided in concert with the motion of her wrist and
        the touch of her fingers on the controls. "In place,"
        she said, quickly pressing a button and grasping the
        tube.
        
             In a blur of rehearsed speed, Dr. Fletcher
        unlocked and withdrew the hysteroscope, leaving the
        hollow tube inside Karen. The nurse slid the other tube
        out of the machine and gently pressed it into
        Fletcher's hand. With a fluid motion, the doctor
        inserted the opaque rob deep into Karen's womb.
        
             "Transfer," Fletcher said in a sharp voice.
        
             "Pump on," Dyer replied.
        
             A fluid warmth filled Karen. Liquid pressure
        swelled in her belly, pleasant and comforting amidst
        the ache of the instruments.
        
             "It's in."
        
             Another jolt as Fletcher removed the device and
        inserted a combination hysteroscope and laser
        microsurgical instrument.
        
             Karen Chandler gazed at the doctor's head as she
        worked intently and silently between her legs. She
        thought there should be a sign around that read
        Caution: Baby Being Installed.
        
             She wondered who the donor was. Part of the
        privacy arrangement, according to her contract, was
        that the identity of the mother would not be revealed
        until the child was eighteen years old, and only if he
        or she asked to know. She hoped her child would someday
        ask. She wanted the chance to thank the nameless,
        faceless woman who so generously offered her baby to
        someone who couldn't produce one naturally.
        
             Nurse Dyer stepped away from watching the work on
        her monitor to dab sweat from her doctor's brow.
        Fletcher remained bent over the eyepiece of the
        hysteroscope, maneuvering the remote scalpel and laser
        microsuture with intense concentration.
        
                                   #
        
        Thirty-five minutes passed during which Dr. Fletcher
        never shifted from her crouched position, never said a
        word. Nurse Dyer, watching the progress on the monitor,
        took over the responsibility of reassuring Karen that
        all was well.
        
             "The embryo knows what to do," she told Karen.
        "It's already manufacturing the hormones that will tell
        your body you're pregnant. But since it's been detached
        from one uterine wall, we've got to reattach it
        surgically so that it won't bounce around." She smiled
        warmly. "You wouldn't want a child that young running
        around loose, would you?"
        
             Karen tried her best to smile, but the length of
        the operation was getting to her. She simply stared at
        the ceiling. Someone had stuck a smiling yellow sun
        directly over the table. She focused on it, thinking of
        sunrises and waking up to mother and father and
        brothers when she was a child. She'd have a chance,
        now, to see it from a parent's point of view. If all
        went well this time. If their terrible past didn't
        repeat itself.
        
             At long last, Dr. Fletcher said, "There.
        Transoption complete. Looks good inside." She let go a
        tense, deep breath. "I took a snip of chorionic villi
        for genetic testing. That way we can skip the risk of
        an amniocentesis. We're going to keep you here a few
        days for observation just to make sure the little one
        in there is settling in and on the job."
        
             Karen groaned as the tube slid out of her. She
        raised her head to look at the doctor. "I'm pregnant?"
        
             "That's what you paid for."
        
             She lay back to stare at the bright and silly
        paper sun overhead. Tears brimmed her eyes. "Thank you,
        Doctor, thank you. I don't know how I can ever pay you
        enough for--"
        
             "Just make sure you take every precaution with
        this pregnancy. I've done all that I can surgically.
        The rest is up to you and that baby." The doctor
        remembered something. "Oh--will you want to know what
        sex it is?"
        
             "No. David and I want to be surprised." She
        murmured a few more thank yous amid her assurances that
        she would follow every guideline. Then she allowed
        Nurse Dyer to unstrap her from the stirrups and help
        her onto a gurney.
        
             As she wheeled the patient out, Dyer turned to
        look inquiringly at the doctor. She tilted her head
        slightly toward the medical equipment.
        
             Dr. Fletcher shook her head imperceptibly. "You
        take the CV sample to the lab. I'll clean up."
        
             The gurney wheeled out of the room. The doors
        slammed shut with a muted thunk. Dr. Fletcher, alone in
        the silence of the empty operating room, locked the
        doors, took several deep breaths, and leaned against a
        counter. After a moment, she stepped over to the
        surgical machinery, switched everything off, and
        pressed a button near the monitor. A videocassette
        popped out into her waiting hand. She took a case from
        one of the drawers, slipped the cassette in, and wrote
        a few notes on the outside. Then she quietly set to the
        task of cleaning the device.
        
             Cleanup was usually a job left for nurses or
        surgical technicians. Dr. Fletcher, though, guarded her
        new machine jealously. No one else besides Nurse Dyer
        even knew about this night's operation. What \was\
        known throughout the hospital was that Dr. Fletcher
        considered the Reproductive Endocrinology department to
        be her own private stomping ground. Her success with
        the fertility clinic gave her the freedom to call the
        shots.
        
             Even so, she had to be cautious this time. Trust
        no one. Do all the dirty work. Leave everything
        spotless. She had finally crossed the line.
        
             She quietly emptied the holding tank into a
        container marked with the curving red biohazard
        trefoil. Out poured a transparent, thickish carnelian
        liquid. Here and there, suspended in the mixture,
        floated little deep-red clumps of tissue and clotted
        blood. She washed out the container with powerful
        detergents, rinsed it with methanol, and placed it in
        the autoclave for sterilization. The hysteroscope and
        microsurgical gear received meticulous cleaning,
        followed by treatment in a sterilizing bath--they were
        too delicate for the autoclave.
        
             The customized tubing, probes, and suction hoses
        were all disposable. She placed them in a receptacle
        after making note of the specific design she had
        created on the spot. Each patient would require unique
        combinations of hardware--notes now could save her time
        in the future. A future she saw as bold, bright, and
        terrifying.
        
             The cleanup took twice as long as the operation.
        
             When everything had been returned to orderly
        cleanliness, Dr. Fletcher glanced at her watch. Nine
        forty-five.
        
             She could be in bed by ten-thirty if she hurried.
        
                                   #
        
        Even in sleep, Evelyn could not escape the consequences
        of her decision. A dream grabbed her and would not let
        go. In it she lay--once again nineteen--upon a stiff
        white table, feeling a young life drain out of her. She
        was alone, all alone. Not even the abortionist was
        present. The room became a vast plain that she raced
        over, flying in her blood-drenched hospital gown.
        Covered with the sectioned remains of the dead, the
        plain stretched for unthinkable miles in all
        directions.
        
             Suddenly, she stood upon a glacier. Trapped within
        the ice lay hundreds of frozen sacs. Inside the sacs
        rested tiny, indistinct embryos. Evelyn experienced
        their patient expectation, longing to help them find a
        way out of their frozen limbo. Their whispered cries
        grew audible, distinct.
        
             "You've opened the Door," they said with that
        portentous significance found only in dreams. "You can
        free us now."
        
             "Free us now."
        
             "Neither you nor anyone can close the Door," they
        murmured.
        
             "Can't close the Door."
        
             She realized that she was chanting with them in a
        mystical rite. White-robed surgeons, arms dipped to the
        elbows in crimson, chanted with her and the dead-
        before-life. Scarlet flames appeared on the blue ice.
        
             "Bring us through the Door. Open for us the Gate
        of Life."
        
             "The Gate of Life," she repeated.
        
             The ice cracked like a thunderbolt.
        
             Evelyn's entire body quaked. She lay in bed
        staring into darkness. The dim blue light from the
        alarm clock glowed in the corner of her field of
        vision. The sheets stuck to her, wet with perspiration.
        
             The Door in the dream, she realized, was a one-way
        exit from her life as a respected physician. She had
        crossed its threshold that evening and could never
        return.
        
        
                                   VI
        
        In the weeks after the operation, Valerie knew that her
        decision had been the right one. She was back at work
        the following Monday. Ernie Sewell had told everyone
        that she had taken a couple of sick days for the flu,
        so she had no need to concoct a cover story. Most
        people avoided her the first few days back, carefully
        sympathizing at a distance.
        
             At home, Ron seemed even more loving and tender.
        As soon as she was able, they took long walks around
        Lunada Bay, hand in hand, briskly or languidly. They
        spoke about their future, made plans, looked at larger,
        more expensive homes around where they strolled.
        
             Her security in her new position grew with every
        day of accomplishment. She found that she had an
        undiscovered talent for dealing with the many petty
        rivalries that surfaced in the office environment. At
        the end of the day, she and Ron would meet for dinner
        in Redondo Beach or at the little Italian restaurant in
        Lunada Bay's small shopping center to share the day's
        adventures with each other.
        
             When it was finally safe to make love, they did so
        with an unbridled intensity that was just clearheaded
        enough for them to use at least three of the many
        precautions against pregnancy.
        
             That summer, she took nine days of her vacation
        time right after the long Independence Day weekend and
        traveled with Ron through the Bahamas. They took their
        contraceptives with them.
        
             Over the months, though, she discovered that she
        would stare for an instant whenever she saw a pregnant
        woman, sizing her up, estimating her term. For a while
        this mystified her, until she realized that she was
        trying to envision how she would have looked had she
        not had the abortion.
        
             It troubled her to be in an island paradise such
        as Eleuthera watching pregnant young women, wondering
        if this one was six months along, that one seven, and
        was that one exactly six and a half?
        
             In late September she began to wonder when she
        would have given birth. She estimated that it would
        have happened some time in mid-October. That's when she
        stopped looking at pregnant women and started to
        observe women with babies.
        
             She said nothing about this to Ron, but one day in
        October he caught her staring for longer than usual at
        a blond woman with a tiny red-haired baby in her arms.
        Its little face peered out over its mother's shoulder,
        watching the world with the stunned, unfocused
        expression of every recent immigrant.
        
             "Sweetheart?" he said, reaching across the
        restaurant table to touch her hand.
        
             "Hmm?" She looked back at him, realized why he
        seemed concerned, then blushed lightly.
        
             "Don't think about what's past," he said.
        "Whenever you want to, we can go ahead."
        
             Valerie nodded. Her tension relaxed a bit. The
        woman and child had moved on into the depths of the
        mall. She smiled with embarrassment. "It's silly. I
        feel sometimes as if I'm looking for my baby. It's the
        way I felt when my uncle Lanny died. My mother thought
        I was too young to attend the funeral, so I never fully
        accepted that he was dead. I always thought that he had
        vanished for some reason but that I would someday see
        him on a local street or in some place far away. Maybe
        a face in the crowd in a newspaper photograph." Her
        voice dropped. "I never did."
        
             Ron grasped her hand more tightly. "It's natural
        to wonder about the way things might have been. Don't
        let it detract from what we have right now. We--"
        
             "I'm not," she said quietly, looking up into his
        dark brown eyes. "It's just that if I'd stuck with it,
        the baby would have been born by now."
        
             Ron said nothing, held her hand. His concern for
        her reflected in his face.
        
             "I'll be all right," she said. "I sometimes just
        wonder how it might have been."
        
             "Remember, Valerie, what your doctor said about
        regrets. They're pointless."
        
             "I know," she said. "I'm fine. Really."
        
             A woman walked past the restaurant patio with
        three children in tow. The one on her shoulder wailed
        loudly as the two older ones orbited around her legs in
        the midst of some sort of disagreement. The woman's
        face was haggard with annoyance. Bitterness radiated
        from her like the sputtering light from a street lamp
        ready to burn out.
        
             This sad vignette comforted Valerie in a small
        way. The might-have-beens could always be far worse.
                                   #
        
        The Metagram pager beeped insistently.
        
             Evelyn's hand groped in the darkness over her
        nightstand. Finding the offending device, she squeezed
        it until it shut up. She switched on the light to read
        the liquid crystal message strip.
        
                          CALL RE K. CHANDLER
        
        Picking up the telephone, she punched star-zero-one on
        the glowing keypad and let the autodialer do the rest.
        
             "This is Dr. Fletcher," she said when a young
        man's voice answered at the other end.
        
             "Karen Chandler's husband called," the voice said.
        "Her water broke. They're on their way in."
        
             "Page Nurse Dyer. I'm on my way." She rolled out
        of bed.
        
             \Two A.M. on a Sunday morning\, she thought. \It
        never fails\.
        
                                   #
        
        The blue Saab roared into life eight minutes later,
        breaking the residential quiet of the complex.
        Headlights illuminated the dark alleyway lined with
        fences and cinder-block walls over which grew ivy and
        bougainvillea. Even in the bright beams the colors had
        the grey look of late night.
        
             Evelyn sped through the rear entrance of the
        apartment building, wended toward Normandie, then
        turned south. Though she might have had an excuse if
        pulled over for speeding, she found that she lost more
        time identifying herself to police than she gained by
        breaking the limits. At that hour, forty miles per
        would get her to the hospital in a matter of minutes.
        And at 2:00 A.M. the lights were all with her.
        
             She slammed the Saab to a halt in one of the
        reserved parking slots right next to the emergency room
        doors. The bars were just closing; it looked fairly
        busy. Two paramedic vans were in the bays, both
        unloading simultaneously. One man with a minor gunshot
        wound walked out drunkenly. An old, disoriented woman
        on a gurney displayed the classic symptoms of
        myocardial infarction.
        
             She rushed past the receptionist. "PACE" was all
        she needed to hear as she went by.
        
             The patient assessment center was a large room
        comprising several beds divided by curtains. Women
        occupied two of the beds. One, a girl in her teens,
        looked frightened. Her parents and a boy who didn't
        look old enough to shave clustered around her,
        murmuring assurances.
        
             Two beds down lay Karen Chandler, her husband
        standing at her side. A fetal monitor strapped across
        her swollen abdomen sent signals to equipment at
        bedside. She had obviously taken the time to brush out
        her deep brown hair before arriving. She looked lovely.
        
             Nurse Dyer wore her lab coat over a pink-and-black
        miniskirt that occasionally peeked through the button
        front whenever she shifted around. Evelyn had seen the
        outfit--and others--before on late-night calls. She
        hoped the pager hadn't interrupted anything \too\
        sizzling.
        
             "Dilation four centimeters. Contractions every ten
        minutes." Dyer's voice had the distinct buzz of someone
        fighting fatigue and a couple of drinks. Fletcher knew
        it would not harm the woman's performance but made a
        mental note to take the fact into account. She was
        certain that the Chandlers were too occupied to notice.
        
             "Hello, Karen," she said. "Hello, David." Karen
        wore the all-purpose hospital robe, hiked up over her
        belly. David wore beige slacks and a rumpled royal-blue
        cotton shirt.
        
             She looked at Karen's husband. "Remembering your
        partner exercises?"
        
             He nodded and tried to sound steady. "Ready when
        you are."
        
             Dr. Fletcher smiled. "I think it's a matter of our
        being ready when the baby is." She bent over Karen to
        check her pupils with a penlight. "What time did your
        water break?"
        
             "Around one," she answered, looking up at the
        doctor with concerned eyes. "I was asleep, and I woke
        up and felt this wetness, but it didn't feel like my
        bladder cutting loose. There weren't any labor pains,
        so I figured we'd call Patient Assessment and they'd
        tell us to come in whenever the contractions started. I
        thought I could just go back to sleep."
        
             Evelyn smiled again, shaking her head. "Whenever
        the water breaks, we bring you in. If labor hadn't
        started soon, we'd have had to induce it. If we wait
        too long, infections can happen." She slipped on two
        right-hand gloves and gently inserted a finger to touch
        Karen's cervix. "Lucky for you that things seem to be
        progressing." She turned to Dyer. "Fetal heartbeat?"
        
             "One fifty and strong."
        
             "That's good." She grasped Karen's free hand and
        smiled reassuringly. "Everything's fine. I'll be back
        when you're a bit more dilated." With that, she turned
        to leave.
        
                                   #
        
        It was dawn when the contractions finally came five
        minutes apart and Karen was fully dilated. They had
        moved her to the homey environ of their Natural
        Delivery Unit, where she lay on an old-fashioned brass
        bed amidst soothing Victorian furniture, wallpaper, and
        curtains. The music they had chosen--one of the
        Brandenberg concerti, though she couldn't remember
        which one now--played softly from hidden speakers. At
        the moment, she had no idea whom they were trying to
        soothe. The pain overwhelmed her, at times slamming her
        onto an ocean of agony that crested every few minutes
        in waves of incomprehensible torment. She tried to
        describe the wrenching feeling to her husband through
        red-faced, sweating puffs of breath. Several times she
        had asked for something to numb the pain, but Dr.
        Fletcher had reminded her that they could not take
        chances with the baby.
        
             In his own hell of pain, David watched his wife
        suffer while he could do nothing but coach her
        breathing.
        
             "I don't want to do this," she moaned, her face
        straining crimson and wet. Her fingernails dug into
        David's hand as a contraction drove pain straight
        through her.
        
             He did not know what to say. Nothing could stop
        what was happening. She must know \that\. How to
        console someone suffering the inevitable who pleads for
        the impossible?
        
             At last, Dr. Fletcher relented and told Nurse Dyer
        to administer a mild hypnotic. It did nothing to reduce
        the pain, but Karen seemed to notice it less.
        
             "It takes the edge off," she murmured to David a
        few minutes later.
        
             "That does it," Nurse Dyer said, looking up from
        between Karen's legs. "I see the head."
        
             Dr. Fletcher took over, positioning herself at the
        end of the bed, instructing Karen to scoot toward the
        edge, ordering David to concentrate on getting her to
        breathe with him.
        
             "Okay. Push \now.\"
        
             "I can't," Karen screamed. "It's too much."
        
             "Don't worry. You'll make it." She cut a minuscule
        episiotomy with surgical scissors. Blood flowed on the
        sheets.
        
             "Breathe like this, sweetheart," David said,
        panting and puffing like a dog.
        
             "I \can't\," she screamed, her entire body
        convulsing. She fell back, exhausted.
        
             "That was good," Fletcher said calmly. "The head's
        almost through, so one more time ought to do it. Wait
        until I tell you, then push as hard as you can."
        
             "I can't."
        
             "You will."
        
             The contraction came. David lifted her up and
        forward by the shoulders.
        
             "Push," Fletcher cried. "\Now\!"
        
             "\He's tearing me up\!" Her voice became a
        straining animal grunt.
        
             David cried out, "I see its head!" His voice,
        ringing in her ear, sounded so full of love and wonder
        that she began to cry.
        
             Dr. Fletcher gently cradled the head in her hand.
        "Not yet. Stop straining. The shoulders are next.
        Coordinate it with the next contraction."
        
             While Dr. Fletcher held the unbreathing baby in
        her hand, Nurse Dyer battled with sponge and gauze to
        keep other bodily fluids away from the newborn.
        
             The baby rotated about, cradled firmly in
        Fletcher's grasp. Another contraction loomed. "Push
        \now\!" she said.
        
             "Come on, honey," David cried. "Push!"
        
             Wordlessly, Karen leaned forward with David's aid
        and pushed as hard as she could. This time was easier
        than the last. David's voice was near tears.
        
             "There she is! It's a girl! God, Karen, she's
        beautiful."
        
             "Eleven-oh-seven A.M.," Fletcher said, glancing at
        her watch. Dyer made a quick note of the time.
        
             The little purple-red, blood-smeared, vernix-
        coated figure rested in Dr. Fletcher's hands. She
        gently ran a finger through the baby's mouth to remove
        the mucus plug. Dyer used a tiny suction bulb to do the
        same to the infant's nose. Fletcher tenderly
        transferred the newborn to the belly of her mother.
        
             She took her first breath. Intrigued by the change
        in procedure, she tested her new equipment with a
        healthy, hearty wail. Her parents wept with joy
        seasoned with not a little exhaustion.
        
             Dr. Fletcher gripped the swollen grape-purple
        corkscrew of umbilical, gently holding tension on it to
        guide the afterbirth farther out with each uterine
        contraction. At the same time, the baby received added
        blood from the placenta, topping off her circulatory
        system.
        
             Nurse Dyer registered the baby's Apgar score--a
        nine in her first minute. That was nearly perfect,
        since out of superstition nurses rarely gave babies a
        ten. Only the newborns of pediatricians ever received
        the top mark, and only then because the doctor would
        worry if her own child were not pronounced perfect.
        Dyer put down the clipboard to mop the doctor's sweaty
        brow. That done, she turned her attention back to the
        baby, placing erythromycin drops in her eyes.
        
             "Now, Karen," Fletcher said calmly, "in births
        such as yours, the placenta doesn't all come out, so
        I'm going to go in to get the last of it after you've
        expelled the main part."
        
             They heard none of what she said. The couple
        watched the pulsations of the umbilical cord,
        mesmerized. They gazed at the squalling child on
        Karen's stomach. It turned from purple to a radiant
        shade of ruddy pink.
        
             A series of contractions expelled the afterbirth
        into a shallow tray held in place by Fletcher. The cord
        collapsed, lost its candy-swirled shape and shiny
        gloss. Taking her cue, Fletcher used a yellow plastic
        clip to seal off the umbilical as close to the baby's
        navel as possible. Nurse Dyer handed the husband a pair
        of scissors.
        
             "Would you like to do the honors?"
        
             Crying, he took the scissors and allowed her to
        guide his hand within an inch of the clip. A quick snip
        severed the cord. Blood pulsed out, dark red, further
        collapsing the cord into something that resembled a
        limp crimson noodle. Fletcher put the tray aside.
        
             Nurse Dyer gently snatched the infant away from
        Karen, taking it to a scale for weighing. She measured
        the circumference of the baby's head, her length, and
        fastened an ID tag on her wrist.
        
             "Six pounds, eight point four ounces," Dyer called
        out. "Nineteen point five inches."
        
             Karen wept happily at the news, taking her baby
        back to hold her.
        
             "Doctor?" David asked, remembering something from
        his classes. "Shouldn't you count the veins?"
        
             Dr. Fletcher smiled and reached over for the tray.
        David watched with curiosity, splitting his attention
        between the doctor, his wife, and his new daughter. She
        picked up the end of the umbilical, nipped it between
        two fingers, and spread the edges back to examine the
        interior.
        
             "All three are there," she said simply. "Nice to
        know you're checking every detail."
        
             David let go a relieved breath. His hand squeezed
        firmly the weak one it held. He was not sure what the
        danger was, but he knew that three veins was good, two
        veins bad. Karen had not even noticed the exchange. She
        gazed lovingly, exhaustedly, joyfully, at the little
        person on her stomach.
        
             "You may give her a drink if you wish." Nurse Dyer
        smiled with a warm tenderness.
        
             Carefully, she helped Karen lift the tiny bundle
        to her left breast, showing her the way to cradle the
        head and neck. Karen held the child in one arm. David
        stuffed pillows behind her to raise her into a sitting
        position. Dyer cleaned the new mother's nipple, which
        Karen offered to the baby's cheek.
        
             Feeling the stimulation, the tiny light blond head
        rotated, sensitive lips searching. In a matter of
        seconds, her mouth found a new source of nourishment
        and happily began to feed. The room fell silent for a
        moment.
        
             "Pardon the intrusion," Dr. Fletcher said, picking
        up a hysteroscope. "As I suspected, I've got some
        cleaning up to do. Don't mind me." She took only a few
        moments to examine Karen and remove a few bits of
        tissue that had remained at the surgical attachment
        points of the transplant operation.
        
             Karen hardly noticed. David pulled a Canon camera
        from beneath his hospital garb and shot half the roll.
        After a few minutes, Dyer announced that nursing time
        was up and that the baby needed to be cleaned. She
        poured an inch or two of tepid water into a bright
        yellow tub and placed it on the table next to the bed.
        Urging David to observe carefully, she inserted a
        finger alongside Karen's nipple to break the baby's
        suction. The baby began to cry, jerking her arms and
        legs, her eyes tightly shut.
        
             With a sponge almost as big as the baby, Nurse
        Dyer softly dabbed away the blood, leaving just enough
        of the waxy coating of vernix to keep the newborn's
        skin from drying out.
        
             "Now," the nurse announced, patting the child dry
        with a bright white towel, "you both need a rest, and
        so does she." She put the baby in a Plexiglas tray
        under a warming lamp.
        
             David watched Nurse Dyer lay a small green bottle
        of oxygen next to the baby, a tiny little mask placed
        about two inches away from her ruddy, drowsy face.
        "Where's she going?"
        
             "They'll both be moved to the postpartum room.
        They need to sleep, and so do you. Kiss your wife good
        night and go home and rest."
        
             He looked at Dr. Fletcher. She nodded in
        agreement.
        
             "Sweetheart?" he said. "Will you be all right?"
        
             Karen Chandler smiled at her husband. Tears of joy
        began to well up in her soft grey eyes. Her chestnut
        hair, wet with sweat, hung in near-black tangles across
        the pillow. Blood smeared her abdomen, her belly still
        large and soft from the ordeal.
        
             She was the most beautiful woman in the world.
        
             David stretched across the bed to hold her for a
        moment. They wept those misty-eyed tears that survivors
        of great adventures weep. They murmured the phrases new
        parents speak that seem to them so momentous and
        emotional at the time.
        
             "We have a baby," she said.
        
             "A daughter," he said.
        
             "She's beautiful."
        
             "So are you, my love."
        
             Nurse Dyer wheeled the baby out of the room. The
        little one had already fallen asleep.
        
             "Where--?" David began.
        
             Fletcher removed her mask and goggles. "She'll
        share the room with her mom but be accessible to the
        nurses so that Karen can get some sleep."
        
             David kissed his wife with warm, deep love. "Sleep
        well, darling. I'll be back as soon as I can."
        
             "Rest, David. We'll be all right."
        
             They embraced again. Nurse Dyer returned with a
        gurney. David helped his wife shift over to it. A last
        kiss and she rolled away through the door, Dyer pushing
        gently.
        
             David Chandler watched his wife disappear into the
        postpartum wing. A hand slapped him on the back with
        weary heartiness.
        
             "Congratulations, Dad." Dr. Fletcher smiled. Her
        eyes seemed to hold back a deeper emotion than she
        revealed in the friendly gesture. "She's a beautiful
        baby."
        
             He nodded, then smiled widely. "She is. They both
        are. We've waited so long for this."
        
             "Have you got a name for her?"
        
             "Renata. Karen's grandmother was named Renata. It
        means `born again.'"
        
             Evelyn Fletcher raised an eyebrow but said
        nothing.
        
        
                                  VII
        
        Karen awoke to the sound of a baby screaming. The
        short, high-pitched shrieks cut through her sleep like
        meat cleavers.
        
             "What's wrong?" she cried, sitting up in the
        hospital bed, looking around in the darkness. She had
        been awakened several times that day for breast-
        feeding, but the baby's cries then were nothing like
        these.
        
             She looked through the window in the wall at her
        right. The sliding tray that allowed Renata to be
        reached either by her mother on this side or the nurses
        on the other lay open to the nursing area. Renata was
        gone.
        
             "What's going on!" she shouted through the glass.
        
             "Nothing," one of the nurses said casually. "Just
        taking a few drops of blood for tests. We give her a
        little heel stick, that's all."
        
             Renata screamed as if she were being murdered.
        Karen pressed up against the glass, flattening her face
        in an effort to see what they were doing to her child.
        They stood somewhere out of view.
        
             The cries continued. Karen's entire body reacted
        to the sound. It was as if each scream were fashioned
        to activate every primordial mother instinct lying
        hidden in her soul. She wanted to smash the glass and
        seize her child from the monsters in white.
        
             One of the torturers--an over-thirty frump with a
        bored expression--deposited the frantic, kicking infant
        into the drawer, gently sliding it over to Karen's side
        of the wall.
        
             "All done. Feeding time."
        
             Karen hated the nurses already.
        
             She scooped up her daughter, held her up to her
        right breast, and offered her nipple to the terrorized
        baby.
        
             Renata sought out the proffered meal and sucked
        heartily. An occasional residual whimper escaped past
        the areola.
        
             Karen waited until Renata had calmed down to
        examine her tiny feet. They were both still purple from
        hospital-form ink. A small, round Band-Aid adhered to
        the bottom of the left heel. She hugged the baby
        tenderly, cooing to it and whispering soft, loving
        mother sounds.
        
             When Renata finished eating and fell into a
        satisfied sleep, Karen willfully ignored the rules. She
        did not restore the baby to the drawer in the wall but
        kept her bundled against her breast, sleeping
        protectively with her.
        
                                   #
        
        "Just a little ear infection, that's all."
        
             Dr. Fletcher peered through the otoscope into
        Renata's tiny right ear. "When you look inside, the
        eardrum should look silvery and sort of reflective. If
        it looks red or swollen, that's a good sign that some
        antibiotics are in order."
        
             "Is it serious?" Karen held the baby tightly.
        Renata watched the proceedings, blue eyes staring in an
        unfocused gaze of incomprehension.
        
             "We just have to pick the right antibiotic." She
        made a few notes on the chart, then picked up Renata's
        left foot. She stroked a fingernail down the center of
        the sole, watched the toes flex, and made another note.
        She smiled.
        
             "Other than that, everything else seems to be in
        order." She put a finger into Renata's hand. The small,
        stubby fingers reflexively grasped the digit. "She's
        got a good strong grip."
        
             Karen smiled and hugged the baby even tighter.
        Renata gurgled, her mouth curling into a toothless
        smile as her arms and legs flailed about merrily.
        
             Dr. Fletcher patted Renata's head, stroking the
        thin covering of light blond hair.
        
             Renata's face became confused, reddened. She
        fidgeted, then began to cry.
        
             "Uh-oh," Evelyn said. "Changing time."
        
             Karen smiled. "That's one thing I regret about
        this place." She shifted over to the far side of the
        bed, lowering Renata into the drawer and closing it. "I
        don't get to diaper her until I get home."
        
             Fletcher smiled. "Enjoy the opportunity."
        
                                   #
        
        That afternoon, Nurse Dyer stepped into Fletcher's
        office and locked the door behind her. She wore deep
        emerald culottes beneath her lab coat. No doubt, mused
        Evelyn, she had a pair of matching high heels to
        replace the crisp white hospital shoes she currently
        wore.
        
             "Dr. Lawrence is asking questions."
        
             "Relax." She motioned for Dyer to sit beside her
        at her desk.
        
             The tall woman pulled up a chair, lowered her
        frame into the leather folds, and tried to relax. She
        did not seem to be succeeding. The nurse drummed her
        blood-red-polished, professionally short fingernails
        against the brown leather armrest. "The administrator
        could blow us out of the water if he gets suspicious at
        all."
        
             Fletcher lit up a cigarette. "Lawrence isn't
        suspicious. He's just a meddlesome old bureaucrat who
        confuses irritating the staff with effective
        management. He's bothering everyone just to look busy."
        
             "He questioned me about the discrepancies on
        Chandler's reports."
        
             Fletcher looked up. "Such as?"
        
             Dyer leaned forward. "Delivering a full-term
        infant in just seven months."
        
             "Jesus." Fletcher jabbed her cigarette into the
        ashtray. "That's so simple. Just direct him to me. That
        man hasn't touched a scalpel in eighteen years. I'll
        just backdate the operation and tell him he's
        confused."
        
             "I think that maybe we tried to do too much. Maybe
        we should--"
        
             "Should what?" Fletcher stood. "Pull back now when
        we know it works? Go back to the \status quo\? Now that
        we've got the technique? Don't forget why we're in
        this." She stepped behind Dyer to grasp her shoulders.
        "Don't forget the goal here. Don't forget the payoff
        we're finally seeing. Great strides are never made
        without the risk of stumbling."
        
             "But what if Mrs. Chandler should talk?"
        
             "She won't," Fletcher said, patting the woman's
        athletic shoulders. "She's got the baby she wanted."
        The doctor paused, then spoke softly. "I think we
        should try another one."
        
        
                            #
        
        
        David Chandler prepared to run the gauntlet. The day at
        work--being away from his wife and daughter--had been
        difficult. The manager of an aircraft fastener
        warehouse does not have much time for quiet, reflective
        moments. Roaring forklifts and the constant metallic
        racket of jostling components make for rattled nerves.
        
             And now he had to face \this\.
        
             "There's the washroom," a stern-faced nurse said.
        "Put the robe over your clothes so that it ties in the
        back. Put on the bonnet. Put on the face mask." She
        handed him a sealed packet. "This is a Betadine scrub
        brush. Get it wet so that it lathers. Lather up your
        hands completely, then scrub. Pay strict attention to
        your fingernails. Not one speck of dirt should be
        underneath when you're done. Then do it again. Your
        hands should have a nice orange stain all over."
        
             "Then I can see them?"
        
             "Of course." She looked at him oddly for a moment,
        then wandered away.
        
             Chandler donned the protective garb and turned on
        the hot water to perform the ablution. The bright,
        yellow-orange suds coated his hands as the sponge side
        of the brush worked up a lather. The antiseptic tingled
        in a small cut on his ring finger that he didn't
        remember receiving. The Betadine smelled sharply
        cleansing, very much in accord with all the other
        hospital smells.
        
             He concentrated on scrubbing his fingernails and
        cuticles. He plunged his hands into the stream of water
        to rinse, then lathered and scrubbed again. Drying his
        hands, he examined the fingertips--now clean and
        yellow-white beneath the trim nails--and looked up. In
        the cupboard above the sink sat an open box of scrub-
        brush packets. David's eyes glanced right and left. No
        one near to witness the crime. Deft fingers plucked one
        packet from the box, skillfully sliding it under the
        gown and into his right front pocket.
        
             He might need one at home. Crime in the service of
        sanitation.
        
             He slipped on his mask, then paused. He had just
        touched his pocket and his face. With a self-derisive
        snort, David Chandler picked up the used brush and
        repeated the cleansing ritual.
        
             Finally done, the masked man strode purposefully
        down the hallway, only to stop midway, trying to
        remember what room number he had been given. The iron-
        eyed nurse passed by, noted his confusion, and directed
        him to the room.
        
             Karen Chandler lay in bed in a semiprivate room.
        No one occupied the other bed at the moment, and the
        only sounds came from the cries of other babies in the
        wing. Renata lay in her mother's arms, nursing happily.
        Tiny fingers pressed against the soft milk-filled
        flesh.
        
             "Hi," he said, standing in the doorway.
        
             "David!" Her voice nearly burst with affection.
        "Sweetheart, what time is it?"
        
             "Five-thirty. I came as soon as I could."
        
             "You didn't have to do--"
        
             "I couldn't rest until I saw my two loves." He
        leaned over the bed to nuzzle Karen deeply through his
        mask, then gazed at his daughter. Her eyes were closed
        in a feeding reverie. "How soon until I can take you
        home?"
        
             "Dr. Fletcher said that she has an ear infection,
        so the nurse gave her a shot of antibiotics. The poor
        thing cried for ten minutes after." She stroked
        Renata's hair. "They want to keep us here another night
        to make sure her ear's okay."
        
             "I'm sure it'll be all right."
        
                                   #
        
        Karen knew it was not all right.
        
             Even though she had been a mother for less than
        two days, she could tell that the baby in her arms had
        changed. Its skin seemed less pink. When she put her
        finger in Renata's pudgy hand, the fingers closed
        around it but squeezed with less strength. She seemed
        just as hungry as ever, though she nursed for shorter
        periods.
        
             Karen told Dr. Fletcher on her afternoon rounds.
        Fletcher peered into the baby's eyes, shone a penlight
        through Renata's left ear lobe, then examined both ears
        with her otoscope.
        
             "The good news," Evelyn said, "is that the ear
        infection is subsiding. But there may be some
        complication from the antibiotic. I'll have the nurses
        take another blood sample."
        
             Karen fought her urge to ask what could be wrong.
        Silently, she prayed to a God she hadn't addressed
        personally in years. \Please don't hurt my baby\.
        
             She held Renata close to her all that afternoon,
        surrendering her only for diaper changes and the blood
        sample.
        
             Five minutes after Renata had been returned from
        the blood drawing, Nurse Dyer strode swiftly into the
        room, pushing a Plexiglas case on wheels. It looked
        similar to the one that had held the baby in the
        delivery room.
        
             "What's wrong?" Karen asked, holding Renata to her
        breast.
        
             "Dr. Fletcher will explain when she gets here.
        Right now we have to take Renata for more tests."
        
             "Where?"
        
             "Dr. Fletcher will explain," Dyer said, all
        emotion masked. She carefully lifted the baby over to
        the case, lowered her in, and sealed the lid. Throwing
        switches and rotating knobs, she turned on heating
        lamps and increased the oxygen supply.
        
             Renata kicked and screamed for a moment, then
        weakly relaxed. She had just been fed. The box was
        warm. Nurse Dyer offered her a fresh Nuk pacifier via
        the glove box, stroking the clear silicon rubber
        against her soft baby cheek. Renata turned her mouth
        toward the faux nipple, sought it out, clamped onto it,
        and sucked. Intent on nothing else, she drifted off to
        sleep.
        
             "Dr. Fletcher will be with you," Dyer said, "after
        she's had a chance to examine the baby."
        
             She wheeled the quietly hissing, softly glowing
        conveyance out of the room, leaving Karen alone in a
        silence punctuated by the distant, healthy cries of
        other children in the post-partum ward.
        
                                   #
        
        David held Karen's hand firmly. He stood beside her
        bed, listening to Dr. Fletcher explain aplastic anemia
        in laymen's terms. It was all too confusing.
        
             "You \knew\ that she could get this from the
        drugs?" His voice held pain, incomprehension, and a
        growing anger.
        
             The doctor took a deep breath, trying to project
        as much calm as she could.
        
             "Bone-marrow suppression is always a risk when we
        use antibiotics on anyone. Generally, it's a small
        risk. Aplastic anemia seems to result from unknown,
        idiosyncratic sensitivities that aren't predictable. We
        can, however, predict that an ear infection can lead to
        deafness and further, worse complications if untreated.
        The benefits far outweighed the risks. Even so--"
        
             "Couldn't you," Karen asked in a subdued voice,
        "have used something safer?"
        
             "We used the antibiotic with the safest record.
        I'm sorry that this happened. I want you to know that
        spontaneous recovery of bone-marrow function can and
        does occur in these cases."
        
             David's voice was close to trembling. His right
        leg, foot perched on one of the bed's lower braces,
        jerked nervously, like some animal ready to take flight
        out of anger or terror. "Well," he said tightly, "what
        are you doing about it?"
        
             "We're keeping her in reverse isolation to prevent
        any opportunistic infections. We're providing
        supportive care. Intravenous fluids, glucose, proteins,
        blood transfusions. If not for the obvious problem, a
        bone-marrow transplant would be the surest solution."
        
             Karen responded to the mention of a problem by
        placing her other hand on David. He held her even
        tighter.
        
             "What problem?" she asked.
        
             "Bone-marrow transplants require a very close
        match between donor and recipient. That's why the donor
        is usually a very close relative. A brother or sister.
        Mother or father.
        
             Karen's eyes filled with tears. "I'll do anything
        to save my baby. What do I have--" Then she saw Dr.
        Fletcher slowly shaking her head.
        
             Karen's words ceased as if she had been punched in
        the throat. The sickening realization swept over her
        that Renata was not \her\ baby. She was not the mother.
        She never had been. And now, when Renata lay in life-
        threatening danger, she could offer no help at all.
        
             Karen fought against the swirling black faint that
        pulled her down into the bed sheets. \Needs her
        mother\, she thought, \needs her mother\. The words
        choked her soul. David's hands, massaging hers, felt
        hot and distant. She took a deep breath.
        
             "Where is her mother?" Karen asked with forced
        steadiness.
        
             Fletcher shook her head sadly. Stepping over to
        the door, she closed and locked it. She returned to the
        bed and reached across to close the baby drawer. Her
        voice was low, understanding, but firm. "You know the
        terms of the contract. No one is ever to know that the
        child is not yours. Especially not the donor mother."
        
             Karen stared with incomprehension. "Even if it
        costs this baby her life?"
        
             "I'm sorry, that's--"
        
             "It's a contract with no teeth," David said. "It
        relies on our good faith, on our being so happy with
        the baby that we wouldn't dare risk it being taken
        away. But that's not the case with Renata." He grabbed
        Fletcher's arm. "Her \life's\ in danger. I don't care
        what happens to us. I just want her to live."
        
             Dr. Fletcher maintained her low tone. "It's not
        just a question of custody. I told you that the
        transoptive technique was experimental. I told you that
        the donor mother had come in for an abortion. What I
        didn't tell you is that she thought she \was\ getting
        an abortion. The donor didn't know that her fetus would
        be transplanted."
        
             The pair gazed at Fletcher in silence. David
        breathed faster, trying to suppress shock and anger.
        The doctor made a mental note to watch for signs of
        hyperventilation. Karen's face paled to the color of
        the pillowcase into which her head sank.
        
             "You didn't tell her?" she said in a dulled
        monotone.
        
             "If we went to the mother with this news,"
        Fletcher said, "the repercussions would be enormous. It
        would put everyone involved into jeopardy." Her voice
        grew urgent. "The state could imprison us, seize
        Renata, and ruin our lives. Contact with the donor is
        \out of the question\."
        
             She stood to turn her back to them, taking a deep
        breath and longing for escape. One sick child
        threatened to demolish all her work, her entire career,
        which had culminated in the reckless action that had
        saved Renata's life in the first place.
        
             "I don't understand," Karen said softly.
        
             "What?" Fletcher said, turning around to face
        them. She sniffed sharply, took a breath, and tried to
        maintain a doctorly attitude.
        
             Karen searched Fletcher's face for a sign of
        compassion. "I don't understand why you've done all
        this. You--you do all this research and study to
        perform fertility operations. And then you try
        something that \no one else\ has ever done before just
        to help me have a baby. You must have some overwhelming
        regard for human life. Then how can you value the life
        of an unborn child so much that you'll go through all
        this to save it, yet let it die a few hours after it's
        born?"
        
             The doctor shook her head. A pressure built up
        inside her, ready to burst.
        
             "Isn't that," Karen asked, "the mirror image of an
        abortionist's view?"
        
             Evelyn surrendered to the tears that ached inside
        her. She wept for the memory of her own lost child, for
        the fatal choice she had made at an age when her body
        was that of a woman's but her soul was unprepared for a
        woman's existence.
        
             David watched her stand with her head buried in
        one hand. He glanced at his wife. She nodded, releasing
        his hand. He brought a chair over to the side of the
        bed and helped the woman into it.
        
             "When I was nineteen," Evelyn said, her head
        lowered, "I had an abortion. I was forced to make a
        choice no one should be forced to make--to kill a tiny
        little human or let one night's mistake rule my life
        forever. Well, I killed it. And it's ruled my life,
        anyway."
        
             She took a shallow, sobbing breath. Hesitantly,
        David put his hand on her shoulder. If she noticed, she
        made no sign.
        
             "All my life since that day I've tried to find a
        way out for other women. Find a way to protect that
        fragile, tiny human life while protecting the freedom
        of the full-grown woman." She gazed up at the man. "Her
        life's just as fragile, you know."
        
             David nodded. His anger had turned to wonder and
        concern. He had never seen a doctor cry. He didn't
        think they could.
        
             Karen's eyes brimmed with tears. She took two
        tissues from the bedside box and offered one to the
        other woman.
        
             Evelyn accepted it, smeared at her eyes with it.
        It didn't bother her--she never wore makeup. Karen
        dabbed at her own eyes. She wanted to reach out and
        hold the woman, but she was beyond her grasp.
        
             "I made a desperate choice in helping you."
        Fletcher's voice lost all trace of dispassionate
        medical calm. "Now I have to make another choice that
        could undo everything we've achieved."
        
             "I'm sorry" was all that Karen could say. They
        sounded like the emptiest, least helpful words in the
        human language.
        
        
                                  VIII
        
        This was the day she had hoped to avoid. She knew it
        would happen, she had simply hoped to put it off
        indefinitely. Infinitely.
        
             A doctor has many difficult moments, moments she
        wishes would never have to occur. Regrettable moments
        that deal with unavoidable death or grieving relatives
        or angry patients. The standard, rehearsed words of
        comfort or confrontation can usually calm a tense
        situation, but even if not, the parting is generally
        professional and permanent.
        
             Evelyn Fletcher, M.D., Ph.D., took a long drag on
        her cigarette, set it in the ashtray, and watched the
        smoke curl up past the cone of light from her desk lamp
        into the darkness of her office. In this situation, she
        was facing the end of her medical career. Words would
        be useless.
        
             She had endured another crisis just as severe
        years ago: the day she had to tell her boyfriend that
        she was pregnant and had decided on an abortion. Words
        could change nothing then, either.
        
             Ian Brunner was another premed at UCLA in the late
        1950s when the world took a breather between Korea and
        Vietnam, between the Air Age and the Space Age. Between
        D-Day and Dealy Plaza.
        
             He sported a crew cut, skinny tie, and spoke of
        medicine as a way to make a great living. His only
        regret was that he had to be around sick people all the
        time.
        
             Ian and Evelyn were an odd item at the school
        functions. She dressed like a beatnik in black
        leotards, black dance shoes, and a black cashmere
        sweater that hung to her thighs. Her jet-black hair,
        pulled into a single thick ponytail, reached down to
        the small of her back. This did not endear her to the
        more staid eighteen-year-olds in premed. That she
        carried a copy of Gray's \Anatomy\ instead of Sartre's
        \Nausea\ set her apart from the beat crowd, too.
        
             She liked Ian, though, with his conservative
        trappings that failed to disguise a rebellious streak.
        If their academic records had not been so superb, their
        notorious behavior might have gotten them sacked in
        their first year. Both, however, enjoyed their studies
        as well as their lives.
        
             That was why she never quite understood his
        reaction to her announcement. They had finished a
        chemistry class together and gone for dinner to Ship's
        on Wilshire, a brisk walk of a few blocks in the cool
        winter air. She was troubled all the way, not really
        knowing how to broach the subject. All through the meal
        she had a sinking feeling that no matter what she
        chose, things would change between them.
        
             Finally, on their way back, she lit up two Camels,
        handed one to Ian, and said, "A friend of mine died
        today."
        
             "Who's that?" he asked.
        
             "A rabbit named Friedman."
        
             She didn't have to elaborate.
        
             He took a long drag on his cigarette. His
        expression was unreadable. "So what's the plan?"
        
             "I can't have a baby," she said in an apologetic
        tone that surprised her. "I've got years of med school
        ahead. I'm seeing someone tomorrow to get"--her voice
        caught for a moment--"to get it fixed."
        
             They walked in silence for a long time. Finally,
        his voice cool and muted, he asked, "Is it mine?"
        
             "Yes."
        
             He flicked his cigarette into the gutter. "Are you
        sure?"
        
             She stopped to stare at him. "Yes. How could you
        doubt me when I--"
        
             All pretensions of cool adulthood fell away from
        him in a blaze of anger. "I don't see how you could go
        ahead and just kill it. \Kill\ it! Take a miracle like
        that and--"
        
             "Ian, I--"
        
             "Don't try to rationalize it. It's your body. Go
        ahead and get sliced up. Just don't pretend you're not
        killing our baby."
        
             Without a glance back at her, Ian strode away into
        the night.
        
             That was the last conversation they had ever
        shared. When Evelyn visited a Santa Monica doctor the
        following evening, she went alone, lonely and scared.
        When the deed was done, she slipped into the darkness
        to seek out a hotel room nearby. She spent two days
        there, in bed, coping with the physical and spiritual
        pain of her decision.
        
             It was in that drab room with its window
        overlooking the bright and beautiful Pacific that
        Evelyn first came to realize that there had to be a way
        out of the horrendous morass of death and guilt that
        surrounded abortion.
        
             She returned to her classes the next Monday and
        never slowed down. She entered medical school four
        years later, concentrating on reproductive
        endocrinology. If she found out the how and why of
        pregnancy, she could find a way to free women from
        abortion.
        
             Studying birth and death would be her life.
        
                                   #
        
        It was twenty years later that she experienced her
        final, crucial insight. Soaking in the antique tub in
        her small bathroom, she read through a stack of medical
        journals at a swift but--for her--leisurely pace. Every
        fifteen minutes or so, she would drain two inches of
        cooling bathwater and add the same amount from the hot
        tap. She also added more jasmine-scented bath foam in
        order to maintain the heat-trapping layer of bubbles
        that surrounded her.
        
        
             The effect of all this on her magazines elicited
        clucks of disapproval from any colleagues who happened
        to see one of the warped, stained periodicals on her
        desk at the medical center. Letting a copy of the \New
        England Journal of Medicine\ degenerate to such a
        condition was equivalent to using the Bible as a
        doorstop.
        
             Her usual riposte was that she, at least, read the
        bloody things.
        
             Immersed in the issue of \Microsurgery
        Proceedings\ she held inches above the surface foam,
        Fletcher quickly scanned through articles until one
        headline fairly leaped out at her face. It was not a
        particularly dramatic title: "Some Progress in Vascular
        Reattachment and Nerve Connection in Transplanted Rat
        Cerebral Tissue." The body of the article, though,
        outlined a delicate and egregiously complicated
        microsurgical laser technique for attaching the
        minuscule blood vessels and nerve junctions of a rat
        brain inside the cramped environs of another rat's
        skull.
        
             One would not expect a rat to survive such
        cavalier treatment, but the one in the article did. Not
        only that, it also exhibited a small degree of motor
        response and ate what the brain's previous owner had
        been trained to eat. The rat died a week later,
        succumbing to foreign tissue rejection.
        
             Such an article might not in itself have intrigued
        someone interested in reproductive endocrinology except
        that it outlined in fairly rigorous fashion each step
        involved in the microsurgical process. And Fletcher had
        just finished reading an article in \Fertility Week\
        that outlined the latest progress in non-surgical ovum
        transfer in the cattle industry.
        
             Adrift in the warm, softly undulating waters of
        the bathtub, Evelyn laid the magazine down on the stack
        nearby and closed her eyes. Thoughts and images
        associated freely in the open frontiers of her mind.
        This was the time in which her wildest dreams occurred.
        Not in sleep, that lost, aimless time when unbidden
        symbols clashed pointlessly in obscure meaning. In the
        world between full alertness and relaxed bliss lay the
        realm of focused imagination.
        
             Jasmine drifted into her nostrils. Steam dripped
        from the mirror and the walls. She was once again in
        placental warmth, her body supported, her mind free to
        wander.
        
             Non-surgical ovum transfer sounded promising for
        human infertility. It was no answer to abortion,
        though, because the fertilized ovum could only be
        removed \before\ it implanted in the uterine wall. A
        woman would have to know she's pregnant less than five
        days after conception in order to have the egg lavaged
        out. As a treatment for infertility, it had--as the
        authors suggested--great promise. To remove an embryo
        that had already implanted, though, involved cutting or
        tearing away infinitesimal connections between the
        embryo and the forest of capillaries in which it nests.
        Connections that grow stronger, thicker, and more
        complex with every passing day.
        
             By the time a woman realizes that she's pregnant,
        the fetus has already made itself at home. Still...
        
             She knew that late-second-trimester abortions were
        sometimes performed in such a way that the fetus
        survived only to die of intentional neglect outside the
        womb. Such stories chilled her, just as she was warmed
        by the apocryphal tale of the woman who changed her
        mind after such an event and took the living child home
        with her.
        
             A fertilized egg is viable outside the womb; it
        can even be frozen and stored indefinitely. A fetus is
        generally viable outside the womb after the twenty-
        fourth week or so. But for twenty-three weeks the fetus
        requires a uterus in which to attach itself. To remove
        it at any point during those twenty-three weeks is
        invariably fatal.
        
             \Unless one found another uterus\, she mused. She
        sat up in the tub. That had always been her stumbling
        block. Abortuses were by their nature unwanted. Who
        would care for them if they survived? Yet another
        bloated state bureaucracy? She was well aware of the
        sickening abuses within the government-financed
        orphanages and mental hospitals. But if another woman
        wanted it, if \non-surgical\ ovum transfer could solve
        infertility, then \surgical\ embryo transfer could
        solve abortion \and\ infertility at the same time!
        
             The two branches of medicine that seemed so vastly
        and inalterably opposed fused together in her mind. She
        closed her eyes and slid to chin depth in the warm
        waters. The scent of jasmine filled her as a bold new
        future formed out of darkness. Her career choice now
        made total sense to her. She would no longer need to
        justify aborting some pregnancies while initiating
        others as merely "giving women a full choice." She
        would become the conduit between the two. One woman's
        choice to end a pregnancy would become another woman's
        opportunity to begin one.
        
             It all seemed so sensible, efficient, and--she
        savored the word--\moral\ that she felt an ancient
        guilt floating free from her as if it were being washed
        away by the water in which she reposed.
        
             This was the way. She had met her destiny face to
        face.
        
                                   #
        
        "Totally out of the question!"
        
             Dr. Jacob Lawrence stared at her with undisguised
        contempt. He was fifteen years older than Fletcher and
        sometimes behaved as if he had been born a century
        before. As a member of the ethics committee at Bayside,
        though, his support was crucial to any future research
        she proposed.
        
             The man with the thinning white hair gazed at
        Fletcher with rheumy eyes over his horn-rims. "You
        can't seriously ask the board even to review a request
        for such a project, let alone approve it."
        
             "I'm not asking for an actual project," she said.
        "Just a study of the potential ethical questions.
        Obviously, there has to be a groundwork in animal
        research before we could even contem--"
        
             "I don't care about the research. Things such as
        this should not even be open to discussion." He looked
        at her again, frowning. "You think something like this
        is even possible?"
        
             Fletcher spoke quickly, eagerly. "The fetus does
        all the work in a pregnancy. It generates the hormones,
        it makes the decisions. I'm certain that microsurgical
        attachment to the uterine wall of the recipient would
        be sufficient to allow the fetus to gestate in the new
        envir--"
        
             "All right." Lawrence waved a hand for silence.
        Fletcher fingered the pencil in her hand; she knew
        better than to smoke in Lawrence's presence. Bayside's
        assistant administrator looked down through his
        spectacles at the pages before him. "I'm not going to
        leave this up to the ethics committee alone. I'm going
        to send it to an outside consultant. UCLA has an expert
        in infertility. I read something by him in \JAMA\ last
        month. Works with pregnant women a lot. Ian Brunner."
        
             Evelyn's fingernails plunged into her hand.
        
             Lawrence rubbed his nose. "Ever heard of him?"
        
             "Yes." She sat back, stunned. She knew what the
        outcome would be. "But wouldn't there be better
        qualified people at USC?"
        
             Lawrence cleared his throat. "My dear, I am a
        Bruin."
        
             And that settled that.
        
                                   #
        
        It took Dr. Brunner two weeks to return a twenty-page
        denunciation, which she never saw. It took an
        additional two years of tabling and extensions by the
        ethics committee before they issued their own
        determination. Quoting liberally from Dr. Brunner's
        analysis, the committee essentially stated that
        surgical embryo transplantation was impossible, and
        even if it weren't, the ethical conundrum posed by
        using the fetus of one woman as seed stock for another
        made the entire procedure reprehensible from any
        viewpoint--ethical, moral, or legal.
        
             "Two years wasted," Fletcher muttered over her
        coffee.
        
             "What do you expect?" asked the lovely woman
        across from her. Adrianne Dyer possessed the kind of
        body that filled her tight uniform in ways that caught
        the eye of nearly every male patient, orderly, intern,
        resident, and doctor. It was not her fault, and she
        permitted no entanglements to mar her professional
        conduct.
        
             Fletcher liked the taciturn young woman and sought
        to transfer her to the Reproductive Endocrinology
        section. Right now they drank coffee in the cafeteria
        and discussed the scotched project.
        
             "Hospitals will always be conservative," Nurse
        Dyer said. "They have lots of money to think about."
        
             "Yes." Fletcher nodded. "Why risk it on saving a
        few lives?"
        
             Dyer shrugged, tossing her head in a way that sent
        a cascade of reddish-auburn hair whipping over her
        shoulder. "So work without their approval and give them
        a \fait accompli\."
        
             Fletcher grinned. "That'd sear their
        stethoscopes." Her good humor faded almost instantly.
        "I've been doing theoretical work and instrument
        design, but if I so much as thought about trying, I'd
        lose my privileges so fast my head wouldn't have time
        to spin."
        
             "Reword it and resubmit it to a different
        committee." Dyer took a long draught of coffee while
        she watched Fletcher through deep hazel eyes. "It's
        worth the struggle." She finished off the cup. "I'd
        like to help."
        
             "Thanks. You know about \me\. What brought you to
        the point of wanting to help a mad doctor?"
        
             Dyer shrugged again. "You don't need to suffer a
        personal crisis to determine what's right and wrong.
        What you said makes sense. If you have a certain
        perspective."
        
             Fletcher thought quietly for a long while. Dyer
        said nothing more, allowing the silence to continue.
        
             That afternoon, Fletcher forced through the
        nurse's transfer to RE. For the next six years they
        worked together, hypothesized, tinkered, researched,
        and conspired together. Though they rarely met outside
        the hospital, they spent countless days in Fletcher's
        office in after-hours' discussions. They imagined every
        possible ramification of surgical embryo transfer. It
        was Adrianne who coined the term \transoption\. Evelyn
        considered the word \transortion\ for "transfer birth"
        as an alternative to \abortion\, "bad birth."
        
             "Doesn't roll off the tongue well," Dyer said.
        "You shouldn't make it sound anything like \abortion\,
        anyway. Raises too many images." She thought for a
        moment. "Make it sound more like \adoption\. Doesn't
        something like \transoption\ sound cheerier?"
        
             Dr. Fletcher admitted that it did. "The transfer
        option. Transoption." She felt as if they had created
        something entirely new, exciting, and shatteringly
        important just by uttering a word. They were
        trailblazers on a new path for medicine, a new, wider
        road for human rights. The future lay dazzlingly bright
        ahead.
        
                                   #
        
        Now all that might collapse into lawsuits, prison, or
        worse.
        
             Evelyn struggled to find a way to tell Valerie
        Dalton that she had a daughter. She ran through
        possible conversational scenarios in the theater of her
        mind. None of them turned out well. \Why\, she finally
        wondered, \after lying all this time, should I suddenly
        tell the truth?\
        
             She thought out the details, then telephoned.
        
             "Hello?" said the voice on the other end.
        
             "Hello, this is Dr. Evelyn Fletcher at--"
        
             "Oh, hi! You have reached Ron and Valerie's
        place," said the recording. "We're not in right now, or
        maybe we are and are listening to see if we want to
        talk to you."
        
             "Christ," muttered Fletcher.
        
             "But if you wait for the tone and leave your name,
        phone number, the day and time you called, a brief
        message, and three character references, we'll consult
        our attorneys and astrologers and get back to you. But
        don't get your hopes up. Thank you for sharing."
        
             Fletcher used the time to light up a Defiant, take
        a few puffs, and frown. If she disliked anything, it
        was flippant--and lengthy--telephone answering
        messages.
        
             The phone beeped. "This is Dr. Evelyn Fletcher of
        Bayside University Medical Center. I'd like to speak
        with Valerie Dalt--"
        
             There was a clattering noise on the line, followed
        by a woman's voice. "Hello?"
        
             "Valerie Dalton?"
        
             "Yes."
        
             "Dr. Fletcher. You were in to see me last March."
        
             "Yes, Doctor. I remember. How could I forget?" Her
        voice was hesitant, curious at a doctor's call at such
        a late hour.
        
             "I know I'm calling a little late, but we have a
        minor crisis here that I hope you can help us with."
        
             "What do you mean?"
        
             Evelyn took a deep drag, letting the smoke escape
        with her words. "We've gone over the records of our
        blood tests, and yours turned up as having the right
        combination of factors that could help us save a very
        sick baby here. What we'd like is for you to come in
        tomorrow morning for a more thorough screening with an
        eye toward a transfusion."
        
             "Oh, I don't really have the time to come--"
        
             "Miss Dalton, I don't normally call complete
        strangers asking for blood. This really is a matter of
        life or death."
        
             Evelyn only heard telephone static for long
        seconds.
        
             "What about the baby's mother and father?" Valerie
        asked.
        
             "The father's unavailable, and the mother's blood
        type is incompatible. And there are no siblings or
        other close relatives. We exhausted those avenues
        before we searched the computer files for a close HLA
        match."
        
             "I really don't know," Valerie said. "I've never
        given blood before. With all this talk about AIDS and
        all, I--"
        
             "You can't get anything from \giving\ blood."
        Fletcher paused, her mind racing through logical
        arguments until she hit upon one. "Valerie--have you
        had any feelings of guilt about terminating your
        pregnancy?"
        
             After a moment of quiet, the voice on the other
        end said, "Yes."
        
             "You might be able to assuage some of those
        feelings by giving the gift of life to another child."
        
             Silence crisscrossed the wires for long moments.
        Evelyn knew that if she said nothing more, Valerie
        would have to make the next move to break the awkward
        hiatus.
        
             After a pause that almost seemed itself to be a
        battle, Valerie's soft voice said, "All right. What
        should I do?"
        
                                   #
        
        Mark Landry gazed at the blonde entering the lab and
        thought, \What a babe!\ Wearing a maroon cashmere
        sweater dress and matching high heels, she looked to be
        in her mid-twenties. That was all right. He liked older
        women. His fingers tapped at the counter.
        
             Valerie approached the skinny laboratory
        technologist--he was the only one in the lab whose life
        at the moment appeared to be untainted by physical
        labor. She handed him a slip of paper.
        
             "Here for a blood test and a pint, eh? Sit up
        here, Ms. Dalton. This won't take long."
        
             She sat on the cot. There were three other people
        in the room, all hooked up to blood bags. She found it
        remarkably difficult to look at the people or the
        apparatus. She kept her eyes focused on the young man.
        
             He was a lanky, freckled surf blond possessing an
        eager, admiring wolf gaze. She was flattered, but since
        she was in a situation that involved pain and bleeding,
        she wished for the entire episode to conclude swiftly.
        
             He recorded her blood pressure, taking longer than
        normal to fit the cuff on her smooth, tanned arm. He
        gazed at her eyes--grey in the fluorescent light of the
        lab--while attempting to make conversation.
        
             "My name's Mark." He glanced at the paperwork.
        "Uh, is this for donation or autologous storage?"
        
             "Autologous storage?"
        
             "You know--setting blood aside before an operation
        so you only get your own. Safer, these days."
        
             "No, it's for a baby here. It's--"
        
             "Oh, right," he said, removing the pressure cuff
        and substituting a stretch of elastic. "Directed
        donation for the Chandler girl. Her mother was in the
        center's fertility program. Just born three days ago
        and already in trouble." He donned a double pair of
        clear plastic gloves. "I'm going to take a drop of
        blood from your ear lobe."
        
             "Is she sick because of the fertility program?"
        She stared at the needle Landry removed from a sealed
        package, then at the syringe he produced. She took a
        deep breath, focusing again on the man's angular,
        boyish face.
        
             Landry dabbed antiseptic on her right ear lobe,
        then stuck her with a disposable needle in a brisk,
        practiced motion. Drawing off a crimson droplet into a
        slender tube, he held the blood over a cylinder filled
        with blue liquid. The droplet fell, hit the surface,
        and sank to join a pile of blackish globules at the
        bottom.
        
             "Congratulations. You're not anemic." He slid a
        sample vial up the hollow back of the syringe. "Anyway
        she got a little ear infection, and they gave her
        antibiotics. Most kids have no problem, but every once
        in a while you get one that's sensitive and gets bone-
        marrow suppression. Transfusions can help. Bone-marrow
        transplants-- Okay, make a fist."
        
             "What?"
        
             "Make a fist and squeeze a few times. I need to
        find a vein. Anyway--" His thumb felt around the crook
        of her right arm. "Bone-marrow transplants will
        probably do the trick. Here we go."
        
             Valerie flinched at the sharp jab of the needle.
        She felt a flutter in her stomach. Landry pushed the
        sample vial against the back of the needle until it
        penetrated the rubber stopper.
        
             "Whoa--careful. Let me get it in there." He poked
        around gently until the dark red liquid pulsed suddenly
        into the tube. Taping the needle to her arm, he let the
        vial fill up, removed it, and quickly attached the
        long, thin plastic tube from the blood bag.
        
             Valerie gazed at the bag. From the squarish
        periphery of the large central bag extended several
        smaller bags connected by tubes. It looked like a
        squashed octopus. "What are all those things hanging
        there?"
        
             Landry smiled. "This is what we use for baby
        transfusions. We fill up the big bag. Then, whenever we
        need the small amount a baby requires, we can squeeze
        some into a satellite bag, pinch it off, and use it.
        That way we don't have to enter the main bag. The blood
        stays usable longer that way." During all this, he took
        the opportunity to scan the sheet she had given him.
        
             "I see you visited Dr. Fletcher a few months
        back."
        
             Valerie frowned. "Yes."
        
             "Were you also involved in the fertility program?"
        
             Valerie stiffened, almost popping the needle out
        of place. "You mean Dr. Fletcher's involved in
        fertility programs, \too\?"
        
             A sinking feeling of embarrassment overcame the
        young technologist. His brown eyes glanced down at her
        arm. "I'm sorry. I didn't know that you'd been... I
        mean, some people think it's strange for her to be
        working both sides of the street..." \That's\ not
        right. "I mean, I can understand her trying to maximize
        women's choices, no matter what they..." He taped the
        tubes to her arm, squeezed the blood bag a few times to
        distribute the anticoagulant, and let it hang below the
        cot.
        
             "There," he said with relief, grasping the sample
        vial in his suddenly sweaty hand. "Just lie down,
        relax, and squeeze this every few seconds." He handed
        her a rubber cylinder. "I'll be back in a few minutes."
        
             He made for the water cooler at the far end of the
        room and took a stiff drink of Sparkletts. A candy
        striper noticed his flustered expression and wandered
        over to him.
        
             "What's up, Mark?"
        
             "Nothing," he said quietly. "I just have all the
        bedside manner of a meat packer."
        
             He handed the blood sample to the technologist
        behind the counter, then quickly returned to Valerie's
        side.
        
             Valerie squeezed and released, squeezed and
        released. It was the queasiest feeling to know that
        each contraction sent an extra squirt of blood into the
        bag. The plastic tube lay draped across her arm. It
        felt warm and sickening, like a snake that had
        slithered out of the desert sun to rest on her flesh. A
        wave of unease bordering on nausea washed over her when
        she dared to glance at where the tube of dark red blood
        disappeared under white adhesive tape at the inside of
        her elbow.
        
             Some people did this every six weeks. Her boss,
        Mr. Sewell, was a member of the Rare Blood Club and
        kept arranging bloodmobile visits for the office. She
        never donated. Now she knew why.
        
             Squeeze. Release. Squeeze. Release.
        
             She reminded herself that this was for a little
        baby whose life was in far greater peril than hers. She
        thought about how strange it was that blood--something
        spilled so easily from cuts, in fights, in wars--could,
        if gathered carefully, be so valuable to another.
        
             Squeeze. Release. It really wasn't all \that\
        difficult.
        
             After what seemed to be hours of uncomfortable
        silence, Landry said, "There we go, that's enough." He
        pressed the bag a couple of times, causing the tube
        along her arm to creep warmly across her flesh. It made
        her shudder.
        
             "Do I keep squeezing?" she asked.
        
             He shook his head, busying himself with removing
        the needle, putting a piece of cotton over the
        puncture, and folding her arm back. "Don't sit up. Just
        hold it like this and press," he said. He took the bag
        over to the sealing unit, and stamped the blood-filled
        tubing at regular intervals to create almost a dozen
        sample blisters. He labeled the bag with stickers that
        read Directed Donation Baby Girl Renata Chandler,
        adhering a similar tear-away portion of the bar-coded
        sticker to Valerie's file.
        
             That done, he brought a cup of orange juice and
        two chocolate chip cookies to her.
        
             "Here's the payoff."
        
             Valerie accepted them with a grateful smile.
        
             "Just relax," he told her. "I have to deliver the
        lab results to Dr. Fletcher." He gazed at her with a
        troubled expression, then rose and walked away.
        
             Valerie wondered if something was wrong.
        
                                   #
        
        Landry found Dr. Fletcher in the infant intensive care
        unit. It looked like any other ICU except that the
        tubes and wires from all the equipment streamed into a
        clear bassinet not much larger than a bread box.
        
         Evelyn stood beside the instruments, watching the beat
        of Renata's heart.
        
             "When did you transfer to pediatrics, Doc?"
        
             Fletcher looked up at the intruder. "Mark, did you
        get the printout?"
        
             "She's still O positive," he said deadpan. "HLA
        and serologies will take until six o'clock and Debbie
        said you'll be lucky to get them that fast." He handed
        her a manila folder. She opened it up to scan the
        contents. He took the opportunity to check out the
        baby.
        
             Renata lay inside the germ-free chamber, hooked to
        an IV. Aside from her waxy pallor, she looked perfectly
        healthy. Under the warm glow of the heat lamp, her
        sparse hair shone blond with the softest of golden-
        bronze highlights. She lay on her back, quietly staring
        up at a bunny and duckie mobile hanging from inside the
        top of the box.
        
             Fletcher seemed to study the results with cursory
        attention. "This will do very well," she said.
        
             "Question," said Landry. "How did you know to
        bring her in when her tests before and after the
        abortion didn't include the HLA typing?"
        
             Fletcher closed the folder and looked down at
        Landry from her half-inch advantage. "Dalton's O
        positive and so is the baby. I had her frozen sample
        retested, but the HLA results were ambiguous. Since
        Renata has a rare HLA, I grasped at straws. If we're
        lucky, Mark, my `woman doctor's intuition' will pan
        out, and this baby'll have a better chance." She
        clapped him on the shoulder. "And isn't that what
        medicine's all about?"
        
             "Aren't marrow donors supposed to be close
        relatives? Mr. and Mrs. Chandler both seem fit."
        
             \What a snoop\. "Do you have access to their
        medical histories?"
        
             Landry shook his head.
        
             "Then you couldn't be aware of the mismatched ABO
        and Lewis factors and Mr. Chandler's history of
        hepatitis B, could you?"
        
             Landry shook his head again.
        
             "Would it be safe to assume that a closely matched
        stranger's marrow might, under such circumstances, be
        preferable to the parents'?"
        
             "Well, yes, but why did you go straight to this
        woman instead of going through the marrow registry
        program?"
        
             "I told you," Fletcher said. "Her HLA is rare."
        
             "But--"
        
             "Look, scut puppy." She was tired, worried, and
        irritated. "\You\ stick the patients, and \I'll\ do the
        doctoring. Okay?"
        
             Landry said nothing. Turning, he walked out of the
        infant ICU, leaving Dr. Fletcher behind in her anger.
        
             He made straight for the file room and its
        computer.
        
             "Is this thing logged on?" he asked.
        
             The busy record keeper nodded without lifting his
        gaze from a stack of forms.
        
             Landry started tapping away, pleased to know that
        he was accessing the files with someone else's security
        code. Though everyone did it, he felt he had extra
        reasons to be secretive.
        
             The screen offered up the files on Karen and
        Renata Chandler. He scrolled through them quickly,
        noting within instants that their Rh factors were
        identical. As Dr. Fletcher indicated, though, their
        ABOs were indeed mismatched. The mother had AB blood,
        the baby had type O. A transfusion or marrow transplant
        from mother to daughter would be fatal. Renata's own
        blood would hemolyze--clump up and kill her.
        
             No mention existed of the father in either file,
        so the hepatitis B comment couldn't...
        
             Landry looked back at the blood groups. Something
        was wrong. Mother AB, daughter O.
        
             \That can't be\, he thought. \Can it?\ If the
        mother was AB, the daughter would have to be A, B, or
        AB. She could never be O. Ever.
        
             When the realization struck him, he laughed. \Of
        course! She was in the fertility program. She got
        someone else's egg\. Landry shook his head. \What a
        jerk. Valerie Dalton must have been the egg donor.
        That's why Fletcher brought her in. Nothing super
        unusual in that\.
        
             Except, he realized, that Valerie Dalton was
        unaware of Fletcher's involvement in the fertility
        program. She was only familiar with the Fletcher that
        performed abortions.
        
             A sickening sensation churned inside Landry's
        stomach.
        
             Calling up Dalton's file, he noted with relief
        that the date of her abortion was March third.
        Scrolling back to Karen's file, he saw that her
        fertility operation took place January seventeenth.
        \Maybe I'm wrong. I have to be wrong. Or maybe...\
        
             He printed out copies of the screen pages, then
        darted over to Reproductive Endocrinology, fifty feet
        down the hallway.
        
             The receptionist listened to his request. "Well,
        hon," she said in her raspy voice. "I don't know what
        good seeing the old appointment books will do. We don't
        keep patients' addresses there."
        
             "No," Landry said, thinking as swiftly as
        possible. "But you do keep phone numbers. Just let me
        look at the month of March. I can find the patient's
        name if I can correlate the time of the operation to
        the time of the transfusion."
        
             "I don't know--"
        
             "Look, Mrs. Welsch, if the transfusion \you'd\
        received half a year ago had turned out to have HIV in
        it, \you'd\ want someone to track you down and tell
        you, wouldn't you?"
        
             "Why, so I can worry myself to death?" She pushed
        away on her swivel high chair to the shelves behind the
        counter. A half rotation brought her face to spine with
        the appointment book back files. She removed a thick
        blue canvas-covered binder.
        
             "Here's the first half of the year, hon. Bring it
        back when you're done."
        
             He thanked her and carried the binder off to the
        break room. Too crowded. He found an examination room
        that wasn't in use and closed the door. Placing the
        binder on the couch, he opened it to January
        seventeenth. Karen Chandler had a one o'clock
        appointment. No Valerie Dalton. Then he checked March
        third. No Karen Chandler, but a six-thirty appointment
        for Valerie Dalton. He sighed and stared at the page.
        \It was a stupid theory, any--\
        
             He stared at an entry next to Dalton's. Reaching
        overhead, he pulled down the lamp and switched it on.
        The intense white glare brought out every detail of the
        page. The entry next to Dalton's had been written over
        an erasure.
        
             Landry angled the lamp to bring out surface
        details. It \looked\ as if the name \Chandler\ had been
        there once. He reached into his breast-pocket pen
        protector. Taking the edge of a pencil to the entry, he
        lightly rubbed all over until only the grooves made by
        the original entry showed as white traces against a
        grey background.
        
             He gazed at the tracing, barely able to make out a
        captial \K\, a small \e\ and \n\, and the last name
        \Chandler\. He frowned for a moment, almost not wanting
        to believe. Then he went back to January seventeenth.
        Karen Chandler's appointment had been written in over
        an erasure of another woman's name.
        
             Appointment changes were common, Landry reminded
        himself. That's why entries are written in pencil. The
        sick feeling, though, would not go away.
        
                                   #
        
        Valerie noted the young man's troubled expression as he
        returned to check her progress. She sat up with his
        help and had another glass of orange juice.
        
             "If you had it to do over again," he suddenly
        asked, "would you have gone through with your
        abortion?"
        
             Valerie turned to stare at him in shock. "I don't
        think that's any of your concern. How dare you ask--"
        
             "What if some way existed," he said quickly, his
        words tumbling out in a rapid, anxious whisper, "for
        you to have ended your pregnancy \without\ harming the
        fetus? What if your baby were ali--"
        
             The door to the blood room swung open. Dr.
        Fletcher strode in and scanned the room to see Landry
        crouched next to Valerie Dalton. He shut up the instant
        he saw her. Rising up unsteadily, he resumed his work.
        
             Valerie said nothing to the technologist. Her
        confused eyes watched Fletcher's approach.
        
             "Have them get the blood over to infant ICU," she
        told Landry, then turned to gaze down upon Valerie. "I
        want you to know how much we appreciate your doing this
        to help a little stranger. I hope that we can count on
        you for subsequent donations."
        
             With the doctor's aid, Valerie slid her legs off
        the cot and sat up straighter, her left hand still
        applying pressure to the crook of her right arm. "How
        often will I have to do this?"
        
             Fletcher sat next to her on the padded table.
        "There's no way of knowing. Transfusions are adequate
        in providing supportive care. Sometimes it's all that's
        needed to help the bone-marrow to recover and start
        producing blood cells again. There's a surer way,
        though."
        
             "What's that?" Valerie stared at the floor, unable
        to look at the doctor.
        
             "A bone-marrow transplant will give the baby what
        she needs directly. Recovery is almost immediate and
        generally permanent in most such procedures."
        
             "What do you mean by a transplant?" Valerie asked.
        She noticed that the floor below had two dark brown
        spots on the green linoleum. Her blood? Or some
        stranger's before her?
        
             "It's not the same as an organ transplant. We
        don't do any surgery. It's almost like a blood
        transfusion except that we put the needle into your hip
        or sternum where we can aspirate some bone-marrow. Then
        we inject it in the baby just like a blood transfusion.
        The cell colonies swim around in her bloodstream and
        instinctively head right for her bones. There they set
        up shop and start manufacturing new cells. And then she
        can lead a full and healthy life." The doctor put a
        friendly arm around her patient. "And--if your tissue
        types match--you could be the one who saves her."
        
             "Does it hurt?"
        
             "I'd be lying if I said it didn't. But dying hurts
        a lot more. And not just baby Renata. Her parents have
        been trying to have a baby for years and she's their
        first. Remember what I said about... well, you know.
        What I said last night."
        
             Valerie looked up into Dr. Fletcher's sympathetic
        eyes. "I'd like to see her."
        
             Fletcher's eyes became guarded, her entire
        expression stiffening imperceptibly. "That isn't really
        possible. She's in Intensive Care."
        
             Landry, gathering up his equipment slowly in order
        to eavesdrop, said, "She can look through the
        observation window." He watched the doctor for her
        reaction, trying to maintain an innocent, helpful
        expression.
        
             She shot him a troubled glance, then coolly
        agreed.
        
                                   #
        
        Their steps rang in Valerie's ears like hammers
        chiseling at glass. She and the doctor walked slowly
        down the corridors of the medical center, Landry behind
        them with the blood, passing scores of patients of all
        ages: the aged, tired ones in Geriatrics; the bright,
        struggling ones in Pediatrics; the invisible crying
        voices in the postpartum section; and, finally, a
        section of near silence.
        
             "Infant ICU," Landry said. He watched Valerie for
        her reaction as she stepped warily toward a large
        plate-glass window.
        
             Inside the ICU stood a man and a woman bent over
        an instrument-laden crib, their backs to the window.
        The woman's straight dark hair reached down below her
        shoulders to flip under in the last inch or two. She
        wore a violet satin robe with matching terry slippers
        that were expensive enough not to look unfashionable.
        She shook a rattle over the bubble top of the crib.
        
             The blond-headed man next to her was swaddled in
        hospital garb beneath which lay grey pants with cargo
        pockets and a soft green polo shirt. He leaned over the
        isolation crib, a bright yellow rubber duck in his
        hand. He squeezed it a couple of times, then let his
        hand fall to his side.
        
             The gesture of weakening hope caused Valerie's
        throat to tighten. She swallowed, then stepped to the
        far end of the window for a view of the baby.
        
             Through the window and Plexiglas she saw a tiny
        waxen figure. It wasn't pink the way a baby should be.
        It didn't move and kick the way a baby should. She had
        seen enough babies in the park just the other week to
        know what a healthy one did with its time.
        
             "Stay here," Fletcher said to Valerie and Landry,
        taking the blood bag from the technologist.
        
             The woman at cribside looked up when Fletcher
        entered. She said something to Evelyn as the doctor set
        up the IV. Then she chanced to glance at the window.
        Her gaze riveted Valerie's.
        
             Valerie lowered her eyes. The look felt as if it
        had been one of recognition. It wasn't the look one
        would give a stranger who was helping to save a
        daughter's life.
        
             Dr. Fletcher, through the glove box, lifted Renata
        up in the chamber for a moment to change her diaper.
        Even from the distance of several feet, Valerie saw the
        blond hair and blue-grey eyes.
        
             She felt something tighten in her stomach,
        something else go cold and black in her head. The room
        tilted dangerously sideways. Reaching out for something
        to grasp, she touched Landry's wiry arms. They steadied
        her, guided her away from the room, away from the
        child.
        
             He helped her to the cafeteria, where he bought
        her a large orange juice and a slice of chocolate cake.
        Pointing out that she needed to replenish her blood-
        sugar levels, he encouraged the stunned woman to eat.
        After she had finished in mechanical silence, he asked,
        "Was that your daughter?"
        
             "It's impossible," she said, her voice dull and
        flat. "I had an abortion."
        
             "You had your abortion the same date and hour that
        Mrs. Chandler had her fertility operation." Landry
        leaned forward across the table, whispering with
        conspiratorial intensity. "Your room was right next to
        hers. Dr. Fletcher performed both operations. She gave
        Mrs. Chandler your baby."
        
             "It's impossible," she repeated with weary
        insistence. "I had an abortion."
        
             Landry kept at her. "They transferred the embryo
        from you to Karen Chandler. You didn't want to be
        pregnant. Mrs. Chandler did. Dr. Fletcher has been
        performing non-surgical ovum transfer for years. That's
        where you impregnate a donor woman with a husband's
        sperm, flush out the fertilized ovum before it's had a
        chance to attach to her uterus, and place it in the
        wife's uterus where it implants itself. So the wife's
        pregnant with a baby that is her husband's but not
        hers."
        
             "They do that?" Valerie only spoke out of some
        dimly sensed social reflex that insisted she keep up
        her end of the conversation. She stared down at the
        bottom of the orange juice glass.
        
             "They've been doing it for years. But I can see
        that Dr. Fletcher has gone way, way beyond ovum
        transfer. Into the postimplantation stage, long after
        the five-day preimplantation period allowed by non-
        surg--"
        
             He reached out to seize Valerie's arm. Her pale
        head tilted toward the table. Fumbling in his pocket
        for smelling salts, he eventually found a popper and
        broke it under her nose.
        
             Other concerned staffers charged toward her, each
        reaching out with an ampule of ammonia salts or amyl
        nitrate.
        
             "It's all right," Landry said. "First-time blood
        donor."
        
             At that, everyone nodded and returned to their
        tables, some laughing with relief. Nothing worse than
        for a visitor to code on them in the middle of lunch.
        
             Her eyes jerked open, her body recoiling at the
        sharp scent of the salts. The swimming blackish swirl
        was wrenched from her with unsettling swiftness. Mark
        put the acrid capsule in the stamped aluminum ashtray
        between them.
        
             "There," he said. "All better." He gazed at her
        for a few moments, deciding on what he should do.
        Finally, he asked, "Would you excuse me for a minute?"
        
             Valerie nodded. Landry headed for the hospital
        phone. Valerie resumed her meditation on the bottom of
        the glass. An avalanche of thought and emotion coursed
        through her.
        
             \It has to be true\, she thought. \Nothing else
        makes sense. Nothing else explains\ everything.
        
             She gave no thought to the \how\ of it all. She
        knew nothing of surgery or medical science. If someone
        had told her before that such an operation were
        impossible, she would have probably agreed without
        thinking about it. Now, told that it was quite
        possible, she just as readily believed it with as
        little thought. Medicine was magic to her, an arcane,
        occult art that merely \existed\, causelessly, in a
        world where so many aspects of technology seemed simply
        to be there when most needed. Or when least wanted.
        
             The \how\ did not matter. What mattered most to
        Valerie was the \why\. \Why do that? Why take my baby?
        The baby is mine. She doesn't look anything like her
        parents. She must be mine\. The thoughts cascaded over
        and over. \Why take my baby when there are donor
        mothers all over? When there are other ways? Why do
        something so complicated, so risky, when there must
        have been safer ways? Open ways, legal ways\.
        
             She was certain that what Dr. Fletcher did must be
        illegal. Why else would she hide it? A cold anger
        gestated within her soul.
        
             "Valerie?"
        
             She looked up. Dr. Fletcher towered over her. She
        stared, speechless, as the woman sat across from her in
        the same seat in which the medical technologist had
        moments ago exposed the doctor's crime.
        
             "I'd like to talk to you," Fletcher said, "about
        the possibility of a bone-marrow transplant, if that
        would be all right."
        
             Valerie said nothing for a moment, then asked,
        "What happens to fetuses after they're aborted?"
        
             The question caught Fletcher off guard. It took
        her a moment to compose her thoughts. "That's not a
        pleasant topic even for doctors to discuss."
        
             "Try me."
        
             "Well," she said, striving for as neutral and
        sympathetic a tone as possible, "some hospitals just
        dispose of the fetuses along with the other bits and
        pieces they normally remove during operations. Some
        pathology departments catalogue and preserve the
        interesting ones. Some incinerate them, some bury them.
        Some use parts of the fetus, such as the liver,
        pancreas, and brain tissue, in research and treatment
        of other patients. There are ethical review boards
        that--"
        
             "What happened to my baby?"
        
             Fletcher gazed intently at Valerie. The young
        woman stared resolutely at the tabletop.
        
             "It was cremated."
        
             Valerie's voice nearly exploded. "That's a
        goddamned \lie\."
        
             People at the other tables turned to stare with
        the eager curiosity of co-workers watching an assault
        on one of their less loved number.
        
             Evelyn knew that what she said in the next second
        and how she said it would either create the worst enemy
        she could ever have or soften the shock enough for her
        to \understand\.
        
             "Yes, Valerie," she said softly. "Renata was once
        yours."
        
             Valerie slammed her fist against the table. A
        shuddering sob escaped from her.
        
             Gazing around at the gawking onlookers, Evelyn
        tried to quiet her. "Please, Valerie. Come to my office
        and I'll explain everything. It's not what you thi--"
        
             "I came in for an abortion," she shouted, "and you
        stole my baby!" Everyone in the room fell silent and
        turned to watch in alarm. "Some sort of monstrous
        experiment! How could you think you'd get away with
        it?"
        
             Evelyn reached out to Valerie. The door to the
        cafeteria opened. In the doorway stood a tall man with
        silver-grey hair. His ruddy face set in an angry
        glower, he spoke with loud authority.
        
             "\Doctor\ Fletcher."
        
             Fletcher spun about to face Jacob Lawrence, the
        hospital administrator. Behind him stood Mark Landry.
        
             "Would you mind," Lawrence said, "coming up to my
        office?"
        
             For a moment, sick panic showed in Fletcher's
        face, followed by a hardening resolve. She stiffly
        turned to Valerie.
        
             "Thank you, Ms. Dalton. You may go home now.
        You've done quite enough for today." She followed a
        silent Lawrence through the doors, leaving Valerie
        alone in a circle of curious nurses, residents, and
        miscellaneous employees and visitors.
        
             "What was \that\ all about?" asked one nurse,
        staring coolly at Valerie.
        
             "I knew that old biddy was up to something," said
        another.
        
             "What do you mean, stole your baby?"
        
             Valerie shook her head and started to push her way
        through the knot of inquisitors. Still dizzy from being
        low on blood, she could think of nothing but escape.
        Half running, she broke out of the cafeteria into the
        main corridor. Not knowing where to turn, she headed
        toward the light streaming in through the windows,
        found an exit leading to sunshine, and made her way to
        the parking lot.
        
             In a daze, she walked along aisles of cars until
        she found her disturbingly cheerful yellow Porsche. She
        climbed in, slammed and locked the door. Safety. She
        took a dozen long, slow breaths that were more sobs
        than anything else. A feeling of terror enveloped her.
        She started the car and drove away at a reckless
        velocity.
        
                                   #
        
        Valerie locked the front door and collapsed in the
        bedroom. It was too much to take in at once. Her baby
        was alive. She belonged to someone else. And she was
        dying.
        
             Valerie had faced the guilt of an abortion last
        winter, only to face a new life-or-death choice again.
        That her actions had led to the death of an unborn
        child had been a terrible burden. Now, when she should
        have been overjoyed that the child was alive, she felt
        a horrifying fear that the mortal choice would have to
        be made all over again.
        
             The terror, she realized with a shudder, was for
        herself, not for the baby. She buried her face in the
        depths of the down pillow and began to cry. For
        herself. And for what she knew that meant about her.
        
             The tears soaked the pillowcase with each
        trembling sobs. She kicked her shoes off and pulled the
        comforter over her. Drawing her knees up to her chest,
        she wept while the same thought throbbed in her
        feverishly: \Jennifer's alive\.
        
             If it had been a girl, she would have called it
        Jennifer. If it had been a boy, Bryan. Years ago, she
        had chosen those names for when she finally decided to
        have children. Since Ron wasn't the marrying sort,
        Jennifer Dalton and Bryan Dalton both sounded like good
        names. She had never understood why some mothers wanted
        their children to "have a name." That is, a last name
        other than the mother's. Dalton was a perfectly good
        name. Jennifer Dalton.
        
             Jennifer Dalton was Renata Chandler. Or was she
        really? Valerie's frantic mind latched on to the
        problem in morbid fascination. Who was this child,
        really? Whose right was it to name her? Did it have any
        bearing on who she really \was\?
        
             Did it have any effect on Valerie's decision
        whether or not to help save her life?
        
             A new wave of sobbing brought more tears. She
        pulled back for a moment to gaze at the mascara and
        makeup smeared onto the pillowcase.
        
             \This isn't doing anything\, she eventually
        determined. She sat up in bed and tried to think things
        through the way Ron would if he were in court.
        
             \One, I was tricked into a medical experiment by
        Dr. Fletcher\.
        
             \Two, the baby I thought I'd aborted is alive with
        someone else\.
        
             \Three, I'm the only one that can save her life or
        they wouldn't have risked contacting me\.
        
             \Four, she's Ron's and my baby. Nothing can change
        that. Not a name, not a secret experiment with stolen
        embryos\.
        
             \Oh, my God\, she thought with stunned suddenness.
        \How many others are there?\
        
                   \\END OF EXCERPT OF CHAPTERS 1-8\\
                   \\CHAPTERS 9-15 APPEAR ISSUE 10 \\
                    \\OF SHAREDEBATE INTERNATIONAL\\
        
        
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