Another Rib Read online

  "Tip! Tip! Wake up, kid -- please," Chord pleaded, bending over the boy, shaking him gently, stroking the sweat-bathed forehead.

  "That's no help." Everett felt frantic. Fanu would have to straighten this out. He had to. He couldn't let the boy die, not after a -- sacrifice -- like this!

  "Can you carry him?" He helped Chord wrap the blanket around the unconscious figure that still twisted silently, spasmodically beneath their hands. Chord picked him up, and they hurried through the rain, up toward the beacon lights of the alien laboratory.

  "And he'd been unconscious until then?" Fanu questioned gently, moving around the moaning figure.

  "Yes, all the time, Chord answered. "It isn't time, is it? It isn't time? That was what he was scared of. He was afraid to say anything. He said it'd go away . . . all those books and tapes he read . . . he . . . by God, if he dies, I'll kill you!"

  "I am not your God," Fanu said quietly, sadly. "Life and death are not in my hands, but I will do all that -- "

  "Fanu -- " Everett began, dragging his eyes away from the obscenely swollen body. He hadn't seen any of the . . . experiments . . . in clear light until now, and the sight stunned him, brought all this brutally home. Maybe he had been a fool. Why had he, alone, been kept in the dark? He realized only now; there had been a conspiracy of sorts to keep Tip, and Tsen, and young Reading, the ComCon man, out of his way.

  "You've got to do something. Chord says it isn't time."

  "Seven and a half or better of your gestation counts. Better than I hoped."

  "Fanu . . . the human male was never designed for . . . this . . ." he found himself wanting to giggle, more with fright than amusement. Tip was regaining consciousness, moaning slightly, grunting like an animal. Garrett was there, white-coated, his hand reassuring over Tip's, calm and matter of fact as he explored the boy's body briefly with a stethoscope. "Heartbeat fine so far, Dr. Fanu. But we can't monkey around too long."

  "Chord, carry him in there. I must operate this time, I am afraid." As Tip's eyes focused on him, the alien's voice -- and it no longer sounded toneless to Everett -- said kindly, "I'm sorry, Tip. You are too masculinely constructed. Remember, I warned you."

  The boy nodded wordlessly, biting his lip. Then, as Chord picked him up, he gasped between his teeth, "If it comes to a choice -- remember what you promised me, Doc -- "

  Everett sunk down in a chair and buried his face in his hands, and consciousness was swamped in black nightmare. The next thing he knew, Chord stumbled out of the operating room door, and Everett, feeling nightmarishly idiotic, watch him give a startling performance of expectant fatherhood.

  "Female," Fanu announced, his tiny mouth curving in the nearest approach to a smile he could manage. Chord caught the alien's clothing.

  "Tip? Tip?"

  "He's all right. Very weak, but fine. You can go in and see him. Be very gentle, though."

  Chord's face went limp all over. "Oh, thank God," he muttered, "thank God! Cap'n, that idiot kid made the Doc promise -- to save the kid if it came to a choice -- "

  He pushed past them into the other room.

  "Female?"

  "Female," Fanu confirmed. "I arranged things that way -- with all of them."

  "But -- "

  "Did you think this was permanent?"

  "Well -- well, yes, I did."

  Fanu made a sound of alien amusement. "That's what's been troubling you. No, John. In fifteen years your planet will have four or five nubile females, at least. The climate will aid precocity. In two generations you will be on firm footing. Your race is intelligent, hardy, ingenious, young -- all the things mine wasn't. Tip's case was the most difficult. He'll have to wait two years before attempting this again."

  "Again?" Everett gasped.

  "His own request. I had difficulty making him agree even to that, or I should have taken measures to end it now. I shall, next time. When the females are grown, his chore will be done."

  "When the females are grown -- what happens to the -- to the converted men then? The -- attachments, the -- the lovers, Fanu?"

  Fanu blinked sadly, "I don't know, John. I shall not be here. I am old, John -- old. But I'm sure you'll solve it."

  Everett turned and walked over to the window, staring down at the twinkling lights from the huts, the rebirth of homo sapiens. Somewhere behind him he could hear an infant wailing. The rain had stopped, and stars were coming out, the strange stars of a strange world.

  "All right," he said softly, "I was wrong. Now, for Your sake, tell us what's next?"