t?"

"Isn't saying. He feels--" she concentrated--"apprehensive. He tells
me he's feeling strange and he doesn't like it. I don't think he's
entirely awake. Funny--"

"I'm glad this is happening now," Len announced.

"So am I, but--"

"Look," said Len, moving energetically to the arm of her chair. "We've
always had it pretty good, haven't we? Not that it hasn't been tough
at times, but--you know."

"I know."

"Well, that's the way it'll be again, once this is over. I don't care
how much of a superbrain he is, once he's born--you know what I mean?
The only reason he's had the edge on us all this time is he could get
at us and we couldn't get at him. If he's got the mind of an adult, he
can learn to act like one. It's that simple."

Moira hesitated. "You can't take him out to the woodshed. He's going
to be a helpless baby, physically, like anybody else's. He has to be
taken care of."

"All right, there are plenty of other ways. If he behaves, he gets
read to. Things like that."

"That's right, but there's one other thing I thought of. You remember
when you said suppose he's asleep and dreaming, and what happens if he
wakes up?"

"Yeah."

"That reminded me of something else, or maybe it's the same thing. Did
you know that a fetus in the womb only gets about half the amount of
oxygen in his blood that he'll have when he starts to breathe?"

Len looked thoughtful. "I forgot. Well, that's just one more thing Leo
does that babies aren't supposed to do."

"Use as much energy as he does, you mean. What I'm getting at is, it
can't be because he's getting more than the normal amount of oxygen,
can it? I mean he's the prodigy, not me. He must be using it more
efficiently. And if that's it, what will happen when he gets twice as
much?"

* * * * *

They had prepared and disinfected her, along with other indignities,
and now she could see herself in the reflector of the big
delivery-table light--the image clear and bright, like everything
else, but very haloed and swimmy, and looking like a bad statue of
Sita. She had no idea how long she had been here--that was the dope,
probably--but she was getting pretty tired.

"Bear down," said the staff doctor kindly, and before she could
answer, the pain came up like violins and she had to gulp at the
tingly coldness of laughing gas.

When the mask lifted, she said, "I _am_ bearing down," but the doctor
had gone back to work and wasn't li