I Sing the Body Electric. Ray Bradbury
didn’t move.
“It weighs seven pounds, eight ounces,” someone said.
Horn thought to himself, they’re kidding me. This is some joke. Charlie Ruscoll is behind all this. He’ll pop in a door any moment and cry “April Fool!” and everybody’ll laugh. That’s not my child. Oh, horrible! They’re kidding me.
Horn stood there, and the sweat rolled down his face.
“Get me away from here.” Horn turned and his hands were opening and closing without purpose, his eyes were flickering.
Wolcott held his elbow, talking calmly. “This is your child. Understand that, Mr. Horn.”
“No. No, it’s not.” His mind wouldn’t touch the thing. “It’s a nightmare. Destroy it!”
“You can’t kill a human being.”
“Human?” Horn blinked tears. “That’s not human! That’s a crime against God!”
The doctor went on, quickly. “We’ve examined this—child—and we’ve decided that it is not a mutant, a result of gene destruction or rearrangement. It’s not a freak. Nor is it sick. Please listen to everything I say to you.”
Horn stared at the wall, his eyes wide and sick. He swayed. The doctor talked distantly, with assurance.
“The child was somehow affected by the birth pressure. There was a dimensional distructure caused by the simultaneous short-circuitings and malfunctionings of the new birth and hypnosis machines. Well, anyway,” the doctor ended lamely, “your baby was born into—another dimension.”
Horn did not even nod. He stood there, waiting.
Dr. Wolcott made it emphatic. “Your child is alive, well, and happy. It is lying there, on the table. But because it was born into another dimension it has a shape alien to us. Our eyes, adjusted to a three-dimensional concept, cannot recognize it as a baby. But it is. Underneath that camouflage, the strange pyramidal shape and appendages, it is your child.”
Horn closed his mouth and shut his eyes. “Can I have a drink?”
“Certainly.” A drink was thrust into Horn’s hands.
“Now, let me just sit down, sit down somewhere a moment.” Horn sank wearily into a chair. It was coming clear. Everything shifted slowly into place. It was his child, no matter what. He shuddered. No matter how horrible it looked, it was his first child.
At last he looked up and tried to see the doctor. “What’ll we tell Polly?” His voice was hardly a whisper.
“We’ll work that out this morning, as soon as you feel up to it.”
“What happens after that? Is there any way to—change it back?”
“We’ll try. That is, if you give us permission to try. After all, it’s your child. You can do anything with him you want to do.”
“Him?” Horn laughed ironically, shutting his eyes. “How do you know it’s a him?” He sank down into darkness. His ears roared.
Wolcott was visibly upset. “Why, we—that is—well, we don’t know, for sure.”
Horn drank more of his drink. “What if you can’t change him back?”
“I realize what a shock it is to you, Mr. Horn. If you can’t bear to look upon the child, we’ll be glad to raise him here, at the Institute, for you.”
Horn thought it over. “Thanks. But he still belongs to me and Polly. I’ll give him a home. Raise him like I’d raise any kid. Give him a normal home life. Try to learn to love him. Treat him right.” His lips were numb, he couldn’t think.
“You realize what a job you’re taking on, Mr. Horn? This child can’t be allowed to have normal playmates; why, they’d pester it to death in no time. You know how children are. If you decide to raise the child at home, his life will be strictly regimented, he must never be seen by anyone. Is that clear?”
“Yes. Yes, it’s clear. Doc. Doc, is he all right mentally?”
“Yes. We’ve tested his reactions. He’s a fine healthy child as far as nervous response and such things go.”
“I just wanted to be sure. Now, the only problem is Polly.”
Wolcott frowned. “I confess that one has me stumped. You know it is pretty hard on a woman to hear that her child has been born dead. But this, telling a woman she’s given birth to something not recognizable as human. It’s not as clean as death. There’s too much chance for shock. And yet I must tell her the truth. A doctor gets nowhere by lying to his patient.”
Horn put his glass down. “I don’t want to lose Polly, too. I’d be prepared now, if you destroyed the child, to take it. But I don’t want Polly killed by the shock of this whole thing.”
“I think we may be able to change the child back. That’s the point which makes me hesitate. If I thought the case was hopeless I’d make out a certificate of euthanasia immediately. But it’s at least worth a chance.”
Horn was very tired. He was shivering quietly, deeply. “All right, doctor. It needs food, milk, and love until you can fix it up. It’s had a raw deal so far, no reason for it to go on getting a raw deal. When will we tell Polly?”
“Tomorrow afternoon, when she wakes up.”
Horn got up and walked to the table which was warmed by a soft illumination from overhead. The blue pyramid sat upon the table as Horn held out his hand.
“Hello, Baby,” said Horn.
The blue pyramid looked up at Horn with three bright blue eyes. It shifted a tiny blue tendril, touching Horn’s fingers with it.
Horn shivered.
“Hello, Baby.”
The doctor produced a special feeding bottle.
“This is woman’s milk. Here we go.”
Baby looked upward through clearing mists. Baby saw the shapes moving over him and knew them to be friendly. Baby was newborn, but already alert, strangely alert. Baby was aware.
There were moving objects above and around Baby. Six cubes of a gray-white color, bending down. Six cubes with hexagonal appendages and three eyes to each cube. Then there were two other cubes coming from a distance over a crystalline plateau. One of the cubes was white. It had three eyes, too. There was something about this White Cube that Baby liked. There was an attraction. Some relation. There was an odor to the White Cube that reminded Baby of itself.
Shrill sounds came from the six bending-down gray-white cubes. Sounds of curiosity and wonder. It was like a kind of piccolo music, all playing at once.
Now the two newly arrived cubes, the White Cube and the Gray Cube, were whistling. After a while the White Cube extended one of its hexagonal appendages to touch Baby. Baby responded by putting out one of its tendrils from its pyramidal body. Baby liked the White Cube. Baby liked. Baby was hungry. Baby liked. Maybe the White Cube would give it food…
The Gray Cube produced a pink globe for Baby. Baby was now to be fed. Good. Good. Baby accepted food eagerly.
Food was good. All the gray-white cubes drifted away, leaving only the nice White Cube standing over Baby looking down and whistling over and over. Over and over.
They told Polly the next day. Not everything. Just enough. Just a hint. They told her the baby was not well, in a certain way. They talked slowly, and in ever-tightening circles, in upon Polly. Then Dr. Wolcott gave a long lecture on the birth-mechanisms, how they helped a woman in her labor, and how, this time, they short-circuited. There was another man of scientific means present and he gave her a dry little talk on dimensions, holding up his fingers, so! one, two, three, and four. Still another man talked of energy and matter. Another spoke of underprivileged children.
Polly