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Journal Entry 025 / 0264
All stories on this web site are purely FICTIONAL. The people depicted within these stories only exist in someone's IMAGINATION. Any resemblence between anyone depicted in these stories and any real person, living or dead, is an incredible COINCIDENCE too bizarre to be believed. If you think that you or someone you know is depicted in one of these stories it's only because you're a twisted perverted little fucker who sees conspiracies and plots where none exist. You probably suspect that your own MOTHER had sex with ALIENS and COWS and stuff. Well, she didn't. It's all in your head. Now take your tranquilizers and RELAX.
From uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!rice!uw-beaver!milton!sumax!polari!halcyon.wa.com Fi Apr 19 22:37:11 CDT 1991
Journal Entry 025 / 0264
The week after P'nyssa's initial announcement that she was pregnant
was completely insane. I don't clearly remember much of it; calls of
congratulations, lots of visitors, even demands for interviews from a
few of the newsnets. As if I didn't have enough to do!
But the family in general was very supportive, fending calls for
me, weeding out obnoxious guests and sending those on their way, usually
by a swift kick. But the real problem was P'nyssa; at first, it had
been simply enough for her to know that I supported her in this, but now
the harassment of the outside world was becoming intolerable. I was so
sorely tempted to take her to Brie's and leave her there; it being one
of my few hidden places.
P'nyssa returned to work, despite her condition. Or maybe because
of it. Mostly, it kept her away from the Castle, and from the
interferences that were now occurring in my life. Although Paul
frequently said that it was "No big deal," I could see that the strain
was getting to him. There hadn't been a press run like this since the
Dragons had been released.
Ress and Ember decided that tradition in our household was sacred,
and that therefore, crashers or not, we were going to have a Dead Rabbit
Party, complete with big blue inflatable dead bunny. It was going to be
held on the 1st. I agreed.
The morning of the 1st I woke up feeling refreshed, with my soft
and cuddly coimelin sleeping peacefully beside me. She looked peaceful,
too, with her eyes closed and her curly hair splayed everywhere. I
smiled as I rose out of bed to take a shower. I must have been in the
shower for some time, because as I was rinsing my hair Nyss came in and
said "When you get out, I have something very important to show you."
Her voice was neither joking nor panicked, and I wondered what it was.
When I got out and had a robe on, she came out and hugged me close.
"What's wrong?" I asked
"Look." She pointed at the telemetry screen being "reflected" in
my bedroom mirror. There was a long string of numbers and some chemical
formulae on the screen, the conclusions for which were displayed
underneath:
"O.B. Monitor, Day 6. Secondary release of ovum and protracted
survival of sperm have contributed to unexpected second successful
fertilization and data collected indicates implantation still possible.
"Action?"
I read the message twice. Then I read it again. "Does this mean
you're going to have two?" I asked.
She looked a little worried. If her species had fingernails, I
think she'd have been biting them. "It means I might."
"If implantation occurs, and if we take no action."
"Do we know what sex it'll be?" I asked.
She bent over the keyboard and typed, after the "Action?" prompt,
"Determine sex."
The reply shot back instantly: "Not possible at this time. -blast
formation still in process. Action?"
"Oh, well," I said. I turned to her and said, "What do you want?"
"I don't know. I certainly want a child, but twins? I've never
had twins before." She looked a little lost to me.
"You've also never had a boy before. What if it's another boy?"
She looked up in panic, saying "Do you think that's possible?"
"Fifty-fifty chance, and you know it."
She nodded. She leaned over the keyboard and typed, "Estimate time
until sex determination possible."
"Sex determination possible in 6.25 +- 0.50 hours. Action?"
"If it's a girl, do you want to go ahead with her and not the boy?"
I turned back to her and said, "I've always been better with the
girls than boys during 'sittings. I don't know. Personally, I think
twins is a perfect challenge."
She smiled. "Let's wait until seven. We'll know then. The party
starts at 1 Lome'."
Needless to say, by the time seven rolled around I was a
basketcase, ready for the men in white coats. Nyss came in five minutes
early and typed on the living room terminal the startup code for
telemetry access to the obstetrics-nanos in her womb. They responded
quickly, replying "Sex determination: female. Implantation: positive.
Identified as '2.'"
"That's it, then," I said. "We're going to have twins, and it's
going to be boy-girl."
"Is that it?" she asked. "Or would you rather we undo the first
one?"
I though about it for a long time, in terms of the problems with
twins and the joys of boys and girls and all that. "It's not my
decision to make, sweetheart, but I think having two is great."
"Then we'll have two," she said with a big smile. "I still never
raised a boy before."
"Then we'll have something new to do. Dave, please leave mail with
Rael telling him to call us a soon as possible, but preferably before 1
Lome', as I'll be busy then."
"Of course. Nyss, may I give you something?"
"Uhm, sure, what?"
"This." There was a shimmer on the coffee table, and a blue ball
about 15cm across appeared.
P'nyssa crossed the room and picked it up. "What is it? It's
heavy."
"Please be careful with it. Inside is an accompanying pink rabbit
with an internal gas container to fill it. Drop it at the party to
announce your good fortune."
P'nyssa smiled the widest smile I'd seen since the beginning of
this whole venture and said, "Dave, the day you go meat I'm going to
ravish you."
"You are always making promises, P'nyssa. Just make sure you can
keep them."
"Oh I am, Dave, I am."
"Then I guess I have something to look forward to," he said.
"Kenneth, Guiness says Rael can take his message immediately."
"Then give me a visual." A two-dimensional image of Rael and
Dagmar hovered in the air, solid-looking. "Hiya, Rael."
"Hello, Ken. How are things? No complications, I assume, or this
would have been more urgent."
"No... No complications, as such."
"I hear a 'but' in the background."
P'nyssa answered. "Uhm... Yeah. You're more fertile than you let
on, you old bastard. I'm going to have twins!"
"What? You're kidding?"
"I am not! One boy and one girl. Seems I had two ready to fire,
one four days after the other."
"That's... not possible. I'd've thought conditions in the womb
made latter-day implantations difficult."
"Difficult, but not impossible. Apparently you have some tenacious
sperm."
"Well, then, that's wonderful! Congratulations to you both. I
assume you're going to have a party?"
"Tonight," I said. "You can come if you want. I saw those turbine
skybikes you have; you could make it here in less than an hour, if you
flew out to your SDisk."
"Nah... Those things are for young folks, like you two." Rael, I'm
older than you by a long shot! You just like to be thought of as wise
and mature, but it doesn't work. Does it? "In any event, Dagmar and I
will just stay at home and toast your good fortune."
"Okay, Rael," I said. "Nyss?"
"Rael," she said. "You know, I never did say this while I was
there, but you are such an understanding male, I love you."
"Ah, hell, I love you too, P'nyssa. You take care of him, though,"
he replied, pointing at me. "He looks like he'll need all the help he
can get!"
"Goodbye, Rael," P'nyssa said with a hint of exasperation.
"Goodbye, Nyss." The image faded.
"That was nice of him to wish us well like that," I said. "Codgy
old bastard, anyway." I looked up at the rood again. Why I do that, I
don't know. But I feel like I've got to address something when I'm
talking to Dave. "Dave, who is invited to the party?"
"Everybody currently living in Castle Shardik. Kitty, Rhys,
Oenone, Kurt, the Richards, from the list it looks like anyone with a
last name of 'Long,' all of your kids, Nyss, including not a few
grandchildren, Brieanna, Ian, Magnus, Wendy, Hal, Teena, Kris..."
"Okay, I get the picture. But not Miss Melody, I assume."
"No. Miss Melody will not be invited. Nor will C'Mish or Randall
be invited. No media at all. If it is necessary, I will dispatch
Hookers into the air."
"Hopefully, none of them will have the brains to find a pilot and
get a ship with no AI telemetry. Still, if any of them do, a few Hooks
might not be a bad idea. How's the weather?"
"Very cold, as you'd expect."
"Cold caused by blanking, I expect."
"Yes." You see, blanking is the phenomenon whereby clear nights
are the coldest; what little heat the Ring traps is not held in place by
an insulating layer of cloud cover.
"Well, at least it'll be pretty. I assume you've cleared out the
fifth floor and cleared the windows."
"Yes. And we are above the ridgeline. The view is beautiful."
"Excellent."
The next seven hours I spent very lazily with Nyss. We actually
played a few games of backgammon, she killed me in a round of Pyramid
(she always does), did crosswords in languages we did not know and
generally had the kind of good time two people who lived together for a
long time have when they're not having sex.
At 14 Arie' I went downstairs to find Ress and Ember stringing up
decorations and making preparations. Carroll was in the Castle's main
kitchen whipping up something for dinner... Carroll is a damn fine cook,
and when she cooks for several dozen she always makes the one thing of
hers that I absolutely adore; her onion soup. My mouth watered at the
mere thought. But I merely breezed through the kitchen, giving her a
playful kiss on her centaur buttocks as I passed by. She nearly kicked
me, but then she always nearly kicks me. She's never hit me once in her
entire life. I have been whipped by her tail across the face before,
though.
Paul was helping load three large wooden kegs up onto a grav sled,
and who should be there but Kurt, an old friend, compatriot, and alien
who successfully survived immigrating to Pendor. Little did he know it
was fated anyway; His body is in many ways a major contributor to the
Tindal genecode. The Great Hall took one look at him and said "Tindal,
pass on through." Weird Tindal, though; he's got arms instead of tens.
"Three kegs?" I asked.
"Take a look," Kurt said. I looked down at the three. One was
lettered in Greek, and said "Michael's Homebrew." Oh, no. That's
stuff's GOOD. The second said "K'kritt," in Unczia. Great, the neutron
bomb of Pendor Ale. And finally, the third had a small handwritten
letter that said, "Sorry, but I can't make it. Piot thought you might
like this, though; it came from the vineyards eight years ago. Kitty
M."
"That's sweet of her," I said. "But that other stuff... Are you
sure it's safe to have that stuff loose in a room with that many
talents?"
Paul shrugged and said "It's not as if Michael's isn't a talent
bar, Ken."
"True enough, but still... You know Nyss won't be drinking any,
and I will probably have very little."
"That's okay with me. Especially Nyss. Oh, and Kori won't be
having any either."
"Kori's pregnant?" I asked, incredulous.
"Yeah," Kurt said, with something approaching feinted pride.
"YOU?" I asked.
He nodded. "You introduced us."
"That was fifty years ago!"
"Sometimes things take a while," he said, shrugging.
"I gotta hear this story from her."
"She'll be here. In fact, she's probably up at the aquaria right
now, if you're interested," Kurt said, pointing a finger up.
"Later," I said. I bid them good day and departed.
Parties, especially parties at my house, tend to be raucous affairs
full of loud music, noisy guests, the occasional drunken argument, the
occasional broken heart. It's one of the main reasons why I don't drink
in large groups anymore; when that many people get together and get
inebriated, somebody has to stay calm and sober.
There isn't much to report on the party. It was loud. It was
raucous. Mostly there are snapshots that stay in my mind. Like the
time when P'nyssa went up to the front of the room and said, "Excuse me,
excuse me. I am the guest of honor here, right?" There was a loud
agreement. "I... Uhm, I have an announcement. You see that big dead
blue bunny there? Well, watch this." Saying that, she took the blue
ball and threw it on the floor. There was dead silence except for the
comical sound of latex rubbing latex as the giant pink dead bunny
inflated. After a few seconds P'nyssa said, "What do you think?"
Carroll was standing next to her and said, quietly (thank you,
Dave, for the shotgun-miking job), "You're going to have TWO?"
"Uh-huh. A boy and a girl."
"Well, then," she said, regaining her composure, "Let's all... I
don't know what to say."
"How about, we turn the music back on and make more noise!?" I
heard from the back of the room. Sounded good to me, I 'pathed to Dave,
*make it so.* The music poured forth, loud and danceable.
Or when Paul cornered me and said "Ken, I have to apologize for
something."
"Which is?"
"I gave you bad advice about ten years ago."
"What advice was that?"
"I told you that nobody would give a damn if you went and had
children of your own. Apparently every AI in the world agreed with me.
Well, the people do not."
"Who is 'The people?'"
"There's a small minority, very small, but they're being stoked by
the newspeople you've been keeping out, that claims that you're turning
your back on them."
"Paul... Fuck them. If they're not mature enough to handle the
universe without me, that's their tough luck. I've got more important
things to do."
"It could get ugly. AI's don't have the power to intercept bullets
in flight, Ken."
"Are you suggesting they could be angry enough to want to kill
God?" I said, assuming a mantle that belonged on the mantlepiece.
"Yes," he said, smiling. He knows as much as I do just how human I
am. "You depend on AI's too much, Ken. It's a major weakness of yours,
and we both know it. We all depend on AI's too much, except for the
Unczia and the fringers. Most of us accept the luxury of AI's without
too much question. You have a tendency to walk in the wilderness, Ken,
and you're a tempting target."
"So what do you suggest?"
"We both know what isn't going to happen, so let's concentrate on
the possibilities, shall we? Your best bet is to write a position
paper."
"That's not going to convince the minority."
"It might help."
"Yeah, it might. It might also get me into a lot of trouble,
seeing as I'll probably get angry during the course of the writing and
start getting vitriolic, and you know how bad that can get."
"Your pen is pretty nasty, Ken, I'll admit that. Other than that,
live with it."
"That's my only option."
Or, when Brieanna cornered me. "Congratulations," she said.
"Thank you. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before today."
"Perfectly allright. You've your own life to live, Ken. The time
you spent with me was... important to you, but you've adjusted now."
"Was it important to you?" I asked her.
She smiled a small, weak smile, the kind that suggested what she
really wanted to do was... cry?... and she said "Yeah, it was important
to me, but it's more important to me that I see you happy. Oh, speaking
of which, I still have your old Shirow, do you want me to keep it in the
garage?"
"May as well. Best piece of powered armor I ever owned." She
smiled at that, and I did too. Damned thing tried to kill me. Broke a
few ribs, at least.
I managed to corner Kori, and all she would tell me was that the
child was to be male, that he was coming in five months (I couldn't see
a thing, and she's thin), and that they'd already settled on a name:
Scott Christopher. I quickly ruled those two out of my namebook.
I managed to corner Reed, who informed that, yes, Rachel was indeed
pregnant again herself, but then that was no surprise. Rachel had been
pregnant every day I'd ever known her. In the 140 year's I'd known
Rachel, she had had 131 children. No, don't ask me how or why. That's
hers to know.
Kimmemac showed up at the party, and for that I was grateful. Kim
is positively the finest babysitter I know, and she's a completely
controlled wetnurse, too. She agreed to help on some nights.
Oenone did not attend. And for that, I was not surprised, upset,
or disappointed. Oenone does not attend public events. Especially ones
involving love or family. It has not been long enough for her. But I
missed her, nonetheless.
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