Two Cents (Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies)

Morgan and Dad are fighting again.

"There's a tributary a mile north of here! One mile, Danzig-"

"We're building the damn wheel here, Martin! I'm not clutterin' up this riverbank with two shankin' miles of the equipment we'd need to gather the damn eco-friendly power in the first place!"

"But, ascetically, honestly-"

"Enough! No one asked for your two cents, Martin. And don't you dare go cryin' to your exhausted wife. You deal with me, and I said no."

Wow.

This one's really got him pissed. We're all on edge, lately, and it's not just cause it's hot and building New Pacifica is taking forever. It's not the 'cabin fever' kinda pissed off that's got Alonzo all twitchy and Matzatl and Cameron caught in a silent feud over the heat conductors. It's more like a worried pissed off.

Bess' baby still doesn't wanna come out, and Julia thinks she should maybe operate. Bess refuses. And Bess is mad…Devon says she wants to have the baby naturally, like how they used to on Earth, which means no pain block or muscle relaxers or anything, no matter how long it takes. Yale says that sometimes having a baby can take three whole days, but I think it was hyperbole. That's another Yale word. It can't really take seventy-two whole hours to squeeze a baby out, can it?

Julia says Bess' hormones are making her a little bit nuts, kinda like when she and Dad smelled that flower. She says sometimes being pregnant does that to women, and that Bess is just worried that something bad could happen. She didn't tell me what though.

Devon says that it's Bess' decision and we should all respect it, but that's the same thing she said the first time, and Bess almost jumped off a cliff.

I can tell my dad's just as nervous as Julia…more than Morgan, even, but Devon says I shouldn't worry. She says Dad worries about everything.

"Dad?"

He's gonna snap that breaker fuse if he keeps going at it with the pliers like that.

"Hmm?"

"What's two cents?"

"A suggestion I didn't ask for, that's what."

"Oh."

Julia says that, if she had the right equipment, she would be able to see exactly what was goin' on inside Bess' belly. Of course, no one was supposed to have a baby on this trip, even before we crashed. She says if she had the right medicine, she would give it to Bess and it would help the baby come right out, but she doesn't have the stuff she needs to make it. Yale told me and Uly that, on the stations, if something happens to a baby still inside its mother, that doctors just go right in and take it out. It sounded gross, but he said it was just as safe as having a baby the regular way. Safer even, for the mom.

Bess says she's gonna have the baby the way God intended, and that's that.

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"I thought it was money. Like, old Earth money. Like Uly's nickel."

Yale says a nickel was worth five cents and that, when Commander Broderick's was made, you could buy all sorts of things with it. He says one hundred cents made a dollar, which was kinda like a credit, but we don't use cents anymore. On the Stations, you couldn't even buy a Gum-Blaster for one credit.

"It is. It's money you can't get nothin' for. S'useless. Like Morgan's opinion."

"Oh."

Morgan thinks Bess should let Julia do her operation. He tried to make it sound like it was a good idea, but it only made Bess cry. I don't think it was his fault, though. Bess is always crying, lately.

"Dad?"

"What, True?"

"Nevermind."

"M'sorry, Baby."

Not as sorry as he's gonna be when he strips that fuse. He looks tired…I never know when he sleeps anymore. When I get up he's always awake, and when I go to bed, in my own unit, he's usually still workin'. Only Devon knows, I guess.

"I'm cranky."

This isn't cranky.

"Whatcha wanna know?"

"You're real worried about Bess, huh?"

Sometimes when Dad looks at me I remember being on the Stations, just the two of us. Dad always used to say I could read his brain sometimes, and he didn't like it one bit. But he always smiled so I knew that secretly, he did.

"Yeah. I am, Sport."

We're all pretty much getting our information from Julia…one at a time like we're gonna get in trouble for asking. I wonder if she tells us all the same thing. I wonder what she told my dad this morning that's making him hug me now. No matter how much I grow, my dad can still hide his expression when I'm tucked under his arm.

"Julia says the baby's not moving much, anymore."

I figure he knows that much.

"She says that's not a good sign."

"Nah. Could mean lots of things."

He knows he's not fooling me, just like I know from his voice that whatever Julia told him isn't the same thing she told me and Uly…and that he's probably angry at Julia for tellin' me that much.

"Bess is a strong lady, True. She's gonna be fine."

"What about Lilac?"

I wonder if my dad had my name picked out before he met me…if he thought of me as a person already the way we all think of Bess' baby. I wonder if that's why he's a little shakey…because I called her by her name.

"We don't know, Sweetheart. Julia has no way of knowin'."

"Until she comes out?"

"Yeah."

When my dad pets my hair, it reminds me of my favorite kitty toy that I still kept even when I got big. I even took it with me, but it got burned up on the Roanoke just like everything else. I still wish I could sleep with it sometimes, just to remember what it was like.

"Do you think Bess should let Julia take her out?"

"Yeah, I do. I think it's the right thing."

Dad usually knows the right thing…it makes me feel a little bit better about all the icky parts, just to know Dad isn't scared about what's probably gonna end up happening. just as soon as Morgan and Julia can get Bess to see reason.

"How come?"

I don't expect my dad to really answer me…not so fast, and not like he really means it.

"It's how I got you, True-Girl."

Dad just keeps petting, and I feel kinda stupid that I hadn't figured that out by now. I guess you can't have a baby if you can't push. I wonder if my dad had to make the same decision that Bess doesn't want to…

"Maybe you should tell Bess that, Dad. Maybe you could help Morgan convince her."

That fuse isn't gonna repair itself, I suppose, though I wish we could sit here a little longer, just me and my Dad. Talkin'.

"Nah. S'none of my business."

I wonder how many cents you have to save up before its enough to say something important.