Read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for Free Online Page B

case. We had it calculated by the best mathematical geneticist in Novy
Leningrad—one of the best in Sovunion before she got shipped. I know what
happened to me. I was a volunteeer colonist—I mean my mother was for I
was only five. My father was transported and Mother chose to go with him and
take me along. There was a solar storm warning but the pilot thought he could
make it—or didn’t care; he was a Cyborg. He did make it but we got
hit on the ground—and, Mannie, that’s one thing that pushed me into
politics, that ship sat four hours before they let us disembark. Authority red
tape, quarantine perhaps; I was too young to know. But I wasn’t too young
later to figure out that I had birthed a monster because the Authority
doesn’t care what happens to us outcasts.”
    “Can’t
start argument; they don’t care. But, Wyoh, still sounds hasty. If you
caught damage from radiation—well, no geneticist but know something about
radiation. So you had a damaged egg. Does not mean egg next to it was
hurt—statistically unlikely.”
    “Oh,
I know that.”
    “Mmm—What
sterilization? Radical? Or contraceptive?”
    “Contraceptive.
My tubes could be opened. But, Mannie, a woman who has had one monster
doesn’t risk it again.” She touched my prosthetic. “You have
that. Doesn’t it make you eight times as careful not to risk this
one?” She touched my meat arm. “That’s the way I feel. You
have that to contend with; I have this—and I would never told you if you
hadn’t been hurt, too.”
    I
didn’t say left arm more versatile than right—she was correct;
don’t want to trade in right arm. Need it to pat girls if naught else.
“Still think you could have healthy babies.”
    “Oh,
I can! I’ve had eight.”
    “Huh?”
    “I’m
a professional host-mother, Mannie.”
    I
opened mouth, closed it. Idea wasn’t strange. I read Earthside papers.
But doubt if any surgeon in Luna City in 2075 ever performed such transplant.
In cows, yes—but L-City females unlikely at any price to have babies for
other women; even homely ones could get husband or six. (Correction: Are no
homely women. Some more beautiful than others.)
    Glanced
at her figure, quickly looked up. She said, “Don’t strain your
eyes, Mannie; I’m not carrying now. Too busy with politics. But hosting
is a good profession for Free Woman. It’s high pay. Some Chinee families
are wealthy and all my babies have been Chinee—and Chinee are smaller
than average and I’m a big cow; a two-and-a-half- or three-kilo Chinese
baby is no trouble. Doesn’t spoil my figure. These—” She
glanced down at her lovelies. “I don’t wet-nurse them, I never see
them. So I look nulliparous and younger than I am, maybe.
    “But
I didn’t know how well it suited me when I first heard of it. I was
clerking in a Hindu shop, eating money, no more, when I saw this ad in the
Hong
Kong Gong
. It was the thought of having a baby, a good baby, that hooked
me; I was still in emotional trauma from my monster—and it turned out to
be Just what Wyoming needed. I stopped feeling that I was a failure as a woman.
I made more money than I could ever hope to earn at other jobs. And my time
almost to myself; having a baby hardly slows me down—six weeks at most
and that long only because I want to be fair to my clients; a baby is a
valuable property. And I was soon in politics; I sounded off and the
underground got in touch with me. That’s when I started living, Mannie; I
studied politics and economics and history and learned to speak in public and
turned out to have a flair for organization. It’s satisfying work because
I believe in it—I know that Luna will be free. Only—Well, it would
be nice to have a husband to come home to … if he didn’t mind that
I was sterile. But I don’t think about it; I’m too busy. Hearing
about your nice family got me talking, that’s all. I must apologize for
having bored you.”
    How
many women apologize? But Wyoh was more man