longer!â
âOne enjoys being able to see oneâs feet again, yes,â Mamelon says.
âIs it very uncomfortable, being pregnant?â
âThere are annoyances.â
âThe stretching? How can you puff up that way and stand it? The skin like going to burst any minute.â Aurea shudders. âAnd everything getting pushed around inside your body. Your kidneys rammed up into your lungs, thatâs how I always think of it. Pardon me. I guess Iâm exaggerating. I mean, I donât really know.â
âItâs not that bad,â says Mamelon. âThough of course itâs strange and a little bothersome. Yet there are positive aspects. The moment of birth itselfââ
âDoes it hurt terribly?â Aurea asks. âI imagine it would. Something that big, ripping through your body, popping right out of yourââ
âGloriously blessful. Oneâs entire nervous system awakens. A baby coming out is like a man going in, only twenty times as thrilling. Itâs impossible to describe the sensation. You must experience it for yourself.â
âI wish I could,â says Aurea, downcast, groping for the last shreds of her high. She slips a hand into the maintenance slot to touch Mamelonâs child. A quick burst of ions purifies her skin before she makes contact with little Persephoneâs downy cheek. Aurea says, âGod bless, I want to do my duty! The medics say thereâs nothing wrong with either of us. Butââ
âYou must be patient, love.â Mamelon embraces Aurea lightly. âBless god, your moment will come.â
Aurea is skeptical. For twenty months she has surveyed her flat belly, waiting for it to begin to bulge. It is blessed to create life, she knows. If everyone were as sterile as she, who would fill the urbmons? She has a sudden terrifying vision of the colossal towers nearly empty, whole cities sealed off, power failing, walls cracking, just a few shriveled old womenshuffling through halls once thronged with happy multitudes.
Her one obsession has led her to the other one, and she turns to Siegmund, breaking into the conversation of the men to say, âSiegmund, is it true that theyâll be opening Urbmon 158 soon?â
âSo I hear, yes.â
âWhat will it be like?â
âVery much like 116, I imagine. A thousand floors, the usual services. I suppose seventy families per floor, at first, maybe 250,000 people altogether, but it wonât take long to bring it up to par.â
Aurea clamps her palms together. âHow many people will be sent there from here, Siegmund?â
âIâm sure I donât know that.â
âThereâll be some, wonât there?â
Memnon says mildly, âAurea, why donât we talk about something pleasant.â
âSome people will be sent there from here,â she persists. âCome on, Siegmund. Youâre up in Louisville with the bosses all the time.
How many?
â
Siegmund laughs. âYouâve really got an exaggerated idea of my significance in this place, Aurea. Nobodyâs said a word to me about how Urbmon 158 will be stocked.â
âYou know the theory of these things, though. You can project the data.â
âWell, yes.â Siegmund is quite cool; this subject has a purely impersonal interest for him. He seems unaware of the source of Aureaâs agitation. âNaturally, if weâre going to do our duty to god by creating life, weâve also got to be sure that thereâs aplace for everyone to live,â he says. Hand flicks a vagrant lock of hair into place. Eyes glow; Siegmund loves to lecture. âSo we go on building urban monads, and, naturally, whenever a new urbmon is added to the Chipitts constellation, it has to be stocked from the other Chipitts buildings. That makes good genetic sense. Even though each urbmon is big enough to provide an adequate gene-mix, our tendency to