"George O. Smith - Counter Foil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith George O)

a firstborn because they had no record upon which to base an estimate. The women in her fam
were prone to deliver in taxicabs and ambulances on the way to the hospital.
A second wave of pain assailed her, interrupting the rapid flow of thought. Then as the p
subsided, she went on: That was fast!
She struggled to her feet and duckwalked heavily on her heels to the videophone. She pres
the button for one of the stored-program numbers and immediately a crisp, cool voice respond
"Tele-port-TRAN-sit," in the lilt with all four clear tones sounding in order.
"Trudy, this is Irma Fellowes. Can you connect me with Joe?"
"Sure thing. Half a mo' and you're on. How's things?"
"Baby's on the way." The simple statement was em-phasized by a smothered groan and
grimace of pain on Irma Fellowes' face.
Trudy gulped and lost her cool, crisp, composure. "Whoops! I'll give Joe the double-wham
ring."
The muted wail of a siren came, and almost instantly the scene on the videophone switched t
man, seated at his desk. His face was still changing to a look of puzzled concern. He bark
"Where's the emergency and wha .. . oh! Irma. Wh . . . er . . . ?"
"Baby's on the way, Joe."
"Fine," he said. "Have you called Maternity?"
"Not yet."
"Irma, I can't do you any good at all. I appreciate the information, but it could have waited u
you got to the hospital."
"Joe! It's your child!"
"Sure. And you're my wife. Now buzz off here and call the hospital. Get going."
He hung up; reluctantly because he hated the harshness of the act, but deliberately because it w
the only way he could get her to move in the right direction.
Irma Fellowes stared at the videophone as though it should resume operation after a b
interruption. It didn't. Whatever she started to think at that moment was stopped by another w
of agony. When it subsided, she pressed another button, one that had been set up for a tempor
emergency. It connected her with the maternity ward of City Hospital; the plate showed an eld
woman in nurse's uniform, who said, "Maternity, Nurse Wilkins speaking."
"This is Mrs. Fellowes. Baby's on the way."
"Just how frequent are your pains, Mrs. Fellowes?" "Rapid. And coming faster all the time."
Irma was interrupted by another pain, through which, faintly, she heard the muted siren. Nu
Wilkins read off some detailed instructions from a card, speaking unhur-riedly to someone
could not be seen on the videophone. When she finished, Nurse Wilkins said to Irma Fellow
"Take it easy now, there's a resident doctor, an interne, and a nurse on their way."
Irma closed the circuit, waddled to the kitchen and drank a glass of water, returned to the liv
room and paced a bit. Perhaps two minutes passed, then came a rap on the door. She opened i
admit doctor and nurse, followed by the interne pushing a wheeled stretcher. "Hop on," said
intern.
"I can't," groaned Irma.
The doctor scooped her up and deposited her on the stretcher. He applied stethoscope, t
palpated her ab-domen gently. "O.K.," he said after a moment. "Let's go. No problem."
Irma said, "But I was born in an ambulance, and—"
The doctor laughed. "Mrs. Fellowes, from what little I know of the process, teleportation f
you from entry to exit at the speed of light. Now, even if it were from here to Alpha Centauri, y
baby couldn't be born en route simply because at the speed of light all timing processes come t
quiet standstill. And by `timing processes' I mean things like clocks, and biochemical reactio
births, aging, and death. O.K.?"
"That's what Joe always says, but—"