Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction April 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Special Delivery
By DAMON KNIGHT
Illustrated by ASHMAN
All Len had to hear was the old gag: "We've never lost afather yet." His child was not even born and it wasthoroughly unbearable!
en and Moira Connington lived in a rented cottage with a small yard,a smaller garden, and too many fir trees. The lawn, which Len seldomhad time to mow, was full of weeds, and the garden was overgrown withblackberry brambles. The house itself was clean and smelled betterthan most city apartments, and Moira kept geraniums in the windows.
However, it was dark on account of the firs. Approaching the door onelate spring afternoon, Len tripped on an unnoticed flagstone andscattered examination papers all the way to the porch.
When he picked himself up, Moira was giggling in the doorway. "Thatwas funny."
"The hell it was," said Len. "I banged my nose." He picked up hisChemistry B papers in a stiff silence. A red drop fell on the lastone. "Damn it!"
Moira held the screen door for him, looking contrite and faintlysurprised. She followed him into the bathroom. "Len, I didn't mean tolaugh. Does it hurt much?"
"No," said Len, staring fiercely at his scraped nose in the mirror. Itwas throbbing like a gong.
"That's good. It was the funniest thing—I mean funny-peculiar," sheclarified hastily.
en stared at her; the whites of her eyes were showing: "Is thereanything the matter with you?" he demanded.
"I don't know," she said on a rising note. "Nothing like that everhappened to me before. I didn't think it was funny at all. I wasworried about you, and I didn't know I was going to laugh—" Shelaughed again, a trifle nervously. "Maybe I'm cracking up."
Moira was a dark-haired young woman with a placid, friendlydisposition. Len had met her in his senior year at Columbia,with—looking at it impartially, which Len seldom did—regrettableresults. At present, in her seventh month, she was shaped like arather bosomy kewpie doll.
Emotional upsets, he remembered, may occur frequently during thisperiod. He leaned to get past her belly and kissed her forgivingly."You're probably tired. Go sit down and I'll get you some coffee."
Except that Moira had never had any hysterics till now, or morningsickness, either—she burped instead—and anyhow, was there anythingin the literature about fits of giggling?
After supper, he marked seventeen sets of papers desultorily in redpencil, then got up to look for the