SPATIAL DELIVERY
BY RANDALL GARRETT
Women on space station assignments
shouldn't get pregnant. But there's a first
time for everything. Here's the story of
such a time——and an historic situation.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, October 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
One thousand seventy-five miles above the wrinkled surface of Earth, awoman was in pain.
There, high in the emptiness of space, Space Station One swung in itsorbit. Once every two hours, the artificial satellite looped completelyaround the planet, watching what went on below. Outside its brightsteel hull was the silence of the interplanetary vacuum; inside, in thehospital ward, Lieutenant Alice Britton clutched at the sheets of herbed in pain, then relaxed as it faded away.
Major Banes looked at her and smiled a little. "How do you feel,Lieutenant?"
She smiled back; she knew the pain wouldn't return for a few minutesyet. "Fine, doctor. It's no worse than I was expecting. How long willit before we can contact White Sands?"
The major looked nervously at his wristwatch. "Nearly an hour. You'llbe all right."
"Certainly," she agreed, running a hand through her brown hair, "I'llbe okay. Just you be on tap when I call."
The major's grin broadened. "You don't think I'd miss a historicalevent like this, do you? You take it easy. We're over Eastern Europenow, but as soon as we get within radio range of New Mexico, I'll beama call in." He paused, then repeated, "You just take it easy. Call thenurse if anything happens." Then he turned and walked out of the room.
Alice Britton closed her eyes. Major Banes was all smiles and cheernow, but he hadn't been that way five months ago. She chuckled softlyto herself as she thought of his blistering speech.
"Lieutenant Britton, you're either careless or brainless; I don'tknow which! Your husband may be the finest rocket jockey in the SpaceService, but that doesn't give him the right to come blasting up hereon a supply rocket just to get you pregnant!"
Alice had said: "I'm sure the thought never entered his mind, doctor. Iknow it never entered mine."
"But that was two and a half months ago! Why didn't you come tome before this? Of all the tom-fool—" His voice had died off insuppressed anger.
"I didn't know," she had said stolidly. "You know my medical record."
"I know. I know." A puzzled frown had come over his face then, a frownwhich almost hid the green eyes that contrasted so startlingly with theflaming red of his hair. "The question is: what do we do next? We'renot equipped for obstetrics up here."
"Send me back down to Earth, of course."
And he had looked up at her scathingly. "Lieutenant Britton, it ismy personal opinion that you need your head examined, and not by ageneral practitioner, either! Why, I wouldn't let you get into anairplane, much less land on Earth in a rocket! If you think I'd permityou to subject yourself to eight gravities of acceleration in a rocketlanding, you're daffy!"
She hadn't thought of it before, but the major was right. The terriblepressure of a rocket landing would increase her effective body weightto nearly half a ton; an adult human being couldn't take that