Robert Reed - The Children's Crusade

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The Children's Crusade

by Robert Reed

If one tallies weekly allowances, part-time employment, birthday and holiday gifts, as well as

limited trusts, the children of the world wield an annual income approaching one trillion NA

dollars. Because parents and an assortment of social service organizations supply most of their

basic needs, that income can be considered discretionary. Discretionary income always possesses

an impact far beyond its apparent value. And even more important, children are more open than

adults when it comes to radical changes in spending habits, and in their view of the greater world.

Please note: We have ignored all income generated through gambling, prostitution, the sale of

drugs and stolen merchandise, or currency pilfered from a parent's misplaced wallet.

We need to conspicuously avoid all questionable sources of revenue … at least for the present …

—Crusade memo, confidential

· · · · ·

The pregnancy couldn't have been easier, and then suddenly, it couldn't have been worse.

We were still a couple weeks away from Hanna's due date. By chance, I didn't have an afternoon class,

which was why I drove her to the doctor's office. The check-up was supposed to be entirely routine. Her

OB was a little gray-haired woman with an easy smile and an autodoc aide. The doctor's eyes were

flying down a list of numbers—the nearly instantaneous test results derived from a drop of blood and a

sip of amniotic fluid. It was the autodoc who actually touched Hanna, probing her belly with pressure and

sound, an elaborate and beautiful and utterly confusing three-dimensional image blooming in the room's

web-window. I've never been sure which professional found the abnormality. Doctors and their aides

have always used hidden signals. Even when both of them were human, one would glance at the other in

a certain way, giving the warning, and the parents would see none of it, blissfully unaware that their lives

were about to collapse.

Some things never change.

It was our doctor who said, "Hanna," with the mildest of voices. Then showing the barest smile, she

asked, "By any chance, did you have a cold last week?"

My wife was in her late forties. A career woman and single for much of her life, she delayed menopause

so that we could attempt a child. This girl. Our spare bedroom was already set up as a nursery, and two

baby showers had produced a mountain of gifts. That's one of the merits of waiting to procreate to the

last possible moment; you have plenty of friends and grateful relatives with money to spend on your

unborn child. And as I mentioned, it had been a wondrously easy pregnancy. Hanna has never been a

person who suffers pain well or relishes watching her body deformed beyond all recognition. But save for

some minor aches and the persistent heartburn, it had been a golden eight-plus months, and that's

probably why Hanna didn't hear anything alarming in that very simple question.

"A cold?" she said. Then she glanced in my direction, shrugging. "Just a little one. There and gone in a

couple days. Wasn't it, Wes?"

I looked at our doctor.

I said, "Just a few sniffles."

"Well," our doctor replied. Then she glanced at her aide, the two of them conversing on some private

channel.

Finally, almost grudgingly, Hanna grew worried, taking a deep breath and staring down at her

enormously swollen belly.

Seeing her concern, I felt a little more at ease.

Someone had to be.

Then our doctor put on a confident face, and a lifetime of experience was brought to bear. "Well," she

said again, her voice acquiring a motherly poise. "There is a chance, just a chance, that this bug wasn't a

cold virus. And since the baby could be in some danger—"

"Oh, God," Hanna whimpered.

"I think we need to consider a C-section. Just to be very much on the safe side."

"God," my wife moaned.

My temporary sense of wellbeing was obliterated. With a gasp, I asked, "What virus? What chance?"

"A C-section?" Hanna blurted. "God, when?"

The doctor looked only at her. "Now," she answered. And then with an authoritarian nod of the head,

she added, "And we really should do it here."

"Not at the hospital?" Hanna muttered.

"Time is critical," the doctor cautioned. "If this happens to be a strain of the Irrawaddy—"

"Oh, shit—"

"I know. It sounds bad. But even if that bug is the culprit, you're so far along in the pregnancy, and you

have a girl, and the girls seem to weather this disease better than the boys—"

"What chance?" I blurted. "What are we talking about here?"

The autodoc supplied my answer. With a smooth voice and a wet-nurse's software, it told me, "The odds

of infection are approximately one in two. And if it was the Irrawaddy virus, the odds of damage to a

thirty-nine week fetus are less than three in eleven."

Our doctor would have preferred to deliver that news. Even in my panic, I noticed the bristling in her

body language. But she kept her poise. Without faltering, she set her hand on my wife's hand. I think that

was the first time during the visit that she actually touched Hanna. And with a reassuring music, she said,

"We're going to do our best. For you and for your daughter."

About that next thirty minutes, I remember everything.

There was a purposeful sprint by nurses and autodocs as well as our doctor and her two human partners.

The largest examination room was transformed into a surgical suite, every surface sterilized with bursts of

ionized radiation and withering desiccants. Hanna was plied with tubes and fed cocktails of medicines

and microsensors. Needing something to do, I sent a web-flash to family and friends, carefully

downplaying my worsening fears. And then I was wrapped inside a newly made gown and cap and led

into the suite, finding Hanna already laid out on a table with her arms spread wide and tied down at the

wrists. Some kind of medical crucifixion was in progress. She was sliced open, a tidy hole at her waist

rimmed with burnt blood and bright white fat. I could smell the blood. I overheard the doctor warning

Hanna about some impending pressure. And all the while, the autodoc worked over her, those clean

sleek limbs moving with an astonishing speed and a perfect, seamless grace.

Thirty seconds later, my daughter was born.

With a nod to custom, our doctor was allowed to cut the cord.

Then both professionals worked with my daughter, stealing bits of skin and blood for tests, and in

another few moments—a few hours, it felt like—they decided that Hanna's cold had been a cold and

nothing more.

The autodoc began gluing my wife back together, and with a congratulatory smile, the doctor handed my

baby to me. Veronica, named after her mother's mother. I had just enough time to show the screaming

baby to Hanna, and then the ambulance arrived, flying the three of us to a hospital room where we could

start coming to terms with the changes in our lives.

Veronica slept hard for hours, swaddled tight in a little blanket infused with helpful bacteria and proven

antibodies. Hanna drifted into a shallow sleep, leaving me alone. I was holding my child, and the room's

web-window was wandering on its own, searching for items that might interest me, and there was this

odd little news item about a fifteen-year-old boy in France—a bright and handsome young man blessed

with rich parents and a flair for public speaking. Standing in a mostly empty auditorium, Philippe Rule was

announcing the launch of some kind of private space program.

It involved Mars, I halfway heard.

But honestly, I wasn't paying attention. I was too busy holding my happy, healthy daughter, watching her

eyes twitch as she dreamed her secret dreams.

· · · · ·

Three times in the last twenty years, the great dream of humanity has been attempted:

A manned mission to Mars.

The Americans were first, and by some measures, they had the greatest success. Seven astronauts

completed the voyage, only to discover that their lander was inoperative. Repairs were attempted

while in Martian orbit, but with the launch window closing and limited supplies on hand, the

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Robert Reed - The Children's Crusade

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