Sexual Chemistry and Other Tales of the Biotech Revolution. Brian Stableford

done.”

      “Oh yes,” said Gerald, hollowly. “And what’s that, mother?”

      “The baby has to be transplanted, as soon as possible.”

      “Well,” said Gerald, dubiously, “that may turn out to be the best decision—but I’m not sure as yet. Dr. McClelland’s given me the results of the latest tests, and I had a long conversation with the secretary of the Ethics Committee this morning. He’s convening a meeting this evening, so that we can go over the alternatives very carefully. Until then, it just won’t be possible to make a final decision, no matter what you and Dad may think.”

      “Committees can’t make decisions, Gerry,” said Leonie, with the casual air of one stating the obvious. “The committee that set out to design the horse came up with the camel. It’s as plain as day what should be done, and we don’t need any committee confusing the issue.”

      “But it’s not as plain as day, mother,” said Gerald, wearily. “It’s really rather complicated, medically speaking.”

      “Well I’m not speaking medically,” she said. “I’m speaking about right and wrong, and there’s only one rightful place for that baby.”

      She was looking at him so assertively, and yet with such awkward embarrassment, that he was quite confused. Several seconds passed before he suddenly realized what she meant.

      “Oh my God!” he said. “You can’t be serious!”

      “He’s my child,” she said, assertiveness tipping over into naked aggression. “He’s not your child—he’s mine. He doesn’t belong in an artificial womb, and he certainly doesn’t belong inside you. He’s my son, and nobody has any right to put him anywhere else but in my womb. I’m willing to do it, Gerry, and I’m willing to go to court to establish my rights.”

      “Mother,” said Gerald, feeling once again that strange sense of the surreality of his condition, “you’re fifty-seven years old. What makes you think your womb’s in any fit condition to carry a fetus?”

      “Don’t be ridiculous, darling,” Leonie replied. “I may be menopausal, but I’m in perfect working order—and if I’m not, I’m certain that it would be far easier to reconstruct my tissues than it would be to reconstruct yours. After all, I do have the right equipment, even if it hasn’t been used for a while. And afterwards, the child would be with its natural parents.”

      “Dad’s sixty-three. Are you telling me he wants to be a parent again?”

      “He already is a parent,” said Leonie decisively. “It’s not a matter of want—it’s a matter of fact.”

      “If the fetus is to be transplanted,” Gerald said, trying to sound gentle, “and if we decide against an artificial womb, I think it would be best to look for a younger and healthier surrogate mother.”

      “Well I don’t,” she retorted. “And if that’s what your Ethics Committee decides—or if that’s what you decide—I’ll fight it. This is my baby, and no one else has a better right to carry him and give birth to him—and there isn’t a court in the land which would award custody of him to anyone else.”

      “Mother,” said Gerald, patiently and soothingly, “I don’t think you ought to be thinking like this. Mark and I would far rather keep the whole thing quiet—we certainly don’t want any tabloid publicity. If you go near a court, you’ll have every newsvid team in the country baying at our heels. Whatever I decide to do will be in the best interests of everyone, I promise you—but you must see how difficult it is. Imagine that it was one of your friends—what would you say if you found out that Margery Lingard was proposing to have a fetus transplanted into her womb? You’d be horrified, wouldn’t you?”

      “He’s my baby,” said Leonie Duncan, doggedly. “He’s not yours, he’s mine. My son. My natural son.”

      Gerald winced at the double meaning, and saw his mother smile thinly. She knew perfectly well what she’d said; he knew perfectly well what she meant.

      He knew, also, what Mark would have said had he been here. “Let the bitch have it, and welcome” he’d have said. Mark didn’t usually want Leonie Duncan to have her own way about anything, but this would be too good to miss—in Mark’s view, it would be killing two birds with one stone. And he’d be right: one stone, two dead birds. Maybe really dead.

      “I’m going to see your blessed Ethics Committee,” said Leonie, defiantly. “I’m going to see them right now, and I’m going to make sure they know what I think. An informed decision is what you want—and an informed decision is what you’re going to get. They’ll give me this baby—or else.

      Gerald watched her go, feeling infinitely wearier than he had when she first came in. She always had that effect on him, and he guessed that she always would. Nothing could change that; nothing at all.

      * * * * * * *

      “How did the meeting go?” asked Mary Blake, anxious curiosity very evident within her gentle politeness. Mary was Gerald’s Head of Department, and his only friend of the opposite sex. Gerald was hoping fervently that she’d be just disinterested enough to provide him with a little honest sympathy.

      “Efficiently ponderous would be the best description, I think,” he said. Then, as if quoting from a book of regulations, he intoned: “The Ethics Committee of this hospital consists of five people: a senior consultant, a hospital administrator, a social worker, a lawyer and a lay adviser. The administrator acts as secretary, the lawyer as chairman.

      “Also present at the meeting to decide the fate of Fetus Duncan were Drs. McClelland and Digby, expert witnesses. Mr. Duncan was duly informed that he had the right to be represented by an advocate, which opportunity he duly refused, it having been made clear to him that the meeting was not supposed to be an adversarial situation, and that everyone’s hope was to reach a unanimous decision as to what could and ought to be done.”

      “Sounds dire,” said Mary.

      “Not really,” said Gerald. “They had to take pains, you see, to make sure that everything was understood, and everything was taken into account. They weren’t just being pompous.”

      “And what did they decide, in the end?”

      “An Ethics Committee,” he intoned again, “is not a decision-making body. It acts in an advisory capacity only—but its duty is to advise the hospital as well as the patient, and if it considers the patient’s decision to be ill-founded, has a duty to advise the hospital of any such judgment.”

      “I mean,” she amended, “what did you decide?”

      “I haven’t, yet,” he admitted. “I have to make up my mind by six o’clock, so that the Committee can meet again and decide whether to endorse my decision or do the other thing. Time is standing still while I ponder the issues involved, weighing the pros and cons as carefully as I can.”

      “Of course,” said Mary, “it’s none of my business really.”

      “Yes it is,” he told her, dolorously. “It’s your business, and Mark’s, and my mother’s and my father’s, and McClelland’s. Whatever I decide to do, it will affect other people—that’s one of the things I have to bear in mind. There’s the surgeon who might have to transplant the fetus, the surrogate mother who might have to carry it, the doctor in charge of the artificial womb which might otherwise have to carry it, etcetera, etcetera. God, wasn’t life simple when it was only a tumor that might have metastasized, leaving me with six months to live?”

      “Nobody gets six months to live any more,” she said. “This is 2003. Everything’s curable these days.”

      “Even a fetus in fetu,” he agreed. “The wonders of tissue-reconstruction. Did you know that more than a hundred men have carried fetuses to term, worldwide? That’s in spite of the bans in the EC and America. One hundred and seven successful Caesarian births—mind you, there