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

she said, in an aggrieved tone.

      “No,” he admitted. “I know it’s not. And maybe it would be easier in strictly medical terms. Except that I can’t help feeling that I might be pitching the poor little proto-person into a bear pit, where various contending parties might contrive to rip it apart while trying to save it.”

      “You mean that the artificial womb people may start fighting with the supporters of surrogate mothers? I suppose we’re overdue for some kind of test case in that particular debate.”

      “Actually,” he said, mournfully, “I was thinking about my mother. But you’re right, of course. The artificial womb people might well be looking for a soft target, and a fetus in fetu is certainly softer than a little bundle of cells in its own mummy’s tummy.”

      “Is Leonie likely to make trouble?”

      “Trouble,” he said, “is far too mild a word for it. Hell hath no fury like a woman’s who has finally discovered the perfect way to pay back her only begotten son for being gay.”

      “Shit,” said Mary, sympathetically.

      “Couldn’t have put it better myself,” he said.

      “So what are you going to do?”

      Gerald looked at his wristwatch. Normally he found the old-fashioned display reassuring, but today the second-hand seemed to be going round in an unnaturally hasty manner. He couldn’t help feeling that a digital might have had a little more decorum.

      “I’ll know,” he said, “in just over two hours’ time. Anything sooner would be bound to seem hasty, wouldn’t it?”

      “I wish you the best of luck,” she said.

      “Luck,” he assured her, with a sigh, “has absolutely nothing to do with it. It’s purely a matter of moral and medical reasoning. I have all the necessary information—all that remains is to convert it by the power of pure reasoning into the right decision.”

      “I still wish you the best of luck,” she said. “And however the dice come down—I’ll do whatever I can.”

      “Thanks,” he said—and meant it.

      * * * * * * *

      Inevitably, it transpired that when six o’clock came, Mary Blake was the only one who had the decency not to be there and waiting. Leonie Duncan and Mark Cleminson turned up on the dot, and so did Dr. McClelland—but Gerald had no intention of making a speech.

      “I’ll see you one at a time,” he insisted. “First the doctor, then you, mother, and Mark last. Please don’t argue about the order of precedence—there isn’t time for that sort of nonsense.”

      He watched Mark and his mother exchanging resentful glances, neither one of them quite sure whether or not they had been awarded the most favored position in the queue. In the end, though, they had to accept it. It was his decision, after all.

      When they had both gone, and the door was closed, Gerald told Dr. McClelland what he had decided.

      “You don’t think,” said McClelland, dubiously, “that it’s going a bit far? It’s at least one step beyond what’s strictly necessary.”

      “You can do it,” said Gerald, “can’t you? It’s by no means unprecedented.”

      “In itself, no,” admitted the doctor. “But for this reason...you haven’t, I suppose, had any leanings in this direction before?”

      “None at all,” Gerald confessed, feeling that the seriousness of the occasion precluded a diplomatic lie. “But circumstances alter cases, don’t they?”

      The doctor nodded. “I’ll have to refer it to the Committee,” he said, “but I think they’ll go along with it. As I’ve always said, I think they’d go along with anything you decided to do, except perhaps....” He nodded in the direction of the closed door.

      “There was never a chance of that,” said Gerald.

      “Do you think she will go to court, now that you’ve decided?”

      “I hope not. I hope Dad will talk her out of it. But if she does, so be it. After all, I can hardly hope to avoid publicity now that I’ve made my decision, can I?”

      “No,” said the doctor, pensively. “I dare say you can’t.”

      * * * * * * *

      “You can’t” said Leonie Duncan, angrily. “It’s preposterous. You can’t do it.”

      “Yes I can,” said Gerald, patiently. “It’s perfectly feasible, and it avoids the worst aspects of both the other solutions. Tissue reconstruction is done all the time—it’s just a matter of switching the right genes on and off.”

      “It’s obscene,” she said. “It’s unnatural.”

      “Mother,” he said, quietly, “everything that enables us to be human and civilized is unnatural. Wearing clothes is unnatural; speaking languages is unnatural; building houses and roads is unnatural; medicine is unnatural; in fact, every god-damned thing that makes life worth living is unnatural. The only natural thing in this whole affair is that ridiculous freak of a baby brother, which is slowly turning into a king-sized pain in my gut. Nature is all stupid accidents, mother—human life is about taking reasoned decisions to oppose and overcome the waywardness of nature. That’s what I’ve done. I won’t say that it will be easy, but I will defend the reasonableness of my decision in any and every court in the land, if I have to. So you’ll just have to go away, and decide what you’re going to do, and then do it, won’t you?”

      Leonie Duncan burst into tears. “Whatever did we do wrong?” she wailed.

      * * * * * * *

      “You can’t,” said Mark Cleminson, in utter disbelief. “It’s preposterous. You can’t do it.”

      “Yes I can,” said Gerald, patiently, conscientiously repeating himself. “It’s perfectly feasible, and it avoids the worst aspects of both the other solutions. Tissue reconstruction is....”

      Mark didn’t wait to hear the rest of it. “But what about us!” he complained. “Don’t I figure in this at all?”

      “Of course you do,” said Gerald. “We’re married, aren’t we? That doesn’t have to change, unless you want it to.”

      “Doesn’t have to change! You’re mad, do you know that? Mad!”

      Gerald studied those hard grey eyes. They looked like the eyes of a blind man, staring but not seeing.

      “I suppose you’ll tell me now that this is what you’ve always wanted,” said Mark, converting his sense of injury into a sneer. “I suppose you’ve decided that you were never genuinely gay—that you were really a heterosexual woman in the wrong body. Well I’m gay, and there is no way I’m going to put up with this nonsense. I’m telling you straight: get this thing transplanted—I don’t give a damn whether it ends up in your mother, or a machine, or any place else—or we’re through. Finished. Kaput.”

      “Suit yourself,” said Gerald, with a lack of remorse that surprised him more than a little. “It’s only tissue-replacement, you know, not an identity transplant. It needn’t even be permanent—I could change back after I stop breast-feeding. I’d still be me.”

      “Like hell you would,” said Mark, as though he were spitting out powdered glass. “Like hell.”

      * * * * * * *

      Afterwards, when Gerald was alone—at last!—the doubts began to creep in. He laid his hand yet again on the fetus in fetu, wondering anxiously what the pangs of birth would actually be like. Like the torments of hell, perhaps...very possibly, in fact. It wasn’t something he was looking forward to. It wasn’t something he could look forward to—but women did it all the time, and by the time he had to do it,