Dragonriders of Pern 18 - The Girl Who Heard Dragons by McCaffrey Anne

Author:McCaffrey, Anne
Language: eng
Format: epub

Dragonriders 18 - The Girl Who Heard Dragons

There is little point in recounting that explosive interview from beginning to end. Suffice it to say that Louise Baxter left me with the distinct impression that her daughter's dearest wish was an abomination to her. Her agitation was not for my supposed hoaxing but a genuine - I'll say it - psychotic fear of ultimate success.

I made a mental note to learn more about the woman from either Pat or Peter. The one time Pat had made a mildly derogatory remark about Louise, Cecily had retorted with an angry defense. I'd encountered such misplaced loyalty once before when the mother sweetly dominated her fatherless son into a psychiatric ward in a catatonic state. With Cecily's emotional balance under severe stress already, I didn't like to see her loyalties torn.

Pat's gestation was calculated to end by August 25. No baby is late, but even with the date of conception known, there are possibilities for error. The habits of the Kelloggs suited our needs to keep the birth unremarkable. They always spent their vacation months together, usually traveling, and occasionally, when Peter was working on a book, sequestering themselves in a quiet upstate village. We hoped for a punctual delivery so that Pat would be recovered and able to return to school. That would make fewer waves.

Chuck suggested a small town in the Finger Lake district which boasted not only a well-​equipped hospital but a chief of staff who had been a classmate of ours: Arnold Avery.

Everything was going splendidly, except that Pat did put on more weight than I liked. I didn't suspect a thing, and I can still kick myself that, for all my experience in the field, I could blithely ignore so obvious a clue. Perhaps it was an unwitting desire to discount Chuck's gloomy misgivings. Still, the fetal position was good, the heartbeat strong, about 150. Pat's condition was excellent, and, if she was heavy, she was a fair-​sized girl with a good pelvic arch, and a big baby was not unlikely.

However, what was to be known as the Transplantation Split came into existence early the morning of August 15. I'd managed to blackmail a colleague to cover my practice the last three weeks of August and was actually having a nonworking vacation in the pleasant company of the Kelloggs. So when Pat woke with abdominal contractions, she roused me to time them. They were a businesslike three minutes apart. It's not unheard of for a primipara to deliver quickly, so I hospitalized her and phoned Chuck to get the hell up there.

If he'd driven instead of hiring that damned helicopter, I'd have been all right. I tell myself, and him when he brings the matter up, as he often does, that I wasn't hogging all the glory for myself. He had a right to some.

At any rate, the helicopter set him down on the hospital grounds just as Pat went into second-​stage labor, and he assisted me in the delivery room along with the regular nurse.

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