Part 3

By the time the rope was jiggled once more, Lieutenant Newhouse had taken a week's wages from di Vino at cribbage, to be payable when the diplomat returned to Dynak Base. Newhouse blew out the candle, went over and pushed the blanket aside, and took a cautious look up. He couldn't see a thing, but a second tug on the rope told him that all was well. He began hauling down on the line. The girl came easily, since the men in the aircar had reduced her negative weight to zero, and then added a couple of ounces of positive weight.

When she appeared at the window, the two men pulled her in, and Newhouse took off the antigravity harness and began putting it on himself. "Just let her sleep," he told di Vino. "She won't know a thing in the morning."

Di Vino narrowed his eyes. "What did they do to her? If--"

"_If_, nothing," Newhouse snapped. "We got you out of a jam. We hope. Now just relax and take it easy. See you in a while." He climbed out the window again. He grinned to himself as he went crabwise across the face of the wall. Di Vino thought he knew what had happened, and di Vino was dead wrong. He couldn't have been further off base.

The Captain and her entourage departed the next morning amid a gush of good wishes and a show of pageantry, with an invitation to return at a later date. They got into the cars and went back into the jungle, headed for Dynak Base. Newhouse reported to Colonel Hastings and told him nothing except that he had made a "preliminary survey" of the situation at Oassi. If his plan didn't work, Newhouse didn't want Hastings looking smug.

Then Lieutenant Newhouse just sat around, looking as though he were thinking hard, while one day after another trudged its weary way into eternity.

One fine day, he went with the food car again, and when he returned, he had Boccaccio di Vino with him.

* * * * *

"I still don't see what made them let you go, di Vino," the colonel said with puzzled anger.

"Frankly, I'm not sure what happened, myself," Boccaccio admitted. He turned toward Newhouse, and there was anger in his eyes. "But I think Lieutenant Newhouse can explain."

Newhouse said: "What's the matter, di Vino? You still in love with that girl?"

"Well--" Di Vino paused, and an odd look came into his eyes. "Well I guess I am--in a way. Not that I'd go back; I'm not the right man for her at all. But--well--she was a good kid. And--" The anger came back. "--and what you had done to her would have gotten you hanged if you'd done it back on Earth."

Bruce MacAuliffe, di Vino's immediate superior, was also standing beside Colonel Hastings' desk. "What did he do di Vino?"

"He got Oanella pregnant!" di Vino said. "Or, well, _he_ didn't. But he had someone else do it. And while she was unconscious, too! Probably got one of the local savages to--"

"I did no such thing," Newhouse interrupted mildly. "I--"

"Now, just a minute," Colonel Hastings interrupted. "You said that she got pregnant, di Vino. You mean that she laid a fertile egg?"

"Yes. I mean, well, no, not exactly. She produced _four_ fertile eggs. Which is pretty darned unusual. Her mother and father got all excited. The Shanni was all a dither, and her consort was getting so nervous he went into a fit of the shakes. You should have seen that old gal running around like a scalded cat. And you should have been there when the fit hit the Shann. It's the first time any Oassi female has ever produced four fertile eggs at once." He looked at Newhouse again. "Just what did you do?"

"Yes," said Colonel Hastings heavily. "I think we all deserve an explanation."

"The biotechnicians would be able to tell you better than I, sir," Newhouse said. "They're writing up a report on it. It's a simple process, in effect, but a very delicate one.

"We simply had to wait until the single ovum the Shannil was carrying had arrived at the proper stage of development--something the biotechs had found out in checking on the local savages. They removed the unfertilized ovum and put it through two different processes. First, they self-fertilized it. When an ovum is formed by splitting of the parent cell, the egg itself retains half the chromosomes, while the other half are thrown off in what is called a polar body. The boys simply used the polar body to fertilize the egg. Then they waited until the fertile ovum divided the first time and separated the cells; when the second division occurred, the cells were separated again, giving them four. These were replaced, and in due time, the Shannil produced four fully developed eggs. And they'll all hatch females; it's possible to tell by the shape of the rubbery shell whether an egg will be a male or female, so the Shanni was happy as a lark. The girls, of course, will be exact genetic duplicates of their mother--who is also their father, although she doesn't know it. Still--" He grinned. "--there's an old saying: 'If you want a job done right, do it yourself.'"

THE END