Otherness by David Brin

moving into a new phase of fetal education. Reiko sank back against the pillows with a sigh. Next to her Tetsuo snored quietly, contentedly, unaware of this milestone.

    Reiko lay listening. She couldn't make out what the machine was enunciating slowly, repetitiously. But the baby responded with faint movements. She wondered if he was reaching out toward the tiny speaker. Or perhaps, instead, he was trying to get away. If so, then he was trapped, trapped in the closest, most secure prison of them all.

    The doctors were certain it was safe, Reiko reminded herself. Surely those wise men would not do anything to hurt her child. Anyway, though it was a pioneering method, she and Tetsuo were not the very first. There had been a few before them, to prove it was all right.

    Consoled, but convinced that sleep would not return, she rose to begin yet another day before the sun turned the eastern sky a dull and soggy gray. Reiko bent her attention to daily life, to chores and preparations, to doing what she could to make life pleasant for her family.

    One evening soon thereafter they sat together, watching a television program about genetic engineering. The reporters spoke glowingly of how, in future years, scientists would be able to cut and splice and redesign the very code of life itself. Human beings would specify everything about their plants, their animals, even their offspring, making them stronger, brighter, better than ever.

    She heard Tetsuo sigh in envy, so Reiko said nothing. She only laid her head on his shoulder and concealed her own relieved thoughts.

    By that time I will have finished my own child-bearing years. Those wonders will be for other women to deal with .

    Reiko knew what was coming next. She tried and tried to prepare herself, but still it came as a shock when, a week or so later, her belly began to glow. At night, with the house lights extinguished, faint shimmerings of color could be seen emerging through her flesh from one corner of her burgeoning belly. It flickered like a tiny flame, but there was no added warmth. Rather, it was a cold light.

    Soon the neighbor women were back, curious and insistent on seeing for themselves. They murmured admiringly at the luminance given her skin by the tiny crystal display, and treated Reiko with such respect that she dared not chase them away, as she might have preferred.

    A few of Tetsuo's envious comrades even persuaded him to bring them home to see, as well. One day Reiko had to rush about preparing a very special meal for Tetsuo's supervisor's supervisor. The great man complimented her cooking and spoke highly of Tetsuo's drive and forward thinking.

    Reiko did not much mind showing a small patch of skin in a dim room, nor the cold touch of the stethoscope as others listened in on Minoru's lessons. Modesty was nothing against the pride she felt in helping Tetsuo.

    Still, she did wonder about the baby. What was the machine showing him, deep inside her? Was he already learning about faraway lands Reiko herself had never seen? Was it describing the biological facts of life to him? Where he was and what was happening to him?

    Or was it imprinting upon him the cool, graceful forms of mathematics, fashioning genius while the brain was still as malleable as new bread dough?

    Her father explained some of it to her during Reiko's next-to-final visit to her parents' home. While Yumi and their mother cleared the dinner bowls, Professor Sato looked over some of the titles of the programs listed on the Pak Clinic brochure.

    "Abstract Geometry and Topology, Musical Tone Recognition, Basic Linguistic Grammar . . . Hon ga nan'satsu arimas'ka ? Hmmm." Her father put aside the brochure and tried to explain to her.

    "Of course the fetus cannot learn things that an infant could not. It cannot really understand speech, for instance. It doesn't know yet about people or the world. The technicians apparently know better than to try to cram facts into the poor little