After listening for a moment to the newcomer and Adams, Barbara took Deston by the arm and led him away. "Just a little bit of that gibberish is a bountiful sufficiency, husband mine. So I think we'd better take Captain French's advice, don't you?"
Since there was only one star in Jones' "Confusion" (by the book, "Volume of Uncertainty") finding the Procyon was no problem at all. High Brass came in quantity and the entire story—except for one bit of biology—was told. Two huge subspace-going machine shops also came, and a thousand mechanics, who worked on the crippled liner for almost three weeks.
Then the Procyon started back for Earth under her own subspace drive, under the command of Captain Theodore Jones. His first, last, and only subspace command, of course, since he was now a married man. Deston had wanted to resign while still a First Officer, but his superiors would not accept his resignation until his promotion "for outstanding services" came through. Thus, Ex-Captain Carlyle Deston and his wife were dead-heading, not quite back to Earth, but to the transfer-point for the planet Newmars.
"Theodore Warner Deston is going to be born on Newmars, where he should be," Barbara had said, and Deston had agreed.
"But suppose she's Theodora?" Bernice had twitted her.
"Uh-uh," Barbara had said, calmly. "I just know he's Theodore."
"Uh-huh, I know." Bernice had nodded her spectacular head. "And we wanted a girl, so she is. Barbara Bernice Jones, her name is. A living doll."
Although both pregnancies were well advanced, neither was very near full term. Thus it was clear that both periods of gestation were going to be well over a year in length; but none of the five persons who knew it so much as mentioned the fact. To Adams it was only one tiny datum in an incredibly huge and complex mathematical structure. The parents did not want to be pilloried as crackpots, as publicity-seeking liars, or as being unable to count; and they knew that nobody would believe them if they told the truth; even—or especially?—no medical doctor. The more any doctor knew about gynecology and obstetrics, in fact, the less he would believe any such story as theirs.
Of what use is it to pit such puny and trivial things as facts against rock-ribbed, iron-bound, entrenched AUTHORITY?