Free Bearing an Hourglass by Piers Anthony

mostly unused, and he was part of the equipment. Orlene also took Gaw to visit his legal grandparents, who, she reported, exclaimed in pleased wonder at his resemblance to his ghost-father. Norton, of course, was not invited on that trip.
    He sank into a pointless depression. He was glad for Orlene’s success and he had known the nature of his position from the outset. But still he found it difficult to accept. He had somehow supposed that the arrival of the baby would free Orlene to be with him, Norton, as she had been before the conception; now it was apparent that the baby had pre-empted whatever attention she might have been ready to bestow on him. He wished that somehow all this could have been his to share, estate, baby, and Orlene. He had become accustomed to the luxurious lifestyle of Gawain’s means and to the constant attentions of a lovely young woman. In fact, he realized, he had been spoiled. He wanted, as Orlene had said at the outset, too much.
    In the midst of one such reverie, the ghost reappeared. Norton was almost glad to see him. “Well, sport, you’ve had a year,” Gawain said. “How’s it going?”
    “Successfully,” Norton said. “You now have your heir.”
    “Ah, yes!” Gawain was so delighted he sailed into the air. “I can finally go to Heaven!”
    Gawain was going to Heaven? Norton shrugged. “Only you can decide that. Take a look at your son. He’s sleeping in the crib in the bedroom.”
    “But I can’t go near Orlene.”
    “She’s in the kitchen now, I believe, taste testing new baby food. She wants Gaw’s first solid food to be just right.”
    The ghost popped out. In a few minutes he popped back, looking worried. “He resembles me too much.”
    “You object to that?”
    Gawain paced the floor. “Something I should tell you, Norton. On my travels this past year I met some interesting people.”
    “Why not? I certainly have no objection, and if I did, it wouldn’t matter. I like to travel myself.”
    “I met some of the Incarnations.”
    “The whats?”
    “The Incarnations. Two of them, anyway. War and Nature.”
    “I’m not sure I follow you, Gawain.”
    “They are personifications of fundamental concepts or forces. There are a lot of them, but only a few major ones. They sort of supervise their functions—Well, my point is, I talked with Nature, the Green Mother Gaea, and she promised to put my essence in my heir.”
    Norton wasn’t sure how serious or relevant this was. “There can’t be a literal blood connection—”
    “Yes, there can be—if Nature so decrees. I saw some of her power—I tell you, I wouldn’t want to cross that creature!—and as a favor to me, she—”
    “You mean there is a literal Incarnation of Nature, who can change—?”
    “That’s exactly what I mean.”
    “So Gaw-Two really is of your bloodline—by magic?”
    “I think so. I didn’t stick around to watch; I just took Gaea’s word. She scared me some; I mean, I’m a ghost, but the things she can do, that
any
of them can do—it’s a completely different kind of power.” Gawain wiped his brow, looking pale. “But there’s one aspect I forgot.”
    “The baby certainly resembles you! I thought it was coincidence.”
    “No. Gaea did it. I think she’s the strongest of the earthly Incarnations, but I wouldn’t want to cross any of them.”
    Norton didn’t quite believe this, but did have respect for nature. A literal Incarnation of Nature should indeed be formidable. “So why are you worried? She delivered, didn’t she?”
    The ghost paced faster. Had he been solid, he would have stirred up dust from the aseptic rug. “There’s a family malady, one of those recessive things, that tends to skitter sidewise across generations. My older brother died of it; that’s why the estate devolved to me. It usually takes them out young—before age ten, sometimes sooner. And it’s getting worse.”
    “But you were taken out by a dragon!”
    “An allosaur.”
    “Whatever.