Credit: NASA

Agonised screams ricocheted off the grey metal walls. Hopeless and bewildered, Helen cuddled her newborn son. His tiny mouth opened like a great red tunnel, and his knees jerked up to his belly in spasms.

"Hush, Ricky. Don't cry. Mummy's here. Mummy loves you."

The volume was astonishing. How could anyone so tiny produce so much noise? His face was bright red, and screwed up with effort.

His howls drowned out her meaningless endearments. Tears pooled in her eyes, then floated away to form a cloud round her face. Helen sniffled. She'd had a wild final night in port, and obviously she'd imagined the contraceptives. Now she was alone with Ricky, most of the way to Jupiter.

Dammit, when would the Compudoc tell her what was wrong with him? She'd had it download data on childbirth and babies as soon as she'd managed to believe she really was pregnant.

The computer beeped. She couldn't read the display for tears.

"Vocal," she commanded.

"DIAGNOSIS: Infant colic. Probability, 98 per cent"

Colic? Didn't horses die of that? "Give detail on colic."

"Baby swallows air or small intestine produces methane. Zero-G aggravates the condition, because the air is not at the top of the stomach and therefore the patient is unable to burp. Infant abdominal muscles too weak to expel gases. Build up is uncomfortable, but causes no long term damage."

Was that all? She had thought Ricky was dying. She floated with her mouth open for several minutes, and then the shakes started. Ricky would live.

The relief lasted ten minutes. Then the crying started to set her teeth on edge.

"Give detail on treatment."

"Medicines of limited effectiveness exist, but there are none available on this ship."

The screams continued. Poor Ricky, it wasn't his fault, but oh how she missed silence! Deep space loneliness had worn away at her nerves, until she'd actually looked forward to the sound of a crying baby to keep her company.

The bawling of a healthy, hungry baby was one thing. This was quite another. Now she knew why writers called screams "piercing". These went through her skull like a laser blast. She kissed Ricky's head and rocked him from side to side, crooning, "Hush now darling, don't you cry. Mama's gonna sing you a lullaby."

She could scarcely hear herself think, never mind sing.

Her old self-doubt began whispering at her. She'd been desperate to be a perfect mother, but it would be just like her to screw up, to forget the obvious. Sometimes it seemed her whole childhood had consisted of her own mother clucking her tongue, rolling her eyes to the ceiling and saying, "Oh Helen!" She remembered a long succession of lost mittens, forgotten keys, missed buses and mediocre exam results. One year her school report was eight A's and one B. Mum had said, "So what went wrong in geography?"

Three hours later, Ricky was still screaming, and Helen was crying again. She couldn't bear this noise! A million years of evolution had programmed her to jump to his every whimper. Now he howled, bent double in obvious pain, and she could do nothing at all about it. Helen felt like a laboratory dog, chained down on an electrified floor.

Ricky screamed on. And on. And on.

Helen knew she was useless to Ricky. All she could give him were cuddles, which were about as much use as spitting on a forest fire.

Helen jiggled Ricky up and down, and murmured rubbish though a haze of weariness.

She was so tired. The noise itself was exhausting, and she'd given birth only two days ago. Her body screamed for sleep, and Ricky kept on screaming. Helen began to get a hazy feeling of déjà vu. Somewhere she had tried to comfort a screaming baby before. Or was it just that she'd been doing this for hours?

"All right! I'm doing the best I can, sweetheart. I'm trying for God's sake!"

She massaged his stomach, bounced around the room with him, swung him to and fro, and sang every nursery rhyme she could think of until she was hoarse. It made no difference that she could see. Was Ricky just acting? But no, he was only two days old, how could he know what manipulation was?

Oh Helen! Can't you do anything right?

Helen sucked her thumb, watching wide-eyed as Mum rocked a screaming baby. Mum was crying too.

Where had that come from? It was like a few seconds of video spliced into reality. It felt like a memory, but she'd never had any brothers or sisters. She couldn't remember Mum ever babysitting either. It must be her imagination.