. . . the doctor stares into the nictitating membrane of the baby’s eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoctor,\u201d prompts the nurse.<\/p>\n
The doctor emits a startled, reflex action! He slaps the baby.<\/p>\n
It takes a breath.<\/p>\n
The doctor winces at that.<\/p>\n
There are actually very clear instructions . . . from the Agency! . . . that babies with nictitating membranes and the birthmark symbol of Lemuria on their arm are to be left un-slapped and let to die. But he cannot take it back.<\/p>\n
\u201cUm,\u201d says the doctor, vaguely.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me hold him!\u201d says Amelia. She glances reflexively at the toad.<\/p>\n
. . . It isn’t there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
. . . the doctor stares into the nictitating membrane of the baby’s eyes. \u201cDoctor,\u201d prompts the nurse. The doctor emits a startled, reflex action! He slaps the baby. It takes a breath. The doctor winces at that. There are actually very clear instructions . . . from the Agency! . . . that babies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"series":[5],"class_list":["post-3405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stomping-the-world-round-chapter-4","series-stwr"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Toad_Dotted.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3405"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6447,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3405\/revisions\/6447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3405"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=3405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}