Just for a few hours of peace and quiet. And the baby isn't harmed — doesn't even know that it was... shut off. And you take to doing it every night — you get a good sleep, you rationalize that the child will benefit from it too, you'll be more relaxed and attentive. And in the middle of the afternoon when you decide you want to get a bit of work done without interruption... after a while, you tell yourself it's all right, the baby's fine, if you take it out of stasis for an hour a day, that's enough. You can play with it happily, make that little bit of time, everything's fine... even if you miss a day once in a while when you're busy, when the work's going well. If you have a life of your own, you know you'll be a better mother....

"And you miss a day and a week and a month, and every time you think about it, you're filled with the most sickening dread, the most sickening paralyzing dread... you try to put it out of your mind but you can't, you want to make it right again but you can't, you tell yourself how simple it would be to plunge in and fix it, but you're just so paralyzed with the dread, you can't face it, you want it just to go away, and you scream at a bot to get the chest out of your sight, get it out, get it out...

"And when another baby's on the way, and you swear on everything you hold sacred that you will be good to this one, that you'll never make the same mistake, that you'll be so much stronger... I had five children, Mr. Scalpel." She waved at the silent chests. "They're all out there. Sometimes I have nightmares that I lost count, that I really had six. Or seven. I don't know why that terrifies me. Losing count. What would be the difference? But the thought is so... chilling... I don't know why.

"But..." She straightened up a bit. "Stasis is stasis, isn't it? The children are still fine. No harm done."