Terence Greene's birth

Terence Greene's birth is the decisive transformation that turns the Greenes' secret assignment into a generational problem. He is not merely a child born to two Milotan agents on Earth: he is the first Milotan born on Earth who needs no forged papers, yet whose body and inherited identity make ordinary human life perilous. His birth converts covert infiltration into an experiment in belonging, exposing the gap between legal citizenship and practical acceptance.

Circumstances and Birth

Eight months after May Greene's unexpected pregnancy became the subject of debate, Terence Greene was born, with the gestation period of Milotans roughly matching that of terrestrials. Dan Greene and May Greene had adopted Earth-equivalent names even in private, so that they would not accidentally use their Milotan names in public. Their son, however, had no second name waiting behind the disguise. He was born on Earth, in the United States of America, and possessed a genuine birth certificate; technically, therefore, he was not even a Milotan.

That formal status did not erase the circumstances of his conception or the danger surrounding his body. Dan Greene and May Greene were agents assigned to live inconspicuously among terrestrials, and their adaptations had been intended to last for life. Their altered bodies already made them grotesque on Milotis as naturally as their original forms would have appeared on Earth. Dan's hands remained the starkest reminder of the contradiction: they were the wrong color for Earth and had the wrong number of fingers for Milotis. Terence's birth placed that contradiction into the next generation without resolving it.

Biological Concealment and Family Responsibility

Dr. Robinson equipped the baby with small masks and lenses in a laboratory unusually complete for a New Jersey general practitioner. The disguises were not a temporary convenience but the material condition of the child's survival in human society. Because Milotan children grow more slowly than terrestrial children, and because Milotans live about a third longer, the masks and lenses could remain useful for longer periods; they were nevertheless expensive, and the Greenes could barely afford them.

The family also had to solve the ordinary demands of infancy within an alien environment. On Milotis, robots would have cared for a baby, but the technologically inferior conditions of Earth required May Greene to perform the work herself. Dan Greene continued his terrestrial employment while May Greene stayed home, and the loss of her income intensified the financial pressure created by the disguises and the high cost of living on an alien planet. Parenthood thus weakened the very cover that the birth required them to maintain: a child needed constant care, while a covert household had to appear ordinary and economically unremarkable.

Before the birth, Dan Greene had argued that the child could not safely remain on Earth. At about six, Terence would have to attend school under the Compulsory School Attendance Law, and medical examinations would threaten to expose whatever a superficial examination might miss. A private tutor would also make the Greenes conspicuous in Washington Heights and might require them to reveal their secret to another Milotan. The birth therefore created a problem with no purely domestic solution: the child could be hidden only temporarily, and the law would eventually carry him into public institutions.

Development Under the Disguise

Terence Greene's body and behavior continually tested the limits of the family's concealment. He did not walk until he was two or speak until he was three, leading neighbors to regard him as backward. May Greene was forced to accept their judgment, although she knew that his development was normal for a Milotan child. Her own years in terrestrial culture had conditioned her enough that she began, in a way, to see him through the human neighborhood's standards.

At home, Dan Greene and May Greene spoke both Milotan and English so that Terence would retain both languages, while warning him never to use Milotan in public. They kept him away from other children as much as possible. When he was six, however, school became unavoidable. May Greene chose a private day school and told its principal that the Greenes were Christian Scientists, using the claimed religious objection to medical examinations as a shield for the child's concealed biology. The school's expensive fees purchased a degree of institutional accommodation, but not genuine safety.

The arrangement failed when Terence's grade began swimming lessons. The event forced him to confront what his parents' careful explanations had never made fully real: he was physically different from the children around him. He told May Greene, "Mother, I’m different," and the statement carried the force of an accusation. The principal, learning what had been concealed, excluded him from the school and urged May Greene to inform the authorities before enrolling him elsewhere. May answered by proposing a move from Washington Heights to the suburbs, where Terence could be transferred without anyone knowing his condition.

Identity, Citizenship, and Consequences

Terence's birth makes citizenship an incomplete protection. He is legally a citizen of the United States of America, possessing the ordinary documentary proof that clandestine Milotan agents lack, but the institutions surrounding him treat his body as a condition to disclose, manage, or exclude. The school accepts the Greenes' explanation only while it can avoid examination; once swimming lessons make concealment impossible, formal inclusion gives way to removal.

The same birth also complicates Terence's relation to Milotis. His parents have preserved his connection to that world through language and family knowledge, yet he has no alternate Milotan name and has been shaped by Earth from infancy. The Greenes intended the disguise to let him pass as human, but every adaptation makes his dependence on their secret more complete. He is Earth-born in law, Milotan in origin, and socially vulnerable in both directions.

After the school incident, Terence clung to May Greene's hand, and their closeness briefly returned to the intimacy of his infancy. During the drive, he asked in halting Milotan whether Milotis truly existed, whether there was a place where everyone was like them, and whether his parents had invented it. May Greene confirmed that Milotis was real. That confirmation changes the meaning of the birth: the child who had been legally anchored to Earth is now consciously introduced to the civilization from which his parents came.

The family then prepared to send a beam to Milotis describing him. The report marks the birth's larger consequence. Terence is no longer merely the secret child whom the Greenes must protect; he becomes an unprecedented case for the Milotan presence on Earth, a native-born link between the two worlds. His genuine Earth birth certificate offers the appearance of secure belonging, while the need to report his existence back to Milotis reveals that his life remains governed by a transplanetary mission.