How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
In an empty room, floating amid the fires of a double star twenty thousand light years from Earth, a baby opened its eyes and began to cry. (45.11)
Science-fiction started with a birth-without-women—Dr. Frankenstein's creation of an artificial monster. The star baby is also a kind of new life made without recourse to sex, pregnancy, and women. Part of progress in the novel is leaving women behind; you don't need them anymore. In this novel, women in the novel are mostly associated with earth and bodies; men with traveling to the stars and escaping from bodies. You could see 2001 as an extended explanation that men are jealous of childbirth and want to make their own kids and are going to take their toys and go out to the stars until they can get pregnant too, darn it. We're not buying it, though.