by neetha Napew
That was when Sarah’s baby decided to arrive. In fact, he did before his father and the others returned, though Kris immediately called a mayday for Joe over the hand unit.
“I must’ve miscounted,’ Sarah said apologetically lo her midwives when she realized her labour had begun. ‘This business of thirty-hour days and seven-month pregnancies!’
“Nonsense,’ Kris and Leila retorted in the same breath. ‘It isn’t
as if we don’t know what to do,’ Kris added, though her mind I was revolving in a panic over all the things they didn’t have on board the scout that might be needed.
None were, as Sarah’s fine lusty baby took the minimum of time in arriving so that both mother and child were all cleaned up when the father leapt into the clearing, red-faced with exertion and badly scratched in his effort to get back in time. Then Whitby and Zainal were congratulating him and Sarah, and admiring the baby. Kris had her eyes on Zainal, wondering if human babies were in any way different from Catteni newborns.
“Small,’ Zainal muttered, knowing some comment was needed.
“Small?” exclaimed Joe indignantly as his son squirmed in his arms in reaction to the sudden loud noise.
“He’s not small at all,’ Leila said emphatically, startling the rest of the team since she rarely contradicted anyone. ‘He’s eight pounds and a few ounces. And healthy!” ‘And I feel fine,’ Sarah said, ‘and it’s so good to do this,’ she added, for she was sitting up with arms around her knees, a position she hadn’t been able to assume for several months.
l l ‘How big are Catteni babies, if you think this one’s small?” Kris asked, deciding she’d better straighten him out before he could be disappointed in what she produced.
Zainal measured a distance with his hands.
“I pity the females who have to carry that much around,’ said Sarah, shaking her head.
“Bigger head, quite likely, and bigger bones,’ Joe said sagely.
“He’s healthy, that’s what matters,’ Whitby remarked in a definitive tone.
But young Anthony Marley caused the team to leave the insalubrious area and head back to Retreat Bay. Sarah tried to talk them out of an early return, because she and Anthony were Me and the reconnaissance could continue as far as she was concerned. But Joe was having none of it, wanting both wife and child checked over by the medics.
Leon Dane pronounced Sarah in excellent post-natal condition and Fawzia Johnston, the paediatrician on duty when they returned, said that young Anthony was as healthy and normal as any mother could wish.
The Doyle brothers, who now spent more time as carpenters and joiners, instructing others in the art, presented Sarah and Joe with a cradle for the infant.
“Working all the hours God gave Botany to keep up with the demand,’ Lenny said, after duly admiring young Anthony and congratulating the parents. ‘You know, this place is getting more like home all the time, with the babees arriving.” He looked melancholy.
“You miss your own?” Sarah asked, putting a sympathetic hand on his arm.
Lenny’s face brightened into a grin. ‘Sort’ve, but who’s got time to think of what we left behind with so much to do where we are?”
If Zane Charles Bjornsen arrived on Botany at dawn exactly 222
days after conception. He was a long child - in that he did resemble his father. He came with fingernails that had to be cut soon after his birth, or he’d have scratched his fair face, and a mass of very dark hair.
He was not, as Anthony Marley had been, red, wrinkled and an object only his mother could love.
“Zane is a perfectly good name,’ Kris had told Zainal. ‘One of
my favourite Western writers was Zane Grey. And I admireI
Chuck Mitford.”
“But he is not the father.” Zainal did no more than raise one eyebrow at her, tacitly asking the question she had refused to answer.
“No, but I see no reason I . . . we . . . can’t do him the honour of being godfather.”
“God father?” Zainal’s lips twitched. ‘O God, o God . . .?”
“Not that sort. The deity that Father Jacob reveres, the real God.”
“There is one?”
Zainal had trouble believing in the Almighty, though the several ministers who had been dropped were trying to establish services. The Protestants had no problems, but Father Jacob did since he had none of the accessories properly required to say Mass, and fretted about their lack and how he should manage without them.
Marrucci proved to be a devout Catholic, and did his best to console the good Father in one of those role reversals which continually happened on Botany.
“If God is everywhere, then He’s here, too, padre, and He’ll accept the worship of the sincere, dedicated to Him. The earliest Catholics had no altar or relics, and communion was bread and wine. We got them. We got the dedication. You say the words and I’ll be altar boy.” Mitford was both pleased and alarmed to have a child named for him. ‘Everyone will think he’s mine, and he isn’t,’ the sergeant said at his gruffest. ‘Not that I wish he weren’t, Kris,’ he added hastily.
“I mean, I’d’ve been honoured if you’d wanted to, but . . . well, hell, you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do, Chuck.”
“So who is the lucky guy?” ‘Remember that hooch Leon and Mayock made, about the time I broke my arm?” ‘Yeah, I do,’ and Mitford looked surprised, then he scowled deeply.
“You mean you got raped and never reported it?” His fists clenched as if he held the neck of the offender within them.
Kris patted one such fist gently. ‘I don’t know about any rape.
But I do know I was very, very drunk.” Chuck frowned. ‘Pete Easley took you back to your cabin, didn’t he?” ‘He may have, Chuck, but I don’t recall a thing - and perhaps that’s as well, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Can’t do anything about it. But maybe when Zane grows up, we’ll know for sure. Zainal couldn’t care less.”
I’
“NO, he couldn’t - and you know, the way he’s taken this hasn’t lost him any points.” Zainal was at that moment changing his foster son’s fluff diapers. The reeds which produced the useful material were being cultivated everywhere they would grow around Retreat Bay.
The sticky sap that had been such a problem on their last reconnaissance
trip had been harvested and, poured into a mould, made a reasonable
facsimile of waterproof garments for baby use. They could be washed and
re-used four or five times but gradually dissolved, often at the wrong
time.
Mitford grinned, watching the anomaly of a Catteni Emassi acting the nursemaid.
Of the 2,103 new lives expected, all but five made it: two human babies were stillborn; one of the Rugarian young lived three days and died, but even the one Rugarian who understood his species’ needs could not give a reason; a fourth was unfortunately strangled by the umbilical cord during delivery, and the fifth, a Deski, was malformed when it hatched and did not survive.
The promised creches were opened, and every female had the right to leave their youngling in the general care for her day’s work or whatever community service she performed. Sometimes it was creche duty. Kris started the fad of the papoose board, dredging that up from reading Westerns and historical novels about Indians. It worked well for babies up to three months, and for shorter periods after that.
“I said you will be a good mother,’ Zainal said with a touch of smug pride when she showed him how she could carry Zane around.
To Kris’s astonishment, she didn’t find caring for Zane as onerous as she had expected, and that had little to do with Zainal’s enthusiasm for the child. She had never had anything so completely dependent on her, so trusting, and so precious to her. Once or twice, she wondered if she was being unfair to Pete Easley by not telling him.
But he and one of the Swedish Aggies
.
&nbs
p; had made bricks together, which was equivalent to becoming engaged on Botany. If Kris caught him looking very carefully at her son, she ignored the query in his eyes and babbled on about how good a father Zainal was until even Pete Easley got bored.
The baby boom sparked a lot of investigations and experiments - a fine powder for talcum, an ointment for diaper and other minor rashes, a way to weave some of the vegetable fibres into cloth for proper baby-clothes, and a spinning-wheel to make knitting yarn out of the loo-cow hairs. The creatures had grown longer coats for protection during the colder weather. These were collected - before the night-crawlers could - and spun, then washed and/or felled.
The crops grew lush and green on both continents. The Catteni continued to do nothing in their valley. The miners excavated tons of iron, copper, tin, zinc, lead, gold andsilver - and occasionally some unusual clear stones which the jewellers thought a variant of tourmaline. But then, no-one was looking for gemstones or in the places where rubies, emeralds, sapphires or diamonds - which would have been useful for their hardness - might be found.
Bone was more useful, and the heavy bones in the four rearlegs of the loo-cows were scrupulously cleaned and dried for carving.
Zane was just five months old when the Deski sentinel startled everyone on the south side of Retreat Bay with a warning warble. For such a slender species, with no great lung space, they could make a god-awful amount of noise. The baby was teething so Kris was awake, trying to soothe him. Zainal’s comunit buzzed and he shot straight up in bed, alert, unit to his ear before she could take a single step to intercept.
“WHAT?” He was on his feet and hopping about on one foot, listening as he pulled on his coverall. Even in such a ridiculous pose, Kris admired his physique. If only Zane could have osmosed a single gene from his foster father . . .
“It’s down,’ Zainal added, as he closed the hand-unit and concentrated on dressing himself as fast as possible.
“What’s down?” ‘The Balloon.” He had both boots on now and was starting for the door.
“I’m coming, too,’ she said.
“Not like that!” He raked her with a disapproving look, for she was draped in a blanket.
She thrust Zane at his father and dressed as quickly as he, retrieved the blanket and two spare reed-pods and was inserting the baby into the sling she usually carried him in even as she settled into a passenger seat of the air-cushion truck. Zainal spun the control wheel and the vehicle charged off into the crepuscular light of dawn towards the hangar. Lights were coming up throughout the settlement and occasionally someone called out, ‘What’s the matter?” when Zainal was identified at the wheel.
N
“The Balloon is just down?” she asked as they sped along.
“Desk) heard something, not like anything else they have heard,’ Zainal was saying, ‘and warned the bridge. The bridge watch had already seen something on the screen, but couldn’t make out what.” ‘The Farmers?” Kris asked, scared to the pit of her stomach as she jiggled her son. Motion always put him to sleep, even upset with teething as he was, and even this short trip worked its magic on him.
Those alerted were arriving on air cushion, running as fast as they could and often faster than the basic push-bikes which had been developed for short-distance transportation. Pneumatic tyres were still to be perfected, but the iron rims did well enough on the flagstone and dirt tracks and were speedier than walking.
All the lights in the hangar were on, and the hatches on the KDL, Baby and the office were open. Runabouts were parked helter-skelter.
Zainal guided Kris to the of rice which was nearest. The bridgei
there would show just as much as the ships’ would, and there’d be more space for her and the baby. In such little matters, Zainal always considered her and Zane.
Scott, Beggs, Fetterman, Yowell and Coo were in the office and Scott waved Zainal over urgently.
“A full orbit already, and it’s not large. Not small enough to be a programmed orb, but moving too fast for us to get an accurate picture of its dimensions or shape.” ‘That,’ and Coo pointed to the trail left by the orbital, ‘is not heard. Something landed.” He spoke with more force than a Deski usually did. He’d probably been repeating it to Scott.
Now Coo stabbed his spidery finger at the Farmers’ Command Post, the one which Kris, Zainal and the others had investigated well over a Botanical year ago: where Dick Aarens had deliberately activated a homing device.
“Then what . . .” and Scott irritably followed the course of the orbital with one finger. Just then its track shifted to a north/south orientation. Even as they watched, it completed several whip-rounds the large globe of Botany. ‘. . . What is that?” ‘We will know . .
.” Zainal paused, eyes watching the progress of the orbital on the screen ‘. . . about now.”
They felt the tingling zap of a scan and he chuckled.
“Oh migod,’ said Fetterman, sitting down as if his legs had given out.
Kris had felt it course through her and Zane squirmed slightly against her in his sling. She stroked his cheek, wondering if the scan could have been too much for so small a body, and then felt Zainal’s reassuring touch to her back.
“I will volunteer to go,’ Zainal said.
Kris barely prevented herself from saying, ‘Oh, no, you won’t,’ before Scott lifted both hands in a refusal, his eyes not moving from the screen. The comunit bleeped and he toggled it open.
“We were just scanned?” It was Beverly’s voice.
“Coo says they landed at the Command Post.”
“Nothing’s showing up there,’ said Beverly.
Coo nodded emphatically, reaffirming his report.
“Fek agrees,’ Beverly went on. ‘Haven’t we established they use matter transmission?”
“Oh, oh,’ Yowell said, and he stumbled backwards to collapse
on the nearest stool, his face a study of conflicting emotions: hope, fear, anxiety and confusion.
Coo’s head turned towards the office door and he rose to his feet, lifting one arm to point straight ahead.
“They’re here?” Scott asked.
Kris gulped, her arms automatically tightening on Zane. But, as soon as Zainal moved she was right behind him, ahead of the others who had hesitated just that split-second longer before acting. If their destiny was coming to them, she wanted to see it.
As they left the office, she glanced over at the KDL and saw Fek’s unmistakable shape in the hatch, then Balenquah’s stocky frame silhouetted briefly in the hatch light, followed by Worrell’s slightly stooped figure, the tall erect one that was probably Rastancil, the slight frame of a woman whom she didn’t recognize, and Slav. From Baby came Mitford, Easley, Yuri and Judge Iri.
They converged, forming a semi-circle facing outwards.
What happened before their eyes did not resemble anything from a Star Trek programme. No coloured lights, beams or columns; nor any other special effect Kris remembered from just about all the science fiction films and videos she’d seen. And yet it was. Something was out there, forming a solid mass which moved towards them, a nimbus around a darker interior. Something which even by the dawn light looked larger than the tallest of the waiting humans.
Then it wasn’t taller and seemed to spread out, and she recognized the distinctive spider-legged form of a Deski. Beside her, Coo gurgled once and stiffened. With her free hand, Kris reached for Coo’s long fingers and gripped them; she had Zane’s face shielded with the other. Zainal had shifted his body so that he overlapped her in partial protection. But most of the forms that coalesced out of the mist - only it wasn’t mist - were human in appearance as the details of face and appendages became obvious.
“They’re shape-changers,’ she whispered. ‘They’re changing nto us?”
Coo sucked breath in, a slow sound - terror? Apprehension?
Defensive? Kris tightened her grip, not knowing if she was giving or seeking support.
“Shape-change
rs?” Scott hissed, eyes never leaving what was in front of his as he leaned slightly in her direction.
“There’s a Deski and a Rugarian, and the rest are humans. But not as many of them as there are of us.” When the transformation was complete, and there was no doubt that these visitors showed representations of the three species facing them, each group regarded the other.
“There’s no Catteni.” Kris’s comment was barely audible, but the omission caused a little giggle to escape her which she hastily suppressed. If these were the Farmers - and every evidence pointed to that assumption, for who else could have lifted the Balloon? - then they weren’t all-seeing and perfect. Somehow that gave her a lift of confidence. But no-one was saying anything and the tension was mounting.
So, if the visitors weren’t showing immediate aggression, maybe they should be treated like visitors, all eight of them. We outnumber them, she thought, though ‘outnumber’ is all we do, considering what they just did. It was so silly to just stand there, looking at each other.
“Hello,’ she said, making the word friendly and inquiring. She stepped around Zainal and inadvertently pulled Coo with her, just as Judge Iri Bempechat took a step forward. She knew she had a silly smirk on her face as she looked at the Judge for what to do next.
Whether she was impertinent or not, she never did find out, but the judge grinned fleetingly at her - so she felt she hadn’t done anything really wrong - and he held out both hands, the galactic indication (she hoped) of being unarmed.
“We have hoped that we would meet you, and explain our presence on a
planet which you have clearly used for many thousands of years,’ he
said, inclining his upper body slightly forward in a gesture that was as