Katy Romanova could understand that very well, because she, too, lay down in a Morthan husband's arms each night. So she gave her fellow female a warm and genuine smile, and then she asked, “Did you come here when the Service threw you out, Mr. Fort? Along with all the other Morthan medics?"
Unlike Linc, who bore his Human father's surname, this man was (according to the usual custom for hybrids) called by that of his Morthan mother's clanstribe. He answered the question as his wife moved away to usher their guests to seats at the dining table. “I've been here longer than that, Admiral. Or should I be calling you what we did at the battle that brought me here—Matushka?"
“That long ago?” They'd had a long walk, immediately after an exhaustingly long ride in the skimmer's cramped seats. Romanova sank down gratefully, and didn't mind that this chair was a hard-seated, straight-backed model.
“Yes. I came down to the surface to treat some colonists who'd been injured, and I knew the minute I set foot on Mistworld that I'd be retiring here. I was already eligible for that. And when I met Nadja—well, I could hardly wait to get back to her."
“Even though it took him awhile, because the Star Service made him complete his ship's assignment first.” Nah Trang frowned with remembered annoyance. “Apparently they weren't used to having Morthan officers actually take their retirement when it was due!"
“A great many don't. I mean, didn't. Not until they couldn't do their jobs any longer.” Linc was staying quiet, so Katy spoke up for him. Telling the other couple what they surely knew already, anyway; because Morthan males who left their home-world for the Star Service Academy rarely formed close personal ties with their Human colleagues. Civilian Morthan physicians working off-world (who, despite the exception who'd become Linc's mother, were nearly always unmated males) sometimes married mature Human women, but Star Service medical officers never did.
Until this one, this Astin Fort, met Mistworld's administrator. Fourteen years ago, when Nadja Nah Trang was how old? Katy looked backward, and decided the other woman could be her junior; but not by many years.
At that moment, the cottage's door opened again. A voice that sounded remarkably like Astin Fort's, but younger, exclaimed, “Sorry I'm so late, Mother!” After which the newcomer—a boy of somewhere near Maddy's age—realized that Romanova was staring at him. He reacted to that by staring back, and then breaking into a friendly grin. “Hi,” he said, his golden eyes holding her brown ones with confidence far beyond his years.
This wasn't possible. It simply couldn't be what it looked like. But Linc broke his mental silence to tell her that it was exactly so, just before Astin Fort confirmed it aloud: “Matushka. Captain Casey. This scapegrace is Nadja's son and mine. His name is Cash Nah Trang."
* * * *
“A son who takes his mother's name? That's Morthan tradition, but I'm surprised you applied it here.” Lincoln Casey's calm, respectful tone kept his blunt words from sounding as rude as they ought to have sounded. Commenting on how a mated pair chose to name their offspring was anything else but good manners, especially for someone who was in their home with a guest's protected status. Yet Katy couldn't blame her husband for using that means to ask an even more indelicate, but absolutely necessary question. Was the boy this couple's actual biological offspring? Naturally conceived, and not (illegally, for anyone lacking the proper—and very expensive—commercial license) gengineered, to combine their reproductive cells and create what must be the only known offspring of a Morthan man and a Human woman?
“Yes, he takes my name because I gave birth to him and that's how Morthans acquire their surnames. And yes, he certainly is Astin's son.” Nadja Nah Trang smiled at her now confused-looking boy. “Cash, you've always wanted to meet another Morthan besides your father. Captain Casey, here..."
“Linc,” that name's owner interrupted. “He knows what I am, Nadja.” Which was true, because now the youngster's eyes had moved from Katy's face to her husband's. Finding their shared distinctive characteristic, and (of course) instantly comprehending its meaning. “There are more Morthans who came on the ship from Narsai with us, Cash. Some of them ‘first wave,’ like your father. But most of them ‘second wave,’ like you. And like me."
“This can wait until we've let our guests have their meal.” Astin Fort gave Lincoln Casey a look, and although she couldn't hear the thought behind it Katy knew something had passed from one man to the other. “It's a long flight from where the SHIPS are berthed to here. And now that the last group out has arrived home safely, there's no hurry about whatever's going to happen next. Is there, Matushka? Nadja?"
“I can think of one thing that I'd really like to do right away.” One thing that she needed to do before she could let herself feel either hunger or fatigue properly, Katy remembered as the Mistworld-resident Morthan set a huge tureen on the table and put a serving ladle into it. “Nadja?"
The other woman shook her head. “Dinner first,” she said. “Because you won't be getting your message without Astin's help."
“Why is that?” The man was supposed to be doctor, not a comm tech. And since having her youngster present didn't seem to make Nadja Nah Trang reluctant to talk about what Romanova had referred to obliquely on purpose, the Narsatian woman now abandoned her caution.
“You asked how we could get messages from as far away as Terra without the right equipment. I think you were assuming we'd managed to get the equipment, actually, and that I was just being closemouthed about how we did it. And about how we were keeping it a secret, too.” Nah Trang sighed. “I can see you've waited as long as you're going to, so we'll tell you how we do it! But let's go and eat, too. All right?"
“All right. Fine.” Linc was thinking about the hungry kid who'd just taken a seat beside him, and the aroma from that tureen was starting to get Katy's attention after all. As was the yeasty smell of the bread that had just joined it on the table ... hot, crusty, and fresh from the oven. An old-fashioned, radiant heat powered oven, that did wonderful things to food. So she took a chunk when the bread came her way, and she accepted a bowl of the steaming stew.
“Let's see, how should I start?” Her hostess took a mouthful, chewed it reflectively, and swallowed. “You must have had some experience with your SHIP's teleporters. Did anyone tell you how they work?"
“Yes. And we got here in no time at all, when a Commonwealth ship tried to take us out and we teleported all the way from off Narsai to off Mistworld. Our captain explained that. Do you have some similar means of communicating across huge distances?” Katy frowned, but then she went on eating. The food was wonderful, for all its simplicity; and she'd discovered that she was starving, after all.
“We don't. But, for certain people only, Astin does.” Nah Trang nodded at her husband, with pride shining in her eyes.
“How?” Romanova put her spoon down, and she leaned forward. Across the table, toward the former Star Service medic.
“It's simple enough, Matushka.” Astin Fort looked positively embarrassed. “You're familiar, of course, with how a Morthan physician on a starship bonds with his patients?"
“Yes. After you've touched a person's mind once, you can find that mind again whenever you want to. As long as you're not too far away—even Linc and I can't find each other if we've got too much physical distance in between.” Remembering what that felt like, from the few times they'd experienced it since forming their marital bond that was so much stronger than the other tie that Fort had just mentioned, made Romanova shudder. “Terra is pretty damn far away."
“But that doesn't make the same difference to Cloud-Folk that it does to us."
The kitchen got quiet then. So quiet that Katy could hear her own heartbeat, and the soft sound of the wind coming up outside the cottage. At last Nadja said, “Love, we call them ‘Misties’ now. And they seem to like it better than ‘Cloud-Folk.’”
That broke the spell. Astin Fort smiled, and said, “Misties, then. I like it, too! Anyway, Matushka, they can—somehow, I w
on't pretend to understand their method—make the distance unimportant, when I'm reaching for a friend or a former patient and they're choosing to help me."
“So you must have been Bill Tanaka's doctor, at one time or another. And the message that's waiting for me is a telepathic one, not a comm recording.” This was a first-wave Morthan. A man who couldn't engage in violence, except to protect himself or his family from immediate danger. But did that mean she could trust him to be truthful, when she'd only just met him? Not only truthful, but accurate, too? About something as vital as whatever Fleet Admiral Tanaka might want to tell her?
“Yes. That's how things are. And if you're skeptical, Matushka, I won't be insulted because I can't blame you.” Fort gave his guest a rueful smile. “What can I do to fix that?"
He can let me listen in. Linc aimed the thought at both of them, his wife and his fellow Morthan. I don't know Bill Tanaka's thoughts, of course, but I still think I can tell whether or not the whole thing's genuine.
She could feel regret, and even a twinge of shame, as her husband realized all over again just how limited he was compared to other Morthans of his generation. But until recently, he'd thought himself alone in being what he was—and that was true no longer. Beside him sat another like himself, young Cash. And the boy was only one of many “second-wave” Morthans, now.
She wrapped her loved one in assurance, in her genuine warm confidence in him and in his judgment. Not just in his love and devotion. Then she said out loud, although she knew that Nadja and Cash could hear the telepathic conversation perfectly whenever Astin chose to share it with them: “Fine. That's how we'll do it, then. But Nadja was right; we'd better finish eating first. This is going to require fuel!"
* * * *
“You're not surprised that we talk about this in front of our son. I thought you would be. But we keep very little from our children here. I suppose that's because of our history—of always feeling that we're, well, on the front lines.” Astin Fort joined Linc and Katy in the room where they would be sleeping during their stay here, after they'd finished the stew, the bread, and the accompanying mugs of hot cider. Mistworld had orchards just sufficiently mature, now, to supply its Human and part-Human inhabitants with that beverage, as well as with familiar fruits for eating. Dessert didn't appear, to the unspoken disappointment of Katy's sweet tooth. She often omitted it from the menu by choice, when at home; but she wouldn't have dreamed of doing so when she had guests.
“We limit our uses of sugars and fats to dishes with more nutritional value than desserts usually contain,” Fort said, answering a question she hadn't even framed properly within her own mind; much less asked out loud. “We have enough, between what we can raise, catch, and—now—trade for, with worlds like Narsai. But not enough to waste. Ever."
“Of course.” Romanova inclined her head in acknowledgment. She didn't apologize, though, because there was no need. The Morthan (who was touching her thoughts effortlessly) already knew she hadn't meant to give offense. “And I can see why you feel as you do about the risk of being invaded! Now. How are we going to do this?"
She was sitting in one of the small room's two straight-backed chairs, and Astin occupied the other. Linc, for lack of anywhere else, was sitting on the edge of the double bed. A chest of drawers, and a freestanding wardrobe, completed the furnishings. Little though they'd been able to bring with them in their hasty departure from Narsai, they would still be finding themselves crowded whenever their luggage caught up with them.
“However you'd like. Shall I give you the message verbally? Or mind-to-mind?"
“I'm used to telepathy. Let's not put another layer between Bill Tanaka and me.” Which, no matter how accurately Astin might utter them, using his voice to communicate the Fleet Admiral's words would surely accomplish.
“All right.” Astin did something that Romanova had often done herself, and had often seen other Humans do—but never a fully functioning Morthan. He closed his eyes, to make focussing his thoughts easier.
Linc did the same. Katy reached out, and felt him waiting near. Nevertheless she reached for his hand, because she wasn't Morthan. Not first wave, or second wave, either. Together, they waited.
For a few seconds only. Then a familiar image, a man with golden skin and black eyes that demonstrated how appropriate a home-world New Orient was for him, formed in Romanova's thoughts. The image smiled at her, and said in a voice that she knew, “Hello, Katy. I'm not sure whether I'll still be alive, and able to communicate with retired Commander Fort, by the time you get all the way out to Mistworld—so I'm giving him this message now, to hold for your arrival. He'll have explained to you already how this is possible."
It felt so real that she nearly answered him when Willard Tanaka paused. Yet she couldn't, of course, “see” glimpses of his surroundings, as she would in an ordinary recording. Nor did Astin Fort's mind supply them; and that was good. The Morthan doctor really was doing his best to convey the remembered communication without distortion, and without embroidery, either.
“I'm not sure if anyone else on Terra realizes yet just how powerful those Mistworld folk, the native ones, really are,” Tanaka continued. “I wouldn't have a clue, myself, if Commander Fort hadn't taken it upon himself to try to probe my thoughts for tactical information! Which didn't work very well. Luckily he found me willing to talk with him, just the same, after I realized why I kept dreaming about my old ship's surgeon.... “Here the Fleet Admiral smiled again, but without much humor. “Katy, I'm going to give you some tactical information. Gratis. I hope to hell it's not outdated by the time you get it, because if it is that'll probably mean you already know about the Commonwealth ships whose gengineered crews have tried to kill their officers and take control. And about the gen-staffed mines and factories where the living cogs have decided to stop running the machines, and murder their overseers instead. So far we've managed to neutralize these rebellions wherever they've cropped up, but it's only a matter of time—in my opinion—until some gen-group trying to take over its workplace succeeds. And then, Katy my friend, the well-known waste substance is really going to hit the fan."
* * *
Chapter 14
“We're here to guard the girl. While you're gone, since both of you have to attend the Council meeting.” Trabe Kourdakov had just opened the door to find a pair of armed Narsatians (which until recently was almost an oxymoron) standing outside it. He recognized neither. But not even a University professor, who also held senior chair on the Narsai Council, could know everyone in the planet's capital city.
“We understand that bastard of a governor had her kidnapped,” the smaller of the pair added, as if the look on the senior chair councilor's face had made her think further explanation might be called for. “We'll keep her safe. From him, and anyone else who gives us trouble!"
“I'm sorry, but I don't know either one of you. And I think you'll understand, with things the way they are right now, why that means I'm not going to let you in. Let alone leave my grandchild in your care.” Kourdakov's tone stayed courteous, but it nevertheless acquired a titanium core. “We're taking Madeleine with us. She may get bored, but she'll surely be safe."
“Trabe, I do know them.” His wife's voice came from the living room behind him. “Aline! Noel! So Harbie and Mara managed to get you two trained, before we lost them? That's good news. I wasn't easy in my mind about taking Madeleine across the city without anyone to guard us, and knowing we may get stranded overnight if there's any reason we can't get back here before curfew. I'd much rather leave her here, if she won't have to be alone."
“Cabbie?” Trabe wasn't going to turn his back on this pair, so he spoke to his wife over his shoulder. “Why would we need anyone guarding us, to cross the city? The occupiers aren't going to hurt people who are behaving themselves.” He wouldn't say, “People who are the Provisional Governor's relatives, and one of them the Governor's betrothed wife.” He didn't want to remind these loyal Narsatians of those uncomf
ortable facts. Nor did he want to listen to the small, yet insistent part of his mind that was reminding him, over and over despite his reluctance to heed it, that Maddy's kidnapping had been partly her grandmother's doing.
In all the years they'd been married, Cabbie had deceived him only that once. There'd been no other time, and he could not believe (after how the deception turned out) she would ever do it again. Yet she certainly could make a mistake—and so could he. Just as easily.
Gods, but he missed Katy! His daughter had lived with intrigue, and with violence both potential and actual, for more of her adult life than not; so she always knew what to do in situations like this one. While he, for all his superior years and authority (soon to be lost) as senior chair councilor, hadn't a clue.
But perhaps someone else did. Someone who knew more about such matters than either Trabe or Cabbie, young though she still was.
“Granfer? Granma? What's going on?” As if on cue, Madeleine's voice reached him. “Who's at the door?"
“Two militia members, who've come to guard you so you won't need to ride along with us tonight. So you can stay here, Maddy,” Cabanne Romanova told her granddaughter, in relief that was suspiciously mingled with triumph.
“If you want to stay,” Trabe Kourdakov added, making up his mind. “It's your decision, Madeleine.” Deliberately, he turned his back on “Aline” and “Noel,” even though doing that made him feel as if he had a target for their blasters painted between his shoulder blades.
Maddy came closer, as her grandmother stepped back and out of her way. She looked at the two armed women's faces, and then she asked with a frown, “How'd you get across the city carrying those things? Without anyone stopping you?"
It was so obvious, to a person reared where Humans routinely sought to harm each other. And so utterly astonishing, to a pair of nonagenarians who'd never (except for when they went to off-world universities, long ago) lived anywhere else but on Narsai.
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