Damia's Children

by Anne McCaffrey

  A USEFUL GAME, the Rowan replied though the word she employed to express game meant “well-spent free time.”

  Rojer drank his coffee and found enough space for one of the delicious breakfast rolls that his grandmother said had been ’ported in only an hour before. His grandfather talked of the latest arrivals to the Denebian cousins and several recent pairings. He asked after Afra’s nieces and nephews who, with Afra’s adroit sponsorship, were finding positions in Talented businesses away from Capeila. Rojer found the Capellan relatives dull—at least until they’d been off-world a while. Then they shed what his father called “methody” ways but not, fortunately, their early childhood training. If his Denebian cousins were wild, outspoken to a fault, his Capellan ones were too prim and restrained.

  Certainly nothing more was said about the Hive vessel or the escape pod and the queen or other problems besetting either the Talented or the Alliance. Breakfast was conducted much as it was at his own home: pleasant, tension-free, easing into the stresses of a day.

  Linking her arm through her husband’s, the Rowan led the way back to the yard and the two personnel carriers cradled there. The smaller one was Jeff’s and he’d ’port himself to the Blundell Tower which was the immense FT&T administrative headquarters on Earth.

  Jeff and the Rowan saw Afra, Rojer, and the ’Dinis settled in their capsule.

  Who’s making the ’port? the Rowan asked.

  Rojer, Afra replied, with a solemn wink at his son.

  Catch the platform bay from my mind, Rojer. This is where you’ll view that place. She apotheosized “that place” in a dismissive tone but then he’d been forewarned of her attitude so he “looked” deeply and “saw” the area and the cradles available to visitors. The military police had their own docking facility.

  Rojer could feel the Callisto generators picking up revolutions. He suppressed the slight nervousness he felt at performing the ’port in the presence of both grandparents but, if he was able, he was able. And he’d do it. He did: the Heinlein Base vivid in his mind’s eye.

  Though, of course, he did not land in the Base: he set their carrier down in the orbiting platform that was held a hundred meters above. The platform looked like a quick assembly job and Rojer remembered to check the small panel of the carrier that monitored exterior conditions. There was plenty of air and the clatter of nailed boots on metal flooring as someone rushed to check on them.

  Talents Afra and Rojer Lyon as expected, his father both thought and said.

  “Yes, sir, right on!” was the shouted acknowledgment. “I’ll just open the hatch for you. Ladder’s in place.”

  They heard the scraping and the hatch opened.

  Nice of you two to come, said a second voice laughingly and Rojer recognized him as his cousin, Roddie Eagle.

  His father gave him a stern look and Rojer made a grimace back, then smoothed his features. Roddie was welcome to guard duty if that’s all he was good for.

  Enough of that! his father said on the very tightest beam.

  Rojer rose, handing his ’Dinis out first so that he’d be sure not to “leak” his true feelings at encountering Roddie here. When he finally did make eye contact, he was rather surprised to see that scrawny, pimple-faced Roddie was a clean-shaven, fresh-faced young man of about his height, neatly dressed in an Alliance uniform and wearing the bars of a first marine lieutenant.

  “I guess you all hadn’t heard,” Roddie said, smiling a welcome. “You’ve been away the past week. I can’t say I like being constantly sting-pzzted all the time—not at the level that queen is projecting—but it’s the place to meet everyone!” And he laughed. GOOD DREAMS, GRL, KTG. RD SHARED YOUR DREAMS BUT NO PIECES. “Real glad you succeeded, Roj. And boy, your placement of that pod was smack on the X-mark. Good ’portation! Got a bad case of family pride, I can tell you.”

  Rojer was coping with the new improved Rhodri Eagle, so unlike his disagreeable adolescent self.

  “We’ve breakfast laid on, Uncle Afra, Roj, if you’re hungry.”

  “Thank you, Rhodri,” Afra said with a nod, “but I don’t think either of us could handle a third breakfast this morning.”

  Roddie grinned affably. “Yes, that’s one disadvantage to ’portation. You meet yourself coming and going, so to speak. This way. Getting here before breakfast . . .” and Roddie chuckled. His humor, Rojer decided, had not altered all that much: still heavy-handed. “. . . you’ve avoided the crowds. And we’ve had them. Thank you, sergeant,” he said to the man guarding the entrance to the main section of the platform. “They tell me we’ll have more permanent quarters shortly. These are stripped down basic but they suffice.” Roddie led them down the corridor and Rojer noticed that all his baby fat had been converted to a trim muscular shape. He was, however, a finger or two the taller and that pleased him. “I’ll take you right away to the main viewer room. It’s got full screens of the Base. She won’t be able to move anywhere without observation. That is, if she ever comes out!”

  “She’s still alive?” Rojer asked.

  “Oh yes. We’ve sensors on the hull, you know, and sounds are being picked up all the time. What she’s doing with all those scratching and stroking noises we can’t gather. Nothing we have will penetrate the hull. We did detect that she must have sampled the atmosphere. But that happened the end of the first day. Here we are!”

  The large room they entered had a plasglas view plate from floor to ceiling directly aligned with the escape pod, a hundred meters below, but optically the glas was altered to produce a tri-d effect that made the observer feel he was no more than a few feet from the pod. Screens gave other views and an auxiliary tier of smaller screens would be activated when the queen exited the pod and began using the buildings.

  “She appears to prefer a higher temperature than we Humans like though ’Dinis would be comfortable enough in 32 degrees Celsius. We’ve increased the ambient temperature in the Base. Blrg, the ’Dini specialist, hypothesized two days ago that she won’t make a move until the pod’s oxygen is exhausted. I kinda go along with that.” Roddie smiled modestly. “The pod would have had only so much oxygen even in that generous-sized lifeboat, for some of the cubic volume must be occupied by food and other necessities. At that you may be very lucky indeed. Three estimates for her to come out have already been passed: the experts favor her supply being exhausted some time today. Can you hang around?”

  “We have time to hand,” Afra said to Rojer’s intense delight.

  It’d be awful, Rojer thought, to have had the chance to see her emerge and not be able to do so.

  Not that your timing’s been off at all this past week, Rojer. Except for hunting, his father added privately.

  Rojer ’pathed a repentant grimace. His cousin then showed them the amenities and facilities of the installation: they were sparse enough for the twenty men and three officers assigned here.

  “A larger ready room’s being ’ported in this week, more sanitary units, a larger kitchen though we get fresh stuff ’ported in daily. I’d put in a special order for breakfast buns. Sorry you’ve no appetite,” and there were traces of the young Roddie in the patronizing grin he gave Rojer.

  “Maybe later, if there are any left. Wouldn’t want to deprive you,” and Rojer managed to keep his tone light and pleasant.

  They returned to the viewing room where more technicians were on duty, analyzing tapes and discussing print-out.

  “Lieutenant, we’ve a party of twelve asking permission for an hour’s viewing about . . .” The corporal broke off abruptly as a loud clatter issued from the speakers. His eyes went wide, his mouth worked and he pointed frantically to the window.

  Rojer and his father had been turned toward the speaker but they looked back and, as one, recoiled slightly from the view on the magnified plasglas.

  The pod hatch had blown out and rattled about on the plascrete surface. First one long spiny, oddly jointed limb appeared, slender pointed digits closed about the frame on one side, then another.
The limb was a burnished deep coppery red, covered with fine hairs that Rojer thought might be sensitive: maybe he just thought they moved. Four more arms came forward to support the body slowly emerging. Then a “foot” appeared on the sill. Someone had the presence of mind to alter a spotlight and catch the form framed just inside the hatch.

  Rojer took firm hold of his nerves and his overfull stomach as slowly the tall, segmented creature emerged: its nether region a swollen teardrop, nipping into a narrow joining to a long thin upper torso. Three sets of arms were spaced along this torso, and two sets of “legs,” one pair moving forward while the other supported the immense bulge of the lower body. A triangle with bulging eye sockets at the top of the thin upper torso must be the head and from the top of that multiple antennae waved furiously.

  Its coloration, more than its form, captured eye, mind, and attention for the queen was the most beautiful shades of shimmering deep coppery, burgundy-red, blues and greens, like the blossom sheath of the Siberian iris his mother grew in the garden at Aurigae. The spotlight caressed undertones from her body parts, from the flat surfaces of the oddly-jointed limbs, from what appeared to be the vestigial wings joined to the upper torso at what would be shoulder-heights, running down to the nipped-in waist and half-opened over the bulging lower body.

  “A praying mantis, that’s what she’s like,” his father said softly as the creature remained in the hatchway.

  “Like an actress waiting for her cue,” was Roddie’s unexpected comment.

  “She’s afraid!” Rojer blurted out, surprising himself and everyone mesmerized by her appearance.

  IT SHOULD BE DESTROYED, Gil said with such fervor that Rojer had formed a sharp reprimand before he caught his father’s quick head shake. IT HAS DESTROYED MANY MRDINI.

  NOT THAT ONE, GRL, his father replied mildly.

  It is alone and afraid, Rojer thought and shook his head to dispense with pity for this member of a dangerously predatory species.

  Then, without any grace, the queen dropped to her six upper limbs and crawled out of the pod. She showed more grace when she stood erect on the four lower limbs and turned her head slowly in a full circle. With great deliberation then, she waddled, again ungainly, towards the mounds of fresh vegetables and plants that had been replaced daily just beyond the pod. Setting back on her hind legs which Rojer thought ended in suction pads, she daintily conveyed food, hand over hand, to an orifice that opened in the triangular head. Some hands discarded samples from time to time and Roddie alerted a corporal—for the viewing room was now full of the station’s personnel—to make notes of what she rejected. She ate fruits, rind, skin, and pith, but carefully put aside seeds and pits. She rejected grasses, including wheat, rye, and oat, though she sampled all that had been provided, ate tubers, leaf vegetables of all kinds, and sugar cane, legumes, and pulses. She did not eat rice. She ate steadily through the piles and then sat.

  She sat and sat and sat and did not so much as flourish an antenna or the feelers on her limbs or blink her eyes, settle her wings or give any further indication that she had moved. Rojer thought she’d stuffed herself with breakfast. How long had she been without any food, he wondered?

  The twelve visitors who just missed the spectacle were horribly disappointed at such inertia and one oafish man insisted that Captain Waygella, Roddie’s superior who had not missed the emergence, do something to stimulate her. The captain refused but she did set the tapes of the event to automatic replay on the main view screen.

  When a second visitation was said to be scheduled, Afra, Rojer, and the ’Dinis made a determined move to leave. The captain asked Roddie to accompany them to the bay and greet the new lot.

  “Made a tape for you to take back to Aunt Damia and the others,” Roddie said, passing it to Afra as they reached the bay.

  “That’s very thoughtful of you, Rhodri.”

  “Not at all. The corporal’ll be copying that sequence all day. I’ve been ’porting ’em out by the dozen to Aunt Rowan to shift to everyone who needs-to-know,” and Roddie grinned wryly, “and Primes need to know, don’t they?” Unexpectedly he nodded at Rojer, for the first time accepting Rojer’s higher rating.

  “Thoughtful of you all the same, Rhodri,” Afra said.

  Rojer murmured a thank you as well because the old Roddie certainly wouldn’t have been so generous. Life in the Alliance Guards had certainly improved him.

  They got into their carrier, made sure the ’Dinis were harnessed properly.

  Generator’s up, ready for your push, Roddie said.

  Do it, Rojer, his father said. If my time sense hasn’t failed me, we should be home in time for breakfast.

  DAD!

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  YOU’RE back! Good, Damia said cheerfully. Come have some breakfast.

  Rojer groaned as he unbuckled and his father chuckled.

  Little breakfast was actually eaten that morning, and what was became cold as the entire household and Tower staff watched the tape of the queen’s emergence.

  “So that’s what they really look like,” Damia said. “She’s rather spectacularly colored.”

  “I think she’s beautiful!” Zara said, almost defensively.

  Fok and Tri had been clicking softly to themselves, their pelt colors darkening with what Rojer recognized as their aggressive shade. Gil and Kat were not as bad but Zara’s two, Plg and Dzl, were at first speechless: then crept close, not to Zara, but to Fok and Tri to be comforted.

  After her remark, Zara watched with such a wary, scared expression on her face that Damia moved closer to her. Rojer “heard” reassuring words which confused him since his mother wouldn’t be projecting that on a wide enough band to include him.

  Rojer began to wonder if Zara should watch the rest of the tape. He found it affecting enough when the queen adopted her static position. Zara was such a sensitive empath, lots of things that didn’t bother him or the others made her fret. At the conclusion, when the queen became stationary and the tape wound on and on with that scene, Zara burst into tears and fled the room. Damia cast a quick anxious look at Afra and then followed her. Zara’s ’Dinis did not. Fok and Tri conferred for a moment and left the room, too.

  When the tape finished, Keylarion, Xexo, and Herault, the station manager, wanted to see it again. So Afra keyed for a repeat.

  Rojer slipped out then. He didn’t quite know what to do: should he tell Zara that he had felt sadness and the queen’s loneliness, too? He doubted his mother would find that a suitable reaction: but it was genuine. But Zara might be reassured to know she wasn’t alone in her sensitive response to the queen.

  As he started up the stairs, his mother was coming down and her expression told him she was very worried. But she cleared her face and smiled down at him, pausing beside him on the step. To his surprise, she touched his cheek.

  “I’m very proud of you, Rojer. Now I’m glad that Father seconded you. He’s very pleased, too. Even about your fussing with the pieces!” She gave him a droll grin.

  “Mother, is Zara all right?”

  “You’re sweet, Rojer. She’ll be all right,” and Damia gave a heavy sigh. “She’s just getting used to being womanly and is a bit . . . volatile right now.”

  “Oooooh,” and Rojer drew out the soft exclamation as he understood. Then he shook his head. “Laria wasn’t!”

  “Laria has an entirely different personality. A much stronger Talent. In fact,” and Damia let out a sigh, “I’m delighted you’re back. What with menstruation hitting her so hard, she’s been useless in the Tower for all she’s a T-1. I’ve never heard of menstruation causing a dysfunction in Talent before, but I suppose there’s always an exception.” Damia sighed again. “I hope you and your father are rested enough to push out some big daddies this morning. Morag was a great help—at least with the Tower,” and Rojer didn’t need a ’path to realize that Morag had probably been acting the maggot. She could be quite domineering and Zara was too pliable to resist her.


  “How much is there to ’port, mother?” Rojer asked crisply. “I need to work off several breakfasts. Will you need me to hunt?”

  “A lot and yes. We’ll warm up the generators while the others have a second gawk at that raree tape you brought back.”

  Aware now of her animosity toward the Hive queen, he was glad he hadn’t revealed his private reaction.

  Afra joined them in the Tower and brought the rest of the Tower staff with him.

  “Did you hear Xexo saying that three more pieces have been added onto your start?” Afra said as he took his couch.

  “No, but I’m glad of it. And it wasn’t my start, Dad. Seventeen other people found it, too.”

  Damia grinned at her son, then nodded for them to get set for the first ’portation. There was a backlog to send so they didn’t clear the loads until almost lunchtime. Rojer’s stomach gave embarrassing growls as they made their way back to the house.

  Morag had lunch ready, looking slightly smug and officious, Rojer thought, and decided to hunt her legs off in the afternoon; take her down a peg or two. Morag could be a pain in the neck when she tried to compete with her siblings. There was really no need for her to do that. Of Zara there was no sign, though she should have been helping. Kaltia and Ewain had fed all the Coonies, slithers, Darbuls, and horses, mucked out the stable, and evidently still had time to replay the tape for they were watching it again before lunch.

  “Where’s Zara?” Afra asked, glancing about.

  “Leave her, Afra,” Damia replied and obviously added a private explanation for Afra said no more about his missing daughter.

  Deliberately leaving all the ’Dinis home, Rojer took Morag out with him, taking the short cut—which meant hard and careful riding—to the next valley. He knew of a couple of scurrier dens and rabbit warrens which he hoped had remained his secret. They were difficult to access, which was all to the good. At first Morag was delighted to show him how good a rider she was and kept her pony at Saki’s tail on the way up. On the narrow decline trail, especially where the open side dropped hundreds of meters down to scree, she was not quite so cocky. They had to go through stiff underbrush but he’d put on his leathers and she was only in a shirt. She was definitely sweaty, branch and thorn marked, and not at all as smug when they reached the ravine at the bottom. By the time Rojer reached his destination, she was thoroughly chastened but determined to endure.