“The least he could do is tattoo his rank on his arm,” Globan remarked with a wry smile as he helped the yeowoman into the sick bay. “Let me see that first,” he added.
“Nu-skin’ll take care of it, sir,” the man said, pointing to the appropriate cabinet on the wall.
Globan knew enough about lacerations to confirm the self-diagnosis just as the medical rating arrived to take care of the broken arm. There were several other minor cuts and certainly bruises, but they were all attended to before Globan joined the medic, Parappan, at the main hatch to receive the escape pods. Before Helm had eased the Acclarke near enough to gently grapple the first one, Globan sorted out the crew he had had no time to be introduced to. The Chief Engineer was Evard Hinvic; Ace Parappan, the medic; the gunnery officer, Brad Karpla; the yeowoman was Tezza Ashke; Luthen Drayus was the com jig; and the yeoman was Fez Amin, who doubled as captain’s steward.
It took hours to locate and retrieve eleven pods. Globan decided not to think about what had happened to the one that had not been debouched on this side of the wormhole.
Five passengers had died because they had not securely netted themselves into the shock-absorbent couch provided. The other six were injured, one critically; she was instantly placed in the medical unit, while Globan, Brad Karpla, and the Chief Engineer tried to make the others as comfortable as possible.
The captain appeared, speaking to each of the survivors, none of whom could quite believe that they were still alive.
“I have good news,” Nesta Meterios said. “The beacon is packed with updates from Lady Nimisha. She has found human survivors of the Poolbeg and another ship.” She acknowledged the weak smiles at her attempt to lighten the atmosphere.
That news shocked others out of self-absorption and depression. “In fact, they have a thriving community on one of the M-type planets,” she continued. “Three were discovered in her initial survey of this sector of space.”
“Then Lady Nimisha is still alive?”
The captain gave a real smile. “Alive, well, and, with the survivors of the Poolbeg, colonizing Erehwon. Last update is three weeks ago.”
“Erehwon?” the chief exclaimed, looking up from spraying nu-skin on the multiple abrasions of the civilian communications expert from the space station.
“That’s ‘nowhere’ backward,” Globan said.
“Appropriate, I’d say,” the captain remarked in her dry voice.
“Yes, I guess it is if you don’t know where you are.”
“Wasn’t that a story from pre-space travel times?” the civilian asked, trying to distract himself from his discomfort. No one seemed to know.
“Then the Five B hasn’t arrived yet?” the chief asked.
The captain shook her head. “It isn’t due for several more months. We took the shortcut. Helm, did the probe safely clear the wormhole?”
“Unable to confirm, Captain. However, judging by the speed at which it was traveling and the duration of our time within the phenomenon, there is a good chance that it exited before closure.”
“But you’re not sure?”
“No, sir. That cannot be ascertained, despite factoring in the variables of the wormhole itself and choosing the best possible conclusion. Since the wormhole did not exhibit any stable size or exert a constant rate of speed while we were within the phenomenon, we cannot be sure the return probe was able, or in time, to exit. However, the possibility is significantly favorable that its size allowed it passage where a large object would have been retained.”
Globan blinked, trying to assimilate that spurt of almost contradictory phrases. He thought the captain was experiencing a similar difficulty.
“If it did, it did,” Nesta Meterios said finally, raising her hands in fatalistic acceptance of the circumstances. “Damage report, Helm?”
“The hull came in contact with the sides of the wormhole on nine separate occasions but sustained no significant damage. All systems are in working order.”
“If you have stripped the coordinates of this M-type planet Lady Nimisha has discovered . . .”
“I have, sir.”
“Then let us proceed to that world. Doc, what is Dr. Qualta’s condition?”
“Serious, sir, with broken ribs and internal bleeding that has now been stemmed. The doctor will require monitoring. Unless there is another patient requiring diagnostic evaluation, it would be best to retain Dr. Qualta in this unit.”
The captain looked from the medic, who was closing a scalp wound with nu-skin and regen gel on one of the wormhunters, to the chief, who was dealing with a station technician’s skinned legs and arms, to the other patients who were either making use of the couches in the lounge or eating.
With a nod of her head, Nesta made it plain to Globan that she wanted a private word with him. He followed her back to the bridge.
“One thing bothers me, XO,” she said. “There are messages on the beacon that Lady Nimisha ought to have been able to strip, reassuring her about the Five B’s rescue mission and other matters.” Meterios’s expression did not conceal her grave concern. “I had Helm scan the beacon, and he discovered small holes that might be meteor damage and could have affected any relays to her on this planet she’s found.”
Globan nodded, trying to radiate calm reassurance. To him, the captain appeared still somewhat dazed by their wormhole ride and the extent of the injuries to the Wormhunter’s personnel. He hoped she’d been given a proper stimulant. Well, that’s why there was always an XO, even on a ship as relatively small as the Acclarke.
“Which reminds me, XO, did you bring any disks for me? We never got to that part of our introductory meeting.”
She sounded a bit more like a captain then. Globan had forgotten the packet completely. He felt for it in his uniform pocket and handed the disks over.
“Mostly mail,” she said, opening it and shuffling through the various disks. “Always welcome. Perhaps more so now than ever before. Ah, and some updates for the library. D’you think,” she went on more slowly, her brown eyes clouded, “that the supply ship made it out of danger?”
Globan relaxed a bit and grinned. “She was burning her way homeward before I reached your office, sir.”
“Yes, I should imagine she was. I hope they made it.” She stood, hands lightly clasped behind her back, regarding the sprinkling of stars visible. “This seems almost as empty an area as the one we left.”
“I wasn’t aware that wormholes also ingested planets or moons or suns, sir.”
She shrugged.
“I do know, sir, that Fleet Headquarters has sent a warning to all naval units to avoid the . . . area we just left to prevent any further inexplicable disappearances.”
“Too late for us, of course, but high time. I wonder how long it took them to make such an obvious order.” She glanced over at him. “Forget I said that.”
“Said what, Captain?”
She awarded him a smile. “This will not be your normal tour of duty, Escorias.”
“No, sir, it won’t.”
“Perhaps you’ll wish to settle in.”
“Jon!” Nimisha cried as Helm delivered the news that had been pulsed in from the Acclarke.
He came racing to the bridge, his eyes wide with apprehension.
“No, it’s not me,” she exclaimed. She was far bulkier this time and suspected twins again, no matter if Doc kept on saying, “Fetal development is progressing with no problems.” She was in her last three weeks of pregnancy and wanted nothing more earnestly than to be delivered.
“Report, Helm,” she said, trying to get comfortable in a pilot’s chair that had not been designed to accommodate her present mass.
“A ship identified as the VSS Acclarke is in IS drive heading in this direction.”
“No message?” Nimisha was both annoyed and surprised.
“I have dispatched a welcome,” Helm said, “but there has been no acknowledgment. Possibly their exterior comunits have been damaged in the passage throu
gh the wormhole—if that was their mode of entry into this section of space.”
“They couldn’t know we’ve even got a comsat, dear,” Jon said, pressing her shoulder with a consoling hand. “It won’t take them long.”
“If you tell me to be patient one more time, Jonagren . . .”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. Nor dare.” And with a second quick squeeze of his hand, he backed off. “I’ll tell the others. At last, rescue.”
“We don’t know that,” she said, pushing herself to her feet with difficulty and arching her aching back as she followed him into the main cabin. “I’d say if they accessed the worm-hole exit buoy, they got sucked in, too. VSS Acclarke? I don’t remember a ship of that designation at Fleet Headquarters.”
“We’ve been gone a long while,” Jon reminded her on their way to the hatch.
“Still,” she said, pausing to grip the back of a chair, “if it came through the wormhole and was able to access the buoy’s information and head here, it might well be one of my ships.”
Jon paused in the act of taking the first step down, eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Only an AI Helm could make it safely through the wormhole, you know,” she said with understandable pride.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“You saved us, Helm, no question of it.”
“I’ll spread the good news,” Jon said and disappeared.
“Oh, save me,” Nimisha murmured, perching on the arm of the chair, panting from her recent exertions: she who had been able to run kilometers for the sheer joy of the exercise. She was overwhelmingly grateful to the groups of Sh’im who minded the rambunctious human children, Hope as well as three-year-old Perria and Sven. She was going to have Doc replace her implant. This was her last pregnancy. Period. End of her maternal increasing! She had intended to have at least a girl by Casper for Tim’s sake, since they had to spread the gene pool as wide as they could. Well, they might have had to . . . But how could they have counted on being rescued after so long? When there hadn’t been a single pulse beamed back to her beacon? It wasn’t as if she didn’t adore the twins, mischievous demons that they were. But much as she loved them, they could not ease that aching need for her far-distant firstborn body-heir. Surely by now the pulse had reached a listening comsat somewhere in the civilized galaxy! And surely this new arrival might have news: some message from her grown-up daughter. Her dam would surely have put the Necklace on Cuiva, wouldn’t she?
“Don’t be so vapid, Nimisha Boynton,” she chided herself.
“You are far from vapid, Nimisha Boynton-Rondymense,” Doc said. “Helm says the ship should arrive within two or three days. It would certainly have accumulated some news in the six years since our arrival here. If I do not misread Commander Rustin’s ingenuity, any ship set to watch for the reappearance of that wormhole will bear personal messages for you. Most certainly one or more from your daughter, and many from your dam, Lady Rezalla.”
“Mother will certainly have something to say about my absence,” Nimisha said drily.
“Possibly the official mail might include a means of rescue from this outpost of civilization.”
“Outpost of . . .” Despite herself, Nimisha chuckled, though even that activity was difficult with so much mass in front of her. “We are, aren’t we?”
“Indeed, my dear Nimisha, you and the Sh’im have civilized this continent.” There was the slightest emphasis on “this.”
“Now what’s at the back of your devious mind, Doc?”
“With the complement of a ship’s crew, expansion may be feasible,” he said, highly pleased.
“I’ll tell you this, loud and clear, Doctor Lord Naves, from the moment I deliver my current little package, I am out—” She paused for emphasis. “—of the maternity business.”
“Which I would strongly advise, my dear Nimisha,” Doc said, with a ripple that she could not quite translate.
“What’s behind that advice, Doc?” she asked suspiciously.
“The conservation of your energies for other tasks eminently suited to your particular training and expertise,” he replied, in that oh-so-bland voice he could assume. “As I have heard you remark, you, Jon, Casper, and Syrona constitute the First Families of Erehwon. I cannot see any group usurping that position.”
She heard excited voices then, the higher pitched ones of her twins, as well as Timmy’s alto warnings. The six other humans on Erehwon piled into the Fiver’s main chamber. Syrie had evidently left her young twins, boy and girl, with their Sh’im caregiver. The adults all had questions, and their babble made Nimisha hold up her hands for silence.
“I know no more than Jon’s told you. Helm says they’re on their way. He’s sent a message, but it has not been acknowledged. But in two or three days they’ll make it here. They are heading directly here, so clearly they downloaded our data.”
“Oh, shroo-oom,” Syrona exclaimed, using a Sh’im sound meaning excited anticipation. “News, people, new faces. Rescue?” Her expression flickered through hope, distress, and delight, and ended up in uncertainty.
“There wouldn’t be boys my age on a naval ship, would there?” Tim asked plaintively.
“We don’t know that it is a naval ship, Tim, so you may retain your number one status,” Casper said, circling the boy’s wide young shoulders with an affectionate arm. “Grab Hope before she spills whatever she’s ordering from Cater,” he added, pointing to his three-year-old daughter who had just marched up to Cater and politely requested a drink.
“You are allowed a fruit juice at this time of day,” Cater said, following programmed orders on the care and feeding of human young.
“Can I get you anything, Nim?” Tim asked solicitously.
Jon had taken Perria and Sven off to clean their hands and faces, which managed to attract far more dirt than Sh’im younglings ever collected.
“A drink. I think I was on my way for a drink before I stopped,” Nimisha said wearily.
Syrona gave her a surreptitious glance, trying not to be too obvious in her check on her very pregnant friend. Nimisha gave her a reassuring flick of her hand.
“The arm of this chair is the right height, that’s all, Syrie. I did move as fast as I could when Helm reported receiving a message. At long, long last!”
She accepted her drink from Tim, thanked him, and gratefully sipped it. She could neither drink nor eat much at one time anymore, so small, frequent snacks had become her habit.
“Backache?” Syrie asked, and without waiting for an answer, started to rub exactly where she could give Nimisha the most relief. Nimisha had done the same when Syrona had been pregnant with Calum and Camilla.
Jon returned with his children, who tugged him toward Cater.
“I’ll see them served and seated,” Tim said, immediately taking charge.
“He’s so good with them,” Syrie said proudly. “I wonder, though, are we presuming on his good nature too much?”
“I don’t think so,” Jon said. “The Sh’im take over once they’re outside and he goes off with the younglings. He’s only just back from their latest foray.”
“Maybe there’ll be a way to get him back to Acclarke and a peer group,” Nimisha said.
“He does fine here,” Casper said. “Doesn’t he, Syrie?”
Syrona put both hands gently on Nimisha’s arms and pressed gently. “Even if we could get back, I don’t think we’d want to.” She paused and craned around to look at Nimisha’s face. “You would, of course, for Cuiva’s sake.”
Nimisha didn’t trust her voice to answer, nodding instead. Cuiva had gradually assumed far more importance than anything she could achieve at the Ship Yard. The Fiver had proved itself and, if the ship on its way to them was one of her design and had survived its wormhole transit as well as the Fiver had, she had proved her design and could . . . do something else, more challenging. If only Cuiva . . .
A pain shot through her and she gasped.
“Uh-oh,” Syrona said.
“Doc . . .”
“Bring her over here.”
Jon was beside her in an instant, helping Syrona lift her to her feet. He half-bent to pick her up, but she stopped him. “Walking’s useful,” she said, and then gasped as a second, far sharper pain caught. “Maybe not this time.”
He grunted as he settled her in his arms and made a joke of groaning at her weight, depositing her quickly within the diagnostic unit as extendibles moved to preprogrammed positions.
Casper and Tim were herding the children out again, leaving Jon and Syrona to cope with the delivery.
“We’ve got this down to a fine arrrrrrt—” Nimisha’s gasp cut off her attempt at humor and Syrona was pulling the voluminous smock up over the swollen abdomen even as the couch adjusted itself for the task ahead.
“This is going very fast, Nimi,” Doc said. She felt the cool of the hypospray, and then a third unbelievably intense contraction was cut off.
“What happened?” she cried, alarmed.
“You won’t feel a thing now,” Doc assured her at his most persuasive.
She exhaled a relieved sigh and leaned back against the pillows now propping her into a more comfortable position. Jon took her left hand in his and, with the other, dabbed at her face with a cool cloth.
“Thanks, love.”
She couldn’t feel but she could see the action of the uterine muscles, and she adjusted her breathing accordingly. At Doc’s urging, Syrona pushed down on Nimisha’s abdomen and, with a startled cry, kept the emerging baby from a head first collision with the foot of the couch.
“A boy,” Syrona said.
“But I can’t have had one so soon,” Nimisha exclaimed, noticing no appreciable diminution in the size of her belly.
“Take it, Jon,” Doc said quickly.
“I’m having more twins?” Nimisha demanded, furious.
“No,” Doc said calmly. “Triplets.”
Nimisha was speechless, which was just as well, because both Jon and Syrona were too busy handling three babies and the afterbirths. Syrona, holding the first son, rushed to the open hatch and called Casper back.
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