Nimisha's Ship Read online

  “Will she howl much?” Tim asked. But he was more interested in the bubbles rising up in the glass. When the adults raised their glasses in a toast, he followed suit.

  “To the healthy Hope we’ve just received,” Jon said.

  “To Hope!” Tim’s voice was as triumphant as the others. “I don’t like it,” he added, running his tongue over his teeth as he firmly set the glass down on the tray.

  “It is an acquired taste,” Jon remarked.

  “And this is a special occasion,” Nimisha added.

  “For which I am infinitely grateful,” Syrona said with a sigh, lying back against the pillows and closing her eyes.

  “You all right, Syrie?” Tim asked.

  They all heard a faint wail. Tim frowned. “Hope,” he said with a note of complaint in his voice.

  The sound was coming closer and then Casper was rushing into the Fiver, baby cuddled close against him.

  “She’s hungry, dear,” Syrona said, reaching out for her daughter and deftly putting her to her breast.

  Jon tactfully led Tim to a table, half-pushing him into a chair. “So, what was the Sh’im reaction, Casper?”

  “I think they didn’t expect her to be so big,” Casper said. “Oh, champagne? Thanks.”

  “You can have mine, too, Cas,” Tim offered.

  “I will. They were surprised that there was only one, but we’d figured they would be, since they have multiple births.”

  “Humans are capable of them,” Doc remarked.

  “It is much easier to have one at a time,” Syrona said firmly.

  “Then why do you have two breasts?” Doc demanded.

  “Symmetry,” Nimisha replied, grinning at Jon.

  “A point,” Doc said, “but a woman could very easily suckle two children at once.”

  “If she had nothing else to do,” Syrona said, her tone a little tart. “You can talk all you want, Doc, but you will never have babies. And, were I you, though I am indeed grateful for such an easy birth of a healthy child, I’d shut up about how many babies a woman should have at one time.”

  “I stand corrected,” Doc said, sounding unusually meek.

  “Thank you,” Syrona said. She smoothed the fuzz on her daughter’s round little head.

  “I may not like champagne, but is there something else I could have because I’m a brother?” Tim asked wistfully.

  “Cater, what have you that could convince our Tim that this is a celebration?” Jon asked.

  “I believe I have just the thing,” Cater said.

  “Wow!” was Tim’s response when he saw the three-layer cake, iced in white with lavish pink decorations adorning it. He brought it, along with plates and cutlery, back to the table, and displayed it to the men first. “It’s got ‘Happy Birth Day, Hope’ written on it, Syrie!”

  “You’d better be sure to leave me apiece, you ravenous lot. I’ll have quite an appetite when I finish feeding this daughter of mine.”

  Traveling on IS drive as the Five B was, they could not receive additional pulsed messages.

  The amenities on board did, indeed, prove felicitous. Unlike the accommodations on ordinary naval vessels, each cabin was so well built that no exterior sounds penetrated to disturb the occupant. This meant more privacy, a valuable commodity on an extended trip. Fortunately, though, the psych profiles had been accurate: There were no unpleasant altercations. Each specialist held classes that included more than Cuiva and allowed her the opportunity to interact with other people in the learning process. She had the sort of temperament that responded well to competition and discussion, a facet of education not available during her private tutoring. Caleb’s idea of making her a JO, and giving her projects to be signed off on to prove she knew the material, was received with delight by Cuiva and nods of approval by the rest of the crew. She very much wanted to learn as much practical material as she could, to show her mother her achievements. The competition, friendly as it was, still inspired her to achieve at the highest possible level despite her being the youngest of the students.

  She had received very good basic training: If she wasn’t at the top of the class, she was rarely lower in the scale than second. She was most interested in astronomy and stellar navigation. She soon mastered everything Chief Hadley had to offer, so they both resorted to the educational tapes provided by the extensive ship’s library.

  “Some of these are just theories,” Hadley warned her. “Can’t take them as fact yet. Too da—” He cleared his throat and altered his phrasing. “Too bad we can’t stop and examine some of the systems we’re passing, so you could see examples.”

  “But we’ll come out in a totally unknown sector of the galaxy,” Cuiva said, her eyes gleaming with anticipation, “and we’ll be the very first to catalog ever so many new primaries and systems.”

  “Must admit I’m looking forward to that opportunity myself, young lady,” Hadley said. “Now, let’s do some exercises. We’ve missed Gaitama’s general lesson watching that tape.”

  The main cabin was often sectioned off, to allow for multiple activities to be scheduled. Plays were rehearsed privately and then performed on the lower deck in the gymnasium. Perdimia had a little pipe that she taught Cuiva how to play. Gaitama had brought along a lap harp that she had made; Caleb had taught himself guitar, and Cherry had studied violin. All on board could sing, and so they included musicals in the evening entertainment. Cuiva was enchanted with so many things to do and new skills to learn. If she privately mentioned to Perdimia that Lady Rezalla might be shocked at all she was being taught—including some of Gaitama’s unusual skills—she was overjoyed at the chance to learn what regular people did. The long journey continued.

  “Twins!” Nimisha’s shriek of dismay echoed through the Fiver and brought Jon out of their cabin, where he had gone while Doc did his monthly examination.

  “I thought you were expanding more than is normal,” Doc remarked in a deceptively casual tone.

  “Thought?” Nimisha did not diminish her tone. “You’ve known for the past seven months, if not immediately after you told me I’d conceived, that I was having twins. In fact, I suspect that you may well have done something to ensure the egg split so that I would!”

  “Nimisha. Really!” Doc’s indignation sounded honest enough.

  “I don’t trust you, Doc.”

  “Is it true, Doc?” Jon asked, hurrying to the diagnostic couch. Delight and concern warred with each other in his expression as he helped the bulging Nimisha to sit up. She was bulky enough to need assistance, and that annoyed her even more. She had not been nearly as large with Cuiva.

  “It is true that Nimisha is carrying twins. I thought I was hearing a mere echo of the heartbeat, but I now perceive that there are undeniably two. Some of my equipment is basic, you know, and amniocentesis and other more esoteric requirements in a maternity unit were not deemed required.”

  “Since you did a lot more than listen to fetal heartbeats in those tests you’ve been regularly subjecting me to, you’ve known!” Nimisha’s eyes were flashing and her mouth was set in an angry line. “And I don’t trust you not to have interfered. You had the chance.”

  Jon, looking abashed, scratched his head before he met her irate gaze.

  “It might not be Doc’s fault, luv. There are twins in almost every generation in my family. In fact, I’m one. I have a twin sister.”

  “You never mentioned her.”

  “It’s not a fact that Fleet needed to record.”

  “Is it in your sister’s file?” Nimisha demanded.

  “She went into law,” he said, still chagrined.

  “Why, I’m no better than the Sh’im.”

  “I’d say you were not quite as good as the Sh’im, my dear,” Doc remarked at his driest, “since the majority of their multiple births are triplets.”

  “That is small consolation.” Her tone was acid as she slipped off the couch and waddled toward Cater, requesting a snack. She turned back for one more angry sh
ot at the AI. “No wonder I eat more than Tim does.” She whirled on Jon as she heard him trying to smother a laugh. “You watch out, Captain!” She waggled a finger at him.

  “Whatever is wrong with having twins, dear heart?” Jon queried, striding ahead of her to collect the ordered snack and bring it back to the table. His agility only emphasized her own uncomfortable condition.

  “How am I going to cope?” She turned around in her chair and shook a fist at the med unit. “And if you remind me that I have two breasts, I’ll—I’ll—reprogram you!”

  “Not until after I’ve assisted your delivery,” Doc said, totally unrepentant.

  Nimisha snorted but was far too peckish to bother to reply as she picked up the leg of poultry she had ordered along with the vegetable salad and the baked potato that was served with other indigenous roots to which she had taken a particular liking.

  She concentrated on eating as an excuse not to look at Jon, but he could outwait her petulance. He sat with folded arms, tipping his chair on its back legs, to wait until her temper improved. She finished her meal without a single word, but Jon, quite familiar now with his lover’s moods, knew that she had regained a normal perspective.

  “What are they, Doc? Boys? Girls?” Jon asked.

  “Boy and girl. So if Nimisha will deign to accept the fact that I did not interfere in any way except to ensure the healthy development of both fetuses, I will feel less threatened.”

  “Well,” Nimisha began, though Jon could see she was not quite convinced of Doc’s innocence, “you could have warned me earlier. You’ve known a long time, Doc. I’m sure of that.”

  “Yes, I’ve known, but considering your speech when Hope was born, I kept my counsel. There was always the chance that one twin would dominate and absorb the other, or it would spontaneously abort.”

  Nimisha clutched at her belly in unconscious rejection of those possibilities. Then she allowed a penitent smile to spread across her face.

  “Boy and girl, huh? Then we’ll be able to use both names, won’t we, Jon?”

  He leaned across the table and kissed her with the tenderness that he had displayed toward her throughout her pregnancy. She stroked his cheek and allowed the kiss to continue.

  “The Sh’im females will approve,” she said when they parted.

  “There’s that,” Jon blithely agreed.

  Nimisha went into labor with both Jon and Syrona assisting Doc. As the medic had predicted, she had less trouble delivering the twins than she had had with Cuiva.

  “But then, you’ve kept fit and you’re a multipara,” Doc said. “Second delivery,” he explained.

  The Sh’im were overjoyed to see that the humans could follow what they considered the best way to increase population. If Nimisha had worried about how to feed twins, she found herself overwhelmed with offers of assistance. The Sh’im suckled their offspring until teeth appeared, after which they chewed food into pulp and fed it to their young. But many continued to lactate. Since Nimisha was unable to feed the lusty twins for more than six weeks, Cater supplied formula milk, increasing its strength as the babies grew. There was always someone quite willing to feed Perria and Sven their bottles. Jon proved as devoted and affectionate a father to them as she could have wished: far superior to Rhidian, or any other man of her acquaintance.

  Nimisha was glad to be freed up from heavy maternity duties as there was so much to be done: organizing improvements in all the Sh’im settlements, teaching those who were now past producing young and wished to take on new duties, and using her own engineering skills to develop useful tools. Often she thought fondly of Lord Tionel and the “toys” he had given her to assemble and disassemble. Those designs and that experience were proving to be incredibly useful now. The one disappointment, the anxiety that nagged at the back of her mind when she was falling asleep at night, was when would they hear news from home? The beacon seemed to absorb the updates Helm sent, but he reported no incoming pulses.

  When Syrona had twins, Nimisha’s suspicions about Doc’s interference, however well intentioned, surfaced. Though there were no multiple births in either of Syrona’s and Casper’s families, Doc insisted that he had not interfered. Good food, proper rest, perhaps some unknown factor in the planet itself had caused Syrona’s ovaries to release two eggs at once. Even the small grazers, called boks in deference to the old-Earth-type antelope they resembled, were having multiple births.

  “Could have something to do with the fact they feel safe,” Casper suggested. He was far from upset to know that Syrona was carrying mixed twins. “A general fertility increase for all of us.”

  Nimisha refused to be convinced. It was all too true to say that everyone felt safe now in the six Sh’im towns; their allies rarely had fewer than three births at a time, and more accommodations had to be raised. With repeller shields to protect settlements, they no longer needed to seek caves for shelter from the avian denizens.

  In order to reduce that danger, the four adult humans led a large band of well-armed Sh’im, transported in the three air vehicles available, for a concerted attack on the mountain mews where the avians bred their young.

  The nests, with as many as twenty eggs, were destroyed, along with as many of the female defenders as possible. At Doc’s suggestion, they also left out poisoned substances, reluctantly prepared by Cater to simulate what the avians preferred to eat. The poison that Doc concocted, having examined the flesh of an avian before scavengers could devour it, would inhibit the formation of healthy yolks in the eggs.

  “We may succeed in reducing the population on this continent in the next decade or so,” Doc remarked.

  “You’re fixated on eggs, Doc,” Nimisha said slyly.

  “Not at all, m’dear Nimisha,” was his airy reply, “but it does get to the heart of the problem.”

  When the resources of the freighter were exhausted, the humans turned to the primitive mining that the Sh’im had already begun, and Nimisha focused her design talents on designing better mine hoists, drills, tracks, and carts.

  “Rather primitive . . .” she said, dubiously reviewing the sketches.

  “I’m no mining engineer,” Jon replied, “but I don’t see why those wouldn’t work. You based them on data from the library.”

  “I just wish there were an easier, less physical way of achieving the same results,” she said. “It’s bloody hard work, even if we have been able to locate the main lodes without having to do a lot of exploratory prospecting.”

  “The Sh’im won’t mind,” Syrona said.

  “They’d be delighted to have work for some of the maturing younglings,” Casper said.

  “They don’t pay attention to lessons. Ay says we’ve made life too easy for them,” Tim put in, disgusted. He was usually included in planning sessions since he often contributed good ideas, being closer in so many ways to the Sh’im. He, Ay, and Bee formed quite a triumvirate. “Used to be that as soon as they had all their teeth, they were sent out to hunt, gather wood, and search for tuber plants.”

  “Well, I’ve designed the mining equipment for three-fingered usage,” Nimisha said, tapping the drawings.

  “What’ll I use then?” Tim asked, affronted.

  “You don’t need to mine,” Syrona said.

  “I gotta show ’em all that I can do everything they can, and better. Then they can’t figure out ways to show me up,” Tim said with a malicious grin.

  The others all laughed.

  “We had noticed that little trick, Tim,” Jon said approvingly.

  The inauguration of the Fiver-Sh’im Mining Company involved Nimisha as chief engineer so completely that she failed to notice any indications that she was beginning a third pregnancy.

  “Nimi, pet,” Jon began one morning as they started the day by indulging in the most pleasurable of activities, “you can’t be putting on weight just here . . .” He spread his wide hand across her abdomen. “And, unless I’m mistaken, you seem to be a trifle touchy here—” He touched her l
eft breast.

  “Oh, shaggit,” she murmured, feeling her belly and wincing as she prodded her breasts. “I am pregnant. Not,” she added hurriedly, kissing him, “that I mind. The twins are old enough.”

  “Have you seen Doc?”

  “No, I haven’t,” she replied quickly and then grinned. “And it’s too late for him to fiddle me again.”

  Jon turned a chuckle into an amused snort before he gathered her close against him. Then, with one finger, he traced the tattoo on her neck. “I never thought I’d father Vegan First Family progeny . . .”

  “Let me remind you that we are the First Families of Erehwon, and that’s an achievement reserved to two families alone! Not many planets can boast that kind of hierarchy. Or do I mean hegemony?”

  “Oligarchy?” Jon put in.

  “Aristocracy . . . of some sort or another.”

  “Whatever,” Jon said, and then he turned serious, smoothing her long hair back from her face. “Get Doc to check you over. You’ve been working pretty hard in the mines. And you’re to stay out of them from now on, hear me?”

  “Oh, come on, Jon,” she said, a bit annoyed. “It’s not as if we’ve had any problems, not with being able to seal the shafts the way we have.”

  He pulled her back when she started to rise. “No, I’m serious, Nimisha. You take enough chances as it is. Please don’t take unnecessary risks.”

  “And I haven’t.”

  “We all have,” he said in a very serious tone. “We all know we have, but there’s even more at stake for you now.” Once again he placed his hand on her abdomen.

  “We can’t ask the Sh’im to do what we won’t. Tim’s notion on that score is very accurate,” she protested.

  “Even the Sh’im females know when to stop working, lover mine.”

  Nimisha looked down at a stomach no longer flat, feeling here and there as if trying to estimate what was going on inside. “I can’t be that far along. I’ve been feeling so energetic. Last time it was all I could do to get out of bed some mornings.”