The Insurrection

That stopped her dead. She fell back on her pillows, exhausted by the expenditure of emotion, and her emaciated form shook with the force of her sobs. She turned her face away from the nurse's compassionate eyes, and the ('ieutenaht frowned down at her for a moment, then stepped out into the hall.

But then the door opened again and someone cleared his throat. Her head snapped back over, and Captain Llewellyn looked down at her, his cherub's face incongruously stern.

"I suppose, Commodore, that we could call this 'conduct unbecoming an officerHis--but I'm old-fashioned. Let's just call it childish." "I know," she husked and turned her head away addain. "I'm sorry. Just--just go away.

I-I'll be all right... His "Will you, now?" His voice was sternly compassionate.

"I thiea.k not. Not, at least, until you accept that you're merely human and entitled as such to moments of weakness." "It's not that," she protested, scrubbing her eyes with balled fists like a child. "I... to mean..

." "Yes, it is," he said gently. "I've checked your record, Commodore. Sword of honor. Youngest captain in Battle Fleet.

Stellar Cross. Headed for the War College, but for the current... unpleasantness. And that's only the official record. There's also your crew." "My--crew?" It popped out involuntarfiy, and she bit her tongue, cursing her crumbling self-control.

"The survivors have had our visitors" desk under siege ever since your arrival. If I hadn't put my foot down, you'd've been buried under well-wishers---wh, since I don't want you plain buried, I'm not about to permit! But' my point is simple: amassing that record and wi

"I thought not. Which explains exactly why you're react- ing this way," he said simply, and Han turned back towards

"Perhaps," she said levelly, "hut it loesn't help that you haven't told me everything, either, Doctor." Llewellyn's face stilled at the accusation, and his eyes narrowed.

"Why do you think that, Commodore?" he asked finally, his tone neutral.

"I don't know," she confessed bitterly, "but you haven't, have you?" "No." His simple response surprised her, for she'd expected him to waffle. But she'd done the little Corporate Worlder an injustice; he was as utterly incapable of evading a direct question as she herself.

"And what haven't you told me?" "I think you know already," he said quietly. "You just haven't let yourself face it. I'd hoped you wouldn't for a while, but you're more bloody-minded than I thought," he added, and a door opened in her mind-- a door she had been holding shut with all her strength even as she hammered against it.

He was right, she thought distantly. She did know. Her hand crept over the blankets across her belly, and he nodded.

"How bad is it?" she asked finally, her hoarse voice level.

"Not good," he said honestly. "A high percentage of your ova are sterile; others are badly damaged. On the other hand, some are perfectly,, normal, Commodore. You can still bear healthy children.

"At what odds?" she asked bitterly.

"Not good ones," he met her eyes squarely, his voice unflinching, "but you know about the problem. It wouldn't be difficult to check the embryos and abort defectives at a very early stage." "I see." She looked away, and Llewellyn started to reach out, then stopped as he recognized the nature of her withdrawal. She wasn't dropping deeper into depression; she was merely digesting what she had been told.

He stared down at her helplessly, tasting her anguish and longing with all his heart to comfort her. Yet he sensed something more than anguish under her sick, weakened strrface, something pure and almost childlike in its i

This was a woman who knew herself, however imperfect her self-knowledge seemed to her.

He sank into a chair, knowing she would turn back to him shortly, that his departure would shame her, watching the taut, bony shoulders relax. And as he watched the wasted body unknot, he felt himself in the presence of a great peacefulness, as if she were but the last to ink in an endless chain, able to draw on the strength of all who had gone before her. He'd already recognized the years of self-discipline behind her serenity, yet now his empathy went deeper, sensing the gift of freedom her parents had given her so long before, and he wished desperately that more of his patients could be so.

Her head moved finally, the delicate skull under the fine, dark fuzz shifting on the pillow, and she spoke quietly.

"Thnk you, Doctor. I wish vou'd told me sooner--but maybe you were right. Maybe i needed to wait for a litfie while." "No, I was wrong," he said humbly.

"Perhaps. At any rate, now I know, don't I? I'll have to think about it." "Yes." He rose unwillingly, shocked to realize that he wanted to stay within the orbit of her strength, then shook himself and smiled faintly. "Should I send Lieutenant Ti

"Certainly. I'll tell her--Ham" He twinkled sadly at her and touched his nameplate. "And my name is Daffyd." "Thank you, Daft.vd." She smiled again and closed her eyes. He left.

It took hours to truly accept it. The actual fact was not surprising--not intellectually. Somehow Han had assumed it wouldn't happen to her, but she'd always known it could. It was unfair, but then so was biology. She felt tears on her cheeks, and this time felt no shame. Her life had been so orderly. She'd faced her need to excel in her chosen field, known that pride required proof of her competence. And, as a woman, the pressure for early achievement had been great, for she was not just a Fringer; she was Hangchowese, born to a culture which thought as much in generations as individuals. So her schedule had been set; she would achieve her rank, and then take time for the children she wanted.

It would have been different ff she were an I

But Han had been born on a Fringe World blessed with adequate medical technology, one where the antigerone therapies were generally available. At thirty-nine, she looked-and was-the I

She frowned sadly. Llewellyn was a good man, despite his homeworld, but his every word of comfort only underscored their differences. There were too few people in the Fringe. Alien gravities and environments inhibited fertility -comx took generations for the biological processes to readjust fully, and no woman of Hangchow would even consider conceiving a chfid with a potentially lethal genetic heritage.

For them, babies were unutterably precious, the guarantee of the future, not burdens on a crowded world's resources. Intellectually, Han could accept Llewellyn's words; emotionally they were.intolerable.