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"Cadma
"He trusts my instincts." Mary A
"Besides, he's in love," Sylvia said. "Now. Let's solve Carolyn's problem."
"Look, it's a simple situation," Marnie said. "You want a baby. We all do. We have to. Genetic programming. Colony in danger, instinct and heredity and common sense all say we get pregnant and have babies." She patted her six-month bulge. "Babies need fathers. Some of us have husbands, but there are more women than men."
"Which makes Carlos happy enough," Carolyn said. "Only—" "He's responsible enough," Mary A
Marnie giggled. "Godfather to half the unborn kids here. Well, maybe not half. Look, Carolyn, you're not in love with anyone. Right? Right. You want a man of your own, but you're not going to get one. There aren't enough to go around."
And even if there were, you'd last about a year, Sylvia thought. She knew that wasn't fair: Carolyn had been married for nine years to a hydraulics engineer who hadn't survived frozen sleep. But she's such a bitch, and maybe that's Hibernation Instability, and maybe she just had a bloody saint for a husband.
"So," Marnie continued, "you have some choices. You can try to seduce one of the seriously married men and hope that either his wife doesn't find out or that she won't kill you if she does." When Carolyn tried to say something, Marnie held up her hand. "There's celibacy. Doesn't appeal to you? Don't blame you. Choice three. Get in on one of the orgies, and have group sponsorship of your kid. Maybe you don't like that much, either. Choice four. Choose a father, have him provide you with a sperm sample. It's easy: he produces a rubber balloon, he and his wife make whoopie. You take your teaspoon of baby syrup and do-it-yourself.
"Or. Final choice. Sleep with anyone you want to, but get pregnant from the sperm banks. Anonymous father. Nobody to be jealous, in case romance blooms later."
The father doesn't have to be anonymous. Sylvia felt herself blush. They don't know. Cadma
Mary A
She needed no binoculars to see that the new Colony was a fortress.
Curved concrete walls surrounded the living areas. Fences and mine fields enclosed the croplands. Inside the compound were naked scars, remains of the grendel attacks, but most of those were being built upon or plowed over. In a year there would be no traces.
Mits and Stu had found a grendel. Hah! Now that Cadma
It wasn't always easy to remember. Grendels laid eggs, which hatched into samlon. But samlon were male grendels. They ate pond slime. Adult samlon were female grendels, and they ate everything, but if there wasn't anything else they ate samlon. If they could force grendels to eat all the samlon, there just wouldn't be any more grendels. So there had to be nothing else to eat in the streams and rivers.
And when she asked why they couldn't plant more catfish in the streams, that's what they told her.
I'm sure it all makes sense. But I used to like catfish.
The mist was light enough today for her to make out the rows of crops, the animal pens where the horses and young cattle grazed. The Colony was to be rebuilt, and that was fine; but Cadma
She turned as the rhythmic thump of Cadma
The artificial limb was sound enough, strong enough for him to take his laps around the plateau. Tweedledum ran with him, gently urging him with tail-wagging enthusiasm.
One day. Someday he'll trust them enough to go to the new hospital and let them grow him a new leg. Someday.
A thought came up unbidden. When he's whole again, he won't need me. But he's never needed me, not really. Maybe all I have is promises. His promises have to be enough.
She heard the burr of the Skeeter before it rose into view.
It juddered up over the western lip of the plateau, spun once and touched down on the concrete landing pad Hendrick had installed a week before. Cadma
Sylvia climbed out of the cabin, then lifted Justin out and set him on the ground. The toddler wobbled, then caught his balance and ran to them.
Mary A
He hugged Justin fiercely.
"Amigo," Carlos said, and embraced Cadma
"Oh, for a widget. I'll get it regrown when they get the hospital ru
"But of course!"
Sylvia held Justin's hand. Her slender figure was slightly swollen with yet more life. Carlos's child? Sylvia had never said, but Mary A
Cadma
She rubbed her tummy affectionately. "Boy or girl, I'm naming it Terry."
Carlos nodded approval.
Sylvia looked to Cadma
"Terry. Right."
"Right," she said. She smiled and suddenly reached up to pull the combs from her hair. It tumbled down, much longer than it had ever been before.
Would look great spread out on a pillow. Mary A
There were new lines on Sylvia's face. She's still beautiful. Cadma
"You've done a lot of work here," Sylvia said. She swept her hand in a broad arc to indicate the new walls, Joe cages, cattle pens, fortifications, even a new deadfall: he'd found a building-sized rock, higher up, and dug under it, and laid a new mine field below it. She put her hand on Mary A
Mary A
"I think I believe you. Doesn't matter. Mary A
"Hey," Cadma
"Keep out of this," Sylvia said. "We're discussing you, not inviting contributions."
"Always after my bod, never my mind."
"Something like that. Can I change the subject?"
"Please!"
The four of them faced each other, and suddenly, as if with a single sigh, they came together in a group hug.
"I still can't quite believe we're safe."
"Maybe that's good," Cadma
"Beowulf killed Grendel after all." Carlos laughed, trying to lighten the mood. "Of course, the dragon got Beowulf in the end..."
Sylvia glared at him. "You have no sense of timing."
"That's not what you said—" She hit him with her elbow. "Ouch.
Anyway, that story's already been written. This one we create as we go. Come on. Let's go down to di
Cadma
"Hey—"
Sylvia and Mary A