The Spawning (43 page)

“Yes, one more push, I think. Next time—push really hard, baby.”

She panted for breath, trying to gather her strength. The moment the next

contraction started, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, sucked in a deep breath, and began bearing down as hard as she could, growling with the effort. Teron settled his hands on her belly, pressing down to help her. Abruptly, she felt a sense of release, felt the baby slip from her. Opening her eyes, she looked down between her legs and saw a cloud of blood in the water, watched with a mixture of joy and disbelief as her baby swam upward through the water until its face emerged.

Teron grabbed it as it let out a wail of indignation.

Miranda uttered a sound that was half sob half chuckle, staring at the baby

anxiously as Teron checked it, trying to inventory his parts when her eyes were so blurry she couldn’t focus clearly. She could see, though, that he had a shaggy cap of black hair.

His skin seemed lighter, more like hers. She couldn’t see his face, or count fingers and toes, but he looked fat and healthy.

Teron settled the baby back into the water after a moment, and handed it to her, instructing her to keep it’s body submerged beneath the water to keep it warm.

Even with the buoyancy of the water, the baby felt heavy in her arms and she

knew it hadn’t just been imagination that he’d seemed big. He
was
big … and he was definitely a he. She was a little disconcerted when she got a glimpse of the plumbing.

Curling her arms around him carefully, she pulled him closer to her chest,

glancing at Khan when she felt his face close to hers as he looked over her shoulder at the baby. He was too close for her to see his expression, but she eased the baby from her chest so that he could look at his face. “He has his daddy’s hair,” she murmured, feeling a strange little catch in her throat as the anxiety suddenly arose that it wasn’t his daddy looking at him, that it might not have been his father who’d helped her deliver him.

It was almost as bad to think the baby might not be Khan’s, to think of his

disappointment if it wasn’t, as it was to think her son’s father might have missed his birth.

Pushing that distressing thought aside for the moment, she focused on admiring her baby, checking his little fingers and toes. He had the ‘growths’, she discovered, the thin membranes that the Hirachi had that helped them navigate swiftly beneath the water.

Except for the paleness of his skin, which was somewhere between her own skin tones and Khan’s, she couldn’t see anything of herself in him.

She wondered why that made her feel so joyful.

When Teron had delivered the afterbirth, he moved around to her side, took the knife he’d prepared for the purpose and cut the umbilical, tying it tightly against the baby’s belly. Pausing long enough to lean over to kiss her, Teron moved away then to check the other laboring mothers.

Miranda twisted her head around in search of Khan. He hadn’t said a word since the baby’s birth. She saw that his expression was strained, his complexion pale.

“It is a very large baby,” he said finally.

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Miranda looked at him a little quizzically. “Which probably explains why I had so much trouble birthing him,” she said with a wry chuckle. “But his daddy’s a pretty strapping fellow.”

There was uncertainty in his gaze when it met hers. Miranda swallowed against a sudden wedge of emotion in her throat and looked away.

Teron returned after a few minutes and took the baby from her so that Khan could help her from the pool. When he’d dried her off, he carried her to his bed and covered her with the coverlet she’d woven herself and the blanket they’d traded with the Vernamin for. He took the baby blanket she’d woven then and returned to the pool for the baby. He had it swaddled and cuddled with its head in the crook of his shoulder and neck when he returned. Crouching beside the bed, he settled the baby in her arms and stroked a shaking hand over her head.

“He is mine,” he said a little hoarsely, sounding dazed.

Miranda studied his face, but she wasn’t about to argue with him. She smiled at him tremulously, relieved beyond measure, still a little doubtful and worried that he might decide the baby wasn’t his after all, but willing to dismiss it for the moment. “He’s beautiful. He looks just like you.”

“Perfect,” Khan agreed, his voice still rough, although she could see he wasn’t sure it was a compliment to liken the wizened little face of his son to him.

Rising after a moment, he stripped off his wet trousers, dried himself with the cloth he’d used to dry her, and climbed carefully onto the bed with her. Settling on his side between her and the wall, he gathered her and the baby both very gently into is arms.

He settled his cheek against her head after a few moments. “I was so afraid he would be too big for you,” he muttered, relief evident in his voice. “I have never feared anything so much … except when I thought that beast would take you away from me. It was almost worse to think that I would lose you because I had lost control than because I had failed to protect you from the beast.”

Miranda digested that in silence as everything slowly fell into place and she

finally, completely, understood why Khan and the others had behaved so strangely.

She’d thought it was just a typical male thing that her pregnancy made them uneasy. She supposed she should have realized that their perception of her as such a ‘tiny, frail little being’ would translate in their minds to a death sentence for her if they got her pregnant.

As absurd as it seemed to her, it really wasn’t—They were so much bigger, they had every reason to believe their baby would be too big for her to handle, and in point of fact, though thankfully that wasn’t something that had really occurred to her, she
had
had trouble. It could easily have been far worse, though, she realized. She might not have been able to deliver him if her hips had been narrow—like a few of the women—and she didn’t know if Teron had the knowledge or the skill to perform a Caesarian if needed.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shook his head. “I did not want to make you afraid, too. It could not help you to be as anxious as we were.”

Miranda bit her lip, but she couldn’t help but smile. “I really hate to tell you this, baby, but none of you did a very good job of hiding the fact that you were worried. If I’d known
why
you were so worried, I wouldn’t have been so anxious myself. It’s not exactly common for men on my world to be as big as the Hirachi are, but there
are
men as tall—some even taller—and their women still manage to deliver their babies.”

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Of course, sometimes they had to have help, but she didn’t see any point in telling him that. She’d managed. That was all that mattered.

He lifted his head to look at her a little doubtfully. “This is true?”

She touched his cheek lovingly. “It is true.” She glanced down at Caleb—their son—feeling the wonderful sense of loving and being loved envelop her as she studied him. “He’s a big fellow, but he’s actually not that much above average among my people.”

Khan didn’t look particularly pleased about that. “He is not?” he asked a little doubtfully, apparently forgetting for a moment that it was
his
son. “He is a little smaller than I am used to seeing … but not much.”

Miranda didn’t know whether to laugh or swat him. She decided to ignore the

comment. She was a lot more interested in being assured it actually
was
his baby if he knew, and he seemed firmly convinced. “Tell me how you knew he was yours.”

He looked surprised. “He has my scent.”

She stared at him blankly a moment until that set in. Shaking her head, she

returned her attention to the baby, who had discovered her breast and was searching with grim dedication for the nipple he seemed to know instinctively was waiting for him if he could only find it. Smiling at him lovingly, she guided him to it. “You never cease to amaze me, Khan,” she murmured.

* * * *

The sonic boom that rent the air like a crack of thunder on a clear day startled everyone working in and around the fields. Miranda, who’d been busy shelling beans, was so startled by the sudden noise, she jumped, throwing her hands up, and scattered beans all over the blanket she’d spread on the ground for her family to sit on. Khan, who’d been blowing raspberries on Caleb’s fat belly until he was giggling almost hysterically, lowered the toddler and narrowed his eyes in the direction of the compound.

Maya, who’d been cooing at her daddy, Teron, and trying to pull his nose off, jumped, scrunched her face up, and started wailing.

The men working in the field stopped, lifting their heads to watch the progress of the ship Miranda couldn’t see, even though she realized that must have been what she’d heard. The women lounging in the semi shady areas cast by the trees near the edges of the field clutched their babies, or set their tasks aside and slowly rose to watch, as well.

“What is it?” Miranda asked, her hand pressed to her pounding heart.

“A ship,” Khan replied grimly.

Miranda frowned, setting her bowl to one side so that she could get up and look, too, but the ship had already passed from view, either blocked from sight by the towering walls of the village behind them or the trees in the distance. “The Vernamin’s ships don’t do that,” she said uneasily.

Khan met her gaze. Standing abruptly, he whistled as Miranda had taught him,

the high pitched sound having been adopted as their alert. The men in the fields immediately abandoned their plows and hoes and strode quickly to their women and children, gathering them up and herding everyone toward the nursery.

The men would be going to meet whoever had landed, Miranda knew. She didn’t

like it, but she had Caleb and Maya to worry about. She couldn’t go with the men, as certain as she was that she could somehow protect them as long as she was with them.

She looked up anxiously at Khan and Teron when they’d helped her get the

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babies to safety and settled them to playing in the alcove that had been theirs until they’d completed their family pod. “Be careful,” she told them. They pulled her close for a quick kiss and left to join the other men waiting for them. Watching them, wishing she’d been able to find Gerek and Adar and caution them to be careful, as well, Miranda lowered her hand to her belly. It hadn’t even begun to swell with Gerek’s baby. She hadn’t told him. She’d wanted to wait to be sure.

She dismissed the fear behind the thoughts the best she could and focused on

trying to keep her children occupied. Caleb was determined to get into the pool. He loved the water and it took patience and determination to keep him out of it. She knew she needn’t have any particular anxieties about him getting in. He could swim like a …

Hirachi and he’d already shown that he’d taken after his father in most ways. At two and half, he was only just learning the breathing techniques that would allow him to breathe in enough air to sustain him under water, though. He couldn’t hold his breath much more than ten minutes.

And she couldn’t watch Maya, who at six months was just beginning to crawl, if she had to keep diving in and dragging him out.

As accustomed as the children were to spending a great deal of time in the

nursery, it almost seemed as if they could sense the tension of their mothers. They tried everybody’s patience, not that that was much of a feat for so many toddlers and infants.

Twenty of the babies present—the first crop—had been born within weeks of one

another, nearly running poor Teron ragged with deliveries, and of course this had resulted in twenty toddlers reaching their terrible twos all at the same time. There were another fourteen infants ranging from new born to twelve months to deal with besides the very active and difficult toddlers. Miranda had decided a two year gap between hers would be best for both her and the children, keeping them close enough in age to be playmates, but giving her body time to recover and
her
time to get one out of diapers before the arrival of the next. It wouldn’t work out quite like that if she actually
was
pregnant with Gerek’s baby, and she was almost certain she was. The second and third would be a little closer, but she knew she’d passed the most ideal child bearing years. She wanted to at least give Gerek and Adar one child of their own as she Khan and Teron and she didn’t think she actually afford to spread her pregnancies out quiet as far as she’d originally intended without risks she’d rather not take.

It seemed to her that the men had been gone far too long just to check out the arrival before she finally heard the all clear signal. Everyone else was just as anxious as she was, though, and she had to wait her turn to reach the stairs and climb them. Gerek met her on the stairs, taking Maya from her. She looked a question at him, but instead of answering, he guided her up the second flight to their level and down the long corridor that connected the private pods. Their’s was the next to last on that end. She discovered that Teron and Adar were waiting for them in the spacious living area.

“It’s the trader,” Teron responded to the question in her eyes. “Khan sent us to fetch you.”

Miranda stared at him blankly. “The trader?” she echoed.

Teron’s expression, grim already, hardened. “The one who brought you to us,

dear heart.”

Miranda glanced from one to the other, wrestling with the uneasiness that

instantly coiled in her stomach. “What about Caleb and Maya?”

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“I’ll stay with them,” Adar said. “Khan didn’t want you to come without at least two to guard you.”

Still more than a little bemused and uneasy, Miranda nodded, kissed Adar and the babies and left with Teron and Gerek. They seemed focused on watching the woods for any sign of threat. Although the Hirachi had managed to pretty well chase the worst predators from the area, or killed them, they never took chances, but she had the feeling they were also anxious to avoid a discussion. “He’s brought more women?” Miranda finally guessed.