"Not all lawyers know when they're lying. Only the good ones do. The best can conceal even this fact."
-SOLOMON SHORT
We were in luck. Lizard was only a day and a half away from the peak point of her cycle. Dr. Meier gave Lizard a shot of something to tweak her hormones, and three hours later she harvested six eggs. That wasn't quite enough time for the vitamin E in my system to have taken full effect, but Lizard had a better way to tweak my hormones, and responding to her skilled handling, I rose to the occasion magnificently. Uncle Ira would have been proud of me, I discharged my duty without complaint.
Very shortly, the three of us were watching the miracle of life. Even in a petri dish, it's still romantic-although all three of us were in agreement that the old-fashioned way of starting babies had certain ancillary benefits not to be overlooked.
After that, Dr. Meier did a little sorting, a little centrifuging, a little scanning, and the next morning proudly informed us that we had three little boys and three little girls safe in the freezer. She'd already made arrangements to ship them back from our Amapa stopover. We weren't the only ones on board who had abruptly decided to preserve a bit of our genetic heritage before going deeper into Brazil. Apparently, there were quite a few others who had their own misgivings about the safety of the mission, but Dr. Meier wouldn't elaborate on how many; it would have violated confidentiality. There was also quite a bit of paperwork involved, mostly inheritance rights (under the Baby Cooper laws) in case we invested any money in these eggs.
On the way out, Dr. Meier said one other thing. "Oh, you might want to be careful for the next few days. That shot I gave you, General Tirelli-well, you're still fertile. You could pop another egg and-"
"Uh-" Lizard and I exchanged a glance. "Why didn't you tell us this last night?"
"I see." Dr. Meier's smile froze. Her expression went abruptly professional. "If you'd like, I can do something about that."
Lizard looked to me quickly; her lower lip trembled uncertainly, then she shook her head. "No. If I've caught, I've caught. We'll go all the way with it."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure." She slid her hand quietly into mine. I held it tightly; I felt her squeeze back. "We want a baby. We were planning to start one as soon as this mission was over anyway. So what if we start it a month early?"
Dr. Meier looked at us both. "Well, then congratulations." She shook our hands and ushered us out quickly. She didn't look happy.
Outside, in the hall, I stopped Lizard and turned her to face me. She misunderstood my intention and folded herself into my arms for a heartfelt kiss, which was a better idea than mine anyway. My heart melted, and I forgot most of what I had planned to say. I just held her close and let the moment envelop us.
When I finally came up for breath, I looked into her shining eyes and spoke the obvious. "Mmm, I like kissing you."
"Better than boys, huh?" She touched my nose with her fingertip.
"Geez-one lousy little troop of Boy Scouts, and you never let me live it down. Yes," I added. "Better than boys. Okay?"
"Okay." She lowered her lips to mine again.
After another century or two of mushy stuff, I broke apart from her abruptly and asked, "Hey, what was all that about in there?"
"All what about?"
"Dr. Meier's look. She wasn't very happy with the idea that you might be pregnant."
Lizard glanced away for a second; when she looked back to me, her expression had shifted to a more thoughtful one. She hooked her arm in mine and started guiding me down the corridor. "If I take maternity leave, it puts a big hole in the organizational chart."
"Huh?"
"Can you spell power vacuum?"
"As in Wainright?"
"As in Wainwrong," she sighed. "That's Dr. Zymph's name for him." She pulled me out of the corridor through the mission hriefing room and into her private office. She closed the door behind us and hit the red security panel, automatically locking the room and sweeping for bugs. "Sit down, Jim. We need to talk."
My heart bumped. "Serious talk?"
"Serious talk," she confirmed. She squeezed my hand. "It's all nght, sweetheart. This is a what-you-need-to-know discussion. I need to background you." We sat down together in a quiet corner. She thumbed her communicator to life and spoke softly into it. "Log it. Upgrade Captain James Edward McCarthy's clearance to Double-Q, Priority Alpha, Red Status, no inhibitions, as of this moment. Out."
"Red Status?"
She nodded. "Unless you have the clearance, you can't even know that the category exists."
"Wow," I mouthed.
"Right," she said. "This is all burn-before-reading stuff." For a moment, she looked tired. "Now I'm going to have to find a way to add you to my permanent staff. That'll make it easier on both of us. I'll talk to Danny Anderson about it. He might have some ideas. Maybe we can resurrect your field promotion-"
"Uh-uh," I said, a little too quickly.
"What's the matter?"
"I, uh-I'm not sure that I should-I don't know if I want it anymore."
"I see." She looked at me with narrowing eyes. She laid one hand on top of mine. "What's the problem?"
"Nothing, uh-could we change the subject?" There was a hard burning sensation growing in my chest.
"No, we cannot change the subject. I'm your commanding officer. I might also be carrying your baby. You and I made some promises to each other last night. No more bullshit."
I couldn't look at her. My eyes were watering. I lowered my gaze to the floor and tried to wipe them surreptitiously. She reached over with one soft hand and tilted my face upward again. "What is it?"
I shook my head, but I still managed to get the words out. "I can't-I can't order anybody else to their deaths. I never had to do it before. I won't do it again."
"I see." After a moment, Lizard got up and walked to the window. She stood there staring out of it, watching the land pass by below. I studied my boots. They needed a shine. When I looked up, she was still gazing out the window, but she was wiping at her eyes too.
"What's the matter?" I said.
Her voice was quiet, but strained. "I don't want to give you the speech," she whispered. It was obviously hard for her to speak. She turned and looked back at me. Her eyes were starting to redden. She put her hand up against her cheek so the heel of her palm almost covered her mouth. She shook her head, almost in helplessness. "It isn't fair. It's nasty and it's manipulative, and I'm sure you've already heard it a million times. Oh, hell." She came back and sat down opposite me again.
"It's part of the job of command," she began slowly, "to make those kinds of decisions. It's a terrible burden, and if you didn't feel every death as a personal blow, you couldn't be trusted with the responsibility-"
I opened my mouth to object. "That sentiment is putrid. It guarantees you'll have nothing but crazy commanders. No, find some single-minded psychopath who doesn't feel the pain and point him at the enemy. He'll be a much better hero than I could ever be."
"Shut up, sweetheart. Listen to me." She laid a fingertip across my lips. "I've never had to order anyone to their deaths. Not like that. I've never had to sacrifice some of my troops to protect the rest. I hope to God I never have to. It's the worst kind of command decision an officer ever has to make.
"I-I saw the pictures of your mission. Your rescue-I watched it live. I was so mad at you, but I watched it anyway. No, don't ask how we tapped into the feed; there's still a lot that you don't know. Anyway-" She took a breath and tried again. "When the shambler tenants went off, part of me was hoping that you'd be killed-because then that way, at least, there would be finality. I could stop worrying about you. And at the same time, the rest of me was praying to God that you'd survive so that I could wring your neck for being so goddamn stupid as to go out there in the first place. And when those three soldiers were killed, I didn't care. Not in my heart of hearts, I honestly didn't care, because I was so glad that you were all right. I told myself it was a small enough price to pay. That's when I knew how much I wanted you back.