"... Yes."
"You sound surprised."
She smiled. "Tell the truth, I am surprised. I hadn't thought about it until you asked me."
"So why now, and not back when you could? You're just saying it?"
"No, I'm not just saying it. Edgar, you really are attractive, but it takes work to see that." She frowned. "You make us work at it. I guess I mean, there's something about you that drives girls, maybe not just girls, everyone away, until they get to know you, so there has to be a reason to get to know you. I had one, I'm in love with your father and he loves you, so I worked at it, but after a while it wasn't work."
Edgar shook his head. It was hard to read his expression in the dim light from the viewscreens. Edgar usually kept the lights low in the rooms he worked in. "My old man doesn't love me. And I don't know what you mean—"
"He does too. Edgar, you're always testing people. Him most of all. You want to see just how much we'll put up with. Most of us won't put up with much. Why should we? But Joe does, and I had to, and you know, after a while you stopped doing it so much to me, and then I really got to know you, and you're really a pretty neat guy, somewhere down in there. Keep it up with Toshiro, and pay some attention to yourself in the mirror, and you'll look like one, too. And then you'll get all the girls you want."
"Maybe," he said, but he sounded happy.
And how much of that did I mean? But if he believes it, it might even happen that way. She was trying to think what else she could tell him—
"Linda," Edgar said. "About your kid's father."
"It's not your problem," she said automatically.
"No, but it's yours, isn't it?"
"I—what do you mean?"
"You don't know who the father is, and you're afraid to find out, because you think it's somebody you don't like."
"Edgar, that's a horrid thing to say. Maybe I don't like you after all."
"Linda, do you want to know who the father is?"
"You mean you know?"
He shook his head. "No, but I could find out."
"How?"
"Cassie knows the blood types of everyone in this colony, including the babies. She has to. Someone might need a transfusion."
"But Cadzie is 0 positive," Linda said. "So am I. That rules out some boys, but it leaves at least a dozen—" She saw his grin. "Yeah, I wondered. A weak moment."
"Linda, you didn't look at the minor factors. There's a lot more to blood types than the majors—"
"I know about MN factors," Linda said. "And that still leaves a dozen."
"You sure got around."
"I used to be proud of it," Linda said.
"Sure put one in the colonel's eye."
"I guess there was some of that in it," Linda said, "And showing him there was something I could do really well—"
"Why'd you stop?" He looked around, then back at her. "Yeah, yeah. Dad knows the ancient magical words that turn a lady into a wench. It's still a good question."
"I stopped because I didn't like myself anymore," she said. "And now it really is none of your business, and before you ask, no. I'm not going to sleep with you."
"I don't want you to. I mean—" He froze up for a moment, then forced words out. "Dad would—He wouldn't kill us, but he'd think he should. Am I right? Anyway, let's just keep it simple, because I really do like you, and I guess I like my old man, and he's so much more, since you, him and you—" Edgar stopped and took a deep breath. "Linda. If you want to know who the father is, I can find out. Cassie has more than blood samples to work with. She already knows, you know."
"She does not. I asked her."
"You didn't ask in the right way," Edgar said.
"What is the right way?"
He shook his head. "I too know the ancient magical words. I can find out. I can keep anyone else from finding out, too. Anyone but the colonel, or Zack; they can override anything I put in if they know my block's there."
"Joe thought you could do something like that. You locked him out of some of your files, didn't you?"
Edgar didn't answer at first. "Privacy is a right—"
"When you were eleven years old?"
"Well, yes, dammit! What's age got to do with it?"
She smiled. "Not a lot."
"So do you want to know? I can stop anywhere," he said. "File accesses are easy to track, anyone can do it, and you spent a lot of time looking into blood typing and paternity and estral cycles just after Cadzie was born."
"Oh. Edgar, sometimes you scare me."
"Just sometimes?"
"Yes, just sometimes. Let me think about this, okay?"
"Are you worried about who it is? Look, would you like me to cover your tracks so no one else can find out you were interested?"
"Oh my God, I never thought—Edgar, if someone else was—tracking my file accesses—would you know?"
"Yes. Especially if he asked me to do it for him."
"Did—who asked you?"
"Aaron. Hey, it's all right, I didn't tell him anything!" He studied her. "You think it was Aaron, don't you? You were together a lot last year. Like him and your sister now."
She didn't say anything.
"Why don't you like him?" Edgar demanded.
"Why do you hate him?"
"I don't hate him. I'm scared of him," Edgar said.
"So am I. So. Why?"
Edgar bent over as if to touch his toes. "Pretty good," he said.
"Toshiro's a miracle worker. You know what Aaron did to my back."
"Edgar, Joe says you fell out of a horsemane!"
"I did," Edgar said. "It was a long time ago, when we were eleven, Aaron was living here then. Dad thought the Bottle Babies ought to have some family stability. He was even thinking of adopting Aaron."
"You must have liked that!"
"Actually I didn't hate it as much as you'd think. Not at first. Dad was pretty rough on Aaron. Said he had to teach him some manners, just like I had to learn. It was sort of fun watching Aaron have to go through that..." He glanced down at the computer consoles. "Cadzie's sleeping fine," he said.
She waited.
"So one day we went for a hike, just Aaron and me. You know Strumbleberry? High and dry, with horsemane trees on top. We camped up there overnight. Next morning we saw a pterodon dive into the topknot and come out. Aaron climbed up to see what was up there. He came down. Panting. Said he could beat me to the top.
"Aaron was ten and I was eleven, but he could generally beat me at anything. But he'd just tired himself out. So I said ‘You're on!' and slapped his ass and swarmed up that tree. Near the top I looked and he was right below me, but I knew I could beat him.
"I pulled myself into that mass at the top and something snapped at my eyes, a claw big enough to take my head off. I reared back and half a dozen claws like big scissors were trying to take my face off, and then there wasn't anything under me. Next thing I knew I was falling. And I remember the look on Aaron's face as I dropped past him.
"I landed flat on my back. I couldn't move anything below my arms. It hurt like I was dying. It felt like I was killing myself to fish out my comm-link card. I was sure it would be broken, but it wasn't—"
"Edgar! Aaron didn't call?"
"He called. He called after I did. Maybe he would have anyway. Maybe.
But he didn't until I got mine out and called for Dad."
"Jesus. That's awful. But you never told anyone."
Edgar said, "I told Dad. I don't know if he believed me."
"I think he did. He doesn't like Aaron," Linda said.