"Goldberg's pregnant," Lee said quietly, matter-of-factly. "She's what?" Buccari asked, a little too loudly. "Pregnant, sir."
Buccari looked at Lee with wonderment, as if the medic had two heads. "But, how?" she blurted, immediately feeling as stupid as her question.
"Cruise implants don't last forever, sir," Lee sighed patiently, "especially in full planetary gravity. Goldberg was due for overhaul last month. Mine's due in six months, Dawson in about three. If memory serves, yours is due in less than a year. With this much gravity, who knows?"
"Damn!" Buccari whispered. "Who's the father?"
Lee glanced into the bright blue skies and rolled her large almond eyes back into her head. The cool breeze teased her growth of shiny black hair. "Might be easier to say who isn't," she replied, raising well-formed eyebrows. "We'll have to wait for family resemblances to tell us, or a DNA test if we ever get back to civilization. She thinks Tatum."
"Good grief!" Buccari said. "Commander Quinn will be pissed…when and if his damn patrol ever returns." She looked up and scanned the rim of the plateau. The men were three days overdue.
"Well, I wouldn't be too hard on her," Lee said meekly.
"What? I'd think you'd be the angriest," Buccari responded. "Or at least the most worried. You're the one that has to deliver the baby. Or can you…"
"An abortion?" Lee asked, as if she had not even considered the option. "Too risky. I wouldn't know what to do. Too risky." "What will Commander Quinn say?"
"Does it matter? Goldberg's still pregnant. I'm not worried," Lee said. "Goldberg's young and healthy. The woman does the work, not the doctor."
"It'll be delivered in winter, for goodness sakes! Who knows how bad the winter will be? What a time to be having a baby! How thoughtless."
"We should probably thank her," Lee persisted, her meekness fading.
"Thank her?" Buccari half shouted.
Lee nodded. Buccari turned and noticed Rennault walking toward them.
"That's what Nancy says," Lee whispered. She stopped talking as the Marine came within hearing. Rennault nodded as he walked by.
"Dawson knows?" Buccari asked as soon as Rennault was out of earshot.
"That's how I found out," Lee said firmly. "Yes, sir, we should thank her. Nancy says that Pepper's, ahem…activities have taken, uh. a lot of pressure off the rest of us. From the rest of the females."
"That's not supposed to be a joke is it?" Buccari asked. "You're serious! I'll say she's taken a lot of pressure." It was not funny, but she started laughing. The mental images generated by Lee's statement overcame her sense of propriety, and the laughter built upon itself. Lee also started to giggle. Their laughter was interrupted by a commotion from the sentry station above the cave.
"The patrol!" O'Toole shouted. "Across the lake. They look whipped."
Buccari ordered Tatum, O'Toole, and Chastain to come with her; perhaps someone was hurt. She set out at a trot but soon slowed to an even hiking rhythm. As she neared the patrol, she could tell the men were no worse than exhausted.
"Are we glad to see you," Quinn mumbled. He was sapped. Fatigue insinuated into every level of his being, his eyelids drooped, and his mouth moved disjointedly.
"Welcome home," Buccari said. "Tatum, take Commander Quinn's pack. Everyone grab a pack. These boys need some help." She went up to MacArthur and started to undo his pack straps. The Marine laughed as he shucked off his pack and swung it onto her shoulders. His hand brushed her neck as he moved a shock of her short hair so it would not get pinched by the wide straps. Standing sideways to MacArthur, Buccari pulled in the hip belt to the limit, likewise with the sweaty shoulder straps. Chatter abruptly ceased, and the men all tried, unsuccessfully, not to stare; she realized her physical movements had accentuated her femininity—the smallness of her waist, the flaring of her hips, and the swell of her breasts. Suddenly and uncharacteristically she grew hot and red-faced with embarrassment. She turned her back on the men and stepped out toward camp.
She had been gawked at before, but MacArthur' s laughter seemed very personal, and his touch had ignited a subtle chemistry. Now was not the time to tell the commander about Goldberg's pregnancy. Buccari hearkened back to Lee's words and why they should not be too hard on Goldberg, and suddenly she understood the insidious pressures to which Goldberg had succumbed. Their lives were uncertain, and physical attachments were islands of hope. Danger was near, apparent to the consciousness, but deeper, from deep in the racial memories of the subconscious, another awareness was surfacing: the species was threatened; lust was both an escape and a solution.
"Commander Quinn, the message!" MacArthur blurted, breaking the silence.
"Oh," Quinn mumbled. "Almost forgot. We got a letter in the mail. It was on the same cairn where Corporal MacArthur left your icon book. It's written in similar form, so I guess it's for you." Quinn walked over to his pack, unzipped a pocket, and pulled out a swatch of folded material. He carefully unfolded it and handed it to Buccari. The material was of heavy stock, a stiff cloth or linen. A stick figure of a man, identical to the icon she had used, was precisely drawn. Beneath the icon the letters «M-A-N» were printed with a draftsman's skill, just as she had presented the icon in her book. Next to the pictograph for a man were drawn two other figures, stick figures stylistically representing another race. One was much shorter than a man, an acute, inverted isosceles triangle for the head, short-legged, and arms extended with membrane wings opened, obviously a representation of a being like Tonto. The other was taller, although still shorter than the man, winged but less apparently different than a human. Beneath the winged icons were markings, evidently letters in the alien language signifying the creatures' name.
Buccari stared, fascinated. Her drawings, done with pen and straight-edge, seemed awkward and hurried in comparison to the precision of the drawings held in her hand.
"There's two different types!" she whispered.
"Male and female?" MacArthur ventured.
"Wonderful!" she said. "This is history! The first contact with high order extraterrestrial intelligence!"
"Actually the third contact," Quinn yawned. "The massacre at Shaula was the first; the second was our fleet getting blown back into hyperlight. This is the third."
"First peaceful contact, then," she corrected, her excitement unabated.
"But that's not all," Quinn said. The commander's energy seemed to increase as his memory replayed the events of their patrol. "At night the plateau…the cliff face is covered with lights. Amazing! And there's a bridge over the river. And MacArthur's valley is an ideal place to build our settlement when the time is right to move." He was babbling in his fatigue.
Buccari looked up at the commander thinking he was delirious, but she noted all four of the patrol members nodding their heads in affirmation, a far-off look in their eyes.
Chapter 20. Third Planet from the Star—Genellan
"We land at Goldmine Station, on the continent of Imperia," Et Avian said. His demeanor had transformed with his departure from Kon, and he wore simple working clothes devoid of badge. Only the golden complexion reminded Dowornobb of the noblekone's untouchable rank. "Goldmine is the only permanent facility on Genellan. Gold is no longer mined, of course, only rare metals."
"Are there no other inhabited sites?" Dowornobb asked.
"There is one, opened only during the summer—a small science station," Et Avian continued, "on Corlia, the other major continent, eh. here. It is called Ocean Station." The noblekone pointed at the chart on the computer terminal. "For the study of planetary science. The other sites were shut down decades, or even centuries ago. The cost to run them was exorbitant. I worked as an engineer at the last industrial site, an offshore platinum extraction facility." He shook his considerable bulk. Et Avian was large for a noblekone. "I was hoping never to be that cold again," he lamented.