With one hand he used his automatic to put a sleepy dart in the terrified woman’s belly, then used the other to reach out and catch the child as she collapsed like a pricked balloon.
“That didn’t go as well as I had hoped,” Kris said.
“We’re vermin to her,” Jacques said. “And their idea of vermin is a lot uglier than ours, considering the way she said that.” The anthropologist shook his head.
“Kris, I suspect that did not meet your definition of a talk with the aliens,” Jack said.
“Not even close,” Kris agreed.
“So, what do we do next?” Amanda asked.
Kris rubbed her scalp. The tension was getting unbearable. “I’m open to suggestions.”
Penny took the child from Jack. It continued to voice its hunger for all to take note of. “Jack, does the equipment we’ve got include a breast pump?” Penny asked.
That got her a lot of blank stares.
“Okay, folks. The baby is hungry, and you just decked her meal ticket. I also suspect that her breasts are full. Jacques, do you remember the last time she nursed the child?”
The anthropologists gave her the manly shrug of one whose interests in that portion of the female anatomy did not extend to sustenance.
“If she goes too long without emptying her milk, we risk her breasts drying up. And then what will we do about food for the child?” Penny said, exasperated. “Nelly, do you have the schematics for a breast pump?”
“Yes, I do,” the Magnificent Nelly said. “You’ll find one on the table next to the diapers now.”
And there was one.
Amanda went for it. “I watched my mom express milk for my youngest brother,” she said. “I don’t know how it will work with her knocked out and having sleepy dart in her blood, but let’s see how this works. Would you strapping men mind lift her back onto the couch?”
Masao and Jacques did. Jack stayed close, automatic in hand. The alien mom was an easy lift. As soon as they had her back on the couch, the men hastily withdrew to behind Kris’s desk, about as far from the women as possible.
“Note how our strong men get skittish at the sight of a woman’s working breast,” Amanda said, attaching the breast pump and activating it. “They just love to get their mitts on our boobs,” she said, aiming a scathing glance at the men, “but let a woman put her mammary glands to the business God intended, and they run.”
“I thought you women might want your privacy,” Jack offered, lamely.
“Thank you,” Kris said. Her brain failed to suppress a sudden question. Might she actually develop some mammary glands, as Amanda so professionally put it, if she was nursing a child of her own? Their own.
How would Jack take to that?
Damn, this reproductive thing is contagious.
The breast pump worked. The bottle attached to it slowly filled. Kris left the woman and child in Penny’s and Amanda’s capable hands and turned to the men.
“Okay, guys, I’m open to suggestions. How do we get this woman to talk to us?”
They stared at her. She stared at them. There was a lot of staring and not a lot of ideas being verbalized.
Penny joined them, jostling the baby on her hip. It sucked at one of her fingers.
Kris eyed the quieted child.
“I swiped one of those sugar packets from the mess,” Penny said. “I put a bit of it on my finger. The kid may not like our milk, but it sure likes our sugar. Maybe we should try putting some sugar in our formula. Or chocolate.”
“But would it actually get any benefit from the food?” Jacques asked.
“You ate their food. Did you starve?”
“I don’t think so.”
“We need another bottle, or two,” Amanda said. The first one looked full.
Two bottles appeared on the conference table, and Penny took them to Amanda.
“Nelly, spin out a small sample bottle. Amanda, if you’ll fill the small one, we’ll get the boffins to do their thing. We’ll know exactly what’s in mother bug-eyed-monster milk in no time.”
“Doing it,” Amanda answered, as Penny retrieved the small bottle, and Amanda switched it onto the pump. After that one was full, they switched breasts and began draining the other one.
Kris turned back to the guys. “I have a problem. You guys are not helping.”
“We’ve tried everything that I can think of,” Jacques said.
“How do we get her to sit still and talk to me?” Kris repeated, with more than a tinge of irritation.
Again, the men came up with only silence.
Kris turned to Penny, now feeding a very hungry child from the first bottle. It seemed happy enough now.
The mother wants the baby, Kris thought. We have the baby.
“If we show her that the baby is fine,” Kris said slowly, and half to herself, “and tell her that she can’t have the baby until she talks to me . . .”
“You’re a hard woman, Kris Longknife,” Penny said.
“A determined woman,” Kris answered. “Penny, can you raise a wall in here? One of those clear walls.”
“So she can see her baby and that we’re taking care of her,” Penny said, catching Kris’s drift.
“But not get near the child. Not until she’s talked to me and answers all my questions.”
“You’re assuming that she can tell you what you want to know,” Jacques said. “I was down there for way too long. I listened to them talk to each other. I still don’t know much more about them and their ship and their Enlightened One than I did when you dropped me off buck naked to be eaten by whatever passes for mosquitoes in that godforsaken place.”
“I can ask direct questions,” Kris snapped. “Questions you couldn’t do without risking your head being bashed in with the nearest rock.”
Jacques glanced around the room.
“No nearest rock,” Kris said.
“She has a point,” Masao said.
21
Penny finished feeding the first bottle to the baby. The tiny one now seemed sleepy. Without being told, Nelly produced a bassinet out of the deck. Its side toward the alien mother was clear. Penny settled the now-sleeping child down. Masao brought her a baby blanket from the supplies Musashi provided.
The two of them stared long and lovingly at the sleeping infant. Kris noticed how time and time again one or the other’s hands would half reach out for the other. Reach, but never touch.
She sighed for her friend’s pain.
But when Penny turned back to Kris, she was all mission. “Mimzy, we’ll need a clear wall between the bassinet and the alien.”
“Jack, do you intend to stay on the side with Kris?” Mimzy asked.
“You bet I do,” he said, and moved quickly to stand at his bride’s side.
“Jacques?” Nelly’s daughter asked.
“I think she’s seen enough of me. I’ll stay on this side.”
“Amanda?”
“I’m with Kris.”
“Penny?”
“Masao and I will stay with the baby. You can take the wall down in a second, can’t you Mimzy?”
“Less time. I can also open a passageway if one of you changes your mind.”
The coffee table, with its computer-screen insert, vanished into the deck. The conference table and most of its chairs did the same. A moment later, a thin, clear barrier rose from the deck to divide the room in half.
Kris settled into the armchair at the woman’s head. Jack took the one at her feet. Amanda finished up gathering the last bottles of milk, then passed them through a suddenly open window, to Jacques. He handed the large ones off to Penny and left with the smaller sample bottle.