Chapter 34

 

Jared

 

 

"Of course she knows," said Cara, lying against him in the dark. It was getting warm during the days, but it still cooled down at night; they had the windows open and the door to the porch, and a little breeze played through the room and toyed with the edge of the sheet and the tendrils of Cara's blond hair. "She has Big Ears, after all."

"True," said Jared. "And who would she be closer to than her own daughter?" He lay back, watching the pattern of lights on the ceiling; the small moon was out tonight, serene among the stars. His hand rested on Cara's back; he could feel the smooth skin under his fingers. "It will be good to have another child in the neighborhood," he said. "Terry and Gina are growing up too fast."

"Maybe one of the Bahtan sisters will have a baby," said Cara, and she paused, considering. "What if I started a baby?" she said, clearly a new idea.

They both took the anti-conception drugs, but drugs had been known to fail; it was not entirely a new idea to Jared, not now. There were a lot of ideas that were not entirely new to him now, with her presence in his bed and his life. "If we got pregnant," he said, using the plural deliberately, "you would be stuck with me for the rest of our lives. No child of mine will grow up without a father."

"No, no child should grow up that way. We both know that, don't we? And I'd love to be stuck with you. But I don't know if I could be a mother," she said. "I don't know if I know how."

"Sure you do," he said. "You know how to love. And you had Granny; she wasn't a bad mother for you. And you wouldn't be alone. We would figure it out between us."

She kissed his chin, which she could reach without moving very much. "It won't happen," she said, "but it's nice to know you'd stay with me if it did."

"I'll stay with you," he said, holding her, "no matter what happens."

 

Issio was stuck at a departmental faculty meeting on the day of Sofi's first appointment with their new doctor. Her regular Zamuaon obstetrician had sold her practice and moved to a colony on Vistran; her successor was a middle-aged Zamuaon, well regarded in the community, and Issio said Sofi would be in good hands.

But everyone was conscious of her obstetrical history. When Jared got home, Issio was still gone, but the neighborhood was, in general, on the watch for Sofi. Lillian and Phyllis were visible at their windows. Gina was playing Parcheesi with Cara and Ann and Al at the picnic table, and Jared paused only long enough to change into his blue T-shirt and went out to sit with them.

So they were there when Sofi's car came down the street at a very high rate of speed and made the turn into their carport and slammed to a stop with a howl of brakes and a squeal from the collision shield. After a moment they heard the car door slam, hard. There was a brief pause, and then the car door slammed again, much harder.

Jared could feel rage like a blast of heat from a furnace.

Sofi emerged from the car port carrying her briefcase; she lifted it and threw it, as hard as she could, at her front porch; it hit the railing and burst open, scattering readers and data chips onto the porch and into the flower bed, and the case landed on the lawn and Sofi stalked over to it, picked it up, and threw it again. This time it hit the front wall and dropped onto the porch floor.

"Twenty-seven slavering demons!" raved Sofi. "Hang him up by his tail and rip his claws off!"

"Sofi?" said Cara, and Sofi turned; her tail was bushed to twice its normal size, and it was lashing dangerously back and forth.

"That son of a drooling dung demon!" cried Sofi. "Degenerate! He dares to call my husband degenerate!"

"Issio?" said Gina blankly. "The doctor?" Mimi came out of their house and froze on their porch, staring at Sofi.

"That," said Sofi, spitting out the words, "is the reason I have been unable to carry a child, he says, this fraud, this incompetent; he says it is because my husband is a degenerate man of no family, who cannot father a proper child!"

"How in the world could a doctor say such a thing?" exclaimed Cara.

"I will see him in seventeen hells before I return to his office," said Sofi. "Hung by his tail, I tell you!" And she turned on her heel and marched across the street, up the Bahtan front walk, and hammered on their front door with her fist, claws scraping against the paint. The door popped open; Evvie stared at their unexpected guest. "Clena," said Sofi. "She is here? I will see her. Now!"

"Uh," said Evvie, "she is up –" She gestured over her shoulder, and Sofi stamped into the house and slammed the door shut behind her.

"How can he possibly do that?" demanded Ann. "I never heard of such a thing!"

Jared and Al and Mimi, who all knew the story, shared disgusted glances. "A Zamuaon traditionalist," said Mimi. "And here I thought he was a decent, educated doctor. He ought to have stayed on Zamuao, that's all I can say. He doesn't belong here."

The front door of the Bahtan house inched open; an eye could be seen looking out from the inside hall. After a moment the door opened a little wider, and a Bahtan male edged his way out, very carefully. Reaching the step, he closed the door softly behind himself and, looking warily from left to right, tiptoed down the walk. He had a length of rope tied around his left ankle and trailing behind him; other than that he was entirely naked.

Gina, staring, gave a little gasp and blushed. He was Bahtan, of course. Everyone knew they were very big.

Reaching the street, the Bahtan male cast a haggard look at the group around the picnic table, and seeing no Bahtan women there, he turned down the walk toward Al's house, the end of the rope picking up empty seed pods and leaves and grass clippings as it followed him. "Oh, my," said Mimi, getting a full frontal view, and Cara averted her eyes hastily.

"Wow," said Ann, softly and sincerely, and then she remembered Gina. "Don't look!" she said urgently, and Mimi cast a glance across the table and shook her head.

"Too late," she said. Gina looked away and then sneaked another look back.

Ollie's small car sailed around the corner by the D'ubian house and screeched to a stop as Ollie spotted the escapee. The naked male let out a scream and leaped into Al's yard, taking cover among the trees; the Bahtan door opened and Mutai came galloping out, waving her arms, and Ollie leaned over the passenger seat and threw the car door open. Mutai dived in and slammed the door shut and Ollie lifted the car over the treetops and buzzed Al's house. Leaning out the open window, Mutai pointed and shouted, and somewhere there was a great deal of crashing and thumping in the underbrush, and a pained howl.

"Ouch," said Jared, wincing in sympathy, and Al shook his head.

The car lifted out of sight over the treetops and a momentary silence fell. Clyde emerged from his house and came to join the rest of them. "Never a dull moment," he said genially. "Which reminds me, where's Terry?"

"Band practice," said Gina, trying, Jared knew, to get her mind off the naked Bahtan male. "I don't understand about Issio," she said. "Why would the doctor say he was degenerate? He isn't degenerate!"

"No, he's not," said Jared. "Mimi is right; the doctor shouldn't be practicing here."

"But why –" Gina probably didn't know the story, and neither did Ann, nor Cara.

"He's an orphan, Gina," said Jared, keeping it in words to include Cara and Ann in the conversation. "No one knows who his family was. Traditional Zamuaons believe that this means he is from the lowest levels of society, unworthy, I suppose you could say."

"That's why Sofi's family doesn't like him," Cara said, enlightened. "They don't think he's good enough. But even if he is an orphan, someone must know who his parents were. They register DNA at birth, don't they?"

"Issio doesn't like to talk about it," said Jared, "but this is what he told me once. After several beers," he added and the smile ran around the table. It had been a hot summer night, sitting on the grass of their shared back yards, looking at the stars; they had become comfortable with each other, and they already knew how much they had in common. Words only cemented their friendship. "There was a Zamuaon colony just settling on, where was it, Clyde?"

"V724 something," said Clyde. "It was new; it didn't have a name."

"It was abandoned later," said Mimi. "Just didn't work out; the terraforming didn't take hold. That was before Project Azuri/zai got going, with all the new techniques."

"They weren't foolproof either," murmured Cara, and Al and Jared both nodded agreement.

"Anyway, a supply ship in orbit saw the settlement go up in flames, an explosion, they figured, the power plant, and they sent a shuttle down," said Jared. "It was only a small group of colonists there, and most had died instantly. The rest died within a few days up on the supply ship. There was only one survivor, an infant. Issio. He was sheltered behind a wall; the rest of the house was flattened."

"But the DNA," said Ann. "If they were colonists, his parents, they certainly would have been registered. So the authorities could figure out who he was from the records."

"Very true," agreed Jared, "but they couldn't find a match from the colony records, and they couldn't find a match in the database back on Zamuao, so it was assumed that the baby came from a bad family, that somehow they had forced or persuaded colonists to take the baby unregistered, in the hopes that on a new world he would have a better life."

"And they all died," said Gina, contemplating, horrified, the destruction, the desolation, and the abandoned baby. He could see the pictures in her mind.

"So what happened to Issio?" asked Ann. "Did someone adopt him? Where did he get his surname?"

"F'Alzen is a common Zamuaon name," Cara said. "Like Smith or Jones for Earthians, Wong, Chan. Perez, Ramirez." She and Jared shared a smile. "So it must have been given to him in the orphanage. He wouldn't have been considered adoptable, from such poor stock. He must have grown up in that orphanage." Al made some sort of a negative sound deep in his throat; he, too, had grown up in an orphanage, not happily.

"On Sunbi," said Jared, nodding, "and when he was fifteen he ran away and signed on a merchant ship and went into space. And then the story gets better," he told Gina, "because Issio, being a very smart fellow, got his secondary education on the screen, and during a layover here on Haivran he decided to stay and try to go to college, which as you know he did. So he has a Masters in Multicellular Physiology, and he is a valued member of the faculty at Multicultural Secondary. And he and Sofi met, and married, and they are very happy together, although her family isn't too pleased. Now they have the chance for a family of their own, and I am not happy that this doctor has decided to interfere."

"I don't blame Sofi for being angry," said Ann. "I'd have killed him on the spot."

Jared looked around the picnic table. "It isn't a secret," he said. "Most of us know about it. It's just something Issio doesn't like to talk about."

"Of course not," said Cara.

"Where did he get the pendant?" asked Gina. "Sofi says he's had it from childhood."

And that was a question, in view of the pale blond strangers, and Jared thought of the one he hadn't seen, the plump Zamuaon woman with the white body hair who had been seen twice with the tall man, once at a bar in the mall, once in Gillian McIntosh's room, searching for something. And wearing a pendant of her own.

But she was white, as pale, Jared gathered, as Sofi, and Issio's body hair was gray and black.

Still – "That's another mystery," said Jared. "When they found him, sheltered by the wall, he was wearing the pendant. Wrapped in a blanket, he told me, wearing a diaper and the pendant. It's the only thing he has, a souvenir of the family he was supposed to have, he thinks, so he wears it, but he doesn't like to talk about that, either."

"Uh oh," said Mimi, and Issio's car came down the street at a moderate speed, made the turn into the car port beyond his house, and stopped. There was a pause, and then his car door closed, quietly, and he emerged, briefcase in hand, to look at the readers and the chips scattered across the porch and sticking out of the flower bed among the plants. He stared at the front wall of the house, where there was a considerable crack in the paint, and then he turned and looked at the neighbors at the picnic table.

"Is Sofi home?" he inquired, very carefully, feeling the atmosphere; his tail swayed gently back and forth, the Zandrian ruby in his tail ring catching the sunlight.

"Actually I think she's visiting Clena at the moment," said Mimi, standing up. "Come over and join us, and I'll get some coffee. Come on," she urged him, and rushed off in the direction of her house. Issio stood still, looking at them, looking across the street at the Bahtan house, looking back at them. Sofi's rage had left traces in the air, but he couldn't see what had caused her anger.

"What is wrong?" he asked.

"She'll be out pretty soon. I think," said Clyde, looking around the table for help.

"Sit down," said Jared to Issio, getting up to make room on that side of the table, and Issio came over to the table and sat, cautiously, putting his briefcase down on the ground against the end of the table. Mimi bustled out of her house with a steaming mug and put it in front of him, and he regarded it as if he suspected it was poisoned

"What is wrong with Sofi?" he asked Jared.

Jared did not in any way want to get into this. "She wanted to see Clena," he said.

"Why?" asked Issio.

Jared looked at the rest of them, and they looked back at him. "I don't know," he said finally, "but she should be out soon and she can tell you herself."

What? Issio asked Gina, and Jared moved in, his mind between theirs.

I think you should hear from Sofi, he said.

"I will go over," said Issio, standing up, and Jared put his hand on his shoulder, with some force, and Cara grabbed one of his hands and Gina grabbed the other, holding him in place. Issio sighed and sat down again. He looked tired; fatherhood so far was not agreeing with him.

He drank coffee, hot as it was. No one could think of anything to say. Jared sat down beside Cara, who moved to make room for him. Ann and Al toyed with the game pieces on the Parcheesi board. Gina sat down beside Issio; he touched her mind, but she evaded him.

"More coffee?" said Mimi brightly, and the front door of the Bahtan house opened and Sofi emerged, with Clena behind her and Evvie hovering just behind her sister. Looking across the street, Sofi spotted Issio and headed for the picnic table, with the Bahtans trailing reluctantly after her. Issio put down his cup and stood up.

"I have decided," Sofi announced. "I do not care for the obstetrician I saw today. I will not have him attend me. I will have Clena to deliver our baby instead, and Evvie will assist her." She folded her arms and lifted her chin with determination. "Clena has a degree in all-species medicine," she said. "She has assisted at deliveries. She will be just what I want for our baby."

Clena, behind her, cleared her throat. "We have spoken also with Dr. Frank on the telephone," she said. "He is Earthian but he, too, has studied all-species medicine, and he has said that he is willing to work with us. He has more experience, and he has hospital privileges at Alliance General," she explained, looking warily at Issio, who was standing very still, his face expressionless, his tail slowly bushing and his claws showing just at the tips. "I have been doing research for the past year. I am not connected with a hospital. Alliance General is the best," she added, on a hopeful note.

"This is what I want," said Sofi, looking defiantly over her folded arms at her husband. "This is the way that I want it."

Issio opened his mouth, and Jared, across the table, sent, very loudly, No Stress! Issio looked at him and closed his mouth.

"Now," said Sofi. "I shall prepare dinner."

She turned her back on all of them and marched across the lawn and through the clutter of data chips and readers on the porch, opened the door with a stab of her thumb on the door pad, and vanished inside, slamming the door shut behind her.

Issio turned to the Bahtan sisters, and they both backed carefully away. "It is important that Sofi be happy, you know," said Evvie. "It is important that she be satisfied with her care. It is important that she feel confidence, so that she can proceed with her pregnancy without fear."

Issio swore softly in Zamuaon and sat down at the picnic table, and Evvie and Clena retired to their house, rather hastily. Mimi refilled his coffee cup and the silence around the picnic table resumed.

"She did not like the doctor," said Issio finally, and he looked up, glanced around the table, and settled, apparently, on Jared as the one most apt to give him the truth. "Is it because of me?" he asked. "Is this doctor a traditionalist?"

"You need to let Sofi tell you about it," said Jared, and Issio shook his head.

"She will not. You," he said, somewhat ominously, "will."

"Clena," said Mimi, "and Evvie, and Dr. Frank will do their very best for Sofi. She is in good hands. You don't need to worry, Issio."

"Jared?" said Issio, and after a moment Jared sighed and nodded. They looked at each other for a moment, and then Issio drank another gulp of the too-hot coffee and put the cup down and nodded to Mimi. "Thank you," he said, sounding very calm.

"We're all misborn," she said, "like the D'ubians said. All of us."

Issio sighed and shrugged and picked up his briefcase and rose to his feet. He looked very troubled and very alone, and Gina sprang up impulsively and flung her arms around his neck without saying a word; after a moment he put his free arm around her and hugged her back, tightly.

Jared lifted an eyebrow at Issio. Can I help? he asked, and Issio shrugged and shook his head. "If Sofi is happy," he said, and trudged off across the lawn to his front door, pausing on the way to gather up the scattered contents of her briefcase. The briefcase itself was on the porch; he lifted it, looked at it, tried to close it and found the hinges sprung, shook his head and dumped the chips and the readers and a handful of printouts into the open case and carried it, like an offering, into his house.

 

And now the semester was over; the elementary schools were closed, releasing Terry and Gina. They had not decided if they were going to visit their parents, Gina said, and they didn't seem in any hurry to make up their minds. The important thing was that Willis was going to have a few weeks of leave, and planned to spend them at home in the Hardesty house. That was far more important to Gina than parents.

The secondary schools were closed, releasing Sofi and Issio. Sofi, for the last two years, had been taking a couple of days to go and visit her father and her grandparents in Tandoi. Time passing, her family had, after a fashion, reconciled with her, but Issio never accompanied her on these visits. Jared assumed that a grandchild on the way would make a difference with her father, but Sofi announced that she was not going this year. Jared realized that she had not told her family about the baby, and did not intend to, at least not yet.

University sessions ended. Cara, in her dress shoes and her tailored pants and her buttoned-down shirt and her blazer, smiled pleasantly as she passed Jared in the living room to pile an armload of cubes and readers and noters on the new desk under the back window. Without another word, she vanished into the bedroom, emerging bare-legged in new shorts and a red top with a plunging neckline and no visible buttons. "Summer!" she exulted, and crossed the room and sat down on his lap and kissed him.

And the sessions at the Institute ended. Classrooms emptied out, and the handful of people like Jared, occupied with their own projects, enjoyed the relative peace as they settled down to work. There were summer classes over in the North Wing and in Edgebrill Hall, but not in Jared's building.

The lab rats from upstairs were still busy; Weston said he thought they slept there at least three quarters of the time, and he knew for a fact they ate there. One of them made a special trip to Jared's office to let him know that if he needed to borrow the Zeilmar lenses again, he only had to ask; they were keeping their lenses locked up in the storage cabinet on the east wall to make sure they were all safe, so that no one would run off with them, say, late at night, or during a coffee break, and fail to return them for days and days, even if asked very politely. Taking the message in what they suspected was the spirit given, Jared and his team launched a search; it turned out that the student lab downstairs was unoccupied, and he and Patterson and Ott were able to corner four sets of Zeilmar lenses without anyone complaining. Dr. Graystone said he had several sets on order, but they hadn't shown up yet and Ott said they would be lucky to get them by next Winter Break.

The days grew warm and long, and sunshine lay over their street and their rooftops. Mimi and Clyde and Al and Lillian started a Planetary Monopoly tournament at the picnic table, fueled by pitchers of iced tea and lemonade and coculi punch. The Bahtan girls launched a marathon weekend with three healthy young males. One of them escaped through the back door late Sunday, but the other two were kept through most of the following week.

The Drs. Wood called to say they were sending some of the information they had located on the ancient Celtic civilization from Earth. There wasn't that much, as Jared had found out for himself in the Institute library. The legends had not been recorded until the Christian era; the lore had been passed down orally, memorized and recited by the Druidic priests, and a lot had been lost.

Dr. Louise asked after Cara, and told him again how pleased they both were at seeing her so happy – "because you are so suited to each other," she said, "although I suppose it's too soon for you young people to be thinking about the future."

It was much too soon, but everything had happened much too soon, and it seemed to be working out anyway; Jared, at least, had been thinking about the future, although he had no intention of pushing Cara too fast by telling her. But these were probably her oldest friends and they were very likely acting in loco parentis, so to speak, tactfully probing to learn his intentions in the best old Earthian tradition. "Well," he said, "it's early, yes, but I have to say I'm pretty serious about her."

"She's had a horrible time these last few years," said Dr. Louise. "I don't know if she's told you anything about her mother."

"Oh, yes," said Jared, thinking of flies screaming through Cara's house, thinking of bloodstains on the floor of the back bedroom. When she sold the place, they would need to replace that flooring. "I know what you're saying."

"She was a brilliant woman. Ned still has a little soft spot for her, but she was very very difficult," said Dr. Louise. "Cara deserves some happiness."

And that, Jared felt, was absolutely true.