Nina Osier: Matushka

She paused, awaiting his response. Casey answered her, “I read it that way, too.”

“Good.” All their professional lives they’d served as each other’s sounding boards, and even though neither liked that conclusion the fact that they had reached it independently gave it an astronomically higher chance of proving to be the truth. Romanova continued, “Rachel’s gone into labor, Linc. Months too soon. I had to use a wide-dispersion stunner to get Dan and her separated from Vargas, and afterward when I scanned her she seemed to be okay; but then suddenly her body had just had enough, and now we’ve got to get her to proper care or at best the babies are going to die.”

And at worst, of course, so would Rachel. Katy didn’t say that, but she didn’t have to.

Linc felt the mental touch with disbelief. It couldn’t be, because Kerle Marin had been aboard the Archangel; and he had seen the Archangel die, just minutes ago. Yet there was no mistaking it, this was another Morthan’s mind—and it had to be someone who had touched him before. It was not possible for even a Morthan to reach across space, even at this quite manageable distance, to touch a consciousness that was not already familiar. Establishing a new connection required that the two individuals be in physical proximity to each other.

“It’s me, cousin.” Marin sounded—what? Bemused. The sorrow of losing his shipmates a short time earlier, the physician’s outrage at the destruction of so many lives, and his personal grief for those few beings who had treated him as an equal instead of secretly fearing him—Captain Giandrea, in particular—came through as well; but Marin was a mortal being, after all, and he was not pretending he wished he had died with his ship. And however it was that he’d wound up aboard one of those Reb or alien vessels, clearly he had already been able to get past the resulting fear and sense of strangeness.

“I believe it, but I wish I knew how.” Linc responded even as he tried to broaden the communication to include his wife; and he winced when someone else, not Marin, prevented him from doing so. “Ouch! Who was that? What in hell’s going on, cousin?”

“I don’t understand it all myself just yet, but I do know that they scanned the Archangel before she blew and that they took me off because I’m Morthan. And they also took off every gen who was still alive at that point, and a really furious Sestian and a really puzzled Kesran.”

“How? You can’t teleport unless you’ve got compatible equipment at both ends! And I don’t believe you and all those others hopped onto porter platforms when your ship was about to go up around you, when there wasn’t an ally in sight.” Casey knew what he was talking about, because he’d been there. Clearly in his case the proverbial chestnuts had always been pulled out of the fire successfully, or he would have died in action long ago; but trying to port someplace was the last thing that crossed your mind, if you were on a lone ship engaged in battle with an alien foe.

“Of course we didn’t. So now we know that’s one technological barrier that someone else has broken, even though our own scientists are still telling us it can’t be done.” Amusement now came through from both Marin’s mind, and from whoever was the third party in this conversation in which he was now revealed as intermediary rather than principal.

“So these people snatched you with a porting technology that goes beyond what we know about, that doesn’t need equipment at both ends.” Linc repeated the thought, as much to let him collect himself as to have it confirmed.

“Yes. And now they want to meet with Narsai’s top brass, Linc. Don’t be afraid, the fact that Narsai has hardly got a weapon to its name is exactly why the only loss of civilian life so far has been aboard the habitat that stopped a wide shot—that wasn’t deliberate, in fact it’s a….”

“A sorrow to us,” the mental voice that Marin’s had been masking came through plainly on its own now. “Destroying the warship was regrettable, as well; but to that we had no alternative.”

“Let my mate hear what you’re saying, please.” Casey had never wanted the touch of Katy’s mind more than he wanted her with him right now. “If you really do want to deal with Narsai’s leaders, you’ll need to deal with her too; and I just scared hell out of her by trying to touch her, and then cutting off.”

The other mind considered the request, and for a moment it reached beyond Casey’s consciousness. It went deep into his being, to places it could not have gone easily without his consent. It had the power to go there anyway, he knew that instinctively from his memories of a time when he had been a helpless infant and his mother’s mind had been able to do as she wished when she handled him; but now, as then, there was no malice in the power that touched him. If he had resisted, this being would not have committed the mental equivalent of rape by forcing its way where he attempted to block its entry.

This was distasteful, the human parts of his mind were not places this being even wanted to go. But before Katy could be allowed into the link, his intentions must be ascertained—on a level where undetected deceit was impossible.

A few seconds by the chrono, an eternity while it was being experienced. At last the invader withdrew to normal levels of telepathic communication, and Linc Casey sighed his relief. And then the strange voice said, “Prepare her. Then we will talk.”

Catherine Romanova had not intended to debark from the shuttle at MinTar Medical, but it had become necessary. Hauling Rachel Kane up to the porter platform in the cabin was out of the question, so the shuttle had to set down in the hospital’s huge receiving lot; and with what was going on in space above them broadcast to every viewscreen on the planet, even the hospital’s emergency personnel were not willing to come outside and bring their newest maternity patient in.

So there was no solution except for Romanova to join Dan Archer and Cab Barrett in doing that, and of course Maddy trailed along beside her mother. Katy wanted her there, right now she wasn’t letting her own baby out of her sight.

Four lives, three of them not even technically begun. Probably it was ridiculous to take risks to save them right now, with everything else that had happened and was about to happen; but Katy Romanova could not possibly have written those little lives off, not when she could do something that might help them. She and Dan handled the stretcher, with Cab hovering along beside and with Maddy bringing up the rear. And as they went she wondered if she could get civilian clothing for the two surviving Star Service officers still aboard the shuttle, since she had every intention of commandeering an outfit for herself while she was here. If she had to spend the rest of this episode wearing someone’s surgical scrubs, with just her underclothes beneath, that would be fine. There were times when any uniform, let alone that of an admiral, functioned like a sign that read, “Please shoot me!”

The OB/GYN team met them in emergency reception, and Rachel and her lover and her doctor were all rushed through into the treatment area without red tape. Narsai’s informality had its advantages; at a Terran medical facility there would have been wrangling about who was responsible for payment, and whether or not Dan Archer had a legal right to accompany the patient, and whether Barrett had authorization to treat her. Here no one dreamed of putting any of those issues ahead of caring for the patient—whatever had to be sorted out, could and would be dealt with later.

Katy stood outside the set of doors that had been closed in her face, and she waited for her chest to stop heaving as she put a reassuring arm around her daughter. Maddy asked softly, “Mum? Will Papa be okay?”