Life Cycle of the Kaelen - Part 6

© Copyright 1999, 2006 by silli_artie@hotmail.com

This work may not be reposted or redistributed without the prior express written permission of the author.

A work of fiction, meant for adults. Read something else if you are not an adult, or are offended by stories with sexual content. Then again, if all you’re looking for is in-out, in-out, in-out, you should probably read something else. I welcome constructive comments. Enjoy.

Life Cycle of the Kaelen

Ellen Grode, Mission Commander
Dale Kendai, Mission Specialist

Part 6

Adda left lunch early; I imagine she was off to confer with the elders. Dale looked, I don’t know, confused, bemused. In our hut afterwards, he held me, but he held me differently. “What is it, darling?” I asked.

He held me close, but gently. “Is this the right place?”

I squeezed him. “I won’t break! You know, it’s never the right time or place! We’ll manage! Ship will do regular medical checks and treatment of the three of us. That includes muscular stimulation for me, and I’ll exercise to make sure I’m ready. We have time, dear!”

He shook his head, looking concerned. I held him, and had my crew relax us for a nap.

Dinner was interesting; Adda and one of the other elders, one we seldom saw at dinner and carrying about a dozen kaelen (hard to count as they don’t hold still), intercepted us before we sat down.

Adda asked simply, “Are you sure?”

I smiled -- she’d brought the advanced detection crew. “I am carrying a boy and a girl. They will have blue eyes.”

Adda and the other one exchanged glances; the older one shrugged. We hugged briefly and sat down for dinner.

It took six days. I woke a little before dawn and snuggled closer to Dale; he held me, my head on his shoulder. He’d been doing that more lately, and I liked it.

I was contemplating getting up when a wave of nausea rolled through me. I caught my breath, and prepared to catch my dinner, propping myself up on an elbow.

As I moved, so did my chosen. I don’t know if they “sleep,” but they’re pretty inactive at night, leaving us after we fall asleep, and spending the night up in the thatching. When I start to move in the morning, they rejoin me.

Although I find it comforting, I imagine some of my colleagues back at Survey, what they would do (and how loud they would scream) if they felt large insects jumping on them as they awoke...

But as I pushed myself up in nausea, my companions dropped to me. They scurried around, and made a sound I hadn’t heard before, almost an alarm.

And the world went soft and dropped away from me. As I relaxed to the mat, my nausea and everything else faded. In the distance I could feel my chosen and his companions skittering over me, paying particular attention between my legs. The analytical part of me recognized the sound they made as a feminine one. Another sound; I started breathing deeply, slowly. From the sensations, I could tell that two of them were near my nose and mouth, one on my forehead.

Oh my God, what if they decided I wasn’t supposed to have babies! I tried to move, feeling my heart accelerate as panic filled me.

Another cry from my watchers, and the world faded. Did I feel a sting?

I felt much better, and much calmer when I woke up. Dale held me, still half asleep himself. I had ship do a scan. All fine. I had high levels of certain endorphins and hormones; did I want those levels corrected? The bugs were keeping me medicated. No, I told ship.

Dale helped me to breakfast; we arrived a little late. I was still in a bug-induced calming fog. As we sat next to Adda, Dina, and Tala, first Tala’s kaelen, then Dina’s and Adda’s went off. The way Adda and Dina smiled, I guessed they were signaling I was pregnant. Tala looked to me in surprise. She hugged me, and afterwards I hugged Adda and Dina.

As our breakfast ended, Dale asked quietly, “Will you be all right? I need to take a crew out pretty far. We might not be back before dinner.”

I held him, feeling him and smelling him, the father of our children. “I’ll be fine.”

Adda approached as Dale left, taking Ben with him.

“You should rest for a few days,” she told me.

“Yes, my mother,” I replied. “This is very new to me!”

We walked to one of the contemplation spots and sat, quietly.

Story Time

It was one of those things I had to do -- if I didn’t, my colleagues would never forgive me. This seemed to be a good time.

“Tell me a story, Mother,” I asked gently.

She looked at me and smiled. “What kind of story would you like to hear?”

“It’s an old story, a very old story. It starts, ‘In the beginning...’”

She nodded, a slight smile. “Not many want to hear that story.”

I smiled as well; this was part of the ritual -- asking many times. “But I want to...”

She nodded again, her smile becoming more the impish smile I think she’s picked up from me. “Will you tell me a story, my daughter from far away?”

“Yes, mother,” I answered.

“It starts, ‘In the beginning...’”

I sighed and looked up to the sky. Ship automatically put a targeting reticule in my vision, indicating its orbital position. How do I take my knowledge, and my beliefs -- of cosmology, of religion, of anthropology and mythology, and put them into her words, her world? It would be a fitting test of my skill as a linguist, and more -- a test of my skills, and of my soul.

As I thought, the answer formed -- not so much in my head, but in my heart. I felt it form, and the truth of it spread to tighten my throat and moisten my eyes.

“In the beginning, was the One,” I said softly. “The One was everything, and everything was the One.”

“And from the One came space, time, and the stars.” (Literally, “the lights in the sky.”)

“And from these came all the worlds, and everything in them -- all that was, and all that will be.”

I reached over and touched her with one hand, touching the moss under us with the other. “And the One is still everything, and everything is still the One. We are all part of the One. Some times we get busy and forget, but when we stop, we can remember.” How many centuries of thought and exploration, of both inner and outer worlds, had I summarized? Would my teachers be proud of me? It didn’t matter -- I knew I was right.

Adda nodded her head slowly, now showing a knowing smile. She too looked up to the stars. “So far away,” she whispered, then looked back to me. “We are so different, yet we are the same. We are family.” She looked around her, glancing off to the village. “We are all family.”

I nodded, took her hand, and kissed it. She raised it to my face, brushing away the tears.

Adda’s Story

“In the beginning,” Adda started, “we all lived together in the clouds. We were alike then, women and men. We didn’t have to work -- no fishing, farming, making bread, or huts, or skirts. We had everything. We spent our days dreaming and counting the lights in the sky.”

“Then we fell from the clouds to the land,” she patted the moss beneath her, “scattered (literally, verb for spreading seed) to all the islands. We work for food. We make nets to catch fish. We clear land, and plant, and harvest, to make our bread.”

I was on the verge of tears -- so much falling into place! Yes!

“He came, and taught us the way. Who brings us peace?”

I repeated with her, in the formal, archaic form, “He does.”

“Who brings us life?” she asked formally.

“He does,” I replied with her.

She sat back, smiling. The story had ended.

So many clues, yet so much unanswered! Again, the importance of the gestalt -- taking into account the shifting of figure and ground -- what I’d thought were gaps were actually valuable pieces to the puzzle! “Thank you, mother,” I told her formally.

But after a few moments I saw the smirk on her face -- she who’d never seen or worn shoes was waiting for the other one to drop!

I chuckled a little, and she joined me. I nodded and held her hand. Let us continue the ritual; I’ll ask again, more pointedly this time. “That is part of the story I want to hear. That is the part you tell your very young daughter when she asks for the first time. When she is older, and asks again, she asks, ‘Why did we fall from the clouds? Did we fall, or were we pushed?’ and if she thinks about it more and more, she might ask, ‘He has given us so much -- what have we given Him in return? What does He ask of us?’”

She held my hands, nodding, solemnly. “I asked those questions, my daughter, and I long thought of the day when I would have a daughter who would ask them of me.”

“And would that be a good day, or a bad day?” I asked, looking at her intently.

She smiled. “Every day is what we make of it, you know that, my daughter, you have taught us to remember that. As you say, when we are busy, we often forget. These are hard questions (literally, a type of nut with a tough, fibrous shell). There is a response.”

More interesting -- she didn’t say ‘answer...’

“I will take you to her, and you will hear the same response I did, years ago. It will not be today.”

I nodded and said, “Thank you, mother.” I kissed her hands.

She nodded and sighed. “And maybe you will be able to explain it to me.”

Analysis

I rested alone on the moss, not really thinking of anything. I faded, perhaps sleeping.

Dina brought lunch for us.

As we ate, she gestured to my belly and asked, “You knew?”

Implied but not spoken was the, “before He did.” This had to be handled carefully; to question His place in society could be dangerous to all concerned.

“As with swimming, or the way I move,” moving my arms as I did in the yoga and Pilates-derived exercises I did, and would do more often to prepare my body for the journey ahead, “it is part of what we learn. You could learn it too, if you had started as a little girl.”

Dina nodded.

That felt safe -- positioning it as different knowledge, not competing or conflicting knowledge.

“Are you afraid?” she asked.

I took her hands. “I have so many feelings,” I told her. “I am still surprised. Yes, I am afraid, and I am happy, and many other things, all at once. I hope Dale will understand when I hold our little ones to my breasts more than him.”

Dina smiled and chuckled with me at that. She shook her head, sighing.

She’d been married a few years but as yet didn’t have children. I squeezed her hands. “But don’t ask me if I’m ready for this, because it doesn’t matter if I am or not! And it won’t matter if you’re ready when it happens to you! We take this journey one step at a time, one breath at a time.”

She smiled more, nodding. “Two?”

I nodded again. “Yes, a boy and a girl. Everyone will know in a few months. You can bring me lunch at the pool.”

She managed a laugh. One area of the pool was frequented by pregnant women, particularly when it was hot and humid. I could imagine it was as close to a reduced-gravity environment as you could get.

“Let me hold you?” she asked.

I nodded, and closed my eyes.

She eased me to the moss, and held me to a nipple. She started making a sound, restful, replenishing, relaxing, female.

When I woke, she was still sitting near me. That’s something I’d observed, women nurturing others through pregnancies.

I hugged her as she helped me sit. “Thank you. I will need more help in a few months.”

She sighed and told me, “I would like that very much.”

“As I will help you,” I whispered to her.

Dale could tell I was excited when we met for our evening meal. He and Ben arrived with barely enough time to clean up. He gave me questioning looks and I just smiled. He’d seen the same puzzle pieces, just not recognized them, anymore than I had.

Back in our hut for the evening, he asked, “You found something.”

“Does it show?” I asked, smiling.

He put a hand on my belly. “Oh, you will...” His pregnant paramours from the time of the flutter-giggles were huge, carrying big babies. A ship survey suggested a norm of 3 kilograms birth weight, and it was a pretty tight norm. His were projected at over 4 kilograms.

I held his hand in place. And I was carrying two of them; big and full-term were the norm on my side of the family as well. I was going to be huge! “They’re no more native to this place than we are,” I told him flatly.

He pulled his hand back. “Really? How do you know?”

I shook my head. “So many clues! And there’s even a line in their report -- the Nikolai/Kingsley report that got us sent here?”

“Yes?”

“They said, page 24, ‘Mythos - anomalous - so much missing.’,” I told him.

He frowned. “I do rocks. Explain, please.”

I laughed and held his hands. “Oh, we’ve seen so many parts of it! I’ve mentioned their mythos doesn’t make sense? We’re in a seemingly agrarian society, right?”

He nodded.

“Not a civilized one.”

He frowned. “Well, they...”

I cut him off. “I know you took and passed that class, a long time ago. Civilization means city-based society, nothing more and nothing less. We don’t have a city-based society here, correct?”

“Yes, Professor Grode,” he said condescendingly.

I shook my head. “If they’d developed here, following the usual pattern, we should find a mythos congruent with an agrarian society, follow so far? Their mythos would have evolved to a certain point, and no further, right?””

He nodded again. “Yes, and?”

“But the pieces aren’t there! We’ve been through a cycle of the seasons; in another few months we’ll have flutter-giggles again.”

He smiled more. “Mmmm, yes...”

I poked him in the ribs. “Focus on your other head for a while...”

He gave me a pout and a smile.

“In an agrarian mythos, you expect rituals involving planting and harvest -- it’s in the agrarian stage that the mythos of rebirth arises, the cycle of the seed, dying, planted in darkness, transforming and breaking through to the light and life again, to be harvested and start the cycle over. Traditionally, that’s thought to be where human beliefs in an afterlife begin, mimicking the agrarian cycle. We know that death is a big taboo. But have we seen any rituals around planting or harvest?”

He frowned. “No, just the one song, and I still think that’s more timing than anything, timing for seed distribution.”

“Exactly! None of the myths, the rituals you’d expect if they’d evolved to this level and stopped! Nothing involving planting, harvesting, connections with sexuality -- nothing! I agree even more now about the song! None of the mythology you’d expect surrounding the constant struggle to survive, failing crops, vagarities of weather, and the like. No linguistic hints at an afterlife. Their views of agriculture are post-industrial, post-Axial!”

“Okay,” he said, nodding and frowning only a little. “Post-industrial I can see -- they approach agriculture in a very matter-of-fact manner, that I definitely agree with. But what’s the other one?”

I shook my head. I do love him. “One of the ancients, Jaspers. Don’t worry about it. The mythos here fits the pattern of post-Axial societies. In the early stages, up through the agrarian, the gods lived alongside man. It’s in the city-building stage that the gods withdraw from daily life, and nature does as well. Man becomes an independent agent, and that is reflected in his mythos. What gods do we have here?”

He pointed to my chosen, sitting on my shoulder. “Him,” he said, using the correct form.

“Very good! You’re learning!”

He frowned. “But that’s entirely circumstantial. The universe is a big place -- how do you know they didn’t take a different path? That this place has evolved nominally for itself, and our models so far represent the weird ones?”

I nodded; a common and very valid argument, and something we needed to keep in mind. “Oh, I agree, and that’s the way I’ve been leaning. For example, back on Manhome, you have the mythos surrounding a great flood, angry gods punishing all but a chosen few, that kind of thing. Appeared in many societies. You can trace that back to specific geographic areas that experienced sudden, unpredictable flooding. No similar weather patterns here, so I wouldn’t expect to find those aspects.”

“So what did you find?”

I smiled. “They fell from the clouds.”

“What! How did you learn that?”

“I asked Adda. I asked her the ‘In the beginning’ question, and that’s what she told me. They all lived together in the clouds. She said they were alike then, women and men. They didn’t have to work -- no fishing, farming, making bread, or huts, or skirts. They had everything, spending their days dreaming and counting the lights in the sky. How would you interpret that?”

He nodded, agreeing. “Sounds like a survey ship to me! Human-augmented search systems would fit the ‘dreaming and counting’ part. Then they fell from the clouds? Did they fall, or...”

“Exactly! I asked again, and there’s more to be learned. I’ll get more of the story from someone else, one of the elders, elder to Adda. And it is a story, not mythos -- mythos isn’t history, but instruction on how to live your life, how to get through the hard parts, the times that get worse before they get better. What I got from Adda is more an oral history, or again, what you’d expect from a post-Axial stage culture, stripped of the gods, dealing with man and the universe, so similar to what I told her. What I get the next time should be quite interesting. But in the mean time...”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’ll have ship start searching for evidence of landing, impacts, that kind of thing. Isotope distribution studies, refined or manufactured materials.”

“I think we should start serious genetic profiling, see what ship can trace back and deduce about the size of an initial colonizing group,” I suggested.

“Done. That really ties in with the lack of hominid and protohominid fossils. Mammals of any size have been pretty much extinct for a while.”

I thought about that, and about my earlier conversation with Dina. He was going to be so jealous... “We can worry about that later -- come here...”

He got a funny look on his face, then smiled and came closer. I got him on his back and held him to me the way I know he adores. I started my crew melting all of him but his cock, and rode us to heaven. Afterwards, I suckled him to me and let my crew take us to sleep.

I waited for the rest of the answer to my question, waited patiently. Between that and resting, not much I could do on that front. Oh, ship did come back with an answer to an earlier question; the mind-sharpening sound did not appear anyplace else on the planet. And the AI, taking initiative, was working on a catalog of sounds. I gave it access to some of my analysis, particularly of the sex-specific suffixes for male and female. The AI thanked me very much for that, telling me the information simplified it’s (her) analysis, and suggesting a variant form for young male. How young was young, I asked? Context suggested three years and younger.

A few nights later, as we were working on reports, Dina stuck her head into our hut. “Ellen!” She used a tone I’d not heard from her -- something was up!

I glanced to Dale, grabbed my skirt, and hurried out.

We went to the group of huts on one edge of our village, the area occupied by elders (older widowed women with multiple kaelen).

“Wait here,” she told me, indicating a group of other elders who were sitting. I sat with them. Something was up -- I kicked on an audiovisual recording, to the irritation of the gathered kaelen.

Dina walked to another group, which included Adda. They put on -- masks? -- small pieces of tight woven mat, with a long strip tied behind the ears, so the section, perhaps four by six inches, hung out from the nose. Four of them went to another hut, carrying something.

They emerged a few minutes later -- a stretcher, that’s what they were carrying! They carried a woman out, one of the ones who kept a lot of the juvenile kaelen. I had ship give me an image-enhanced view. As they carried her off, I saw the juvenile kaelen redistribute themselves on the stretcher bearers. Three stayed with the old woman. I had ship scan the woman on the stretcher. Multiple organ failure, impending death. The AI chimed in, reminding me of protocols strongly advising against involvement. I didn’t bother with a reply; I wasn’t going to interfere.

Our group moved to the edge of the hut area. More of the pattern was taking shape -- this was where I’d seen the remains of huts that had been burned down.

The others sat; so did I. The four stretcher bearers emerged, and hung their masks on the hut. They walked to us and sat down silently.

I moved to meditation. We waited about three hours. A keening rattle-like sound came from the hut, and stopped. Our kaelen responded with a similar keening sound. Two of the group moved quickly, going to corners of the hut, setting it on fire, and returning.

We sat and watched. I queried ship and received my answer; that hut was chock-full of material, a reference-standard funeral pyre.

We sat past dawn, to mid-morning. I cheated, having ship empty my bladder. As we sat, juvenile kaelen skittered from person to person.

The group started to disperse. I bowed low, my hands and my forearms on the ground. The group was waiting, standing, at the edge of the path back to the main part of the village. Adda had her three kaelen. One of the other widows now had the dozen or so juveniles. Once again, it seemed, He chose. We walked back single file, in silence.

I went back to our hut to lay down. I told ship to alert me for lunch.

“Mother?”

I sat up, responding to Tala’s call.

“Yes?” I replied. I’d gone to sleep wearing my skirt.

“Time for lunch.”

“Thank you, my daughter.”

I hugged her after leaving our hut. We walked to lunch. Dale was already there, as was Adda. Dale and I hugged. Lunch was subdued.

Back in our hut, we hugged again. “I missed you,” he told me.

I sat, and he sat with me. “Tell me,” he said simply.

Ritual usually has its basis in fact, in history. What could I project forward to get what I observed?

“Plague? Some kind of communicable disease?” I hypothesized out loud. I explained more to Dale. “The things they wore were ceremonial, not functional as particulate or filter masks, but those would provide a basis for what they wore, and for cremation.”

Dale shrugged. “Burial is a pretty backwards custom.”

I nodded, smiling. “Yes! Once again, if this was truly an agrarian society, pre-Axial, pre-industrial, you’d expect burial to be the norm! Plant the person, like planting the seed, so they can be reborn! There are no contra-indications to below-ground burial, such as a very high water table, and the ceremony strongly suggests a basis in the germ theory of disease.”

He frowned. “But didn’t the ancient Hindus do cremation, many centuries prior to discovery of that disease model?”

I had to agree. “Yeah, you’re right. But that doesn’t explain the masks. And if it was based on a disease model, a plague event, why didn’t they stand off, wait, and torch in situ?”

“Hard on the neighborhood,” Dale suggested with a smirk.

I shook my head. “On your back...”

“Yes, Captain!” he said, taking off his skirt and flopping back.

“You’ll pay for that insolence!” I hissed.

He didn’t even bother to open his eyes. “Promises, promises...”

I guess it was the pregnancy that made me so horny; I had my crew inflame him and wipe him out, and rode him mercilessly.

Two nights later, as dinner ended, Adda asked me, “Do you still have questions, my daughter?”

“Yes, my mother,” of course I did!

She indicated to follow. I gave Dale a quick hug and did.

Dina and Tala were waiting along one of the paths. We walked to one of the contemplation areas where we were joined by one of the elders.

She started by making a sound I’d not experienced before. All our kaelen echoed it.

My mind sharpened, razor sharp. Not the clarity I had with the other sound, a different experience entirely.

She started speaking, in a rhyming style, and in a form of their language I’d call older or archaic. I knew that with the state I was in, I’d remember this for the rest of my life.

She went on for half an hour or so. As she spoke, and we committed to memory what she spoke, the linguist in me (with AI assistance), analyzed. Analyzed and interpreted -- there were areas where the archaic forms didn’t parse as stated, but if you regrouped syllables, corrected, things made sense!

She stopped. She made another sound, a relaxing-female kind of sound, and we relaxed. I had a funny taste in my mouth, and realized I’d been on the verge of a nasty headache.

The group dispersed without a comment. Even as the AI and I reinterpreted, corrected, I could hear the original form.

I took the long way back, pausing to look at the moons in the sky. Ship automatically put up a target in my vision, showing its location. More pieces to the puzzle, and additional answered questions. The AI and I argued about a few points. It wanted support for some of my interpretations. I explained as best I could, that I was trying to correct presumed errors in pronunciation, regrouping the sounds we’d heard, trying to match on similar sounding words to get contexts that made sense. Given that explanation, it agreed with two of my points, and made a suggestion on my third that was better. Damn, it made sense, or at least was coherent, hanging together. All we needed was answers to a few questions -- like motivation, triggering events, hidden details.

Dale was excited when I got back. “Well?”

I grabbed him and held on. My head was still spinning. Eyes closed, I started talking. “We got an oral history dump, a very old form of the language, and full of errors. Part oral history, part feminist political diatribe. We’re still working on corrections. The bugs did something to stimulate eidetic memory -- all of us will be able to recite that thing for the rest of our lives. Some things are clear, yet others aren’t. I’d say this oral history was put together many generations after the events in question, but put together by people not present to witness them. It was a survey ship -- lots of pieces point to that. Example, Adda saying, ‘we were alike,’ can be interpreted as the standard practice of suppressing menstrual periods on ship. That’s reinforced by things later in the narrative. There was violence on the ship, men, males, killing other males, lots of bloodshed. Blood is important. Now it isn’t clear from the narrative whether the schism continued through a group being placed on the planet, abandoned, marooned, or voluntarily placed, but I believe that’s likely, as the narrative in some sense suggests high technology involvement through at least a generation, spreading settlers, crops, and animals across the globe. There was a pandemic event, which might be related to the schism, possibly even directed at a particular racial group, people with light skins and blue eyes.”

“Where does that put us and our children?” he interrupted.

I shook my head and continued. “The verses dealing with skin and eye color are garbled; we’re dealing with a reconstruction. In the pandemic event, all the imported non-human mammals died, and a large number of humans. The schism and the violence was still present to some extent. Now He comes into the picture, the kaelen. Some parts are garbled. The societal structure up to then, for what we can figure, was patriarchal, and militaristic. Lots of bloodshed. He changed that. Men fight, men bleed, and men die. That phrase repeats. Men fight, men bleed, and men die. He came, and gave us peace. In remembrance of the old times, now women bleed -- reappearance of the menstrual period. Women bleed so men will not fight and will not die. The society became matriarchal. Now this reappearance of the menstrual period could coincide with initial planetfall, or, I think more likely, coincides with the departure of the survey ship and the advanced technology it contained. In our society, back at Survey, most women suppress menstrual periods unless they want to become pregnant. The departure of the ship and its technology could also presage the pandemic event -- something was lurking in the background, and came to the deadly fore once the ship was gone. What isn’t explained is how He integrated in so well, so quickly. Was He part of the pandemic event? There are also other hints having to do with human males; we don’t know some things.”

I was almost panting, my mind racing still.

He squeezed me and kissed my head. “Superb work.”

“So many questions still. They’re carrying this by rote. Adda made reference to not understanding it, and it’s easy to see why. A group was put here, possibly not of their own choice, and they fell into Darkness. He saved them.”

“Keeping them in the darkness,” Dale whispered as he held and rocked me. Then he started the relaxing sound, melting the two of us together. I let go in his strong arms, and he led our crew singing us to sleep.

I rested for a few days, then went back to work, but in a different role. According to Dina, there was some argument among the elders about what my role should be. Adda was for making as much use of my skills as possible, whatever those skills might be. The traditionalists (for lack of a better term) disagreed. The tentative agreement was that I should become involved with infant care after the flutter-giggles arrived, which would be soon.

So I marked time managing a group of girls weaving skirts. Idle minds and all that -- some times I’m as bad as Dale -- I showed them some new weaving patterns, and a different technique for finishing edges.

We had eight infants due to arrive, the five Dale fathered, and three others. Of Dale’s five, two would be firstborn, a boy and a girl, and the other three second children. The three others were all firstborn. And if you lined up the mothers-to-be, you could tell which were Dale’s -- they were huge! And I was carrying twins!

One of the others popped first. A group of women served as midwives, assisting with birth. I wasn’t invited, and so far had resisted doing wideband audiovisual recordings, but I had to believe the kaelen assisted as well.

Two days later the first of Dale’s arrived, from one of the experienced mothers. From what Dina told me, it was a comparatively easy birth of a big, healthy girl.

Dale and I were walking to breakfast when he stumbled. He held my arm; I started walking again, but he held back.

“What is it?” I asked. “You okay?”

He shook his head. “I’ve had ship snooping for me. The next one, the first boy -- he’s still occiput posterior. I’m worried.”

I frowned. “You didn’t have ship...”

“No, no,” he interrupted. “I wouldn’t interfere.” Then he smiled. “I was hoping you would.”

I sighed and shook my head. “Any issues with the rest?”

He held me. “No. No breeches, no cord or placental issues.”

We walked to breakfast. Part of our training, the medical part, included extensive work in childbirth and delivery. We’d both done countless simulations handling breech, occiput posterior, tangled umbilicals, you name it. And not every simulation had a positive outcome. We’d done any number of those in the months before planetfall, to be sure our skills were sharp.

We’d already done splinting, wound treatment, even suturing. I’d saved a kid from drowning -- and been accused of taking that kid away from Him.

So, I could sit by the wayside, with a nullipara trying to deliver a big baby the wrong way, or I could at least offer to help.

After breakfast, I approached the woman who was the defacto head of the midwives.

“What do you do when the head is turned the wrong way?” I asked her flat out.

She gave me a long sigh in response.

I held her hands. “I can show you how to help; I can help, but it has to be done early, just as the head shows, long before she has opened.”

I could see her contemplating. She squeezed my hands and nodded, departing without saying anything.

Okay, we’ll see.

About an hour before dinner, a young girl came running. “Come quick!” she said.

I followed quickly. I didn’t know exactly what I’d be walking into, but I had my hunches; I started my crew sharpening my mind.

The right thing to do; when we entered the hut, I felt my muscles relaxing, tension draining from me. The woman I’d spoken to after breakfast and another midwife were with our mother-to-be. I had ship confirm the presentation. It wasn’t too late for manual intervention.

I started a high-bandwidth audiovisual recording of the event, the kaelen would just have to live with it.

They told me they called for me as soon as they started to started to see the head, and could feel the position was wrong.

I thanked them, and told them we would have a big boy in a short while. They looked a little surprised; I guess He can’t tell sexes.

I explained the manual intervention, reaching in gently and rotating from the shoulders, feeling to be sure the cord wasn’t in the way.

I know, our instructors always say, “It will be just like in the simulations,” and the bedamned simulations are as wideband and realistic as we can make them, hitting all the senses, but I knew this was not a simulation. There were real lives at issue here!

I reached in, feeling for landmarks, and started the rotation. I withdrew and coached the lead midwife through the rest of the rotation. When she was done, she gave me such a smile!

She talked to the woman’s kaelen, whispering to them and placing them on her. She whispered the same to me -- a new word, definitely feminine. The woman’s breathing picked up, slow and deep. She looked spaced out, not in pain -- a good omen for me! She dilated quickly, contractions picking up, and in under an hour we had a big baby boy!

The umbilical was tied in two places with fine weaving material, and separated with a bite. Our boy was cleaned up a bit and placed with his mother.

She delivered the placenta a few minutes later. Her kaelen (she had one) got excited as it was delivered. The midwife gave her kaelen a command and placed him on the mother. He jabbed her with his stinger! The midwife leaned over and told me the word -- female, plus -- from which I inferred the suffix for injection.

The placenta had been delivered to a small section of woven mat. As the other midwife picked it up, mom’s kaelen ran to it. The lead midwife told me, “Go watch, and come back.”

I followed the placenta-bearing midwife outside.

She made a sound, and her (single) kaelen, and my three jumped on the placenta! Mine jumped about a meter and a half! Soon we had five, six, eight, nine more! In another minute, you could hardly see the placenta or the cord, there were so many of them. And while the activity was intense, it was more or less orderly -- evidence that this was once a hive creature, who still retained some of the hive programming?

Other women came by, their kaelen joining the fray. The elder with all the juveniles held back a few meters.

One kaelen dropped off and ran back into the birth hut. One rejoined the midwife, and as hers reached her waist level, I felt my three rejoining me, as usual taking the most ticklish and circuitous route possible back to my shoulders and head.

The elder with her mob approached. She repeated the “feeding time” sound and her bunch jumped into the fray.

A few minutes later, a chunk of umbilicus was all that was left!

I retired back to the hut in amazement.

Mom was on her side on a moss pad, a hungry boy at her breast. I had ship do a quick scan of them; both nominal. We sat with them for another hour or so.

When we left, the lead midwife gestured to a man waiting patiently at the edge of the hut area. He rushed off to the hut, carrying fruit, water, and juice for his wife. The two midwives and I hugged.

It’s universal, I guess; no good deed goes unpunished. Not only did I miss dinner (Dale saved some for me), but after breakfast the next morning, Adda told me that while some people were happy, some (elders) were not.

I frowned and asked her if she found a piece of moss in her hut that was dirt-side up, would she lay down on it? She gave me a puzzled look. I told her that she would turn it over first. She smiled and nodded. That’s all I did, I told her. I showed them how to turn the baby over. That made it easier for baby and mother. Do you open (a nut with a tough fibrous shell) with your teeth? You can, but that way is harder. Why not use the easier way?

Adda smiled and nodded.

I got to assist with six more births, none of them during daylight hours, and none of them difficult. I was exposed to more instances of the linguistic variation for injection, and verified my hypothesis with my chosen on myself. Even though I was expecting it, it hurt!

And Dina told me of Adda delivering my arguments to the elders. While most grudgingly accepted the arguments for intervention, a few still thought I was wrong. One of the elders said that another wouldn’t even use their teeth to open that nut, but would wait for Him to give her a nut that was softer. That brought laughter to most of the group.

It also told me we had those willing to listen, and to change, and that we also had conservatives, and ultra-conservatives. I sincerely hoped that most of the group was not in the conservative/ultraconservative camp.

Synthesis

Early evening, both of us working on reports. So much we’d learned, yet so much we didn’t know, so many anomalies.

I sighed and shook my head. I was getting tired. Time to hold my husband and ride him to sleep... In a few months I’d be too big to do that.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, putting a hand on my shoulder. How his hands had gotten rough, and strong. This place had changed us. I put a hand on my growing belly -- how it was changing us.

“Still so many gaps,” I told him.

And he smiled -- a canary that ate the cat smile.

“What is it?” I whispered. “What have you found? More fossils?”

He shook his head, smiling more. “Nope. But I’d say the fossil record clearly supports the hypothesis that the kaelen evolved here.”

I shook my head. “And why aren’t there other large surface-dwelling mammals?”

“Don’t know just yet, but our friends out there did indeed fall from the clouds.”

I pulled him closer. “What did you find? Tell me!”

We moved to reclining on the moss. He drew my head to his shoulder and held me. “Circumstantial at best, and ship is continuing the search. I’ve been looking for minerals, metals, as you’d expect. Anomalies in isotope distribution, anomalies in densities, purities, the usual stuff. Manufactured materials indicating a ship -- metals, plastics, glasses. Distribution fairly nominal for the stellar sequence, nothing really out of the ordinary...”

“Until?” I suggested, snuggling in.

He squeezed me and sighed. “Oh how I love to be lost in you -- take me again, please, and use me...”

“After you tell me,” I reminded.

He chuckled. “Brief history of drive systems. What do you remember of the Lawson Drive?”

I thought about it; not my main area of interest. “That’s the one they always call horrible?”

“Close -- horrific. It allowed vehicles to reach 70% of the speed of light. But the damn thing generated huge amounts of hard radiation, poisoning itself and everything behind it.”

“And?”

“Well, in terms of metallurgy, Lawson poisoning produces some pretty specific and unique results in terms of isotopes, crystal damage, things like that. I’ve never asked you -- what do you think of the Diaspora theorists, the Atlantis hypothesis?”

“So you found metals that showed this Lawson poisoning? This world was settled by Lawson ships? But that doesn’t make sense! We’re hundreds of light years from Earth, and you said they didn’t even make one light.”

He squeezed me again. “You’re right and you’re wrong. The evidence supports colonization from a Lawson ship, but the set of initial conditions aren’t what you think. Remember, no matter what you think, what the rocks are saying is what the rocks are saying -- it’s your interpretation that’s the problem. Lawson poisoning creates certain isotope patterns and distributions -- and some of those isotopes are very long-lived and nasty. One in particular definitely does not occur in nature, and the decay products are equally unnatural. Once the Lawson field is cut off, normal decay processes take over. With enough samples, enough different metals, you can estimate how long it’s been since the materials were exposed to the Lawson effect. Millarev and Koharsky are still trying to convince folks that samples taken from Earth’s asteroid field show evidence of Lawson poisoning, but the severity of the presumed impact event destroyed the crystallographic evidence needed to bolster isotope ratios...”

“Oh! Oh! I remember! They’re the ones saying Atlantis, the planet between Mars and Jupiter, was destroyed by multiple impact events from Lawson-powered ships, creating the asteroid belt, and ending the, they called it the ‘zeroth’ Age of Space.”

“Knew I married a bright lady... Last I remember hearing about them, they were guessing anywhere from two eighty to three hundred thousand years ago.”

“And your samples show?” I asked.

“Ship is still working it out. We have isotope ratios and some crystallographic evidence. We can also date the impact crater, and the resulting orbital perturbation. Oh, the crater looks like a run-of-the-mill impact event, a large object de-orbiting, not a deliberate point seven C impact.”

I moved in his embrace. “But a crater-forming impact wouldn’t be conducive to colonization -- kind of hard to walk away, right?”

He smiled. “Certainly would be if it was on this planet. Small moon of the fourth planet, the next one out, hell of an impact crater. Decided to look there because the orbit was anomalous, but add in a deliberate impact oh, about eight thousand years ago, and it fits.”

“So they were dropped here, and the ship disposed of?” I asked.

He raised an eyebrow. “Certainly looks that way. No, zero, evidence of isotope anomalies on this planet or its moons. Yet you look at that moon of four, and it sure looks deliberate. Even well thought out -- velocity high enough to do the job but not high enough to cause severe problems. If it had gone in full tilt, ship models show a significant probability of splintering, deorbiting, or both. I get the feeling someone was saying ‘we’re leaving you here to stay.’ Does that help?”

“Eight thousand years? What’s the error estimate on that?”

“Eighty two seventy, plus or minus fifty years. Pretty solid from both isotope ratios and orbital perturbation -- very tight cross-check. Of course that doesn’t tell us when they got here, just when they decided to park the ship for the last, very last, time..”

I could tell he wasn’t happy with that number. “So what’s the problem?”

He sighed. “Same concern as you. Everything I’ve read about Lawson drives, everything Ship has, and Ship’s told me there’s a lot that’s restricted, still... It’s really hard to figure out how to build a Lawson ship that would travel from Earth to here. Fuel requirements, transit time -- even figuring relativistic effects.”

“I can clear you for full access to stored history,” I told him as I did it. Certain aspects of our history required psychological clearance.

He shrugged. “That would be nice, but it won’t help. Estimates of the size of the ship don’t fit any known Lawson ships originating from old Earth, and the time doesn’t fit, either. Way too big and way too old.”

I smiled. “So Earth wasn’t the center of the Diaspora,” I suggested. I wasn’t tired any more!

“Or at least the launch site for whatever made that impact crater.”

I shuddered in his arms.

“What?”

“The Darkness -- they’ve never known war here...”

He squeezed me again, gently. “Never known, or forgotten? You’ve said yourself, post-Axial.”

“Who abandoned these people here, and why?” I asked softly. And where would I have my children, our children grow up?

“Genetic studies?” I asked, focusing on the more concrete. “We have a time frame now.”

“Ship put together a new study given the colonization estimates. A few days to a week. Still trying to figure how the population got so spread out so relatively quickly. I’m leaning toward your hypothesis that happened before the ship left.”

“That’s not rocks,” I chided, squeezing him.

He chuckled and nestled closer. “It’s all part of the same puzzle.”

“Yes, it is.”

He sighed again.

“What is it?” I asked.

He kissed my head. “Now I’m all wound up. Unwind me, please?”

I sighed, moving in his embrace. “Of course, my love...” I called on our companions to take us to passion, and then to sleep.

Price

I started working in day care, essentially their crèche, infants from about two months to three years or so. For the first two months babies stayed with their mothers exclusively. After that, we had them during the day.

Of course, to better fill this role... I was far enough along in my pregnancy to have been visited by the Breast Goddess. Dale loved that! I was bigger and fuller than before! Then Dina gave my crew another magic word, and I started producing milk. Producing, more like open faucets! Dale loved that even more! Of course the main reason was so that I could help feed the little ones, one of four wet nurses. Of the other three, two were mothers with little ones, and one was to deliver her second child a little while after I had the twins.

Starting at about age two, we separated them by sex and more-or-less by age for naps. We had a number of teen girls helping us, taking care of fresh moss in the huts, carrying and playing with kids. It was a happy place. No illness. Nap time was also easy. Put the kids down, and call to the kaelen in the hut, giving them the sex-specific sleepy time call. If nothing else, that certainly added to the strength of the conditioning!

One morning after we’d topped off the kids and put them down for their morning naps, Adda and two of the elders showed up. Of the people (women and girls) taking care of the crèche, I was the only one with multiple kaelen. Even though I was new on the job, I was still looked to for answers, for decisions, for organization.

Adda called me over. We went into the hut with the two year old boys. Adda gave me a stern look. I nodded; I can take a hint. I also started a wideband recording. One of the elders made a new sound. It was related to others I’d heard; I interpreted it as male-deep-sleep.

After a minute or so, she told us to turn them. There were four little boys in the hut. Adda indicated one to me. I went to him, and following what Adda and the others did, turned mine face down. This wasn’t deep sleep, this was anesthesia! Anesthesia without muscle tone! We positioned them face down, head tilted to expose the base of the skull.

The elder took her chosen, and spoke to him. I am supposed to be a Survey professional. Yet with all my training, it was the most horrible sound I will ever hear in my life. She made this sound, most definitely a male-specific sound, and set her chosen on the poor boy.

The sound was male specific, with the additional suffix for injection. Her kaelen placed his stinger in at the base of the skull. It wasn’t a quick sting, and it wasn’t a short one.

She moved to the next child, took her second kaelen, gave it the same command, and placed it on the child’s head. He received a similar injection.

I saw the first child moving slightly as she moved to the third, to Adda’s child. I had ship scan the first one, and sample what had being injected.

Neurotoxins -- the first child was having seizures. Irreparable brain damage, mostly to higher order cognitive functions. The second child started moving. AI warning against interference with ...

I rushed out of the hut, falling to my hands and knees, retching violently.

After a few moments, I felt hands on me, holding me gently. Adda was at my side.

“Who gives us peace?” she whispered to me.

Peace? At this price? I queried ship. Very complex neurotoxin. Permanent brain damage. Scan the surrounding male population for evidence of similar damage. One male in the area did not have indicia of similar impairment. Dale.

Adda started the comfort sound.

“No!” I called, stopping it.

Our teen assistants had scattered once the elders appeared. One of them approached, bringing me water. I rinsed my mouth and drank some, sitting on the ground.

The elder who had just done ... what they had done for generations, sat next to me and took my hand. “Who brings us peace?” she asked formally.

“He does,” I responded formally.

She nodded, smiling, a sad smile. “When they wake, feed them and comfort them. Give them this.” She made a sound, a male-sound

They were cranky when they woke; not surprising. We fed them and comforted them as best we could. I gave them the sound the elder had told me. They brightened up, laughing and happy again. So resilient. I had ship rescan the first one. The neurotoxin was still working through, preferentially attacking cortical structures. Damaged for life. Yet the little boy in my arms happily took my breast.

They were slow at play; we cheered them up again, and that seemed to help. I comforted them and gave them one more boost of cheering up before they were picked up by their mothers. Did they know? Or did they take it as given, something unavoidable, part of life?

As the last in the crèche were picked up, most of the others were gone, just one other woman and I remaining. I looked around. What a price! As I looked around, Adda was standing by the path back to our part of the village.

We hugged. I held back tears.

She held my hand as we walked. “This is our way,” she told me.

“I understand, my mother.” I understood -- the ultimatum.

We separated at a fork in the path. I walked along, then to the beach and sat on a rock. My kaelen didn’t like it. Kaelen be damned. I knew the dilemma, the ultimatum. We either play by their rules, or change the rules. And Survey said we didn’t change the rules. We could bend the rules, for our son. We had the neurotoxin; we could study antivenins, antidotes and program his system for immunity. I had ship start that program, priority.

But what do I do now? Why had Adda and two elders come to do that job? One elder could have done it. To watch me? Which side of the fence were the two elders on? In that analysis I was assuming Adda was on my side, but was that a valid assumption? This was at the core of their society. To change this, eliminate this, would result in major changes.

Okay, assume I’m under the magnifying glass. What now? I can’t go to dinner morose, or worse yet, defiant.

Use the tools at hand, that’s what we were taught. I picked up my chosen. Take a chance -- how well do you understand? I gave him the cheer-up root, female, injected, and pulled up my skirt. I placed him on the inside of a thigh.

Damn that hurt! But in seconds the pain faded, and I felt happy, cheerful, like laughing! I laughed and put my chosen back on my shoulder. Yes, that had been the right thing to do. Now I could walk to dinner and plan the destruction of this abomination with a smile!

No, that’s not it. I need to be somewhat circumspect, I laughed to myself.

Walking back, I heard the crowd gathering for dinner, so I walked directly there, stopping to relieve myself. Dale was waiting in our spot, and stood as I approached. Ben was there with Tala, and didn’t stand until I gave him a dirty look. I swept Dale into my arms and kissed him. We sat down.

Adda looked to me and took my hand. “You are better, my daughter?”

I smiled and sighed. “Yes, my mother. I understand.” I understand the decision we must make, and the timeframe we must make it in. We have about two and a half years, both a long time and a short time.

As with all Survey members hoping for actual field work, I’d undergone intense psychotherapy, as had Dale. You don’t turn the unstable loose on unknowing cultures; they have enough problems of their own. Yet the medications they’d given me to help me through that ordeal didn’t come close to this! I was happy, cheerful, with a clear mind. I could see the utter destruction of their society, and the many paths to accomplish it. I also knew I could not set this in motion.

Or had we already? We’d introduced more change in the last year than they’d seen in decades, maybe centuries. Oral sex, there’s a good one. The swimming strokes had spread to other villages, and Dale’s improvements in cultivation and planting. He’d gotten them to try crop rotation on one field, to demonstrate improvement. If that worked, we will have planted the seeds not only of improved agriculture, but of the scientific method itself: form a hypothesis, conduct an experiment, measure the results, and test those results against the hypothesis. What will be the fallout of that, over the generations?

One of the elders greeted us as we were leaving after dinner. “How are you, my daughter?” she asked me formally.

I took her hand and kissed it, something I do to show respect. “I am well, my mother,” I told her.

We hugged and she took her leave.

Back in our hut, Dale kicked on a security field that effectively scrambled sound. “What the hell was that about? Wasn’t that one of the ones gunning for you?”

“Probably,” I said with a smile. I wanted him on his back. “Still hungry?” I asked; I was getting full again.

He sat down, pulling me to sitting next to him. “What’s the matter with you?”

I started my crew clearing my mind. The euphoria faded, a bit. Focus improved. “I learned more today,” I told him.

“So did I,” he said with an intent look.

“Oh? Tell me.”

He shook his head as he sat closer and rubbed my back. “This place, it’s like balancing a writing stylus on its point. We go through a lot of firewood, right? Cooking bread and fish, no need for fires for warmth in this climate.”

“And no oral tradition or songs to sing by fires at night,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, another of your post-Axial signs, that one. I did some modeling. Firewood is gathered, not harvested. We don’t cut down material for fires; we gather. At least I’m getting them to gather and protect so we don’t lose as much to rot from the rain. Increase the population just a little, which drives up the use of firewood for cooking, similar increases overall, and in ten or twelve generations, the island is stripped bare.”

I nodded. “Let alone if they were trying to smelt metals or produce glass, brick, or ceramics.”

He rolled his eyes. “Very difficult to support anything energy intensive, at least with the current population levels.”

I frowned. “Sounds like you did some predictive modeling...”

He smiled.

I love him! “Okay, how deep do you need to cut the population to free up enough energy for metalwork?”

He smirked and hugged me. “About a third. But food and firewood production would have to be a lot more efficient due to the shift in workforce needed.”

“So, not likely. How about your changes in agriculture? What effects?”

He shook his head. “Unclear, not surprisingly. Contour planting, maybe ten percent improvement. If they go to rotation, soft root, bitter root, fallow, that could give them a twenty five percent or more yield improvement if followed uniformly. The changes in fishing, slightly different nets, different techniques, resulted in a fifty percent improvement in production -- but being lazy bastards, that just means they spend half the time fishing and twice the time loafing to get the same catch. But I’m not sure what the sensor mechanism is.”

“What?” I questioned, chuckling.

“We know the bugs can’t count, well, I hope the bugs can’t count,” he started, “and our hosts can’t count, and don’t have writing or any means of accurate record keeping, so what is it that is sensed as part of the feedback loop that governs population? If it’s availability of food, then the improvements we’ve introduced, in fishing as well as in agriculture, could definitely support an increase in population. Hypothesize a mechanism -- increased calories per person per day could be sensed as an increase in weight or body fat or some such, but sensed on an individual basis. If we’re getting heavier, fatter, then we can support a larger population. Let the population increase until the calories per person per day drops again. Pure speculation.”

I nodded. “But you’re right, a control loop has a sense mechanism: a reference, a comparator, and a loop filter.” I sighed. “I found part of the puzzle.”

“Oh, what?” he asked cheerily.

I looked in his eyes. “You called it, months ago.”

“I did? What?”

“You said the men were bubble heads.”

He frowned and nodded. “Yup. The inquisitiveness and initiative of a sack of rocks.” His expression changed, brightening. “You know why?”

I sighed and held his hands. “Yes. At around age two, each male is injected with a neurotoxin which causes permanent brain damage, mostly to higher order functions, cortical regions.”

The colour drained out of his face.

I nodded. “That’s what happened today. Four beautiful little boys.” My tears were flowing again.

He held me close as I cried.

We talked more. I told him what I’d observed. I told him about the happy rootsound, and my self-experimentation so I wouldn’t cause a scene.

He held me close. “This can not, will not, happen to our children,” he said.

I nodded. Then I sat back. “It can’t happen to you.”

His breath caught; his eyes widened.

“I’ve got ship studying the neurotoxin already; while immunity is possible, the damage can’t be undone.”

The look in his face, he was thinking deeply. “Does it have to be injected, or can it be airborne?”

I queried ship. “Has to be injected, past the membranes protecting the brain.”

He held my hands. “After ... the first time the damn bugs stung me, I had ship put together a defensive plan. Using our existing biometric sensor network, ship can sense attempts at injection, and use effectors to block. Since effector use is involved, that programme requires command authorization. A lower order mechanism stimulates reflex muscular activity in an attempt to throw the buggers off.”

I queried ship and set the mechanism in place for both of us. “Command authorization given. We are both protected. Other suggestions?”

He shook his head. “I’m worried about swarms -- that’s my nightmare. A dozen or so thrown at us, all given the sleepy root...”

I nodded. “We’re dancing around mission termination criteria. If we agree that we will not disrupt their society, we must terminate at the latest shortly after our son is born, agreed?”

“Agreed, Captain.”

I shook my head. “Don’t force it all on me, darling -- this is about all of us.”

He held me for a moment. “I know. I’m sorry. I agree; we’re going to terminate the survey and it’s only a matter of when.”

I sighed. “The longer we stay, the more we learn, but the more change we introduce, knowingly or unknowingly, and the greater risk we run of some calamitous event, a real whopper.”

He held me and kissed my neck and shoulders. “We could be on ship in half an hour, cool and clean, in reduced gee, and you could have your mountains of curry.”

I smiled. What a temptation! “And you could have a cold beer...”

“Mmm...” he rumbled. “But I’ve found something I like even more...” He lifted a breast, a full breast, one he’d have to help with, and soon, or I’d be in pain.

I sat back. “Command decisions.”

He nodded. “Yes, Captain?”

As I frowned slightly he touched the outsides of my breasts.

“Okay. We have termination or abort conditions. We may be under attack. We are protected from injection. I am commanding ...” I queried ship and put my commands into effect. “Unconsciousness or incapacity in one of us will alert the other, who may call for extraction. Unconsciousness or incapacity in both of us will initiate extraction.”

“Agreed,” he said with a formal nod.

“Good, since it’s already in place,” I told him.

“I’d feel much better having our children aboard ship,” he whispered, touching my expanding belly.

I held his hand in place. “But there’s so much to learn here...”

He shook his head. “And with each set of answers, more questions -- how did this neurotoxin evolve, its selective use evolve?” He grunted. “What are the effects if injected intramuscularly, intravenously?”

I queried. “Ship has separated out components. The component that causes the seizures in the anesthetized individual will cause cardiac arrest if the agent hits the bloodstream. IV would be quicker, but IM injection should cause death within minutes. Injected as I observed, into the fluid surrounding the brain, the blood-brain barrier holds it in.”

“Okay, possible origin in killing prey. But how did this other use evolve? Particularly since the effects aren’t immediately apparent? There are so many weird timescale gaps around this place!”

“Oh?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Where’s the memory, the loop filter. Some of these things would seem to have time constants, which implies memory of some kind, or at least a stored state, many seasons or years in duration. And the bugs themselves -- the fossil record suggests larger creatures, hive creatures, and prey/host species. But the only prey/host species we see now is human! Ten to twenty thousand years ago is too early for fossil records, but what did the bugs do from the extinction of the previous prey species until we humans arrived around eighty two hundred years ago?”

“I don’t know, darling. It’s a pity we don’t have burial; that might give us some clues.”

He nodded sighing. “What a mess.” He looked to me, smiling. “What can I do for you? What do you need?”

I reclined on to the moss. “Come here -- I’m full. I need you.”

He sighed and nestled in. I let the bugs sing us to sleep after he finished both sides.

It was hard, so hard to go to the crèche the next morning. But I did it. I greeted all the little ones and their mothers. I had the feeling I was on the stage, performing for an audience. I tried to make my performance as natural as possible. I did spend more time with those four boys. I comforted and cheered them up. Scans revealed the neurotoxin was almost completely gone, the damage done. Query for ship: would leakage of the neurotoxin into the spinal canal cause the coordination difficulties we see in some males? Estimate occurrence. Survey planetwide for signs of evolved resistance.

Response: leakage into spinal fluid results in impaired reflexes affecting movement. Also results in increased blood pressure and reduced lifespan. Genetic resistance not observed but possible.

That explained the number of widows; shortened male life span. Query projected effect on male lifespan, correlate with population estimates. Response: female lifespan 67 years with sigma 4.8 years, male lifespan 51 years with sigma 3.2 years.

Adda and the elder from yesterday dropped by as we were feeding infants. I didn’t need to have the bugs make me happy when I had a little one at my breast. Or when I had Dale at my breast.

They sat with us, helping to burp little ones, playing with them.

The elder asked me, “You are well, my daughter?”

I switched a hungry little one to the other side; he wasn’t going to get much more where he was. “Yes, my mother.”

“You understand, this is His way?”

“Yes, my mother. I understand.”

“You are carrying a boy?”

I smiled a bit more; He had a blind spot. “A boy and a girl.”

The elder looked to Adda, who sighed.

Adda looked to me with sadness yet determination. “You understand what you must do?”

I nodded. “I understand we must follow His way, or we must leave.”

Adda and the elder exchanged glances. The elder raised an eyebrow.

“You and your man were not raised with Him,” she stated.

“Yes, my mother.”

The elder sat, looking pensive.

I jumped three steps down the path I thought they were following. “To do this to my man, it would be better for you to crush his head with a rock. To do this now, you would send my man to Him.” They didn’t have a word for “kill,” but from their expressions I felt I was getting the point across; they would kill Dale. And from their expressions, I’d gotten across the point that they would be killing him.

“We would not do this to your man,” Adda said, giving the elder a cross look, and evidently looking for a response.

But we didn’t get one.

“Thank you, my mother,” I told Adda with a slight bow. “We understand His way, and will follow His way as long as we are here.”

Adda looked to the elder.

The elder looked to me with a slight forced smile. “Thank you, my daughter. Who brings us peace?”

“He does,” we all answered.

She nodded to Adda, got up, and left.

Adda sighed.

“I am sorry I cause you trouble, my mother.”

Adda smiled, a sad, smile, and put a hand on my shoulder.

The little one I held was full and asleep in my arms. I moved him to my shoulder.

“Who takes life?” I whispered, using the archaic form.

Adda sat up straight, as if she’d been stuck with a thorn.

“What will you do, my daughter?” she asked.

I signaled to one of the teen girls waiting at a socially correct distance, and handed her the little one.

I took Adda’s hands. “My mother, we are here to learn from you, to live with you, to live as you do. We will follow His way as long as we are here.”

“And your son?”

I sighed; they were really pushing it. “My mother, that fruit is not ripe today.” Not a decision I can, or have to make, today.

“But tomorrow comes anyway,” she said, repeating my words.

“Yes, my mother, tomorrow comes anyway.”

We hugged and she left.

I had ship put an audio recorder on her, and the elder. Key on our names.

A few days later ship reported on the neurotoxin. One major component caused the neurological damage, another major component caused seizures or cardiac arrest. Immunity to both was possible. Genetic immunity was also possible! One tailored virus would confer immunity on the individual; another more invasive virus would make the genetic alterations to confer immunity on successive generations, a mutation that was most definitely dominant.

Dale and I talked it over. We immunized ourselves. We could confer genetic immunity to Dale’s children ... but that would be a slow death to their society, taking generations to spread immunity, until it became dominant. We would not do that.

A few days after that, we received an audio report from ship. Serious-sounding meeting; I requested wideband audiovisual; we watched and listened from our hut. Adda, loud and clear, reminding them of all we’d brought to them, and that He had chosen me, giving me three kaelen. Remember what she had done with Tala, and that she had given back seven males. She has given herself to Him, and promised to follow His way. Another elder, though, whined and wheezed about us not being raised with Him, that both of us must follow His way. She learned late, and did well, so... Adda told them flatly that Dale would die. They argued back and forth, not reaching any conclusion. Well, they didn’t decide to run us off now, and they didn’t decide to do anything to Dale. I guess that’s about the best we could hope for.

Waiting

After another few days, a new woman, the mother of one of Dale’s children, joined the crèche. It was clear I was being squeezed out. Two days later, when I was still spending my days there, Adda and Dina told me I didn’t have to. Holding a breast, a full, heavy breast, I told them I had to spend some time there -- Dale could only drink so much, and had work to do. They smiled and agreed.

But it was clear we were being squeezed out. That was harder to do with Dale, as women didn’t work out in the fields, or fishing. They gave general instructions, but the men did the work. Dale worked hard, organizing protected areas for storing firewood, impressing on everyone how the system of gathering to storage and distribution points helped everyone. It made things easier on the women, who only had to fetch from the storage points, fuel wasn’t lost to rot. He explained terracing and contouring to the women who oversaw the fields. They were enthusiastic.

That was one of the problems, really. The things we did were enthusiastically received, whether it was oral sex, swimming strokes, which I was teaching in the afternoons, improved fishing, management of firewood, agriculture. These were enthusiastically received by the people they affected, the ones who had to get fuel, or were responsible for fishing, or making bread, or on the receiving end of a tongue. That enthusiasm just pissed off our critics all the more. Pissed them off, even though the woman who oversaw bread production, and was one of our strongest detractors, could see, and privately agreed about how the changes we’d brought made her life so much easier. When one of our supporters asked her if she would turn away from those changes, she said she would not.

Ship notified me the flutter-giggles were a few days off. In the afternoons I made contact with as many of the teens as I could, reminding them to play safe, to sit down first, and stay away from the water. I told them I wanted them all to be able to play for many seasons.

Dale and I wondered; with our new status, what would happen with him? What would the women do, after seeing how big his babies were, how huge their mothers had been, how big I was getting, so early on? I did my exercises in the afternoons, and ship helped with direct muscular stimulation to build muscle tone, but still, it was nice to be in the partial buoyancy of the pool, and sleeping on my back on that moss was going to be a problem in another few months.

He wanted Dale. The women wanted Dale. The flutter-giggles appeared in the morning, and Dale had many invitations before lunch, choosing a very attractive young woman; Dina and I chided him mercilessly, and told him we’d rescue him.

Dina, Tala, and I were still close friends. We spent the afternoon up the hill in the spot Dale and I, and Dina and her man frequented. Dina, Tala, and I shook moths and enjoyed each other’s company. They jumped me, and afterwards, I suckled Dina while Tala ate her. Dina returned the favor. We rescued my dear husband and enjoyed the water together.

The following morning, after Dale went off with yet another young lady, and Tala took Ben off for the morning, Dina and I were going to head up the hill when some kids came running for us. A teen girl was hurt. She’d been in a tree; in a tree! Of course she fell.

When we arrived, she was in great pain. As I did my own survey, I had ship scan her. Dislocated shoulder, nothing broken, mild concussion. I whispered to my chosen, deep sleep, injected, and placed him on her. She whimpered a bit at the sting, but her eyes soon closed.

I reduced the dislocation with an audible pop, explaining to Dina and the others what I’d done. I sent some of them to fetch me long strips of skirt material, then sat down to cradle the poor girl. I cradled her, and as she woke, instinctively suckled her, telling her she was going to be fine, just in pain for a few days, to remind her what a silly thing she’d done. I sat her up and fashioned a sling to support her arm, and told her to check with me tonight and in the morning. Now go play, safely!

Dina and I looked at each other in exasperation, sighed, and laughed. I looked up the hill. Didn’t want to walk all the way up there, only to have to walk down for lunch. Some times when it was just Dale and I, or if I was alone, we’d have ship provide lunch. Couldn’t do that with Dina, though.

Dina took my hand and walked us to the lover’s lane area. We found an unoccupied (at the moment) spot.

As we sat down, she sighed and touched the side of my breast. “Will you hold me like you did yesterday? I am so hungry.”

Even though Dale had been ravenous when we awoke, I was ready. “Yes, of course.”

“But first,” she said, catching a moth and passing it to me.

We shook them and inhaled deeply... I let myself down on to the moss.

And woke suddenly, a man on top of me, thrusting into me! I stuck a thumb his eye as I pushed him off. He tried to scramble to his feet; I kicked viciously at the inside of his right knee, sending him to the ground. I grabbed his hair and pulled, hissing to my chosen, male deep sleep, injected. All three of my kaelen jumped and stung him. In seconds he was still.

My heart was pounding. I checked his pulse; he had one, strong and steady. I had ship scan us both. I was fine. I’d damaged his right knee. Too bad. I had my crew wake Dina.

She sat up smiling, then gasped when she saw the man laying near us.

“I woke with him on top of me, inside me,” I told her. I explained that I pushed him off and had my kaelen send him to sleep. What do we do now?

Dina shook her head. She grabbed her skirt. “Stay here; I’ll be back soon.” She took off running.

She returned in a few minutes with Adda and two others; all three were out of breath.

The women recognized the man. He had a habit of doing this, it seems. I told Adda very clearly, “I did not ask him. He did not ask me, and if he had I would have told him no. No, no, no! I do not play this way!”

We left the bastard where he was. I collected my skirt, and one of the other women collected his. When I saw her do that, I told her, “Good!” It was a good start.

We went to the elders’ area, Dina, Adda, and I entering. To the quickly gathered group, Adda explained what had happened. When one of my detractors smiled smugly, Adda asked her pointedly, “Is this His way?” She frowned and had to admit it was not. Dina explained that earlier in the morning we’d helped a girl, the granddaughter of another of my detractors, it turned out. Dina explained that I had called on His help to heal her.

Grumble grumble, and Dina and I were sent off while the elders discussed. Fine. I bowed and we took our leave, except I had ship give me a sound feed.

I needed to stop at the pools and wash off. Dina understood.

Back at the “discussion,” the remark that I’d had it coming was put down with vigor. This was not His way! The man had done this before, and they’d not done anything about it. Quick agreement that he had to go. Two of them agreed to take care of it.

We rescued Dale. As I held him in the water, I explained what had happened, and that it was extremely important that he not react violently. Besides, I’d already injured the bastard, and he was going to be run out of the village. He held me and apologized for not being there to protect me.

During lunch we listened to the sound feed from ship as my accoster was run off. One of the elders involved was one of the keepers of juvenile (male) kaelen. I learned a new sound, assuming it meant “attack!”

Adda and two elders wanted to talk to Dale after lunch. He looked at me questioningly, and I nodded to him to go with them. I listened. They used the male-relaxation sound, then the truth sound, but why didn’t they give that one as male only? They asked him if he knew what had happened. Yes, I’d explained it to him. What was he going to do about it? He sighed and asked if this was His way. When he didn’t get a response, he asked again, more forcefully, was this His way? One of the elders responded that no, it was not His way. Dale answered that we lived by His way; what was His way of dealing with this? After a pause, the elder told him the man had left the village, and would not be back. How did Dale feel about this? Dale told them he felt very sad; sad that I had been hurt, but also sad that they had known about this man and this problem, and had let the problem continue. If I hadn’t done anything about it, how many more would he have hurt? Then he said, perfectly sounding out the archaic form, “Who brings us peace?” and they answered, “He does.” End of discussion!

Dale joined me in the pool. I told him I’d been listening, and was proud of him. He didn’t understand why they’d not used a sex-specific version of the truth root. I didn’t, either, unless... I had ship search for occurrences of the truth root, and modified occurrences of the truth root. Local first, then wider if needed.

The results came back after we’d washed our hair under the falls. The only occurrences of the sex-specific version were the ones I’d used with Dale! Does that mean they don’t understand their own linguistic structure, they only parrot particular expressions in it? I formed that hypothesis and had ship start searching it.

We didn’t get results until after dinner, a dinner at which Dale received a number of propositions. He turned down the first one, and after that one, I told him I didn’t mind. With subsequent ones, he told the young (and bountiful) ladies to ask again in the morning.

It was reasonable to conclude from the language survey that they didn’t understand the syntax of commanding the kaelen! Certain roots only appeared in some forms. The only instances of some forms were my uses!

The next morning, Dale acquiesced to a young lovely. I took Dina and Tala up the hill. I bet they thought they were going to shake moths! Instead, I taught them linguistics; how to separate the action root in commands, and the suffixes for female, male, young male, and what I expected to be young female. We reviewed many aspects of the kaelen command structure, I can’t really call it a language, including constructs which should be useful but they’d not considered. Some things surprised them -- I’d been using one root with a male modifier to relax Dale but keep him hard, and another root with a female modifier to give me easy release. They only used the sleep root in its general form, not the sex-specific forms. Dina asked some very good questions, questions I didn’t have answers to, but I explained how she could conduct experiments to find out. We talked about others, and from what they told me we were able to deduce modifiers for jump/attack, and some others.

I could tell they were agitated. I could tell I was full. I held them both to me, suckling them and relaxing all of us.

As we walked down the hill, I told them, “Do not share this with others until we leave. Then share it with Adda, and others you trust.”

“Must you leave?” Dina asked.

“Will you take me?” asked Tala.

I held them both. “When we are told, we will leave, and we will leave alone.”

The flutter-giggles come and go. Seasons pass. Dale was four for four, and we had three other pregnancies, all of them expected to go to term. One morning after breakfast, I told Adda and one of the elders just who was pregnant and what they were carrying, a few days before He was aware.

Departure

We’d overheard discussions among the elders. We knew we’d be run off eventually, but be given a way out -- we would be given a week or so for Dale to build a boat for us to leave in.

We don’t know what pushed them over the edge. But one morning after breakfast, Adda told us we must leave before the small moon next reached its peak. That gave us a week.

I held her hands, bowed, and told her, “I understand, my mother.”

And Dale went down on one knee, bowed, and told her, “I understand, my mother.”

Dina and Tala sobbed and hugged us.

Rather than spending the last week working on a boat, Dale spent the time teaching, helping. As did I. Dina brought another woman to me for linguistics lessons. Dina picked well -- Kara learned quick, asked questions, and was hungry at my breast at the end of the session.

My three kaelen stuck with me, even though we were shunned by others in the group. I trusted them, and Dale did as well, to a limited extent. Ship would block any attempts to sting us, and monitored us closely to detect signs of unwanted tampering. My pregnancy was continuing nominally, which was to say I was huge, with about nine weeks to go. I spent mornings in the pool, and visited the crèche in the afternoons, feeding and holding little ones.

Our shunning was not total; some did not agree with running us off. We had fresh moss in our hut every evening, and fresh fruit. In the mornings, there was fresh fruit waiting for us. Occasionally, it was fruit from far away trees. One morning when there was a particularly large amount, I gave most of it to the woman whose husband had been run off.

It was hot; it was sticky. Dale spent the morning going over things with a group of women one more time, showing them terracing. We had lunch, and went to the pool to cool off.

When we got out, Adda and the elders were assembled at the edge of the pond. Their kaelen were clearly agitated, as were some of the elders.

“You must leave, today,” Adda told us with finality. The group around her looked grim.

“We will, mother,” I told her, knowing that word would hurt.

“How?” one of the others asked sharply, clearly irritated.

“In the boat I will build, with my hands,” my husband said clearly, “Here and now!”

There was a large rock to the left of the clearing, roughly oval in shape, two meters high, about four meters wide, and maybe twenty meters long -- not a pebble by any means.

One of the other elders started to ask a question, but Dale raised a hand and quieted her as one would an unruly child.

He turned to the sun, and raised his hands. He called out in a loud voice, and darkness descended around us, the sky darkening and darkening, until stars appeared.

Over the murmur of the gathering crowd, he called out, “Give me light!” and a shaft of light appeared, illuminating his hands. He smiled, and spread the light over his hands and forearms, donning the sunlight as one would put on gloves.

Then he turned to the rock. He scooped off a boat-sized piece, his light-covered hands sweeping through the rock, brushing it away without a trace. I smiled -- it was a nice effect.

The crowd was gasping now. Looking out over them, I could tell that almost the whole village had gathered.

He worked slowly, methodically, forming a very sleek hull out of the rock. He scooped with both hands to hollow out large areas, and smoothed with his palms. He smoothed out areas for seats, but left a lump in the middle of our craft.

Ship contacted me, as Captain, for permission to move into a lower orbit, hovering over our site. Permission granted.

Dale moved to the bow of the boat, and held it with one hand. He made a sweeping gesture with the other hand, sweeping under the hull, lifting with the other. The boat separated from the larger rock, seemingly being held aloft by Dale’s hand on the bow. He turned it upside down, leaving it hovering a meter above the rock, and smoothed the bottom of the hull with both hands.

With the bottom smoothed, he grasped it by the bow tip again, turned it over, and pulled it away from the rock, moving it near the edge of the pond, still floating a meter above the ground. He looked back to me and grinned fiercely.

He turned again to the boat, gesturing as if squeezing and extruding something. What had been the lump in the middle extended itself upwards to form the mast. He drew his hands apart, and near the top of the mast, the sail support formed.

With an expressive gesture, he reached with his left hand into the dark sky, and the starry sky seemed to flow into his hand, forming a dark, star-filled ball. He held the ball aloft for all to see, then tossed it at the mast. When it reached the mast, it flowed into a sail -- a sail made of the starry night sky, filling and rippling in the cool breeze. He kicked at the sand at his feet, and the sand flowed up, forming a set of steps leading to our boat.

He turned to me and said, for all to hear, “Our boat is ready.”

I nodded, and turned to the group. This is how it ends, after almost two years?

Dale took my hand, and led me to our boat. My throat was tight still, my face wet with tears. Although his face was tight, and he was trying to be strong, I could see the tears in his eyes as well.

“Wait!” called Adda.

We turned to her. She gathered a few of the teen girls, and spoke quietly to them. They took off running to the village. Tala and Ben went with them. Dina took off in a different direction.

Tala, Ben, and the girls returned bearing bread, fruit, and fish. They approached the steps hesitantly at first, but Tala stepped on to the first step, then the next, and up to the top. She placed her gifts in the front of our boat. The others followed, some running their hands on the hull.

Tala paused by my side, looking into my eyes. I knew the question her eyes asked silently, and knew what my answer must be.

I held her to me, for the last time. “Your place is here,” I whispered to her, “to care for Adda, and Dina, and most importantly, to care for those who are to be born.”

Tala gripped me fiercely. I decided not to start the comforting sound -- it wasn’t appropriate. I kissed her forehead, and she stepped away.

Dina reappeared, with a small bundle wrapped in what looked to be many layers of leaves. My heart accelerated, guessing at the contents.

“No!” called out one of the elders.

Dina looked to that group with ferocity. She turned to me, and as she handed me that precious bundle, she said in a voice loud enough for all to hear, “These are for your daughters, when they are ready.”

“Thank you,” I told her, and them all, “I will teach them with the love and care with which you taught me.”

We hugged again, and as we parted, she put a hand on my huge belly, and said, “I will miss them. I will miss you.”

We both turned away, I think so the other would not see tears.

I nodded to Dale. He took my arm and led me up the steps, seating me in our craft.

We turned to the crowd, and sighed.

Dale said, “Captain?”

I nodded once again. “Get us out of here.”

He gestured once again, a wide gesture with both hands. The wind picked up, and we floated into the sky. I kept my gaze on the sail made of stars and night sky, but that didn’t stop the stream of tears.

I did look down when we reached five kilometers or so. I saw the island which had been our home, still in darkness. “Dale?” I said softly, as that was all my voice could manage.

He turned, smiling. I pointed down. “Oh,” he said. I looked down again, and the dark area was fading, the light returning.

“Docking in five minutes, Captain,” he said.

I looked to the front of our boat. We had enough food for a few days.

I turned to him and sighed. “I need a backrest, and a softer seat. Let’s see your fossil site.”

His smile broadened. “As you wish, Captain.”

I was lifted up a bit, and held by a much softer surface. Then the air around me cooled, and the gravity lightened. I sighed and leaned back a bit. The fields supporting me adjusted quickly, as they should. “Oh, that’s much better,” I sighed.

He put an arm around my shoulder. “Good. I want you to be comfortable.”

Our craft turned, pointing in a different direction. Even though I didn’t feel anything, I knew we accelerated extremely rapidly, undoubtedly to trans-sonic speed.

I turned to my husband and gave him a cross look. He gave me a look of feigned innocence, then said, “The fields have been adjusted, Captain.”

I shook my head. He’d given them more pieces to a legend -- condensation trails and a sonic boom.

Epilogue

We spent the next four days visiting different sites on the planetary surface. My husband showed me incredible fossil sites. They had been a hive species, and huge! We examined fossils of large fish and bridge species, long since extinct. We found evidence of protomammals and mammalian forms, also extinct.

It was so good to be on ship again! To be cool again, to shower with hot water and soap, to have my hair trimmed, my skin scrubbed! And Dale, having ship trim his hair and beard to centimeter length, scrubbing, enjoying being really clean again. The joy of having ship trim and polish our nails, clean our teeth, our gums, our ears! The joys of modern plumbing!

And all through this, my kaelen huddled in some thatching we filched from the surface, a place for them to be. They chittered their irritation, and I laughed. I tried to put on a ship’s jumper, but it wouldn’t fit! Ship had to make me a new one! And ship had to make a new one for Dale as well, his waist and legs were so trim, his arms and chest so broad.

Ship advised caution on our first meal back; our systems would need time to adjust. We replicated fruit from the surface, and bread, and fish, but now we seasoned the fish! And with it a spicy white wine, a Riesling.

Afterwards, floating on our sleeping pad, I asked my husband, “Did you save room for dessert?”

“Mmmm,” he rumbled, pulling at my jumper.

We shed our clothes, and I commanded the lights to dim. We’d put the thatching up over one edge of the sleeping pad, to give my crew a place to spend the night. But now I called to them, taking control of Dale as I squeezed him to a breast. He moaned as he let go. Once he finished both sides, I rode him in light gravity, using my kaelen to help us both. And we floated to sleep with him at a breast.

We worked on reports for three days straight, sending out a high-speed message torpedo with things marked “interim,” as all such were. I knew I’d never change vast sections of the material, but tradition as much as anything else suggests it be called “interim.” It would take the torpedo two weeks to get to a Survey outpost where its contents could be sent at much higher speed back to Survey central.

We either resumed, or started, the planetary and system survey we’d begun on arrival. We moved briefly out of orbit to do a more detailed look at four, and its small moon. We refined the estimate of the size of the Lawson ship that made the crater, but it was within a few percent of the earlier estimates. No other signs in the remainder of the system, but we did find interesting evidence suggesting mining and refining of metals in the asteroid field, and evidence that a Lawson-powered ship had passed through the area. The one which crashed on four, or a companion? Timing was consistent with the crash.

Our diets changed. We did reintroduce many foods, but we kept some of what we’d survived on for the last two years. We did this gradually, in part so my kaelen would adapt to us.

They adapted. They got used to the reduced gravity, leaning to maneuver quite well. We put up additional pieces of thatching, mainly to give them something to hold on to; they couldn’t get any grip on synthetic surfaces. They didn’t like it when we worked at certain instruments, but when we left, they’d kick off whatever surface they’d been resting on, and join me.

Ship made some stuff we called synthesized sweat, viscous but thankfully without a lot of odor, to replace what my kaelen would have gotten on the hot, humid surface. They took to it, but still preferred to clean me up, especially after Dale and I made love.

Five and a half weeks after we sent our interim reports, we received a reply. Besides the customary formal stuff, we had an audiovisual recording from Mary Dandridge! She said our findings were fascinating, practically causing riots in some sections of Survey. Looking directly into the camera, she said we had done a first-class, professional job, and should be proud of what we’d done. They had lists of questions from different specialties and subspecialties if we had time to work on those. They of course looked forward to updates to our interim reports.

And she offered us a choice. We could either return to Survey, or if we were interested, another file had a list of systems needing preliminary surveys. If we were interested, please advise. In any event, they didn’t expect to see us for a couple of years.

Dale and I hugged -- we’d worried we’d be called back, called on the carpet. But we were being offered more field work! We laughed together -- we were being given the opportunity to do to others what N and K had done to us!

Oh, but the devil is in the details... We looked at the list. It would take about three months to get to the nearest system. Did we want to do that now, or wait until the children were born, which was only three weeks away?

We started looking at the questions based on our interim reports. Once we got over the shock, we realized it was their job -- to complete any small set of follow-ups could take decades!

We decided to work through parts until the children were born, and leave shortly after that. We looked at the survey list, and put together a plan which would have us at a Survey outposts when the kids reached about age four, and socialization would be vital.

Our children arrived a few days early, delivered by my loving husband, and assisted by ship systems. It was an amazing experience for us both. We were both grateful for the assistance of modern technology.

William and Louise were accepted by my kaelen. The smaller one, with the abdomen that leans to the left a bit, adopted Louise.

And Dale was jealous that they received the bounty of my breasts. He didn’t say so, but I could tell. And we couldn’t have sex for a few weeks. The children slept in a lower-gee field; we augmented the field with a scrubber to keep the kaelen from affecting them.

But that meant I could save a little for my husband, and let the kaelen melt him in my arms as I held him to me, and finish him off by hand, then rock him to sleep.

We triaged a seemingly unending list of questions, ranging from silly to sublime. We marked over a hundred as good candidates for doctoral work. We supplied what information and conclusions we could.

One arrogant bastard insisted our isotope studies were wrong; they had to be, because they conflicted with his theories! We responded that the data was correct, and if our conclusions disagreed with his hypotheses, he should re-examine his hypotheses. We also included the catalog data on the moon and suggested he look for himself.

Our children turned a month old. They are happy and healthy. We’ve completed our “revised” reports, and sent off the message torpedo.

The children sleeping, Dale at my side as we look out the viewer onto the planet that was our home, a planet still full of questions, it’s time to move on.

With a command to ship, the planet recedes. The viewer turns to grey and my kaelen emit an irritated rattle as we cross the speed of light. We’re on to new horizons.

REV 2006/08/17

Life Cycle of the Kaelen
by silli_artie@hotmail.com

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