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gives you an unmerciful ragging.' Does your friend have a name?
Jeff stroked her head. Bagheera.
Oh?
It's been so long, love, but you know, it's rather odd that he was also a
feline, like your Purza. Big, black, powerfuL he loved to lie on branches
high up in trees which was not surprising as I was always climbing trees
myself, or lurk on sunny rock ledges because I used to
hide from chores on such places, and he hated water! Which I did not,
actually. I loved to swim but I could never get him to join me. He had
yellow eyes - like Afra . . . Jeff's tone was amused/amazed that he had found
one point of resemblance with anyone of his acquaintance.
We spent a lot of time discovering unexpected treasures :n caverns and mines
and other unlikely places. He was good protection against all the terrors of
wild, raw Deneb.
And we'd make fortunes for our planet and bring it in to the
Central Worlds Autonomy faster than any world had ever been admitted.
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Jeff chuckled. 'You know, I haven't thought of Bagheera for years! He was, I
think, a character in a children's story. I
preempted him for my own special use.
He was invincible.' Hey, are you falling asleep on me again?
'Not really,' and yet a massive yawn caught her. 'We don't need to move from
here, do we?' She snuggled up against him, fending the right hollow in his
shoulder for her head. He brought a warm blanket from their bed to cover them
so there was no need to rearrange themselves.
Despite what the Rowan saw as Reidinger's intrusiveness, she looked forward to
Elizara's visits. Gradually the T-1
Medic appeared on Callisto twice a month and then weekly. At the beginning of
the last semester of the pregnancy, Elizara came to stay until the delivery.
'But I'm fine, and the baby is developing perfectly,' the Rowan protested, 'or
so you've told me.' Elizara grinned. 'You know it to be so yourself, Rowan.
Call it an old man's foibles. A young man's too, considering Jeff s state of
mind.' The Rowan grunted and felt her baby react. To save herself violent
convulsions of her womb, she had learned to restrain untoward responses to
each new imposition.
'Jeff knows how much family means to you,' Elizara said.
'Family?' The Rowan found the wording odd. Jeff never referred to their
unborn as 'family': usually it was 'his' or 'their' son, or Jeran when they
finally decided on a name for him. But the child's arrival would indeed make
them a family!
'There was once a time,' Elizara went on in her lilting voice, 'when the
mother and father of a newborn were totally unprepared for it, or the effect
it would have on them and their own relationship. Of course, parenting has
become so much a part of early education, that many of the iniquities of
earlier centuries can no longer be perpetrated on young, unformed minds. But
the highpotential Talent child needs special care and handling, especially at
birth and in the first three months.' 'I know that. I know that! I've been
made aware of that by just about everyone in the whole damned Central Worlds.
The only one who hasn't alluded to this is Capella and right now I could
almost trade places with that dried up old virgin!' 'Rowan! If she should
hear you!' 'She is,' the Rowan acidly replied, 'probably the only Talent in
the entire FT&T network who doesn't contact me half a hundred times a day to
ensure I'm still all right and the child is alive and kicking! Which he is
right now!' 'Then calm down!' Elizara exuded an authority that the Rowan found
as impossible to evade as
Jeff' s. So she found herself initiating meditation in obedient response.
Elizara's inner serenity extended itself to the Rowan and the flare of anger
and frustration was soothed away.
'Oh, by the way,' Elizara said when the Rowan was tranquil again, 'I took
another liberty on your behalf.' She hesitated.
'Why not?' Elizra touched her hand in gentle rebuke. 'I've managed to trace
the Gwyn family. Just in case there might be some genetic flaws that we
should know about in advance.' 'You did?' the
Rowan exclaimed. 'But I tried 'Yes, you tried from Altair,' and
Elizara gave a little smile, 'but not from Earth. And not consulting the
original immigration files, only the Altair entries.' 'They were useless.
And?' 'Genetics prints were made of all outgoing settlers;
genotypes and blood profiles. You could only be the child of Ewain and
Morag Gwyn.' Shyly Elizara slipped two small holograms from her pouch to the
table. 'As you'll notice, the tendency to premature silver hair affected both
parents.' With a reverence akin to awe, the Rowan looked down at the two
faces: Despite the fact that her father could have been no more than thirty,
his hair was silver while eyebrows and mustache were as black as coal. He had
a strong face, and his brows were drawn in a faint scowl. Her mother's hair
had silver streaks from a center parting: she looked more worried than
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anxious, but she had bequeathed her gray eyes to her daughter and the narrow
face.
Elizara, if you knew what this g'fl means - Ah, love, I do! And
Elizara laid her hand gently on the Rowan's bowed head.
What's wrong? was Jeff s sudden demand. He was never out of touch with her
and he was as grateful to Elizara as she was. That girl's a wonder! Give her
a hug for me! I don't dare do it myself or
I'll have you to answer to!
I'm much too happy at this moment we knew that, my love!
In her mind was a fiendish chuckle. Warn her!
The Rowan didn't, but smiled happily to herself, her eyes resting on the two
holograms until they were indelibly imprinted in her mind.
She had parents now: and it was enough to know that she had had a brother.
She could console herself wondering whether he had resembled father or mother
more. Maybe Mauli, who was deft with pencil and paint, would draw her a
likeness of what her brother might have been.
On one count did the Rowan prevail against Reidinger's over protectiveness:
she was allowed to continue working Callisto Station.
Torshan and Saggoner were needed on another colonial outpost, and
Elizara, backed by all other medical consultants, reassured Reidinger that the
Rowan's mental abilities were in no way affected by the pregnancy.
Nor was her normal occupation affecting her unborn child. The
Rowan proved that more conclusively by a suspension of the pyrotechnics which
had often disturbed the Station personnel during her moody periods. For this
everyone on the Station was grateful.
As soon as her pregnancy became common knowledge, Brian Ackerman had braced
Afra, wanting to know if the Rowan would be 'OK' 'If by OK
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