Skolian Empire: The Radiant Seas Part 9

Your water broke.

Oh. Relief swept over her. That's normal, isn't it?

Yes. I had some concern, because it usually breaks before this stage of labor.

How long since my labor started?

Ten hours.

"What's going on?" Jaibriol asked. "What is it saying?"

"It says I'm fine." With a smile, she added, "Except I can't breathe with you squeezing me so hard."

"Oh. Sorry." He relaxed his embrace. "What is all this fluid?"

"My water broke." Another contraction hit, and she blew out a stream of air. "Remember? MedComp says that happens."

"Then everything is all right?"

Node? she asked.

Accessing optical nerve. It produced a display of data showing blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and so on, for both the baby and Soz.

"It looks all right," Soz said.

Jaibriol leaned his head on hers, and she felt the pressure of his mind, gentle against hers, the way they had practiced it.

"Can you see it?" she asked.

"Faintly." He sounded more relaxed. "It does look all right." He feels all right too. Jaibriol's thought surrounded Soz and their son with a sense of warmth.

Soz smiled. That he does.

Jaibriol s.h.i.+fted position, sitting against the wall behind them, drawing her with him. Leaning back with her legs stretched out was one of the few positions that eased her weight.

Another contraction came and she huffed with MedComp's vexatious breathing exercises. They sat through several more contractions in silence, except for Soz's breathing.

"This isn't what I expected," Jaibriol finally said. "I thought it would happen much faster, with much commotion."

"That comes later." Soz grinned. "It starts after the birth and gets worse for the next twenty years. Or at least it seemed that way with my younger siblings-ah!" Another contraction came, like a b.u.mpy conveyor belt turning inside her, and she made herself huff and puff. When it eased, she muttered, "I hate these exercises. They don't help."

"Are they really necessary?"

Node? she thought. Can I stop?

If you wish, it thought. They are meant to ease labor. If they irritate you, they aren't fulfilling their purpose.

"The node says I can stop if I want," Soz said.

Status report, it thought. Cervical dilation at ten centimeters, effacement at 98 percent, station at +4.

What does that mean? Soz asked.

You are about to give birth. I suggest you drink more water.

Jaibriol was watching her face. "What is it?"

"The node says I'm about to give birth."

"We know that. So where is the baby?"

"I don't know. Can you get me some water?"

Jaibriol eased away from her to pick up the jug of purified water they had set on the floor. He unsealed it and filled the wide-mouthed lid with fluid.

Soz drank it all. As she was pouring more, a contraction wracked her body and she dropped the cup, spilling water on the bed.

"Ah!" She heaved in a breath, trying to regain her dignity. "This is worse than running obstacle courses."

Jaibriol managed a smile. "Must be good exercise."

She grunted, then poured more water and drank it. "I'd rather run obstacles. Why don't we quit and finish tomorrow?"

"Soshoni."

"Well, it was just a thought." When he grinned, she tugged him back to sit with her.

"Do you think it will keep getting worse?" he asked.

"I've no idea. I just want to push this guy out."

He sat back up like a shot. "You're going to push? NOW?"

"I think so."

Jaibriol scrambled off the bed and crouched by the equipment they had arranged on the floor. He washed his hands with the boiled water from the big thermos, then opened the sterilization box and set its contents on the bed within Soz's reach: air syringe, surgical scissors, forceps, towels, and several blankets he had woven, using yarn he made from the hemp of their oatburl crop. As he got back on the bed, Soz leaned forward and he slid behind her, his legs on either side of her body. Another urge to push hit her and she braced her elbows against his thighs, bearing down hard.

So it went, Soz straining again and again. And again. And again. For one hour.

Two.

Three.

Soz groaned, sweat dripping down her face. "Why doesn't he come out?" From their son she felt a vague agitation, unformed and unfocused.

Jaibriol slid out from behind her, piling pillows around her body. Then he moved between her knees. "Soz! I see him!"

She pushed again, her vision clouded with fatigue, sweat running into her eyes.

"Here's his head," Jaibriol said. She felt his knuckles against her thighs, which meant his palms were touching their son. She groaned and pushed, groaned and pushed-and screamed as a new pain wracked her, ripping her apart.

"Come on, little boy," he kept saying. "Come on. You can do it. We're right here. Come on-oh, G.o.ds, Soz, he's beautiful!"

She grunted and pushed again, too exhausted to answer.

"Soz!" Panic rang in Jaibriol's voice. "The umbilical cord is wrapped around his neck-" His voice cut off. Then: "He's not breathing-no! Jai! Baby, breathe. Soz, push him out the rest of the way!"

Clenching her teeth, she bore down harder-and felt another release of pressure. She immediately tried to sit up, uncaring of the pain, the blood, or the placenta she had yet to deliver. "Is he breathing? What's going on?" Leaning over, she saw a tiny wet, wrinkled baby in her husband's hands.

A breathing baby.

Soz heard a sob, realized it was her own. Jaibriol finished clamping and cutting the umbilical cord. With tears streaming down his face, he lifted their son and gave him to her. Soz felt tears on her own face. She cooed at the infant and made silly noises that she would have never, in a million decades, expected to come out of her mouth. Cooing, for saint's sake. The baby looked up at her as if he recognized her voice, and she cried more.

When she turned his mouth to her nipple, he latched on and sucked, good and strong. His contentment suffused her, unmitigated by conscious thought. Cradling him in her arms, she sat back against the wall. Jaibriol had finished was.h.i.+ng his hands and was sitting cross-legged in front of her, holding towels, a thermos of warm water, and soap.

Watching their son, Soz said, "Jaibriol the Third." She looked up at her husband, Jaibriol the Second. "I can't believe it."

"You won't regret the name." He wiped his palm across his wet cheek, smearing his tears. "I swear it, Soz. He will grow up worthy of both the Qox and Ruby Dynasties."

She smiled. "Before we have him ruling empires, we ought to clean his bottom."

Jaibriol laughed and bent over their son with a towel.

6.

Allied Worlds.

Emperor Ur Qox brooded at his desk, leaning back in his chair, one elbow resting on its arm. His bodyguards stood around the perimeter of his office, more for show than defense, given that his hidden weapons systems could kill far faster than human reflexes. The walls glittered, made from black diamond, a crystal built atom by atom with molecular a.s.semblers. Despite its name, its molecular structure differed from diamond. It absorbed all visible light, creating its distinctive black color. The ceiling curved high above him in a dome of black diamond, with a white diamond sphere s.h.i.+mmering in its center, lit from within. The topaz floor glowed with pinpoint lights in geometric patterns.

The top of his desk consisted of a glossy black holoscreen. At the moment a holomap floated above it, rotating to let Qox view its star systems.

The Allied Worlds. A conundrum.

He wanted them. But he wanted Skolia more. He would have vengeance for his son. He wanted Skolia's people, wealth, resources, telops, psiberweb. All of it. Most of all he wanted the Ruby Dynasty, kneeling to him in chains and slave collars.

So he came back to the same thought. Earth. She had more use as an ally than as an enemy.

The clink of gem against gem came from across the room. Qox looked to see the empress watching him from the doorway, standing just so, as if she were about to shut the door again, with the suggestion of delights to follow.

Qox rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. He knew what she wanted. The Sphinx delegation had arrived last night, headed by his elderly cousin, Corbal Xir, the son of his grandfather's sister. The empress meant to show Xir that she had the emperor's favor, lest Corbal seek to undermine her position in pursuit of improving his own. Qox had no time for their intrigues and ignored her, as he had earlier ignored Corbal. Soon she left.

So Qox worked, planning, plotting, brooding. Finally the cool air of evening breathed over him, sent by conduits in the palace walls. The living lattices used to construct the conduits contained self-replicating nan.o.bots, each carrying a picochip that operated on quantum transitions. Taken all together, they formed a picoweb he programmed to suit himself. When the system let him know, with its wafting air, that evening had come, he put away his work. After the evening meal, however, he would return to his office; like most humans on this world with sixteen hour days, he slept only every other night.

He found Viquara in their personal suite on the top level of the palace. Their huge bedroom was almost the negative of his office, with white diamond walls, gold furniture, gold vases and snow-marble statues around the perimeter of the circular room, and a carpet woven from cloudgold, a plush metal alloy so soft it felt like velvet.

Viquara had settled into an armchair softened by red brocade cus.h.i.+ons. She was watching the wall screen, which showed the opulent quarters of a favored provider. Dark curtains draped those walls, purple and heavy, and black marble urns stood in the room. The only light came from an amethyst lamp that shone dimly in one corner. The bed stood on a dais, covered with a spread that matched the somber curtains.

A youth of about twenty lay on the bed, curled into a fetal position, staring at nothing, his arms clutched around a cus.h.i.+on. He had the large eyes, soft curls, and husky build Viquara favored in her pleasure slaves. Qox didn't recognize the boy, but that meant nothing. He didn't recognize all the pieces in her collection of exotic music boxes either.

Qox came up behind her chair. "Is he sick?"

"I don't know." She sighed. "I bought him from the merchants in Corbal's delegation. He's been curled up like that ever since they delivered him."

Judged from the boy's catatonic behavior, Qox suspected he hadn't been born into slavery and was having trouble adjusting to it. One of the frigates that hunted Skolian s.h.i.+ps had probably harvested him from a captured vessel. The frigates, what Skolian propagandists called pirates, carried no military identification, of course; to a.s.sociate them with ESComm, or Eubian s.p.a.ce Command, would be politically inexpedient given the sensitive nature of their work. But they provided a much needed influx of new providers into Eube's limited psion gene pools.

Something about the slave bothered him, though. The fellow looked familiar.

"Where is he from?" Qox asked.

"Onyx Sector." Viquara continued to watch the boy. "He just lies there. I think something is wrong with him."

Qox frowned. The law forbid selling damaged slaves. "Do you have an invoice or warranty?"

"An invoice," she said. "No warranty."

Irritated, he asked, "Why did you buy him without one?"

"I liked him."

He pulled over an armchair and sat next to her. A black diamond table separated them, with a crystal carafe and goblets. He poured himself some wine, tapped his fingernail on the crystal gla.s.s to acknowledge Viquara's presence, as etiquette demanded, and then sat back to study the youth. Something tugged at him. Recognition. But why?

"Yale," he said.

Viquara glanced at him. "Yale? Who is that?"

He took a sip of wine. "It was on a s.h.i.+rt. That boy was wearing it." He raised his voice. "Maximilian."

"Attending," his computer said.

"Define the word 'Yale' in conjunction with the following: It is printed on a white s.h.i.+rt that has short sleeves and a round neck. A young man about twenty is wearing it." He paused as more of the memory returned. "He's also wearing those tiresome blue trousers the Allieds export. Jeans. What does 'Yale' mean in this context?"

"Working." After a pause, Maximilian said, "It probably refers to the Earth educational inst.i.tution of that name."

"Earth." Qox drank his wine, putting together the memory. When it coalesced, he swore out loud.

Viquara tensed. "You are displeased?"

"I've met that boy. At a social function given during my state visit to Earth last year." Qox snorted. "A bizarre thing called a 'picnic and swim.'"

"He was a servant at this function?"