The Rowan

She hadn't meant to get pregnant again so soon, but Reidinger dispatched Jeff to check on this or that Terran installation, or to the Moon, and then the big Mars substation, and the more important Asteroid Wheels. Jeff had to be introduced to all the Governors as well as the more important members of the Nine-Star League.

Consequently, when he was on Callisto, they tended to make up for opportunities lost.

"I've had to sit through some of the dreariest meetings," he told her wearily. "It ought to be a prerequisite to high government office that the incumbent be at least a T-4.

That would halve the time spent in politicking and correctly aligning power balances." "I didn't realize that Reidinger had to deal with that kind of administrative nonsense," the Rowan said. "No wonder the man is aged before his time." "Oh, that isn't part of the FT amp;T Prime's function but as their apparent, I have to be displayed to all those who worry about leaving FT amp;T autonomous. I've got to be shown to be the right sort of stuff and all that. As it is, not all the League Ambassadors are convinced that an ex-colonist is the "right sort of person" to be entrusted with such grave responsibilities."

Jeff's mobile face ran a gamut of the lugubrious, skeptical, or censorious expressions of his various detractors and had the Rowan in whoops.

"Be glad you're stationed on Callisto," he assured her and then turned his attention to more pressing matters: such as showing her how much he had missed her.

Which was why she was pregnant now despite the fact that a Talent of her scope and strength was able to affect certain bodily functions.

She had forgotten - well, neglected - to affect the possible outcome of the evening's pleasures. The two children - this one, by the Rowan's choice, was female - would be close in age, yes, but the Rowan and Jeff would make certain that they were close in affection as welclass="underline" another fringe benefit of strong Talent when properly directed.

Rowan! Jeff's urgent call reached her as she was feeding Jeran his supper. Even her name was colored with excitement - and more.

Mother wants me to come out to Deneb.

Something's troubling her. She said you and Elizara had a hint of it, too, just before Jeran was born. Do you remember?

Suddenly the Rowan did, though she had given the incident no further thought, being involved in maternal duties.

Elizara felt something but couldn't define it. Any more than I could beyond anger and pain. At the time, Isthia thought it wasn't even human.

I'd better go and see what I can hear.

The Rowan gave a mental snort which Jeran picked up, regarding his mother with rounded eyes and a certain babyish pout of anxiety. She soothed him on one level and responded to Jeff on another. Your mother's got the "long ear". Which, in her son, has been considerably refined, sharpened, strengthened, horned, and is completely operational.

Maybe now is the time to pester Isthia to train early.

Jeff returned to Callisto the following morning, arriving by his own gestalt with the first batch of inbound drones.

Hi, darling. Where've you stashed our son? Ah, with you.

Look, I'm going to bathe and eat, then I'll join you. I'm twelve hours behind Callisto's day. His buoyant mental tone reassured her that whatever Isthia had heard could not be of an urgency. Jeran was asleep when Jeff reached the Tower. She continued her grab and thrust, keeping the generators at a high peak. He waited to join her until she had handled the outward bound freight. He brought up cups of the sweetened drink she liked, handing her one, kissing her forehead, before pausing to stare down at their sleeping son, a doting expression on his face.

"He doesn't look like anyone in my family," he remarked and not for the first time.

"He looks like himself, Jeran Gwyn-Raven. Well?" She regarded him over the rim of her cup.

"Well, I don't know what upset my mother," and he perched on the console, one arm across his chest, the other supporting his cup. "I didn't hear a blessed thing. But Rakella said she did, too, and Besseva Eagle, who's been ninety-eight per cent accurate in all her precogs, thinks there is trouble on its way to us." He made an immense circle with his free arm. "Immense trouble." "The beetles wouldn't come back for more. Would they?" That would account for the anger and pain I felt.

"Beetle anger? Beetle pain?" Jeff was close to laughter at the suggestion. "Though they might well have been annoyed at the loss of two advance assault vessels. However, from what the specialists have deduced to date, they had a hivelike societal structure - our merge saw eggs in the ship, remember, and we found hundreds in the space debris - at various stages of larval development for different types of beetles. Hive societies don't tend to emotions: workers, drones, queens, whatever, do exactly what they were bred to do." "Yes, but there was sentience of some sort directing the three vessels that attacked Deneb. That oversized beetle we saw in the protected inner chamber of the ship? The queen. Could it have been intelligent enough to direct the others?" "Hmm. Tactics did change," was Jeff's grudging admission.