by Pam Uphoff
Rael handed her back quickly, to her sister's amusement. And received a second baby.
"Arno Withione Al Media Montevideo." Her mother announced, voice brimming with pride. "Not that we had any real doubts that the children would be withiones, but accidents do happen."
"Arno. Pleased to meet you, young man." She held out a finger and he reached, grabbed it. Peeped and released it as they both felt the zing. He frowned up at her, and she caught her breath. Just for a moment the set of those blue eyes reminded her . . . no. Raod hadn't been to Europe last year until after the assassination attempt. So far as she knew.
He grabbed her finger again, no zing this time, of course. Once was quite enough! He got his left hand on her little finger and smiled as he studied his captive.
Rael huffed out a half laugh. "What a handsome young man. Give this lad twenty years and he'll be breaking hearts right and left."
Raod winced. "No. He has the priest gene."
Rael felt the tension in the room.
Her dad cleared his throat. "He's only a two hundred thirteen. Maybe they won't want him."
"Dad! Don't give out the numbers!" Raod glared.
Rael closed her eyes. Endi Dewulfe had been a spy from a cross-dimensional world the Empire was targeting for takeover. A target that they'd belatedly realized also had a wide dispersion of the genes of the Prophets. And some concentrations of very powerful people. Powerful enough to call gods. Endi Dewulfe had used the Oners' own Game to attack the politicians eager for war. One-upping highly placed men by seducing their wives and getting them pregnant. He'd used a mind bogglingly strong potion, a wine full of fertility aids and aphrodisiacs. He'd had a lack of three particular gene pairs, typical of his people. His Y chromosome had had a gene in the position of the Priest gene, but not identical. All of his illegitimate children were two thirteens. Complete sets from their mothers, lacking three in their second set. Damn it all. Endi's mine. Was. Damn it, she oughten to have stolen my boyfriend. Not that he was actually anyone's boyfriend; he played the role of sex toy well. Couple of dozen wives of highly placed men babbling the Empire's secrets into his ears! One damn it all, Raod cannot have ever met him.
Unless she flew to Paris after the fight with her husband. To visit friends, shop. . . party . . .
The baby in her arms cried, and she rocked him gently.
One damn her. She has the babies I didn't dare dream of. And the Priests will consider any baby with the priest gene, and probably take any with one complete set. And a two thirteen is in the top 1% of the withiones. Poor baby, now I'll have to hope you are Endi's son—because his Y chromosome gene isn't the priest gene, even if it is in the same place.
Rael forced herself to smile. "I envy you these babies. They are both just darling."
It's going to be a long difficult spring.
***
The parents had the big suite across the front of the third floor. Raod had moved back into her childhood room; the twins were across the hall in Rael's old room. The nanny had the small guest room next to it.
Rael gritted her teeth and tackled the steep, narrow, stairs up to the attic. "A nice big, airy space," Mother had called it. She tried pulling herself up with her arms, but even using just her left arm pulled adhesions, pulled unevenly on her spine . . . She dropped her arm hastily and leaned on the wall, fighting back tears.
No hysterics! Hysterics and crying jags steal energy away from your focus. You will focus, you will work. Half of your problem is just loss of muscle mass and tendons tightened from lack of use. That will all answer to physical therapy. And once you are back in shape, you'll be able to find work arounds for the lingering problems from the spinal injuries.
She pushed away from the wall and concentrated on her legs and feet. "Focus on the lift, the reach, lean forward, push off the opposite foot while the glutes pull the front leg straight. Now the opposite. Again."
Her legs were shaking as she reached the top. "I hope to One I shape up fast. Just living here is going to force me to do more than the hospital did. No doubt half the reason they kicked me out." She kept her voice low, no need to alarm the family. The nerve damage was as healed as it was going to get. She'd taken to talking to herself during the retraining; it helped her focus.
She looked up from the last step and blinked. The detritus of almost thirty years of residence had disappeared. Fresh paint, a polished hardwood floor. A ceiling with plunging angles, a soaring peak, a skylight. Her old bedroom furniture, a new desk under a new window. "One! They even put in a new bathroom."
Tiled floor, open plan. No tub, a shower with hand holds and a plastic chair . . . "They put it in when they thought I'd never walk again?"
Soft steps behind her. Raod, in bare feet and a robe. "Yeah. We had plans for an elevator, but then you had that big improvement, so we shelved them." She swiped her sleeve over damp eyes. "I'm so glad you're back, and so sorry you look so . . . hurt."
So Rael cried after all, in a big sisterly hug.
Raod finally pushed her away. "So don't you dare do it again! You, you won't go back, will you?"
"Well . . . I guess it depends on how good a shape I can get myself into. I don't think I'll ever be back up to bodyguard standards." Rael walked over and sat down carefully on the new bed. "And I hate desk jobs. But maybe analysis wouldn't be too horrible."
"Oh no." The teasing sly look was back. "Now, my sister thinks she's smart. She's dreaming of being one of the Big Brains."
"Ha! No, no science for me, but people? Oh, I can analyze the heck out of people."
"Huh. You always were good at reading the boys." Raod shook her head. "You led them around by the . . . umm, nose."
Rael giggled. "Yep."
"Did you ever let any of them catch you?"
"Of course. Well, three of them."
Raod narrowed her eyes. "Ipso, Ahde and . . . "
"Ubno Clostuone."
"Bruno? Ewww!"
"I was curious! He was so big, you know? And he glows. And who are you to talk, with all those old men you used to chase."
"I was ambitious. I certainly didn't notice boys who were ten years younger than me."
"Seven, in the case of Bruno. The heck you didn't notice him."
"Gah! He's still playing football. Maybe you'll meet him."
"I sincerely hope not. I really don't want anything resembling a boyfriend. And, well, right now I don't want them to see me. And romance, or even just sex just isn't going to happen."
Raod winced. "One, I was an idiot back then. And I ought to have been old enough to know better. I didn't give whoop about those old men. Except once they laid eyes on you, they were looking at you instead of me."
"Yuck! I'm glad I didn't notice. Anyway, I shouldn't be competition for you, for some time to come."
Raod snorted. "Yeah. Until you open up and glow. You have an unfair advantage."
"You think? Hasn't done a thing for me, so far."
Raod snickered. "We'll have to perform an experiment. Can Rael, when she is physically trashed, still catch a man with a wink and glow?"
"Oh no. No men. Period." Damn Endi for being . . . whatever the One hell he is. Not of the One. Not anyone I want to ever see again.
Really.
No men at all.
They can just keep their hands to themselves.
Chapter Two
Thursday, 23 Hija 1397
"Zo I get to get my hands all over a Princess, eh?"
Rael grinned at the dapper little man. Graying hair, graying mustachio with waxed points. "Indeed you do."
He beamed back. "Zo. In a moment, into the barrel to zoak for twenty minutes. Yes, it is very hot. But your tendons need it, to soften them so they will stretch without tearing. But first, out of the clothing, let me zee what I have to work with here. Umm, muscle wastage. How did they let that happen?"
"Two months in a coma."
"Heh. Call that an excuse? And the exit wound, your records show two ribs partly replaced wit
h composites? And muscle transplants, skin grafts." Strong hands probed. "Lots of adhesions, the skin barely moves away from the muscle. Two vertebrae badly damaged, fused to each other and the ones above and below, zo your flexibility will be impaired. We will work on getting the most out of the rest of your vertebrae. Never fear. Now the chest. Entry wound was bad, and then hasty surgery."
"It was a splintered round, to maximize bleeding and damage. And a bad infection in the damaged tissue." Rael managed to not giggle as his accent faded as he got into technicalities.
He grunted. "You've lost some sections of breast tissue, the skin is badly scarred and adhering to the tissues beneath. The pectoral muscles were damaged but they have healed reasonably well, lift your arm, we'll work on strengthening those and eliminating the adhesions. Lung capacity off by twenty percent, according to the medical records."
Rael glanced sideways at his comp. Ick. I know I really ought to read through my medical file, but . . . ick.
"Nerve damage . . . a bit to the brachial nerve plexis that has limited your use of the outer three fingers of the right hand. Spinal damage that has healed much better than expected, but still some numbness and poor responsiveness in both legs, left better than right, again. The early left side paralysis was caused by oxygen deprivation to the brain . . . and has resolved very well. We may try some retraining, in case some of the remaining problems are also associated with the brain damage."
Right. I knew all that, had it explained to me several times.
"No cardiac damage from the low blood pressure, low oxygen state."
Check.
"All in all, not as bad as I'd feared, from the first information I received."
"Now into the barrel with you. I will put on zee romantic music to get you into zee mood, and we will begin in twenty minutes.
Mr. Zip, as he preferred to be called, apparently found bouncy music with a fast beat to be romantic. But twenty minutes in the barrel had her ready to melt, and the little man's hands were strong and more than willing to flex her joints and stretch her tendons further than they'd been stretched for thirteen months. Magic, subtle spells, worked with the strong hands. Hopefully something that could loosen the adhesions. And then he showed her the various weight machines, and she worked out to more bouncy music. With pitifully low weights.
She fell asleep in the taxi home. Collapsed in the same living room chair, resting before tackling the last two stair cases. Or perhaps instead of.
"Oh, sorry, miss . . . "
Rael opened her eyes. The nanny, with a baby in her arms.
"I didn't realize you were here." Jaes? Jess? Something like that.
"Just got back, don't worry about me . . . what are you doing?" Rael looked behind her, where Raod was just walking up the stairs from outside, the other baby in her arms.
"What happened to you? We just got back from a walk."
"Physical therapy. One! They could hire that man for the dungeons at Government House—if they had any." Not that that gal at the hospital was any less brutal, but first they were while I was lying there in bed. Then I got wheeled to and from sessions. Walking was the aim of the therapy, not how I got there. I guess I've already forgotten how long it took, how far I've come.
Raod laughed. "Well, we'll entertain you with baby cuteness, while you recover. This time of day I let the twins wiggle around and look at things for awhile. Maybe we ought to do it upstairs, today."
"Don't be silly. Go ahead . . . I don't know anything about babies."
Raod juggled her armload gracefully, toed open a chest and pulled out a quilt.
She and the nanny spread it over the tile floor and they set the babies down. The babies didn't do much.
"Uh . . . what do babies do? I mean is this supposed to be crawling practice?"
Raod snickered.
The nanny smiled, looking indulgent. "Oh, at this age they need to see new things, reach and explore. Crawling won't come for a few more months."
"Months?" Rael eyed the wiggling little grubs.
Raod kicked off her shoes—high tech walking shoes today—and sank down to sit on the floor beside . . . the head fuzz was a bit redder than the other one, so this was probably the girl, Ryol.
The nanny sat on a chair. "They're always a bit over stimulated when they've been out for a walk. They'll wind down in a bit, get hungry, then take a nice little nap."
"Huh. Now that I can understand." Rael suppressed a smirk as her immaculate sister wound up lying on the floor.
Raod cheered when Ryol used the weight of her big head to roll herself over. Arno hadn't figured that out yet, but he grabbed for the various toys the nanny dangled and babbled about them. Kicked in excitement. It seemed awfully boring.
"Is this normal for . . . what are they, five months old?"
"About that." The nanny smiled. "It's all a matter of averages. Individually, nothing short of a serious delay in development is anything to worry about. These two were a bit premature, very common with twins, even so they are close to the average."
Raod's shoulders were just a bit stiff.
Rael interpreted the undercurrents easily enough. The twins were "below average." And I haven't a clue whether that matters a bit.
"Huh. I never bothered to learn anything about babies." She looked over at the nanny. "You do this over and over? Umm, Jaes, is it?"
"Jaes Clostuone, but everyone just calls me Jess."
The genes of the Prophets—six packets of genetic information—included the genes for longer life. A single set doubled the old multitude's life expectancy, a second set redoubled, depending on exactly which packets, which alleles—versions—of each gene the insertions had, and what other, ordinary genes contributed, as well. Jess could be anywhere from sixty to a hundred and fifty.
"I took a break to raise my own children, but really, the older children and especially the teenagers just don't interest me. I love seeing the basics, the wonder of exploration that only watching a baby see something for the very first time can give you. And they all grow so fast. I generally stay with a family until the youngest start school. I've worked with eight sets of children, now."
"Yikes! Doesn't it get hard, to leave, over and over?"
The older woman chuckled. "Oh, I know better than to get attached to other women's children. Look at your sister, down on the floor playing with them! A nanny never does that. We do the work, the parents supply the play."
"Huh. I guess that's why I don't remember a nanny." Rael looked around with a frown. "Of course, the mortgage took up all the parents' spare funds. We were pretty tight, those first years here."
"How old were you?"
"Four . . . Ha! About ready for school. Raod was fourteen, and definitely in need of Oner school. We lived halfway to the city of Montevideo, back then. The parents point out their old house every time we drive to Montevideo."
"They probably thought they could afford a bigger house once they were saving on a professional nanny's salary." Raod tickled the baby and got a gurgle in return.
Rael blinked. "Wow, am I in the wrong career?"
Jess snickered. "Now, I doubt a nanny makes as much as a Princess in the Presidential Directorate, but as servants go, yes, we're very expensive."
Raod laughed. "That's why a sensible woman accumulates five settlements before needing to hire a nanny. And at that, I cheat by living with Mom and Dad." She looked up at Rael. "I was worried about them, when they were so frantic about you. I thought the baby, babies, would keep them from worrying themselves into heart attacks or something."
Arno kicked and raised his voice in a squall. Jess scooped him up and cuddled him, quieting him for a moment.
"I suspect it worked!" Rael eyed the little squirmer. "How does such a little thing raise the roof like that?"
The youngest of the maids, a girl just out of school, hustled up from the kitchen, two bottles on a silver tray.
Raod shook her head. "I don't think bottles actually need to be brought on t
he fancy tray, Mo. Umm, Rael, this is Moah Cisuentes, she's just graduated from Santa Rosa High School."
The Oner style first name combined with the Multitude style last name meant she was a halfer. No power, but some of the Prophets' genes. Depending on which ones, she could probably do a few small spells. Most likely she'd never been trained, always been told she couldn't do magic.
"Her brother Ocha is our part time gardener."
The maid's eyes were wide. "Senorita." She gulped and bobbed into something close to a curtsy. Almost lost the bottles . . . The girl grabbed one hastily and handed it to Jess, then stood by with the other.
"Pleased to meet you. Moah. I noticed the landscaping, your brother does good work."
The girl's flush could have been embarrassment over the bottle juggling, not pleasure at a compliment to a brother. Her eyes were still wide. My reputation. Or maybe she's seen me being shot a couple dozen times over the last year. Gah. The vids of the assassination are going to be shown over and over, for the rest of my life and beyond, aren't they?
"Gracias, Senorita Rael. He ees a hard worker, he makes hees own company, e works now para doce familias."
Rael nodded. Entrepreneurs, common in the so-called lower classes. While their supposed superiors play the Game all through the government. Sometimes I wonder if the Prophets did this world a favor, reproducing. She looked over at the baby, quickly sucking down his lunch. I suppose there's a metaphor in there somewhere, but that baby will outgrow the parasite-on-the-family stage, but the Oners just seem to get worse. Not sure we'll ever be an asset to society. She suppressed a snicker. A year in the hospital has given me a glimpse of all the hard work I always took for granted. The nurses, the orderlies, even the janitors who came in to clean, and called me by name. They all encouraged me, told me I was looking better, doing better. They're all real to me now, in a way my snobby former self never truly considered.
The baby finished the bottle and cried even louder. The nanny tossed a towel over her shoulder, the baby on top of that, and patted his back until he burped up about half of what he'd just eaten.
