“Did you get any of that, Tirla?” Sascha asked her, grinning. Sitting beside her, he could feel her concentrating on “listening,” but her mind echoed nothing but the desire to hear.
She shook her head and gave a sad little sigh, with a look of apology to Dorotea, who had been trying so hard to train her.
“The Bro wants to know if you’d prefer to live in a Long Island Residential while you’re waiting to grow up,” Sascha explained.
“A Residential in Long Island?” Tirla became animated at once, sitting up in her bed, her big dark eyes glittering, a delicate tinge of color suffusing her cheeks, and a hopeful smile on her lips. “That’d be living in high style!”
EPILOGUE
Three months later.
Rhyssa?
The tone, apologetic but firm, roused Rhyssa from one of those intense sleeps where it is difficult to move the body even when the brain has become alert. She lay heavy in the bed and managed to open one eye to see the clock; then she heard the familiar sound of Dave singing softly to himself in the bathroom. Once again she had overslept. She really did not know what was the matter with her these past few weeks—she simply could not seem to get enough sleep.
Rhyssa! The tone was more urgent, and then recognition came.
Yes, Madlyn? What’s the matter?
I didn’t wake you, did I? I thought I had Earth times down pat.
I overslept. What’s the matter?
It’s her! Disgust, frustration, anger, and exasperation packed into that one pronoun forewarned Rhyssa. She’s at it again. Saying we Talents are not doing our job! We have only pulled her out of her midden and yet she has the gall to blame us for anything that goes wrong up here.
What is it this time? Rhyssa hauled herself up against her pillows and reached for the coffee thermos—another elegant notion of Mr. Lehardt’s, and so civilized. She started to pour herself a cup and then stopped. The smell of it turned her stomach.
There’s one last very critical shipment due to come up, Madlyn went on, only it hasn’t because Johnny says he won’t ship it yet.
Won’t ship it? That blew the last of sleep-fog from Rhyssa’s mind. What was Colonel Greene up to now? And naturally it’s essential for her to complete the installation?
Vital! It’s got the last of the internal mechanisms and remotes. Very delicate stuff, I know, and not something you want bounced about. And there’s only a week more before the completion date. Then we can all come down to earth! There was heartfelt relief in Madlyn’s tone. So we want to know why it’s being held up. Because we are, too, you know.
I know. I’ll sort it out, Madlyn. Indeed, I will.
Dave was whistling louder now that he knew she was awake. He might not have been telepathic, but he displayed a keen sensitivity where she was concerned that more than made up for it in ways she could never have anticipated. She grinned to herself and then recalled the task at hand. Eight-thirty was not too early to rouse Colonel John Greene out of his Floridian sack.
Johnny boy, phone me! He was too far away to link telepathically with her, but her call would reach him easily enough. She looked at the phone, counting down.
It rang in exactly ten seconds.
“You wished parlance with me, Madame Lehardt?”
“I do indeed, Colonel Greene. What hanky-panky are you pulling on poor dear Ludmilla?”
Johnny’s chuckle was drenched in malice. “Only what she deserves, petal. She conscripted us Talents to be sure she finished on time, and finished on time she will be. Not one moment earlier, not one moment later. Why?”
“Oh, I see.” Rhyssa chuckled. “And you have it timed to the final hour?”
“Lance and I worked out the time it would take to install those controls, and we’ve scheduled the kinetics needed. We know exactly how long it will take. Lance must have forgotten to clue Madlyn. I’m sorry she’s getting hassled, but she’s well able for it. Soothe her down, will you, Rhys? We’re doing it our way!”
“Oh, I quite agree. Not an hour early and not an hour late.”
As she hung up, Dave came in the room, a towel draped about his lean hips. “I did try to wake you, Rhys,” he said with a rueful expression. “You just don’t want to get up in the morning.”
“I’m wanton enough to admit that I love being in bed with you, Dave, but preferably awake, not sleeping like the dead.” She lifted her arms and began to stretch, then stopped. “And what’s wrong with the coffee? The smell makes me nauseous.”
Dave grinned as he sat down on the edge of the bed, looking at her. His blue eyes crinkled. “Figured it out yet?” he asked, glancing down at her abdomen.
“I thought—I mean, I haven’t been ill,” Rhyssa said, with dawning awareness, “just sleepy! Oh, Dave, could I really be pregnant?”
“Think about it a moment, O wise woman!” He got up, shedding his towel as he began to dress. She loved looking at him, no matter what he was doing, and the intimacy of this daily act was something special for her. “After all, I’ve been doing my best for several months now!”
Awed by the possibility, Rhyssa did start thinking about her body, placing her hands gently on her belly, intuiting the biofeedback.
“Oh, Dave, I am pregnant. I am!”
“I think you’re the last one to have copped on, then,” he replied, grinning broadly. “Dorotea knows.”
“And she said nothing?” Rhyssa sat bolt upright again, startled and somewhat miffed that she had been left in the dark—and by Dorotea!
“Well, there’s some things it’s more fun to find out by yourself,” he said, grinning as he stooped down to kiss her lovingly. “There’s a sort of glow about you, too. Everyone’s noticed. They’ve been politely waiting for an official announcement.” He stroked her tangled hair, running fingers down her silver streak.
She sighed, then blurted out, “Does Sascha know?”
Dave stopped in the act of pulling on his tunic and ducked his head out of the folds to regard her with some alarm. “Sascha? I know you’re close but—”
“Well . . .” Rhyssa paused. There was one of the few drawbacks to Dave’s lack of Talent. Sometimes she had to explain with far more detail than a Talent would require. “Well, Sascha’s got to wait, that’s all, and he doesn’t take waiting kindly.”
“Wait?” Dave pulled the tunic down. “Wait for what?”
“For Tirla to grow up, of course,” she said, gathering herself to rise from the bed. She felt oddly protective of the new life inside her, which was silly, since it was obviously well settled in.
“Tirla?” Dave’s eyes nearly popped in astonishment. “He’s gone on her? Dirty old man!”
“Not so old and certainly not dirty where Tirla is concerned. Bolt out of the blue on him, all right enough. He’s never felt that way about any other female.” Rhyssa permitted herself a little knowing smile. “But she’s the one for him, and he knows it. He just has to wait a few years.”
“That wight’s not even—”
“Tirla is twelve now, going on two hundred,” Rhyssa replied with some asperity. Tirla was a very interesting personality, and she and Sascha would deal very well together. It was incredible, really, to have found two such diverse Talents during her directorship: one macro who would shift worlds and one whose skill was a micro-Talent, eroding language barriers. “Neesters ripen a lot faster than we Northern and Occidental types. She’ll be more than ready in four years to marry Sascha.”
“And that’s decided?” Dave was skeptical. Rhyssa smiled. “Sascha precogged it—to his intense astonishment. Next time you see them together, notice how she looks at him. Quite proprietary that young lady is where Sascha is concerned. And she’s better for him than Madlyn would ever be.”
“And they’ll have Talented kids?”
“That’s a very high probability.” Rhyssa smiled smugly.
Dave paused. In her presence he always allowed his emotions to show. He cleared his throat and asked briskly, “What about us? When will we
know?”
To reassure the man she loved, Rhyssa smiled as she nodded. “No problem there.”
“You sound so sure.”
She put her arms around his neck, letting her gravid belly rest against him as she pulled his head down to kiss him. “I am. He just told me so.”
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LOOK, MA . . . NO HANDS!
“Look!” The boy raised his right arm, and the big helicopter just outside Rhyssa’s bay window rose and hovered there, the huge rotor blades moving idly in the breeze.
“Do be careful with it, Peter,” Johnny Greene said amiably. “It’s government property.”
“I’m always careful, Colonel Greene,” Peter replied. He returned the vehicle gently to the ground.
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