Maggi met them at the shuttle, and promptly hugged Noreen. “You managed three impossible wonderful things in one day? Dear, I’m speechless.”
“I only wish.” Dillon answered, careful to stand well out of reach. “Besides, what’s so impossible about my asking her to marry me? Telepathy and what else were so wonderfully impossible?”
“Well, you guessed one out of three you knucklehead. Cat telepathy was obviously the greatest; breaking Cahill’s nose was second. The third thing, which you got the most wrong, wasn’t that she learned you wanted to marry her. Anyone with an intellect above a rhinolo’s butt knew that. The miracle was that the cub found anything to read in that dung pile you call your mind.” Obviously, standing clear of “Tiger Lady” wasn’t necessarily safe either.
Maggi turned and offered another hug. “Marlyn, my dear, I believe congratulations are in order for you as well. You roped in one of the best in the herd.”
Thad, shaking his head looked at Dillon with a lopsided grin. “I don’t sense the change in society that’s supposed to be taking place, do you? I feel like a piece of meat in a market the Ladies own, culled from the herd they manage.”
Maggi patted him on the arm. “You both get to make the big wedding decisions. Like what color suit to wear, the choice of flowers, cake flavor, and so forth.”
Vince Naguma and Sarah Bradley were nearby, looking at the dead ripper before the shuttle departed for Prime City. The two had seen the cubs, but they were told not to touch them. Wrapped for warmth, and shielded from casual contact, the cubs were in an improvised nursery made from a small shipping crate. “Hey, congratulations to both of you couples.” Vince called out. Sarah echoed the same sentiment.
Mirikami had been listening with amusement. “I’m not going to be the ring bearer, or strew flower petals.”
Maggi smiled, and said something that proved she had been expecting this. “No, Tet, you can follow one of the oldest traditions in Space. Buried in the regulations, which Jake verified for me, is one that that still grants Captains the authority to perform certain ceremonial duties. You can officiate at the wedding. The old vows are contained in the records. I’m sure Dillon will balk at the requirement that he must ‘obey’ his wife, but that’s a mere detail of semantics. Tet, you could perform a double ceremony, if that’s what the couples want.”
Marlyn looked to Noreen, who nodded. “That would be wonderful. We have not had a lot to celebrate here and this should be a tradition to bring back. We can ‘sign the line’ afterwards.”
Thad put on a resigned expression. “Dillon, I’ll wear my old military dress uniform since I don’t own a suit. Do you have any flowers you like best?” He laughed.
“Sure. I’m tired of blue and teal. I saw some lovely small orange and yellow blossoms down here, and we can use some of those red Raspani plant leaves as a spray.” He directed a smirk at Maggi.
Mirikami interrupted the byplay. “I see Stewart MacDougal and some others coming out to talk. I called him to inform him the ripper that killed his brother and sister-in-law was dead. I didn’t make mention of the cubs. Should we tell him, or simply let him see the dead adult?”
Thad spoke up. “The appearance of cubs after the first ever kill of a female ripper will be connected. We want trust with Hub City leaders, and MacDougal might be a future leader. The female ripper felt regret that she killed the two humans. After experiencing mind contact with the woman, it recognized us as aware ‘people,’ and she only carried the bodies away because of the need of her cubs, and a refusal to waste a kill when there was nothing else to eat.”
“Do we want him to know that they are telepathic?” Maggi asked. “Live cubs are one thing, but knowing what they can do is a vital bit of information. We are certainly going to find the genes that make this possible, and that knowledge might be dangerous to us in the hands of our opposition.”
Mirikami made a decision before the man drew closer. “No. We let him know there were cubs, and that the lack of other prey to feed them must have driven the mother to hunt humans. Her carcass is proof of death, and if he wants, we can let him see the cubs, but no touching.”
When MacDougal arrived, without even speaking to anyone he walked over to look at the dead ripper in the cargo net. Dozens of people had followed him out and joined him.
“It’s huge.” Was all MacDougal had to say.
“An adult male is significantly larger.” Thad told him. “This was a young female, trapped inside the compound with almost no animals to hunt. She must have been desperate to feed her cubs.”
“Cubs?” His head jerked up.
“Yes, a male and a female, they’re very small.” Thad saw no reason to mention they were born as the mother died.
“You kept them?”
Mirikami answered. “Of course we did, Stewart. Our scientists need to study them. They are one of our greatest outdoor risks, even more so than the whiteraptors in winter, because they’re so smart and more of them.”
“Well, I guess you earned the opportunity to study them. Thank you for coming. Without your help, yet again, we’d still have this killer inside the compound. I personally want to apologize to Commander Renaldo, on behalf of many of us here, for the inexcusable insult Cahill offered her. However, it seems she has already received a measure of retribution.” He smiled in spite of himself. “I regret I didn’t get to witness that myself.”
“Told you so.” Dillon muttered.
More of the Hub City residents came to look at the ripper, and many offered their thanks to the people that had come to help them. There were mumbles of discontent directed towards Cahill, who had been adamant that there was no continuing threat. When MacDougal revealed that she had locked up the radio to prevent any requests for assistance, the grumbling grew louder.
Neri Barr had come out to talk to Mirikami, the two of them quietly discussing something in isolation. When they finished, Barr walked over to look at the ripper as well.
Mirikami approached MacDougal, but spoke loud enough that most of those nearby could hear. “The new surveillance cameras are in place to let you see what’s outside all of the time. Mr. Barr, working with your own machinists and ship’s engineers has explained how to tie in our com systems with the one the Krall had. We can bring over a satellite dish, and if our proposed geosynchronous relay satellite works as well as we hope, you will not only have communications throughout the dome for all of you, but also with anyone at Prime City. You would be able to call any time you wish, just as you can on any world in Human Space. Until we can send up more relay satellites only this hemisphere will have coverage, but that’s where all of us live for now.”
That announcement drew applause, and multiple thanks. This trip was proving to be a public relations success, despite starting with breaking Cahill’s nose.
When Mirikami called for volunteers to lift the ripper in the net and load it inside the shuttle, there were more hands to help than they needed. The trip back would be faster without the net dragging in the wind. They were also going to try to extract some milk from the still warm carcass of the ripper. Sarah had given Maggi a syringe and some medium sized sterile vials, to try to extract as much of the protein rich “milk” as possible.
They reduced the trip time to Prime City to barely an hour when Mirikami authorized the use of more main thruster fuel to reach suborbital altitudes. Saving the cubs was too vital to waste another two hours in travel. The reservoirs of mother’s milk from four teats completely filled two vials, and third vial was three quarters full.
The cubs were stirring, and even though kept warm, they were clearly seeking the mother’s teats. Careful to avoid contact with the frills, Noreen and Marlyn were eager to feed the babies. With the needle removed, they used the tip of the syringe to inject the rewarmed mother’s milk into eager little toothless mouths. The cubs appeared sated before consuming even half of the fluid available in the partial vial, so they sealed it for later use.
When they arrived at Prime City, the
y were met by a small army of people ready to help or just wanting to see a ripper up close. The dead ripper went to a lab for dissection and tissue sampling, and her babies went to the hospital for a thorough check up and body scans, use of insulating gloves mandatory. One vial of mother’s milk went to another lab for analysis.
Aldry and Rafe drew blood and tissue samples from the female ripper, particularly from the frill. A careful tracing of the nerves from the frill to the brain would help decipher how that part of the ripper’s nervous system worked.
All the possible testing was underway, the “babies” under the best of care, it was time for some wedding plans. Thankfully, the “boys” were not included, so Dillon, Thad, and Mirikami went to the lounge on the Flight of Fancy to have a boy’s night out.
When they reached the lounge they met the Chief, Neri, Chack, Ricco, and most of the former Stewards and ship’s male complement, drinks at the ready. It appeared it was going to get drunk out tonight.
****
It wasn’t the first thing they had accomplished when they got back from Hub City. In fact, the double wedding had taken more than a week for the Ladies to plan, and a week for the two honeymoons. The couples had taken two different shuttles, yet traveled north together to the mountains where yaks and moosetodons spent their summers. Whiteraptors also lurked there, but it wasn’t difficult to park the shuttles on inaccessible mountain ledges with spectacular views. Each couple had privacy at night, for whatever their energetic metabolisms and new musculature allowed their sexual fantasies to explore. Thad wouldn’t say what his wicked fantasy with Marlyn was about; his provincial Poldark upbringing made him less comfortable talking about such things. However, he certainly displayed a sense of exhausted contentment in the mornings.
Before the week was up, it was time to pay for the use of the two shuttles. The boys had brought more than one set of “guns” with them. While the women flew, the men laid prone at the open rear hatches as they flew over a herd of moosetodons. Each man shot one large animal apiece, repayment for the fuel used on the trip.
There was also one intangible benefit reaped in the hours spent on ledges, watching the yak and moosetodon herds. The main use for those ridiculous moose antlers became obvious when they observed them under the abundant everblue fir trees. The fir trees produced a five-inch diameter plump brown fleshy fruit with a cluster of three or four one-inch thick black seeds inside. The moosetodon’s thick short neck prevented their raising their heads high enough for their relatively short prehensile lower lips to reach the higher fruit, which hung ten to fifteen feet off the ground, above the reach of most animals. The moosetodons simply walked under the trees and locked their antlers in the lower limbs, shook the trees violently and knocked the fruit loose. Then they picked the fallen treats off the ground.
Because all of the fruit hung at exactly the right height, it appeared primarily intended for consumption by the moosetodons. There was no obvious reason why the tree would have evolved to benefit the large animals, at least until Thad mentioned he had found some of the black seeds in the big lumpy droppings from the animals, observed when he once was hunting and tracking a herd that had passed recently.
Dillon thought he knew the answer. “Were the seeds changed? I mean they’re shiny black and the size of the end of my thumb when I cut the fruit open.”
“Well sure, after the big side teeth crunch them, some are completely smashed, and a few others make it through the gut with most of the shell dissolved away.”
Dillon nodded. “I think the ones swallowed whole are only partly digested when pooped out, and probably can germinate easier when they fall to the ground with the hard outside eaten away. No doubt, the droppings are also rich in partly digested grasses and leaves, and provide a fertile moist place for the seeds to sprout. The trees probably spread farther because of the moosetodons. This is an example of a mutually beneficial plant animal relationship, encountered on other planets.”
“No shit?” Thad winked.
“Then no trees.” Dillon chuckled.
“So that’s why the moosetodon craps in the woods. Great mystery solved.”
Noreen shared a knowing look with Marlyn. “Are you two adolescents finished with your poop jokes? We need to haul these carcasses five hundred miles, and there might be raptors in these woods.”
They laid out the cargo nets, used the shuttles and ropes to roll the beasts onto them, then lifted both and flew the long trip back to Prime City, honeymoon over, marital bliss ready to start.
****
“Those blissful two idiots have no idea how their bachelor lives are about to change.” Maggi’s laugh was conspiratorial, shared with Aldry and Rafe, who shared the same knowledge.
“The fertility treatments don’t always take, Maggi.” Aldry raised an eyebrow.
Rafe was more confident. “They miss once out of a hundred times, and I’m confident that the Ladies made sure the grooms offered more than a routine effort. Single egg conception will take, and the genders will be male almost to a certainty. Three hundred years of experimenting with gender selection took all of the mystery out of that.”
“OK. We will have the start of our Second Generation SG children in nine months.” Maggi grinned. “I can’t wait to have the little farts running around.”
Rafe had a correction for her. “Enhanced metabolisms, remember? I predict full term by seven months, perhaps eight at the outside.”
“What about the other fully enhanced couples Rafe, also with Koban nerves? How many have opted for children this early?”
“Maggi, twenty eight have asked for the fertility treatments, with gender selection. Another sixteen want fertility without gender selection. We have two hundred thirty four other such fully enhanced couples that will let nature take its course, pregnant when it happens, gender as that happens. We should have forty-six SG births before fall, for sure, and potentially two hundred eighty SG’s before year’s end, most with the inert Koban nervous system in place.”
“And the ‘control’ couples?” Maggi inquired. All prospective parents had to have the first four human clone derived gene mods just for the fetus to survive, making them a ‘control’ population.
“We have more than a thousand of those couples that have entered short marriage contracts. Some will have babies. When you took the poll, did they say if they would try for conception, or use contraception?” The city needed to know for allocation of future resources.
“We didn’t hold their feet to the fire for an answer yet. They have a couple of months to make a decision.
“In addition,” Rafe anticipated her next question, “we have quite a number of mixed SG couples, where only one partner has the redundant Kobani superconductor nerves. I know some of them will let nature take its course, and some will use contraception until they trust the results. However, no matter how we look at things, we’ll be hip deep in children in a few years.
“The SG’s will be born fully enhanced, many with the Koban parallel nervous system, and there will be SG.5’s, with only one parent fully enhanced. Those ‘point fives’ will present a mix of heredity of Koban nerves and standard features that we will have to monitor for instabilities. We understand the old clone mods well, but the Koban nerve mod is new. If there are problems found there, we will have to set genetic switches to prevent incompatible gene combinations on future births, and correct problems that arise after the fact.”
Aldry focused on where the discussion was leading. “We need to start preparing for the population shift, and find people to be our teachers, pediatricians, daycare staffers, people to manufacture what children will need, and make things they will want. There were very few toys in those cargo ships destined for the Rim Worlds. We’ll have to make some, and design and produce clothes for infants first, and shift production as they grow and mature.”
Maggi brought up something she had heard Dillon and Thad talking about. “We will need to produce weapons suitable for the smaller hands of chi
ldren, and decide when they will be taught gun safety and use.”
Rafe was shocked. “Are you nuts? Give kids guns?”
“Rafe, go outside and walk around the inner fenced compound tomorrow for two hours, no weapons or armor.” Maggi stared at him. He caught her meaning of course.
He didn’t want to concede. “Then we can’t let the children go outside without armed adult supervision.”
“Ever? In addition, we know that it takes two sets of eyes, and two guns to ensure greatest safety. Do you think two adults will accompany every child outside at all times? This is Koban, not some safe Hub or Old Colony world. Wild and wooly Rim worlds have to let children out to learn about their environment. Besides, even if we don’t want them out, they will sneak out. It’s better to teach them self-defense early. There will be careless accidents, yes, but surely less damage than what native life will cause if they don’t have weapons. We can start with nonlethal jazzers for them. We’ll be making those soon, now that we can manufacture the chips, small klystrons, and high capacity battery packs.”
“There will be parents that will not go along with giving their kids guns.” Rafe sounded like he’d be one of those, even though he had no children.
Maggi nodded. “Probably so, for a time. I can’t imagine we will ever have a requirement that forces that choice on parents or their children. However, they will likewise not have the option of denying that gun choice for others. There will be armed children that will go outside alone. I don’t mean at age five or six, but they are going to be gun qualified at some age well shy of maturity. We will never inhabit this world from inside a dome, and so long as Krall inhabit our Galaxy, we will never be safe anywhere in it without our guns.”
Rafe shrugged. “Well, on a less contentious subject, the fortified gazelle milk sufficiently matches the ripper milk sample. We matched it nutritionally that is. The cubs will survive and thrive, although they don’t like the taste as much what mom used to make. We are looking at how to improve the taste aspect as well. They are growing fast, like everything with a high metabolism on this world. I think they’ll want meat in another month, since their first teeth are sprouting.”
Koban: The Mark of Koban Page 25
