"Vitar! It"s me. Hoshma!" Soz tried to break his panic. I"m here! You"re all right!
He gave a ragged sob and threw his arms around her neck, burying his face in her hair.
"Careful, careful," Soz murmured. "What is it? What scared you? Where is your father, honey? Where is Hoshpa?"
"Dead," the boy sobbed. "All dead and gone."
"Vitar, no." Soz struggled to rein in her fear. "He can"t be dead. We would feel it." She was aware of Jai and Lisi behind her, their minds hyperextended now, as was hers, reaching, reaching for Jaibriol.
Finding nothing.
Somehow she kept her voice calm. "Vitar, what happened?"
"Big silver bird came." He was almost incoherent. "Bad people in it." He lifted his head to look at her. "Shot Hoshpa, Shot at me. I ran away. They put Hoshpa into the bird and went into the sky."
Soz whirled to Jai and Lisi. "Get in the shelter now."
Lisi hesitated. "But Father-"
"NOW!" Soz shoved them toward their house, which was on the other side of the well. She took off running, Vitar in her arms, with Lisi and Jai running at her side, Jai still carrying del-Kelric. They raced into the house, making a thunder of noise as they ran across the main room.
Soz yanked up the trapdoor in a corner. "Get down there. Fast."
Lisi went first, followed by Jai, with del-Kelric. As they clambered down the wooden ladder, Soz knocked over a nearby shelf and swept everything she could reach into the hole. Trinkets and toys clattered in the darkness, pelting her children. She helped Vitar down after them, then lowered herself into the hole and pulled the trapdoor shut above them.
A deep rumble sounded in the distance.
"Get down!" she shouted. From Vitar"s mind she picked up that he had reached the bottom and moved aside. She let go of the ladder and dropped the last two meters, landing with a jolt that made her fall to one knee. Del-Kelric wailed, his fear as tangible as a fog.
Soz lunged through the darkness, reaching out with her hands. As her fingers sc.r.a.ped the console, the rumbling outside grew louder. She stabbed at panels she knew by heart, from the libraries in her node and the drills she had made the family perform.
"Quasis field activated," the comp said.
The rumbling swept above them.
It was as if a giant picked up the world and shook it in a huge fist. It slammed Soz against the rigid quasis s.h.i.+eld. Del-Kelric screamed and Lisi cried out, then called his name.
The shaking kept on, relentless, the world convulsing in an enraged frenzy. It threw them into each other, smashed them against the quasis s.h.i.+eld again and again, and churned up dirt until it uncovered the curve of the bubble beneath them.
Soz managed to get her arms around del-Kelric. Mercifully, he was still screaming, which meant he was alive and conscious. More frightening, Lisi and Jai had gone silent. Soz curled her body around del-Kelric, trying to protect him and her unborn child while the tumult threw her around like a ball within a ball.
Her node timed the wild shaking for twelve minutes, but to Soz it seemed forever. Finally the world tremored to a standstill. She lay on her side, gasping for breath, her arms still around the sobbing del-Kelric.
"Lisi?" she whispered. "Jai?"
No answer.
Soz dragged herself forward. When her elbow hit a shoulder, she reached out and touched strands of long hair. Her fingers brushed a face she knew well. Jai. The whisper of his breath on her hand made tears well in her eyes.
Lisi was crumpled against Jai, both children folded around Vitar, protecting the boy. Lisi groaned when Soz touched her and Vitar cried softly. Tears ran down Soz"s face. Alive. All four of them were alive.
"Hoshma?" Vitar whispered.
"I"m here, honey." Sitting up, Soz drew him into her lap, with the whimpering del-Kelric. "Jai?" she asked. "Lisi?"
"I"m all right," Lisi said.
"Does anything hurt?" Soz asked.
"All over," Lisi said. "But not bad. Like falling out of a tree."
"Jai?" Soz asked.
Silence.
"Jai?" She touched his shoulder.
"Ahhh." He stirred. "My arm..."
"It"s all right," Soz said. "Don"t move." She patted the ground, searching for the medkit-and a contraction caught her.
Soz cried out and fell back, releasing the children. Del-Kelric started to wail again and Vitar gave a startled cry.
"Hoshma?" Panic touched Lisi"s voice. "I don"t feel the baby"s mind anymore."
Soz lay still until the contraction finished. Somehow she managed to speak without her voice cracking. "Don"t worry about that now. I need you all to help me."
"How?" Lisi"s fear permeated the darkness.
"Lisi, find the medkit," Soz said. "Vitar, see what else is in here. A lamp would be good."
Vitar sniffled. "I"ll try."
As Lisi and Vitar searched, Soz spoke in a low voice to Jai. "How bad is your arm?"
"It"s all right." The strain in his voice belied his words.
"I found the medkit," Lisi said. "The laser carbine and the neutrino transmitter too."
Soz reached for the kit, then groaned as another contraction hit her.
"Hoshma?" Vitar"s voice shook, "Why are you crying?"
"She"s not crying," Lisi said. "The baby is coming."
"Baby can"t come," Vitar said. "Baby gone."
"Vitar, don"t!" Lisi sounded ready to cry herself.
"Children, don"t fight," Soz said. "The baby has to come. Even if-" She shook her head, unable to say it.
"Bad people killed Hoshpa," Vitar said. "Killed baby."
"Father isn"t dead!" Lisi shouted.
"Shhh," Soz whispered. "Please." She closed her eyes as the contraction finished. "G.o.ds, not now."
Jai laid his hand on her arm. "It will be all right."
She swallowed. "Yes. It will."
Lisi pressed the medkit in her hands. "What should I do?"
Soz fumbled in the kit until she found the diagnostic strip. Feeling along it, she sc.r.a.ped the edge, activating its textural display. Holos had little use in the dark.
"I found the heat-sensor lamp," Vitar said. "It"s all broken. There"s an oil lamp too. Do you want me to light it?"
"Not the oil lamp," Soz said. "It would use up our oxygen." She pressed the diagnostic strip into Lisi"s hands. "Do you remember how to read the textures?"
"I think so," Lisi said. With something definite to do, the tremor left her voice.
"Jai, help her hold the strip on your arm," Soz said. "Lisi, you have to read what ... how bad the break ... ah-" She moaned with another contraction.
"Hoshma?" Vitar"s voice shook. "Mommy, don"t die."
"I"m fine, honey." She schooled her voice to calm. "This always happens when mothers have babies. Don"t be scared."
"We"ve got the strip working," Jai said.
"His left arm is broken," Lisi said. "It says ... his ulna has a greenstick fracture."
Soz recognized the term from her paramedic training. It meant he had an oblique crack on one side of the bone. "Is the bone displaced? Has it punctured the skin?"
"No," Lisi said. "Neither."
Relief swept Soz. It could have been a lot worse. "Jai, I"ll have to put on a splint. It doesn"t sound like it will need much repositioning, but it might hurt. Do you want something to knock you out?"
"No." His voice sounded strained. "Don"t do that."
She felt the emotions behind his answer. He feared if he went to sleep, he would wake to find his family dead.
Soz grunted as another contraction came. Attend, she thought.
Based on your previous history, these contractions suggest birth within the next hour, her node answered, antic.i.p.ating her inquiry.
She didn"t ask the other question. She didn"t want to know, didn"t want to understand the void where once she and Jaibriol had nurtured a growing mind. As long she didn"t ask, she could cling to the hope that her baby still lived.
Rustles came from nearby. Then Vitar pressed a slat of wood in her hand. "Will this help Jai?"
Soz recognized it as a piece of a construction set Jaibriol had carved for Vitar, good now for a splint. She gave Vitar a hug. "You"re a smart boy. How did you know I needed it?"
He touched his finger to her temple. "In here."
With Jai guiding her, Soz found the break in his arm. She submerged her consciousness into his and linked to the picoweb in his body. Soz carried top-of-the-line nanomeds in her body, the type that could pa.s.s from mother to child. During her pregnancies, they had crossed the placenta and replicated in her children, giving them the same immunities and health she carried. They also made it possible now for her to link her biomech web to her son"s less extensive picoweb, which would help direct her actions as she splinted his bone.
A contraction hit her and she almost lost contact with Jai. When the pain eased, she clenched her teeth, then set the bone and splinted Jai"s arm. He remained silent, crying out only once, when she nudged the bone into place.
"Is Jaibird going to be happy again?" Vitar asked.
"I"m happy now," Jai said. "And quit calling me Jaibird."
Soz spoke gently. "Vitar? Can you answer some questions?"
"Don"t know," Vitar said.
"It"s about what happened to Daddy."
"Bad people shot him."
"Was he still breathing after they shot him?"
"Didn"t see,"
"Did you feel him get hurt?"
"No hurt," Vitar said.
Soz exhaled. Surely Vitar would have known if anything hurt his father. At great distances, it was less certain they would know, but with Vitar right there, she doubted Jaibriol could have died without his Rhon son knowing it.
"What did the people look like who took him?" she asked.
"Bad people," Vitar said.
"I know, honey. Can you tell me what they, looked like?"
"Black hair. Sparkly. Like Hoshpa. Eyes like Jai."
"How like Jai?"
"Red."
Soz felt ice inside her. "And their clothes?"
"Gray. Little pieces of color on the sleeves."
She closed her eyes. It sounded like an ESComm uniform.
"The silver bird had a picture on it too," Vitar said.