Cryptikon Far Freedom Part 2

look at him that way!" I am a fool! Mai thought. How can Jon mean so much to me? Oh, don't let me regurgitate all the scientific literature on the biochemistry of sex! I know it's just molecules and... No, it's madness, and damned if I care if I'm mad!

  "You protest too loudly," Aylis said. "Want me to tell him? Want me to propose to him for you?"

  "You're impossible, Aylis Mnro!"

  = = =

  "You look happy," Horss commented.

  It began: the task of exposing the damage, then repairing it. Would it be easier if Mai was in a good mood? His presence didn't seem to darken her mood. Maybe she already knew. She had the records, if she wanted to look. The kiss she gave him had eventually emboldened him - with some imagination on his part. What did a kiss mean to a woman who was a century and a half old?

  /

  "Children!" Mai declared. She looked into Jon's gray eyes. "Do you like children, Jon?" Mai surprised herself with her question. Aylis had counseled her, and despite Mai's stubborn inhibitions and loss of self-confidence, something in her had changed. She had made a serious mistake with Jon Horss, but now she would gamble that it was a seriously good mistake.

  /

  Horss knew the correct answer to that question! His personal history, however, would dispute the answer he wanted to give. Did he really like children? Maybe he could get Sammy to give him a character reference. "I like Sammy."

  /

  "I know you do." Mai was absolutely sure Jon would be a good father. Maybe she would be a good mother. If I could just stop trying too hard!

  "You did a medical screening of the Malay," Jon said. "How many children?"

  "Only five," she replied, forcing calm into her voice.

  /

  Mai kicked off her shoes and moved past Horss to put them away. He watched her, stealing pleasure from seeing her, being near her, hearing her voice. He didn't think to disconnect his mouth from his errant thoughts. "Are they contagious?"

  "They were perfectly healthy," Mai replied. "Why would you think that?"

  Horss gave up trying to be someone else. He would always say the wrong things to Mai. She could tolerate it or she could chastise him, just as long as she stayed near him. "I meant it in a different way. A poor attempt at humor."

  "I don't understand."

  "Did your desire to have a child of your own increase when you saw the Malay children?"

  /

  Mai's heart leaped and she almost stuttered. "Did Aylis talk to you about something?" She really didn't want Aylis interceding for her, and making her seem, well, less than perfect, but she would take whatever came of it with good humor. Even if it killed her with humiliation.

  "About what?"

  She was relieved. Aylis had not revealed her biological error, her pregnancy, to Horss. Then she was angry with herself for even worrying about it. "She didn't?" Mai asked. "Why are you here? I visited you, now you pay a return visit?"

  /

  "To tell you I'm sorry," Horss answered. Mai sounded dangerously irritated now. Something was wrong, to have her mood change so much. This was going to be very difficult. It would also be humiliating when Mai told him where to go.

  "Sorry about what?" she asked.

  "Makawee."

  "What is that?"

  Jon now knew Mai had not read his personnel record, the one Zakiya had recently corrected. "My daughter," he replied.

  /

  She tilted her head as though a different angle would reveal the way to see through him. "Why are you sorry to have a daughter? Because of something stupid I once said? It doesn't matter." It didn't matter to Mai, not any longer. Although she hated to break the law, she could easily rationalize keeping Jon's child because of the extraordinary situation. They might never return to Union space.

  /

  It did matter, even if Horss couldn't hear it in her voice. It occurred to him this was an encouraging reaction, if he read it correctly. "It matters to me," he stated. He looked around her small office, where she worked and lived. It wasn't as clean and as neat as he would have expected. Mai was probably too busy.

  /

  "Is there something you need to tell me?" Mai asked. She sat down. She sat on her hands to keep them silent about her stress.

  /

  Horss thought Mai sounded hopeful - about something. He plunged ahead, obliquely, like the coward he was. "I'm worried," he said.

  "About what?" she asked.

  "The ship."

  "Of course, you are. You're the captain."

  "I mean... as a... limiting... factor," he said slowly, picking his words.

  "I... don't... understand," she said, just as slowly.

  "I'm running out of time because of the ship," he said quickly.

  "To do what?" she asked quickly.

  "To be happy. That's what the Freedom is all about: the pursuit of happiness."

  /

  "I suppose it is, in a way. What would make you happy?" Mai thought Jon was trying to work his way around to something important. How could men such as Jon pretend to be strong and decisive, if they were not in fact strong and decisive? Did he act this way only in her presence? Was that a sign of something she did to him emotionally? It would be humorous to her if she wasn't so serious about everything!

  /

  There it was, Horss thought, the perfect question for me to answer. I would say, "You would make me happy." He pursed his lips to get the "you" sound but nothing would come out. He never had this problem with women before! It was easier to lie to a casual acquaintance than it was to tell the truth to Old Lady Sugai.

  /

  "Some of those Twenglish words are hard to pronounce," Mai said, taking a chance on humor. This was it, she thought. She would stop at nothing to bring this conversation to the point of truth between them.

  /

  "Especially the one-syllable words," Horss said. He hoped her remark was supposed to be humorous. "Words like you, me, and us."

  "How about you, I, and we?" Mai suggested. "Subjective rather than objective pronouns."

  "Grammar is for sissies if you speak Twenglish," he said. "Why do you suddenly know so much about it?"

  "Because Sammy needs to understand what I say."

  "Oh. I thought I might be the reason."

  "When I learn all the curse words, Jon!"

  "I can help you there!"

  "Tell me about Makawee."

  "What?"

  Mai's bare feet became nervous and began rocking her rocking chair. She fixed him with a squinty stare.

  Nobody could squint like Mai. She didn't seem too upset now to Horss. He couldn't track where her feelings went.

  "Makawee, Jon. Your daughter. I would like to know something about her. Does she look like you?"

  "Makawee was an infant when I left. I think she did have some of her father's features."

  Mai frowned at Horss. Frowned and squinted. "It's impossible for me to imagine you abandoning your wife and child. You're a starship captain. You're the definition of responsibility."

  "It never occurred to me," he said thoughtfully.

  "What never occurred to you?" she asked, when Jon didn't soon say more.

  "I was young when I married," he spoke sadly. "We hardly know anymore what it's like to be young. Young and inexperienced and unwise. I've always felt great shame for leaving Chumani and Makawee, for leaving my people, my home. It was my duty to take care of them, to take responsibility. I placed my ambition and dreams ahead of family. It never occurred to me that my shame is why I place my duty to protect crew above everything, why I was so devastated by what happened to Sammy."

  "None of us is perfect," Mai muttered, looking away at nothing. When she looked back at Jon he was staring at her very seriously. She stopped rocking. She opened her mouth to start to say what she needed to say, but he held a hand up to stop her and took a deep breath.

  "Chumani was a widow," he said. "Her husband was killed in a mining accident. Her husband was my next older brother, Jay. Mak
awee was my brother's child. All the more reason I should have stayed and not disgraced my family."

  /

  Mai started to say something philosophical to Jon, perhaps to ease his obvious emotional pain. Then she realized he had said, Makawee was my brother's child! "You should be ashamed, Jon! You should carry that burden for years! But it doesn't mean you can't ever be happy! Did you just say that you were never a biological father?"

  "And never deserve to be," Horss replied.

  "We sometimes get what we don't deserve," Mai said, thinking of her unborn child.

  /

  "I don't deserve you," Horss said. Now that it was hopeless he could dare to say it. "And I want you."

  Mai closed her eyes and almost smiled. "Are you sure?" she asked.

  "Extremely," he answered.

  /

  Mai got up from the rocking chair. She took four slow steps on bare feet and placed a hand on Jon's chest. She could feel his heart beating. "Then I am yours," she said. When Jon tried to hold her hand, she took his hand and placed it on her abdomen. "And so is the baby in my womb," she said, watching his reaction transform his countenance.

  2-22 1980CE - Quantum Circuits, Part 2

  "So, how's the dissertation coming, Miss DuPont?" Sam asked.

  Milly twitched, startled, then shoved her wheels in opposite directions to turn and face Sam in the hallway outside her tiny office. She hid the joy in her expression, leaving only a wan smile for him to see. "Grumble, grumble, grumble," she replied. "Haven't seen you for a couple of days." That was supposed to suggest that she missed him but she would be damned if she would be any more obvious. It had been very hard not to weep every day Sam had not called her. She was such a helpless mess!

  "My brain seems to be on a very imaginative mission," Sam said. "I don't think I've slept four hours in the last two days." He