"Mixing genes from more'n one person-she might as well be a bastard-" Pete added. "You know what the parsons say about them."

"She's a strong, healthy young female who's now pregnant with twins," Mitch said firmly. "And she's mute, and she's safely in a muted maternity home. She's not going to cause any trouble. You better believe I was firm with her-she's quiet and obedient now."

"But why did you send the yacht back?" asked Pete.

If they were asking questions and not yelling at him, he was over the hump.

"Because it's about time we got a little respect, that's why. The talk on the docks is that we're just a bunch of pirates like any others. Common criminals. That's what the Guernesi are sayin' in their own papers; they're not tellin' the truth about us. So we make it clear we aren't goin' to put up with it-they can't just ignore us. God's plan isn't goin' to be held back by such as them.

Besides that, once they started lookin' for that female-and they would look, considerin' who her father is-they could've found things we don't want them to know."

"And you bring the whole Familias down on us," Sam hissed. "Biggest power in this part of the galaxy and you have to make them mad-"

"I'm not afraid of anything but God Almighty," Mitch said. "That's what we all swear to, 'fore we're sworn in as Rangers. Fear God but fear no man-that's what we say. You goin' back on that, Sam?" He felt strong, exultant. New children in the home, shaping well. That yellow-haired slut carrying twins-God was on his side for sure.

"There's still no sense leadin' trouble home," Pete said.

"I didn't," Mitch said. "Sure, I claimed what we did for the whole Militia-but I didn't leave one scrap of evidence which branch it was. By the time they figure it out-if they figure it out, which I doubt-we'll be raisin' enough hell right there in Familias space that they won't have time to bother us. If they make one move against us, we blow a station or two-they'll back off. I told 'em that. Nobody goes to war for one female."

Brun fretted in the confines of the maternity home. She was allowed to go into the walled courtyard, hobbling around the brick paths on her swollen, sore feet. In fact, she was required to walk five circuits each day. She was allowed to go from her dormitory to the kitchen, to the dining hall, to the bathing room or toilet, to the sewing room. But the only door out was locked-and more than locked, guarded by a stout man a head taller than she was. The other occupants, all five of them, were as mute as she. The woman in charge-Brun could not think of any word that fit her position-was not mute, but all too verbal. She ordered the pregnant women around as if she were the warden in a prison. Perhaps she was; it felt like a prison to Brun. She had to spend so much time a day sewing: clothes for herself, clothes for the baby to come, clothes for herself after the birth. She had to help in the kitchen. She had to clean, struggling to push a heavy wet mop across the floor, to scrub out the toilets and sinks and shower stalls.

What kept her going was the thought of Hazel, somewhere with those two small girls. What was happening to Hazel? Nothing good. She promised Hazel-she promised herself-that she would somehow get Hazel out of this.

She was examined every day . . . and as her time came nearer, she found a whole new source of fear. One of the other women, cutting carrots beside her in the kitchen, suddenly bent and pressed a hand to her side. Her mouth opened in a silent yell. Brun could see the hardening under her maternity shift.

"Come along, you," the warden said. She glared at Brun. "You help her, you." Brun took the woman's other arm, and helped her stumble down the corridor, into rooms Brun had not yet seen. Tiled floor . . . narrow bed, too short to lie on . . . as the woman in labor heaved herself onto it, she realized that this-this utterly inadequate ramshackle arrangement-was where women gave birth.

Where she would give birth. The woman writhed, and a gush of fluid wet the bed and splashed onto the floor.

"Get basins, you!" the warden said to Brun, pointing. Brun brought them. When was the warden going to call the doctor? The nurses?

There were no doctors, no nurses. The warden was the only attendant, along with whatever women were in the house. The others edged in-some of them had done this before, clearly. Brun, forbidden to leave, stood against the wall, alternately faint and nauseated. When she sagged, one of the others slapped her face with a wet rag until she stood straight again.

She had known the facts of human reproduction since childhood. In books. In instructional cubes.

And she knew-or she had known-that no one who had access to modern methods still gave birth in the old way. And certainly no one, no one in the whole civilized universe, gave birth like this, without medical care, without life support, without anything but a grim old woman and other pregnant women, in a room with unscreened windows, with the blood and fluids splashing onto the bare floor, splashing onto the women's bare feet. Her father's horses had better care; the hounds had cleaner kennels for whelping.

She tried not to look, but they grabbed her, forced her to look, to see the baby's head pushing, pushing . . . her body ached already in sympathy.

The baby's first cry expressed her own rage and fear exactly.

She could not do it. She would die.

She could not die; she had to live . . . for Hazel. To keep Hazel from this horror, she would live.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Castle Rock Lord Thornbuckle, Speaker of the Table of Ministers and the Grand Council of the Familias Regnant, successor to the abdicated king, had spent the morning working on the new Regular Space Service budget proposal with his friend-now the Grand Council's legal advisor-Kevil Starbridge Mahoney.

All morning a succession of ministers and accountants had bombarded them with inconvenient facts that cluttered what should have been-Lord Thornbuckle thought-a fairly simple matter of financing replacements for the ships lost at Xavier. They had decided to lunch privately, in the small green dining room with its view of the circular pond in which long-finned fish swam lazily, in the hope that the peaceful spring garden would restore their equanimity. A spicy soup and slices of lemon- and-garlic roasted chicken had helped, and now they toyed with salad of mixed spring greens, putting off the inevitable return to columns of numbers.

"Heard from Brun lately?" Kevil asked, after reporting on his son George, now in law school.

"Not for several weeks," Thornbuckle said. "I expect she's in jumpspace somewhere; she wanted to visit Cecelia's stud before coming home for the hunt opening day."

"You don't worry?"

"Of course I worry. But what can I do about it? If she doesn't show up soon, I'll put someone on her tail-the problem is that as soon as I do, the newsflash shooters will know where to look, and the real sharks follow the bait."

Kevil nodded. They had both been targets of political and private violence, as well as intrusive newsflash stories. "You could always use Fleet resources," he suggested, not for the first time.

"I could-except that after Copper Mountain I'm not at all sure it's safe to do so. First she's nearly killed right on the base-they still haven't figured out who was shooting at her-and then the heroic Lieutenant Suiza takes it upon herself to question Brun's morality."

Kevil held his silence but one eyebrow went up. Thornbuckle glared at him.

"I know-you think she's-"

"I didn't say a word," Kevil said. "But there are two sides or more to any quarrel."

"It was unprofessional-"

"Yes. No doubt about that. But if Brun were not your daughter, I think you would find it more understandable."

Thornbuckle sighed. "Perhaps. She can be . . . provocative. But still-"

"But still you're annoyed because Lieutenant Suiza wasn't more tactful. I sympathize. In the meantime-"

The knock on the door interrupted him; he turned to look. Normally, no one disturbed a private meal here, and that knock had a tempo that alerted them both.

Poisson, the most senior of the private secretaries attached to Lord Thornbuckle's official position, followed on that knock without waiting. Unusual-and more unusual was his face, pale and set as if carved from stone.

"What is it?" asked Thornbuckle. His gaze fixed on the package Poisson carried, the yellow and green stripes familiar from the largest of the commercial express-mail companies, Hymail.

"Milord-milord-" Poisson was never at a loss for words; even when Kemtre abdicated, he had been suavely capable from the first moments. But now, the package he held out quivered from the tremor in his hands.

Thornbuckle felt an all-too-familiar chill as the food he had just eaten turned to a cold lump in his belly. In the months of his Speakership, he had faced crisis after crisis, but none of them had arrived in a Hymail Express package. Still, if Poisson was reacting like this, it must be serious. He reached out for the package, but had to almost pry it from Poisson's grip.

"You opened it," he said.

"With the others that came in, yes, milord. I had no idea-"

Thornbuckle reached into the package and pulled out a sheaf of flatpics; a data cube rolled out when he shook the package upside down. He glanced at the first of the flatpics and time stopped.

In a distant way, he was aware of the way the other flatpics slid out of his grasp, and fell slowly-so slowly-turning and wavering in the air on their way from his hand to the floor. He was aware of Poisson with his hand still extended, of Kevil across the table, of the beat of his own pulse, that had stumbled and then begun to race.

But all he could see, really see, was Brun's face staring into his with an expression of such terror and misery that he could not draw breath.

"Bunny . . . ?" That was Kevil.

Thornbuckle shook his head, clamping his jaw shut on the cry he wanted to give. He closed his eyes, trying to replace the pictured face with one of Brun happy, laughing, but-in his mind's eye, her haunted frightened gaze met his.