Isthia chuckled and changed the subject, arranging with him to bring her to Callisto a few days before the Rowan's due date. Her own worries ceased the moment she saw the mother to be, radiant and, as the Rowan put it, bulging in all forward directions at this late stage of pregnancy. Isthia sincerely admired their living quarters, remarking drily that she had never expected dome living to be quite so s.p.a.cious.

She paid very close attention when the Rowan and Jeff explained all the safety features, and held a drill for her.

'Planets at least give you lots of places to hide,' she remarked in her droll fashion. 'Could be awkward if there was an emergency just when Jeran chooses to arrive,' she added, as she peered into one of the safety chambers. She made a pantomime of the Rowan attempting to fit inside.

'The house has triple seals,' Jeff remarked. 'The Prime cannot be risked.' 'I'll stay very close to you then, daughter,' Isthia said.

'But you certainly have an elegant residence. Ah, well, we'll soon set matters right on Deneb.' 'Doesn't that ever bother you, Rowan?' she asked after dinner when Jupiter rose, filling the skyview.

She eyed the ma.s.sive planet warily.

'What? Him? I'm accustomed to it now,' the Rowan replied, trying to settle herself on the comfortable couch in front of the fire.

'Levitation?' Isthia suggested, glancing at Elizara for her opinion.

'We've tried that, too,' Jeff answered with a rueful grin for the Rowan's dilemma. 'Not much longer, love.' The Rowan gave a skeptical grunt.

'Elizara, if you're a T-1 Medical, can't you establish a time, or at least a day?' Isthia asked.

'We have been able to improve prenatal care to insure almost one-hundred per cent normal healthy babies,' Elizara said with a slight smile, 'and we can induce labor if the term runs over a normal gestation, but we're still unable to dictate the ETA.' 'I wish this one would consider an early appearance,' the Rowan remarked wearily.

'It's your first,' Isthia said in a dry tone. 'The way out is not so obvious.' 'I've told him and told him,' the Rowan replied, 'to get 'Had any effect?' Isthia asked, amused.

'He responds with sentiments of complete satisfaction in his present environment and sees no need to make any alteration.' 'In that many words?' The Rowan laughed, delighted to have startled Isthia.

'Hardly. I just get an impression of complete contentment.'

Isthia turned to Elizara. 'What about a hands-on? Of course, Rowan isn't overdue . .

Elizara smiled gently. 'We wait. Time enough for hands-on if labor stops and we sense a complete reluctance to leave the womb.'

Then, abruptly, Isthia sat straight up in the lounger which hastily rearranged itself to her change of position.

She c.o.c.ked her head, listening.

'What's the matter? What do you hear?' The Rowan asked. 'Ian?'

They might tease Isthia for her 'long ear' from time to time but it was always respectful.

'I thought I . . .' Isthia faltered and looked keenly at Elizara.

'Did you catch anything?' Elizara frowned but she was patently sharpening her senses, listening with that other sensitivity which all three women had in generous measure.

There! Isthia said.

The Rowan had felt something, just at the very edge of her own deep range. Too distant. Anger! Pain!

Whose? Isthia added in a very thoughtful tone. The source defeats me. I don't think it was human!

Elizara regarded her with surprise. How could you hear it, then?

'I heard it, too,' the Rowan reminded the medic. She grimaced.

'None of our kin at least,' she added to rea.s.sure Isthia. Or shall I give a shout and be sure for you?

Slowly Isthia shook her head, frowning with puzzlement. Then, shaking off the brief thrall determinedly, she smiled at the other two.

'If it had been you, Rowan, we could put it down to prenatal nerves.

The Rowan sighed with deep exasperation, and stroked her extended abdomen. 'C'mon, now, son, get in to position and let's end this waiting. You're old enough to be born now.

Two days later, as splendid Jupiter rose to obscure deep s.p.a.ce from those in the Callisto dome, Jeran Raven decided to take his mother's advice. The baby dropped his head into the birth ca.n.a.l, precipitating the breaking of the Rowan's waters, and almost before Elizara could help the Rowan block the pain, long and intense contractions began.

Just off duty from the Tower, Jeff arrived as Isthia and Elizara were making the Rowan as comfortable as possible.

'Now is the time for hands-on,' Elizara told him, 'to rea.s.sure your son. This is the difficult part for him and he must not draw back or resist.' It comforted the Rowan tremendously to have Jeff's strong body supporting her, his hands stroking her; to join mental forces in urging their son to endure this brief discomfort and be made welcome in the world of the living.

Isn't it a shade hypocritical of us, the Rowan said very privately to Jeff, to require him to leave the safety of the womb, for how can we promise him safety when we've never known it?

So you want to stay pregnant for the rest of your life? Was Jeff's reply as he smoothed back silver hair already damp with sweat.

NO!.

Then push! Elizara urged. Take Isthia's hands!

Isthia's strong hands anch.o.r.ed her through the ma.s.sive contractions that followed: hands that also soothed and eased the involuntary spasms.

'Those contractions are fierce, Isthia remarked.

'Not unusually so,' Elizara replied, 'and at five minute intervals.' 'Is he resisting or is it me?' The Rowan asked, panting with relief as a particularly severe contraction ended.

'A little of both,' Elizara replied, and the Rowan could find no qualification in the Talent's mind. I never lie to my patients!

Not to this one, you couldn't!

Nor in the present company she's keeping, Elizara added, her tone amused. 'All right, now, here comes another one.' They all sensed the child's sudden reluctance as the pressures of his mother's womb caught him in an inexorable rhythum. He disliked the sensation: it frightened him. He was instantly rea.s.sured of warmth and love and comfort if he did not falter. He did not like this experience at all.

I'm not much enjoying it right now myself, my son, the Rowan told him and then could not even think as a particularly hard contraction seized her. She clasped Isthia's hands in a grip that she feared would bruise the flesh.

Hold hard!

To the Rowan, caught by the inexorable process of birthing, the struggle with her son seemed to go on interminably. The contractions came more frequently, lasted longer and but for the nerve blocks she would have been in some agony. As it was, the muscular strain wearied her.

Please, Jeran, please! she cried, wondering how much more of this she could endure.

Gripped by yet another ma.s.sive contraction, she felt Elizara and Isthia place hands on her heaving abdomen, and this contraction seemed to be abetted by their minds, overruling Jeran's resistance. As the boy's head pa.s.sed out of the birth ca.n.a.l, he gave a terrible cry, mental and physical, of protest, of resentment, of fear.

'You are born, my son,' the Rowan cried with mind and mouth as she opened her eyes to see Elizara receive the baby's wet and wriggling body in her hands.

Jeran wailed again, a confused and angry cry at the difference of environment, the noise, the cold, the disorientation.

There, there! three adult minds consoled him. There, there. You are loved, you are wanted. Here, now, you will be warm. You will be comforted.

Elizara deposited the baby on his mother's newly deflated belly while she performed the necessary post natal offices.

'Even upside down, you're beautiful,' the Rowan told Jeran, intercepting one of his violently waving hands as he continued to complain on several levels about the brutal treatment he had just been through. He's so strong!

So angry! and Jeff's tone was immediately proud and relieved.

Now, now, my beautiful boy! Its all over.

Lord no, i?s just starting, Isthia replied. 'Good lungs on him,'

she added approvingly.

He has obviously inherited your voice, mother, Jeff said.

That birth shout was loud enough to reach Deneb!

And you're sori-spoken? Isthia teased back, beaming with joy, at the successful birth.

'Just over four kilos,' Elizara said, pleased. 'You wouldn't want any heavier a child, Rowan. And no worse for the pa.s.sage. Now we will all soothe him on the most primitive levels.

Ganging up on my poor son? asked Jeff, fatuously smiling down at Jeran.

Soothing your not at all poor son, Elizara rebuked him.

This is the most important part for a child as obviously Talented as Jeran is. Hands-on! Isthia, begin on the metamorphic levels.

Rowan won't want him operating on a psionic high over the next few months.

As Isthia stroked the st.u.r.dy little feet, she began to croon softly. Elizara and Jeff sponged him clean, all the time soothing him with touch, mind and voice. Soon he was yawning and quite willing to drift off into sleep.

When the afterbirth was delivered and the Rowan made comfortable again in her bed, the sleeping child was placed in her arms and Jeff stretched out beside them both, his eyes dark and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with love.

I never thought I would feel quite this intensely about a baby who will shortly drive us both demented with infantile needs, Jeff said.

On his forefinger, he tipped up Jeran '5 little hand which opened to curl about it. I'll be the most impossible father in the galaxy.

Jeran IS quite the most marvelous baby, the Rowan agreed, as fatuous with pride as he was. 'What . . . on earth?' At her altered tone, Jeff followed her startled gaze and saw containers and arrangements of flowers of every variation imaginable appear and settle themselves on whatever surface was available until the room was almost filled with them.

'What is going on?' Jeff scrambled to his feet though what harm could ma.s.ses of blossoms cause.

That young 'un has so loud a voice I knew before Elizara told me!

said the familiar voice of Reidinger in an unfamiliar whisper.

Thank you!

Jeff and the Rowan stared at each other for the uncharacteristic savility in Earth Prime's tone.

Rowan? Jeff? Isthia's voice, too, was hesitant but there was such an underlying throb of excitement that they both asked what was wrong. Nothing except there can't be any flowers left on Earth for the ma.s.ses that just appeared all over the dome!

'You should see our room,' Jeff called aloud. 'Come on in, and where's Elizara?' 'In the pool - if there 5 room for her to swim among the water lilies I saw heading in that direction,' Isthia said in quiet mirth as she opened the door. She halted, staring around her in amazement. 'Who on earth. .

'Reidinger!' the Rowan and Jeff said in unison.

They heard a distant exclamation, and a much more audible Grandfather, haven't you got a wit left in your head?

So much floral perfume and pollens are not good for a baby!

'Grandfather?' Now Isthia joined Rowan and Jeff in chorus.

Oh, b.u.g.g.e.r, I blew it! Elizara sounded disgusted. Just let me dress and I'll come clean.

Come clean first, dress is optional, Jeff replied, doubling up in a paroxysm of laughter.

Don't laugh, Jeff' The Rowan said, wrapping both hands around her much abused abdominal muscles. Please don't make me laugh, Jeff1 Please!

Isthia came to the Rowan's a.s.sistance with strong hands on her belly, trying hard to scowl at Jeff but grinning broadly at the same time. Then Elizara appeared, her hair still wet, swathed in a big towel, and looking chagrined.

'Reidinger's your grandfather?' The Rowan asked, wondering how she could have missed the relationship.

'Actually my great-grandfather, but that's a mouthful and makes him feel ancient. I buried that fact behind a shield before I came here. Grandfather impressed on me that you might resent my help if you discovered the relationship. But I'm also the best qualified person for such an important accouchement. And what I told you in our first interview was true: I offered to come but he was so dreadfully relieved that I had. He may holler and rant at you, Rowan, but, believe me, that indicated just how much he cares about you. And about Jeff. And now Jeran is added to his most special list.' The Rowan closed her arm protectively about Jeran and glared at Elizara. 'I'm NOT breeding for FT&T.' 'No more am I,' Elizara replied with a laugh, 'but children are part of being a woman. Can you deny that you feel more feminine at this moment than at any other time in your whole life?' The Rowan considered this and had to agree. 'In fact, now I've done it, I won't mind being pregnant often.' She shot a sly glance at Jeff. 'Only Reidinger must know it's because we want more children, Talented or not.' 'I won't for a moment deny that my grandfather lives and breathes for the efficiency and continued success and expansion of FT&T.'

Elizara's eyes twinkled. 'He was ma.s.sively disappointed that I went medical but that's where my Talent lay. In fact the poor dear,' and she grinned as she caught the surprise in their minds at her loving reference, 'has been continually disappointed in his seven children and their progeny unto the third generation. He's the third Reidinger to be Earth Prime, you see.

Not always consecutive. The Talent sometimes skipped one generation. He did so want to train up a fourth. That's one reason for his bad temper. He feels he's been let down by genetics. Oh, most of us have valid Talents but none of us are Prime candidates. It is the rarest combination of Talent, you know. And you both are, and so is young Jeran.' 'Reidinger has an odd way of displaying concern,' the Rowan replied testily. 'When I think of the blastings I've received .

'Come now, Rowan,' and Elizara's tone altered, 'surely you, of all the Primes, appreciate loneliness!' She paused while the Rowan did indeed feel the pinch of that accusation. 'Grandfather cannot let personal feelings interfere with his professional responsibilities.

Much as it might surprise you,' and the gentle Elizara spoke with an edge to her voice, 'he feels very deeply. He just hides it better than anyone else.' My apologies, the Rowan said meekly. I know I'm selfcentered. 'Primes tend to be,' Elizara said more mildly, 'it's a hazard of the profession. And you mustn't change your responses to him. He'd be annoyed with me for even suggesting that there were c.h.i.n.ks in his shield. But I'm a match for him. As you two are. And you, Isthia, are far stronger than I first thought.' Isthia had been watching Elizara's face intently. Now she shrugged noncommittally.

'Deneb is my future. But I am interested in these insights on the formidable Earth Prime.' Her voice ended on an upward note.

Elizara gave a brief warning frick of her hand. 'Enough of banter. Let's move some of these flowers out of this room. Too many is just too many for newborn lungs.' 'Not to mention the air conditioning units in this part of the dome,' Jeff said.

'You know, it was really rather sweet of him,' the Rowan murmured sleepily. And by the time the transfer was finished, she was fast asleep, one arm curled protectively about her son.

'He's rather a good baby, as babies g,) Isthia remarked several days later when she was making her farewells. 'I didn't think I'd miss Ian, but I do. And I've wallowed in luxury far too long.' She ignored her son's snicker and laid her hand on her sleeping grandson's forehead. 'He'll be a handful, Rowan, but you've started out right.'

'Thanks to you, Isthia,' and the Rowan' 5 voice and mind were deep with grat.i.tude.

Isthia gave her an understanding smile. 'I stood in loco parentis, my dear, and we both know it. Nonetheless I was flattered.

She bent over and kissed the Rowan's cheek.