Cyborg Nation (38 page)

He frowned. She wasn’t certain if it was because she’d called them her companions and he didn’t like it, or if there was something he didn’t want to tell her, but she was afraid it was the latter.

“They are being debriefed.”

That had to be wrong. “Still? Do you know that? Or do you just think they must be?”

He crossed the room and opened her clothes locker, studying the clothing inside. “I know this,” he said coolly, selecting the feminine garments she had ignored the night before.

“I’m
not
wearing those!”

“All women wear these … unless you wish to return to the med center to work?”

“I want to go and find my companions!”

“You can not. They are being held.”

That sounded worse than the debriefing. “Held?”

“Yes.”

“Define held, damn it!”

“They are prisoners until it is decided whether command is satisfied with their report or not.”

Bronte stared at him in dismay for several moments before she could even think of anything else to ask. “What for? Have they been charged with something?”

“Yes,” he answered, handing her the clothes he’d selected for her.

Bronte glared at his hand for a moment and finally snatched the clothes from him. “I’m going to see them. I need to talk to them.”

“You will not be allowed to speak with them … or to enter the brig to see them.”

Bronte wrestled with that information for several moments and finally drew a shaky breath, trying to fight down her anxiety and think. “Is it about the crash?”

“That is one thing.”

“But … that was an accident! Something hit the ship! How could they be blamed for that?”

“Command will decide if they are to blame.”

“I was there! I know what happened. Couldn’t I talk to whoever is in command and explain?”

“You will be called upon to do so.”

Relief flooded her. “When?”

“I do not know. When they are ready, they will summon you.”

She wasn’t happy with that. She wanted to go right that moment and clear everything up.

She needed to talk to Gideon and make him understand she hadn’t meant it about breaking contract.

Well, she had, but it wasn’t because she didn’t care. It was because she did. She’d been nearly as afraid that she wouldn’t be capable of being a true companion/mate to them as she had been that she was dying. She’d been afraid that they’d be as disappointed in her as she was in herself. And she’d thought it would be much better to break the agreement herself than to hold them to it when they might not want to be held, or to force them to break it themselves because she wasn’t capable of holding up her end of the agreement.

Aside from that, she missed them. They’d been her constant companions for months and far closer with her, even though they hadn’t been able to have sex, since the crash. They’d slept close to her every single night, sharing their body heat to keep her warm and comfortable. They’d tended to her as if she was child, carried her, fed her themselves when she was too weak to manage it on her own, bathed her—helped her ‘go’ even though she’d hated not being able to manage on her own.

It didn’t matter anymore if they weren’t capable of feeling the same things she could. It didn’t matter if they couldn’t actually feel love. They felt loyal, protective, and responsible, and they acted accordingly. It might not actually
be
love, but it felt like it. It was close enough to make her love them.

She ate because her body said she needed food even though her spirit said she didn’t and because she realized it was more important than ever to make sure she had a good diet.

Even if they were hurt and angry with her, she knew they’d forgive her when they found out about the babies. They wanted a family.

Two of them were bound to be disappointed, though, she realized, feeling her hopefulness plunge, and that was most likely to be Gabriel and Jerico—certainly Gabriel. They’d only had full penetration the once right before the crash, and she was sure she must already have been pregnant then, several weeks along at least, and that meant only Gideon or Jerico could’ve fathered the babies.

It was strange that she had three. It was possible, but it seemed unlikely that she would’ve released three eggs at once. She hadn’t been trying not to get pregnant, but she hadn’t taken anything to increase her fertility because she hadn’t even been dating anyone when they’d taken her. The interference of the nanos must have caused the cells to divide, she decided, which meant she’d lost one. Cells always divided evenly.

She could still lose more. It was going to be very crowded and they were going to be vying for what they needed. She could lose all of them.

She tamped that thought. She wasn’t going to borrow trouble again! The med tech would’ve said something if there’d seemed to be anything wrong.

She wondered if she was far enough along to determine paternity, and then wondered if she should find out even if she could. Who ever had fathered the babies would want to know, but she hated the idea of disappointing the other two—especially Gabriel. He always seemed to get the short stick, no matter what.

She decided to go to the med center when she’d finished eating. She didn’t especially feel like working yet, but she didn’t think she could just sit around twiddling her thumbs and worrying about her companions’ plight without going crazy.

It was also a good excuse to get rid of the ‘alluring’ women’s clothes Caleb was determined for her to wear.

The men’s med uniforms had disappeared, she discovered, removed by Caleb no doubt while she was out of it and replaced with uniforms closer to her size, which explained some of his comings and goings while she was trying to sleep.

He insisted on carrying her. She reminded him that she needed to walk and that she could judge for herself when she’d had enough. He informed her that she was doing plenty of walking around her quarters and would be once she got to the med center and that was enough. When the med tech said there was no further reason for concern, then he would not interfere.

She let that go. He wasn’t going to be around long enough for that to be an issue. As soon as she was called to testify, she’d explain everything and they’d let Gideon, Jerico, and Gabriel go and then she wouldn’t need a guard. She’d have them.

She really hadn’t intended to do anything at the med center except examine the offices set aside for her use and try to find out how she could get them to allocate what she needed for it. Like her personal quarters, though, she found a fully equipped office, right down to a receptionist and med assistant—both male, which didn’t surprise her.

What surprised her was that there were several women waiting with babies.

They all had the same complaint—the infants were weak, unable to talk or walk, uncoordinated, so stupid they drooled on themselves, toothless, and, in fact, incapable of doing anything at all as far as they could see besides crying and relieving themselves. They weren’t even capable of feeding themselves.

She thought the first report was a hoax, or a strange joke. She realized very quickly, though, that these women were cyborgs. They didn’t joke, especially not about something as appalling to them as what they’d reported.

After informing the mother that the baby was not only amazingly strong for an infant, but exhibited every sign of being exceptionally intelligent, she had the woman wait and went and checked her other patients.

There was nothing wrong with the babies, at all.

The problem was with the mothers.

When she’d finished examining all of the babies, she brought all the women back into the reception area and conducted a brief parenting seminar. She wasn’t prepared but she explained the basics of care, handling, and feeding their infants, explained that it was normal that infants were helpless, not an indication that something was wrong with them, and told them to come back in a week and she would have a place readied where she could give them more training.

When the women had finally left, she informed her receptionist to see what he could do about finding additional room for future parent training sessions and asked him if he knew how to contact any women who were expectant mothers since she thought it was important for them to learn as much as they could
before
they had their babies.

She was almost surprised the first babies had made it at all considering the women didn’t seem to have any clue of what to do with them, but she supposed it was because the babies, like their parents, were exceptionally strong and intelligent.

It couldn’t be avoided that the cyborgs had thought they’d needed a specialist for their babies because they thought something was wrong with them, when, in fact, there was
nothing
wrong them and they would probably never need her.

The babies, she had discovered when she examined them, had nanos of their own to protect them from pretty much anything that could be thrown at them, and if the nanos couldn’t ‘fix’ whatever problems arose, she doubted she would be able to.

She hoped the cyborgs weren’t going to decide they had no use for her when they realized that all she could contribute was teaching the mothers the proper handling and care of their infants.

It didn’t seem to be anything they were going to realize very quickly. Every day she went to her office she found more women waiting for her, some expectant and others carrying infants. And not just women and babies. The new or expectant fathers arrived with the mothers and infants--great, hulking dangerous looking brutes that looked far more panic stricken than the women did whenever an infant was thrust at them.

Obviously, though, they either took fatherhood very seriously, or their women
expected
them to take fatherhood very seriously and they couldn’t bring themselves to deny their women whatever they wanted. The entire
household
arrived to be instructed on the care of the smallest member of the family unit, which meant that she quickly had three or four times as many men than women and had to make arrangements for parenting classes three times a week, and then five to keep the groups small enough to give them individual instructions.

Caleb watched her as assiduously as her companions had, although he was obviously there to guard her from other males, not the threat of trog attack. She knew he must have orders, but she couldn’t help but think he stretched the parameters of those orders whenever it suited him.

He could’ve guarded her from outside her office. Instead, he spent most of his time in the waiting room, except when she and her assistant went into any of the examining rooms. Then, she would discover him standing directly outside the room when she came out again. She didn’t know if he had a particular reason for distrusting her male assistants or not.

There was no shortage of women for them to lust over in her office. There might have been a shortage overall, but not that she could tell.

For that matter, she didn’t think the problem was one they were going to have to worry about within a generation. The ratio of male to female seemed pretty even, or at least not nearly as uneven as the current situation reported to her.

And she saw no reason to doubt that part. Not only was every woman who came to her escorted by at least two men and usually three or four, but on the streets, she almost never saw a woman at all.

As busy as she was from the moment she decided to ‘just get started’ by getting her office in order, Bronte couldn’t keep her thoughts at bay when she returned to her quarters at night. Days dragged into a week and Bronte went from anxious to beside herself with worry.

“What could possibly take so long to investigate?” she finally demanded of Caleb.

“They have gone to the crash site to try to determine the cause of the crash.”

Bronte gave him a look. “The cause of the crash was something breaking the tail section off!”

She thought for several moments that he would do as he usually did and just allow her to stew over it.

“The proximity alert should have set off a warning in time to avoid a collision.”

Bronte stared at him, trying
not
to think of all the times the men had brawled across the ship and the possibility that the thing could’ve been damaged during one of those fights. She didn’t believe it was possible. Gideon might have been very lax about things on board the ship, but none of them had been any where near the control center at any time. “Don’t they ever malfunction?”

“Occasionally, but very rarely.”

Bronte frowned. She wasn’t about to mention any possibility that might explain it that would make it seem any of the men had had anything to do with it—especially when she didn’t believe for a moment that they had.

Even if she had thought they’d damaged it she wouldn’t have said so.

“We were shot at when they took me,” she said finally.

“The chances of a laser blast …,” he began.

“No!” Bronte said, cutting him off. “Missiles. The military was firing on us. At least two exploded close enough to send a concussion through the ship. I thought the ship was going to blow up.”

This time his frown was more thoughtful. “I had not heard that. That could have caused some damage, perhaps enough for intermittent failure that would be hard to detect. It might also have compromised the integrity of the hull, which would explain why the meteor that struck caused such extensive damage despite the shields.”

Pleased and relieved that he, at least, seemed to be considering that her companions weren’t at fault, she looked at him with more charity. “What else have you heard?”

Something flickered in his eyes. He seemed to debate with himself for several moments. “They have produced no contracts. It is likely the council would have dismissed it even if they had, however. They were not ordered
not
to try to coerce you into contracting with them because it was not anticipated that they would seize a woman, and yet they were well aware that they were not honoring the letter of their command and that they would be ordered to stand down if it was known that they had taken a woman. They failed to protect you as they should have, even if the crash was completely accidental and through no dereliction of duty. They did not care for you as they should have or you would not have been in such poor health when you were finally turned over to us. And they raped you.”