Koban: The Mark of Koban (34 page)

Maggi patted him on the arm. “You both get to
make the
big
wedding decisions. Like what color suit to wear, the choice
of flowers, cake flavor, and so forth.”

Vince Naguma and Sarah Bradley were nearby, looking at the
dead ripper before the shuttle departed for Prime City. The two had seen the
cubs, but they were told not to touch them. Wrapped for warmth, and shielded
from casual contact, the cubs were in an improvised nursery made from a small
shipping crate. “Hey, congratulations to both of you couples.” Vince called
out. Sarah echoed the same sentiment.

Mirikami had been listening with amusement.
“I’m
not
going to be the ring bearer, or strew flower petals.”

Maggi smiled, and said something that proved
she had been expecting this. “No, Tet, you can follow one of the oldest
traditions in Space. Buried in the regulations, which Jake verified for me, is one
that that still grants Captains the authority to perform certain ceremonial
duties. You can officiate at the wedding. The old vows are contained in the
records. I’m sure Dillon will balk at the requirement that he must ‘obey’ his
wife, but that’s a mere detail of semantics. Tet, you could perform a double
ceremony, if that’s what the couples want.”

Marlyn looked to Noreen, who nodded. “That
would be wonderful. We have not had a lot to celebrate here and this should be
a tradition to bring back. We can ‘sign the line’ afterwards.”

Thad put on a resigned expression. “Dillon,
I’ll wear my old military dress uniform since I don’t own a suit. Do you have
any flowers you like best?” He laughed.

“Sure. I’m tired of blue and teal. I saw some lovely
small orange and yellow blossoms down here, and we can use some of those red
Raspani plant leaves as a spray.” He directed a smirk at Maggi.

Mirikami interrupted the byplay. “I see
Stewart MacDougal and some others coming out to talk. I called him to inform
him the ripper that killed his brother and sister-in-law was dead. I didn’t
make mention of the cubs. Should we tell him, or simply let him see the dead
adult?”

Thad spoke up. “The appearance of cubs after
the first ever kill of a female ripper will be connected. We want trust with
Hub City leaders, and MacDougal might be a future leader. The female ripper
felt regret that she killed the two humans. After experiencing mind contact
with the woman, it recognized us as aware ‘people,’ and she only carried the
bodies away because of the need of her cubs, and a refusal to waste a kill when
there was nothing else to eat.”

“Do we want him to know that they are
telepathic?” Maggi asked. “Live cubs are one thing, but knowing what they can
do is a vital bit of information. We are certainly going to find the genes that
make this possible, and that knowledge might be dangerous to us in the hands of
our opposition.”

Mirikami made a decision before the man drew
closer. “No. We let him know there were cubs, and that the lack of other prey
to feed them must have driven the mother to hunt humans. Her carcass is proof
of death, and if he wants, we can let him see the cubs, but no touching.”

When MacDougal arrived, without even speaking
to anyone he walked over to look at the dead ripper in the cargo net. Dozens of
people had followed him out and joined him.

“It’s huge.” Was all MacDougal had to say.

“An adult male is significantly larger.” Thad
told him. “This was a young female, trapped inside the compound with almost no
animals to hunt. She must have been desperate to feed her cubs.”

“Cubs?” His head jerked up.

“Yes, a male and a female, they’re very
small.” Thad saw no reason to mention they were born as the mother died.

“You kept them?”

Mirikami answered. “Of course we did, Stewart.
Our scientists need to study them. They are one of our greatest outdoor risks,
even more so than the whiteraptors in winter, because they’re so smart and more
of them.”

“Well, I guess you earned the opportunity to
study them. Thank you for coming. Without your help, yet again, we’d still have
this killer inside the compound. I personally want to apologize to Commander
Renaldo, on behalf of many of us here, for the inexcusable insult Cahill
offered her. However, it seems she has already received a measure of retribution.”
He smiled in spite of himself. “I regret I didn’t get to witness that myself.”

“Told you so.” Dillon muttered.

More of the Hub City residents came to look at
the ripper, and many offered their thanks to the people that had come to help
them. There were mumbles of discontent directed towards Cahill, who had been
adamant that there was no continuing threat. When MacDougal revealed that she
had locked up the radio to prevent any requests for assistance, the grumbling
grew louder.

Neri Barr had come out to talk to Mirikami,
the two of them quietly discussing something in isolation. When they finished,
Barr walked over to look at the ripper as well.

Mirikami approached MacDougal, but spoke loud
enough that most of those nearby could hear. “The new surveillance cameras are
in place to let you see what’s outside all of the time. Mr. Barr, working with
your own machinists and ship’s engineers has explained how to tie in our com
systems with the one the Krall had. We can bring over a satellite dish, and if
our proposed geosynchronous relay satellite works as well as we hope, you will not
only have communications throughout the dome for all of you, but also with
anyone at Prime City. You would be able to call any time you wish, just as you
can on any world in Human Space. Until we can send up more relay satellites
only this hemisphere will have coverage, but that’s where all of us live for
now.”

That announcement drew applause, and multiple
thanks. This trip was proving to be a public relations success, despite starting
with breaking Cahill’s nose.

When Mirikami called for volunteers to lift
the ripper in the net and load it inside the shuttle, there were more hands to
help than they needed. The trip back would be faster without the net dragging
in the wind. They were also going to try to extract some milk from the still
warm carcass of the ripper. Sarah had given Maggi a syringe and some medium
sized sterile vials, to try to extract as much of the protein rich “milk” as
possible.

They reduced the trip time to Prime City to
barely an hour when Mirikami authorized the use of more main thruster fuel to
reach suborbital altitudes. Saving the cubs was too vital to waste another two
hours in travel. The reservoirs of mother’s milk from four teats completely filled
two vials, and third vial was three quarters full.

The cubs were stirring, and even though kept
warm, they were clearly seeking the mother’s teats. Careful to avoid contact
with the frills, Noreen and Marlyn were eager to feed the babies. With the
needle removed, they used the tip of the syringe to inject the rewarmed
mother’s milk into eager little toothless mouths. The cubs appeared sated
before consuming even half of the fluid available in the partial vial, so they
sealed it for later use.

When they arrived at Prime City, they were met
by a small army of people ready to help or just wanting to see a ripper up
close. The dead ripper went to a lab for dissection and tissue sampling, and
her babies went to the hospital for a thorough check up and body scans, use of
insulating gloves mandatory. One vial of mother’s milk went to another lab for
analysis.

Aldry and Rafe drew blood and tissue samples
from the female ripper, particularly from the frill. A careful tracing of the
nerves from the frill to the brain would help decipher how that part of the
ripper’s nervous system worked.

All the possible testing was underway, the
“babies” under the best of care, it was time for some wedding plans.
Thankfully, the “boys” were not included, so Dillon, Thad, and Mirikami went to
the lounge on the Flight of Fancy to have a boy’s night out.

When they reached the lounge they met the
Chief, Neri, Chack, Ricco, and most of the former Stewards and ship’s male
complement, drinks at the ready. It appeared it was going to get drunk out tonight.

****

It wasn’t the first thing they had
accomplished when they got back from Hub City. In fact, the double wedding had
taken more than a week for the Ladies to plan, and a week for the two honeymoons.
The couples had taken two different shuttles, yet traveled north together to
the mountains where yaks and moosetodons spent their summers. Whiteraptors also
lurked there, but it wasn’t difficult to park the shuttles on inaccessible
mountain ledges with spectacular views. Each couple had privacy at night, for
whatever their energetic metabolisms and new musculature allowed their sexual
fantasies to explore. Thad wouldn’t say what his wicked fantasy with Marlyn was
about; his provincial Poldark upbringing made him less comfortable talking
about such things. However, he certainly displayed a sense of exhausted
contentment in the mornings.

Before the week was up, it was time to pay for
the use of the two shuttles. The boys had brought more than
one
set of
“guns” with them. While the women flew, the men laid prone at the open rear
hatches as they flew over a herd of moosetodons. Each man shot one large animal
apiece, repayment for the fuel used on the trip.

There was also one intangible benefit reaped
in the hours spent on ledges, watching the yak and moosetodon herds. The main
use for those ridiculous moose antlers became obvious when they observed them
under the abundant everblue fir trees. The fir trees produced a five-inch
diameter plump brown fleshy fruit with a cluster of three or four one-inch
thick black seeds inside. The moosetodon’s thick short neck prevented their
raising their heads high enough for their relatively short prehensile lower
lips to reach the higher fruit, which hung ten to fifteen feet off the ground,
above the reach of most animals. The moosetodons simply walked under the trees
and locked their antlers in the lower limbs, shook the trees violently and
knocked the fruit loose. Then they picked the fallen treats off the ground.

Because all of the fruit hung at exactly the
right height, it appeared primarily intended for consumption by the moosetodons.
There was no obvious reason why the tree would have evolved to benefit the
large animals, at least until Thad mentioned he had found some of the black seeds
in the big lumpy droppings from the animals, observed when he once was hunting
and tracking a herd that had passed recently.

Dillon thought he knew the answer. “Were the
seeds changed? I mean they’re shiny black and the size of the end of my thumb
when I cut the fruit open.”

“Well sure, after the big side teeth crunch
them, some are completely smashed, and a few others make it through the gut
with most of the shell dissolved away.”

Dillon nodded. “I think the ones swallowed
whole are only partly digested when pooped out, and probably can germinate
easier when they fall to the ground with the hard outside eaten away. No doubt,
the droppings are also rich in partly digested grasses and leaves, and provide
a fertile moist place for the seeds to sprout. The trees probably spread
farther because of the moosetodons. This is an example of a mutually beneficial
plant animal relationship, encountered on other planets.”

“No shit?” Thad winked.

“Then no trees.” Dillon chuckled.

“So
that’s
why the moosetodon craps in
the woods. Great mystery solved.”

Noreen shared a knowing look with Marlyn. “Are
you two adolescents finished with your poop jokes? We need to haul these
carcasses five hundred miles, and there might be raptors in these woods.”

They laid out the cargo nets, used the
shuttles and ropes to roll the beasts onto them, then lifted both and flew the
long trip back to Prime City, honeymoon over, marital bliss ready to start.

****

“Those blissful two idiots have no idea how
their bachelor lives are about to change.” Maggi’s laugh was conspiratorial,
shared with Aldry and Rafe, who shared the same knowledge.

“The fertility treatments don’t always take,
Maggi.” Aldry raised an eyebrow.

Rafe was more confident. “They miss once out
of a hundred times, and I’m confident that the Ladies made sure the grooms offered
more than a routine effort. Single egg conception will take, and the genders
will be male almost to a certainty. Three hundred years of experimenting with gender
selection took all of the mystery out of that.”

“OK. We will have the start of our Second
Generation SG children in nine months.” Maggi grinned. “I can’t
wait
to
have the little farts running around.”

Rafe had a correction for her. “Enhanced
metabolisms, remember? I predict full term by seven months, perhaps eight at
the outside.”

“What about the other fully enhanced couples
Rafe, also with Koban nerves? How many have opted for children this early?”

“Maggi, twenty eight have asked for the
fertility treatments, with gender selection. Another sixteen want fertility
without gender selection. We have two hundred thirty four other such fully enhanced
couples that will let nature take its course, pregnant when it happens, gender
as that happens. We should have forty-six SG births before fall, for sure, and
potentially two hundred eighty SG’s before year’s end, most with the inert
Koban nervous system in place.”