“Yeah, true,” Darcy replied. “And our spare bedroom is packed with baby stuff that Fallon has made, anyway.”
“I have built three different cradles and cribs!” he announced proudly. “I shall see which one the baby likes the most!”
“What an exciting time,” Lualhati gushed, giving each of the expectant parents hugs. “Let me know the moment you need anything at all! And don’t forget about that pee sample!”
“We will not!” Fallon vowed, even as his wife groaned.
After yet another round of hugs, because Lualhati apparently could not get enough of the things, we left the house.
“Were those tears in there?” I asked her as we walked side-by-side towards the slicer.
“Oh, you mean Darcy? Yes, they sure were.”
“Not Darcy,” I clarified. “You.”
“Oh.” She paused at the back of the slicer. The sun was once again spilling down over her like a golden veil, bringing that vivid green of her gaze into brilliant focus. She practically glowed. A living light, right in front of me.
“Yes, I suppose so,” she admitted. “I was definitely overcome with some emotion in there!”
“Were you thinking about yourself, being in Darcy’s position one day?” I asked. It was obvious how important Lualhati’s goal of motherhood was to her. It did not surprise me that such an event might trigger an emotional response.
But she looked shocked by my question, and vehemently shook her head in the human gesture for no.
“Not at all! I was totally focused on Darcy and Fallon and their baby. I just…I really love my job,” she said. “I’m so grateful I get to be a part of those moments for others. That I get to take care of people. That I get to help make new families. It’s such a beautiful responsibility. A true privilege.”
I had known many great soldiers in my time. Strong leaders and paragons of discipline and duty.
But in that moment, I could not think of a single one with more honour in his bones than the little human female before me.
There was no one, I realized with a dawning sense of shock, that I admired more than her.
“I am sure they are grateful as well. To have you, I mean,” I finally said, when the silence seemed to stretch too long. But she merely lifted her shoulders and let them fall, all human humbleness.
“Shall we go home?”
She asked it like it was nothing at all.
Nothing at all that she had called my house her home.
“Yes,” I rasped. “Let’s go home.”
13
LUALHATI
Ipoked my nose through the open window separating the back of the ambulance from the front where Warden Hallum was sitting. The original slicer was still in there mostly, just covered now, and with a much more powerful engine. He sat astride the seat like it was an Old-Earth motorcycle, gripping the handlebars.
I tried very hard not to stare at his butt.
Sadly, I failed. A girl could only be so strong.
“Warden?”
“What is it?” he asked without looking back.
Beyond the new viewscreen, night was falling all around us. There hadn’t been any snow back on Fallon and Darcy’s property, but it was reappearing now, showing up in little dustings and clumps that would get bigger and deeper the further we went.
“I’m hungry.”
