Wordlessly, the med techs scrambled to their feet and rushed away. In a few moments, one came barreling down the corridor pushing a gurney in front of him. As he slid to a stop in front of Reuel and Dalia, another med tech rushed up with some sort of monitoring device on wheels. When Reuel had lifted her and settled her on the gurney, they turned and went back down the corridor to an examination room.
Reuel and Pierce exchanged a long look and followed. Taking up position on either side of the door, they folded their arms, leaned back against the wall, and watched the proceedings suspiciously.
Pierce glanced at Reuel. “Do they know what they’re doing?”
“They damn well better,” Reuel growled, but he did not like the way the med techs kept exchanging nervous glances. Finally, one of the techs dashed past them and out the door. Ten minutes later, he returned with an antiquated computer on wheels, pushed it across the room, and hooked it up.
Reuel covered his face with his hands when they pulled up an even more ancient, pictorial medical encyclopedia and began clicking through the pages frantically. By the time they’d found the passages they needed and began a checklist, Dalia looked and sounded as if she was dying, her panting gasps escaping more like hoarse screams of agony.
White-faced, Reuel stood away from the wall abruptly and left the room.
Pierce stayed, watching as one of the med techs moved to the foot of the gurney, pushed Dalia’s legs up until her knees were almost perpendicular and parted her thighs. After leaning close and studying her for several moments, he poked his head up again and looked at the computer screen. “What did it say it was supposed to look like?”
The question was bad enough. One glimpse of the round black blob protruding from her body and the blood trickling out around it sent a wave of dizziness through him. With an effort, he felt his way blindly out the door, slid down the wall and put his head down.
Reuel stopped pacing, staring down at Pierce in abject terror. “What is wrong?”
“Everything, I think,” Pierce said a little sickly. “When you were checking out this natural reproduction thing, did you happen to check to see if many of the females survived it?”
Feeling the blood rush from his face, Reuel thrust the door open and reentered the examination room just in time to see a horrible, bloody mass slither from Dalia’s body and into the waiting hands of one of the techs. He knew then that Pierce was right. Dalia was dying and the infant he’d looked forward to with so much hope was nothing more than a bloody mass of biological material that looked as if it had gone through a defective particle transporter. Blackness swarmed around him. His knees suddenly felt like jelly. He felt himself sway.
The next moment he was aware of, he was staring up at the ceiling and listening to a weak, strange noise that sounded like a combination of crying and choking.
Confused, both by that and the fact that his skull felt as if he had cracked it open, he sat up slowly, holding his pounding head and trying to figure out how he had gotten back into the corridor when he did not remember leaving the examination room.
“Hey!” Pierce exclaimed, chuckling. “It looks like a baby!”
Hope surging through him at that announcement, Reuel struggled to his feet with an effort, reentered the examination room, and shoved Pierce aside. Relief flooded him as he watched one of the techs carefully wiping the bloody residue off of the screaming child. He could tell nothing about the face, beyond the fact that the mouth worked. It was wide open. There were slits where the eyes were supposed to be. He sincerely hoped that only meant that it had squeezed them closed. It was red with fury and waving two arms and two legs, with two hands and two feet. He counted ten fingers and ten toes. It was definitely humanoid. A slow smile curled his lips. “It is a female.”
Dalia chuckled weakly and reached for the squalling infant. It began to grow quieter almost at once and Reuel moved to the head of the gurney, smiling as he watched it wiggle around in search of a comfortable position. Finally, it managed to get one of its waving fingers in its mouth and began sucking. Dalia flicked a look up at his face. “I’m all right, thanks,” she said dryly.
Reuel flushed uncomfortably. Catching her hand, he lifted it to his lips and kissed the back and then leaned down and kissed her lips. “You are wrong if you think I was not worried. I have never been that scared before in my life. I am just so ... overwhelmed.”
“Guess that’s why you fainted?” Pierce commented. At the withering glance Reuel sent in his direction, he added, “I’d say that probably makes it unanimous.” He turned to study the departing med techs. “They need reprogramming.”
Reuel gave him a look. “We will all need some. We have got nearly six thousand cyborgs on Mordal and three thousand in the city of Gallen, most of whom were designed as soldiers and damn few with any other kind of training.” He gestured toward the group that had just left. “They were programmed as med techs for battle wounds, not medical conditions, sickness, and most definitely not for delivering babies.”
Pierce shrugged. “Guess that’s why they didn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground?” He transferred his attention to Dalia and the infant. “Anyway, you’ve got a beautiful baby, Dally.”
Dalia looked at the baby a little doubtfully. “You think so?”
“No.”
Dalia glared at him. “If you had any idea of the hell I just went through, you’d lie.”
Pierce sobered. “I’ve got a pretty good idea--and I was just teasing you. She’s strong, healthy and got everything she’s supposed to have. That makes her beautiful.”
Dalia shifted the baby so that she could study its sleeping face. A smile tugged at her lips. “She looks like Reuel.”
“Really? No wonder she’s ugly as hell. Poor little tyke.”
Dalia chuckled at the look on Reuel’s face. It was obvious he didn’t know whether to be more insulted by her remark or Pierce’s. Before he could think up a suitable retort, a great roar filtered through the building to them.
“What was that?” Dalia asked uneasily.
Reuel and Pierce exchanged a glance and left the room. Pierce was grinning when they returned and Reuel looking very pleased with himself. “They are celebrating,” Reuel said, his voice threaded with pride and excitement, “the birth of the first cyborg.”
“The birth of the first child born on Mordal,” Pierce added.
