Emily straightened and smiled. “Thatthe bastard that set out to destroy us actually left us with themeans of rebuilding.”
“It certainly wasn’t bydesign,” Ultima said tightly. “I still haven’t figured out why—oreven how—he built cyborgs capable of reproducing, though I supposeit must have been part of his conquest scheme. Maybe he finallyrealized that wiping us out wouldn’t have left him with any‘subjects’ and he concluded we’d have to be replaced? I have to sayI’m not complaining about that! It would’ve dampened my familyplans considerably. How are they?”
Emily’s smile widened to a grin.“Doing very well. How do the papas feel about it?”
“Very subdued,” Ultimasaid with a chuckle.
Emily rolled her eyes. “Men! Well,they embraced reproduction with a great deal of enthusiasm. They’llneed to belly up to the bar on the parenting. You can’t managethree without help.”
“I think they will. Ithink they’re excited, but this is all new to them.”
Emily looked down at her own roundingbelly with a grimace. “Pretty new to all of us.”
“Yes, but we weren’tunfamiliar with reproduction even if we’re both new tomotherhood.”
Emily shrugged. “My guys are coping.Honestly, they seem just a … touch hysterical at times,” she saidwith a laugh. “But they’re working frantically on our‘nest’.”
Ultima climbed off the examinationtable a little awkwardly and went to dress. Emily walked her out towhere Tau, Quan, and Xi waited uneasily.
“She’s good,” Emilyannounced. “They’re developing very well. She needs to be kept offher feet as much as possible—not in the bed with her heels towardthe ceiling, mind you! But not working hard either. The babies seemto be strong and healthy, but we want to keep the buns in the ovenas long as we can.”
All three looked shaken by theannouncement and more confused than amused—or angry—at theadmonition that they had to keep sex down to a low roar.
“Gee thanks!” Ultimamuttered. “They were already driving me crazy.”
“You’re welcome!” Emilyresponded brightly, patting her cheek affectionately.
The guys fought over who was going tocarry her home as soon as Emily disappeared back inside.
Tau had carried her to the clinic,though, and Ultima thought it was Xi’s turn so she settled it eventhough she would’ve preferred to walk and it really wasn’t all thatfar to their place. Maybe a mile.
She played with Xi’s ear while hestruggled to ignore her and focus on the walk. “Your hair lookslike you hacked it off with a knife,” she murmured next to hisear.
A shudder went through him. Heswallowed twice before he found his voice. “Tau did it.”
She sent Tau a disapproving look. “Youmurdered his hair.”
Tau narrowed his eyes at Xi. “It wasonly his hair, however.”
“Tau!” Ultima exclaimed,shocked—although she had no idea why when the three of themregularly came to blows about one thing or another.
It was like living in a household fullof young roosters.
But it had to be said that there wasnothing boring about it—and they had peace almost as often as therewas war—mostly of harsh words. Well, mostly peace.
She was glad when they reached thehome they had under construction.
It was fully ‘dried in’—which was afeat considering how hard it was to get any kind of constructionmaterials.
Someone had opened a mill and a kilnto mill the wood.
Another villager had built a smithy tomake nails and the like.
Of course, there were still usablematerials that pre-dated the war, but everything had been pickedover in the months since peace had been restored till it wasgetting harder and harder to find anything useful.
Peace had brought the survivors out tobegin rebuilding and there was joy that there were far more thananyone had suspected, but the cyborgs were also welcome—those who’dtransitioned completely and those who hadn’t. Because they not onlyhelped tremendously with the labor when civilization had virtuallydisappeared overnight along the trappings of it, but the alieninvader had used human DNA to produce his cyborgs. And thosecyborgs, as Emily had pointed out, were a rich repository ofdiverse DNA to prevent the human race from bottlenecking,genetically speaking, when they were looking at the possibility ofinbreeding without their contributions.
In most cases, it required test tubefertilizations, but in a handful—so far—they’d discovered some hadeither been completely biologically correct or had managed,somehow, to evolve and reproduce.
