“What was that?” Leelson asked Snark. “That earthquake?”
“Like what’s happened before,” she said softly. “Only closer. Angrier. Something here’s not liking us much.”
Everything here didn’t like them, Lutha thought. The whole world was arrayed against them, and with good reason.
“How … how did Leely get out there?” she demanded, barely able to speak over her sick certainty.
“I sent him,” said Leelson with a level look. “And I would do the same again.”
It had not occurred to her that he would simply admit it.
“He could have been killed,” she said. “He could have been … ” This was foolishness, and she knew it, but her tongue went on making words her heart did not believe!
“I thought it unlikely,” he replied.
“You had no right—”
“Saluez is in labor. She would have died had this siege continued. She may die regardless. And her child.”
Lutha opened her mouth, but nothing came out. He would have sent Leely out if there had been no Saluez. Saluez was only an excuse, but she was a good excuse, one Lutha could not argue now.
“Dananana.” Unhelpfully.
“I’ll go to her,” Lutha said stiffly. Later she would deal with Leelson. When she had more time to tell him a terrible thing. When he had time to hear.
“I’ll go with you,” said Snark, with a glance at the zenith, where the Rottens had vanished. “I guess they’re gone! Who’ll take this sample down and put it in the analyzer?”
The ex-king took the packet from her and trudged off toward the camp.
“Come on,” she said, nudging Lutha. “I know a bit about baby taking.”
“I didn’t know shadows—” Lutha murmured.
“Before I was a shadow,” she interrupted with an exasperated look. “When I was a street rat. Street rats get pregnant like real people. But they don’t have responsible sponsors to sign for their babies. Who’d sign for a street rat’s kid? So they can’t go to a registered birther. They have ‘em unofficial, like.” She shook her head. “Street rats don’t eat too good, they get beat on a lot. Sometimes they have a hard time! Let’s hope Saluez won’t.”
They scrambled back into the cavern, where Lutha harnessed Leely to his pillar once more, fastening the latches of the tether, making a sound she was surprised to hear coming from her own throat, half a snarl, half a moan.
“What?” demanded Snark, turning a surprised face.
Lutha pressed her eyes with her fingers, shutting down the frenzied, ugly thoughts that possessed her. “Not now,” she said. “We have other things to do now.”
Besides, she told herself, trying to calm her frantic mind, the matter didn’t concern Snark. It concerned Leelson. Leelson and Limia, and their damned posterity!
Snark didn’t pursue the matter, for one look at Saluez was enough to push other concerns aside. Saluez’s labor was proceeding without her, so to speak. Her body heaved and pushed, but her mind had gone elsewhere.
“Jiacare,” said Snark. “She’s filthy. So are we. We’ll need some wash water.”
He picked up a bucket and went out. Snark knelt beside Saluez, a strange expression on her face. “Dinadhi,” she said, as though to herself. “It’s her first birth and she’s Dinadhi.”
“Of course she is,” Lutha said impatiently.
Snark nodded to herself, rubbing her forehead fretfully, then went across the cavern to busy herself among the emergency kits.
“What are you doing?” Lutha asked.
“Making a catch bucket.”
“What in … ?”
Snark stopped, staring at the wall as though puzzled at Lutha’s question. “Saluez is Dinadhi. My mother, she … said, have a catch bucket, with a lid.”
Lutha pursed her lips and forbid herself to say anything at all. Some cultures made quite a ceremony disposing of the placenta and umbilical cord, and perhaps it was for that reason that Snark had emptied the contents from a folding emergency kit, had resealed the sides and top, and was now cutting a narrow opening into it. Whatever Snark’s reason, she needed help less than Saluez did.
The floor beneath the unconscious woman was a sodden mess. Lutha dragged Saluez to a drier spot, removed her filthy robes—little filthier than Lutha’s own—and covered her with clean blankets. While she was doing this the ex-king returned with a full bucket, put it near the stove, and departed with a nervous look in Saluez’s direction.