“We’re doing everything we can,” the obstetrician said as the medic walked Humphries through the door and deposited him on a chair in the anteroom. The nurse out there sprang to her feet again.
Humphries slumped down onto the chair, barely hearing the whispered words between the nurse and medic. The nurse put a cup of steaming coffee in his hand. He ostentatiously poured it onto the carpeting. She looked surprised, then backed away and remained standing by the door to the birthing room. Humphries sat there, his thoughts darker and darker with each passing moment.
Fuchs. He’s the cause of all this. This is all his fault. She still loves him. She’s only having this baby to keep me happy, to save his putrid ass. Well, if she dies then all my promises are finished. I’ll find that sonofabitch and kill him. I’ll get Harbin and every ship I’ve got out there in the Belt to hunt him down and kill him. I don’t care if it takes a thousand ships, I’ll see him dead. I’ll have him skinned alive. I’ll have his balls roasted over a slow fire. I’ll—
The squall of a baby’s first cry stopped his litany of rage.
Humphries shot to his feet. The nurse was still standing in front of the door.
Which opened slowly. The obstetrician came out, pulling the mask off her face. She looked tired.
“My son?” Humphries demanded.
“The boy’s fine,” said the woman, unsmiling. “We’ll run him through the usual tests in a day or so, but he appears to be normal. A little scrawny, but that’s not unusual for a preemie.”
Scrawny, Humphries thought. But he’ll be all right. He’ll grow. He’ll be a healthy son.
“Your wife…” the obstetrician murmured.
“Is she all right?”
The doctor shook her head slowly.
“Amanda?”
“I’m afraid she didn’t make it, sir. Her heart stopped and we couldn’t revive her.”
Humphries gaped at the woman. “She’s dead? Amanda’s dead?”
“I’m very sorry, Mr. Humphries,” the obstetrician said, her eyes avoiding his. “We did everything that’s humanly possible.”
“He killed her,” Humphries muttered. “The bastard killed her.”
“It’s not the baby’s fault,” said the obstetrician, looking alarmed.
“He killed her,” Humphries repeated.
HABITAT CHRYSALIS
Pancho dropped everything and flew on a full-g burn to Ceres, completing the trip from Selene in slightly less than thirty hours.
As her torch ship made rendezvous with the orbiting habitat and docked at one of its airlocks, it felt good to Pancho to get back down to one-sixth gravity. Been living in lunar grav so long it feels normal to me, she thought as she strode through the central passageway of the interlinked spacecraft bodies, heading for Big George’s quarters.
When he’d first been elected chief administrator for the rock rats, George had insisted that he would not establish a fancy office nor hire any unnecessary staff personnel. Over the years he had stuck to that promise—in a manner of speaking. His office was still in his quarters, but George’s quarters had expanded gradually, steadily, until now they spanned the entire length of one of the spacecraft modules that composed Chrysalis.
“Only one side of the passageway,” George grumbled defensively when Pancho kidded him about it. “And I haven’t hired a single staff member that I didn’t absolutely need.”
George’s “office” was still the sitting room of his quarters. He had no desk, just comfortable furniture scavenged from junked spacecraft. Now he sat in a recliner that had once been a pilot’s chair. Pancho was in a similar seat, sitting sideways, her long legs draped over its armrest.
“Looks to me like you’re buildin’ yourself an empire, George,” Pancho teased. “Maybe only a teeny-weeny one, but still an empire.”
George glowered at her from behind his brick-red beard. “You di’n’t come battin’ out here to twit me about my empire, didja?”
“No,” said Pancho, immediately growing serious. “I surely didn’t.”
“Then what?”
“I gotta see Lars.”
“See ‘im? You mean face to face?”
Pancho nodded somberly.
“What for?”
“Amanda,” said Pancho, surprised at how choked up she got. “She’s … she died.”
“Died?” George looked stunned.
“In childbirth.”
“Pig’s arse,” George muttered. “Lars is gonna go fookin’ nuts.”