Chapter 17

Sarah noticed that Elizabeth wore a pained expression as she bent to deactivate the protection field and then dashed from the cave out into the snow. Glancing over at Thomas gave her no clue as to whether something was wrong or not, as he was lying flat-out beside the fire as usual. There was certainly no hint of concern for his twin, so Sarah thought that everything must be okay.

That view quickly changed when she heard the sounds of Elizabeth retching painfully outside. Sarah grabbed some thick skins and followed the other girl's tracks until she found her on her hands and knees in the snow. Elizabeth had already been sick clearly, but her body was still heaving when Sarah reached her and threw a skin over her back to try to keep her warm.

She knelt and used one hand to slowly rub Elizabeth's back, but that only seemed to make the heaving worse so she quickly stopped.

"You're going to be okay. Remember our DNA takes care of any illnesses quickly, it's probably just a reaction to something you ate?" she said.

Elizabeth was panting for breath between heaves and she managed to force out a few words.

"No, it's something a bit more than that."

She sounded so certain that Sarah had to stop and think. One possible answer to what she was seeing popped into her head.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "You don't mean... ?"

"Mmmuuuhh!" heaved Elizabeth again.

"How far along are you?"

"I've missed my last two periods so I could be anything from two to almost three months," Elizabeth managed to get out.

Sarah was beside herself with excitement. The group's first baby! Elizabeth was going to have the group's first baby!

"That's wonderful, I'm so happy for you. This is something we should all feel happy about, our first baby!"

Elizabeth stopped heaving at last and was able to sit back on her heels. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and pulled the skins tighter around herself with the other. Sarah could see that her face was anything but excited and she wondered what was wrong. Elizabeth's next words gave her a clue.

"Don't you think it's deeply ironic that it's me that has gotten pregnant first? I mean, I'm the one least satisfied with sex with my twin, but Thomas ends up being the one to father the first child?"

Sarah laughed.

"Biology doesn't work like that, Elizabeth. It's more down to the timing and the quality of the sperm and the egg than how good the experience was I'm afraid. I know if it was down to the enjoyment alone, then I would have been pregnant months ago!"

Elizabeth looked at the other girl with longing in her eyes.

"You're so lucky to have Ben. From what you say he really treats you as if you were special. I tried to get him to speak to Thomas, but he wouldn't for some reason. Why can't I get my twin to be more considerate? Why did I have to be the first to get pregnant?"

"I think Ben doesn't see it as his job to be teaching Thomas how to make love, that's something private between you two. Sometimes the communications about things like this are part of what makes a relationship strong. What I'm saying is that you should keep trying to talk to Thomas about this yourself."

"I am trying, but he just won't listen."

"Maybe the baby will make a difference, what does Thomas think about it?"

"He doesn't know yet, I haven't told him," said Elizabeth.

Sarah was surprised and her expression must have alerted Elizabeth.

"You don't understand, I know when I tell him his reaction is going to be so offhand that I can't bear it."

"I certainly don't understand. If I even thought I was carrying Ben's child I wouldn't be able to wait to tell him. This is something that you're both supposed to share, don't you think?

"Sarah, you've seen the way Thomas is. Can you really imagine him getting all excited about being a father? His first thoughts will be about what extra work will this cause - or does that mean he can't have sex until after the baby is born. He's so self-centred!"

Sarah shook her head sadly. She was secretly glad that her relationship with Ben was based on far more than just sex - although the sex was wonderful she had to admit.

"Ben and I see each other as parts of a whole. I really love him and he loves me. I wouldn't feel complete without him; he's my twin, my other half, my mate. We share everything. In a way I'm jealous of you now because there's nothing I'd like better than knowing I was carrying his - no, OUR - baby inside me. That would be so beautiful."

"You're the lucky one, you've got nothing to be jealous about. I wish I had that kind of bond with my twin, but it doesn't work like that for us. Most of the time I've got to nag him to get him to do anything. There's absolutely no way I could have a deep and meaningful conversation with him - that's just not going to happen."

"Let's go back in and you can tell him your good news. You might be surprised at how he reacts. This is just too important not to let everybody know - our first baby! Oh, you are so lucky!"

Sarah helped Elizabeth to her feet and they hurried back inside the cave. Ben cocked an eyebrow at his twin, but she shook her head and sat down while keeping her eyes fixed on Elizabeth.

"What's up?" Ben asked.

"Wait. Watch them," Sarah replied, nodding her head in the direction of Thomas and Elizabeth.

"WHAT? ARE YOU JOKING? You can't be, how could that happen?" exclaimed Thomas.

"If I need to explain that, then we really do have problems," Elizabeth replied tersely.

"But you can't be. Are you sure?"

"Yes, Thomas, I'm absolutely sure. I'm two or three months pregnant!"

Hannah squealed and threw herself across the cave to hug the other girl. Ben felt Sarah cuddle in closer to his side and he turned to look into her eyes. He could see a touch of longing there and knew instinctively what had caused it. His twin was thinking about having their child - she wanted to be pregnant too. He smiled broadly at her and leaned down to kiss her softly on the lips.

"Me too, my love. Me too. We'll just have to keep trying won't we? It's such a chore," he giggled.

Sarah smiled back.

"You read me so well I'm beginning to wonder if there are powers from the metals that you haven't told me about. You always know just the right thing to say, don't you?"

"That's because I pay attention to you. I listen to what you say and what your body language says too. I know what you like and what you don't like. I know what makes you laugh and what makes you angry. It's easy, because most of the time it's like looking in a mirror. I love you, that's all it is, I love you my beautiful Sarah."

"I love you too and I want to be carrying our baby - soon!"

They turned back to watch the others and saw that Adam was slapping Thomas on the back, congratulating him on the wonderful news. Ben thought it was about time that he showed his own appreciation so he crossed and shook Thomas' hand.

"Congratulations, both of you."

He turned and kissed Elizabeth's cheek.

"You're going to look so good when you start to show. Pregnant woman are supposed to have a glow about them, a radiance," he said.

Elizabeth's face lit up at his words.

"Why thank you kind sir. Now if only my dim-witted mate had thought to pay me such a compliment!" she replied.

Thomas looked stunned by the news, but at least he had a goofy grin on his face, which was more than Elizabeth had dared to hope for. The mood - which had been subdued given they had been cooped up for days - was suddenly happy and excited.

"I think this calls for a celebratory feast!" called out Hannah. "Sarah, tell me that there's still enough wheat left to make some bread?"

In answer Sarah turned to the replicator.

"One freshly baked loaf of bread please."

The smell of newly baked bread started to fill the cave in seconds and the twins cheered loudly at such a small but important thing.

"Replicator, six juicy beef steaks please," ordered Adam.

By now the twins had extended the size of their fire inside the cave and there were three cooking stones accommodated in the middle of the flames. That meant there was more than enough room to fit all the steaks in at once and the smell of sizzling beef was soon adding to that of the bread.

Sarah and Hannah continued to hug Elizabeth and she felt better than she ever had before. She was the centre of attention for once; she had something the other girls didn't have. She was going to have a baby!

David used his replicator to make a metal six-pointed star and he positioned it above a small altar he had made. What little he had been able to glean about religion from his memories told him that God had created all things. On Woden, the biggest religion at one time had been the Celestialites. The Celestialites believed that God had his own kingdom amongst the stars - they named the kingdom heaven and adopted the six-pointed star as God's own symbol.

Now David was building his own tradition on the few memories he had. He had also replicated a small notepad and had written down all of the details of the 'miracles' that God had shared with him so far.

He tried to replicate a copy of the Celestialites religious book - the Aether - but the unit hadn't produced anything, probably because the programme didn't have enough detail to work with.

"I know enough to be getting on with," he told himself.

"In the beginning God created all things. He created Woden, the sun, the moon and the stars. He created all living things. We were clearly wrong to think that this planet had been 'seeded', Woden has no history of ever seeding people on a planet. The obvious explanation is that God created this new planet and put us here."

"Why he decided to take Rebecca I might never know, but it's not my place to question God's actions. He must have had a need for my twin and he called her to serve him."

"Almighty God, I, David, your humble servant, give praise unto you. I worship at your feet and give thanks for the day you created me and that you saw fit to take care of me in my hour of need. I and my descendants will forever keep the sun day sacred as a day of special worship and we will dedicate ourselves in your service."

The absolute belief that God existed had caused quite a change in David. Before he had heard 'God's voice' he had been verging on a severe mental breakdown. The loss of his mate, his expulsion from the group and the hardships of living on his own had all been a huge weight to bear. His growing belief that everything was the fault of the twins had been slowly poisoning his mind and his subconscious had realised he needed company or he would have slowly died.

Now that he could 'legitimately' talk to his God, he talked to himself much less often. He could pray and share all of his problems and worries with God, he could ask for divine intervention. Having God to fall back on, having such unshakeable faith, was a huge crutch for the struggling youngster.

His fears grew smaller - God had shown that he would look after him. His worries paled into insignificance - God would provide as he had done during his journey through the snows. His hopes for the future were bright and positive - God had a plan for him, why else had he been saved?

Even the long months of snow and short, dark, bitterly cold days couldn't dampen his spirits. He took the time to write down every scrap of memory he had about God and the Celestialites - in effect he was starting to create his own holy book. God was good! God was great!

Ben continued to use his metals over the next few, wintry months to investigate the points of light that were displayed on his secret 'worldview' of the planet. He discovered that there were a number of sparkling golden rings around a small number of the points and when he zoomed in to look at these more closely, he found that the only resources he could find were very small deposits of metal.

The scale of the deposits and the fact that the coloured rings surrounding these points were a different colour to other metal 'finds' got him highly excited. His guess was that these were small nuggets or seams of metals of power.