Chapter 59

When he awoke, he was alone in the bed. He had no idea how long he had slept until he finally shook off his torpor sufficiently to look at his chronometer As best he could recollect of the time he had gone to bed, it was fourteen hours! He could not ever recall having spent as many continuous hours sleeping.

Experimentally, he tried a few stretching exercises. They hurt, but pain was no stranger and this wasn't impossibly severe. A shoulder gave him a noticeable twinge, but the rest seemed no worse than a dull ache. His mood brightened.

Suddenly the door opened. "Oh, good, you're awake," came Meiersdottir's voice. "I've been checking every little while for a long time, but I didn't want to disturb you."

"Good morning—whatever it is, anyway," he responded.

"How do you feel?"

"I have decided that living is definitely on the agenda," he said wryly.

"I'm glad, you're not much use to me dead," she said perkily. "Anyhow. You get breakfast in bed. Or some other meal if you want it?"

"Breakfast is fine."

"I'll bring it. I'm fine, by the way, not even much by way of aches. So do your toilette. Soap, shaving stuff, everything in the john. Use my toothbrush, if it doesn't gross you out. Food coming." She closed the door behind her.

A bit nonplused, he gradually arose—a few creaks, but nothing dramatic, he noted—and headed toward her bathroom. A brisk shower, which he prolonged by taking her razor in and using it there, a thorough brushing of his teeth (using her toothbrush was an intimacy he savored), and he felt considerably refreshed.

When he emerged into the main cabin she was there waiting, food already distributed on her desk. He leaned over to kiss her warmly and then sat down to his meal. She made a show of walking over to the bathroom door and looking in. "Yep, folded," she said. He laughed. Then he went back to his meal. For a time neither of them spoke as he ate rapaciously.

His appetite sated, he leaned back in his chair and looked at her sidelong. "Why am I waiting for the other shoe to drop?" he asked.

"Am I that obvious?"

He laughed. "You are more than a little too solicitous."

"Well, you're hurt. You used up all that saving us, and—"

"Amanda."

"Yes. Well. Oh, shit, Carlos, you're going to be so pissed at me—"

"Say it out."

"Carlos..."

"I love you. Remember? It is not conditional. Now speak."

"Well ... Shit. I'm pregnant."

He arched his eyebrows.

"All right, I know nobody gets pregnant by accident these days, but I looked around when we first boarded and there wasn't anybody but you, and you were so formal and stand-offish, and if I wasn't going to be active I didn't need to pour all those hormones into me, so I stopped and then we started and I knew I needed to take stuff but then you said something about knowing how babies are made and I said it might be nice and then I realized it would be nice, better than nice, and I know biological clocks last longer than they used to but still I'm thirty-eight and I'd look a long time trying to find better genes and, well, I just didn't, and I know I should have talked to you about it but I was afraid— Carlos, dammit, say something!"

"It is a little difficult with you talking non-stop," he said placidly. "Besides, I am still waiting for the part where I am supposed to be 'pissed, ' as you put it. You seemed to be counting on it, and I do not want to disappoint you."

"You mean you're not?"

"Should I be? If I understand correctly, you chose me to father your baby. That seems to me cause to feel flattered, not offended."

"Well ... Look, I don't want you to feel any obligation, it's my baby and my responsibility and—"

"Obligation?" he interrupted. "Do you mean as in what is quaintly called 'making an honest woman out of you?'"

"I—"

"Because in order to do that it would seem that you would have had to be a dishonest woman up until now," he mused. "And that is a description very far from the truth. But in any event, since you are telling me your only expectation of me was as a sperm donor—a process I found very pleasurable by the way, you may have further donations at any time—I see no overpowering reason that you should have talked to me first."

She was gaping at him.

"Of course, I would hope you might consult with me next time—"

"Next time?" she gasped, jaw dropping open.

"Next time," he repeated firmly. "Close your mouth before you begin to drool, my love. I am perhaps old-fashioned about such matters, but it has always been my belief that children are best raised by parents who are married—"

"Married?"

"Is there an echo?" he asked with an amused expression. "Yes. Married. To each other. If you are willing, that is?"

By way of answer she fairly leaped across the short distance between them and threw her arms tightly around him. He flinched. "Ouch."

"Oh, Carlos, I'm so sorry," she sputtered, drawing back. "I forgot. Did I hurt you a lot?"

"It was worth the pain," he said, smiling reassuringly. "May I take that as yes?"

"Oh, yes, you may," she said. Much more gently she slid into his arms and kissed him tenderly. A moment later she drew back and looked at him uncertainly. "Carlos, this isn't just because— I mean, I never meant to pressure you—"

"My dear, I decided some time ago that I wanted to be with you for as long as you would have me, in any way you would have me," he said quietly. "I am merely taking advantage of an opportunity."

"You're sure?"

"Quite sure." This time it was he who reached out to draw her into his arms and kiss her thoroughly.

"This is why you jumped the queue in sick bay last— whenever it was, my sense of time is off," he asked eventually.

She nodded. "Looking at everybody else I guess I got off easy, but they got me a couple of pretty solid shots to the belly, and I was worried that time might be important if there was a problem. There wasn't, everything's fine."

"How far along are you?"

"It's two months. I hadn't even seen the doctor before, it didn't seem necessary, I knew. But I figured I'd better see one last night—it was last night—and I know I was selfish pushing ahead, but it was because of the baby."

"You did right," he said in a distracted tone. "Two months, seven to go, we are here for—" He looked at her. "Amanda, you will have the baby here!"

"Well, I suppose so, now that I think about it."

He shook his head wonderingly. "Ours will be the first human child ever born on a world other than Earth."

"I guess it will," she said in astonishment. "What'll we call it, Adam or Eve? Well, names can come later. Oh, and about names..."

"Yes?"

"Umm, Carlos, I want to marry you but, well, I want to keep my name, are you terribly hurt?"

"Why would that matter to me?"

"Well, it's just that I don't really see myself as Amanda Igwanda," she said, deliberately mispronouncing his name to rhyme with her own.

He gave a snort of laughter.

"I mean, sooner or later somebody would come up with Mandy Wandy. Sounds like a nursery rhyme. 'Mandy Wandy, puddin' 'n' pie... ' 'Wee Mandy Wandy, wuns fwough the town... ' Anyhow, somebody would come up with it and then I'd have to kill him and society sort of frowns on that so I'd spend the rest of my life behind bars and..." She trailed off; Igwanda was laughing so hard he was clutching his sore ribs. "Well, anyhow, Meier might not like it, either."

Igwanda got himself back under control. "Who is Meier?" he asked.

"My father. You don't know about Icelandic names?"

"I know where Iceland is, but little else," he said.

"Well. Today it's mostly different, but my father is kind of a traditionalist and in the traditional way children took their last names from their fathers. You know, Lief Ericson, which is Lief the son of Eric. Actually that's where a lot of common last names originated in medieval Europe—Johnson, Robertson, Mendelssohn, and so on. Anyhow, in Iceland when it was a girl it couldn't be 'son' so it was 'dottir'—daughter. I'm Meiersdottir. And I like Meier kind of a lot, so I'd like to keep it. Besides, it can be a peace offering; Meier isn't going to be real hap­py with me."