“You have been very quiet,” the ship observed.
Mayelna rolled her seat back from her console, then shrugged as she rose. “What can I say? I had no idea how matters would turn out, so I had to allow it to remain between you and him.”
“Do you think that he will forgive me?” Valthyrra asked cautiously.
“Knowing Velmeran as I do, I suspect that he blames only himself in the first place,” Mayelna said, pausing on her way to the lift. “I will probably forgive you in a day or two. Consherra is quite another matter. I suspect that she will remain in an unforgiving mood. And you might do well to court her forgiveness, or you may find that she has the power to take him away from you.”
The capture ship brought Velmeran’s fighter directly into the landing bay and deposited it gently on the deck before passing on out the forward door. Those who saw it brought in could hardly believe that Velmeran could have ridden it through the blast unharmed, for the little ship was nearly ripped apart. It began to smoke lazily as it was brought through the containment field into the atmosphere of the bay; Valthyrra had to direct a blast of icy air at it from a pair of blowers for two minutes before it was cool enough to approach. Only the cockpit area remained reasonably sound, and the windshields, although cracked and glazed, were intact.
As soon as they could, Benthoran, the crew chief, and an assistant moved in to open the ship by simply breaking the canopy free and lifting it away. A good deal of smoke poured out and continued to do so until Benthoran blew it out with a heavy dose of carbon dioxide. When Consherra would have rushed in to aid her mate, Dyenlerra was there first to wave her away. The medic helped Velmeran remove his helmet but indicated for him to remain where he was while she opened his chestplate to attach the leads of a portable medical scanner. The machine needed only a moment to decide that he was sound enough to get out under his own power. The interior of the cockpit was burned out and his suit was badly scorched, his last line of defense against that terrible heat.
Consherra tried to take hold of him as soon as he was out, only to find that he was still too hot to touch without the gloves that she had left on the bridge. Dyenlerra waved her away a second time and made Velmeran stand beneath one of the cold-air blowers until the damaged suit was cool enough to remove.
Valthyrra had been hovering nearby in the form of one of her remotes. Now she brought the machine in cautiously. “I am sorry, Meran. I should have believed you. I knew at the time that I should have, but the machine in me could not. This is new to me, and I handled it badly.”
“That is something of an understatement,” Consherra remarked coldly, moving in protectively beside her mate. Dyenlerra, oblivious to all else, was busily checking the joints of Velmeran’s armor to see if the suit beneath, which was exposed only at these points, had been penetrated.
“He warned me. I refused to listen,” Valthyrra admitted, aiming her remarks at Consherra. “I am not infallible, although I have been around long enough to learn from my mistakes. I will not make that mistake again.”
“You may not have a second chance,” Consherra said darkly, taking hold of Velmeran’s left arms as if to assert her claim on him. “Perhaps another ship will have greater respect for his abilities.”
Dyenlerra impatiently slapped her hands away, forcing her to release her hold on Velmeran. “You people can air your grievances later. Just now he is on his way to the medical section for a complete scan.”
She physically turned her bemused patient and led him toward the lift. Consherra followed uncertainly; she was well aware that she would not be allowed inside the medic’s examination room, but she meant to stay as close as possible. Valthyrra remained where she was, watching, and equally aware that she was not welcome.
“Well, I really screwed it up this time,” she said softly. “I have not been in this much trouble since the time Dveyella was going to take him away from me.”
“Maybe not,” Mayelna said as they turned toward the lift, getting out of the way as the bay crew began to remove the wreckage of the fighter. “Velmeran will not want to leave, and I trust him to say so.”
“Why would he not want to leave?” the ship asked bitterly.
“Because you are still the best fighting ship in the wolf fleet, in spite of yourself,” the Commander insisted. “He needs you as much as you need him.”
“I was not exactly helpful when he needed me this time,” the probe’s camera pod sagged, the mechanical equivalent of a dejected sigh. “Just now I feel old and useless.”
Mayelna glanced at her and smiled. “You know better than that. And, if it is any consolation, I will tell you that he makes me feel very old from time to time.”
The medic took Velmeran to a private diagnostic chamber and locked the door, forbidding even Consherra to enter. She cautiously removed him from his scorched armor, sometimes having to force catches that were now reluctant to open, then set her naked and nervous patient on the table and gave him a very thorough examination with her most accurate and sensitive scanners. She was soon satisfied that he was neither burned nor had suffered internally from shock or buffeting. She finished by bringing up a very large and intimidating microscopic scanner and, to Velmeran’s astonishment and profound embarrassment, aimed it at the portion of his anatomy that made him most nervous.
“The monitor in your suit controls says that you took a sustained heat of over twenty degrees above body temperature,” she explained without looking up. “We can take a surprising extreme of temperatures, even heat, for limited periods of time. But you were in that overheated suit for some time, and too much heat for too long can damage the genetic code you carry, perhaps resulting in sterility.”
“Sterility?” he asked cautiously.
“Which, fortunately, you do not have to worry about,” she said as she switched off the machine and pushed it out of the way. “At the very most, you might be unable to have a successful mating for several days.”
“And there might be some danger of genetic defect?” Velmeran inquired.
“No, of course not. Have you ever heard of a Kelvessan with genetic defects? It cannot happen.” She secured the machine in its storage cubby and tossed pants and shirt to her patient. “You recall what happens in cell reproduction? The DNA chain splits in half, and a special molecular machine runs up each half, pulling out amino acids and sticking them in the proper place to form two identical chains. In most natural organisms this little machine occasionally makes mistakes, sticking pieces where they do not belong.
“But our little replicator is smaller than that. It has the ability to check itself. When it finds a mistake, it will either back up and correct it or break the DNA chain to prevent cell division. In our species, an uncorrectable defect results in termination of the pregnancy at the time of conception. After the first few cell divisions, the loss of one or two defective cells at a time has no lasting consequences. Neat trick?”
“I suppose,” Velmeran agreed. “They must have thought of everything when they made us.”
“Perhaps. There are certain failings in character that could have been corrected genetically, but I have no real objection. If they had tried to make us absolutely perfect, we really would have been machines.” She paused and shrugged. “Speaking of conception, Baressa tested out pregnant this morning. She was impressed with your efficiency.”
“Efficiency is one of my strong points,” Velmeran said as casually as he could, although he did not hide his dismay well. In fact, he was fortunate to be sitting down when he heard that. “Who knows?”
“Well, I do, of course. Consherra knows. I am sure that Valthyrra knows, and Mayelna might.”