"No," Ha’anala whispered. "I had a dream." She sat up with a graceless lurch but as carefully as she could, not wanting to wake Sofi’ala, sleeping in the nest beside her. Another gray day, she noted, peering out through cracks in the stonework. There was no sound yet from the other houses. "The children came to visit again last night."
"Someone should tie ribbons on your arms," Suukmel said, smiling at the superstition.
But Ha’anala shuddered, as much from the chill of the sunless morning as from the memory of a small rattling chest. "I wish Shetri hadn’t gone. Was Ma with you when your daughters were bom?"
"Oh, no," Suukmel said, getting to her feet and beginning the morning chores. "Ma would never have come near a birth—very unseemly. The women of my caste were always alone—well, not alone. We had Runa. Men generally had nothing to do with women and birth, apart from providing the impetus for the event. And I can’t say that I’d have welcomed an audience."
"I don’t want an audience, I want company!" Ha’anala shifted her position and rested her back against her husband’s rolled-up sleeping nest. She felt vaguely uneasy, despite the fact that they’d received good news directly from Shetri, via the Bruno. He and the others were well and would be arriving today, with the foreigners, in an extraordinary craft that could bring them home quickly and without detection. "Even if Shetri can’t stand to be here when the baby’s born, I’ll be glad—"
She stopped, face still. At last! she thought, welcoming the wave of cramp, rolling from top to bottom. When she raised her eyes, Suukmel was watching knowingly. "Don’t tell anyone else yet," Ha’anala said, glancing significantly at Sofi’ala, who was beginning to stir. "I want company, not a fierno."
"I’m hungry!" Sofi’ala whined, eyes still closed. It was the inevitable morning greeting, this time of year.
"Your father’s bringing wonderful things to eat," Suukmel told the child gaily, and smiled a little sadly when the child’s glorious lavender eyes snapped open at that news. They could hear other households awakening nearby, and the first wisps of smoke from Runa dung fires were beginning to reach them. "He’ll be here soon, but why don’t you go to Biao-Tol’s hearth and see what’s cooking there?"
"Wait—" Ha’anala called as Sofi’ala ran out to join the other children, who spent their mornings dashing around the village, peering into pots, hunting for the most abundant or tastiest meal available. "Sipaj, Sofi’ala! Don’t be a nuisance!" Suukmel chuckled at that, but Ha’anala insisted, "She is! She is a nuisance! And I hate the way she orders the other children around."
"You see yourself in her," Suukmel told her. "Don’t be hard on the girl. It’s natural for her to try to dominate them."
"It’s also natural to defecate whenever and wherever the urge arises," said Ha’anala in riposte. "That doesn’t make it acceptable behavior."
"But even the Runa children resist her! It’s good training," Suukmel parried. "They all gain strength."
They spent the morning jousting like this, enjoying the mental combat, but the tempo and strength of the contractions were constantly on their minds. "They should be quicker now, and stronger," Ha’anala said, when all three suns were up, the brightest a flat, white disk burning through the cloud cover overhead.
"Soon enough," Suukmel said, but she, too, was concerned, watching with some dismay as Ha’anala curled up in her nest and fell silent.
By that time, Ha’anala’s daughter had worked out what was going on, and Suukmel turned her attention to reassuring the child and greeting the guests who began to gather, alerted by Sofi’ala’s anxious wail. Though the Jana’ata considerately withdrew after conveying their good wishes, the house was soon crowded with Runa, who brought enthusiasm and encouragement and food for the assemblage, along with the warmth of their bodies and of their affection. Like the Runa, Ha’anala believed a birth was an occasion for festivity and seemed happy for the distraction, so Suukmel did not drive the visitors off.
If the contractions did not quicken, they did at least increase in intensity and Ha’anala welcomed that, despite the pain. In the midst of an endless discussion of what might hurry the labor along, a boy ran in with news of the lander and soon they all heard its horrifying noise, the room emptying abruptly as the crowd moved off to witness this astonishing arrival.
"Go on—see what it’s like!" Ha’anala told Suukmel. "Tell me about it when you come back! I’ll be fine, but send Shetri!"
"Orders, orders, orders," Suukmel teased as she left for the landing site at the edge of the valley. "You sound like Sofi’ala!
Alone at last, Ha’anala rested as best she could, surprised by how tired she was so early in this labor. She listened as the roar of the engines abruptly ceased, heard the buzz of conversation indistinct in the distance. Days seemed to pass before Shetri came to her; despite all she wanted to ask him, the only words she spoke aloud were, "Someone is cold."
Shetri went to the door and shouted for help. Soon Ha’anala was lifted to her feet and, though she stopped and squatted now and then, hit by another contraction, she was able to walk slowly to a place where game in miraculous quantity was spitted and roasting over smoky fires. Smiling at the spontaneous carnival that had erupted, her eyes sought out the foreigners in the crowd. One was close in size to Sofia, the others as tall as Isaac, but with none of his wandlike slenderness. Dark and light; bearded and hairless and maned. And the languages! High K’San and peasant Ruanja and H’inglish—as hilariously mixed in the confusion of the cooking and greetings and stories as Ha’anala’s own speech had been when she’d first met Shetri.
"They are so different!" she cried, to no one in particular. "This is wonderful. Wonderful!"
Cheered by warmth and the prospect of rapprochement with the south, Ha’anala knelt heavily, bearing down with a will, certain that this was the moment when the new child should be brought into light and laughter. She felt instead a tearing pain that made her scream and silenced the others, so that only the hiss of fire and the distant warbling of a p’rkra could be heard. When she could breathe again, she laughed a little and assured everyone wryly, "I won’t try that again!"
Slowly the merriment and conversation resumed, but she could smell Shetri’s anxiety and this worried her. "Tell me about your journey!" she commanded affectionately, but he was frightened and made an excuse to help the foreigners distribute meat, sending Rukuei to sit behind her like a Runa husband. Suukmel came as well, and Tiyat, with her youngest riding her back. Content to have her cousin’s arms around her shoulders, Ha’anala leaned back against his belly, his legs drawn up around her own, his cheek resting near hers, and listened as Rukuei sang of his adventure in a spontaneous poem with the rocking rhythm of a steady walk. She was genuinely interested in the story, and drifted along, buoyed by the tale, laughing when Rukuei made comedy out of the fright he had been given by the little foreigner Sandoz.
"Small individuals can be surprisingly powerful," Ha’anala observed breathlessly, leaning over to press her lively belly between her chest and legs, glad that she could summon up a little humor even now.
Hearing his name, Sandoz had joined them, making an obeisance rather than offering his hands..When the introductions were over, he sat where he too could watch the party: silent, hunched and rocking slightly, his arms crossed over his chest. His posture very nearly mimicked her own during a contraction, and Ha’anala’s first words to him were, "Funny, you don’t look pregnant."
He stared and then hooted, startled by the remark but apparently amused. "If I am, we’re definitely going to have to start a new religion," he replied, and if she didn’t understand all of his words, she liked his smile. He had eyes like Sola’s—brown and small—but warm, not stony. "My lady, what language best pleases you?" he asked.