* * * *
No one was actually keen on the idea of staying in the temporary shelters after the upset at discovering they didn't really have the planet to themselves-particularly when most of the settlers had spent the remainder of their first day on Sirius convincing themselves that the 'horrible monsters' were just waiting to come back.
Kate wasn't convinced they wouldn't come back-with more of their clansmen. If she was right and the soldiers had fired on a group of curious youngsters, they could be looking at retaliation by some really pissed off parents. She didn't think any of them had actually been hurt-thanks to Ronan, Dax, and Jarek-but she didn't know that they hadn't. And even if they hadn't been hurt, she wasn't sure that would weigh with the Sirians.
They'd tried to kill them.
If the shoe had been on the other foot, and the children had been hers …. Well, she was pretty sure she would have wanted blood.
That brought her back to her earlier fears that they had immediately done what she'd feared would happen all along. The first shots of a war had already been fired before anybody even understood what they might be bringing down upon everyone.
Guilt swamped her and yet, despite that, she knew that it wouldn't have done any good at all to have approached the council with her fears. No one had taken her seriously that had been on the actual project and had had at least some evidence that the Sirians were more intelligent that they'd been given credit. She thought it likely that, if she had approached them, they would've dismissed her concerns on the grounds that no one with more authority had thought it necessary to warn them.
She should have tried.
But that would have put Ronan, Dax, and Jarek at risk of discovery and she couldn't have done that. She hadn't been willing to take the chance that her warning might lead to their discovery.
Because she didn't want to lose them, she realized abruptly, stopping in the middle of her temporary quarters and looking around at the bunks that had been set up for her and the men to share a habitat.
The empty bunks.
She felt the abrupt urge to cry. A painful knot rose in her throat. Her eyes stung, and her chest felt tight.
She'd almost convinced herself before she got off the ship that they would abandon her. She hadn't managed to convince herself, though, that it was what she wanted. After all the time she'd spent trying to do just that, telling herself it was just going to be a relief to get them safely home, somewhere along the way she'd stopped thinking in terms of 'doing the right thing' to ease her conscience for interfering in their lives and endangering them and gotten used to having them around.
She couldn't even assure herself that they'd just become a habit.
She thought that almost as soon as she'd discovered they'd impregnated her, she'd begun to see them as her safety net. She was in trouble, but it wasn't as bad as it would have been if they weren't there, determined they were going to take care of her.
In all the time they'd been together, she'd thought of herself as taking care of them. She'd thought about them needing her to ensure their safety until she could get them back to where they belonged.
But she had only to envision the prospect of facing a judgment for violating the reproduction laws to know absolutely that she'd been counting on them to protect her and the babies.
Moving to her bunk, she plopped down on the surface and covered her face with her hands. What was she going to do now?
She had no idea what the penalty was for the violation beyond the fact that it was awful. They could, and usually did, order an abortion and then a huge fine and sometimes jail time and the huge fine.
And that was for one. As unfair as it seemed to her, she realized the medic was right. They were going to consider triplets a multiple violation! She was going to be fined for each one and there was no way she could come up with the credits to pay a triple fine. She might have some hope of paying one-she had her savings-but not three.
She couldn't even comfort herself with the thought that they might not demand an abortion. She thought they still might, however unlikely-but it was just a maybe.
And if they had any idea that the babies were part Sirian-there was no way they were going to let her keep them!
And she was very much afraid that they were going to figure that out.
Ronan had transformed himself, she knew, to protect the young Sirians, but in doing so in front of some many witnesses, he'd also exposed her.
And Dax and Jarek, naturally enough, had followed his lead. They always did.
And as hard as she'd worked to keep them 'hidden' on the voyage, they'd been seen together. It wasn't going to take a rocket scientist to connect the dots.
A sob escaped her. She was in so much trouble!
It didn't take nearly as long for the axe to fall as Kate had hoped and actually expected given the enormous task of settling. It took them three full days even to finish setting up their temporary home and get the supplies unloaded from the ship. The following day the colonists were allowed to rest up while the surveyors got down to laying out the city they intended to build. Like most everyone else, Kate had gone to watch, trying to convince herself that she was as excited about the possible home sites as everyone else seemed to be.
The truth was, she couldn't conjure an ounce of enthusiasm. She was far more miserable than she'd ever been in her life, lonely when she'd never even acknowledged loneliness before. She was pretty sure she'd never actually felt alone, felt a lack of companionship.
Beyond that, home had never meant family to her before she'd realized she was pregnant. Now it did and she feared it was only a matter of time before the little family growing in her belly was taken from her.
What was home when there was no one to share it with?
Empty, she thought glumly.
Just like her life.
She didn't even have friends and colleagues anymore. The one friend that had come with her had pretty much abandoned her for fear that she would get tarred with the same brush once the authorities discovered she'd smuggled aliens aboard the colony ship.
She supposed she shouldn't blame Sissy for being a spineless, sniveling, self-centered coward.
But she did.
It made it worst that Lucky had noticed her protectors were gone. He hadn't approached her, but she feared it was only a matter of time and she wasn't certain how to handle it when he did or even if there was anything she could do to fend him off.
And it was a very bad thing that he'd noticed the guys had disappeared about the same time the Sirians had appeared. He might not have witnessed the transformation, but he'd already noticed, and commented, on the fact that they seemed 'foreign'. He'd already pointed out that he knew she'd had their papers forged-because he'd been there when she'd paid for them. If he'd listened to the gossip circulating after that first encounter with the natives, then he might be putting two and two together and that spelled very, very bad for her.
She wasn't sure she dared summon the authorities when he already had dirt on her.
Of course, he might not want to risk them finding out that he'd been a thug.
Then again, she couldn't believe the council members weren't aware of the fact that criminals had been transported with the colonists. He'd probably been pardoned just to get him to 'volunteer'.
She was so busy trying to pretend she didn't notice Lucky staring holes in her from just a few yards away that she didn't notice the man that came to stand over her at first.
"Dr. Kate Drexel?"
Startled, Kate looked up in automatic response. When she saw it was a soldier, fear instantly twisted in her belly and the impulse rose to deny her identity.
"You are Dr. Kate Drexel? I need you come with me."
Kate gulped. "What is this about?" she asked faintly, getting up from the ground where she'd been seated on legs that felt wobbly weak.
"You've been charged with a violation of the reproduction laws."
Kate felt faint even though she'd been expecting it ever since she'd been examined. She felt her face heat when she glanced around and discovered he'd been overheard and everyone close enough to hear had turned to stare at her like she was some kind of nasty bug.
Nodding stiffly, she went with the soldier, wondering if they were going to lock her up in the hold of the ship until she could be 'processed'.
She should have tried to find an advocate, she thought dismay. Now she wouldn't have anyone but a court appointed advocate who didn't know a damned thing about her and probably wouldn't care whether they won or lost her case.
Of course, it was a slam dunk anyway. She was pregnant, and she hadn't gone through channels and obtained a permit.
She wasn't the least bit happy to discover she'd been right. The soldier escorted her directly to the jail in the hold of the ship and locked her up. She sat down on the hard bunk that didn't even have a thin pad on it, hugging herself and trying not to think.
She couldn't prevent it, unfortunately.
The medic had said that she was fourteen weeks along. Ordinarily, they didn't order an abortion past the sixteenth week, and she'd hoped against hope that she could keep her secret until she passed that magic number.
Of course, even then, when they allowed the baby to be carried full term, the mother was generally jailed for the infraction and not allowed to keep the baby, but she didn't know what the colonial council might decide to do when there was no institutional facilities to place the babies in.
Not that that was likely to be an issue for her, but she thought she would've been happier even if she'd had to give them up in the end.
Ronan and Dax and Jarek could have saved her and the babies, she thought mournfully. Why hadn't they come back? They could've taken a new identity! She just didn't understand why they hadn't come back when they'd waited for her after they'd arrived.
The fear that they'd been injured-or worse-and couldn't occurred to her, but they hadn't seemed to be hurt when they'd fled.
She didn't know how much she could trust her recall of that time, though.
Maybe they had been hurt? Maybe they'd been mortally wounded and had only managed to escape.
The militia hadn't managed to catch up with them. If they had, then everyone would have known.
But that didn't mean they hadn't encountered some of their own clansmen in the jungle. They might not have been welcomed by their own people after living so long with humans.
Anything could have happened. They didn't know their own world. Granted, they seemed to have 'built'
in knowledge of all sorts of things, but that might not have been enough when they had no actual experience of their world.
She'd finally worried herself into exhaustion by the time the advocate finally arrived.
He didn't reassure her.
"I don't see that we have a case to argue here," he said tiredly when she'd settled across the conference table from him in the room they were given to discuss her case. "According to the examination, you're fourteen weeks along. The fact that there are three-and you have no permit seems to indicate traffic with the black market-which is only going to make you look worse. If there was anything to indicate a failure on the part of the technician that performed your partner's sterilization we might have something to fight with, but as it stands
…."
Kate felt her first surge of hope. "But … it was an accident! I didn't go to a black market clinic to get impregnated! I didn't even know I was pregnant-not for sure, anyway, until the medic examined me."
The advocate looked skeptical, but slightly less hostile. "Do you know who fathered the fetuses?"
Kate gaped at him, struggling with the insult. At least, she considered it an insult! "Of course …." She broke off abruptly when she realized that she couldn't use the only defense, apparently, that was available to her. She cleared her throat, unwilling to give up on the possibility that had been offered. "He was … uh … a foreigner. From a … uh … less advanced country."
The advocate's brows rose. "Which country?"
Kate felt her face redden. "I didn't find out. He had a really thick accent, though. He barely spoke English."
He nodded. "I don't suppose there's any chance he was on board?"
Kate chewed her lip, debating whether to grasp that straw or not. "I thought he might be," she lied. "I met him at the club near the space center and I thought he must be there because he was a colonist, but we didn't actually get around to discussing that. And I don't think he was on this ship."
Her advocate frowned. "I don't know what the chances are that we could track him down even if he is here on Sirius. We don't have communications established with the other colonies and probably won't for months. And, unfortunately, you don't have that long. You're to appear before the council tomorrow."
Kate felt the blood rush from her face. "Tomorrow?" she echoed.
The advocate shrugged. "They don't have a lot of cases to preside over at the moment and you're far enough along anyway that they don't want to delay the hearing."
Meaning she was convicted even though she hadn't actually been tried yet.
The advocate heaved a heavy sigh and closed his notepad. "I'll do what I can for you, Dr. Drexel, but I have to be frank with you. They might be willing to accept the fines and give you probation if you have the credits to cover it. If you don't … well, you're looking at jail time. How much is going to depend on their mood at the time. And that probably won't be good unless I can convince them that it was not a deliberate violation."
Kate struggled with the urge to break down and weep. "How much is the fine?"
"Fifty thousand credits … for each violation."
Kate felt her jaw drop in horrified disbelief. "Fifty … each? Oh my god!"
The advocate looked almost sympathetic. "I guess that means you don't have that much?"
Tears filled Kate's eyes in spite of all she could do. "I don't even have half that much!"
The advocate got up abruptly. "I'm sorry. I'll do what I can, but you need to prepare yourself."
She stopped him as he fled toward the door. "The babies … Is there any chance they'll allow me to keep them? I mean, will they order an abortion?"
"I'm afraid so. That's mandatory in cases like this. That isn't something I'll be able to do anything about."
Kate managed to fight back the urge to cry when the guard came to return her to her cell, but as soon as she was alone, she gave vent to the need clogging her chest until she could barely breathe. She cried until she was completely exhausted and fell into a fitful sleep. She didn't know how long she slept, but when she awoke a sense of urgency filled her.
They were going to take her babies! She had to do something! There must be something she could do!
It occurred to her that she hadn't tried to reach out to the guys, not once, since they'd left.
She hadn't because she had been certain that it was useless even to try. She'd thought they would have come back without that if they'd wanted to and were able to, but what did she have to lose now?
Sitting up on her bunk, she closed her eyes and tried to focus completely on the voice inside her head, trying to think how she would make that inner voice a shout that they might somehow hear. She called their names over and over in her mind. She begged them to help her save the babies.
It was exhausting and very quickly began to seem futile, but she had nothing else. For hours and called out to them, hoping against hope that they might be close enough to hear her.
She passed from desperation and begging to anger and accusation. They had gotten her into this mess!
They couldn't just abandon her when she needed them!
She'd all but given up by the time she heard the voice she'd been so desperate to hear.
Kate! Where are you?
I'm here, inside the ship, Ronan!
Where?
In jail! I told you we couldn't have babies without a permit! They're going to order an abortion!
What is abortion? Jarek asked suspiciously.
They're going to … kill them.
Because they are ours? Dax demanded angrily.
They don't know. I didn't tell them. I didn't get papers to breed.
Humans and their stupid papers! Ronan growled angrily.
Kate couldn't have agreed with him more at moment! She knew why the laws had been created and she also knew that it had been the only thing that had prevented them from breeding themselves into extinction. The laws had to apply to everyone to keep everyone safe.
And she still resented the threat to her babies!
We are coming!
She didn't recognize the guard that opened her cell door, but the moment she realized that there were three she knew it had to be her Sirians. "Ronan?"
He frowned at her. "You will give us away."
Kate hesitated, uncertain of her welcome, and finally rushed to him, throwing her arms around him and hugging herself tightly to him. To her surprise, he curled his arms around her and tightened his hold on her as spontaneously as if embracing was natural to him.
"You is alright, Kat?" Jarek asked.
Kate pulled back to look at him. "I think I will be now," she said shakily.
Ronan shook his head. "You will only be safe when we take you from here."
Kate met his gaze realizing he was saying that she would have to give up her own people to save her babies. She would have to give up everyone and everything she'd ever known, but she realized that she'd already been prepared for that. She might regret the decision, but she didn't think she would. She was ready to do whatever it took to make sure her children survived.
Beyond that, she wasn't willing to give up her Sirians. They might not love her as she did them. They might not be capable of it, but she could love them and she didn't think they would let her down.