The prediction of Hali’s pribox and her own inner voice had been correct. The baby was going to be born on its own schedule and despite anything else that might be happening.

Waela leaned back on the cot.

I’m not afraid. Why am I not afraid?

She felt that a voice spoke to her from her womb—It will be as it will be.

The quiet was broken by a babble of voices and another rush of footsteps into the medical shelter. How many batches of the wounded did that make? She had lost count.

A particularly hard contraction forced a gasp from her.

It’s time. It’s really time.

She felt that she had been put on a long slide, unable to get off, unable to change a single thing that would happen. This was inevitable, growing from that moment in the sub’s gondola.

How could I have stopped that? There was no way.

“Where’s that TaoLini woman? We need her help out here.”

It was Ferry’s familiar wheeze. Waela thrust herself upright, staggered to her feet and made her way heavily back to the emergency area of the shelter. She paused in the entrance as another contraction gripped her.

“I’m here. What do you want?”

Ferry glanced up from applying celltape to a wounded E-clone.

“Somebody has to go outside and decide which people are most in need of emergency treatment. I don’t have time.”

She stumbled toward the exit.

“Wait.” The bleary old eyes focused on her. “What’s wrong with you?”

“It’s . . . I’m . . .” She clutched the edge of the treatment table, looked down at a wounded E-clone.

“You’d better go back and lie down,” Ferry said.

“But you need . . .”

“I’ll decide what has to be done!”

“But you said . . .”

“I changed my mind.” He finished with the E-clone on the table, looked down at the bulging eyes which protruded from the corners of the clone’s temples. “You. You’re well enough to go outside and see that I get the worst cases first.”

She shook her head. “He doesn’t know anything about . . .”

“He knows when somebody’s dying. Don’t you?” Ferry helped the clone off the table, and Waela saw the burn splash across the man’s right shoulder.

“He’s wounded,” Waela protested. “He can’t . . .”

“We’re all wounded,” Ferry said. She heard hysteria in his voice. “Everybody’s wounded. You go back now and lie down. Let the wounded take care of the wounded.”

“What will you . . .”

“I’ll be back when I’ve finished with this lot. Then . . .” He leered at her, old yellow teeth. “Maybe a baby. You see? I’m a poet, too. Maybe you’ll like me now.”

Waela felt the old snake of fear wriggle up her spine.