* * *

I return to my quarters to find my wife at the computer. She looks up at me and then back down at her work.

“Busy?” I ask.

“You’re receiving a lot of cryptic messages, you know? I don’t know how to reply. They aren’t the usual, ‘We had a baby’ or ‘someone has died’ kinds of things.”

“Mark them for me, and I will look at them,” I tell her. These messages aren’t surprising to me, given what I am planning. There’s no question that people on the Home Planet have heard whispers about it.

“Is something going on?”

“You know what is going on,” I say.

“I know you are planning on expanding your fleet with Imperial help, but this looks like more than that.”

“I don’t want you to worry any more than necessary.” I walk over to her and turn off the computer. “You are carrying our children, our future. Trust me to do my job, and you do yours.”

“Your job affects mine,” she says.

Ever since she saw the Imperial doctor, I have noticed that she has become more vocal about her place as a female in society. She has said that she always had these thoughts, but the hormones of pregnancy don’t allow her to contain them anymore. I think the Imperial doctor shifted something in her mind to make her less afraid to be vocal. I don’t mind because nothing of what she said isn’t true, even if I find it uncomfortable and unchangeable.

“It does,” I reply. “And that is why I do not want you to know too much. I do not want you to have to worry about the babies and me. I trust you to do what is right for yourself and the children.”

“I think my ignorance makes it worse because I don’t know,” she tries again.

“It does not,” I assure her. And I am resolute in this. “Now, let’s leave this conversation. Would you like to have a bath together?”

I can see on her face that she has mixed emotions about it. “Only if you promise to tell me something. I don’t know about all of this. It’s my greatest fear that you will die before you see your children. Remember the day I met you? Someone was trying to kill you.”

“This is why I don’t want you thinking about my work,” I say.

“I can’t help it,” she says.

I lead her into the bathroom and start a warm bath. Then I begin undressing her. I blow across her naked abdomen, stretched further than I thought possible with our children inside. She puts her hands in my hair, and I know we are going to spend the next couple of hours being very kind to one another.

CHAPTER 35

VOLUNTEER 4711

It’s my worst nightmare. “I can’t do this,” I say to the doctor. I can hear the Imperial doctor in the corner giving advice as well over a computer screen, but I removed my translator, so I don’t know what he’s saying.