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474. DR. JOHN GREENLEES, M.D. Doctor John, as he was generally known, washed his hands and frowned. Valkyrie Six -- or, rather, Sarah Hake -- slipped easily back into her flight suit, zipped up her boots, shrugged and wiggled to get the wrinkles out of flight-suit nylon, picked up her helmet and carried it all of three feet: for all that they could manufacture an incredible array of things, they were underground, and expanding Doc's infirmary was scheduled but not yet accomplished: in the meantime, to go from the examining room to his office, one needed only turn around and take two steps. Sarah did, and Sarah sat, and Doc handed her a mug of fresh ground coffee. "We're growing our own beans now," he said, "this is from native stock!" Sarah sipped the steaming, scalding, sinner's-heart-black beverage, closed her eyes and hummed with pleasure. "Now. As far as your honored self," Dr. Greenlees said, tenting an eyebrow and regarding her sternly. "I can find no ill effects from radiation. Your flight suit apparently protected you from that." "That, or I was in the ejection seat's shadow." "I understand it was melted." "The bottom, yes." "Better the seat's bottom than your bottom," Dr. Greenlees said frankly. "I have it on good authority that a certain young man likes your contours just the way they are." Sarah nodded, her face carefully neutral. "I do have a concern." He tapped a few keys, scrolled through one file, another, then stopped: he read, frowned, looked at Sarah. "Tell me about that field effect." "It's something we didn't expect," Sarah admitted. "It's a gravity field. If we can expand it, the brightoys think it'll be a ... bubble universe, and they're pushing their theories to try and believe it'll make faster than light travel a reality." Dr. Greenlees' eyebrow lowered, raised slowly as he digested this development. "For now, though, we can get close to an asteroid with maneuvering thrusters, we can engage the reactor and the field effect skirts out around us and pulls us together. Given that we can vary its strength, we can pretty much lock onto an asteroid and fire our engines, move it into a different trajectory. Aim it for the furnaces and away from collision with home." "And that's how Valkyrie One got you home." "Yeah." Sarah grimaced. "I can't recommend being flattened against an Interceptor hull as my preferred means of travel, but it beat running out of air!" "It also beat hell out of your knees." "I know. The bruises are starting to color up nicely." "I'm not seeing any other injuries, Sarah, but would you know how many rads you absorbed while you were stuck to the side of the ship?" "None that I know of," Sarah said slowly, turning her head as if to bring a good ear to bear. "Why?" "You're pregnant." Silence hung long in the colony's underground infirmary as a grin unwound from its hiding place and painted the pilot's face with delight. "Boy or girl?" she asked, her face shining, the color rising in her cheeks. "It's early yet, but this early in the pregnancy, you'll be very susceptible to radiation damage." "I'll fly the droneship, then. It's flown by remote and I can do that with no risk to my baby." The physician's ear pulled back as if tugged by an invisible thumb-and-forefinger. She was already owning the child as her own: my baby, she'd said. Not "The Child." My Baby. "I will leave it to you," Dr. John said slowly, "to give the news. In the meantime, try to stay away from exploding reactors." Less than 70 seconds later, there was a full-throated, female-voiced "EEYAAAHOOO!" out in the hall, and Dr. John Greenlees smiled, for he'd done exactly that same thing when he found his own bride was with child. At least she waited until the door shut before she cut loose with her celebration. Sheriff Marnie Keller sewed the bride's dress, and gave her the earrings to wear. The bride's mother played the traditional wedding march, and the equally traditional recessional. It seemed fitting that the Second Martian Colony, having renamed itself Firelands, celebrated a wedding with a mountain fiddler playing "Turkey in the Straw" as bride and groom danced in sweeping circles, waltzing down the aisle, as the rest of the colony rose and began to dance as well. Something water-clear and not over 30 days old chuckled out of the stainless-steel carafe into Marnie's clear-plastic cup. "Potatoes," Dzerinski complained. "They always ask if we grow potatoes. Of COURSE we grow potatoes! How else will the Rus produce vodka?" Marnie waited until their circle all had filled their glasses, then she raised hers. "The hell with long winded toasts," she declared loudly. "L'CHIEM!" "L'CHIEM!" came the return shout, and newly distilled, unaged, raw distillate of fermented taters seared its way down the several gullets. Marnie Keller's eyes watered, she stifled the need to cough, opened her mouth, and a little puff of smoke escaped her lips: "Smooth," she wheezed, and had everyone else not had the same experience, her statement would have been greeted with polite laughter: as it was, the assembled -- pilots, parents, engineers, technicians, friends, family and everyone else -- privately decided that this was one really good reason why the did not drink! Marnie patted Dzerinski's arm. "Good recipe," she gasped. "Don't change a thing!" "Another?" the grinning Russian offered, raising the carafe, and Marnie waved him off, gasping a little and dropping her plastic cup in the Ripper bin. "I think I need to find my husband."

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