"Rush" was right. As in, rushing around making sure little Callidei didn't tear the ship apart! She wasn't destructive, exactly; she was, in fact, creative after an odd fashion: she kept finding bits and pieces of things and trying to put them together in childlike fits of inspiration. Most of the time, all she did was make a mess, but when she discovered how to actually pull things from walls, computer panels, and tool racks, she started becoming dangerous.

And, since Ketvia was one of her mothers, she took it upon herself to make sure she didn't hurt herself, anyone else, or the ship in her curious, creative binges. Ketvia might have gotten irritated with the endless "why?"s the child threw at her, but that was nothing compared to rescuing her from an attempt to play with a diamond-bit drill. What in the name of all the gods a geneticist was doing with something like that, Ketvia had no idea, but she gave the poor intern who had left it sitting out and charged up within Callidei's reach a good tongue-lashing.

Chiya wasn't any help, either, because as soon as they'd gotten settled in their new cabin-- human-formed now, because the cabins were small-- with Callidei in tow, as she would be until the novelty of having a daughter wore off for Chiya, the laboratory suddenly began producing eggs. This time, they weren't kept in incubators, instead shifted to the Alpha Bay immediately upon their finalization, and Chiya, rather than being denied access, was actually encouraged to spend time with them, speak with the developing minds within them, and she was positively in heaven. Not a single one of these children would be vague as to who their mother was, and not a single one of them could possibly doubt that she loved them with everything in her sweet little soul. She even ended up forsaking their cramped cabin to sleep curled around her slowly growing collection of shell-bound offspring more often than not.

It was somewhere between so cute and sweet it almost made Ketvia's teeth rot, pathetically sad, and a little guilt-inspiring. Ketvia didn't think she had a single motherly instinct in her-- despite the good doctor's laughing protests to the contrary whenever he caught her rescuing Callidei from her own curiosity again-- and seeing Chiya so blissfully submerged in the joys of motherhood, "unnatural" though it might be, made her wonder if she was actually missing something important. "I'd make a better dad than a mom, sad as it is," she told Chiya now and then. "Give me a few brats to rough-house with, hand them over to me for discipline and protection, and that's it. I don't think I'd know what to do with a kit if it started crying on me."

Chiya would just smile sweetly, pat her friend's cheek, and say, "I'm sure you'd do better than you think."

Well, no matter what the consensus was on her mothering instinct, there was no way Ketvia had the patience to sit around and watch a bunch of eggs, no matter how lively they were mentally. She was really better off chasing down Callidei when she was getting into trouble, bouncing her around on her hind paws while Callidei pretended to be flying, letting her use her for a playground-- fur-pulling and ear-chewing and all-- and things like that. She even ended up on bath-duty, which thankfully wasn't as onerous as it could have been, since Callidei seemed to like baths. At least she didn't complain about getting in, but she certainly splashed enough. Chiya got her for the quiet things: reading her stories, tucking her into bed, and, amusingly, dealing with a lot of questions that Ketvia had no answer for. And, of course, Doctor Schroeder got her for plenty more tests and examinations.

Despite her lack of patience with sitting around the Alpha Bay all day, Ketvia didn't avoid her egg-bound children. She couldn't speak with them very well, not being a natural psionic except possibly in the "traditional" way, to something actually within her own body, but that didn't apply in this case, children of hers or not. Still, they spoke well enough to her, and she had no problems receiving, and Chiya didn't mind relaying, either, for any unborn who weren't good enough to send, on their own.

The first time one of the eggs spoke to her was actually a little startling. Well, more than a little. She'd just come back to the bay, Callidei in tow, after rescuing a delicate little thing called a circuit board from her curious paws. Ketvia wasn't sure what it was, but according to the frantic technicians she'd returned it to, it was important. Callidei had been so disappointed to be deprived of her newest toy that Ketvia, in an attempt to distract her, brought her to visit Mommy. Ketvia wasn't a "Mommy", despite being a mother, not more than once or twice every now and then when Callidei felt particularly affectionate, sleepy, or she just wanted something. And that was just fine with her.

Which was also why it was so surprising that, as the doors to the Alpha Bay slid open to admit her, she heard a ringing laugh and a cry of: "Hi, Mommy!"

Even stranger that it had come from in front of her, rather than her neck, where Callidei was perched, clinging to her messy headfur.

"Uh," Ketvia said blankly, looking around in confusion. Chiya was sitting with their current egg-bound offspring-- numbering three, at the moment-- and giggling helplessly.

"Startled ya, Mommy?" came the voice again, still with a sense of laughter about it.

"What the hell?" Ketvia muttered, confused. No one had spoken, that she'd seen... it was only Chiya, herself, Callidei, and the eggs in the room. Right?

"It's mindspeech, silly," Chiya giggled. "They've been waiting for you to show up to try it out."

"They-- you mean them?" Ketvia nodded towards the trio of round, creamy shells and hidden unborn.

"Of course us!"

Ketvia looked around again, one more time, before recognizing where the "voice" came from: the egg currently to the left of the little threesome. She squinted at it suspiciously. "Can they hear me?"

"Yes, they can," Chiya replied, finally no longer giggling, but still looking annoyingly amused. "I talk to them all the time. Not just telepathically, I mean."

"Good." She stalked up to the egg and growled right against the shell, "Just for startling me like that, as soon as you hatch, I am so going to tickle you until you can't breathe and are begging for mercy."

All three eggs started laughing at that. In her head. And they each sounded different. Goddess of Light, but this was going to take some getting used to!

Chapter Six

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