Damia's Children Read Free Page B

without effort. The ’Dinis clicked and wriggled enthusiastically—Tip almost falling off its bench in its exuberance.
    Laria, you must also become familiar with the management of Mrdini ground effects machines,
Damia added, cocking her head in her daughter’s direction.
I’ll arrange that with the Coordinators.
    Then I will be going to Mrdini?
    Damia nodded, a resigned twitch to her lips.
That has always been the plan. Thian will follow when he reaches sixteen. You will be the first
young
Human to go.
She sent a flood of pride and encouragement to her eldest child. Then she, in turn, felt the warmth of love and reassurance from Afra, salving the ache of that separation.
    Sixteen is old enough for one of us,
Afra said in the very tight focus that meant his thought was for her alone. She was also aware of his mental caress.
    I was no older when I was sent to Altair,
she answered as discreetly.
    The difference being that Laria does not resent the duty.
    I think we’ve done what we could to be sure she wouldn’t,
Damia added with a resigned sigh.
You’ve made such a good father.
    Afra grinned openly, his smile including every child at the table.
They’ve had their mother’s help.
    I shall miss her, though.
    Why? She’ll be only a thought away.
    It’s the thought that she will BE away.
Damia diverted herself by ’porting the dirty dishes from the table and extracting the final course from the larder.
    With the exception of Terran bee honey, the Mrdinis did not find sweets palatable. Honey was, however, a luxury item
when
it was available. So, while the Humans ate fruit, the ’Dinis cracked nuts and picked the meats out of the shells or nibbled at the unsweetened mealy crackers, made of imported ’Dini flour that Damia baked for them. From time to time, ’Dini delicacies were shipped to the exchange personnel but today was not an occasion.
    DAMIA! Keylarion called and the Aurigaen Tower’s T-6 managed to cram excitement and alarm into her shout for the Prime.
    Damia and Afra immediately excused themselves and ’ported down the slope to the Tower control center where the generators were beginning their upward climb to full power.
    â€œEarth Prime ordered me to get you both here,” Keylarion said.
    Father?
Damia sent across the vastness of space, her thought boosted by gestalt with the generators and Afra’s immediately accessible T-2 thrust.
    Mrdini scouts have crossed the path of three Hive Ships!
Jeff Raven said.
    Three?
the Damia-Afra link cried in an almost fearful tone.
    Three! The theory is that these must have originated from the Home System for their directions began to diverge just as the Mrdini scout ship crossed their ion trail. Fortunately the scout was well out from any Alliancecolonies or worlds. The Hivers are heading even further out.
    The Damia-Afra link let out a cheer, all apprehension dissolved at this tremendous news. For fifteen years both Mrdini and Nine Star League ships, now called the Alliance, had been probing systems to locate the homeworld of the Hive Culture, aliens whose prime directive of ruthless propagation of their species had once attempted to invade the Mrdini colony in its Sef solar system. The attack had been repulsed but only with the extreme sacrifice of ’Dini ships and personnel. The colony had been devastated and had to be rebuilt and repopulated. Thereafter ’Dini had kept ships in constant patrol about their colonized worlds and sent out squadrons to patrol nearby space and make sure no Hive ship ever got so close to a ’Dini world again. Over two centuries they had maintained such a vigil, constantly expanding the parameters of “safe space,” their whole culture dominated by the dire threat of Hive penetration.
    The Mrdinis had also searched vainly for allies of sufficient spatial sophistication to aid them. The resources of their home and colony planets had been stretched to the utmost in