Nichole 5, being retrospective, is kind enough to make a short summary of many of my books. After that, they find themselves retracing the path which Allie took. I’m glad she showed up, otherwise, with the drone under human control, it would have taken another 5,000 words to complete this segment. As it is, we’ll be finished here on the surface on Wednesday and back underground Friday.

I’d no idea Nichole slept (so to speak) with Gil Haven’s son, Joe. As a Model 5 – the first designed to fit seamlessly into human society – she has no sexual desire or response, per se. But, as a person, she wants those she loves to feel happy. Statistically, Joe is likely dead of age by now. This MS has covered a lot of time, and I really need to think about where I’m going once this is finished.

[And no, the hyperlinks will not be in the final version]

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Sundström followed her and after a short conversation, went down the hill to supervise the splice work.  Feeling a little cold, Kira got a mug of hot tea with a bit of butter from one of the techs and went back inside.  Nichole was still standing perfectly still, but she took a seat.

“I apologize for my initial reaction to your arrival,” the Midwife said a bit formally.  “I do not need political headaches at this point in time.”

“Point in time,” Nichole echoed with a grin.  “You really just said that?  Here on Mars?”

“At this very moment, Miss Clarke,” she replied with a smile, leaning back, “you are probably in possession of more secret information than anyone except Aqua and Reina.”

“I am very good at keeping my mouth shut, as you well know.”

“Unless you’re using it on the Haven men!  No, that’s a report I’ve seen:  you slept with the father and son, you shameless woman!” she laughed.

“They were both adults and that was twenty years apart,” Nichole replied, eyes dancing at the memory.  “I never wanted to tell the son his dad was better.”

“What was the boy’s name?  That was, what nearly fifty years ago, right?”

“Joe.  Trained under me, don’t laugh, and did some mining on the moon before going back home to Oregon Province.  That, now, of course a part of your Russian Empire’s hegemony.”

“I am a part of the imperial family by blood, Nichole, but I am Martian,” she flat contradicted her, setting her tea down.  “My place and duty is here.”

“I apologize, Midwife,” the android said with a dip of her head.

After a pause, Kira stood to get more tea, but paused next to her guest.

“Your surface is in amazing condition for you being nearly a century old,” she said, lightly touching the other’s face.  “I’d have thought cosmic ray damage from your years in space…”

“This is the third exterior covering I have had,” Nichole explained.  “While Model Twelves and some later have living skin, mine is rather antique.  Were it not my connexion to our imperial family, Somi would have shut down production a generation ago.”

“Yes, your connexions,” Kira said, dropping her hand.  “After all this time, you must have known and know everyone.  And now, most everything.”

After a look, Nichole leaned forward to give Kira a quick kiss.

“I met Clive Barrett when he had just come back to the chaos of the Breakup of the former US to find his missing daughter.  A daughter whose daughter became Empress Faustina.  I flew her brother to the South China Sea to save the world with Arpad Rigó, husband of Barrett’s other daughter, Lily.  So, yes, I am in some way tied to this family.” She lifted her hand to give a friendly flick to the Midwife’s nose.  “And Barrett traveled with that cursed heart, poor Maya Dennou.  Who nearly killed Anton Alvarez Junior, the great-grandfather of Alicia, who we are rescuing.”

A sigh.

“There was no way I could not be here, Midwife Kira Romanov.”

Having only known some of all that, Kira blinked at her tears.  Getting more tea, the Chief Engineer huffed it up the hill and told her they were ready to proceed.

“Your vehicle,” Kira said to Nichole.

Having been studying the image while the splicing and checks went on, the android moved the drone out smartly.  In seconds it was at an opening.

“Good Lord,” Sundström said, looking at the screen and the lake glowing white and silver.  He shook his head when the image suddenly went left, right, up, down.

“I know you are recording this,” Nichole explained, “but I wanted to take a quick look about as fast as I could.  Did you keep up, Kira?”

“Not even,” she admitted.  “We’ll look at the frame-by-frame later.  Carry on.  Wait.  What’s that to the left?”

“That is a building.  And that means someone built it.” She looked to Kira.  “What do you feel, Midwife?”

The demi-human closed her eyes, feeling.

“Plants… some kind of fish?” she muttered.  “There’s something else, but faint.  Nothing of Allie.”

“I’m moving toward the building,” Nichole announced.  “There’s no way to keep the cables from dragging into the water; that taught over five klicks, they would break.  Let’s hope this is water and not acidic.”