The Loranth (Star Sojourner Book 1) by Jean Kilczer Page A

up, stroking Silk, who had a deep gash in her right hind leg and stood shaking.
    Christine brushed soggy hair back from her face and glared at me. But not before I caught the look of startled relief. I repressed a smile as I thought of Venus, the way Venus would really look if she came in on a seashell, trembling with cold, water streaming down goose-bumped arms and dripping off the tip of her red nose.
    Yeth F'Aron was already on his way to easier hunting grounds with Trump, and Pike, our swift long-jawed amphibian, coaxing him in the right direction.
    Buj, our small nervous crotemunger, paced restlessly, tongue lolling as he sniffed the scent of blood which still oozed from Silk's wound. The pouch of stored liquid and fat beneath Buj's neck sagged and flapped thinly. We were all hungry. Silk's mate, Faun, kept a wary eye on Buj.
    “We should get her out of the rain,” I told Christine. “Someplace warm and dry.” I looked at her deep wound and wished that I had the means to suture it.
    “We can't leave here until Pike and Trump return. The family stays together.” There was an edge to her voice I could've shaved with.
    I rubbed my cheek and was surprised at the heavy growth. A narctressus leaf fluttered down. I picked it up and sat with my back against the tree and spread the broad leaf on one knee. Beneath the waxy green skin were photosynthetic tissues composed of cells crowded with chloro…chloroplasts, I suddenly knew! The leaf had been partially ravaged by insects who favored the soft tissue. The red smear near the stem was an… an accumulation of sugar the plant would use for nourishment! I felt a burst of excitement. My finger shook as I traced green veins, carriers of water and food. I chuckled.
    It must have been the pure water I'd drunk. Beyond the tree, rain silvered the view, but within my mind the vistas were clearing. Memories, thoughts, glimpses of incidents long past. I closed my eyes.
    Walls of the birthing room dilate with pink and blue holos of children. Holo of a young mother singing lullabies to her nursing infant. Aroma of powder, spring flowers, emanating from floor vents. Althea doing breathing exercises, her pale cheeks hollowing as she purses them to pant out quick breaths. We could have birthed our child in an artificial egg, even watched the fetus develop.
    “I'm a woman, not a hen,” Althea retorted when I'd suggested it, then told me she wanted to feel life inside her, to cradle our child with her body. She writes poetry too.
    A strong contraction. She squeezes in a breath and digs nails into my hand so hard she draws blood. I grit my teeth and bear it. When the contraction is over she smiles wearily. Strands of auburn hair stick to her damp forehead. “I'm sorry, Jay,” she whispers, “I guess that's what they call sympathy pains.”
    I wipe her forehead as another contraction hits, and I take her hand again. “Dig in all you want, Al, if it helps.”
    “Jay. Oh Jules!” she cries, and I hold her and whisper the poem she translated from Sappho in her own interpretation, and asked me to learn for the birthing:
    “I have a child, as fair as golden flowers is she, my little Lisa/Julian, all my care. I'd not give her away for Lydia's wide sway, nor lands that men yearn for.'
    She didn't want to know whether it was a boy or a girl either.
    And then the birth. How do you describe that? A piece of the great mystery. Five fingers per hand, five toes per foot. I remember thinking the pattern had held! My little girl, my Lisa. They even let me hold her. God, she was ugly. Blotchy. All wrinkled. Screaming her head off at the indignity of having to enter this world of cold and glaring light and the weight of her own body, like a fish being dragged ashore.
    I opened my eyes, leaned back against the tree and tried to picture Lisa's face. I saw only Ginny's.
    Silk was staggering and she hung her head. I watched Buj pace in tight circles. I never liked crotemungers. It's the way dark oil