Jeanne G'Fellers - No Sister of Mine, Jeanne G'Fellers [best summer reads TXT] 📗

“No you don’t!” Krell’s eyes bounced from the floor to LaRenna. “Tatra says you’re not due for another twenty-one days. The midwives aren’t here yet. You can’t have the baby now!”

“Well, it’s not my idea!” cried LaRenna. “Talk to the child.” She clutched the washbasin as an unexpected tightness formed across her stomach. “Get Tatra. Now! This isn’t going to wait.”

“Let me help you back to bed.”

“Don’t touch me!” LaRenna white-knuckled the basin with both hands until the contraction passed, leaving Krell standing lost by her side. “Dear Mother that hurt. I’m sorry, dearest, I just couldn’t move.”

Krell’s eyes flashed blue sparks of helplessness and frustration. “Is it over? Can I touch you now?”

“Please.”

She scooped LaRenna up and carried her toward the bed. Halfway there, another contraction began and her grip on Krell’s arm became tight enough to leave marks.

“Ow! That’s bare skin!” Krell deposited her on the bed and transferred a blanket to her laboring mate’s shoulders. “I’m going for Tatra.”

“Don’t leave me.”

“I’m just going to the next building.” Krell slid on a tunic and leggings. “I’ll be right back.”

“Take me with you. We’ll go together,” LaRenna pleaded through her practiced breathing. “Please, Krell, I need you.”

Krell sighed, wrapped the blanket snug about her, and scooped her up again. “So you do, Wren bird, so you do. Let’s go.” The main square was empty except for the sentry and she was leaning against one of the lighting poles, fast asleep. Krell made a mental note of the dereliction and kicked at the door of a neighboring apartment. “Carrying you is not at all easy right now.”

“Really?” LaRenna huffed back, deep in another contraction. “I’ll carry you without complaint if you’ll give birth.” The child pushed against its confines, poking tiny knees and elbows into her ribs and back. “Is labor always like this?”

“From what I’ve seen, yes. Who’d have thought the first birthing you would attend would be your own child’s? Blast it! Tatra, open up!”

The door hatch hissed open and there stood Firman, dressed only in his leggings, standing in the dim glow of the room beyond. “Krell?”

She pushed past him to lay LaRenna on the front room’s lounger. “Fancy seeing you here, Fir. As much as I would love to razz you right now, and I guarantee I will later, we need Tatra.”

“I’m here. It’s not time, is it?” Tatra appeared wearing only Firman’s tunic. “How far apart are her pains?”

Krell’s answer was almost drowned by LaRenna’s sudden cry. “Close, and her water broke.”

Tatra smoothed back LaRenna’s unruly curls until the contraction eased. “How long have you been having them?”

“Not long. I woke up feeling as if I would burst if I didn’t get to the facilities. The waters ruptured as soon as I got in there.” LaRenna patterned her breathing as the tightness began again. Tatra gently stroked her hair until it passed. The pains were quicker and more intense than she had been taught, LaRenna barely able to catch her breath between them.

“Better?” She patted LaRenna’s hand. “Appears you slept through the initial stage, unusual but not unheard of. I believe you’re in transition. We’d best get you to the birthing suite. Your raisers will be highly disappointed if you don’t make use of it after all the effort they poured into its construction.”

“I don’t care where I have it!” moaned LaRenna through gritted teeth. She was being squeezed again only this time the pain radiated from her back. “Just get her out of me!”

“Krell, you and I’ll take her to the med unit.” Tatra ran back into the bedroom to slide on her skirt and slippers. She returned with Firman’s boots and cloak. “Here, Firman, send a sentry to the Autlach settlement in the foothills and bring back their midwife, and hurry! She’s close to delivering.”

“My shirt, Tat. It’s cold out.”

Tatra rushed back to the bedroom and quickly changed tops. “Here, chilly man. Get going. Ready, Krell?”

“Yes.” Krell reached down to pick up LaRenna, but was fiercely pushed away—both physically and mentally. “Don’t touch me!” LaRenna clutched the back of the lounger, her knees drawn toward her chest as she struggled for air. “I’m not going . . . ooh . . . to be able to wait for . . . Ow! . . . the midwife or the birth suite. This child is coming NOW!”

“Change of plans, Firman.” Tatra retook her place at LaRenna’s head to support her patient’s shaking torso. “Bring my emergency kit and some towels from the bed suite. Get that sentry going, then wake Belsas and Chandrey. They’re about to become grandparents.”

“We’re not doing this in your front room!” cried Krell.

“We are,” replied the healer. “And you’re going to deliver it unless the midwife hurries up. You’ve done it before.”

“Not my own child! This is different!”

“No, it’s not.” Firman dropped the medical kit and an armload of towels by Tatra’s side. “It’s merely a more personal experience. Back in a flash.”

The entire compound sprang to life with Firman’s courtyard ranting. It wasn’t time to sleep! The first true Taelach child was being born.

Tatra laughed as his bellows reverberated throughout the compound. “I don’t know who’s more excited, Krell or Uncle Firman.” LaRenna leaned against her, struggling through another backbreaking contraction. At her feet, Krell had pulled the blanket back and was making a quick internal exam.

“I can see the head!” She smiled up from between LaRenna’s splayed legs. “The hair’s Taelach white and there’s lots of it!”

“She fully dilated?” Tatra was far more concerned about that than hair color.

“Yes, she is,” said Krell. “Push whenever you’re ready, love.”

“How about now?” LaRenna groaned as she tried to force the infuriating presence from her body.

“Remember to breathe, wren bird.”

“That’s the least of my worries!” Sweat beaded on LaRenna’s pale forehead. “I’m pushing out a damn ground melon!”

Tatra rubbed on her patient’s taut stomach, trying to soothe away some of the pain with a phase. No, LaRenna, it’s just a baby. Autlach women have been doing this