Diplomatic Immunity - Lois McMaster Bujold [144]
"He seems so small."
"What, four point one kilos!" chortled Miles's mother. "He's a little bruiser, he is. You were half that size when you were taken out of the replicator." She continued with an unflattering description of Miles at that moment that Ekaterin not only ate up, but encouraged.
A lusty yowl from the replicator table made Miles start; he looked up eagerly. Helen Natalia announced her arrival in no uncertain terms, waving freed fists and howling. The obstetrician completed his examination and pressed her rather hastily into her mother's reaching arms. Miles stretched his neck. Helen Natalia's dark, wet wisps of hair were going to be as auburn as promised, he fancied, when they dried.
With two babies to go around, all the people lined up to hold them would have their chances soon enough, Miles decided, accepting Helen Natalia, still making noise, from her grinning mother. They could wait a few more moments. He stared at the two bundles more than filling his lap in a kind of cosmic amazement.
"We did it," he muttered to Ekaterin, now perching on the chair arm. "Why didn't anybody stop us? Why aren't there more regulations about this sort of thing? What fool in their right mind would put me in charge of a baby? Two babies?"
Her brows drew together in quizzical sympathy. "Don't feel bad. I'm sitting here thinking that eleven years suddenly seems longer that I realized. I don't remember anything about babies."
"I'm sure it'll all come back to you. Like, um, like flying a lightflyer."
He had been the end point of human evolution. At this moment he abruptly felt more like a missing link. I thought I knew everything. Surely I knew nothing. How had his own life become such a surprise to him, so utterly rearranged? His brain had whirled with a thousand plans for these tiny lives, visions of the future both hopeful and dire, funny and fearful. For a moment, it seemed to come to a full stop. I have no idea who these two people are going to be.
Then it was everyone else's turn, Nikki, the Countess, the Count. Miles watched enviously his father's sure grip of the infant on his shoulder. Helen Natalia actually stopped screaming there, reducing the noise level to one of more generalized, desultory complaint.
Ekaterin slipped her hand into his and gripped tightly. It felt like free falling into the future. He squeezed back, and soared.
Diplomatic Immunity
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EPILOGUE