Miles, Mutants and Microbes - Lois McMaster Bujold [87]
Mama Nilla's eyes glinted. She held out her left arm with the quaddie attached, blue eyes peering in fright at Leo around Mama Nilla's sturdy bicep. "Are you going to take this little girl to the bathroom, then?"
The quaddie girl and Leo stared at each other in equal horror. "Certainly not," the engineer choked. He looked around "Another quaddie will. Claire . . . ?"
After a barracuda-like investigation, Andy chose this moment to begin wailing protests at the lack of expected milk from his mother's breasts. Claire tried to soothe him, patting his back; she felt like crying herself for his disappointment.
"I don't suppose," Dr. Minchenko interjected mildly, "that you would care to come along with us, Liz? There would be no going back, of course."
"Us?" Mama Nilla regarded him sharply. "Are you going along with this nonsense?"
"I rather think so."
"That's all right, then." She nodded.
"But you can't—" Leo began.
"Graf," Dr. Minchenko said, "did your little depressurization drama just now give these ladies any reason to think they were still going to have air to breathe if they stayed with their quaddies?"
"It shouldn't have," said Leo.
"I didn't even think about it," said one of the crèche mothers, looking suddenly dismayed.
"I did," said the other, frowning at Leo.
"I knew there were emergency air supplies in the gym module," said Mama Nilla, "it's in the regular drill, after all. The whole department ought to have come here."
"I diverted 'em," said Leo shortly.
"The whole department should have told you to go screw yourself," Mama Nilla added evenly. "Allow me to speak for the absent." She smiled icily at the engineer.
One of the crèche mothers addressed Mama Nilla in distress. "But I can't come with you. My husband works downside!"
"Nobody's asking you to!" roared Leo.
The other crèche mother, ignoring him, added to Mama Nilla, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Liz, I just can't. It's just too much."
"Yes, exactly." Leo's hand hesitated over a lump in his coveralls, abandoned it, and switched to trying to herd them all along with broad arm-waving gestures.
"It's all right girls, I understand," Mama Nilla soothed their evident anxiety. "I'll stay and hold the fort, I guess. Got nobody waiting for this old body, after all," she laughed. It was a little forced.
"Will you take over the department, then?" Dr. Minchenko confirmed with Mama Nilla. "Keep it going any way you can—come to me when you can't."
She nodded, looking withdrawn, as if the bottomless complexity of the task before her was just beginning to dawn.
Dr. Minchenko took charge of the quaddie boy with the still-oozing cut on his forehead; Leo at last successfully pried loose the other two downsider women, saying, "Come on. I have to go empty the vegetable cooler next."
"With all this going on, what is he doing spending time cleaning out a refrigerator?" Mama Nilla muttered under her breath. "Madness . . ."
"Mama Nilla, I gotta go now." The little quaddie wrapped all her arms tightly around her torso by way of emphasis, and Mama Nilla perforce broke away.
Andy was still wailing his indignant disappointment in intermittent bursts.
"Hey, little fellow," Dr. Minchenko paused to address him, "that's no way to talk to your mama. . . ."
"No milk," explained Claire. Glumly, feeling dreadfully inadequate, she offered him the bottle, which he batted away. When she attempted to detach him momentarily in order to dive after it, he wrapped himself around her arm and screamed frantically. One of the five-year-olds twisted up and put all four of his hands over his ears, pointedly.
"Come with us to the infirmary," said Dr. Minchenko with an understanding smile. "I think I have something that will fix that problem. Unless you want to wean him now, which I don't recommend."
"Oh, please," said Claire hopefully.
"It will take a couple of days to get your systems interlocked