Well, I’ve slowed down a bit with the story, but here’s the pieces of the next few bits, and the end of this section:

“I hear you two really went at it, last night,” Adelphe said to me, the next morning.

I blushed, “I don’t know what I did!” I whined.

“I don’t think you did anything, dear,” Adelphe said, kissing me. “I think life is just catching up with your dear wife. Actually, I think it is a good thing. I think she is finally settling in and relaxing.”

“And that makes her mad at me?”

“No, silly. She’s not mad at ‘you’ in particular. You are her husband, so you’ve got to expect her to get mad at you from time to time. You all made up, afterwards?”

“I dunno…”

“You kissed and all?” she asked me, and I blushed. I don’t know why. We had lived together practically my whole married life, and she knew well how often we did ‘and all’.

“Yeah, that was no problem.”

“And she wasn’t like, all cold and just told you to ‘hurry up’?”

“No…”

“Well, that’s good then. Come on, you’ve heard other couples fight?”

“Of course,” I said. Good manners always meant that you ignored fights, but, growing up, everyone had fought. And sometimes they would say things that you would just have to pretend you had never heard. Actually one of our Catholic couples had been famous for it. Loud, wide-ranging, fights. Everyone knew they loved each other, and they had a whole passel of kids so it didn’t seem to affect anything else, either.

“But you and Andrew never fight,” I said.

“Sure we do,” Adelphe said. “We do it kind of different, and we are scared of it, because our relationship is kind of uncertain. We got off to a rough start.

“But, but you’re ok, aren’t you?” I asked.

She must have heard my nervousness and came and hugged me. I was glad we were alone, but I was glad for the hug, too.

“We’re fine, Carl! You’re fine too. We’re all young, and learning, and far from home, and facing death every day. It’s Ok if you fight from time to time. Just make sure you tell her you love her.”

“I did!” I said. I had, too. About a dozen times last night.

“Of course you did,” Adelphe said. “Poor Drendida,” she laughed. “I can’t imagine anything more awkward then having to share the tent of a couple who was fighting.”

“Should I…?”

“Nothing you can do. How’s she doing?”

“I dunno, I haven’t heard anything.”

“Well, maybe you had better find out. She is your responsibility.”

Sighing I left the tent.

—

“How did she do?” the woman asked, holding her stomach as if she expected to burst forth at any moment. “About like you’ld expect, for a Newtonian. All cold and clinical. Efficient, knowledgeable, but no real personal touch.”

“She’s probably scared,” I said, surprising even myself.

“What?”

“Well, she may be well trained, but this is kind of her first independent assignment. And she probably finds New Genevan’s as incomprehensible as we find her.”

The lady stopped rubbing her stomach and looked at me. “I never thought of that. Poor dear.”

“But, other than that, she did well?”

“Oh, yes, very professional and knowledgeable. That Newtonian system is amazing. I can’t imagine one of our girls doing that.”

—

Most of the other women said, basically, the same thing.

<Drendida goes swimming>

“Well, this is going better than I had feared,” Bethany said, as Drendida left early the next morning in answer to a page on her com, some mother in labor. “She’s pretty nice.”

“People are still people, no matter where they come from,” I said.

“Whoa!” Bethany said, propping herself up on one elbow. “This,from you?”

“No, from my mother,” I said. “You know we were always traveling around and, one day, I got ticked at this kid from Hallycone, and started talking about kids from strange planets, and she said that.”

“Oh. So much for your wisdom, then.”

“Hey, it still counts as wisdom if I got it from my mother,” I said.

“I guess,” Bethany said.

“Luitenant!” I heard from outside the tent.

“What is it, Private?” I asked, sitting up myself and reaching for my briefs.

“News, Lt.! Meeting.”

“Coming,” I said, pulling on the rest of my uniform.

“Where’s the meeting?” I asked, coming out. “Main tent?”

“Yeah,” the private said.

“What’s it about?”

“Dunno. Some Newtonian bigwig flew in early this morning from that other camp.”

“Seriously?” I asked. “They just got here.”

“Serious as rain,” he said.

—

“Gentlemen,” the colonel said. “We’ve won.”

We all stood around and looked at each other. What had we won?”

“The scouts found us this planet. The soldiers captured us the subjects. The pathfinders found out what had happened. And now these new colonists have put all of the pieces together. Gentlemen, we have won the war. Or, at least we have the keys to our victory in hand. I present to you researcher Ndarin Herscher.”

“We are glad to have been of assistance but, in truth, we did very little. We brought with us one of the most advanced molecular simulators and our role so far has been mostly to plug the research that the pathfinders have done into one end, all sorts of materials that you all have collected into the other end, and punch a few keys.”

He held out a branch, and I (and half the audience) stared forward to look at it. “And this is what came out.”

“That?” Bethany whispered in my ear. “That’s a spice! We had it on our meat, last night.”

I remembered it now. It was kind of a bush, with leaves that were a light green with silver streaks. It made very poor cover, the branches were too far apart and it usually grew only about three feet tall…”

“This is the plant that causes the change that leads to the new type of creature, the one that can’t breed and that kills its own types. This is the plant that we will use to destroy their culture.”

I expected him to stop there, and start talking about, you know, victory, or congratulate everyone, or something. But instead he launched into this big lecture about the plant, where it grew, what kind of soil it needed, what kind of temperature. Finally, after about two hours, the colonel seized a free few seconds and said,

“I think we could all use a bit of a break. Some of us haven’t even gotten to eat yet. So, let’s say that we’ll all come back in about half an hour?”

I grabbed Bethany’s hand and pulled her out. “I don’t’ get it,” I said. “Are we really done? Did we really win? What will we do?”

“What? What do you mean, what will we do?”

“Will the still need soldiers?”

“Will we still need soldiers?” I heard, and a hand slapped me on the back. It was YYY’s father, and he must have heard my question. “Sure we’ll need soldiers, son! This may be the beginning of the end, but it isn’t the end by a long chalk. We’ll have to go to every single enemy planet and plant those silly plants. That will keep us busy for years.”

“Oh,” I said. “Oh, ok.”

“Were you worried, son?”

“Well, a little,” I admitted. “I don’t know how to do anything except soldiering.”

“Oh, well, my friend, don’t worry about that. Our job is secure, very secure, for a long time.”

—

But not on this planet, it seemed. When we walked back into the meeting the colonel called me and several other of the soldiers aside. “New assignment, guys. Our unit, soldiers and pathfinders, will be bugging out in a couple of days. The Newtonians are going to be breeding up this plant and shipping it out. Silly thing is kind of hard to grow. But they’ll get it done, and then ship them out to us. We’re going to bug out, and soon, so you all know the drill.”

I did, indeed. How many times in my life had we ‘bugged out’? Bethany didn’t, so I found myself telling her all about the various aspects of ‘bugging out’.

“Ok, y’all, leaders meeting!”

How annoying, I thought. We had just gotten to the ship, I had gotten my family settled in their beds (we were having to switch to sleep shift) and here I was getting called to another meeting. “See you, love,” I said, kissing Bethany and waving at YYY and his wife, who were, again, right next to us.

“Have a nice meeting,” she said. “I doubt I will get to sleep before you get back.”

“Changing shifts is hard,” I agreed. “But they’ll dim the lights and play some white noise and you’ll get off to sleep eventually.”

“Even without you?” she asked, rubbing her hand up and down my leg. I blushed and hurried off.

—

“Gentlemen,” the colonel said. “Bad news and good news. Bad news, Hallycone has been invaded. Awkward for the Hallyconers, as their planet is just about ideal for the Bn. Good news for us, we soldier types anyway. We’ve been tasked to go out there and help wipe them out.”

He allowed a bit of mumbling and then said, “Carl Tome, front and center please.”

I pushed myself forward, “Sir!” I said, saluting, and the room grew very still as he said,

“Lt. Tome, I’m afraid that I have a very difficult question to ask you. The unit will be splitting up, the pathfinders going one way, the soldiers another. You have been acting as a soldier up to now, but we have been holding your final appointment in abeyance for a while. But I can’t do it any longer. I need you to decide which way you are going to go. You, your wife, your child. Will you go with your adopted family, or with the soldiers you grew up with?”

To my utter shame, I started crying. And I had no idea why.

“Och, me bairne, I’m so sorry,” the colonel said, slipping into dialect and going down to one knee in front of me, where I was staring at the floor. “I’d thought you’d talked it out, you and yours. Its a hard question I be asking you, and none to blame one or the other way. We all knew and loved your Ma and Da, and all the little ones.”

“Yet there be ‘Stina and Adelphe and all, going off. And yours kin, too. None be blaming one or the other way, me bairne.”

What was I to do? I hated Adelphe for who she’d tried to be for me once Mother had died, but I loved her more. And Bethany, leaving all of her family. Coming all this way to join me with Adelphe and then I rip her out?”

“What… what should I do?” I asked, in a hoarse whisper that I hoped only he could hear.

He leaned forward and put his mouth right next to my ear. “We’ll always love ya, ya ken that. Nothing stopping, far be you go. But remember the motto of the CF, for tis a good one that the Lord Himself loves. ‘Family first’, me bairne, ‘family first’. Go and be a brother to Stina yet, till she have her own. You’ll make a fine Pathfinder. Perhaps a few new sims, but you can handle that.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said. “Could you, could you tell them?”

“Aye, that I will,” he said. Then, standing, he faced the crowd, “I present Carl Tome, lt., pathfinders.”

“Hooorah!” everyone yelled and then the colonel dismissed them, and everyone left me alone.

“What happened in the meeting?” Bethany asked me, sleepily, when I crawled in next to her.

“Oh, they told us that Hallycone was invaded,” I said. “The soldiers will be going there to help fight.”

“The soldiers?” she asked, her eyes almost shut. “Are we going with the Pathfinders?”

“Yes, love, we’re going with the Pathfinders,” I answered, putting my arm around her and spooning up in our normal sleep position. “We’ll be going with the Pathfinders…”