-Chapter Four-

A few days passed before Anthea stiffened her resolve and approached Kati.

"Do you remember much about your mother's death?"

Kati paused in pinning the sleeve of a shirt in place. "To be honest, I do not remember her at all. I was only a little older than Nolan when she died. I know that Khan has better memories, but he, too, does not remember her much. I do know that he took her death very hard."

"What do you know about what happened?"

Her sister-in-law put down the shirt and leaned back in her chair. "There was an explosion at the lab where she worked. Khan thinks she was working to fix my epilepsy, as he is, but we do not know for sure. The explosion caused a fire, one that no one could get through to even attempt to save her."

Anthea nodded, attention half-drawn to Nolan where he lay in his playpen in the shade, gnawing on a cracker. "And where was Khan during this?"

Kati frowned. "I do not know, actually. Why do you ask?"

"Just something he said a few nights ago. Got me to thinking. It's nothing, really."

Khan may have been the leader, and regarded by his men as supreme commander and emperor-which made Anthea snort to herself whenever one of the men addressed him that way, regardless of his past status as such or not-but he looked after his people first and foremost. He waited 'til they all had cabins built, proper shelters rather than flimsy tents, to start work on their own home.

Anthea brought him lunch while he and Otto took a break from digging a shallow foundation. With Nolan on her knee, they ate in companionable silence, broken only by Nolan attempting to steal some of his mother's lunch.

"I've been thinking about something you said," she told her husband, when he took Nolan from her.

"Oh?"

"When you had that nightmare about your mother? You said that you were trying to reach her and couldn't, because it was too hot."

He frowned. "I do not remember much about the dream."

"What if . . . it was a memory? Is it possible you were there that day?"

Khan turned those intense eyes her way and regarded her in bemusement. "I have no recollection of it."

"Everything you've told me about what happened has been a . . . historical, third-person account. What you were told growing up. Except that dream. If she was experimenting using your DNA, it would make sense for you to have been there. They didn't have DNA replicators then, did they? Everything had to be with a large sample."

"Nearly everything," he said with a nod. "It was so primitive compared to today. I . . . I'm not sure, to be perfectly honest. I have no memory of that day, at all. I remember only . . . being told she was dead."

He froze so suddenly that Nolan reached up and patted his face, saying, "Dada?"

"What is it?" his wife asked.

"I just remembered something. When they told me she was gone, I was in a white room, in a white bed. I always thought it was one of the rooms at the . . . centre where Kati and I were raised after her death, but now that I think about it, it wasn't. It was a hospital. Why was I in a hospital?"

"Maybe you were there. Perhaps you were injured in the fire?"

His expression was suddenly troubled. "Perhaps. I will need to think about this more."

Anthea reached over and rubbed his shoulder. "If you need to talk it out, you know I'm up for it."

"This is a lot hotter than England," Anthea complained. "When is it going to be fall?"

"We chose a warmer area," Khan reminded her. "I'm not familiar with the seasons here, and given our latitude, I wouldn't expect cooler weather for a while."

She groaned. "It's giving me a headache. I think I'm going indoors, where it's cool."

He lifted a brow. "It isn't *that* hot."

"It's hot if I say it's hot!" she retorted. "Ugh. Go do shirtless, manly things."

"Wouldn't you rather watch me do those shirtless, manly things?" he asked with mild amusement.

"Maybe later. I'm going to see if Yves has anything for this headache."

She was almost to the ship when it hit her. She hadn't been nauseated in so long, it was a complete surprise to find herself stopping on the path, stomach clenching, to fight a wave of the unpleasant sensation.

In fact, she hadn't been nauseated since she'd had morning sickness with Nolan . . .

Trying to keep her excitement tamped down, Anthea hurried aboard the ship. It had been easier, she recalled, to test for pregnancy back on Earth. Even in the twenty-third century, it didn't get much simpler than peeing on a stick that said "pregnant" or "not pregnant".

She didn't have one of those, hadn't thought about it. She knew it was because, subconsciously, she hadn't wanted to think about the logistics of having a baby on a distant colony, far from Earth. She really should have taken that into account.

"Yves," she ventured, as she entered the medbay. "How would I go about setting some of this equipment for a specific test?"

The doctor tilted his head, eyeing her. "What kind of test, Madame Khan?"

"Please, Anthea is more than adequate." It bothered her more than a little to know that some of Khan's crew took the meaning of his name, ruler, literally and used it as a title. "I need a pregnancy test."

His pale blonde brows arched up. "Oui? Does Khan know?"

"He knows we're trying. He doesn't know I suspect. I'd . . . like to surprise him a little."

"Ahh. I see." He smiled and gestured for her to come over to his station. "We can test by blood, just a little prick-ha ha, still funny even now!-of the finger-"

"Ow!"

Yves caught a drop of her blood from the tip of her finger in a little container. "Yes, well, not as delicate as the extractor, but it does not take much. Perhaps, one day we will have the ability to sense it with a scanner, but it is not this day."

He took the blood sample and popped it into one of his machines, humming a tune she didn't recognise under his breath. "Ahh! And here we are! You see, it is like those crude tests but without the indignity, checking the hormone levels in blood instead of . . . the urine."

"Which is appreciated," she said dryly. "What does it say, Yves?"

He turned the screen her way. "Your suspicions are correct, madame. Indeed, vous êtes enceinte!"

Well, that hadn't taken them long at all, had it?

She found Khan working with Otto and a man named Joachim-a blonde, obnoxious man she'd taken an instant dislike to, though he was oblivious-on what was to be their home. It was larger than the others, with several bedrooms plotted out. They had the foundation down now-made of large, flat river stones-and the support beams up, nailing them into place with little effort.

She watched them work for several minutes, grateful she'd brought hundreds of thousands of nails. She'd had no idea how many it would take, or how many structures they'd need, so she'd planned generously on nearly everything.

Otto was the first to notice her. "Kaiserin!" he exclaimed. "It is unsafe!"

"I'm well outside the reach of any beams," she assured him. "May I have a moment with my husband?"

"Certainly!" Otto said, and dragged a protesting Joachim away.

Khan set his hammer down on the work table and wiped sweat from his brow. His black hair fell in his eyes and he impatiently swept it back. He was shirtless, as she'd jokingly suggested, and glistened in the afternoon sun. Anthea never got tired of looking at him, especially like this.

"What did you need?" he asked. He picked up one of the reusable bottles they'd brought, currently filled with water, and took a drink.

"Oh, I just wanted to see how things were going . . ." She stepped to the "doorway". "Is it safe to come in?"

"As long as you do not step into the hole where we've laid the cellar," he said. "This is the living area, and over here will be the kitchen. The cellar is beneath it. This, er, room will be my workspace, and here, a room for you for . . . whatever you'll need one for."

"And I'm guessing this large space will be our bedroom?"

He nodded. "Big enough for the bed you brought from Earth."

"I couldn't possibly leave that, now, could I?" she asked with a grin. "I have very fond memories of that bed."

Khan smirked. "As do I. Now, this will be, I think, Nolan's room, though he's too small to truly appreciate having his own space."

"And . . . two other rooms? Is one a nursery?"

His blue eyes went from the rudimentary floorplan to his wife's face. "If we need one. Do we need one?"

She couldn't have kept a secret from him if her life had depended on it. Anthea bit her lip, grinned, and nodded.

Khan dropped the bottle and hauled her into his arms to kiss her passionately. She laughed against his mouth, hugging him tightly. He never kissed her in public, not like this. It was nice.

He backed her against the nearest support beam. Anthea hadn't done anything about her earlier headache, but she forgot it with his body pressing against hers like this. If their new house had had walls, she probably would have encouraged him to take her on the floor.

"A child," he said, when he put her down. "Another child."

"Yes. Let's not tell anyone just yet, but yes." She didn't want to share their joy with anyone at the moment, wanted to hoard her happiness. "Just a little while. I want it just between us, only for a little while."

"Mm. I'm good at keeping secrets. This one, though, I may have a bit of trouble with."

They stood in the framework of their home and held each other, and Anthea reflected that life really couldn't get much better than they had things right then.

Still, in the back of her mind, she wondered when the other shoe would fall.