Igrain could see he wanted to go on with this thought, but he stopped himself.
“But you are real.” She squeezed his hand. “You feel and you have a heart.”
“Those things can be made.”
“Feelings?”
“Programmed to imitate.”
She tried to laugh his excuses off, but couldn’t help understanding. “I feel that way sometimes.”
Now Merlin scoffed. He shook his head. “You are a human. Being such, you are entitled to commodities like feelings and emotion. Not logic so much, but everyone has faults.”
She genuinely smiled now. “I know you have feelings.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised to find out I don’t.”
Choosing to ignore this last comment, Igrain walked up to Excalibur and examined it up and down in the sunlight. It was beautiful and yet frightening. And even more so if what Pellinore had said was true. But that would mean more questions. If Uther’s heir already lived somewhere, where was the child?
“Has Uther had a romantic affair I don’t know about?” she asked Merlin. “You know his every move. Was there anyone before me?”
“Never before you,” he answered honestly.
Then who? she wondered. She stretched her hand out and stroked the mecha’s hand. A sudden surge of energy made her limbs spasm and take hold of the mecha tightly. The shock ran up her arm and into her torso with electric violence. With a tiny scream, she fell backward and gasped for air.
After panting for a moment, she realized her lungs had momentarily constricted. Her breath eased, but then a new terror seized her. Looking down, she saw the entire white front of her dress drenched in mysterious fluids.
“Merlin!” she cried.
“Are you hurt?” Merlin’s hands twitched around the apparently wounded area as he tried to avoid touching her rudely. “What has happened?”
“Ah!” Igrain screamed at the top of her lungs, clutching her stomach. Suddenly, it felt as though every muscle and nerve in her gut, thighs, and back were being shredded by razors.
“Merlin!” Her speech choked, mangled as she couldn’t even take a breath, “The baby is coming!”
18
Birth
“I’ll call a transport.” Merlin leapt to his feet as though to start away, but Igrain screamed to make him come back. Words seemed to be failing her. “What is it?”
“Don’t leave,” she managed to squeeze out between breaths. “Just stay, I may need you.”
“But I don’t know what to do,” he said. “What do I do?”
“Use your instincts!”
***
“Air space invaded by unknown aircraft, sir!” Ector called suddenly from his station.
“And no word on your wife,” Urien, the science officer called out. “Shall I keep trying?”
“What is in our atmosphere?” Uther screamed at Ector, ignoring Urien.
“We’re having a hard time tracking it.” He frowned and his fingers were gliding rapidly over the glass screens, attempting to lock on to the flying object. “It keeps vanishing and then reappearing several meters away. Locking on is near impossible right now.”
Uther leapt from his seat and marched to the rail. “Call Pellinore, he must know. And Urien, can you contact the flying object? Or scan it or something?”
“Trying it now, sir.” Urien put on the slim glasses that used to rest on Lot’s face and began to track the thing across the skies and its bizarre patterns.
His nails gripping into the steel railing, Uther squinted at the screen as Ector tried and failed to lock an image of the object. With this new threat, the thoughts of Igrain were almost driven out of his mind. She had been so odd the night before his council meeting and he had perhaps been too harsh with her for her disapproval. She had asked him to step down and call for a vote. She had even gone so far as to suggest that there not be one ruler over Camelot with various representatives and senators. She wanted each province to be self-governing.
“You don’t understand the division that would create,” he had said. “Diversity like that, so early in our history, would weaken us. We must stand together. This is not like it was on our planet of origins. There are very few of us compared to then.”
He had been right, he was sure. This was a time for unity and the thing invading his atmosphere would make a prime example.
“Urien, if you cannot identify it,” he paused. “Shoot it down.”
If any of the men felt uncomfortable about this last order, not one of them showed it. They were chained to their tasks either by fear or agreement. At this rate, none of them wanted to find out what would happen if they crossed Uther.
“Biomaterial!” Urien yelled at last. “It’s some kind of life-form.”
“Is it from here?”
“Scanning now… I don’t think so. None of the elements match up with Camelot’s known materials.”
Uther smiled. “Shoot it down.”
“Sir?” Urien’s hand hovered over the controls. “We don’t know enough about it. What if it’s a kind of bio-explosive or if there’s a poison inside? We could do more harm than good if we shoot it.”
“Are you questioning me?” Uther boomed in his deep, commanding voice. “I know what is best for this planet and this colony. Shoot it down, I said!”
“Yes, sir,” he replied in a low whisper.
All eyes trained onto the view screen above as Urien took aim with his scope on the screen. Every time he had it, the thing vanished in a cloud of black dust and reappeared meters away just as he had said.
“Locking on is still difficult,” Urien apologized.
“We need an android. Where is Merlin?” Uther shouted over the com-units and to the bridge at large.
No one answered and anxious looks were passed around.
“Where is he?” Now Uther’s voice held a threat. His men knew, but they did not say anything. Their silence spoke of treason worthy of the king’s anger. “If someone does not tell me, you will be charged with withholding information from your supreme ruler and removed for treason. Where is Merlin?”
“I can help!” a sweet voice called from the sliding doors the lift that just hissed opened. “I can help you, Uther.”
Nimueh skipped in, as gleeful and carefree
