••••
Suddenly I hesitate to open the door, terrified of what I might find inside. Loveth hasn't told me what happened to Vage and my kids. She only said the alien was incapacitated, and then she'd started crying.
No, I think desperately, they have to be okay. Maybe the hatching process was traumatic for her. Maybe that's all it was. Still, the thought refuses to settle. How can eggs hatching be this devastating to the mother?
I don't know how long I stand there, frozen, but finally I realize there is no more time to hesitate. I have to face what's inside. Commanding the ship to open the door, I step through….
....
Vage is not on the incubator as she has been every other time I've been in here. For a moment, I wonder at that oddity, until my brain realizes the children wouldn't be in there after they hatched. I sense her switches in an adjoining room and open the hatchway before entering.
