Indentured (Book 2 of the Dana Halliday series)

TEM. STURV OBSTETRICS. LIRENG YIA KYPAR?

I had been peripherally aware of the Sturv woman's increasing discomfort since our reunion, but I'd been more focused on desiccated bodies and ridiculous interpretations of mythos to pay much attention. Besides, she had rebuffed my previous attempts to assess her, as had Hul.

Bad doctor, me.

Now, she lurched to her feet and began staggering back and forth, wailing. Hul went with her, trying to get her to stop, but she shoved him away blindly. J'oey squealed, and Gra'ly'os darted to the other side of the cell with the child clutched to his chest. Phim and Rav started talking at once, and Dross said something that did not sound like Sturv mythology.

"Dad," Noah said from the hallway, excited and fascinated. "I think she's gonna pop it out!"

I couldn't believe this kid. "Shut the hell—"

I was saved from saying more by Srarit. Noah had drifted too close to the other cell, and the Nessian snaked a long arm out and grabbed him by his stupid hair. He screamed as she attempted to pull his head through the bars. Frank and Hanover both shouted and ran to his aid.

Tem collapsed to the floor. Liti darted over to keep her from hitting her head, and said something to Hul that got him to back away a bit. I couldn't hear what it was over the general cacophony, but she was the calmest person in the cavern at the moment.

I went to them and crouched, seeing the Sturv woman's face go from ashy gray to the color of dirty snow. She cried out again, a somehow metallic screech like nothing an Earther could produce. She clutched at her enormous abdomen, and I saw the muscles rippling and contorting under her tent-like shirt. Unless that was the baby moving; I couldn't tell. For a moment I had a nightmare vision of it simply bursting out of her like, well, an alien.

"Tem!" I scrabbled for Sturv doctor words I hadn't had to use yet. "Tem, how long have you been in labor?"

I must have gotten close, because she whispered, "Most of the day, now."  Which wasn't much help to me, because I hadn't read about Sturv obstetrics. 

Dross rescued me by saying, in English, "That's a long time, Doctor. Usually it's quite fast." The pirate looked sad and resigned.

Hul railed something at him, and Dross raised a hand, speaking in a calming tone. Rav had retreated to the corner with the Qir.

"Maybe the baby is turned wrong?" Liti wiped a stream of sweat from the woman's forehead. She sounded doubtful. "There must be some way it can come out, if this is a normal size."

That didn't make sense to me, either. It occurred to me that I didn't even know where Sturv offspring sprang from. For all I knew, they actually did burst from the mother's chest, or crawled out of some orifice between the shoulder blades, or...

Tem shrieked and writhed, and a shocking amount of brownish blood gushed onto the dirt floor from her pelvic region. 

Well, alrighty then.

"Oh god." I looked up and shouted at the iron bars. "Someone get me my bag!"

I was ignored. I could hear banging, clanging, and Srarit hissing. Then Noah cursed, in a healthy enough way to indicate he hadn't had his cranium compressed too much. No one responded to my request.

"All right." I turned back to my patient. "Okay, okay, let's try to figure this out. Liti—"

Liti was already tearing through the woman's loose trousers with a practiced claw. Her antennae were waving as if caught in a tornado, but she was otherwise totally composed.