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experimented with positions denied her during her pregnancy to find the most comfortable one. She’d have to get up in about three hours to feed her ravenous babies.
    As tired as she was, she found her mind would not quit whirling as she settled down to sleep. There was so much to think about that she had put on hold the last few days while preparing to birth her babies.
    Her babies . . . She was forty-five, and although she had always kept herself fit in the Company Corps, conceiving had been a minor miracle she attributed entirely to Petaybee’s healing influence . . . another reason she blessed the planet and resolved to protect it to the best of her ability as joint governor of this fascinating world.
    Many of the problems she and Sean had originally faced were sorting themselves out, especially now that Petaybeans, who had been recruited by the Intergal Company for lack of other employment on the planet, were resigning their commissions and returning to their native world, where the training they’d had made them invaluable and very employable in Petaybee’s new business ventures.
    She would be so relieved when the novelty of the planet faded and it stopped being invaded by all kinds of groups—esoteric, exotic, and daft—who felt they would benefit by time spent here in some capacity or another. Sooner or later word would get around that the planet’s wonders were hardly a free lunch for all and sundry. Petaybee took care of its people, keeping them healthy and well fed, but the recipients of those benefits had to endure very cold winters with deep snows and a short and very busy summer with swarms of biting insects attacking any visible flesh. The planet itself had stern criteria that newcomers had to meet.
    Yana grinned in the darkened room and twitched a blanket over her shoulder. Where was Sean? Maybe the message was a good one. He said he’d come tuck her in. She’d need to get as much sleep as she could with the feeding schedule she was now facing.
    Sister Igneous Rock had suggested that the planet itself interview candidates. There were several problems with that, but the downside—the candidate had to spend the night in one of the communion places, and some people had very intense reactions to the experience—was sometimes a problem: negative for the applicant, very helpful in weeding out those who had no talents or abilities that the planet needed. There had been some protests by people rejected . . . but that was their tough luck. As word got around that Petaybee was not an easy mark, fewer duds arrived for their entrance exam.
    The latest bunch, hydroengineers, had passed with flying colors, and spent more time with Sister Iggierock—as she was called with affection and admiration—who had spent hours reading to the planet so it could decide which types of modernization it would accept.
    Now that folk were becoming accustomed to what Clodagh called the “Rock Flock,” they were proving invaluable. There had been other “religiously” inclined visitors who’d had to be disillusioned by fact and their interview with the planet on their arrival. So far, of those with determined evangelical zeal, only the Rock Flock had been acceptable to the entity Iggierock still referred to as the Beneficent.
    Much had changed, besides the seasons, since Yana first set foot on her “retirement” planet. She hadn’t known, but secretly suspected, that her damaged lungs were incurable. That is, until she met Clodagh and had lived through her first winter on the planet. Its curative powers—good food, clean air, and exercise—had restored many to complete good health. The clinic, inaugurated by Farringer Ball, the CEO of Intergal Company and a confirmed sicko who had once been one of the most critical of the company executives, had to increase its beds yet again to accommodate those seeking treatment on organic Petaybee. That clinic promised to be a profitable business now, with the laboratories adjacent to