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women get pregnant. What I want to know is how did I get pregnant?"
    "The same way." Thud, thud, thud. "Would you please stop hitting me, Moriah? This is not my fault."
    "Oh, I know whose fault it is. It's that worthless, irresponsible mate of mine. He didn't get a new birth control patch—I'd bet on it. Did he come to you for one?"
    "Well, no—"
    "That son of an Antek! I'm going to kill him."
    Still disoriented, Jarek listened to the exchange intently, trying to figure out where he was. His head ached from the effort. He opened his mouth to call out, but only managed a croak.
    Another voice—soft, sweet, feminine—spoke. "But, Moriah, a baby! How wonderful. Don't be upset. It's truly a blessing. You'll see."
    Jarek absolutely knew that voice. His mind cleared enough that a name came to him. He tried to roll up, but it hurt too much. "Nessa," he gasped hoarsely. "Nessa!"
    There was a moment of silence beyond the screen. Then a head popped around. His sister, her dark eyes wide, stared at him, a smile breaking across her delicate face. "Jarek! You're awake." She came to his side, placing her hand on his forehead. "Chase, he's awake."
    "So I hear." Chase McKnight, Jarek's brother-in-law, strode around the screen, his large frame dwarfing his petite mate as he came up behind her. "How are you feeling?"
    "I think I'll live," Jarek answered, the fog beginning to clear. If Chase and Nessa were here, then he must be on their ship, in Chase's sick bay. But why? "What happened to me?"
    Chase moved around the table to study the equipment panel, and then turned to run a scanner over Jarek. "You don't remember?"
    He tried to think. He had the vague impression of a black-clad figure with a mask, but his head was throbbing too much for him to recall more. "The details are a little vague," he admitted.
    Chase looked at him, assessing him. "Do you know who we are?"
    "Yeah, I know you, McKnight." Jarek glanced toward his sister, who hovered anxiously on his other side. "Nessa, how's he treating you?"
    A radiant smile lit her face, and she squeezed his hand. "Wonderful, as always. Oh, Jarek, I'm so glad you're all right. When Celie contacted us, she thought—" She broke off and shook her head. "You gave us quite a scare, brother."
    "You had a lot of people worried about you," said a low female voice. Moriah Travers stepped around the screen, stunning as always, with her bronze hair and golden eyes. "Sabin will be delighted to know you're okay, except I'm going to kill him first."
    Jarek grinned weakly at his best friend's mate. "I hear you and Sabin are expecting an addition to your family. Congratulations."
    Moriah snorted in disgust. "Make that one addition, and one subtraction. I call it zero population growth." She sighed. "Well, I guess there's nothing to be done now. I'm going to go break the news to Sabin—over his head." She leaned down and kissed Jarek on the cheek. "I'm glad you're going to make it. You, I would hate to lose. We'll check on you later."
    She slipped back around the screen. Jarek tried to focus his thoughts. "What happened to me?" he asked Chase.
    "That's what I would like to know," Chase answered. "I can tell you that you took a blast to the abdomen. And you didn't receive medical attention until I saw you about four hours later."
    "You're telling me I survived a gut blast for four hours without treatment?"
    "That's exactly what I'm telling you. I wouldn't have believed it myself if I didn't have four witnesses insisting that was the truth. But there's more to it than that, something I've never seen in all my seasons of medicine."
    "What?"
    "First off, you shouldn't have survived that long with an injury like you had. Secondly, by the time you got here, the wound had closed itself, scar tissue had formed, and the blood volume in your body was almost normal. Yet Celie, Lionia, Blake, and Radd all insisted the bleeding was profuse. They did nothing but apply pressure to the wound until we rendezvoused."
    "What are