Nancy and Alice were both pregnant. To Polikarpov all of the women were pregnant. The Venereal high equatorial orbital entry the year before had been flawless. Columbus handled the maneuver so well the confinement had been cut by more than an hour. Cousin and Igor joked that the ladies decided that next time they were confined in the chairs it would be with their young children as company. The planetary scientists deployed all of their instruments and were testing them while the Little Princess was in equatorial orbit. The next maneuver would be to slowly increase the orbiting angle in stages from the equator to assume a polar orbit to begin the detailed mapping of the surface of the planet.Alice was on duty in the spare medical room, which was now set aside for maternal human engineering. Technically, any woman who had delivered a child was eligible for the service. However, since the children on board were all more than ten-years-old, most women simply went to the regular human engineer's office. With 20 pregnancies, and more rumored, a separate office was set up for all mothers.Alice was examining Nancy in the office medical blanket. She mused, "You know our children will probably not be able to adjust to 1G immediately when we return. You will not have too much of a problem in the Big Asteroid, but three of us are from the surface."Nancy was diplomatic enough not to point out that pregnancy was entirely optional. Several safeguards for both partners had to be disengaged before a woman could become pregnant. Nancy observed, "I suppose you will stay awhile on the Big Asteroid. We always need medics."Alice sat down after the exam. She smiled as she said, "Well, we are incredibly healthy. So far not a single mother has any problems. How are your experiments going?"Nancy sat down after dressing in her work uniform. The medical blankets were very efficient, but the patient still had to be completely naked inside them. Almost 100 of the crew would have their first rejuvenation treatment while on the mission in addition to the pregnancies, well-baby checkups, and other health related issues with the new people. So, the three human engineers from the Big Asteroid, their technicians, and all 50 medical blankets would be very busy.Nancy smiled. "Fine. I have been assisting the planetary scientists. Their instruments have been stored since long before we left the moon. The deployment and calibration of several hundred robots and instruments will take a while. The schedule was for one year, but we will need more time. The infrared instruments are the instruments I help with. Their data should be the first we can all appreciate. Igor hopes to have a very boring year. The move to polar orbit will test Columbus, Igor, and Cousin for a short while, but not for five or six years. We need an accurate map of the equatorial surface first so we know where to move when we begin the polar mapping."
