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2593-22

The conference room was dark. Eric was seated in his usual seat at the head of the table, leaning back, eyes closed and trying to wake up. His sons had been over excited from meeting all those new people at the picnic, and even the quiet trip back to the ship hadn't been enough to calm them down. They had spent the night talking, and crying, demanding attention.

He couldn't blame them, the day had been exciting, even for him. William never hovered, but he always managed to be close by when Eric wanted to move from one spot to the other, and helped him, under the pretense of helping him carrying his children. So, Eric had gotten to go and meet people, instead of relying on them finding him. But unlike his children, the day had exhausted him.

Eric wasn't sure he'd gotten even an hour of sleep in total. He had his implant increased the production of Norepinephrine as much as was safe, but that wasn't having much of an effect, neither did the three cups of coffee he'd already had.

He shouldn't have told the crew he'd hold this meeting first thing in the morning.

The ship vibrated with the opening of the hatch, so he raised the lights enough to see. He and Jeff had been the only ones to sleep back on the ships. William had stayed on Earth after helping Eric and his children to the shuttle. Now everyone was filing in.

"Gerald," he heard Jeff say, "I noticed you and your wife left early from the picnic." The jackal entered the conference room, cup of coffee in hand, followed by the fox.

"Yeah, I'm afraid that giving her a primer on Orr Corp's social behavior wasn't enough. We aren't prudes by any sense of the word, but when she saw that group of teen start jerking off together, that proved to be enough for her."

"Captain," Jeff said, sitting down. "I'm surprise it wasn't all the people having sex that did it."

Gerald nodded his greeting to Eric and sat next to Jeff. "The adults were more discreet about it. I've got to say I was surprised by that. I really expected it to turn into this big orgy."

Jeff grinned "I'm glad we could disabuse you of *that* preconceptions. Not every social gathering is an excuse for an orgy."

"That isn't what the tourist bureau claims," Gerald replied.

Jeff eyed Eric.

"Don't look at me, I don't have anything to do with that." He frowned. "I don't think anyone in my family is involved with the tourist industry."

"I see kids are still energy soaks," The fox said. "I remember those days well."

Robert entered and sat, followed by William.

"Yeah, and of course, they are going to sleep all day."

"You can always set the inducers back on."

Eric shook his head. "I signed on for the fatherhood gig, I'm going to reap all the benefits."

"What benefits?" Brack asked, carrying a large box, Brick also had one.

"Oh, good," William said. "You two brought breakfast."

The mule eyed the wolf, his lips a tight line, and he placed the box on the table.

"We knew no one else would think about it," Brick said. He opened his box and took a steaming bun out.

Eric watched William's reaction. The wolf looked away under Brack's stare. He'd hoped the picnic might have thawed their emotions toward William, but he hadn't been hopeful. He'd noticed that except for Jeff, none of the others had interacted with the wolf at any point during the outing.

"Have either of you seen Marc?" Eric asked them.

"We sent him to the kitchen for coffee." Brack passed the box around, by the time it reached Eric half a dozen buns were left, smelling of meat, spices, honey. He took two and immediately bit into one, the egg and maple filling was amazing, as usual.

The spider monkey arrived then, carrying a large carafe and cups. Eric gave everyone time to pick what they wanted, and so he could finish his first bun, before clearing his throat.

"Okay. I've realized that I didn't give you guys the information to understand what lead to the array's sabotage."

"We know what led to that," Brack said, glaring at William.

"But you don't know why Xavier asked him to do it."

"Doesn't matter, as far as I can see." Brick said. "He was pissed you fired him."

"As far as Xavier was concerned, it was worse than that. He had convinced himself that me and him were a couple."

That drew all gazes, except William, to him.

"How'd he manage that?" Marc said.

Eric shrugged. "To be honest, I don't know. I know I didn't treat him any different than I treat any of you but somehow, he still saw any kind of remark I gave him as some sort of show of affection. From what Will told me, it started within a year of me hiring him."

"You didn't tell anyone?" Brick told the wolf.

"It wasn't his place to say anything," Eric said before William could talk. "Each other's private life isn't anyone else's business. Xavier confided in him, and led him to believe I wanted it kept discreet. He and Xavier were friends. What Xavier was telling him didn't put any of us in danger, so he had no business breaking confidence."

"But we all know you aren't interested in relationships," Brack said. "He had to know what was going on wasn't right."

Eric eyed the mule. "Really? You've never changed your mind, about anything?"

"But-"

"Brack, I'm not the most sharing person on the ship. I have a habit of keeping what I think to myself unless it affects the running of the ship. It's perfectly reasonable that Will believed Xavier, and that he'd think I was continuing to say I didn't do relationships because I didn't want to cause friction among the crew. Xavier was very careful not to do anything obvious, or to tell Will anything he couldn't believe."

There was a moment of silence

"So, you didn't know?" Brick asked.

"Not until the fertility clinic. In his excitement there, he let it slip he was considering my sons to be his too. I told him that wasn't going to happen, and expected that to be enough. He spent the rest of trip back to Earth bothering me about our relationship and acting like I was the one being unreasonable."

The looked at each other.

"I never saw any of that," Robert said.

"I did notice you weren't having much sex with him," Jeff added, "but I didn't think anything of it."

"I did what I could to keep my distances from him, to avoid giving him the impression I was leading him on, and he only brought up our relationship in private."

"So that's why he wanted us to hang around." Marc said, "he was expecting you to say he was your husband, or something like that."

William nodded. "As far as Xav was concerned, Eric was slowly giving in to his desire for him. You guys made sure not to be there as soon as you realized he was getting fired."

"You stayed?" Robert asked.

"No. I'd realized what was happening. I stayed close outside to comfort Xav, but he pushed me away. I didn't seem him again until he asked me to bring the case in."

"And you thought he was justified," Jeff said.

"In wanting to play an annoying prank on Eric? Of course. I thought he'd been unreasonable, had become cold toward Xav for no valid reason. It was just going to make his life difficult for a while."

"You realize it would have made our life rough too, right?"

"Yeah, but I was trying to help Xav deal with the rejection. I thought that it was a small thing, if it could get him to move on."

"Right," Brack drolled, "Move on."

Eric sighed. "Brack, enough. I'm not doing this so you can continue assigning blame. I'm telling you this so you'll understand that William screwed up, and nothing more. I can't order the lot of you to get along with him, but I'm hoping that with the full story, you'll be able to see his side of it."

Marc studied the wolf for a moment. "I'm guessing the company is investigating things."

Eric nodded.

"Can I get access to what's been found?"

"I won't be able to get you everything, it isn't done, but I'll see what they're willing to divulge to you." He looked around. "Do you also want access to that?"

Brick and Brack nodded. Robert and Gerald shrugged.

"Okay, whatever they let me have I'll put in the ship's archive, so those of you who want to look it over can." He waited a moment. "Do any of you have questions about this?"

They shook their head, so Eric moved on to telling them about the new sensors, and other upgrades that had been done to the ship. When he was done, they went on to their respective duties, and Eric closed his eyes.

* * * * *

The cries resounded throughout the room. Eric stirred and grumbled. He woke enough to check the time. One in the morning. "Come on," he complained. "You guys are supposed to be able to last the night now." He thought for a moment about burying his head under the pillow, and then immediately felt guilty. With a sigh he sat up and looked at the cribs. Terrence was hungry.

He went and picked him up. "You're either going to be chunky, or thin." He ordered a bottle from the table. "I can't tell if you just like eating, or if your burning the food so much faster than your brothers." Bottle in hand he sat at his desk and gave it to his son, who started sucking on it avidly.

"You're going to be quite the cock sucker when you grow up, I can tell." He pulled up his messages. Only two weeks out of the station, and already some of the customer on Titan were complaining. "Well, since I have to be up, daddy's going to do some work. You can't see them, because you don't have you implant yet, but this is from Onduro Mining, they had some of the food we sold them last time already go to waste, so they want to get more this time."

He rubbed his son between the ears. And got a smile in return. He pulled up a sales history for Onduro.

"There's no reason for them to lose food. We sold them two hundred preservation units only ten years ago. Unless they aren't maintaining them properly, they should still be in perfect working order. What do you think, should I offer to lease them Will so he can look them over? Yeah, you're right, they should already have a few engineers who do that, no point in getting Will tied up over that."

He yawned.

"Although, Elliot would like seeing the extra income after last year, so We'll keep that in mind. Until then, I need to see if anyone's willing to give up some of their food. I know, I know, you're not interested. Don't worry, you don't need to share."

Eric brought up their twenty best customers and sent them a message asking if they were willing to forgot a small portion of this delivery. It would be made up on the next ship to leave Earth, at a discount of one third of the price. He was going to charge Onduro double the usual price, so he wasn't worried about Elliot complaining.

When he was done, his son had closed his eyes, the bottle still in his hands, but slowly slipping out of them. He took it and brought him to his rib.

"Now, try to sleep through the night. Daddy has a lot of work to do tomorrow."

* * * * *

Crying resounded through the room, and Eric groaned. He filed away the order he was working on and looked at the mat set up before the cribs for his sons to play on. Trevor and Tony were the only ones on it. Tony was pulling at Trevor's fur, who was crying in response.

"Tony, stop that!" He looked around as he went to pick up his son. Thomas was crawling to a corner, Tyson was bouncing on Eric's bed, how had he climbed on there. Tucker was talking tentative steps, holding on the to the wall. He fell and started crying too. He put down Tony, away from Trevor and went to pick up Tucker. He couldn't see Terrence anywhere and that worried him.

"Let me see this," he said, looking his son over as he headed to the bathroom. The shower came on even before he stepped in, and then crying came from there.

He ordered the shower off and ran in. Terrence was sitting in the middle of the large stall, fur dripping wet. How had he gotten in there? Eric looked at the mechanical lock on the shower door, it was broken. It hadn't been a big one, he'd gotten Gerald to install it after Tyson managed to open the door while Eric was in the shower with Robert. The door didn't have any sort of locking mechanisms, he'd never expected to need one.

He picked up Terrence and brought both of them to the table. It had a basic medical suite so he set it to scan Tucker for any injuries while he dried Terence.

While doing that something hit his back and he looked over his shoulder. Tony was throwing the fabric cubes around. They had been Francis' and he'd given them to Eric for his sons. It gave them something to grab as a way to strengthening their grips and to chew on, instead of each other.

Eric had them under an anesthetic field during the night so they wouldn't be bothered by teething pain, but there was no way for that to continue during the day. He'd have to outfit the entire room for that and it would dull all pains, not just teething.

Tucker was okay. He'd bumped his arm in the fall, but it was nothing serious, he didn't even need a local anesthetic. Considering he'd managed to handle the shift in gravity of the array lock, Eric suspected Tucker would be one of those kids who wasn't bothered by a little pain.

Tucker went back on the mat. He finished drying Terrence, and he too went on the mat. Then Eric gathered the cubes from where they had ended up all across the room. By the time he got to Tyson, his son had managed to drool spittle all over his covers. He sighed. "Really, Ty? How can you drool so much?" He used a corner of the covers to wipe the drool off his son's mouth and put him down.

Thomas was now climbing up one of the crib's legs, his little claws digging into the protective foam. Eric rushed to him before he could fall and pried him away. Thomas wriggled in his hands, turning over and digging his claws in his arm to start climbing it. Eric winced and cursed, only managed to get a hold on his son when he reached his shoulder.

"You're going to be a menace, Thomas," He said, holding him at arm's length. His son laughed at him.

He put him down.

Tucker was now clawing at the door, probably hoping it would open for him. It wasn't going to happen he had the sensor set for three feet of height. He figured he'd have a handle on his kids before they were that tall.

The door opened.

"Captain, I need you-"

"Catch him!"

The hyena stared at Eric in confusion for a moment, and by the time he looked down, Tucker had already vanished between his legs for who knew where.

Eric started running for the door, then stopped. Looking at his other children. He couldn't leave them unattended. He pulled Robert in the room.

"Look after them, don't let them hit or bite each other. And keep the door closed." He ran out before the hyena could say anything.

Eric looked along the corridor, but he didn't see Tucker. He ran for the array access, but fortunately that was closed. It needed to be ordered open so this time his son wasn't running there.

Unfortunately, all the other doors were on sensor, and he hadn't thought to change the settings. He hadn't expected Tucker to get out of the room again. As soon as he'd found him, he was going to fix that.

He didn't have to worry about the crew's quarters, they kept their doors locked, but any unoccupied room, as well as the kitchen could be entered at will, and they never closed the door to the lounge, or the access to the bridge.

He started with the lounge, happy he had decided against taking the extra time needed to get the relaxation pool installed. He dreaded the idea one of his sons could fall into that. He wasn't get that installed until they were twenty.

William and Gerald were having sex on the couch. "Did you see tucker crawl by" They shook their head.

"We weren't really looking around."

Eric nodded and looked under the chairs, inside the cabinet to the alcohol dispenser, then in the exercise room. There was nothing to crawl under there, so a quick check told him Tucker wasn't there.

"The little one is off exploring again?" Gerald asked.

"Yeah, he got out when Robert came to see me."

"Have you checked the array?"

"Yeah, it's closed."

Eric went to the kitchen, and looked into all the cabinets, and no indications his son had been there. He went to the cockpit. Jeff was in the pilot's chair.

"Is Tucker here?" Eric asked, looking around. All the panels were in place.

The jackal eyed the access, seeming to ask how he might have gotten in, but then shook his head.

"No one's been here since Marc left."

Eric left and checked all the unlocked room, looking under the desk there, in the bathroom and closet.

He found Tucker in the one room he'd forgotten was on the ship, the zero G room. He'd opened the door expecting to see another unused bedroom, but instead saw his son, floating in the air, slowly drifting toward the opposite wall to ceiling corner. Out of reflex Eric took a step forward and reached for his son, then felt himself lift. He grabbed the doorway and pulled himself out.

He hated zero G. It didn't matter that the walls would stop him from drifting off, the inability to control where he went drove him nuts. He looked at Tucker. How was he doing to get him?

"Looks like someone doesn't share your phobia."

Eric jumped away with a start, and started drifting away again. Before the panic took over someone caught his arm, and William pulled him out.

This time Eric was hands on knees, panting loudly.

"You okay?" the wolf asked.

Eric shook his head. "Tuck's floating around and I can't get him."

William chuckled and Eric glared at him. The wolf raised his hands to placate him, and indicated the inside of the room. Eric looked in, and Tucker was gently falling to the floor. Once his hands and legs touched it, he was crawling for the door.

Eric was so surprised that he almost didn't catch him in time. He cradled his son in his arms. "You are going to fly me to an early death, do you know that Tuck? Just so you know, you're not inheriting the ship when I die, so stop trying to kill me."

"I don't think he's so malicious, he's just an explorer."

"How did he get down? And crawl out?"

William tilted an ear and smiled. "Really? You didn't even think to get the room back to normal gravity?"

Eric shook his head. "All I could think about was that I couldn't get to him."

"Okay, explain this to me, there is no sky for you to fall toward, how come you're freaking?"

"Zero g does that to me. Any shifts in gravity unnerves me." He nodded to the room. "That's how it started, when I was a kid, during training for zero G maneuvering. I've never been comfortable in it since."

Eric let out a yell and extricated his finger from Tucker's mouth. "See, he is trying to kill me. He wants to eat me." He checked his finger and didn't find any blood. His reaction had been more out of surprise than actual pain then.

William had trouble not chuckling.

"Come on, I guess it's time to feed you, then you and your brothers are taking your naps, so I can get some work done."

William accompanied him back to his room.

"Watch that none of the others escape," Eric told the wolf. He opened the door and immediately looked down, but none of his other sons were there. He looked up and had trouble not laughing. William was laughing, hard.

Robert was sitting in the middle of the room, his fur covered with pured food. There was more spread on the mat, the wall, the table, the cribs, his desk, and even a few globs on his bed. The automated floor cleaner was moving along the wall, leaving a clean trail behind it.

The hyena looked at him defeat in his eyes. "The displays said they were hungry, when I asked the table for food it gave me bowl of baby food, and I tried to feed them. I didn't manage it."

Eric placed Tucker in his crib, and showed Robert how the side of the crib swivel over the baby's legs to hold him in place. Eric tried to send Robert to go wash off, by the hyena insisted on helping him feed the boys. William helped too.

After that, with the cribs reconfigured as cribs, the babies were set to nap. Eric took Robert and William to the shower, none of them had escaped feeding time without wearing some of the food.

The shower was languid, and they made love under it. When they were done, Eric pulled the covers off his bed and replaced them with clean ones, then set about cleaning the mess the auto cleaner couldn't reach, the table, cribs and desk. William stayed to help him. When he was done, Eric tried to get back to work, but the wolf pulled him into bed and insisted he take a nap too.

Eric tried to refuse, but he fell asleep almost as soon as his head rested on the wolf's chest.