His skeleton crew immediately began cleaning up the hold and stowing the last of the worn hammocks."Now these men," said the captain as hopefully and ...heerfully as he could, "some of them were jailed in England but none, none that I know of, is what you'd call a real criminal, though there might be a cut-purse or two among them, maybe even a debtor." He chortled and looked about. "They didn't do nothing that would be noticed in Maryland; that's the God-honest truth." He glanced about for a. The robot tilted his head and looked straight towards me. Its expressiondidn't change at all but it seemed to me as if he was looking me withpuzzlement.I was fairly impressed with the robot. It had been programmed quite wellto be able to interact with us as if it were a real person.It finally broke its stare and said "However, the director is currentlybusy so you will have to wait a while."After about an hour of waiting the robot finally declared that theDirector is ready to meet me.When we. “You’re shitting me, right?”Anna Lee answered, “Her water just broke, and this baby is getting ready to join the party!”“Holy shit!”Marilyn asked, “What do we do?”Both Anna Lee and Suzie tried to answer, and Tessa groaned some more. Well, thank God I knew the answer to this one. Maggie was damn near born in our bedroom. “Has anybody called an ambulance yet?” The women all stared at each other. Even Anna Lee, the nurse, had missed that one. “Well, unless you want to deliver the baby here, let’s. "What?" His face was wary."The back door. Where is it?" She pushed past him."There." He jerked his head to the right.Nodding her thanks, she headed towards the door. She darted out it and around the corner and ran smack dab into six feet four inches of pissed off male."I ought to paddle your ass!" Bas picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder."Put me down!" She struggled for breath. His hard shoulder knocked the wind out of her lungs.Bas didn't answer as he headed towards the densely.