Alien Caller (52 page)

“I knew we
should have used protection. You’ve picked up a bug.” Yet it was
little use blaming themselves after the event. Especially after so
many months of unprotected sex. He knew that. So he quickly shut up
and held her hand instead while they both fretted. But at least the
Leinian's medical science was advanced. Logically he knew they
would be able to fix whatever was wrong. He hoped. Besides she
wasn’t sick. At least until they’d come here she’d been fine. Just
a little tired. It had just been a check up. Until the doctor had
made him put on one of the stupid little hospital gowns as well and
he'd known something was wrong. Surely it couldn’t be that bad.

“I told you. We
did all the tests. Your diseases don’t affect us. Ours don’t bother
you. It can’t be a bug.”

“What else can
it be?” There was really no answer and they both knew it. It was
just a question of how bad it was.

Before they had
any time to argue, the doctor came rushing back into the room, as
close to absolute panic as David had ever seen one of the Leinians.
He quickly made them shuffle over to the examination bench, and
before Cyrea was even seated he started pulling out sharp bits of
medical equipment from a cabinet and assembling them hastily into
some sort of wire contraption.

“Whoa Doc.
You’re not using that on Cyrea.” David didn’t know what it was, but
it looked distinctly nasty.

“No it’s for
you.” And before he could even react the doctor ordered him on to
the bed instead. After that he began fastening the device to his
hips. David looked on, alarmed, resisting the sudden urge to run,
while Cyrea held his hand. Apparently the bug had been picked up by
both of them even though he felt perfectly well. In fact since the
surgeries he felt healthier and fitter than he had in many years.
He let the doctor finish his business, worried, but still knowing
he was trying to help.

“Lie flat Mr.
Hill. This will sting just a bit. Ayn Cyrea hold his head.”
Obediently David straightened himself out on the bench with his
head in Cyrea’s arms. Not for the first time he resented being
gowned in the doctor’s office, especially when he wasn’t ill. Why
did they need to scan him? But at least he was comfortable. He
wanted to ask what the device was going to do, but a sudden
stabbing pain told him. It was going to drill a red hot hole
through his groin. He made to leap off the bed but Cyrea held him
for the vital second, and then the pain was over. At least he hoped
it was.

“Shit a brick
that was bad! What do you mean sting a little? It’s a damned
nightmare!” He took a deep breath and made to get up and demand
that the doctor explain what he was doing, when Cyrea started
undoing the metal contraption. He looked around to find the doctor
had fled once more into the next room again, and was busy fiddling
with some of the more bizarre equipment. He hadn’t even stayed to
tell them what was going on.

Soon the device
was free from David’s pelvis and he breathed a sigh of relief even
as he wondered whether it would be considered too barbaric to stomp
it into hundreds of tiny pieces. Regardless, he wouldn’t be
allowing it near him again anytime soon. But the pain had gone, and
he was suddenly comfortable. Lying down with his head in her arms;
even in a strange room, with a half-crazed doctor rushing around,
while he was wearing a stupid hospital gown on a table, it wasn’t
so bad. He smiled at her, nervously.

Strange noises
started coming from the other room and they both turned to look.
The doctor had apparently lost all control and was busy jumping up
and down, ranting down a communications device, and still staring
at the damned screen. David wished with all he had that he too
could see what the doctor saw, even though he knew he probably
wouldn’t understand it. But the screen was pointed away from them,
no doubt intentionally.

“Did we do all
that?” It was a rhetorical question, and in any case Cyrea didn’t
have a chance to answer as other doctors arrived and rushed past
them into the room. They also began staring at the screen and
shouting incoherently at each other. One after the other they all
started fiddling with the controls and shaking their heads.

“I don’t feel
that ill.” Cyrea was slowly turning pale, and he knew he didn’t
look much better.

“It's not just
you. It's both of us.” Whatever it was it had to be bad and the
nightmare of AIDS kept running through David's thoughts. He didn’t
have it as far as he knew, though he’d not been tested in years.
But he had been careful. But could it be something just as bad? Or
worse? He got up and held her tight, trying to ease both their
fears while they waited.

It was a long
wait punctuated by the sounds of more and more doctors arriving in
frantic dashes, none of them caring to say a single word to the two
panicking patients. Soon the doctor’s room was filled with other
Leinian doctors, all jostling with each other for room and arguing
incessantly in perfect silence. David cursed the room’s obvious
sound proofing repeatedly.

Fifteen minutes
going on a lifetime later, their original doctor finally remembered
them, and re-joined them. He was nervous and flanked by at least a
dozen of his colleagues who were just as bad. More were still in
the next room, arguing. They had kept multiplying while he and
Cyrea waited, until it appeared as if half the ship was there. One
of them at least had the presence of mind to turn around the
computer screen so they could see what was on it through the
window. To David it looked like a bunch of wiggles, but he had seen
them before. They were DNA, chromosomes. A genetic virus?

“Ahh Ayn Cyrea,
David, it’s…” He ran out of words, but then must have seen the look
of terror in their eyes. “It’s not that bad, please. It’s really
not. In fact it’s a good thing, I hope. But it’s also not
possible.”

“Cyrea you’re
pregnant.” He just blurted it out. Then he saw the look in her eyes
and backed off quickly.

“No, no. I’m
not kidding. You really are pregnant.” He hastily turned on another
monitor then and they saw what he was talking about first hand. It
was a foetus all right. A tiny bundle of living baby, curled up in
a foetal ball. They could see its head, its beating heart, and the
umbilical cord.

“There’s no
doubt about it. It’s about two and a half months along, and you can
easily see its arms and legs. It’s even got fingers and toes. It
looks perfectly normal. Absolutely perfectly normal. But it’s still
not possible.”

“David, it’s
yours.” David hadn’t even considered the possibility that it
wasn’t. He was still trying to absorb the knowledge that Cyrea was
pregnant when she couldn’t be. But as soon as the doctor said it,
he understood his reason. It was impossible for him and Cyrea to
have a baby. They had known that from the very beginning. But he
also knew Cyrea hadn’t had sex with anyone else. Even if she’d
wanted to, which she most definitely didn’t, neither of them had
had the time. They’d spent every available minute together.

“I didn’t
believe it. No-one else believes it. But the computers don’t lie.
It’s yours – No, she’s yours. She’s a girl. The baby’s got some of
your features as well as Cyrea’s. We can find some of the human DNA
genes we’ve sequenced mixed in among the chromosomes. She’s yours.
Somehow your DNA and Cyrea’s have combined. It’s not possible but
they have. They do. That’s what we were just doing. We took some
material from you, and mixed it with some of Cyrea’s tissue, and
watched it combine under the microscope.”

“We watched it
quite a few times.” From the look on his face he was probably going
to watch it a few more times as well. A lot more.

“It’s a perfect
match. Base pair to base pair, it simply combines, the same as if
you were both Leinians. And looking at the results, it not only
combines perfectly, but the DNA sequences have to be identical.
Your hand shape genes for example are in exactly the same place on
the same gene as hers. So is every other gene. And they all code
for the same characteristics in identical ways.”

“The result is
a hybrid.” Which to David’s ears sounded disturbingly close to
freak and he hated the word the instant he heard it. “An impossible
fusion of human and Leinian, but one that looks totally healthy. I
promise you that. We’ve checked the baby out very closely, and
there is no abnormality, no trace of any problem. And we will
schedule you in for daily appointments if necessary to make
absolutely sure she stays that way.” He kept trying to reassure
them about the health of the impossible child even as he tried to
deny its existence. Behind him a field of heads nodded and shook in
perfect harmony with his.

“But I do need
to ask you one thing.” Finally the doctor looked nervous about
something, and they both worried again.

“You don’t have
to make a decision today, though soon. But if you don’t want to
keep the baby -.” That was about as far as he got before they both
screamed at him, instantly outraged at the thought of losing their
baby that couldn’t possibly exist. He wilted before them. Then they
in turn cringed as they understood that there was at least a
possibility they were going to have a child.

“Good. Believe
me we don’t want to do that. And we don’t think it’s necessary. But
we do understand that you must be dreadfully scared, and it is so
new, that we have to make the offer.” They understood all right,
but that wasn’t the same as accepting it. He struggled on quickly,
trying to avoid eye contact.

“In less than
seven months, if nothing goes wrong – and we have no reason to
think it will,” he added the last hastily, “You are going to be
parents to a bouncing baby girl. A girl with her mother’s fur and
tail and by the looks of things her father’s hands. Fingernails,
not claws. But whatever she has she looks fairly normal. There’s
nothing freakish about her, just a little different. Not ugly, not
deformed, just unusual in a nice way. Exotic.”

“It’s too soon
to say what all the other traits are there that she’ll have from
each of you, but we will know long before she’s due to arrive.
Tomorrow even we should have a much better idea. Today we’re still
trying to load the new data into a computer that thinks we’ve gone
crazy, but tomorrow we’ll have the problems fixed, and the scan
results worked out. Tomorrow we’ll show you what she looks like,
and what she will look like when she’s born.”

“And in the six
or so months until then we’ll have sequenced the entire human
genome and be able to tell you everything about her before she’s
born. And hopefully also it’s possible that she is to be born at
all.” An older, greyer head spoke up from behind the doctor. David
didn’t recognize him, but Cyrea clearly did from the way her eyes
widened. She kept her silence though, but David knew he’d find out
later.

“I don’t
believe in cosmic accidents of this scale. Nor do I accept miracles
at face value. Someone’s playing a nasty joke on us all, and we
will find out who. But regardless, it’s clear that we should have
done this most basic work five years ago instead of chasing our
tails on so many other witch hunts.”

“I promise you
both, we will spend every waking hour from now until then, finding
out everything there is to know about this.”

“But that
doesn’t really matter now.” Dr. Fossiter had re-joined the
conversation. Apparently he’d also re-joined the world of the two
of them. For the first time there was a new emotion in his voice;
authority. He was their doctor and he was telling them what to
do.

“What does
matter is that you’re going to be parents and you have to start
acting as such. And I mean that. Since you’ve chosen to have her,
which we heartily approve of, we expect this baby to be born like
any other. Cyrea, that means no alcohol, no drugs and no excessive
exercising. David, it’s your job to keep her to that.” David felt
like saying that in the last few months he’d never seen a drop of
alcohol pass her lips, and couldn’t imagine her touching any
chemical, when the last part registered. It was going to be a
problem after all. He nodded though, knowing he would succeed,
somehow.

“There are some
exercises we’ll want you to do, and others we want you to take more
easily. I’ll give you a list tomorrow - David.” He added the last
carefully, perhaps understanding that Cyrea had no idea of limits
when it came to exercising. The message was clear, he was in charge
of that part of her life.

“Before you
ask, sex is good, as long as Cyrea’s not too tired. But Cyrea has
to start eating more protein and complex carbohydrates, while
cutting down on the saturated fat. I’ve got some supplements that
will help with the tiredness, and also a good foot rub and massage
is prescribed every day. But most important of all, Cyrea needs her
rest. That means early to bed every night and no early starts.
Cyrea from this moment on you are also on restricted hours, as is
the case for every expectant mother. That means six hours a day,
three days a week maximum, for the next three and a half odd
months, then four hours for the next two.” There was something
about the way he emphasized the word ‘maximum’ that suggested he
knew Cyrea’s work habits.

“Next week you
two will begin your pregnancy classes, slightly behind your class
mates but not too far, and I’ll give you some catch up notes and
exercises to do before then.” David had the distinct feeling that
they would be expected to have completed them before class. It was
not negotiable.