IGMS Issue 44 (6 page)

I laughed hollowly. "You can't hurt me anymore."

The Doyen stepped forward, his voice low. "I highly doubt that. What you experienced through your wolves will seem like nothing after the torture we'll inflict upon you. You'll be begging us to let you die again."

Giup-yo and Henge-sa reached the prison gate. Four slipped from behind and tore out the throat of a sentry. A bullet zinged nearby, but missed its target.

I ran my fingers along the crags and wrinkles of my face, twisted by age and scarred by whips. I reached a hand up to the Doyen's face, but he drew away, his lips curled in disgust.

"You don't recognize me, Beaky, though you haven't aged a day since we last met."

"Beaky?" The Doyen drew his sword. "No one calls me that. What did Roo Giup-yo tell you?"

Another zing, and pain exploded in Four's shoulder. She continued running after Giup-yo and Henge-sa, but her steps slowed as they disappeared into the trees.

I laughed again, tasting blood in Four's mouth. It wouldn't be long now, for either of us. But my family had gotten away. They were safe, at least for now.

"My brother didn't need to tell me your childhood nickname, Beaky. Your nose hasn't always fit your face, and you haven't always been the Doyen. By the way, I'm sure my father sends his regards from the Empire. My brother is on his way there now."

The Doyen's face looked puzzled, then outraged as he finally realized who I was. He raised his sword.

Just before he brought it down, I howled. Four howled with me, a sound not mournful . . . but triumphant.

Jake Durow tucked Malia into her bunk in the cabin annex on the Bruma colony transport. He had his rituals to make her feel safe, and Jake dutifully went through the motions of kissing her on each cheek and turning the screen in the annex to a view of Lightspace.

The interstellar medium that the gigantic Bruma ship had entered after leaving Earth gave off a blissful glow, and it was perfect for lighting a child's sleeping chamber. After another quick kiss goodnight, he touch-closed the fleshy wall so a stripe of light from the main cabin fell on the foot of her bunk.

He found Andrea waiting for him and gave her a lingering kiss. She was three months pregnant and all kinds of beautiful. In a population of three hundred thousand colonists there would be many, many pregnancies. Life was so much more precious than any of the farm equipment or soil tenderizers or space elevator cables bound for Blue Two. But of all the future lives he would see, Jake felt the one Andrea carried was by far the most important.

"Da-aa-ad!" Malia called. "It tickles."

Andrea reluctantly broke free of Jake's embrace and opened the wall again.

"What tickles?" she asked.

"My tummy."

"I'm sure it does, honey," Andrea said. "But not as much as I'll tickle you."

"No!" Malia shrieked, but when Andrea started tickling, Malia's mock panic changed to giggling.

"Mom, it really tickles," she said when she'd caught her breath.

Jake joined them, but when he bent in to look at her stomach, all he could see was a tiny pinprick. It was barely even red. Malia would probably forget about it overnight, but like all five-year-olds she knew how to complain. Still, Jake felt tension seep into his solar plexus. Parental anxiety, of course, but he wondered what on the ship could have stung her. The Bruma aliens had inspected everything: every cubic centimeter of cargo, every square inch of skin on their human passengers. There were air filters everywhere, and the space ship's fleshy floor sucked up dirt, waste, and fluids. It would have caught a bug as well.

He shouldn't worry, and he shouldn't fuzz about an itch at bedtime, or Malia would use it as an excuse to stay awake. But he did sit down and let his fingers run over the pinprick, prodding, feeling the skin and the soft stomach underneath.

"Andrea," he said, keeping his voice low so Malia wouldn't hear. "I think there's some kind of lump here."

Andrea sat down on the bed next to him and caressed Malia's stomach.

"There's swelling, but it just looks like a bug bite."

"I'm calling the clinic." He knew what he had felt and a kid of five wasn't supposed to have a lump anywhere.

"Jake, don't fret," Andrea said, but he told the wall com to connect to the clinic anyway.

"She's got some kind of insect sting," Jake explained to the nurse on call. "And beneath that, some kind of lump."

"Okay." The nurse's voice was professional. "Come by tomorrow if the swelling's not gone down."

"No," Jake said. "It's not a swelling. It's a lump. Besides, you tell me what kind of insect the Bruma allowed to slip through their inspection sequence."

"A bug could probably get through."

"But it wouldn't survive," Jake said. He was keeping his voice level, reminding himself that a bug bite wasn't a cause for hysteria. "So what bit her, and what made that lump?"

"Okay," the nurse said slowly. "I'm writing you on the emergency list, so come on over right away."

Jake kept hearing those words as they headed for the clinic. Part of him agreed with the nurse, but most of him was afraid that he'd embarrassed himself by convincing her to check something harmless. Andrea certainly wasn't impressed. Still, urgency forced him forward.

As they walked (sometimes ran) through the fleshy hallways, he kept imagining what he would do if one of the smaller alien Brumas blocked their path. The spindly varieties that seemed made out almost entirely of legs could really get in your way, and another variety had big fleshy behinds that could block an entire corridor. But in the end they arrived safely at the clinic.

Gerold Venus greeted them. He was a grizzled pediatrician, whose smile showed in his wrinkles. He had done a tour of Blue Two, working under primitive conditions, and he frequently briefed the colonists on what to expect groundside. There was no one on the ship Jake would rather have seen about Malia.

"She says it tickles," Jake explained. "Probably just a bug bite, right?"

"Let's have a look."

And man, did he check. First he asked about Malia's general condition (generally healthy, with one bout of fever in the last month). He checked every lymph gland and prodded her stomach for a good while, before listening to her lungs with a patience that made Jake pace the floor until Andrea waved at him to sit down. Normally, Malia would have giggled, but by now it was way past her bedtime and she was clutching Mr. Bear sullenly.

"If this is an insect sting, it feels different from anything I've seen, even on Blue Two," Dr. Venus said. "I can't find any signs of infections or any other reasons for the lump. We'll take some blood samples, and I'm sending her next door for an ultrasound right away." He paused. "I have to inform you that it could be serious."

The anxiety in Jake's solar plexus seemed to ripple through his entire body. He said nothing, Andrea said nothing . . . or perhaps they did. Words didn't seem important. The only thing he wanted to do was hold his baby girl and protect her from all the evils in the universe, but it was so damn hard with a scan coming up, and so fast, why did it have to be now? Because it's serious. But maybe there's serious and not so serious, and why couldn't that scan wait till morning?

They palmed their way through two of the fleshy walls, guided by a nurse, whose name Jake forgot as soon as he heard it. He listened to the swoosh made by the machine while another doctor took stills and video of Malia's abdomen. The screen was a mess of moving, morphing grey scale. He noticed oddities like the hot humid air, the dampened light, Malia subjecting herself to the scan, never complaining when the doctor dug the scanner probe into her abdomen. The bed was rolled from the scan through mazelike corridors to a part of the infirmary that had an actual room.

More waiting ensued. Andrea fussed about not having a toothbrush for Malia. They both looked at her lying there in the huge infirmary bed meant for adults and talked about how fortunate it was that they'd brought Mr. Bear for her.

Malia was asleep when Doctor Venus entered. A man was with him, but he hung back, leaning against the wall while the entry hole contracted behind him. He didn't exactly wear a uniform, just a white shirt and black pants. Like a two-square chessboard with only one possible move.

But Jake soon fixed his attention on Doctor Venus, who sat down on a chair. Jake and Andrea sat on the bed settee.

"This is something I've never seen before," the Doctor said. "I've looked at the scans, and then took a good look at some obscure medical literature."

He sent a look in the direction of the uniformed man as if taking a cue before continuing.

"The scans indicate that your daughter is the bearer of a Bruma fetus. It has a size of two point one by one point five centimeters. As far as the literature indicates, that growth pattern fits a timeframe where Malia was stung when we boarded the ship."

"The Bruma stung her?" Jake asked. "They're turning her into a hatchery?"

"Nothing quite that dramatic," Doctor Venus said. "I know as little about the Bruma as most of us. As far as I could make out from the literature I just read, their second-variety females carry the babies, but apparently they sometimes choose one or two among their passenger species to be hosts for their offspring. I've never seen it before, but I understand it's not unheard of."

"Do you have to operate to get it out?" Andrea asked. Jake squeezed her hand, felt the need to have his hand squeezed back. She didn't. She just looked at the doctor, who didn't say anything.

The black and white man pushed himself away from the wall. He wasn't tall or conspicuous, yet he somehow still towered over them all.

"There will be no operation," the man said. "Your daughter will carry out the pregnancy."

"Who are you?" Jake blurted.

"Major Blutnikov, United Earth Army. I liaise between our Bruma pilots and their human passengers."

"Then you bloody
liaise
to them that my daughter is
not
playing host to their spawn," Jake said. This time, Andrea did squeeze his hand.

Major Blutnikov inclined his head. "Eventually the passenger will come out. At that time Doctor Venus will perform a small operation to minimize the danger to your daughter and her passenger. Until then, it is of the utmost importance that you take care of your daughter and allow her to perform her duty as a vessel for the Bruma."

"Her name is Malia," Andrea said. "She is not a vessel, and you better understand that this Bruma thing is not nearly as important as my daughter's life."

Andrea's voice was tense with anger. Jake understood that she didn't want to shout -- Malia was exhausted after the scan, she'd need her sleep, poor thing -- but Andrea's voice expressed enough anger for both of them.

"You both know what this ship is," the Major said. He placed a hand on the wall, gently caressing it. A shielded porthole formed to give them a glimpse of Lightspace. "A Bruma fifth-variety male, a living being adapted to flying between the stars. Tell me, did you ever consider that this living being does you the courtesy of transporting you through the universe to another planet suitable for human life? Or that every time you whack your hand against a wall, you force a reaction from this creature? Every time your daughter drops a crumb, the Bruma has to assimilate, process, and excrete a foreign object. It manages your waste, provides you with food, water, and air, and maintains an environment where you can increase your numbers. For all intents and purposes, you are parasites living in a gracious host. Your daughter is merely paying for her ticket."

The Major turned, caressed the inner wall in a circle and left through the opening before Jake could even think of an answer.

Doctor Venus coughed and looked embarrassed in that Boss-says-otherwise way. "There's no tried and tested procedure with Bruma-human relationships, but I'd say your daughter has a very good chance of making it through the pregnancy without any harm. It shouldn't take more than three months, since Bruma fetuses rarely grow beyond twelve centimeters. I'd like to start her on immunosuppressive treatment, the sooner the better, and then . . ."