by Rena Marks
Next to him, he could feel Lara start. Several of the mates turned their heads toward Cluxcli in disbelief.
“Perhaps we will skip that one,” Tristan assured his indignant mate.
“I should hope so,” she whispered under her breath.
“Momma,” little Eelia asked. “What’s eating out?”
“Um…not eating in your home. We haven’t covered that lesson in school yet,” Lillian mumbled.
Tristan whispered to Lara. “Her response does not make sense.”
“It’s a parental thing. It’s called deflecting,” Lara whispered back.
The tour bus began to accelerate again, and the creature, noticing they were leaving, began to run after them. Some of the women squealed as it kept up quite well.
“Go faster,” Anita yelled. “It’s almost catching us.”
Blearsh gave her a thumbs up and stepped on the gas. The tour bus took off with a lurch, and the creature fell back, tiring quickly.
“Like I said,” Cluxcli murmured. “Stalker.”
The tour bus was oddly quiet after the skirmish.
“Who’s ready for lunch?” Cluxcli asked, his voice in a brightly lit, tour-guide mode. “The children’s petting area is next, where they can enjoy the newly-born and hatched animals while we eat. Then they can eat and we’ll be off again.”
Several of the offspring, always hungry, raised their hands. The others rubbed their bellies as if they’d never eaten before.
“Flying across the galaxies works up an appetite,” Trince said to Tomlak, as if they flew regularly.
Tristan refrained from snorting. His mate had told him it was impolite. He equated that to mannerless, and was worried about that for him and his warriors. Now that they had families, they wanted to be the perfect males. The envy of the rest of their species.
Some ten minutes later, the bus rolled to a stop within a small, bio-domed community. A bio-dome within the bio-dome. Tristan appreciated the safety measures, especially with creatures out on the planet like the Stalker.
The children unloaded, and Cluxcli showed them to a tiny, enclosed area with the smallest creatures imaginable. Titi stopped still when the tiniest furball—a rallink—found her. She squealed when the animal licked at her toes, and plopped right down in the dirt beside it, bringing it onto her lap for petting.
“I’m guessing that’ll be one of the chosen,” Lara murmured.
Tristan couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. “I knew she would love it.”
“You do know your daughter,” Lara agreed, and rose to her tiptoes to kiss him.
With the offspring safely enclosed in the gated area, the adults went to a long picnic table with Blearsh and Cluxcli. Tristan was relieved that the children wouldn’t stare as Cluxcli ate. He wasn’t sure how that would work with his beak-like lips.
A fruit tray was brought out to the table, along with a tray of meats and cheeses and tiny sandwiches.
“Is that a furry banana?” Lara asked.
Tristan nodded. “It cleans you out.”
“So gross,” his mate muttered.
Cluxcli picked up a sandwich, and other than his beak making a clicking sound as he smacked it, he ate just like any other person. Which was a relief—it shouldn’t set the children to staring.
Chapter Thirteen
The mates rounded up the offspring, taking them indoors to bathe before bed. The warriors released the animals onto the planet, and cleaned up the medic vac. Just in case someone went into labor.
No one did.
The next day, Lara was crabby. Tristan wanted to stay out of her way, so he took the unusually obnoxious Titi over to Tomlak’s house. He was enjoying a cup of brew with Kamau when Bajoc pounded on the door, then burst open.
His eyes were wild, and his hair stuck on end. He looked like a crazy man, the scar livid across his face.
“Tristan! It’s Marcie. She stood up and screeched. I think our baby is breech.”
“Why would you think that?” Kamau’s usually calm voice sounded baffled.
“Because of the way she screeched,” Bajoc yelled. “Did you not hear me?”
“Calm down,” Tristan said. “We will get a stretcher from the medic vac and carry her onto it. Right now you need to find someone to care for Reese.”
“Reese!” Bajoc yelled, slapping his forehead. He went running down the walk.
“Poor fool,” Kamau muttered. “I suppose we should head out to the school and let everyone know.”
The two of them headed toward the main building. Before they reached it, a frantic Aello came running behind them. “It’s Lisette,” he panted. “My precious, sweet, Lisette. She clutched her belly when she heard Marcie was in labor. I think it triggered our labor!”
“Okay, calm down,” Tristan said. “We’ll get both Marcie and Lisette into the medic vac. The most important thing is not to panic. Females have been giving birth since the dawn of time.” Well, not with their species, but still…
“But she’s in so much pain,” he grimaced.
“Let’s get all the offspring rounded up in the classroom,” Kamau suggested.
“Yes! Yes!” Aello yelled, running off.
“Is it me or are they crazy?”
Tristan snorted. “They’re both crazy. They can’t handle stress.”
“Pussies.”
“It is strange that two of the mates went into labor on the same day.”
“Maybe it’s just false labor. One of them worried about the other, and had some sympathy pains or something.”
Hmm. Maybe.”
They entered the building, and several of his warriors began talking at once. They couldn’t make out a single thing being said.
“Your coms are off! Anita is in labor. Tomlak came running into the school a few minutes ago.”
“What?!” Kamau roared. “My Anita? Why didn’t someone tell me?”
“Uh, we’re telling you now.”
“I need a stretcher!” he screamed.
Screamed like a girl.
Tristan clapped his shoulder. “Relax. Remember to breathe. Everything will be fine.”
“Oh, hell no. Not ‘til she’s safely in the medic vac!” Without waiting for the stretcher, he ran back home.
Chastien rounded the corner with the stretcher he’d requested, looking questioningly at Tristan.
Tristan shrugged. “I assume he’s carrying her by now.”
Together they walked down the hallway to the larger of the classroom areas. Offspring were running amuck.
Tristan put his fingers together and whistled. Eelia thudded to the floor, as she dropped from the curtain she was climbing.
“Sorry,” Jannie said. “We’re a bit distracted. Bajoc just ran off with Dronan, Tiernan, and Chautles. He figured it would take four of them to carry the stretcher carefully with Marcie on it. Aello thought that was a great idea, and took Calian, Bastien, Lakek, and Kresna with him to carry Lisette.”
Tristan sighed. “So ten of our men, including Kamau now, are trying to cram the medic vac?”
“And several of the women.”
The door burst open. “Tristan! Quick. It’s Lara. She’s in labor.”
“Lara!” His eyeballs about burst out of his head. His precious, sweet, adorable mate. That was why she was crabby this morning. He ran out of the room, and then remembered his daughter. He ran back in the room. “Titi, be good,” he said.
She gave him a grin that could go either way.
He ran off again, all the way to their hut, where he broke open the door by twisting the knob too hard. It jammed, so he popped it all the way, where it crashed into the wall beyond. “Lara!” he bellowed.
Dead silence met him.
Behind him, heavy footsteps studded. “Not here,” Pulmar said. “She’s been taken to the medic vac.”
With a snarl, Tristan whirled and took off in a dead run. He burst into the vessel and opened his mouth to bellow for his mate. Instead, he gagged as a sa
nitizing spray hit him in the mouth. It gargled on his tongue as he spat the sanitizer out.
His gaze met the shocked eyes of all the other men in the waiting area.
“Where is she?”
One pointed to the first bay area. He burst into the small area.
Marcie squeezed her open legs closed. “What the fuck, Tristan?!”
Bajoc growled, but he barely heard it as he backed out. He entered the next area. There was his precious girl.
“Lara, what happened?” he said, rushing to her side. A robotic arm pushed around him to wrap around her arm and check her blood pressure. It retreated as soon as it had the reading.
“Today’s the day,” she panted.
“Today’s everyone’s day,” he said. “You, Anita, Marcie, Lisette.”
A voice called from outside in the main room. “Now Raine.”
He shook his head. “It’s like popping corn. One kernel, then another, then another.”
“Well, no one else can go into labor. That’s all of us.”
“You’re the one I’m worried about.”
“Don’t be.”
An ear-piercing scream hit his ears. He felt the blood drain from his face.
“Lara?”
“Don’t worry,” she panted. “That was just a bad one.”
Down the hallway, more screams echoed. Then he heard Bajoc’s voice snarling for a real doctor. Tiernan calmly informed him to stand back and let the robotic arms offer Marcie soothing relief.
“Relief?” Tristan muttered, looking down at Lara. “You can have some relief?”
She nodded. “Yes. But I refused it.”
He knew his mouth dropped open. “What? Why?”
“I want to feel every minute of this pain. It’s called natural childbirth.” Another scream ripped the air.
Tristan winced.
The automated doctor’s voice rolled out from the loudspeaker placed into the wall at her bed. “Reports of this birthing are being sent to Ambassador Krieckjan, as per his request. Your cervix is now fully dilated, Lara. Please feel free to push on the next birthing pain.”
The pain hit as soon as the voice finished speaking, and Lara grunted out her pain as she pushed. Tristan looked between her legs, but there was nothing but the robotic arms with small, antennae-sized probes.
“Eyes up here,” Lara snarled, using two fingers to jab her own eyes. He stared at her in shock. She sounded so…vicious. Uncouth. Mannerless.
“I’m fucking thirsty and all I can say is this kid better not have a big head. Or horns,” she yelled, making him wince. He was sure all the men in the waiting area heard. “And stop staring at my damn vagina!”
Thankfully, he could hear the other mates screaming at their poor men, too. Not that he felt sorry for the warriors because of that. He was just glad the distraction meant less would be listening to Lara’s chastising.
“I am sorry, my beautiful mate. I will try for smaller offspring next time.”
“Next time? Next time? Are you fricken kidding me, Tristan? Never talk about impregnating me again while I’m in labor. You selfish prick!” She immediately started sobbing.
What did he do? He was honestly baffled.
From down the hallway, he heard Anita screeching at Kamau to rub her feet since he “knocked her up.” He was glad he didn’t have that one. Further down the hall, he heard Marcie sobbing with a baffled-sounding Bajoc trying to console her.
He hugged Lara to his chest and she sobbed into his chest. Then she pushed away and gasped as another pain tore through her.
“This is a rather large one. It measures a nine on a scale of one to ten. Your infant is head down. Please push hard now.”
Lara made the most unladylike noises, grunting and shrieking. Then she squealed.
“The head is free. Please stop pushing until the mouth of the infant is suctioned.”
Lara gasped. “The head is free? Go see what it looks like.”
Now he was allowed to look? He couldn’t keep up with these yo-yo demands. He peered between her thighs. Sure enough, there was a tiny head, smaller than the palm of his hand, protruding from her…Chihuahua.
Chihuagina. Whatever she’d called it.
“It’s beautiful,” he whispered. “It has black hair like me. But the skin is a blend of my black and your white. It’s creamy, like the nuts that we replicate. The ones we planted in the trees.
“Coconuts?” She sighed.
“Here comes another contraction,” the voice said. “Please take a deep breath and give me one good push. I will let you know when the fetus is expelled.”
Lara followed its instructions, and the babee cleared her body, carried carefully by the robotic arms. Another set came out to clip the cord that attached the infant to her body.
“You may take your son and wrap him in a blanket,” the voice said. “I will monitor the delivery of the afterbirth.”
Tristan had no idea what that meant, but he grabbed a soft, blue blanket offered by one of the metal arms and carefully wrapped the squirming body in it.
The baby began to wail.
The wails stopped as he wrapped it securely in the blanket, and bringing their new offspring to Lara to see.
“You are as loud as your big sister,” Tristan told him.
“He’s beautiful! The perfect color. What are these red spots on his head?”
“His horn buds. He will have my color,” Tristan said, bemused. “I have a son. I can’t believe I have a son.”
“What would you like to name him?” Lara asked.
“I like Hagan. It means strong defense. He will defend our planet with the strength of our three peoples combined.”
“I like that, too,” Lara whispered. “Where is Titi? She was supposed to hang with Reese, but I heard Marcie was here. The backup plan was Tomlak, but Anita’s here too.”
“All the children are at the classroom with the unpregnant mates. Several of the warriors are here in the waiting room though. They have instructions to bring the news to everyone.”
“I guess you better go tell them we have a son. The medic-doc will have to give me aftercare anyway.”
“I will be right back,” he said, kissing her sweaty brow.
“We are nearly done,” he announced to the several pairs of eyes that swiveled his way.
“Is that blood?” Pulmar asked, his silvery face turning a slight green.
Was it? Tristan looked down at himself. Sure enough, there was blood splattered across his abdomen. He wondered how that happened.
“It is,” he bragged. “I just delivered my son. He is perfect, horn buds the color of mine. Coconut-colored skin that is the perfect mix of my black and Lara’s white. He has the lungs of his mother, and Titi’s screech. We named him Hagan.”
“Congratulations.” Several of the men clasped him around the shoulders, and others set aside the boxes of popcorn they’d been eating. The mates had taught them how to pop the kernels, and they always kept it available for replication. He’d normally be upset that they sat around enjoying the snack with the drama of birth like the Earth movies the mates spoke of, but he figured just the fact that the snack was ruined by seeing his bloody garb was punishment enough. “The Supreme Commander has been checking in. He would like to visit to see the new ones.”
Just then, a weary Bajoc emerged from Marcie’s room. His scar was more prominent across his face now that he was tired. “We have a tiny girl child. She is beautiful, silver-skinned with just a bit of cotton fuzz on her head the color of snow.”
“What is snow?” Kresna asked.
Bajoc shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s what Marcie said.”
“Did you give her a name?”
“I think so.” Bajoc looked uncomfortable. “I believe it is a flower.”
“Lily,” Marcie yelled from the other room.
Bajoc cleared his throat. “It is Lily.”
“I wonder who else is done?” Tristan said. “You realize we are first? It’s l
ike a race we won,” he said. “Our offspring popped out to meet and greet us.”
Kamau came out of their room. “A boy. We will call him Magnus. He is lighter skinned than I am. He nearly looks full human, except he has my hair instead of Anita’s.”
“Does he have horn buds?”
“Yes. But they are not my color. Instead they are a strange shade of blue, kind of like…”
Aello emerged from Lisette’s room, wiping his forehead with a rag and running it over his blue horns.
“Oh, no, you didn’t,” Kamau growled.
“Relax,” Tristan sighed, feeling mellow from watching the birth of his sun. “The grandfather unit who contributed to your DNA was blue-horned.”
Kamau’s face cleared. “Oh, that’s right.”
“What is yours?” Bajoc asked Aello.
“We have a sweet, delicate girl. She does not have horns, but she does have my skin color. She is the most beautiful offspring I have ever seen. We will call her Hussy.”
“Sissy!” Lisette yelled.
Tristan smirked. Not all his men could remember their own offspring’s names. Unlike him, who named his own.
Finally, Chastien emerged. “It was another boy. We shall call him Belzar.”
“Does he look like you?”
“He does. And his eyebrows are much thicker than Raine’s.”
Lara giggled from inside her room.
“Horn buds?”
“He does not.”
“That is okay. We shall celebrate all the differences among us.”
Just then Lakek came running into the medic vac. He had been minding the offspring at the schoolhouse with the other mates.
“The Supreme Commander just landed! He’s on his way, and very excited to see the bibbles.”
“Babees,” Tristan sneered. How could they adopt words from another language if his men kept slaughtering them?
Titi’s giggles sounded from just outside the door. All heads turned that way to see the Supreme Commander entering with Titi in his arms. She had her arms wrapped around his neck.
