Maryam

by Tracy St. John

  She drew a deep breath to calm her thun­der­ing pulse. “That’s not pos­si­ble. In­ter­species breed­ing – do you com­pre­hend the odds against two races from dif­fer­ent plan­ets be­ing ca­pa­ble of pro­duc­ing off­spring? It’s as­tro­nom­i­cal.”

  “I re­al­ize that. Our ef­forts to find a com­pat­i­ble race, so we could birth a hy­brid species—I con­sid­ered it a waste of money and re­sources.”

  “Then why have you re­ally kid­napped me?”

  He winced, as if she’d slapped him. How­ever, his deep voice rolled smoothly along. “Mil­lenia ago, the an­cient an­ces­tors of my peo­ple es­caped a planet or­bit­ing a dy­ing star. There were two con­voys. One went to Kalquor. The other dis­ap­peared and was never heard from again. When Earth­ers came to our at­ten­tion seven years ago, we no­ticed the star­tling sim­i­lar­i­ties be­tween our peo­ples. I was among those who laughed at the idea that your species might have re­sulted from the so-called Lost Tribe, but now, with the re­sults of the test­ing…” His voice died off, and his gaze went dis­tant.

  “Test­ing?”

  He shook the mood off. “An­other clan had the good for­tune of meet­ing an Earther fe­male. Tests for breed­ing com­pat­i­bil­ity were pos­i­tive. De­spite the odds against it, we can in­ter­breed.”

  “Was the Earther tested against her will?”

  “I don’t know.” For an in­stant, Kels’s self-as­sured­ness wa­vered. It took seem­ing ef­fort for him to re­gain it. “Kalquo­ri­ans are on the verge of ex­tinc­tion. Fe­male chil­dren born to us no longer live more than a few days. We’re out of op­tions, ex­cept that of aw­ful ne­ces­sity. I’m tak­ing you to Kalquor to be clanned.”

  “Clanned? As in, you ex­pect me to marry three men? To be forced to breed, like an an­i­mal?”

  He twitched again, and this time he thrust his square jaw for­ward, stub­bornly stick­ing to his sales­man spiel. “The men you’re to join with will make you happy, of­fer you a grand home with all the lux­u­ries you could pos­si­bly—”

  “Lux­u­ries? Lux­u­ries?” Maryam marched up to him to scream in his face. “You kid­nap me, take me pris­oner, rip me from my life, and you talk about lux­u­ries?”

  “You’ll live on a world com­mit­ted to the wel­fare of women, not their re­pres­sion.” Kels was dogged in his de­ter­mi­na­tion to have his say.

  “I’d call ab­duc­tion pretty damned re­pres­sive. Did Briel not tell you I can’t carry a child to full term? Ev­ery preg­nancy has ended in a mis­car­riage. I’m a shitty in­cu­ba­tor, pal.”

  Pity filled his ex­pres­sion. For an in­stant, Maryam itched to slap him for it, no mat­ter how big he was or the dis­ad­van­tage he had her at.

  “I’m aware you’ve had dif­fi­cul­ties in the past, and I’m sorry you’ve had to en­dure that. For­tu­nately, our med­i­cal abil­i­ties far ex­ceed Earth’s. Par­tic­u­larly when it comes to preg­nancy, be­cause we’ve spent cen­turies try­ing to de­feat the ob­sta­cles to our own pro­cre­ation. Our doc­tors may be able to cor­rect what­ever has kept you from moth­er­hood, es­pe­cially since it can’t have any­thing to do with our own in­sur­mount­able is­sue—dam­aged DNA.”

  His in­sis­tence gave Maryam a sec­ond of pause. Briel had ex­plained that a virus had done se­vere chro­mo­so­mal dam­age to her peo­ple in the past, leav­ing fe­male’s ge­netic struc­ture par­tic­u­larly al­tered. Maryam had no such con­cerns—but she wasn’t sure why her body wouldn’t grow a child to term. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. They couldn’t pin­point the cause.”

  “Our doc­tors prob­a­bly can. With our species be­ing so sim­i­lar, I’m sure they can help you.”

  She swal­lowed. Wa­vered for all of a sec­ond be­fore re­al­ity kicked in. “I don’t care what your world says it will do for me. Whether it buys me a flashy fleet of high-end shut­tles or a man­sion on a hill, I won’t join a clan. I won’t be your baby-mak­ing ma­chine.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m only do­ing my duty.” No sign of guilt or pity any longer. Just firm re­solve.

  “You can spout duty, you can cry about ex­tinc­tion, but you have no right to do this to me.”

  “I have the strength and the means. You’re go­ing to Kalquor.”

  When the urge to slap him rose again, Maryam gave in to it. She slapped that hard jaw, then she raced to the shelves hold­ing her be­long­ings and flung them at him. When she ran out of items to hurl at the stoic alien, she ran to him and pum­meled him with fists, hurt­ing her­self.

  He showed no sign he felt any of her rage. He ab­sorbed her abuse for sev­eral min­utes, hard and un­flinch­ing as stone. Later, she would won­der why he let her hit him, even if it did no harm. Maybe he agreed he de­served it.

  Kels even­tu­ally de­cided he’d had enough. He picked her up and tossed her on the bed. Maryam’s first ter­ri­fied thought was he would join her, climb­ing on top of her to be the first of many who would force them­selves on her, hold­ing her down as he be­gan her en­slave­ment as a breeder.

  For a mo­ment, some­thing dark did flicker in his gaze. Then Kels turned and left. The lock clicked be­hind him.

  Fear fled, re­placed by fury. Maryam shrieked in help­less rage at the door of her prison, at the man who had put her in it.

  Over the next hour, Maryam in­ves­ti­gated her prison, inch by inch. As she’d feared, she found noth­ing she could use as a weapon. There was no es­cape—not that it mat­tered, since she was on a Kalquo­rian ship full of Kalquo­ri­ans who wouldn’t give a damn about her plight.

  Help­less. Fright­ened. Those feel­ings swept over her, but anger dom­i­nated. Why hadn’t she’d found a way to hurt Kels? Why hadn’t she clawed his eyes, kneed his groin, a bil­lion other tac­tics that would have done the dam­age mere slaps and punches could not?

  She sat on the edge of the bed and tried to fig­ure out an es­cape. This couldn’t be hap­pen­ing to her, this un­think­able fate of be­ing made the sex slave to an alien clan.

  The door abruptly opened. Briel swooped in, the skirts of her green gown swing­ing as she called, “Close and lock.”

  Silent sec­onds ticked by as the women stared at each other. At last, Briel held out her hand. She clutched Maryam’s teddy bear. “I knew you wouldn’t want to leave this be­hind.”

  Though she itched to snatch the plush toy from the trai­tor­ous Briel, Maryam slowly rose to her feet in­stead. She glared at the woman she’d con­sid­ered a younger sis­ter. “Was this your plan all along? Buddy up to the Earther, lure her in so your clan could run off with me?”

  Briel straight­ened. Glared, as if in­sulted. “None of that has any­thing to do with me. In fact, I showed up plan­ning to warn you what Kels and Der­gan were up to…but then I saw your quar­ters, what those Earth­ers had done. I had only sec­onds to make the de­ci­sion that you had to come with us be­fore you were hurt by your own peo­ple.”

  “Be­fore I was hurt? Are you kid­ding me? Your clan­mates ab­ducted me.”

  Briel set the bear on a nearby shelf. She low­ered her arms to her sides, her fists clenched. “Nei­ther of my choices at that mo­ment were good, and I pan­icked. I had to get you away from those Earth­ers, but I can’t let you be clanned against your will ei­ther. Even though the mem­bers of Clan Se­bist are good men and would make won­der­ful life­mates for you, this is wrong.”

  Maryam’s rage dis­si­pated. De­spite Briel’s role in the kid­nap­ping, she ap­peared to be on Maryam’s side. “Can you help me?”

  “I have to, don’t I?” Briel dropped onto the bed. “The ques­tion is, how? No one here has a choice in the mat­ter. Kels and Der­gan are un­der or­ders from the Royal Coun­cil it­self. So is the ship’s crew. Re­fus­ing to do as they’re told is tan­ta­mount to trea­son.”

  “Prin­ci­ples out­weigh in­jus­tice, trea­son or not. You said your clan­mates are h
on­or­able.”

  “They are, Maryam. This is a ter­ri­ble mis­cal­cu­la­tion on their part. I’ve got to make them see that.”

  Maryam sat be­side her and felt some com­fort when Briel took her hands. “Can you? Kels seems de­ter­mined.”

  “He’s also con­flicted, torn be­tween duty and honor. Der­gan is twice so. Pana is in shock over the mat­ter. I might be able to con­vince them you have to be re­leased.”

  “Might isn’t the most re­as­sur­ing word you could’ve used. What hap­pens if you can’t change their minds?”

  Briel’s gaze met hers. “I’ve slipped away from them be­fore. I could do it again, bring­ing you with me to some­where safe from Kalquor. Earth, too. I’ll do it if my clan won’t see rea­son.”

  An­other thought oc­curred to Maryam. “If they set me free, how much trou­ble will they be in with the Kalquo­rian Em­pire?”

  “It could mean prison.” Briel bit her lip.

  In that in­stant, Maryam could have cried for the love she felt for her friend. Briel was ready to sac­ri­fice ev­ery­thing to undo the dam­age.

  Could Maryam al­low her to? What would hap­pen to Briel and her baby if Kels, Der­gan, and Pana were in­car­cer­ated? If she spir­ited Maryam away, would she be con­victed of trea­son too?

  Be­fore Maryam could ask, the door opened. Like déjà vu, Kels and Der­gan burst into the room, as they had on Pelk Sta­tion. Der­gan scooped up Briel, set­ting her on her feet be­hind him. He glow­ered at Maryam.

  “Keep your dis­tance from my Matara.”

  Maryam gaw­ped at him. He thought she was a threat to his Ama­zo­nian clan­mate?

  Mean­while, Kels con­fronted Briel. “What are you do­ing in here, Briel? Alone with a hos­tile pris­oner?”

  “Hos­tile pris­oner? Have you lost your mind? I’m vis­it­ing my friend.”

  “She could have at­tacked you. She could have harmed you or the baby.”

  An in­vol­un­tary gig­gle es­caped Maryam. A sec­ond fol­lowed it. A mo­ment later, laugh­ter spewed de­spite the ter­ri­fy­ing Der­gan loom­ing over her.

  Be­tween guf­faws, Maryam man­aged to gasp to her non­plused au­di­ence, “Sweet prophets. Am I that much of a threat? I wish some­one had told me sooner how ter­ri­fy­ing I am. I’d have taken ad­van­tage of my dread­ful at­tributes.”

  Her sit­u­a­tion was aw­ful, but lu­di­crous too. It took a cou­ple of min­utes for the hi­lar­ity to ta­per off. When it did, she wiped at her stream­ing eyes and gasped, “Care­ful, Briel. I’m a hu­man weapon, my mere pres­ence fa­tal.”

  “Which is why I’ve been trem­bling since we met.” Briel snick­ered, her shock dis­ap­pear­ing. Her amuse­ment faded as she con­fronted Kels and Der­gan. “Stop mak­ing fools of your­selves. You em­bar­rass me. Der­gan, since when do you threaten a woman? If you keep glar­ing at her, I’ll blacken your eyes my­self.”

  Der­gan’s face red­dened as shame filled it. He stepped as far from Maryam as the cramped quar­ters would al­low, his head low­ered in hu­mil­i­a­tion.

  Kels didn’t fol­low the Nobek’s ex­am­ple. He re­mained un­apolo­get­i­cally stern when he spoke to Briel. “Re­turn to our quar­ters. You are to visit this woman only when su­per­vised. Matara Maryam may be more dan­ger­ous than she ap­pears.”

  “Not un­til I knit my­self a blaster. Ooh, then you’d bet­ter watch out.” Hys­ter­ics threat­ened to de­scend on Maryam once again.

  Briel glared at Kels, not re­treat­ing. In fact, she closed the dis­tance be­tween them un­til their noses nearly touched. “Treat Maryam with re­spect. I mean it. There are lines you don’t dare cross with me, my Dramok, or I’ll make you wish you hadn’t.”

  A growl trick­led from be­tween her clenched teeth. Kels pulled back, blink­ing in sur­prise, though he ap­peared mus­cled enough to break even the im­pres­sive Briel in half.

  Hav­ing made her point, Briel bent to drop a kiss on Maryam’s cheek. “We’ll talk again. Soon. Stay strong un­til then.”

  “I will. Thank you, Briel.” Maryam poured all the feel­ing she could muster into the in­ad­e­quate words.

  With a fi­nal glare for the men, Briel swept out of the room, as re­gal and as­sured as a queen.

  When the door closed be­hind her, Kels sagged. He ex­changed a glance with Der­gan. They looked as if they’d just sur­vived an en­counter with a dragon. It would have been funny, but Maryam had run out of laugh­ter.

  Kels bowed to her. Whether it was out of habit, fear of Briel, or be­cause he’d re­mem­bered his man­ners, his tone held re­spect as he spoke. “Please come with us, Matara Maryam.”

  “Where?” Shaky from her laugh­ing jag, she couldn’t keep the anx­i­ety out of her tone.

  “To Med­i­cal. The doc­tor will run some tests to de­ter­mine whether or not the dif­fi­cul­ties you’ve had car­ry­ing chil­dren to term can be cor­rected.”

  “If I refuse to co­op­er­ate?”

  “Then you’ll be se­dated, and the tests will be car­ried out any­way.” Kels sounded sad. Beaten. Not be­cause of his face­off with Briel, but as if he hated say­ing such cruel things.

  The no­tion failed to al­ter Maryam’s bit­ter­ness. “How nice you’ve given me a choice of whether to go through it awake or un­con­scious.”

  “Come with me, please.” He trig­gered the door to open.

  Scowl­ing, she al­lowed him and Der­gan to herd her into the cor­ri­dor be­yond.

  Chap­ter Six

  Maryam stopped just in­side the med­i­cal fa­cil­ity Briel’s clan­mates brought her to, paus­ing to peer at her new sur­round­ings. Some items were vaguely fa­mil­iar. She no­ticed first the two dozen exam ta­bles, cur­rently empty. Com­puter pan­els lined the walls, with var­i­ous ma­chines sta­tioned be­tween them, no doubt ready to be put to use should an emer­gency arise. They were dif­fer­ent from Earther med­i­cal ap­pa­ra­tus, taller with com­pli­cated con­trols. The sharp scent of an as­sid­u­ously clean en­vi­ron­ment was nearly iden­ti­cal to what she was used to, how­ever.

  A few men dressed in green stared at Maryam be­fore jerk­ing their at­ten­tion to what­ever they’d been do­ing be­fore her ar­rival. To a man, they were dark-skinned, black-haired, and pur­ple-eyed. Maryam won­dered how they could all have the same col­or­ing, un­like the var­ied hues of her own peo­ple. How odd, es­pe­cially since Kels al­leged Kalquo­ri­ans and Earth­ers could have come from a shared an­ces­tral race.

  The Dramok’s palm press­ing gen­tly against her back, bring­ing her out of such ru­mi­na­tions. At the same mo­ment, he called, “Dr. Ihas?”

  “Right here.” A strik­ing man, his hair twisted in a bun, came around a par­ti­tion. His bear­ing was re­gal with­out be­ing haughty, and Maryam had the thought it was the no­ble de­meanor more than his looks that made the doc­tor at­trac­tive. As he came closer, she no­ticed the strong nose wasn’t quite straight, that his chin was too small, and his cheek­bones were too sharp. Still, any­one would stop and look twice at him.

  His pleas­ant ex­pres­sion veered to­ward dis­ap­proval as he noted Maryam. “Dramok Kels, is it?” He con­tin­ued to gaze at Maryam, a fas­ci­nated gleam ap­pear­ing in his eyes even as the aura of ir­ri­ta­tion in­creased. “This is a de­stroyer med­i­cal de­part­ment. I patch up Kalquo­rian crewmem­bers who’ve suf­fered in­jury. My ex­pe­ri­ence with women is text­book only. As for Earth­ers, none.”

  “You said you could fig­ure out our most ba­sic con­cern.” When the doc­tor glanced at him with overt an­noy­ance, Kels main­tained a con­trolled de­meanor. “We’re un­der or­ders, Doc­tor.”

  Ihas mut­tered un­der his breath. His at­ten­tion re­turned to Maryam, and the cross ex­pres­sion eased into gen­tle­ness. “What I told the coun­cil­man’s ad­vi­sor when he asked me to di­ag­nose your prob­lem was that I could scan for any ob�
�vi­ous ab­nor­mal­i­ties and con­sult with the med­i­cal data­base.”

  Maryam shrugged. He seemed nice, but she could tell he wouldn’t help her re­turn to Pelk.

  “You have med­i­cal scans on Earth, cor­rect? Have you had oc­ca­sion to un­dergo any?”

  “I’ve had them. When search­ing for a rea­son why my preg­nan­cies re­sulted in mis­car­riages, scans showed a few fi­broids, but no other con­cerns.”

  “Fi­broids. Those don’t ex­plain the is­sues you’ve had. At what point in the preg­nan­cies did the mis­car­riages oc­cur?”

  “Usu­ally within twelve weeks.” Late enough for her to feel hope­ful, and dev­as­tat­ing when hope was lost.

  “You had other tests, I’m sure. What were the re­sults of those? What prob­lems were found?”

  “All ap­peared nor­mal. They couldn’t find any prob­lems with my re­pro­duc­tive or­gans.”

  Yet her preg­nan­cies had gone wrong each and ev­ery time. Maryam swal­lowed the sud­den ache in her throat.

  Ihas eyed her, as if hear­ing her thoughts. “You re­al­ize a lost preg­nancy is rarely the mother’s fault? That most are due to ab­nor­mal­i­ties to the em­bryo or fe­tus?”

  “I did all I could to en­sure my ba­bies were healthy.”

  “I’m sure you did. Did you have only one mate?”

  “Of course.”

  “He was tested too?”

  Maryam met his gaze. “He and my doc­tor were adamant that there was no need to do so.”

  Ihas started. “But if the mis­car­riages were due to a de­fects in fe­tal de­vel­op­ment, it could’ve been the fa­ther who passed along ab­nor­mal­i­ties.”

  When Maryam had brought that up to the doc­tor, he’d given her a stern speech on blam­ing her de­fi­cien­cies on her hus­band. He’d been an un­feel­ing ass, but he’d been right. “My for­mer hus­band had a healthy child with an­other woman.”