by Lara LaRue
“And your own science officers have been of little help still, I take it?” He pulled a bottle of Klaata juice from a chilling unit and tossed it over to me.
I caught it in midair and flipped the port open, swallowing half the minty green liquid down. “The scientists’ experiments with test tubes have not worked consistently enough. We still end up with only males with very limited genetic diversity. We need females of outside lineages in order to flourish as a people. I just cannot believe that this farce is the closest we have come to succeeding!”
Baelon let me rant; this was a routine we’d worked out over the years. He stood at rest, letting the waves of my frustration crash about him without effect. He knew that as soon as I dealt with the excess rage, I would find the resolve to go solve the problem that was enraging me.
It only took a few minutes this time. I finally caught my breath as he watched, and he tilted his head. “You have gotten far closer to finding a solution than your father ever did. Perhaps you should not give up on the humans quite yet.”
I nodded, my pride and determination overcoming my frustration. “I will solve this, Uncle. Our world’s genetic problems end during my reign. I will be known for it.”
A moment after my vow, the chamber doors crashed open. We looked up quickly. T’ral stood there with a data screen in hand, his normally impassive face ashen. “Sire, Earth has sent the first data broadcast. I have something here that you need to see.”
With a cocked eyebrow, I held out my hand. T’ral stepped forward and gave the screen to me. I exchanged a look with Baelon before looking down at the screen. Neither one of us had ever seen T’ral so disturbed.
Stranger still, there was nothing visible on the screen but a picture of a nude human female. Not a bad-looking one, either. Her curly hair was a jet black, and her skin was a warm sienna hue. She was small of stature but generously curved, her hips wide and her waist narrow. This picture was of just her back, so I saw no details of her face and found myself wishing that I could. “She’s not bad, for a human. What’s the problem?”
T’ral coughed softly. “Just…look, sire.”
Suddenly something riveted my attention. The subtle mark on her shoulder blade and up her neck. It was about the same height and width as my splayed hand and just slightly darker than the surrounding skin. I would have thought it was a tattoo, except that it appeared slightly raised, like a welt.
My eyes traced the shape again, its familiarity shocking me. This wasn’t possible.
“Who sent this design to them?” I demanded immediately.
“No one, sire,” T’ral replied, sounding tired and a touch baffled.
My anger at the humans came roaring back. “Impossible. There is some trickery going on. Is this the ‘rash’ that fool spoke of? Someone will pay for this insult. If this female was in on this hoax, she will pay dearly. If she was not, then the person who has marked her thusly will pay with his life. The humans aren’t even supposed to know about this symbol.”
Baelon moved to my side and looked over my shoulder at the screen. His imperturbable smile vanished, and he blanched. “Can you zoom in on the marking?” he inquired. “Is this an image enhancement trick?”
T’ral was already shaking his head in the negative. “I considered all of these things, sire. I have my most trusted people scanning through all the transmissions to and from Earth from our first contact with them a decade and a half ago. In none of those transmissions is this design seen or described. Nor is any human aware of the significance of finding it on a female. That aspect of our reproductive cycle is not in any histories or culture abstracts we provided to the humans. There is no way they could have known.” He licked his lips a bit nervously, and I just nodded at him to go on, speechless with anger still.
He took a steadying breath. “Once I started that research, I also had someone check to see if there had been tampering with the image. As far as we can tell, the photograph is a true one. The motif on her skin is real. We will not know more until we can examine her ourselves in three days’ time.”
“Impossible.” I refused to believe that this could be anything but a sham. I continued studying the picture. Analyzing the shape of the emblem on the female’s neck and shoulder, I shook my head. It was even in the exact spot a marriage mark would be. It was positioned perfectly on her right shoulder blade and up her neck, in just the place a spouse’s hand would rest if she were standing at his right side and he had set a loving hand upon her. There was no way that a “rash” from a genetic inoculation could have spontaneously formed in the exact right shape and location.
I turned to T’ral, seething. “Check through the records once more. Go through them yourself if need be. See if it was on the hem of a formal uniform or on a medal or document the humans might have spied.”
He held up a hand. “Sire, we looked. This design isn’t used for anything like that. According to our law books, due to its symbolism, especially on a female, it is illegal to use it outside of its usual context. It certainly wouldn’t show up on any formally approved designs or documents. Only a direct print from the Royal Seal by a member of your lineage can be used, never its mere image.”
I stared at him, chest heaving. Then how did it get on the back of a human volunteer for our breeding program?
T’ral seemed to have the answers to any questions I could come up with before I could think of them. This, of course, was his job and what made him so critical in his position. Yet every time he came back at me with facts, he frustrated my urge to deny the whole thing.
My hands were growing sore, and I realized I had been gripping the data screen quite tightly. I looked up from it and scowled. “T’ral, we need to figure this out. Find out how my family crest wound up on a human female’s neck, marking her as my life mate!” I threw the data screen across the training room where it shattered into pieces.
Chapter 3
Eva
I need another blanket, dammit.
I wriggled and drew up my knees to my stomach to try to hold in my heat, but it was no use. I just got colder and colder.
Worse, I was still feeling sick. I sneezed, the inside of my nostrils itching and hurting and my ears stuffy. I’m fucking miserable. Why the hell did I agree to this shit?
I wished I was back home. Ivy would know how to make me feel better. She’d probably heat broth in a cup I could wrap my hands around and give me an extra blanket to hold in the added warmth. We would talk as I started feeling better, and I would quickly know that things were all right.
I could feel the tears begin to fill my eyes and then trickle down my cheeks. I blinked them away angrily. Joining the program had been my idea. I can do this.
I pulled the one puny blanket tighter across my shoulders. It rubbed on the still tender mark, making me wince. The faint irritation reminded me why I couldn’t go back home.
I had been chosen.
I was it…the last surviving test subject to go through the program without quitting.
The others had already washed out and gone home, according to my medical monitor, Dr. Ostrov. I envied them, even as determined as I was to hang in there where they hadn’t.
I had given my word that I would go through with this, and I never went back on my word. Even more importantly, I was doing this for Ivy and her kids—Trevor, Mark, Josephine, and little Jaylynn. They had taken me in and treated me like family when I hadn’t been able to stay at the Children’s Ward any longer.
It was my turn to take care of them. That was the promise I had made myself.
Participating in an off-world genetic surrogacy program had made me into a guinea pig now getting over a damn alien flu, but it paid very well.
Ivy had been against this idea, but I had talked her into it. The fifty thousand credit sign-on bonus had helped sway her, especially after it had freed her from the mortgage on her housing pod.
Now, the kids were going to a real school instead of dialing in on a third-rate computer, and Iv
y could go back to her job full time. Her letters these days were full of hope, and she was happy to admit how wrong she had been.
I couldn’t disappoint her now. I didn’t care what I had to go through.
We had seen the advertisement in the posts on the vid screens in the square. Ivy had mocked the Peace Opportunity Program when we’d read the fine print about the “dying alien race” and “advanced technology.” But something about it had tugged at my heartstrings.
Afterward, I couldn’t let the idea go. I kept imagining how awful that would be. So few children that the whole race was dying out? Only one female born in every two thousand births? Having advanced technology that still couldn’t fix the situation?
How helpless they must feel.
I knew I might not be able to help, but the five thousand credits the program had offered just to let them try to see if my DNA was compatible with the alien DNA had seemed like a godsend. There was no way I will be accepted, I had thought. All they would do was test me, say I was incompatible, give me my credits, and send me home. Or so I had thought.
Ivy had worried so much when I had gotten my offer letter from the program, announcing that my genes were theoretically compatible with those of the mysterious aliens. I had been pretty scared, but after thinking about it, I had decided to go for it.
Ivy and I wrote to each other as much as we could on the monitored communications system. I always did my best to reassure her that I was doing fine. But the truth was, the experiments were grueling and sometimes very painful.
The retrovirus therapy they had used to bridge the genetic gap between humans and aliens had all sorts of weird effects on me. Fevers, light sensitivity, hallucinations, and finally, this damn flu or whatever it was. It sure felt like the worst flu I had ever had.
My muscles and joints were stiff and ached. Shifting to my other side to face the wall was torturous. Of course, the shapeless hospital gown-thing they’d given me to wear got twisted under my curvy hips. I pushed myself up and caught sight of the skin on my arms. Now I really wanted to cry. My beautiful skin. Usually the color of the specialty hot caramels we’d save up credits for during the holiday season, it was now ashy and pale, with a sallow look. At least that painful all-over rash was gone, aside from the welts running down the side of my neck and my shoulder blade.
My head pounded with pain. I was stronger than yesterday, at least, and I thought I might be able to get up and deal with it without calling the nurse. I hated feeling helpless.
While up on one hip, I glanced around my assigned cubicle for a cup for water. Nothing. Once again, whoever handled room supplies had forgotten something. I’d have to get a handful of water from the sink in the lavatory.
Groaning in pain, I rolled to the edge of the cot and placed my feet on the cold tile. It was a very good thing that I was wearing socks. My feet still ached as the chill radiated through them. I stood to my full height of five foot one and immediately slumped just a bit. I was much too tired and achy to walk with my usual attention to posture and attempt to flatten my tummy. A shuffling walk was all I could manage. But at least I was walking again.
Whatever they’d done to me was still hurting like hell. At times like this, I felt like I’d been so wrong to go through with this. I comforted myself that at least my family would do better from now on, no matter what happened to me.
The advert had called for healthy females between the ages of eighteen and thirty. It had asked for “clean, healthy, of sound mind, literate” and a whole host of other things including “being able to bear children without having been pregnant on previous occasions.” It had struck us as no weirder than some ovum donor programs I had considered before. It was just that the beneficiaries in this case weren’t human.
I’d bathed and taken great care with my appearance the day we had gone for my test. My thick, curly fluffs of black hair had been tamed with oil and conditioner, and I’d pulled it back off my face to draw attention to my almond-shaped eyes. Ivy had found me a dress of deep blue that accented my generous curves. It had given me a touch more confidence to arrive dressed up, and I would wonder later if the choice had affected their decision.
Ivy had walked me to the Medical Ward, where the line to sign up had stretched all the way around the block. The queue had moved quickly, though, as only one in ten women had been let through the gates.
The gate personnel had turned away the elderly ladies, the coughing or crutch-wielding, the ones with babes at breast or at hand, and the pregnant ones. They had refused entry to prepubescent girls, no matter what their mothers had said to try to get them in, and the tears of the desperate girls had not swayed them.
The guards at the gate were unyielding in their decision. They would take one glance at the woman walking toward them and, in an instant, decide whether she met the criteria or not. When my time had come, I had hugged Ivy quickly and strode for the entry, sure in my knowledge that I met all the prerequisites.
Sure enough, checkpoint one had let me through with a smile. Checkpoint two had required a brief pause at a table, where I had been made to place my hand on a scanner and speak my name in order to confirm my identity. They then had handed me a small screen device. I had to read the information on the screen and answer some questions about what I had read—proof that I was literate. Many women had been turned back then. Even on Earth itself, literacy had dropped like a stone since the public schools had closed.
The third checkpoint had been a mental health screening by a psychiatrist. The doctor’s signature had been required for the credits to be transferred. I had sighed in relief after he’d signed the screen, sending the credits winging into Ivy’s bank account, one less thing to worry about.
A month later, the offer letter welcoming me to the program had come, shocking us both.
According to the letter, only five of us had qualified for the program. I had wondered at that. Five? How could five women help a race of people that needed thousands?
All the more reason for me to tough it out once the pain had begun, and it had. Medical screenings, blood tests, and physical exams. They had checked my heart, my breathing, my skin, my eyes, my hearing, my breasts, my womb, and my vagina. Nothing had been left un-probed. It had been painful and humiliating, but I had never complained.
And when they had finished, instead of getting back my lovely dress, I had been given my current outfit, which was changed for an identical one every morning. It consisted of a long, shapeless pale blue gown that stretched just a bit across my breasts and hips, and an actually nice, cozy pair of socks. The lack of a bra had given me backaches for a while, but then I had gotten sick and had spent most of my time lying down.
Now, I was finally recovering—and I was also, officially, the last woman standing. I leaned against the lavatory sink to catch my breath. Crap, this is humiliating. It felt like most of my muscle tone was gone.
On a daily basis, I had walked most everywhere I needed to go for my life in New Atlanta, only occasionally catching the tram. I had considered myself in pretty good shape. Good enough that a ten-foot hobble should not have exhausted me.
If whatever they had injected me with had made me this sick, no wonder they didn’t want those who had already felt ill; this stuff would’ve killed them. Maybe that was why they had kept the five of us isolated from each other, to prevent cross-contamination with any of those screwed-up alien diseases.
It’s too bad, though. The loneliness was the worst part of all of this. If it weren’t for the letters from home, I think I would have gone a little crazy. I turned on the water and slurped down a few cupped handfuls quickly, taking the edge off my headache.
Maybe a hot shower would help ease some of my aches and chills. Certainly couldn’t hurt. I reached into the tiny shower closet and turned on the water. Steam immediately began billowing around me. I breathed it in, enjoying the idea of the water pounding on my skin. I shut the water off and got ready for my shower.
Back when I had liv
ed in the Children’s Ward as a kid, showers had been rationed. We had gotten one every other day as wards of the state, on a timer that had stopped the water after five minutes.
While I had been living with Ivy and the kids in her living pod, the water shortages had started, and I had truly learned what rationing meant. In her small living quarters, we had gotten a full shower of seven minutes once a week, and we had made do with cleansing-pad sponge baths every other day, no matter what.
As a current “guest” of the Medical Ward, I could take a shower several times a day if I wanted to and had the ability. But after everything I had been through, I considered that idea so wasteful that I would never allow myself the indulgence. So, I had gone back to five-minute showers, shutting off the water to lather up.
Now that the damn fever had broken last night, the doctors were eager to get me back on my feet, but it would be a while before I was anything close to camera-ready. I wanted to try to be at my best when the Peace Opportunity Ambassadors came to call. Cleaning off the sweat of my illness seemed like a pretty good first step.
I heard noises out in the main room while I bathed, but I ignored them. I knew that while I was in the shower, my gown and socks would be whisked away and replaced with fresh ones, as would the sheets on my bed and that short, inadequate blanket, which they never added to no matter how often I asked.
I knew the doctors were always watching me. I had understood that from the beginning, and I had figured I’d better get used to it. I knew I’d signed up to be a lab rat.
Not many knew anything about this alien race. They were the first who had made direct contact with us. But I knew that the treaty was important. It had already netted Earth several technological breakthroughs, including the use of hyperspace tubes. But our new friends had been very tight-lipped about a lot of aspects of their world and culture.
