V01 - V

by A. C. Crispin

  "Quiet, Elias," Juliet said. "We don't know what happened to Robin up on the ship. She could've been drugged, knocked out, almost anything—"

  "No!" Robin shook her head wildly. "I'm not imagining this or making it up! It was Brian—he was the only one I ever slept with. While I was locked up, he said he'd get me free . . . I thought I loved him! Oh, God!" She pulled at her dark hair frenziedly, as though only the pain could keep her from flying apart in the face of her horror. "How could I have been so stupid? It's his baby, and I want an abortion now!"

  Juliet shushed her, holding the sobbing girl close. "I think we'd better discuss this in more depth . . . just Robin, her father, Cal, and me. We'll talk later about what's to be done. Okay, everybody?"

  A mutter of agreement filled the air, and slowly the group dissipated. Juliet nodded to Cal, and the three adults and Robin went quietly into the laboratory. Willie sat behind the plexiglass door again, regarding them sadly. Juliet began, "Now, Robin, I think you'd better tell us about what happened to you up on the Mother Ship. Be as specific as you can. Remember it's not only your life we're dealing with here."

  "Okay, Julie." Robin looked up, her blue-green eyes awash, then haltingly began to tell of her imprisonment. When she described the medical examination she'd been given, Juliet and Cal made her recount every detail.

  "It could be anything," Julie mused. "But the few others who've managed to get off the Mother Ship were never put through anything like that. This sounds like one of Diana's experiments. Go on, Robin."

  Her eyes on the floor, Robin told the rest of her story in halting phrases. Robert Maxwell was breathing hard by the time she finished, his hands clenching and unclenching,

  "Well," said Juliet, after she'd sent Robin back to her room to wash her face and brush her hair, "it certainly seems as though the intercourse actually took place."

  "The bastard raped her," Robert said. "When I think of my little girl treated like that—"

  "Stop it, Robert," Cal said, not unkindly. "That kind of talk won't get us anywhere, and it's certainly not going to help Robin."

  "But even if intercourse took place, how does that explain a conception?" Juliet shook her head. "Elias is correct—by rights there can be no interspecial conception!"

  "You're forgetting that the Visitors are more advanced scientifically than we are," Cal pointed out. "And even we've made some strides in that direction. Did you ever hear of the sunbean plant?"

  Slowly remembering, Juliet nodded. Cal explained for Maxwell's benefit. "Cross-species genetic combination has been done since 1981. They call it gene splicing. Geneticists from the USDA and the University of Wisconsin succeeded in moving genetic material from a sunflower plant into a bean plant—or vice versa, I don't remember at the moment. Anyway, it created a new species that was a combination of both. They used a bacterium as the vehicle to transport the genetic material. If this was one of Diana's experiments, she could have exposed Brian to radiation, or used chemicals, or surgery. Or maybe a combination of more than one technique, or possibly they've developed entirely new techniques we haven't even imagined. It's not impossible that Robin is carrying a child fathered by Brian." He sighed. "Unlikely, but not impossible."

  William tapped on the plexiglass for attention. The three scientists looked over at him, startled, then Juliet got up to unlock the door.

  "What is it, William?"

  "I must tell you," Willie looked down at the floor, then back up at Juliet. "Among the females of my species, the sign of carrying young is that the skin around the throat changes color. This band is visible very soon after conception, and grows around the neck as the pregnancy advances. I noticed it on Robin."

  Very quietly, Juliet thanked him. The three scientists sat in silence until Robin came back into the room. The girl had regained some of her poise. "Julie? Can we do the abortion today?"

  Juliet shrugged. "I don't know, Robin. We'll have to do some tests." Taking Robin by the arm, she headed for the corridor. "I'll have to talk to Fred, see if he can get a room at the hospital . . ."

  The other resistance members, hearing footsteps, came back out into the corridor. Juliet hesitated. "Robin, I can't lie to you. This could well be dangerous. There's so much we don't know. There's never been a pregnancy like this before."

  "I don't care," Robin said quietly, but her voice was hard. "I'd rather die than have this . . . thing."

  "Abortion is murder, Robin!" said Father Andrew pleadingly.

  Elias glared at the priest. "Not in this case. How would you like to give birth to a lizard, Padre?"

  "We don't know that it'll be reptilian," Caleb said. "We have no idea what it'll be, right, Julie?"

  Juliet shrugged and nodded wearily.

  "Which is why I'm against abortion," Father Andrew said. "This child, if it lives, could be a bridge between the two races."

  "The world is full of monsters," Brad said, averting his eyes from Robin. "Why create a new breed?"

  "They're not all monsters," Sancho said. "They're intelligent creatures. One of them even saved my life."

  Robert Maxwell put a protective arm around his daughter "Look, this discussion is irrelevant. It's nobody's business. Robin's my daughter—not the subject of a lab experiment!"

  Father Andrew said gently, looking at Robin, "This is the first mating between our species and a race from another world. I think it's too important a decision to leave to a seventeen-year-old—or her distraught father."

  "Nobody's going to experiment on my daughter Father!"

  "Stop it!" Robin shouted. "This is hard enough without all this—this—" She struggled to control her sobs.

  "Yes, stop it," Mike Donovan said, speaking for the first time. "We've heard these arguments before, about life being so precious that nothing should interfere with it. It's an old argument on an old issue. But this is different."

  "The principle is the same," the priest said.

  "No, it's not. Robin may give birth to a completely new species. You're dealing with more than a curiosity here—you're dealing with a potential threat."

  "The scientific and moral implications of this pregnancy are inescapable! This is a unique—"

  "So are the dangers," Donovan interrupted the priest coldly. "It's a big responsibility. It's Robin's body. It should be her decision."

  Robin looked gratefully at the ex-newsman, then, after long seconds of silence, turned to her father "I want it gone. I want the abortion."

  Elias Taylor, dressed in a hospital maintenance uniform, peered cautiously out the door of the Proctology Section, his sidearm concealed behind his body. He sighed with relief and turned back to Brad as the sound of footsteps receded. "Just a nurse," he whispered, closing the door. Hastily the two men finished taping the cracks so no betraying chinks of light would show. They'd barely finished when more footsteps resounded, causing them to stiffen once more, weapons ready.

  These footsteps, like the others, continued on down the corridor. Brad swiped at the thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. "I can't take much more of this," he said, slumping into a seat. "This is crazy! What if someone comes in here?"

  Elias grinned. "Oh, I think we're pretty safe. It's three A.M.—whoever heard of a hemorrhoid emergency at this hour?"

  Brad looked disgusted at his companion's wit. They sat in silence for long moments, then Brad turned to look at the inner door of the small room. "I wonder what's happening in there?"

  "Dunno," Elias answered helpfully. "But I'll tell you one thing. I wouldn't be in that girl's shoes for anything. Imagine havin' one of those snakes inside you . . ." He sat down, cradling his gun, his eyes on the door leading to the operating room.

  As it happened, Robin wasn't wearing shoes at the moment. She was wearing only a hospital gown, and lying flat on her back, her legs up in stirrups. They'd rigged a sheet to hang below her chest, obscuring her view of the operating area. Juliet approached with a hypodermic needle. "Just a blood test, Robin. Won't hurt a bit."

  Ro
bin stared stonily at the ceiling, holding her father's hand fiercely. "I don't care how much it hurts, Julie, just as long as it's over"

  Nodding, Juliet wrapped a piece of elastic around the girl's bicep and stroked her inner forearm. A vein obligingly popped up, and Julie carefully inserted the needle. Orange-colored blood rushed into the syringe. Julie looked quickly at Robin and her father to see if they'd noticed the strange color of the blood, but both were looking away. Quickly, Julie withdrew the needle and swabbed off the puncture mark.

  She carried the syringe quickly into the adjoining lab, where Fred King and Cal waited. "Look at this," she said, keeping her voice down. "I nearly dropped the syringe. Have you ever seen anything like it before?"

  They examined the sample under the microscope, then Fred looked up. "This sample has some of the same characteristics as the alien sample you showed me—waste products from the fetus must be causing this."

  Leaving Cal to make further tests in the lab, Fred and Juliet came back into the operating room. "Robin, have you ever had a pelvic examination?" Fred asked gently.

  "Once," admitted Robin. "It was kinda embarrassing, but it didn't hurt."

  "Well, I'm going to do one now, with Julie to help me. Also some palpations of your tummy. Don't worry, it's not going to hurt."

  "Okay."

  The young doctor worked in silence for a little while, giving the girl a brief pelvic examination, then spending a much longer time touching and palpating her belly. "How far along did you say she is?" he asked Juliet, not looking up.

  "She doesn't remember the exact date of her last period, but she's between five and five and a half months along," Julie answered.

  "Feel this," he commanded, indicating a spot on the girl's abdomen. "I've got a head here, just where it should be—but the uterus is large for the end of the second trimester. For a moment it seemed like an awful lot of movement in there too. Feel anything?"

  "No," Juliet said, concentrating. "Have you located a heartbeat?"

  "Yeah, I've got one—but it sounds kind of blurred, and a bit slow." He sighed. "I don't know. I wish I had more experience at this. I've only served one tour in obstetrics—I'm due for the next in the fall."

  "What do you think we ought to do?"

  "I'd recommend taking a look-see before initiating the abortion. So we'll have a better idea of what's in there."

  "A laparoscopy?"

  "Yeah. I'll tell Cal to get the instruments set up."

  "Okay. I'll talk to Robin and her father"

  Juliet stepped around the sheet to where Robin lay. "Honey, we want to make a small incision in your abdomen and take a look at how things are situated inside you. It won't hurt—you won't even have to be knocked out. I'm going to give you fifty milligrams of Demerol before we begin, and I'd like to try using acupuncture as an analgesic. I studied the technique in China, and it's amazing—you won't feel any pain, and we won't have to cope with getting a groggy patient out of here."

  "Aren't you just going to do a regular abortion?" Robin asked.

  "You have to remember Robin, that you're at least twenty weeks pregnant, maybe as many as twenty-four. We can't do any of the simpler kinds of abortions, such as the D&E or D&C. Looking inside you will help us decide whether to use one of the induction methods, or do a hysterotomy—which is kind of like a mini-caesarean—it's not the same thing as a hysterectomy."

  Robin nodded. "I understand, Julie. I know you'll do the best thing. I . . . I want you to know I understand the risk you're taking, for me. Thanks."

  "Of course we want to help, honey." She left them for a moment, then came back with a hypodermic. "Here's the Demerol."

  A few minutes later, when the drug had had time to take effect, she came back with several slender needles. "This won't hurt, Robin. You'll feel a little pressure, but that should be all. It won't bleed, or cause a scar."

  "Okay, Julie," Robin said, her eyes closed. The Demerol had made her sleepy.

  Minutes later Robin lay quietly as Juliet checked the positioning of the needles in each forearm. Then Julie carefully inserted two more needles into the teenager's ears, then another near her collarbone. "She's a good subject for this. In about fifteen minutes we can begin."

  By the time Cal had the results of several blood tests, Juliet had checked Robin's reactions, finding them satisfactory. At her nod, Fred carefully made a small incision in Robin's abdomen. "Easy . . . okay, Julie, sponge. I'm going to look first, then you can go ahead. Okay?"

  "You're the doctor," Juliet said wryly.

  A few minutes later, Juliet slipped on the head apparatus that allowed her to see the images the tiny camera was picking up inside their patient. "I can see what you mean, Fred," she said quietly. "Strands of wispy fibers threaded throughout the abdominal cavity." Cautiously, she moved the tiny camera of the laparoscope. "I can see them . . ." Suddenly she looked up at him in concern. "My God, Fred, they're growing right through the uterine wall! Looks like they're tapping into the liver and the bladder!"

  Fred nodded soberly. "That's what I thought I saw. This is weird." He kept his voice low, so neither Robert nor Robin could hear. "Let me try and get a look at the fetus."

  Juliet assisted as he peered into the headpiece, moving the tiny laparoscope. "Can you see it?" she asked.

  "Sort of . . . " he mumbled. "Never seen anything like this before, either. The sac is opaque. Gelatinous. All the tiny fibers seem to be running out of the sac, threading through the abdominal cavity. Like hundreds of tiny umbilical cords. I'm going to try cutting one."

  He shifted his weight, staring fixedly into the projection before his eyes, as he extended a tiny filament of cutting surface into the incision. Suddenly Robert's voice reached them, sounding panicky, "Julie! What's going on? She's lost consciousness! Her temperature's dropped four degrees and her heart rate's up to one-thirty!"

  Carefully Fred retracted the tiny probe. Robert sounded relieved. "That's better She's stabilizing."

  Fred slipped out of the apparatus, his soft brown eyes meeting Julie's over the green of his operating-room mask. "Keep me posted on the slightest change, Robert," he directed, then slowly began to probe again with the minuscule scalpel.

  "Slipping again," came Robert's tense whisper almost immediately.

  Fred sighed. "That's it, Julie. It'll kill her before it lets us get to it."

  Her own eyes over the green mask were anxious as she remembered Robin's hysterical pleas for the abortion. "How about the salting-out process? if we introduce the saline solution maybe it would kill the fetus before—"

  "You want to risk that?" He shook his head. "We don't know enough about the Visitors' metabolism. One of their babies might think a saline bath was the best thing since sliced bread. Face it, Julie, we're dealing with something here that's beyond our know-how. Maybe Diana could figure out how to abort this thing—we can't."

  Juliet nodded, suddenly feeling the exhaustion hit her—her feet felt as flat as her spirits. Leaving Fred to close the incision, she walked over to Robert, beckoning him aside. Shaking her head, she indicated the bulge beneath the sterile drapes. "We can't do it, Robert. I'm sorry. The fetus has linked into her vital organs, and if we try to take it out, she'll die. We're going to have to let this thing run its course—whatever that turns out to be."

  Late as it was, Juliet found Mike Donovan waiting up for them in the common room when they came back from the hospital. Robert took Robin off to get her settled in bed, with a tranquilizer Fred had prescribed, and Elias and Brad relieved Maggie on security patrol. Cal, giving a huge yawn, headed for the dorm. Juliet hesitated in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, so tired she thought she might flow down it like honey and lie in a puddle on the floor. Mike looked at her exhausted face. "Not good, eh?"

  Wearily Julie shook her head. "No go. The fetus has tapped into Robin's vital organs. It most emphatically doesn't want to be evicted."

  "That's too bad," Donovan said. "That poor kid."

  "Yeah," J
ulie said. All she could feel was numb. She turned away, toward her tiny cot down the hall, but Donovan was beside her before she'd taken more than a few steps.

  "I'm heading to the kitchen for a nightcap. I'll walk you to your room."

  She didn't look up. "I think you'd better excuse me, Donovan."

  "Pretty bad, huh? Want to talk about it?"

  She knew Donovan was referring to her own mental and emotional state, rather than Robin's operation. Juliet heard her own voice, as though someone else were talking—she seemed to be floating somewhere. "I'm sick and tired of it, Donovan. Tired of trying to be some kind of guerilla leader. Of trying to hold everybody together. Of passing myself off as a doctor because there's nobody else most of the time. Dear God, it's all such a joke! I just can't handle it anymore . . . Let somebody else do it for a while."

  He looked sideways at her thoughtfully, then spoke quietly. "You're pretty much it, Doc. There ain't anybody else. You're doing it, because you're the only one who can do it. I know I couldn't do what you're doing—plan this raid, organize this bunch, assign everyone the tasks he or she can best handle . . ."

  Juliet was dimly surprised to hear Donovan, usually so brash and self-assured, admit that he couldn't do something. But her mind was still occupied with Robin's plight. "That girl could die because I made the wrong decision tonight. Because I don't know enough."

  "Know everything, you mean?"

  "Yes!" She put her hands to her face, ashamed to be crumbling in front of Donovan, of all people, but unable to stop herself. She was shaking with exhaustion.

  His arm was warm and hard as he put it around her shoulders, supporting her as she stumbled. He gave her a little shake. "Nobody expects you to know everything—except you. You're too damn hard on yourself, Doc. Ease up."

  Juliet laughed a little shakily. "I guess that is pretty arrogant, huh?"

  He grinned wryly. "I wouldn't know. I'm too busy being self-centered to worry about your arrogance. Remember?"

  She looked at him, wondering if he was laughing at her and realized suddenly that he wasn't. He was coming as close to apologizing for his escapade the other day as he could. She smiled back, nodding, and together they continued down the hall.