Orphans In the Black: A Space Opera Anthology

by Amy J. Murphy

  No. He’d not accept that. One did the right thing and bugger the cost to something larger. There was no justification to have let those men and women be set upon Kuriyya, and he’d not take the blame for the Marchant’s power over New London.

  “So, it’s back to the Barbary, then,” he muttered.

  “And what you’ll do there, I’ve no idea,” Eades said. He took a deep breath. “I’ll try to help you, from time to time, as I may, but you’ll be well-advised to keep clear of the Marchants.”

  Avrel flushed again, this time with anger. The law would never bring them down, would it? The Marchants would never see justice for what they’d done. His jaw was tight and he raised his gaze to meet Kaycie’s. She seemed to read something in that as their eyes met, for she smiled, thin-lipped though it be, and nodded.

  “I’ve a ship, Mister Eades,” Avrel said. “Two, if I can find Dary and Fancy, as well as guns and a crew with blood in their eye and on their minds.” He met Eades’ eye and, for the first time, it seemed it was the Foreign Office man who saw something in that gaze to chill him, instead of the other way around.

  “We’ll see who has the need to keep clear, shall we?”

  ~FIN~

  J.A. Sutherland is the author of the Little Ships space opera series.

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  MURPHY’S STAR

  A SHORT STORY

  By C. Gockel

  ABOUT MURPHY’S STAR

  Humans are alone in the universe. Or so I believed. That was before my research team picked up a stowaway … a stowaway that may be key to surviving first contact with a deadly alien species.

  Dedicated to Pat Murphy, author of the incomparable Love and Sex Among the Invertebrates.

  MURPHY’S STAR

  It is a testament to our times that when I wake up from cryogenic sleep feeling weak, nauseous, and gaze down to see my swollen belly, I think I have a Belarivian sly worm infection. A scream catches in my throat. Before I can release it I feel the urge to vomit so strongly I only manage to turn my head. Bile spills over my chest and shoulder, pooling in the coffin I’d spent the last four months in.

  Retching subsiding, I struggle to calm myself. I am so weakened, curling in fetal position away from my vomit, hands tucked beneath my breasts is all I can manage to do.

  “It’s okay, Kay,” I whisper to myself. A Belarivian worm is curable. The treatment is long—three months, and unpleasant, but I will not die. I will go on to live a normal life. I might even get to keep my tormentor in a glass pickling jar if Dr. Hua, Sirius 9’s resident MD is careful about it.

  But how did I get it to begin with? Sirius 9, our research vessel, departed Oort Station 3 just outside of Sol System, hit warp and didn’t drop out until we were 55 million kilometers beneath Murphy’s Star’s ecliptic plane—before the gravity of Murphy and her seven orbiting planets can distort our warp envelope.

  At the drop out point we used the warp-light wave station established by the robotic probes to contact our families, and then slipped into our coffins for cryogenic sleep for the remaining 200 days of our journey.

  Oort station was the only place I could have picked up a bug; we never physically entered the warp-light wave station. But we’d been thoroughly scanned before departing Oort.

  The vomit on my shoulders is still warm as I contemplate this. I try to breathe through my mouth to avoid thinking of the smell.

  Outside of my coffin I hear shuffling and murmurs as the other sixty-six members of the team headed for Murphy’s third planet awake. Hua and her medical staff will have awoken first, they’ll be attending the others. They’ll find me soon enough—a few more minutes isn’t going to affect my worm.

  And now that I’ve thrown up I actually don’t feel so bad anyway, just weak. My mind drifts to Murphy 3, the planet we are now orbiting. Of over millions of exploratory probes, the one sent to Murphy 3 was one of only four that came back reporting multicellular life. Vibrant flora and fauna—though no hint of civilization. Humans are still alone in the universe. Still, a whole new world. I want to jump out of my coffin and run to the view port like a little girl to the tree on Christmas morning.

  Louder shuffling. I look up and see Christine Hua leaning over me. “I think I’ve picked up a passenger,” I say lifting my arms to give her a better view of my worm infection.

  She scans me a few times, her brow furrowing. “I administered the shot myself, and inserted the backup IUD—how did you get pregnant?”

  I immediately throw up again.

  The production of offspring is controlled in many ways in the animal world. In armadillos and rabbits implantation of the zygote is delayed until suitable physiological conditions are met. Armadillo females have been known to delay pregnancy for up to two years in this way. In pipefish a package of embryos, referred to as a brood, are incubated by the male. If, after acquiring a brood, the male pipefish meets a female that is larger than the mother, his body will absorb the brood, and he will incubate the offspring of the larger female instead. Among many larger animals—hippos and gazelles to name two—in harsh conditions, spontaneous abortions are common. In the case of the latter, miscarriages in the heat of the chase have been recorded.

  Presumably, in the case of armadillos, rabbits, pipefish, gazelles and hippos, all these controls are unconscious. However, no females (or males) of the above species has ever clarified the matter.

  Sirius 9’s mission is strictly research, colonizing a planet with native life forms is viewed as ethically dubious by most of Earth’s population—indeed, even research is deemed so by some. Like all missions of exploration it’s dangerous too.

  I’m not supposed to be pregnant. Obviously.

  But right now I’m propped up by my husband David, fighting the urge to vomit—yet again—and Christine is saying, “The ovulation cessation injection all female members of the team received didn’t work. I’ve run tests; all our hormones level are off. The batch must have been bad. It’s a complete fluke.”

  Sighing heavily she says, “We’ll have to wait for the first relief shipment—I’ve already sent a message. It’ll be picked up before the relief vessel leaves Oort 5. We all have backup contraception; the IUD and the implant are 99.7 % effective…I don’t think lightening will strike twice.”

  I want to point out that isn’t how statistics work, but that would mean opening my mouth. I really don’t want to open my mouth right now. Sitting up upsets my stomach enough.

  Running a hand through her dark hair she says, “So we’ll be 14 terra months off of the injection...but it shouldn’t hurt our long term prospects for fertility.”

  Ovulation cessation injections put our eggs on ice so we can get pregnant at the more reasonable age of 60 or 65—not when we’re 38. This isn’t at the forefront of my mind right now, though, I suppose it makes sense that it would be on Christine’s.

  “The Telemerose injections?” David says referring to the proprietary name of the injection we all take to slow down our aging. How soon I reach the end of my mortal coil isn’t on my mind either, but I guess it’s a practical question.

  “All fine,” says Christine. “Our telomeres are all fine. We’ll be youthful, able bodied, and have plenty of energy to take care of our babies when we’re in our sixties.”

  She looks at me and bites her lip. “But what are we going to do right now?”

  David tenses. Maybe I do too. We’re on a research mission. We have food rations to last until the first relief shipment arrives. We’ll be augmenting those with any vegetables we manage to grow and with some livestock we’ve brought along. There really isn’t a lot to spare for another person.

  And then there are other concerns. Who will do my job if I’m watching a baby? Hell, who will do my job now? The IVs stuck in me during cryogenic sleep provided just enough nutrients for me. This didn’t co
ncern the being growing in my uterus. It was able to take what it needed. I’m the one who was left anemic, dehydrated, and wasted. I can barely sit up straight.

  Still, there is built in redundancy in staffing these missions. Someone always dies, so we’re prepared. My husband David is my redundancy. We’re primarily engineers, although I'm a little stronger in communication arrays. I did post doctorate work helping build the infrastructure to scan the skies for non-human warp wave signals and proof that we’re not alone in the universe…the signals never came, but the experience made me an obvious choice for this mission. We both have advanced degrees in microbiology, and biochemistry, but our primary jobs don’t require us to be off trouncing after wildlife. We’ll be staying behind, making sure the construction ‘bots stay on task and running experiments while others are out in the field.

  I stare down at David’s hand. All he has said is, “It’s your decision.” I imagine he’ll want me to do the logical thing. The practical thing.

  Swallowing Christine says, “I don’t have much experience in obstetrics, Kay. Or pediatrics for that matter...”

  Of course she wouldn’t, or Dr. Bonn, her redundancy. Xenopathology and emergency medicine are more practical. I take a deep breath and knead David’s fingers with my own; they’re soft after months in the cryogenic tank. The logical and practical thing.

  Still holding David’s hand, I look up. He turns his gray eyes to mine. I am of indeterminable ethnicity—wavy, dark brown hair, chestnut skin, eyes that aren’t particularly wide or particularly narrow, but he actually looks European. Right now, just out of the cryogenic tank, blond hair and beard too long, towering over me, he looks a bit like a Viking. His personality isn’t that of a Viking; he’s a horrible nag, a mother hen. But...he is...comfortable to me. Familiar. He’s always been that way, from the day we first met. Maybe because my father was a nag; who knows? We’re a team, David and I, and that makes it harder; I feel like my biology has let him down—and I’m about to betray him.

  The thing inside me feels like it’s doing a headspin in my pelvis; it’s painful and makes me gasp. A worm would be so much easier.

  But. Maybe it’s that I’m so far along; maybe that keeps me from making the rational decision.

  Turning to Christine I say, “I don’t want to get rid of it.” I can’t.

  Kissing my hair, David squeezes my hand. For the first time it occurs to me that maybe he doesn’t want me to get rid of it either. He meant just what he said; it was my decision. And Christine...I look at her carefully. She exhales, and actually looks relieved. She’s a doctor, saving lives is more her forte, I suppose.

  I think the real reason I can’t be rational is that this thing, now pressing hard against my rib cage...it’s part of our team, David’s and my team; even if it doesn’t play fair.

  Among the banded mongoose, fertility is a tribal affair. Older dominant mongoose females evict middle aged pregnant females from the communal den. The eviction process is so violent that by the time the process is over the evicted is often limping and bleeding. After such trauma she is likely to spontaneously abort her pups. Scientists theorize that by eliminating competition for resources the dominant females ensure more resources for themselves and their offspring.

  “I wouldn’t have kept it,” says Abby—Dr. Abigail Rowan, specialty, xenobiology. She shakes her head. “It’s too dangerous. For you. For it. You’ll be depriving yourself of valuable resources.”

  This is the most direct assault to my decision I’ve gotten. Mostly people just tell me how brave I am; I’m fairly certain “brave” is code for “stupid.” I think what Abby really means to say is, “depriving us” of resources.

  Without looking up from the data pad perched on my distended belly I manage to mumble, “Uncertain death versus certain death.”

  There’s a heavy quiet in the air, and then she leaves.

  I’m huddled in a booth in the ship’s dimly lit mess, a glass of ice water next to me. I’m trying hard to be productive, but it’s hard. Very hard. I just keep thinking I want to throw up, or sleep, or both. I shouldn’t complain. David is doing most of the heavy lifting. He’s been working fourteen hour shifts to make up for my slack.

  We’re still orbiting the planet. But we’ve transformed Sirius 9. Before, the habitation ring spun lazily around a central core of power generators and engines. The ring still spins, and there is still a power generator, but where the warp engine was there is now a dock for future vessels, and trailing down to Murphy 3 is the narrow shaft of a space elevator.

  I shouldn’t say “we.” I had little to do with this metamorphosis. My stomach was too big to maneuver through the access tubes, and I can’t very well be throwing up in a space suit. Anyways, I’m just coming off the IV Christine stuck in to rehabilitate me.

  I wonder why in the 22nd century we haven’t invented an artificial womb to grow our fetuses in, because really, this just sucks.

  The male emperor penguin’s dedication to bringing his progeny into the world is well known. For two months he stands, without food or water, through the frigid arctic winter with a single egg held above the snow on his feet.

  Lest you think that this sort of devotion is confined to vertebrates, the female Giant Pacific Octopus tends to her brood of up to 100,000 eggs for seven months without eating. Hovering over them, she protects them from predators and tenderly aerates them by gently blowing currents. Soon after the young are born, she dies due to this lack of nutrition.

  “Get Dr. Vega!” Christine yells at David.

  “He’s a veterinarian!” David says. I’m thankful David is here, and not planet side as he has been for most of the past two months. He left me to tend the store while he’s done the real work.

  “He has more experience delivering babies than I do! Go get him!” says Christine. I glance up to see David nod and disappear. Then I double over again and grunt. I feel like...I need to push.

  We had carefully planned a Cesarean for me based on the date of most likely conception. Christine didn’t feel comfortable having me deliver naturally, due to her lack of experience. For the same reason, I agreed completely. I have every confidence in her skills as a surgeon, her skills as a midwife, not so much.

  Of course that’s all gone to Hell now. It’s a week before the date, but I had a bad case of indigestion earlier this evening. What do you know, it was labor. By the time I realized what was happening and went to Christine—I didn’t like complaining; I’ve already taken up too much of her time—it was too late. So. I’m delivering naturally.

  Dr. Vega runs in, and he actually is a good midwife. He commands David to hold me up in squatting position, and he’s giving orders to Christine and me, and I have a baby. It isn’t as painful as I’d been led to believe, and I wonder what the fuss is about. Dr. Vega yells, “It’s a girl,” and I’m falling back onto the bed. David is laughing. He sounds happier than I’ve ever heard him and he’s holding this red and screaming thing that I’m supposed to love instantly. They put her on my chest and I’m not thinking anything except that I’m so, so, so tired.

  I can tell something is wrong when Dr. Vega and Christine get really quiet. My hand drops from my chest and the little girl who is making strange noises slips and wails, I’m dimly aware of David catching her. “Code red,” Christine shouts and suddenly the four people who qualify as nurses are running into the room.

  Like everyone else on the ship I have basic first aid training and I know the codes. I’m bleeding to death, but it doesn’t hurt at least, and I’m too exhausted to really care. I vaguely remember that before the 20th century a woman’s chance of dying during childbirth was 10% over her lifetime. Silly me, thinking natural childbirth is easy.

  Members of the mosquito family—3,500 species strong, do not need blood to survive. These bearers of such diseases as dengue fever, malaria, yellow fever, and West Nile (to name just a few), are nectar feeders, much like the Gods of Olympus. It is only when she needs to provide supplemental n
utrition for her young that the female mosquito turns her proboscis to mammalian flesh.

  “It put its antennae on an uninsulated power coupling,” says David. The baby we’re calling Patricia, after Murphy’s star’s namesakes, is only four days old. We’re in our quarters on Sirius 9; they’re only about as wide and long as a king size bed. Currently the middle of the floor is occupied by a pull down table, the bed is stowed away. In a corner, Patricia is asleep on a polar jacket we snagged from storage. She is wearing one of my shirts, and a little hat made from a piece of thermal stocking that has been knotted at one end. With her slanted brow and wizened features it is hard to believe she is really a miniature human; she looks more like illustrations of gnomes I remember from childhood story books.

  David’s brought me a gift from the planet. It’s a native creature, about the size of a small dog, but six legged. It looks insectoid, but doesn’t truly have an exoskeleton, just a thick green hide covered with what look like scales but are actually more like dense feathers. Inside it has bones, muscles, and organs like a mammal or bird.

  It’s very dead. And very cooked. My mouth is actually salivating. I have to breast feed; we have the knowledge, but not the resources to create infant formula. I’m starving all the time.

  I gently touch the hide. “This isn’t a baby member of the mantises, is it?”

  The mantises are what we’re calling the largest carnivores that inhabit Murphy 3’s main continent. They are about two meters tall and look like Earth’s praying mantises, although like this creature, they have internal skeletons and organs. They have very prominent antennae, around their heads, and also around their ankles. They are dangerous. Wang, a researcher planet side, was gored by one when a group of us tried to establish a camp near their habitat. Wang had wandered a little bit far from the perimeter to investigate some weird electrical field readings when he encountered the creature. The creature stuck the sharp point of its forelimb through his stomach like he was a pin cushion, and then lurked above him until it was frightened away with gunshots and flares. Abandoning camp, the team took Wang back to main base for care. When they returned the next day, everything made of soft material had been torn to ribbons. A few crates left behind were smashed open, the contents strewn about and mostly broken. One guy said it looked like a camp raided by bears.