Orphans In the Black: A Space Opera Anthology

by Amy J. Murphy

  “No,” David says. “Our research base is on an island not inhabited by the mantises. This is just a local creature. It is edible. And its blood is iron based, it would be good for you.”

  Under normal circumstances, I don’t think I’d ever think of consuming something that looks remotely insectoid—especially not a poor little alien critter who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But looking at real meat, and hearing the word “iron,” more quickly than I would like to admit, I say, “Let’s eat it.”

  Thirty minutes later we finish eating the little animal. It was surprisingly moist and tender despite the method of departure. I’m sipping at some soy milk, and David is oohing and ahhing over Patricia, who has decided to wake up. She stares at him with wide, startled eyes that are as gray as his own.

  He’s bonded with her, clearly in love. My feelings are more...complex. I’d kill for her, even David if it came to that. I’m not sure that is exactly love, more like obsession. She is rather like a bad boyfriend: keeping me up at all hours, distracting me from my career, and only interested in my boobs.

  A few minutes later, she’s in my lap, and David is kissing us both goodbye. He looks all misty eyed and goofy when he says, “I hate saying goodbye to my girls. I’ll be back in a week.” Maybe I’m misty eyed too.

  Staring at nothing in particular, Patricia burps and spills drool all over my hand.

  After David leaves, I nurse her and scan the news. Patricia is still big in the headlines. There are some rather nasty people who think that I got pregnant on purpose in order to colonize Murphy 3 for my own devious ends. There are others who express Abby’s sentiment, but mostly people are concerned and wish us well until the relief ship arrives in one year to take our small family home.

  There is little chance we will be able to stay. A child is a distraction, and an endangerment to the rest of the mission. Before having her I would have doubted the ‘endangerment’ part, but now that she’s in my arms, in all her belching, slobbering glory, I don’t. If push came to shove, would I be able to put the mission above her welfare? I can’t say yes with certainty.

  Finishing a vidmail for my mother, I put Patricia on her homemade bed and get to work. It’s been surprisingly easy to do the chair-bound part of David and my jobs, even with my grueling schedule of feedings every two hours—she sleeps all the time!

  As always, when I get to work, the first thing I do is run through the scans seeking warp-light or radio wave signals of non-human origin. It’s standard procedure on every base established by human kind. There’s nothing of course. We’re still alone in the universe.

  Next, I check the readouts on space weather. Murphy’s geomagnetically induced currents don’t match what we’d expect the space weather to produce—ever. If Murphy 3 was ever colonized, it would play havoc with power grids and infrastructure. We’re obviously overlooking some variable, but with more data we’ll figure it out. Finally, I begin running standard diagnostics on Sirius 3’s systems. It’s meditative work, and I’m beginning to enjoy it when Patricia begins to fuss. And then she begins to wail.

  Perplexed, and frankly frantic—she’s never done this before—I pick her up and try to soothe her by rocking her, my ears ringing in pain. Face bright red, mouth so wide her nose scrunches up into her forehead, she continues to scream and scream and scream.

  She’s in pain. She’s dying, she has to be. I rush with her to the infirmary. Christine and the most of the medical staff are at an accident site planet side. Karen, a nurse whose primary job is marine biology, is the only one on duty. We try vainly to quiet Patricia, and Karen scans and takes blood, but finds nothing.

  Every few minutes or so the screams die down to a whimper. Clutching Patricia’s tiny body to my chest I hope that it’s over. But then she gets a second wind and begins to wail again.

  Two hours later, I’m in tears, Patricia is in tears, and Karen’s shift is ending. She looks both apologetic and desperate to escape when James, her relief, comes. I think Karen whispers something to James, while I press my head to Patricia’s wet face. Patricia’s sobbing and inconsolable, little limbs thrashing all akimbo. I’ve never felt this helpless in my entire life.

  “May I?” James asks.

  I look up. We’re all fit, but he’s kind of on the stocky side, shorter than average, with an aquiline nose that looks vaguely Native South American. I don’t really know him, but he’s holding his hands out and the light is shining from behind him like he’s an angel.

  “Somethings wrong!” I sob handing Patricia over. “I don’t know if she’s going to make it.”

  Giving me a funny look, James takes Patricia over to an exam table that has a padded cloth on it. He wraps the cloth around her body so tightly I don’t think she’ll be able to breathe. Her screams go up in volume.

  “What are you doing? Give her back!” I say.

  Thankfully ignoring me, James picks her up tilts her on her side, gives her his thumb to suck on, gently bounces her up and down on his arm and says, “Shhhhhhh” in her ear. Immobilized in her baby straight jacket Patricia whimpers once more and is silent, her eyes are wet and open, her brow furrowed.

  “Colic,” he says. “Something bothers them and they’re not neurologically developed enough to calm down. If you swaddle them, jiggle them, turn them on their side, give them something to suck, and shush them, you can shut them off.”

  Still gently bouncing her on his arm, he hands her to me. “Here you try it.”

  I take her, fearfully, but she stays quiet as I jiggle and bounce her. It’s like magic.

  Two hours later I’m back in my quarters. She’s still swaddled, and I’m still jiggling, shushing, giving her a thumb to suck on and tilting her on her side because as soon as I stop she starts to wail. It doesn’t feel so magical anymore.

  And it doesn’t feel magical the next afternoon, or the following night. After three hours she’s still crying at one a.m., and I’m so tired she almost slips from my arm as I pace the tiny room. Instead of being properly terrified, I briefly think that if she did slip it would all be over, I would have peace. I’m never going to have another child, I’m certain of it at that moment, and I’m not sure I can be a good parent to this one—I’m going to fail and drop her and lose the Darwinian game.

  But I don’t drop her that night, or the next one when she is wailing again at one a.m., and one of my neighbors, I think it is Johnson, is pounding on the dividing wall between his quarters and ours shouting, “Shut her up!” Ignoring him, and with more difficulty her, I put my engineering skills to what feels like their most useful task ever. I build her a little automated rocking hammock with spare ship parts, and some stretchy cloth we use to tie down supplies. It’s difficult with tears streaming down my face, but I manage.

  David protests the hammock the first time he sees it. He declares it too rickety and dangerous. He’s been planet side, I don’t think he believes that the little baby who is so charming during the day, and beginning to smile and coo, can turn into a devious alien hell-child at night.

  So I don’t put her in the hammock that night while David is there when she starts to cry. He breaks down after just thirty minutes. Light weight.

  Patricia sleeps in that automated rocking hammock for the better part of three months.

  There is a holovid every Earth kid sees in biology class. It features animals on the Serengeti, in particular, lion cubs climbing over their father, biting his ears, sharpening their claws on his back, and pulling his tail with their teeth. He puts up with it with heroic patience. Ask why he tolerates the abuse, and the standard Darwinian explanation is that his stoicism ensures that his genes are passed on for another generation. That explanation, so good at the macro level, breaks down at the micro level. What lion has ever read Darwin?

  Does a lion’s heart swell when it gazes into its cub’s eyes. When it caresses tiny ears with its tongue does the lion’s body grow warm with joy? We cannot know. But he must receive something other t
han smug self-satisfaction at winning the evolutionary game for his pains—a pleasing neurochemical cascade of some sort.

  Dare we call it love?

  “Hello, Patricia!” Dr. Vega says to the little gnome wriggling happily in my arms. We’re planet side, outside his ‘clinic’, and it is a beautiful day on the temperate jungle island we’ve established our research base on. Dr. Vega holds up a hand and Patricia takes one of his fingers in a tiny fist. Dr. Vega is smiling and Patricia is gurgling happily.

  She’s almost a year old; we’ll be going home as soon as the relief vessel arrives with our replacements. David and I are depressed and disappointed, but I can’t contribute fully to our mission while watching a child, and there’s no room for dead weight here. David says he won’t stay without me. The thought of sending our child home alone...well that’s unthinkable.

  “You’re such a happy girl, aren’t you? Aren’t you?” Dr. Vega says. And she is. She made her peace with existence long ago.

  “Going for another picnic, Kay?” Dr. Vega says.

  I’ve been taking her for strolls and meals in the nearby jungle, trying to soak up as much as possible of this alien world before we leave. I nod.

  Glancing down at my waist he shakes his head. “Still carrying the piece?”

  I blush. David’s paranoia compels me to wear a weapon on this island with no predators larger than a small dog. I’m about to tell this to Vega when his communicator crackles to life.

  “Vega, Vega, this is Airship One! Prepare for incoming.”

  Blinking, I try to imagine what could be going on. A team of researchers left by airship this morning for the main continent to observe the mantises. The large insectoids aren’t just dangerous—they’re curious, and have a disconcerting ability to find us and our cameras when we set out to observe them. What cameras haven’t been destroyed by Murphy’s odd geomagnetic currents are destroyed by the mantises’ probing forelimb sheathes and the long fingers that reside beneath. When they see us they gather and try to approach—but after Wang no one sticks around. From airborne observation we’ve gathered they’re social, omnivorous—not strictly carnivores as first suspected, and seem to reside in the caves the continent is riddled with. Dr. Rowan has just recently gotten permission from Earth Research Command to begin a tag and release program. She wants to gather information on vitals, and perhaps discover the source of their uncanny ability to spot us and our gear. The most common speculation is that their antennae are sensitive to electrical fields. Obviously, someone must have gotten hurt in the process, but why bother Dr. Vega the veterinarian? Why not go directly to the infirmary?

  Brow furrowing Vega says, “I’m here, what precisely is incoming?”

  “A mantis...and its larva. There was an accident.” These words are almost drowned out by the sound of the airship itself, directly above our heads, but I do hear Vega mutter, “Fuck.”

  Lifting my eyes upward, I see the engines on the ovoid craft that is swiveling downward for landing. Dirt and small rocks fly through the air. Sheltering Patricia from the debris with our bodies, Dr. Vega and I pull back towards his building’s awning. Patricia is completely unfazed as hot wind whips around us and the roar of engines fill our ears.

  The engine roar changes to a low whine and the wind stops. There is the sound of metal on metal and Dr. Vega and I turn to see the wide side door on the airship is open.

  I’ve seen the mantises in holos. In the wild they look majestic and regal. Very much like Earth’s praying mantises in form, they are six limbed with two enormous globes of eyes and a small beak-like mouth. Around their mid-section is a thin shell like material of light brown—unlike Earth’s tiny insects they have no wings, and their heads are framed by a twelve light blue antennae, the antennae on their limbs drape over their feet and forelimb sheaths like the feathers over Clydesdales’ hooves.

  Thrashing against cargo netting, the creature I see in the airship isn’t regal. It reminds me of a crumpled piece of green paper. There is a mass of tangled green limbs, cracked mid-section, and bent antennae. At the forefront of its body is a shape like a giant worm, thick as my waist and as long as my upper body, segmented and writhing. It’s got some sort of soft green feathery substance on it, a lipless mouth with what looks like tiny, interlocking teeth, and two green dots for eyes. The only thing that might make you think it belongs to the mantis is the nearly identical wreath of antennae around most of its head, and the soft feathers of antennae lining the sides of its body.

  The thrashing stops, and the uppermost limbs of the mantis curl up around the netting. The sharp sheath atop the end of its foremost limbs concealed three dexterous fingers; they wrap around the netting—I’m almost sure there is an opposable thumb there. I gasp. It is so oddly...human. For a minute I’m sure the creature is looking right at Patricia and me, studying us. But that must surely be a flight of fancy, its eye globes must see everywhere at once, and there’s no way to know where it is looking.

  “Get her out of here!” Someone screams. Turning, I blink and see Johnson gesturing for me to beat it. Members of our team are pouring out of the airship and running towards us from across the camp.

  Patricia in my arms, I bolt a safe distance away. David comes jogging towards us, his brow furrowed. He puts a hand on my back and watches with Patricia and me as Dr. Vega retreats into his clinic and then comes out with a tranquilizer gun.

  One of the pilots from the airship, Uhuru, walks in our direction. His nearly black skin is covered with a thin layer of reddish dirt; his jaw is tight.

  “They weren’t supposed to catch it,” says David. We hadn’t gotten permission from Earth Research Command for that.

  Hearing us, Uhuru, spits at the ground. “The first tranquilizer shot didn’t take like we thought it would. It fought back when we got close. Before we got the second dart in, it sustained injury to its midsection.” He frowns. “I didn’t think it was too badly hurt, but Dr. Rowan insisted we bring it back for observation.”

  I just shake my head as they pull the creature, now limp, and the squirming larva from the airship. They wouldn’t try to tranquilize an adolescent I guess, or maybe they just don’t think it poses any threat.

  “What will they do with it?” I ask.

  “Probably put it behind the electrical field, let Dr. Vega try and assess the damage,” says Uhuru. “Dr. Rowan was saying he might have to operate on that midsection.”

  I shudder. We know so little of the creatures, an operation...would it feel pain? Surely it felt fear.

  “Personally,” says Uhuru, his voice deepening and acquiring an almost imperceptible tremor to it, “I think Rowan was just looking for an excuse to bring one back to camp so she can study it up close.”

  I swallow. I turn to see David scowling.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t go?” I say.

  Blinking David says, “No, no, there’s nothing you can do. Go ahead, enjoy your picnic.”

  It’s only later, as I’m slipping through the trees, that it occurs to me that David probably misunderstood me. Perhaps he was thinking I was asking if I could help. Really, I was more uneasy about the mantis’ presence here. It has shattered my sense of security. I shake my head. That is silly.

  Ducking beneath a large overhanging branch, I follow Patricia as she toddles along, batting at a large dragonfly like insect. The insect almost seems to be toying with Patricia...perhaps it is. It darts and bobs just out of her reach, but never leaves her completely. Gurgling and drooling happily she follows in its wake. The insect’s wings are a perfect replica of the leaves of the native plants, tiny round thumbprint sized circles. On the trees and ground coverings, leaves are joined in huge clusters; they are green on the sun facing side, lavender on the side facing the ground. The stems and trunks of most of the flora are white, reminiscent of birches. The white, lavender, and green give the forest a lovely but alien light.

  I will miss the light and the trees. It is such a wondrous thing to have something so familiar and ye
t so alien. It fills me with awe every time I look at it.

  Ahead, Patricia momentarily stumbles. The insect ceases its darting about and hovers patiently in the air above her.

  I still love her madly, still feel I’d kill for her, or die for her. But what is more amazing to me is how I’m willing to live for her, shoulder the mountain of petty annoyances that is raising a child. She looks at me from the ground, her cheek muddy, her smile undiminished, and I melt a little. I smile back but she’s already up and chasing the bug again.

  I understand why the lion tolerates the fangs and tiny claws of its children.

  My communicator crackles and I startle. David’s voice comes on, barely audible over what sounds like an airship rumble. “Kay, Kay are you there?”

  Brow furrowing, I glance down and answer, “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Get back to base Kay, now!”

  I see Patricia wobble behind a tree. “What?”

  “It’s escaped,” David says. “Rowan’s dead—Vega’s unconscious, it stunned him with his own tranquilizer gun, it must have been accidental....”

  “It escaped?” I say. Exhaling quickly, I scan the trees around me and pull my weapon from its holster.

  “The mantis. The field short circuited...the field shouldn’t have been affected by the geomagnetic currents...”