Shalia's Diary Omnibus

by Tracy St. John

  I slid my feet into some shoes and staggered out to the sitting room where Betra waited. His expression was compassionate, and he stopped me as I moved towards the door.

  “Wait a moment, little one. Let me comb your hair.”

  I stood woodenly as he did so, straightening the bedhead snarls with gentle strokes. I got the courage up to ask, “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

  “Hush,” he whispered. “Everything will be all right. I promise.”

  I wasn’t buying it. You don’t march a person off to the doctor against her will when everything is okay.

  Once I was presentable, Betra took my hand and led me out into the corridor. That he tried to comfort me with contact frightened me more. I couldn’t imagine the dread diagnosis in store for me.

  That trip to Medical happened in a fog. I couldn’t feel my feet in their shoes as Betra tugged me along. Why had nobody warned me I was in danger? That it was so awful that they would threaten me with sedation to make me see the doctor? Was it already too late? Were my lungs on the brink of failing?

  I was in so much shock that it felt as if I blinked and I was in Medical. Waiting for me was Dad.

  I stared at him in shock. No, that couldn’t be right. Nayun was on Earth, not on the ship. It was a vid. He was talking to another doctor, a younger fellow than him.

  This there-in-the-flesh doctor was as long and lithe as Dad is big and bulky. Dr. Tep (as I later learned his name was) was skinny – well, skinny for a Kalquorian. He had a smaller build than Dad and Betra, but managed to be more muscular than men on Earth. He had a long face with a slender nose and pointed chin.

  Dr. Tep turned as Betra ushered me into the blameless white room filled with shiny, scary-as-hell machines. I recognized the full body scanners and the medi-beds. Such things had been brought to the Academy for Dad’s staff to use on us who were unlucky enough to need them. Most of the Kalquorian medical equipment looked like some kind of mad scientist shit. It wasn’t as horrible as that, but when you’re panicked, nothing appears nice.

  “Here’s your lovely daughter,” Dr. Tep said to Dad. “Thank you, Betra. If you’ll wait in the sitting area?”

  Betra bowed and left me there. I shook from head to toe. I stared at Dad, who gazed at me with caring and worry.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Why didn’t you tell me I was sick or hurt? I thought you cared about me.”

  Dad winced. “Shalia, everything will be fine. I had to get you off Earth. I couldn’t allow you to—”

  He broke off and spoke to the waiting Dr. Tep. “A current scan would help.”

  Dr. Tep nodded. “Matara, if you would step up on the full body scanner?”

  When I couldn’t move my feet, he came to me and gently pushed me. I felt as if I was being walked to the gallows. I didn’t want to see what they were about to show me. I didn’t want to know what had gone wrong. Yet I let Tep prod me onto the platform between the scan screens. He did his picture-taking thing of my inner goriness.

  “Why don’t you sit down, and we’ll go over the results,” he invited me.

  Tep took my hand and pulled me from the scanner. I sat on a flat examination table. Dad’s vid followed us about the room.

  “How do you do that?” I asked, desperate to put off whatever terrible news they were about to hit me with. “The vid follows where you go, I mean.”

  “The whole department is set up to accept transmissions,” Dr. Tep said. “It’s useful if I’m in surgery and I need a doctor with more experience during the procedure.”

  “I guess that would help.” I fell silent. I’d run out of chitchat.

  Dad moved his hand, as if to touch and comfort me. When he remembered he couldn’t, he clenched it into a fist. “My daughter, your life is in no danger.”

  “Then why am I here?” I asked. I would stomp someone if it wasn’t a big deal. They’d freaked me out and I was ready to be pissed off. It was better than being scared.

  “It’s about this.” Tep brought up a large vid. It took a moment for me to note it was the inner parts of a person’s body. My body, in all its three-dimensional grotesqueness. Beauty really is only skin deep, ha-ha.

  My lungs glistened pink. I didn’t see anything that showed apparent damage.

  Tep spoke in his own language. The abdominal part of my scan enlarged and zoomed in tight and fast. I stared at something else pink, shaped vaguely like a kidney bean. There was a black dot on the most bulbous end, and protuberances sticking out of the other. I blinked. I couldn’t make any sense of it.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  Dad’s voice was very soft. “It’s a baby. Your baby, my daughter. You’re pregnant.”

  The table under my butt swayed. I dimly felt a hand steady me, and Tep’s voice sounded from a distance. “Easy, Matara. Lie down until you absorb the shock.”

  “Baby? Pregnant?” The squalling voice coming from my lips didn’t sound like me at all.

  I’m not sure how long I stared at the pink kidney bean. That was a baby? It looked so...raw. Strange. Was that black dot an eye? The little offshoots...the beginnings of arms and legs?

  “Pregnant,” I said again. I stared at the creature in the scan picture and tried to make it sound real.

  After a while, I was able to talk some sense. I think. I remember asking questions. I remember a few answers too.

  “How far along am I?” I asked.

  Dad and Tep glanced at each other. “It’s hard to say, Shalia,” Dad told me. “We’re ship doctors with no experience with pregnant women. Plus, this is a mix of Kalquorian and Earther, which confuses things. Judging from the few pregnancies that have happened since Earther women have arrived at Kalquor, my best guess is four to seven weeks. Development can vary widely with hybrid fetuses.”

  “I agree,” Tep said. “Besides making sure you would leave Earth, we needed to compare your pregnancy to those of other hybrids. That’s why we waited so long to tell you you’re expecting. We’ve been trying to pinpoint the time of conception.”

  I kept shying from the ‘p’ word, which was why I homed in on the first part of Tep’s statement. “Making sure I would leave Earth?”

  Dad tensed as if he was steeling himself to take a beating. “I was afraid you’d try to stay with Clan Dusa if you knew you expected a child. You had to leave this planet, Shalia. I couldn’t take the chance you wouldn’t if you chose to have the baby.”

  I stared at him. “Chose to have it? What are you talking about?”

  Tep said, “We can cryo-freeze the embryo if you don’t wish to have this child immediately. I would caution you to not commit to a decision while you’re in a state of shock, however. You do have a little while to consider it.”

  I couldn’t think about anything. It was all beyond me at that point.

  Before I stumbled back to my quarters, steered by Betra, I did tell Dad, “I love you. I could beat you over the head with a sledgehammer, but I love you. Thanks for trying to do what’s best.”

  He managed a smile. “That’s my girl. Go talk to your friends. Cry it out, if it will help. After all, this is a huge deal. Once you’ve absorbed some of the shock, we’ll go over all the options and concerns you have about your choices.”

  “Should I share this with Dusa and the rest?”

  Tep took a breath and Dad’s brows drew together. “Not yet, my daughter. Maybe—” he stopped himself. “This is a discussion we need to have after you’ve come to grips with what’s happened. Do not tell Clan Dusa. Do not tell anyone on Earth.”

  “You and Clan Dusa are the only ones I speak to,” I pointed out.

  I agreed I needed to wait, though. It was too much to add to the chaotic mess of my brain.

  I’ve been working on straightening out my feelings about my surprise guest these last three days. I really have. I guess it worked, because a sudden and unwelcome idea occurred to me last night.

  With the mantra, ‘four to seven weeks’ running through my mind, along with Dad’s warni
ng to not speak of the pregnancy to anyone on Earth, I searched through my diary. Hoping against hope. Praying my hardest that the timeline I had in my head was dead wrong.

  It wasn’t. In that period, I had sex with Dusa, Esak, Weln...and Nang.

  The father of the embryo I’m carrying could be Dramok Nang.

  December 18

  I am all over the place. I suppose I’m still in shock. I can’t settle my mind. I keep thinking and asking questions and worrying and freaking out. In the messages that I haven’t had the stomach to answer yet, Dad says to take a few days to get a handle on this. The longer I go, the more chaotic my brain gets.

  Questions such as, who the hell would clan me when I’m carrying someone else’s child? Who would volunteer to raise a kid not their own? Yes, we on Earth adopted kids who lost their parents or were taken from abusive homes. Do Kalquorians do that? Are they okay with playing daddies to some other guy’s child? If they are, how do their feelings change when their own children arrive?

  Candy stopped by yesterday to try and console me, as she has every day since I shared the news. She reminded me, “The Matara complex has a childcare facility. Obviously, some clans are accepting women with kids, or that wouldn’t be part of the picture.”

  “The situation must be desperate for them to court a ruined woman.” I wallowed in self-pity.

  “A ruined woman?” Candy snorted at me in disbelief. “That’s Earth-talk. Remember, everyone here has been encouraging us to get it on with all the men we want so we figure out what gets us off. Kalquor has to realize some of us will end up preggers since they encourage us to sleep around.” Her face burned beet-red and her eyes grew big. “Oh damn, Shalia, I didn’t mean it to sound like I was calling you a slut. I don’t feel that way.”

  My poor-me fest switched to anger in a second. “Really? Then why are you still a virgin?”

  Candy went redder. “Because I’m scared. I want to with all my–well, not heart. The organs that are begging me to get over my fears are lower south.” She shook her head. “I keep hearing all those voices. In my mind, I replay the films they showed us in family planning classes where they tortured those women for having extramarital sex. I’m safe from that now, but I freeze up when a man shows interest.”

  I sighed. I was young to have produced the movies Candy saw, but I’d made them for the next generation. I’d poisoned a lot of minds.

  I let the subject drop. “The responsible thing would be for me to freeze the embryo. I ought to wait and see what happens before letting a child into my life. How delighted do you think a potential clan would be when I ask to give birth to some other man’s baby?” I groaned and slapped my hands over my face in despair. “Fuck. What am I going to do?”

  Candy picked at her trousers. “It’s a big decision, isn’t it?” She brightened. “Do they let clans with infertile women carry babies that are...well, I wouldn’t say ‘unwanted’ by their mothers.”

  “Yes, please don’t say that. If this child is from Dusa’s clan, it’s not that I don’t want it.” I blew out a disgusted noise. “Even if it’s Nang’s, it’s not the kid’s fault. I can’t call it unwanted even in that case.”

  “Let’s call it ‘inconvenient’ then.” Candy beamed at her vocabulary solution.

  “A surrogate mother who carries, gives birth, and keeps the baby,” I mused. It had potential, but then I thought of going through the years of my life, wondering about the child I’d created with Clan Dusa (maybe) and losing out on seeing who he or she resembled. I’d miss the first smile...first word...first steps...all the important milestones. Perhaps the little critter would grow up to be a big lemanthev star. I’d lose out on that. My heart rebelled against this so-called easy solution.

  “Fuck,” I breathed. “I need to talk to Dad. I don’t know where to start with all the questions I have. I don’t know what the hell to do.” I threw one of my slippers across the room. “Why does everything about my life end up so damned complicated?”

  Poor Candy. She did her best to help me through this labyrinth.

  Someone’s at the door, interrupting me. Hopefully, it’s the answer fairy, here to clear up everything.

  December 19

  Instead of the answer fairy interrupting my last entry, I got Imdiko Betra. He’d been avoiding me for the most part these last few days. I hadn’t talked to him since I found out I had a stowaway on board. I wasted no time lighting into him.

  “You knew all along!” I accused him. “They told you I was pregnant.”

  “Yes, Matara. May I enter?” He kept his head bowed, his eyes on the floor.

  “Why I should let you?” I said. “I don’t appreciate having a secret of that magnitude being kept from me. Would you be happy about this if our roles were reversed?”

  “No, Matara. I would not.” His voice was quiet. “I’m sorry I had to keep silent.”

  His admission took the wind out of my sails. It’s hard to be mean to him when he admits he was in the wrong. For a guy around six-and-a-half-feet tall, Betra does the kicked puppy demeanor well.

  “Damn it, come in,” I said. I stomped off and dropped onto a seating cushion.

  He did so, coming over to fold his legs to sit Indian-style on the cushion across from mine. I was still calling him a jerk in my thoughts, but I had to admit the view was nice. Stupid, handsome Kalquorian.

  “Why did you do it?” I asked. I was begging for him to give me a reason to be mad. Darn it, I had to take it out on someone.

  “I was sworn to secrecy by my commanding officer,” Betra wouldn’t look at me. “He explained you weren’t ready to know. That you were in love with the clan who might have fathered the baby. That Dr. Nayun was afraid you’d try to stay with them on Earth, though they weren’t ready for a Matara.”

  “Damned straight I would have,” I grumbled.

  Betra sighed. “Then there was concern about another man who might be the yadbis, the biological sire. According to Dr. Nayun, that potential donor could have been a danger to you. Had he discovered you were expecting his offspring, he might have blocked your escape. Dr. Nayun, in his capacity as your father, was adamant that you get away before this Dramok Nang found out and caused problems.”

  He had a point. Nang had gotten crazy in the end. It could have been a bad scene.

  Betra added, “Everyone was worried about your well-being, Shalia. They did what they decided was best for you.”

  I glared. “I am not a child. I don’t appreciate people acting as if I am.”

  Betra didn’t answer immediately. He turned something over in his mind before speaking again. “I understand that. You are an adult. It’s kind of hard to treat you like one, though.”

  I swear my jaw came about an inch from hitting the floor. “What are you talking about?”

  Betra flushed. He snorted disbelieving laughter, as if he couldn’t quite fathom his own words. “You’re female. We Kalquorian men are supposed to take care of women, especially those expecting children. You shouldn’t be stressed or be concerned with anything. We men are to take care of all that.”

  I regarded him with surprise. “You’re kidding, right? Sweet prophets, you’re not kidding.”

  Betra shrugged. “It does sound crazy now that I’m discussing it with you. You’re a strong, mature woman. But this protectiveness is what I’ve been taught. We men control, shield, and care for the women.”

  “Jesus, Mohammed, and Moses,” I breathed. “Control?”

  “We make important decisions for the good of your welfare.”

  It explained a lot, especially when it came to how Dad and Nang had treated me. I wish I had known sooner. “This is how all of you think?”

  Betra laughed. “I’m afraid so. I, of all people, should know better.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because you’re a lot like my mother. She didn’t appreciate my fathers trying to run her life ‘for her own good’ either. In fact, she never put up with it.”

  I arched
an eyebrow at him. “You must have had a loud childhood.”

  He chuckled. “Not really. Instead of yelling at them, my mother did whatever she wanted, even over my fathers’ objections. If they dared to keep a secret from her, as we did from you, she’d take me on a ‘vacation’ until they apologized and promised to not do it again. In the end, my fathers gave up. What Matara Elwa says is law.”

  I had to grin at him. “I like your mom.”

  “She’s a wonderful woman. I adore her strength.”

  My shock was wearing off, leaving me tired and cornered yet again. “I’m not feeling so strong, Betra. What am I going to do with a child? With this child? Who would clan a woman with a baby?”