Adaptation

by Kaitlyn O'Connor

  And so those fathers who could gather, aligned themselves with the other creatures and took their gifts for our tribe. It has been our way as far back as there is memory.

  I chose you to bring the gifts of your people to our clan. We do not just look human. We took your essence and aligned ourselves to mate with you, to give you our offspring so that they would bring the gifts of your clan to ours.

  Disbelief flooded through Kate, but a cold wave of fear carried it. The thoughts that instantly bombarded her sent her reeling almost literally. Getting up abruptly, she fled her quarters, trying to outrun the thoughts before they could coalesce in her mind, trying, too, to flee any possibility that the Sirians could read her thoughts-whatever they were.

  She had no idea where she was going beyond 'away'. Escape was the dominate instinct guiding her, not actual thoughts. It wasn't until she reached the recreation hall that she realized her instincts had guided her to join her own 'herd', that she'd sought the safety of numbers her primate herd represented.

  Her clan.

  She pushed that thought aside and looked around blindly, trying to decide what she might do to feel safer. She discovered that Sissy was there and had spotted her. Reluctance immediately assailed her. She didn't feel up to trying to uphold her end of a conversation. She needed to consider what Ronan had told her.

  She didn't want to, but she needed to.

  "Hey stranger!" Sissy greeted her gaily when she'd managed to run Kate to ground. "I guess you didn't see me waving madly?"

  Kate met her friend's gaze, struggling to look happy to see her. "I'm a little distracted," she managed to say finally.

  Sissy lifted her brows questioningly. "Oh?"

  Kate shook her head, searching Sissy's face for a clue of what might be on her friend's mind-if anything.

  Sissy grabbed her arm, looked around, and dragged Kate to a small table and with chairs near one wall. "You're going to think I'm nuts," she said, her voice filled with some unidentifiable emotion.

  Kate forced a chuckle. "I've always thought you were nuts … but in a good way!"

  "Well … you know what they said during orientation that first day?"

  Kate blinked at her. "They went on for nearly two hours," she responded dryly. "Which part?"

  Sissy looked vaguely irritated as if Kate should've instantly picked up on what she was getting at. "The part about the success of the colony hinging as much on children as the other things they talked about before that. And that special privileges would be given to colonists who were qualified and chose to have children?"

  She didn't wait for Kate to comment that time.

  "Well … I went for an assessment and they told me that I was qualified and I signed up for fertilization!"

  Kate felt her jaw drop. She blinked at Sissy, trying to assimilate what she'd said. "You're … uh … you're ...," she stammered.

  Sissy laughed, although she looked somewhat unhappy with Kate's reaction. "I've decided to have a baby. They said it'll be a boy. They want to make sure that the ratio is balanced, you know? And, unfortunately, I was a little slow applying and a lot of the women in front of me had decided to have girls. The good news is that the second can be a girl."

  Kate stared at her, trying to decide what to say.

  "You're speechless. I never thought I'd see the day!" Sissy said jokingly.

  Kate blinked several times, trying to get her bearings. "It's just …. It's just …." To her horror, she abruptly burst into tears. She couldn't hold back the tide then, though, couldn't hold in the information she knew she had no business sharing-with anyone. "I think … I think I might be pregnant!" she said baldly.

  That time it was Sissy that gaped at her, clearly too flabbergasted to think of anything to say. She wasn't in nearly the state of shock that Kate was in, however. "You mean …. You think those guys you picked up at the club …?"

  Kate struggled to contain her loud sobs as much from embarrassment at the scene she was making as to enable herself to talk. "Yes," she wailed.

  Sissy seemed to come out of her amazement and dismay sufficiently to realize that they were in a public place discussing something they shouldn't. Her chair scraped the floor as she jolted to her feet abruptly. "Come on. We'll go to my quarters to talk."

  Kate wasn't sure she wanted to talk when she hadn't had a chance to think things over on her own, but Sissy was insistent and half dragged, half guided her from the Rec Room and down the hallway to her quarters. As large as the ship was, it didn't take nearly as long to reach Sissy's quarters as Kate needed to compose herself.

  Sissy pushed her toward a chair and headed to her tiny kitchenette. "I'll get you something to drink to help you compose yourself," she muttered, clearly more to herself than to Kate. She stopped abruptly when she'd pulled out a bottle of gin to mix a drink and turned to look at Kate doubtfully. "You shouldn't be drinking if you're preg, right?"

  Kate stared at her a moment and burst out crying again.

  Sissy got her a small glass of water, fixed herself a mixed drink, and returned to the couch that became her bunk during the sleep periods, flopping down beside her. "Drink. It's just water."

  Kate struggled with her composure again and drank the water. By the time she'd drained the glass, she felt somewhat less hysterical. Sissy took the glass and set both Kate's empty glass and her own drink on the table beside the couch. "Now! Explain to me why you think you're pregnant!"

  Kate sniffed. "They told me I was." She thought that over and added on a wailing voice, "And I believe Ronan!"

  "Wait! Don't start that again!" Sissy said commandingly. "Come on, Kate! You know it's illegal for men to have sex when they aren't fixed! You're talking about the guys you met in the club, right? Well they wouldn't have been allowed in if they didn't have clearance stating they were disease free, infertile, and psychologically sound of mind. You know that!"

  Kate stared at her, calm enough by that time that she realized she really shouldn't confide in Sissy. "I know that, but …."

  "You think because they were foreigners that they might not have their paperwork in order?"

  Kate laughed a little hysterically.

  Sissy frowned. "They're onboard?"

  Kate sniffed, considered if she should admit even that much, and finally nodded.

  Sissy's frown deepened. "The first three? Or the last three?"

  Kate burst into tears again. "It was the same three!" she said baldly and then bit her lip, but she realized she couldn't handle the stress alone-not anymore-not after what Ronan had said. Truthfully, she'd felt way out of her depth when she'd undertaken the task of 'fixing' her mistake to start with. It was only hardheaded determination to make things right that had given her the backbone even to try. "It's the Sirians."

  Sissy recoiled from her as if she'd swung at her. She sat gaping at Kate for a full five minutes after Kate had dropped that bombshell. "You think …," she managed finally.

  Kate sniffed. "I know!"

  "But … but …but …. That isn't even possible, Kate!" she said angrily, surging to her feet and beginning to pace her quarters. "It isn't possible. It is NOT possible! This is crazy!" She stopped in front of Kate finally and stared at her accusingly. "When was the last time you went for a psyche eval?"

  Anger flickered through Kate. "They aren't human, Sissy! Do you know how … arrogant it is to assume they can't do anything we can't do?"

  "I know the Sirians weren't human!" Sissy snapped. "But I also know what they look like and those men you picked up at the club certainly weren't Sirians!"

  Kate stared at her, struggling with her own anger and the guilt that was assailing her for endangering the Sirians because she suddenly didn't feel capable of handling the situation by herself anymore. "You mean the same ones that caused the riot in the space port? It doesn't seem the least bit strange to you that they showed up there when we were about to leave Earth?"

  Sissy gaped at her again in shock, clearly struggling to find a more palatable e
xplanation than the one Kate had given her. "We knew they were smart. They were undoubtedly smart enough to figure out they needed to get on a ship to return home. They've probably been hanging around the space port since they escaped."

  "You don't believe that!"

  Sissy glared at her. "I also don't believe it was any kind of plan! They aren't that smart! They're beasts! Smart beasts, maybe, but not that smart. And that's a good point, now that you bring it up! You saw them! They didn't even look close to human!"

  "Because they changed!"

  Sissy gaped at her. "Oh common, Kate! That isn't possible."

  "It wouldn't be possible if they were human! Or even if they were from Earth! We don't have anything even close to them! Well, sort of close, I suppose, except the chameleons on Earth can't change that radically."

  Disbelief-angry disbelief-was in every line of Sissy's expression and in her stance. "You want me to believe …."

  Kate surged to her feet. "I don't want to believe it! It's true nevertheless!"

  Sissy stared at her a long moment and then moved to retrieve her drink glass. Downing the contents in one gulp, she headed back to her kitchenette to fix herself another drink. "Want one?" she asked absently.

  Kate thought it over. The truth was she not only didn't know whether she really was pregnant or not, or if it would hurt the fetuses if she was, but she just didn't care at the moment! "Yes." She hesitated. "Nothing too strong."

  Sissy lifted her brows at her, but she mixed two drinks and handed one to Kate. "Supposing I believe you. I'm not saying I do! But supposing … How long have you known … or suspected?"

  Kate massaged her head with one hand. "I began to suspect after that first night I took them to my place. At first, I just thought they were foreigners and that explained why they were so …. Strange! I mean, they didn't seem to know anything they should have known! Well, not much, anyway. The more I thought about it, though, the more convinced I was that the only thing that explained their alien behavior was that they were alien.

  "And I got to thinking about what we had found out about them-the almost supernatural cell regeneration they were capable of. I don't think, deep down, that I had completely accepted it until I picked them up the second time at the club. I mean, I went there for that reason …."

  Sissy gaped at her. "Are you completely out of your fucking mind? You went there because you thought it was the Sirians? To pick them up?"

  "It's my fault they're here! Were on Earth, I mean!" She thought that over. "Well, it's because of me that they're here on the ship! But that was what I planned to do! I figured the only thing to do was to get them back to their world … somehow."

  "They killed all those security guards on the space station!"

  "They didn't have much choice, did they? It was either that or just die!" Kate snapped angrily. "I put them in that position! It was my fault-all of it!"

  Sissy stared at her for a long moment and finally looked away. "It's no more your fault that anyone else's on that project," she muttered. "I think there's enough guilt there to go around, if it comes to that. Not enough for you to risk your life to … collect them and take them home!"

  "Except that I was the only one willing to do that!" Kate pointed out. "The others just wanted to hunt them down like … wild, dangerous animals and kill them."

  "They are wild, dangerous animals!" Sissy snapped.

  Anger filled Kate. "They aren't. No more than we are, anyway. They're an intelligent species!"

  Sissy compressed her lips. "Yeah, I heard the intelligent conversation! Cave men could have done better!"

  An odd sense of both protectiveness and resentment filled Kate. "They're a telepathic race. They aren't used to communicating the way we do-verbally. And besides that, they don't speak English. Why would they? They're not from Earth! Even we don't all speak the same language! We don't presume that people that can't speak our language aren't intelligent!"

  Sissy waved a hand. "Because we know we're all human and intelligent-some less than others."

  Kate narrowed her eyes at her friend. "If you're suggesting I'm an idiot …!"

  "You're not an idiot! You're crazy as hell! What possessed you to … play with the aliens?" Sissy demanded angrily. "You suspected they were aliens and you still let them … screw you?"

  Kate felt the blood surge into her cheeks and pulse in a hot tide. "I didn't know they were that first time," she muttered.

  "But you said you were pretty sure the second! Isn't that what you said?"

  Kate wouldn't have thought it was possible to blush harder, but she did. "They had mating on their mind! I had to use something as bait to get them to the ship, didn't I?"

  Sissy's eyes bulged with horror and disbelief. "So you fucked them?"

  "It wasn't like that!" Kate said angrily.

  "What was it like then? No! Don't tell me! I don't think I want that in my head!"

  "Everything about them seemed human," Kate snapped angrily. "It didn't seem like I was making lov … having sex with aliens! And it was real! Ronan said they made themselves human." She studied Sissy's expression for a long moment. "I think they must be able to produce some sort of chemical that … well, that excites females sexually."

  She was almost convinced that that was true, and yet she knew she was trying to make excuses for her behavior as much for her own peace of mind as to convince Sissy she wasn't some kind of freak.

  Sissy went to make herself another drink. "So you're not just saying that they're chameleon and can change their appearance but they can also … What? Mimic human DNA? Closely enough to reproduce?"

  Kate stared at her unhappily. "They seem to think so. I would dismiss it except you know we couldn't pin down their genus-at all! They seemed to be a mixture of species. And that's what Ronan claimed."

  Sissy turned to stare at her. "When did you talk to Ronan? He's the alpha, right?" She frowned. "How did you talk to Ronan?"

  "I told you they were telepathic," Kate said a little resentfully. "I discovered that in the space port. I hadn't even suspected it before that. I mean, why would I? We can't do that. Nothing on Earth can … that we know of."

  Horror flickered across Sissy's face. "You were responsible for that … disaster at the space port?"

  Kate gasped in shocked dismay. "I certainly was not! I didn't know they were going to do that!" She considered that and realized it sounded as if she was pushing the blame off on the Sirians. "They didn't know that would happen!" She knew they hadn't expected it and certainly hadn't planned it the way it happened. "I'd gotten them the papers they needed to get on board and then they discovered that the men they were impersonating had been captured and were in front of them. I just thought 'oh my god! Run!' and then Ronan responded-inside my head. Actually, that was when I found out the men they were impersonating had been captured. All I told him was that they would have to figure out a way to remove the real men-without harming them!-and replace them. Don't look at me like that! If you'll just give it some thought, you know there wasn't any other way!"

  "Oh my god! You had papers forged for them?"

  Kate glared at her resentfully. "As if they could travel without papers in this day and time! What else was I supposed to do?"

  Sissy blinked at her. "Turn them over to the authorities?" she said sarcastically.

  "So they could be exterminated like … like insects?" Kate shot back at her, outraged. "We're talking about an intelligent, important species here! I had a moral obligation to do what I could for them when it was my fault they ended up here to start with!"

  "Through proper channels!"

  "We tried that, remember? They weren't willing to listen."

  Sissy stared at her for a long moment. "This is so crazy," she muttered. "Do you hear what you're saying?"

  "This wasn't an impulse, Sissy! I considered what I was doing and the danger-well, the dangers I could think of," she muttered, recalled abruptly to the subject that had started her discussion with Sissy to
begin with.

  "Except now you're pregnant-At least those … things think you are. And you're carrying one inside of you! You didn't think about that, did you?"

  Kate's anger flared but it wasn't until the words were out of her mouth that she realized exactly what it was that had angered her. "Baby," she ground out furiously. "Don't you dare call my baby a thing!"

  Sissy stared at her stupidly for several moments, looked around a little vaguely, and finally went to her easy chair and collapsed weakly in it. "It isn't human, Kate," she said almost gently. It everything else you've said is true, you have no idea what it is."

  Fear sent an icy trickle through Kate, but she thrust it aside. "It is human. If it's there at all, then its human. They couldn't make a baby if they didn't have the capability of entirely mimicking a human. And its part mine, let me remind you."

  Sissy gaped at her, clearly searching her mind for arguments. "How would they know that? How do you know what they told you is true for that matter? I mean, they might know it isn't the truth and just lied to you!"

  Kate was tempted to polish off her drink and get another one. Instead, she set it aside and returned to the couch to plop weakly on it. "You're right. I don't know anything for sure. The problem is that I can't even find out, damn it-not without exposing them! And I'm not going to do that. I've managed to get them this far. I mean to see to it that they get home."

  She looked at Sissy earnestly. "Promise me you won't do or say anything about this? Please?"

  Sissy sent her a sour look. "Oh don't worry about it! No way in hell do I plan to get involved with any of this! I don't want anything to do with it!"

  * * * *

  Sissy was true to her word. She didn't say anything to anyone about the Sirians-including Kate. Kate felt depressed and guilty about Sissy's angry defection, but it certainly gave her plenty of alone time to think about things.

  The possibility that Ronan actually knew what he was talking about and that she really was pregnant dominated her thoughts for days, but when she finally got past the initial shock, she realized that she didn't feel any different. That was hardly conclusive. Even if they'd succeeded, she couldn't be very far along-probably not far enough along to tell a difference and she certainly couldn't go to the clinic and have them check her. Unlike Sissy, she hadn't applied for permission to reproduce. If she was pregnant, she would be in violation of her contract and the chances were good that she wouldn't have a choice about whether to terminate or not.