Adaptation

by Kaitlyn O'Connor

  Who is coming?

  That was Dax. She knew it. The militia! They're going to be tasing everybody to put down the riot!

  Even as she struggled to warn them, the militia burst through the main entrance of the Rec room. Ronan, Dax, and Jarek whipped a sharp look in that direction and instantly broke off their fights, plowing their way through the seething mass of fighting men and then through the crowd of spectators surrounding the battle. They morphed even as they moved away, arriving near the rear of the crowd as three different men than the ones involved in the fight.

  If Kate hadn't been staring straight at Ronan she wouldn't have seen the transformation it had been so smooth.

  She hoped to god nobody else had seen it!

  A mixture of relief and horror flooded her-briefly-before she and Sissy were carried away by the tide of people fleeing the riot with more enthusiasm even that they'd shown in rushing to watch the fight. Every exit was instantly clogged with people trying to get out before the militia could get to them.

  "Where did they go?"

  Kate shot a sharp glance at Sissy. "I didn't see," she lied.

  * * * *

  As anxious as everyone was to reach their destination, including the crew, it had been decided not to risk the maximum speed the ship was capable of on their voyage. For people who'd never been in space for more than the occasional pleasure cruise or work assignment on one of Earth's outposts-and the vast majority hadn't even experienced those short trips in space-even the four month long cruise to reach their colony planet was almost too much for taut nerves to endure. As huge as the colony ship was, it was also stocked to the gills and packed with colonists in accommodations even more cramped than those they were accustomed to dealing with on Earth.

  Having only recently finished a long tour of duty on the space station, Kate thought she fared better than most and even she was sick to death of the ship and a bundle of nerves besides long before they began the final approach to Sirius.

  The circumstances were entirely different, of course, and that played a significant part in her anxiousness to be off the ship and on world. Her research on the space station had been tedious at times, but her mind and hands had been fully occupied with tasks that were familiar even if her particular project hadn't been.

  The fear that someone would discover the Sirians-or the Sirians would give themselves away-had totally wrecked Kate's nerves, however, and the riot in the Rec Room did nothing to allay her fears. No one had seen the progress through their new solar system for the simple reason that everyone on board had been under 'house' arrest after the celebration party and thus didn't have access to the viewing ports. The ban was only lifted a matter of hours prior to landing when the announcement was made over the ship communications channels that colonists were to begin preparations to deboard the ship.

  Kate's belly instantly knotted when she heard the announcement. Trying to ignore her jitters, she focused on packing up her belongings and then searching for her claim tickets for her belongings in the hold. Relieved when she found them after only a short, frantic search of her purse, she secured the bags she'd packed in the lockers for landing and settled in the easy chair her cabin boasted that doubled as a landing/takeoff seat, fastening her safety harness. She'd already been seated and strapped in a good fifteen minutes before the announcement was made to prepare for landing.

  She hadn't felt their entry into the planet's gravitational pull, but then they had slowly been acclimating to Sirius' gravity and atmospheric pressure throughout the voyage. It wasn't a great deal different from that of Earth, but it was different and it was far better to arrive conditioned for the difference and prepared to set to work than unprepared and in need of months to adjust.

  Not that they wouldn't have some adjustment issues anyway. They hadn't been born on Sirius. The denser gravity and air pressure was going to be a challenge even as slight as it was. They'd been acclimated as much as possible by the shipboard artificial gravity, but none of them had actually worked as they would have to to build the colony.

  She was still trying to calculate what she would weigh on the new planet as opposed to Earth when she felt the uncomfortable jolt that told her the ship had landed. Almost immediately, instructions began to flow through the communications speakers.

  Her quadrant of the ship was to be allowed to exit last, she discovered in dismay.

  And the quadrant where the Sirians were housed was to be first.

  Throwing off her harness, Kate got up and began pacing her small cabin nervously while she waited. It seemed an hour dragged by before she heard the announcement that the passengers in the next quadrant could begin to exit. Each time the announcement was made, the colonists were instructed to gather their belongings from their cabin and take them to the temporary shelters they were being assigned to.

  Depression settled over her, ousting the jittery sensation in her belly, replacing the nervous energy that had set her to pacing with exhaustion. She finally plopped down on her bunk, staring at the floor and trying to empty her mind of the troubling imaginary scenes that kept materializing one after another.

  She was worried about how Ronan, Dax, and Jarek were handling their release from the ship without her there to explain everything to them.

  A faint flutter in her rounded belly distracted her. She held her breath, focusing on the point where she'd felt it, wondering if it was her imagination that made it seem … detached from her. She'd just begun to think it was nothing more than her own body when she felt a similar flutter in another region of her belly. That time it was more pronounced and impossible to explain away as body function.

  The babies were stirring, she realized, feeling both a sense of exhilaration and fear wash through her.

  She hadn't realized until that moment that she'd almost convinced herself that there was nothing there at all, despite the undeniable changes she'd noticed in her body-the thickening of her waist and the noticeable, to her at least, bulge her lower belly had taken on.

  Was she confusing gas with foreign, purposeful movement, though?

  It hadn't seemed to be her at all.

  Could she really tell the difference, though? Even if she was pregnant, they couldn't be very big at all-certainly not if there actually were three.

  She was so focused inwardly on trying to identify the source of what felt like movement that the announcer was halfway through the spiel about deboarding before she realized it was the cue she'd been waiting for.

  It was her turn to get off the ship and see her new home for the first time.

  Getting up shakily, she gathered her bags and exited her cabin, squeezing into the corridor that was already clogged with people slowly shuffling toward the lifts, stopping to wait for the return of the cubicles carrying those in front down to the hanger level and then shuffling forward a few more feet.

  It wasn't until she finally managed to squeeze into one of the lift cubicles and felt the motion as it carried her down that she realized why depression had settled over her.

  Would Ronan, Dax, and Jarek be waiting for her, she wondered? Or would they, as she'd envisioned when they began to trek back to their world, have rushed off already to explore their home and find the rest of their clan?

  Chapter Eleven

  Kate had begun to think that the case was hopeless, and it was difficult to make the Sirians understand when they knew so little about the politics of the human race, particularly when she didn't completely understand it herself.

  No one seemed to. Bureaucracy had become a monster of nightmarish proportions decades earlier and continued to grow out of control until dealing with anything connected in any way to the government was like moving through quicksand. Like the mythological Hydra, every head seemed to act independently and yet conspired together in such a way that there seemed no way of passing through the maze of red tape that had been created over the decades of ever tightening government control over every aspect of life.

  Colonel Stalvey
was in charge of the colonial militia, but he didn't have the authority to release a prisoner without an order from the council. When she presented herself to the head of the council to petition for their release, she was told she had to go through 'channels' and was sent to another council member-who had no idea where she was supposed to go beyond the fact that it wasn't her call. Hours turned into days and days into weeks while she tracked down and spoke with first one member and then another until she finally found the council member who could get her petition 'in the works'. For almost a week, she was under the impression that she was merely waiting for that councilor to review the petition to secure their release, only to discover when she was finally summoned that she was to take the petition to six other council members for approval.

  Then it would be reviewed by the entire council at the next meeting and ruled on … after a vote.

  It took every ounce of willpower Kate possessed to keep her temper under control when she was told that. She sought Sissy out in the Rec room and settled across from her at a small table Sissy had commandeered where she 'people watched' much of the time since no one had much in the way of duties to perform until they reached their destination.

  "This is why the world is falling apart," Kate said tightly.

  Sissy merely lifted her brows, silently giving her permission for Kate to unload.

  Their relationship had been strained since Kate had confessed about the Sirians, and Kate doubted Sissy would sympathize with her plight at all. It wasn't as if Kate had anyone else she could complain to, however.

  "Still no luck?" she prompted when Kate didn't say anything else.

  Kate plopped her elbows on the table top and massaged her aching head. "Oh! I'm making progress!" she said with heavy sarcasm. "Only four more approvals and then I get to take the petition to the council at large so that they can review it and vote on it … the next time they meet. If I can't get all six approvals before the next scheduled meeting, though, then I'll have to wait until the meeting after that."

  "Well thank god they all take their responsibilities so seriously!" Sissy said dryly. "Just think where we would be if things were actually easy!"

  Surprised that Sissy seemed to commiserate with her, Kate shot a look at her friend, trying to decide from her expression if she actually did agree.

  "How are the … Sirians holding up?"

  Kate chewed her lip. "They're miserable, angry, and deeply suspicious that they've been tricked."

  Sissy shifted uncomfortably. "How do they figure they've been tricked?"

  Kate sighed. "Well, I don't know that for a fact, but I can see where they would. Most of the others have been released."

  Sissy shrugged. "Most of the others haven't been in fights in holding," she pointed out testily.

  Kate felt her face redden. "They've been behaving."

  "They're still in solitary confinement aren't they?"

  Kate blushed harder but irritation had joined her discomfort.

  "I rest my case! It's hard to misbehave when you don't have anyone to fight with."

  "They could still give the guards a hard time," Kate muttered, "and they haven't … not since I spoke to them about it. They just didn't understand what was going on and they didn't start the second fight."

  "No, they just finished it," Sissy said dryly. "I don't know why you're working so hard to get them out. Clearly they're prone to violence. They'll just end up in lockup again."

  "That is completely unfair. You know as well as I do that they hadn't shown any disposition toward violence until they were thrown into lockup to start with. And, I might add, they were locked up to start with for something they didn't do!"

  "Yeah, I know-for the actions of the men they just happen to be impersonating! And if the authorities had any clue of who they actually are, they would've been shot instead."

  "Whose side are you on anyway?" Kate said crossly.

  "The human side."

  Anger washed through Kate, but she tamped it with an effort. "It so happens that I'm also on our side. It isn't in our best interests to throw away the opportunity to form friendly relations with the natives of Sirius!"

  "Speaking of friendliness …. Have you figured out yet whether you're pregnant or not?"

  She was almost positive she was, but she wasn't certain whether it was safe to admit that or not. She shrugged, evading Sissy's gaze by training her own at some distant point across the vast room.

  "It might be a blessing in disguise," Sissy said thoughtfully.

  Kate shot her a questioning look and Sissy shrugged.

  "Well … it could be a connection. I suppose that really depends on whether or not we kidnapped princes or something like that."

  Kate stared at her blankly. It hadn't once occurred to her that there was any chance that her Sirians might have powerful connections of their own on their world. She frowned, thinking it over. "In all honesty, I don't have a clue whether they would have any influence at all on their own clan. I don't know anything about the Sirians."

  "Au contraire! You know that three of them are damned good in bed!"

  Kate blushed. "If you're going to be nasty …."

  Sissy settled a hand on her arm when Kate made to rise and stalk off. "Sorry! It just slipped out."

  Kate sent her an angry look.

  "I didn't mean it, ok?"

  "Yes, you did. Maybe you didn't mean to say it, but it was what you were thinking."

  Sissy flushed. She struggled with herself for a few moments. "You're right. I was thinking that you'd been sleeping with the enemy and you were hardly in a position to make any kind of sound judgment. You're biased, Kate, and everybody else is going to look at it the same way."

  "They aren't our enemies, Sissy … yet! And we're going to be in a world of trouble if it comes to that. We're going to be pretty much on our own once we get to Sirius. You know that, don't you?"

  "People aren't going to want to accept a species that's so different from ours! You know that, don't you? I mean …. Just look how much we've fought among ourselves! And we're the same species! Different races, different countries, different customs, different religions-all it takes is just being a little different and there's food for war."

  "We don't have a chance of getting along if we don't try!" Kate said anxiously, settling in her seat again. "I don't expect to … save the world in one fell swoop, Sissy! I just think we need to make a push to start out on a … hopeful note."

  Sissy stared at her for a long moment. "Historically speaking, we haven't done too well at that, you know," she said dryly. "Look what happened when the Europeans moved in on the American Indians. First they made friends, then they made war."

  "And we could be a lot worse off if we start out with that same superiority complex!" Kate said tightly. "I might not know much about the Sirians, but I know enough to see that we could be the Native Americans in a showdown on Sirius!"

  "Depending on how many of them there are."

  Kate stared at her. If she couldn't even get the danger through to Sissy, who was a 'friend', what hope was there?

  Sissy shook her head. "No. You're right. I know you are. I don't feel friendly toward them, though, Kate. I can't help it. I feel threatened and I just wanted to point out that you-we-are going to have a real battle on our hands-with our own people. You saw how they reacted when they got their first look at the Sirians! If they felt that threatened by three, on Earth, how do you think they're going to react to … hundreds, maybe thousands, on an alien world where they don't have the backing of a superior army?

  "We're researchers, Kate-scientists! We don't know anything about politics-beyond the fact that dealing with the government is like pounding your head on a brick wall! You can't even get them released, for god's sake!"

  "So you're saying we shouldn't even try?"

  "I'm not saying that at all! I'm saying I wish to hell this mess had been dropped in somebody else's lap-somebody that might have a better chance of making things tur
n out than me and you do! I'm saying I'm scared because I know you're right and I wish I could just run away. I'm saying I'm totally pissed off that you didn't tell me so that I knew what I was walking in to!" Sissy said angrily.

  Guilt washed through Kate, but she dismissed it. "You're right. I should have warned you, but the fact is that if I hadn't gotten involved with them I wouldn't have known at all and you wouldn't have and it could've been a lot worse! Not knowing damned sure wouldn't have protected anybody! Knowing might not help, but there's at least a chance it will."

  * * * *

  Kate didn't know if it was Sissy's additional influence that finally did the trick or if she'd just managed, finally, to satisfy the colonial officials-or if they had managed, together, to simply annoy the council members until they got tired of seeing them. The bottom line, though, was that they succeeded in getting Ronan, Dax, and Jarek released.

  Sissy went with her to deliver the release papers to Colonel Stalvey. He looked them over skeptically, looked like he wanted to dispute them, and finally simply shrugged and summoned one of the MPs to bring them out of holding.

  As they waited, Kate discovered that she had very mixed feelings but the one thing that was dominant and shouldn't have been was that she hadn't actually seen any of the men in nearly a month and a half and she wasn't happy about the fact that Sissy was going to be with her when she did. She tried to shrug it off. She tried to convince herself that she was really glad to have Sissy with her for moral support.

  She didn't actually realize that she'd been anticipating a joyful reunion with her 'mates' until they arrived and she found herself staring at three complete strangers. Her spirits dipped so sharply that the smile she pasted on her face felt wooden.

  Ronan studied her face piercingly and finally nodded. What is wrong?

  Kate shook her head slightly and glanced from him to Dax and Jarek. We'll talk later … when we aren't being watched.

  When she glanced at Sissy, she discovered her friend was staring at the Sirians with the wide-eyed glassy look of a hare caught under the spell of a predator's gaze. She elbowed her friend and glared at her when that caught Sissy's attention.