by Amanda Milo
Just as predicted, I could feel this baby growing more active the closer I scooted toward the direct sunlight—the closer my lower half got to the direct sunshine.
But I wasn’t going to freak out.
“Look, a little vine!”
My knees snapped closed on instinct.
I gasped, hoping I didn’t just squish a part of my baby—
Ryan took my hand. “Chill. The vegetables say this is normal.”
He was lucky that I didn’t mind being teased. “I’m less worried about the ‘emergence’ than I am about cervical complications due to vines tickling their way past—”
Ryan’s thumb brushed over the pulsepoint at my throat. “It’s fine. You’ve got that healing ability. We’ve got alien rainforest stuff that a Medicine Man would envy. This is in the bag.”
Mace, who stood off to the side, silently assessing me, dipped his chin in an affirmative. Chor shifted closer, and because he was pressed up against my other side, I wanted to growl in frustration because he felt hot. Just like everything felt hot. I’d been told there was a winter season here, but if it was anything less than tropical-boil at this very moment, I couldn’t tell. I didn’t scoot away from him though, because I was soaking up as much comfort as I was body heat.
I could really, really use the comfort.
We didn’t know my due date. We could guess, but Sonhadra day-ratio to Earth’s... well? We’d basically been holding our breath and waiting for the fun to start.
Biologically, this baby was Ryan’s and should be a hundred percent human. We had a bit of an inkling that something might be different when I woke up one morning, squatted to pee, went to wipe, and I encountered... a leaf. I hadn’t noticed it ‘til right then; it was just hanging out—you know, as you do when you’re an extension of a Sproutling.
I freaked.
My first instinct was to rip it out—but I was terrified that our baby would be missing a finger or an arm or something vital.
Ryan had been the one to get down between my legs to make the inspection. I wanted to shriek when he carefully took hold of the greenery coming out of my vag, because although it didn’t hurt, I felt the tug alllll the way inside.
He leaned back and took a moment to grin up at me. “Heh. Nice bush, babe.”
“Ryan!” I shook my head at him, unable to really laugh yet. I looked around at our aliens. “Will it keep growing out? What if I hurt it? Rip it?”
Mace was quick to assure me, “There’s no harm. Kahav Sproutlings can regrow limbs.”
The fact that he had knowledge of babies... regrowing...! I was struggling to feel reassured when Chor added thoughtfully, “Not always in the same place. There might be a knot where the break happened, but a fresh limb will grow nearby.”
Now I inhaled deeply, dispelling the slight mental trauma of that day, and wondered how Charlie was faring.
It’d been more and more difficult to visit each other when we felt like we were the equivalent of small hippos. I bemoaned this aloud.
“Hippos must be lovely,” Ammos was super quick to reassure me.
I looked at him as he placed a hand on my knee. His ears were forward, and he should have appeared ridiculous with the little blue flower that grew off the tip of his left one, but instead, he was cute in his tree-alien way. He smiled at me. “Today is the emergence. The Sproutling is insistent.”
Ryan piped up. “What exactly is baby Dan saying?”
Dan. The mere mention had me relaxing even further. It was my dad’s middle name.
After teasing me with ‘Baby Devon’ for weeks, Ryan had been the one to suggest it. Knowing that he’d actually met my dad, worked for him, admired and respected him... Maybe it was baby hormones, but I pretty much blubbered on him immediately.
He took that as a win.
“He likes your voice. He is readying to emerge,” Mace answered him matter-of-factly before stalking closer. To me, he said, “It is germination day. He requires more sunlight, nitesh.”
I grimaced but took Ammos’ hand, and felt Mace grasp my upper arm to help make my transition from beached hippo to standing hippo.
We moved into the light, and immediately, I felt pressure. I told myself it was fine; this was expected. This Kahav process had been explained to me time and again.
Although my super soldier programming still came in handy once in a while, for the most part, programming was no match against heavy stage pregnancy hormones, because I was no longer as cool and collected as I’d previously been.
In this very moment in particular, I was feeling affected. “It’s starting to... hurt.”
For the first time, Chor’s excitement slipped. “You feel pain?”
They’d hoped that with the evidence of the baby being so very Kahav, that the birthing process would therefore be very Kahav.
“Definitely, definitely feeling pain,” I confirmed as I experienced a rippling pinch on my insides.
Mace’s grip eased off my arm, as if he hoped that would help.
I disappeared.
I heard four male sounds of concerned dismay. They knew it was either fear, or pain, or the combination that caused my skin to camouflage.
With concentration, I calmed down enough to be fully visible again.
Ammos came around to my front, critically considering me, while Ryan revealed his nerves—despite the fact he was trying to smile at me—by scrubbing his hands over his hair. “What can we do to make you more comfortable, sweetheart?”
I’d known this man for over a year. He’d called me babe. He’d called me Sol—even sun, because that’s what my last name meant—but never had he ever called me sweetheart. It was heartwarming. It was adorable. It was alarming. “Do I look like I’m dying?”
Chor flinched.
Mace bent to peer at my face, worry evident in the way his eyebrow-moss pinched together.
Ammos’ flowers shut so fast I could swear I heard them snap. “NO.”
Ryan’s hand had moved from its anxious attack on his hair to scrubbing his chin. “I was just trying out new endearments.”
“Don’t try cupcake,” I warned him.
Ryan closed his mouth.
I started to roll my eyes at him—but I was hit with another vicious ripple on my insides, and I doubled over, aware of all the guys rushing in to make sure I didn’t topple over. “Everybody uses cupcake,” I moaned.
He sounded relieved that I was trying to tease. “And on this planet, living with the aliens we do, being like everybody else is a real concern. Got it, Sol.”
“Ry?” My voice came out as shaky as I felt.
“Right here,” he assured, and Mace eased back to make room for him. “Whatcha need, babe?”
I met his worried eyes. “I want Charlie.”
WE INITIALLY HADN’T wanted to drag poor, incredibly pregnant Charlie over here just in case nothing happened with my attempted delivery day. I’d never had kids, but even I knew that once it was underway, it could still take hours.
Or days.
I shuddered. I really wanted Charlie.
It was Mace who took off for her place. As Chor paced around me, treading on the flower petals that were falling off of his body like stress-molted feathers, I became convinced he should have gone too.
My pained groans—and one little scream—were shredding his nerves.
The whole ghastly process had him disturbed enough his bird friends abandoned him to find a more stable perch. On a normal day, he had a whole flocking family riding his shoulders.
At this moment though, he was agitated, movements jerky, so covered in vines that he’d actually gone green.
Seeing this, Ryan quipped, “Dude. Romaine calm.”
Even I snorted.
In contrast, Ammos was the warm earth tone of tranquility and focus.
A true badass at midwifery.
“But don’t you raise lots and lots of animals?” I managed to ask Chor. I was trying to distract him as Ryan helped me to a squatting po
sition. I was hot, sweaty, and whimpering. I was also hyperaware of a leaf that stuck to my butt cheek. I was kind of afraid it belonged to my kid.
“This is true,” Chor conceded, nervously eyeing me. “However, it is Ammos that assists with birthing. It is not one of my strengths,” he said as he sprouted an antler-like branch. He reached up to feel it even as he stared in dismay at his other hand as it became dragon-clawed.
“You don’t say,” Ryan muttered.
Chor tilted his head in confusion. “I just said.”
Ryan’s lip quirked. “I’ll ‘splain it to you some other time, man.” He shooed a bug away from my face as he looked down at me. “I’m going to go find you a big leaf, and I’m going to hold it over you so you’ve got some shade.” He squeezed my hand. “The sprout-whisperer’s going to have the floor.”
Ammos appeared pensive as he mulled that one over.
He loved to learn new phrases.
“I shall whisper to our Sproutling,” he agreed.
Ammos’ ears were relaxed as he linked our fingers, his strange digits sliding between mine. For a moment, I fixated on his thumbs. They were fused at the knuckle joint like a sugar glider—doublethumbs, the Kahav called them.
What felt like lifetimes later, I determined that Ammos was the only one of us who could whisper. I managed to reign it in when Charlie arrived out of sheer habit: I preferred not to overtly do anything that got me babied. As the youngest, I bucked against being coddled.
I’ll give them this: my dad and Charlie tried to control their impulse to do it. Sometimes though, I swear they looked at me, saw a four year old, and they’d go into some weird protect-mode overdrive.
Right now, I would not at all be averse to a little coddling. Female sympathy for this hell known as ‘the miracle of birth’ at the very least.
“Is it bad?” Charlie asked.
I dismissively waved a shaky hand. “Feels great. And get this: I’m going Chia pet on my southside. For real.”
“Can I see?” Dason, one of her husbands, asked.
“Sure,” I agreed easily. “Everyone else already has.”
Charlie raised a hand. “Technically, I haven’t.”
Dason peeked. “Eww.”
My shade dropped for a second when Ryan’s arm shot past me to shove him.
Charlie got there first. She thumped him lightly on the back of the head. “What is wrong with you?”
Dason looked chagrined.
I tapped Charlie’s knee to get her attention. “No offense taken. I’m pretty darn sure if I saw anything growing out of a vagina, I’d say eww too.”
Ryan tipped my head back so I could watch him widen his eyes and playfully nod in mock agreement.
“Have fun with your hand,” I mouthed.
He dazzled me with a blinding grin.
I shook my head and righted myself to see Charlie giving me a look filled with all the compassion and pity I wanted. “What do you need?”
I grimaced as my womb took another shot at making us inhospitable. I didn’t blame my passenger for deciding to evacuate. For the best, really.
When the pain mostly cleared, I took a deep breath and met Charlie’s pretty eyes. “I want this baby to disembark safely, healthy—happy, of course. But OUT nonetheless.” I pretended to whisper conspiratorially, “He’s overstayed his welcome on my bladder.”
Charlie sagged as she emphatically agreed. “Yesss. THIS.”
I couldn’t respond though; my body’s instinct had me locked onto one concept with a suddenness that stole my breath: Push.
When Ammos gave me the green light—ha! Literally, his heartstone rimmed with a bright green glow—a grunt of effort escaped my clenched teeth.
The dirt was soft and gave way under my fingers as I bore down.
Everything hurt, so much so that I couldn’t separate the sensations anymore, but I saw that I was leaking a lot of fluid when Ammos swiped at his mossy brow with the back of his arm.
His hands were slick with honey-colored liquid slime.
Great.
Charlie was parked next to my shoulder, not curious in what everything looked like where the action was going down. She was probably dreading the thought of her turn.
Dason, however, was curious. Considering he’d be helping play nurse or midwife himself very soon, I didn’t mind, and when nobody shouted at him to back off, he went so far as to lean in for a closer look. Ammos even sidled to the side a little. Anything to help Charlie’s time go easy and safe. This birth could be a teaching tool.
“One more,” Ammos encouraged. “One more really good one, and you’ll be done.”
Yes, please. Anything to be done.
I inhaled deep, before heaving with everything I had.
There’s an old book about dinosaurs, where a dilophosaurus spits a tar-like substance on the unsuspecting.
My vagina? It pulled that move with a squirt of amber slime.
...Expelling all over Dason.
Mace and Chor burst out laughing, and Dason joined them good naturedly as he stepped back to clean up. Ammos stayed as focused as I was though, not even glancing over. His arms reached under me to catch.
I didn’t feel relief until I heard the cry.
I’d been prepared to birth a vine-covered pumpkin-baby. I didn’t know that had been the image my mind had conjured until I was shocked by the sight of what our baby actually resembled.
He was... human. Perfectly human.
Ammos held him out to me, but I’d sagged against Ryan’s lap.
“My hands,” was all I could manage to pant. They were covered in dirt, and I didn’t care what the Kahav said; I made Ammos scrub up before he went anywhere near me and I’d do the same before I held my son.
Ryan reached over me and accepted Dan, holding him on my belly between his hands.
Unobtrusively as possible, Charlie attacked my skin with a washcloth.
I peered at little Dan. No way did this baby not have extras—I had witnesses to the fact that he had extras.
Ryan’s thumb stroked down Dan’s back, chuckling in awed disbelief. “We did great. We make cute as fuck kids.”
And it happened: our cute as fuck kid sprouted a leaf on his shoulder.
I glanced up, and watched Ryan’s face transform into something even softer. “Aw hell. A baby-dragon will be cute too.”
I smiled tiredly. “Cute as fuck, right?”
Dan sprouted another leaf, this time on his head.
Ryan’s thumb stilled. “Oh, shit.”
A vine snaked over Dan’s back.
Mace’s laughter boomed, so percussive it scared the birds out of the canopy above us.
EIGHT
GERARD
The flames of the campfire licked along the stubby branches I’d gathered before dark. I didn’t light the fire because I was cold. The jungle was still too warm at night. Fire kept the more annoying creatures away.
Those black and yellow ladybug-looking critters that liked to bite disappeared when a campfire was lit. That and Nori liked watching the flames.
She sat across from me now, her hand weaving a needle in and out of the derma along her forearm. The orange flicker reflected in her golden eyes, which paid close attention to the stitch while she attempted to repair the new tear she got when saving my ass from a burrowing, thorned-back porcupine beast.
Bastard came out of nowhere.
Her skin was still fucked up, and she resembled something of an alien Frankenstein-machine—half-stitched and half-torn—but the meticulous manner in which she maintained her body even in its mostly-ruined state bordered on obsessive.
I felt bad about the new damage. Even offered to help, but she just blankly stared at me in that creepy robotic way of hers.
“Why would you offer this?”
I fancied myself somewhat of a gentleman, but I supposed a machine wouldn’t understand, so I shrugged a shoulder. “If I’d seen the prickly bastard—”
“Mishin,” she corrected.
“Yes, mishin.” One thing I’d learned about Nori, she didn’t like it when I called creatures by anything except their critter name. It was like teasing a computer. Sometimes I did it just to get under her circuits.
Back to what I was saying about being a gentleman...
“If I’d seen the mishin, you wouldn’t have been hurt—”
“I am not hurt—”
“You know what I me—”
“I cannot be harmed. I am nearly indestructible—”
And here we go.
Thing about Nori was, sometimes I’d forget she was a machine. Crazy, I know, considering the exposed mech on her body staring me in the face, but a few times a day I’d forget she wasn’t human despite the glaring evidence.
She walked like a human, sort of looked like a human—other than the unholy gashes and stitching—and sounded like a human. A formal human, but a human nonetheless.
I’d pop a joke and the crickets would chirp. No, really, they were my only audience these days. Nori didn’t understand the humor. If she did, she was a tough lug nut to crack.
I liked my dad jokes, and while my girls often rolled their eyes at me, I knew they liked my jokes too. I could usually squeeze a snort or two out of them.
“I just meant,” I sighed when she finally finished her spiel about her strength, “I’m sorry you got another tear in your skin.”
Nori blinked and went back to stitching. “You don’t have to apologize, Sol.”
My brow flattened, expecting that. She always had to have the last word.
“I understand humans have dulled senses. It is not your fault, but that of your creators.”
I groaned, scrubbing my face. Why did I do this to myself? Arguing with Nori was literally arguing with a machine. There was no winning, and yet I was the idiot who fell for it every time.
What started as a groan quickly turned into a chuckle that rumbled in my chest.
I was insane. Nuts. Certifiable. Because I was sure of one thing...
I liked Nori.
Her prickly, deadpan attitude—and anyone who said machines couldn’t have attitude had never worked on an American classic—and her general presence.