by C F Rabbiosi
“Is she?” I can’t finish the sentence as I take in her pale, unmoving form.
Arek puts a finger to his lips. “She sleeps.”
“She survived?” Thank you, universe, I say under my breath. “Where’s the healer?” I scan the area but the tool is nowhere to be found.
“When I arrived there was nothing but her.” Arek strokes her golden locks. “I failed to protect her again.”
I run with great effort, holding my aching belly, and stand in front of Brekter’s quarters.
Oh my god. the room stands empty, blood streaked across the floor.
Another stabbing pain strikes through my abdomen, and I limp back to med bay as quickly as possible, every step getting heavier.
“It was gone.” I flick my eyes toward Kassien and give him such a look of fear that he understands exactly what else was gone as well. Someone must have taken Brekter and the healing tool.
“I set the nanobots upon her arm to stop the bleeding, but we need more,” says Gerakon, furiously working to establish a new access line into her other side.
“Are there only two of those healing tools?” asks my mother.
“You cannot comprehend the amount of resources and power that goes into the creation of a Kren~sanfendic.” Gerakon touches the air and a symbol glows. “I have to do this now. Hold her down.” He works so quickly his hands blur. “Persephone! Kassien said you are skilled in stitching flesh.”
“Yes! I’ll go get my kit.” She leaves, and my anxiety grows.
The liquid metal scalpel slices Scarlet’s skin in a perfect line and depth according to the hologram guide. She gasps as Efaelty and Vaerynn hold her down, and her screaming curdles my blood. Black dots swarm my vision, and I brace myself against the wall. The agony on Scarlet’s terrified face fades to black. Bones pop as she’s held down and pressure grips my lower body. Sitting down, I catch my breath and blink several times.
Gerakon reaches into the incision as Scarlet’s body is racked with shudders, and he scoops the living bundle from her womb. “Persephone!” he yells.
I force myself to stand up and tamp down the fear that my own labor has begun. If I’m having contractions, it’ll still be hours before the baby must be extracted, so I’ll be all right. I have to be, Scarlet needs me right now.
“I’m here.” My mother scoots in and quickly threads her needle. She makes quick work of the separated flesh.
Kassien stands before the baby in Gerakon’s arm, and his hulking form wilts in defeat. “I—” He moves away, halting his hesitant reach that seeks the softness of the new little child. “I want him so much. How can I love something I have never met?”
Pressure bears down on me, but I force it aside to place a comforting hand on his back.
“How can I have dreamt of the preciousness of his skin and the sweetness of his cry just to have it taken away?” His voice wavers and he turns abruptly.
Gerakon places the wriggling child in a floating incubator and the walls around him shimmer and change to a light violet. His mouth still tries to cry, but the sound ceases to come out. Oxygen and heat fill the chamber, and several robotic arms dive inside to hook up feeding tubes, fluids, and to monitor his vital signs.
“Will he live?” asks Kassien. Gerakon touches the sensors of the floating incubator and focuses harder on reading the results and setting the controls. His little body has a pink flush, but slowly the color leaches away.
Scarlet’s teeth chatter, and agonal breaths wheeze into her lungs. “Finished.” My mother puts her hands up, needle and thread dangling, and steps back. Scarlet’s arm stops swelling as the nanos do their work, but the blood seepage beneath her skin leaves a black and blue discoloration. She twitches violently and tries to speak. “I— I don’t want to die—”
“You aren’t going to,” I say, holding her clammy hand. “The baby’s out and the healers are doing their magic inside you.” Just her being awake and able talk must be a good sign.
“Is that why it doesn’t hurt anymore?” she asks, staring blankly into the ceiling. My mother shakes her head slowly, and I realize that with those thick hand-done stitches to her uterus and abdominal muscle, she should still be hurting tremendously. Maybe she’s in shock, or her adrenaline is numbing her after being cut open so barbarically when the anesthesia failed.
The nanobots pull from her skin and flow through the pores of her belly.
“The microscopic systems mimic specialized tissue and replace cells,” says Gerakon. “They then reproduce inside the damaged organs.” He says the words, but no emotion shines through.
I keep waiting for the alarms to settle, but her pulse continues to decline and her temperature dips. “Do you remember last Hallow’s Eve?” comes her weak voice, and I nod vigorously. “I was the white queen.” We must have read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe three times that year.
“We sewed your dress with old curtain material that wasn’t at all white anymore,” I say. I had dressed up as Dracula’s wife in one of my mom’s old black gowns and a cape we made.
“I loved it,” she says with a hint of that familiar fire. “The first night rain of the season came and we danced and danced. You never got cold, and I didn’t care that I was.”
Another pain, like burning pressure, seizes my lower abdomen and I bite back fear. The contractions are only minutes apart, and they shouldn’t be.. The first part of labor lasts hours, so these may be false pains. But what if I’m forced to deliver vaginally if I wait too long? Is that even possible? My mother peers at me with concern, and I force myself to stop gritting my teeth.
Efaelty hands me a wet rag. “We always danced in the rain,” I say to Scarlet, wiping her teary cheeks. “Everyone ran inside, but we stayed until the last ember died.”
“And then you shoved me in a mud puddle.”
A chuckle escapes me, followed by another deep, aching pain to my abdomen “I didn’t think you’d slip like that.” It’s strange, but as my best friend struggles to live and my own fate still hangs in the balance, there’s nothing I’d rather talk about.
Gerakon vigorously presses air symbols near the baby and my smile drops. Kassien paces, the blood pulsing visibly against his skin. Gerakon feels Kassien’s glare. “It keeps adjusting for different oxygen levels, but the child’s condition still declines. Readings for his heart, lungs and other organs are holding at the low end of acceptable.” He throws his hand through his hair. “The cause should be clear by now.” The child grows still, and his chest sucks in, exposing the ridges of his ribs. “I have negative pressure working the air into his lungs, but his blood-oxygen levels refuse to rise.”
Scarlet’s teeth chatter again, and her skin appears eerily similar to the baby’s: blanched with a tinge of gray. Mama places a hand on my shoulder. “It’s said that our hospitals in the past used to save premature babies. They used to put tubes down the infant’s throat and have a machine breathe for them.” Her hand lifts abruptly as I work to calm my strained breaths. “Calypso, are you..?”
Damn it.
“Child, if you’re in labor, you need to tell me.” She moves to my side and leans down, my avoiding eyes growing wide.
“I’m fine. You know it can take hours before the second stage even begins.”
“But this isn’t a normal situation. Especially after what you’ve been through today. Come, let’s—”
“No!” The alarms above Scarlet quicken, and I turn back to find her still and unnaturally quiet. Gerakon rushes over and checks the healing device. “Her heart has failed.” He presses into the middle of her chest with two fingers. “I am going to manually perfuse her.” His fingers dive in and out with lightning speed.
The alarms go silent but still flash, and my own heart skips a beat. “Mom?” My throat aches, bringing the burn of crying to my eyes.
She touches the shimmering walls of the baby’s chamber and her reflection speaks to me. “While he’s pumping the blood through her body, the organs are getting blood.
We just have to wait to see if they’ll start functioning again,” Gerakon nods as she pauses, “on their own.”
Scarlet’s body moves lifelessly as Gerakon presses her sternum. She reminds me of an old rag doll, even the color of her skin. Momma rushes over to hug me and I still see the flashing red behind my closed lids.
The healing bots have fled Scarlet’s body and hover above her bare stomach. Gerakon stops to grab the device, and the alarms sound again.
I pull away from my mother. “Well, tell the nanos to go back in!” They shouldn’t be allowed to give up!
Loose hair falls around his face. “She has gone.” He places a hand on her chest, his horrified gaze searching, then rips away.
“She can’t be.” A strange feeling of relief that the suspense is over hits me, followed by a wave of utter sorrow. Deafening screams shatter my thoughts: You should have taken the baby out earlier! Why did you wait? Now they’ll both die. what was the point of this?
“Gerakon!” Kassien says, snapping me out of my head. “The child is still in need of you!” More alarms sound around the baby’s chamber, and Efaelty reaches inside to touch his little white chest.
The crazed Koridon backs against the wall, his breath heaving, and has no clue what Kassien begs of him in this moment of madness.
“Oh!” I don’t mean to cry out, but a tearing sensation brings me to my knees. Kassien pulls me into his arms and the echo of his voice cries out for Efaelty and Vaerynn. Momma rushes to my side as Kassien carries me out.
Gerakon’s frantic yell stops us in the doorway. “Persephone, wait!” He grabs her shoulder. “Stay, please.” He points toward the incubator. “I cannot—” he shakes his head, his breath hinging. I’m—”
She places her hand upon his. “I have to go with my daughter.”
“We will take care of her,” Vaerynn says, signaling for Kassien to take me out. “We know our equipment well. You have nothing to fear.”
I want her with me, but she is the only one who can help Gerakon right now. I suck it up and tell her stay.
I lock up in his arms as the infant’s head seems to rip down into my cervix.
30
Kassien
I can’t bear this.
Calypso, the beauty, the broken maiden who always fights me, now hangs limp with that monstrous belly pulling her out of my arms. We rush to the room beside my dead mate’s, and Efaelty clears the bedding from the medical table. I set her down.
“Not on her back,” says my former mate and helps me position her to the side. Calypso stirs and grimaces. “Can you hear me?” After an agonizing moment of hesitation, she nods.
Gerakon has never broken down before, not even over his precious dying plants and animals he tried to save from our world. So why now? He always supported the idea of invading the human villages, not for their breeding capabilities but for their hidden books and knowledge. And there he stands, well, barely, a broken being before a meaningless girl. The thought of Scarlet’s lifeless body sends a deep pain through me, even though I’ve seen many, many horrible deaths in my years. Though I didn’t love her, she was very dear to me, the mother of my beloved son.
“What’s happening to her?” I ask, forcing my feet to stay planted even as my baby calls for me with his last breath. Gazing upon him was the final push into pure love. I’d felt the smooth movements of his back and bottom when he rolled inside Scarlet’s belly and strong foot bumps against my cheek, but seeing him—his frailness, his transparent skin, and those big glossy eyes, almost black as they searched for me and found me— I would have taken his place in an instant. My own mortality had no meaning in that moment.
Vaerynn runs in with the machines that tried to keep Scarlet alive and quickly syncs Calypso into their care. Readings begin to populate in the base, and Vaerynn nods vigorously. “She’s fine internally, but her cervix is very thin and the child’s head sits low inside. He’s coming.”
“I will get Gerakon,” I say, torn to be here with her but also to be with my little son.
“No.” Vaerynn puts a hand on my shoulder. “Your child is struggling. He needs Gerakon, and he needs you.” I sigh inwardly and look upon my love. She has another’s child in her belly, and yet I love her more now than I ever thought possible. She asked me to be with her, to raise her child as my own, and it hurt me at first to even consider it. But I wonder now, after seeing my own, would another’s offspring strike the same chord in my heart? I think I would try, for her. Unless she doesn’t want me anymore for letting her best friend die. She begged me not to let it get this far.
Calypso cries out, clutching the side of her bed.
“She may have to push.” Efaelty studies the holographic image of her womb, and I lean in. The child has moved down, opening her birth canal like a boulder forcing its way through a narrow tunnel.
“No, I can’t!” she growls. “Just pull him!”
“His size is twice that of an average human child,” says Vaerynn, spreading Calypso’s legs wide and suspending them on stirrups. “With her genetics, can it be done?”
She moans, her eyes screwed shut, and when she opens them again, they shine with misery.
“She wouldn’t need the anesthesia,” says Vaerynn. “No risk of it disintegrating her veins, like with the other woman.”
Calypso groans and tries to sit up. “Fine let’s do this.” She touches my chest. “But not with you here. Please, I can’t bear for you to watch this.”
“We can handle this.” Efaelty looks up, confidence emanating from her being. She moves the symbols around in the air to set up the controls for Calypso’s natural childbirth. “Go to him.”
I kiss Calypso’s dewy forehead and linger there, taking in this last moment, for I cannot say where we will be in the next. “Thank you, my Efaelty.” I take her hand and squeeze with grateful pressure. Just a few months ago, I left her side to be with Calypso, whose life now lies within her hands.
And I walk away trusting her completely. As I always have.
I step toward the room where my child’s mother lies rotting, and my insides rip apart wondering if my son now lies in the same state. Forcing myself to move forward, I find the incubator. My son lies in the same, unnatural looking condition, struggling for air and twitching, and I’m overtaken with relief. Persephone has a hand on Gerakon’s shoulder and speaks quietly, a stern yet gentle sound, and he nods with determination. That woman is a fine testament of human strength and intelligence, and with her coaxing, Gerakon shakes away the hysteria. He flies from here to there, adding medicines and tissue enhancers to the incubator’s controls.
Persephone slides material over Scarlet’s face.
She was someone’s child. And I killed her.
“How is she?” Calypso’s mother whispers.
I give a simple nod then turn away and address Gerakon. “What is his condition?” My voice booms, shocking him with my presence, but he doesn’t hesitate in his task.
“He teeters on the edge, not giving up. But he does not improve.”
“What is the key? What does he need?” Surely my brilliant geneticist and true student of the combining of our two worlds can figure this out.
“I have been studying in great detail the human fetus amongst the texts Persephone brought,” he says, “and we know that a Koridon infant’s immune system cannot survive a world that they were not biologically developed in with its innumerable bacteria and other organisms. Now, this premature baby is of both species, so I thought I could anticipate his needs, and yet I am failing.”
“No,” I growl. “You will succeed. You will save him.”
“In humans,” he says, “the premature newborn often dies from underdeveloped lungs. For a premature Koridon, his protective skin layer develops last, so he will often pass from an excess loss of heat and fluids.”
“His lungs are receiving adequate oxygen,” says Persephone, “and his skin is being enhanced to protect from fluid loss.
“Go to your daughter,
” I order her. I am torn with guilt for leaving Calypso and can at least send her mother to her.
“I will,” she replies, “but she is strong and in good hands. I am needed here. For you.”
Gerakon rushes to the floating device and inputs more calculations. The machine arms work fast. “We are giving nutrient X2, but I wonder if in fact it is hurting him. Scarlet received it during the pregnancy, but Calypso was born healthy without it. She developed the need for it later.”
Persephone nods. “Calypso was born at thirty-five weeks and was bigger than most babies born to us. But she was healthy. We knew that children like her die young. Without the X2, which was unknown to us of course, everyone expected her to die in a few years.”
“And she would have,” says Gerakon. “Perhaps that gene doesn’t activate until later, and right now, it does harm to the newborn.” He touches the air, lighting up several symbols. “Let us try.”
Hope fills me, and I fear the feeling. We’re dealing with a new species, and so much is unknown. We’re all children of the universe, in need of the same things for the most part. Oxygen, water, nourishment. What is the balance here? We’re a disaster on this planet, but our technology is good, and Gerakon is a highly intelligent being. Several minutes pass.
Alarms chirp, and my body is engulfed with chills.
“Give him a moment to stabilize,” says Persephone, who watches his oxygen levels plummet without a hint of emotion, and I try to draw from her strength.
But I’m dying.
Cracking stone makes up my outside, but on the inside, visions play of my first child: lively, supple, the magic of his firm grasp around my finger. Even he appeared so much healthier than my poor new baby, and I still lost him. It’s always about survival of our kind, that’s all that we have cared about for years, but hang all that. All I want is him.