We had a lovely meal and lingered over coffee afterwards. Darlene was eschewing liquor for the duration of her pregnancy and so didn't serve any but the coffee was delicious. She ground it herself, of course, from beans grown in a field just outside of Center City. Afterwards, the captain and Cullen had business to discuss so they disappeared into the captain's at-home office while Darlene led me to the garden behind her house.
It was lovely, with African violets rubbing shoulders with daisies, unlikely on Earth but not even worthy of mention here. I remembered the pictures on the walls of her home. She'd painted them herself. They were portraits of the flowers she grew. She had a green thumb and was a decent artist. I'd be glad to be her friend even though her taste in clothes tended towards kitchen curtains. Now she wore a pink flowing something draped over an ethereal body that already had a small bump in the abdomen.
"So what now?" She slid onto a soft chair and slipped out of her sandals.
"Now?" I sat primly on a nearby bench. "I guess I go back to raising apples and cherries."
"I mean what now for you personally. I'm not asking about your job, I know what astonishing thing you do for a living but that's not what I'm interested in at the moment."
"Uh." I would have scratched my head except it would have been childish. "What do you want to know?"
She laughed. Threw her head back and let it come from deep inside of her. It was a happy sound. Before her pregnancy such a sound would have been impossible. I was glad I'd helped bring out that happy laugh. "I mean what about you and Cullen. When are the two of you going to make it official?"
"Me and Cullen?" I asked stupidly.
"Who else? He's in love with you, you know, and you're in love with him though you hide it better."
"You can't know that about Cullen. No one can know what he's thinking. He's impossible to read."
She waved my words aside. "No he's not. Remember that I'm married to the tough, military type. I can read my husband him like a book and I can read Cullen too. He's in love with you and you're in love with him." She leaned close. "The question is what you are going to do about it."
"I… uh… haven't thought."
"Don't lie. You've thought about it."
"I haven't…"
She shook a finger at me. "Don't pretend you haven’t given thought to the future. If you don't have children, the future of every colonist on the Destiny will be in jeopardy. You must have children or the gift you have brought to the Destiny will be lost and people will die."
I sighed. "I know. And maybe I have thought about that. A bit."
"I suggest that you do more than think. I suggest you get moving and do something and soon before your biological clock starts causing problems for the entire Destiny." Before I could open my mouth to comment, she added, "From the way you've been looking at Cullen Vail and the way he's been looking at you, the solution is simple. But the military type doesn't talk about love easily. In fact, they seldom talk about it at all." She leaned close. "So you must talk to him."
I shrank inside of myself. "I'd prefer not to."
She sniffed. "If you want to save future generations and you want Cullen Vail to be involved, you'll have to get the ball rolling yourself. Because he's the military type." She grinned slyly. "I did it and look how well that turned out. You can too."
At the sound of people coming into the garden, she put a finger to her lips. "They are coming back. Don't let them know what I said. But talk to Cullen. Tell him he belongs to you or tell him where to go so you can find someone else to father your children. But whatever you do, do it soon."
Chapter Fifteen
I tell Cullen of his part in the future.
I spent the next week mulling over her words. She was right, of course and she was also right that the sooner I had children the sooner the Destiny's descendants would be assured of good harvests. Whether anyone knew it or not was irrelevant. No one on Earth knew what my family did but we did it anyway. Now, on the Destiny, the future of ten thousand people and their descendants was at stake. That was huge. Darlene was right, I had to act.
So not long after my conversation with Darlene, when I was in the orchard checking on the cherry bushes while the apple trees deposited apples in my cart, I heard a sound. I turned and saw Cullen leaning against a tree and watching. "To what do I owe this visit?" Did he know I'd been thinking of him? Could he read minds? Was that why he was here? I hoped not.
"Just stopping by to check on you." He cleared his throat. "Make sure you're okay."
"I'm fine." I, too, was having trouble speaking.
"Actually, I came to tell you the news." He moved restlessly from one foot to the other. A sure giveaway that he, too, was uncomfortable.
That knowledge helped. Some of my nerves dissipated. "Come, sit with me." I slid to the ground and patted a place beside me. He coughed a couple of times and joined me, carefully keeping his distance as I checked him from head to toe. "You said you have news."
"Yes…"
I wasn't going to say anything about him fathering my children. Not yet, not until I'd figured out how to approach the subject and at that moment I had no clue what to say. How to tell him.
But as suddenly as we'd sat on the ground, as quickly as my breath goes in and out, I knew that Darlene was right and that it was time and that this was the perfect opportunity to get things straight. To get on with my life, with or without him, no matter whether I knew how to phrase the thought or not. "Not yet Cullen. Before you give me your news, I have something to say to you. And it's important."
He looked at me warily, as a mouse might regard a fox before being eaten. "What?"
At that expression, all my bravery went out of me like a deflating balloon. I couldn't mention marriage or children. Couldn't. Didn't know how. But I had to say something so I bluffed. "I want to apologize. I'm sorry for all the trouble I've caused." Just get through this meeting without making a fool of myself and start looking for someone else to father my very essential progeny. "I know that I've been a thorn in your side ever since we met."
"You were never that." He scowled. "Okay, maybe you were. No maybe about it, you were a huge thorn, a big problem. But that's all done and over with and I'm glad you are here because without you, everyone on the Destiny would be dead or dying."
"Thank you for sticking with me in spite of your feelings."
"Because of you the future is good. My future is good." He cleared his throat. "Which is kind of what I came to talk about."
I slid more until I was lying on the faux grass. I regarded the phony sunlight filtering through a canopy of thick, green leaves. No difference at all between Earth and the Destiny, never mind that the Destiny was deliberately designed. I reached as high as possible and brushed the leaves on a nearby cherry bush until they danced. The movement made me smile even as my insides churned because Cullen was beside me.
Something about the movement of those leaves and the possibility that they could be the last generation of leaves if I had no children changed my mind still again. Now was the time after all.
I didn't want to talk to Cullen about the future but I had to. Might as well do so now because delaying things wouldn't change anything. I'd gather my courage and ask him to father my children as soon as he said what he came to say. I decided I'd give myself that brief respite before making a fool of myself. "So talk, Cullen. What's your news?"
He didn't lie down beside me as I hoped. Instead he let his gaze wander along my body until our looks met. Then he sighed and spoke simply. "I spent the last hour with the captain. He was checking statistics for our new home. The planet we are headed for. He does that every so often as we get closer and closer because the readings are more accurate each time. So the news I have is that our new home looks good. Very, very good. Excellent."
"That world is years away. We might not live to see it."
"Our children will."
"I don't have any children."
"Neither do I." He sli
d down then, at last, and moved close.
We stared upwards in companionable silence for a while. Then I spoke because the future lay ahead and couldn't be avoided. "I might not see that new world but if I have children, they will see it. In fact, they must because my descendants will assure that planet is fertile. They'll keep the plants alive that will keep the colony alive until it encompasses an entire planet that I might never know but that they will know intimately because it'll be their home."
"If you have children."
"No 'if' about it." I turned on my side so I could see him better. "I'd better have descendants or this whole trip through space will be for naught. That future colony will die if I don't have children."
"I've thought of that. You aren't immortal. Or are you? I never thought to ask."
My laugh was unexpected, even to me, and ended in a giggle, which made what I had to say easier. "I'm not. So I must think about the future. My future. My children."
"You must marry and have children. Or just have children, forget the husband. Husbands aren't essential to procreation."
"I'd prefer that my children know their father."
"Do you have someone in mind?" The words were spoken slowly. I couldn't read anything in his tone.
"Yep. I do."
"You do?" He drew his breath in sharply. He could hardly speak.
"I do. Because it's important."
"Congratulations." He sounded like he was about to expire from strangulation.
"Don't congratulate me yet. It's not definite."
"Why not?" He turned angry. "Any man will be lucky to have you."
"I'm glad you feel that way." The leaves turned greener as we watched. Lush and happy. Cullen looked at me suspiciously but I hadn't done anything.
"I haven’t told him yet." The trees knew what I was feeling. Hope.
"Well then, tell me who he is and I'll make sure he understands what he's getting."
"He already knows me, both the good and the bad."
"There is no bad. Some thorns, maybe, but no bad. Whoever he is he should be jumping with eagerness to marry you. If he isn't he's an idiot."
"He's not an idiot."
"Then he'll be happy to marry you." A pause, then, "Who is he?"
"He's the military type."
"So he'll be a good father figure."
"I believe so. But he has a softer side, too."
"That's good."
"He likes music. He's a wonderful musician."
"I don't believe I know him."
"Yes you do." Get on with it, Elle. Say it. "You know him well. Because he's you. Cullen Vail." The silence that followed lasted so long that I wondered if the trees would grow old and wither before we continued.
"Me?" Cullen's voice was an octave higher than usual.
What if Darlene was wrong? What if he didn't care for me? I didn't know what to say in the face of a silence that threatened to drag on so I babbled. "Of course it doesn't have to be marriage. Like you said, lots of single women have children."
"Any child of mine will be legitimate. My parents didn't bother getting married and I spent my childhood shuttling between planets. My dad was on Mars and my mother on Earth and I spent a lot of time on space ships going from one to the other." He made a slicing motion as I realized what was behind his dislike of small spaces. Even the most spacious suites on shuttles are cramped and he'd said nothing about his parents being prosperous. "That won't happen to any child of mine. They will have two parents who are married to each other."
I thought that over. "Does that mean I'd better forget about you and start looking farther afield? Because you don't want to marry this particular thorn in your side?" I didn’t look at him. The trees were lovely, I followed the intricate way their branches wove patterns against the pretend sky.
"It just so happens that I like thorns."
"So?"
"So it's marriage or we go our separate ways." He was almost belligerent. "After we marry we can work on those children. Not before." He sounded like someone was strangling him but now the sound didn't bother me. In fact, it was wonderful. Musical. It was the sound of my future.
But he wasn't finished. "So if you're not willing to marry me … and when I say marriage, I mean the forever kind … then start looking because there won't be any children any other way."
I began to smile. Couldn't help it. I wasn't a prude like Cullen but marriage would be my first choice. "Was that a proposal?"
He licked his lips but managed to plow ahead. "Maybe." Silence. "Yes." More silence, then, "It was. A proposal, that is." He ran a hand through his hair until, realizing what he was doing, he stopped. "So what's your answer? Marriage with me or shack up with someone else?"
"Yes."
"Yes what? Marriage or someone else?"
"Yes I'll marry you and yes we'll have the loveliest family imaginable."
"Really?"
Why did he sound surprised? Didn't he know we'd been moving towards this moment ever since he cornered me on the elevator going up to the space station? Why was I surprised? Why hadn't I known it?
"You'll marry me, Elle?"
"I can't think of a better way to spend the rest of my life."
"Really?"
"Yes, really."
Silence again, until I couldn't stand it. I rolled over to see what he was doing since he wasn't talking and found myself looking into his eyes. What he was doing was smiling. And smiling. And smiling. So I moved a bit more, just enough to kiss him.
He tasted like the first time only sweeter.
He pulled away fractionally. "Do you intend to always initiate things?"
"If I have to. But that kiss was mutual and don’t try to pretend it wasn't."
He flushed. "Yes it was." That smile again, but smug this time and that was all right with me, as he moved close and showed me that Cullen Vail, head of Security, knew how to do more than arrest people. He could kiss.
"The captain can perform the ceremony."
"When?"
He pulled back a bit. "As soon as possible. Sooner. After all, we owe it to the Destiny."
And so we did.
THE END
About the author
If you liked this story, check out Florence Witkop's website/blog or find more of her fiction on her Smashwords author's page under her name.
Earth Legend Page 16