Maryam

Maryam Page 9

by Tracy St. John

  “I pointed that out to Cap­tain Miller. He said in that case, sex­ual crimes couldn’t be dis­proven, so the mat­ter would be treated as if she’d been ‘pol­luted’ by alien rapists,” Odak spat.

  Kels’s fists clenched. “We haven’t touched her. There’d be phys­i­cal ev­i­dence if we did; won’t the ab­sence of that be enough for these ma­ni­acs?”

  “Ap­par­ently not. When they catch up to us, there’ll be a fight we al­most cer­tainly can’t win.”

  “No pa­trols or al­lies to help us.” Der­gan’s body thrummed with ten­sion.

  “Worse still, more Earther ships are en route to join the at­tack. We’ll en­gage with the Cho­sen and two more as­sault fight­ers in thirty min­utes.”

  Kels’s stom­ach twisted. “You’re say­ing there’s no hope.”

  “Al­most. Most as­suredly. How­ever, I have one more trick up my sleeve. You’re wel­come to join me on the bridge.”

  Kels hes­i­tated. If they were to die, his place was with Briel and Pana. How­ever, he and Der­gan had ex­per­tise in space bat­tles. Maybe they could lessen the odds against the de­stroyer.

  “We’ll do what­ever we can, Cap­tain.”

  Chap­ter Eight

  The ship-wide alert and a quick com from Kels to Pana had warned them bat­tle was com­ing, but Maryam found she wasn’t ready for it within sec­onds of the booms and quakes re­sum­ing. She cried out when Med­i­cal lost power, send­ing her into dark­ness.

  The lights re­turned quickly, but the ma­chines in the room blinked and squalled alarms as the power con­tin­ued to fluc­tu­ate. Briel’s medi-bed blared the loud­est.

  “Switch the bed to backup!” Dr. Ihas bel­lowed as medics con­verged on the stricken woman.

  Pan­de­mo­nium reigned. Ihas shouted or­ders too quickly for Maryam’s trans­la­tor to de­ci­pher. The lights blinked on and off, re­sult­ing in ev­ery­one mov­ing in a nau­se­at­ing strob­ing ef­fect. She reached out to Pana, grab­bing the front of his form­suit in her fist. He wrapped his arms around her. They clung to each other as they watched the crowd of green-clad medics fight for the un­born’s sur­vival.

  “Back­ups are fail­ing too.”

  “I’m los­ing her. Get me a sta­sis pod.”

  “The fe­tus can’t sur­vive sta­sis!” Pana screamed. Maryam strained to block him from stam­ped­ing to­ward Briel’s bed.

  “He won’t sur­vive these fluxes ei­ther. Sta­sis should give me a cou­ple of hours of breath­ing space be­fore I have to come up with a mir­a­cle,” Ihas shouted.

  A por­ta­ble sta­sis pod was rushed to Briel’s bed­side. The medics trans­ferred her into the sil­ver cof­fin-shaped unit as care­fully as haste would al­low. The lid closed, en­cas­ing the young woman from sight. As soon as it clicked shut, Ihas punched com­mands into its com­puter, his fin­gers a blur as he worked.

  Lights on the read­out glowed one by one. All were green, and Ihas sagged when the fi­nal light blazed. “She’s in sta­sis and ev­ery­thing looks sta­ble. Or­derly, mon­i­tor for signs of degra­da­tion of the baby’s vi­tal signs. Don’t wait un­til they’re near crit­i­cal to tell me. Re­port ev­ery fluc­tu­a­tion, no mat­ter how slight.”

  Still hold­ing Maryam tightly, Pana asked, “If full power is re­stored soon, will the baby be all right?”

  Ihas was ei­ther too ex­hausted or too up­set to sug­ar­coat the truth. “No amount of life sup­port can stop your Matara’s body from fail­ing now and tak­ing the child with her. We’ll do what we can when I have to take her out of sta­sis, but it won’t make any dif­fer­ence.”

  “Then that’s it? There’s noth­ing more you can do?” Maryam couldn’t keep from sob­bing.

  Ihas stared at her hard for sev­eral sec­onds be­fore an­swer­ing. “I have a last-re­sort op­tion. It’s un­likely to work, and I don’t think you’ll like it.”

  * * * *

  When the fight­ing ended and the de­stroyer had found tem­po­rary shel­ter from its en­e­mies, Kels and Der­gan re­turned to Med­i­cal. Kels saw the sta­sis pod next to Briel’s empty medi-bed im­me­di­ately and knew the sit­u­a­tion for his Matara and the un­born had taken a turn for the worst. He post­poned the bad news by catch­ing Pana, Maryam, and Ihas up on the lat­est.

  “Cap­tain Odak or­dered us into an ion storm to es­cape the Earther ships at­tack­ing us. Their sen­sors can’t pen­e­trate the mag­netic up­heaval to find us, so we’re safe for the mo­ment,” he re­ported. “Shield­ing and sup­ple­ment­ing the power grid with nonessen­tial sys­tems should halt any fur­ther fluc­tu­a­tions un­til we leave.”

  His gaze wan­dered to the sta­sis pod. Whether he was ready to face the mu­sic or not, he knew what its pres­ence and Briel’s dis­ap­pear­ance meant.

  Ihas fol­lowed the di­rec­tion of his gaze and nod­ded. “Her time is up, Dramok. I’m sorry.”

  “The un­born’s as well.” Numb­ness filled Kels, and he wel­comed it.

  “Maybe not. It’s a long­shot, but there’s one fi­nal chance to save him.”

  “Then do it.” Kels would take any chance, no mat­ter how slim.

  “Be­fore you say that, you need to un­der­stand what it means. We have to trans­fer the fe­tus to an­other woman.”

  Kels re­al­ized what he was propos­ing, and his heart pounded. Der­gan wasn’t as quick to fig­ure it out. “We’re nowhere near Kalquor, and we’re stuck in the ion storm un­til help can ar­rive. We’ll never reach a sur­ro­gate in time.”

  From Pana’s side, Maryam spoke up. “Dr. Ihas isn’t talk­ing about a Kalquo­rian woman.”

  Der­gan’s jaw snapped shut with such force, Kels heard his teeth clack to­gether. For his part, the Dramok stared at Maryam. She stared back, her ex­pres­sion set with de­ter­mi­na­tion.

  With ef­fort, Kels dragged his gaze from her to Ihas. “It’s not – is this pos­si­ble?”

  “The­o­ret­i­cally, yes. I’m al­ready in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with a fer­til­ity spe­cial­ist on Kalquor, who’ll as­sist me with the process.”

  “Fe­tal im­plan­ta­tion from a Kalquo­rian to an Earther has never been at­tempted.”

  “Cor­rect. We’ve only just be­gun to sort out the bi­o­log­i­cal dif­fer­ences.”

  Pana in­ter­rupted, step­ping close to grip Kels’s arm. “We don’t have a minute to sec­ond-guess this. It’s now or never, my Dramok.”

  Ihas added, “With the spe­cial­ist’s guid­ance, I’ve started the process of pre­par­ing Matara Maryam’s body for preg­nancy and am mon­i­tor­ing the progress. So far, it looks good for the pro­ce­dure…the only prob­lem is whether her body will do what’s re­quired be­fore the fe­tus fails.”

  A mus­cle in Maryam’s jaw twitched, but her coun­te­nance re­mained re­solved. Kels took her in; her frame was far shorter and smaller than Briel’s, but sturdy for its size. Sturdy enough?

  “That’s the only prob­lem?” he pressed, un­con­vinced.

  Ihas barked a hu­mor­less laugh. “To start with, it’s the most im­por­tant. Along with the fact I’m not well versed in fe­male bi­ol­ogy. The fer­til­ity spe­cial­ist will ad­vise me via live-vid dur­ing the pro­ce­dure, if your child sur­vives long enough for the trans­fer.”

  “How likely is this to work?”

  “I’ll be hon­est, Dramok. The odds of suc­cess aren’t on our side.”

  “I’m de­ter­mined to try.” Maryam’s voice held no trem­ble. She was firm about tak­ing on the chal­lenge.

  Kels glanced from her to Ihas, then Pana. His Imdiko nod­ded. “When the doc­tor sug­gested it, she didn’t hes­i­tate. Matara Maryam wants to do this for Briel.”

  “On one con­di­tion.” Maryam’s gaze nar­rowed.

  Kels could well imag­ine her stip­u­la­tion. “You wish to be freed once the child is born. Or if the pro­ce­dure fails.”

  Maryam’s gaze shifted
from his for a mere in­stant; the first real wa­ver in her re­solve. It dis­ap­peared quickly. “Those are my terms. No re­lease, no trans­fer.”

  You’d like me to be­lieve that. How­ever, the mo­men­tary break he’d dis­cerned told Kels Maryam bluffed. Though Briel’s clan had kid­napped her, she con­tin­ued to care for their Matara. Kels knew Maryam would go through with the pro­ce­dure even if he re­fused to let her go.

  The last hour had brought the de­stroyer to the brink of an­ni­hi­la­tion. They’d made it to their only pos­si­bil­ity of sur­vival, the shel­ter of the ion storm, by the skin of their teeth. In that hour, af­ter Der­gan had con­fronted him about the in­jus­tice of their ab­duc­tion of Maryam, Kels’s con­science had bar­reled forth. Though it had meant ad­mit­ting to him­self he’d acted with­out honor, that he’d brought about his Matara’s and un­born’s deaths, Kels had wo­ken to the truth of it.

  He’d failed as a Dramok, a leader of those who counted on him. He’d failed as a man, a clan­mate, a would-be fa­ther. It would take a long while to come to grips with that, if he man­aged it at all. The only route left to Kels was sal­vaging the life of the woman he’d so ter­ri­bly wronged.

  The woman of­fer­ing to save his child.

  He bowed to Maryam. “You have my deep­est grat­i­tude for the of­fer, Matara. As well as my vow that whether the child lives or dies, you’ll be al­lowed to go wher­ever you wish, to live as you de­serve.”

  It was too late to fix the dam­age he’d done, but her re­lieved smile gave Kels some­thing to cling to.

  He sig­naled Ihas aside for a pri­vate chat. When they were out of Maryam’s hear­ing, he asked the ques­tion that would de­ter­mine whether or not he’d call the pro­ce­dure off, even if it meant los­ing the un­born. “What’s the dan­ger to her?”

  Ihas blew out a harsh breath. “I wish I could say. Again, fe­male medicine is not in my purview—and I have no ex­pe­ri­ence with Earth­ers, though they are re­mark­ably sim­i­lar to us.”

  Kels started to speak. When his voice failed, he swal­lowed and tried again. “At the first sign of trou­ble, halt the pro­ce­dure. In the event im­plan­ta­tion goes well, but the preg­nancy puts Matara Maryam in peril, end it. She’s not to suf­fer for the events I set in mo­tion. Not for any rea­son.”

  Ihas gave him a look that man­aged to be both sym­pa­thetic and re­spect­ful. “I’ll make Matara Maryam the pri­or­ity.”

  Chap­ter Nine

  Maryam woke all at once, which sur­prised her. She’d had sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dures in the past, and re­gain­ing con­scious­ness had in­volved an hour or so of grog­gi­ness and con­fu­sion. This time, when she opened her eyes, she was as alert as if she’d drunk a cou­ple cups of cof­fee.

  The room was un­fa­mil­iar. It was clear it be­longed to Med­i­cal, the light­ing brighter than else­where she’d been on the ship and the smells an­ti­sep­tic. She lay in a medi-bed, its di­ag­nos­tic arms roof­ing her torso. An­other ma­chine hummed con­tent­edly to it­self on her right. Dr. Ihas stood over her on her left, his smile com­fort­ing.

  “Good morn­ing, Matara.”

  Fear spiked in her chest. Be­neath the di­ag­nos­tic and medicine-giv­ing arms of the bed, Maryam’s hands stretched to­ward her ab­domen—and froze be­fore she could touch her­self. Forc­ing the words out, Maryam asked, “Did it work?”

  His widen­ing smile an­swered be­fore he did. “Bet­ter than I dared to dream. Your body has ac­cepted the fe­tus. And he has ac­cepted you.”

  Air woofed from Maryam’s lungs. She traced her stom­ach with her fin­ger­tips, feel­ing the rise that hadn’t been there be­fore. A baby. In her hastily hor­mone-en­hanced womb.

  “No prob­lems at all?” Her voice came out choked.

  “All vi­tal signs are strong. Thus far, the prog­no­sis is op­ti­mistic.” Ihas’s smile trem­bled, and he burst out, “The first trans­fer of an un­born Kalquo­rian to an Earther—I didn’t ex­pect that when I went to school to be­come a doc­tor.” His laugh sounded al­most hys­ter­i­cal.

  Maryam couldn’t blame him. Still rub­bing her stom­ach and mar­veling over the bump there, she said, “Con­grat­u­la­tions.”

  Ihas strug­gled to com­pose him­self. “That be­longs to Dr. Relt, the spe­cial­ist who talked me through it.”

  “You de­serve it as well. If you hadn’t stepped in, this child would be dead.” That re­minded her of the third per­son in the equa­tion. Again, she had to force her­self to speak. “Did—is Briel—?”

  His ex­ul­ta­tion dimmed. “As we ex­pected. I’m cer­tain she would ex­press great grat­i­tude for what you’ve done.”

  Maryam knuck­led away the flow of tears. “What we’ve done, you mean. How­ever, I’ll hold off on cel­e­brat­ing un­til he’s born healthy and strong. Will I be stuck in bed for long?”

  “If you both re­main free of com­pli­ca­tions, I might let you get up and move around as soon as this evening.”

  “Not bad for a woman who couldn’t have a child.” Maryam snif­fled and wiped her eyes on the short sleeve of the thin shift she wore.

  “Dr. Relt saw noth­ing to in­di­cate there should be any prob­lems for you to carry the baby to near term. Our sole con­cern is the size dif­fer­ence be­tween a Kalquo­rian and an Earther child. For now, how­ever—it looks fan­tas­tic. In a cou­ple of days or so, you should be able to carry on nor­mally.” Ihas shook his head, awed all over again.

  Maryam kept rub­bing her hands over her stom­ach. She car­ried a child with no sign she couldn’t con­tinue to do so. She car­ried a baby in her body, and if Ihas was cor­rect, she wouldn’t lose it.

  Un­til you give birth and have to give him to his fa­thers. The re­minder of whose baby it was—not hers—stole some of the joy.

  * * * *

  I am a Nobek. I am strong. I am in con­trol.

  Though Dr. Ihas stood be­fore Der­gan’s clan, giv­ing them the de­tails of the pro­ce­dure, the mantra con­tin­ued to play in Der­gan’s head. Af­ter three hours of wait­ing in the main Med­i­cal sec­tion, with only an or­derly’s quick re­port of “The trans­fer ap­pears to be a suc­cess so far”, the Nobek’s nerves were on the verge of fray­ing.

  Pana in­ter­rupted Ihas, cut­ting to the chase. “The fe­tus is alive? Matara Maryam shows no ill ef­fects?”

  “Thus far, I find no rea­son why they shouldn’t re­main healthy and strong. The prog­no­sis looks ex­cel­lent.” Ihas gave them an en­cour­ag­ing smile, ru­ined some­what by the dark cir­cles bruis­ing the skin un­der his eyes.

  Der­gan should have been re­lieved at the news. He wasn’t. The strain on his clan­mates’ faces showed they weren’t ei­ther.

  The bad news came im­me­di­ately, Ihas turn­ing sym­pa­thetic. “As ex­pected, your Matara didn’t sur­vive the pro­ce­dure. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Ig­nor­ing the lurch in his guts, Der­gan reached for Pana. Kels did too, but it was too late. A flash of the Imdiko’s shat­tered look on was all Der­gan saw be­fore his clan­mate ran out of Med­i­cal. He started to fol­low him, but Kels grabbed his arm.

  “He’ll want to be alone for a while.”

  Der­gan swal­lowed a rush of nau­sea. “Of course he will. Why would he want us around when we failed Briel?”

  He turned from Kels’s pained ex­pres­sion and plod­ded to a cor­ner. He stood there, his back to the room, and let a vi­o­lent mix­ture of pain and self-anger wash over him.

  * * * *

  Hours af­ter she’d wo­ken and hours af­ter a visit from grate­ful but un­com­fort­able Kels and Der­gan, Maryam called for the door to open to al­low Pana into her room.

  Star­tled con­fu­sion chased off the Imdiko’s grieved de­meanor as he dis­cov­ered Maryam was sit­ting in a chair in­stead of the medi-bed. His eyes widened with panic, re­mind­ing Maryam of his con­stant fuss­ing over Briel.
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  “Come in, Pana. Dr. Ihas said it would do me good to move around a bit. He wanted read­ings on how the baby and I re­act to ac­tiv­ity.” She in­di­cated the mon­i­tor­ing vest she wore over the hos­pi­tal gown.

  His shoul­ders sagged—whether be­cause he was re­lieved or ready to col­lapse, Maryam wasn’t sure. His hand­some face was strained, and he looked as if he’d lost ten pounds in the past day. Briel’s death had hit him hard.

  There was an ex­tra chair, and he brought it close to sit next to her. “Do you feel all right?”

  “Ex­cel­lent. A lit­tle un­real. I’ve never been this preg­nant be­fore. Know­ing it should go all the way…I’m over­whelmed.” She rubbed her rounded ab­domen, a mo­tion she couldn’t stop re­peat­ing.

  “You can’t imag­ine how grate­ful we are to you—on sec­ond thought, maybe you can. Sorry. Dumb thing to men­tion to a woman who’s lost—” He red­dened. “I’m sorry. I can’t say any­thing that doesn’t sound aw­ful.”

  She found his awk­ward at­tempts en­dear­ing. “You’re fine. A lot has hap­pened. I won’t take what­ever you say per­son­ally for the next five min­utes.” Maryam pre­tended to scowl. “Af­ter that, I ex­pect per­fect be­hav­ior and no ver­bal blun­ders.”

  Pana man­aged to laugh, though it sounded as strained as he looked. “Pre­pare to be might­ily dis­ap­pointed. Can I get you any­thing? As you’ve heard, I’m bril­liant at over­do­ing care and cau­tion.”

  “I’m fine.” She re­strained the urge to take his hand. He ap­peared to need the com­fort, and Maryam wanted con­tact at this emo­tional time more than was prob­a­bly wise.

  Pana stared at the floor. “I wish I could have been a bet­ter clan­mate to her. I could never find that mid­dle ground be­tween re­spect­ing her space and smoth­er­ing her.”

  “She saw the care be­hind your, um, en­thu­si­asm.”

 

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