Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

by Anthology

  Her father waited in the family chamber of the house, and she followed him to his office. Despite her weakness, she sat across from him and recounted everything that had happened—almost everything, at least. The day she met Dr. Rhine, his promise to show her the world above the sea, and the tortures inflicted on her. Her father’s scowl as she recounted her coastal adventure on the day she was abducted sliced through her more brutally than anything Rhine had done.

  “That’s everything?” he asked.

  She nodded, biting her tongue to keep from telling him about the Sualwet she left behind as she made her escape. Guilt ate at her from the inside out, clawing to burst free so she could be absolved. But she knew there was no absolution for what she had done, and only someone who had endured the captivity and horror she had—like the abandoned Sualwet in Rhine’s lab—could ever understand the decision to leave.

  “You will show me where they held you. We’ll make for the shore tomorrow.”

  “So soon?” her mother spoke from the corner of the room. She’d been there the whole time, and Nilafay hadn’t even noticed her.

  Father narrowed his eyes first at Nilafay and then at her mother. “War waits for no one.”

  “War?” Nilafay asked. She had no taste for war after what she’d just been through. War was what justified cruelty. What would it inspire men like her father to do?

  “Yes. War. We have been at war for generations, but the enemy has never resorted to something as vile as this.” Her father gestured at her and frowned. “I won’t have others endure what you’ve been subjected too. Would you?”

  “No, Father.” She bowed her head. She didn’t dare ask the words sitting on the tip of her tongue. Her parents would think her foolish and selfish to be asking after a boy when war loomed on the shore, but she couldn’t stop wondering where Adaltan was. Why hadn’t he come to see her?

  “Leave now. You need your rest, and I have business to attend to.” Her father turned in his chair back to his desk, the screen display of his compdisc already glowing.

  Nilafay left the office without saying goodbye. Her mother followed and closed the doors on the stark room silently.

  “Mother, may I ask you something?”

  Her mother faced her but didn’t meet her eyes. “What is it?”

  “Will Adaltan be visiting? Will the wedding take place soon?”

  Mother shifted to her other foot, an unconscious display of discomfort Nilafay had never seen before. “There will be time to discuss that later.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Nilafay barely got the words out before her mother swept away down the hall, leaving an exhausted girl behind to climb the stairs back to her room alone.

  Back in her room she collapsed on her bed and cried. Loud shaky sobs ripped through her and bent her into a ball where she could hold herself tight like a fry yet to hatch. Gods knew if she didn’t do it, no one else would. And for a sickening moment, she missed Vaughn.

  ***

  Nilafay’s swim to shore with her father proved fruitless. She couldn’t quite remember the route back to where she had been held, and to make matters worse, as soon as she stepped on solid ground, her entire body shook from fear and panic. Her father’s men had to pull her home on a makeshift sled usually used only for those injured in battle.

  She remained in her room for weeks afterward, refusing to leave to eat or speak with her parents. Shame and fear warred within her. She’d been unable to help the man she’d left behind, not once but twice. She’d left him there, and when given the chance to absolve herself by rescuing him, she’d failed. Her emotions made her weak, so she shut them off and shut everyone out.

  Her parents did not speak to her, and Serishee brought her meals to her room but quickly left.

  She hurt. Her legs ached, and her chest contracted tightly around her heart. Every movement felt like a great undertaking, and all she wanted to do was sleep. When she could muster the energy, she would cry.

  Since no one visited her, no one noticed her body was changing. Her breasts had swelled, and her hips were gradually widening. Her distended middle now pressed against her clothing, distorting her figure.

  Despite the impossibility of it, she knew she had become pregnant.

  It was a monstrous thing. Not a clutch of fertilized eggs but a parasite, an invasion of her body. Rhine had done this somehow. Despite his anger over his experiments being failures, he managed to accomplish the thing he’d been willing to kill for. And he’d never know.

  Part of her was thrilled to have stolen this success from him. Another smaller part knew the conception of what grew within her may have been due to Rhine’s experiments and drugs, but it wasn’t his success. Like all life, it had grown out of two bodies finding each other.

  This child’s father was Vaughn.

  Nilafay bent over herself, bile rising in her throat at the reality of what she had done. She had lain with an Erdlander, and not under duress. In other circumstances she wouldn’t have done it, but Vaughn hadn’t forced her. This child’s beginnings were her own choice, her own body. Its creation had meant her freedom.

  Pride and love gripped her. This child was hers and no one else’s. She would die before allowing it to be used by Rhine or Vaughn. And so she hid in her room, staying covered so no one would see the changes happening to her body.

  As time passed, her belly grew larger, faster than she had expected, but who knew what passed for a Sualwet pregnancy? Within her grew something never before seen, a mixture of two races never meant to be joined.

  One day, her mother came to her room. “The physician is here to examine you, Nilafay.”

  “Why?” she mumbled from her place under the heavy blankets Serishee had given her.

  “To evaluate your health, why else?” The annoyance in Mother’s voice almost upset Nilafay, but after so long with no contact, no affection, no Adal, she just didn’t care.

  All she had was the secret living within her.

  “Where is Adaltan?” she asked.

  “You will see him when your health improves. Now sit up for the doctor.”

  Nilafay threw a pillow at them and sank farther under her clovers.

  “You see, Doctor? This is what I was describing to you. Behavior more suited to a child. No way for a woman of Nilafay’s age to act.” Her mother’s scolding wasn’t even directed at Nilafay, as if she weren’t lying right there in front of them, which only made it worse.

  “Trauma of the magnitude your daughter has experienced can affect much more than the body. Don’t worry, Lady Fay. Please, let me speak with her alone.”

  “Very well.”

  As Nilafay heard her mother leave the room, the physician sat on the bed, depressing the mattress so she rolled slightly toward him. “Child,” he said, “let me see you.”

  “No.” Nilafay was ashamed of the pout in her voice but couldn’t deny it was there.

  “Come now.” The doctor pulled the blanket away. When he saw her, he stood up, eyes wide in shock. “My gods…What has happened to you?”

  Nilafay pulled the covers back over herself, covering the swell of her abdomen. She rolled over and faced the wall, ignoring the doctor.

  Nilafay heard skirts rustle when Serishee shuffled closer to stand next to the bedside.“ Please show us,” Serishee coaxed.

  Too tired to fight any longer, Nilafay sat up and dropped the covers to her hips. Under her nightgown, her breasts were round and heavy, and her stomach bulged out from her body.

  “It’s…not possible,” the doctor whispered. “What have they done to you?”

  Serishee sat on the bed and reached out a tentative hand. When she placed it on Nilafay’s stomach, the creature within rolled toward the touch, pressing out from within her body.

  “Get away from it,” the doctor spat at the housefille. “Get her parents. Her father must know.”

  Nilafay reached out and grabbed Serishee’s skirt, “No, don’t tell them!”

  The girl hung her head and pu
lled away of Nilafay’s grasp.

  “You should have told us when this began,” the physician chided her, disgust evident on his face. “This is a horror.” He gestured to her distorted body, shuddered and crossed his arms over his chest, as if protecting his body from infection.

  She wrapped her arms around her middle, holding the impossible life growing within her close. “You can’t hurt it.”

  The doctor recoiled. “Hurt it? We have to remove it! It’s unnatural.”

  “No!” Nilafay screamed, jumping out of the bed onto weak, unused legs. She moved away from him in wobbly steps.

  “What’s this I hear about her being pregnant?” Father bellowed as he and Mother burst into the room. When his eyes fell on Nilafay’s distorted body, his skin paled so white she could see the veins running under it. “Abomination. It’s simply not possible. Sualwets do not have live births! Are you sure it isn’t just an oversized clutch of eggs? Nilafay, have you produced your eggs since you’ve been home?”

  She shook her head, and as if in response, the being within her rolled, pushing against her abdomen to make itself known.

  Father clenched his fists and stepped toward her, as if any of this had been her doing. “What is that?”

  “It’s not my fault!” Nilafay screamed, holding her stomach.

  “What can you do?” He addressed the doctor, ignoring her completely.

  “We can try to remove it, but such a thing hasn’t even seen in centuries. I honestly don’t know what’s growing in there, so I can’t guarantee the safety of such a procedure.”

  “Do it.” Father turned his back without a second glance at Nilafay and left the room.

  “No.” She shook her head, backing against the bedroom wall. This child did not belong to the Sualwet anymore than it did to Rhine. This life belonged to her, and the responsibility to protect it lay nowhere else.

  The doctor ignored her and spoke to her mother. “I’ll have to speak with the other physicians. This isn’t something we can do lightly. Removal of the…ah, thing will be a difficult procedure, if we can do it at all. I’ll be back in the morning. Keep her calm until then. I’ll give you something to help her sleep.” They left together, leaving Nilafay alone with Serishee.

  The housefille closed the door and skirted the edges of the room, not coming any closer to Nilafay than necessary, as if a live pregnancy might be contagious.

  “Don’t let them do this to me.” Nilafay slumped against the wall. Prepared for an argument, she stared at Serishee, who moved next to the closet and pulled out clothing long and spacious enough to accommodate Nilafay’s uncommon silhouette. “What are you doing?”

  Serishee spoke without looking at her. “My family isn’t like yours. We aren’t free to have the children we want. Our fry are collected and given to families of status, and only those remaining are returned. Out on the water farms, they call us ‘salmon slugs’: girls who swim upstream, aiming for the heights of those we serve but never able to see our own hatchlings.”

  Nilafay recoiled. “Then why do you do it?”

  “What else would you have us do? There’s no other work for us. We aren’t skilled unless we go to school, and our mothers, who are all housefilles, can’t afford to send us. Some of my childhood friends married to higher status, but I don’t know if I could live out in the tides. I’ve spent my whole life in this city.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  The girl stepped close and took both of Nilafay’s hands in hers. “Run. You have to leave. You know the sea. You have been above the surface. I can’t think of anyone else who could do it, but I know you could. Swim to the riptide and ride it north. My father went there once. He said the area was completely deserted. If you stay, they won’t just take your child from you, they’ll take your life.”

  Nilafay jerked her hands back. “I can’t leave. I’m to marry Adaltan.”

  Serishee‘s face fell. “Sweet Nila. They haven’t told you, have they? Adaltan won’t be yours. His family has forbidden the wedding.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You lived with Erdlanders. And when they find out you lay with one…”

  “But I didn’t. They did something to me!”

  “You may lie to them, but you can’t lie to me. I’ve known you too long.”

  A strange relief passed over Nilafay. She swore to never tell anyone, but the secret deepened her loneliness, and having Serishee on her side gave her strength. She laid a hand over her abdomen. “He won’t have me?”

  “He has no choice.”

  “I have to find him.” She stood and took the dress Serishee held out to her.

  “Nilafay.”

  “No, he loves me. If I’m to leave, then he’ll come too. I know he will.”

  The housefille frowned but didn’t stop Nilafay from changing clothes.

  “Thank you, Serishee.” Nilafay pulled her into a rare embrace then tiptoed out the door.

  Nilafay’s parents’ voices filled the entrance way. Their murmurs coated the walls and bounced off the marble floor. She felt certain they would find her and lock her in her room at any moment. Her father’s low voice chased at her heels, the words irrelevant as she considered the threat he presented. He really would risk her life just to get rid of what grew within her. It may be an abomination, it may be alien and unnatural, but it was hers.

  It was the only thing she had left in the whole world.

  Her pride had been stolen from her, her bravery shattered. Innocence and curiosity no longer guided her, only fear. And now her family looked at her with horror in their eyes that masked any affection they had ever felt. Would Adal look at her that way?

  She stuffed the thought down, refusing to consider the possibility. Her bare feet made no sound on the cool floor as she crossed from the bottom of the stairs to the door.

  Outside, darkness greeted her. The illumination inside the Domed City had been dimmed, simulating the night that hung over the world so far above. Funny that her people detested the Erdlanders so much yet maintained a simulation of their surface lifestyle.

  She sneaked through the empty streets, passing darkened homes and parked rickshaws waiting to be used the next day.

  At the ring of homes where the Tan family dwelled, Nilafay realized she had no plan. How exactly did she expect to reach Adal? It wasn’t as if his parents would just allow her to walk in. If his family had called off the wedding, she’d never be allowed to speak with him alone.

  Darkness filled the windows as she approached the house. Her heart reached out, calling for him, unable to touch. She blended into the shadows and stared up at the rooms where she knew his slept. She’d never had to reach out to him before. it was always him chasing her down, finding her no matter how far she wandered. She didn’t want to be here playing the part of the desperate woman, but she had to know.

  Did he still love her?

  Could he love the life within her?

  Would he make her choose?

  She tried to make sense of it all, of everything she’d been forced to endure, but she couldn’t figure out how she’d gotten here. How had she ended up standing outside the window of the man she loved, pining and wishing for his attention? This wasn’t her. This wasn’t the person she wanted to be.

  She strode forward, ignoring her fear, and knocked on the Tan family’s front door.

  A disheveled househomme answered the door, his chest bare and his skirt in disarray.

  “I need to see Adaltan,” she announced, pushing her way past him.

  “You can’t just come in here.” He ran ahead of her, putting his body between her and the rest of the house but not touching her.

  Desperate enough to forgo social niceties, Nilafay shoved past physically. The househomme didn’t dare place his hands on her. Instead he just ran after her as she searched farther into the house, calling for Adal.

  “What is this nonsense?” a booming voice came from behind her.

  Nilafay turned to find Adal�
�s father dressed in nightclothes, an unamused look on his face.

  “I need to speak with Adaltan.”

  “You need to go home. Your father will speak with you and tell you everything you need to know.”

  “No. I’m not leaving until I speak with Adaltan. Adal! Where are you?”

  His father’s frown deepened so far she couldn’t even see his lips behind the layers of wrinkles etched in his face. Soon, the entire household seemed to be awake. Adal’s mother and brothers all stood and watched as she screamed for her fiancé.

  Not one of them took pity on her and told her where he was.

  Exhausted and humiliated, Nilafay turned on them and ran. She had to get away from the eyes that followed her as she raced down the street. The Tans would contact her family, if they hadn’t already, which meant she had to get out of the city. She had to get out before they could find her and drag her back to Sualwet doctors who would cut her open and experiment on her just like Rhine had.

  In her haste, she didn’t bother staying in the darkness or worrying that her webbed feet slapped loudly against the hard ground. When she reached the airlock, the late-night guards hardly noticed her presence until she’d already passed through. The moment she hit seawater, she shucked the dress, letting it drift in the water, and swam like her very life depended on it.

  Serishee had told her to go north, but she knew if she ever hoped to see Adaltan again, she must return to the field of star lilies.

  She swam hard, feeling the water slide across her strange, curvaceous body. Its warmth held her in an embrace so accepting she didn’t want to ever leave. And perhaps she wouldn’t have to. Perhaps this would be the life ahead of her. Adal, her, and this child could be together in the sea.

  When she broke the surface, the night sky greeted her and the scent of flowers filled the air. She climbed atop the star lilies, letting them hold her weight.

  Above her, the two moons made their trek across the sky. She watched them until she fell asleep, dreaming that the ruby moon had filled her body and would come to the world to save them all.

  In the morning, she woke to find Adaltan treading water at the edge of the field.