“Three weeks,” I echoed.
“That’s right.”
“I hadn’t realized I’d even been gone that long.” But of course it had been longer. Nearly twice as long, all things considered.
“And you, and the wee one, are in great condition,” she said, turning to set the scanner wand aside, and lend me a hand so that I could hoist myself into a sitting position on the padded patient’s table. She looked at me for a moment, her head tilted to the side. “Did you…need to discuss options? Or shall I write you a prescription for some prenatal vitamins?”
I shook my head. “Neither,” I said. “Thank you.”
After I hopped off the table and dressed myself, I headed back out into the lobby and saw a girl sitting there, looking just about as terrified as I felt. She was plump and pretty, with unruly brown curls and cerulean eyes, chewing at her lower lip with her hands resting on her belly. I hesitated a moment, but ultimately took a seat beside her.
“Are you all right?” I asked. But she didn’t immediately respond. “Miss?” I urged.
She started, and turned to look at me, forcing herself to smile once she’d registered my presence. “I’m sorry. I’m so out of it right now. What did you say?”
“I just asked if you were all right. You’re looking rather, well, scared shitless, if you want to know the truth.”
“I never was any good at keeping my emotions to myself,” she muttered, turning in her chair to face me. “Have you ever had something terrible happen to you, something just… Something awful, that changes the course of your whole life, and you start to wonder if this terrible thing might not also be the best thing that has ever happened to you?”
I parted my lips to respond, but she waved her hand in front of her face as though she were trying to clear away the thought. “No, sorry. That’s a stupid question.”
“It’s not,” I assured her.
“No one gets kidnapped and thinks to herself, ‘Gee, I’m so glad that happened.’”
“You’d be surprised,” I mumbled.
“Are you human?” she asked suddenly, and I nodded. “I haven’t had the chance to talk to a ton of humans lately.”
“Are you not…you’re not from the Atria?” She laughed a little at the question, as though it were absurd.
“I’m definitely not.”
“So you’re from Earth?”
She gave a sharp nod of her head. “I am.”
“What’s it like?” I asked. “Have you been to San Francisco? Have you been to a McDonald’s? Have you swum in oceans?”
She laughed a little, and looked at me like I was a crazy person, and maybe I was. But she was gracious enough to answer my questions. “No, yes, and yes,” she said.
“I was trying to go there,” I said, casting my gaze to my hands in my lap, “but I got…derailed.”
“I’ve been trying to get back. Ever since I came here, I’ve been trying to get back, but now…”
“Now you think maybe you don’t want to go back?”
“Or I can’t. Maybe I can never go back. Not because back is so different, but because I am.”
I nodded. This girl was my kindred, and I knew exactly how she felt. “But maybe,” she went on, locking her eyes on mine, “maybe we are supposed to let the things that happen to us change us. Maybe we’re not supposed to try to be the same as we once were.”
“Maybe.”
“And so maybe when bad things happen, bad things that also have good parts in them, maybe we’re supposed to be allowed to change our minds.”
I was smiling, as though her words had helped me to settle upon something, and I nodded my head even as I extended my hand to her, this newfound friend. “My name is Lorelei.”
She took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Novalyn,” she said. “Novalyn Bryce.”
***
My parents had food ready for me by the time I got to their suite, and I was overwhelmed by the familiar smells of home the instant I stepped through the doors. My father encircled me in his arms and pressed kiss after kiss to my forehead, the bristles of his greying moustache scratching against my skin. Then it was my mother’s turn, and she rocked me back and forth as though I were smaller than she was.
“We’re just so relieved to have you home, peanut,” my dad said after my mom finally released me.
“I thought you’d be mad at me,” I said, abashed.
“Mad?” my mom echoed, her brows shooting up high over her bright green eyes. “Why would we be mad?”
“Because I asked you if you would help me go to Earth and when you said no, I just went. I just did it anyway. So I thought…”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Mom cooed. “We thought it was our fault! We thought, if only we’d done as she asked, she wouldn’t have disappeared like that.”
“No, Mom, please,” I said, “don’t blame yourself. I should’ve listened to you. I never should have run off like that.”
“What exactly happened?” Dad interjected.
“Jack, let’s give her a minute to settle in,” Mom interrupted, but I shook my head.
“No, it’s fine. I want to tell you.” So I told them everything: sneaking onto Tel’s transport vessel, the Keldeeri overtaking us, the slave ship, escaping in the pod. I told them about meeting Calder, and how he nursed me back to health. I told them about how he agreed to marry me so that I could send the distress signal in safety, about how he’d paid for the other girls and how there were still two I needed to find. I told them how wonderful he was to me, and I tried not to cry when I told them about leaving him. I told them everything. Well, nearly everything.
“Honey, can I get you anything?” my father asked during a lull in the story. “Dinner will be ready soon, but I could get you a snack. Some cheese and crackers, maybe? Or a glass of wine?”
“I could use a glass of wine,” Mom said. “And after all that, I’m sure Lore could as well.”
“Uh,” I said, growing suddenly nervous all over again. “Actually, no wine for me.”
I don’t think I needed to tell my mother at all. I think she knew immediately. But my father was slower to catch on. “No? We have beer, too, if you’re off wine.”
“No, Dad,” I said. “Nothing with alcohol in it.”
“So what, water then?” But then something changed in his face, and he leaned forward where he sat so that his elbows rested on his knees. His brown eyes had gotten all wide, and all he could say was, “Oh.”
“How far along are you?” my mother asked, and her tone was soft and kind and gentle. She stroked my hair with her hand.
“Only a few weeks,” I said, and tried to smile.
My dad looked like he didn’t really know what to think. On the one hand, it was fantastic news because this proved that interspecies breeding could be a success. On the other, I was his little girl and now he was thinking about a hulking Qeteshi between my legs, and that wasn’t good for either of us.
“Please,” I muttered, “say something.”
A long silence lapsed between us, but after a while, my dad rose to his feet. I thought he was going to leave the room without saying another word to me. But instead, he came toward me and drew me up to my feet, and into his arms. “Congratulations, peanut.”
A wave of relief washed over me, and with that last detail revealed, I burst into wracking sobs. My father had to hold me upright so that I didn’t collapse to the plush white carpeting beneath our feet.
“Oh, Lorelei,” my mother said, patting my back. “What is it, dear?”
But I couldn’t get the words out. I don’t even know that I had the words to explain what it was that I was feeling in that moment. “I don’t know what to do!” I wailed, and my father helped me to resume my seat so he and my mother could kneel down in front of me, their brows knit in concern.
“Calder doesn’t even know,” I sputtered, wiping my eyes in an attempt to clear my vision. “And even if I do go back, th
ere are so many things that could go wrong. If I’m the first, Mama? So much could go wrong, and you’ll be so far away.”
They didn’t say anything for a long while, but they sat with me as I cried myself dry. My mother got up at one point to fetch me a box of tissues, and I used them one after the other until the box was empty and the surrounding area was littered with crumpled up tissue balls.
“What is your heart telling you to do?” my mother asked, gripping one of my hands in both of hers.
I took a deep breath, and let my eyes come to a close. “Go back,” I said. “I have to go back.”
She squeezed my hand, and I opened my eyes to see them both smiling up at me. “Then,” my father said, adjusting himself so that he could rise slowly to his feet, “we will help you to find a way to go back.”
***
I slept for fifteen hours that night in my childhood bedroom. The room wasn’t equipped with a faux window, so there was no fake sunrise to wake me, and I just slept and slept and slept.
It was early afternoon by the time I arose, and I showered and dressed myself in an old tee shirt and a pair of jeans with a waistline that was entirely too high for a person of my age. The effect wasn’t exactly flattering, but I wasn’t exactly eager to impress anyone either.
That is, until my mother reminded me I had to speak to the new investigative task force.
“We’ll go with you,” Dad said. “We want to speak to Mireena about your condition and your plans.”
I was relieved to know I would have my mother and my father there to speak on my behalf, so I went back to my own living quarters to find something suitable to wear. But when I got there, I found that I hated basically everything I owned. Everything was black and modern. I missed the flowing fabrics and bright colors of Qeteshi clothing. I sighed, and donned black slacks, black heels, and a black blazer with a red blouse beneath.
My parents were similarly dressed, and I wondered if it was some unspoken rule that humans had to wear boring pants suits. I guess it was all they sold at the commissary.
We made our way to the office wing where much of the day to day operations of the Echelon were handled. The rooms were toward the top of the ship, so when we walked along the halls, we had excellent views of the overhead window which during the day displayed a faux atmosphere with artificial sunlight, and at night showed vast and endless expanse of stars.
Now, it was fake day, and the fake sun had already started to fake set. I missed Qetesh.
My heels clicked on the cool marble tiles as we headed through a pair of glass double doors and approached the secretary desk. The room was sleek and modern, with a chrome version of the Echelon’s symbol — a lowercase “E” that looked like a swoosh — on the back wall. A little Europax girl with round brown eyes and cafe au lait skin gave us a toothy grin from where she sat.
“How may I help you?” she asked.
“We have an appointment with Mireena Mafaren and the Echelon task force,” I said, and the Europax gave a nod of her head and led us back to a small conference room, where the entire far wall was one large touch screen. The Echelon “E” floated in light animation when we came in and sat down, and a robotic voice welcomed us when we did.
“May I offer you anything?” the Europax receptionist asked, and we had her fetch us some coffee and water. I thanked her, and my heart panged. I was a queen not so very long ago. I smiled a little to remember it.
After a few minutes on our own with our coffee and bottled water, Mireena Mafaren entered the room, a man and a woman in tow behind her.
“Please,” she said, shaking hands with my parents and myself, “forgive me for being late.”
“Not at all,” I said, and she sat down, the two other people moving to sit on either side of her.
“Allow me to introduce special agents Matsuko and Astor,” Mireena said. She gestured to the man, human and handsome in a traditional way, brown hair cropped short and styled carefully into a fauxhawk. He was mid-thirties, I would have guessed, with gunmetal grey eyes and a roguish grin.
“Thank you,” he said, shaking my hand, “for agreeing to speak with us today. Getting Tel back is of the utmost importance to this unit.”
“Teldara and Ms. Zehr,” the other woman said. She was human as well, with deep set brown eyes and prominent lashes, flawless milk-pale skin, and thin as a reed.
“Yes, of course,” the man said. “Oh, forgive me -- I’m Will Astor, and this is my partner, Maelin Matsuko. Please, tell us everything you remember, from the very beginning.”
And I did. I paid particular attention to what I could recall of the attack itself. Teldara’s friend who had betrayed us, losing consciousness — and of the ship itself: the rooms I could remember, being held in the cages.
“But you should speak to the other girls as well,” I said. “They will remember more than I do.”
“Thank you,” Matsuko said, “we have begun that process already.”
“And if there is anything that I can do to help you,” I said, “please let me know. I want very badly to get my friends back safely.”
“So do we,” Astor replied. But as they got up to leave, something caught my attention.
“Wait! You called her ‘Tel’. Do you know her personally?”
Will Astor smiled, and chuckled wryly. “Sure. Tel and I go way back. So don’t you worry — I swear to you I’ll get her back.”
“But you have done quite a lot to help those girls,” Matsuko said. “You got two of them back, you helped two others. And I have no doubt that everything they can tell us will lead us back to Ms. Kinesse and Ms. Zehr.”
The special agents thanked us again, bade farewell to Mireena Mafaren, and excused themselves to get on with their work. That is when Mireena put on her best attempt at a genuine smile and glanced between my mother, my father, and myself.
“So,” she said, lacing her fingers and setting the on the tabletop between us. “You mentioned in your message this morning, Cora, that there was something else the three of you wished to discuss.”
“Yes,” my mother confirmed, and turned her gaze on me in silent urging to speak.
I cleared my throat and leaned in, mirroring Mireena’s body language. “As you have already guessed, I’m with child.” I don’t know what made me decide to use this archaic term for “pregnant”. Something about the solemnity of the occasion, I imagine, or me trying to make myself seem more grown up and ready than I actually felt.
“Yes,” Mireena confirmed, “and I’m so thrilled. For you, and for what this means for our endeavors.”
“Well, after much consideration, I’ve determined that the best thing for me and my baby is for us to be with its father, back on Qetesh.”
Mireena nodded her head and looked past me to my parents, who sat in silent support at my sides. “And you agree that this is the best course of action?” she asked them.
“Yes,” my father confirmed.
“In fact,” Mom chimed in, “we would like to go with her. Just for the year. To see her through a healthy pregnancy and delivery, and to ensure her continued health and well-being, and that of the child.”
“We feel that if we can collect data about what has made her pregnancy successful where others have failed, we can strengthen the program,” Dad said
Mireena gave a nod of her head. “I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I think she ought to stay here, with you, for the duration of her pregnancy so that we are able to learn as much as we can from it.”
I scoffed. “My husband deserves to be there when his child is born,” I protested.
“Well, certainly,” Mireena said. “But you elected to come with me. I can’t very well turn this ship around just to accommodate your whims. Do you have any notion about how much time and money we’ve spent rescuing girls from the surface of Qetesh this week alone?” Mireena’s smile was gone then as she rose to her feet.
“I’m sorry — but for the time being, y
ou will have to remain where you are. We want to study you — we have to study you. The continued existence of this race of people for whom you purport to care depends on the things that your very body can teach us. So can you return to your husband and your adopted home planet? Of course you can, child. I would never try to keep someone from their heart’s greatest hopes. But now is not the time.”
“But I think if—”
“My decision,” Mireena interrupted, “is absolutely final.” Mireena rose slowly and elegantly to her feet. I wanted to argue with her, I wanted to remind her that I had saved her daughter, but her expression would brook no argument. I knew it would do no good, that I would only be digging myself a deeper hole. So, I nodded my head and pretended to understand.
“Now,” Mireena said, “there is much to be done. Please make sure that you schedule weekly appointments in the medical bay so that we can keep abreast of every changing development. And allow me to say, alongside my congratulations, that I am so very pleased you have decided to give birth to the first of a new hybrid species.”
She turned on her heel, then, and left us alone in the conference room. Suddenly, in her absence, I realized why everything felt so strange: The Atria was a sterile place, modern and sleek, but cold. I wanted to go back to dirty, uncivilized Qetesh, where my heart was, and where everything — even during the ice cold of the Winternight — was warm.
“Don’t worry, Lore,” my mother said, reaching out to put her hand on my shoulder. “We will find a way. I swear it.”
“She wants to keep me locked up, essentially,” I said, crossing my arms in front of me. “She wants to monitor me, experiment on me.”
“She never said—”
I gave a shake of my head. “It doesn’t matter. I need to find a way to get off this ship and get back to Calder.”
“Your husband,” my father said coolly, and I looked up at him. There was pain painted in his eyes, but he smiled from beneath his moustache all the same. “Forgive me,” he muttered. “I just had always dreamed of being there when you finally married.”
Alien Prince: (Bride of Qetesh) An Alien SciFi Romance Page 17