Shattered Bonds

- 1 -

Wendy stretched, not yet quite aware of the sound persistently coming from the door. It was only when she turned over, tucking her pillow back under her head, that it penetrated her awareness. She grunted, half-turning to glare at Greg with sticky, half-closed eyes. Barely able to make out his form in the dark, she was able to hear deep and regular breathing. He might be faking it, but she was too tired to care. She had not been sleeping that well anyway.

It had become more difficult to roll over now, and then find a comfortable position, now that a slight bump had formed in her midriff. Her bladder has also come to makes its demand more insistent, particularly in in the cold, dark hours of the night.

More than five months to go, and I’m already getting cranky about it.

Rolling onto her side, she tried to focus on the chronometer display. She located its soft turquoise-blue glow, but the numbers they formed remained fuzzy and indistinct. Blinking several times, she managed to force her brain into pattern recognition.

2:48? Really?

The emergency klaxons had not sounded, so it could not be too serious of an emergency. Still, she was awake now—mostly—so might as well see what the problem was.

So help me . . . if someone just has a splinter . . .

Looking over at Greg, she allowed herself one final twinge of irritation before pushing herself from the bed.

Soon, she thought. Soon it will be your turn.

In reality, she knew, it would not truly be his turn for some time, even after the baby was born. She was planning to breast-feed, which meant at least six months of interrupted sleep—probably longer. Already, she could feel the subtle changes in her breasts. Greg had noticed it as well, but his interest in them was far more aesthetic than practical. She was surprised at how much she had come to mind that.

She pulled on her robe, flipping her long chestnut hair free from beneath its collar, and decided against the slippers. The floor was warm enough and she was trying to preserve what little remained of them before being forced to, finally, recycle them. They had belonged to her father and the only store where she could purchase a new pair just like them was over eighty light-years away.

As she shuffled into the main living space, the light from the intercom system strobed at her. Its bright blue glow washed the room in quick bursts of soft color before fading back to darkness. The shadows it created might have been disconcerting under other circumstances, but her annoyance at the middle-of-the-night interruption overrode any such primitive fears.

“Yeah . . .,” she cleared her throat past the raspy pebbles caught in it. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, Doctor Aimes,” a young male voice sounded over the intercom speaker.

Wendy recognized it as belonging to David Grimes, working on the night security shift. He sounded genuinely apologetic. That eased her irritation somewhat.

“What’s going on?”

There was a pause before Grimes answered. Wendy was certain that she heard him sigh over the open channel, but it might also have been electronic static.

“It’s one of the [aliens],” he explained, sounding both frustrated and uneasy. “It insists on talking to you.”

“What’s the problem?”

Another sigh.

“I can’t tell, Doctor,” Grimes replied. “I’m sorry. I can barely understand it.”

Wendy fought to keep her teeth from grinding. It was no secret that the [] had two different genders, just like humans, and it was not that difficult to tell them apart once they hit breeding age. That some members of the colony, particularly among its younger populace who should know better, still viewed them as one uniform species annoyed her to no end.

“Okay,” she said, wiping at her eyes in a half-successful attempt to rub the sleep from them. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Looking down at herself, she decided that the robe was okay. The [] would not mind, but she would need to go back for her slippers after all.

She felt a sudden warm breath along her neck. The tiny hairs along the back of it lifted and she nearly screeched with fright. Her heart pounded, threatening to burst from her chest. Instinctively, she wanted to jab her elbow hard into the ribcage of whoever was behind her. She managed to subvert the instinct—but just barely.

“What’s going on?”

Forcing herself to breath slowly, and coaxing her heart to slow down, she began to turn around.

She really wanted to glare at Greg, but was afraid that he might just chuckle at her and then she would be forced to elbow him. Instead, she avoiding meeting his eyes directly, even though he solidly blocked her way back to her slippers.

“One of the []’s,” she told him. “They insist on talking to me.”

“Now?” Greg sounded genuinely perplexed. “Some kind of emergency?”

Wendy shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“Do you need help?”

“I don’t know that either.” She patted Greg’s arm. “I’ll call you if I do,” she said tiredly. “Go back to bed. No sense in all three of us being up.”

She spied his frown in the corner of her vision and suppressed a smile. He got it a moment later and chuckled softly.

“Okay,” he said, punctuating it with a yawn. “Be careful.” He kissed her lightly on the forehead and turned around, shuffling back toward the bedroom.

Wendy followed him, looking longing at the bed as he covered himself with the blankets once more and started breathing slowly. She slid her feet into her slippers and tried to move quietly back out of the bedroom. Greg mumbled something like might have been, “I love you”, “Be quiet”, or something else entirely. Wendy kept moving.

Reaching into one of the secured storage cabinets, she retrieved a case and closed the door, locking it again. She turned to go and only then realized she had grabbed a trauma kit instead of a standard medical one. Cursing at herself under her breath, she repeated the process, making absolutely sure that she gathered the correct case this time.

Gods, I hope no one needs brain surgery . . .

She had heard that pregnancy played havoc with a woman’s brain cells, but she had not truly believed it—until now.

It was dark outside, which was to be expected at that ridiculously early hour. The temperature was on the crisp side of cold and Wendy was glad that she had worn her robe. The air was dry, typical for that season and time of night, but held a faintly metallic scent that told of heavy moisture somewhere nearby.

It might be a storm, she considered, shivering slightly. Or just one of those huge fog banks.

Although she had never visited Earth, she had seen endless images and videos of it. The fog banks that were supposed to be typical of the fabled San Francisco—ever since childhood, she trouble believing even half of what her parents had told about it—had nothing on the ones that settled into this valley from time to time. They gave the air the complexion of rugged concrete, and provided about the same visibility. It was not at all uncommon for colonists to get lost within a foot of their own front door. The natives, however, appeared to suffer no such limitations. Most likely, it was assumed, because they had evolved here.

The main security gate was located across a narrow courtyard that separated the front perimeter from the rest of the compound. It was one of the few areas of the settlement that remained fully lit at night, except for any areas where someone might be working late doing research or maintenance. Wendy blinked, averting her eyes until they adjusted to the bright glare of the spotlights.

She approached the rear entrance of security station, pausing to peer through the faded plastic sheet that served as its window. It was now more translucent ivory than clear, clouded by decades of exposure to the native elements. Through it, she could make out Grimes watching something warily on the other side of the barrier, but she could see which of the [aliens] had called for her at this unreasonable hour.

Although she was able to spy several tufts of raw umber fur atop a wheat-colored scalp, it was not quite enough for her identify which [alien] might belong to. Whoever it was, she mused, was decidedly agitated. She kept catching quick, occasional glimpses of fuzzy dark charcoal eyebrows that tantalized her recognition.

Whoever it is, she thought, they must be jumping around like a jack rabbit.

She had never actually seen a jack rabbit, of course, except in the recorded images from Earth. It was not a species they had bothered to bring with them to their new world. But she had heard her mother refer to them from time to time.

Entering the security station, she was careful to make enough noise that Grimes knew that she was there. She wanted to avoid both an incident such as the one she had experienced with Greg and with someone who carried a charged firearm. Accidents happened and she did not want to spend the next three weeks in the cramped infirmary wondering if she would be allowed to keep her arm. A cloned replacement, or even a functioning prosthetic, was a very long way away.

Grimes looked visibly relieved by her arrival. Even as he greeted her, his eyes kept darting to the figure still hopping around outside the station. He stepped aside to allow her to pass. It was a tight fit, made even worse by the slight bulge in her belly. She tried very hard to ignore the strong male scent he exuded. Her body, though, obeyed no such instructions and reacted anyway. She told herself that the sensations between her legs and across her breasts were the result of her pregnancy, nothing more. She even almost believed it.

The [alien] prancing just beyond the barrier stopped at her approach. It turned and looked up at her with wide violet eyes. It did not blink, but instead cocked its head in what would have been an inquisitive position. Wendy knew it for what it was, though: a sign of respect and submission.

She recognized the small being now: [], one of the younger offspring in the current generation of [alien clan]. Nodding once, she lowered her body into a crouch so that they converse nearly eye-to-eye. Wendy wondered just how much longer she would be able to do that. The [aliens] had seen pregnant humans before, but they had always reacted oddly to the sight. She could not quite define what the reaction was that they displayed at those times. Respect? Fear? Awe? Curiosity? It might even be, she had decided, some other emotion that humans did not have a word for.

She forced herself not to smile. The expression seemed to throw the small beings into a near-panic when they were under periods of stress. Fortunately, these were rare and did not tend to last long. Wendy had likened it to the temper tantrum of a small child, but that was not exactly an accurate assessment either.

The moods of the [] were not that extreme. They were subtly expressive, with their darker moods, such as they were, resembling something more along the lines of differing degrees of sulking.

“Shanta,” she asked, using what she hoped the small [alien] would accept as a soothing and sympathetic tone. “What’s wrong?”

“Rentu,” the dun-furred [alien] announced, as if that explained everything.

Wendy thought for a moment, and then understood. Rentu was Shanta’s grandfather, a living relationship that had been a rare occurrence before the arrival of the human colonists. Several weeks earlier, he had become afflicted with what could best be translated as a “wasting disease”. That, too, had become rarer among the [aliens] since the humans came.

It’s not surprising, though, Wendy thought. The little guy is way more than thirty [cycles] old.

“You can help him?” Shanta asked. Her mouth worked, the narrow band of her lips rippling. She was worried and frightened.

And probably ten times more for coming to us—to me—for help.

“Before his gisa leaves,” Shanta added. “Quickly.”

It took Wendy a moment to parse that. Her knowledge of [alien] was probably among the broadest in the colony, but it was hardly exhaustive.

Gisa: soul . . . before his soul leaves. Before he dies?

Quickly, she knew, was a polite imperative. To kindly get my ass in gear and tend to her grandfather before it was too late.