Worlds Apart Pt. 02

"See, this value right here represents the gene that controls skin pigmentation in humans," one of the scientists said as he gestured to a set of numbers on the screen. Sousa leaned closer, examining them.

"We can switch that out," he suggested. "Look, it's not linked to any other important genes in either species. We just replace...these nucleotides here...with those from the human donor. That gives us a stable value, no genetic instability."

"That will change the baby's skin color?" Jamie asked.

"Yeah," Sousa replied. "The goal here is to port over as many of your genes as we can without negatively impacting the blueprint. The blueprint being the Borealan genome. We need to start having a conversation about what exactly you want this baby to look like."

"Babies," Nightingale chimed in, Jamie and Liz turning to stare at the squat insect as her furry antennae bobbed in the air.

"What do you mean, babies?" Sousa asked.

"Upon examining the donor eggs, it has become apparent that Borealans reproduce in clutches," the Bug added. "For maximum compatibility and the lowest risk factor, we recommend that at least five offspring be incubated."

"F-five offspring!?" Jamie blurted, reaching out to steady himself on the edge of a nearby table. "Liz, catch me, I think I'm gonna pass out..."

She reached out with her tail, propping him up.

"Five?" she repeated, her cheeks blushing a shade of red. She blinked down at the Bug in disbelief, the creature's face expressionless as it peered back at her. "Why does it have to be an entire litter?"

"Your reproductive system is configured to incubate multiple eggs at once," Nightingale explained. "Incubating a single offspring could create unforeseen complications, potential for danger. The option that best follows the safety parameters laid out by Doctor Sousa requires us to proceed with a minimum of five eggs, yes, unless you wish to alter the safety parameters to allow for more experimentation?"

"What do you guys think?" Sousa asked, turning his attention back to Liz and Jamie. "Five is a much bigger number than one, I know, but I have to agree with Nightingale. The fewer changes we make to your natural reproductive cycle, the better the chances that the pregnancy goes smoothly. It would be a tragedy to go through all of this only to miscarriage because we were too ambitious."

"C-can we talk about this? In private?" Jamie hissed.

Liz nodded, the two of them heading out of the building as the crowd of scientists and Jarilans watched. Once they were out of earshot around the side of the prefab, Jamie turned to Liz, trying to compose himself.

"Five!" he blurted, pacing back and forth in the mud as she tracked him with her furry ears. "One was going to be enough of a challenge, but five!"

"Yeah, I know how many five is," she replied. "You can stop repeating it."

"Five!" he added for good measure, Liz's leather jacket creaking as she crossed her arms. "How are we going to feed five Borealans? What do they even eat? Do we just throw a whole sheep carcass into their playpen and hope for the best? Where am I gonna buy a sheep carcass?"

"What are you feeling right now?" she asked, watching him with those green eyes. "Stop for a minute and think about it. Talk to me."

He did as she asked, stopping his pacing, taking in a few deep breaths.

"Excited, scared," he replied. "Pretty much every emotion all at once. I jinxed us yesterday, didn't I? When I talked about how we should have had an army of kids by now?"

"I promised that this would be a conversation," Liz said, Jamie glancing up at her. "This is totally unexpected, you didn't sign up for this, and if it's a deal-breaker..."

"Don't even suggest it," he replied, Liz blinking her eyes at him as he pointed an accusing finger at her. "We've journeyed to the ends of the fucking Galaxy to make this happen, and I'll be damned if we're going to fall at the last hurdle. A baby is the only thing you've ever asked of me."

"A baby, singular," she added with a weak chuckle. "Five is...a lot, for a human."

"How the hell do you deal with a whole litter back on Borealis?" he asked. "Does everyone have half a dozen babies at a time out there?"

"We live in packs," she explained. "Everyone raises the kittens communally, and if you get too wiped out, there's always someone there to pick up the slack."

"So, what? We're like the Borealan equivalent of single parents?"

"I guess so," she replied with a shrug. "We're like...one-third of a pack. I won't lie, that means we're going to have to do three times the work."

"You're the one who has to carry them," Jamie continued. "Is this what you want?"

"Fuck," she sighed, leaning back against the metal wall of the prefab and running her fingers through her cropped hair. "I don't know whether I want to laugh or cry, and I'm not even knocked up yet..."

"If you want to have these kids, then I'm with Nightingale," Jamie said. "My first priority is your safety, and if they say that having a whole litter is the safest option for you, then that's what we're gonna do."

"Really?" she asked. "When I saw how you reacted to the news, I thought that...maybe our little project was finished. As much as I want kids, our relationship is what's most important, and I don't want to stress it to the point that it breaks..."

"If we shied away from doing things because they were hard, we wouldn't even be together," Jamie replied, taking a few steps closer. He reached out to take her furry hands in his, Liz giving him a weary smile as he squeezed them. "After being separated, after you found your way back from Borealis, what's a couple of extra kids? Are we gonna fall apart because we're going to have a bigger family than we planned for? Nah."

"You're really okay with it?" she asked, her eyes starting to brim with tears. He hadn't seen her cry since they were teenagers, the unexpected show of vulnerability lighting in a fire in him, all of those protective impulses coming flooding back. She might be proud and confident now, comfortable in her own skin, but she had never stopped being the little girl that he had met on the swing set that day.

"This isn't even that unusual," he added. "Human couples have twins, sometimes triplets, even octuplets. It's not like I'm the first guy to ever freak out after hearing he's having more kids than he was planning for. We can be terrified and overjoyed at the same time."

Liz reached down and caught him in her arms, lifting him off the ground as she trapped him in a tight hug. She buried her nose in his hair, breathing in his scent, which seemed to calm her somewhat.

"We must be scaring the crap out of Sousa and his team," she chuckled, setting Jamie back down. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve, her usual pep returning. "They probably think we're about to bail on the whole thing. We should get back inside and let them know what we've decided."

Jamie nodded, the two of them making their way back to the entrance.

***

"Considering that we now have more than one bun in the oven," Sousa began, pointing to the strings of numbers on the display. "I'm proposing we go for a grab-bag approach."

"What's that?" Jamie asked. Liz cocked her head, not following.

"We're going to take all of the genes responsible for skin pigmentation, eye color, and hair color, and we're going to randomize them. That means that each baby could express genes from either one of you. You could end up with one that has Lizka's skin tone and Jamie's eyes, or maybe Jamie's skin and Lizka's hair. Coupled with some recessive genes that might express thanks to the medics' tinkering, you should end up with a lot of variation."

"I think that's better than selecting their traits ourselves," Jamie said, nodding his head. "Let nature decide."

"It's not exactly natural," Liz added.

"We're not cutting mother nature out of the equation," Sousa said, wagging a finger. "We're just giving her a little prod in the right direction. She has more experience in this field than we do, better to let her take the wheel where we can."

"It sounds like a good idea," Liz said. "I don't think I would have been able to decide if we had to select each trait ourselves. I'd always be wondering if I made the right decision."

"If those are your wishes, then I'll instruct the Jarilans to start editing the genomes," Sousa continued. "Billions of those little molecular readers are going to start unpacking the chromosomes, reading through the DNA strands, and adding the new nucleotides during the replication process. When that's done, we can introduce the edited sperm cells to the edited eggs under laboratory conditions, and presto, fertilization. The next step will be implanting the fertilized eggs into your uterine wall, where they'll hopefully take, and start growing as though nothing unusual happened."

"How long will it take until they're ready?" Liz asked eagerly.

"Four or five days," Sousa explained. "We'll want to let them mature a little in the lab so we can be sure that they're healthy."

"I guess we'll have some time to kill, then," Jamie said.

"I'll be sure to get in touch as soon as they're ready," Sousa added. "Until then, I guess you have a few days of vacation time. If you wander any further than the hive, remember to keep to the paths, and don't stray too far into the forests. There's not a lot of things that can hurt you on Jarilo besides getting lost, especially not a Borealan, but a Knife-Tooth can still give you a nasty bite. We can assign a Jarilan to guide you any time you want, it's really no trouble. You only have to ask."

They thanked him profusely for all his work, then headed outside, unsure of what to do next.

There weren't very many colonists in the settlement, but it was far from deserted. Every so often, someone would appear from one of the prefabs or walk past them along the muddy path. Others were hard at work, unloading crates from the flatbed trucks or servicing comms equipment on the roofs of the buildings. Everyone had a job to do, and it made Jamie feel a little out of place.

"Think there are any restaurants or bars around here?" Liz asked.

"Restaurants? Probably not," Jamie replied, "but I don't think a human settlement has ever existed anywhere that didn't have a bar. Want to go look around?"

She nodded, and they made their way deeper into the small settlement. There weren't more than three-dozen buildings, many of them made up of multiple prefabs that had been connected together, much like the UAS building. It kind of reminded Jamie of the frontier towns from the Old West that were so common in Cowboy movies, the elaborate facades replaced with spartan, functional metal and polymer. They came across a general store that was identified only by a sign that was hanging out front, as it had no windows through which to display its goods. They passed by a power station, a network of insulated cables the thickness of Jamie's thigh snaking their way out towards the other buildings, partially buried in the ever-present mud. This was one of the few structures that was different from the surrounding prefabs, a domed cylinder that resembled a small grain silo, covered in a chrome-like finish that made it shine in the sunlight. According to Liz, it was a portable fusion generator.

As they rounded a corner on the muddy street, they came across a surprising sight. A section of land at the edge of the forest had been cordoned off by a wire fence, not unlike the one that had surrounded Bluejay's chicken coop. The ground had been paved over with concrete, which itself had been overlaid with what looked like a carpet of fake grass. There were swing sets, seesaws, even a sandpit. The gleeful laughter and squealing of children soon reached their ears, and they paused to watch a dozen youngsters race around the pen.

"People are bringing their families here," Jamie mused, a wave of nostalgia overwhelming him as he watched a boy push a little girl on one of the swings.

"They're starting a real society," Liz replied. "These kids are going to grow up here, it's all they'll ever know. Earth will be completely foreign to them. They'll have their own children, start their own families here, they'll probably be buried in Jarilan soil when they die. It's an odd thought."

"I wonder how it will change their outlook, living alongside the Jarilans?" Jamie continued. "Most people in known space have a deeply-ingrained hatred for them, but these kids are going to grow up with them, they'll be a part of everyday life."

"Look," Liz said, pointing up into the branches of a tree that overlooked the playground. "There's a Drone up there..."

Jamie followed her gaze, seeing a flash of green carapace. It was another Winged Drone, just like Bluejay, this one sporting a shell in mint green. He was carrying a resin rifle, his eyes fixed on the children below, watching them like a hawk from his high perch.

"I can't believe it," Jamie said, the realization hitting him. "It's like the chickens. He's on sentry duty."

"You wondered if the children would have a different outlook, but it seems as though their parents have already changed their way of thinking if they'll trust a Bug to watch over their kids."

"I suppose a Bug is going to be far more attentive than any human," Jamie mused. "That might be the wildest thing I've seen yet..."

"This is the frontier," Liz added. "You can't afford to reject help out here. If someone else is watching the kids, it frees up their parents to do essential work."

"You getting any maternal impulses?" he asked, giving her a nudge with his elbow.

"A little," she chuckled, lingering a little longer as she watched one of the younger kids build a castle in the sandpit.

***

After a little more searching, they found the bar, as Jamie had suspected. It was another prefab, only identifiable from the rest by the neon sign outside that advertised drinks.

They stepped inside, Jamie feeling a little like he was walking into a saloon, all eyes in the room turning to his towering companion. There were maybe ten people in the establishment, most of them wearing mud-stained coveralls, likely workmen on their break. There was even a UAS scientist sitting at the bar, identifiable by the patch on her shoulder, nursing a drink as she made conversation with one of the colonists.

It was rather cramped compared to the bars in the city that Jamie was more accustomed to, the bar stools and tables all made in exceedingly simple, metal designs that looked like they had probably been printed as single units. The bar had been extruded from the floor, and the shelves behind it that were loaded with colorful bottles were similarly a component of the building itself. Could you just order a bar in prefab form for your burgeoning colony?

They walked up to the counter, the bartender making his way over to greet them. He was a middle-aged man with a full beard, dressed in civilian clothes.

"We don't get many new faces out here," he said. "I'd heard people talk about seeing a Borealan walking around the settlement the last couple of days. Guess that was you. What brings you all the way out to our humble colony?"

Jamie and Liz exchanged a glance, neither of them entirely comfortable with sharing the details of their medical procedures with the stranger.

"We're here on an assignment for the UAS," he replied, the bartender perceptive enough to know that they weren't interested in discussing the subject any further.

"What can I get you?" he asked.

"What have you got?" Liz shot back, eyeing the shelves behind him.

"Whatever we can import, and whatever we can make ourselves," he replied. "If you want the off-planet stuff, there's a premium, as it's not cheap to ship in non-essential goods. As for what we can make here, we do have a brewery unit set up, and we have the grains to make malt for the fermentation process. We've got a few different kinds of beer made from various grains, and vodka made from potatoes. It goes over better than you'd expect."

"I guess I'll take a beer," Jamie said. "Whatever the house recommends."

"And for the lady?" the bartender asked, glancing up at Liz.

"I'll take whatever you've got that has the lowest alcohol content," she replied.

"Whoa, wait a minute," Jamie said as the bartender began to pour their drinks. "What currency do you guys use out here? All I've got with me is my phone, and I don't think I can make a transfer, since my bank is about sixty light-years away."

"You guys are with the UAS, right?" he asked. "I'll just put it on their tab."

"Oh, sure," Jamie replied. The man was remarkably trusting, but then again, this was no city. The larger the population, the more impersonal every interaction became. There was no need for suspicion when you knew everyone in your community by name.

They picked up their drinks and made their way to the back of the bar, where there were a handful of tables and chairs scattered about. Liz pushed the smaller seats out of the way, choosing to sit on the floor as she often did when there were no chairs that could accommodate her weight. As they began to drink, more patrons entered the bar. The first was a Marine, identifiable by his Navy-blue uniform, while the second was a Krell. Jamie had seen one once before, at the spaceport back on Earth, but the sight of it made him do a double-take all the same.

The creature looked like an alligator standing on its hind legs, eight or nine feet tall, and twice that length from nose to tail. Its hide was a spinach-green in color, tapering to a lighter beige on its underbelly, covered in a layer of thick scales that overlapped like medieval armor. It had more fingers and toes than seemed appropriate, its long jaws lined with jutting teeth, its posture hunched. As it squeezed into the prefab, Jamie could feel its immense weight shake the floor, its heavy tail dragging behind it. The alien was nude, but it had nothing to cover up, no external genitalia that he could see.

"Haven't seen a Krell in a while," Liz said, watching the creature and its companion as they approached the bar. "Wonder what it's doing here?"

"Maybe it lives here?" Jamie wondered.

"I guess that's a possibility," she replied with a shrug. "They like mud, and there's plenty of that on this planet."

The Krell and its human friend got some drinks from the bar, then turned towards Liz and Jamie's table, seeming just as surprised to see a Borealan. They made their way over, the man in the UNN uniform addressing them.

"Not seen you guys around here before," he said, pausing by their table. "Did you just ship in?"

"Yeah, we arrived a couple of days ago," Jamie replied. The man was being remarkably friendly, despite the fact that they had never met before.

"So, what unit are you with?" the stranger asked, pulling up a chair and sitting down as the expressionless Krell hovered behind him in silence. "I'm surprised they're still garrisoning troops in the old bases. Everything has been quiet since the war ended. Seems like a waste of resources to me, but that's life in the Corps in a nutshell, am I right?" He gestured to Liz, who cocked an eyebrow at him. "I didn't know they were deploying auxiliaries to Jarilo."

"Sorry," Jamie began, "I think you've mistaken us for someone else. We're not with the UNN."

"You're not?" he mused, turning to give his Krell companion a confused glance. "Sorry, I see a human and a Borealan sharin' a table, and I assume they're in the service. I'm Harry, and this is Blackjack," he added as he gestured over his shoulder at the towering Krell. The creature replied with a huffing sound, giving a subtle nod of acknowledgment. "He doesn't talk much on account of his vocal cords being as long as my arm."

"I'm Jamie, and this is Liz," Jamie replied.