Xia Phar had a good life for a human on Saer’kah. She didn’t wear a restriction band and the Saer’khi family that had raised her since the Migration treated her like one of their own. Others humans on Saer’kah though had no reason to love the Saer’khi . At least Xia had some semblance of freedom. So when the humans decide to rebel against the Saer’khi and she discovers the real reason for the presence of humans and other aliens on Saer’kah Xia decides to take action. Enlisting the help of her family and her friend Tarek she forms a plan to get everyone out of the alien barracks without arousing suspicion and get them off Saer’kah on one of the newly built colony ships. Sounds pretty easy right? Now Tarek’s crush on her is the least of her problems and leaving Saer’kah is just the beginning.
Chapter 20 Baby or not Baby? That is the question. Amethyst |
Author's Note:Here is the new chapter of Twice Removed. Thanks as usual to my readers and of course the Big Closet team who work tirelessly to give us all a great place to post and read TG fiction. ~Amethyst.
Chapter 20: Baby or not Baby? That is the question.
With the colony meeting over, I took my now sleeping infant to the medical ship so that Krie and I could run some tests on her, though I was a bit surprised as Tanna tagged along as well. Both of my fellow Ji’turi were very focussed on the tiny green baby in my arms as we walked toward the examination room. *You are sure that you’re ready for motherhood Xia?* my sister asked, her thoughts carefully controlled, but her emotions thick with worry and concern.
*Whether I am or not, this little one thinks I’m her mother and I won’t abandon her to someone else knowing that,* I responded firmly, although they could both probably pick up on my nervousness and uncertainty easily enough. *It’s a bit of surprise, but I’ve felt her mind in mine and she needs me so I’ll do my best. Do I really need to remind you of all people that I’m older than I look?*
*I know you are,* Krie prodded gently, her own concern and confusion dominating the forefront of her mind. *It’s just that none of us are even married yet.*
*It will be a lot of work raising a newborn too,* Tanna interjected, *especially in our current situation.*
*It’s not like it’s unheard of for a Ji’turi to have children before being married, it happens a lot Krie. Besides, Shui is adopted, just like Amy, so it’s not like I’ve actually gotten pregnant myself. Besides I have one Tess’hir already chosen and if things work out well between me and Matt then I’ll have two, that’s more than either of you, and they can help me once Shui stops being so clingy.* I tried not to let my annoyance with them show, but I don’t think that I was very successful.
*Actually,* Tanna sent a bit nervously, *I have my first Tess’hir too. Karran offered me his mind last night.*
Krie and I both reached out to hug her and squeed excitedly, *Congratulations Tanna!* She didn’t send any direct speech back, but her surface thoughts and emotions were a whirl of happiness, gratitude, and affection.
*You two are so good for one another. I wish Xawin would ask me, I think he wants to, but he gets so nervous and shy around me. Unless it’s something related to the colony his surface thoughts get all jumbled and hard to follow,* Krie said with a mental sigh. *It would be easier making this decision if I knew I had at least one Tess’hir already.*
*OmiGod! You two aren’t trying to talk me out of it, you’re both thinking about adopting one as well!* I tried to keep that sudden thought directed solely at the two of them so I wouldn’t wake Shui.
*Why would we try to talk you out of it?* Krie queried. *You have already made your decision and I believe it to be the correct one. You’ll be a wonderful mother, just like you’re a good leader.*
*We both have been thinking about it since you told us about the other infants in the cryo-chambers,* Tanna added. *We were hoping that if you were certain about your decision that it would make ours easier as well.*
*I think this is something that you both need to decide for yourselves,* I told them both after a moment of thinking it over in the deeper recesses of my mind. *I think you’d both be great mothers, especially given the fact that these infants seem to share our mental gifts, but really you have to decide if it’s something that you personally want. Like you said Tanna, it’s going to be a lot of work, but is it going to be worth it to you? Will it make you happy? Only you can answer that, so you need to ask yourselves what you want to do.*
*You’ve been a mother less than a day and you already have so much great motherly advice,* Tanna teased with a mental smile as she wrapped me in a physical hug.
*Mom would be proud,* Krie agreed as she hugged me as well. *I’ll think it over for a while and I’ll let you know later Xia.*
*Me too, I’ll talk it over with Karran as well and come find you if I decide to do it,* Tanna agreed. *I’ll speak with him while I check the long range scans and the communications console for anything new.* She gave us both one last hug and then headed for the pilot’s compartment.
*I guess we should go see what exactly we’re dealing with then,* Krie said with a smile, though her surface thoughts were still uncertain and confused as she led the way into the examination room.
Once we were inside and I had placed Shui on the scanning bed, we ran every medical scan we could think of on her before Krie and I started a physical examination as well. Although she had a few differences from other humanoids, she seemed to be very similar in most ways, biologically-speaking. Similar enough that we could tell that she seemed to be in good health. Once we had finished weighing her, we started taking the other important measurements and checking her pulse, breathing, and reflexes while trying not to wake her.
With her first physical out of the way we began looking at her from a xenobiological standpoint. *Note the dark green skin, camouflage do you think?* Krie half asked and half commented. *I first thought that it might be an adaptation to hunt at night, but the inner part of the tentacles and those freckles all over the skin are a pale green-gold so I’m not sure, maybe it’s just a trait from their deep-sea ancestors.*
*Those green-gold parts seemed to almost glow in the dim light outside and in the ship. Let me get the lights,* I replied before telekinetically hitting the light controls for the room and plunging the room into near darkness. The only light was now coming from our datapads and the pale gold light from Shui’s tentacles and freckles. *Natural bioluminescence, that’s interesting.* The golden light seemed to brighten and fade like a pulse, over and over in a soothing pattern. As her tentacles swayed in her sleep it became oddly hypnotic and I leaned in closer before managing to shake myself out of the trance that I had been lulled into and quickly hitting the lights.
It seemed that I wasn’t the only one trying to shake off a trance either as Krie wondered, *What was that?*
*Maybe you’re right about them hunting at night,* I suggested after a moment, *except they don’t go after the prey, they get the prey to come to them.*
*You’re probably right, and maybe that’s what those barbs on the tips of the tentacles are for. Their prey gets close enough and then they strike.* She quickly flipped through the scans we had taken and zoomed in on one in particular, the deep cellular scans. *There’s some sort of gland and a small cavity, it looks like a fluid reservoir, located near each of the barbs. I’m going to see if I can extract a small sample if it’s okay with you.*
I nodded after a moment of consideration. *That’s fine sis, we need to know what we’re dealing with before getting all those babies adopted, and for all we know those barbs could excrete some form of deadly neurotoxin... one little accident and someone could die. Just please try not to wake her.*
Krie set one of the injection guns for sample gathering and I watched nervously as she took her sample, or rather as she was about to before Third’s voice interrupted. “You need not complete a full examination. I assure you that Shui is quite healthy and I am capable of telling you about the Txela in great detail. I have observed them for millennia.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin at the robot’s silent approach, clutching my now rapidly beating heart. I hadn’t sensed its approach at all. Krie did jump, the injector gun flying out of her hand before she managed to get a telekinetic grip on it and place it harmlessly back on the scanning bed. I mentally cursed in a mix of Mandarin and English as Krie and I tried to calm ourselves. “Please don’t sneak up on us like that,” I finally managed to get out once my heart had lowered itself from my throat and stopped racing so I could breathe again.
“My apologies to you both, I am accustomed to observing without making my presence known. I had assumed that you would sense me without my cloaking field generator active.”
“Cloaking field generator?” Krie and I both blurted out at the same time.
“The Originators required us to be able to observe their progeny without being detected ourselves,” Third explained. “To that end they equipped each of us and the ships with cloaking field generators. The field warps space along the outer surface of our bodies or the hulls of the ships to make it appear as if nothing is there, allowing us to remain undiscovered.”
Both Third and the ships could cloak themselves? That could potentially be very useful. “Why didn’t you tell us about this earlier?” I asked. I knew it wouldn’t have made ay difference, but it would have been nice to know.
“You did not ask,” the alien android responded simply.
“No, I guess we didn’t,” I agreed with a sigh. “When we have time I want you to tell me about all of the capabilities of both you and that ship. For now though, maybe you can tell us about the Txela.”
It turned out that Krie’s hypothesis about them hunting in the dark was correct, as was my theory about having the prey come to them. The Txela had evolved from a species of squid-like cave-dwelling creatures that would draw their prey in with their hypnotic bioluminescent lightshow and then render them helpless and strangle them to death. The Txela had retained a lot of these traits as they evolved and as they became a more mobile humanoid species they developed other traits as well.
Modern Txela were colored to blend into the dark forests at night and had a nictitating membrane on their eyes that both added extra protection and gave them a form of night vision by enhancing ambient light. The barbs on their tentacles injected their target with a fast acting but non-lethal toxin that made them unable to move or feel their entire body until it was metabolized. They used this both to quickly and cleanly kill their prey while it was paralyzed and to give short term relief to comrades who were injured and in pain.
From the sound of it the toxin acted as both a paralytic and an anesthetic, but from what Third told us it didn’t seem to stop the lungs from working like most paralytic compounds I knew of. At least it wasn’t deadly, but I felt we should be cautious regardless, even if Shui and the other infants wouldn’t be able to produce a large enough dosage to fully effect an adult humanoid from just one of their barbs until they were in their teens. It was possible if they used all six at once, but Third assured us that would be unlikely unless they felt threatened in some way.
As a species the Txela were at least as intelligent, physically adaptable, and survivable as the other humanoid descendants of the Originators. The fact that they possessed both psychic abilities and a full written and spoken language before the destruction of the third moon proved this. Third probably wouldn’t have had to interfere with the slips and unity-corns at all if there hadn’t been so many large and dangerous predators like the crocosaurs inhabiting Unity at that time. In a way Unity was a lot like Saer’kah then, almost every other living creature could and would have preyed on the Txela given the chance. The only reason that the Saer’khi had survived as a species was that we possessed psychic abilities and could fly, while the Txela only had one of those advantages.
Third couldn’t tell us much about the Txela’s psychic abilities beyond their apparent need to psychically imprint and that they had displayed telekinetic abilities. They had mostly used spoken language when in speaking distance, but Third had theorized that they used their psychic abilities to communicate over longer distances. Until then it had only observed the telekinesis and discovered the imprinting through observation. It seemed pleased when I confirmed that Shui seemed to possess both telepathy and empathy, as it had merely assumed that there was, at the very least, one or the other by a thorough examination of the Txela genome and comparing it to DNA samples of the Originators themselves. Records of the Originators experiments on psychic abilities in lower lifeforms and genetically creating such creatures had provided additional data and allowed it to create the slips and unity-corns.
Third had given us a complete course on Txela biology, pointing out areas of interest on the scans we had taken of Shui, and it had just started in on genetics when we got our first prospective adoptive mother. I excused myself as soon as I saw Lirra enter the examination room carrying a large crate from our unused supplies with two pieces of wood on top. Mandy was with her and she gave me a playful smile as the pair approached with their slips following close behind.
“How are you enjoying motherhood?” Mandy teased.
“Well, it’s not what I was expecting,” I replied as I picked Shui up, careful not to wake her as I led the pair to the dining/living area of the drop ship. “For one thing, I kind of expected to have nine to ten months to get used to the idea first. Are you both here to volunteer? What’s with the crate and the wood?”
“I would volunteer, but I still have my hands full with the twins,” Mandy admitted sadly. “Thankfully Amy is watching them for me in her room so I can help you and our other new mom’s out. You’re all going to need to make some diapers and a baby sling so you don’t have to hold them all the time. I figured that I’m the logical person to help with that since I had to do that with the twins in the barracks on Saer’kah. The crate has some of that cotton-like cloth and some needles and thread, but I’m not sure what the wood is for, Lirra said you’d both need it.”
As Lirra placed her burden on the table I sat back in one of the chairs and placed my sleeping infant in my lap smiling at my Murqui friend as Kit hopped into my lap to snuggle with the sleeping infant. “Have a seat, we might as well be comfortable. So I take it since Mandy has taken it upon herself to teach us new moms that you’re volunteering?”
“Yes Xia,” Lirra admitted as she sat down. “As you know my mate is dead and, after my injuries from the Saer bee attack, I can not bear children of my own. I would like very much to adopt one of these infants.” She took the two pieces of wood from atop the crate and handed me one of them. “I will need to craft a basic niadu doll for my child and I thought that you might wish to do the same, since you have become Jittu’s Niadu.”
I smiled as I remembered Jittu nervously asking me to be her Niadu. “I’d love to Lirra, would you be willing to teach the other mothers about this tradition and show any of them who wish to do it how to make a niadu doll as well? I think that is a wonderful tradition, and I believe that incorporating traditions like that from all of our respective cultures will help us to become closer as a colony and understand one another a lot better.”
“If others wish to learn I would be happy to teach them,” the Murqui agreed.
“I think we should start with making some nappies though,” Mandy put in with a laugh, “hopefully we can manage to get Shui bundled up before she decides to pee on you.”
“Good idea,” I replied in wholehearted agreement. I may have been fortunate enough to have other clothes to change into, but that was an experience that I would rather avoid if I could help it.
“Do you have something really absorbent that we can sew in as inserts? Preferably something that will dry easily?” Mandy asked as she took the small laser cutting tool that had been included with the durable white cloth and started cutting out a rough diaper shape.
I considered that for a moment before smiling as I thought of just the thing. “We have a lot of extra thick cloth pads for first aid, they’re maybe three by eight inches and can absorb a lot. They’re meant to be reusable through washing and then a sonic bath to get all the water and blood or other fluids out. We managed to get a lot of those off the bounty and they should do the trick. I’ll go grab some once I manage to extract myself from Shui and Kit.”
“I could hold her for you for a few minutes if you don’t mind Xia,” Lirra offered a bit nervously. It was weird seeing a Murqui nervous about anything, but I had a feeling that Lirra had been wanting a child of her own for a long time and now that the opportunity had fallen into her lap she was probably a mix of uncertain and excited about it.
“Sure, just try not to wake her or she’ll start screaming for me.” I shooed Kit from my lap and picked up Shui to offer her to Lirra. Then, once she had her cradled comfortably in her arms, I dashed off for the supply room to fetch a few dozen of the cloth pads. When I returned Mandy was trying to keep quiet enough to not wake the baby while laughing hysterically, and Lirra was holding Shui out at a distance and wrinkling her feline nose. The Murqui’s tunic was damp and dripping down the front and I had to scrunch up my face to keep from giggling. “You had her for like two minutes, and I was holding her most of the evening, how did you manage to...” I couldn’t hold it in after that and started giggling.
“Baby physics,” Mandy explained as she tried to stop laughing. “When they’re not wearing a diaper, the one who holds them the least amount of time is guaranteed to get hosed down.”
Still giggling I put the stack of pads on the table and used one of them to try to dry off both Lirra and Shui. Once I was happy I took Shui back and managed a somewhat serious apology. “Sorry about that Lirra, you can use the bathroom in my room to clean up if you like, there’s a sonic shower in there.”
While Lirra was off cleaning herself and her tunic, Mandy was showing me how to make the nappies when Rebecca and Sarah showed up. Both women wanted to adopt one of the Txela infants, but neither was sure that they could really spare the time since Rebecca already had enough kids to look after during the day as our schoolteacher and Sarah was kept extremely busy with managing the kitchen staff and preparing the colony’s meals. Both of them gave a lot to our community and if they really wanted one of these kids I didn’t want to deny them that.
When Lirra returned and as we all worked with Mandy on making diapers I explained to all three of them about the Txela babies; how they’d have to be careful of the tentacles and why, the need to tweak their hormone levels so they could lactate, and the fact that these children were empathic and telepathic and wouldn’t want to leave the sides of their new mothers for several days at least while they formed a mental bond. “I guess that leaves us out for sure then,” Rebecca said with a sigh once I had finished.
I shook my head as I gave Rebecca and Sarah a very serious look. “No, I wouldn’t be telling you what was involved if I hadn’t already decided that you will each have one. We can’t be thinking of why you can’t do it. We need to think of ways that you can . Sarah, do you have anyone among your staff who could become an apprentice of sorts? You should probably be thinking of training someone for that anyway. You could teach them and just handle the management while the baby is developing the bond and we’ll all have to make baby slings and basinets anyway, since we can’t be carrying them with us all the time. You can still do what you usually do while the baby is sleeping too.”
Sarah’s face bore a pensive look for a moment and then lit up. “Lily is pretty eager to learn and she’s got talent. She’s only seventeen and was assigned to the kitchens just before we left Saer’kah, but she’s been helping me with some of the more complex dishes and she wants to do more than just the basics.”
“Consider her your new apprentice then,” I said with a grin before turning to Rebecca. “You should have an apprentice or a teaching assistant too. Now that we have the fields planted and the shelters finished we can probably spare someone. Maybe Erin Hughes? I know she had no real work experience on Earth, but wasn’t she a university student before her accident? She’s smart, responsible, and eager to contribute. She can probably teach them a few things you don’t know and she’s good with the kids.”
“You’re right, Erin would be good and I think she’d welcome the challenge of it. She’s really too tiny to be chopping trees and hauling firewood anyway.” Rebecca was smiling now as she considered it. “I think this could work Xia, are you sure about this though?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and nodded. “Of course I am, caring for these kids is important too, and if we didn’t have so few people when we had to start getting shelters and the fields ready I probably would have had apprentices shadowing those of us with valuable skills anyway. Krie and I already have Amy as an apprentice and we should be thinking of apprentices for Mandy and a few others too.” That was when Shui woke up and began screaming both physically and mentally. She was hungry again and she wanted to be held.
By this point Mandy had finished sewing the first completed nappy and instructed me how to put it on and how to tie it firmly, but not to tightly, on either side. Once that was done I made an opening in my uniform over my right breast and let Shui have at it while softly cooing at her, gently rocking her, and reassuring her with loving empathic caresses. Soon her contented murmuring filled the back of my mind. “Awww you’re so cute when you go into Mom-mode,” Sarah teased, causing the others to laugh.
“She’s probably going to be hungry every one to three hours for first few weeks and she’ll mostly sleep between feedings, but I’m afraid that you and the other new moms won’t be getting much sleep for a while. You’ll have to get used to sleeping when they do for the most part, so it’s a good thing that Unity has twenty-eight hour days, you’re all going to need that extra few hours of rest,” Mandy told us with a grin. “I’m just glad it’s not me this time, still all of you should consider yourselves lucky. On Saer’kah I had to work like everyone else but the days were almost two hours shorter than on Earth and I had two newborns to nurse and care for. So I hope you all remember during those sleepless nights that things could be worse.”
It was as I was feeding Shui that the rest of our volunteer moms started to gradually make their way in to join us. First there was Tanna and Krie, and that didn’t surprise me too much since they had both voiced an interest earlier, and as Saer’khi they would be well suited to caring for and teaching psychic children. Next there was Dallas Murphy, the tall and willowy redhead who worked with Sarah and was in charge of those cleaning the pots, pans, and other dishes between meals. Finally Luiza came in with one of our other former military personnel, Corporal Dorothy Quinn of the Royal Canadian Air Force, or Dot as most of the colonists called her.
You wouldn’t think that Dot was former military from her appearance: She was nearly as short as Luiza, but without the former Navy Seal’s petite figure. No, Dot was buxom with waist length honey blonde hair and cornflower blue eyes. The only thing about her that didn’t seem to radiate femininity was her right arm, which was cybernetic up until just below the shoulder, reminding me that I should get her in for routine maintenance. The former combat pilot was even dressed femininely, wearing her usual slightly worn and dirty pink and white floral sundress with white sandals, and her slip was laying over her shoulders like a fur stole. I really hoped that we could do something about the clothes situation soon, since most of us, including Dot, only had what we had been wearing when we had to evacuate the Bounty.
I smiled up at the pair as they entered and I switched Shui to my other breast. “So, you both want in on this too?”
Luiza looked uncharacteristically uncertain, wringing her hands and scuffing her foot as she tried to give a casual-looking shrug and her slip Loco darted around her legs nervously. “Well, I’m not getting any younger, and I guess if I ever want kids I should be having them soon, so we were talking about it and…”
“We were thinking of adopting one together,” Dot finished for her while taking Luiza’s hand tightly in her own. “Since we can both nurse one though, we’ll take two if you don’t have anyone else. We both want kids and as wonderful as Loco and Camilla are, they’re just not the same,” she finished while giving the slip draped over her shoulders some affectionate petting and scratching.
“I’ll gladly take you up on that, since it’s getting late and it looks like only the eight of you feel up to the task,” I replied. Then I began giving all of the new mothers the same talk about the Txela and what raising one would entail as I had given the others earlier while I finished nursing Shui and the others worked with Mandy on a supply of nappies. Then we kept on working as Lirra explained the niadu dolls and the tradition behind them and Rebecca sometimes put it in terms that everyone could understand, as she had for Trill when Jittu had asked me to be her Niadu. Everyone seemed to like the idea though and Lirra went on to explain how the dolls should be made and how we should explain them to our children once they were old enough to understand.
It took almost two hours to make two dozen nappies to start me off with, but with the pleasant conversation it really didn’t feel that long. We knew we’d need to make more over the next few days so that all of us would have enough when the other babies were ready to be thawed. I also managed to sew a halfway decent baby sling during that time with Mandy’s help, so it looked like I would be as prepared as I could be when we attempted to retrieve Third’s ship the next morning. By then we were all starting to get pretty tired though so I called an end to the meeting and headed off to bed with Shui.
Since I didn’t have a basinet or a crib for her, and I didn’t want to risk getting tentacle-poked in the middle of the night by accident, I piled some clothes into a makeshift nest and covered her with a thermal jumpsuit so she wouldn’t get cold. Then I curled up beside her and tried to get some sleep. I was just starting to relax when her screaming resonated through the room and my mind was similarly filled with her mental screaming, need for mommy, and hunger. It was just the beginning of what would turn out to be a very long night.
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Comments
The Fun Is Only Just Begun.
Having helped raise three of the little ones, it wears one out, but I never lost my love for them.
Nice
Gwen
Yup
Having kids is a lot of work, but so rewarding.
*big hugs*
Amethyst
Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3
good thing Jaci doesnt read this
a character named Dot who is all girly? well cant be me since everybody knows I'm a tomboy(runs and hides from all the giggles that statement produces)
Dot started out as a badass
I dunno what happened, she just turned all girly and feminine as I wrote her and took on a life all her own, sooo of course she had to be named Dot.
*big hugs*
Amethyst
Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3
... but that was an experience that I would rather avoid if I co
Impossible.
One cannot become a parent and avoid being showered.
true
They'll hose you down somehow eventually. My daughter once did it during a diaper change and I'm still not sure how.
*big hugs*
Amethyst
Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3
Frozen kids
Just to play devil’s advocate, why can’t the remaining kids stay frozen for a while?
They’ve been frozen for so long that a decade more would seemingly make little difference.
Doing so would give the colonists time to establish their colony before having to engage in the difficult task of raising children.
thawing
To be fair Xia is preparing for worst case scenario, but she intends to thaw the kids a few weeks apart so that no more than one person is too overtaxed at a time. She could indeed wait a decade, but that would likely be awkward for Shui, growing up as the only one of her kind in the colony. Also they are expecting help on the way soon from Saer'kah to help get the colony properly set up.
*big hugs*
Amethyst
Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3
A Little Help Here?
One could always hope that rescue ships, not from Earth, will soon show up and give them a hand in raising the ship out of the Ocean? Just a thought.
Gwen
They could hope for that
But Xia would like to have any an all resources that she can available in case Earth manages to get to them first. She's getting used to waiting for the other shoe to drop and wants to be prepared.
*big hugs*
Amethyst
Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3
The next adventure
Despite the disaster of their beginning adventure, they made the best of what they had and are making a go of getting their colony started.
Now their next adventure begins with the baby Txelas, who so far, Shui is acting like every baby of a species. Hungry, wanting to be held, and sleeps a lot.
Once they get the ship to the surface, then those women who will care for the babies will understand why Xia will look like the walking dead when they see her in the morning.
The technology Third and the ship have which let's them hide will be very useful if Earth sends someone to try and take over Unity. And if it can be copied for personal use then it would give everyone an advantage should the Earth shoe drop.
Others have feelings too.
Babies
I wonder how manny of us not born with a womb wish we could carry a child to term