Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The smell hit her first—fish guts and brine, concentrated in the small processing room where the morning’s catch lay waiting. Corinne’s stomach lurched and she turned away from her workstation, pressing her hand against her mouth.
Not again.
She breathed through her nose and tried to focus on something else. The hum of refrigeration units. The chatter of her coworkers. The rhythmic scrape of knives against scales.
Her stomach rebelled anyway.
She made it to the bathroom just in time, retching into the toilet while her body shook with the force of it. When the nausea finally subsided, she slumped against the wall and tried to remember the last time she’d felt this miserable.
Three days. This was the third day in a row.
“Food poisoning,” she’d told herself the first morning. “Something I ate.”
But she hadn’t eaten anything unusual. And Selik, Anya, and Mikoz were all fine. If it was food poisoning, they would be sick too.
She rinsed her mouth and splashed water on her face, studying her reflection in the scratched mirror. Dark circles shadowed her eyes. Her skin looked pale despite the sun exposure she’d gotten lately.
I look like death warmed over.
Now that Selik had full access to the credits he’s saved over the years, he wanted her to stop working at the processing plant. So far she’d refused, but if the place was making her ill, she wouldn’t have a choice.
Someone knocked on the bathroom door.
“Corinne? You okay in there?” Chanda’s voice, concerned and maternal.
“Fine. Just give me a minute.”
She dried her face and forced herself to stand up straight, shoulders back, chin up. The picture of health and competence. Nothing to see here.
Chanda wasn’t fooled. The older woman took one look at her and steered her toward the break room instead of back to the processing floor.
“Sit,” Chanda ordered. “I’m making you tea.”
“I’m fine, really—”
“You just spent ten minutes throwing up. You’re not fine.” Chanda filled a kettle and set it to heat, then sat across from Corinne with her arms crossed. “How long has this been going on?”
“It’s nothing. Just a stomach bug.”
“Stomach bugs don’t last three days without other symptoms. No fever, no chills, no body aches?”
“No.”
“And it’s worse in the morning?”
Corinne opened her mouth to deny it, then realized that was true. The nausea was always the worst first thing, when she arrived at the facility and the smell of fish assaulted her. By afternoon it usually faded, leaving her with just a faint queasiness and bone-deep exhaustion.
“Maybe I’m allergic to something,” she said weakly.
Chanda studied her with the kind of penetrating look that only mothers seemed to master. “When was your last cycle?”
“My what?”
“Your menstrual cycle. When was it?”
Her mind went blank. When had it been? She’d been so busy settling into their new life, working and caring for Mikoz and building a home with Selik. She hadn’t been tracking it.
“I… don’t remember.”
“Think. One month ago? Two?”
She counted backward, trying to remember. They’d been on Tillich Two for three months. She’d definitely had a period during the first month—she remembered being frustrated by the lack of proper supplies and making do with scraps of fabric.
But after that? Nothing. Two months. Maybe closer to three.
Oh.
The realization hit her like a wave of cold water. Chanda must have seen it in her face because she nodded slowly.
“Honey, I think you might be pregnant.”
The words seemed to echo in the small break room, bouncing off walls and settling into Corinne’s bones with terrible finality.
Pregnant.
She couldn’t be pregnant. She and David had tried for two years without success. Multiple doctors, multiple tests, and the same conclusion every time—her uterus was hostile to implantation. Even with fertility treatments, the odds were vanishingly small.
She’d made peace with it. She’d accepted Anya as the only child she’d ever have, mourned the babies that would never be, and moved on.
“I can’t be,” she said. “It’s not possible.”
“Honey, I’ve had four babies. I know what morning sickness looks like.” Chanda poured hot water over tea leaves, the steam rising in gentle curls. “And you’ve got all the signs. The nausea, the exhaustion, the weird food aversions. You’re what, late thirties?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“Plenty of women have surprise pregnancies at thirty-eight. Especially if they’ve been—” She made a delicate gesture. “—active.”
Active was one word for it. She and Selik had been together nearly every night since they’d first made love on the patrol ship. Sometimes slow and tender, sometimes desperate and frantic, always with an intensity that left her shaking.
Cire physiology and human physiology were compatible in ways she hadn’t anticipated. Too compatible, apparently.
“I need to take a test,” she said, her voice sounding distant and strange. “Make sure.”
“Medical center’s on the north side of town. Dr. Kelos can run one for you.” Chanda pushed the tea across the table. “Drink that. It’ll help settle your stomach.”
She sipped obediently, the warm liquid soothing the rawness in her throat. Her mind raced through possibilities and implications, each one more overwhelming than the last.
If she was pregnant—if—that meant she was carrying Selik’s child. A hybrid baby, half human and half Cire. She had no idea if that was even viable. No idea what kind of complications might arise. No idea if her body could sustain a pregnancy when it had failed so many times before.
And if she could carry the baby to term…
She’d never be able to go back to Earth.
Medical facilities there weren’t equipped to handle hybrid births.
Hell, most people on Earth didn’t even know aliens existed.
She’d be a pariah, a freak, the woman who’d had an alien’s baby.
Even assuming some government agency didn’t whisk her away to experiment on her or her child.
Not that she’d been planning to return to Earth anyway. Last night she’d told Selik this was home. She’d meant it. But there was a difference between choosing to stay and being unable to leave.
“You’re thinking too hard,” Chanda said gently. “One step at a time. Get the test, find out for sure, then worry about what comes next.”
“Right. One step at a time.”
Except her steps felt unsteady as she stood, her whole world tilting sideways.
Chanda insisted she take the rest of the day off. She protested weakly but gave in when another wave of nausea hit. She walked to the medical center on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else, her mind a chaotic mess of thoughts and emotions.
Pregnant.
The word kept repeating, a mantra she couldn’t escape.
She thought about David, and the hopeful attempts that became scheduled obligations that eventually faded into resigned acceptance.
He’d been kind about it and told her it didn’t matter, that they didn’t need biological children.
But she’d seen the disappointment in his eyes.
The way he’d look at other families, other babies, with a longing he never quite voiced.
And now, with a man she’d known for less than four months, she might be pregnant.
The universe had a twisted sense of humor.
Dr. Kelos was a Tilaren—small and blue with four arms and the kind of calm demeanor that probably served her well in medicine. She listened to her symptoms without judgment, asked questions about her cycle and sexual activity with clinical detachment, and drew blood for the test.
“Results in an hour,” she said. “You can wait here or return later.”
She waited.
The clinic’s waiting room was small but comfortable, with windows that looked out over the harbor. She watched boats come and go, watched vendors setting up their afternoon market stalls, watched the two moons track slowly across the sky.
One hour stretched into what felt like ten.
When Dr. Kelos finally called her back, her expression was professionally neutral. “The test is positive. You’re approximately eight weeks pregnant.”
Eight weeks.
Not long after they’d arrived on Tillich Two. Before they’d settled into their house, before they’d found their rhythm, when everything was still new and uncertain and terrifying.
“Is it…” She swallowed hard. “Is it viable? Human-Cire hybrids, I mean.”
“I see no reason why it should not be. While I am not aware of any specific Human-Cire case studies, other hybrid pregnancies have been successful. We will monitor your progress of course, and I will do some additional research, but I see no reason why you should not have a successful pregnancy.”
She was two months along. That meant seven months until she gave birth.
Seven months until everything changed forever.
“What about complications?” she asked. “Risks?”
“I see no cause for concern at this point.” The doctor smiled at her. “Congratulations.”
Congratulations.
She thanked her numbly and accepted the data pad loaded with information about prenatal care and nutrition, then walked out of the clinic into bright afternoon sunlight that felt too cheerful for her current state of mind.
I’m pregnant.
The reality of it was starting to sink in, layer by layer. There was a baby growing inside her. Selik’s baby. A tiny person who would be part human, part Cire, entirely theirs.
Terror and joy warred in her chest.
She wanted this. God, she wanted this. She’d grieved the loss of motherhood years ago, had accepted Anya as the only child she’d ever raise. The chance to have a baby—her own baby, created with someone she loved—felt like a miracle.
But she was terrified too. Terrified of complications, of losing the baby like she’d lost so many possibilities before.
Terrified of what it would mean for their family, for Anya, for Selik.
Terrified of the responsibility and the vulnerability and the sheer enormity of bringing a new life into this strange world.