Chapter 25 Lualhati
LUALHATI
Two months after my wedding to Hallum, I stood outside the hospital squinting into a hot blue sky, waiting for the supply shuttle delivery due today. I had added something personal to this delivery order, and I wanted the chance to squirrel it away before anybody saw.
The secret thing I’d ordered?
Pregnancy tests. A whole box of them.
We actually had a fancy, high-tech scanner in the ambulance that could detect pregnancy simply by putting your fingertip into its scanner.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, its language settings were stuck on Zabrian.
No matter what I did, I couldn’t change it.
So whenever I scanned my finger, I just got a Zabrian word flashing on the little screen.
I’d used my comms tablet to translate the word, but the word literally meant “small tree” which really didn’t help me at all.
And I couldn’t ask Hallum, or I’d give away the fact that I thought I might sort of be the tiniest bit pregnant.
Maybe.
So I’d furtively ordered some good old fashioned pee sticks. I wanted to intercept the order before Hallum saw it. I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up before I knew anything for sure.
But I had a feeling. A sneaking little suspicion. I was two weeks late. Plus, my boobs felt weird.
Very scientific, I know.
“Hello, wife.”
I yelped in shock, clutching at my chest. Goddamn. Hopefully I wasn’t pregnant, or I was going to subject the poor fetus to a heart attack.
“Where did you come from?” I gasped.
He looked at me strangely. “From the saloon. I thought you saw me coming.”
“Well, I didn’t!”
“I have come to await the supply shuttle.”
Shit.
“Um…whyfor?”
Whyfor? Jesus Christ. Very nonchalant. Incredibly cool, Lualhati.
“I have a personal item coming in the delivery.” He paused, then adjusted the brim of his hat. “Are you also waiting for something?”
“Um…”
I couldn’t exactly say no, then scurry over to grab my box, now could I? Hallum was too damn smart for me. He’d figure me out in about 0.2 seconds.
“Yes,” I said. “I am.”
“What have you ordered, wife?”
He took every opportunity to call me wife he could.
Especially when he was fucking me. He loved growling shit like, “Is this good for you, wife?” and “Tell me what you want, wife.”
It was extremely, inconveniently hot.
“Just…something. Something for the hospital.”
That could be plausible. Extra pregnancy tests definitely wouldn’t go amiss at the hospital.
“You need not use your own personal funds for that,” he said sternly. “There are empire funds for hospital supplies. Tell me what it is you ordered, and what the cost was, and I shall have you reimbursed.”
I was saved from answering him by the appearance of the shuttle in the sky. Finally.
It landed in the green field between the hospital and the saloon. Spring had fully sprung on Zabria Prinar One, and grass and flowers were blooming everywhere.
The delivery pilot greeted us and began unloading various boxes of supplies, things like synthetic materials or electrical equipment that we couldn’t manufacture here.
When he produced a box for one Lualhati Ortiz, I snatched it and practically ran away.
I didn’t hang around to see what Hallum had ordered.
But he must have gotten his box right after mine. Because he followed me into the hospital a minute later. I’d only just opened the box, but hadn’t pulled out any of the tiny white sticks with their pink stripes yet.
“Shall I show you what I ordered?” he asked.
“Oh. Sure. If you want to,” I said, holding my own box shut. I hoped he’d hurry up and show me whatever boring thing he’d ordered so I could go pee on one of these fucking sticks already.
He opened his box and pulled out…something. I wasn’t exactly sure what the hell it was. It was bright yellow and plastic-looking, vaguely tentacle-shaped, with suckers running down one side.
“What is that?”
It is a dildo, of course!”
It wasn’t a dildo like any I’d ever seen.
“Are you…sure?”
“I thought you should have one of your own. One that isn’t purple.” He said purple like it was something foul. “But I also did not want to order you a human-shaped one. Unfortunately, Zabria does not produce sex toys modelled after Zabrian genitalia.”
“Really?” I asked, surprised by this. Then again, the culture really was quite uptight. About a lot of things. “Seems like a missed opportunity. You could make it battery powered! Make the cock tail spin around all over the place!”
“Such a thing does not exist. Believe me, I looked.”
Something about that was absolutely hilarious to me. Stern Hallum, Warden of this province, trying very hard to find a Zabrian dick to order.
“This was the best I could do,” he said.
“It’s yellow,” I pointed out, raising my eyebrows.
“Yes.”
“Any particular reason you went with yellow?”
He got a little bit huffy then, adjusting his belt and looking adorably annoyed. “Purple is an absurd colour for a dildo!” he snapped. “Everybody knows this!”
I snorted and rolled my eyes at him.
“Well, thank you, I guess,” I said with a chuckle.
“You are welcome,” he said seriously. “Now show me what you’ve purchased for the hospital.”
Crap. Should have known my sharp-as-a-tack husband wouldn’t forget about that.
“Nothing important. Or even interesting!” I said, trying to slyly put the box behind me. Of course, this looked suspicious. And Hallum was a warden at heart.
He narrowed his gaze at me and held out a stern hand.
“Show me, wife,” he said.
“You’re not the boss of me!” I started walking backwards with the box still behind my back. Unfortunately, this meant I couldn’t actually see where I was going. I hit the wall, and the box went down. Dozens of tiny white-and-pink paper sticks went fluttering to the floor.
“What are these?” Hallum asked, crouching to retrieve one from the floor. “They look like matchsticks.”
“They’re not matchsticks,” I said, not even bothering to try to hide them now. “They’re pregnancy tests!”
Hallum started picking them up and putting them back in the fallen box.
“I thought the ambulance scanner could function as a pregnancy test,” he said. I got down on my knees and helped him collect all the sticks.
“It does,” I said. “But I can’t get the language settings switched out of Zabrian. I stuck my finger in there and I don’t have a clue what the heck it was trying to tell me!”
“Wait.” He froze, clumps of sticks in each of his fists. “You were testing yourself?” He waved his fists at me. “These are for you?”
“Yes! OK? Yes. I didn’t want to tell you before I knew, well, anything. Which I don’t. Which is why I bought these nice, old-fashioned, foolproof ones.”
“What did it say?”
“What did what say?” I asked, chucking a few more sticks back in the box. I guess it didn’t matter too much that they’d been on the floor, considering the fact that they were meant to be peed on.
“The scanner! What did the scanner say?”
“Oh. I don’t know. Some nonsense about a small tree.”
“Sapling?” The word came out sharp as a blade. Like it was something important.
“Yeah, I guess so. What?”
His grey eyes grew brighter from the centre outwards, light forking like lightning from their centres until his gaze glowed entirely white.
“Lualhati,” he said, “In many Zabrian dialects, this is a word for pregnancy.”
I swayed on my knees. Hallum caught me by the shoulders, easing me down into a seated position.
“It…It is?” I asked weakly.
“Yes. It is.” His white eyes caressed my face, some raw emotion moving powerfully through them.
“That really doesn’t sound real,” I said. I pinched a pregnancy test between my fingers and thumb and got woozily to my feet. “I’m going to check!”
The hospital had running water and two actual toilets – composting ones. I went into the personal bathroom Hallum and I used and shut the door. I peed on the stick, almost soaking my hand in my shaky urgency. Then I waited, chewing my lower lip viciously.
Slowly, reminding me so much of the way that white bloomed into existence in Hallum’s gaze, a second pink line appeared.
Oh my God.
Two pink lines.
Pregnant.
I was going to be a mother.
And Hallum, my husband, my warden, the keeper of my heart…
Was going to be a father.
Tears in my eyes, I faced the door.
“Hallum,” I choked out, knowing he would hear me even through the wood. “Sapling!”
Thank you so much for reading Warden Hallum and Lualhati’s story!