Chapter Nine
Belle decided to celebrate by heading over to the med center before she could change her mind again or anything happened to make the route she’d settled on impossible to implement.
She was in luck.
A medic was on duty.
She didn’t know the woman.
Of course she recognized her.
Nobody was a complete stranger.
But she didn’t know her name or really anything about her.
Except she didn’t especially like the way the woman looked her over.
“Can I help you?” she asked coolly.
Belle smiled with an effort. “Uh … I hope so. Things have been pretty hectic since we got here and I thought I’d see if I could get an appointment since I have time off.”
“For what purpose?”
“I’ve decided to go with artificial insemination to fulfill my obligation to reproduce. I guess I need to get my ovulation tracked?”
Some of the prune look eased from the woman’s expression. “We usually fit women with the wrist tracker. You wanted to make an appointment? Have you chosen a donor?”
“Oh … uh. I’m thinking I want an anonymous donor.
I don’t mind if it’s one of my matches--except I absolutely don’t want these two,” she responded, lifting her wrist to display her matches.
“That’s Jeffery Clements and Newton Smith.
If I get stuck with their seed--either one of them--I’m going to dump the kid in the child center.
I can’t handle trying to rear one that looks or acts like either one of them. ”
The bitch gave her the pinched look again. “Those two have been removed from the donor list,” she said coldly.
“Oh! Well! Alright! Anybody else is ok--no preferences. I’d actually prefer to get a girl--if I get to choose. I know that’ll probably depend on the ratio we have of male to female, but if I can I’d like to.”
“We aren’t taking appointments right now for this procedure.
Well actually we have a hold on breeding until the colony is stable.
The first openings are six months out. The council wants to get a solid start and bring in a good harvest on our first garden effort--make certain we don’t have food issues before we begin adding to the population. ”
Belle nodded understanding. She’d figured as much.
She was a little disappointed that she couldn’t just take the leap right away--because that would absolutely settle everything--all of her little problems--but she could say it was settled anyway. Choices made, appointment lined up. Practically a done deal.
No reason to stalk her or hurt her.
“That’s fine. I don’t have shelter yet anyway and it’ll probably be a little while before I can get a hab. And I really should have that done before I get pregnant anyway.”
“That would certainly be wise,” the woman responded a little sourly--but plastered a fake smile on her lips to ‘soften’ the insulting nature of the comment.
“So you want to be put down for six months?”
“Yes.”
Nodding, the women checked the digital appointment book and put her down.
“Hold on,” she said when she’d finished.
Getting up, she disappeared into a back room for a handful of minutes and then reappeared carrying something wrapped up in a clear package.
Tearing it open, she placed it on Belle’s wrist, activated it and then studied the screen briefly.
“All set. It’ll send the data directly to the medical center’s computer. ”
Nodding, Belle turned and left … feeling downright faint from the step she’d just taken.
Not that it was anything she couldn’t back out of.
It just unnerved her to take such a drastic step when she still hadn’t made up her mind … completely.
But then she always wanted retreat options left open.
When she’d left the med center, she headed over to the colony office to see if there was anyone there that could help her arrange quarters.
She was pleasantly surprised to discover there was someone there. It was almost like … fate!
“Yes!” she said when the woman asked if she could help her. “I’ve set up my appointment to get a donor and I wanted to go ahead and pick a plot and arrange for a single parent-one child hab as soon as they become available.”
She was actually a little dismayed to discover a good portion of the spots had already been taken by first arrivals on the planet, but she found a spot she liked that was on the outer edge of a section--a corner lot that was divided from neighbors on two sides by an access strip--which meant she would only have a neighbor behind her and to one side. Close neighbors.
She felt curiously depressed when she left the office.
She was just let down, she decided, because she was going to have to wait nearly a solid year to get into her hab. That was depressing enough for anybody.
Six months even to get the implant, but knowing the grapevine she thought very likely the news would be out before long at all and then the crazy bitch, Marcy, would back off and stop threatening her.
Well all of them that had been having a cow about Connor.
She didn’t need that kind of shit!
Dismissing that, when she left the office, she lifted the map she’d gotten, studied it and then oriented it to where she was standing and headed in the direction where her lot lay.
When she was certain she’d found it, she walked the lines off and then settled on the ground roughly dead center and studied the mostly wide open space where the colony was going to be.
There was a whole lot of digging going on--the infrastructure--critical utilities like water and sewage and underground power supply for the services that would be heavy users--like the protein supply plant where their meat protein would be grown.
The habs would have solar power--be built out of materials that collected power and sunlight all day while storing enough to provide minimum requirements at night.
One of their two shuttles powered up while she was watching, creating a minor dust storm before it took off and rapidly disappeared into the sky.
She stared at it until it disappeared and finally dragged her gaze back to her surroundings.
That was when she discovered Ryne and Torr were headed her way.
“Uh oh,” she muttered, struggling with the urge to shoot to her feet and take off.
She didn’t, mostly because the surge of adrenaline that went through her abandoned her before her legs could get the memo.
They stopped when they reached her. “What do here?” Ryne asked. “Yellow hair say we hab big out cook.”
Belle blinked at him, trying to translate that. “Oh! Cook out?”
He frowned, apparently turning it over. “Yes,” he responded finally.
She frowned, thinking. “Who’s yellow hair?”
“Bastard Ryne fight,” Torr said.
Belle felt her face heat up. “Oh. Captain Carnegie.” She thought about disputing that his hair was yellow but decided against it.
Splitting hairs.
It was more of a golden color, really.
“No ting here. Why you here?”
Belle chuckled with an effort. “Oh! I was just checking out the colony. Trying to visualize it. I got this plot for my hab today. Of course it won’t be built for a while, but it’ll be here and that over there will be the view from my window.”
Ryne and Torr exchanged a long look.
Their expressions were carefully neutral, and it made her belly shimmy, but she was pretty sure they’d understood what she was saying.
And that was a relief, really, to get that much over with.
No fuss. No ugly scene.
She wasn’t going anywhere with anyone. She was going to stay where she belonged, and she would be safe--at least as safe a place as could be had.
She didn’t want to make anyone mad or hurt anyone’s feelings, but she just didn’t feel like she was up to taking any kind of risk she could avoid.
And should--for her own sake and any child she might have.
“Come,” Ryne said. “You sit wid us for eat. Wind blow away you no eat.”
Belle gaped at him for a long moment before she uttered a chuckle filled with more outrage than amusement.
Something gleamed in his strange alien eyes--teasing amusement, she thought. “I’ll have you to know that I’m within ten pounds of what’s considered a healthy weight for my age, height, and bone structure!”
He lifted his dark brows. “Need baby fat. I make round.”
Belle blinked at him, but he reached to help her to her feet when he said it and she was able to pretend deafness.
As luck would have it, he grasped her wrist right on top of her monitor when he reached to help her up.
“What dis ting?” he asked, frowning as he studied it.
She knew as soon as she met his gaze that he knew it wasn’t an ornament and there was no point in trying to pretend it was.
He was no stranger to technology, she realized abruptly.
None of them had seemed the least bit surprised or alarmed about any of the technology they had to have noticed.
Like the shuttle.
They’d watched it, but with no alarm at all, no surprise.
If they actually were primitives they would’ve been--both.
“It’s … uh … just a medical monitor,” she said dismissively.
He frowned, scanned her face with more than a little … dismay, she decided. “Baby sick?”
Blood surged into her cheeks and then receded until her face felt bloodless.
Dead giveaway.
“No. I’m fine.” She smiled with an effort to emphasize that. “Just … uh … tests … to make sure I am. Fine. Healthy, I mean. They do checks occasionally.” Just for shits and giggles. “It’s nothing.”
Shut up!
Oh my god.
I’m not guilty … of anything.
I just have this guilt complex.
By the time she managed to corral her tongue both of them were looking a little alarmed.
Not reassured.
“God! I am starving! Do you suppose anything’s ready yet?” she babbled, pulling on Ryne to get him going toward the crowd.
A group of colonists were moving around the compound, setting up torches--which was the first that Belle noticed it was late afternoon and heading toward sunset.
She had to suppose they’d decided to conserve the batteries for the floodlights.
Maybe it was ‘mood’ light?
Or something someone thought up for their ‘primitive’ guests.
She bet there were a lot of them that were going to be dismayed when they discovered these weren’t primitives.
And she knew, absolutely that they weren’t--now.
But what explained their situation?
That was when she remembered that Connor had told everyone the drones had found ruins of an ‘ancient civilization’.
Their civilization.
They were survivors.
The question was did it have anything to do with the other ruins the drones had found that had been attributed to the colony of the Huntress?
* * * *
Everybody noticed the damned monitor and everybody knew what it was for.
If they didn’t immediately spot it, someone else did, and then passed the word on.
Honest to god! Didn’t they have anything else to do for entertainment, Belle thought angrily, struggling to act nonchalant about it and completely unaware that everyone was staring at it like she had a snake around her wrist.
Maybe she should have just announced it on the com?
Or arrived wearing a placard with the announcement printed on it in six inch letters?
Connor either didn’t notice, or he hadn’t figured it out.
Or he was pretending he had no idea.
His expression was pretty stony--but then again, she arrived with Ryne and Torr and sat between them, trying to choke down the food without actually choking to death.
She was pretty sure Ryne and Torr heard enough of the whispers to figure it out pretty quickly, even though she managed a running monologue for a little while in a desperate effort to drown them out.
She couldn’t decide how they took it.
Or if they actually figured out it was about ovulation … plans.
They had amazing poker faces.
And they certainly heard plenty to figure it out once she ran dry of anything stupid to say in an effort to drown out the whispered speculations.
Saying their civilization had been advanced enough or in need of artificial insemination so that they knew what that was.
Not that she hadn’t already been convinced they were very intelligent even before she tumbled to the fact that they had too much familiarity with advanced technology to be barbarian savages.
But they were young. Had they actually experienced a more advanced society?
Would they have developed the skills they needed to survive, basically, with only their two hands if they’d been thoroughly civilized and dependent on technology?
She honestly couldn’t imagine any of her fellow colonists being able to do what they were capable of--just to go off into the wilderness and hunt food with primitive weapons and feed themselves.
She certainly couldn’t.
So was there a bridge or not?
And why was she worrying about it?
She’d made up her mind, hadn’t she?
Ryne was awesome. She did admire him. She was physically attracted to him.
And she was attracted beyond his pretty everything.
He seemed smart and funny and kindhearted, she thought.
And she thought it was sweet that he wanted to fuck her and make a baby--romantic, really.
But she couldn’t afford to lose her place.
She just couldn’t and she knew her fellow colonists would be ready to pitch her if she yielded to Ryne’s enticement and followed him off.
She couldn’t come back if it didn’t work out.
She especially couldn’t if she had a half alien baby.
Granted, it was pretty fucking miserable a lot of the time to live among the other colonists, but it was familiar. She was skilled with the things she needed to know to survive--as long as she was in her own ‘house’.
However drawn she was to him, she couldn’t risk everything when she had safety now and a future.
And really she thought once everyone saw that she was content to accept what they would let her have that they’d be content to just ignore her like they had before they decided she was trying to grab the most eligible bachelor in the colony for herself.
Sure Connor was awesome, but she’d gotten along fine without him her entire life up till this point. She was twenty-eight--damned near thirty years! She was going to be fine another thirty years or so.
And then she’d be too damned old to care at all!