The thrill of new books was wearing thin.
For a heavy reader, like Justin, the past year had been hell. Imagine: all there was to read, potentially for the rest of their lives (and their children's lives), was the contents of eight cellphones and iPods. Oh, sure, by pure chance both he and Melinda had the amazingly large storage in their phones filled with tons of books: the complete catalogs of Lovecraft, King, McCaffrey, Bear, Norman, and others, alongside equally large music collections. Their favorites would always be there for them. There had been little in the libraries of the other employees, though, just the title or two they were reading. So little, compared to the infinite wealth of words he had grown up with! Just made you cry.
Mary, for all he was happy to have her with them, had depressed Justin even more. Her phone had... nothing. No music. No books. No movies. In the decade they had been gone, everything had been moved up into some "cloud". No internet access... no content.
Fuck clouds.
Thus, Justin had jumped into the study of the squirrel books out of the joy of reading as much as a desire for knowledge. It was new. It was interesting.
At the start.
Two weeks in, and he was starting to get sick of squirrel "literature". To start with, he had never been that into religion. Oh, sure, church, Jesus, God, all that. He believed. He had never actually read the books Jesus wrote, though, leaving that to his Mom and others. It wasn't like it had mattered, and quite frankly he preferred fiction. Thus, the... quality of the religious texts before him, the style of arguments, were totally unfamiliar. They made his brain hurt. Melinda, bless her, seemed to have more of a knack for it. Comparative religion was actually a bit of a hobby of hers, she had said, if only so she could laugh at the silliness of other faiths. Justin had started pushing most of the books towards her. Let her try and cut through the crap to the underlying facts.
The hand written English texts weren't all they had now, though. Among the possessions destined for the second temple were data spheres with thousands of books. All untranslated.
Yeah, that was going to do them a lot of good in the short term.
Justin looked across the Commons. Sarah floated before the wall screen, fingers flicking quickly across the virtual keyboard. She was translating. Well, in theory, both translating and teaching the computer how to translate, but they had already learned the software onboard was not up to the task. Its Malay/Orang to English translations had been... horrible, Nona able to do much better work even when it used her instructions. That they were on a spaceship with computer systems in some ways a decade or two behind what they had at home was one of the many puzzling things in their lives.
He returned to the books floating before him. It was the first of Sarah's translations, done not because of importance but because it was the only physical book with major portions not in English. One of their few remaining spiral notebooks had been sacrificed to the cause, the black furred newcomer's careful English script laid out so it could easily be matched to the original. Composition, the placement of paragraphs among the illustrations and English phrases were important. It told a creation myth. Not the one, according to Sarah, traditional to the M'ntsn. It was new, and thus related in some way to She Who Saw's visions.
Probably why it was crazy.
The claim was that Earth was the creator of the universe. Or, at least, Humans. The two words were used interchangeably. It was all dragons, daemons, gods, good, evil, mashed up into a confusing mess. The timeline went back and forth, the future changing the past, and all matter of weirdness.
Justin closed the book again. His head hurt.
"Justin!"
The door to the bridge opened, Goldie and Mary floating in. Goldie was her usual happy, furry self, wearing a necklace they had picked up for her a few planets back for a birthday gift. In zero g like this, she was almost human, movements not much different than the bipeds among them. Her breasts, at least to Justin, became more of an issue. Maybe it was time they got some clothing on her. Mary wore a loose shirt and shorts, hair tied back in a pony tail. Her mother was sure going to town making new outfits for the girl.
Not that he paid attention to the outfits the young teens wore or didn't wear.
"So," he asked the pair, grinning, "what's on the agenda for the day?" Justin saw Sarah pause, listening. He ignored her for now.
"Chuck wants to teach me how to change out a droid's power supply," Mary said, seeming to blush a bit. Goldie, coming to a stop using a ceiling handhold, gave a disgusted grunt.
"It's HARD. I tried."
Justin sighed. The girl's body just didn't agree with most work. Mary was following the same path Danny and Goldie, and Rinda before them, had followed: spend time with everyone as they went around their daily tasks, find out what they were interested in and good at. Goldie STILL followed that path. Taking in her attitude, it was obvious that the two friends were not both involved in this robotic test. He thought a moment, then pushed the notebook towards Goldie.
"Want to help me make sense of all this?"
"Sure!"
Her expression brightened immediately. Justin smiled. She just wanted to be useful.
****
Alicia sat on the examination table, clothing in a pile on the floor. She had never really liked doctor visits. Part of it, probably, was the scar. The constant examinations after the accident, the touching, the questions, had made her self-conscious about a flaw she had wanted to just disappear, wanted others to ignore. Not that anyone had ever ignored it. Every eye was drawn there, her paranoid mind kept telling her. It was all others saw... but, after awhile, that became a secondary issue with regard to doctors. The main one was that the idea of some old adult prodding her body, especially "down there", just gave her the willies. Well... usually. Her doctor as a kid had been a man, and at some point she got a kind of crush on him. Maybe because he had called her "beautiful", and completely ignored the well healed scar. It was short lived, though. Mom must have noticed, since in seventh grade she had switched her over to a female one. That ended that, and things went back to being weird.
That was definitely the case here. She was being examined by Nona. A friend. Not a CLOSE friend, to be sure, in the way her girlfriends in the olden days had been. Brandi examining her would have been silly and fun, and in fact while both girls had been totally straight they had examined each other on sleepovers. Nona, though, was a friend through necessity. Someone she trusted and respected, yes. Maybe even liked. But...
"So, has the baby been kicking?"
Nona, dressed in the white lab coat she always wore for these things, walked up holding a computer pad. It was obvious she, too, wasn't too comfortable with all this. Her eyes tried to stay on Alicia's face, or swollen belly. That hadn't been the case before. The Malay had always been clinical about this kind of thing. Why the change...
Ah.
Tammy.
Feeling a bit more at ease, now that she understood, Alicia placed her hand on her belly button and rubbed.
"He's been a bit active. More than I expected, being Justin's kid."
"Well, you haven't swallowed any books for him to read, so he's bored."
Alicia's eyes shot up Nona's face, surprised.
"Both Justin and Daium use that same joke."
"Well, I'm sure it's just as funny the hundredth time." Giving her a weak smile, Nona began the exam. Alicia was prodded, poked, scanned. They did NOT have an ultrasound, and naturally x-rays were out of the question. Just another limitation they had to deal with. At least the latest remodeling had turned the old tractor trailer, parked at one edge of the dome park, into a reasonably clean and modern clinic. Nona had pushed for moving their sickbay into it, despite the space limitations. She had argued that this way, once they DID find a planet, the entire structure could just be picked up and moved off the ship to form part of their initial settlement.
Whether that would be practical when the time came remained to be seen.
****
"All done."
Alicia let out a long breath, relieved. Perhaps her main objection, her main problem with these exams, was that Nona seemed to know what she was doing. Alicia was jealous. This was serious, hard work that needed someone very smart to do it, and the younger woman was doing extremely well with few resources. Alicia couldn't do it. That was for certain. Oh, yes, what she did with the sensors on the bridge took skill and brains as well, don't get her wrong. But this... there had been nobody, literally nobody, to teach Nona medicine.
Then again, she could just be faking it.
Sitting up, Alicia was about to get to her feet when Nona bent down and grabbed the pile of discarded clothing, putting them on the bed next to the blonde. Grabbing the bra, she nodded her thanks.
"So, any problems, Doc?"
Nona shook her head, double checking her notes. She was always so serious.
"Nope, not that I can see. You're about the same as Melinda was at this stage..."
"That is NOT reassuring."
"...and you line up with Hannah. I have the sickening feeling you two will also pump out your kids close together."
"If she goes first, you have my promise that I'll try and hold my legs together for at least another day."
"Thanks."
Slipping her underwear on, Alicia watched Nona remove the long white coat and hang it up next to the desk. Photos of her parents hung on the wall, blown up from cell phone images. Alicia, with a new phone, had yet to put any pictures on it that fateful night. In a way, that had made it easier to adjust, or so she told herself. She rarely thought of her family, or her boyfriend... damn it, what had been his name again? A change on the desk distracted Alicia. There, propped up next to a potted flower... was a photo of Tammy. With a grin, Alicia arched an eyebrow at her.
"So... how is it going?"
"How is..." Nona's expression, at first puzzled, changed to a blush. One hand moved, as if to take down the photo of her significant other, then just dropped. Alicia laughed.
"Come on, dish! What's going on? How is it?"
"It's..." With a sigh, Nona dropped into the swivel desk chair. She began to swivel, eyes anywhere but on Alicia. "I don't know what to say."
Man, was she that out of practice talking about girl things? A guilty pang hit Alicia. She had been left out of a lot. By her own choice, to be certain, but... Alicia and the others should have tried to include her. Talk to her. Well, now that she was in the relationship club, maybe she'd be more open.
"Are you happy at least? With her?"
"Yes!" It came out so quickly, Alicia had to laugh again. Ah, first love!
"Well, tell me about it! Every girl needs someone she can brag or bitch to!"
She could see the blush on Nona, her one hand playing with her skirt. The girl's eyes went to Tammy's photo.
"It's all so... new. I honestly just lose myself when I'm with her. I'm someone different."
Alicia nodded.
"Been there, done that."
"And, it's... scary. Really scary. And wonderful, and sweet, incredible..."
"And you're falling, and you don't want to stop, because when you do you know it'll kill you." Nona looked up at her, eyes wide. Alicia nodded. "Hey, I've been in love. A few times. It's not easy, believe me."
"Does it get easier?"
Alicia shook her head, standing up on her bare feet, unconsciously smoothing her blouse and skirt.
"It changes, over time. Becomes more... comfortable. But, at least for me, that feeling never really changes." Thoughts of Daium filled her mind. It was her turn to blush. Expression turning a bit shyer, she pushed herself back up to sit on the bed. Nona's eyes widened in surprise. "Nona... do you want to... talk?"
"Huh?" The unstated second part of that sentence was that obviously they already were talking. Alicia smiled, suddenly feeling tired.
"I mean..." she looked around the trailer, at the ship beyond. "We never broke up into cliques here. Which is good, yes, we're all together, no one REALLY isolated." Again, she felt a bit guilty, but pushed on. "But... I'm a kind of reluctant lesbian. Daium was the first, and so far as my body and mind are telling me, ONLY woman I want to be with. Before Tammy, did you ever have thoughts..."
"No." Nona blushed, looking down at her skirt again. Alicia nodded.
"Do you want to talk?"
Nona looked back up, eyes shining.
"Yes."
****
Mary didn't know why she was doing this.
There was the reason that WASN'T the reason, for sure. She was not here in the droid repair bay because of Danny. Nope. That for sure wasn't it. She in no way had ANY desire to spend more time near that freakish half human, especially in a place where he tended to remove his shirt from his sweaty, glistening, well formed chest. God, why couldn't he leave that ON? Nobody should see that! And, it wasn't because she was in anyway mechanically minded, or enjoyed hard labor.
Or so she had thought.
Dad had not been a very handy person. He didn't have a workbench in the basement, or a tool set out in the garage. If a toy broke, they tried some glue, but if that didn't work into the trash it went. Her grandmothers had tried to teach her sewing, and she did like that a bit, but mostly she had been like Dad. Just let others that are better at it do the work.
This was different, for some reason. Maybe it was because the work was done in the weightless part of the ship, still a novelty for her. Maybe because Chuck, for an older married guy who WASN'T inhumanly hunky, was kind of cool. And, maybe, it just turned on a switch in her that had been dusty and unused.
"OK, before you is a hull repair droid, used, theoretically, to repair the hull. Thankfully, we've never had to see if they actually work. You'll notice it works purely via thrusters, no wheels. One reason we're working on it down here, and not up in wonderful gravity. Plus, it was designed to be serviced like this."
"That's silly," she said, maneuvering around the egg shaped robot twice her size. Chuck nodded.
"Welcome to my world. OK, first task: using just the instructions on your pad there, remove the cover and point out the battery pack."
Mary grabbed the tool from her belt. To her left, she could sense Danny pausing in whatever work he was doing that she totally didn't care about. His eyes seemed to be burning into her... or, at least in her imagination they were. Goldie had said her brother kind of liked her. Wanted to know if she liked him. Which, no... no! God, no! No...
Before her mental protests began to sound hollow even to her, she began.
****
Daium's eyes had a hard time leaving little Jeli. Her nephew (that's what the little baby was, wasn't he?) was sucking happily on Rinda's left breast. His black, furless skin was bright and shiny, looking so different than an Orang baby yet the same. Reaching out a hand, she caressed his back. It was the same skin as hers, as Rinda's. Tough, yet smooth. Her hand slid up, into the tangled mass of blue hair on his little head. And it was hair, it seemed. Not fur, but human hair.
Did she want a baby like this? Before, the answer was yes. With no doubt in her mind. From the first time she had seen Justin, or so her memory now told her, she had wanted to bear his child. Had wanted to bring a life into this world that was both Human and Orang. Now such a child existed. Most likely, if the looks Chuck and Rinda still gave each other were any indication, there were more to come. A new species.
Was having Justin's child still so important?
She could be infertile. It had been a year, after all, a year in which every other female paired with a male had conceived. Alicia had conceived, so it wasn't Justin that was the problem. She was the problem...
"Do you want to hold him?"
Daium looked up, startled. Rinda was re-buttoning her shirt, smiling at her cousin. Jeli let out a burp, looking around. He was so cute, four eyes taking in all the colors of the garden. Outfit decent once again, Rinda held her son out to her.
"Take him. I need to make a quick run to the bathroom. I'll be back soon."
"You can just squat over there," Daium said, not startled enough to miss the obvious joke. Rinda chuckled, strangely mirroring both Chuck and Melinda. Their influence was so heavy on her, at times she didn't even seem Orang.
But, then, how Orang was Daium?
"*I* am civilized," Rinda said. She held Jeli out a little father. With a wan smile she hoped wasn't taken the wrong way, Daium took him. His first act was to grab onto her blackish grey fur, just under her breast. His grip was strong. Rinda stood, letting out a slight groan.
"I'll be back. Don't let him grab your glasses. He almost broke Melinda's."
That would not be good, this far from anywhere. Daium had no backups. Frames probably COULD be repaired, or at least temporarily replaced. Still, there was no need to tempt fate. She'd keep the little guy down low.
That wouldn't be easy. As soon as her hold on him loosened, just cradling him in her arms, Jeli turned and began to try and crawl up her. Black hands with little tiny clear fingernails reached up and grabbed onto her bra, using the woven cup to leverage his body upwards. Laughing, she put both hands around his waist and moved him to sit on her knee. He immediately became distracted by her skirt, and the flowers printed on it.
Did she still want a son? Or a daughter? Did she want a little baby like this, all of her own? To love, to raise... she could help raise the others. She did not have to give birth to be a mother. With so many babies, and so few of them, all would be raised by the entire crew. What did she want... and, more, what did she, in her heart, need?
Skirt now boring him, Jeli reached again up towards her glasses, now so far away. He was so much more active then Melinda's girl. Carol just lay there, not doing much as of yet, apart from being cute. Hannah had said that was the normal way of things for humans, that they took awhile to grow up. Longer than any other creature on Earth. Heck, it took almost two decades before they were adults, a side effect of a species that could live to be eighty, or a hundred.
A hundred....
Daium sighed. Justin could live to be a hundred. Orang lived... what, fifty? If that? How long did they have together?
Taking advantage of her distraction, Jeli again began the climb up her body. Laughing, she put all that aside. She had to defend her glasses!
****
"Done!"
Mary pushed herself away from the droid, adrenalin surging through her. She had done it. Actually done it. With no help, no assistance. Just her, the instructions, and an alien robot. She had managed to find the power cell, replace it, diagnose why it wasn't working and fix the problem. She wanted to shout. She wanted to brag. She wanted ... wanted...
She wanted to do it again.
Mary looked over at Chuck. He and Danny had another droid completely disassembled, parts attached to fasteners all around them. She saw him glance up, take in the scene, and nod.
"Good work. Quick. If you're not tired, want to help us with this?"
Tired?
She could do this all day!
****
"You're asking the wrong person," Sarah sighed. Sipping her drink, she shook her head at the other two floating in the Commons with her. The three had agreed, with the unspoken bond sometimes forged among those with a common task, that they were done for the day. The drink bar had been broken into, liquid refreshment liberated as reward for boring, fruitless work. Justin let out an exasperated noise.
"Well, you're the only one we CAN ask, that's what makes it annoying." She shrugged.
"Sorry."
"Not your fault. You didn't know you had to study up on all this."
"Does it matter?" Goldie asked. Her cheeks reddened as the two adults regarded her. "I... I mean, we have LOTS of time to read all this. We don't have to know everything NOW. With the three of us, it'll go fast!" She saw Justin chuckle. He reached out, putting a hand on her head and ruffling her golden fur. She liked that. She knew why the others didn't touch her like that much, but she still liked it. Goldie beamed at him, trying to convey that feeling. His hand scratched between her ears.
"So, you like these boring books."
"They're FUN!" Her eyes widened, arms moving in excitement. "Danny told me some of the stuff Nona tried to teach him about God and such, but she didn't have any books. This is much more interesting! All the stuff about Gods, and magic, and quantum entanglement, and sex..."
Her hand went over her mouth, keeping any other embarrassing admissions from flowing outwards. She could feel her face turn beet red. Justin just laughed.
"I don't know which is a worse place to read about sex, this stuff or Melinda's GOR books, but don't worry. You're hired. Your secret is safe with us."
"Um," Sarah said, eyes plainly now curious, "what are these GOR books you mentioned?"