Title: Xenophilia
Author: cofax
Spoilers: Dog With Two Bones
Rating: R, graphic angst
Summary: She is alone and there is no room for a baby in a
prowler.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Derivative use.
Distribution: please let me know.
Feedback makes me do the wacky. Send it to cofax@mindspring.com.
+-+-+
Xenophilia
By cofax
May 2002
They told her it wouldn't hurt. They lied.
-- Enter here, says the Diagnosan, and she does. The doorway is
tall and thin and opens into darkness. There is a prickle on her
skin; she is being scanned. They took her pistol in the other
room, and the scan misses the knife in her boot. Aeryn does not
expect to need it.
She moves forward at a warm touch on her arm, turns right, then
left, all in darkness. The floor is smooth but dirty; she feels
bits of debris scuff under her boots. The clinic smells; her nose
wrinkles at the taint of urine, the sharp hint of a disinfectant,
the tang of blood. The natives are not Sebacean but their blood
must also be copper-based.
She will do this. She will not turn back. She is not a coward,
but every direction she turns she finds only pain. She will not
picture his face -- John is gone, he is interstellar dust, and
she will not cling to him. She is alone and there is no room for
a baby in a prowler.
The room is bright after the dark halls, and she puts a hand up
to her eyes. The walls are green and orange in wobbly vertical
stripes. In the center of the room is a clear tube suspended on
the diagonal by thin cables. The tube is full of a pale green
fluid and she sees an antigrav generator below it. Mounted on the
outside of the tube are pieces of equipment she does not
recognize.
The air is clearer here, but there are other people in the room.
One is another Diagnosan; the others are natives of this planet,
small dark-furred anthropoids with prehensile tails.
She turns sharply on the Diagnosan, and the natives startle. The
tail of one knocks against a table, rattling some canisters.
The Diagnosan warbles. -- Students. Sebaceans few here. They come
to learn.
All the nearby Sebacean planets are Peacekeeper controlled. She
is told this clinic has experts in the physiology of many
species. The Diagnosan claims to have operated on Sebaceans
before.
These students will learn more than they expect.
It is a half-breed she is carrying, and she controls a shudder
from the past. *Hybrids taint the race* she was told, over and
over. She imagines his response. *So it's okay to fuck a human
but god forbid you get pregnant? Jesus, your people are messed
up, Aeryn.*
He never understood -- she never tried to make him understand --
how deep the conditioning went. How hard she had to fight, that
first cycle, to overcome her training. Walking Moya's halls at
night, caught in the overlap between what she wanted and what she
had been trained to despise. She learned enough, the past few
cycles, to begin to sort the dren from the borinium, but some
things went too deep. Peacekeeper superiority was at the heart of
every lesson, from her first hour in the creche to the final
briefing before she left the carrier that last day.
She thought, after the Royal Planet, that it didn't matter, that
she could welcome such a child. It would *look* Sebacean, after
all. But she was wrong.
Hybrids are loathed, she has seen this. Jothee was enslaved,
mutilated himself to hide his mixed heritage. Talyn, child of her
heart, was doomed by his Peacekeeper genes. And Scorpius --
Scorpius is all the evidence she needs.
There is no room in this universe for a hybrid child. Especially
a hybrid child of John Crichton. She heard him speaking to
D'Argo, those last days on Moya. -- Scorpy said generations will
know my name. And his laughter was bitter.
What happened to Jothee is nothing compared to what would happen
to this child. She can do that much for John.
The Diagnosan steps around her, and the other Diagnosan joins it
at the control panel for the tube. Aeryn unfastens and removes
her boots, and the natives cluster around her as she begins to
peel off her leathers. Their skin is hot, and they smell of
spices, like the soup she ate in the market last night. They are
too close. Their breath whistles as they examine her, but they do
not touch. She unclenches her jaw and continues undressing.
By the time she is naked the tube is ready. The first Diagnosan -
- older, perhaps, or at least paler -- motions her forward. A
doorway has opened into the tube, and the green fluid is kept
from spilling out by a tension field. Aeryn steps onto the
platform around the tube, and turns so her back is toward the
opening.
The air in the room is cool; the hair on her arms is erect, and
twitches ripple across her skin. The green and orange walls hurt
her eyes and the Diagnosans are shorter than she is from this
height. She will remember this.
This is the last moment with his child. It is inside her, and it
is not Sebacean, it is something *else*, and John is not here.
She thought she wanted it, and she is sure he would if he knew.
She tries to imagine it growing inside her and she cannot. She
thinks about Xhalax, and all she can see of mother is falling
away, falling, and the scars on her face. Xhalax left her with
nothing she wants to pass on to a child.
She is alone and there is no room for a baby in a prowler.
She bends her left knee, picks up her left foot, steps backward
into the tube. The fluid is thicker than it looks from outside,
warm but not hot, and there is a ledge to balance on. Then the
fluid is up to her knee, and she shifts her weight and brings the
other one in.
The Diagnosan nods, and reaches for the door. -- Well, it will be
well. Soon. Over fast.
She nods in return, and leans back into the tube as he seals it.
The fluid covers her body but leaves her face clear; the liquid
is warm and soft. The tube is sealed from the outside: she cannot
get out until they release her. She takes a deep breath, the air
shuddering into her lungs, and another. She will not panic. This
is why she came.
Slowly the fear recedes, and her muscles relax. There's something
in the air, something soothing, or perhaps it's in the fluid,
absorbed through her skin. She imagines this is what a womb is
like. It sounds like it does sometimes deep inside Moya, the
noises from the medical technicians in the room outside filtered
and elongated by the fluid. Senseless murmurs and burbles.
A hundred microts pass as the technicians murmur between
themselves and Aeryn rests in the surgical tube. The fluid
sloshes softly, her mind drifts. She wonders what he is doing,
now that she and the others are gone. She imagines him sitting on
the edge of Pilot's console, banging pots in the galley, laughing
with the old woman. None of it feels true, though: what feels
true is John sitting on the bench in Command, his back to the
stars. Not speaking.
No, she thinks, that's not him. He's dead, and the loss is as raw
as ever, undulled by the anesthetic.
She feels a faint vibration and she is now fixed in place, her
body immobile. There is a faint pressure in her lower abdomen,
sharpening to a sudden pain. She twitches, and the Diagnosan taps
on the transparent wall, speaks words she cannot decipher. She
stills herself. She cannot see what he is doing: she can only see
straight ahead.
The Diagnosan manipulates a long green tube over her abdomen, and
the other one touches some controls on the panel. The flavor of
the air she is breathing changes, becomes more bitter. She does
not allow herself to cough.
If it is an anesthetic, it does not help much. The pressure
begins again, more slowly this time. She can move her hands, a
little: she curls her hands into fists as the pressure transmutes
into pain, harder and sharper than before. It does not stop. She
whimpers a little. She thinks, I could stop this now.
There is a flurry of movement outside the tube: she sees one of
the natives back away, gesticulating. It's hard to look down,
but she realizes that the fluid isn't green anymore; there are
darker swirls around her now. The voices outside become louder.
The Diagnosan at the panel makes some corrections, its hands
jerking from one control to another. There's another new flavor
in the air, sickly sweet, and she wants to spit it out but
breathes in. It acts quickly. The pain subsides, and she melts
with it, her eyes closing. She is safe now, she thinks. It is
done.
Everything stops.
When she wakes she is wrapped in a green cloth in a room with
yellow and purple walls. One of the native students sits at her
side. She moves her head, and it leaps to its feet, backs to the
door.
The anesthetic has worn off, and she aches. A grinding ache, a
raw hole. Aeryn rolls over and pushes herself to her feet. The
room tilts, and she braces herself against the wall. Her hand is
fiercely white against the purple striping.
-- What happened? She asks the student. She needs to stand up, to
be on her feet now.
Its head wobbles from side to side, echoed by the tail, which
curls from left to right, the very tip twitching. -- There was
bleeding.
-- Yes, and? She sees her clothing piled on a shelf across the
room, and walks carefully across to it.
-- It is done. Fetus removed. But the tail continues curling,
back and forth, back and forth, brushing against the door latch
as if the student wants to leave the room.
-- Where is it? She thinks to ask, as she sits on the bed to pull
on her pants. It hurts to fasten them, and if she leans over to
tighten her boots she thinks she will not be able to get up. She
leaves them undone, and pulls on her shirt instead.
The student does not answer, and she looks up from the clasps of
her vest.
The fetus is still alive, suspended in a tiny version of the
surgical tube, hooked to lines, anchored in place. It is very
very small. She did not know it would be so small. Aeryn puts a
hand out, does not quite touch the warm surface of the container.
Does not trace the outline of her daughter, John's daughter,
hanging there in green fluid.
The students and the Diagnosan cluster about her, murmuring and
pointing. The other Diagnosan peers at some readouts on a
monitor. They are fascinated by this phenomenon, a Sebacean
hybrid. It is of great scientific interest.
She is alone, and there is no room for a baby in a Prowler. *A
hybrid child taints the race.* John is dust, Talyn is dead, and
Xhalax fell.
-- Destroy it, she says and does not leave the room until it is
done.
They told her it wouldn't hurt. They lied.
***
END
Notes: This is not related to "In Fortune's Fist" except insofar
as the subject matter is the same. Blame for this should be laid
at the door of qowf, who said, "then rewrite it." So I did. Also
Pene and Maayan, who asked for more. Beta by Marasmus and Fialka,
to whom I owe so much.
Feedback of all sorts welcome at cofax@mindspring.com.
+-+-+
"To deny the scientific realities of the cosmos is to place
limits on the tools and intent of God." - Mary Doria Russell
alchemy, mouldiwarps and coprophagy:
http://mouldiwarps.shriftweb.org/
Author: cofax
Spoilers: Dog With Two Bones
Rating: R, graphic angst
Summary: She is alone and there is no room for a baby in a
prowler.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Derivative use.
Distribution: please let me know.
Feedback makes me do the wacky. Send it to cofax@mindspring.com.
+-+-+
Xenophilia
By cofax
May 2002
They told her it wouldn't hurt. They lied.
-- Enter here, says the Diagnosan, and she does. The doorway is
tall and thin and opens into darkness. There is a prickle on her
skin; she is being scanned. They took her pistol in the other
room, and the scan misses the knife in her boot. Aeryn does not
expect to need it.
She moves forward at a warm touch on her arm, turns right, then
left, all in darkness. The floor is smooth but dirty; she feels
bits of debris scuff under her boots. The clinic smells; her nose
wrinkles at the taint of urine, the sharp hint of a disinfectant,
the tang of blood. The natives are not Sebacean but their blood
must also be copper-based.
She will do this. She will not turn back. She is not a coward,
but every direction she turns she finds only pain. She will not
picture his face -- John is gone, he is interstellar dust, and
she will not cling to him. She is alone and there is no room for
a baby in a prowler.
The room is bright after the dark halls, and she puts a hand up
to her eyes. The walls are green and orange in wobbly vertical
stripes. In the center of the room is a clear tube suspended on
the diagonal by thin cables. The tube is full of a pale green
fluid and she sees an antigrav generator below it. Mounted on the
outside of the tube are pieces of equipment she does not
recognize.
The air is clearer here, but there are other people in the room.
One is another Diagnosan; the others are natives of this planet,
small dark-furred anthropoids with prehensile tails.
She turns sharply on the Diagnosan, and the natives startle. The
tail of one knocks against a table, rattling some canisters.
The Diagnosan warbles. -- Students. Sebaceans few here. They come
to learn.
All the nearby Sebacean planets are Peacekeeper controlled. She
is told this clinic has experts in the physiology of many
species. The Diagnosan claims to have operated on Sebaceans
before.
These students will learn more than they expect.
It is a half-breed she is carrying, and she controls a shudder
from the past. *Hybrids taint the race* she was told, over and
over. She imagines his response. *So it's okay to fuck a human
but god forbid you get pregnant? Jesus, your people are messed
up, Aeryn.*
He never understood -- she never tried to make him understand --
how deep the conditioning went. How hard she had to fight, that
first cycle, to overcome her training. Walking Moya's halls at
night, caught in the overlap between what she wanted and what she
had been trained to despise. She learned enough, the past few
cycles, to begin to sort the dren from the borinium, but some
things went too deep. Peacekeeper superiority was at the heart of
every lesson, from her first hour in the creche to the final
briefing before she left the carrier that last day.
She thought, after the Royal Planet, that it didn't matter, that
she could welcome such a child. It would *look* Sebacean, after
all. But she was wrong.
Hybrids are loathed, she has seen this. Jothee was enslaved,
mutilated himself to hide his mixed heritage. Talyn, child of her
heart, was doomed by his Peacekeeper genes. And Scorpius --
Scorpius is all the evidence she needs.
There is no room in this universe for a hybrid child. Especially
a hybrid child of John Crichton. She heard him speaking to
D'Argo, those last days on Moya. -- Scorpy said generations will
know my name. And his laughter was bitter.
What happened to Jothee is nothing compared to what would happen
to this child. She can do that much for John.
The Diagnosan steps around her, and the other Diagnosan joins it
at the control panel for the tube. Aeryn unfastens and removes
her boots, and the natives cluster around her as she begins to
peel off her leathers. Their skin is hot, and they smell of
spices, like the soup she ate in the market last night. They are
too close. Their breath whistles as they examine her, but they do
not touch. She unclenches her jaw and continues undressing.
By the time she is naked the tube is ready. The first Diagnosan -
- older, perhaps, or at least paler -- motions her forward. A
doorway has opened into the tube, and the green fluid is kept
from spilling out by a tension field. Aeryn steps onto the
platform around the tube, and turns so her back is toward the
opening.
The air in the room is cool; the hair on her arms is erect, and
twitches ripple across her skin. The green and orange walls hurt
her eyes and the Diagnosans are shorter than she is from this
height. She will remember this.
This is the last moment with his child. It is inside her, and it
is not Sebacean, it is something *else*, and John is not here.
She thought she wanted it, and she is sure he would if he knew.
She tries to imagine it growing inside her and she cannot. She
thinks about Xhalax, and all she can see of mother is falling
away, falling, and the scars on her face. Xhalax left her with
nothing she wants to pass on to a child.
She is alone and there is no room for a baby in a prowler.
She bends her left knee, picks up her left foot, steps backward
into the tube. The fluid is thicker than it looks from outside,
warm but not hot, and there is a ledge to balance on. Then the
fluid is up to her knee, and she shifts her weight and brings the
other one in.
The Diagnosan nods, and reaches for the door. -- Well, it will be
well. Soon. Over fast.
She nods in return, and leans back into the tube as he seals it.
The fluid covers her body but leaves her face clear; the liquid
is warm and soft. The tube is sealed from the outside: she cannot
get out until they release her. She takes a deep breath, the air
shuddering into her lungs, and another. She will not panic. This
is why she came.
Slowly the fear recedes, and her muscles relax. There's something
in the air, something soothing, or perhaps it's in the fluid,
absorbed through her skin. She imagines this is what a womb is
like. It sounds like it does sometimes deep inside Moya, the
noises from the medical technicians in the room outside filtered
and elongated by the fluid. Senseless murmurs and burbles.
A hundred microts pass as the technicians murmur between
themselves and Aeryn rests in the surgical tube. The fluid
sloshes softly, her mind drifts. She wonders what he is doing,
now that she and the others are gone. She imagines him sitting on
the edge of Pilot's console, banging pots in the galley, laughing
with the old woman. None of it feels true, though: what feels
true is John sitting on the bench in Command, his back to the
stars. Not speaking.
No, she thinks, that's not him. He's dead, and the loss is as raw
as ever, undulled by the anesthetic.
She feels a faint vibration and she is now fixed in place, her
body immobile. There is a faint pressure in her lower abdomen,
sharpening to a sudden pain. She twitches, and the Diagnosan taps
on the transparent wall, speaks words she cannot decipher. She
stills herself. She cannot see what he is doing: she can only see
straight ahead.
The Diagnosan manipulates a long green tube over her abdomen, and
the other one touches some controls on the panel. The flavor of
the air she is breathing changes, becomes more bitter. She does
not allow herself to cough.
If it is an anesthetic, it does not help much. The pressure
begins again, more slowly this time. She can move her hands, a
little: she curls her hands into fists as the pressure transmutes
into pain, harder and sharper than before. It does not stop. She
whimpers a little. She thinks, I could stop this now.
There is a flurry of movement outside the tube: she sees one of
the natives back away, gesticulating. It's hard to look down,
but she realizes that the fluid isn't green anymore; there are
darker swirls around her now. The voices outside become louder.
The Diagnosan at the panel makes some corrections, its hands
jerking from one control to another. There's another new flavor
in the air, sickly sweet, and she wants to spit it out but
breathes in. It acts quickly. The pain subsides, and she melts
with it, her eyes closing. She is safe now, she thinks. It is
done.
Everything stops.
When she wakes she is wrapped in a green cloth in a room with
yellow and purple walls. One of the native students sits at her
side. She moves her head, and it leaps to its feet, backs to the
door.
The anesthetic has worn off, and she aches. A grinding ache, a
raw hole. Aeryn rolls over and pushes herself to her feet. The
room tilts, and she braces herself against the wall. Her hand is
fiercely white against the purple striping.
-- What happened? She asks the student. She needs to stand up, to
be on her feet now.
Its head wobbles from side to side, echoed by the tail, which
curls from left to right, the very tip twitching. -- There was
bleeding.
-- Yes, and? She sees her clothing piled on a shelf across the
room, and walks carefully across to it.
-- It is done. Fetus removed. But the tail continues curling,
back and forth, back and forth, brushing against the door latch
as if the student wants to leave the room.
-- Where is it? She thinks to ask, as she sits on the bed to pull
on her pants. It hurts to fasten them, and if she leans over to
tighten her boots she thinks she will not be able to get up. She
leaves them undone, and pulls on her shirt instead.
The student does not answer, and she looks up from the clasps of
her vest.
The fetus is still alive, suspended in a tiny version of the
surgical tube, hooked to lines, anchored in place. It is very
very small. She did not know it would be so small. Aeryn puts a
hand out, does not quite touch the warm surface of the container.
Does not trace the outline of her daughter, John's daughter,
hanging there in green fluid.
The students and the Diagnosan cluster about her, murmuring and
pointing. The other Diagnosan peers at some readouts on a
monitor. They are fascinated by this phenomenon, a Sebacean
hybrid. It is of great scientific interest.
She is alone, and there is no room for a baby in a Prowler. *A
hybrid child taints the race.* John is dust, Talyn is dead, and
Xhalax fell.
-- Destroy it, she says and does not leave the room until it is
done.
They told her it wouldn't hurt. They lied.
***
END
Notes: This is not related to "In Fortune's Fist" except insofar
as the subject matter is the same. Blame for this should be laid
at the door of qowf, who said, "then rewrite it." So I did. Also
Pene and Maayan, who asked for more. Beta by Marasmus and Fialka,
to whom I owe so much.
Feedback of all sorts welcome at cofax@mindspring.com.
+-+-+
"To deny the scientific realities of the cosmos is to place
limits on the tools and intent of God." - Mary Doria Russell
alchemy, mouldiwarps and coprophagy:
http://mouldiwarps.shriftweb.org/