Author : sKiTzO
Rating : PG
Thanks to : David, for hashing this up with me, and Susan and Robert Jenkins for writing an awesome book. (Life Signs : The Biology of Star Trek.... Read it!)
Author's Note #1 : Get your mind out of the gutter.... ;)
Author's Note #2 : It's really been bugging me that the Trek writers never seemed to take the whole hybrid infertility thing into play. I mean, maybe they didn't realize it, or maybe they didn't want to, but it still bugged me. A friend pointed out that maybe the Federation had found ways past that, but wouldn't they have mentioned something about that somewhere along the lines? Who knows, maybe I'm wrong, and maybe they have, but from checking my author's profile you can see I only watch Voyager. Sadly it's over now ::sniff sniff::, but I plan to watch Enterprise.
Author's Note #3 : Erase all the Trek universe has provided you about hybrids. Forget about B'Elanna's baby, and Naomi's daughter. Forget it all. This is Trek as it is meant to be according to nature.
~*~
The Doctor
The baby was a miracle. Well, almost. At least she was in the eyes of her mother. In the eyes of science, however, she was an ultra rare occurrence.
But also the first sentient of these ultra rare occurrences.
The last reported fertile hybrid that I've been able to find information on was in the late twentieth century, a female tigon by the name of Neolle. The discovery of her fertility was marveled at for some time.
But she wasn't sentient.
B'Elanna Torres marks the first sentient fertile hybrid known to the Federation, and her daughter is going to be the one marveled at now. A sentient fertile hybrid being born in my very own sickbay.... Things like that don't happen everyday....
The ancient Romans of Earth had a saying, "Cum mula peperit", when a mule foals. This could be taken the about same as the Earth saying, "Once in a blue moon".
You see, because of the unequal number of chromosomes shared between two species, there's areas of breakage and mismatching during the formation of a hybrid's gametes. Because of this, the hybrid is left sterile.
And then there was the question of the formation of the brain. I didn't want to bring it up to Tom or B'Elanna, but of course I had to. I hated myself at that moment....
I had to tell them of the increased possibility of the mental retardation of their child. I knew somewhere B'Elanna knew this, she had had to overcome the same possibility during formation herself, after all. I assured them that the odds were even less than with B'Elanna, but it didn't matter. There was still that great looming possibility that I'm sure haunted them.....
The formation of the brain is so delicate, and is a process that extends into the third year of life. I'd be able to operate on the child then, help her out a little, but there was a chance she wouldn't live that long....
So basically the daughter of Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres could be a joyous occasion, or a horrid tragedy that followed them for the rest of their lives. Only time will tell.
And time can be a bitch.
~*~
To be continued...
