By N. E. Shaw
The shock of seeing the unborn human kept Andros spellbound for a minute. He was only shaken back to reality when the venator moved in to finish her task. In a matter of moments the pod was completely opaque, and the fetus was hidden from view. Andros slowly sat back.
He'd been right about one thing--the mother hadn't laid her eggs yet. But why in the universe had she given birth to a human? What was a human baby going to do with the sleeping body of one of its own kind? He wondered if the fetus would grow into some kind of hybrid bug-child, but there was no way of knowing at this point. All he could do was wait and see what developed.
Or, he could destroy the mother and child and be done with it.
Looking down at the arachnoid creature, Andros struggled to see the vicious predator he had captured in the cave. But it wasn't there. All he could see was the mother being who had just given birth to the next generation of her kind. What right did he have to kill her?
No, he would leave her be, keep her with him on the ship, and let nature take its course. It might take a while, but she would eventually give him the answers he needed to help his friends. He had faith in that.
So he continued to watch her until he stepped back from the pod, guaged her surroundings one more time, and then crawled into the shadows behind the barrels. Andros stood, hearing a sizzling sound, and moved the barrels away to see a big-sized hole in the wall. She was on the move again. And he was pretty sure he knew where.
He headed to the SimuDeck, and sure enough she was there, tending another pod. Once again, when Andros looked closely, he could see the tiny form of a baby curled around a thin cord that protruded from its little mouth. The venator wrapped this one up and then left the little alcove, heading for the wall neaby. This time Andros saw her as she gurgled up a wad of spit and spat it on the wall, dissolving the metal in seconds. Then she was gone, and Andros got up to meet her in the Jump Bay.
After they were done there, they visited a pod in the Training Room, and then the last one in the Engine Room. Five baby humans, four trapped Rangers. What was that all about?
He wanted to ask the mother venator, but she didn't speak any language he knew, so he wouldn't get his answers that way. By now, she had curled up to rest in the opposite corner of the room from the fifth pod. Andros sat nearly, watching her as she tucked her eight legs beneath her and twiddled her mouthparts absently. She looked exactly like a woman who'd just given birth to quintuplets--she was exhausted.
But over the course of the next two weeks, she dragged herself along her daily rounds, checking on the five pods. Andros would return from checking on the Rangers, and find her lying in the corner of the Engine Room taking a much-needed nap. Eventually she would get up and follow Andros around on his duties, but she took plenty of time out to rest her tired legs. Her health began to concern Andros as the days went by.
Something about being on the MegaShip was affecting her. It wasn't much like her natural cave home. It was too bright for one thing, and there wasn't enough to eat lying around. Andros had discovered she "ate" the very metal she burned through when travelling. The minerals it contained were what kept her going, but the bulkhead metal was clearly not as nutritious as rock. She probably felt as though she'd been living on junk food for a while.
Still, Andros did what he could for her, leaving out bits of scrap material at the five pod sites. He even brought her chunks of rock from the cave each day, but it wasn't enough. She continued to weaken. She needed to go home, which was something Andros would not allow.
As bad as he felt for her, he could not let her go through with her plans for his four friends.
14 days passed. The venator grew steadily sicker and sicker, until one day Andros had to carry her to the Cargo Hold to start the daily rounds.
Astonishingly, while the mother's health failed, the pods flourished. They had grown into full grown human-sized cocoons in just fourteen days. The membrane was thinning as well, perhaps to make escape easier for whatever was inside. Andros was both fearful and curious about the unborn creature--what kind of hideous bug-baby would emerge from the cloudy white cocoon?
Little did he realize, today would be the day he found out.
"Well what are you waiting for?" he asked the venator. He had begun talking to her, for lack of anyone else to chat with. But when he had put her down on the floor just now, she hadn't crawled up to the pod to start feeling it as usual. She just sat there, as if waiting for something.
"What's wrong? Are you hungry again?"
Instead of a reply, Andros heard a small squish from the pod's direction. He too began to stare at it, and saw it move a little, accompanied by another squish. Something dark shifted beneath the thin membrane surface. This bug-baby was waking up, and getting ready to hatch.
All of a sudden Andros was in a panic. What was he supposed to do to help? Should he break the cocoon to help the baby out, or should he leave it alone and let it escape by itself? The mother was making no move to approach, but she reached out with her forelegs longingly, as if she wanted to help but couldn't find the strength to do it. Andros decided he'd do it for her.
Reaching inside his jacket, he removed the little utility knife he kept clipped to his lapel. He snapped open the sharpest blade and crouched next to the struggling pod, putting one hand out to steady it. The membrane was rubbery, and the bug-baby trembled at his touch.
Quickly and carefully, Andros slit into the membrane with his knife. Then he scooted backward as a gush of runny, clear fluid spilled out.
The mother scooted forward an inch or two, stopping at the edge of the spreading puddle. All the fluid from the pod was leaking out onto the floor. It began to shrink around the bug-baby, who remained trapped inside, clawing and struggling against its rubbery prison.
Andros's heart raced. If only the venator could have told him what action to take. He had never even been to a human birth let alone a baby-bug birth.
But then the baby began to make choking noises. Its body spasmed and Andros could see the membrance plastered over its face, suffocating it. Whatever the cost, Andros had to get the baby free or it would die right there in its cocoon. So he ventured forward again, staining his knees in the puddle of fluid, and reached both hands into the cut he had made. With a mighty heave he tore open the cocoon and ripped it off the baby's face..
..then he froze in strangled horror.
Trembling, naked, and soaked in slimy fluid, was a full-grown human form. Its eyes were wide and bore into Andros like a hazel-colored lasers. As it struggled for breath, it had no idea it was looking into a mirror, for this newborn human was a perfect duplicate of Andros himself.