Chapter 11: Heredity

By the time a week had passed, Liz and Jamie were starting to feel the effects of their interrupted sleep schedule. They found themselves napping during the day whenever they had an opportunity, but they rarely made it more than an hour without being woken by a hungry kitten. They eventually started to sleep in shifts, but Liz’s sensitive hearing meant that ignoring them was impossible, even through walls. Jamie didn’t fare much better. In such a small apartment, there were few places they could go for refuge.

They didn’t let it get them down, however. As surly as the lack of sleep could make them, the moment that they picked up one of the kittens, any resentment melted away.

One night, Jamie was awoken once again by a crying kitten, the sound jolting him out of a dream. Their cries were so piercing, his heart pumping as a flood of adrenaline encouraged him out of bed. He rolled over, checking the clock on his bedside table, groaning as he saw that it was two in the morning. Liz grumbled as he slid out from under the sheets, flattening her ears against her head as if that might help block out the sound.

“I got it, I got it,” he mumbled groggily. “Just ... stay in bed, I’ll deal with them.”

He stumbled across the bedroom, making his way over to the side of the crib. It was Toza tonight, and he had woken two of the other kittens. Jamie reached in to stroke them, trying to calm them. He and Liz had learned that it had a similar effect to rocking a human baby. Once they were quiet, he lifted Toza from the crib and took him out into the kitchen.

“Alright, alright,” Jamie muttered as he cradled the crying kitten in his arms. “Jeez, Toza, you’re just as pushy as your grandpa.”

He opened the fridge and pulled out one of the full bottles, setting some water to warm on the stove and placing it in the pan. As he waited, he rubbed Toza’s furry underside, the baby reaching out to grab at his fingers as he wiggled them above his head.

Wait...

Jamie did a double-take, glancing down at the baby again. His eyes were open.

“Liz! Come quick!”

He heard a thud as Liz rolled out of bed, followed by footsteps as she rushed to the door. She banged her head on the low frame as she left the bedroom, cursing as she held a hand to her forehead.

“W-what is it?” she demanded, still half-asleep. “Is something wrong?”

“No, sorry,” he replied. “I just...”

Her angry glare faded as she turned her eyes to the kitten, her ears pricking up when she saw that he was staring back at her.

“His eyes!”

Jamie handed the kitten to her, taking the bottle out of the pot, testing the temperature of the milk as Liz held Toza up to examine him.

“He has your eyes,” she mused, wide awake now. “He has my fur and skin tone, but his eyes are as blue as the sky. I never would’ve imagined...”

Jamie handed her the bottle, and she cradled Toza again, waving it above his face. The kitten’s eyes tracked it, and he reached out with his little hands, not yet coordinated enough to catch it. She relented, letting him drink, Toza closing his eyes contentedly as he suckled.

“The others should be opening their eyes soon, too,” Liz said as she smiled down at the baby. “Another few weeks and they’ll be mobile.”

“How mobile, exactly?” Jamie asked.

“You’ll be glad of the pen we built, I’ll tell you that much.”

Over the next few days, the kittens opened their eyes one by one, and with that came a new curiosity about their environment. Even if they couldn’t do much more than roll around, Jamie could see them examining the world around them, especially the plush toys that he and Liz had placed in their play area. They were fascinated by one another, too, spending much of their time snuggled together in a heap.

Their eye colors were just as varied as their fur. Dazka had the emerald-green eyes of her mother, while Kenneth had yellow irises, and Bren’s were also green. Jamie was secretly delighted to see that Hazel’s eyes were the same brown tone as her skin and fur. According to Liz, it was a very unusual eye color for a Borealan.

Having their eyes open made them vulnerable to infections during the first few days, and Liz showed him how to gently wipe around them with a warm flannel to help keep them clean. Their ears had started to unfold, too, exposing them to a new world of sound.

The babies were eating well, growing larger and stronger by the day. Jamie was amazed that Liz was able to produce enough milk to feed them all, considering the quantity that they drank. Her breasts were still sore, and he kept up his massage regimen as best he could, even if their lack of rest meant that they didn’t take things any further than that. He might have been more bothered by the disruption to their sex life, but the kittens kept him busy enough that he rarely had time to think about anything else.

It wasn’t long before they got a call from the UAS, who wanted to send over a team to check up on the kittens. It felt a little intrusive at this juncture, when the stress was high, and both Liz and Jamie were having trouble forming any kind of schedule. That said, it was what they had agreed to, and none of it would have been possible without the organization’s participation.

Half a dozen doctors and scientists showed up at their door that same afternoon, carrying a litany of equipment with them. They weighed the babies one by one, reporting that they had all increased in weight by about one hundred and fifty percent since the birth, which was a good sign. They were growing remarkably quickly. The UAS personnel took more blood samples and ran some simple tests that were designed to measure coordination and alertness. It seemed a little premature to Jamie, they were still infants, but the results seemed to please the researchers.

As gentle as the scientists were, and as much care they showed in handling the babies, Jamie still felt an aura of menace from Liz. She watched them at all times with those feline eyes, bristling when she suspected that one of them was being careless with a kitten, and she asked them for a detailed explanation of every test that was performed. It wasn’t that she objected to their presence. It was more primal than that, a maternal instinct that made her overly protective. She never brought it up, and the researchers seemed oblivious to her mood, but Jamie knew her well enough to know when she was suppressing an emotion. Liz had always described Borealans as hands-off parents, so perhaps that was more dictated by culture than instinct. It was a lot easier to let your kids run wild when there were a dozen other pairs of eyes available to watch them.

Jamie was relieved when the kittens were given a clean bill of health. The only concern right now related to the development of their bones. Because Borealans were evolved for a higher-gravity environment, there was some debate over how their skeletons were going to adapt to Earth. Liz had been born on Borealis, but she had come to Earth as a small child, and her development had been aided by the same medication that people living in low-gravity environments took to reduce the loss of muscle mass and bone density. According to the UAS doctors, that medication could be administered to the kittens once they were old enough, though an exercise regimen would be required if they desired to reach their full mass.

Once the scientists had left, they calmed the kittens down and fed them before putting them to bed.

By the third week, the kittens had nearly doubled in size. They were growing so fast, and they were bulking up, growing stronger the more they ate. Some of them had started to crawl on all-fours like a human baby now, exploring their pen.

Jamie was walking past it one day when he saw a furry, orange hand gripping the edge of the plastic fence. He stopped in his tracks, his coffee in hand, watching as it was joined by a second. The kitten was feeling around, probing with its stubby little fingers. Jamie drew closer, seeing that it was Bren. The kitten was standing upright, leaning against the wall of the pen, his fuzzy tail waving behind him.

“Are you trying to climb out, little guy?” Jamie chuckled. He reached down to rub the kitten’s head, Bren mewling in response. “Maybe we should get you a walker.”

“He might be hungry,” Liz called over from the couch. “Better bring him here.”

Jamie set down his mug on the coffee table, then returned to lift Bren out of the playpen. He was getting heavy now, maybe fifteen pounds, closer to a three-month-old human baby than his three-week age would suggest. Now that the kittens’ eyes were open, they were always staring back at their parents, seemingly fascinated by their faces. Jamie found himself wondering if they saw him any differently than they did Liz, but they seemed just as affectionate towards him as they were to her.

He handed the chubby kitten over to Liz, and she brought him to her bosom, Bren reaching up to knead her breast eagerly. He began to suckle, then Liz sucked in a sharp breath through gritted teeth. She drew the baby back, his furry little brow starting to furrow now that her boob was out of reach. Tears began to well in his eyes, Liz petting him apologetically to stop him from crying.

“What happened?” Jamie asked.

“Little monster bit me,” she replied, Jamie noting a red mark on her nipple.

“Hang on,” he said, moving closer. He reached down carefully, pulling back Bren’s upper lip. On his gums were the beginnings of teeth, their white color contrasting with his pink flesh. “His teeth are coming in!”

“Oh, great,” Liz muttered sarcastically. “How do I teach him not to bite? He can’t even speak yet.”

“Hang on, I read something about this,” Jamie said as he pulled up his phone. “Here we go,” he continued after a few moments of searching. “This article says that you should remove the infant from your breast if he bites, and he’ll eventually get the picture. It also says that you shouldn’t yell at him, because if you scare him, he can go on what’s called a ‘nursing strike’. That doesn’t sound good...”

“That article is talking about human babies, though, right?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “The same principles must apply, I’m sure. So, if he bites, just pull him away and give him a minute to put two and two together. If he doesn’t play nice, he doesn’t get any boob juice.”

“Alright,” she sighed. “Feel like I’m sticking a fork in a power outlet, but here we go...”

She returned Bren to her breast, the kitten maneuvering her nipple into his mouth. He nursed normally for another minute, then Liz grimaced as he bit her again. She did as Jamie had suggested, pulling the baby away from her bosom, Bren starting to kick his little legs in frustration.

“Maybe we should use a bottle today,” Jamie said, but Liz shook her head adamantly.

“No, he has to learn. I don’t want to start bottle-feeding them exclusively, not yet. This is part of being a mom, part of bonding. They need it.”

Liz pressed on, and after one more incident, Bren finally seemed to realize that biting the nipple that feeds was a bad idea. He settled, nursing normally, Liz letting herself relax. It had to be nerve-wracking, just waiting for him to pinch one of the most sensitive parts of her body with his little teeth. Unfortunately, that probably meant that the other four kittens would have to go through the same process. That didn’t mean that Liz had to endure it all at once, however. Jamie grabbed a bottle and helped with the feeding, balancing Toza in his lap as the kitten sucked down the milk greedily.

Fortunately, none of the other kittens bit Liz. It seemed that Bren was ahead of the curve. They had already bought teething rings for just such an occasion, and Jamie fetched one of them, stepping into the playpen through the gate. Immediately, the kittens crawled their way over to him on the foam padding, jostling for space on his lap when he sat down. They really were mobile now.

He gave each of them a little attention, then lifted Bren from the pile, waving the colorful toy in front of his face. The kitten reached out, grasping at the soft material with his little hands, Jamie guiding it into his mouth. Immediately, he started to chew, so engrossed in his new discovery that Jamie was able to set him back down on the floor without complaint.

The kittens had started to show more interest in their toys in the last week or so. The playpen was strewn with various colorful items, from rattles and bead mazes to plush animals and comically sturdy picture books. So far, he had remarked that Hazel liked to play with the stuffed rabbit, and Kenneth was fond of trying to eat whatever would fit in his mouth.

They played with each other, too. They were social little critters. He had seen them playfighting on occasion, more like lion cubs than human babies, rolling around on the foam as they grasped at one another with their clawless fingers.

“He’s chewing it,” Jamie said, Liz leaning in over the low fence.

“Good, maybe he’ll stop chewing ‘me’ now.”

Jamie was chopping carrots at the kitchen counter one day when he heard a cry. Liz was in the bathroom taking a shower, so he set down his knife and turned to see what the kittens were up to. He did a double-take when he saw that Bren was standing ‘outside’ of the playpen. The little kitten was leaning against the plastic barrier, not yet coordinated enough to stand upright on his own, his tiny hands clinging to the top. As Jamie watched, he pulled himself most of the way up, his feet scrabbling to find purchase on the smooth surface. He sank back down, letting out another miserable wail.

Jamie rushed over and scooped him up, the baby lifting his head to rub it against Jamie’s stubbly chin affectionately.

“How the hell did you get out of your pen?” Jamie wondered as he peered down at the other kittens. They had all crawled over to see Jamie, more of them using the fence to support themselves as they stood up. “Did you climb on someone else’s head?”

Curious, he set Bren back down inside the pen. Immediately, the kitten started to climb his way up the wall again, mewling as he tried to reach his dad. He couldn’t even walk yet, but he had the upper body strength to raise himself off the carpet, his feet sliding on the fence. As Jamie watched, Bren found a foothold, a detail in the decorative plastic that gave him just enough leverage to get higher. Jamie caught the kitten as he started to clamber over, cradling him in his arms.

The barrier of the playpen was made from rectangular pieces of plastic with interlocking teeth. It was all very rounded, very colorful, very baby-friendly. If they turned the fence inside-out, that would probably stop Bren from making more great escapes, but Jamie got the feeling that it wouldn’t contain them for very long.

Liz and Jamie had decided to start letting the kittens out of the playpen a few times a day, but only after fastidiously child-proofing the apartment. They covered every electrical outlet with a cap, ensured that the bathroom door was securely closed, and unhooked any trailing wires that were within reach. They also cleared away much of the furniture in the living area, pushing it back against the walls to give them more space. For now, the infants didn’t seem agile enough to find a way up onto the kitchen counter or the dining table.

As soon as the gate to the pen was open, the kittens made their escape, their eyes wide as they crawled around on the carpet. Jamie had been out and bought a walker, which he introduced to Bren. It was a colorful, wheeled frame made of molded plastic, intended to support a baby while they learned to walk. It doubled as a gaudy play center, covered in little balls and toys that would keep an infant occupied. The other kittens would have turns, too, but Bren was by far the most active among them so far.

The orange kitten wrapped his hands around the handle as Jamie let go of him, the walker starting to move when he leaned his weight on it. Almost immediately, a wide smile split Bren’s face, and he began to laugh breathlessly as he toddled along. Jamie couldn’t help but join him. The sound of his excited giggling was infectious.

“Look at him go,” Liz chuckled as she watched from her seat on the carpet.

Bren howled with glee as he made his way across the room, his odd gait drawing Jamie’s eye. Human babies tended to waddle, but Borealans were digitigrade, and Bren had a springier step. He was still clumsy and uncoordinated, but it gave Jamie a glimpse of the agility that he would someday be capable of.

He watched the kitten roll his walker straight into the adjacent wall, tumbling onto his butt once he lost his forward-momentum, but his cackling told Jamie that he wasn’t discouraged. Jamie rose to his feet and made his way over, picking him up and pointing the walker in the other direction. He gave him a pat and sent him on his way again, the kitten laughing as he wobbled along.

He glanced over at Liz, seeing that she was playing with Dazka, the little blonde female. Daz was very talkative, she had been the first of the kittens to start babbling. She loosed a long string of nonsense words as Liz nodded her head, pretending to understand her, the kitten sitting beside her as though imitating her mother. Hazel was nearby, lying on the carpet as she clutched her toy of choice in her little arms, a stuffed rabbit with a pink bow around its neck that was easily as large as she was. At first, Jamie assumed that she was hugging it, but it seemed upon closer inspection that she was biting its shoulder, kicking at it with her paw-like feet. Was she quiet because she was shy, or was she a silent assassin?

Liz reached over to grab the bunny, giving it a wiggle, Hazel redoubling her efforts to slay the creature.

Jamie scanned the room for Kenneth, noticing an orange tail dip behind the low wall that divided the kitchen area from the living room. Suspicious, he made his way over, finding the boy hiding beneath the dining table. There was a wooden mixing spoon clutched in his hands. Who knew how he had managed to get it. The kitten spat angrily as Jamie reached beneath the table to scoop him up, keeping a tight hold on his spoon.

“Where the hell did you get this?” Jamie wondered.

“What does he have?” Liz asked.

“Our son is a spoon bandit,” Jamie replied. He tried to pry it out of the kitten’s hands, but he resisted, Jamie eventually succeeding in separating it from him. Tears welled in Ken’s amber eyes, and he began to cry, a mournful wail filling the apartment. His crying seemed to disturb the other children, most of them turning their furry ears in his direction, wondering what all the fuss was about. Bren paid him no mind, he was still pushing his walker around happily.

“Oh, just let him have it,” Liz said. “It’s not like he can hurt himself with it.”

He returned the wooden spoon to the kitten, who immediately ceased his crying, starting to chew on the round end as Jamie rocked him in his arms.

The kittens tired themselves out rather quickly. They were still very young, and Borealans didn’t have a lot of stamina to begin with. Naptime was declared, Jamie and Liz placing them back in their pen one by one, the babies too sleepy to protest. Hazel was still clinging to her bunny, and Ken had his prized spoon in hand as they joined the sleeping pile, already out before their furry butts had touched the foam.

Jamie and Liz retreated to the couch, flopping down together, enjoying their brief moment of peace.

“Maybe they’re like dogs,” Jamie suggested, Liz raising an eyebrow. “Y’know, you gotta tire them out so they don’t misbehave.”

“Maybe,” she chuckled.

“How are you holding up?” he asked, his tone becoming more serious.

“Well,” she sighed, pausing for a moment as she glanced over at the playpen. “My nipples feel like someone tried to twist them off my chest, and I’m pretty sure I’m one more interrupted night away from sleep deprivation, but ... pretty great.”

“Is it everything you expected?”

“Oh yeah,” she replied. “Both the good and the bad. I knew it would be challenging at times, but it’s all worth it when I see those adorable little faces. This is exactly what I wanted. It’s satisfying in a way that I’ve seldom felt before. Feels like ... I know for sure that I’m doing the right thing.” She reached over and nudged him. “You’ve really been stepping up, too. You’re great with them. It’s kinda hot.”

“Yeah?” he chuckled.

“We’re gonna have a lot of lost time to make up for once I’m all healed up.”

He wanted to suggest that there were other things they could do, but he held his tongue. Liz was tired, sore, in no mood for fooling around. Better to just wait until she was ready, let her take the time that she needed.

Toza splashed in the bath as Jamie tried to hold him still, rubbing shampoo into his fur, the little kitten kicking his legs in the water. Contrary to what he had expected, bathing Borealan kittens was a cinch. Their people had an affinity for water that set them apart from cats, and they seemed to love it. They weren’t quite powerful enough to swim, but there was a hell of a lot of splashing as they made an attempt, usually leaving Jamie soaked to the bone.

The kittens were developing so quickly. Jamie had all kinds of charts that tracked the expected development of babies, but the kittens always seemed a step ahead of their human counterparts. Their progress seemed much more comparable to that of cats than humans. By their second month, they had reached twenty pounds, and although they couldn’t walk unassisted yet, that didn’t stop them from trying. They crawled a lot, and they could climb remarkably well, considering that they couldn’t stand upright yet. Perhaps it was instinctive, some vestigial need to clamber up trees to escape Borealis’ ancient predators.

They were all teething now, and the playpen was always strewn with partially-destroyed rubber rings. Jamie had come up with the idea of buying them chew toys intended for puppies, which was a great success, as they seemed to endure the incessant gnawing for a lot longer.

He rinsed Toza off with the showerhead, the baby batting at the streams of water, then pulled him out of the tub. He wrapped the struggling kitten in a clean towel, which seemed to calm him a little, and stepped out of the bathroom. As he sat down on the couch, drying Toza’s fluffy fur, he heard an alert on his phone. He reached over to retrieve it from the coffee table, keeping it out of reach of the curious kitten as he scrolled through his messages.

“Hey, Liz!” he called.

“What is it?” she asked, turning to look back at him as she stirred a pot on the stove.

“I just got a message from my parents. They say they want to come over and meet the kittens.”

“Huh, really?” she asked. “I know you guys aren’t very close, but after two months, I figured they just weren’t interested.”

“I’ve been sending them pictures and videos,” Jamie said. “I guess I whittled them down over time. You were right, babies are a good way to reconnect with estranged family members.”

“They don’t have to come over if you don’t want them to, you know,” Liz added as she turned to face him. She crossed her arms, her ladle in hand, leaning back against the counter. “It’s your decision. You get to choose if they have access to our family or not.”

“It’s not like I hate them,” he sighed, bouncing the swaddled kitten in his lap. “They were good parents, they never beat me or anything like that, they never treated me unfairly. They just ... didn’t support me when I needed it the most. I was so torn up after your folks took you back to Borealis. I was depressed, my grades started slipping. Sure, they were sympathetic at first, but that quickly turned to frustration.”

“People do that,” Liz sighed, nodding her head. “They make superficial attempts to cheer you up, then get angry when you don’t magically get over your problems, which just makes things worse. There’s nothing quite like being berated for being miserable.”

“They tried to diminish what we had,” he continued. “They tried to gaslight me, convince me that it wasn’t real, that it was some kind of foolish puppy love. It wasn’t their lack of understanding that upset me so much, but the fact that they didn’t even try. All they cared about was maintaining the status quo, because it was easier than actually dealing with the problem.”

“You can tell them no,” Liz added.

“I dunno,” he muttered, Toza reaching up to bat at his chin. “I only have one set of parents. These kittens might be my last excuse to repair our relationship. I’d like the kids to know their grandparents, I think it’s important.”

“If that’s the way you feel,” she added with a shrug. “I don’t have beef with your parents, they were always nice to me, but the way they treated you when you were at your most vulnerable does rub my fur the wrong way.”

“Rub your fur the wrong way?” he chuckled.

“Yeah, like when you go against the grain,” she explained as she ran her hand up her forearm to demonstrate.

“I think you mean ‘it rubs me the wrong way’. You spent too much time on Borealis, you’re forgetting your English.”

“Oh, right,” she snickered. “Yeah, Elysians have a similar saying. Guess I mixed them up.”

“Sorry, by the way,” he added.

“For what?” Liz asked, cocking her head at him.

“Here I am complaining about my parents wanting to come over, and yours don’t even have the option.”

“Eh, it’s fine,” she replied with a dismissive wave of her giant hand. “As you well know, interstellar travel isn’t an easy affair. They’ll meet the kids one day, probably when we visit Borealis.”

“You’re dead set on that, huh?”

“Of course,” she said with a toothy grin. “Don’t worry, you’ll love it, and it’ll be kind of a spirit quest for the kids. They’ll have learned all about their human side, but we’ll need to show them what it means to be part Borealan too.”

“So ... you think I should invite them over?” Jamie asked.

“If that’s what you want. It doesn’t have to be right away. You can think on it a while.”

“I think this is a bandaid that needs ripping off,” he said, starting to type a reply.

“Hurry,” Jamie said as he adjusted the tablecloth, waving Liz over. She set the plates down on the dining table, and he began to place one in front of each seat. “They’ll be here any minute.”

“I don’t think your parents care about the placement of the cutlery, Jamie,” Liz chided. “They’re here to meet the kittens.”

“I know, I know, but I haven’t had them over in years. I want to make a good impression.”

Liz marched up behind him and placed her furry hands on his shoulders, starting to rub, careful to keep her sharp claws away from his shirt. He leaned into her, the sensation distracting him.

“Chill out,” she insisted. “You don’t need to try so hard. This isn’t a job interview.”

There was a knock at the door, Jamie tensing up again. Liz released him, and he made his way over, the door sliding open as he hit the touch panel. His parents were standing outside. His father was tall at six feet and change, and Jamie had inherited his stature. The man’s hair was a shade of brown, a few silver hairs standing out here and there. He sported a full beard in the same hue, and he was wearing a dark coat with a scarf wrapped around his neck. His mother’s hair was still the same vibrant blonde that he remembered, a trait that Jamie had inherited from her side of the family. She was wearing a sweater, and she had a box clutched in her hands. A gift for the kittens, perhaps?

His mother greeted him more warmly than his father, who gave him a handshake as he invited them inside. Liz came over to say hello, his father having to lift his head to look her in the eye. They had known Liz since she was a young child, and they had met her since her return from Borealis, but her enormous stature still seemed to surprise them. Perhaps they still couldn’t reconcile the slight girl they had known with the giant that stood before them. It had taken Jamie some time to acclimate to her new physicality after her return, too.

“It’s so nice to see you again, Liz,” his mother said. She made to hug her but reconsidered when she realized that her arms wouldn’t make it all the way around her hips. Liz crouched and gave her a kind of one-armed hug instead. Jamie’s father offered her his hand, and she enclosed it entirely in her furry fist.

“You’re looking ... healthy,” he stammered.

“We brought a gift for the babies,” Jamie’s mother said, presenting the box that she was carrying. It was wrapped with colorful paper, tied up in a neat bow.

“Oh, thank you,” Jamie said as she handed it to him. He unwrapped it, Liz hovering over his shoulder. Inside the cardboard box was a rolled-up blanket, Jamie lifting it out. It was incredibly soft, covered in downy, white fur.

“It’s a sheepskin blanket,” she explained as Jamie passed it to Liz. “We had one for you when you were a baby.”

“Wow, it’s soft,” Liz mused as she rolled it between her padded fingers.

“Thanks, mom,” Jamie said. “The kittens will love it.”