Chapter 6: Gamete

They thanked Sousa, then retired to their prefab, Jamie setting the cup down on the kitchen table. He wasn’t sure where else to put it.

“I suppose we just have to wait for Sousa and his team to get the procedure set up,” he said, kicking off his boots and flopping down onto the couch. “You ready to have your fertile eggs harvested, Liz?”

“What a romantic way of putting it,” she grumbled, reaching down to unfasten the straps on her shoes. “I’m sure it will be fine. The UAS people seem to know what they’re doing. God, I hate wearing these things...”

She kicked them off by the door, flexing her paws in relief, then made her way over to the table. Jamie watched as she picked up the cup, tossing it into the air, then catching it again. She walked around to the front of the couch, planting one hand on her hip as she held the little plastic container between her padded fingers.

“I don’t want to wait any longer than I have to, so take your pants off...”

“Uh, right now?” he stammered.

“If I have to undergo an invasive procedure, then I’m going to make damn sure you provide a high-quality sample,” she said as her emerald eyes locked onto him. She exposed her sharp teeth in a grin as he began to unbuckle his jeans, her tail whipping back and forth behind her impatiently.

As he freed his growing erection, Liz reached out with her prehensile tail, brushing its furry tip up the length of his shaft. He shuddered, leaning back into the couch cushions, the faux-leather creaking.

Liz had such fine control over the appendage that she could wrap it around his length like a tentacle, encompassing him in her silky, straw-colored coat. It was like being teased with a feather boa, his smirking partner standing there, twirling the cup in her hand as she watched him shiver.

Keeping her hold on his member, she took a step closer, setting the cup down on the armrest. Jamie lurched as she reached down to slide her hands beneath his arms, lifting him from his seat. She sat down in his place, her hips wide enough to wedge between the armrests, the wooden frame grumbling under her weight. She sat Jamie in her lap, his butt sinking into the cushion of her thighs. Her leather jacket was open, and he felt the soft meat of her breasts spill over his shoulders through the fabric of her shirt, cushioning his head as he leaned back into her embrace.

“Sit still,” she cooed, her warm breath blowing his hair. She leaned a little closer, Jamie’s spine arching as he felt her soft lips brush his ear, her pointed teeth pricking him as she bit him gently. One of her muscular arms wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer, sinking him deeper into her inviting bosom.

“You’re more comfortable than that ratty couch,” he muttered, Liz rewarding him with another teasing bite.

The tip of her fluffy tail brushed his balls, a tingle of pleasure making him go quiet. He watched as she slowly crawled her free hand down towards his pulsing member, her fingers curling around it. Her coat was as soft as velvet, Jamie able to feel each individual hair brush his glans as she squeezed, burying him in a prison of silky fur. Her hand was large enough to encompass him completely, Liz starting to slowly pump her fist in a gentle stroking motion. He squirmed in her lap as her fingers caressed him, those wickedly sharp talons kept mercifully clear, the way that she alternated her grip keeping him guessing.

“You’d better tell me when you’re gonna pop,” she warned, giving his earlobe a tug with her teeth. “If you come in my hand instead of in the cup, I’m gonna be mad.”

“What’re you gonna do about it?” he asked, playing along. Liz always liked it when he was defiant, when he challenged her.

“Guess I’ll just have to keep milking you until you cooperate...”

He gritted his teeth as he felt the fleshy pad of her thumb press against his glans. The sensation contrasted sharply with her delicate fur, spongy and soft, like a warm marshmallow. Liz began to make slow circles, massaging his tender tip, Jamie gripping her leather sleeve as the waves of pleasure rolled over him.

Her other hand slid beneath his shirt, Jamie’s head spinning as he felt the tips of her claws prick his belly. She was so careful, knowing exactly how much pressure to apply so as not to cut him, but their mere presence heightened his sensitivity. Her hands were so warm, Liz seeming to relish the way that his abdominal muscles tensed with her every squeeze.

The pace of her gentle stroking gradually increased, the warmth and wetness of her tongue snapping him out of his stupor as its pointed tip probed his ear, the sound of her sucking and nibbling filling his head.

He began to thrust into her fist, her fingers acting as ribs, creating another layer of wonderful sensation. She held her hand still, allowing it for only a few pumps before squeezing the base of his cock tightly between her thumb and forefinger, watching his erection swell and throb.

“I know you’ll give me more if I make you wait a little,” she giggled, her hand sliding down to cup his balls. She cradled them, the silky texture of her fur unbearable, her lips crawling down to his neck.

“Fuck, they feel so full,” she sighed. “Maybe it’s just my imagination, but it makes me feel all ... squirmy.”

She pressed her teeth into his skin, just enough to leave a red indent, the familiar warmth of her lips making him melt into her arms.

“I want this to be special,” she whispered, bringing her hand back to his aching member as it bobbed in the air. She pressed the pad of her index finger against his tip, wetting it with a bead of his leaking pre, making slow circles. “We’ve been playing pretend up until now, but this is the load that’s going to get me pregnant. I want you to think about that,” she added, giving him another soft bite that made him buck. “I want that cup full of your intent, as well as your come. I want to know that you want it.”

“I ... I do want it,” he stammered. “I’d do it myself if I could.”

“I like that idea,” she chuckled, rewarding him with another teasing press of her pad. “Do you fantasize about it? Tell me...”

“Yeah,” he grunted, prompted by another prod. “I can’t even count the number of times we’ve made love, and I’ve never even touched a rubber. By all rights, we should have an army of kids by now.”

“We might be skipping the most fun step, but the result will still be the same,” she chuckled. “They used to rut so much back on Borealis, it was crazy,” she added with a sultry sigh. “If a girl liked you, she’d just pin you to the ground and fuck a baby out of you, keep going until you loved it. My pack were always at it, the higher-ranked members having their fill of their subordinates almost every night. They used to think that I was crazy for cloistering myself away, getting myself off to memories of you, to thoughts of what I’d do with you when I made it back.”

The thought made him blush, Liz nuzzling the nape of his neck contentedly, wallowing in a fantasy that was soon to become manifest.

“I promised you’d never have to get yourself off again,” Jamie said, Liz purring in his ear.

“And you’ve been true to your word...”

She released his member, bringing her hand to her mouth, parting her lips to extend her long tongue. She coated her palm in a web of bubbling saliva, matting the fur, closing her fingers with an audible squelch. She returned it to his shaft, sliding him into her fist, his skin gliding on a slimy layer of her warm drool. Jamie groaned as he felt her hot, wet fur drag across his tender glans. It felt like someone had soaked a mink glove in personal lubricant.

“You look about ready to pop,” she whispered, giving him a dizzying squeeze. “Come for me...”

She started to stroke again, more vigorously this time, her soaking-wet fur caressing his throbbing length. Jamie could do little other than relax into the inviting cushion of her ample breasts, feeling them rock gently against the back of his head as her fist pumped. His hips rose up to meet her hand on its way down, fucking it in earnest, Liz cooing in his ear contentedly as she watched him rut. She swirled her damp thumb around his glans, teasing his balls with the tip of her tail, whispering encouragements as she drowned him in pleasure. Her hand was so warm and slimy, as tight as she wanted to make it, his addled mind unable to distinguish it from her clenching loins.

“Fuck,” he grunted, feeling his climax welling. “G-get the cup!”

Liz reached over to swipe it from the armrest, hastily removing the lid as she sat up to lean Jamie forward, placing the container just beneath his glans. Her pace reached a fever pitch, Liz applying more pressure with her fingers as she neared his tip, like a farmhand milking a cow. It was exactly what he needed, exactly when he needed it, a stifled moan of ecstasy escaping him as he watched the first rope of his seed splash against the bottom of the cup.

Liz changed its angle a little, catching another thick, gelatinous wad as it impacted the side. He could hear her breathing heavily in his ear, biting her lip as she watched him orgasm, another pump of her fist wringing more of his emission from him.

“God, I can feel its warmth through the plastic,” she murmured as he gave her another shuddering rope. “Keep going...”

Jamie sank his fingers into her soft thighs through the fabric of her sweatpants, his mop of blonde hair falling over his face as she squeezed out one last throb, his cock connected to the edge of the cup by a sagging rope of pearly fluid. His muscles aching, he leaned back into her arms, letting a wave of afterglow wash over him.

“Good boy,” Liz purred, holding the cup up to the light. “You gave me so much. Look at that,” she added, admiring his work. “It’s almost enough to fill a goddamned shot glass...”

Jamie chuckled, shifting his weight as he got more comfortable in her bosom. She secured the lid, still holding the container in her hand, as though unwilling to put it down.

“This is the one,” she sighed. “I can feel it.”

“Even if it isn’t, I got plenty more where that came from,” Jamie sighed.

“I think I have a problem,” Liz muttered, watching the contents of the cup slide around as she turned it over in her hand. “How crazy am I on a scale of one to ten if I just kind of want to ... pour it into my hand? It’s still so fucking warm...”

“We can do that later, if you want,” Jamie mumbled.

“Watching you get off always pushes my buttons,” she added with a frustrated snarl, burying her nose in his hair as she took in a lungful of his scent. “We should get this to Sousa. I don’t know how long it stays fresh if it’s not refrigerated. But when we get back, you’d better help me burn off this heat.”

“You betcha,” he replied groggily.

It only took a day for Sousa and his team to prepare Liz’s procedure. It was carried out in the UAS building, rather than in the depths of the hive, which set her more at ease. It was a human procedure, performed by human doctors, and it went off without a hitch. They were able to harvest a dozen fertile eggs ready for use in the gene-editing process.

Jamie was by her bedside when she woke up, fading in and out of consciousness as the anesthetic slowly wore off. It was a little alarming at first to see her try to wake up but to be unable, yet the comfortable smile on her face reassured him. When she finally came around, she described the sensation as a deep, restful sleep. Besides some slight soreness in her abdomen, she didn’t complain of any pain or discomfort.

With that done, all of the donor cells were ready, and they could proceed to the gene-editing phase. Most of the UAS scientists were clustered around one of the monitors, a few Bugs joining them, while the rest of the team crowded the strange Jarilan organ that was still hooked up to the servers. Between them, they had managed to parse the data in a way that was more intuitive for a human, the technicians working with the Bugs to create a user interface that let them more easily examine the output from the biomechanical device.

“See, this value right here represents the gene that controls skin pigmentation in humans,” one of the scientists said as he gestured to a set of numbers on the screen. Sousa leaned closer, examining them.

“We can switch that out,” he suggested. “Look, it’s not linked to any other important genes in either species. We just replace ... these nucleotides here ... with those from the human donor. That gives us a stable value, no genetic instability.”

“That will change the baby’s skin color?” Jamie asked.

“Yeah,” Sousa replied. “The goal here is to port over as many of your genes as we can without negatively impacting the blueprint. The blueprint being the Borealan genome. We need to start having a conversation about what exactly you want this baby to look like.”

“Babies,” Nightingale chimed in, Jamie and Liz turning to stare at the squat insect as her furry antennae bobbed in the air.

“What do you mean, babies?” Sousa asked.

“Upon examining the donor eggs, it has become apparent that Borealans reproduce in clutches,” the Bug added. “For maximum compatibility and the lowest risk factor, we recommend that at least five offspring be incubated.”

“F-five offspring!?” Jamie blurted, reaching out to steady himself on the edge of a nearby table. “Liz, catch me, I think I’m gonna pass out...”

She reached out with her tail, propping him up.

“Five?” she repeated, her cheeks blushing a shade of red. She blinked down at the Bug in disbelief, the creature’s face expressionless as it peered back at her. “Why does it have to be an entire litter?”

“Your reproductive system is configured to incubate multiple eggs at once,” Nightingale explained. “Incubating a single offspring could create unforeseen complications, potential for danger. The option that best follows the safety parameters laid out by Doctor Sousa requires us to proceed with a minimum of five eggs, yes, unless you wish to alter the safety parameters to allow for more experimentation?”

“What do you guys think?” Sousa asked, turning his attention back to Liz and Jamie. “Five is a much bigger number than one, I know, but I have to agree with Nightingale. The fewer changes we make to your natural reproductive cycle, the better the chances that the pregnancy goes smoothly. It would be a tragedy to go through all of this only to miscarriage because we were too ambitious.”

“C-can we talk about this? In private?” Jamie hissed.

Liz nodded, the two of them heading out of the building as the crowd of scientists and Jarilans watched. Once they were out of earshot around the side of the prefab, Jamie turned to Liz, trying to compose himself.

“Five!” he blurted, pacing back and forth in the mud as she tracked him with her furry ears. “One was going to be enough of a challenge, but five!”

“Yeah, I know how many five is,” she replied. “You can stop repeating it.”

“Five!” he added for good measure, Liz’s leather jacket creaking as she crossed her arms. “How are we going to feed five Borealans? What do they even eat? Do we just throw a whole sheep carcass into their playpen and hope for the best? Where am I gonna buy a sheep carcass?”

“What are you feeling right now?” she asked, watching him with those green eyes. “Stop for a minute and think about it. Talk to me.”

He did as she asked, stopping his pacing, taking in a few deep breaths.

“Excited, scared,” he replied. “Pretty much every emotion all at once. I jinxed us yesterday, didn’t I? When I talked about how we should have had an army of kids by now?”

“I promised that this would be a conversation,” Liz said, Jamie glancing up at her. “This is totally unexpected, you didn’t sign up for this, and if it’s a deal-breaker...”

“Don’t even suggest it,” he replied, Liz blinking her eyes at him as he pointed an accusing finger at her. “We’ve journeyed to the ends of the fucking Galaxy to make this happen, and I’ll be damned if we’re going to fall at the last hurdle. A baby is the only thing you’ve ever asked of me.”

“A baby, singular,” she added with a weak chuckle. “Five is ... a lot, for a human.”

“How the hell do you deal with a whole litter back on Borealis?” he asked. “Does everyone have half a dozen babies at a time out there?”

“We live in packs,” she explained. “Everyone raises the kittens communally, and if you get too wiped out, there’s always someone there to pick up the slack.”

“So, what? We’re like the Borealan equivalent of single parents?”

“I guess so,” she replied with a shrug. “We’re like ... one-third of a pack. I won’t lie, that means we’re going to have to do three times the work.”

“You’re the one who has to carry them,” Jamie continued. “Is this what you want?”

“Fuck,” she sighed, leaning back against the metal wall of the prefab and running her fingers through her cropped hair. “I don’t know whether I want to laugh or cry, and I’m not even knocked up yet...”

“If you want to have these kids, then I’m with Nightingale,” Jamie said. “My first priority is your safety, and if they say that having a whole litter is the safest option for you, then that’s what we’re gonna do.”

“Really?” she asked. “When I saw how you reacted to the news, I thought that ... maybe our little project was finished. As much as I want kids, our relationship is what’s most important, and I don’t want to stress it to the point that it breaks...”

“If we shied away from doing things because they were hard, we wouldn’t even be together,” Jamie replied, taking a few steps closer. He reached out to take her furry hands in his, Liz giving him a weary smile as he squeezed them. “After being separated, after you found your way back from Borealis, what’s a couple of extra kids? Are we gonna fall apart because we’re going to have a bigger family than we planned for? Nah.”

“You’re really okay with it?” she asked, her eyes starting to brim with tears. He hadn’t seen her cry since they were teenagers, the unexpected show of vulnerability lighting in a fire in him, all of those protective impulses coming flooding back. She might be proud and confident now, comfortable in her own skin, but she had never stopped being the little girl that he had met on the swing set that day.

“This isn’t even that unusual,” he added. “Human couples have twins, sometimes triplets, even octuplets. It’s not like I’m the first guy to ever freak out after hearing he’s having more kids than he was planning for. We can be terrified and overjoyed at the same time.”

Liz reached down and caught him in her arms, lifting him off the ground as she trapped him in a tight hug. She buried her nose in his hair, breathing in his scent, which seemed to calm her somewhat.

“We must be scaring the crap out of Sousa and his team,” she chuckled, setting Jamie back down. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve, her usual pep returning. “They probably think we’re about to bail on the whole thing. We should get back inside and let them know what we’ve decided.”

Jamie nodded, the two of them making their way back to the entrance.

“Considering that we now have more than one bun in the oven,” Sousa began, pointing to the strings of numbers on the display. “I’m proposing we go for a grab-bag approach.”

“What’s that?” Jamie asked. Liz cocked her head, not following.

“We’re going to take all of the genes responsible for skin pigmentation, eye color, and hair color, and we’re going to randomize them. That means that each baby could express genes from either one of you. You could end up with one that has Lizka’s skin tone and Jamie’s eyes, or maybe Jamie’s skin and Lizka’s hair. Coupled with some recessive genes that might express thanks to the medics’ tinkering, you should end up with a lot of variation.”

“I think that’s better than selecting their traits ourselves,” Jamie said, nodding his head. “Let nature decide.”

“It’s not exactly natural,” Liz added.

“We’re not cutting mother nature out of the equation,” Sousa said, wagging a finger. “We’re just giving her a little prod in the right direction. She has more experience in this field than we do, better to let her take the wheel where we can.”

“It sounds like a good idea,” Liz said. “I don’t think I would have been able to decide if we had to select each trait ourselves. I’d always be wondering if I made the right decision.”

“If those are your wishes, then I’ll instruct the Jarilans to start editing the genomes,” Sousa continued. “Billions of those little molecular readers are going to start unpacking the chromosomes, reading through the DNA strands, and adding the new nucleotides during the replication process. When that’s done, we can introduce the edited sperm cells to the edited eggs under laboratory conditions, and presto, fertilization. The next step will be implanting the fertilized eggs into your uterine wall, where they’ll hopefully take, and start growing as though nothing unusual happened.”

“How long will it take until they’re ready?” Liz asked eagerly.

“Four or five days,” Sousa explained. “We’ll want to let them mature a little in the lab so we can be sure that they’re healthy.”

“I guess we’ll have some time to kill, then,” Jamie said.

“I’ll be sure to get in touch as soon as they’re ready,” Sousa added. “Until then, I guess you have a few days of vacation time. If you wander any further than the hive, remember to keep to the paths, and don’t stray too far into the forests. There’s not a lot of things that can hurt you on Jarilo besides getting lost, especially not a Borealan, but a Knife-Tooth can still give you a nasty bite. We can assign a Jarilan to guide you any time you want, it’s really no trouble. You only have to ask.”

They thanked him profusely for all his work, then headed outside, unsure of what to do next.

There weren’t very many colonists in the settlement, but it was far from deserted. Every so often, someone would appear from one of the prefabs or walk past them along the muddy path. Others were hard at work, unloading crates from the flatbed trucks or servicing comms equipment on the roofs of the buildings. Everyone had a job to do, and it made Jamie feel a little out of place.

“Think there are any restaurants or bars around here?” Liz asked.

“Restaurants? Probably not,” Jamie replied, “but I don’t think a human settlement has ever existed anywhere that didn’t have a bar. Want to go look around?”

She nodded, and they made their way deeper into the small settlement. There weren’t more than three-dozen buildings, many of them made up of multiple prefabs that had been connected together, much like the UAS building. It kind of reminded Jamie of the frontier towns from the Old West that were so common in Cowboy movies, the elaborate facades replaced with spartan, functional metal and polymer. They came across a general store that was identified only by a sign that was hanging out front, as it had no windows through which to display its goods. They passed by a power station, a network of insulated cables the thickness of Jamie’s thigh snaking their way out towards the other buildings, partially buried in the ever-present mud. This was one of the few structures that was different from the surrounding prefabs, a domed cylinder that resembled a small grain silo, covered in a chrome-like finish that made it shine in the sunlight. According to Liz, it was a portable fusion generator.

As they rounded a corner on the muddy street, they came across a surprising sight. A section of land at the edge of the forest had been cordoned off by a wire fence, not unlike the one that had surrounded Bluejay’s chicken coop. The ground had been paved over with concrete, which itself had been overlaid with what looked like a carpet of fake grass. There were swing sets, seesaws, even a sandpit. The gleeful laughter and squealing of children soon reached their ears, and they paused to watch a dozen youngsters race around the pen.

“People are bringing their families here,” Jamie mused, a wave of nostalgia overwhelming him as he watched a boy push a little girl on one of the swings.

“They’re starting a real society,” Liz replied. “These kids are going to grow up here, it’s all they’ll ever know. Earth will be completely foreign to them. They’ll have their own children, start their own families here, they’ll probably be buried in Jarilan soil when they die. It’s an odd thought.”

“I wonder how it will change their outlook, living alongside the Jarilans?” Jamie continued. “Most people in known space have a deeply-ingrained hatred for them, but these kids are going to grow up with them, they’ll be a part of everyday life.”

“Look,” Liz said, pointing up into the branches of a tree that overlooked the playground. “There’s a Drone up there...”

Jamie followed her gaze, seeing a flash of green carapace. It was another Winged Drone, just like Bluejay, this one sporting a shell in mint green. He was carrying a resin rifle, his eyes fixed on the children below, watching them like a hawk from his high perch.

“I can’t believe it,” Jamie said, the realization hitting him. “It’s like the chickens. He’s on sentry duty.”

“You wondered if the children would have a different outlook, but it seems as though their parents have already changed their way of thinking if they’ll trust a Bug to watch over their kids.”

“I suppose a Bug is going to be far more attentive than any human,” Jamie mused. “That might be the wildest thing I’ve seen yet...”

“This is the frontier,” Liz added. “You can’t afford to reject help out here. If someone else is watching the kids, it frees up their parents to do essential work.”

“You getting any maternal impulses?” he asked, giving her a nudge with his elbow.

“A little,” she chuckled, lingering a little longer as she watched one of the younger kids build a castle in the sandpit.

After a little more searching, they found the bar, as Jamie had suspected. It was another prefab, only identifiable from the rest by the neon sign outside that advertised drinks.

They stepped inside, Jamie feeling a little like he was walking into a saloon, all eyes in the room turning to his towering companion. There were maybe ten people in the establishment, most of them wearing mud-stained coveralls, likely workmen on their break. There was even a UAS scientist sitting at the bar, identifiable by the patch on her shoulder, nursing a drink as she made conversation with one of the colonists.

It was rather cramped compared to the bars in the city that Jamie was more accustomed to, the bar stools and tables all made in exceedingly simple, metal designs that looked like they had probably been printed as single units. The bar had been extruded from the floor, and the shelves behind it that were loaded with colorful bottles were similarly a component of the building itself. Could you just order a bar in prefab form for your burgeoning colony?

They walked up to the counter, the bartender making his way over to greet them. He was a middle-aged man with a full beard, dressed in civilian clothes.

“We don’t get many new faces out here,” he said. “I’d heard people talk about seeing a Borealan walking around the settlement the last couple of days. Guess that was you. What brings you all the way out to our humble colony?”

Jamie and Liz exchanged a glance, neither of them entirely comfortable with sharing the details of their medical procedures with the stranger.

“We’re here on an assignment for the UAS,” he replied, the bartender perceptive enough to know that they weren’t interested in discussing the subject any further.

“What can I get you?” he asked.

“What have you got?” Liz shot back, eyeing the shelves behind him.

“Whatever we can import, and whatever we can make ourselves,” he replied. “If you want the off-planet stuff, there’s a premium, as it’s not cheap to ship in non-essential goods. As for what we can make here, we do have a brewery unit set up, and we have the grains to make malt for the fermentation process. We’ve got a few different kinds of beer made from various grains, and vodka made from potatoes. It goes over better than you’d expect.”

“I guess I’ll take a beer,” Jamie said. “Whatever the house recommends.”

“And for the lady?” the bartender asked, glancing up at Liz.

“I’ll take whatever you’ve got that has the lowest alcohol content,” she replied.

“Whoa, wait a minute,” Jamie said as the bartender began to pour their drinks. “What currency do you guys use out here? All I’ve got with me is my phone, and I don’t think I can make a transfer, since my bank is about sixty light-years away.”

“You guys are with the UAS, right?” he asked. “I’ll just put it on their tab.”

“Oh, sure,” Jamie replied. The man was remarkably trusting, but then again, this was no city. The larger the population, the more impersonal every interaction became. There was no need for suspicion when you knew everyone in your community by name.

They picked up their drinks and made their way to the back of the bar, where there were a handful of tables and chairs scattered about. Liz pushed the smaller seats out of the way, choosing to sit on the floor as she often did when there were no chairs that could accommodate her weight. As they began to drink, more patrons entered the bar. The first was a Marine, identifiable by his Navy-blue uniform, while the second was a Krell. Jamie had seen one once before, at the spaceport back on Earth, but the sight of it made him do a double-take all the same.