Chapter 9: Antepartum

The crawler finally arrived, and after its passengers had been unloaded, the people waiting in the boarding area were ushered through another door and into the dock. Inside the circular platform was the car, just as Jamie remembered it. The crawler was vaguely conical in its design, tapering at the top, where the massive cable emerged to extend deeper into the ceiling above. It was secured by a series of bulky docking clamps that held it in place, the airlock far below tightly closed. Through the series of reinforced portholes that ringed its off-white hull, Jamie could see the stewardesses milling about inside as they prepared for the next load of travelers.

The crowd of maybe a hundred people began to walk up the metal gantries that led to the open hatches, Liz having to duck under the low doorway as she stepped through. The interior was the same white color as the hull, the deck carpeted in the usual blue. Jamie wasn’t sure if this was the same crawler they had ridden up on. Considering that it was built around the tether, it seemed likely.

One of the uniformed stewardesses guided them over to the Borealan-sized seats that faced out from the cylindrical bulkhead at the center of the car, Liz starting to load their luggage into the compartments above. They had only their bags on hand now, as they had checked the crates, which would probably have been loaded into the car’s cargo bays by now.

About half an hour passed before the seatbelt signs above the windows flickered on, Jamie and Liz fastening their harnesses. The voice of one of the stewardesses crackled over the speakers, running through a series of safety instructions, Jamie listening as he refreshed his memory.

“This is it,” Liz said, giving him a nudge with her elbow. “We’ll be back home in a few hours.”

“Is the ride down any different from the ride up?” Jamie asked warily.

“Not really,” she replied with a shrug. “It just means the bumpy part is at the end.”

The mag-lev system that the car used made the ride a relatively smooth one, but the reverberation of the docking clamps above them releasing the crawler still made his seat shake. His stomach lurched as they began to descend, the industrial interior of the docking bay quickly sliding past the windows, giving way to the blackness of space.

Liz reached over to take his hand, and he realized that he had been gripping the armrests of his seat tightly.

“You’re still just a ‘little’ muddy,” she chuckled, giving him a reassuring squeeze.

It was only a matter of minutes before the seatbelt signs shut off, and the voice of the stewardess informed them that they could start moving about again. They were still tens of thousands of kilometers above the atmosphere, so there was no danger of turbulence. Jamie rose from his seat and stretched, preparing himself for another few hours without much to do other than eat the in-flight meal and watch space fly past them beyond the frost-encrusted windows.

The Earth was finally in sight, the curving, blue horizon rising up from beneath the crawler. Jamie watched from the window, transfixed by the view, admiring the blanket of swirling clouds that stretched out before him. He felt an unexpected swell of nostalgia. As much as he had enjoyed the strange journey that he and Liz had embarked upon, it was a comforting feeling to be coming home again, where everything made sense.

“It’s nice to be back,” Liz said as she sidled up beside him, taking a sip from a drink that one of the stewardesses had brought her. “I’ve visited three planets now, and this one is still my favorite.”

“It’s going to be strange being anonymous again,” he replied.

“What do you mean?” she asked, cocking her head at him.

“On the Magellan, in the settlement, everybody knew each other by name. There were so few people around that you recognized everyone who passed you in the street or in the corridors. Now, we’re going back to a city where tens of millions of people live, where we pass by a thousand strangers just walking to the coffee shop.”

“I’m never anonymous,” Liz chuckled. “I kind of like not knowing everyone, though. There are no expectations, you can just go about your business without having to spare a thought for anyone’s opinion of you.”

“I guess that’s one way to look at it.”

“I think they’re bringing the cart back around if you want anything to eat,” Liz said. “You have to be hungry by now. The last time we ate a square meal was back on the ship.”

“Yeah, I could eat,” he conceded as he turned away from the window.

The turbulence slowly abated, Jamie gripping his harness as the crawler cleared the cloud layer. Beyond the windows, he saw only blue skies, the rays of Earth’s sun bleeding in through the glass. He had been gone from Jarilo for too long to remember the exact quality of the light there with any clarity, but Sol’s light seemed more golden to him, somehow warmer than its alien counterpart.

The spires of towering high-rises and skyscrapers seemed to sprout from the ground as they rose up on the horizon, forming a familiar skyline, rolling fields of green separated by scattered pockets of woodland coming into view. The sight gave him a kind of vertigo that he hadn’t felt when viewing the Earth from space. Being able to see so far without dense forests or metal bulkheads blocking his view, actually being able to see the way that the atmospheric haze obscured distant objects – it was something he hadn’t experienced in months.

The metal cage of the anchor soon obscured the sight, blotting out the sunlight, Jamie feeling the tug of inertia as the crawler slowed. A rumbling sound shook the deck beneath his feet as the car docked, the seatbelt sign turning off. A woman’s voice crackled over the speakers, announcing that they have arrived at the spaceport and informing them of the local time. The passengers rose from their seats and began to retrieve their baggage, Liz doing the same.

“I’m looking forward to feeling a few trillion tons of rock beneath my feet again,” she grumbled, thrusting one of the duffel bags into his arms.

“I’m about ready to collapse,” he replied. “It’s five PM on Earth, but my internal clock has been scrambled. I feel like it’s four AM, and I’ve been awake for forty hours...”

“Jump-lag,” Liz added. “We’ll be messed up for a few days, but it’s not like we have anywhere to be.”

They filed out of the crawler with the rest of the passengers, making their way down the gantries and onto the ring-shaped platform that surrounded it. After heading out of the dock, they emerged into the mag-lev station, the roof above their heads made from panes of glass. They paused to admire the sky, as did a few of their fellow travelers.

There wasn’t much time to linger, as the train was already boarding, Liz and Jamie finding seats on one of the cars. As they pulled out of the station, gliding along one of the curving rails, Jamie turned to look back at the anchor. It was the size of a building, surrounded by a sturdy frame, its supports digging deep into the ground. Above it extended the black tether, its warning lights blinking intermittently.

They rode the train to the spaceport terminal, and after collecting their bags and piling them atop another cart, they finally left the building. The sun was starting to set now, painting the horizon in shades of pink and orange, the distant spires of the city silhouetted against the glow. The air here had a distinct flavor to it, not as fresh as how Jamie remembered Jarilo, but it filled him with nostalgia. Something deep inside him told him that this was where he belonged, where he was supposed to be. He glanced up at Liz, watching the wind blow her blonde hair.

She filled her lungs, sighing contentedly.

“Smells like home.”

“I’ll call us a taxi,” Jamie said, pulling up his phone. A few minutes later, a van in a similar style to the one they had ridden in before leaving Earth pulled up beside the curb, and they began to pile their crates into the back. They had a lot more luggage this time, and there was just enough room for Liz to squeeze in. Fortunately, she discovered that the sturdy resin the Bugs had used to make the crates could easily support her weight, so she had a more comfortable seat this time.

Jamie climbed into the driver’s seat, keying their route into the nav system, then sat back as the vehicle pulled out onto the road.

“So,” Liz began, standing beside the van with her hands on her hips as she peered up at the towering high-rise before them. Jamie had come to think of Jarilo’s trees as impossibly tall, but being at the foot of this edifice of glass and steel again made them look like toothpicks in comparison. “How the hell are we going to get all of these crates up to our floor?”

“How many can we carry at once?” Jamie asked. “I can only carry one.”

“I can probably carry three if I stack them,” she replied, turning to peer into the back of the van. “We’ve got twelve crates, so that’s ... three trips. We can manage that.”

“Make it four with the rest of the luggage,” Jamie added.

“Alright, just make sure the damned taxi doesn’t drive off with our stuff in the meantime,” she said as she leaned down to pick up a crate. She piled four of them on the curb, Jamie locking the doors at the rear of the vehicle to make sure that no passers-by got any funny ideas.

“Are you sure you can lift that many?” he asked, watching as Liz stooped to pick up three of the crates.

“What, I’m supposed to be all fragile because I’m pregnant?” she chuckled, leaning around the stack to grin at him. “It’s kinda cute how you keep fawning over me. Reminds me of when we were kids.”

He lifted his own crate, trying not to blush as he followed her into the building’s cavernous lobby. It was late in the evening, so there were fewer people milling about than usual, but the sight of the eight-foot alien hauling what looked like her weight in cargo drew a few curious stares. They made it to the elevator terminal, setting their haul down as they rose up towards the higher floors, Jamie pressing his nose against the glass as he watched the bustling commercial plazas zip past.

The beauty of nature was one thing, but the city had its own unique charm, his eyes drawn to the pointed spires that scraped the red sky. It was like a forest of glass and steel, the myriad windows reflecting the vibrant colors of the setting sun, mag-lev trains sliding along the winding rails that snaked between them like vines in a jungle.

“I’d almost forgotten how high up our apartment is,” he muttered.

“What do you think Hollyhock would say if she could see this?” Liz mused, following his gaze. “On Jarilo, the only things that get this high up are shuttles.”

“I’m glad we came back,” he said, Liz reaching down to ruffle his blonde hair with a furry hand.

The elevator soon arrived at their floor, Liz and Jamie hauling the crates down one of the corridors. Jamie remembered the way as clear as day, even if he had been away for almost a year, months of routine imprinting it into his brain. When they arrived at their door, he set down his crate laboriously, his thighs starting to burn from all the squatting, and fished in his pocket for his phone. He scanned it across the reader that was embedded in the frame, loosing a quiet sigh of relief as the panel slid aside to let them pass.

“Glad to see the landlord has been playing ball,” Liz said, ducking through the aperture. Jamie followed after her, stepping into the apartment, his eyes playing about the room. It was just as they had left it, but everything had been coated in a fine layer of dust, and the air had a musty quality about it. Liz set her crates down near the kitchen area, then ran a padded finger across the counter, grumbling as she examined it.

“I guess we should have hired a maid to come clean the place,” she said, wiping her finger on her pants. “We won’t be spring cleaning as much as spring excavating.”

Jamie chuckled, placing his crate beside hers. He eyed the couch, then made his way over to it, collapsing into the faux-leather cushions with a puff of dust.

“I could fall asleep right here,” he sighed.

“Well, don’t,” Liz chided. “We’ve still got plenty of crates to move.”

When the last crate was safely stacked in the kitchen, Liz and Jamie settled into the oversized couch together, finally able to relax. As dusty as the apartment was, it was still home, and it was a relief to be back.

“I feel like I walked the sixty light-years from Jarilo,” Jamie grumbled, Liz snickering at him.

“I’m hungry,” she added. “We got anything to eat?”

Jamie slid off the couch and made his way to the fridge, the light bathing him in its yellow glow as he opened the door.

“Nothing,” he called back to her, Liz giving an exaggerated groan of despair in response as she let herself slide partway off the couch. “We cleared it all out before we left, remember? I wouldn’t have wanted to come back home to a carton of year-old milk.”

“Let’s go out to eat,” she insisted, Jamie trying to stifle a grin as he watched her wriggle back into her seat.

“I dunno, I’m pretty tired. I don’t have a night on the town in me.”

“Doesn’t have to be a night on the town,” she grumbled. “We could get takeout, how about that?

“Fuck, I spent so much time in the forest that I almost forgot that the service industry exists. Alright, what are you hungry for?”

“Hoagies,” she replied, collapsing onto her side and stretching out to fill the couch.

“Hoagies it is,” Jamie said, pulling up his phone. He found the nearest place, marveling once again at the conveniences of modern technology as he read through the menu. “What do you want on that?”

“Cheesesteak,” she replied.

“Okay, how does this sound? Thinly-sliced beef ribeye with onions and mushrooms, topped with provolone cheese, on a chewy hoagie roll.”

“Like I want it inside me,” she replied as she lounged in the cushions.

“How many sandwiches do you want?”

“As many as they’re allowed to give me.”

“The slider maxes out at six, so I guess you get six.”

“Heh, slider,” she muttered. “Hey, crank the thermostat while you’re up, would you? It’s fucking cold in here.”

He did as she asked, the temperature in the apartment quickly rising to a more comfortable level. Liz shed her jacket, Jamie admiring the way that her breasts strained against the fabric of her shirt, gravity pressing them together as she lay on her side.

“What are you looking at?” she chuckled, rolling onto her back. Her boobs wobbled beneath her clothes, Liz lifting an arm to support them, preventing them from spilling free. “What’s their delivery time?”

“Huh?” Jamie asked, tearing his eyes away from her chest.

“The delivery time,” she repeated.

“Uh, they said twenty minutes, or your order is free.”

“Then we have some time to kill, don’t we?” she added with a sly smile. She reached down to grip the hem of her shirt, lifting it, letting her breasts slide free of its confines. He still wasn’t used to their new size, it was a pleasant surprise every time he saw them. Sousa had said that an increase of one hundred and fifty percent during pregnancy wasn’t unusual for humans, but he could have sworn that Liz had crossed that line by now. She reached up to cup one of them in her furry hand, letting its weight sink her fingers into her doughy flesh, her straw-colored fur contrasting with the caramel tone of her skin.

“Think we’ve got time for that?” Jamie asked eagerly.

“I could get you off in five minutes,” she chuckled, eyeing the growing bulge in his pants. “Maybe I will, just to prove a point.”

“Want to make it interesting?” Jamie added, Liz’s round ears twitching curiously. He brandished his phone and brought up a timer, his finger hovering over the start icon. “If I come before the five-minute timer runs out, I have to clean the apartment. If I last even a second longer, you have to do it.”

“Imagine making your heavily pregnant girlfriend do laborious household chores,” she replied in mock outrage.

“What’s the matter, don’t think you can do it?”

“Cock out. Now,” she said as she beckoned to him with a clawed finger. He hastily unzipped his pants, Liz smirking as he shuffled over to the couch. She was still lying down, apparently confident enough in her abilities that she didn’t see any need to sit up. Due to the size of the couch, that put her at a rather comfortable height.

“Start the timer,” she cooed, Jamie shaking his head.

“I’ll count you down. Three ... two...”

Liz beat him to the punch, her hand rising to cup his balls, her delicate fur tickling his skin as she gave them a teasing squeeze. Jamie hit the home icon in his surprise, and he fumbled to open the app again as she snickered at him.

“Cheater,” he complained, starting the clock and setting the phone down on the coffee table.

“If you can’t work a phone, that’s your problem,” she replied as she guided him closer. Her tongue parted her lips, winding its way towards him like a tentacle, a solid foot of glistening flesh on display. She gently brushed his glans with its velvety underside, Jamie’s knees going weak. Maybe doing this while standing put him at a disadvantage...

The slippery organ coiled around his shaft, tightening enough to get a grip, maneuvering his throbbing member towards her mouth. She was still lounging in the cushions lazily, her demeanor nonchalant as she pursed her soft lips around his head, drawing on it gently. She slipped the tapered tip beneath his foreskin, swirling it around his glans, painting it with her warm saliva.

Her pace was slow, placating, and she knew precisely where he was most sensitive. He shuddered as he felt her satin tongue tease the underside of his glans, drawing shapes on his tender flesh, licking a bead of welling pre from his tip as she went. Slowly, she drew him deeper into her mouth, the length of slippery muscle encompassing him in its warm coils as she inched down his shaft.

Rather than take him into her throat, she pushed him into her cheek, Jamie watching it bulge outward. Its soft lining was like wet silk, her lips pursing around his shaft, Liz starting to nurse at his cock with a gentle suction. The fleshy coils of her tongue wrapped around him, stroking him with all the dexterity of a hand, the warm layer of drool that coated his skin making its touch slick.

She watched him with those green eyes, her lips curling into a smile around his shaft, Jamie’s face warming as he became enraptured by her slow rhythm. She stroked his balls with her furry fingers all the while, tickling his skin with her delicate coat.

“Y-you’re only supposed to use your mouth,” he stammered.

“Says who?” Liz mumbled, her voice muffled as she talked around his member. The movements of her tongue and the vibrations of her speech make him shiver, her sordid chuckling further stimulating him.

She pushed him back into her cheek, his glans sliding against her smooth flesh, the silken underside of her tongue exploring every inch of his shaft. He felt its pointed tip follow a pulsing vein all the way down to his base, the pink organ circling his girth, the fact that he couldn’t see what she was doing making him all the more sensitive.

Liz drew back until only his tip was still trapped between her lips, his shaft coated in a glistening sheen of her bubbling saliva, strands of it drooping to the couch cushions beside her head. She released him with a pop, wetting her lips.

“You’re close.”

“Am not.”

“Are too,” she said, reaching up to press a padded finger against his tip. She grinned as his member jumped, bobbing in the air in time with his racing heart. “I can feel you throbbing on my tongue, you can’t hide it from me.”

“You talk a lot of shit for someone who only has three minutes left.”

“Oh, I can take my sweet time,” she cooed, planting a doting kiss on his shaft.

She returned her lips to his member, crawling them all the way down to the hilt, Jamie gritting his teeth as he felt her throat close around him. Beyond the slick, hot flesh of her gullet, her muscles massaged him with each swallow. He could feel them gliding down his length, drawing him deeper, her prehensile tongue emerging from her mouth to lap at his balls. It felt like she was trying to drink from him, the suction making him gasp, the rhythmic rolling of her throat as she sucked making him reach out to grip the armrest of the couch to steady himself.

With huge lungs came a huge lung capacity, Liz able to hold her breath long enough that a human in her position would have passed out. Unable to resist the warm, undulating confines of her throat, he began to push deeper. Liz watched him with her feline eyes as he started to thrust into her mouth, his smiling partner relaxing, letting him set the pace. Winning the bet was far from his mind now, his thoughts fogged by lust, the way that her velvet flesh squeezed him when she swallowed the saliva that was pooling in her mouth all that he could focus on.

His eyelids drooped as her tongue cradled his balls, his rutting becoming erratic, Liz loosing a low purr that made her throat vibrate around his length. He was quickly reaching his limit, her muscles caressing him in waves, unbearably tight. It quickly became more than he could stand, the sweet pressure of his climax welling up inside him, too urgent for him to stave it off any longer.

Liz reached out to take a handful of his rear as she felt him swell, ensuring that he couldn’t pull away, her lashes fluttering as a strand of his seed splashed against the back of her throat. She drew the next one out of him, gulping around his twitching cock, her gullet milking him with its ruthless stroking. Her lips kissed his base, her pink nose pressing against his belly, her claws pricking his butt as she drank down every last drop that he could give her.

She seemed to have been distracted by her desire just as much as he had, her eyes widening as she remembered their bargain. She suddenly let his member slide out of her mouth, reaching across to grab the phone from its place on the coffee table, the strands of drool that still joined her lips to his glans breaking with the motion. She stopped the timer with a padded finger, turning the screen so that Jamie could see it.

“Four minutes, forty-eight seconds,” she declared with a toothy grin. “Better get your feather duster ready.”

“Doesn’t feel like much of a loss,” he chuckled, giving her a drunken smile.

Another couple of weeks had passed, and Liz and Jamie were settling into their new routine. The embassy had been happy to renew Liz’s contract to ensure that she would return once her pregnancy was over, and they were paying her a rather generous wage during her maternity leave. Jamie hadn’t been able to return to his job at the supermarket, but he had anticipated that. At least for the time being, he wanted to stay with Liz and take care of her. He could look for another job later. His coworkers had welcomed him back with a surprise visit and had listened intently to the stories that he and Liz had been able to tell of their journeys.

The UAS had been quick to get back in touch with them, one of their representatives sending a message requesting that Liz undergo period checkups at the nearest clinic, where they would be stationing a qualified doctor. Jamie was amused to see that the address was the same as the clinic where he had initially been informed that splicing the DNA of two different species was impossible. He wondered if that same doctor would be on hand to witness the miracle that Sousa and the Jarilans had performed.

Liz was now entering her third trimester, and her belly was bulging noticeably. Its growth had been slow and steady thus far, but she was very visibly pregnant now, and it was starting to become troublesome for her. It wasn’t that she couldn’t carry the extra weight, but the change in her center of gravity and the new caution that she had to employ when moving around so as not to bang her belly on counters and tables had slowed her down a little. The birth was expected to happen in less than three months, and the closer the date came, the more real everything seemed.

“Ugh, I need to get some new shirts,” Liz muttered as she tried in vain to pull her top down over the mound of her belly.

“That’s what you get for wearing such tight clothes,” Jamie replied, leaning on the kitchen counter as he took a sip from his coffee mug.

“I think you’d go on strike if I wore baggy clothes,” she replied, eyeing him from across the living area. “I can still feel my abs,” she added, prodding at her inflated stomach. “They’re just ... shifting around. It’s so weird.” She reached down and pinched the fat of her hip, her brow furrowing. “I’m putting on weight, though,” she grumbled. “Equatorials aren’t supposed to be fat. Am I gonna be the first fat equatorial?”

“You’re not fat,” Jamie chuckled, taking another sip from his mug. “You’re putting on baby weight like you’re supposed to.”

“I can’t even work out. I feel like I won’t even be able to move around properly pretty soon. I’ll just be sitting there on the couch like some kind of ... immobile brood mother.”

Jamie laughed at the image, shaking his head.

“Just a couple more months, right?”

“Then we’ll have bigger problems to deal with than my expanding waistline,” she replied with a smirk.

“I don’t mind if you get a bit softer,” Jamie added, glancing pointedly at her breasts. They had finally slowed their growth, and if he had to guess, they were near twice the size they had been originally. One of the first things they had done since getting back home was order some bras for her, as even if their weight wasn’t more than she could handle, their size had become unwieldy. They used to be large enough that one of them would have comfortably filled his lap, but now, it would spill over his thighs.

“Oh, so now I ‘am’ getting fatter?” she asked as she narrowed her eyes at him in mock outrage.

“Only where it counts,” he chuckled.

“Be careful what you wish for. There might be more of me than you can handle at this rate.”

“You almost ready to go?” he asked, Liz pulling on her leather jacket. She couldn’t even zip it up now, not without putting an uncomfortable amount of pressure on her belly.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” she replied. “Doctor Muller said that we’d be doing an ultrasound this week. We might actually be able to see their faces.”

“The gel might be a little cold,” the doctor warned, smearing some of the substance on the underside of his probe. It looked like an electric razor to Jamie, but instead of blades, it had a flat section on one end. The device was connected wirelessly to a holographic display that was mounted beside the examination table that Liz was lying on. Her shirt was lifted to expose her belly, the doctor moving to her side as he prepared the device.

She flinched as he pressed it against her stomach, her eyes following the probe as he started to move it around, leaving a smear of clear gel in its wake. The display began to project a three-dimensional image, but it didn’t look like anything recognizable to Jamie, just a pulsing mass in grainy black and white.

“Keep watching,” the doctor advised, the image gradually becoming clearer. Everything was in motion, it was hard to focus on any one aspect of the display, but a dark void gradually began to come into view. “That black area is the amniotic fluid that fills the womb,” the doctor explained, the image shifting again as he moved the device around. “Sound waves reflect off solid matter, but they pass straight through fluids. There’s one of the kittens...”

It took Jamie a moment, but he started to pick something out in the black and white mass. His eyes widened as he recognized a face in profile. He could see the round skull, the lips, a feline nose like Liz’s. The kitten was curled up in a tight ball, its digitigrade legs tucked up to its belly, the bones of what must be its tail wrapped around itself.

“I can see it!” Liz exclaimed, the doctor freezing the image so that they could get a better look.

“I’m having a little trouble singling them out due to how densely the babies are packed together,” the doctor explained. “I can’t determine the gender just yet, but everything looks healthy at a glance. I’m not seeing any obvious abnormalities. I’ll send these scans to the lab, and we’ll go over them with a fine-toothed comb.”

He turned to the display, swiping through the controls, the software sharpening the image until a tiny face came into view. Jamie had never seen a Borealan kitten before. He had met Liz when they were both around six years old, so she had been young, but not this young. Its facial features were those of a Borealan, just like its mother. Its eyes were tightly shut, and its little round ears were folded against its head. Human babies were usually born with sparse hair, if any, but this kitten was fully-furred. The resolution on the rendering was high enough to make out the tufts of hair that covered its body from head to tail. He knew that – like their mother – they would lose that coat by the time they became adolescents.