Bane

“It’s about damn time,” I say to the door even though I haven’t opened it yet. I yank it open a little too aggressively and step aside when I see the doctor standing there. Without bothering with introductions I tell him, “She’s right here.”

“Okay,” he says, ambling toward the bed. I’m not surprised that he’s an Achloim, a species known for being incredibly smart. They don’t generally live in the Dune Colony but the Outpost is more of a melting pot. He’s small, barely reaching my torso, but he’s not intimidated in the least. He reaches the side of the bed and sets his bag of supplies down. “Tell me what happened.” He leans over her and feels the skin of her forehead, then her arm. Elena barely stirs.

“In the night she became feverish. I gave her a dose of a fever reducer that I bought from one of the shops but she wasn’t able to keep it down. She threw it up and then continued to throw up for a few more hours. She’s been sleeping but I haven’t been able to wake her. She has been like this for hours now.” I motion toward her lying still on the bed and then go back to what I’ve been doing constantly since she became so sick, pacing the room, unsure how to help her.

The doctor takes out his tools and gets right to work. The first thing he does is take a needle and draw a vile of blood from her arm. “I’ll test her blood to see if it can tell us anything. She is a human, how long has she been here?”

I run my fingers through my hair, trying to remember what she told me. “It hasn’t been long. A few days?” I don’t want to give him more details about why she’s here in case anyone is looking for us and he decides to talk. I walk over to the window and look outside at all of the activity below us. If she had to get sick on our trip, I’m glad it was here where there is help available. Otherwise, I don’t know what I would have done.

I hate seeing her this way. I want to be able to fix her and it’s a very helpless feeling knowing that I can’t. I cross my arms over my chest and try to stay out of the way while the doctor examines her. I think about how much things have changed from the first night that we met. I was in that tavern to discretely poison a man and instead I ended up on the run with this woman who is making me question everything I know about my life.

My hand subconsciously begins to rub the back of my neck again. It’s only a matter of time before Phantom and his men come looking for me to see if I’ve followed through on the job that I was given. I still don’t know how I’m going to get out of this one. Regardless of what happens to me, I need to make sure Elena will be safe.

From the bed, she starts to stir. “Bane?” she whispers. I’m lying on the bed with her in seconds.

“Yes, I’m here.” I grab onto her hand as she turns her head to look at me. “How are you feeling?”

“Strange,” she says. “I’m so tired.”

“There’s a doctor here now. He’s going to figure out what’s going on.”

“Okay,” she says, closing her eyes again.

Next to her, the doctor is placing a few small viles of blood into a small handheld machine. “This will only take a few minutes,” he says.

There are a few clicks and whirs as the machine comes to life, doing whatever it is that the machine does. I’m holding my breath that it isn’t anything serious. I need her to get better so we can figure out what’s on the files she copied and come up with the next part of our crazy plan.

There are three beeps signaling the machine is finished with its analysis. The small doctor reaches over and reads the results off of the screen. He stares at it looking confused. When he still doesn’t say anything I finally ask, “What is it? What does it say?”

“This can’t be correct,” he says, shaking his head.

“What?” I say again, walking over so I’m standing right next to him.

“She’s…pregnant.” He looks up at me, waiting for me to confirm that there’s no way that could be correct.

“The fever is because she’s pregnant?” I ask, sorting through the information.

“Yes,” he says looking at her as she lays on the bed. “But that can’t be possible.”

“Why not?” I finally ask.

“There hasn’t been a natural birth on Kosmora in over eight years.”

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been in prison for the last ten years.”

“It began with females getting pregnant but unable to bring the babies to term. Then eventually, the problem grew to them being unable to get pregnant at all.”

“Just Suthune females or any female species on Kosmora?”

“Any female on Kosmora.”

“Well, what caused it? You must have an idea after so many years.”

“We think it stemmed from the females being exposed to baslianese, an element that was being used to make jewelry. It was sold throughout Kosmora at the markets years ago, women would wear the jewelry on their bodies, essentially poisoning themselves.”

“Okay, but what about the women that didn’t wear the baslianese? Wouldn’t they have been okay?”

“Once this element was mined, it opened fissures in the ground, allowing it to seep into the water supplies. When we tested the water, it contained amounts of it that would have been enough to damage any woman exposed. We have the capability of filtering the water now, but as you can imagine, the damage was already done. The children that we have on Kosmora were born in a lab.”

“What the fuck?” I drop my head in my hands trying to let all of that information sink in.

“But your female is from Earth. She is healthy. When did you have intercourse?”

I want to snap at him that it’s none of his damn business but instead I keep my temper in check. “Yesterday.”

He nods his head in acknowledgment. “It’s possible her body initially reacted to your foreign fluids by attempting to fight an infection. Obviously, you are foreign to her, not like another Earthling would be. Her body is confused. But the fact that her blood work is showing she is pregnant tells me that at least for now, her body accepted the pregnancy. Of course, we don’t know what will happen moving forward, this is unchartered territory. A human and a Suthune, this is a first.”

He starts packing up his things, getting ready to leave. “So, what do I do? You can’t leave.” Needless to say I’m well out of my league right now. I don’t know how to take care of someone.

“I anticipate her fever will break within the next few hours. Then, aside from feeling fatigued and possibly nauseous, she should be back to her usual self. If something else happens, you know where to find me.”

He takes his bag and walks to the door. There’s no need to pay him, I already took care of that. He wouldn’t make a special trip like this without having the money in his pocket.

“I would stay put, though. Don’t try to move her until she’s feeling better.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” I say, holding the door open. He slips through and disappears down the hallway. I let the door close and lock it before walking back to the bed. Elena is still sleeping but it isn’t such a fitful sleep as it has been. Hopefully the doctor is right and her fever will break soon. There’s a bottle of pills sitting on the nightstand so I pick it up to examine it but I’m not seeing it. I’m too distracted by what the doctor said. All I can think is that my child is growing inside of this woman…how is any of this going to be okay?

I sit in the chair next to the bed, watching over Elena. The rest of the day slowly passes by and all I can think of is that I need to find a way to contact the Phantom. There has to be another way to give everyone what they want.

When I ended up in prison, I thought that was it for me. I expected to rot down there, a fitting end for someone that lived his life the way I did. Taking orders and cleaning up the messes of more powerful people that were happy to put the blame on me and forget that I ever existed. For just a moment while sitting in this chair, watching as the sun slowly dips beyond the horizon, I entertain the idea that maybe, just maybe, there’s more in my future than I imagined.