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10:45
Imari resisted the urge to fidget as Dr. Alvarez came back into the exam area, a frown marring her olive face. “Delta, you look like I’m dying.”
Her weak joke fell flat as evidenced by the doctor’s grim expression continuing. “You aren’t dying, but your career might be.”
Automatically, Imari accepted when her friend dropped a datapad into her hands. She read the information twice, but couldn’t make herself comprehend it. “Is this a joke? My birthday isn’t for three weeks, and I’ll be thirty-one, so you missed the big three-oh, when you were supposed to strike.”
Delta shook her head. “Sorry, Imari. I wish it were just a joke.”
The truth was starting to sink in, increasing the nausea that had plagued her for the past two weeks. “It’s impossible. I definitely wasn’t trying. I was preventing. The Bio-Rhythm chip in my brain is supposed to stop this from happening.”
“Nothing is foolproof.” Her mouth crinkled at the edge, pushing up generous lips. “Abstinence, I guess, but you clearly weren’t practicing that.”
Without warning, Imari leaned forward, vomiting all over the floor. A wave of weakness accompanied the nausea, and she swayed unsteadily as Delta pressed a button to initiate automatic cleansing of the metal floor. “This can’t be happening.”
“It is.” Although she sounded unsympathetic, Delta patted her arm. “You have to deal with it, so the sooner you face it, the better.”
“Deal with it?” She was all business when Imari looked up. “I can’t think right now.”
“Your options are to carry to term or abort.” Delta shrugged. “I can’t make the decision for you, but if you keep it, you’re going to encounter a shit storm—first from the commander, and then from the ECA when you get back to Earth.”
“I don’t have a permit.”
The doctor shrugged. “That’s the least of your worries. You’re in service, so your reproductive rights are guaranteed. The approval process can be expedited. I can even start the procedure for you.”
“No.” Imari softened her shrill tone. “No, don’t do anything yet. I need time to think.”
“I understand. You don’t have a lot of time though. It will be almost four months before we get back to Earth. You won’t be able to conceal your pregnancy that long.”
Imari managed to nod. “What if I keep it? What happens?”
“You know as well as I do. You’re out of the ECA. Unauthorized reproduction, especially with a fellow soldier, is an automatic court marshal for both of you. No benefits, no pension, and probably no future jobs in any industry connected with the military.”
The nausea was surging again, forcing Imari to take small, deep breaths. “He isn’t a fellow soldier. I mean, I guess he is. I don’t know what he is.”
“Ford?” Delta asked, her tone soft again. She was clearly asking as a friend, not Imari’s doctor.
“Yeah. Stupid me. I don’t know anything about him.”
“You know he’s fertile.” She put an arm around Imari’s shoulders. “Are you going to tell him?”
Horrified at the thought, Imari shook her head. “Hell, no. It’s not that kind of relationship.” A harsh laugh escaped her. “It isn’t a relationship. It’s sex. Not even that good.”
As Delta patted her arm, she made herself ask, “If I don’t keep it, how soon...?”
“The procedure takes about twenty minutes. You would need a day off from duties to recover, but I wouldn’t have to tell the commander what’s wrong with you. I’ll make up something.” Her brown eyes shone with sincerity. “If that’s the choice you make, this will never appear in your medical record.”
“Thanks.” She summoned a small smile, but it faded quickly. “How soon do I need to make a decision?”
“I can do the procedure any time in the next six weeks without complications, but the sooner, the better.” Delta shrugged. “You can take a week or two to decide.”
03:15
Imari stared at the wall, but didn’t really see the dimples of the corrugated steel. Instead, her mind turned over her situation ceaselessly, picking at it like a vulture going after maimed prey.
The imagery didn’t do anything for her nausea, and she took another pill from the supply Delta had given her on the sly, washing it down with oolong tea that had grown cold during the two hours it had set in her cup, untouched.
It should have been an easy decision. It was her career, her livelihood, versus a clump of cells. She shouldn’t have hesitated to request the procedure. There was no reason to let the parasite grow any more when she knew she was going to terminate.
A sigh left her, and she took another drink of the cold, bitter tea. Logic dictated her decision and had from the moment she discovered what a colossal mess her weakness had gotten her into. Emotion protested at the stark truth: She couldn’t keep the baby.
Maternal longings were stirring, feelings she had never experienced before. It wasn’t as though Imari had pined to have a baby. She had decades ahead of her to reproduce and had always imagined it would be some day, far in the future, after she put in thirty years with ECA, to ensure her retirement pension.
The man who would father her someday-child had been a shadow in her mind on the few times she thought about the future. It certainly hadn’t been the enigmatic Adam Ford. For all she knew, he was already a father. Regardless of whether or not there was a Ford family back on Earth, she knew on an instinctive level he wouldn’t be interested in the baby growing inside her.
No, she couldn’t think of it as a baby. That conjured up too many bittersweet thoughts, too many urges she couldn’t deal with. It was a mass of cells, an aberration created by a short-circuit in her birth control chip. It was a mistake, an error, and just gigantic proof of her fallibility. It was anything but a baby.
With a decisive shake of her head, Imari got up from her chair and walked across her quarters to the console. She pressed the button for MedLab and waited for Dr. Alvarez to appear. When Delta was in the frame, she asked, “Can you talk?”
Delta nodded, her lips twisting into a grimace. “I’m alone. Dr. Massey is barricaded in my office, doing whatever it is a famous prick employed by GeneTech does.”
“I’ve decided.” She took a breath, mentally rehearsing the words. I want to terminate. It sounded okay in her head, so she opened her mouth to speak. “I’m keeping it.”
Delta’s expression indicated her shock, but it couldn’t have been even close to Imari’s level of astonishment at the words that left her lips. Under the shock resonated a sense of rightness with her decision. Her heart had decided long before her brain got any input. “I’m keeping the baby,” she said again, letting the words flow over her. It was stupid, illogical, and was going to end her career, but she couldn’t regret her decision right then.