It was always: "Everything is progressing beautifully."
Are you kidding me? My nose is constantly bleeding; my ear is infected. Can't you see? You say, this is normal?
But today was the worst. He stood grinning like a Cheshire cat, as if he could eat her, should she let him.
"This is the last visit before you are finished," he stated. "Your treatments will be over in two days."
Gemma knew it was pointless to ask him, what was to happen next.
****
That Friday, Gemma had the last of her radiation therapy. She was so glad when it was over.
It was customary to ring the bell on the wall in the hall, to tell everyone you had survived, and finished your treatments. Gemma gave it a joyful tug as she went on by, but...
Though it resounded through the department, it was too late in the day for anyone else to be there. No one but the nurses heard it.
They, at least, applauded.
Now, if they would just tell me if this worked. Is my deadly beasty destroyed?
Chapter 8
Left alone at last, Gemma tried to adjust to the abrupt lack of activity. Her apartment seemed an alien place. Unfamiliar. It was difficult to get back to the routine of her real life.
Work was out of the question. She was a free lance writer, but ideas appeared to escape her, like her imagination had dried up while she'd been sick, and would always be a barren landscape from now on.
Besides, there seemed to be something wrong with her eyes; they slipped out of focus, and her vision was continually blurred; parts of the picture had small gaps in it. She could move her eyes, and a space in the image would be missing.
Her hearing also, would come and go. At times, she could hear the people out in the hallway; on other occasions, the world was unusually silent.
Left adrift, waiting for the next contact from the Cancer Center, Gemma did not know whom to turn to. Should she even tell anyone?
She had dreams at night, where her mind seemed on super drive. Her sense of her body was different; it was transparent, so she could see inside: there were twin hearts, three kidneys, one behind the other two, and many unusual organs...yet, she was familiar with their function, as if she'd been trained in the alien anatomy.
Her brain, too, performed at a level never used in the past.
But, it is all a dream; isn't it? It can't be true.
When she looked into the mirror next morning, her outward appearance was the same: short legs, hips more rounded than before, flat belly, slim waist, and she felt...her breasts would always be inadequate. Too small. But on the outside, she was, as usual.
Even the hair atop her head was finally growing back; very short and prickly, a tight mass of blond-white, sticking up, fuzzy and almost...but not quite, curling.
Beneath a short biker's kerchief, Gemma chose to hide this new development, when she did venture out, which was rare, lately.
She kept trying to contact her sister, Bella, but Gemma always got the answering machine, and Bella never returned the calls. By now, Gemma felt more like an orphan; she really had no family.
Let her be a jerk, then; if that's the way she wants it. She was never there for me the whole time this has been happening...I don't really need her, anyway!
Gemma knew Bella was there. Sometimes, the line would be busy. And it was her sister's recorded voice on the message machine...
With her continual lack of energy, Gemma didn't feel like taking a bus across town to visit her sister, to confront her, so, things were left as they were.
A month turned into six weeks. At last, in the mail, Gemma received her final follow-up appointment.
Maybe, they will, at last, tell me they've conquered the Cancer? That the beasty is dead, and I am a survivor...I can go on with my life, again.
****
Loni could feel the excitement in the air. Even here in the gardens, though this harvest wasn't the usual kind, the atmosphere was energized.
Another crop of females was ready, and the first had begun to come through. The arrivals would continue for the better part of the year, but the evidence would be seen, heard, and felt ...even down here among the workers.
It had been years since Loni had seen a woman. Sometimes, in the past, after their arrival, you could see the new ones, walking in the landscaped park area, with their appointed males. Some would yet be normal, not having conceived, others appeared in various stages of motherhood. Most were very beautiful, causing those without partners to be envious; others were of average appearance, and some were downright ugly, but...they were female. To be cared for, and treasured. They were the hope of a future generation.
Then soon, the nurseries would fill up, and from above, in the distance, you could hear joyful, excited laughter, as the babies began to grow.
It was a happy place, beneath the dome, then...for a while.
But next came the purge.
That was the time when they sorted out the young, removing them from their mothers, and ...destroying all those that were female.
Loni remembered those times well; each month his mother had hid him, for years, until he was a youth, full grown.
Even down here in the gardens, the sounds triggered the memories: screams of anguish; the liquid reverberations of their butchering brutality. He could sense the blood lust of the eliminators.
Why? Why must this be done?
A long time ago, Loni had read it from the minds of their leaders.
Centuries previous, they had made it law: No female of the original race would be permitted to
