The more Dashel saw of human food, fashions, and culture, the more he seemed to understand why I'd been so attached to this planet in the first place. By the time we got to Tokyo and he saw the numerous paintings and statues of dragons there, he started to talk about planning another trip after the babies were born; he laughed, saying that Earth was quickly becoming his favorite vacation spot.
Then came Hong Kong.
It was a magnificent place, full of bustle and excitement, an enchanted city built up against the side of a mountain. Before the Pax had taken me, I'd wanted to go to Hong Kong for a long time. It always looked so cool in those silly action movies that Daniel had enjoyed making me watch with him. But as we trekked up a steep road, I started to feel stabbing pains in my abdomen.
Contractions.
“Oh no,” I groaned, doubling over. “Not now. Not here.”
“Are the hatchlings coming?” Dashel asked, concerned.
“Babies,” I corrected him through clenched teeth. “You don't want anyone to hear you call them 'hatchlings' on this planet. And yes, they're definitely coming. But how? It hasn't been nearly nine months yet.”
“Hielsrane offspring don't take nearly as long to come,” he told me. “Stal's been giving you treatments to stabilize your reproductive system so it's not overwhelmed by the twins' alien anatomy. In effect, to make you more like us, so the birthing process will be less dangerous for you. It may have shortened the gestation period significantly.”
“Then you'd better contact Ranel and arrange for them to come pick us up fast,” I said. God, the pain was horrible – like something fiercely digging its way out of me with huge claws.
People were starting to gather around us, too. Not good.
Dashel spoke into his comm device, trying to keep his voice down: “Ranel, we need you. Now. Set coordinates for pick-up, and we'll meet you there.”
Ranel's voice came back, tinny and disrupted by static: “Damn it, captain, you couldn't possibly have picked a worse time! A solar flare just zapped our propulsion systems! I swear, what kind of backwater galactic shithole can't even manage to erect a containment field around their own fucking sun?!”
“We should probably drop the technical jargon for the moment, Ranel,” Dashel said nervously as the tourists and locals eyed him suspiciously. “Just tell me how long it'll take to fix it.”
“Right now, it's impossible to say. Grenek's doing the best he can, but he says it could be three or four hours, maybe longer. It's all we can do to maintain the comm line.”
“I don't have three or four hours,” I moaned painfully. This was the worst agony I'd ever experienced – far worse than anything I'd endured in the mines. I felt like at any moment, my entire nervous system would overload and I'd pass out, or worse.
“Hey, mister, it looks like your wife needs to get to a hospital pretty fast,” an Australian tourist remarked, concerned. “Want me to get an ambulance for you?”
Dashel looked frozen in place, his expression stricken, as though he'd been punched in the gut. He looked to me, and I nodded. What a nightmare. On the ship, under Stal's supervision, there would have been a better than average chance that the birth would go smoothly.
In a human hospital here on Earth, though...what if the procedure killed me? Or the twins?
“Yes,” Dashel said hoarsely. “Thank you.”
Less than an hour later, I was in the hospital, surrounded by doctors and nurses speaking in Cantonese. Despite the pain, I had to laugh at the irony – being treated by a race of extraterrestrial dragons would have felt more familiar and comforting for me, less “alien” than being here in Hong Kong. Dashel followed closely, looking terrified.
“Everything will be all right,” he said, trying to sound soothing. “I promise.”
I was swiftly wheeled into the delivery room. My entire midsection felt like it was on fire, and my pelvis felt like it was about to split in half. How big are Drakon infants when they emerge from the womb, I wondered? Bigger than human babies? Big enough to drag all of my internal organs out with them?
I'd never been more frightened in my life.
And based on the reactions of the medical staff when they examined me, neither had they.
I didn't need to be fluent in Cantonese to understand their panicked yells and commands as they did their best to treat me. Stal's treatments had clearly altered my physiology into something they didn't recognize and weren't sure how to deal with. The lead physician barked an order at one of the nurses, who risked a final glance at what was between my legs and nearly fainted from shock before running out of the room.
They administered a series of injections – probably for the pain, but they didn't do much good. The agony remained, but my thoughts went all runny in my head, like broken eggs leaking out.
They're calling some government agency right now, I thought, horrified. And when the birthing process is over, if I survive, I'll be transported to some secret base or research facility so they can poke and prod around inside me. And they'll do the same thing to my babies...and to Dashel, too, if they get their hands on him. They'll finally have evidence of alien life. They might even alert NASA and SETI, find some way to keep the Wyvern and its crew from escaping the solar system. All because of me. All because I was selfish enough to demand a trip back to Earth. Escaped a slave camp, survived a space battle to the death against the Pax Alliance—all for nothing—all so I could be labelled a scientific curiosity and vivisected on some examining
