Page 65 of Crash Landing
“You follow that religious propaganda, Ilisa. I do not. The women at Silica can try to conceive anytime they want through the same means other women do. In a lab.”
“The true children are born through a union. Not because lab techs implanted the combined DNA of a man and woman.”
“To you, perhaps. To me, it is all the same.”
She yielded, but she was not happy about it. I could feel her frustration as she marched out of the room, leaving me alone with Sam. Turning to her, I saw a look of concern in the way herbrows were drawn close in the middle. She was gently massaging her leg, watching the door where Ilisa had disappeared.
“What was that about?” she asked. “Sounded serious.”
“It was nothing.”
“Well, I heard my name, so I’m going to call you on your bluff.”
I smiled and stepped closer to her, bracing my fists on the table on either side of her legs.
“You know very well that it is rare for a valerian to surge. To become fertile.”
“Yeah?”
“And I’ve surged with a human. It is a good thing. But because you are you, it’s a complicated thing.”
“How so?”
“Because with so few women able to conceive and so few men able to breed, when we surge, everyone wants to study us. It happened to Vahko and as soon as I tell the council, it will happen to me. And to you.”
“They’ll want to study me?”
“If you’ll let them. But it’s not your duty. If you—”
“Sure. I mean, if it will help. Unless you’re talking dissection and 24/7 surveillance or some weird Russian bunker shit.”
I drew back my head in shock. “No… Sam…”
“I’m kidding. So, what? Some blood samples? A little observation? If that’s all we’re talking, I’m willing.”
While I was overjoyed to know she wanted to help, it was the other part of the situation that I feared she wouldn’t like.
“What?”
“It’s just… my people’s expectations about me are a little different.”
“How?”
“Since I am most likely fertile because of the surge, I’ll be expected to… donate more than blood samples.”
“Oh,” she nodded slowly. “Right. For testing, or…”
“For whatever they decide to do with it.”
She stared at me for a moment, but I knew my Sam wasn’t dense. She was smart and she was processing things.
“So, you’d be a sperm donor,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“If sperm donor means what I think it means, yes. But if they do use me for any such thing, it would be anonymous. Breeding has become a science project. Relationships are not forged between two people like they used to be. It depends only on fertility and the chances of conception and even then, pregnancies are carefully monitored. Sometimes it’s dangerous to…”
I trailed off, watching Sam’s face soak in everything I was telling her. When I mentioned pregnancy, both of us paused. Realization trickled through me like a thin poison.
“So, what you were trying to say in the cave,” Sam started, her voice small and withered. “I mean, there’s a real possibility that…”
