Page 66 of Bred

She nods along, as if he’s making sense, but I’m pretty certain she’s humoring him.

I reach for her and draw her into my lap. We are sitting at a table next to one of the largest windows on the ship. Luca takes a seat on the floor at our feet and together we look out onto the vastness of space yet to be populated. In the distance, a nebula is glowing innocently. It is about to be forever changed by the Virility’s torpedoes.

“Have you strapped your wheelchair down?” Lyra asks Major Tom. “This can get pretty hairy...”

She’s not wrong. Last time we did this, we risked tearing the ship apart. We’re doing it at a greater distance this time, and I’ll make sure not to risk the possibility of damage to the hull, or my love.

“Wait, you remember? That last seeding happened before you were claimed by that creature.”

“Huh,” she says with a small smile. “Maybe I do remember.”

“Maybe you do,” I smile back, resting my hand on her stomach.

“What’s going on here then,” Tom asks.

“We’re going to fuck that nebula,” Lyra replies. “Talon here is trying to change the nature of space itself so we don’t all get lost in entropy.”

“Fuck the nebula. Fuck the Russians,” Tom repeats.

“Tom, enough,” Lyra sighs. “When are you going to get over the Russians?”

“You would ask that, wouldn’t you, Russian.”

She narrows her eyes and plucks the synthesized bottle of vodka out of Major Tom’s hand.

“Give that back!”

“Come and get it!” She dances back two steps, and almost hits Shank, who is coming to see the spectacle from the comfort of the observation deck.

“Neither of you can have it,” he says sternly, whipping it out of her hand, and turfing it into the recycling chute. This does nothing to alleviate the situation, if anything it makes it worse. Tom starts cursing up an old storm, until Lyra agrees to go replicate him another bottle. The two of them leave, still bickering about the politics of a world neither of them will ever see again.

“Two humans,” Shank says. “Two humans is all it takes to turn a ship upside down.”

“Two point five,” I say with a smile.

“Two point five? Luca doesn’t count.”

“Nice,” Luca notes from the floor. “Real nice.”

“I’m not talking about Luca.”

“Of course not. Nobody talks about Luca,” Luca snorts.

“Do you want to be deactivated?” I glower down at him.

“Nossir,” he says quickly. “And Lyra wouldn’t like it either.”

“What do you mean, two point five humans?” Shank manages to keep the conversation straight.

“I mean the nebula isn’t the only thing pregnant...”

Shank’s eyes flare with concern. “You haven’t. She isn’t. She...”

“I’d say three months along,” I smile. “Though whether it’s going to have four arms or two cocks, who can say.”

Shank goes completely pale. “You’re going to be a father. Or I’m going to be a father. To an offspring which lives on this ship. And is half human.” Shank sinks down into a chair, looking appropriately stricken. “There’s going to be a baby actually on board?”

“Mhm.” I’m smiling as much as he is stressing.

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