FARE PLAY, part 2, the end

FARE PLAY, part 2

The girl bit her bottom lip, stifling a groan.  Moisture seeped from the slick skin of her forehead.  “We’re only two galaxies away,” she said.  “I’ll make it.”

“You haven’t got a chance,” Elektra snapped.  “What do you want to do?”

“If we land on Neukro, the nurses will flush my baby down the pipes, and Hobans have banned Pyforians from their ports ever since the Embargo Wars.”

She was right.  The Hoban civilization was harsh and unsentimental, putting little value on any life form other than their own.  Neukro was a water planet with a great, restless sea that thrashed the plastic pods that contained its floating cities.  Storms churned its sky most of the year.

Elektra had heard too many rumors of shuttles forced to make emergency landings there, never to be seen again.  She had no desire to be flushed out of the sea pod cities and used as food for Neukron’s tadpole-like offspring.  The young fed on anything available, including one another, until they walked onto the floating pods as a new generation of Neukron citizens.

The girl’s pale green coloring was growing paler with each flap of her gills.  Elektra had to do something.

A deserted satellite station was only a light span away.  Elektra swerved toward its landing band.  The supple metal strip circled the now-forgotten service mart like a Saturn’s rings circle the planet.

Once, fuel cubes and snack parcels were distributed by shuttle hops as travelers hovered impatiently.  Now, with the advent of Enclosed Bubble Malls, most of the small stations were abandoned.

“Is it safe here?” the Pyforian gulped.

“Safe, yes,” Elektra said, hovering above the metal strip before gently touching down alongside an antique transmitter.  “But I don’t know how your species gives birth.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the girl said.  “Just keep your Earth hands off me.  I don’t need any help.”

Elektra sighed.  Typical Pyforian.  The rudest species in the universe.  “Fine, I’ll wait.”

The girl glared at her with watering eyes.  “It’s my first,” she stammered.  “I don’t know what to do.”

“My husband would have told us not to panic,” Elektra said.  “Just take one thing at a time.”

“Where is he?”

“Dead.  Mining accident.”  Elektra left the driver’s pod and climbed in the passenger cubicle with the girl.  “Where does yours come out?”

The girl opened her mouth wide.  The jaws came unhinged, and Elektra could see a slimy, knobby head worming its way up the girl’s throat.  Elektra had to fight the urge to gag and forced herself to sound calm and confident.

“I see its head,” she told the girl.  “It’s moving up fast.  It must be healthy.”

The girl knelt on the shuttle’s floor, lowering her neck and face onto the seat, breathing hard and sweating profusely.

“It’s almost out,” Elektra said.  “You’re doing fine.”

The girl’s midsection heaved, pushing the baby out of her mouth.  Bile and blood gushed from her lips as Elektra picked up the wriggling infant and held it so the mother could see it.

A small smile lifted the corners of the girl’s mouth as fluids continued to leak from her throat.  Too many fluids.

“Maybe you should try to sit up or something,” Elektra said.

The girl shook her head.  “They told me I was too young, that my baby wouldn’t live.  I think we’re in trouble.”

Elektra placed the squirming infant in its mother’s arms.  “Just hang in there.  I’ll have you on your planet in a flash.”

She slid back in the driver’s pod and pushed the power to full speed.  In a blur of time, she lowered the craft onto the landing pad of a Pyforian hospital.  She pressed the red alert button to summon aid and turned to check on her passenger.

The baby had attached itself to a nipple on the side of the girl’s neck and was sucking loudly.  The girl herself was as still and pale as a withered leaf.

Medics wheeled an incubator out for the baby and rushed the girl inside.  Primitive, Elektra thought.  Earth had much more advanced technology, but at least the medics seemed sincere in their administrations.

After Elektra sterilized the shuttle, she called Mega and explained what had happened.

“Will she be all right?” Mega asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I wish we could do something to help her.”

“I got her here,” Elektra said.  “I had to let them scan our entire identity files just to prove her situation was legitimate.”

“You’ve done more than most Earth citizens,” Mega said.  “I think that’s great.”

Finally, a medic came to the landing strip.  “If you’re waiting for your fare, you’re out of luck.”

Elektra took a deep breath.  Pyforians!  No wonder most Earth citizens didn’t want anything to do with them.

“How’s the girl?” she asked.

The Pyforian raised a green eyebrow.  “She’d be fine if she had somewhere to go, but her parents won’t come for her.  They don’t need another infant Pyforian in their domicile.”

How could a parent turn a child away? Elektra wondered.  But babies cost time and money.  Sometimes more time and money than was available.

“Can I see her?”

The Pyforian couldn’t hide his surprise.  “Sure.  This way.”

The girl was in a narrow bed in a huge, crowded ward.  She looked young and lost.

Elektra slid into the small space between beds and took a deep breath.  “The thing is,” she said, “I work almost all the time.  My daughter does, too.  Our living space on Earth is always a mess.  We could use a housekeeper, but I can’t afford one.  The only thing I could offer is room and board.”

The girl glanced down at her baby.  The infant raised its head and blinked thick, hooded eyes.

Cute, in its own way, Elektra decided.

“I don’t take charity,” the girl said.  “I’ll work hard to earn my keep.”

“Good, we’ll all work together.”  Elektra glanced at the medic.  “When will she be strong enough to leave?”

He motioned at the ward.  “Look at this place.  The sooner, the better.”

Elektra wheeled the girl to the cab-craft and opened the passenger pod in front.  “I probably should know your name.”

“Lumina,” she said.

“And the baby?  Is it a boy or a girl?  Does it have a name?”

“A boy,” she said and hesitated.  “I hope you don’t mind.  I saw your identity scan.  I named him Drunn.”

Elektra swallowed hard and pushed the accelerator lever.  “Let’s go home.”

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