Paternal Instincts

How I had got here was nobody's business but mine. It is enough to say I was deep in trouble. So much so, that I had run afoul of entirely the wrong sort of people. I was obliged to do anything they asked, for an undefined period of time. Thankfully, I have some skills that are in short supply, which kept me alive and whole. They had hung me out in their equivalent of a gulag, Spaceport #17508. A little known refuge for criminal activities, it was low on comfort and high on stench. There I was; stuck on a clunking, decrepit pile of junk, populated by the scum of the galaxy.

Daniels was my handler. He had been getting his jollies watching me clean out the service ducts, claiming robots were too good for menial tasks like that. The ducts led from the organ farming operation he ran, draining away the blood, fecal matter and screams of the unwilling donors. If you can’t imagine what that is like, I am happy for you. It was one of many morally bankrupt activities, here on #17508, and it helped keep me in my place; a good reminder of my true worth.

"Got a job for ya." Daniels had called me up to his office, a plush suite of rooms a long way from where I worked. It was the least objectionable place on the port, only moderately filthy and oddly sweet smelling, a mixture of his sweat and the enhanced protein shakes he continually slurped. He wore a body harness, kitted out with vials of liquid and wired to boost reaction and strength. He’s an over-built meathead, natural muscle augmented with hormones and stimulants.

First thing he did was hold a palm up to my face, a stun-stick in the other hand. "Needs a pilot. It's not really a job though, more community service." He snickered. "A little old lady is meeting her ex-husband on Glio's moon. Paying us money to do it on the quiet. Some kind of new legislation she wants to duck. Wanted to rent her a 'puter, but she insisted on human. You're it. Minimum wage, maximum distance. We'll need to get you sanitised first. Special instructions. Best if you're unconscious. Before you start talking, here." He reached up to my forehead and rapped it with the stun-stick.

When the lights came back on, I was flat on the floor and wondering why the ceiling was so clean. Why I was so clean. My guts were hollow, too. I felt like my entire body had been flossed. The air was sterile, and the general lack of sensory input caused me to wonder if I was really awake or in some kind of blank simulated reality.

Wincing, I stood up and took in the room where I had been dumped. There was not much to see, just a pair of matching doors facing each other, smooth walls rounded off in the corners, about three metres wide and deep. If this was an airlock, one would lead into the ship, the other would blow out into the depths of space. I mentally shrugged and carefully sat back down.

A half hour or so later, the door on my right slid open and all the air stayed where it was, so I guessed it was safe enough. I clambered up and headed in to my find out more about my situation. I must have walked through a hundred metres of featureless corridor, checking out all the identically empty and clean rooms off it. There were about twenty or so, and all with that same sterile feel, as if it was some sort of hyper-sanitised medical facility. Weird, I know, but I’ve learned not to ask too many questions.

At the end of the corridor, I found the door that lead to the bridge. It opened and I stepped through into a standard flight deck. An odd, acidic tang tickled my sinuses and, for the first time, the reassuringly disordered signs of life met my eye. Nothing too messy, just a couple of seats out of alignment, a few loose items scattered about and, resting on control panel, a dinner tray littered with the bones of a spiny creature, picked utterly clean. The little old lady was perched at the pilot's console. I assumed she had been the one who had opened my door and that there was no need for introductions, so I settled into the co-pilots chair and nodded at her. She was dressed in comfortable knitwear and tweed. Tight curls of snowy white hair clung to her scalp, through which the outlines of her skull was faintly visible. Her frail fingers darted and twitched, shaking a little, as she spoke. All standard issue old lady stuff, aside from the freaking huge, empty spaceship.

"Oh, hello dearie," she chattered. "I'm so glad you're up and about. I don't suppose you know why I've hired you, do you? Any reputable company would rent me an autopilot to Glio's moon at a fraction of what I've paid for you, after all." That pig Daniels would be taking a huge cut of that fee, no doubt. "Well, I always say, you can't beat having a real human at the controls, dearie. Things simply don't seem ticketyboo without one."

I raised a smile and was about to make pleasant, but she rattled on. "Now, you should be aware of what makes this trip so urgent and important. The local authorities there have applied for, and received, permission from the galactic council to create a wildlife reserve there. A very rare occurrence indeed! The peculiar thing about that is that it protects any life form on Glio's moon at the time it comes into effect. But, it also covers any offspring which that life form may have in the future. It's galactic law. Devilishly tricky to undo, almost impossible to amend and rigidly enforced by the courts. So I and my ex-husband have decided to put aside our differences and fly out there to raise a family, before it's too late."

Thankfully, I'm tolerant of insanity. "Sounds charming, ma'am." I croaked. My vocal chords were clearly a bit rusty.

She practically dimpled. "Oh my, you sound exactly like my ex. Oh well, I can't sit here chin wagging with you all day. We're nearly at our destination and there's so much I've got to prepare! You'll find the coordinates are already plugged in; I need you to handle permissions and special requests. See you later, dearie!" And off she bustled.

I felt somewhat redundant. Doubly so when I discovered she'd let me sleep for - two days? Not normally such a deep sleeper, I blamed Daniels' dodgy stun-stick. The uselessness got even more obvious when the navigation console informed me we'd be landing in an hour. I was obligated to the old girl though, for getting me out from under Daniels for a brief spell. That spurred me to attempt a modicum of positive action. I decided to do a proper flight check, from the basics up. I was halfway through it, marvelling at the bizarre spec on the ship, when we were hailed by the police.

"Deep space cruiser, respond and prepare for remote scanning." The disinterested voice boomed from every surface at me. Handy trick. No need for speakers with police technology. They could also listen without microphones.

"Hi there guys. A single passenger and myself. Heading to Glio's moon on family business. Any local troubles we should be aware of, officers?" It's always best to be disarmingly honest and respectful with these guys. I have been on the wrong side of them too often to want otherwise.

The response, when it came, sounded disappointed but resigned to boredom. "Well, this wildlife regulation thing's made the moon a magnet for any idiot trying to breed illegal hybrids. But you scan clear for non-human signatures. Keep your eyes open for smugglers, pilot. Our thanks, and on you go."

I relaxed and continued my make-work flight check. Funny that the lady thought she and her husband (ex) would have kids protected by the law. Seemed only non-human biology would be protected. Unless, I mused, he was inhuman. Not the unlikeliest thing I've been involved in. If so, he had better be good at evading the police scanners. Funny, the old lady (I never did get her name) really didn’t seem the type. And suddenly I found something odd. The ship's power supply had a large unexplained drain on it.

Was he here? A cloaking device perhaps, covering his bio-signs. It would explain why she had hired me through Daniels, instead of risking more legitimate channels. I glanced at the dinner tray. That wasn’t the remains of any creature I recognised. If it was an alien snack, then that meant it was loose on the ship. Though thankfully, probably not very hungry. I set up a search routine looking for the bones’ previous owner, identifying natural predators, and then got back to investigating the power drain.

Shortly after my discovery, back came the old lady. She had dispensed with her disguise, apart from the wispy wig, which perched on her huge, moth-like face at a grotesquely jaunty angle. Her squat, multiply sectioned body resembled a massively swollen spider, eight legs tapping swiftly on the metal floor. Her mouth parts clicked together and dripped an acidic green liquid. She didn't bother speaking, but scuttled straight into the flight deck, clamping two of her legs around me while a third whipped sticky silk round and around me, strapping me in and rendering me immobile.

"Before you get too carried away, I already found your secret." The silk stopped coming and she chittered nervously, the mandibles twitching rather like her old lady hands had. "And I've had time to do something about it, too."

Her reply was hard to understand, but sounded very unladylike. It finished with one clear word. "Police?"

I grinned. "Actually, no. I found the biomorph unit just as you turned it off. Figured I didn't have much time." I could feel the change coming on. "The quickest solution was to reverse the camouflage. Instead of using my body for your morph, I set you up as the template. I was hoping, whatever you really were, the male of the species would be equal to the fight." After that, things got messy. I remember the hunger, the feel of an exoskeleton... And the stink of musk and blood.

Back on spaceport #17508 and Daniels' eyes were bugging out as I wrapped up my debrief. There were still a couple of pertinent facts, but I wanted to savour this moment. "That old biddy was - hells! That's the freakiest thing I've heard all week." He beat the desk with his fists. "But what the heck. Stuff happens. So she was going to spawn and eat the whole planet under council protection huh?"

"Well, not quite. Y'see, the interesting thing about that particular alien is how they're a little bit like an Old Earth seahorse, and a little bit like a praying mantis." He was clueless. To be fair, so was I when the lawyer had explained it to me.

"The male carries the children, but only after eating their mate. I experienced an unbeatable urge to, well...” I had to pause, thinking back on the horror of it. “She was nearing the end of her life, oozing pheromones, and it couldn't be denied. After biting her head off, I scooped out the eggs and fertilised them. Then I swallowed them.” Daniels just sat there, staring. “That happened round about the time we were landing on Glio's moon. This put me in a rather strange position, legally speaking. What with the law coming into effect a half hour later and all."

"Firstly, I was an unwitting accessory to smuggling. Secondly, I was carrying technically protected spawn. Thirdly, her ex-husband was planning to sue for custody. We figured out a compromise." I smiled at him. I was loving this. "You can come in now, dearies."

My children swarmed in through the door and swept towards Daniels like a tide. He gibbered with fear and tried to scratch his way through the wall, but they were upon him. All that meat was going to do them serious good. I only hoped the stimulants he took didn't upset their metabolisms.

The ex-husband had turned out to be a pretty reasonable fella-type organism. He only wanted the children to be happy and well fed. He hadn’t been overly fond of the mother anyway, which I suppose was biological necessity, when you’re programmed to kill them at the point of climax. The police had no real worries, as long as it all went away. They both accepted my solution to use spaceport #17508 as a hatchery. No one cared about it but the criminal owners, and even they wouldn't mess with a council protected species. Sure, they might want to exact painful and permanent revenge on yours truly, but that was another day, and at least my babies were well fed.
How I had got here was nobody's business but mine. It is enough to say I was deep in trouble. So much so, that I had run afoul of entirely the wrong sort of people. I was obliged to do anything they asked, for an undefined period of time. Thankfully, I have some skills that are in short supply, which kept me alive and whole. They had hung me out in their equivalent of a gulag, Spaceport #17508. A little known refuge for criminal activities, it was low on comfort and high on stench. There I was; stuck on a clunking, decrepit pile of junk, populated by the scum of the galaxy.

Daniels was my handler. He had been getting his jollies watching me clean out the service ducts, claiming robots were too good for menial tasks like that. The ducts led from the organ farming operation he ran, draining away the blood, fecal matter and screams of the unwilling donors. If you can’t imagine what that is like, I am happy for you. It was one of many morally bankrupt activities, here on #17508, and it helped keep me in my place; a good reminder of my true worth.

"Got a job for ya." Daniels had called me up to his office, a plush suite of rooms a long way from where I worked. It was the least objectionable place on the port, only moderately filthy and oddly sweet smelling, a mixture of his sweat and the enhanced protein shakes he continually slurped. He wore a body harness, kitted out with vials of liquid and wired to boost reaction and strength. He’s an over-built meathead, natural muscle augmented with hormones and stimulants.

First thing he did was hold a palm up to my face, a stun-stick in the other hand. "Needs a pilot. It's not really a job though, more community service." He snickered. "A little old lady is meeting her ex-husband on Glio's moon. Paying us money to do it on the quiet. Some kind of new legislation she wants to duck. Wanted to rent her a 'puter, but she insisted on human. You're it. Minimum wage, maximum distance. We'll need to get you sanitised first. Special instructions. Best if you're unconscious. Before you start talking, here." He reached up to my forehead and rapped it with the stun-stick.

When the lights came back on, I was flat on the floor and wondering why the ceiling was so clean. Why I was so clean. My guts were hollow, too. I felt like my entire body had been flossed. The air was sterile, and the general lack of sensory input caused me to wonder if I was really awake or in some kind of blank simulated reality.

Wincing, I stood up and took in the room where I had been dumped. There was not much to see, just a pair of matching doors facing each other, smooth walls rounded off in the corners, about three metres wide and deep. If this was an airlock, one would lead into the ship, the other would blow out into the depths of space. I mentally shrugged and carefully sat back down.

A half hour or so later, the door on my right slid open and all the air stayed where it was, so I guessed it was safe enough. I clambered up and headed in to my find out more about my situation. I must have walked through a hundred metres of featureless corridor, checking out all the identically empty and clean rooms off it. There were about twenty or so, and all with that same sterile feel, as if it was some sort of hyper-sanitised medical facility. Weird, I know, but I’ve learned not to ask too many questions.

At the end of the corridor, I found the door that lead to the bridge. It opened and I stepped through into a standard flight deck. An odd, acidic tang tickled my sinuses and, for the first time, the reassuringly disordered signs of life met my eye. Nothing too messy, just a couple of seats out of alignment, a few loose items scattered about and, resting on control panel, a dinner tray littered with the bones of a spiny creature, picked utterly clean. The little old lady was perched at the pilot's console. I assumed she had been the one who had opened my door and that there was no need for introductions, so I settled into the co-pilots chair and nodded at her. She was dressed in comfortable knitwear and tweed. Tight curls of snowy white hair clung to her scalp, through which the outlines of her skull was faintly visible. Her frail fingers darted and twitched, shaking a little, as she spoke. All standard issue old lady stuff, aside from the freaking huge, empty spaceship.

"Oh, hello dearie," she chattered. "I'm so glad you're up and about. I don't suppose you know why I've hired you, do you? Any reputable company would rent me an autopilot to Glio's moon at a fraction of what I've paid for you, after all." That pig Daniels would be taking a huge cut of that fee, no doubt. "Well, I always say, you can't beat having a real human at the controls, dearie. Things simply don't seem ticketyboo without one."

I raised a smile and was about to make pleasant, but she rattled on. "Now, you should be aware of what makes this trip so urgent and important. The local authorities there have applied for, and received, permission from the galactic council to create a wildlife reserve there. A very rare occurrence indeed! The peculiar thing about that is that it protects any life form on Glio's moon at the time it comes into effect. But, it also covers any offspring which that life form may have in the future. It's galactic law. Devilishly tricky to undo, almost impossible to amend and rigidly enforced by the courts. So I and my ex-husband have decided to put aside our differences and fly out there to raise a family, before it's too late."

Thankfully, I'm tolerant of insanity. "Sounds charming, ma'am." I croaked. My vocal chords were clearly a bit rusty.

She practically dimpled. "Oh my, you sound exactly like my ex. Oh well, I can't sit here chin wagging with you all day. We're nearly at our destination and there's so much I've got to prepare! You'll find the coordinates are already plugged in; I need you to handle permissions and special requests. See you later, dearie!" And off she bustled.

I felt somewhat redundant. Doubly so when I discovered she'd let me sleep for - two days? Not normally such a deep sleeper, I blamed Daniels' dodgy stun-stick. The uselessness got even more obvious when the navigation console informed me we'd be landing in an hour. I was obligated to the old girl though, for getting me out from under Daniels for a brief spell. That spurred me to attempt a modicum of positive action. I decided to do a proper flight check, from the basics up. I was halfway through it, marvelling at the bizarre spec on the ship, when we were hailed by the police.

"Deep space cruiser, respond and prepare for remote scanning." The disinterested voice boomed from every surface at me. Handy trick. No need for speakers with police technology. They could also listen without microphones.

"Hi there guys. A single passenger and myself. Heading to Glio's moon on family business. Any local troubles we should be aware of, officers?" It's always best to be disarmingly honest and respectful with these guys. I have been on the wrong side of them too often to want otherwise.

The response, when it came, sounded disappointed but resigned to boredom. "Well, this wildlife regulation thing's made the moon a magnet for any idiot trying to breed illegal hybrids. But you scan clear for non-human signatures. Keep your eyes open for smugglers, pilot. Our thanks, and on you go."

I relaxed and continued my make-work flight check. Funny that the lady thought she and her husband (ex) would have kids protected by the law. Seemed only non-human biology would be protected. Unless, I mused, he was inhuman. Not the unlikeliest thing I've been involved in. If so, he had better be good at evading the police scanners. Funny, the old lady (I never did get her name) really didn’t seem the type. And suddenly I found something odd. The ship's power supply had a large unexplained drain on it.

Was he here? A cloaking device perhaps, covering his bio-signs. It would explain why she had hired me through Daniels, instead of risking more legitimate channels. I glanced at the dinner tray. That wasn’t the remains of any creature I recognised. If it was an alien snack, then that meant it was loose on the ship. Though thankfully, probably not very hungry. I set up a search routine looking for the bones’ previous owner, identifying natural predators, and then got back to investigating the power drain.

Shortly after my discovery, back came the old lady. She had dispensed with her disguise, apart from the wispy wig, which perched on her huge, moth-like face at a grotesquely jaunty angle. Her squat, multiply sectioned body resembled a massively swollen spider, eight legs tapping swiftly on the metal floor. Her mouth parts clicked together and dripped an acidic green liquid. She didn't bother speaking, but scuttled straight into the flight deck, clamping two of her legs around me while a third whipped sticky silk round and around me, strapping me in and rendering me immobile.

"Before you get too carried away, I already found your secret." The silk stopped coming and she chittered nervously, the mandibles twitching rather like her old lady hands had. "And I've had time to do something about it, too."

Her reply was hard to understand, but sounded very unladylike. It finished with one clear word. "Police?"

I grinned. "Actually, no. I found the biomorph unit just as you turned it off. Figured I didn't have much time." I could feel the change coming on. "The quickest solution was to reverse the camouflage. Instead of using my body for your morph, I set you up as the template. I was hoping, whatever you really were, the male of the species would be equal to the fight." After that, things got messy. I remember the hunger, the feel of an exoskeleton... And the stink of musk and blood.

Back on spaceport #17508 and Daniels' eyes were bugging out as I wrapped up my debrief. There were still a couple of pertinent facts, but I wanted to savour this moment. "That old biddy was - hells! That's the freakiest thing I've heard all week." He beat the desk with his fists. "But what the heck. Stuff happens. So she was going to spawn and eat the whole planet under council protection huh?"

"Well, not quite. Y'see, the interesting thing about that particular alien is how they're a little bit like an Old Earth seahorse, and a little bit like a praying mantis." He was clueless. To be fair, so was I when the lawyer had explained it to me.

"The male carries the children, but only after eating their mate. I experienced an unbeatable urge to, well...” I had to pause, thinking back on the horror of it. “She was nearing the end of her life, oozing pheromones, and it couldn't be denied. After biting her head off, I scooped out the eggs and fertilised them. Then I swallowed them.” Daniels just sat there, staring. “That happened round about the time we were landing on Glio's moon. This put me in a rather strange position, legally speaking. What with the law coming into effect a half hour later and all."

"Firstly, I was an unwitting accessory to smuggling. Secondly, I was carrying technically protected spawn. Thirdly, her ex-husband was planning to sue for custody. We figured out a compromise." I smiled at him. I was loving this. "You can come in now, dearies."

My children swarmed in through the door and swept towards Daniels like a tide. He gibbered with fear and tried to scratch his way through the wall, but they were upon him. All that meat was going to do them serious good. I only hoped the stimulants he took didn't upset their metabolisms.

The ex-husband had turned out to be a pretty reasonable fella-type organism. He only wanted the children to be happy and well fed. He hadn’t been overly fond of the mother anyway, which I suppose was biological necessity, when you’re programmed to kill them at the point of climax. The police had no real worries, as long as it all went away. They both accepted my solution to use spaceport #17508 as a hatchery. No one cared about it but the criminal owners, and even they wouldn't mess with a council protected species. Sure, they might want to exact painful and permanent revenge on yours truly, but that was another day, and at least my babies were well fed.