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It? What is going on?
He leads me into a small room. It seems empty to me, until he leads me to a protrusion in the wall. I am confused until I lean over it and see that it does contain someone. Someone fast asleep.
I draw in a deep gasp of awe and horror.
“A baby!?”
There is a little baby Persinian sleeping in a crib. It looks big enough to eat solid food, mostly because Persinians don’t make milk. I am guessing he is a boy, because he is wearing trident pajamas, and that tends to be a male insignia among his people. He has proportions similar to a year-old human infant, all chubby and big-headed and so devastatingly innocent I can barely stand to look at him.
“I do not think the infant will tell on us,” Kail says. “Killing him seemed unfair.”
I turn and whisper at him furiously. “You orphaned a baby, Kail!”
He gives a shrug.
“We need to get to a station immediately. We need to get this kid to safety, and then we need to talk about what it means to kill.”
“Will an illicit station be a safe place for a baby?”
“I….”
I am speechless. Things were bad enough before, but now we have a tiny little life depending on us to make good decisions for it, and we are not good at making decisions.
As if sensing a disturbance, the baby opens big blue eyes. Seeing my stricken face, his lips nevertheless part in a big, gummy smile. He lets out a little gurgle and reaches for me with chubby scaled hands.
In that moment, I am done. Completely and utterly. I reach out and pick him up. He is warm, and smells faintly of the beach. He lets his head fall against my shoulder and I hold him tight, feeling an immediate wave of protectiveness that far exceeds any feeling I have ever felt on my own account.
Kail
She’s going to keep the baby. I know that the moment I see her pick him up. She does not know it yet, because she operates by thoughts and ideas, and they do not always work with emotions.
“He’s so friendly,” she says, confused. “Shouldn’t he be wondering where his mom is?”
“Infants of some species bond with whoever is looking after them, a survival strategy. Or maybe he’s just a baby with a cheerful disposition.”
“Where are his parents? I don’t want him seeing what you did to them.”
“I don’t know. Nobody seemed to be interested in him. Nobody begged for the life of their baby, and that is the first thing a parent does when they sense danger.”
Tarni has the sense not to ask me how I know that. Or, more likely, she’s not thinking of anything besides the baby. Infants have a way of entirely capturing the attention of those who are unbroken enough to enjoy them.
“I don’t understand. They have to be somewhere.”
“Well,” I shrug. “It’s possible his parents aren’t here. It’s possible they already died. It’s possible he was kidnapped. It’s possible he was being sold. It’s possible…”
“Stop,” Tarni says. “I don’t need to hear every possibility. I know enough about the universe to know bad things can happen to anyone. But Kail. I don’t want to be one of those bad things anymore. I don’t think I can stand being one of those bad things. So. Please. No more killing.”
12
Tarni
I don’t wait for Kail’s response, because I know it’s not going to be what I want to hear. Kail is never going to promise to stop killing, and if I am to be honest, I don’t really want him to.
We take the baby, get into the escape pod and leave the ship of the Persinians to drift among the stars. I look out of the escape pod’s bulbous window at the floating ship left to drift. It is a somber moment, somewhat alleviated by the fact my hair is being tugged by surprisingly strong scaled hands. The baby must be hungry, but he’s not crying for food. He just wants me to look back at him. As soon as I do, he breaks into a broad, gummy smile. When he blinks, his eyelids move horizontally rather than vertically.
Kail is quiet and solemn. He does not seem to take any interest or joy in the baby. Maybe he’s not a baby kind of guy. I wouldn’t have thought I was a baby kind of girl, either, but here we are.
“He really likes attention, doesn’t he,” I observe out loud.
