Playing God(51)

Praeis strapped her belly guard back on and slid the ver-milion-and-gold kaftan over her shoulders. David busied himself with his data and his instruments, carefully not watching her. She climbed off the table, trying not to feel the way her pouch drooped against the bottom of her belly guard, and sat in one of the wicker settees next to the examining table.

David stayed perched on the stool next to his comm station and looked her straight in the eyes.

“There's not much I can tell you that you don't already know.” His t'Therian was good, but he still spoke with a lazy, drawling accent that sometimes got on Praeis's nerves. Now, for instance. “All your estrogens are dropping, and all your testosterones are rising to compensate. It's happening at about three times the normal rate. This is not unheard of. We don't have any good statistics on it, but there are cases. You will be fully Changed within three to four weeks.”

Praeis folded her arms across her belly guard. She wanted Senejess and Armetrethe. She wanted Resaime and Theiareth. She wanted anybody except this alien creature in front of her.

She forced herself to take a deep breath. “My second-mother Changed like this, but no one else …”

“Had your second-mother lost her sisters?”

Praeis's ears crumpled a little. “Yes. In a skirmish with the Getesaph.”

David nodded. “We've got some stats that say the Change happens earlier on the Mars colonies than on All-Cradle, and there's some evidence that it's happening earlier in plague-ravaged areas.” He shrugged. “But we don't know if it's really a consequence of being removed from the family, so that some hormonal check or balance is not received, or if a large die-off sets off a breeding trigger …” He gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I am not attempting to belittle what's happening to you. I'm just wishing I knew more about its cause.”

Praeis's ears and skin twitched irritably. “It's good,” she lied.

David caught the insincerity in her tone. “I know this is difficult. What I can give you as good news is that even though the Change is accelerated, it is proceeding smoothly. You will father many daughters before the Ancestors claim your will.”

Praeis took a deep breath. She let it out all the way before she spoke. “Is there anything you can do to slow it down?”

David puffed out his cheeks and Praeis wondered if he'd picked up the gesture from Lynn, or if she got it from him. “I sent out a thread for that. It caught onto some research in hormone replacement they're doing at one of the Lunar facilities. It looks … promising anyway.” His reassuring expression faltered. “Praeis, we really don't know enough about you, about the Ded—excuse me, the t'Theria, to do this.” He shrugged almost irritably. “The Human biological clock is a quartz mechanism. Smooth, simple, steady. The t'Therians’ … It's an antique cuckoo clock; a thousand moving parts, all perfectly meshed, all responding to each other's movements, but how do you determine what each one does?” He looked toward her without seeing her.

“But there is research being done,” Praeis prompted him.

He waved his hand at the comm station. “Theoretically, I could separate your estrogens out of a blood sample and synthesize a set of doses to get you back to your pre-Change levels. This should slow the production of your testosterones.” He turned his gaze fully toward her again. “But it also will effectively stop your natural production of estrogens. If we start this, as soon as you stop dosing on the synthesized estrogens, there will be nothing between you and the Change because you'll have frozen the mechanism that makes it a slow slide.” He stopped. “Instead of having weeks to make your preparations, you will have hours.”

Praeis rubbed her hollow belly guard. She thought of her daughters, not yet mothers for themselves, left alone with Senejess and Armetrethe and their plans. She thought about everything she had come to do that hadn't even been started yet.

Her ears had drooped, she realized. She raised them. “You will not tell Lynn any of this?” The last thing Praeis needed right now was her shock, or worse, her pity. Lynn was a good friend, but the Change was not something she had ever really understood.

David shook his head. “I never discuss patients with Lynn. She doesn't even ask.”

Humans are so strange. “Can you give me two months?”

David nodded slowly. “If that's what you want. I can do that.”

Ancestors forgive me. I cannot add my will to yours yet. “That's what I want.”





Chapter VII



David leaned toward Lynn from the other side of her video wall. “It's too early in the game for you to be looking this tired, Lynn.”