"So, what, we're going to find the OG Ruth's hand in a tube somewhere and they're making more Ruths from that?" Ruthie asks. "Like a starfish?"
"No, actually, they use brain tissue," Sakkar says. "Which is why you might have some memories and not others."
"Oh shit," Ruthie says, her eyes wide. She looks over at me in horror.
Oh shit indeed. I have a sinking feeling that this is why our memories match up in certain spots and not others. Why we have memories instead of being a blank like Helen. And why my memories don't match up to Ruthie's. "Fuuuuuck."
"It's outlawed, of course," Sakkar says. "But someone that would clone you without going through the proper channels wouldn't care about that. It's the only reason I suggest it." He glances back over at Straik, who's practically bristling with protective anger. "And I'd like to talk to you privately, sir, once you have a moment."
I swallow hard. "Is it about us?"
Sakkar shakes his head. "Something unrelated to the cloning, I'm afraid. Ship business."
Straik mumbles around my fingers. "Why don't you and Ruthie go and eat some cake in the mess, love. I'll catch up."
Cake. Cake is exactly what I need right now. "Good call, babe." I kiss him again, then get to my feet. "Sound good to you, Ruthie?"
"Ugh, no. I hate sweets." Ruthie says immediately.
"You are absolutely not me, you heathen."
"That's what we've been saying all along," Kazex tells us, grumbling. "Kef, you humans are hard-headed."
87
STRAIK
I stare at Sakkar. "Pregnant? What do you mean she's pregnant?"
He shrugs. "Just what I said. I didn't want to upset Ruth more than she already was, so I scanned for anomalies in the bloodwork, looking for diseases, or tampering. She's pregnant." He eyes me. "I'd say she's about two standard months along."
I blink. And blink again. "But…she's a clone…"
"And a human, which is probably the greater barrier to you breeding her," Sakkar points out in that clinical voice of his. "Unless they sterilized her, she wouldn't have been put on the same medication regimen that a'ani clones are, which inhibits our ability to have an erection and negates the ability to produce sperm while on said medication. Ruth was probably crafted specifically to be a breeding slave, and, well, you bred her, sir."
Kef me. "You said this wasn't about cloning," I protest.
"It's about a child, specifically," Sakkar says. "I did not lie."
No, of course not. He just tweaked the truth.
"Shall I tell her? Or do you want me to have it removed?"
Removed…? Hot anger flares through me, and it takes everything I have not to choke Sakkar by the throat. "You don't touch her," I snap. "You don't touch her at all. Either one of them."
"Very well, sir. I'll leave the news to you to share, then." He turns toward the screen, lifting a data pad to download the information.
I gesture at the readouts all over the walls. "Lose all of this information. All of it. I don't want anyone finding record of it and wondering."
Sakkar hesitates, clutching the pad to his chest. "May I keep a copy to study?"
"Absolutely not."
He sighs heavily, but nods. "I'll destroy it right now, Captain." With a sad look on his face, he deletes the file from his data pad and then moves to the wall monitors. I don't turn away until I see the information deleted, and I ignore the woebegone expression on Sakkar's face. I don't care how much it wounds his scientific mind—if it endangers Ruth, we're not keeping it.
A baby. I rub my mouth again, shocked. Kef me. I'm going to be a father.
Oh, kef me. My mother is going to be a grandmother. That's a revolting thought. She's going to be equally horrified, I think, to find out that I've procreated with a human. Twice as horrified if she knew Ruth was a clone, but I'll have to carry that secret to my grave. With this new information spinning in my head, I stagger out of med-bay and head for the mess hall.
I need my mate. I need to hug Ruth and tell her the news. I think she'll be happy but I don't know for sure. She's already absorbed so much today that I hate to throw another piece of life-changing information in her direction. What if she doesn't want to be a mother? What if she's horrified that she's been tampered with enough to get pregnant?
What if this isn't a dream for her, but a nightmare? Does she deserve to have it all piled on her at once?
I stand in the doorway of the mess hall, watching as she tucks into an enormous piece of cake. In the last three months, she's had our food processors adjusted to make a cake with grain flour instead of veg, and has declared it “almost” perfect. I watch as she eats a big mouthful, her gaze on Ruthie, who stirs a bowl of noodles in front of her. Kazex only has eyes for Ruthie, unable to take his gaze off of my wife's clone.