But it would be something new for them to disapprove of.
It forced her to consider something she’d been avoiding--whether it would be a huge loss to her if she was to take a dive off of the deep end and go off with aliens when she barely knew them.
The answer, of course, was that that would be insane--purely irrational.
They would never take her back if they got rid of her and she could be in a really bad place--with aliens who actually didn’t want her and wouldn’t let her hang around them, and cut off from her own people by their disapproval of her life choice.
And worse if she got pregnant by one of them instead of producing a fresh generation Earth-human colonist when that wasrequired--because they’d sailed away from Earth with just barely what they needed for a healthy gene pool.
Because it was all they could do to manage the group they’d gathered up.
She had never agreed to that stipulation, of course. It was her grandparents that had--first gen. colonists--but everybody alive now was tied to the same contract.
And, of course, that made her acknowledge that at least a tiny part of why it had occurred to her that she might want to go with Ryne was because she really wanted to escape so that she didn’t have to choose a partner among her fellow colonists.
She didn’t actually have to, though, she reminded herself. There was an option. She could still fulfill her obligation without having to do anything scary.
And she didn’t doubt that would settle things very quietly and nicely and all of her troubles would vanish.
Chapter Nine
Belle decided to celebrate by heading over to the med center before she could change her mind again or anything happened to make the route she’d settled on impossible to implement.
She was in luck.
A medic was on duty.
She didn’t know the woman.
Of course she recognized her.
Nobody was a complete stranger.
But she didn’t know her name or really anything about her.
Except she didn’t especially like the way the woman looked her over.
“Can I help you?” she asked coolly.
Belle smiled with an effort. “Uh … I hope so. Things have been pretty hectic since we got here and I thought I’d see if I could get an appointment since I have time off.”
“For what purpose?”
“I’ve decided to go with artificial insemination to fulfill my obligation to reproduce. I guess I need to get my ovulation tracked?”
Some of the prune look eased from the woman’s expression. “We usually fit women with the wrist tracker. You wanted to make an appointment? Have you chosen a donor?”
“Oh … uh. I’m thinking I want an anonymous donor. I don’t mind if it’s one of my matches--except I absolutely don’t want these two,” she responded, lifting her wrist to display her matches. “That’s Jeffery Clements and Newton Smith. If I get stuck with their seed--either one of them--I’m going to dump the kid in the child center. I can’t handle trying to rear one that looks or acts like either one of them.”
The bitch gave her the pinched look again. “Those two have been removed from the donor list,” she said coldly.
“Oh! Well!Alright! Anybody else is ok--no preferences. I’d actually prefer to get a girl--if I get to choose. I know that’ll probably depend on the ratio we have of male to female, but if I can I’d like to.”
“We aren’t taking appointments right now for this procedure. Well actually we have a hold on breeding until the colony is stable. The first openings are six months out. The council wants to get a solid start and bring in a good harvest on our first garden effort--make certain we don’t have food issues before we begin adding to the population.”
Belle nodded understanding. She’d figured as much.
She was a little disappointed that she couldn’t just take the leap right away--because that would absolutely settle everything--all of her little problems--but she could say it was settled anyway. Choices made, appointment lined up. Practically a done deal.
