“Right. Babies,” Haven pursed her lips. “I didn’t really think of that.”
Goldie gave her a look under the holo.
“What?” Haven threw up her hands, making the rings flash at her in warning as one of her limbs went outside of their range. “I didn’t really think that far.”
“Uh-huh.” Goldie blinked at her. “Haven, you’re out here illegally, right?”
“Not anymore. We got permission from that captain guy.”
“Yeah. But this is your first medical scan.”
“Oh. That. Yup. That’s true.”
“I know. Aside from some important inoculations you should definitely have, that means you never had your ovulation halted. Did you?”
“Er, no,” she admitted. “And I hated getting my period. Every time, I’d have to hide and then burn whatever I was using as pads. Blood scent is really strong, and a lot of the alien species can pick it up really easily.”
“Yeah, it’s also not regular blood, so some of them would be turned on by it.”
“Ew.”
Goldie shrugged. “Biology is gross. You know, some species sip the female’s urine to test if she’s fertile yet or not.”
“Gross! Which species does that?”
“Giraffes,” she replied bluntly, making Haven wince. “A lot of mating practices can be considered gross or weird or odd. And our blood, according to domini reports on the subject, smells like the resetting of our cycle. Which it is. It alerts males that we are not bred but are about to be ready to be. Actually, there’s a whole data file on it by the top hybrid scientists on Turv that-”
“Er, Goldie,” Have made a face, “with all respect, Idon’twant to know. That’s nasty.”
“It’s biology.”
“Same thing.” Haven shuddered.
Goldie laughed. “You can’t just ignore it because it’s gross. And it’s relevant to you because I have to know. Whendidyou last get your period?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to keep track of time when there’s no clocks or sunlight. It’s been a while though. Probably.”
“Well, do youwantto be pregnant?”
Haven opened her mouth, then hesitated and frowned. “I don’t know. It would probably be an inconvenience. I can’t really climb around the ship with a big belly. And Vytln and Ijustgot mated! Who thinks about babies this early?”
“Aliens do,” Goldie responded bluntly.
“Seriously?” Haven made a face. “Okay. We’ll be careful. But wejuststarted hooking up. So, the odds that it caught are low, right?”
“Not with aliens.”
“Huh?”
“See, this is why biology is important.” Goldie began messing with the controls on her console. “Humans are consideredincrediblyprolific by alien standards. The fact that we’re so early, relatively, in our development and are limited to only one planet but our population is already in the billions is basically unheard of. Some speciesstillaren’t in the billions. And that is only because most alien species can’t reproduce with the ease we do. There are a lot that have natural limitations, and most female species try to activelyrejectmale sperm to force only the best ones to be successful. Which means, male species have evolved to have sperm that basically force the point to get the jobdone. Whileoureggs have no such defenses. So, when a male alien and human female mate, the odds of conception aremuch higher.”
“Am I pregnant?!” Haven asked loudly, her heart pounding, as she realized what Goldie was explaining to her. She knew aliens liked human females, she even knew that humans were the only ones capable of interbreeding with other species, but she didn’t think it would be easy. In fact, she rather thought it would bemoredifficult. Like a rarity kind of thing.
“We’re about to find out,” Goldie said, still focused on her task.
Haven didn’t know what she was looking for or even looking at as her holo recreation continued to be stripped down until it was only a uterus – an organ that lookeda lotsmaller than she would have anticipated considering how badly that thing hurt once a month.
“I mean, I knew it could happen,” she was mumbling, mostly to herself, as her heart raced and she considered the possibility of both possibilities before her. “But it wasn’t really something I was thinking about.”
