Sergei Lukyanenko - The Genome

“I have another quarter of an hour,” he said, as they rested. “Then it’s back to the bridge.”

“Just a sec…”

Janet got out her cigarettes, lit two up, handed one to Alex, and avidly smoked the other one herself.

“I enjoyed it very much,” said Alex, caressing her dark thigh, glistening with sweat. “You are a wonderful lover, Janet.”

“Better than Kim?” she asked with a mischievous smile.

“Yes, I would say… because of your age. She has very little experience. And that makes a big difference, despite all her efforts.”

“In five years or so, she’ll far outshine me.” Janet smiled. “Well, I don’t really mind… Oh, Alex, I should’ve warned you in advance…”

“What about?”

“I didn’t block conception. There’s a possibility that I’ll get pregnant.”

Alex was quiet for a moment before admitting:

“How unusual. I’ve never had a woman like that.”

“Does that turn you on?” Janet smiled again.

“Yes,” said Alex earnestly. “I have three kids, but all were conceived under the terms of an agreement. Two boys under the government order—they are at some boarding school on Earth—and a girl from a… good friend of mine. I visit her regularly.”

“All speshes?” Janet inquired.

“The boys—I don’t know, to be honest with you. Probably. I have a good genotype. But the girl is specialized as a detective.”

“Poor thing…”

Alex said nothing. He didn’t really feel like continuing the argument about the necessity of love.

“I have five, but no one specialized for a profession that requires the loss of major emotions,” Janet told him.

“You seem to have mentioned four…”

“The fifth one’s on Eben. If he’s alive, that is. I prefer to think he is alive… I would have felt him die.”

“What do you mean, you would’ve felt him die? Is that also a part of your specialization?” Alex asked curiously.

The woman laughed. “No, of course not. We have this belief… a mother feels if her children are alive.”

“Very romantic,” Alex agreed. “A bit archaic, but sweet.”

“We kept to our old traditions in many respects. I gave birth to my first three kids personally, for instance.”

She said that with an easy and even careless air, but Alex felt his skin crawl.

“Why?” was all he could ask.

“It’s a tradition. Are you disturbed by that?”

“No… not much. After all, a third of all people are born that way. I’ve even been trained to assist with natural childbirth, in case of unforeseeable flight circumstances. But I didn’t expect it of you….” He laughed a forced laugh. “Don’t tell me you also suckled them yourself?”

“Yes. All five of them. Each one at least once.”

Alex started.

“Your lactation isn’t blocked?”

“No. An Ebenian soldier is a military unit unto herself. A woman must be able to give birth and nurture future warriors without any assistance.”

Alex looked sideways at her voluptuous breasts. He had thought their size to be a result of genetic modifications or individual peculiarities of her constitution… now he knew.

“Sorry. I should’ve told you before…” said Janet pensively. “Many people are disgusted by that fact of my biography. I let my children consume my own bodily fluids… I can certainly see how that would be shocking.”

Alex was listening to his own reactions. Then gave up, unable to sort out all the raging sensations and thoughts, and looked down at the Demon. What he saw made his face turn red.

“Janet, I must be some kind of pervert. All that… just turns me on.”

Janet Ruello looked at him. Her eyes were blazing.

“I hoped it would, Alex.”

New Ukraine was considered to be a successful planet, with solid prospects for the future and more or less loyal to the Imperial government. In a word, it was the golden center of the Empire, one of the pillars propping up civilization. Peaceful, plentiful, and utterly dreary.

Had the hyper-channel near the planet been a continuously functioning one, Alex wouldn’t have even considered landing on New Ukraine. But the colony wasn’t a galactic crossroads like Gamma Snakebearer. Neither was it a bustling trading post like Quicksilver Pit. Mirror came out of the channel, traced another arc to return to the entrance, but didn’t manage to re-enter. A whole caravan of refrigerators loaded with frozen and nominally live pork—the two main New Ukrainian exports—was slowly pulling into the narrowing aperture of the channel.

“The next time it opens will be in nine hours and seventeen minutes,” reported Xang gloomily. “Do we wait, Captain?”

Alex was lost in thought. He had walked onto the bridge about a minute before they exited the channel, and Janet appeared in the system literally one second before they came out into real space. His emotions hadn’t yet settled, and mentally he was still with this tall, dark-skinned woman, so charmingly depraved, and at the same time so conservative…

“C-the-Third…” Alex had connected to the ship’s inner net. The clone was in his cabin—he sat at the computer terminal working on a text file. “We have some nine hours in the New Ukrainian system. Shall we land or wait in orbit?”

“Let’s go down,” replied the clone without hesitation. “The Zzygou prefer to attend to their natural needs in open air or running water.”

Alex was using an open channel, audible to the whole crew, and Janet let out a quiet, spiteful laugh.

“Very well. Please tell your wards,” Alex asked him. “And… how are they feeling, by the way?”

“Everything’s back to normal,” answered the clone calmly. “Sey-Zo has explained to me what had happened. The cocktail included some anise liqueur from Hellada-2. It was an unfortunate misunderstanding. Turns out, the natural alkaloids of anise cause a strong intoxication in the Zzygou, which is accompanied by a propensity for mystification and an uncontrollable need to say things that are unpleasant to their interlocutors. They beg your pardon… and ask not to offer them any more beverages that contain anise.”

It was impossible to tell whether C-the-Third really believed that what had happened was an accident, or if he simply preferred not to blow up the scandal. He seemed ready to believe it was an accident.

“Propensity for mystification…” Janet murmured. “Yes, of course…”

“Right battle station, please be quiet,” said Alex dryly. And Janet fell silent. Not offended; rather, fully satisfied with what she had heard.

They began their descent toward the planet.

New Ukraine had four spaceports. One was located near the capital city, Mazepa-Misto. Two more were out in the boundless green steppes, where herds of mutated swine roamed—huge, elephantine creatures, covered by a three-and-a-half-foot-thick layer of aromatized lard, rich in vitamins. Alex had had occasion to try various kinds of local pork, created by the artful cunning of geneticists. He had also tried the lard, which, though untreated, had a smoked flavor and consistency. He had also sampled the sweet “chocolate” lard you could buy in small cans. Alex wasn’t a great fan of the local delicacies, but the geneticists’ mastery was unquestionable.

The fourth New Ukrainian spaceport, where they would be landing, was located near the planet’s one and only sea. The colony was not lacking for water, but by a strange caprice of nature, there were no large lakes on New Ukraine, to say nothing of seas or oceans. A long and arduous terraforming process had artificially created the sea. There was no true necessity for it, especially considering that this large body of water had a significant, and not positive, effect on the climate of the adjacent regions. But at this point, it had become a matter of principle. Every colony wanted to have everything a normal planet should: seas and mountains, forests and swamps. Alex had already seen the shapeless, monstrous, artificially created mountain chain on Serengeti, so the New Ukrainians’ desire to have a sea did not surprise him.