Chapter 7: The Long Night
The contraction crested and held, and Becca felt the creature turn inside her like a key in a lock. The pressure came low and deep, under the clutch, and the wall of her went hard around him. She rode it with her eyes shut and her jaw grinding until the tightness let go and her belly softened and the sweat broke cold across her forehead.
"That was a minute," the nurse said.
Vance checked the slate. "They're close enough. Pinch them half a minute apart and we're done waiting."
Becca opened her eyes. The ceiling ribs had stopped fading; the light had settled into a hard white hum. Her back ached down to the bone. Under her hands the dome of herself lay quiet, and somewhere in the deep of it the creature had gone still again, waiting out the rhythm of the room.
Chloe's hand was around hers, damp, alive.
"How far apart are they?" Chloe said.
"Three minutes," the nurse said. "Down from five."
Chloe's thumb moved across Becca's knuckles. "You hear that. You're doing it."
"I'm not doing anything. It's doing it."
"All right, it's doing it. You're performing admirably, whatever it's doing."
That got a laugh out of her, short and rough, before the next one cut it off. It came up fast this time, a fist under the clutch, and Becca's whole body curled toward it. She got her free hand under the weight of herself and held, and the creature moved with the squeeze, not away, not against, but with it, sliding deeper, so that for a moment it felt like she was being opened from the inside.
The blue thing on her wrist pulsed sharp, twice, in time with the contraction's peak.
"It matches," the nurse said quietly. "It's syncing to the wave."
Vance came around the bed and looked at her wrist. The small creature had its tentacles sunk around her forearm, its eyes tipped toward her face, and it throbbed blue and dim, blue and dim, exactly under her heartbeat of pain.
"They're a hive," he said. "It can feel what it feels."
Chloe's face was pale. "So it's feeling this."
"Every contraction. It's their way of being close to him. They don't have parents, not like we do. The clutch is the closest thing."
The next wave came slower to build, like a tide pulling back before it pushed, and Becca had time to be afraid. She said nothing. She pressed her skull into the pillow and let it come and held Chloe's hand through the whole long dirty push of it, and when it passed she was shaking.
"My hands are going numb," she said.
"That's the breathing," the nurse said. "You're hyperventilating. Slow it down."
"I'll do what I can."
Chloe leaned in until her hair fell across Becca's shoulder. "You're not alone. You're not doing this alone."
"I know."
"I mean it."
One of the tanks in the back column gurgled. The red light in the fourth tank steadied and brightened a shade. The blue thing on Becca's wrist pulsed once in answer, slow, deliberate.
"Julian," Becca said.
Vance looked up from the slate.
"Is it moving?"
He didn't pretend to misunderstand. He swept the scanner over her abdomen again, and the screen lit the underside of his jaw. He watched it for a long count, thumb turning the device, the numbers rolling up green.
"It's held position under the clutch," he said. "It's not thrashing. It's curled around the bottom egg like a hand holding a ball."
"That's what you wanted."
"That's what I don't know." He set the slate down, then picked it up again. "I don't know if it's protecting them or preparing to feed. It's been an hour and a half. It's eaten twice today. It's never been awake this long this close to a meal."
The next contraction folded her forward like someone folding paper. Becca heard herself grunt, low and animal, and the creature inside her turned all at once, fast, a hard scrabbling pressure that crossed her belly wall from left to right and came to rest against the spot where the nurse's hand was pressing.
The blue thing on her wrist flared bright. The tank in the fourth column pulsed an answering red.
"Julian," the nurse said.
"I see it."
"That's not a contraction motion."
"No," he said, and watched the slate. "That's a decision."
"That's a decision," Vance said.
Becca's belly drew up hard and held. The creature inside her turned again, scrabbling low, and for a beat it felt like it was trying to claw its way deeper, away from the wave. Her whole body curled around the pressure and she let out a sound that wasn't a word and wasn't quite a scream.
"Don't push yet," the nurse said. "It's fighting you."
"Feels like it's trying to crawl back up inside me."
"It is." Vance had the slate up. "It knows the eggs are coming. It wants to stay."
"Then it should have thought about that before it ate two of my eggs."
Chloe's hand was on her shoulder, damp, steady. "It's moving, it's moving down. I can see it through the wall."
Becca looked down at the great pale slope of herself. The creature moved under the skin like a fish under ice, a long dark shape crossing left to right, and then it stopped against the lower wall of her and pressed outward. The skin stretched thin over the shape of it. For a breath she could see the ridge of its spine, the curl of its squid-like body.
"That's it," the nurse said. "It's headed out. You're going to have to push against the next wave, hard as you can."
"I'm on my back."
"Then get off your back."
The nurse and Chloe pulled her up and over. Becca got her hands under herself and turned, the weight of her belly swinging, and came down on all fours on the mattress. Her knees sank into the sheets. Her arms shook. The dome of her hung between them, low and hot, and the thing inside her pressed against the underside of her wall, hard, urgent.
The next contraction came up like a freight train.
"Push," Vance said. "Now."
Becca pushed. She put her whole body into it, jaw locked, arms shaking, the world going red at the edges. She felt the creature move, a hard wet slide against the inside of her, and the pressure peaked and held and she pushed through it until her vision swam.
"Again," the nurse said. "Keep going."
The creature turned against the outlet, fighting it. She felt it grip the walls of her, clinging with its small limbs, and her body squeezed it anyway, a wave of involuntary pressure that had nothing to do with her will.
She pushed again, lower this time, and the creature slipped.
The pressure dropped in a single long impossible moment. Something wet and heavy passed through her, and then there was a sound, a damp slap on the table beneath her, and the weight inside her was gone.
Becca collapsed onto her elbows, gasping.
"It's out," Chloe said. "It's out."
The creature lay on the pad beneath Becca, slick and pulsing, the size of her spread hand. It squirmed, tentacles unfurling, its pale eyes blinking in the cold light. It turned toward her, reached up toward the underside of her belly with one thin limb.
Vance was already moving. He crossed the room in three strides, scooped the creature up in a covered container, and sealed it in a single motion. It hit the lid hard from inside, once, twice, and went still.
He set the container aside on the cart and wiped his hands on his trousers.
Behind them, the fourth tank pulsed.
Becca lifted her head. The red light in the tall column was bright, then brighter, strobing in the dark of its chamber. The shape inside it pressed against the glass, larger than the thing that had come out of her, and the red light beat like a heartbeat in the dark.
"She's angry," Chloe said.
Then Becca's belly drew up again.
It was harder than the contraction that had expelled the creature, harder than anything she had felt all night. Her whole body clenched around the emptiness where he had been, and she felt the clutch shift low, twelve small hard shapes pressing against the wall of her.
"No," she said. "The eggs."
"Your body's emptying," the nurse said. "It's not done yet."
Becca got her hands flat on the pad and pushed against the wave without being told. The pressure came down like a fist, and she pushed with it, and something small and round pressed against her, moving, not with her will but with the deep involuntary rhythm of her own body.
"They're coming anyway," she said. "Whether I want them to or not."