Knees up, a hand resting on the curling pubic hair, fingers ready to part the labia. And she froze. She had no idea where the fertilized egg reposed. She would have to scrape each wall of the uterus. And if she didn't get it all the resulting infection… and if she tore the delicate walls of the uterus the resulting hemorrhage…
The smell of a woman rotting from the inside out filled her nostrils. A time when abortion had been illegal. A time when a desperate joker woman had butchered herself with a coat hanger.
Tach began to shake. Infection be damned, she thought. Consider what you are contemplating. I have no evidence this child is defective. I can kill a defective. I can't kill a baby.
It's not a baby, argued another part of herself. It's a collection of several hundred cells.
"It's going to be a baby," said Tach aloud.
And you're a man! Are you seriously going to go through with this abomination?
"What else can I do?" she cried desperately. "Butcher myself, and bleed to death?"
"It's a baby," she whispered again.
It will be defective. It's Blaise's child. It will be crazy! Destroy it now!
"You are arguing to save yourself from this indignity. Well… why? All the indignities imaginable have been heaped upon you. You have been kidnapped, robbed, assaulted, raped, and imprisoned. Why balk at this?"
Because I'm a man damn it! And there's something growing in me!
"It is a baby," Tach murmured as exhaustion struck her like a blow between the eyes. She flung aside the spoon. Heard its metallic jangle as it struck the far wall.
The temptation was effectively removed. She would have to crawl laboriously through the darkness to locate the utensil again, and by the time she found it, she would have again talked herself out of committing murder.
She groped for her blue jeans. Pulled them onto her shivering body. The cold sweat that had drenched her had now left her chilled to the bone. She crawled to her favorite corner and fell headlong into a sleep that bordered on coma.
The shrilling of pipes and the deep-throated booming of drums fell on her ears like a killing cloud on a field of young flowers. She was female again. Most annoying. Damn it, it was her dream. Why couldn't she be Tachyon again-slim and lithe and male? She became aware of movement, an undulating rocking that made her feel dreadfully insecure. She pushed aside the curtains and found herself perched atop a palanquin that was in turn perched atop the brawny shoulders of four young men. They paced a trail that wove between green fleshy stalks of daunting height and girth.
Tachyon sidled backwards, away from the threatening vegetation, and found a new threat. Something behind her, following like a shadow. She spun and saw it again. A flash of iridescence. Wings. Sweet Ideal, she had wings. She explored the contours of her borrowed face. It felt the same until she reached the forehead and her shrinking fingers discovered velvet-soft antennae springing from above each brow and curving back over her head.
She scurried on hands and knees back to the opening, oblivious to the grief she was causing her strong-backed bearers. The little procession was just emerging into a clearing, and at last she got a look at what topped the vegetable behemoths. Irises, giant irises, their petals hanging down like tongues of exhausted dogs. The clearing was dotted with toadstools, and each fungus was serving as a chair for other elfin creatures like herself. Beneath the shade of the mushroom caps were other breeds of creatures. Ugly and twisted, they resembled nothing so much as a mutant's seaside convention, all huddled beneath their umbrellas to hide from the light of the full moon that floated gibbous overhead. Tachyon wondered in what capacity they served their pretty, delicate overlords.
But closer examination revealed her mistake. It was the dainty fairies on top of the toadstools who wore the chains. The palanquin was turned and lowered awkwardly to the ground. Tachyon clung to the roof supports like a wife greeting a long-absent husband. Once the swaying and tilting stopped, she risked a glance and found herself confronted and confounded by the sight of a gigantic toad. It rolled out its tongue like a grotesque red carpet for visiting royalty. Tachyon shuddered and shrank back against the cushions. Two of her bearers reached in and dragged her out. Her bare toes seemed to be cringing away from the flicking tip of the toad's tongue, and as an errant night breeze teased at her gossamer gown, Tach realized that she was much more pregnant than she remembered or had any business being. Oddly, there was no substance to the belly that ballooned out the fabric of her gown.
The toad frowned. Said to one of its twisted minions, "can I fuck him when she's like that?"
"No, It'll get in the way… block your penis," was the creature's incredibly ignorant reply.
"Then I've got to get rid of it. Mind-rape ought to do. I can make her shove it out."
The toad wrapped its tongue about her head. Mucus dripped from its stinking surface and ran down her cheeks like tears. Tach gave a cry of revulsion that quickly became a scream of pain as stinging needles seemed to enter her mind. Fingers slipping on the surface of the tongue, Tachyon struggled to throw it aside. There was a click like a key turning in a perfect lock, and the pain and the tongue withdrew, the tongue coiling away like a wounded snake. Tach stared at the flames dancing on her fingertips and the fire that formed a shield for her mind.
"Then rip it out in blood," screamed the Blaise-toad, and one of the goblins drew a curved knife and advanced on her. Tachyon moaned her despair and laid her arms across the swell of her pregnancy. Then, surprisingly, the creature died in a geyser of blood, one clawed hand scrabbling at the knife that had somehow appeared in its throat.
A strong arm slid about Tachyon's waist, and she gasped in relief as the Outcast pulled her against his side. The tip of the rapier was weaving like the nib of a maddened calligrapher in the air before them. "No, Pretender," the outlaw said. "The child will survive to displace you."
There were screams and shouts from the goblins, and the toad let out a hiss like a thousand cobras threatening. Then an enormous wind blew up, the petals of the irises fell like rain, and the whole grand and grotesque assembly went whirling away, carried higher and higher into the sky until they appeared as small black dots against the face of the moon.
Tach sagged in the Outcast's arms, and it seemed perfectly natural to place her arms about his neck to support herself.
" I won't let him harm it," she murmured in a voice gone weak and bloodless from fear. "Help me. Don't let him hurt us anymore."
Placing a finger beneath her chin, the Outcast forced her to look up. His breath smelled sweetly of honey and brandy. Closer, closer-a kiss to be anticipated…
The slamming of a distant door brought her awake. Tachyon pushed up on the palms of her hands. Her hair hung about her like a shroud. Slowly she pushed it back. Dropped her hands until they lay protectively over her belly. And deep within her something female stirred and dropped back into the timeless sea-rocked sleep of the embryo.
How strange that in the space of a dream Tachyon had discovered a skill and an emotional gift, both of which often took a lifetime to achieve and admit. The Takisian had built a mentatic shield that would protect her and her daughter. And the parent had learned that she wanted to protect that child. Illyana was no longer something growing inside of her. Illyana was a part of her.
"There, and now you even have a name," murmured Tach gently.
Weeks passed. She now had a rough indicator of time, a clock measured by the changes in her body. The swell of her belly was now pronounced enough to make zipping the jeans very uncomfortable. Her breasts had enlarged and were tender to the touch. At times, humiliation was more than an emotion-it was a taste, a sickness in the belly, wordless cries. What a fool, a laughingstock, she would seem to the world. But Illyana was a presence, a personality, a friend in the darkness. Her thoughts were basic, almost primordial. Food, warmth, comfort. And she responded. When Tachyon was in her bleak black moods, the clear colors of the baby's thoughts became muddied, swirling like angry eddies. And when Tachyon sang the lullabies and ballads of her youth, the baby quieted, and her thoughts became like a tiny harmony.