“This thing?” Peter said as he rested his open palm on the warm metal of the incubation chamber, “The baby’s in here right now?”

“Yes. She’ll be ready in about a year. The first human born in another solar system.”

Peter looked at her.

“Does this mean what I think it means?” he asked slowly.

Emily nodded, “We’re going to bring them back. We can use this to return to fix what happened. Rebuild society on this new planet.”

“Rebuild…” Peter said slowly, rolling the word around in his mouth as if considering it. He looked back at the chamber as Emily saw a thoughtful look enter his eyes.

“Rebuild better…” he said slowly, almost muttering to himself, “Without all the cruelties and horror of the old world. Something where all the old injustices can finally be wiped away…”

“What should we tell the others, Peter?” Emily asked after Peter kept staring at the incubation chamber for a long time and keeping his palm pressed against it.

“I’m not sure how they’ll react,” she admitted, “I know Sanje was against gene-edited children in general, especially back on Earth. Even to cure genetic diseases. He might not react well to it.”

“I’ll think about how to phrase it,” Peter said as his hand left the device and he turned to her, “You’re right, he might be difficult if we say something to set him off… Especially given the source.”

Emily grimaced, “Yeah. Much better if it came from you,” she agreed.

“I’ll announce it and we can discuss with everyone for our next meal in two weeks. Just come find me if you want to discuss anything before. Once it’s out there I expect we’ll be talking with the others for quite a while with no chance to discuss anything privately until they’re done with their questions.”

“I’ll make sure to do that, Peter. I’m so glad we’ve got someone like you leading us.”

Peter smirked at her. He stood straight and tilted his head slightly to the side with his chin slightly tucked in. Emily immediately recognized it from all the CODA advertisements and posters.

“I’m Peter Rose. And I’m here to help,” he said formally before relaxing and returning to a normal stance.

“Thank you,” he said in a light tone, “I’m glad you’re here too. Look what you’ve created for all of us.”

Peter gestured to the incubation chamber and Emily glanced at it before returning to look at him.

“A chance for all of us to rebuild,” Peter said, “You’ve given me hope for the future again.”

Emily just nodded silently, not trusting herself to speak.

Peter gave her a firm nod and then left the room, a bounce in his step and moving with purpose as he left.

— — —

“Absolutely not!” Sanje said after Peter gave his explanation, “We’d be playing god, we can’t create people and alter them, it’s a perversion of nature.”

“Look, Sanje,” Peter said calmly, “The baby is already incubating. Regardless of your feelings, she's going to be born in a year. So we have to deal with that truth now and prepare for her.”

“Don’t worry, Sanje,” Clara said, “You can make some children the old way if you don’t like it.”

Emily shot Clara a confused look and then noticed that the rest of them were nodding in agreement, even Peter.

“Uhm, no?” Emily said, “We can’t?”

Everyone stared at her.

“What do you mean?” Clara said, “Of course we can. We’ve got five women and five men don’t we? Nothing’s come of it yet, but I’m sure we’ll get some babies eventually if everyone keeps sleeping around…”

Emily and Peter both looked at the others that looked embarrassed and a little sheepish as Clara’s open admission.

Emily blinked, “But then… you must know already, right? That it’s impossible?”

“Well not impossible,” Clara said, “Unlikely, maybe. And we’ve all been careful. No one wanted a baby on the ship. And we’ve all been too distracted adjusting to this place to think about it.”

“You really don’t know?” Emily said in disbelief as she looked between all of them, “We can’t get pregnant anymore.”

Clara chuckled, “C’mon, Emily. Just because you’re swinging for the other team doesn’t mean…”

“No,” Emily said, cutting off Clara’s mockery, “All of you. I mean it. We don’t have a menstrual cycle anymore, remember?”

“Well, yeah,” Clara said with a frown, “But that shouldn’t matter. The egg should still be able to go in there and develop like normal, right? You said we’re frozen at the point of the cycle where an embryo could implant in there. Back when we were testing things on the ship. Doesn’t that mean that we can have children?”

“No. It can’t. We regenerate from anything foreign entering our body, remember? An embryo counts, especially with the umbilical cord integrating with our bodies. It’ll all get dissolved away before a baby is anywhere near birth.”

“How are you so sure?” Clara accused, now looking upset, “Why didn’t you tell us before?”

“We established a long time ago on the ship that foreign bacteria and even our own genetically altered cancer-like cells are dissolved when we implanted them in ourselves. I thought it was obvious what it meant,” Emily said dumbly, “Embryo’s are more genetically different from us than any cancer cell would ever be, if a cancer dissolves then of course an embryo would be dissolved away too. You think I built that huge incubation machine and did all that work when we could have just acted as surrogates and carried the pregnancy ourselves from an implanted embryo?”

Clara had an awkward expression and looked away.

“Sounds like something that you might do,” Clara muttered.

“We’re getting distracted,” Peter said, cutting in, “It doesn’t matter now. The machine is built, and the baby is growing. We have to prepare as a group and decide what we’re going to do. And prepare for the newest member to our group.”

Sanje opened his mouth to protest again, but Peter silenced him with a look.

“We’ll see how it goes for the first baby first,” he promised, “And we’ll work from there. We’ll have plenty of time to discuss the ethics of it all as we start our preparations.”

Sanje reluctantly nodded, settling back after he realized that he was being overruled for the moment.

"Wait, what about the men?" Sanje suddenly said, "If the women can't get pregnant. But if there were a mortal woman and there was... You know... Could she get pregnant with one of us Immortal men?"

"Well," Emily said, "I don't see why not. The sperm from our tests are genetically the same as ever. Our cells still are technically the same in any part of us that gets removed. Including your sperm. But that hardly matters. We're all Immortals either way. So the incubation machine is our only option."

“Well then,” Peter said to interrupt as Sanje looked like he wanted to return to arguing about the machines again at her mention of them, “Let’s start planning then. We’ll need a more consistent source of food and make sure to add some temperature controls so that the baby's not hurt by it being too hot or cold…”

Then they started discussing and preparing. Focusing on the practical preparations rather than the ethical and religious arguments and objections that Sanje kept trying to bring up whenever he got the chance.

— — —

“This is it?” Peter asked, “She’s coming out soon?”

“Yes, another twenty minutes I think,” Emily said as she and Peter stood side by side in the cluttered lab staring at the incubation chamber.

“And she’ll come out like she’s a year old baby?”

“Physically,” Emily said, “Just enough so we’ll be sure that she can digest solid food. Or liquid food until she knows how to eat. But mentally she’ll be like a complete newborn until she catches up and makes up for lost time.”

“Hm.”

Their long and tense silence was broken by a loud and happy *ding!*, exactly like what you’d hear from a microwave, that sounded from the incubator. Emily closed her eyes and internally cursed.

“Thought it would be funny when I was building it way back when,” Emily said in embarrassment as Peter smirked at her.

“Well, sounds like she’s ready,” Peter said and gestured towards the machine that was whirring and humming now.

With a final loud click, a hatch opened in the top of the chamber and a dripping platform rose out from inside. The platform swiveled and started traveling down the side of the incubator along a pair of rails until it stopped at waist level.

There, sitting on top of the platform and squirming was the baby, covered in yellowish thick gunk.

The two of them stepped forward and quickly cleaned off the new baby with some towels and put her in some clothes as she started screaming and wailing as the last of the fluid was ejected from her lungs. With no umbilical cord as she gestated within the incubation machine, she had no belly button.

Emily ran a few quick tests with her equipment quickly to make sure the baby was healthy. But everything came back good.

Emily picked up the screaming baby and bounced her up and down in her arms as she and Peter left the room.

“Shhhh, shhh, Luna. It’s okay. You’re fine,” Emily cooed as the baby seemed to calm slightly at Emily’s tone.

They went into the main room where everyone was waiting for them to arrive. Emily stood and all conversation stopped as they entered with little Luna, who’d gone silent and was just snuffling against Emily’s chest and having her face scrunched like she might cry again if anything went wrong again and disturbed her.

“It’s a girl!” Peter shouted to the group loudly and Luna started wailing again.

“Peter!” Emily scolded and shushed the baby again as the rest watched her and crowded around even as they stayed quiet so as not to disturb Luna again.

“Can I hold her?” Clara asked in a whisper.

“Okay,” Emily agreed, “Just hold her behind the head to support it. Yeah, just copy me with your other arm…”

They transferred the upset Luna into Clara’s arms as Emily showed Clara how to hold the baby.

“When she’s upset, just bounce her. Babies like that,” Emily finished as Clara stared down at the baby in her arms. Bigger than any newborn would be at nearly twenty pounds. But still small enough that she still easily fit in their arms.

After a few minutes, Sanje held Luna next, staring down at the baby with a complicated expression as he looked down at her. But then he passed Luna along to the next person.

“I didn’t know you knew so much about babies,” Clara whispered to Emily as they watched the others hold the babies, “I thought you were the youngest in your family?”

“Luke had a little brother,” Emily whispered back, “He was ten years younger than Luke. When I visited them I helped out, his parents paid me a bit to watch the baby after school sometimes when they needed somebody. Luke was hopeless with all of it.”

Clara gave Emily an impressed look, “Huh. How about that,” she said before Luna started crying again and both of them refocused on the baby.

Eventually after making a full circle around, Luna was passed back to Emily. Luna had been fussing and been cranky the whole time she’d been passed around, but calmed down immediately as soon as Emily held her again.

Emily looked down and saw that Luna was looking up at her intently, her face seemingly scrunched up in comical confusion.

“Hey,” Emily said, “You hungry, Luna? Let’s fill that little stomach of yours now. You must be so hungry after all that crying you did…”

— — —

“Look everyone,” Emily said angrily to the group, “You can’t miss shifts! We made a schedule and we stick to it. When I came, Luna was completely alone in the crib with no one in sight! That’s not okay!”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“I only left ten minutes early,” Sanje protested, “What’s the harm?”

“Don’t you even,” Emily said, pointing at him as she directed all her anger at him, “She’s a baby! She can’t just be by herself without someone there even for one minute! What if she tried to eat something and choked on it and died? No one leaves her alone until somebody else takes over. You all got that? It’s not just you Sanje, the rest of you have been skipping out early for the last six months too.”

Emily wished Peter was here to make them understand. None of them respected her and thought she was just being dramatic. None of them had had to take care of a baby before so they didn’t realize how serious little things like not having someone watching Luna could get.

Peter and two of the others including Clara had gone off foraging for more food. And to try to find some samples of edible plants that they might be able to farm. They were still hunting and gathering wild food, and nothing that Peter or the others had found in the year and a half had seemed like good candidates for farming yet.

Until they found something promising to plant, Peter and the others would have to go on these hunting trips so they’d always have enough food for little Luna to eat.

“Perhaps you should take care of her by yourself if only you know how it should be done apparently,” Sanje muttered.

Emily suddenly felt calm, “Maybe I should,” she said, “If none of you can take it seriously, then it’s best if you just don’t do it. I know none of you like me, but this is about Luna and not me. What’s best for her, to make sure that she’s safe. If none of you care about that then you can just fuck all the way off.”

“Don’t say it like that!” Sanje protested, “Of course we care about Luna but…”

“But you have better things to do,” Emily interrupted, “So go, go do whatever it is. Go make your stupid carvings and statues. I’ll take care of Luna full time then. But if you want to watch Luna again then no skipping out and no slacking off.”

The rest of them glanced at each other.

“Fine, you watch her then,” Sanje said, throwing his hands up, “Just don’t come complaining to us about not doing our part.”

“Okay,” Emily said coldly and glanced at the others, “I guess it’s my shift for Luna next then. The rest of you can keep working on your own things now you have what you want.”

— — —

“Bock,”

Emily looked up from her datapad and saw Luna staring at her from where the toddler stood inside the crib.

“Bock,” Luna repeated as she stared at Emily expectantly.

“Bock?” Emily asked, “What is it, Luna? Is it… Oh!”

Emily saw where one of Luna’s colorful blocks had somehow been thrown out of the high walled crib and fallen onto the floor. Emily quickly walked over and picked it up and held it out to Luna.

“You wanted to ask momma for the block?” Emily said in an exaggerated excited voice, “That’s so good, Luna! You’re so smart, isn’t talking so fun?”

Luna smiled at Emily’s praise even if Emily didn’t think the girl had entirely understood why Emily was doing so. Luna clumsily grabbed the block from Emily’s hands and sat back down on her butt inside the crib and started playing again, happy to have her precious red block back.

— — —

“No!” Luna said while pouting and crossing her arms, “No, mommy! Gross.”

“Aw, Luna,” Emily said as she cut another little piece of alien vegetable on the girl’s plate, “Didn’t you love them yesterday? Remember how delicious they were? Yum!”

Emily took a little bite, “Mmmmmhhhh. So good!”

“Good?” Luna said, uncrossing her arms and staring at the food a little thoughtfully. She took an experimental bite before spitting it out and scrunching up her face again.

“Noooo, mooommmmyyy!!! I don’t wannnnnaaaa!” Luna wailed as she shoved her plate away and accidentally flipped it over and spilled food all over the floor and table. Or maybe not so accidentally. It was so hard to tell the difference most of the time.

Emily sighed and tried to calm down Luna’s tantrum as best as she could. Luke’s little brother had been so well behaved, Emily had never had to deal with this kind of thing when she was taking care of him…

— — —

“Good night, Luna,” Emily said as she tucked the girl into her bed. Peter had found an alien fiber equivalent that they had been able to process into thread. Which had been further processed into clothes, blankets, and sheets as needed either by hand or through a machine that Emily had built.

Luna’s bed had blue sheets and covers with little cartoonish yellow stars covering its surface. Emily leaned down and kissed Luna’s forehead after making sure that the blankets were pulled all the way up to the little girl’s chin.

“Mama?” Luna suddenly asked.

“Yes, honey?” Emily said and turned back around.

“Why don’t you sleep too? Don’t you have to?” Luna asked, only her head poking out from beneath the covers and blankets.

Emily sat down on a little stool near the bed.

“Well, I can. But no, I don’t have to,” she said.

“Why not? I don’t want to sleep anymore either.”

Emily reached out and gently brushed a strand of hair from Luna’s forehead back to the side and out of the girl’s eyes, “No, Luna. Little girls need their sleep. Peter is going to take us for an adventure in the woods tomorrow. You’ve got to rest up for that. I’m sure it’ll be lots of fun.”

Luna nodded and Emily withdrew her hand and stood up. She walked to the door and her hand was on the switch when Luna spoke again.

“Momma?”

“Yes?”

“Can you sleep with me tonight in the bed? Even if you don’t have to? It's so scary in the dark...”

“Okay,” Emily said after keeping her hand on the lightswitch for a moment, “I’m coming, scoot over so momma has enough room to fit.”

Emily shut the door and flicked off the light, plunging the room into darkness besides the light of the alien moon coming in through the window. The alien moon looked only a little different than the Earths. Almost the same size, same gray color… But different still, even if only slightly.

Emily navigated by moonlight over to the bed and carefully stepped over Luna’s shifting form and lay down with her back to the wall of the room.

Emily went under the covers and quickly adjusted them so they were covering both of them again.

“Night, Luna,” Emily whispered as her little girl pressed her back against Emily’s chest.

“Night, mommy,” Luna muttered, sounding a little drowsy even after a few seconds.

Emily thought about sleeping, and a few seconds later she was out like a light.

— — —

“Momma! Look, there’s little fishies in the water!”

Emily walked over and leaned in to look down into the river and sure enough there were some little minnows swimming around by the riverbank.

“So cool, Luna!” Emily said, “Look at them just swimming down there. I’m sure they’ll grow up into big huge fishes one day. Bigger than you even!”

“You think so?” Luna said while looking at Emily with wide eyes.

“What do we have over here?” Peter said from behind, “Looking at the fish, Luna?”

“Yeah. What’s the biggest fish you’ve caught, Peter? You catch the fish that we eat? Those ones must be huge if all of us can eat one at once.”

Peter chuckled, “Oh, I’d say the biggest was…”

Peter held his hands about two feet apart before widening it to over four feet long.

“This big.”

“Whoa!” Luna said, looking amazed as she took in the space between Peter’s hands.

“Peter,” Emily scolded lightly.

Peter chuckled before returning his hands back to two feet apart, “Okay, not that big,” he admitted, “It was actually this big, Luna.”

“That’s still big,” Luna stated after considering the smaller distance between Peter’s hands for a moment.

“Yes, yes it is,” Peter said.

The three of them kept wandering along the riverbank on the little path that Peter had curated over the last couple years. Luna was about six years old now, and they came here often when they wanted to give her a good nature experience. The open plains around their home were fine for running around in, but weren’t nearly as interesting as this forest and river were.

They kept moving. Luna ran ahead on the trail, leaning down to inspect all sorts of things and running side to side as she roamed around.

“Luna? Not too far,” Emily said. Luna reluctantly slowed down and maintained her current distance ahead of Emily and Peter.

Suddenly as Luna ran across the path again, her foot caught on the edge of a raised rock in the path. Not paying attention, Luna tripped over it and fell to the ground with a scream.

Emily jogged forward as Luna rolled over and started crying. Her dress was dirty and she’d scraped her knee as she fell to the muddy ground.

“Luna? Luna, are you okay? What hurts?” Emily said as squatted down and inspected the crying girl.

“M-M-My knee, it, it huuuurts,” Luna screamed and started crying again.

“It’s okay, Luna. I’ve got a bandage for you in my pack. Shhhh, it’s fine. Momma’s got it…”

Emily took out her bandage from her pack and after wiping the scrape clean and rubbing some anti-bacterial cream that Peter had made in the cut, she wrapped it up in the white bandage.

“How about now?” Emily asked Luna, who was still sniffling and gripping the hem of Emily’s shirt tightly with her fists.

“I-It’s better,” Luna admitted.

“You got to watch where you’re running,” Emily lightly scolded, “You want me to carry you?”

“Yes…” Luna said.

Emily reached down and hoisted her girl so she was resting just above the left side of Emily’s hip as they walked. Luna calmed down and stared around even as she kept whimpering about her knee a bit as they kept going down along the path.

“It really is something to watch,” Peter said suddenly a few minutes later, “How good you are with her. I never could have calmed her down that quickly even if I tried.”

“Well, I do my best,” Emily said, happy for the compliment.

They kept walking, and eventually Luna felt well enough that she wanted to be put down so she could run around again.

They kept walking through the forest and turned to move away from the river deeper into the woods to complete the loop of the trail that Peter had made.

There was a sudden rustling in the woods to their right and Emily looked over curiously. Her eyes widened as she saw something looking like a jaguar crouched and its body tensed like it was ready to pounce. Emily followed its gaze and saw that its large yellow eyes were fixed on Luna.

“Luna!” Emily screamed and sprinted forward as the creature leapt out from the bush with claws extended and jaws wide towards the little girl who straightened from the other side of the path and looked back at Emily in confusion.

Emily leapt forward and tackled the heavy animal out of the air and wrapped her hands around the back half of its torso. Even with her hanging on, the animal was so heavy that it still moved forward and landed only five feet away from where Luna stood frozen.

Emily tightened her grip around the panther like creature’s torso as her arms wrapped completely around it and heaved with all of her strength and dragged it to the side as the both of them hit the ground hard.

The creature had silky black fur, which oddly mixed with the row of sharp lizard like spikes that lined its spine and went over both of its eyes. Its head was elongated like a dog’s with a long nose and was covered in a thin layer of scales in contrast with the rest of its furred body. Its mouth was filled with sharp fangs.

The creature thrashed and Emily heaved at it again with all of her strength to force it to roll away from Luna.

“Mommy!”

“Peter, get her away! Luna, run!” Emily shouted before groaning as the creature’s head swiveled and bit deeply into her shoulder as she fought to drag it away from Luna.

“MOMMY!”

“Emily-” Peter shouted as Emily heard him scooping up a screaming and protesting Luna.

“Go, Peter!” Emily shouted before groaning again as the creature squirmed as she kept trying to wrestle it to the ground. The two hind legs' sharp claws were carving large chunks from her legs while the forepaws swiped at her stomach and chest. Its head was still embedded in her shoulder and shaking back and forth in an attempt to rip off her arm.

“Get her… out of here!” Emily shouted as she angrily curled her fist in her free arm and punched the creature hard in the ribs with all of her strength. The creature flinched, but just attacked her with even more ferocity after.

Emily kept punching it hard even as she worked to keep it pinned and stop it from freeing itself from her grip.

Emily heard Peter’s footsteps and Luna’s wailing fade into the distance as he sprinted away back towards their plane at full speed.

Now that Luna was out of the way, Emily focused on the creature that had just tried to kill her daughter.

She kept wrestling the animal. The creature let out an aborted yowl as it withdrew its head from her shoulder. All of its teeth were dissolved away like they’d all been removed halfway from the base with a precision laser.

Seeing that, Emily noticed that many of the claws on its other four clawing limbs had also snapped off. Now it only had a single claw or two on each paw that was still attached, the rest pitted and looked like they’d been soaked in acid, or snapped off and hanging from the paws only by single threads of material left behind.

Emily worked her way up the creature’s squirming body until she was straddled just below its upper two limbs and leaning over the creature’s head as it was pinned below her. She wrapped her legs around its upper body tightly and squeezed to keep herself latched on. Even while still gripping the thrashing creature with her legs, she sat up and started pummeling it with both fists now that it had been declawed and its teeth had been left as nothing but nubs.

It yowled pitifully and weakly tried to push her off with its damaged paws, but Emily kept going and kept punching its skull over and over again.

The creature whimpered as its strikes grew weaker and weaker until it finally went limp as the last few of Emily’s punches and uppercuts to its jaw finally managed to knock it unconscious.

Emily kept pummeling it for a few more seconds after it went still just in case it was faking.

She sat there panting, straddling the unconscious beast. She slowly unclenched her fists and took a deep breath. She rolled off of the creature where it was breathing slowly even as small bits of blood dripped out of the corners of its mouth as it lay on its side.

Emily stood to her feet and took in her state. Her clothes around her stomach region and everything below her thighs was in strips of cloth and completely shredded from the fight.

She reached up to her shoulder and felt the series of holes and rips in her shirt where the creature’s fangs had punched through and it had shook its head to damage her.

But she was fine, besides the blood ringing the spots where she’d been hurt, her skin was unbroken now and she didn’t have the slightest bit of pain anymore.

Leaving the beast where it lay unconscious, Emily started running back to where they had parked the helicopter. She had to make sure that Luna was okay, who knew if there had only been just one beast ready to attack them… What if thy came in packs?

Emily turned the corner and saw Peter in the pilot’s seat of the plane, a thrashing and screaming Luna held tightly in his lap with one arm.

They both turned their heads when Emily came into sight. Peter said something and Luna calmed down a little as she stared at Emily running towards them.

Emily jumped into the plane, opening the door to the compartment in the rear meant for cargo and climbing inside. She shut it behind her and locked it firmly.

“Let’s go, Peter,” Emily shouted over the rumbling engine, “I want to get Luna out of here.”

“Okay, takeoff in a minute or so,” Peter shouted back as the engines roared into life and they started inching forward across the long flat flight strip for takeoff.

“I’m letting Luna go,” Peter warned before there was a scrabbling at the door between cargo and the cockpit. After a second the door opened and a tear streaked Luna came running in.

“Mommy! Mommy okay? Hurt? What happened with the bad animal?” Luna babbled as she charged Emily before coming to a stop and blinking as she took in Emily’s appearance.

“You’re… not hurt, mommy?”

“No, Luna,” Emily said soothingly as she crouched down, “I’m fine. I was worried about you the whole time. Come here, you look like you need a hug.”

Emily sat on a nearby bench and lifted Luna onto her lap and they hugged each other for a while. Emily rested her head on Luna’s as the girl pressed tight against her.

“What happened to the bad animal?” Luna asked quietly, “Did you scare it away?”

“I put it to sleep, Luna,” Emily said, “He’s in timeout for attacking us. We’ll make sure he’ll know to never do it again.”

“Okay,” Luna said, “Did he eat your shirt and pants? I thought he was hurting you. But was he just after our clothes maybe?”

“No, he didn’t want to eat our clothes,” Emily said with a snort of laughter that she quickly suppressed, “I’ll explain when we get home and clean up. He was a very bad animal. I’m very glad you got back here safely with Peter.”

“He just left you with the animal all alone,” Luna said, “He’s a meanie.”

“I told him to,” Emily countered, “I couldn’t focus properly if I had to worry about you getting hurt by accident, could I?”

“But Peter should have helped you!” Luna protested, “He didn’t even try!”

“It’ll make more sense when I explain the other thing,” Emily said, “He knew that I would be fine. You’re much more important, Luna.”

“No! Mommy’s important! Not just Luna!” Luna said firmly and squeezed Emily tighter.

Emily started choking up and getting emotional, “T- Thank you, Luna. I promise I won’t get hurt. You’re such a good girl…”