---Uncle---
---Tcakqaal’s perspective---
“This… doesn’t seem safe, my okla…!” frets Qorak as the two of us ascend vertically to Deck 2’s walkway “…the fall from Deck 1 is [5m] but this is twice that!”
I smile an exasperated sigh as I land, one-legged, on the railing “Sweetfruit… I understand your concern but you can’t [bubblewrap] her forever!…This has to happen eventually and the development guidance indicates that now is ideal!… Victor’s there to catch her and, at her weight and proportions (not to mention the cushioning afforded by her down), her terminal velocity would be nonfatal!”
Still clearly unhappy, my lifemate resigns “Alright… but don’t blame me when this ends in [tears](!)”
I chitter at that.
Raising my biological talons to my face over the [10m] drop, I examine the happily giggling infant clutched within them.
At [300g], my daughter is verging on being too large for me to fly with this way!
Not coincidentally, her own childhood flight feathers are in the process of emerging through her fluff.
I smile at Tcakak… and release her from my talons.
She tumbles through the air for the first few [metres], squealing delightedly.
Then, exhibiting the same encouraging instincts she started to from the lower drop, she opens her wings and stabilises herself!
My hearts swell with pride as I see her not only control her descent but even begin to glide horizontally!
Victor begins jogging backward on Deck 0, his two forward facing, emerald eyes fixed squarely on my daughter.
His arms fly up to apprehend her from the air.
The powerful pentadactyl hands (that would easily have the grip strength to reduce my daughter’s body to pulp) guide her, gently, to a harmless stop against his chest.
Having seen her come to a stop safely, Qorak and I both swing forward and push ourselves from the railing, gliding down after her.
“There!… Uncle Victor’s got you!” grins Victor, stroking her back and baring his teeth at my infant in a way that does not cause shrieks of terror but chitters of delight.
I do slightly worry that growing up around Terrans and being habituated to their joy may leave her vulnerable to not recognising other species’ bared teeth as the threat displays they are, later in life…
Then again, Terrans do also bare their teeth in threat… and anger… and disgust… Perhaps it won’t be an issue…?
He tosses my daughter around a [metre] into the air, over his head, before catching her again.
More delighted giggling results.
Various members of my crew and the ODR contractors are sat or stood nearby, watching (what to most of them is) the spectacle of an infant being repeatedly dropped from high heights with expressions of mirth.
Tuun positively beams at her [fiancé] as he plays with my daughter…
“That’s right, Tcakie…” he coos “…Uncle Victor’s got you and he always will…” he tosses her into the air again “…Uncle Victor’ll be around if you ever need a bitta muscle to go with the brains I’m sure you’ve got from your mum(!)… Uncle Victor’s gonna be right behind you if you ever find yourself up against impossible odds… Uncle Victor’ll be there to catch you when you fall…”
“Anka!” shrieks my daughter, delightedly.
Victor’s face instantly falls in shock.
His mouth hangs open and his eyes go wide.
He looks to me.
I’m struggling to work out the cause of his astonishment when she makes another vocalisation.
“Anka Viikta…!”
Realisation strikes me…
She just uttered her first words… and they weren’t in R’qali!
Recovering himself a little, though still clearly stunned, Victor encourages “Yes… that’s right!… I’m you’re Uncle Victor! Good giiiiirl… Now, can you saaay… ‘Qaqa’?” turning her to face Qorak and using the R’qali word for ‘daddy’ “…ooor… ‘Kica’?” turning her to me and offering her the word for ‘mummy’.
My progeny studdies me for a moment before pronouncing “Anka!”
Yasmin is the first to burst into laughter, followed, a moment later, by the rest of the spectators and, finally, Victor, Qorak and myself.
It would seem that her understanding of the word ‘Uncle’ is as meaning something like ‘loved one’ or ‘friendly person’(!)
“Well… first words!… She’s growin’ up so fast!” observes Victor.
He turns his face from Tcakak to me and Qorak with an apologetic smile.
“Sorry ’bout stealin’ your thunder… Thrilled as I am… I wouldn’ta chosen to take bein’ the first thing she ever said away from you two!”
Giving a Terran head shake, Qorak takes the words out of my mouth “I don’t begrudge you at all, Victor… I’m happy for you!”
“I’m sure ‘Qaqa’ and ‘Kica’ won’t be far behind…” I reassure.
He gives a relieved smile.
Jennie here observes “After tonight, you’re going to have a whole new species to play Uncle to, Victor(!)”
Mirthfully, he screws up his face and waves the palm not cradling my daughter “I ain’t presumptuous enough to selfdesignate as ‘Uncle’ to an entire species… even if I’ll be more ’an 30 years older ’an the oldest of ’em(!)… If anyone I know ends up adoptin’ one, I’ll be ‘Uncle’ to that one and only that one!”
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“And heartlessly deny all the rest, Victor(?)” teases Twila.
He gives no answer but a chuckling sigh before turning back to me and Qorak and asking “You wanna go a few more times with Tcakie?… We’ve got time.”
---Victor’s perspective---
I step out of the open doorway on the bottom of the ship and go down the rigid umbilical walkway.
This is the first time I’ve been to the Embassy habitat since Mudaliar’s funeral broadcast.
Thankfully, this broadcast (that we’re parked up in the last signal zone before our final destination to receive) will be much happier!
Most of the crew are already here, milling about freeform instead of sat in rows.
Me and Tuun mingle for a bit, soaking in the atmosphere.
I catch sight of Waqa’arc and her husband as they come in.
We make eyecontact (I’m pretty sure… bit difficult to tell where they’re looking with R’qalis’ eyes).
I make a point of looking away.
I don’t scowl, just keep my expression neutral.
I see her make her way over to Alchyinad, on the other side of the room, and begin talking… but it’s too far to hear what’s being said.
Then, it begins.
“Ladies, gentlemen and others…” comes Twila’s voice over the speakers “…it is my great pleasure to be announcing this event, the likes of which has not been seen for nearly a century! If I may ask you to please turn your attention toward this wall…” the wall at the back flashes yellow “…the broadcast of the latest addition to the Terran family is about to begin!”
Some of the shorter folk move to the front to get a better view and I gently direct some of the larger people (like Sha’anza and her wife for instance) to step back a bit.
Live footage displays on the wall.
A Eurasian woman with blue eyes, light brown hair that’s tied in a bun, wearing a killer blue suit and holding a microphone appears.
She smiles “Hello and welcome to the broadcast. My name is Ingrid ‘Zee’ Ziawudun and I’m currently uniquely privileged to be at Satana Laboratories, in the Ardon River Valley, to report on a truly historic moment!”
She pauses for emphasis before continuing “Approximately 520,000 years ago, a small population split from the group that would later diverge into Neanderthals and Denisovans and secreted themselves away, here in the Caucasus Mountains…Neanderthals to their North and South and Denisovans to their East, across the Caspian Sea… Though their population is never thought to have totalled more than around 3,000, this lineage of Humans is actually believed to have survived later into history than any other besides Homo sapiens, only finally disappearing around 18,000 years ago… The first specimens being rediscovered in the year 2461, hopes were high that the Human family would once again be able to expand. Unfortunately, due to the population’s historic rarity (only outdone by Homo dzhigda, on the far side of Asia, whose complete genome still eludes us) it was not until last year, 2713, that remains were discovered which finally allowed us to sequence them fully!”
She smiles, heartily.
I’m smiling too.
“Now, however, I am present with my film crew to broadcast the birth of the first of this Human lineage to grace the Earth in thousands of years!… I hope everyone watching is as thrilled as I am to bid Homo lisri a hearty ‘welcome back’!”
A cheer goes up from the room, like I’m sure it will be doing from Terrans and their friends all the way across the galaxy!
I steal a peak at the bigot birb and feel a small bit of satisfaction from her startled bewilderment…
The reporter continues “Performing the extraction is Dr Dzambeg ‘Mountain’ Bakhturidze, here with me now.”
The camera pans to include a man I’d guess to be as tall as I am (or maybe taller) if the countertop he’s next to is any guide.
I’d guess he got his epithet from that height… but he might just be an Alpinist, given the part of the world he lives(!)
His skin is tan, eyes are a rich reddish brown, his hair and thick beard are black and he’s wearing scrubs and a labcoat in red and white.
His face definitely gives him away as a native of the Caucasus (even if his name didn’t) and wears an expression of calm contentedness.
The reporter has to hold the mic up about 10cm above the height of her head to bring it close enough to his mouth.
“Dr Bakhturidze, could you tell us a little of how you’re feeling right now?” she says.
“I could be neither more proud nor more pleased.” he states in English with (I assume) an Ossetian accent “I consider it a great honour to be the one who will remove the first Lisri from his tube!”
The woman gives a genuine smile at the doctor and asks “Have there been any surprises in their development?”
“Oh, not many… We had their genome fairly well understood before we began their gestation… we weren’t surprised by their eye colour, hair colour, skin tone, face shape, body proportions or anything… There was one thing that really did surprise us and that was the length of the gestational period!… We initially thought that it would be closer to the 8 months that is typical of Neanderthals… In actuality, it is closer to the 10 ½ months typical of Denisovans!”
“Why was that surprising, Doctor?” smiles the woman.
“Well…” he shrugs “…we only had two specimens of their pelvic anatomy… Neither of their reconstructions showed the broad hips that allow Denisovans to have such long gestations!… Lisri, it transpires, develop comparatively slowly in the womb… which, to my shame, was something we were not able to determine from their genome…”
Here, I overhear Thaïs chuckle from next to Sknz’h “Imbécile, Dzambeg(!) Je ne vous ai pas assez bien appris si vous avez raté une telle chose(!)” to themself but, since they’re not wearing a translator and French isn’t one of my languages, I’m only able to get the gist of them being humorously unimpressed with their fellow geneticist.
“You mentioned that their hair and eye colours weren’t a surprise to you…” smiles the reporter “…do you mind if I ask what hair and eye colours they have?”
The large man grins through his dark beard and answers “Why don’t I show you instead of telling you?”
The reporter gives an enthusiastic nod “Yes please!”
The man walks to camera left and the back of an artificial womb is revealed, suspended a few centimetres over the countertop.
The baby is not visible as the man goes to work.
Bright purple synth amniotic fluid drains from the cylinder through a clear hose.
There’s a *thock* of the hatch unlatching.
He pulls it up and reaches into the tube, his expression reverent.
He pulls back his hands…
An assistant appears from off camera and quickly swaddles what he holds before we can get more than a brief glimpse of light tannish skin.
I hear a sound that no one’s heard for 18,000 years as the baby Lisri wails at the indignity of being born(!)
“Shshshshshshshssssh…” soothes the dark haired man with practiced ease.
When the wailing has calmed down, he turns to camera, allowing it to get the first proper shot of the baby.
Beneath the blanket, thin whisps of distinctively medium grey head hair protrude, framing a chubby face.
He’s definitely a Neanderthaloid… though, he looks very different from either Neanderthals or Denisovans.
Of course, he’s only a baby… that could change as he grows up and loses his baby fat?
He opens his eyes and there is a distinct gasp of surprise from most of the people in the room.
The colour of his irises is a bright aqua-cyan, completely unlike anything I’ve ever seen on a Human that wasn’t modded that way!
Those eyes are absolutely gorgeous!
---Tuun’s perspective---
My holo dings…
The broadcast ended a few minutes ago and I was looking forward to enjoying the afterparty with Victor.
I wonder who’s messaging me?
Everyone on the Bright Plume is here…
I bet it’s Mouse sending me a silly meme from across the room.
I check it.
My eyes go wide.
“Victor…” I say, tugging on his sleeve without removing my eyes from my holo.
“Yeah babe?” he answers, turning to face me.
“We need to go…”
“Oh really?” he frowns “I was kinda lookin’ forward to the party… How come?”
I turn my holo for him to read.
He studies it for 3.2 seconds before his eyes widen.
He turns to the others and says “Sorry, guys, we need to go…”
---Ástríðr’s perspective---
My heart… is filled, overflowing and bursting, all at once, as I hold the precious girl in my arms…
One of her lilac skinned, five fingered hands clutches my thumb.
I think I might die of just how much I love her.
A large, blue skinned, four fingered hand reaches across me to stroke our baby as two more squeeze me from behind.
I slightly regret that she will forever have to share a birthday with an entire lineage of Humanity… but there really wasn’t anything to be done about it!
I thought that around now would be safely clear… that was until they announced that 9 week discrepancy between the initial calculation and the new one(!)
Oh well…(!)
Her day will always be what I remember today as… even if no one else does(!)
The fortunate side is, as Tunie’s ship was hanging around in a signal patch for the broadcast, I’m able to show her her niece.
The call is answered.
There’s my sister and her redheaded man.
“Hello Tunie, hello there Victor… both of you remember Liv…” I smile, gesturing to my baby “…Liv… meet your Auntie Tunie and soon to be Uncle Victor…”