Home Artists Posts Import Register

Content

By FoxFaceStories

A Commission for Al

The explorer ship Tiresias is nearing the end of its voyage when it is suddenly rerouted to check out a strange signal emanating from the surface of one of the moons of Jupiter. Liam Macklin is a young engineer on the ship, which has a complement of only six. But when he is the one to uncover a strange artefact, his life is changed forever. Slowly, as they voyage back to Mars, his body begins to feminise, in order to better house the new alien life that is growing within him . . .

First Part 

Next Part 


Part 2: The News

A bright constellation. A shimmering blue world. Figures walk about, their movements utterly graceful and beautiful. It is another time. A distant past. Enormous spires of grown crystal and spun rock form immense cities. Ships fly in and out of the atmosphere, with seemingly no source of combustion or pollution. The people here are plentiful and at peace. Prosperous. But then something calls from beyond the void. A new signal. One that they are excited to answer . . .

***

Liam woke in the medical bay, flustered and on painkillers. He spluttered for a moment, briefly panicked by the strange vision he had just experienced. But then he looked about and realised his surroundings, as well as the fact that he’d been strapped down. There was usually no need - the medical bay was on the counterweight of the living space centrifuge, after all. It was important that blood not float away during surgery. So why was he strapped down?

The answer came in the lance of pain that seared like fire down his right arm. Cringing, he adjusted himself to look at it, only to gasp. His hand and upper forearm was bruised a terrible purple, the blood close to the surface of the skin. The ends of his fingers were somewhat blackened, as if by extreme frostbite.

“Shit. What the fuck? Doc? DOC!?”

He managed to unleash his other arm and find the button to call him. To his credit, Doctor Samwell Katz wasn’t far away: he came down the ladder so fast that his spindly frame almost looked like it couldn’t take it.

“Good, you’re awake,” he said. “Don’t panic. Of course you’d wake when I was having my lunch.”

“What happened?”

“You had a suit breach. Cut it up on some rock.”

“There was a crystal-”

“Yes, the scientist pair took some samples. They think it’s the source of the signal: some kind of new element. Not exactly alien life, but Adam is over the moon - heh, figuratively speaking. They send their apologies, by the way, though Adam made some stupid joke about it I think he was genuinely concerned. You gave us all a fright. The Captain wasn’t too impressed with you breaching your suit directly against a jagged rock, after all.”

Liam tried to take this all in. “I wasn’t - there was no jagged rock. Check my cam.”

A shake of the head. “The signal interference scrubbed up our video, I’m afraid. You’re lucky, you know. You’re not going to lose the arm, but it will be a week or so before it regains function. There’s some damage to the ends of your fingers that will never recover, I’m afraid, but it’s a small loss, really.”

“Goddamn it.”

“That’s what the Captain said.”

“He’s going to kill me.”

“Not at all, but I think a speech about being careful will surely follow.”

Liam rested his head back. “I’m never going to hear the end of this, am I?”

The doc shook his head slowly. “Afraid not, kid. Afraid not. We’ll run some more tests to make sure you’re alright, then get you back out in front of the comedy club, huh?”

Liam sighed, and let the doctor take the bloods and swabs he needed. He was annoyed at himself for the suit breach. He was lucky to not be dead, that much was certain. But he could have sworn that the crystal had come alive and attached itself to him. Injected him with something. But that had probably just been his brain in shock. The same with that strange dream. Right?

***

The Tiresias left its orbit of Ganymede and continued its arcing journey back to Mars. Thanks to the entire detour, the crew could now look forward to a full six months journey, much to their shared annoyance. The only benefit was that the already-impressive shore leave time of months for spacefaring crews was legally extended now for answering the Olympus Override Command.

“I am going to get so damn drunk in that first month of leave that I’ll have to re-attend the academy just to get my spacefaring licence back,” Petyr said.

“And let me guess, lots of beautiful women will also be part of this picture?” Adam replied as they relaxed in the living space. “Save some for the rest of us, big boy!”

“I thought you had a girlfriend, Adam? Don’t tell me you’re stepping out?”

“Not so, my friend. I got the comm message just the other day - she has broken up with me. Which means technically, I’ve been a free man for several weeks now thanks to the time it takes signals to get to us.”

“Ha! Then let us celebrate with a pair of gorgeous twins back on Mars!”

Adam gave a light chuckle, though it was tinged with sadness. “Yeah, fuck her. Damn it. And here I was so excited about discovering a new element and now I’m getting turfed out and upset over this.”

“Alcohol solves all problems, comrade.”

“Ha! Were I not a recovering addict. Ah, and speaking of recovering, how goes it, Liam?”

It had been a month since Ganymede, and Liam’s hand and arm had recovered far faster than even the doctor had expected. He clambered down the ladder easily, feeling an abundance of energy that he almost could have sworn didn’t exist for him before.

“Feeling fine,” he said a little defensively. “Better than fine, actually. A picture of health! I don’t even have nerve damage on the ends of my fingers anymore.”

“Bullshit,” Petyr said. “Those things were black.”

“Check it out.”

He showed them his perfectly healed fingers. Adam marvelled.

“The doc even took pictures and scans, just out of curiosity. Turns out I’m a picture of health.”

“Don’t take this as a lesson to go blowing your suit up against random crystals,” Adam said. “Even if it did lead to us discovering Rotarium.”

Petyr snorted. “I can’t believe he got to name it.”

Indeed, the chief scientist had seized right upon it. As the head scientist, he got naming rights, and there was a lot of hot air within the older man’s pudgy body, as it turned out. Adam just rolled his eyes.

“So long as I get co-recognition.”

“He’s become quite the recluse, hasn’t he?” Petyr remarked.

“Oh yes, constant study. Of course, I’m the actual geologist, but he has certain rights, and the Captain wants everything by the book. He can come ask for help when he wants: we’ve got more than enough time. The community back home are already buzzing over the first addition of a new element in over a hundred years.”

“I’ll be,” Petyr said. “A toast to our discoverers! One blustering and accidental, and one about to be pushed out by his egotistical boss!”

Liam reluctantly raised his bulb of coffee, and Adam raised his more eagerly, laughing. They all drank down as the Captain descended.

“What’s this?” he said. “My crew actually getting along? I must be in need of glasses.

“Just commiserating over stolen discoveries and a lack of women, Captain,” Petyr said.

“Ah, two great tragedies. And how are you, Liam? Katz tells me you’ve made a remarkable recovery, but you’ve been feeling a bit odd?”

Liam blushed. “Nothing much, Captain. Just a bit . . . twitchy. Flushed, I guess. Like my system is a bit out of whack. Just jitters, I guess.”

“I keep saying, we need to take the baby to a brothel and make him a man.”

“Oh, come off it, Petyr!”

The Captain smirked, but he put a hand on Liam’s shoulder. “Just make sure to take care of yourself, alright? Tell the doc about anything that seems out of the ordinary, alright?”

“Yes, sir,” Liam said. He raised the coffee bulb up to his lips, and took in its wonderful scent. And then, to the astonishment of everyone including himself, he leapt up, took two steps, and vomited on the floor. He was so nauseous that the Captain and Adam had to keep him from collapsing.

“Ugghh, I f-feel weird,” he said. “F-faint.”

He fainted.

***

Liam was feeling better after the initial vomiting incident, but sadly it wasn't the only one. It was as if out of nowhere his stomach had twisted itself up in knots. The dry packet food they had to rehydrate could only be swallowed down in the blandest of flavours - anything that was too strong made him gag, become nauseous, or throw up all over again. One particular disaster happened in the central compartments of the ship, in zero gravity. Far from being taken more seriously after the mission, Liam was now copping jokes from all sides. Even the Captain had a sly joke about needing to grow ‘space legs’, but he was also becoming a bit concerned that there was a more serious underlying cause. He continually checked in on Liam, and instructed him to visit the medical bay often, where Katz continued to take samples and involve himself further in more in-depth tests.

It was the talk of the ship - not much gossip to speak of when news arrives weeks late via comms, after all - and with such a small crew complement, there was a general wariness of potentially catching a bug from Liam.

“I’m telling you, I’m just recovering from a vac-suit leak,” he complained two weeks into his repeated bouts of nausea.

“Yeah, well, I’m not risking it,” Petyr said. “Can you imagine landing for shore leave and then ending up in iso?”

“I’m not ending up in iso.”

“None of us are,” Captain Hardigan said, sliding down the ladder to the more regular grav of the living space, “because we’re all following protocol on this. Until we identify what’s wrong with Liam, we’re all initiating our official distancing policy. That means separation of food, of space - as much as we can - and taking our regular pro and antibiotics. Any reactions or abnormal health situations are to be reported immediately to myself and the doctor, got it?”

“Aye sir,” Petyr said miserably. “This will just add to the fun.” When the Captain left, he turned to Liam, who felt far more miserable. “Thanks for nothing, comrade. You’ve just made a boring journey back home worse.”

He left, irritated. Only Adam and Abel were left at their own table space. They were discussing something about the unusual properties of their crystal-like element, but Adam seemed to give him a sympathetic glance for once.

“Don’t mind him, he’s always whining. We’re all just cooped up.”

“Yeah, and it’s my fault,” Liam said, trying to work up the nerve to eat his food.

“It may represent an opportunity,” Rotar said, speaking up. He looked at Liam in a way that was far, far too clinical. “You may have reaction to the element. Whatever Samwell Katz finds, I demand a copy of the report. We could discover much about the general toxicity of the element.”

“Gee,” Liam said, getting up to leave. “Thanks.”

He scratched his chest on the way out. He hadn’t mentioned it to even the doc due to the embarrassment factor, but his nipples were feeling weirdly sensitive lately, and were stiffening for no reason.

“That was a bit much,” Adam said to Abel when Liam had left. But the older scientist just shrugged.

“He’s already ill, and he touched the sample directly. Its properties are strange, and it bears investigating. Suffering sometimes is the best teacher of all.”

Adam frowned. “I like a good ribbing as much as the next guy, but suffering is a bit much.”
“That’s why you’re the geologist and I’m the head scientist, my boy. We’ll see where this goes.”

***

Unfortunately for Liam, it went to worse places. His nausea was slowly abating, but a general tiredness suffused his being. His engineering skills were second to none, but increasingly he was having to lie down or retreat to his bunk due to an overwhelming need to sleep. His stomach continued to churn, and his nipples were swollen, to the point where he had to tell the doc, especially after Petyr noticed it through his shirt and hadn’t stopped cracking jokes since. Adam, at least, had let up a bit out of concern for the young man. Still, Liam’s hunger has risen even despite the periods of nausea, during which he was eating almost twice his usual fill, much to the annoyance of Petyr, who felt that the best flavour packs were being hydrated and eaten by Liam.

“I can’t help it,” Liam said. “This bug has me damn hungry.”

And because it might be a bug, all of his work on the computing systems and diagnostics were largely conducted alone, and each crewmember was having to keep themselves clean and distant. It made the cramped environment all the more annoying.

But the real bombshell came a little over seven weeks since Ganymede, when Doctor Katz called Liam in for an emergency meeting in sickbay.

“More tests? Again?” Liam, lumbering from the zero-grav to the centrifugal grav.

But Katz’ face was serious. “Yes. A lot more. But I think I’ve found something. I know I have. You’re going to want to sit down in the chair for this, Liam. I’ve talked to the Captain. He’s the only one that knows so far, but you need to know first, because soon the whole crew will.”

A chill ran down Liam’s spine. “Is it cancer? I know I work with radiation a bit, but I’ve always been careful. Hell, while I was running diagnostics on the starboard engine this morning, I-”

“It’s not cancer,” the doctor said, face serious. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Not on Mars, not our here, not anywhere. You’re a damn anomaly kid.”

Liam sat, gulping. “What is it?”

“It’s better if I show you. You might remember we took a couple of ultrasounds a week back? I also took some bloods, monitored your hormone levels, checked if there were any changes via x-ray, and so on.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Well, I’ve been puzzling over them, gathering the data. Here’s is what I’ve found.”

He put up an image of something that looked like a little bean inside a small sack.”

“Is that my stomach?”

Katz sighed. “That’s your womb.”

“My - what!? I don’t have a womb!”

“That’s just it, Liam. You do. I’m sending this data to Earth to confirm, but I’m a fully qualified doctor. I’ve delivered babies before, Liam. I’ve done my work in obstetrics, even if it was an age and a day ago. You have a womb, and a fully functioning one at that.”

“I - what!? What do you mean?”

Katz pointed at the little bean in the centre of the impossible organ on the black and white image. “Fully functioning,” he repeated. “Because that little thing in the centre, right there? Implanted against the wall? That’s a developing fetus.”

A long pause followed while Liam absorbed this. “This is a prank, right? Adam put you up to this. Or worse, Petyr.”

But the doctor’s face didn’t even show its dry sarcasm. It was entirely serious, befuddled even. “No joke, Liam. I don’t know how this is the case, whether we missed something in your own medical files or something freaky happened down on Ganymede, but one thing is absolutely clear to me. Somehow, you have grown a womb. And even more impossibly, you’ve become pregnant. You’re seven weeks along, I’d say.”

Liam swallowed. “The same time since Ganymede.”

To Be Continued . . .

Comments

No comments found for this post.