“I’ve never done anything like that before,” Pendt said. “Changing myself is easy, even with only a bit of extra food. It only took me twenty-eight grams of protein to do this to myself.
“But changing another person is more complicated. I can’t imagine changing a grown-up. I’ve been around two developing embryos, though, and it did seem like I could have made the changes, especially if it were, uh, as personal and as early on as possible.”
“You mean sex?” Ned said. Now he looked really uncomfortable.
“Can’t we do it artificially?” Fisher asked. He winced. “Uh, for a given value of ‘we.’”
“It’s hard to explain,” Pendt said.
“Humour me,” Ned said.
“Well”—Pendt grinned at his discomfort—“when two people love each other very much—”
“Nope!” Ned held up a hand. “Just skip to the part after ejaculation.”
“I can make sure a Y chromosome makes contact,” Pendt said as delicately as possible to preserve his sensibilities. “It’s easier than changing things afterwards, and it’s easier when there are no medical distractions. Above all, it’s easier when it’s . . . inside.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Ned said.
“Where’s Katla?” Pendt asked.
Ned pointed immediately and unerringly through the crowd.
“Oh,” he said and downed the rest of his drink.
“So you get married, and your aunt can’t control you,” Fisher said. “And Ned gets a replacement Brannick. And the station gets stability.”
“That’s a very clinical way of putting it,” Pendt said.
“I am trying very hard to not picture my brother having sex with a girl we just propositioned in a bar,” Fisher told her. “It seems overly intrusive.”
In spite of everything, or perhaps because her adrenaline was finally wearing off and her stomach was full for the first time in her life, Pendt burst into giggles. Her laughter was infectious, and Fisher soon found that he was joining in. Even Ned recovered from his indignity enough to smile about the situation. At least they all seemed friendly enough, since it appeared they were about to be legally stuck with one another.
“All right then, if it’s okay with you?” she said to Ned. He nodded.
“We’ll have to wait until your birthday for the marriage to be totally legal,” Fisher reminded them. “If we do it before then, your aunt could contest it, and even though I trust most of the legal representatives on the station, it’s possible she’d go somewhere else to argue it.”
“Well,” Pendt said. Ned blushed. “I guess we’ve got a week to get to know each other.”
13.
THEY SPENT THE WEEK hammering out the details of the marriage contract—at Ned’s insistence—and exploring every possible hypothetical way to create a viable embryo—at Fisher’s. Since both of these things were in Pendt’s best interest, and since they kept letting her eat whatever she wanted, they had her full cooperation.
“What if there are two contracts?” Pendt suggested on the fifth day.
Ned had been fiddling with the wording of the family association section of the contract for hours, trying to make it so that Pendt was entirely free of the Harlands while maintaining her freedom from the Brannicks.
“How would doubling the paperwork make anything better?” Ned asked.
“Well, the marriage contract is basically between me and Fisher, since he’s the head of the family,” Pendt said. “And what upsets you is the part where I belong to you as a result. So we write a second contract where you give that up, and we just . . . don’t tell anybody. It’ll be legal and it’ll make you feel better.”
Ned considered it.
“That works for me,” he said finally. “I know I’m a decent human being and I would never take advantage of you, but the wording makes my skin crawl.”
“Fisher?” Pendt asked. “What about you?”
“It doesn’t bother me,” Fisher said. “I’m not the one marrying you. I am glad you’ve got it settled, though, because I have more questions about, you know, the other part.”
Pendt rolled her eyes. Boys were so squeamish. Now that she had full control over what was happening to her, she found that the idea of pregnancy and reproducing no longer bothered her. Since she had enough calories to access her connection to the æther, she had never felt more independent and alive. It was new and more than a little bit selfish, but she didn’t care.
“I appreciate your consideration of my feelings and person,” Pendt said. “But there are lives at stake. Everyone on the station, even if they don’t know what we’re up to, relies on us creating a viable genetic heir. If we were just experimenting, I’d be happy to give you all the eggs you wanted and work with them under controlled conditions in a medical laboratory, but we don’t have that luxury. I need to be able to manage the variables myself, and this way, well, I can.”
Fisher sighed. “As long as you’re comfortable, I guess,” he said. “I just . . . Bodies are important, you know? And you always thought you were going to lose control of yours, and I want to be sure that Ned and I don’t treat you the same way.”
Bodies were a fraught subject with Fisher. Pendt had told the boys the lurid details of her upbringing on the Harland, and their horror at her situation actually made it a bit easier to tell them the personal details. The only thing she hadn’t talked about yet was Tanith’s procedure. They were already tetchy enough about babies. Through all of it, Fisher had not volunteered any personal information, and Pendt hadn’t asked. It was none of her business unless Fisher decided it was, and so far, he hadn’t.
“You two could not be more different from my family,” Pendt assured them both.
“Speaking of,” Ned said. “There hasn’t been anything in communications from the Harland. Is it possible they haven’t missed you yet?”
Pendt considered it. The galley staff would have reported her absence immediately. It had been graveyard shift when she escaped, which bought her the most time, but either she’d have been missed at breakfast or Lodia would have noticed the vent as soon as she entered her quarters.
“They’ve definitely missed me,” Pendt said. “They just don’t have any way to come back for me, so there’s not much point in talking about it. They can’t threaten you over the comm channels, and they don’t have any way to contact me directly.”