Page 17 of Healing the Leonid Doctor’s Heart (Felix Orbus Galaxy #6)
Wendy sat up, glared at them both with as much severity as her gentle soul could muster, and motioned for Talos to take the heavy little bundle. “We’re leaving, Marcus. I’m fine, and it sounds like things are about to get busy.”
“I’m just trying to help other families have this chance. We need more Chandras, Chances, and Alanas in this universe,” Marcus said with a plaintive note in his voice.
Talos’ grim expression softened. “Well, that I will agree with.”
“It should mean you get a supplemental credit payment, as well—if all of my crazy ideas work out.”
Wendy smirked and took his paw with one hand, the other one resting lightly on her daughter’s flowered blanket. “I hope they do, Marcus. Before Queen Fever, how many were aboard this ship?”
Marcus stopped and thought back to the faces he hadn’t seen in so long. About half the crew had been Queens, and there’d been young Knights, but then quarantine orders had come, and deaths had increased...
He blinked. Something that he refused to name came back, haunting him, as he remembered the deaths that had happened aboard, deaths of the Queens he’d known, eaten with, ridden through asteroid storms with, watched planetary elections with, peace treaties with...
“We shouldn’t bring it up, perhaps,” Talos said with a surprisingly soft voice, a paw laid briefly on Marcus’ shoulder.
“Over a dozen officers and permanent crew, almost all of us young or unmarried, a few with families back home. They didn’t all leave at once.
The Queens first, and the ones who had to make it planet-side during the last emergency shuttle clearances before planets were locked down.
And as the virus raged and kept changing.
.. We lost more and more when respites were offered to those seeking passage back to their own planets and systems. At last, it was just Ru.
It was his ship, and he was going to try to keep flying alone—freighters were allowed to fly, after all.
And every ship of this size and class had to have a medical officer, so.
.. I stayed. I had nowhere else to go.” Marcus stopped speaking abruptly.
It was a lie, that last bit. He could have gone home—to pompous relatives who would tell him he was better off without a Servali Queen and half-breed cubs.
“This ship is home now. Rupex is... Well, he’s family, whether or not he admits it.
It all depends on the day.” He managed a shaky smile.
I’ve made that clear to those who are offering me positions planet-side.
I’ll be grounded when the Comet Stalker is. ”
Talos lifted his chin. “Wendy and Layla have been apart too long. We’ll visit my family on leave, but we have no plans to leave, Marcus. Our cubs will grow up together, go to school here together. Some of the bigger ships have instructors on board.”
Marcus nodded, confused for a moment at Talos’ assertion that their cubs would grow up together.
He doesn’t mean your child. He means Layla’s cubs and Wendy’s cubs. And before long... Nessa and Kamau’s, or I’ll eat my hemoanalyzer. “It’s good to know you’ll be here. I know Wendy has her heart set on teaching the young ones.”
“Well... As a nursery teacher.”
“You could easily get your primary certification while working part-time in the nursery. You’ll see. Things are going to keep moving forward, folks.” Marcus smiled and clapped his paws together. “Now, I bet that little lady is about to wake up and want her milk. Off you go.”
As soon as Wendy and Talos opened the door, Dax was shoved forward under the pressure of Kaylie and Abigail. There was a pause for hushed adoration of little Chandra, and then they all but tackled him to his spinning chair.
“What happened? What contract is this?” Kaylie demanded, jabbing at the computer on her wrist.
“This clinic is being established here? How can that be? Does Rupex know?”
“Wait, I didn’t get a new contract!” Dax looked around, bewildered. “Am I out? Did I fail? How can I fail when I just passed my last exam, Doc?”
Marcus ran a paw through his mane. “If you’ll all listen, I’ll give you the shortest answer possible.
The Comet Stalker is a long-haul freighter ship that also has classification as a passenger ship.
With the allocation of additional quarters for patients and additional medical and medical support staff, Rupex and I, with backing from Bastet Mercy, are going to seek a tertiary classification. ”
“A what?” Dax frowned.
“Third,” Abigail interjected, eyes not leaving Marcus’ face.
“Thank you, a third classification. We are going to seek medical/mercy class status, and we’ll probably get it, with a bunch of addendums, like we’re not to be sent into conflicts for medical treatment, etc. I believe my contact at Bastet Mercy said it was called a ‘Specialization Rider.’”
Skyla walked in, the tall Dholian Canid waving her lavish tail around, her head cocked in puzzlement.
“Jax, Lycen, and I were on a ship like that. First response military support. The rider said we were not a surgical ship, more like first aid, assessment, and triage. Why are we talking about this?”
Marcus almost whimpered. “I don’t want to start this all over again.”
“We’re going to get classified as a baby-making ship, I think,” Dax said—and then, hearing how it sounded, blushed wine red and clapped his hands over his mouth. “Oh, shit. I mean! Arh. Doc, help!”
“Yes,” Marcus said steadily, not giving into the urge to laugh, “with the right adjustments to support staff and quarters, we’ll be given classification as a ‘baby-making’ ship.
Or, as I would have phrased it, a mercy ship with a specialization in hybrid reproductive medicine.
To get the classification, I’ll need a qualified medical assistant or nurse—Skyla,” he pointed to her, “and a certified medical assistant,” he nodded to Dax, “and someone to help handle the recruitment, screening, and matching of surrogates with my guidance.” He turned to Abigail and Kaylie.
They stared, silent and wide-eyed.
“I didn’t think you wanted to go back to the credit exchange, Abi,” he said, voice light and casual, trying not to tell her what else he thought.
He thought that this would give her a career on the ship, one that didn’t depend on her body’s ability to bear cubs.
One that would let her work by his side on something meaningful, one that would give her a place on the crew and keep her with Kaylie and Nessa, who had become her fast friends.
That he wanted her to be in his life.
That he was afraid he’d done all of this wrong.
“Well... I’m interested. I don’t have a job, and I don’t want to go back to Sapien-Three. I don’t have much in the way of training—”
“If you can read applications and sort vital statistics, and maybe help give us some insight about where to target our search for potential surrogates, that’s all you need to do.
I don’t have training, either,” Marcus admitted.
“This is a new field, something that was never possible before, so none of these questions were asked before. Plus, the entire physical component...” He was a doctor, a medical man, and part of having good bedside manner meant not being embarrassed about simple, natural body functions like reproduction.
Yet suddenly, he felt his blood running hot.
“Felid males tend to become possessive of their mates—that is, the Queens they mate with. I think the past generation or two were becoming more liberated, but then this virus happened, Bastet smite it, and then Queens were in short supply.”
Abigail’s voice had a hard edge to it, one he had rarely heard. “Yes, I see. Supply and demand. The Felids tend to cling to whatever’s available in terms of female mates, that’s what you’re saying?”
Oh. Shit. Marcus swallowed, “I meant that it is a possibility. Being intimate with someone and bringing a child into the world together could cause a surrogate and parent to bond. We shouldn’t take human Queens who already have mates.
It could cause problems. Our first trials will not include married or mated Felids, either,” he hastened to explain.
Kaylie gave Abigail a confused look. “Okay, not to play matchmaker or anything, but I think that’s a plus.
Most of the single women on Sapien-Three who would consider this kind of job would think it was a bonus to get off of a heavily polluted planet with limited chances for having your own family, your own house, your own anything, really, and into a marriage with a financially well-off Felid who could afford to treat them like a beloved treasure.
I mean, they call them Queens, for eff’s sake.
” Kaylie slapped her finger onto the screen and scribbled.
“I accept. You’d better accept, too, Abi.
I’m the assistant to the assistant, and that’s you, big sis.
Weren’t you saying it would be a wonderful gift to help Felids rebuild their race? This is your chance to do it!”
Abigail’s eyes met his. They didn’t show their usual warmth. “You’re right. I don’t have a lot of options, and this seems like a good one.” Her finger scrawled on the screen. “I accept.”
Marcus plastered a smile on his face. “Excellent! I’ve already prepared some notes.
I’ll send them to you, and we can have our first official team meeting tomorrow.
I have a meeting scheduled with the funding chair at the Leonid Interplanetary Institutes of Health this morning.
Abi, did you still want to pop back in later for that screening we discussed? ”
“I’ll let you know, Marcus. Thanks.” Abigail rose. “Well, Kaylie. This is good news. Contract offers way better than we’d ever get on Sapien-Three. Let’s go tell Nessa and Kamau. Maybe we can get a shot of borde to celebrate?”
Marcus deflated as they waved goodbye and left.
What the hell just happened? The woman he was falling in love with, the woman he had literally bred last night—well, as near to it as he could get—had just given him an icy smile and waved off his questions about beginning her injections.
He needed to find her. Talk to her. Explain.
His screen chirped. Incoming Call.
Right after this meeting, because without this meeting—hundreds of other families might not receive the help they needed to have a cub and rebuild their galaxy’s population.
Because between Abigail and the rest of the world... He wanted to choose Abigail, but she’d want him to pick everyone else—and that’s why he wanted to make her his Queen.