Max and Me

The Birth Lab was enormous. A huge, circular space, the size of a football field or better, with little huts here and there and a big central building. In a ring outside the huts and the building stood tanks, and the tanks held things.

Fetuses. In green liquid.

“I can’t take this,” Max said, looking away. “I’m not gonna look.”

I didn’t blame him. Immediately in front of us floated a series of cat fetuses—black cats with a white saddle and white paws, at different stages of gestation. Early attempts at building Max. A few had grotesquely huge skulls, some with human-appearing brains spilling out the top or through the earholes. An attached device on each held a viewscreen and a keyboard—case notes, like in a hospital.

One fetus was a partial twin, two little, closed-eyed kitten faces growing from the same shoulders.

“Why would they keep these?” asked Sam wonderingly. “They should have been able to tell they were abnormal at the embryo stage.”

“God knows what they were trying to investigate,” I said. “I know for bioengineers, uterine environment plays a huge role, even aside from genes. They were probably testing different settings for the artificial wombs.”

It wasn’t what we were looking for, but we started to walk to the right, circling the tanks counterclockwise. The things held a grim fascination. If you want to have nightmares, look through a textbook on teratology just before you go to bed. Aside from the pure ickiness of malformed bodies, things like partial twinning and conjoined twinning play with your sense of personal identity. Disturbing.

Max after Max after Max, and then, suddenly, human fetuses—girls. Some showed partial cat features, tails or furry heads or whiskers. There were some cases of partial twinning, one cyclops with its nose missing, an anencephalic with her head missing above the eyebrows... Weirdness everywhere.

We came to a front desk, just like a nurses’ station in a hospital. A young woman stretched out on the floor in front of it, using the counter behind her for a pillow. Dark hair. She was short, no more than one hundred and fifty or one hundred and sixty centimeters tall. She held a Pad, reading intently.

“Miz?” I said, forgetting to speak Euroslavic.

She looked up at me and saw the gun. “Good morning,” she said in English. “Are you here to kill me?” Her voice was calm.

“No, of course not. We just didn’t know what we’d find here.” I put the gun down on the counter.

The woman stood up. “Grace and peace to you through Jesus Christ Our Lord.”

“Uh...thanks. I’m, uh, I’m Gunnar Dahlquist, from Ceres, this is Samantha Jeffries, and this is Max.”

“Hi,” Sam said shyly.

“Hello, brother,” the woman said.

Max stayed silent.

“Don’t you know me, Max?” asked the woman.

Max looked up at her. He shook his head.

“I’m Galina. Galina Kartseva. I’m your sister.”

“I, I...” Max said. “Oh, God, Galina. Galina, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I thought you were dead.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“I forgot all about you and Natasha. I just wiped you both out of my mind completely when I heard the doctor was dead. I assumed the Belters had gotten... I don’t know what I assumed. I forgot you completely.”

“Max, it’s all right.” She went to the cat and stroked his head. She picked him up and cradled him in her arms.

“Galina, ti zabil.” Galina, I forgot you.

“You were supposed to, Max. It was part of the plan.”