Magic

            “Would I be correct in assuming that Admiral Archer is…the father?” Riaan looked at Phlox as if he had discovered a cure for the common cold. Her mind raced. Had Phlox just said something? She looked at the close up scan and marveled at the tiny fluttering spot. After 30 seconds it reset and started over.

            She drifted into the future, imagining a dozen different scenarios that that kind of news could result in. Jon could be angry, or glad, or just as surprised as she was. Most likely she would miscarry again, only this time, unbelievably, it would be worse, not just for her, but for him as well. She didn’t want to remember that horrible night.

            “What?”

            “I don’t mean to be presumptuous but I couldn’t help but notice his affection for you this morning. Over the years I’ve learned to read that man quite well, much to his chagrin.”

            “Yes, of course,” she finally replied. “You can’t tell him, Phlox.” She paced the room slowly. “You can’t tell him about this, not yet. It’s too soon.”

            “Come with me,” he said, leading Riaan out of the exam room and into a lounge with comfortable chairs and a window overlooking the bay. “Please sit down before you faint.” He quickly fetched a glass of cold water and put it in her hand. Then he sat across from her.

            “You’re worried your pregnancy will end prematurely or that, perhaps, it won't?”

            “You can’t tell him.”

            “I’m all about doctor-patient confidentiality, but he’s part of the equation here. He has a right to know.”

            “If I miscarry again…”

            “Why would you worry about that?”

            “I told you already,” she said, leaning back in the chair with a deep sigh. She took a sip of the water hoping it would settle her anxiety. “Three in a row.”

            “Each is unique. Perhaps it was something on Akal, radiation exposure, lack of prenatal care, deformed genes; it could be hundreds of different things. You’ll be here most every day, it won’t be hard to monitor your progress, intervene if there’s trouble ahead.”

            “What’s Jonathan going to say,” she muttered. “We never talked about this before. It, well, it never came up. I guess I didn’t think it was possible.”

            “Captain – the admiral – after calling him captain every day for ten years this has been a hard habit for me to break,” he explained. “Jonathan Archer has seen and done more in twenty years than anyone else would see in three lifetimes. Nothing perturbs him anymore. I’ve seen him grieve, celebrate, win, lose, fight, suffer, recover, love, hate; he can still be a bit emotional at times, but that’s probably a good sign. He can certainly handle a baby.”

            “A baby that is half Akaali.”

            “Why would that be a problem? A more compassionate man I’ve never met. He’ll be delighted. He’s been disillusioned after being through two wars. He lost many close friends, made a lot of difficult decisions. After my diagnosis, Starfleet found him unfit for deep space command duty; what can you do to a man who literally saved the planet from annihilation? All they could do then was promote him. But you knew that.”

“No, he’d never mentioned it. That sounds extraordinary.”

“Ah, yes. Admiral Archer does tend to play down his achievements. It’s in his service records. I’m not divulging any secrets.”

“I appreciate your telling me this.” Riaan took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Want to have a look at those genes? We can discover a lot right now.”

“How is that possible?”

“Nothing’s impossible anymore.”

They went back to the medical bay to re-examine Riann’s scans and perform a couple more in situ on the embryo. Phlox was almost giddy as he performed his duty. It was rare that he had such good news to think about.

“So you can see the chromosomal pairs, and there are 23, which is the same number you have; see, here on your profile. That’s how two different species can combine. Sometimes even with differing numbers of pairs, it can happen, although the offspring are usually infertile. Members of the same Genus. Those we call hybrid, but yours is simply what we’d call biracial. It’s nothing to worry about. A little diversity strengthens the gene pool. People used to think it diluted their races, but on Earth everyone is all the same anyway but for the most minuscule of phenotypical differences.”

“So it’s going to be okay?”

“Absolutely! There’ve been hundreds of cross species births in the last few years, although most are not surprises. It usually takes a bit of magic in the lab, if you will.” Phlox repressed the urge to say something about the extraordinary circumstances required for a natural conception between two different species, with magic being part of that circumstance as well. “I don’t always ask this but I can point out the chromosomal sex genes if you like. Many people don’t want to know ahead anymore. By the way, how long is Akaali gestation in general?”

“Seven moons. You already know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

“Well, most humanoid species I’ve encountered are sex-determined by the male. For instance birds are the opposite; the female determines gender.”

“Phlox, that’s fascinating, but show me how you can tell gender on that 1 cm spot on my bio scan.”

“Not from the spot. You see these two chromosomes here, the long ones?” he indicated some striped bands on the monitor. “They are single stranded and the same size. The other possibility is a single strand paired with a strand that has a fork on it. Those are male. This embryo is female.”