Bastion Science Fiction Magazine - Issue 4, July 2014 by Alex Hernandez George S. Walker Eleanor R. Wood Robert Quinlivan Peter Medeiros Hannah Goodwin R. Leigh Hennig Page A
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toxic safety of the smokers.
“One day, when I was about ready to shove my head into the supercritical mouth of a crusty chimney and take a final scorching whiff of death, I caught a faint signal from a passing school decrying this new practice of hybridization. I floated up listlessly, weak but wanting to know more. It seemed impossible to me, but when reports of the first births began circulating the ocean, I thought, Humans owe me! They have gotten off too easy. I lost everything because of them and they have a responsibility to make this right! ”
“Do you resent us?”
“I did at first…but when I observed the demonstrators on their little boats when we first met, I understood that you too have given up a lot to be here, to give me a school.”
“It’s almost reassuring to know bigotry is universal. That no one species owns that particular trait.” Ignacio patted her side with a gloved hand and her scales rippled like a banner in the wind. He felt like a cleaner fish riding in the wake of a great white shark. They swam in silence for a while, both of them watching their child roughhousing with one of her fathers. Ojore loved to cavort with Yemaya and he took great pleasure in watching them play.
Ignacio, on the other hand, loved to hold her and sing to her. When Yemaya was only a day old and still slurping up the nutritious mucus-like secretions of her mother, Ignacio got the urge to stroke her head and sing to her in his sweetest baritone. Wahgohi said it calmed her so he continued to do it.
Ojore and Yemaya joined them and the four of them swam in their usual formation, a strange little school of non-fish. He reached out and took Ojore’s hand, trying to pull him along. He could hear the very human sound of panting over the comm. “Have fun?”
“I’m wiped out. These alien microbes have colonized every nook and cranny of my suit. It’s getting harder to move.”
Ignacio sighed and took a sip of fresh water from the tube in his helmet. It was another reminder of their short time together as a family, but no matter what, he thought, he had Ojore full-time. Would one child be enough for a being used to living with hundreds? Would it be enough for Yemaya? He had heard of new hodgepodge schools of mostly hybrid children and their interspecies parents, but would they accept Wahgohi? For the first time, he realized that he cared about her, about her happiness. She wasn’t just a floating egg sac—an anonymous surrogate—to him. She wasn’t even an intelligent, unfathomable monstrosity any more. She was family.
“Are you okay?” Ojore’s concern oozed over their private channel.
Ignacio wanted to be held in his big arms, anchored by muscles forged in Papua’s mighty gravity. Floating in this endless sea like flotsam was beginning to get to him. “Yeah, I’m just thinking.”
“About our future?”
“About their future.”
He thought he saw his husband nod through the visor, but Ojore said nothing, only gave his gauntleted hand an encouraging little squeeze. Ignacio squeezed back and something subtle and human passed between them.
“Wahgohi,” he coughed over the open channel. He took another sip of water, then reached out and grabbed one of the longer spines on her pectoral fin. It was ungainly and silly, but she didn’t shrug him off. The three of them were bound together like two small hydrogen atoms desperately clinging to a larger oxygen atom. Together they were creating something as fundamental and potent as water. “Would you like to have more children with us?”
A plume of lime green bubbles exploded from her scintillating scales. Yemaya danced around them blissfully. Wahgohi wasn’t laughing—or she was—but she was also crying. It was an eruption of emotion. “Yes, husbands, I would like that very much.”
###
Alex Hernandez is a Cuban-American science fiction writer based in South Florida, and the first of his family to be born in the U.S. His most
“One day, when I was about ready to shove my head into the supercritical mouth of a crusty chimney and take a final scorching whiff of death, I caught a faint signal from a passing school decrying this new practice of hybridization. I floated up listlessly, weak but wanting to know more. It seemed impossible to me, but when reports of the first births began circulating the ocean, I thought, Humans owe me! They have gotten off too easy. I lost everything because of them and they have a responsibility to make this right! ”
“Do you resent us?”
“I did at first…but when I observed the demonstrators on their little boats when we first met, I understood that you too have given up a lot to be here, to give me a school.”
“It’s almost reassuring to know bigotry is universal. That no one species owns that particular trait.” Ignacio patted her side with a gloved hand and her scales rippled like a banner in the wind. He felt like a cleaner fish riding in the wake of a great white shark. They swam in silence for a while, both of them watching their child roughhousing with one of her fathers. Ojore loved to cavort with Yemaya and he took great pleasure in watching them play.
Ignacio, on the other hand, loved to hold her and sing to her. When Yemaya was only a day old and still slurping up the nutritious mucus-like secretions of her mother, Ignacio got the urge to stroke her head and sing to her in his sweetest baritone. Wahgohi said it calmed her so he continued to do it.
Ojore and Yemaya joined them and the four of them swam in their usual formation, a strange little school of non-fish. He reached out and took Ojore’s hand, trying to pull him along. He could hear the very human sound of panting over the comm. “Have fun?”
“I’m wiped out. These alien microbes have colonized every nook and cranny of my suit. It’s getting harder to move.”
Ignacio sighed and took a sip of fresh water from the tube in his helmet. It was another reminder of their short time together as a family, but no matter what, he thought, he had Ojore full-time. Would one child be enough for a being used to living with hundreds? Would it be enough for Yemaya? He had heard of new hodgepodge schools of mostly hybrid children and their interspecies parents, but would they accept Wahgohi? For the first time, he realized that he cared about her, about her happiness. She wasn’t just a floating egg sac—an anonymous surrogate—to him. She wasn’t even an intelligent, unfathomable monstrosity any more. She was family.
“Are you okay?” Ojore’s concern oozed over their private channel.
Ignacio wanted to be held in his big arms, anchored by muscles forged in Papua’s mighty gravity. Floating in this endless sea like flotsam was beginning to get to him. “Yeah, I’m just thinking.”
“About our future?”
“About their future.”
He thought he saw his husband nod through the visor, but Ojore said nothing, only gave his gauntleted hand an encouraging little squeeze. Ignacio squeezed back and something subtle and human passed between them.
“Wahgohi,” he coughed over the open channel. He took another sip of water, then reached out and grabbed one of the longer spines on her pectoral fin. It was ungainly and silly, but she didn’t shrug him off. The three of them were bound together like two small hydrogen atoms desperately clinging to a larger oxygen atom. Together they were creating something as fundamental and potent as water. “Would you like to have more children with us?”
A plume of lime green bubbles exploded from her scintillating scales. Yemaya danced around them blissfully. Wahgohi wasn’t laughing—or she was—but she was also crying. It was an eruption of emotion. “Yes, husbands, I would like that very much.”
###
Alex Hernandez is a Cuban-American science fiction writer based in South Florida, and the first of his family to be born in the U.S. His most
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