Special thanks to talismania for her wonderful editing job; you're the best.
Merry Christmas, guys!
This is a copyrighted work of fiction by nomoretears00. All rights reserved.
*
Dale was just finishing up reduplicating water pistols for his young, Szin and Raiden, to use while they played at the waterfall near their house.
"Hold on Szin, it's almost done," Dale said as Szin shifted impatiently from foot to foot.
The Ta'Narians didn't have many toys that were geared strictly for play so he'd made some based on his own childhood playthings. Plus, something else was driving this. Szin didn't have any Ta'Narian characteristics except for one thing, one major thing... the womb.
Many years ago, the Ta'Narians had started a war with the reptilian planet Onfre and lost. In retaliation the Onfre had seeded Ta'Nar's atmosphere with a chemical that destroyed the female reproduction system of the Ta'Narians, leaving them unable to reproduce.
This started what the Earth termed "The Harvest." After the threat of attack and subsequent negotiations, Earth had agreed to supply Ta'Nar with a thousand young human males each year for the next five years. The collection was done by lottery. The Ta'Narians took these males and subjected them to the one process they'd discovered that allowed their species to reproduce: they genetically altered the males to grow wombs and conceive young for their Ta'Narian mates.
Dale had been taken in the last harvest by the Ta'Narian warrior and starship captain Keyno Shou. It had been a harrowing, illuminating time, one that had changed him irrevocably . . . and yet he had also changed his captors. He'd even changed Ta'Nar, he liked to think for the better.
Dale was instrumental in opening King Duran's eye, who happened to be Keyno's uncle, about how the harvest affected the young Earthlings and other species.
It was Dale who suggested the Ta'Narians
ask
if any Earthlings would be interested in being mates instead of forcing them, and the response had been surprisingly good. King Duran had also agreed to let the new mates decided when they were ready to be injected with Ta'Narian DNA instead of doing it right off the bat the way it had been done with Dale.
While Dale considered himself Ta'Narian, Szin looked completely human. The belief was Dale's fertilized egg split and the genetic material split, too, a sort of "magnet effect," with the human genetic material gravitating toward one fetus and the Ta'Narian genetic material gravitating toward the other. Because of this, Dale was kicking the idea around of introducing some Earth customs into their family.
Szin pulled on Dale's pants. "Almost done, just let me fill it up with water."
The idea had really come to a boil during his and Keyno's latest trip to Earth several months ago to collect the young men who wanted to be mates. While there Dale had taken the time to see his parents, who he had last seen the day he had been harvested and dragged out of his home.
Truth be known, Dale missed his parents. The time he and Keyno had spent with them hadn't been enough. Okay, call him a wuss, but damn it, he missed his mom. And this time of year, the Earth year, wasn't helping matters. Yes, he had a
ppa
on his com with the Earth year. There was an ache in his heart that was getting harder to ignore. Family had always meant a lot to Dale and now part of his family was millions of miles away.
With a sigh he finished filling up the water pistol and sent Szin on out.
"Raiden? I'll have yours ready in a minute," he called out to his other young.
He heard a loud growl followed by a startled meow then a crash from the living area.
"Oh come on, what now?" Dale muttered as he walked into living area.
There stood Raiden soaking wet, his pointy ears laid flat, one of the many plants in the house turned over and Szin grinning madly. It didn't take much for Dale to figure out what had happened.
"Uh huh, you were waiting to ambush Szin, weren't you?" Dale asked.
"Yeah," Raiden said, staring at the floor, trailing his toe through the dirt that had spilled from the plant.
"Well, looks like you bit off more than you could chew," Dale said, while trying not to laugh. The emotions on Raiden's face ranged from disgust to guilt. Raiden had hidden on one of the many elevations in the house, waited for his twin, then had leaped out at Szin.
And gotten the shock of his life when Szin unloaded on him with the water pistol.
Dale was blindsided by a memory of Susan hiding and jumping out to scare him. How many times had his sister done the very same thing to him? He would've paid good money to do to her what Szin just did to Raiden. God, he missed her.
"Dad? You okay?"
A light breeze ruffled Dale's hair bringing him back to the present. Their family lived in a rooftop home near a stream that ended in a waterfall. Their tree house was nearly one hundred thirty feet in the air. It was built around the upper trunk of the tree and had a porch that opened up to a large indoor space.
The inside was open and spacious with a huge variety of plants, many from other planets Dale and Keyno had traveled to. The thatched roof looked like it was part of the treetop. Keyno could land and park the flyer in a building on the ground or park off the side of the house, too. There was a force field around the house.
"Yeah. Well, good thing we're going to the waterfall, huh?" Dale said to Raiden. "Leave your brother alone and come with me into the kitchen. I'll fix up your water pistol."
"Then we'll go to the waterfall?" Raiden asked.
"Yes. Guess I'll clean up the mess you made later. Of course, if you hadn't been trying to pounce on Szin I wouldn't have a mess to clean up, now would I?"
"Sorry, dad," Raiden said, eyes downcast. Dale turned away but not before he caught Szin's smirk and Raiden's responding stuck out tongue. Shaking his head, he herded Raiden into the kitchen. Szin might look human, but he was smart.
Raiden took after the Ta'Narians with their feline features. Raiden looked like Keyno; he had the same white hair, deeply tanned skin, pointed ears, long tail and cat-like yellow eyes as Keyno. From the way he was growing he would be just as tall and muscular as Keyno. But unlike Szin, Raiden did not have a womb. Dale had once, long ago, told Keyno he reminded him of one of the big cats from Earth. And like all cats Raiden like to climb, stalk and pounce.
Szin, more often than not, was ready for him.
Szin was the second born and favored Dale. He had Dale's ash brown hair and hazel eyes, when Dale still had hazel eyes, but Szin
did
have a womb. Szin was smaller, weaker and much less muscular than his older twin, Raiden.
Dale had a strip of white hair near his face that matched Keyno's hair color. This came from Dale being dosed with Ta'Narian DNA. Due to the genetic mutations that enabled Dale to have children, and being double-dosed because of a disease, his eyes had changed to looked like the Ta'Narians.
"Szin," Dale called from the kitchen, "don't spray any more water in the house."
"Okay."
Dale finished Raiden's water pistol, loaded it up with water and they headed out to the waterfall. There they could spray each other to their little heart's content and maybe burn off some of that endless energy.
"You can jump off some of the lower rocks at the waterfall but don't go too high up," Dale said.
Dale leaned back against a rock, his hands behind his head as he watched the twins play. The sun shone down, lulling him, and his mind drifted, thoughts turning to memories of the past. He and Chad had spent several hot, lazy days at the lake they lived by, swimming and fishing. Dale stared at the waterfall, not seeing it.
In its place was Chad fighting with the old tent they used when they went camping. Dale's mom always baked brownies for them before they left. God, what he wouldn't give for just one of those brownies or one of those she fixed at Christmas, with a pecan in the middle. Dale rested his head against the tree... Christmas was his favorite time of the Earth year.
"Dad looks comfortable," Raiden whispered to Szin.
Szin grinned. "But hot."
"Think we should cool him off," Raiden said. "You go around to the left, and be quiet, okay."
Next thing Dale knew he was being blasted on both sides.
"Oh shi—" Dale jerked as the cool water hit his warm skin, barely stopping the word he had been about to say. "You little buggers! Turned your water pistols on me, will you? Now you're in for it."
Raiden and Szin splashed off, both laughing as Dale jumped in the water, chasing after them. Dale managed to catch Szin and threw him up in the air, letting him land in the water. Unfortunately Raiden had climbed up onto one of the rocks and Dale didn't have the cat-like ability to go after him.
Later Keyno showed up and joined in the fun.
"Oh yeah, now you two are in for it," Dale said as he splashed after Raiden. "Get'em Keyno."
Keyno leaped into the water, a water rifle in his hands.
"Hey... Oh man, no," Dale ducked as Keyno sprayed him, Szin helping. Raiden was busily spraying Keyno.
Talk about outmanned and outgunned.
* * * *
"Dale, what's the matter?"
Dale stifled the sigh that threatened to break loose. Szin and Raiden were playing in the shallow part of the pool, splashing each other. Keyno and Dale were in the shade resting against a large, fern-like tree, drying off.
Most of Ta'Nar was covered in what on Earth would be called a tropical rain forest. Of course there were industrialized cities and a palace for the king, but the Ta'Narians took much better care of their planet than the Earthlings did.
"Nothing's wrong. Why do you keep asking me that?"
"You've been quiet since we returned. Even Chad has commented about it," Keyno said.
"You do realize listening to anything Chad says is the surest path to insanity, right?"
Keyno brushed a stand of hair out of Dale's face. "My point is he's noticed something's wrong."
"Keyno, there is nothing wrong," Dale said. "I guess I'm just tired. The trip back was long, keeping up with two young is hard, and okay yeah, I do miss my parents some . . . but nothing is wrong. I promise."
"Maybe you're going into estrus again," Keyno teased.
