Perfect Specimen (14 page)

“I’ll do it.”

Just as Randy reached for the pistol, Sara’s armband began emitting a bright, flashing light, accompanied by a stab of pain through her shoulder. In an instant, they were both engulfed by the hot, pulsating beam. Clinging to Randy’s waist with one hand, she gripped the gun tightly with the other, suddenly obsessed with the idea of firing it right into Ga’rag’s gilled neck.

If he dared hurt Clay
. . .

Within seconds, the light was subsiding, and her feet were firmly planted next to Randy’s on a circular pad in a cavernous, metallic room. She tried to breathe but the air was too thick to be inhaled.

Clay’s voice called out her name, and she spun toward him in time to catch the breathing mask he tossed in her direction. She strapped it around her neck and almost immediately the air thinned and was breathable.

“Why did you bring the runt?” Clay demanded with a grin. He was standing a few feet away from the transport pad, and he still had the ammonia bottle lodged against Ga’rag’s neck.

Randy stepped off the pad and whispered reverently, “Fuck me,” as he surveyed the giant walls lined with shiny screens and complex equipment. “How many of these freaks live here, Clay?”

“Just this one. Oh, and his daughters.”

Sara bit her lips. “Daughters?”

Clay nodded. “Check out the next room. But be ready, because—”

She didn’t wait for him to finish the warning. Instead, she bolted through a nearby doorway with Randy close on her heels. Then she stopped short, stunned by the sight that confronted her. Three huge tanks brimming with bright green liquid. And in two of the tanks, there was something else. Something floating—

“Babies,” Randy whispered in Sara’s ear. “You were right, Sara. This fucker actually has your babies on his ship.”

She nodded, speechless. “They don’t look—well, they don’t look born.”

“I tried to warn you,” Clay said dryly. “They aren’t really your babies, Sara. Not in the traditional sense. The one on the left is a clone of you. The other is a clone of another specimen. The best way to transport them was in this pre-birth state according to Ga’rag, so he kept them this way.”

She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sight of the floating infants. “There are three tanks.”

“Yeah.” Clay patted her shoulder. “There were originally three specimens in this experiment. But one didn’t pass the tests, so . . .”

“Oh, no.” Sara’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, no, Ga’rag.” She turned to the alien and whispered, “How could you?”

“She was not as strong as you, Sara. I had no choice.”

Sara stepped closer to the tanks. “If they’re clones—human replicas—then they don’t have gills. Right?”

Clay nodded. “But according to this asshole, cloning isn’t exactly like regular reproduction. Without the right equipment, we can’t be sure they’ll survive if we try to drain the tanks here aboard the ship. So I figured I’d better bring you up here. So we can decide how to handle this.” He gave Sara a sheepish look. “And I figured you’d want to get the I-told-you-so’s out of the way as soon as possible.”

She couldn’t help but smile in return. These bizarre floating clones weren’t exactly the little gilled girls she’d been visiting for years. And it broke her heart to know that one of the three hadn’t made it. But still these two were here . . . alive . . .

“I told you so,” she whispered through her tears. “It’s another miracle, Clay, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, his voice choked with emotion.

Randy had been circling the tanks, and now announced, “They look like regular babies to me. I call bullshit on the whole birthing thing. He’s just trying to con us into letting him take them with him.”

“Maybe so,” Clay agreed. “But do we dare take the risk? With both of them? Or maybe just one?”

“How could we ever choose which one?” Sara protested. “We’re back where we started. I know that’s not what you want to hear, Clay. And I’d miss you until the day I died. But I’ve been prepared for this. In a bizarre way, it’s my destiny to go to Ra-ahl with them.”

“That’s bullshit,” Randy repeated gruffly. Then to her shock, he stepped back, leveled his pistol at the closest of the tanks, and coolly pulled the trigger.

“No!” she shrieked as the glasslike container shattered and gallons of green goo rushed toward them.

“Are you insane?” Clay yelled, keeping his grasp on Ga’rag while moving between Sara and the flying debris.

Darting past him, she waded into the liquid in time to grab the infant up into her arms. She did her best not to dislodge the artificial umbilical cord, but it was apparently preprogrammed to break away, leaving a bizarre tubelike stub imbedded in the child’s abdomen.

“Oh, no . . .” Cuddling the baby close, she whispered frantically, “Please, sweetie. Please don’t die. Do you know how much I need you? How much I love you?”

The dark-haired child squirmed. Then she raised her face toward Sara, opened a pair of dark brown eyes and gurgled loudly at the harsh interruption of her endless nap.

“Oh, my God . . .” Tears streamed down Sara’s cheek. “Oh, my God, look at you. You’re so beautiful. So perfect.”

“Thanks to me,” Randy reminded her mischievously.

“You?”
She gave him an unsuccessful glare. “You could have killed her.” Reaching out her arm, she added with a dazed sigh, “Come here. I need to hug you before Clay strangles you.”

Randy grinned and let her embrace him. Then he turned to his big brother. “Give me the ammonia bottle. I’ll keep the alien under control while you have a warm family moment with your hot girlfriend and some
other
hot girl’s baby.”

“Yeah, like I’m going to trust our safety to an idiot like you?” Clay growled. “Here, Sara. Take my sweatshirt to keep the baby warm. Then stand back so this moron can blast the other tank. The sooner we get off this effing ship, the better.”

“Don’t fire the weapon again,” Ga’rag warned. “It could damage the ship’s integrity. I will drain the second tank. The clone of Sara will be fine, I promise you.”

“So you lied about that too,” Sara murmured, but her eyes were on the other baby floating in the liquid. Nuzzling the dark-haired child in her arms, she whispered happily, “Stay awake for just one more minute, sweetheart. You’re about to meet your little sister.”

* * * *

It took less than twenty minutes to drain the second tank, during which time Randy convinced Clay to give him a turn guarding Ga’rag. Then Sara and Clay stood together, his arm around her waist, and they watched as the Sara clone floated closer and closer to the drain. According to Ga’rag, the walls of the tank would rise up from the base when the liquid was gone, and the feeding tube would break away at the same time, leaving the newborn child resting comfortably and safely on the floor.

Leaning against Clay, Sara told him softly, “I can’t believe you saved my children. How can I ever thank you?”

He turned her to face him. “Sorry about the third one, honey. And I’m sorry I didn’t believe you sooner.”

“Because of you, these two have a future. And
I
have a future. You made the impossible possible.”

He brushed his lips across hers. “A future with
me
—right?”

“I hope so, because I can’t live without you.”

“Heads up,” Randy warned them. “Incoming baby.”

“Here.” Clay took the infant from Sara’s arms. “Go get her. I’ll find something to wrap her in.”

Sara nodded, then pecked the dark-haired baby on the cheek and hurried over to Randy in time to see the glass wall rise up toward the ceiling. When it was less than two feet up, she eagerly slid under it and pulled the second child into her arms, willing her to be alive and healthy.

Like her older sister, this one started squirming and making happy sounds almost immediately. And like her older sister, she was perfect. Ten fingers, ten toes, a mass of damp blonde hair, big blue eyes, and radiant skin.

“Look at you,” Sara cooed.

“That one’s kind of ugly,” Randy teased her. “Let’s hope she has a good personality.”

Sara laughed. “And a good sense of humor. She’s going to need it if she has to grow up around you.”

Clay had found some warm fabric and they quickly swaddled the baby. Then Clay murmured, “We just have one more thing to take care of.”

“What? Oh . . .” Sara glanced toward Ga’rag. “Right.”

“Yeah,” Randy agreed coolly. “I vote for putting him in that third tank and letting him rot in there forever.”

Clay nodded. “That’s a great idea.”

“You need me to transport you back to Earth,” Ga’rag reminded them haughtily. “And you promised you’d let me go if I cooperated.”

“I don’t remember any such promise,” Clay said with a shrug. “I actually don’t see how we can let you go. You’ll find other females to experiment on. Or worse, come after Sara and the babies again.”

“My experiment has failed miserably. I will be severely disciplined when I return home, and you can rest assured that Earth females will no longer be considered viable candidates. This weakness your species feels about mating would bring out disastrous traits in my people. Traits we successfully abolished years ago.” Ga’rag’s tone grew soft. “My race is running out of time. Unless a more promising species is discovered soon, we will be extinct before the end of this Earth century.”

“Let’s hope so,” Randy muttered.

Sara bit her lip. “Will you give me the name and address of the other specimens?”

Ga’rag seemed surprised. “Both of them? As I mentioned, one did not survive—”

“I still need to know her name. Someone needs to remember her. To know what happened to her. And the other one needs to know she’s free. So yes.” Sara squared her shoulders. “Both of them.”

“Yes, I will give you that information. Is there anything else you feel you need to know?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you want to know which one of you I would have selected?” When Sara winced, he smiled knowingly. “You already know the answer, don’t you? You were always the strongest. Always my favorite. Whatever happens now, you have a right to be proud of that.”

“You know what, Ga’rag,” she whispered, her tone dripping with contempt. “Go to hell.” Bundling her babies close, she turned to Clay and said quietly, “Get me off this goddammed ship before I kill him myself.”

* * * *

“She’s going to want her clone, Sara. That’s all I’m saying. You need to be ready for it.”

Sara cuddled her dark-haired daughter to her chest. “You can’t know for sure. She’s going to be so grateful to us for saving her, and for kicking Ga’rag’s ass back to Ra-ahl, she might let me keep her. Plus, she’ll see that it makes sense to raise them together. Plus . . . well . . .” She sighed. “Maybe Ga’rag ran a different type of experiment on her. Didn’t tell her about the babies. So she never got as attached to them as I did. It’s possible, right?”

Clay gently took the child from Sara. “I’m going to miss her too, you know.”

Glancing at the clock, Sara felt a wave of excitement. “Her plane—
Janine’s
plane—lands in two hours. Isn’t it unbelievable? Like meeting my long-lost sister.”

“Yeah, it’s cool. I just hope Randy isn’t harassing her to death.”

“He’s protecting her with his trusty ammonia bottle. I hope we’re right about that,” she added carefully. “I know you think we should have killed Ga’rag when he brought us back to Earth—”

“No, you were right. He won’t bother you or the girls—the threat of ammonia takes care of that. And killing him on the day the babies were born would have felt wrong, like you said.”

“Let’s just hope he’s gazillions of miles away by now.”

“Once Josh removes Janine’s chip, we can declare this whole mess officially over. Except for the therapy,” he added hastily. “For you
and
for Janine. That’s not negotiable, right?”

Sara sighed. Mark had insisted that the victims of this insane ordeal needed abuse counseling, not to mention grief counseling to deal with the loss of the third “specimen” and her clone-infant. And despite the euphoria of being free, being a mom, and being in love, Sara knew that the therapist was correct.

With a hopeful smile, Clay placed the infant in the bassinet next to the golden-haired child. Then he pulled Sara close and kissed her deeply.

“Yum. What was that for?”

“Like you said, they’re two hours away. And the kids are sleeping. And you made me a promise—that night I picked you up at the Finish Line—that our relationship would be all about sex, so . . .”

“You make a persuasive argument, Counselor. But you forgot the most important fact of all.”

“What’s that?”

“That I can’t resist you. I tried so hard,” she admitted. “I told myself you were just an unimportant stranger. A part of the experiment. But I knew you were more than that right from the start.”

Clay licked his lips. “Yeah?”

She nodded, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I knew you were destined to be someone’s hero. I just never dared dream you’d be mine.”