Nicole held me on her hip as I strained to get a look at the sprout. In the little green house tent, pushing through damp soil was the tiniest green sprout. The seeds were viable. Holy shit! We could grow food!

Well… we could grow a tiny little sprout. But the whole gathered crowd seemed delighted, so surely it was at least a good omen. Still, it wasn’t even something we could eat yet enough to be a renewable food source.

Still, I couldn’t deny there was something hopeful about it growing.

“Hopefully, in a few weeks, the tomato plant will be big enough that I can get some cuttings,” the botanist was explaining, a middle-aged woman with a painfully tight ponytail named Doctor Flanagan. “From then on, we should be able to expand our operations a little. Unfortunately, most of the seeds have not germinated.”

After the little demonstration, everyone began to disperse. Nicole adjusted me on her hip. Honestly, I was already more than used to being carried around like this. It was kinda nice.

“Doctor?”

Nicole turned to see Doctor Flanagan. Dumbly, she pointed at herself, seeming almost confused that someone was addressing her as Doctor. It was… really cute.

“Yes, I don’t… Do you have a last name?” Doctor Flanagan babbled slightly.

“I don’t,” Nicole replied. “Most simply call me Nicole.”

“Right, okay then. Call me Sarah, then otherwise it would be weird,” Doctor Flanagan chuckled.

“What can I do for you, Sarah?” Nicole asked.

“I’ve been meaning to touch base, is all, I was reading your findings on the Euphorion. Fascinating stuff. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in lending your perspective? Our resident geneticist didn’t quite eh… make it, so we’re having a bit of a rough time trying to hybridize flora,” Doctor Flanagan continued. “Trying to balance the acidity without becoming acidic itself, it’s proving to be quite the conundrum.”

Nicole nodded. “I should warn you that much of my research was destroyed, but I can take a look.”

“Wonderful,” she beamed. “We’re in the… well, I’m sure you know where to find us,” she laughed. “We’re practically neighbours.”

A weird emotion flared up in me. Not anger, really, but still irritation. I wanted to drag Nicole off and hiss at anyone who came too close. A silly, ridiculous notion.

Jealous. I was feeling jealous.

How immature.

“Also, I gotta ask,” Doctor Flanagan looked a tad sheepish. “What’s up with the primate? Everyone’s been dying to know.” She glanced back, and only then did I notice a few more people not so subtly snooping on our conversation.

Nicole smiled, though perhaps a little less indulgently, her arm tightening around me slightly. “I have been researching the local fauna. This one has grown attached.”

“I can see that,” Doctor Flanagan chuckled. “Does he have a name?”

“Her name is Elsy,” Nicole offered after a moment of hesitation.

“Adorable. Aren’t you, Elsy?”

I blinked at her. I knew I was, but I was far less interested in hearing it from this stranger.

“I’m shocked how desensitized she is,” Doctor Flanagan added.

“It’s been a slow process,” Nicole added quickly. “I believe were I biological it would have made things more challenging.”

“Right,” Doctor Flanagan hummed. “Well, I’m crossing my fingers you can recreate a Chow Chow. I’ve always wanted one.”

“The dog breed?” Nicole blinked.

“Yes. I know, me, a botanist, yet a dog lady. I can’t help it,” she laughed. “Oh, sorry, I’ve got to run. But you will stop by, won’t you?”

Nicole nodded.

“Bye, Elsy,” she added before hurrying off.

“She doesss know I am noot a dog, right?” I frowned.

“I… think so,” Nicole replied, not sounding entirely certain.

Progress on the tracks was still being made, now far enough from camp that simple mechanical trolley carts were being used to bring resources to the end. I was hoping to get a chance to ride one; it looked kinda fun. Unfortunately, everyone was too busy piling them with cable and stuff. Even some of the construction robots were being shipped out to eventually set up the rotary blast hole machine thingy. I was far less inclined to check out what was going on when I learned that explosives were going to be used.

Back at the camp itself, the decision to disassemble one of the shuttles had been made. The battery would be saved, but there was hope they would be able to repurpose parts to hopefully build a few of the needed solar panels. Obviously, it would mean giving up one of the truly airtight safe areas, but power was paramount. So a whole team of engineers now buzzed around unscrewing panels and drilling things.

Over the next few days, Nicole started assisting Doctor Flanagan. That simmering feeling of jealousy didn’t quite go away. I tagged along a few times, but they spoke a whole new, obscure scientific language that I didn’t understand. Stuff about genomes and cell division, photosynthesis and amino acids.

I felt a little left out.

Mostly, though, I was just insecure. Nicole was so much smarter than I. I couldn’t help but feel like she must be bored by me sometimes. I couldn’t remotely keep up despite my best efforts. Sure, she could explain stuff to me, but I wasn’t even sure regular people could keep up with her.

I knew Doctor Flanagan wasn’t replacing me or anything. I wasn’t dumb. But I was envious that she could connect with Nicole on that level while I was stuck waltzing around as a… glorified pet.

I also really wished Nicole slept. Yes, she cuddled up with me occasionally until I fell asleep. But petulantly, I wished she were always there. Both of our social classes also… sucked. I had learned that word from Nicole. I wasn’t beyond hope.

Some part of me resented the unfairness of it all. The whole fantasy that had been ingrained in my stupid brain from the moment of my birth still lingered. High society, power, politics, fancy dinner parties. I never got any of it with Tobias, and I certainly wouldn’t with Nicole.

Of course, she wasn’t my husband, and she was a synthetic. It wasn’t a dream worth indulging, but… it was my nature. Nicole couldn’t escape her programming, and I couldn’t escape mine.

Everything was still hard. And my stupid daydreams of marrying Nicole and ruling over our own barony together weren’t helping. I wouldn’t even mind having her children if she had wanted them.

And yet none of it was meant to be. Despite, for once, being open to accepting my fated purpose, it was too little too late. We were destined to be oddballs.

But maybe one day we could at least have a little cabin somewhere, just the two of us. Some alien monkey children? Well, maybe not that part.

I wasn’t missing the baby I had never gotten to meet. But it did occur to me one rainy afternoon that this was probably the longest I had not been pregnant. I had spent nearly my entire existence as a uxor with child. I didn’t know what to make of that.

Nicole and I were both free and yet trapped in the strangest of ways.

The mining finally began, explosive rumbling in the distance that set my teeth on edge.

Boom!

Boom!

It stopped rather quickly. I went back to my drawing. My pictures were far from as good as Nicole’s, but it was something to do, and I was going a little stir crazy. It was raining out, and even though the acidity didn’t bother me, I didn’t like getting all damp. I drew our cabin, sketching in the red jungle around us in gray pencil. Then I started making up alien plants that we could grow in a little garden.

Boom!

I sighed. I didn’t like that at all. Everything shook for a few moments every time it happened. I closed Nicole’s notebook, planning to finish the drawing once the explosions stopped making the page shake. I paused, looking at a few of Nicole’s sketches. Various renditions of the hosts I had possessed. The furry dinosaur, the reverse giraffe thing, the carapace-protected primate. So many different faces. I flipped back a few pages to one of the few drawings of my… face. Elizabeth Barrick’s face.

It was a drawing she must have done while I was sleeping, pregnant and horribly ill. I didn’t miss it. And yet I did. The drawing was so gentle, so kind. I missed what could have been.

Pop pop pop pop!

I froze. Gunshots were echoing in the distance. I recognized them immediately. Oh no. Not again.

“Nicole!” I called, gently tucking the notebook back on the shelf as fast as I could.

Pop pop pop pop pop!

Fuckkk!

I scrambled out into the rain, shielding my face as water pelted me. I scrambled for the scientist's tent only to nearly run into Nicole as she exited in a hurry.

The moment she registered it was me she sighed with relief, picking me up and hurrying both of us in the direction of the commotion. No one else was coming to investigate; the rain would burn them. Nicole and I were the only two present, watching as wheels screeched against metal rails, a ragged trolley careening towards camp.

Monsters skittered after it.

“Sound the alarm!” Nicole yelled into the blustery, wet morning. Her order was echoed, and the alarm began to blare.