***Tirnanog, Mount Aerie***

***Astra***

“This is no fun,” I grumbled and forced down the heartburn which had made its way up my throat and threatened to encroach on my tongue.

I had been suffering through the downside of my newly acquired eating habits for the last two weeks. My pregnancy had been advancing rapidly, giving Thalia and Sienna reason for concern.

Despite the unnatural speed at which my belly was growing, I felt fine apart from the need to stuff myself with all the food I could eat.

I was in top health. Unfortunately, Thalia could only mitigate the obvious side effects of eating like a firehorn.

“I told you to stay at the hospital if you don't feel up to it,” my mother commented. “You don't have to force yourself to sit in on these meetings.”

“I am not sick,” I insisted. “It feels wrong to back out of my new job no sooner than starting it.”

Teresa let out a frustrated harrumph but allowed me to follow her into the Hall of Law where I sat down next to her while the elders took their positions.

The meeting began with some of the lighter themes concerning mere management issues. Recent reports indicated that the previously discussed generator was about to be completed. If everything went according to plan, the old generator would be replaced within the week.

There was a strange side-note.

Someone had died while crawling through the ventilator system and the smell had caused the inhabitants of one of the lower levels to complain. It wasn't a pretty affair, but it happened now and then. The ventilator shafts were a famous smuggling route for the clan's less honourable citizens.

Unfortunately, it was impossible to shut down illegal access. The ventilation system's nature required it to be everywhere. It was a labyrinth within the clan's already labyrinthic tunnel system. Some passages were so old that nobody alive knew of them. It was practically impossible to guard every entrance, so the elders didn't even try.

I heroically suffered through the boring administration issues.

Things became more interesting when Sienna and her partner, Richard Tate, presented a highly convoluted extrapolation of possible ramifications that resulted from the mystery mutations.

The other elders were already familiar with the topic of Iv's unique mutation, but this would be new to them.

While the Tates began presenting the case, I sat straighter and paid careful attention to the elders' reactions. Especially those who joined the faction against war. It was unlikely to happen, but I hoped to glean some insights into the dispositions the various strata held.

My parents had advocated having the Tates present our fears to the other stratas and Sienna did a magnificent job at slowly guiding the assembly through one logical conclusion after the other, supporting each argument with statistics and experimental evidence she had gained from analysing Iv's biology and by questioning the other two former Thich who had been conscripted into our strata.

It was impossible to hide that we had no definitive proof, but Sienna did a decent job of obfuscating the lack of hard numbers with a chain of logical arguments.

Some assumptions had to be involved, so Richard presented each conjecture in degrees of being likely and unlikely. The beauty of their presentation was that even if assuming best-case scenarios it left the listener with the bad feeling that it was still very likely for clan Thich to leave the rest of Tirnanog in the dust if their research ever succeeded.

It took three-quarters of an hour until the elders were finally presented with the conclusion.

“... to sum it up,” Sienna finalized her presentation. “Even if we completely mistook the experiments' goals, our deductions will be one likely outcome. To make sure we wouldn't present false findings we've spent weeks questioning Ivona and the others before we shared this with you. I am convinced the training program is actually a test setup.

“None of the people with Ivona's violet mutation got the same evolutionary pathway! This means the Thich are still searching for more possible combinations. The number of people who got the same set of mutations is comparatively small according to Ivona's recount. With around 10% of their candidates, this looks more like a test group which delivers known results!”

Richard took over, “I have personally questioned Ivona, and her lack of medical education is blatantly obvious, yet, what she described is a classic setup for experimentation on living subjects. Even if you accuse her of spinning a tale, there is no way she could have come up with this on her own. Nor did she have contact with people who could have instructed her on what to say.

“At this point I am certain the goal of their mystery mutation setup is to find more viable mutation combinations. More viable combinations mean more possibilities for powerful, fertile partnered pairs. More powerful, fertile people mean more births and more people in general. There is no getting around it. The only question is whether it is already happening, or whether it will happen sometime down the road. And as my wife has shown you, our time window for action will close within decades.”

There was the noise of many people talking to each other as elders conferred either with their partners or with their scribes.

Juliana Rumen got to her feet once she had given the gathering an opportunity for a private exchange. “I understand if some of you see this as a reason for concern, but we shouldn't be hasty. As you know, this would be the final vote on the matter of war. There would be no going back without violating our laws.”

Her partner, Skye Rumen, looked around the room, making eye contact with everyone. “We need a month to mobilize the fleet, so there is no point in forcing a decision before the snow starts melting. I gather that many of you would need time to digest this news anyway.”

I leaned over to my mother and whispered, “Shouldn't we insist on a vote right now? What better chance could we have than with a presentation like this fresh in people's minds? Humans already went to war for less than purely economical concerns.”

Teresa raised a hand in a denying gesture and shook her head. “The people in this room need more to have their current disposition swayed and we have a few more irons in the fire. After the first vote was burned prematurely, patience helps more than hastiness. Juliana is right. There's no point in forcing a decision if it wouldn't affect the future. Even if we decided to act now, the clan would still be forced to inaction for a few more months.”

I pouted, but there was no point in arguing about known facts.

The Rumen's fleets departed the mountain every year to hunt for skywhales and young leviathans. They would be ready for war either way, but only once the snow was gone. It was a well-known fact that the ships wouldn't fly beforehand. As long as snow still covered the ground, the weather was far too unpredictable.

Thanks to the floating sponges which absorbed light gasses from the atmosphere and stored them on their own, our airships could circumvent a lot of the problems which doomed the same technology on Earth.

The sponges generated buoyancy almost for free which eliminated an airship's cost factor to a large degree. All the sponges needed was water and fertilizer. But the ships were still giant gas balloons and therefore vulnerable to storms and strong winds.

If an elder judged it would take a month to ready the clan for war without any of the other elders objecting, then I wasn't the one to tell them otherwise.

Xina Lloyd, elder of the fourteenth strata, raised a hand and Skye Rumen nodded, giving her the floor.

Once she had the gathering’s attention, Xina looked at me with a smirk on her lips.

“To speak about something celebratory for once. We heard rumours about our electric couple. It is said that Astra recently spent a lot of time in the hospital and I couldn't help but steal a few glances today. Either our Astra put on some weight or...”

She allowed her voice to trail off. The question was obvious.

I found myself smiling with a frozen expression. The topic had to come up at some point, but I had hoped for a longer grace period. While Magnus and I had been a fresh couple, I had hoped for our union to stand beneath a lucky star because of the attention and influence it would bring. Anyone who could have children automatically jumped up a few ranks in the clan's social strata, so to speak.

But right now, with everyone staring at me with hopeful gazes, I suddenly wasn't so eager for the attention. It drove home how few people could have kids.

And even if it worked out, like for Kyra and Alex Mora, the child would sometimes end up with a set of mutations that were a tough match. Add a bad choice to the mix and misfortune turned into misery.

Teresa used a filament to lightly slap me in the side beneath the table, waking me from my stupor.

I cleared my throat, not wanting my voice to squeak or break at the wrong moment. “That's right. I've been told it would take time for things to work out, but it looks like Tulkas and I hit the jackpot.”

“Three jackpots! She has triplets!” Sienna added. “The pregnancy is advancing a little fast, but I attribute it to the zipper mutation. The little monsters can breed very fast and we always see them with their first clutch of eggs ready when winter is over. I assume Astra's biology changed to mirror theirs since it’s her partner’s primary.”

There were several 'ohs' and 'ahs' among the crowd and people started clapping as the mood turned more congratulatory.

Hayne Ortega, elder of the fifth strata, raised a hand.

“Doesn't this mean we could boost our numbers and stay competitive without engaging the Thich in open warfare? If Astra's evolutionary path can be replicated we could use the zipper mutation to start our own program.”

I involuntarily pressed my lips together, knowing it wasn't good if people latched onto this line of argumentation.

Thankfully, Sienna was quick to respond. “I don't think we should base our actions on unfounded hopes. Astra's state is a lucky windfall for our clan and if it turns out the zipper mutation is indeed responsible, all the better. Unfortunately, we won't know until Astra gives birth – repeatedly. Until then, it could be a fluke and we should treat it as such.”

She shook her head. “Even if what you are implying holds, we would still have to start up our breeding program, mirroring the Thich. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to replicate their methods!”

Sienna looked around the room. “Leaving people to their own choices, taking risks with your kids in hope of giving them better survival chances, or replicating well-known mutation paths. These are one thing.”

She threw out a fist and hammered the blackboard which she had used for her presentation. “I just gave you the recounts of three eye-witnesses of what the Thich are doing to their exiles! Ivona Elrod, Kastor Ramo, and Dafna Singh, all told the same story of how the Thich's education camp works! People are being force-fed their mutations without a choice or say. If the latest experiment doesn't work out, the subject is cast-off to one of the work camps which are nothing more than penal workforces if Kastor and Dafna are to be believed! With the number of people going into the education camps and the number of rejects, there is no question! The Thich are wildly trying untested combinations on people who don't know what is done to them.”

The doctor's fiery eyes searched out every elder in the room. “Even if Astra's mutation path is a solution, we would still have to match the Thich's variety. Which will undoubtedly be a result of their methods. If we want to match them, there would be no getting around replicating their methods. Setting up industrialized human experimentation is abhorrent and the Tates won't be a part of it!”

Hayne Ortega looked properly chagrined when several judgemental stares were directed his way.

Sienna Tate wasn't leading the richest or most powerful strata, but when someone made the doctor angry it tended to draw some stink-eye from more powerful people.

Casey Ortega cleared her throat apologetically. “I am sorry for my partner's ill-considered suggestion. I am sure he didn't mean to replicate the Thich's immoral system and was unaware this would be what it takes to mirror their results. Clan Aerie can hardly say we wouldn't do what it takes for survival, but I believe we aren't quite desperate enough to copy the Thich.”

“I didn't think of involuntary experiments on new exiles,” Hayne clarified himself quickly. “More of volunteers. I guess the thought escaped my mouth before it was finished. I am sorry. We would have to use the zipper mutation on the few natural-born children we have, meaning it would be almost impossible to create the same effects as on Astra because the children would have a combination of their parent's mutations. To get more zipper mutations as a primary, we would need blank slates, exiles, and the Thich are far ahead of us in that regard according to your representation.”

Sienna seemed appeased by the apology and the meeting wound down after the heated exchange.

Soon after, we got to leave and we took a carriage back home.

Thalia and Sienna would have preferred it if I spent as much time as possible at the hospital to monitor my state.

But I wouldn’t have it.

It was fine to visit them every second day, but staying in a hospital room was out of the question. I didn’t want to think of myself as spoiled. Being within my own four walls just felt better, homely, and secure.

Being anywhere else was becoming a little nerve-wracking now that I thought about it.

An instinct maybe?

I wasn’t anywhere close to freaking out like Hector, but there was a little bit of anxiety and angst involved when I left the mansion.

Once we were home, I instantly relaxed and went to my quarters where I almost stumbled over a body lying in the living room.

“Ouch!”

“Magnus, what are you doing on the ground?!”

“Wallowing in my misery.” He imperiously waved a hand. “You may go now, wench. I am utterly exhausted thanks to your father’s gentle administrations.”

I huffed and placed my hands on my hips. “I will take that as a joke – since I am most certainly not a ‘wench’! You may address me as princess in the future.”

Our love for silly bantering was admittedly a little childish, but we had found a mutual interest in it. Two kindred souls, so to say.

“I don’t wanna!” he moaned.

“Get up. We still have to finish our training,” I instructed and poked him with a toe. “Or should I lay on top of you?”

“Please no!” He quickly got to his hands and knees and took the Lotus position. “Given your current circumstances, it would be quite threatening to life and health.”

Ever since Gaia had given us some hints regarding our new abilities, we invested at least half an hour in honing them every day.

“You may be overdoing it a little today.” I narrowed my eyes at him. Pointing out my increasing weight was a low blow. But I also got down to the floor when he grinned.

We mirrored each other and I offered him my hands, palms out.

Instead of taking them, Magnus leaned in and placed his hands on my chest before he sighed and gave them a gentle squeeze.

“What are you doing?”

“Sorry, I needed that after today. Having to deal with that geezer all day long...” He exaggeratedly shook himself in play-acted disgust. “And, is it just my imagination, or did you get bigger?”

He frowned and slowly massaged them as if judging their size.

I Karate-chopped him on the forehead. “Enough is enough! And Dad may be stupid at times, but he definitely doesn’t look like an old geezer.”

“Have you ever heard about the saying, 'It’s the inside that matters' ? I was just trying to stroke your ego by complimenting your inferiority complex.”

“I feel like you are getting to know me a little too well.”

He finally took the exercise seriously and took my hands, interlinking his fingers with mine.

I relaxed and did my best to block out all the senses I was intricately familiar with. Instead, I directed all of my attention towards my second sight and the feeling of electricity tingling through my palms. The prickling energy was transferred in waveforms – almost like sound waves.

‘So, what should we talk about today?’ Magnus asked without moving his mouth. ‘I still think we should try it with other body parts too. Like boo-’

‘Don’t say it, or I will chop you for real this time!’ I admonished him. ‘We can try with just touching filaments next.’

He shook himself. ‘Can you remember what happened the last time we tried to play with our filaments? It took hours to unknot ourselves. I think boobs are a much better idea. They are round and soft and squishy. No danger of entanglemen-’

I chopped him.