I stood there in the middle of the medical bay and my mind raced over what that meant. I thought back to the (scout) and the suction bottle she had used on the first avian woman after we had sex.

“How long...” I started to ask.

“We just passed the initial testing phase.” Hen said and then she blushed. “I... ah... may have used you as a donor.”

I raised my eyebrows at her and she ducked her head.

“Please, follow me and I'll show you what I mean.” Hen said and we all went with her towards the huge maternity ward. She took us to the pending births section and hit a button. The wall section opened up and all of the Aviatoma let out startled squawks at the sight of an inseminated egg in a large stasis pod.

“The fertilization was complete last month.” Hen said and her hand reached out to touch the clear casing of the pod as her other hand took mine. “Our daughter can be inserted into a nest at any time and can be nurtured until birth.”

“Our daughter?” I asked and my hand touched the clear casing of the pod. I sent out a minuscule touch of Presence and the egg that was supposed to be in stasis, absorbed it and shivered.

“No, I did not try to manipulate the contents.” Hen said and looked at me. “This was my third attempt to try and give you a child.”

I took in a sharp breath. “Hen.” I turned to her and ran my Presence Clawed hand through her feathers.

“I agree wholeheartedly with the Honored Matron. For the things you have done for us, you deserve nothing less than a child, even as a False Tiercel.”

“Hen.” I said in a soft voice and leaned down to give her a kiss on the lips. “Thank you.”

“We're going to have a half-sister?” The eldest sister asked, surprised. She had no idea that her mother had gestated three different eggs for her Uncle Hunter.

“That half-sister is going to have another sibling because of me.” Val said as she walked over to us with the (scout) and the second avian woman. “Also two others.” She pointed to the second avian woman and then at the first avian woman. “Now that we have fresh samples, shall we get started?”

Hen let out a chirp and warbled a laugh. “You haven't even moved in yet.”

“That doesn't matter.” Val said. “I want my egg ready for nesting as soon as possible.”

“As do I.” The first avian woman said and looked at Hen. “Please ensure that mine hatches first.”

“That's why mine is in stasis, Honored Matron.” Hen said. “Otherwise, I would have been crouched around it and giving it my warmth already.”

The first avian woman touched her shoulder. “You truly are devoted to the hierarchy, even exiled.”

Hen nodded. “I've never broken their precepts and I'm not going to.”

“Then please, since we are here.” The first avian woman waved her hand and three small stasis pods were handed over. They were clearly marked and the (scout) handed over the three contributions I had made to the three avian women. They were also clearly marked for the avian women as to not get them confused or mixed up.

Hen took everything and brought us to the insemination or impregnation section, depending on how you wanted to look at it. To my surprise, she went into a room with windows for us to watch and performed the procedures right there in full view of everyone. It wasn't an easy procedure to witness, let alone perform, and she did all three without stopping or taking a break.

The screens near the windows showed us the medical information as the eggs were placed in incubators to enhance the insemination process and to insure it was successful. Hen had failed twice while trying to perfect the process and now she knew exactly the troubles and errors to avoid. All three eggs became viable in less than an hour each and she turned towards the windows and gave us thumbs up gestures.

The first avian woman's entourage let out cheers and applauded and I turned to look at the first avian woman. She had a tear on her face and I reached over to cup the side of her face. Her tear dissolved and she looked at me.

“He's going to be magnificent.” I whispered to her. I had checked with Presence and knew the gender.

“H-h-he?” The first avian woman asked in a halting voice as more tears came and dissolved.

“Our son.” I said. “By the time your place is ready, he will be, too.”

“N-nest. I n-need a n-nest.” The first avian woman said, barely above a whisper.

“I believe there's one right over there on the transport platform.” I whispered back and she nodded.

Hen came out and checked the readings on the displays and nodded. “Three healthy and viable embryos.” She said. “By next week, we'll know the sex. You can decide then if you want to remove them from the incubators and put them in an actual nest.”

The second avian woman and Val nodded and the first avian woman stared at me as she spoke.

“I will be taking a sabbatical from my official duties starting next week and until such time that my heir apparent to the hierarchy is born.” The first avian woman said, and a few startled squawks responded. “I will still help with personal and administration concerns, as long as I don't have to leave my nest.”

Her decision and her words brooked no discussion, so they all nodded and chirped compliance.

“I suppose after this, we can postpone the rest of the tour.” I said and they all nodded. “Then I'll take you back to the ship.” I waved in the direction of the platform. “Both transports and vehicles are available for use if you want to go exploring, as long as you take a wrist communicator and log in with Zoe or one of the transport dummy AIs. They will keep track of you to make sure you don't get lost and can find your way back.”

“Thank you, False Tiercel.” The first avian woman said and I knew that she meant a lot more than just what I had offered.

“I'm keeping that title, even though you're rearing my child?” I asked with a smile.

“You aren't an Aviatoma and can't inseminate on your own.” The first avian woman said with an answering smile. “You must remain a False Tiercel.”

“Boy, you people are stubborn.” I said with a grin and she let out a warbled laugh.

“Take us back to our main families and we can spread the news of an heir.” The second avian woman said, a little harshly.

“Right away.” I said and used Levitation to pick everyone up, which made most of them squawk in surprise, then I brought us all over to the transport in a couple of seconds. I put them down gently and then used the platform to go all the way back to the main shaft and stopped at the docking ring where their ship was.

I bowed and waved at the hatch they had come out of and stayed bowed until all of them had passed by me and went back into the ship. The guards even took the nest. I thought with a smile and then I ran all the way back up to my living quarters. I wasn't surprised to see Simone using her extra arms to hold Lashina's and my child like an airplane. They were floating around the room using Levitation and Lashina was off to the side. She laughed as she watched them play.

“Simone.” I said and she turned and looked at me.

Simone gasped when her concentration was broken and she heard my mental intentions.

I caught her and my five year old child with Presence before they fell and floated them over to me. “Mina, I need to borrow your fun aunt for a little while.”

“Okay, Daddy!” Mina said and hugged and kissed me, then I zoomed her over to her mother. She laughed uproariously as Lashina caught her and they tumbled to the floor. Lashina laid on her back and lifted Mina into the air to keep the fun time going.

I took Simone's hand and covered us in Presence, then we both used Presence Run to go all the way back down to the main shaft and boarded Adona. We quickly launched and left the colossal ship and then we took a slow tour of the system. Adona floated along at a leisurely pace as I made love to Simone, in full view of everyone in the system, I used Presence to perform the same medical procedure on her that Hen had used to inseminate the Aviatoma's eggs.

Needless to say, Simone was blown away that I would indulge her fetish so much, since I had been denying her for years, and she completely missed me doing what I was doing. Just as I finished inside of her and completed the insemination procedure, Simone cried out in both pleasure and surprise. I stopped moving and she stared into my eyes.

“I felt it!” Simone said, completely shocked. “Hunter, I felt it! I'm pregnant!”

“I think we need to wait for the migration of the egg down to...”

“No, we don't.” Simone said and put a hand on her stomach. “I'm carrying your child.” She said and her voice was full of wonder. “I won't know what sex it will be for a while, though.”

“It doesn't matter what sex it is.” I said and kissed her.

We had sex for the rest of the afternoon, just for fun this time, because I didn't want to mess things up by giving her multiple pregnancies. We went back to the station to have supper with everyone and Hen's three kids couldn't stop chirping and tweeting with excitement, because they had started doing the examinations on the Aviatoma.

Simone kept staring at me and asking me mentally if we should tell them, so I told her to wait until the egg was in the right spot first, that way Hen could confirm it for her and no one could doubt it. She reluctantly agreed that a few days wasn't going to make much difference in the grand scheme of things, then used her datapad to mark today's date in our private permanent storage as the day of conception.

I chuckled and gave her a kiss, then looked across the table at Noma. “Noma, can I borrow you for a few hours this evening?”

“Borrow?” Noma asked with a laugh. “What am I, a book?”

I laughed, too. “You know what I meant.” I said. “I want to impose on your time if you're not busy.”

“As long as you're not thinking about doing to me what you did to Simone.” Noma said. “It won't work on me.”

“Oh, ye of little faith.” I said with a smirk and that made her laugh.

“I don't mind trying it. At all.” Noma responded with an answering smirk.

*

Hen was surprised when she was called to the medical bay a few hours later. She was even more surprised when she saw Hunter with Noma on an operating table and two HR-B droids were beside them.

“What's going on here?” Hen asked.

“It's something that I've been thinking about for a while, then you showed me that amazing procedure to inseminate non-compatible species.” Hunter said.

“But... Noma is... she's...” Hen wasn't sure how to describe her.

“She absorbs any foreign Presence.” Hunter said. “So, help me remove some of the eggs from her ovaries, inseminate them, then put one back inside and attach it to the abdominal cavity.”

Hen's mouth dropped open and she stared at him. “Hunter... that...”

“I've tried using Presence and the medical droids. My Presence is apparently very tasty and she can't stop her body from absorbing it when it's near. Despite the droids being skilled, they don't have the full dexterity needed with their rigid appendages.” Hunter looked at Hen's tiny hands and smiled. “I need your expertise and your knowledge.”

“But... if she's not...”

“I'm ovulating.” Noma said and held up a datapad with her full medical scan. “We just can't get in at the little bastards.”

Hen took the datapad and nodded at the information. “All right.” She said and waved Hunter and the droids aside. “Are you going in the long way or straight through?”

“We can't use anything like Presence to heal her, so it has to be as minimally invasive as possible.” Hunter said. “I don't want to risk permanent damage to her, just for the chance that she can conceive.”

“I wanted him to remove the whole ovary and we can keep trying until it happens.” Noma said. “I've got two, right?”

Hen barked a laugh. “It's too bad it doesn't work like that. All you'll do is reduce your chances to conceive, because your body will be fighting off having something removed that should be there.” She said. “Not to mention it'll throw off your body's natural rhythm and energy.”

Hunter and Noma looked at her with confidence on their faces.

“I'm going to warn you right now about this.” Hen said. “It might not work. It might work a little bit until it takes and then it could suddenly abort. It could work for months and then suddenly turn bad and the fetus could die.”

Hunter's and Noma's expressions on their faces changed from confidence to worry.

“It could even go to full term and the baby may still die, especially with Noma's ability.” Hen said, then she sighed. “The worst case scenario is the baby has a similar ability and tries to absorb the foreign Presence around it, with no way to control the ability or to stop it when it starts.”

Hunter and Noma exchanged looks, kissed briefly, then looked back at Hen. “We're willing to take the risk.” They said together.

“I always knew that you were a few shuttles short of a full transport.” Hen commented, then she put on surgical gloves. “It's a good thing that I am, too.”

*

The Aviatoma arrived in full force later that day and they were just as surprised as everyone else was, that all of their ships easily fit inside the main shaft of the colossal ship. They were assigned docking positions beside and around the first avian woman's troop transport to keep them all together, that way they didn't have to go far to see the heads of their aeries.

Six days later, they started their exodus from their ships to their new residences. Zoe had spread the twenty five aeries out and had not only torn up the floor above the top hydroponics bay, she also went ten floors up into the ship, or a thousand feet at a hundred feet per floor. She knew the population that needed to be put into each one and she allotted a lot of space for them and for expansions. The view from the tops were spectacular, to say the least.

The Aviatoma people loved it.

They had fully expected to be crammed into tiny rooms like they had been on the troop transports, because there were so many of them, and then they saw the family sized apartments and areas that each family had all to themselves. They quickly transferred their things into their new living spaces and discovered that they didn't have enough furniture and things to fill all of the available space, which they had never encountered before.

The management of the aeries, namely the head families, were inundated with praise and thanks for bringing them along on the journey. What surprised them the most were the petitions to offer the first chicks born on the ship to the hierarchy and to the False Tiercel. Extra chicks were rare as it was, and to offer one up before they even conceived it, was more shocking than their new environment was.

They all knew that the departure date wasn't for another year, so they all got to work to make the place their own. Aviatoma specific shops and businesses were opened and the entire upper floor of the hydroponics bay was harvested, cleared out of normal crops, and planted with Aviatoma crops, trees, and various kinds of other flora. They had even brought livestock and other things, and room was made for them to accommodate the needs of those animals.

*

It took Hen sixteen tries over the next six months to finally get Noma pregnant and for it to stay viable for more than a few weeks. Her body kept trying to reject it, thinking that it was something that it needed to absorb... then Hunter realized what was wrong. He needed to distract her ability. If he slipped up feeding it, it would absorb all of the life from the egg before it stood a chance. So, Noma became a constant companion for him and he kept feeding her Presence.

Simone was six months pregnant by this point and completely delighted because of the bright glowing mind growing inside of her. Her son was strong, healthy, and had all four of his arms. She almost had everything that she had ever wanted. A man to love, a son to continue the family, and people that accepted her. She was only missing one thing and she berated herself for not thinking about it earlier.

She was missing the rest of her race.