Amazing Stories Winter 2018 by Amazing Stories

Author:Amazing Stories [Meier, Shirley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazing Stories
Published: 2018-11-17T18:00:00+00:00

In the Republic of the Blind

By G. Scott Huggins

G. Scott Huggins has lived in the American Midwest all his life, except for interludes in Germany and Russia. He is the author of A Doctor To Dragons and his writing has appeared on Escape Pod and Podcastle. You can read his ramblings and rants at The Logoccentric Orbit.

The attack started at the end of a hard labor.

“Cory,” said Kelly. I sealed the diaper, waving him off. Good nurses worry, I reminded myself.

“Is the mother secured? All the equipment?” I kept my voice calm.

“Yes, but the baby…” Xhe kicked weakly in my lap, mouth working. Two legs, slightly clubbed feet. No arms whatsoever, the skin of xer shoulders curving down smoothly into xer ribs. “Xhe’s perfect, isn’t xhe?”

“Cory!” Kelly whispered, looking me in the eye. His one-meter height let him do that easily. He stabbed a stubby finger at our bright yellow station displays, “We’ve got to...”

“Give xer to xer mother,” I said. I pushed my chair over to where Lynn lay strapped to the bed. Annoying, but this had to be done in gravity. I hoped we wouldn’t lose it. “Xhe looks just like you,” I said, and placed the baby gently on her chest.

“Oh, xhe’’s beautiful,” Lynn whispered, cradling xer against her breast with her long legs. I checked the IV/monitor hooked into her left shoulder stump. Good.

“Action Condition II,” the speaker repeated. “Officers to the bridge. Damage control stations.”

“Tell them I’m coming,” I told Kelly, wheeling myself to the nearest ladder.

“But the lift hasn’t come back...”

“So?” I pulled myself up the ladder, nerveless legs dangling behind me. If I couldn’t climb to the Hub from a standard gee without breaking a sweat, I didn’t deserve either of my jobs, but I wasn’t going to rush a delivery for DC stations. We weren’t at war.

Yet.

Halfway up, gravity was low enough for me to bind my ankles to my thighs so my legs wouldn’t drag behind me. Then, I flew up the ladder. The cavernous hub was frantic with activity around the secured towers of transshipped cargo. I dodged around them, bouncing through the secured door to the bridge, and beyond it, the Combat Information Center.

“Glad you could join us, Captain,” said the Old Lady, floating in the middle of the clustered officers. Director Alyn’s voice-synthesizer was never loud, but I envied her manual control over it. The one functional hand her cerebral palsy allowed her flew over the control pad of her thrust chair, and she rose to command our attention. The duty officers never took their eyes or fingers from their panels. Oh, boy.

I pushed over to Aki. “Looks like the date’s canceled tonight, eh?”

He nodded, his grim, dark face cracking a smile fast as lightning, but shushed me with a flip of his right hand.

“Five minutes ago, a Terran cruiser emerged from the Dark. Less than a million miles out,” said Alyn. I swallowed. Someone swore. Alyn glared and continued. “They have not responded to our hails. We got a call off to Stillhere.

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