✅ Project SETI 3: Eve's Advent

Part XVIII: A Change of Heart

"I heard the commotion," Temet said in a low and serious voice. Her emotional state was difficult to read; she seemed tense but hopeful at the same time. "What happened?"

"Gabe... had a stress-induced seizure. A really bad one," Julia purposefully paced over to her but didn't sit down.

"Oh no..." Temet straightened and sounded genuinely concerned. "Is he okay?"

She folded her arms against her chest and looked at the still-paused image on the screen across from Temet. "He is now, but... he actually... his heart stopped for a bit. I suspect that it's probably damaged from being electrocuted so many times, as brutally as he was."

Temet's crown puffed up and she got to her feet. "But he's okay now?"

"Yeah... Nova's monitoring his vital signs for a bit longer, but he's stable."

Temet crossed the room to the basement stairs, but she stopped when she felt something off about the way Julia held herself and spoke. "You said it was stress-induced."

The doctor let out a sharp contemplative sigh. "Yeah. Uh... there's... no easy way to tell you this, but... I needed to report the Daxut egg to my superiors... and Gabriel and I have been ordered to perform an induced labor and... euthanization... tomorrow."

Temet clicked her beak together several times before she spoke, and she adjusted her throat to use Saelan-speak. "You... you can't."

"You're right... I can't," Julia finally threw herself into a seat nearby and held her head. "I can't do this anymore."

The Daxut slowly crossed the room again and stood near her. There was a thick awkward silence as she tried to think of something to say—Julia had already told her how sick she felt about the whole thing, which is why it was so baffling to them that she immediately went to Sam with it. "Well... what are you going to do now...?"

"I'm trying to think," she rubbed her forehead with her fingers. "Fuck."

"We could just... leave, maybe...?" Temet offered meekly.

"Leave and go where, exactly?"

"I—I don't know," Temet stammered. "Supposedly, there's this ancient colony of Daxut that was lost millennia ago—"

Julia chuckled impatiently. "I'm not gambling on an alien myth."

"Um... okay," she rubbed her arm feathers nervously. "Why don't we talk to Nova and Gabriel about it... do they know...?"

"Nova told me to leave when I told him he was having an abortion, so no."

"Julia..." Temet increased the soothing vibrations in her voice, "please, try to relax... we are your friends. You can trust us..."

To her surprise, Julia broke down completely and began to sob. When she didn't stop, Temet sat down beside her and awkwardly touched her hand to her thigh and began to rub back and forth down the length of it.

"I've been an awful friend," Julia managed to say when she gathered herself a little more. She reached for Temet's hand and squeezed it. "Do you know why I've been around the house so much these last couple months?"

The Daxut swallowed anxiously. "To... to check on Gabriel and help him with his therapies...?"

"No, Temet... that... that was just the cover," Julia explained while sniffling and rubbing her eyes. "When Gabriel arrived on Earth half-dead, I went into surgery with him when I wasn't supposed to. Sam was pretty pissed about me 'disobeying orders'... I was supposed to conduct a thorough examination of Nova instead."