“We don’t need your Imperial matriarchy here,” our doctor says.

“You know as well as I do this has nothing to do with culture; this is science.”

“I thought only to have one baby,” I say.

“Silvers usually have a litter of children. This would make the most sense to people, and then you’d never have to see me or anyone else like me ever again.”

“Six,” my husband says.

“No,” I blurt out. “That’s too many. Two.”

“I think three or four is a good number. Even with all of this, there’s a chance some might not make it or be healthy. There’s only so much I can do to force nature. Sometimes the body rejects the changes.”

“I understand,” I say. “How long will this take?”

“I will extract your eggs, combine them with your husband’s sperm and then reinsert them into your uterus. To do this, I will trick your body three times today, once to believe you are menstruating many eggs at once. The second time to believe you are in your fertile cycle, and lastly, to believe you have been pregnant a million times before and your body knows exactly what it’s doing. All and all, it should take a few hours. Before I leave, I will show you a picture of the eggs I took and have your doctor verify that I only took what I said I would. If you have issues, we can be in touch. Are you ready to begin?”

“Yes,” I say. I’m not thinking about the eggs I’m losing anymore. I am only thinking about the children I will be gaining. And I want to feel terrible about my greediness and selfishness, but I can’t. I feel, in some ways, that I have earned this by being here on this side of the galaxy with these aliens. Am I a terrible person for wanting this?

I feel like a human abductee lying on a medical bed surrounded by aliens and medical equipment. The Imperial doctor walks me through what he’s doing while his assistant helps him with little prompting, and it makes me wonder how many times they’ve done this.

“We are telepathic,” the Imperial doctor reminds me casually. “And no, very few Imperials are. But those that are usually become doctors as it’s quite handy to get inside your patients’ heads, especially if they can’t speak.”

I think then about how that can be used for good or bad. “Do you read people’s minds all the time?”

“Only my patients and you are my patient now, so I have one ear out for you in case I hurt you or you become very uncomfortable.” The doctor then begins to focus more on his task and leaves me to my own thoughts.

I close my eyes and wonder what our children will look like with their Silver bodies but brown eyes like mine. I think about their names and where and how they will be brought up. I think about the Commander’s house on the Home Planet and wonder what it must be like. Through my communications with the housekeeper, I know it is a very large estate, but not much else. I wonder if the servants will welcome a human, a Water woman, a former volunteer that still bears the mark.