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“No. I... Well. A little. I—I had some bad news. I’m going to have to change some plans. You’re chummy with the Lynxian doctor and that sheriff who is married to a human, right?”
“Dane and Doc Weaver? Why, yes. We’ve gotten to be good friends in a short space of time. Why?”
“Layla was going there, right? But then she met Rupex?”
“Yeeess.” Marcus’ thick gray brows drew together as he hissed out the word. “You know this. Rupex and Layla met here, she agreed to be his surrogate, and then love took over.”
“I’m curious about humans and Felids. I see Talos and Wendy and Rupex and Layla. I hear about the couples on Lynx-Nineteen. I heard there are a few couples there who can’t wait to get some of your cub-making magic potion.”
The older Leonid gave him a withering glare. “My painstaking immunology research that yielded a chromosomal compatibility serum that can sustain a pregnancy, provided boosters are given on a weekly basis?”
“Uh. Yeah. That.”
“Call it my life’s work, Ardol. Not magic, please.” Marcus’ normally friendly face took on a sour look.
“Sorry, sorry.” Sweet Bastet, everyone is so moody today.
“Thinking of doing a little courting when you get on-world?” Marcus asked, eyes cool and calm.
“I’m considering it. As you know, Leopardine Queens usually live in large communal groups. When the virus hit, it was like a wildfire, taking entire harems at once. There are almost no Queens my age. I had hoped an old family friend of ours would deliver, but she doesn’t meet my needs. Not fertile. Not compatible.”
“And so you’re thinking about human Queens because you know Layla and Rupex had a successful pregnancy and have two bouncing bundles of joy?” The frost in Marcus’ voice was enough to power a blizzard.
“Yes, in a word.” And in some unspoken words, the human Queens have a certain alien prettiness. They’re certainly smaller. Tighter. More delicate. It could be fun. A sexual experiment most Leopardines will never get to boast about!
Hell, he’d heard exactly how much fun it was just passing the command deck late at night, or Talos and Wendy’s quarters first thing in the morning.
“You’re not compatible.” Marcus delivered the flat statement like a slap in the face.
“Wh-what? Tigerites and Leonids are? Lynxians are? But not Leopardines? Hell, Rupex’s late sister married a Canid! Cala is marrying a fucking bird!”
“Who’s Cala?”
“Never mind,” Ardol snapped. “Why aren’t I compatible? I have the same parts! Tigerites are taller and bulkier, and Wendy is a little shrimp of a thing. If she can take his—”
Marcus’s voice was a sudden whip crack in the still medical bay. “Stop that. Stop, before Talos, our musclebound grump of a Security Officer, overhears you speaking of his Queen like that and rips your spots off.”
Stung and steaming, Ardol shut his mouth.
Marcus continued, his voice now smooth and unperturbed as glass. “Human Queens expect one devoted, monogamous lover and spouse, or they won’t wed. Or were you thinking of a surrogate?”
Ardol’s eyes glazed over. Surrogate? Paying money to have a cub I would then have to raise alone?
“No. I wasn’t thinking of surrogacy.” Unless everything else fails.
“So, Leopardines, with their harems of Queens and their attitudes about marriage, are likely a poor match for humans. You’ve seen yourself how utterly devoted the captain and his Queen are. Any human Queen who knows Leopardine culture will likely reject you.”
“But... I don’t want a harem. I want one. Just one.” It wasn’t a lie. It was just a temporary truth. When things were better, when a decade or so had passed and Felid Queens were more plentiful, he’d want the life every Leopardine Lord was entitled to.
The older Felid cracked a slow smile. “Oh. Well. That makes me happy. I love it when we break the molds our fathers jammed us into. My old King would have disowned me if he knew I married a Servali, Bastet bless her soul.”
It was Ardol’s turn to look surprised. “I—I’m sorry. I never knew.”
“How could you? Everyone lost someone.”
Ardol felt a strange numbness at the words. He’d been away at his final year of academy prep when Queen Fever hit his district. All of his adolescent and grown sisters, his mother, and his father’s other wives... All were gone within two weeks of the first wave. Ardol hadn’t been allowed to attend the mass funeral. When he tried to picture their faces—everything just went cold and gray inside of him. “My grandmothers survived, along with three or four of my youngest sisters. I think it’s four. We’re not close.” His throat went rusty, so he coughed, and when he spoke again, the cocky, suave voice was back in place.
“If you want to woo one of the human Queens, I will tell you that you’ll face stiff competition.”
