Alien Child Read Online Free PDF Page B

woman. That’s why your breasts have started to grow, and why you’ve begun to bleed. This happens to all girls when they begin to mature.”
    “She does not have a failing in the body?” Llipel said. She was sitting on the floor of the conference room with Nita, gazing intently at the large screen.
    “No. There’d be something the matter if she didn’t start showing these signs soon.” Beate stood up, walked around her desk, and perched near the corner. “You may feel strange, almost as if your body doesn’t belong to you sometimes, but you should welcome these changes.”
    Nita shook back her hair. She had known changes would come, but she had not expected to feel so clumsy and disfigured when they did.
    “Do you have any questions?” Beate asked.
    Nita glanced at her guardian. “I see this is a new time for Nita,” Llipel said to the screen. “Tell us what you can of this time.”
    Beate began by speaking of ovulation and went on to talk of how Nita’s body was preparing her to bring young into the world. Nita was familiar with most of the terms Beate used but had never really thought of how they would apply to her.
    Llipel seemed enthralled, as she always was when learning something new. “I have heard words about this before,” she said, “but did not see it clearly. And this time when Earth’s kind are ready for their young—is that when they came here to offer their seed?”
    Beate’s hazel eyes widened as she arched her brows. “Some did so, but that wasn’t the only way, or even the usual fashion, in which people reproduced.” She spoke then of how a man and a woman would come together.
    “I see,” Llipel said when Beate was finished. “I do not think this can be true of my kind, for I do not seem to have such parts in my body. Our young must enter their world in another way.”
    Nita wished Llipel hadn’t said that. Her words made Nita feel even more uneasy with herself.
    Llipel leaned forward. “And does this time come often for two of your kind to be together?”
    “The time of a woman’s ovulation is when she can become pregnant,” Beate replied, “but that wasn’t the only time people engaged in sexual acts. People also came together in this way when no children were wanted and took pleasure in the act.”
    Nita was appalled; if this was how her kind had reproduced themselves, she could understand why some had chosen to come to the Institute instead. “I can’t believe anyone would enjoy that,” she said.
    “But they did,” Beate said. “They enjoyed it very much, Nita. It was a way to show love and to share that love with another.”
    “Love,” Llipel murmured. “It is another of your strong words.”
    “In fact,” Beate continued, “some people had contraceptive implants so that they could share love without the possibility of a child. There is a room in the tower where such implants can be found for both men and women, so that each partner can decide when he or she is ready to become a father or mother. The screen can show you how to embed such an implant under the skin of your arm—it’s really very simple.”
    Nita shuddered. Llipel was studying her, as if trying to see how Nita was reacting to all of this. “You do not want such closeness now,” her guardian said.
    Nita shook her head. “No. It wouldn’t matter even if I did.”
    Llipel’s dark eyes widened a little. “Perhaps it was not time for you to hear about all of this.”
    Repulsed as Nita had felt at hearing Beate’s talk, she was later unable to put it out of her mind. At times, she could even long to feel the arms of one of her own people around her.
    It was pointless for her to have this changing body, to feel such odd and disturbing urges. She had thought that such feelings meant that a time for togetherness was approaching, but for Llipel, togetherness seemed to mean a time for communication and companionship, not a time to share what Beate called love. Llipel had worried that the changes