Times Nine (A Short Story)

By Teyla Branton

Nonomine might give Maddy everything she wants, but at what price?

Maddy knows she can't give her scientist husband the one thing he really wants—an heir with his genes and genius. Or can she? Nonomine offers them the chance they've both been waiting for, even if it means living at nine times the normal human rate. But when things start to go wrong, the price they must pay is more than either of them ever dreamed.

Please note: This is a complete science fictional short story with an "aha" ending. There is no sequel to buy to get the rest of the story. It's not a romance or a saga, but a short story that we hope will get you wondering what YOU would do in Maddy's place. The scenario she faces might not be too far away in our own future. We have included a sample chapter of one of the author's full-length books for your added enjoyment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Star Press
• Release date: Nov 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781939203687

Book preview

These are works of fiction, and the views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the authors. Likewise, certain characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imaginations, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Times Nine

Published by White Star Press

P.O. Box 353

American Fork, Utah 84003

Copyright © 2015 by Teyla Branton

Model picture copyright © 2014 by art4all

Cover design copyright © 2015 by White Star Press

Cover and ebook design by ePubMasters

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for supporting the author’s rights.

ISBN: 978-1-939203-68-7

Printed in the United States of America

Year of first electronic printing: 2015

BOOK DESCRIPTION

MADDY KNOWS SHE CAN’T give her scientist husband the one thing he really wants—an heir with his genes and genius. Or can she? Nonomine offers them the chance they’ve both been waiting for, even if it means living at nine times the normal human rate. But when things start to go wrong, the price they must pay is more than either of them ever dreamed.

CHAPTER 1

LINDON STEPPED OFF THE FIVE o’clock shuttle with that look in his eyes, as he had every so often since their marriage nine years ago, but Maddy wasn’t putting up with it. No, she said before he could speak. The answer is no. I won’t do it.

His gray eyes glinted like fluid steel, and his beard-shadowed face hardened. He shrugged off the long white jacket he wore to work at the lab each day, tossed it into the cleaning unit embedded in the wall inside the front closet, and put his arms around her rigid body. Maddy watched over his shoulder as the shuttle flew away into the warm California night air and the automatic door on their private port slid shut.

You know I can’t, her voice was softer this time but still resolute. Why bring it up again? It had been a year since his last plea, and she’d hoped he had resigned himself to her decision. Each request stole another slice of her determination.

Hear me out. It’s different this time.

The suppressed excitement in his voice made her stare. He seriously expected her to change her mind. We’ve been through this, she said. You knew about it before we married. How many times are we going to revisit the issue? Besides, you always accepted Stewart as your son. Why do you need another child?

Lindon sighed as he released her, a hand running through his longish brown hair. His unruly, casual look was one of the things that had most attract her to him when they’d met at an earth preservation rally over a decade ago. I guess I thought you’d change your mind, or that your so-called biological clock would convince you to try again.

Well, I’m thirty-eight and it hasn’t ticked once. The words were a lie. She wanted Lindon’s child, had dreamed about it for years. But always looming in opposition was the terrifying memory of how her body had reacted when she was carrying Stewart.

She’d been a young twenty-two and in her first marriage, an ill-fated one to Phil Jacobs, Stewart’s father. After a brief week of happiness following conception, she learned the rare genetic deviation that caused her to be allergic to almost everything was also rebelling at the baby’s presence. She spent the next six months in bed—in violent, agonizing pain. Fearing for her life and having little hope for the baby, the doctors urged abortion from the third month, but Phil cajoled, begged, and even threatened her with a court order to make her continue the pregnancy. In the end, after seeing her son on the ultrasound, Maddy knew that ending the pregnancy would break her heart far more than Phil ever had, but she also knew that choosing not to abort would cost her life.

So she prepared to die. In her darkest moments, she cursed Phil for wanting a child more than he wanted her.

When her body went into cardiac arrest almost three months before term, no one was more surprised than she was when