Free Offspring by Steven Harper

nightmares.”
    “What about the kids?” Kendi said. “Do we tell them? They’re Irfan’s children, too.”
    Ben started to answer, then shut his mouth and pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I hadn’t thought about it. I suppose they have a right, but...I don’t know.”
    “Well, we don’t have to decide now. We have a few years. Want something to eat? Or maybe we could go for a walk and talk some more.”
    Kendi started to get up, but Ben grabbed his hand. “I want you to swear.”
    “Swear what?”
    “Swear that you won’t ever breathe a word of this to anyone, no matter what,” Ben said. “I want you to swear on Mom’s memory.”
    “Ben, I—”
    Ben squeezed Kendi’s hand. “Swear!”
    “I swear on the memory of Mother Adept Araceil Rymar do Salman Reza that I will never tell anyone about your parentage,” Kendi said. “Good enough?”
    “Yeah.”
    Kendi flashed a grin. “Hey, you can trust me with a secret. I’m a con artist from way back. I deal in secrets.”
    “That’s why I had you swear on Mom,” Ben said with a grin of his own. “It’s the only vow I know you’d never break.”
    “Hey!”
    But further protests were interrupted when Ben pulled Kendi down into his lap and kissed him, long and hard. His arms, warm and solid, wrapped around Kendi’s shoulders and his large hands stroked Kendi’s hair. The kiss grew more intense, and Kendi felt his body responding.
    “You know,” Ben said, breath hot in Kendi’s ear, “I think I like this. It’s putting me in the mood to do something different.”
    “Like what?” Kendi asked. Small shivers ran up and down his spine.
    “Let me show you.”
                                                                                 
    Brother Carl Kirchenbaum snuck a peek into the bedroom. His wife Larissa lay peacefully asleep on their bed. He marveled at how different she looked now. Her breasts had grown considerably, and her stomach was already starting to round out. Carl carefully shut the door and checked his watch. He had maybe half an hour before Larissa would wake up and have to use the bathroom. Just enough time, if he hurried.
    He let himself out of the tiny apartment they now shared and clattered quickly down the stairs. The building was shabby, and the hallways stank of old cooking and unchanged diapers. Carl grimaced. Before the Despair, her job and his stipend from the Children had been plenty enough to allow the two of them to rent a nice little house on the outskirts of the monastery. After the Despair, things had changed drastically. Carl himself had been Silenced—worse than being struck deaf and blind—and Larissa had lost her job when her employer went bankrupt. For a short while they’d been all right with Carl’s income. Then the monastery had reduced stipends to almost nothing, meaning he and Larissa could barely afford a two-room walkup in a bad part of Treetown.
    Carl sighed worriedly as he trotted out into the night. It seemed like he worried all the time these days. He worried about Larissa getting unexpectedly pregnant. He worried about money and medical care. And through it all, he worried that he was going to fall apart. The only thing that kept him from falling into a permanent depression after losing his Silence was the thought of what it would do to Larissa. So he kept going, even when it felt like gravity had doubled and he would fall through the floorboards like an unfeeling rock.
    The night was already chilly. The height of summer had passed. That, of course, meant heating bills, something else to worry about. Carl touched his pocket, which held the precious few freemarks he had managed to scrape together by going without lunch while he hunted for a job—any job. He should probably set the money aside, just in case. But it had been so long ...
    Brother Carl went up a set of stairs and down a walkway until