Free Alien Nation #6 - Passing Fancy by David Spencer

been trying. I don’t know what to do.”
    “Hi, May,” Matt said, lightly, trying to diffuse a bit of the tension. And then: “Hey, you’re a little lighter in the bread basket there, aren’t you?”
    It was true. Where previously she had been pregnant, full with the pod which would gestate into her first child, now she was her former slim-waisted and flat-stomached self.
    “Oh, yes. Albert assumed the pod last night. It was beautiful.”
    George exhaled, as if relieved about something.
    “Of course,” he said, almost to himself; and then, to Grazer, “Did you not notice that Albert was suddenly pregnant?”
    Grazer pursed his lips and snorted. “I’m a cop, Francisco, of course I noticed. But after he broadsided me, I wasn’t too keen on offering congratulations.”
    “What I am trying to get across, Captain, is that his current . . .”
    —Albert’s laughter floated across the squad room again—
    “. . . giddiness is directly attributable to his condition.”
    “Well, now, how the hell was I supposed to know that? I mean, when you were pregnant, it didn’t turn you psycho.”
    “I dunno, Cap’n,” Matt put in. “George had some remarkably pissy moods.”
    Matt pointedly ignored George’s brief glare as Grazer poutily responded, “You know what I mean.”
    May seemed sympathetic.
    “I really don’t understand it myself.”
    Grazer made a face that eloquently translated as, There! Satisfied?
    “I at least know what you mean, Captain,” George conceded, and Matt did not miss the implied dig. “But I’m a gannaum, Albert is a binnaum.”
    “And my great-grandfather was a moyel in the old country, what does that have to do with anything?”
    “Binnaums have a somewhat different body chemistry. They are built so that they can incubate a pod to term, but it is a feature few binnaums actually utilize. A small number of binnaums have even been born without a pouch.”
    Grazer’s inflection took on a long-suffering quality. “The point being . . .”
    “That by accepting the pod into his system, Albert triggered a chemical change, and a fairly emphatic one. In order to create a safe environment for the pod, several of his glands have kicked into overdrive.”
    “You telling me he’s on a nutrient rush?”
    “That . . . is one way of putting it. But the imbalance is only temporary. Once the activity normalizes . . .”
    “Oh, great. But until then, he’s a PMS time bomb. Any way to speed the process along?”
    George turned to May.
    “May, have you tried having Albert ingest large quantities of soda water? If he belches a lot, the release of carbon dioxide may calm him considerably.”
    She smiled gratefully.
    “Thank you, George.”
    George smiled back hugely. “No thanks needed. I am, after all, the gannaum. It is my responsibility.” Matt observed the moment with the slight residue of a discomfort he should long since have shed. But it was weird, still, to think that it took three Newcomers to make a baby: a female, a binnaum to catylize her, and a gannaum to fertilize her. Well, no, that wasn’t what was weird. What was weird was that the Newcomers were just hunky-damn-dory with the idea. Albert had been the binnaum to George’s daughters Emily and Vessna. Less than four months ago, George—in what would turn out to be his last pre- riana hurrah as a fertile male—had returned the favor. It was considered an honor. A big one. Sacred ceremony and everything.
    In the background there was the sound of something falling, the sound of someone cursing, and Albert’s drunken, soprano laughter.
    May turned to Grazer. “Captain, I’d like to fix the damage done to your shoes, if I may.”
    She reached for them with such guileless innocence that Grazer didn’t have enough reaction time to reflexively pull them away.
    “That’d be great!” he smiled. And then asked, “How?”
    “Albert has about five bottles of Wite-Out in his locker, I can just—”
    Quickly, Grazer snatched the