Origins of Atlans
Trudy V Myers
Throughout history, most cultures subscribed to the idea that their ruler was descended from the god(s). The Atlans believed their entire race was descended from gods.
Origins of Atlans
By Trudy Myers
Copyright 2010 Trudy Myers
These other titles by Trudy Myers are also available:
Woman on the Dock (99¢)
The Cave (99¢)
Origins of Atlans
By Trudy Myers
The Legend
In the beginning, there were the Gods: Agis, the leader; his wife Bretta, Goddess of Love, Fertility & Health; Crassus, God of Fire & War; and Dyanna, Agis’ sister, Goddess of the Forest and Beasts.
The Truth
A small craft moved through the blackness of space, its crew of four tucked into sleep pods until the next time the computer woke one. Usually, the one awakened only needed to check various ship functions, but occasionally, the ship found a planetary system to be studied.
Crassus lusted for Bretta, though she was another's wife. One day when Agis was away, Crassus forced himself upon her. Terrified what would happen if Agis knew, Bretta did not tell her husband, though she sought comfort in her husband’s embrace upon his return.
Bretta looked dead inside her hibernation pod, but Crassus knew she wasn’t. The others looked just as dead, in their pods, but Crassus' eyes never left the face of the ship’s medical officer; ruby lips and hair, eyebrows and lashes almost as bright as burnished copper, while the perfect skin of her face was so pale, it made ‘white’ dingy in comparison.
Crassus sipped his beverage and pressed the pod’s button to start a ‘normal’ wake-up. The inside of the pod fogged over, and he wandered out to finish checking the ship.
He’d considered pressing the emergency wake up button, but that had too many drawbacks; ice cold skin, body pumped full of stimulants that – without an actual emergency – would soon wear off, and she’d wind up groggy and famished. An emergency wakeup had been part of their training, so many light years before. He remembered how it felt, and that wasn’t the condition he wanted her in.
- - -
Crassus leaned against the corridor wall, arms across his chest, the fingers of one hand drumming the opposite bicep, trying to tamp down the nervous energy that threatened to spoil his plans.
Bretta was showering; he could feel the faint power vibration in the bulkhead. After a few centuries of sleep, several layers of skin were ready to be sloughed.
The hum in the bulkhead ceased, and he stiffened, fingers frozen into claws in mid-drum. Should he move, wait for her to find him somewhere else? As eager as he was for her company, he didn’t want to scare her. Would it be better…
The door slid open, and he jumped in surprise.
“Hello, Crassus.” Her voice was husky honey and wrapped him in a cloying warmth that nearly turned his knees to jelly, though it had a far different effect on another part of his body.
“You aren’t surprised to see me?” She wore a robe. Did she bother with clothes when she was the only one awake?
“Your pod was empty. There isn’t any emergency, so why wake me?”
How could he phrase it without sounding crass? He had no idea. He’d never worried about it before. “I got lonely.”
“Dyanna was intended to deal with your … loneliness.”
“She’s not my type.”
One brassy eyebrow rose. She glanced back, at the quarters she shared with Agis. “Well, your place or mine?”
- - -
Bretta stood next to the sleeper pod and smiled patiently as Crassus closed his eyes. The temperature inside the pod fell until frost hid him.
The smile dropped as she turned away. Crassus had only been concerned with his own pleasure; she was completely unsatisfied. At the next pod, she pressed the button to thaw her husband. Agis knew how to please her.
In time, Bretta gave birth to three beautiful baby girls. This should have been a joyous time, but Bretta was appalled that each of them displayed a mark that betrayed her time with Crassus. One had his black hair, one had his black eyes, and the third carried his emblem as a birthmark.
She could not let her husband see them, so she begged Dyanna to dispose of the babes, in order to keep her secret.
A strange beep sounded, and Dyanna looked up from her work desk. “Ship, what’s going on?”
“Thawing is in progress,” the tin voice responded. “Medical officer needs medical care. Please advise which other officers should be thawed.”
The men didn’t even know first aid. Dyanna wasn’t a doctor, but at least she knew botany. “No, leave them frozen.” She headed for the hibernation room.
Dyanna gaped as she helped Bretta out of her pod. The other woman’s belly was swollen to enormous proportions. “What happened?”
Bretta glared at her, even as she leaned on her for support. “I’m pregnant! What does it look like?
“But, but how? When?”
“I thought you knew biology!” Bretta's pain made her impatient, it seemed. After a few minutes of walking to the med room, she controlled her temper better. “Last time I was awake, I woke up Agis.”
“You went into hibernation when you might be pregnant?”
“I never gave pregnancy a thought.” Bretta rolled onto the med bed, with Dyanna’s help. “At least the pod kept me healthy throughout gestation.”
“You don’t seem surprised by this.”
“I’ve been dreaming about being pregnant. For all I know, I'm still dreaming.”
“No, you aren’t,” Dyanna told her. "This is real." She turned to the equipment, punched buttons, and read the screen briefly. “Do you want me to wake Agis?”
“No time. Considering how long it takes to thaw, I should be close to delivery. Oh! Contraction starting! Get me in position, and…” She was too busy breathing and enduring then, so Dyanna had to do the best she could, based on brief glances at the instructions on the screen.
- - -
Bretta fell asleep, which gave Dyanna time to clean up, find blankets, make-shift diapers and food for the babies. They were all girls, which seemed strange, remembering her first biology lessons about her own species. Triplets with other oddities that didn't follow those lessons.
She placed the infants on the second med bed and raised all the sides so they couldn’t fall off. They snuggled together as they slept.
- - -
When Bretta awoke, Dyanna told her, “There’s a problem with the babies.”
Bretta’s look of confusion turned to concern. “What problem?”
Dyanna picked up one baby and showed her sister-in-law the black hair. “This hair did not come from you nor my brother.”
Bretta stared, then swallowed. “I can explain.”
“Don’t bother. I have no interest in Crassus. I have not woke Agis, to give you time to think. Because with the black hair, this one has your green eyes.”
Bretta closed her eyes tight for a moment. “Are they all like that?”
“One has red hair and the other has white hair.”
Bretta relaxed. “That’s better.”
Dyanna continued. “You’d think so. But the one with Agis's white hair has Crassus' black eyes. The one with your red hair has Agis's blue eyes … and Crassus’ professional tattoo as a birthmark.”
Bretta groped for words. "That doesn't make any sense. How can one inherit hair color from one man and eye color from another? It doesn't happen."
"Not in normal circumstances. But being frozen while the genetic material mixes is not normal." Dyanna pointed to the tattoo on Bretta's forehead. "By the way, this one has Agis' emblem as a birthmark."
&nb
sp; “Don’t be ridiculous. A tattoo on a parent’s skin does not become a birthmark on the child!”
“Again, not in normal circumstances.”
“Not ever!”
Dyanna returned the black-haired baby to her sisters. "Remember, I'm the botanist."
"It's a matter of genetics."
“One planet I studied on this trip was a frozen snowball. You wouldn’t think life could exist. Yet it did."
"I remember you nattering about that. It was boring then, and it's boring now."
"Never the less, it explains your current situation."
"I'm not a plant. You never mentioned any animals on that iceball."
"Life is life. I called them plants, but they only marginally fit there better than the animal category. But they froze after fertilization, just like you did."
"I lived during it."
"So did they. You say it doesn't happen, but on that planet, it does!"
"It doesn’t change anything."
"It might explain how it happened. But if you aren't interested…." She turned away, considered the babies, so beautiful as they slept together.
Bretta sighed. "Alright. But keep it short. I'm tired.
"Fine. No two plants were alike, none that I managed to
