First Breath
© 2024 by Walter Reimer

Thumbnail art by  ahro


“How’s she doing?” Meredith asked.

Fuji shrugged as the Komodo monitor tended to their daughter. Jinzi was fussing again, this time with the indignity of having to wear a filter mask. The doctor aboard Downtime Station had given it to them, after inoculating the filly for airborne pathogens after learning where her parents planned on taking her.

It was necessary for children born in filtered environments. Adults might have immunity or at least resistance to what might be drifting around in a planet’s atmosphere, but it was assumed that children needed some basic protection until their own immune systems developed.

Jinzi hadn’t liked the injection and had loudly proclaimed that fact all the way back to their apartment on the station.

Fortunately, she had calmed down considerably by the time Fuji and Meredith brought her aboard the liner headed to This Far.

“She won’t wear it,” Fuji finally said, taking the mask out of Jinzi’s grasp and setting it aside before calming her down. He and Meredith were aboard a shuttle headed from Magus Station to the planet below. “I think we should be lucky she was well-behaved on the trip.”

Meredith leaned over in her seat and gently kissed her daughter’s forehead. “She’ll learn.” The golden palomino mare smiled at her husband. “I’m sure of it.”

The shuttle cut atmosphere and descended on This Far’s spaceport on artigrav, settling onto its designated pad. Passengers began to get out of their seats, and Fuji and Meredith joined the line.

The shuttle’s lock cycled open, and Jinzi took her first breath of unfiltered air. Her ears swiveled, and she coughed.

And promptly threw up on her father.