A Change in the Menu
by Chris Dean
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EIGHT MONTHS WAS A long time to be eating an alien’s liver. Dr. Jenna Harris paused with the bright laser poised over an olive-green abdomen. The fourth partial liver resection was proceeding normally, with any danger of unforeseen complications negligible in the med lab aboard the starship. But the guilt, it was starting to eat at her, and her hand trembled. Eight months was a long time to be doing something like this.
Taking deep breaths, Jenna regained her composure. She was doing this for the child, she had to remember that. She sliced the flesh open and brunet ochre oozed from the cut.
She harvested about a kilogram of dark slimy flesh, leaving nearly one half of the Climn’s left liver intact. A massive arm stirred beneath its strap, bu
