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"I'm going to be as blunt as I know how," Eldon told the assembled women, his easy humour gone, to be replaced by a stark gravity that stunned them all. "Pandora is dying."
Dead silence greeted this, and he smiled thinly. "I don't mean it's dying," he amended, "but the population is. You see, we have almost no women, and with no women, there's no children, or grandchildren, and so on. A dreadful disease has either killed or rendered almost every woman infertile, and we're in a crisis such as we've never seen before.
"So we need help, desperately. We tried contacting the native races who live on Pandora, but they've one and all said no - not because they don't like us, but because they don't want the risk of this disease impacting their numbers as well. We've therefore had to resort to very desperate measures. And that's where you lovely ladies come in. In short, we need women, badly. Not for the sole purpose of babymaking, I can assure you, but that is the end goal, and the one reason why the council agreed to my crackbrained idea. And you aren't the first group of women who've gone to Pandora to try and help repopulate the place. Sadly, they either died or became infertile as well, and all the babies who survived carry the gene for the disease, for what reason we don't know. But it left us in an even worse position, and the council was very wary when I told them to make this an official venture, so we could have the proper checks and balances in place to ensure any fallout could be contained. But I promised to take the fall if things couldn't be contained, so the council have agreed, in principle, to making this an official venture, rather than the experiment it was prior to this.88Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoFEOYFhaE7
"You'll therefore notice that I've included some women who are already pregnant. Your babies will be born - hopefully - without the disease carrying gene, and we can use them as a building block to start eradicating the gene by virtue of the fact they were conceived here on Earth. As for those not pregnant, I'm certain your babies will likely be as, well, clean as the babies already in their mothers' wombs."88Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHH1ae4ofmp
He took a deep breath. "I know it sounds crass," he said, "and now that I've got it in the open, I feel dirty, if you want the unvarnished truth. So if any of you choose not to take part in this venture, I won't hold it against you, and you'll be free to go about Pandora to your heart's content - and there is no legal or moral obligation for you to take part in any case. As I said, the baby making isn't the be all and end all, but it is one of the main reasons I gathered you here in the first place. But the council are reasonable, as am I, and when we land on Pandora, you'll be given time to settle into life there, and no demands will be placed on you until you come to either the council or myself to say whether or not you'll take part. All of you will be treated very generously and kindly, and you'll have the run of the planet no matter what path you choose to take."88Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ215W5lNxma
"What is the disease?" Mia ventured, breaking the shocked silence once Eldon had finished speaking.88Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5FFbbzZJsT
"It's the Earth equivalent of cancer," Eldon replied, his tone curt. He softened his harsh words with a lopsided smile. "Sorry. It's a very sore subject, but I'll tell you this much - your worst and most aggressive form of cancer here on Earth is a common cold in comparison to what the disease does on Pandora."88Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuaoNjMS0wt
Seeing that it was indeed a sore subject for him, Hope framed her question carefully. "When do we leave?"88Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnwVMu7pyjV
"In a few days," Eldon said, giving her a grateful smile that thanked her for her tact. "I've just got to tie up some loose ends, but we'll be ready to leave a week from now. I'll leave you ladies to it, but don't hesitate to come to me if you have any concerns." He managed another lopsided smile. "Even if it is about our... ah, I'll call it cancer for lack of a better word. You'd mangle your tongue if you tried to say the Pandoran word for it."88Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡirwYh9rK9B
Hope admired his bravery as the meeting broke up, but her mind was buzzing with a million new questions, and as she made her way back to the fields, she felt her newfound ease frizzle away into fresh uncertainty. She shoved the feeling down; if Eldon was telling the truth, she had a new and exciting life to look forward to, and for the first time since finding out she was pregnant, she found herself looking forward to her baby's birth. If newborn babies were going to be the basis of the Pandoran population's survival, she wanted her unborn child to be a part of it. 88Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8M5vd8Q2zg
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