Time to face facts, thought Salvatore, gazing listlessly at his last glass of vodka, I'm a freak. I should have known something dreadful would happen.

Salvatore was still under the shock of Hillary's revelation three days earlier. She was pregnant and she thought it was his. His first reaction had been anger -- why didn't she check her own cycle? Salvatore wasn't psychic; he couldn't guess when Hillary was ovulating. Then he had felt fear, a terrible overwhelming feeling of helplessness. What did Hillary expect him to do? Marry her? He was only sixteen; that wouldn't be legal. In fact, although there was no law about corruption of minors on Alpha, Salvatore knew that their whole affair had been illegal, right from the fact that she was committing adultery to the fact that he was under eighteen.

It had been good, though. In Hillary's arms, Salvatore had felt happier than he ever had since his father died. He had finally found something that he could do well, and which earned him at least a few minutes of affection in Hillary's bed. He knew she didn't really love him; she was just looking for the tenderness she didn't get from her husband and children. Perhaps Salvatore was an ideal lover for her in that respect -- man enough to play the tender husband, child enough to play the affectionate son.

But now Hillary was pregnant. When she told him, Salvatore's first reaction was to run away, so that he could deal with the situation on his own before involving her in his thought processes. He had left her flat and returned to his own quarters, his mind in turmoil as it went over all the possibilities. He found it difficult to believe that he could have made her pregnant. It was a well-known fact that hybrids were usually sterile. It was more likely that Hillary had had sex with her husband and was now expecting his child.

It had been three days since Hillary told him, but Salvatore still didn't know what to do. He had sent Hillary a text message -- just one line "What are you going to do?" -- but had received no answer. She would probably get the doctors to test the child and then have an abortion if it turned out to be a quarter-Psychon, if that was possible. Hillary had had terminations before, so she would know who to talk to and what to do. That wasn't a happy solution, but it was the only way Salvatore could think of for Hillary to stay married to Josh, if that was what she wanted. Alternatively, maybe she would use this opportunity to finally get rid of her uninterested husband. Josh had only married her because he was on the rebound after Emma Koenig married Alan Carter. Hillary deserved a husband who wanted her for herself, not because she happened to be available at a convenient time.

Salvatore sighed and finished his glass. He had never felt so alone as now. His roommate Michael was on Loki visiting his sister, his mother was at Dover as well; even Sandra Benes was in the Medical Centre receiving treatment for a particularly bad flare-up of her arthritis. There was no one Salvatore felt he could turn to. His work colleagues in the Communications Centre were friendly enough, but they were all good people who would be mortally shocked if he told them what he had been up to. They would just treat him as more of a pariah than he already was.

His only comfort was the bottle of vodka Michael had left behind, and even that was running out. Being underage, Salvatore couldn't walk to Supplies and order another bottle, so once he had finished this glass, that would be the end of his solace. This thimbleful wasn't even enough to get him drunk.

Salvatore was surprised when the door's commchime rang. It was Alan Carter, and Salvatore felt his heart leap with joy as he released the door. Alan had been one of his father's closest friends, and he was a man of the world, too. The pilot could no doubt draw on his own ample experience with women to help Salvatore do the right thing for Hillary -- whatever that was. He was a man whose opinion Salvatore respected.

Alan didn't look pleased when he came in. Salvatore lowered his eyes and sat down on the sofa. Alan had probably heard about Hillary already, and no doubt wanted to give Salvatore a sermon about sleeping with married women. The boy braced himself patiently.

"I hope you're proud of yourself," said Alan sternly. "Do you have any idea what state Hilly is in?"

Salvatore had been prepared to sit silently through the sermon, so he was surprised by the question, particularly as Alan seemed to expect an answer. "No, she hasn't talked to me..."

"And are you surprised? I certainly wouldn't want anything to do with you under her circumstances. You should be ashamed of yourself, causing that kind of misery. What kind of a spoiled little brat are you? I'll bet you thought you could have your pleasure without worrying about the consequences. Well, I have news for you, there are consequences, and you've caused a lot more pain than you're worth. Hilly is so depressed that Suzi and Richard had to give her a sedative. She'll have to tell Josh sooner or later, and do you have any idea how much that's going to hurt him? Hilly and Josh are my friends, and I'm not going to let some pip-squeak like you hurt them just because you can't keep your hands to yourself. And possibly made her pregnant to boot!"

"I... It can't be mine. I'm a hybrid, I can't have children..." protested Salvatore weakly.

"Tell that to Hillary! I swear, if that child is yours, I'll take you across my knee and spank you," menaced Alan, pointing his finger at Salvatore. "And your life won't be worth much when Josh finds out either. Your father would have been ashamed of you. It's just as well he isn't here to see what you've become."

Salvatore was confused. Why did Alan think this was entirely his fault? He wondered if Alan was under the impression that Hillary had been raped. Outraged at the suggestion that he could do such a thing, Salvatore felt he had to defend himself.

"It's not just my fault," he said, mustering up his courage even though the irate Alan was a daunting sight. "I mean, she wanted to as well. If she had told me she was fertile, we could have done something else..."

"Oh, that's it! Accuse Hillary. It's obvious you're not the one who's pregnant and under treatment for depression. Really, if you were my son, I'd clobber you. So, is that all you have to say for yourself?" Alan didn't wait for an answer, but headed straight for the door. "I see I'm wasting my time here. You're just as stubborn as your father at his worst."

Salvatore stared at the closed door for a while after Alan had gone. He was thoroughly confused by Alan's attitude. Clearly, the opinion of those involved in the affair on Hillary's side was that Salvatore was entirely to blame, as if he had forced himself on her and then irresponsibly made her pregnant. Salvatore was pretty sure that the truth was different. Hillary had wanted him; there were times when she called him and said that Josh was out, and couldn't Salvatore come over and see her for a while? He wasn't the only one who had wanted this affair. As to the pregnancy, Salvatore still felt that Hillary was the one who could have prevented it. His father had always stressed that it was the man's business to find out if his partner was using contraception, so Salvatore had asked Hillary once or twice what method she was using. If she had given him incorrect or misleading answers, then that was her fault, not his.

But with no neutral interlocutor to use as a sounding board for these justifications, Salvatore was beginning to have doubts. Maybe the rules of human responsibility didn't apply to him. Alan had stressed the fact that Hillary and Josh were his friends -- thus implying that Salvatore was not. And indeed, when he thought about it, Salvatore had no friends. Not the sort of friends who would come and defend his honour if someone had done him wrong. The loneliness he had felt earlier returned with a vengeance.

Part of him felt that Alan was wrong, but Salvatore couldn't help thinking over what he had said. If Alan said that Tony would have been ashamed of him, then Alan had to be right. Alan had known Tony far longer than Salvatore had, after all. The idea of failing his father made Salvatore even more miserable. Alan had to be right -- he was a worthless worm who deserved no sympathy. Whatever had happened between him and Hillary was probably some perverse aberration of his half-Psychon background. Perhaps he really had raped Hillary without realising it. If Alan Carter thought so, Salvatore thought it had to be true.

Feeling pressure on his bladder from the vodka he had drunk, Salvatore went into the bathroom. He felt a bitter surge of self-loathing as he entered the room and caught sight of his brown-streaked face in the shaving mirror. Salvatore the freak. Salvatore the rapist. Salvatore who didn't even deserve his miserable artificially-induced existence.

If he had hurt Hillary as badly as Alan said, and didn't even notice, then it was possible that he would unwittingly do it again. He might hurt someone else, make them depressed and dependent on sedatives too. How many people would he damage this way? To Salvatore, this was just further proof that he shouldn't have been created in the first place. As an unnatural creature, he might have unforeseen effects on the humans around him. The doctors had certainly run enough tests on him in the past, but what if they had missed some terrible flaw in his nature? Like the one that made him sleep with Becky and Hillary even though it would make both of them miserable.

Remembering what he was doing here, Salvatore unfastened his trousers and reached automatically for the urine disposal tube, but then stopped. He could see the network of blue veins under the hairy, pale skin of his groin and thighs. One of those had to be the femoral artery. He had read somewhere that severing it could induce death within a few minutes at most.

That would solve everything. It would save the Alphan population from his corrupting influence, and put an end to the misery that his life had become since his father's death.

Salvatore turned to the sink and carefully dismantled his razor, detaching the blade from its handle. Holding the blade between his thumb and forefinger, Salvatore plunged it deeply into the flesh of his thigh and opened a bright red gash across the blue veins.

It was several hours before Salvatore came to and realised his plan to commit suicide had failed.

He was lying on the floor in the bathroom, having no doubt fainted at the sight of his own blood. He was still alive, but the wound on his thigh was throbbing painfully, and he could feel several bruises where he had fallen on his right arm and hip. Without moving, Salvatore opened his eyes. He had bled copiously on his clothes and on the linoleum surfacing of the bathroom floor. Most of the blood was dry -- the wound had probably stopped bleeding by now -- but the stench was overpowering.

Salvatore retched once and then dragged himself over to the solid waste unit to throw up. The smell of the chemical cocktail that flushed the waste into the recycling system made Salvatore nauseous again, but with his stomach completely empty, he felt no desire to vomit. He pulled himself into a sitting position, leaning his back against the unit.

He cried for a while. He was lonely, and in pain, and ashamed at his failure to end his own life. The razorblade was still lying on the floor, shining obscenely in the red-brown stain on the lino. But Salvatore was too distressed to do himself any more damage. The oblivious courage he had felt earlier had evaporated now that he was faced with the very real pain of his self-inflicted wound. This made him cry even harder as he realised his cowardice would deprive him of the release he craved. He didn't deserve to live and he couldn't even bring himself to die.

When he had finished crying, Salvatore observed the devastated bathroom and wondered what he should do next. He thought about going to the Medical Centre to have his wound tended to, but the thought of walking all that way on his wounded leg made him dismiss the idea. He certainly didn't want an emergency medical team to come, complete with stretcher -- that would let everyone know what he had done. He didn't want the whole population of Alpha to know about his failure. In any case, Alan had mentioned that Richard and Suzi Koenig were involved in the business with Hillary. Salvatore thought they wouldn't be particularly keen on treating him after what the damage he had apparently done to their friend.

The only thing left to do was to get up and take care of things himself. He needed to wash his wound, first of all, and see the extent of the damage. Then he would have to clean the bathroom. Salvatore wiped his eyes and then stared at his hands. They were covered in brown blood, their nails incrusted with dark red semicircles. It would take a while to clean everything up.