Niples - "Baby Blackmail"

Seymour pulled down his visor, he started the handheld strimmer, and
dramatically hacked away at the man-eating vines that once a month
tried to grow out of the door in his apartment that lead straight into
the arboretum.
The vines screamed as they were chopped off, and Seymour beat them
back enough to be able to close the door.
He put down the strimmer and sat down on his expensive leather sofa
and looked to his coffee table for his tea. It wasn't there. Just an
empty doily stood in its place.
Seymour couldn't understand it. Every month he did this, tidy the
apartment, strim the man-eating vines, while a skutter dusts the
apartment and has a cup of earl grey waiting for him on the coffee table.
"Scutter!!!!" Seymour yelled. "Where's my Tea?"
No answer from the kitchen. "Scutter!!!"
The cutter appeared at the door and flipped him off.
"Oh how rude! How dare you insult a Royal Ambassador like that! Why
aren't you working?"
The scutter calmly found a piece of paper and wrote on it. "Wot u
gonna do".
"What?" Seymour said outraged. "Despite your incredibly bad spelling
and use of grammer, which I am going to ignore for now, what the hell
does that mean?"
The scutter flipped him off again.
"Stop that! Right, I'll contact the JMC and get you replaced
immediately. You're obviously fawlty."
The scutter shrugged and wrote `JMC gone'.
Then it dawned on him. The Earth was gone, the JMC HQ was gone, barely
any JMC ships existed anymore.
"So you think you're safe, eh? You think that because there's no JMC
you can do what you like, you think that because there's no laws or
civilisation or economy that you can stop making my tea?"
The scutter nodded.
"Why you little-" Seymour reached for the scutter's robotic neck, but
it dodged and Seymour fell over.
He chased it to the door where he caught it just as it was about the
exit. He started to throttle the robot when the door opened. It was
Jenny, holding her hand on her swelled womb .
She looked at him throttling the robot and he let it go. "Um, its just
a little game he likes to play, cowboys and Indians, you know."
Jenny smiled. "Which one are you, the cowboy or the Indian?"
The scutter held up a piece of paper saying "Not Indian. He hates curry."
"Get out of here and don't come back until you feel like working!" he
said kicking the scutter out.
He invited Jenny in. There was a terrible awkwardness between them
now, even more so than before. Both of them knew it was such a bad
idea for them to have a baby together, they barely even got along.
This was the first time he had seen Jenny since he had arranged for
her to get a good apartment.
"I just wanted to say… thanks for the apartment." Jenny said awkwardly.
"Oh, don't mention it. I just wanted you to be comfortable with you…
our baby. And if there's anything else I can do for you to help you
through the pregnancy…"
"Actually there is." Said Jenny.
"Oh good."
She thrust a list into his hand, which he looked at with wide eyes.
"Some of these items are little bit pricey…" Seymour started to bite
his lip and wish he hadn't said anything.
"Also, there's a good doctor I wanted to see. Dr Hoffman… he's a
really good doctor who has helped many celebrities and rich people
through pregnancies. He's the best that money can buy. He escaped
Earth before it exploded and now lives on Freeport 4. Here are his rates."
She put another piece of paper in his hand. Seymour looked at them and
felt like she had pushed her hand into his chest and grabbed his heart
to stop it from beating.
"Its urm… well he is definitely pricey." Seymour said with a cough.
"Even on a Royal Ambassador's wage. Are you sure you need him?"
"Well I suppose I could see Dr Keto, but you know what his nurses are
like, complete blabbermouths, within a few days all the crew will be
talking about our baby."
Seymour felt a cold sweat coming on. So far their pregnancy was a
secret, and that's how he liked it. He didn't want the rest of his
crew talking about how he was having a baby out of wedlock or a
relationship. For a Royal Ambassador, that just wasn't done.
He faked a smile. "Okay I'll pay for the fancy doctor. The offspring
of a Royal Ambassador deserves the best."
"And the other items?"
Seymour jaw locked. He didn't want to say it but he did. "I'll pay for
them too."
Jenny grinned and walked out of his apartment.