Zac heard the phone ring in the early hours of the morning. Complaining about who would call him at this indecent hour of the morning, he reluctantly answered.
"Whoever you are, you had better have a good reason for calling me at this indecent hour," was his greeting.
"Sorry Zac, but if I had to wake up, then so did you."
"Oliver?"
"Yep."
"Whaddya want?"
"Sari-Lyka had the baby."
"Oh goody."
"Zac!"
"Hey, it's first thing in the morning."
"I'm readily aware of the fact. But I'm their contact with you, so they woke me up when she went into labour. Well, if you can call it labour."
"I don't want to know."
"Oh, yes you do. Not that I saw anything of the actual labour, and thank your lucky stars that is the case because I never would have let you live that down."
"Oh yay."
"Anyway, Mr Grumblebum, you'll be happy to know that you're the proud father of a navy blue ball of slime."
"A what?"
"Well, he did look like a slime ball when I saw him. Lots of goo they had to wipe off."
"Do I really have to hear this?"
"Yes. Anyway, he's healthy. Has four leg-tentacles and two arm-tentacles like every good Adigei. Don't know the eye colour, but aparently none of their three eyes open until the fourth week."
"Well... that's... good..."
"Yeah. Anyway his name - I did tell you he was a boy right? His name is - you're going to love this - Tranno-Zirran."
"Tranno-Zirran? What kind of a name is that?"
"Adigeian, of course."
Zac made a non-commital noise.
"Anyway, Tranno-Zirran (they hate it when you try to shorten names, by the way), has the privlage of being the fourth Adigian/Dathrian child born. Haven't been any Sem hybrids at all, and not for want of trying. Not even one conceived, so as far as the Adigians are concerned they're right down there with humans."
"And as a human/Dathrian hybrid, what do you think of that?"
"Heck, I don't care. I'm relieved I can't adapt enough to sleep with one. I'm sorry, but I am. I like my humanism."
"Whatever."
"Hey, it's not that early in the morning, seriously Zac. It's not like you weren't going to get up in an hour or so anyway."
"That's an hour or so of sleep I'm missing out on."
"Deal. Anyway, no powers have emerged just yet, but they reckon that the normal Adigeian ones don't emerge until the 5th month. Earth time that is."
"Uh huh."
Oliver continued to chat to Zac about his newborn son, intentionally keeping him on just to annoy him, until Zac interupted:
"Okay, that's cool. Talk to you later. Much, much later. At a decent hour of the day. Good bye," and hung up.