Tedra gritted her teeth. “Did you happen to think of Corth and Bolt when you sent someone to collect yourself?”
“Forget my little friends? Me? I’m not the one who can’t even remember that an identilock requires at least two seconds to make identification.”
Tedra’s face flamed with color. She wasn’t going to ask how Martha knew about her run-in with the door, she really wasn’t.
“No comment, kiddo?” Martha purred.
“Not in mixed company,” Tedra bit out, sending Rourk a look that dared him to say just one word.
Chapter Four
“Where are we now, Martha?”
“Still in deep space, kiddo, same as last time you asked. If you’re going to be so impatient, you should have elected to stay in our own Star System. There are still hundreds of planets unexplored there that you could have amused yourself with.”
“And a frequency range that could have got me called home. I am a female pilot, remember.”
“I’m the pi—”
“Don’t argue,” Tedra cut in, almost losing her patience for real. “You know what I meant. It’s within the laws of probability, and I’d just as soon not take the chance for a while of being put on Kystran’s wanted list if I refuse to acknowledge a summons home. And as long as we have some time to kill—”
“We go Star System-hopping.”
“What are you complaining about? You thought it was a great idea last week.”
“That was when I still had the occasional asteroid belt to play dodge with. This space is so empty a blind man could navigate it.”
“Don’t tell me you’re bored, Martha.” Tedra chuckled. “You have to monitor the control stations of every absent crew member. You don’t have time to be bored.”
“Child’s play.”
“Don’t give me that. You love it, being in such control. You’re just trying to pick an argument, aren’t you, since we haven’t had one in so long? But it won’t work, you know. I’m still too delighted with you for raiding the Relics Hall before we left. That was really a sweet, thoughtful thing to do.”
Silence. Tedra laughed to herself. Martha hated it when her tactics didn’t work. And Tedra had discovered it was a lot of fun, thwarting Martha. But she’d also spoken the truth. When she had found literally hundreds of history tapes in Martha’s files, she’d been ecstatic. She had thought she would have to give up her hobby until it was safe to go home. But she had enough tapes to last her several years, if she didn’t run through them all on Sublim format.
“Tedra, you haven’t fallen asleep, have you?” Martha’s voice returned about fifteen minutes later.
“Not yet.”
“You’re right, kiddo, maybe I am bored. Why don’t we discuss your love life?”
Tedra started up, almost taking the bait. But then she lay back down on the adjusticouch that had been widened so Corth could lay next to her on it. She settled back into his arms, but caught him grinning at her, after Martha’s off-the-wall suggestion.
She gave the android a stern look when he started to speak, and said to Martha, “Why don’t we discuss your love life instead, old girl? How are you and the engineering computer getting along together?”
A very definite snort. Martha was getting good at that sound. “Let’s get serious, shall we? There isn’t a machine on this ship up to my standards. But you’ve got one there up to yours. I brought the kid along so you could make use of him. So why don’t you?”
“I am,” Tedra replied, wrapping Corth’s arms more tightly around her.
That was all she needed occasionally from Corth, to be held. Being raised in the Kystran Child Centers left a big void in some people’s lives, probably why so many young people started going to Stress Clinics as soon as they were old enough, looking for the love they had lacked in their growing years. The Child Centers were for learning only. They gave you approval, motivation, self-esteem, and any number of other good qualities, but they didn’t give you love.
It was a lack Tedra sometimes felt keenly, the reason that she had bought Corth last year. He was an entertainment android, designed to entertain a woman in every way possible. He was free-thinking to a small degree, insomuch as he could follow and participate in a conversation as long as only logical responses were required and the subject was one within his memory banks. He couldn’t make decisions on his own the way Martha could, didn’t have feelings to bruise or stir up, and Stars forbid he should argue with anyone. Aggression was not in his makeup, but spontaneity was. Tedra had only to touch him in a sexual way and he could become the ideal sex-sharer, totally devoted to her pleasure. Getting him to just hold her in a nonsexual way wasn’t as easy, so it had to be verbally requested.
“The Martha is correct, Tedra De Arr.” Corth spoke softly behind her. “You do not make full use of my abilities.”
“I get as much use as I want of them, babe.”
“I would be gentle with your breaching.” Tedra sat up to look down at him suspiciously. “Since when do you pursue a subject that has been dropped, Corth?” She didn’t wait for an answer, her eyes locking on the communications console in the center of the large Rec lounge she had taken to spending most of her time in. “Have you been tampering with Corth’s programming, Martha?”
“Me?” She had got her innocent-sounding voice down pat. “Why would I do that?”
“Well, you better undo what you didn’t do, metal lady, or—”
Corth pulled her back down to their previous position. “Relax, Tedra De Arr. I am incapable of hurting you.”
Tedra scooted out of his arms and off the couch, more than a little unnerved by the change in him. After all, as a machine, he had the strength of ten men. And Martha really had given him a dose of aggression.
“I’m going to kill you, Martha!”
“Now, kiddo, he’s only a little more lifelike, is all,” was the computer’s response. “All that sickening agreeing with you was getting on my nerves.”
“You don’t have nerves, you motherless piece of scrap iron, you have circuits. And those can be turned off.”
“You can’t shut me down, doll.” Martha went for a reasonable tone now that she’d got a rise out of Tedra. “I run the ship, remember, supply your oxygen, your food, etc. If you turn me off, you go with me. I didn’t think you were into suicide.”
“Oh, shut up!” Tedra snapped. “And you”—she glared at the android, who was sitting up—“don’t move another inch, or I’ll have to kick you into malfunction.”
“Now don’t do that, Tedra,” Martha said in her soothing voice. “If you break him, who’s going to fix him up here in space? The Rover’s meditech unit only works on live bodies, you know.”
“Then you’d better change him back to the way he was. I won’t be raped by a machine.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Martha insisted. “He’s only a little more assertive. Reassure her, Corth.”
The android stood up, but not to reassure her. “My appearance has not been changed, Tedra De Arr. Do I no longer appeal to you since you met the Sha-Ka’ari warrior?”
“So you filled him in about that, old girl?” Tedra asked with even more irritation.
“We’ve talked about them enough,” Martha replied blithely. “I thought he shouldn’t be left in the dark.”
“That’s your problem. You think too much.” And now Corth needed reassurance. This was ridiculous.
“I love the way you look, Corth. You’re more handsome than any man could possibly be.”
And he was. His outer frame was crafted to her specifications, black hair at a moderate cut, lovely light green eyes, half a foot taller than she was, and young in appearance. If he were real, she’d likely beg to file for double occupancy. But she’d never lost touch with the fact that he wasn’t real, even when she used him to fulfill her need to fantasize that she was loved and cared for.
“I just don’t want to be chased around the ship by you, babe,” she continued, only to hear a loud, heavy sigh from
Martha’s direction. “And you can cut that out,” she told the computer. “You did this on purpose just to annoy me, and don’t think I don’t know it.”
Martha didn’t answer, but Corth was determined to prove how effective his new programming was. “But you would enjoy the breaching more with me, Tedra De Arr.”
“No offense, Corth, but ...” She paused as an unpleasant thought occurred to her. “Martha, can he be offended now?”
“No.”
A small blessing. She addressed the android again. “It’s like this, babe. I’d prefer my first sex-sharing to be with a real man. It’s an emotional thing that I want to share with someone who will feel the same emotions I will.”
“The Martha can give me emotions.”
“She’d better not,” Tedra growled, losing her patience. “Now hook yourself up to the Martha and rid yourself of the need to argue with me, or I’m going to pull your plug.”
He hesitated very briefly, but a direct order from her was still impossible for him not to obey. When he came back to her a few minutes later, she demanded, “Are you as you were before?”
“I am as you want me to be, Tedra De Arr.”
She sighed in relief. “I’m delighted. How about a game of Warfare to take my mind off this unpleasantness?”
With a nod he moved immediately to the imaging screen console to activate games mode and bring the screen out of its ceiling slot where it was stored when not in use. Since Warfare was a lifelike simulation of the real thing, played with real-looking people on a real-looking world, the game could only be played on an imaging screen. The one choice to make before the start of the game was the era of weaponry to use.
The Rover’s screen was an eight-foot square, but some screens could be hundreds of feet square, depending on their location and size of the expected audience. Since imaging screens were mainly used for story viewing, the imaging computer could create a visual portrayal of any one of the millions of ancient stories in its files, again with very real-looking people enacting the stories. Of course, all stories, even those created thousands of years ago, were updated and made modern, which was a crying shame, since seeing them in their original form would have been like seeing history come to life. But most citizens of Kystran weren’t familiar with their ancient history and had studied the modern history of the planet only since colonization, if even that. So few, if any, of the older stories would make sense to them if viewed in their original form.
Tedra took one of the six game chairs before the screen which contained controls for the few dozen games available that needed an imaging screen for play. There certainly wasn’t anything else to do aboard a Rover but amuse herself. Had she got a World Discoverer, it would have been otherwise, for she had had enough training in her three years of study with World Discovery to be able to fly the small, one-manned craft by herself. On the Rover, she was left only with the job of ambassador and trade negotiator if and when they came upon any new worlds. And she fully intended to do the job, since she wanted at least something to show for her wasted time away from Kystran. But whatever trade contracts she could secure for Kystran would not be reported for the benefit of the new Director. They would wait until Garr Ce Bernn was returned to power.
Chapter Five
“Maybe I should have bought an intelligence model and had him reprogrammed for entertainment,” Tedra remarked to herself as her eyes followed Corth about the large exercise gym where he was readying equipment for her use. “Their bodies aren’t designed to be so ... enticing.”
“Did I hear that correctly?” Martha’s voice purred from the small audiovisual ship’s intercom on the wall behind her. “Have you changed your mind about our sweet Corth?”
“No.” Tedra sighed and flopped back on the sweat mat, wishing Martha would lower her hearing level. “But if I could have spent a little more time with the warrior, Kowan, that answer might be different.”
“Well, well,” Martha said smugly. “So you would have let the Sha-Ka’ari breach you. I wonder why. Maybe because he could have bested you?”
“I doubt he could have, but for the first time it might have been close.”
“And you think you’ll have to settle for close? You’ve waited this long, kiddo. What’s a few more years?”
“My, how you change your tune.” Tedra chuckled. “So tell me, how compatible would I have been with that warrior?”
“As a temporary sex-sharer, he would have been ideal if you like brawn, which I happen to know you do. But he wouldn’t have suited you for double occupancy.”
“Not even if he weren’t the enemy?”
“Not even a little. You forget there are no free women on Sha-Ka’ar. Sha-Ka’ari males know no other women but slaves, and this for several hundred years.”
“So he would have tried to treat me like a slave, is that what you’re getting at?”
“Not tried, kiddo. He would have. And it’s just not in your makeup to be treated that way . . . not long-term, anyway.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You could handle it for a while. You might even enjoy it once or twice for fun and games, as long as that’s how you saw it.”
“You multipurpose piece of miswired circuitry, you’re really looking for a fight, aren’t you?” Tedra growled low as she came up off the mat to glower at the small intercom screen, which showed a view of the Control Room and the main computer where Martha was housed.
“Just kidding, doll. But I do find it interesting that you’d be willing to consort with the enemy.”
“Women have been doing so since the beginning of time, for one desperate reason or another.”
“The key word being ‘desperate,’ I suppose?”
“The Tedra De Arr need never feel desperate,” a new voice said behind her.
She stiffened as she felt Corth’s hands on her hips and was very quickly pulled back and pressed against him for a reminder of just how fully functional he could be. Face flaming, she whirled around and pushed away from him.
“Martha!”
But she saw that the small intercom screen had gone blank, Martha pulling a disappearing act now that she’d been found out. That interfering metal nightmare, how dared she ignore a direct order?
Tedra glanced back warily at Corth, but he was merely watching her. “I thought you couldn’t lie,” she accused him.
“I cannot,” he said placidly.
“Can’t you? You said she’d changed you back. But she didn’t, did she?”
“I am as you want me to be, Tedra De Arr.” He repeated what he’d told her two days ago.
“And what has Martha got you believing I want you to be, Corth?”
“Patient. The Martha added patience to my new programming. I can wait until you are ready to use me.”
“But in the meantime you’re going to keep the pressure on, is that it?”
“If I do not remind you of my eagerness to give you pleasure, you will give no thought to changing your mind about my use.”
Tedra rolled her eyes. Stars, how she wished Martha had a neck she could squeeze.
“Patience, huh? I’m the one who’s going to have to have patience if I have to keep telling you to back off. You will back off, won’t you, if I tell you to?”
“Of course.”
“Then back off, babe. I’m here to exercise with machines, not you.”
He just grinned—until she realized what she’d said, and then her laughter filled the room.
The sudden loud beat of bass drums shook even the walls, and Tedra was half out of bed before she realized it wasn’t an invasion, just the music she had programmed to wake her, albeit with a bit too much volume.
“Lower, please!” she had to shout before the noise fell to a bearable level.
“How can you stand that Ancient’s caterwauling?” Martha’s voice came in with the quiet.
The Ancient’s music did take getting used to with its accompanying words that most times didn’t mak
e sense, and wild beats and rhythms. Kystran music didn’t include words, much less the things called drums. Ancient’s music gave most Kystrani headaches, yet Tedra found it stimulating, usually feeling the need to tap her toes or move in some way when she listened to it. Right now her only need was to ignore Martha.
“You wouldn’t answer me yesterday, coward. Today I’m not speaking to you,” and she promptly buried her head under her pillow.
“Sec l’s are above sulking, kiddo.”
She would have to hear that and agree that it was so. She threw off the pillow, and immediately Bolt, her robocleaner, came out to pick it up from the floor. She barely noticed.
Testily, she said, “I miss my bedmate, Martha.”
“Then why did you send him away?”
“Because I don’t trust him to just hold me anymore since you tampered with him.”
Tedra called out the massager and climbed in, enclosing herself in the body-shaped box. It looked much like a meditech unit, only didn’t possess so many miracles, just one, the easing of sore muscles, and she had a few after the strenuous exercise she had put herself through yesterday when she became furious over Martha’s silence. The hundreds of little rollers and skin-pressers moved over her body from head to toe, almost putting her back to sleep, which was why the massager would open of its own accord after it had diligently worked top and then bottom muscles into loose relaxation.
She heard only the music when the massager opened up, but a glance at the audiovisual console the Commander’s cabin contained showed the receiving light still on, so she knew Martha was waiting for her to say more. Tedra kept her waiting while she dropped her sleepsuit and took a solaray bath first, leaving the Sanitary walls open in case Martha showed any signs of impatience. Of course, that didn’t take much time, and she was keeping herself waiting, too, to hear Martha’s explanation.
“All right,” she said at last, moving to the hair-and-eye changer, which had come out automatically when she activated the bath. “Why didn’t you change Corth back like I told you to?”
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