Well, if Questioner were to be moved, it had to be with eloquence. Or ...
"I'm trying to convince you, Questioner. Why not just agree?"
"Because," she said angrily, "I was created for a purpose, and I feel my purpose is being undermined here."
Or ...
He fingered the last card in his hand. The ace of love. "Is that really what you feel?"
She fumed. She wasn't sure what she felt. Sadness, certainly. And anger. She muttered, "You're probably right about my feelings, coming from what I know about the three children. The buffers were there for a reason, and I shouldn't have gone around them."
"It's not only the three children," Mouche murmured. "The council loads you down with work, then saddles you with incompetent people and still expects you to work miracles."
"While constantly cutting my budget," she said furiously. "They even interfere with my technical support. That's why I couldn't get in touch with the ship when I needed to! Parts failure! That idiot! Can you believe that?"
He did not believe it. Flowing Green knew there had been no failure of parts, only Bofusdiaga, determined to give them no alternative to solving the Quaggian dilemma. Not even Flowing Green knew the extent of what Bofusdiaga could do.
Focus, Mouche told himself. As Madame had always said, Focus!
"Part of it is that you work very hard, and no one really appreciates what you do," he said softly, moving his chair a bit closer to hers.
"I was designed for it," she sniffed. "But it is hard, yes. I'm human enough to feel that."
"Of course you feel it. You must get terribly annoyed."
"It's what I was created for," she said less forcefully. "But none of us like to feel our efforts are wasted ... "
"True. And even when we know our efforts aren't wasted, we like to be appreciated."
"Yes," she admitted, almost in a murmur. "It would be nice."
"I admire you so greatly," he said. "We all do."
"Really?" She laughed, rather sadly. "That's something new."
"You aren't admired by the members of the council?"
"By and large they treat me like a computer. It's understandable, I suppose."
"They disregard your humanity, because it makes them feel uncomfortable, I imagine." He put his hand on top of her own. "It probably surpasses their own. But we ... I think of you as a friend. And I'm honoring myself when I give you that title."
"Oh, Mouche. Really." She felt herself flushing.
He shook out his mane of emerald hair and looked at her from under lowered lashes. "It's time that someone took care of you, Questioner. After all the care you take of humanity, it's only right that humanity do something for you in return."
"For me?"
He gave her a dangerous look as he reached out to run his hand along her neck, where several of her sensation circuits were placed near the skin.
"Ahhh," she said unwillingly. "Ahhh."
"I've researched you in these recent days, Questy," he whispered. "Flowing Green and I." He lowered his fingers, recently returned to their Consortly softness, stroking the line of her shoulder. Stroke. Stroke. Tweak.
"Mouche. For heaven's sake ... " She quivered with unfamiliar pleasure. "For heaven's sake ... "
"Oh Corojumi, grant deliverance ... " he sang softly, with a purposeful stroke, laying the ace upon the table.
"Last card ... " she gasped.
" ... grant Questy in this dance ... "
"You stacked the deck," she whispered.
" ... compensatory joys," he sang, the green hair swirling high above his head as he and his Hagion smiled into her eyes.
Tepper,Sheri - Six Moon Dance Page 50