“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. “Andyoucan 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,canhe 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 totheMartha 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’sthatsupposed 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.”
