She blinked at him. “In what way?”
He chuckled. “Sexually.”
“Oh! Well, I’ve only ever had sex with cyborgs … uh … Damon. But it isn’t like I don’t know these things, you know. A person can know a lot without having actual experience. And to be honest, it makes me feel so much better to think that it isn’t me, that they just have needs and … I didn’t understand why Jared was so angry with me. I feel so badly that I didn’t realize what the problem was. I mean, really! He’s my best friend … and Kane. If they’d just told me, I would’ve been happy to help out!”
He shook his head at her. “I think you are almost as confused as we are, but I am glad that we have found a friend.”
He got up decisively. “I have not even had breakfast. Will you join me?”
“I’d love to! I amsostarving! I didn’t realize that was why I felt like hell. Of course, I didn’t sleep very well last night. I’m not at all used to having anyone else in my bed.”
He chuckled again and it hit her abruptly that it was a sound she rarely heard—had not heard at all aboard ship since her father’s death except the echo of her own. She frowned, realizing that Jared and Kane rarely even smiled and they certainly hadn’t in the beginning. Of course, they’d had no reason to. It had taken them a long time to recover from their stint on Xeno-12. If she’d had any doubts before of just how awful it had been for her, the battle they’d had with the other salvagers was proof in itself. They’d hardly been injured at all in that fight where her father had lost his life or the fight in the jail with the rangers.
She hadn’t really seen any of the other cyborgs smiling either, and certainly not laughing. Of course, they hadn’t been onboard long at all, but they hadn’t been on duty the entire time. It seemed that they would’ve relaxed and joked among themselves.
Reuel was almost like a law unto himself. Damon smiled and even chuckled, but she knew that was his social programming. None of those designed and sold as soldiers did—because it wasn’t actually necessary. Maybe it wasn’t even desirable for them to be anything but formidable?
And yet, Reuel did. How had he become different if she discounted his claim that he’d changed?
Was it even possible that they could? She hadn’t thought so, but then she was no scientist. She’d studied—to suit herself. Her father hadn’t seemed to care how much education she had. Although he’d taken a stab at being a parent and sent her to study school work on the computer from time to time, he hadn’t been interested enough to see what she was studying. Mostly, she’d simply entertained herself and very little about science entertained her. She’d learned a little about human biology and sexuality out of curiosity because she’d just begun to be really interested in both when her father had collected her, but she certainly didn’t know enough to figure out what might be going on with the cyborgs and she didn’t know much of anything about robotics.
She did know that cyborgs were partly bio-engineering and partly robotics. She’d learned what she could about it after Damon—because she’d wanted to know abouthim. All she’d really discovered, though, was that the company kept the exact information about them a secret. Supposedly, by law, they were not allowed to use even fifty percent biological materials in their design because that was the legal definition of human … or at least biological entity.
She’d gotten the impression, though, that they only had what was necessary to support the ‘life’ of the flesh used to make them ‘life-like’ and everything else was robotic. That would have to include a certain amount of actual brain since the brain controlled the involuntary functions and they had to have at least rudimentary organs to ‘feed’ the flesh.
It gave her a headache trying to figure out how they could possibly have gotten from part human to a sentient being. Of course, their biological part wasn’t exactly human even if it had begun that way. The scientists had had to make them ‘super’ human in order to make it possible for the muscles to support their much heavier inner structure.
Maybe that had something to do with it? It wasn’t as if it would be the first time that scientists had developed something they didn’t fully understand and then discovered that it did something completely unexpected. Probably half of the things that had been discovered were discovered in just that way—by accident when they were trying to do something else.
So, maybe the company wasn’t desperate to get hold of the cyborgs and destroy them because they were ‘crazy’ but because they had figured out that the cyborgs weren’t what they had originally begun as? Weren’t merely machines anymore?
It still seemed impossible to her that they’d taken such a leap, but that was because she didn’t know exactly what it was that the scientists at Robotics Inc. had done. Maybe something they’d included to make them ‘super’ had run amuck? Maybe the nanos they’d put in them to ‘heal’ them, repair them, had run amuck and ‘fixed’ everything that they decided needed fixing?
Creepy, dangerous little bastards, nanos. It was concerns over controlling the damned things that was the reason they weren’t used in people, but there weren’t any laws to prevent them from using them in the cyborgs.
She discovered when they finally reached the mess hall that her fears of missing breakfast were unfounded. It looked like most of the cyborgs were nearly finished but, at a glance, it seemed that most of them were still there.
Her crew was at the same table they’d shared the night before. They looked like they were at a funeral, though, and she decided she’d made the right decision—the only reasonable decision she could’ve made when she’d agreed with Reuel. They were in serious need of a morale boost!
Of course, she’d had a fight with Jared the night before. She wasn’t surprised that he still looked like a thundercloud—a fairly battered thundercloud. She winced inwardly when she noticed the evidence of his brawl the night before. Kane didn’t look much better and she felt guilty that she hadn’t even really noticed it when he’d talked to her in the shower room.
Actually, with the exception of Damon, they all looked like hell. She supposed that was reason enough to be glum. They probably felt like hell, too.
What she didn’t understand was why Damon looked as tense, angry, and downright depressed as the others. It seemed to her that he should be downright chipper, damn it!
It didn’t make her feel any better when she’d thought it over because the only reason she could think of for him to look like that was that she hadn’t done him any good.
Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for her to take part in the sex therapy, she thought uneasily? She’d thought she’d done everything right, but even Reuel seemed to realize she didn’t know a hell of a lot about it.
Frowning when she’d collected a tray and drink, she settled at the table with them and focused on trying to fill the hollow in the pit of her stomach.
Chapter Nine
Chloe hadn’t even managed to choke down half of her breakfast when Reuel rose and addressed the crewmembers still in the mess hall—which was most of them.
“I have conferred with Captain Chloe and we are in complete agreement that it has become necessary to place the Maritime Sex Act into effect, effective immediately. I will meet with the females directly after morning mess in the crew quarters to discuss the situation and address any concerns or complaints regarding the order.
“I will expect all males to meet with me here in the mess hall after the evening meal in regards to the limitations and parameters that we will implement.”
