She felt as if she were dying--of pleasure too intense to contain, felt blackness creep in around her as her body continued to shudder and convulse in release. He wrenched his mouth from hers and released a growl of satisfaction as his body abruptly answered the call of hers and yielded him up to his own release. Shuddering, he half collapsed on top of her, struggling to catch his breath. After a moment, he gathered himself and rolled off of her onto the bed beside her. To her surprise, he took her with him, tucking her tightly against his side as if he would never let her go.
For the first time since she’d met him, she accepted the feeling unquestioningly, accepted the curious warmth and sense of peace that flowed through her as she settled against him and gave herself up to the urge to slip away from consciousness.
She slept so deeply, she hardly stirred when he moved away from her in the predawn, dressed and left her in sole possession of her cell. A sense of well-being filled her when she rose finally ... a sense that lasted until her noon meal was delivered by a female cyborg.
Although she said nothing, the woman was openly hostile. After doing nothing more than plunking a tray of food inside the door, she slammed it shut again, locked it, tugged on the chain a couple of times to make certain it would hold, and then left again without once uttering a word.
It was Dalia’s first real taste of being a prisoner among them. Reuel, she realized, had been angry with her and distrustful, but he had also given her the sense, from the very first, that he felt she belonged with them, and that he wanted to accept her.
She wondered if the woman represented the general feelings toward her, or if she had a personal reason for being so hostile. That thought brought others that were not welcome and left her with a vague sense of uneasiness and anger.
Boredom chased both away as the day wore on, however. As she had the day before, she spent most of her time pacing and peering through the crevices between the upright posts, trying to figure out what was happening. She could see nothing and she began to wonder if this was to be her routine and how long they, or rather Reuel, would consider it necessary to keep her under lock and key.
She was fairly certain the boredom would drive her mad if it continued long. She was accustomed to being active. Being imprisoned, with nothing to occupy her but her doubts and fears began to weigh upon her before she’d spent her second day in the small cell.
On the third day, however, all hell broke loose.
Chapter Twelve
“If you only meant to hold me prisoner I can’t imagine why you even bothered to bring me here,” Dalia said coldly when Reuel arrived with her evening meal as he had the day before. She’d been hopeful of seeing him all day long but as the day wore on and boredom set in, irritation with him had set in, as well.
He studied her a long moment before he moved across the room and set the tray he was carrying down. “I told you why we brought you.”
Her lips tightened. “Only to see if I can produce a living being? What then? What if it’s just some horrible, malformed creature? It isn’t human. The computer cannot identify it and therefore cannot ascertain the ‘normality’ of it.
“You implied ... more,” she finished with a touch of petulance.
“You are carrying the child of a new race of beings. The computer cannot be expected to analyze it with no data, but there is no reason to believe that it is not perfectly healthy and normal ... for a cyborg. Is that why you are angry? You are afraid for the child?”
Instead of answering, she looked away from him, realizing he was right. She was afraid. She’d been too shocked when she’d first learned of it to absorb that she was to become a mother. But her belly, once concave when she lay flat, had filled in, and then had begun to round outward with its growth, making it impossible to ignore even if she’d wanted to once she’d realized what the change meant. In any case, since she’d learned of it, she’d had far too much time to do nothing but think. She’d not only begun to feel a tentative pleasure in the idea, she’d also begun to wonder about the tiny being growing inside of her and to worry that something would go wrong.
Taking her silence as an affirmation, he moved toward her, kneeling beside the bed where she sat. “Nature has seen fit to intervene on our behalf. Even though our creators had no mercy upon us, or empathy for what they had done in creating us and then leaving us in limbo, neither human nor machine, nature has taken us the next step in evolution, made us beings in our own right.
“It is something to rejoice in, not fear. I am as certain of it as I have ever been of anything.”
Dalia looked at him doubtfully. “Nature has produced as many disasters as man. Even man no longer trusts his destiny entirely to the whims of nature. How safe are we to do so?”
He studied her for several moments and finally moved to sit on the cot next to her, pulling her onto his lap. “In the beginning, I had no goal in mind, no plan for a future I could not even conceive. I left only because I could not bear to be among humans and not be accepted as one, because I wanted the right to make my own choices, to make my own life. I hated them then, but I feel no animosity toward them now. All I want is freedom, and peace to build my own world, with my own people.
“I am ... as afraid as you are that something will go wrong, but it is not because I expect it will so much as it is because I want it so much.”
Dalia stiffened when Reuel pulled her onto his lap, not the least because she wasn’t ready to forgive him for ignoring her all day. She found, though, that there was a seductive quality to being held in such a way that had nothing to do with sexual arousal, but everything to do with feeling as if one belonged. Slowly, as his voice washed over her, she relaxed. “And now? What is it that you plan to do?”
He hesitated. “Wait.”
“For the birth of the child?”
“Among other things.”
And what then, she wondered? Would he have no further use for her? Would he simply discard her? “Human gestation takes between nine and ten months, almost a year. Unless the rapid cell regeneration that makes us heal faster also effects the growth of the child, that could be ... many more months. You’ll keep me prisoner till then?”
Again, he hesitated. “Until my heart tells me that you accept ... or that you will never accept.”
“What is it that you want, truly?”
Hooking a finger under her chin, he nudged her face up and kissed her lightly, then scooped her from his lap, dropped her onto the bed, and handed her the tray of food.
“Eat.”
