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 make 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?”

“Because you needed the excitement of pursuit, kiddo.”

Tedra groaned. For such a brilliant, free-thinking computer, Martha could be decidedly one-track.

“Then you should have contrived to smuggle Kowan aboard the Rover before we left,” Tedra said, not really serious, but hoping to reinforce the fact that she wanted a real man before she ever considered using an artificial one. Though she’d said so, Martha’s memory banks were playing forgetful. “I could have kept him in lockup and got all the excitement I could have asked for.”

“I thought about it,” Martha admitted.

She probably had, which only made Tedra realize she might as well give up. Martha was going to keep involving herself in Tedra’s sex life until she had one, and then she’d probably come up with a good dozen reasons why Tedra ought to abstain. She’d either have to ignore the computer or go nuts.

She settled on ignoring. “Surprise me,” she told the hair changer, and then actually was. “How old-fashioned,” she said, seeing her original glossy black tresses spilling over her shoulders.

“How about silver eyes with gold sparkles to go with that?” came Martha’s voice.