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From: elf@drizzle.com (Elf Sternberg)
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Subject: {ASSM} {ASS} Journal Entry 251 / 03261: Honest Desires, part 1 {Elf Sternberg} (FF, FF, scfi)
Date: Wed,  4 Sep 2002 18:10:07 -0400
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Journal Entry 251 / 03261: Honest Desires
Anar, Hiss 08, 3261

"Why'd you want to fly in this old junker, anyway?"

"I like these," Misuko said. She examined the displays once more
as outside the front glass the stars slid by in reliable, constant
streams. They would arrive at Indigo 161 in about sixteen hours.  Between
then and now there wasn't much more to do than lay back and enjoy the the
trip. "They have character. It's not like taking an interplanetary SDisk
string, or having some nanny AI on board." She avoided mention of Esther's
microRealm, brought "in case I get bored."  Well, that was Esther.

"It's so romantic, though," her sole company said quietly. The blue-furred
Tindal lounged in her crash chair as if her entire body were preparing to
melt into its hot orange upholstery. "A whole planet, all to ourselves,
with nothing to do but lie around, soak up the sun, and play!"

"Remember," Misuko said. "I still have to get some work done. I need to
justify the cost to the university."

"I know, I know," Esther said, her voice taking on the tinge of a
whine. "But not that much, right? I mean, you paid for the ship."

"Half the ship," Misuko replied.

"Okay, half the ship. That means you'll have plenty of time to play with
me, right?"

Misuko reached out and touched her lover's thigh. "We'll have plenty of
time to play," she said.

"Let's play now!" Esther grabbed Misuko by the hand and hauled her down
the tight corridor to their one cabin. Misuko went, a little annoyed by
Esther's impetuousness, but that was overwhelmed by the smaller girl's
hard kisses against her mouth. She felt her nipples and cunt swell
with heat. Her whole body demanded to be pressed against Esther's fur,
to let Esther's mittens into her sex. It was what Esther liked, and all
she demanded in return was her mouth, her skilled tongue. It was more
than a fair trade, Misuko thought.

Esther's mittens were already probing under her skirt, trying to
squirm their way into her panties. Misuko felt flushed as Esther's lips
caressed her chin, her throat. "Esther..." she whimpered. "Don't break
any buttons. This isn't smartcloth."

"Oh, you and your old fashioned ways." She giggled, but treated the
buttons with care as she opened Misuko's blouse. She looked down. "I
love your tastes, though."

Misuko couldn't be sure whether Esther referred to the lacy, white
bra she wore or the flavor of her breasts, and when Esther strong lips
encircled one nipple and began to suck, she didn't care either.  "Esther,"
she sighed, wrapping her arms around Esther's head and shoulders. "Yes."

Esther pulled her toward the bed and the two of them tumbled into it.
She shoveled sheets aside to give the two of them room, and Misuko let
herself be swept away by Esther's immediate attentions. "You have such
great tits," Esther said, her mouth taking one and then the other. "I
wish I could have both of them at the same time."

"If you were a chorus, you could."

"Not yet," Esther said. "Someday, maybe. Now, be quiet. I'm busy!" She
giggled, and Misuko smiled. Esther eased herself between Misuko's
legs. "Now, this is what you wanted, right?" she giggled, her thumb
pressing against Misuko's panties.

"Uh-huh," Misuko breathed.

"Oh, and what will I get in return?"

"Whatever you want," Misuko said.

"Whatever I want. Hmm." She leaned down and kissed Misuko's panties.
Misuko felt warm lips upon her mons and wished for more. Esther's little
tongue slipped out, lapping across the cotton that covered her cunt. She
wanted more. She moaned for it.

"More?" Esther said. "Do you deserve more?"

"Minx!" Misuko swore. "Yes!"

Esther turned around until her hips were even with Misuko's head. "Eat
me, then."

Misuko dove between Esther's furred legs. The little Tindal was demanding
but Misuko didn't care. She loved what they could do for each other and
she never passed up an opportunity to show her affection. She pressed
her mouth against Esther's cunt, slipping her tongue between the lips
and homing in on her clitoris.

"Yes," Esther groaned. "Oh, yes! Oh, darling, yes!"

Misuko tongued Esther's cunt hungrily even as she felt Esther's thumb
invade her. She gasped, tried not to be distracted, almost succeeded.
She kept licking at Esther's enlarged clit even as Esther's mittens
spread her wider and wider inside, making room. Esther cried out with
her climax, then immediately demanded, "Another one!"

"Fuck me, then," Misuko begged. "Fuck me, Esther."

"Like this?" Esther said, pressing the tip of a mitten against Misuko's
cunt.

"Yes, yes!" Misuko gasped, dropping her head between Esther's legs and
licking even harder. Esther's press faltered for a moment, but then she
began pushing into Misuko again, pushing. Misuko felt her cunt flower
open, wishing for more of Esther's invading mitten. She let it happen,
let herself be carried away on waves of ecstasy. She came, screaming,
her voice barely muffled by Esther's sweet pussy.

She raised her head and looked behind to see Esther's smile. She shook
herself and lowered her head back to her task, licking Esther's cunt,
attacking her clit. She sucked on Esther's clit and felt the other woman
tense up hard. She backed off and licked at her copious juices for a
moment before diving back in, sucking and nibbling, until Esther had
her second noisy orgasm.

She collapsed onto the bed and realized that there was still a hand in her
cunt. Esther wiggled it, teasing her. She groaned. "Don't," she whimpered.

"Why not?" Esther said.

"Because... because..." She couldn't think of a good answer. She knew she
wanted Esther to stop, but she couldn't come up with a good reason for
why she wanted Esther to stop. She tried to fight off the orgasm that was
building inside her, tried not to let it happen, but she couldn't stop
it. Esther knew how to do that to her. Esther knew how to push her. She
was coming again before she knew it, crying hard into the mattress,
squeezing tears from her eyes even as waves of ecstatic pleasure roared
through her. "Esther..."

"I'll stop," Esther said. Misuko felt the tentacle within her wrap tightly
on itself, and then Esther eased it out. The Tindal bounced around in
bed until she could kiss Misuko. Misuko gently kissed her back. "Thank
you!" Esther said. "That was fun!"

Misuko nodded. "It was." And she had to admit to herself that it was.
She liked it when Esther did that to her, made her come even when her
body was telling her she had had enough. She worried about what it said
about her, that she couldn't say "no" even when she was thinking it. She
was glad Esther understood. It helped make up for all the other things.

"Are you falling asleep on me?" Esther said, that little whining voice
back.

"Mwha? No," Misuko said.

"Yes, you are," Esther said. "You always fall asleep after you get
fucked silly."

"Not always," Misuko mumbled.

"Yes, you do," Esther teased. "Anyway, if you want to sleep, go ahead.
The ship will fly itself. I'll go spend time in my Realm."
  _________________________________________________________________

When Misuko awoke, Esther was lying beside her and sleeping soundly.
For a moment she looked down on the blue-furred fem with relief that,
at least for a while, she had her life to herself.

She rose from the bed and walked down the corridor to the front of the
ship. She glanced at the controls and learned that they were less than
an hour from transit and insertion. With a sigh she sat down in the
command chair and pulled up the relevant materials.

A panel beeped at her, and when she looked up Indigo 161-4 was in
front of her. "What a beautiful world," she muttered as she looked on.
She examined the panel in front of her and asked for a standard orbit.
The machine knew what she meant and programmed itself to go into a
low, looping insertion. "Whenever you're ready," she told it, "drop
the probes."

Even though it was not an AI it knew what she meant. A display to her left
read: "Drop in eight minutes." She nodded, watching with satisfaction
as the counter started to go down. She went back to her reading, only
to be startled by a loud CLANG! as the monitor stated that the first
set of probes had been dropped. Every twenty minutes or so for the
next six hours, that sound rang through the ship. It woke Esther up,
who immediately dove into her Realm to shut off her external hearing
and ignore it.

Misuko watched the displays instead. She could see the fine tracery
of lines from the microprobes starting the trace their way through the
globe, looking for subtle differences in neutrino emissions, gravitational
differences, or even microcorrane fractures. Something had to show up.

Esther came out of their cabin when the noise had stopped. She looked
bleary-eyed and, from Misuko's vantage, needed a shower. "Did you find
it yet?"

"Nope," Misuko said, wondering why everything Esther said sounded
sarcastic. "I just started. It might be a few days. A few weeks, even.
I might never find it. It might not even be here."

"How many are there like this again?" Esther said.

"Seriously? There were over six hundred colony attempts, and fully a
third of them disappeared into the great void between zero-two hundred
and zero-eight hundred. Less disappeared as time went on and the
technology improved. That's just the live body colonies. There were
thousands of embryonic colonies, and tens of thousands of seedships.
Terra was nothing if not fecund."

"It almost seems perverse. Typical something males would do. Little
spermships. Oh, I forget. You like guys, don't you?" There it was again,
that damned sarcasm.

"I like you," she said, smiling up at Esther, who returned it.

"I know."

"Besides, when were you ever a lesbian separatist?"

"I'm not. I just don't want to fuck guys. I don't see how you could,
either. Especially not human guys. All that weird body hair."

Misuko shrugged and went back to her searching. Esther kicked around in
the co-pilot's chair for a while, watching. "When are we gonna land?"

"When I find something interesting, or before bedtime, whichever comes
first."

"Bedtime? That's hours from now!"

"So?"

"I'm bored!"

"So?" Misuko said again. "Esther, I came here to do a job. I said you
could come along. I want you too, really, but... I'm here to work."

"So what is the story with this place? If it's such a nice human-ready
world, why does nobody want it?"

"Because it's doomed. There's a black hole only a few light years away. In
less than a hundred thousand years the place is going to get eaten. Even
before that, the gravitation of the black hole will start tearing the
sun apart and make the planet uninhabitable."

"So why are we out here?"

Misuko sighed. She had explained this all before. "Because of the
colonists."

"They're dead, aren't they? I mean, if they made it at all."

"We don't know if they made it. We know they tried. The probe found no
evidence of human life, but it did find lots of Terran plants."

"So they did make it!"

"Or they were following an Anderson seeder probe," Misuko pointed out.
"Which did make it and successfully dropped its cargo. But they should
have made it. This wasn't some poor colony ship. These people had
money. The crew was almost entirely cyber, and this was pre-AI."

"Pre-AI?" Esther said. "This was around six hundred, though. What if
it wasn't 'pre-' enough? What if one of the AIs went crazy, you know,
like that Nameless incident."

Misuko smiled. "That would be very dramatic, wouldn't it? A brave human
crew blowing up the ship rather than leave a mad AI with a human-ready
world, rich with minerals and the Turings to mine it and create an army
to take on the universe!"

"Something like that. I suppose there's no sign of that on the planet,
either."

"Nope."

"How boring!"

"At least we're not spending our summer stuck in the library."

"I guess," Esther said. "I'm gonna go play in my Realm."

"What do you do in there?"

"What I always do. Play around. Go swimming. Read. There are other
people in there, but they're not AI. Just good SIs. You can tell the
difference fast enough. But it's much bigger in there than it is in this
stupid ship."

"Have sex?" Misuko said, suddenly feeling jealous.

"No way. I save that for the hottest fem on Hiroshi!"

Misuko blushed. "Then I'll be here when you come back."
  _________________________________________________________________

Misuko landed the ship without waking Esther, who was either asleep or
Realmed, it was hard for her to know which. She had chosen a tropical
island setting within the epicenter of the Terran infestation, where the
Anderson probe had landed and started clearing out an ecological niche
for its cargo. Terran life was tenacious. Landed on even an already
inhabited planet like this, it was very successful at pushing back the
native forms into whatever niches it could find. Even after less than
two thousand years it occupied a third of the planet and was voraciously
pushing back the borders every year.

It was a bit of a shame that neither the native life nor the Terran life
had much of a future ahead of it. Misuko thought it deserved at least
a couple million years.

She had already gone through the safety tests, opened up the ship, and
set up the awning outside when Esther finally emerged from wherever she
had been and blinked into the sunlight. "It's pretty!" she said.

"Do you like it?" Misuko said. "I tried to pick a beach you would like."

"Oh, Misuko, it's lovely!" She gave Misuko the grin that made knees go
week, and then abruptly turned back into the ship. Misuko sighed. That
was Esther.

She let the ship deploy their hardware under the awning. A chair,
a folding desk, and a disk the size of a saucer for a datacenter was
all that she needed. She sat down and let the holograms fill the air
about her. She could see the orbits of the sixty-four satellites they
had deployed about the planets, their strict programming giving them
careful sweeps of the world, intersecting it, taking it apart internally,
letting her know if there were any anomalous metal deposits that might
be a ship. They had already found their test case: the Anderson probe
showed up clearly, so she had something to calibrate on. Esther came
out a few minutes later, her blue fur highlighted by a yellow one-piece
swimsuit. "What is that for?"

"Don't you think it's pretty?" Esther said.

"It's very beautiful." She especially admired the way it showed off and
highlighted Esther's perfect thighs. It made her want Esther in ways
that she knew a responsible person would do their best to ignore when
they were on a job. "But you don't need a modesty suit around me, do you?"

"If it teases you, of course I do!" Esther said. She raced down to the
edge of the beach and than began swimming out. A spherical security
drone overhead scanned the water about her for predators to shoot.
Misuko watched her splash with her heart racing and her nerves on
edge. "What is it about Esther?" she said to herself.

She shook her head and turned her attention back to the datacenter.
After an hour or so she figured out she wasn't going to get much
more out of it until it actually found something worth investigating.
Besides, she had come here for her vacation, not to just stare at the
data screens. Esther was right about that.

She picked up a fun little book that she had found in her to-read
list. It had been in the list for at least fifteen years, she noticed,
but she supposed that it was better that she eventually read than that
she walk around with it on the list for the rest of her life, which could
be a very long time. She picked up the veribook she kept for occasions
like this, a soft-covered thing of very light pages that had a worn,
beat-up appearance. "Shojouai," she said. "I bet my accent is terrible."

The book changed to a brightly decorated cover of two women in a tight
embrace, one clearly dominant over the other. "Heh," she said softly.
"That was us, once. Once upon a time." She looked out over the beach
and could just barely see the glint of the seccor drone somewhere a
few hundred yards off-shore. She picked up the book and a towel and,
without changing her clothing, laid down on the sand just beyond the
shade provided by the awning. "I guess I should have worn a ring,"
she muttered to herself.

The day passed. Esther returned, and they had lunch together. By the
time night fell Misuko was feeling exhausted. Her clock and the planetary
orbit were on different cycles and she had decided to stay up and power
through her exhaustion rather than have a shortened sleep cycle.

She yawned. "I'm off to bed."

"So soon?" Esther said. "But... I wanted you to stay and play with me?"

"Honey, I've been awake for nearly forty hours. I'm in no shape to
play. And after that glass of wine, I'm definitely going to bed." She
kissed Esther on the cheek. "I'll get the bed warm for you."

"As if that's what I want," Esther said, crossing her arms.

"Goodnight, Esther."

"Goodnight, Misuko."
  _________________________________________________________________

After four days on the beach, Misuko was about ready to throw Esther to
the sharks or their local equivalent. The battle cry of "I'm bored!" sang
out across the beach time and again, and each time Misuko pointed out to
Esther that she had chosen to be here and had known what it would entail,
Esther crossed her arms in a huff and disappeared into her Realm. She
would lie on the bed, her eyes closed, her breathing regular, as highly
advanced SI systems took over the jobs of feeding her and removing
wastes from her body neatly via SDisk transposition while other systems
interacted with her brain and kept her entertained. Every few hours she
would emerge to learn that nothing had changed, that Misuko hadn't found
anything worth looking at, that they were still on the same beach.

Misuko found herself wanting Esther's attention more often, even with
all the whining and complaining, but each time the satisfaction seemed
less all-encompassing than it had been the time before. She wondered if
she were getting used to Esther's style of lovemaking or just getting
tired of using the sex as an excuse to shut her girlfriend up.

Misuko lifted a mug of kfi to her lips and took a deep drink. The
Sendar equivalent of coffee warmed her without making her nervous and
she appreciated it for its power to do just that. She looked at the data
display, still floating in the night sky above the ship, still showing
the intersections that might have illustrated the anomaly.

"Computer," she said. "What's that?" She pointed at a spot on the sphere
that was outlined in a hot white color.

Words appeared on a display to her left, reading: Metal deposit.

"Does it match the profile of the Anderson probe in terms of density
and distribution of space?"

Yes.

"Then why wasn't I informed about it?"

Anomaly is in deep water and is outside the Anderson probe circle
of influence. Probability of it being the target are estimated to be
below 50%.

"Says you," Misuko replied. "Prepare for liftoff. We go at dawn."
  _________________________________________________________________

"Why are we flying?" Esther said, coming out from her cabin, looking a
bit bleary-eyed once more.

"I found something."

"The ship?"

"We'll see," Misuko said as she consulted the maps before her. "Right
there, ship. That's the closest island, if I read this correctly." She
looked up at Esther and smiled. She hoped the change of scene would
brighten Esther's mood.

Esther gave her a momentary grin in reply and then sat down in the other
seat, her long legs hung over the arm. "That's deep water. Guess you'll
have to unpack the deep-sea probe, huh?"

Misuko looked up at Esther and wondered if there was that hint of cruelty
in Esther again, the one that delighted in her discomfort. "I guess so,"
she sighed.

"Oh, it's not so bad," Esther said. "It's just a hunk of metal."

"You know I don't like robots," Misuko said.

Esther shrugged. "I don't know why not. They're a fact of life. And
they've made life easier for millions of people. I don't see why you
have to exclude them."

"I like people," Misuko said.

"They are people," Esther said.

"I suppose. I don't know. I've never actually met a robot. Unless you
count the ship that took me from Abi to New Hiroshi. A few AIs, like
the one at the university. I guess I'm just used to organics. I like
you. You're people. You're warm and you're sexy. You're not... a machine."

"Sure I am," Esther said. "A meat machine, made for fucking." She
giggled. "How long until I can get my hands on you again, anyway?"

Misuko smiled. "About fifteen minutes until we set down, and then...
Oh, what the heck. You can have me in sixteen minutes."

"Charm!" Esther exclaimed.

And sixteen minutes later Misuko and Esther were rolling in bed
together. Misuko had her head firmly between Esther's furred thighs and
was licking dutifully at Esther's cunt, lapping up the juices that flowed
from her fountain. "Oh, Misuko," Esther gasped. "Fingers!"

Misuko complied, slipping one and then another finger up into Esther's
grasping pussy, reaching back to caress Esther's cervix. Esther was
probably the only woman she had ever known who liked that sensation, but
she liked it a lot and Misuko liked giving it to her. She tapped at it
with her fingertips while her tongue tortured the Tindal's clit and hood.

Esther came with all the drama Misuko could wring out of her, and then
collapsed onto the bed. "So good!" she said.

Misuko crawled up the bed and kissed her lips. "Good for you," she
said. She cuddled close to Esther, who slid her fingers down between
Misuko's thighs, but Misuko gently dislodged the hand probing her
vulva. "Later," she said.

"But, I wanna see you come now!" Esther said.

"And I have work to do."

"Hmph," Esther said. "I suppose you don't want me to go with you. I
could ride in the probe, you know."

"I guess you could," Misuko agreed.

She untangled herself from Esther's legs and the bedsheets and made
her way out of the ship. It had already deployed itself, the awning
extending away from the ship, her chair and table set up, the holodisplays
going full strength. She walked around to the other side and pushed
a button. One of the cargo holds opened up to reveal a two-meter tall
robot of gleaming metal, its legs molded together as if it stood on a
single column, its body curiously streamlined. It was strapped to the
wall like some victim ready for the red hot poker.  Next to it was a
red plastic toolbox.

Misuko freed the toolbox from its moorings and pulled loose the clamps
that held the robot's straps. From the toolbox she picked up a small,
hand-held unit with a pair of joysticks and a dizzying array of buttons:
four under each thumb plus two under the forefingers and another pair
of trigger-like buttons at the front, plus a pair of switches in the
center. She threw one of the switches to the 'on' position.

The robot straightened up as if it had never been deactivated. Misuko
quickly figured out how to get the thing to walk in the direction she
wanted, and after a few minutes she had a great deal of appreciation for
the way the programmers had anticipated the most common wants of the
beginning user. She was able to make it walk, jump, and move its arms
with simple ease, and if she held an object in front of it and played with
the right joystick, it immediately understood its job to grasp the object.

But for what she really wanted to do, she would want a more comprehensive
command system. For that, she would need the Brace unit.  She reached
into the toolbox and picked out the headset, a unit that covered her
eyes, ears, and head, allowing her to see what the robot saw but give
orders through her thinking. As recommended in the manual she ordered
the robot to sit down, then put on the head set.

"This isn't so bad," she thought as she looked through the glasses.
The robot was looking down the beach. She turned her head and nothing
happened. She thought about turning the robot's head and the view shifted
until it was looking at her. She smiled. "Mom would never approve." She
ordered the machine to stand up.

It was looking down at her, and she suddenly had an understanding of just
why her parents had chosen Abi as the world where they would raise their
children. She looked small and insignificant compared to this two-meter
tall overpowered creature of metal, and the fact that it had no desires
of its own but only what she gave it mollified her only a little.

She turned it toward the beach, integrating into her left eye's view a
map of her target. A small window opened underneath the map and Esther
grinned out at her. Misuko didn't recognize the background. "Is that in
your Realm?" she said.

"Yep," Esther said. "What do you think?" It was much like the beach on
which they had parked the previous week, except that in her background
a cabana waited with a grinning man behind the counter. Esther had a
drink in hand.

"If all you wanted was a man to serve you drinks..."

"You would never have allowed it," Esther said. "You hate robots,
remember?"

"I don't hate them," Misuko said. "They just... "

"I know, I know. You come from Abi. What's their motto? 'The human future
they way it was meant to be?'"

"It is not!" Misuko said, feeling that Esther was needling her unfairly
again. "They just like doing things their own way on Abi, without
machine input."

"You're using a robot," Esther teased.

"No, I'm using a humanoid-shaped probe. There is no AI involved at
all. Metal shouldn't want." Misuko turned her attention back to the probe,
which was soaring through the depths of the sea at a terrific clip. It
was managing over forty knots. She programmed it with the destination and
then told her datacenter that she wanted to be notified when it was within
ten minutes of the target. "There. Don't mess with it," she told Esther.

"I won't, I won't. Wanna play?"

Misuko couldn't resist. "Sure." She took off the headset and realized
just how much she disliked it, even it if was purely receptive and didn't
do anything to mess with her memory or perceptions. Her concern was
immediately wiped away by Esther's mitten creeping under her t-shirt. She
giggled. "You're randy today," Misuko said.

"Always," Esther said. She grabbed Misuko's hand and pulled her down
to Misuko's beach towel. Esther surprised her by kissing her, hard. In
the past week Esther had been kissing her less and less, but now she
seemed to want to feed of Misuko's kisses, and Misuko was not about to
disagree. "You're so sexy, Misuko," Esther breathed.

Misuko shut her up with another kiss, this time leading with her tongue,
licking at Esther's lips and tongue, nibbling on her chin.  Esther's own
mouth sought out her lips again and the two of them kissed again. Misuko
loved kissing. It was the sexiest thing she knew and she never got
enough of it, not from Esther. Even today, Esther broke off before she
was ready. But the mittens on her breasts were more than distracting
enough, and when Esther's mouth closed about her nipple she lost any
interest in protesting.

"Oh, honey..." she gasped as Esther's thumb found its way into the shorts
she wore.

"You have the cutest clothes!" Esther said, admiring the purple camouflage
cutoffs. "And these do such nice things for your butt!" But her mitten
was already playing with Misuko's clitoris, mashing and grinding it
against between wet, flushed lips. Misuko whimpered. "This is for last
night!" Esther grinned. "You wouldn't let me make you come."

"Well," Misuko breathed. "You have your chance now."

"I do, don't I?" Esther said. She tugged with one mitten and Misuko's
shorts opened with a snap. She slid them down off Misuko's thighs but left
her cotton panties in place. "You have such good taste in clothes. Must
be something about that primitive place you call home."

Misuko was too swept away with pleasure to protest Esther's unfair
characterization of her planet. That damned thumb, that hot mitten,
all pressed against her swollen, needy, wanting cunt. It took every last
thought she had just to keep breathing. She wanted to come. Her whole body
was wrapped up in a need to come. "Esther, Esther, please!"  she begged.

Esther's mitten pressed harder, but her thumbpad kept the same steady,
torturous rolling motion across her clit, each move accompanied by
a little stab of pleasure, a reach for the next rung on her climb to
ecstasy. She whimpered. Her body tensed. She couldn't stand it anymore,
why was she taking so long to come?

Esther was staring at her, a smile playing on her lips. Misuko snarled and
reached out, pulling Esther into a tight kiss. Esther's mitten faltered
only for a moment and then she was returning the kiss, their tongues
pressed together. For Misuko, it was what she had needed. She came,
her scream of ecstatic relief muffled by Esther's shoulder. "Oh, fah,
oh, fah, oh fah..." she breathed as she collapsed onto the towel.

Esther grinned down at her. "Wow. I haven't seen you do that in a while."

"Kiss me again," Misuko begged.

Esther looked down and then gave her a quick kiss that left Misuko
wanting more. Then she stood up. "Have fun with your probe," she said.
"Don't sleep too late."

Misuko didn't feel sleepy.

Which didn't explain why, a minute later, the alarm was going off
indicating that the probe was within reach of the target. She blinked and
looked up. Someone had planted a beach umbrella in the sand next to her,
shielding her from the sun, which now lay close to the horizon. "Damn,"
she muttered. She sat up and grabbed the headset; it had fallen in the
sand next to her. She blew off the few loose grains and put the unit
over her head, looking down into the sea. The robot had turned on the
floodlights mounted in its shoulders and chest, illuminating the water
in all directions. She examined the displays and ordered the robot to
head in the direction of the target.

"Hi!" Esther smiled at her out of the display window in her left eye.
"Find anything yet?"

Behind Esther people seemed to be milling and dancing about. "Where are
you now?"

"Club Cyberia," Esther said. "I wanted to go dancing. It's a pity you
hate Realms so much."

"What's the point of dancing if it doesn't really affect your body?"
Misuko said, feeling rhetorical. "Never mind. Yeah, I think I'm getting
close. Remember that it might not even be the ship."

"But you think it is," Esther said.

"Yes." The probe sliced through the deep sea and approached the metallic
object. As the object came into view, Misuko's heart soared.  It was a
ship, and a big one too. "They did crash!" she said.

"Is that it?" Esther said, not hiding a sense of disappointment.

"Yes! That's it!" She was looking at the aspect readings coming back
and matched up the wreck with what she knew about the original ship.
"It wasn't even made to land; it wasn't even meant for orbital
insertion. I was right! Everyone was looking in the wrong place. They
did make it here, they just ditched."

"And died," Esther said.

"That's what happens when you crash a starship," Misuko said. "What a
mess." It was huge; the ship had been over a kilometer long, and this
piece appeared to be the largest of three strewn over an eight-kilometer
lane. "I'm going to be busy."

"Oh," Esther said. "Okay." The window closed.

Misuko saw less and less of Esther as the days passed. That was fine with
her. She had work to do, and Esther would only interfere. They still
saw one another at breakfast and dinner, and they still slept together
every night, but Esther was perceptive enough to know to stay out of
her lover's way.

That didn't stop her from complaining about Misuko's lack of
attention. Her litany of "I'm bored!" messages, both in person and in
messages she left on Misuko's mail queue, grew steadily. A particularly
powerful storm that shook the ship and crackled the air didn't entertain
her.

Misuko was down in the wreck late one evening when Esther's mitten strayed
down her shirt and began playing with the buttons. "Stop," she said.

"Why?" Esther muttered. "Misuko, it's been two days since we last had
sex. You're always too busy, or too tired, or something. I don't think
you like me anymore."

"Of course I like you," she said. She wasn't sure she felt it, but she
said it anyway. "I just want to get this done."

"What are you looking at?"

"Take a look," she said, taking the headset off and handing it to
Esther. "It's an emergency escape airlock into what I think is one of
the storage quarters. It's tightly sealed." Esther put the headset on
and settled it over her nose. "Don't touch anything," Misuko said.

"I don't get it. Why put all that work into the door? Why not just push
that button there?"

"Which one?"

"The one under the plastic panel. OUCH!" Esther had reached up to put
her hands between her ears and the headset.

"What did you do?" Misuko said, yanking the headset off Esther's head
and peering through the goggles. "What the? You didn't actually press
that button, did you?" she said.

"Well, yeah. It just said 'emergency open.' I mean, you wanted to get
in, right?"

"Esther, those were explosive bolts on the door! If there was any
pressure differential... oh no. Esther, how could you?" Misuko was near
tears as she surveyed the damage. Esther's casual touch had shattered
the ship where she had been working; a new faultline ran the length
of the wreckage and hundreds of cargo units floated free in the water,
heading for the surface.

"I didn't do anything," Esther said.

"Yes, you did!" Misuko said. "You just trashed a dig! Trashed it bad!"

"But... they're dead. It's not like it really matters."

Misuko stared at her, gaping, open-mouthed. "You really don't understand,
do you? This is my life, this is my work. I know you don't care about it,
but you could at least respect that I do! These people are part of the
human story!"

"Not that it'll ever be complete," Esther said.

"It's my job to make it less incomplete! These people were part of that! I
wanted to tell their story to other people, and now you've made that
so much harder!" She put her head in her hands. "Oh, what am I going to
do now?"

She lifted the goggles off her head and blinked. Esther was gone.

She spent hours tagging and cataloging everything that was floating nearby
or was still loose in the cargo bay, trying to identify most of them by
name. She wanted to open up some of the more interesting ones, the ones
that held personal items, such as clothing or mementos.  Hundreds of
cargo containers had risen to the surface, and as she examined the data
coming in from her satellites overhead she saw another storm coming, a
big one. "Merde," she sighed. She didn't even know what the word meant,
but she knew it was a curse and that's all she needed to know.

The storm swept through the area where the cargo had surfaced three hours
later, and barreled on through the evening until it hit their little
island. The ship dutifully rolled up all outside equipment and locked
down all the hatches. Misuko sat in the commander's chair and watched
the wind send waves crashing up onto the beach and over the ship, and
fumed. She finally walked back to the spare cabin and went to sleep. She
didn't want to bother Esther. Esther had become bother enough.
  _________________________________________________________________

When she woke in the morning, she peeked in and saw that her Tindal friend
had retreated to her Realm, maybe even to stay there for as long as the
trip would last. In her mail there were no messages for her. She walked
out onto the flight deck and peered out the floor-to-ceiling wraparound
front window. The storm had littered the beach with the wreckage of the
native forest. Fronds, shattered trunks, torn clumps of vegetation were
strewn across the sand like some casual work of art history, without
discernible rhyme or reason.  She opened up the side wall of the ship
and stepped out. The air smelled wonderful, clean, salty, and somehow
alive with power. It was a sensation she hadn't experienced in years.

She went back in and grabbed a waterpack, a breakfast bar, and a pair
of walking shoes. Esther had done more exploring of this volcanic chunk
than she had, and now it was her turn to get away from the ship and the
responsibilities it represented and just take a day off.

And a day off from Esther.

She walked for two hours down the beach, talking to nobody in particular,
talking to herself about nothing in particular. Often her conversation
with herself came back to whether or not she would continue her
relationship with Esther when they got home. The answer, she decided
with herself, was probably not. But, she pointed out to herself, she had
said that about other bad relationships in the past and never actually
done it. She debated as to whether or not Esther represented a bad
relationship, and she agreed that she wasn't sure yet.

In the midst of all this serious conversing, she stumbled over a box
that she might not have noticed otherwise. "What the? Hey!" It was
a small cargo module from the wrecked ship, still sealed. She turned
to ask the seccor to catalog it when she realized she had forgotten a
seccor entirely.

A curious sensation of fear gripped her about the spine. Her homeworld
was a place without human-like AIs, but people still had security drones
that watched over them and protected them from transient dangers. Her
parents referred to her home as neo-primitive.

But without a seccor, it was all primitive here. She had never been
without one before, and the idea that she was so completely vulnerable
bothered her. To get anything-- food, water, shelter, or protection--
she was going to have to walk back to the ship. That wasn't a problem.
She knew which direction she had walked and could just turn around.
Unless Esther took their ship and flew away, she was safe. She debated
turning around and getting one, then decided she didn't want to do the
walk twice.

She kept walking down the beach.

As she walked, she spotted four or five more cargo modules, one quite
large. It was labeled, "Automobile: 1959 Mercury." She had no idea what
it meant, but it was labeled as a 'personal' item. She would have to
get it into the ship's registry and have someone come back to pick it up.

She was now actively scanning the beach, making sure she didn't miss a
thing from the collection on the beach. Each item was a treasure fit
for a museum, and each an object of fascination for a historian like
herself. She barely resisted the temptation to crack open one or two
immediately and look inside.

Then she saw the body. It was propped up against a tree-trunk, as if
someone had crawled up on shore and then collapsed there "Ohmifah,"
she said, running toward it. She kept insisting to herself that nobody
could have survived the trip, that they hadn't had statis systems then
and cryogenics wouldn't have worked for so long. It had to be something
else. There had to be an alternative explanation. It couldn't be a
survivor. It wasn't possible.

But she ran anyway. Attending to the injured, caring for others, these
were still ingrained on her nervous system as they are on any spacefaring
species'. Even without considering the consequences, or her own lack
of security, she was hurrying to examine the body, to see if there was
something she could do to help.

It was a fem human, pale skinned with dark brown hair. The body was
clothed in tatters and the hair fell forward, obscuring her face.
Misuko ran up and knelt beside her, reaching out to touch the skin.
"Are you okay? Hello?"

The body moved, and then her head lifted and looked at Misuko. Misuko
startled back with a scream, and the girl did the same. Misuko looked at
the wide, frightened eyes, and then between them she spotted the triangle
on the girl's forehead with the rounded angles and the soft-lit red dot
at the bottommost of them. "A... a robot?"

The girl-- the robot-- was staring at her. It made sense, Misuko
thought. A human couldn't have survived; there was no technology of
that century that would have allowed a human being to survive so long.
But a robot could have been in ordinary storage; as long as there was
no chemical decomposition it would be fine.

But she looked so human. She even looked frightened. "Are you okay?"
she said. She thought again. "Are you functioning?"

The wide-eyed girl-- robot, Misuko reminded herself again-- opened her
mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She put her hands to her lips as
she tried to speak. Finally, she cast her eyes down and just nodded.
"Is your voice broken?"

The girl looked up and nodded. "Can you fix it?" Another nod.
"Internally?" Again, a nod. Misuko's heart beat loud in her chest. It
was hard for her to believe that she may have an actual witness to the
crash. "Can you get up?"

The girl put her hand on the tree and unsteadily rose to her feet.
Misuko's heart skipped, because the girl was utterly beautiful. Misuko
realized that of course she would be, she was manufactured. But
then Esther had confessed to a few modifications of her own. Misuko
had whatever her parent's genes had given her, but she was sure that
somewhere back in the past there had been fixes to take out the most
egregious of dysmorphias.

"C'mon," she said. She had to keep reminding herself that the "girl"
was just a machine. Every time she looked at it, she saw a girl in need
of help, not a machine at all.

The girl took two steps forward, stumbled and fell. Misuko could even
see tears in her eyes as she held up her hand and seemed to be pleading
to be helped up. Misuko reached down and offered her own hand, helping
the girl back up. "I wish you could tell me your name."

"Linia," the girl whispered.

"What?" Misuko said.

"Linia. I think my name is Linia." Her voice was so faint that Misuko
could barely make out the syllables. But it was clear enough for
understanding.

"You can talk!"

"Yes," Linia said. "I needed time to fix my voice." It was getting
stronger. "Thank you for finding me."

Misuko found herself smiling. "You're welcome."

Linia looked up and down the beach. "Where am I?"

"Indigo 161-4. Your ship crashed here. Do you remember anything of
your trip?"

Linia shook her head. "My master had me put into storage before we
left. His wife did not like me, but he hoped that I would be able to serve
him when we reached the new world." Her eyes scanned the horizon. "Where
is he?"

"Your... master?" Misuko said. She supposed that she should find the
word comforting because it emphasized Linia's machine origins.  Instead,
she found it quite the opposite, as if there were something fundamentally
wrong with such a girl calling anyone 'master.' Linia acted human. Misuko
understood that that was her role', but it was such a convincing charade
that she continued giving Linia the respect she would accord another
human being.

"Yes, Master Steven."

Misuko shook her head. "If he was on the ship then he's dead, I'm
afraid. They all are. The ship crashed. You don't know any of that?"

Linia looked up sharply, her eyes full and wet. "Dead? Dead? Oh no!"
Misuko watched with shock as Linia seemed to have an emotional
meltdown. "He... he can't be dead. Oh, no! Oh, no!" She fell to the
sand, pitched forward, weeping. "He can't be dead. He was supposed to
live forever!"

Misuko dropped down to the sand next to her. "Linia?"

The girl reached out and grabbed Misuko, sobbing. "He can't be dead.
He can't be."

"Everybody from the ship is dead, Linia," Misuko said. "It happened
more than two thousand years ago. It's history now." Even as she said it
she realized that she was lying to the poor girl. To Linia, it had been
yesterday that she had last seen her "Master." The word left a strong
and ugly aftertaste in Misuko's mind.

"Linia, come with me. Let's go back to my ship."

"Why?" Linia said. Before, when she had spoken, her voice had been warm
and conversational, if a touch girlish. Now, it was cold and ugly. "If
what you say is true, I have no reason to continue functioning."

Misuko wondered if Esther would have a problem with Linia's logic.
Esther grew up around robots and knew how to differentiate them from
other human beings. But then, Esther saw robots as other human beings.
Misuko couldn't separate the two. She heard a robot in Linia's voice,
but she saw a lost girl. She tried to find a way around Linia's current
state of mind by delving into her historical knowledge. Linia thought
of herself as property, owned by a master, and those notions were not
completely foreign to Misuko even if the historical equivalents to
them were hopelessly archaic. "Linia, even if your master is dead and
cannot claim you, someone can, maybe his estate or some sort of holding
organization. In any circumstances you are an expensive and valuable piece
of property that cannot be allowed to simply shut down. You represent
capital and are not to be wasted."

Linia looked up at her. "All right. I will come with you." Her
conversational tone returned. "After all, I have nothing to lose." And
then she smiled. Misuko shook her head with surprise; the smile lit up
Linia's face in a way that made her dizzy.

"What's your name?" Linia said.

"Misuko Ffanci."

"What are you doing on Indigo 161-4?"

"Looking for you, actually," Misuko said. "Well, not really. We were
looking for the wreck of the Indigo 161-4 Colony Expedition One,
registry name Second Chances. I found something about it in a library
search and decided to follow up on it. Nobody ever had before because
this is actually a terrible world to try and terraform."

"Why?" Linia looked around. "It's beautiful."

"It's also going to blow up in a few thousand years."

"Oh. I guess that would be bad."

"I guess so, too," Misuko said with a smile. She glanced over at
Linia. Her rust-tartan dress was tattered about the knees, her socks had
holes, she had lost her shoes. Her white blouse was mostly intact, but it
was missing a strategic button and Misuko would sometimes catch a glimpse
of one of Linia's large, swinging breasts through the opening. Linia
gave her another of her dizzying smiles.

Misuko tried to remind herself that Linia was just a machine. She was
pre-conscious and with a programming fundamentally dedicated to the
well-being of human beings. A different moral architecture, one that,
some argued, made such machines better than human beings, at least as
far as human interaction with them went. Misuko suddenly realized that
her homeworld's anachronistic choices left her unprepared to deal with
situations like this one.

"And how often do situations like this one arise?" she asked herself.

"Excuse me?" Linia said.

"I'm sorry. Talking to myself. I do that from time to time."

"Oh, that's okay," Linia said. "If you would like, I can forget what
you just said."

"No," Misuko said. "Only if you want to."

They walked on until they came back within sight of her ship. Esther was
sitting in her chair, and a seccor drone came zipping out to look at them
as they approached. "There you are!" Esther said angrily. "Who is that?"

"Esther, this is Linia. Linia, this is my lover, Esther." The word
'lover' did not feel right in Misuko's mouth. She wasn't sure why.
"Linia is a robot that was in that storage compartment you blew up."

"I did not blow it up!" Esther said, suddenly getting angry. She looked
at Linia. "Wow. A sixth-century android. Isn't that what they called
them back then?"

"Yes," Linia said. "Android. That is my designation for repair purposes."

"I was going to get inside and go through the library to see if I could
find anything on Linia."

"Misuko," Esther said, her face suddenly fallen with concern. "You walked
out without a seccor. You had me so scared all day! I didn't know what
had happened to you. People don't walk away without a seccor unless
they're looking to get killed!"

"I know, it was stupid of me. I just... wanted to get away. I was so
mad at you for yesterday."

"But look what I did," Esther said. "I found you a witness."

Misuko fought down a sudden surge of her own anger. Esther had not
"found" her a witness. She had created a disaster. In the process, she
had released some flotsam, one unit of which happened to be a robot.
It was a lucky coincidence. She looked at her girlfriend, kept her mouth
shut, and nodded. "Come on. I need to get the corrane radio going. I
need to talk to Professor Kapardin."

She sat down at the console while Esther and Linia gathered around
her. It took her ten minutes to get the laser lined up while the ship's
computer tallied the coordinate changes necessitated by gravitational
bodies between Indigo 161-4 and the nearest repeater station in orbit
around star Cauriyi 21. She waited for the connection to complete,
and then asked to be routed to the head of history department at New
Hisroshi. She had no idea what time it was there and had not bothered
to check.

"Misuko? Miss Ffanci? Aki said you were on the gradia. I take it you
are enjoying your vacation?"

Misuko looked into ancient, warm eyes inhabiting the otherwise youthful,
strong face of her school adviser. "Yes, Professor. I have good news! I
found it!"

"It... you mean the colonial expedition? You have actually found it?"

"Yes, sir! The new microprobes and a concentration on the sea were it.
They did crash the ship, and it did fall in the sea. I've mapped out
an eight-mile region across which I've found most of the wreckage. But
that's not the best part, sir. I found... I found a survivor!"

"You what?" he said. "Misuko, that is simply not possible."

"I would think so, too, sir, except that we forgot one detail when I
was discussing this with you: there were robots on the ship! And I've
found one. I remember you mentioning the Koresh modifications, the ones
that finally put Earth into the post-AI period, and I think the robot
I've found has them." She moved away from the screen, standing up to
position Linia in front of it. "Professor, this is Linia."

"Hello, honored sir," Linia said in quiet, respectful tones.

"Hello, Miss Linia," Professor Kapardin replied. "Misuko, what do you
suppose you need now?"

Misuko sat back down in the command chair before the monitor. "I suppose,
sir, what I need now is team to come and finish the excavation. There
is a starship from the six hundreds down there."

"The crushed remains of a starship, perhaps," he replied with an
enthusiastic smile. "But certainly the dream of every documentary
historian is to get his hands on such a prize-- the records, the history,
the artifacts." He looked up. "Very well, I will put together a follow-up
expedition with the proper equipment. You will send me the requisite facts
I'll need to convince the university of the necessity of an expedition?"

"Of course, sir. Of course. In the meantime, could you look up some
details about Linia? I'm looking for anything that might help me identify
her owner."

"Have you considered asking her?" her professor said.

"Linia? What can you tell me about your owner? Your origin?"

"I am the property of Steven Steinroor, owner and operator of Steinroor
Cybernetics Channels of North America. I was manufactured in 598,
Pendorian, by the Hunda Machines Company of Japan. I was purchased in 600
by Steinroor Cybernetics Channel as one of fifteen units to be modified
for resale."

"And what's your model designation?"

"My designation at Hunda was as a M66NU Nursing Unit. My designation at
Steinroor was as a TS615RD slash H unit, serial 2021."

"Hmm," the professor said. "I think that might be enough to go on. All
of those dates and labels and names and so forth. I suppose I should be
able to track down something. It was two thousand years ago, but well
after the era of cybernetics. It should be in a database somewhere." He
looked out at the screen. "All right, I'll get started on the search
right away. Misuko?"

"Professor?"

"Misuko, I don't need to tell you this, but... be careful. I don't know
if you should trust having that robot in the ship. It's very old; who
knows what's in its programming or what malfunctions it might have?"

Misuko nodded. "I haven't seen anything unusual yet, sir," Misuko
said. "But I'll keep it in mind."

"Check in about four hours and I'll see what I can tell you."

"Thank you, sir." The connection ended and the screen went dark.  Misuko
looked up at Esther, then over at Linia. "Well, we have time until we
know more. Linia, why don't you sit over there? I'd like to talk to you."

Linia moved to the chair that Esther had regularly occupied for the
trip to Indigo 161 and sat down. Misuko thought that even the way she
sat down was meant to be cute, with hand gestures to smooth out a skirt
that wasn't even there.

"What can that thing tell you, anyway?" Esther said.

"Probably a lot," Misuko replied. "It's a little like having a witness
to the twenty-sixth century. I don't know what she knows and I can't
until she tells me."

"Hmph," Esther said. "Well, have fun then. I'm going to--"

"Go play in your Realm," Misuko finished. "I know. Have fun."

"Hmph." Esther turned on a bare heel and walked back to her cabin.
Misuko sighed.

"I hope I'm not causing a disruption in your relationship," Linia said.

"Therapy mode?" Misuko asked. Linia nodded, her shy smile again warming
the quarters of Misuko's heart. "No, you're not. We...  misunderstood
each other. About this trip. Esther is a city girl from a high-tech
world where people Transcend often enough that it's not even noted on
the screampages. My homeworld is more provincial and we like it that
way. You're the first robot I've ever met."

"I hope I am not a poor example," Linia said. "I don't know how many
years have passed since I was put into storage."

"Two thousand, six hundred. Give or take."

Linia's eyes went wide. "I've been in storage for a quarter of all
human history?"

"I think that's a good way to put it," Misuko agreed. "Now, when you
were put into storage..."

An hour passed. Misuko felt that she had answered as many questions as
she had asked. For a robot from the pre-AI era, Linia was surprisingly
inquisitive. When she asked Linia about it, Linia said that she was
gathering information in order to perform her duties for her master
better. "I must admit that you're a surprising example, not a poor one."

"What do you mean?" Linia said.

"My parents raised me on Abi, a world where there are no conscious robots
or AIs at all. There are lots of computers, don't get me wrong, but the
whole question of moral infrastructures and behavioral foundations for
conscious thought has been eliminated; we simply don't let AIs down on
the surface. I guess that seems bigoted and unfair, but it's the way
the founders wanted it and lots of people move there.  Esther described
it as 'the human future the way we think it was meant to be,' without
machines telling us about things we would rather have found out for
ourselves. I guess... I expected you to be different from a person. But
I keep looking at you and listening to you and you sound so much like
just another human being."

"I was built to be that way."

"I know. But you look so real."

"I feel like a wreck," Linia said, smiling again. Misuko flashed for a
moment on what that tiny mouth with those beautiful lips would feel like
pressed to her breast and shivered. She tried again to remind herself
that Linia was just a machine.

"May I take a shower?"

"What? Oh, fah, I'm sorry!" Misuko said. "I guess... I guess my thinking
of you as a human being doesn't work all that well. Come on, it's this
way." She rose and led Linia down the hall. "I have some clothes that
might fit you, although you're a bit smaller than I am.  What you're
wearing is ruined."

"Master liked it," Linia said with a reverence that made Misuko shiver. "I
will miss him. Misuko, what is going to happen to me next?"

"I don't know," Misuko replied. "I'll ask the professor when he calls
back. Anyway, here's the shower. The soap over there is Pendorian
manufacture, so it's great for your hair, too."

"Thank you, Misuko." Misuko left her and walked back to the command
deck to pull up the library entries on robotics, circa sixth century
Pendorian Era. She could hear the water running in the bathroom and
hoped that Linia was comfortable using it. She had never thought of her
experiences growing up as a handicap.

And as she read though some of the references she had found she become
curious about Esther's reaction. "That thing." As if simply by dint
of age Linia wasn't sophisticated enough to be afforded some kind
of personality. According to the records Misuko found, there was a
good chance that Linia was conscious. She found references to the
"Australian Mod" and the "Centauri Mod", both of which would grant
conscious capacity to the high-end SI systems of that century, and both
of which sometimes resulted in tragedy for both the robot and the person
doing the modification. If Linia had been the personal plaything of a
man who had access to all manner of technological adaptations, there was
always the possibility that he had installed one of the uplifting mods.

She heard a noise and tried to place it, then realized that her mind was
playing tricks on her. It was not that she had heard something but that
she had stopped hearing something. Linia had turned the shower off. She
rose from her chair and walked back to the shower. Without thinking,
she opened the door and found Linia looking at herself in the mirror,
combing her hair. She came up short at the sight of Linia's naked
back. "Um, How was your shower?"

"Wonderful," Linia said. "I feel much better, thank you."

"You're welcome." She watched in the mirror, mesmerized as Linia brushed
her hair. Linia's breasts were large, round and spaced a bit apart. But
what pulled at her attention more than anything was the smooth, perfect
quality of her skin. She could not deny that she was still a human being,
still drawn by qualities that millions of years of evolution had instilled
into her and still unable to deny their power. The bathroom was tiny,
and Misuko found herself standing within centimeters of Linia's back, so
close she could smell the fresh scent of the other woman's hair. Before
she could stop herself, she had reached out to fix a black strand that
had strayed over Linia's shoulder and then found her hand slipping down
Linia's arm. Her fingers caressed Linia's soft skin, the individual hairs
on Linia's arm slipping under her fingertips. "Your skin is so beautiful,"
she said softly. "It's... exciting."

Linia stood still, then turned her head slightly. "Misuko... I think
the professor's right. You guys shouldn't have anything to do with me."

"Huh?" Misuko said. "Why?"

Linia turned to face her. "I... I don't know. I just feel like there's
something not right. I'm interfering with your relationship, maybe. I
don't... I don't... " Her eyes filled with tears and her lips trembled,
and Misuko watched as she lost all control again and began crying. She
tumbled forward into Misuko's surprised hands, sobbing loudly. Misuko
didn't know what to say, but she knew that she could not deny the
pleasure of holding such a beautiful girl in her arms.  Linia cried hard,
uncontrollably, for several minutes before she started to get ahold of
herself. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry."

"Linia? What's wrong?"

"I don't know. I was just standing there, looking at you and me in the
mirror, and I just started to get sad. I don't know why. When I was in
the shower and brushing my hair, I was trying to think of what I was
supposed to do and I couldn't think of anything. When I was with my
Master, I always knew. And now... "

Misuko pushed away from Linia and looked into the other girl's face.
There was nothing mechanical about the eyes there, or the lips. Esther
sometimes had less emotion that Linia. "Meat machine."

"Excuse me?" Linia said.

"Follow me," Misuko said. "I'll explain after I've gotten you dressed.
I won't be able to think straight if I have to keep looking at you
without any clothes on."

Linia giggled and followed Misuko across the hall to her cabin. Misuko
rummaged in one of several bags she had attached to the wall and found
a pair of sweatpants and an overlarge sweater. "Here. Put these on. Do
your feet get cold?"

Linia nodded, shyly again. "These too, then." Misuko handed over a pair
of socks. Linia pulled the sweater on first, then finished dressing. "It's
not what I would normally want to wear."

"It's all I have until we get back to the university." A pinging sound
interrupted her thoughts. She ignored it. "Anyway, what I said back
there was something Esther said a couple of days ago. She said that
people were just meat machines, and I when you were crying I thought
about how true that was because you... you don't act like a machine.
All of the machines I grew up with don't talk. They definitely don't
cry!" She smiled. "You're so human."

"That's what I was made to be," Linia said. "Like a human."

Misuko nodded. The pinging sound came again. "Already? That was fast.
C'mon."

She walked back to the command deck and sat down. The monitor came to
life and Professor Kapardin's face again looked out into the cabin.  "Ah,
Misuko. I see you're there." Misuko had the impression that something was
wrong, and the professor did not disappoint. "We have a problem. Well,
I mean, you have a problem, and I need to discuss it with you."

Misuko felt herself grow cold. "Tell me."

"Well, you see, it's like this," he began. "You paid for a significant
portion of this trip with your own money-- partial lease of the ship
and full leasing of the seaprobe which was vital to the discovery.  Now,
I looked through the records and found that there's been no mention of
the ship in any business registry after about thirteen hundred, which
means that the ship is technically salvage. It belongs to whomever finds
it or his or her investors. That means that you own some large percent
of whatever profit comes out of any recovery effort.

"Now, I'd like to leave it like that but the school doesn't see it
that way. In your report, you mention that the reason you have access
to the robot is that you let your partner manipulate the seaprobe for
a few moments. I know, I know, she wasn't supposed to touch anything,
but she did. Now, the school wants as much of the recovery as it can
possibly get its funds on, and that seems to me to be quite a lot. You
have to understand, a find like this can be worth millions in donations
and grants, not to mention a ready attractant for good students with
backing such as yourself."

"Let me guess," Misuko said. "They'll drop any charges of professional
negligence against me if I sign over my portion."

"That is about the size of it."

Misuko thought for a few minutes. The real facts were that she did not
need money. She had a future and a lifestyle that she liked already.
"All mention of this expunged from my record?"

"Absolutely. With this find and your record to date, I don't see any
problem in your getting your degree, with honors I might add. Provided you
don't allow non-professionals to interrupt a dig again, you're perfectly
welcome to stay where you are until the recovery crew arrives. I've
already put the wheels in motion and the first group should be on its
way to you in three days."

"Okay, professor. I don't see that I have much of a choice. Two
conditions."

"I don't know that we have much room for conditions, Misuko."

"Of course you do. The alternative is years of expensive litigation,"
Misuko replied. She still felt cold. She had seen her father do this
countless times as a lawyer, but she never thought she would have to
do it herself. "And I don't hold this against you at all, professor. I
know it's the deans who are driving this. I want a senior spot on the
recovery team."

"Already done. As I said, there's nothing on your record if you agree.
I already made sure of that. Since you are the principle investigator,
of course you get to lead the recovery team."

"Leader?" Misuko asked.

"What other position were you hoping for?"

"No, that's okay. I'll take leader." She smiled; she had been considering
lead archivist. "The one condition of my complete agreement, then. I do
want something from the wreck I can call my own.  Something small. Linia
2021."

"The robot? Misuko, if it's not conscious it's essentially an antique
with some small market value only to obscure collectors. If it is, well,
you know you must emancipate it immediately." He looked to his left,
cocked his head as if listening to another source, and then turned back
to the camera. "Okay, Misuko. That's agreed upon."

Linia saw a contract pull up in another window. She read through it
carefully. There was no mention of any reason other than her "good
will" that she should turn over salvage rights to the Second Chances.
The contract was written in her voice and explained that she was
keeping, in exchange for her "good will," one item from the vessel,
a sixth-century robot designated as "Linia 2021," with all the rights
and responsibilities of robot ownership assumed. She placed her hand on
the screen and approved the contract.

"Thank you for making this easy, Misuko," Professor Kapardin sighed.
"And it looks like you're about to have the joy and fun of owning an
antique. I hope it's worth the time and trouble."

"Me, too," Misuko muttered, wondering what she had gotten herself
into. "When can I expect the recovery team to get here?"

"Well, they certainly won't by flying in anything as old as what you
took with you, but it will still be a few weeks before you see them.
Say five weeks."

"Five weeks?" Misuko said. "Okay, professor. Thanks."

She watched as the screen went dark and sighed. "Five weeks. Crap."

"What just happened?" Linia asked.

"I guess that depends on who you ask. I just managed to salvage my career
from my girlfriend's terrible screwup. On the other hand, I just lost
a cargohold full of money. And I'm stuck on this world with her."

"I'm sorry, Misuko."

"Me, too. On the other hand... the third hand? Am I a hyafa now?  Anyway,
your ownership has been transferred to me."

"You're my new master?"

"It looks that way."

"You're wonderful!" Linia said, throwing her arms around Misuko and
holding her tightly. "Thank you, thank you! Oh, I don't feel lost
anymore!"

Misuko felt Linia's warm breasts and full body pressed up against her
own and wondered how she was going to explain this to Esther. Then again,
maybe she wasn't going to explain it to Esther. Maybe the time had come
to say goodbye.

"What?" Linia said.

"What what?"

"I felt you get all stiff."

"It's nothing. I was just thinking of what I'm going to do with
Esther. She's not going to be happy with this."
  _________________________________________________________________


Journal Entry 251 / 03261 Honest Desires (part 1)

The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik, et. al., and Related Tales
are Copyright (c) 1989-2002 Elf Mathieu Sternberg. Distribution limited
to electronic media not-for-profit use only. All other rights are reserved
to the author.


--
Elf M. Sternberg

Thoughtful science fiction and fantasy:
http://www.drizzle.com/~elf/

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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