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Message-ID: <28337asstr$979135802@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: elf@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg)
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Date: 10 Jan 2001 08:16:17 GMT
Comments: 
Subject: {ASSM} Journal Entry 112 / 0609  [ Cheyenne ]
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 09:10:02 -0500
Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d

        "Rev?  I'm going outside.  I need some air."  The voice, somehow
managing to convey feeling despite its mechanical tone and origin, came
through the headphones clearly.

        Captain Revor Idyll keyed his mic to respond.  "Okay, Cheyenne.
Just don't go too far.  We'll be jumping into Sendar space in just a few
minutes."

        "Right."

        Rev shook his head wondered, not for the first time, why it was
that the only member of his crew to show signs of claustrophobia should
be a robot.  Still, with a crew of nine on the Avalon, all male, he
supposed that some idiosyncrasies were going to show up.  Odd that this
one should come from the one member of the crew who was neither human
nor a citizen.  Nor male, for that matter.  Still, although the Merchant
Marine had gone back to segregated crews again after a spate of rather
nasty incidents, he hardly thought Cheyenne was going to be in trouble.
Despite her feminine name, Cheyenne was ex-combat and she looked it;
seven and a half feet of gleaming chrome, chestplates that fanned open
to reveal excessively overheated inner workings, feet that walked
digitigrade, and a face without pity or mercy, a face meant to terrify
an enemy.

        Revor was used to her.  So was most of his crew.

        "Rev?"  A hand came down on his shoulder.

        "Yo," he said, startling and looking up.  "What's up, Jack?"

        The older man smiled.  "You were off in space there for a
second.  I just wanted to give you the midcool update; everything's
going fine."

        Rev nodded.  "Thanks."

        Jack looked down at the monitor.  "Cheyenne go outside again?"

        Rev nodded, then startled again as an alarm went off.  "Evan,
tell me what's going on!" he shouted.

        The engineer sitting at the sensor array station examined his
screens.  "Transient jump, Captain.  Just started coming in.  We have
It's a Sendar vessel, sir."

        "Which one?" Rev asked, jokingly.  Although they had a
technology that apparently exceeded even the Pendorians in some places,
the Sendar had proven to be a species remarkably ill-at-ease in outer
space.  Some biologists were at a loss to explain how a species could
rise to sentience without the inherent curiosity that humans had, and it
often disappointed both Terrans and Pendorians that the first species
they should come across aside from themselves should be so, well, staid.
"Boring" was the adjective most often applied to Sendar poetry and
literature.  They were a very formulaic species not given to excitement.
There were, therefore, very few Sendar space-going vessels.

        "It's the Sim, sir."

        "The Sim," Rev said, pressing his fingers together to stretch
the tendons until he felt pain.  "Are they headed in or out?"

        "In, sir.  Towards Sendar."

        "It's weird, meeting a vessel out here in the middle of nowhere.
I can't remember the last time we came across another ship during a
cool-down.  Hail them and inform them that we're going their way.  If
they have those fast-cooling coils of theirs, tell them that we're not
going to get in the way if they want to drive through."

        The engineer, Evan, nodded and keyed in Rev's words.  A minute
later the response came back, "We will remain for the company and our
comfort.  It would be rude to leave you alone here."

        Rev shook his head.  "Thank the Sendar captain for me, Evan."
He sagged in the weightlessness of the command cabin.  "Very polite of
them."

        "That's what they are.  Polite," Jack said.

        "And what are we?" Rev asked.

        Jack grinned.  "Rude, crude, and unacceptable.  We don't take
gruff from the universe and we make it give us what we want."  He
pointed at the screen.  "But that's how we treat the universe.  They are
a different matter.  If we were to leave without telling them, it would
be insulting."

        Rev nodded.  He was just the Captain, after all.  His grasp of
interplanetary protocol was limited at best.  "All right, if we're going
to hold them up, we may as well be civil about it."

        They sat calmly for about ten minutes.  Rev would glance at the
viewscreen to look at Cheyenne once in a while; she had taken a seat
against the hull and sat with her head tilted away, looking at the
stars.

        "Ninety percent," Evan said.

        "Tell Engineering we're going to start maneuvering for the jump
point but not yet.  Also, tell the Sendar that we're going to head that
way."  He tapped the microphone.  "Cheyenne, time to get inside."

        "Working on it," Evan replied, typing commands and speaking
quietly into his headpiece microphone.  "What the...! Captain,
transient!"

        "What?  A third?  Where!?" Rev said.  "What is it?"

        "FOF reports a Terran vessel-- wait, key is not recognized!"
Evan turned back to Rev, who had already locked his chair down and
grabbed the manual piloting controls.  He keyed his microphone.
"Vasili!" he shouted.  "Get the spine mount working.  We have trouble!"

        "What kind?" Vasili shouted back.  Rev could hear him flipping
switches in the background.

        "The illegal kind!"  For all its modernity, the ship had
old-fashioned, tried-and-true controls.  Manual control of the fusion
bores was a pedal on the floor.  His foot put it down to the deckplate.

        The drive kicked into life, bright and hot as he started running
for the jump gate.

        "Captain!  The Sendar vessel is reporting that their maneuvering
drive was down for cool-off!  They're helpless!"

        Rev hesitated for less than a second before twisting the stick
on its Z and killing the main drive.  The ship rotated on its center of
gravity and came to, pointing back the way it had came, back towards the
Sendar vessel and the twin-crescent shaped ship that was coming towards
the two of them.  "Missiles!" Evan shouted.  "Releasing countermissiles!
Opening up the chains!"

        Two lights headed towards intercepts of the enemy vessel's
launches, followed by a hail of steel visible only on radar, a cloud of
magnetically accelerated pellets designed to shred incoming warheads.
It usually worked.

        "Sir, the Sendar vessel is taking heavy damage.  The enemy is
packing a rail cannon!"

        Rev twisted the stick again and the ship turned, slowly,
belly-up to the incoming ship, and interceded between it and the Sendar
vessel.  What may have seemed a gesture of submission from a multi-ton
starship was in fact a protective maneuver; Rev knew that the bottom of
the ship was the most heavily armored, designed as it was to land on
smaller worlds such as Luna, and needing that protection as defense
against debris kicked up by landing drives.

        "If there aren't any missiles, send the chains at the enemy!"
Rev shouted.

        "I'm on it!" Evan replied even as his fingers flew across the
terminal.

        The ship rocked.  "What's down?"

        "They got the left chaingun with a small rail, sir!  We're
seriously outgunned here!" Evan shouted.  "Still open with the right
one.  We're losing pressure in the cargo hold."

        Rev bit his lip and hoped for a sign.  Vasili gave it to him.
"Meson gun on-line, Rev.  Let 'em have it!"

        "Grab hold of something!" Rev shouted.  He dumped fuel
mercilessly into ports not ready for that kind of power; the Avalon
lurched as it turned corner over corner until the front of the ship came
into line with the crescent-shaped vessel, which was now turning to run.
"Keep it on " he whispered as the red target indicator turned green and
a tone sounded in his ear.  He squeezed.

        A meson cannon is nothing more than a pair of particle
accelerators that fire a pack of mesons, subnuclear particles that exist
only for miniscule moments of time.  In their natural setting, they
represent and enforce the strong nuclear force that binds protons and
neutrons.  Like neutrinos, they fly through anything in their way if
released unnaturally.  And when the meson cannon's stream stops
supporting them, they express themselves by upsetting the balance of
forces within atoms nearby.  It can be messy.

        He was rewarded with a bright light from the enemy vessel as the
meson cannon tore through the ship and exploded dead center within the
left crescent.  A jet of gas erupted and Evan whooped.  "You got a
hydrogen tank, Captain!"

        Another explosion rang through the Avalon.  "Vasili!" Rev
shouted.

        "This is Edison, sir!  Vasili's injured!  That hit we took
damaged the meson cannon's cooling coils!  We can't fire again!"

        "They're coming back, sir!" Evan shouted.

        Rev twisted the stick again.  With the damage they were taking
they were in no shape to jump.  The Sendar vessel was leaking from at
least three large holes; the Avalon wasn't doing any better, and the
only thing the enemy had suffered so far were a couple of chaingun hits
and one meson round.  Still, he had to do something.  He again stomped
on the main fuel feed at his feet, pushing the ship back between the
Sendar vessel and the pirate's ship.  "Why do they always have bigger
guns?" he gritted as he watched the ship maneuver slowly, crippled with
the loss of half its fuel, and the engine that used it, but hardly out
of the game.

        "Fire glitter and chain, Rev.  Do not fire any missiles,"
Cheyenne's voice said in his earphone.

        "Did you copy that, Evan?"

        "Yes, sir.  Glitter away!  Chain away!"  The engineer pressed
buttons, opening up with the anti-missile battery and the anti-laser
defenses.  The space between the Avalon and the pirate vessel filled
with millions of particles of polished glass, a haze fouling both radar
and visual displays.  "Here's hoping for a silver BB," he said,
referring to the one-in-a-million chance that something critical might
get hit.

        "Let's hope," Rev said.  He watched as the enemy vessel turned
towards them, the forward arms of its engines menacing like pincers.
Space battles either took far too long or were over far too quickly for
Rev's comfort.  This one looked to be the second kind.  The ship, now at
less than four hundred meters, closed on the crippled cargo starship.

        "Sir, something wrong with the enemy vessel!  Their reactor's
going wild!" Evan shouted

        Rev stomped on the fuel feed again.  "Maximum Z!"

        "But that's right towards the Sendar vessel!"

        "Better them than that explosion!" Rev watched as the pirate
ship seemed to shudder and then started to come apart at the seams.  It
wasn't an explosion, not really.  It was more like something living and
monstrous was trying to rip its way out of the ship.  A jet of
superheated nuclear fuel coursed out of a tear that appeared in the
heart of the pirate ship and sprayed into the empty cold of space.  Rev
imagined he could see the bodies of men going with it.  Of course, he
knew that they had probably all vaporized in the explosion, and even if
they had tried to kill him he hoped their deaths had been quick.  The
jet flamed for almost a minute and then died away.  Slowly, the cold of
space reasserted itself on the IR display.  Rev examined the spherical
display in front of him and killed the maneuvering engines, opening up
on the other side and slowing their progress towards the Sendar vessel
until they finally came to a halt less than two hundred meters apart.

        "Rev," Jack's voice said in his ear, "let go of the stick."

        Rev jerked suddenly, his hand coming loose from the control.
"How are we?"

        "Vasili's in sickbay with a concussion.  Basir is looking after
him.  Joseph was injured, a laceration, nothing major.  I got a little
banged up but nothing to go to sickbay about.  Evan, how's engineering?"

        "Cooling plant is dead, sir.  There's a hole in hold four, but
the bulkheads are holding.  Four is where the beer is; the casks should
hold."

        "Let's hope.  Those Sendar really like their beer."

        "Yes, sir," Evan said.  "Enemy vessel is drifting, sir.  No
signs of activity although it is hotter than Hell over there."

        "You'd expect that.  Where's Cheyenne?"  He looked down at the
viewscreen where the robot had been just fifteen minutes ago.

        "I don't know, sir," Evan said.  He turned to a keyboard he
rarely used and typed in a series of esoteric commands.  "I'm getting no
reading on her personal locator, sir.  She's not on board."

        Rev nodded.  "She's over there."  He pointed to the dying hulk
of the pirate vessel.

        "Sir?"

        "Don't ask me how I know, Evan.  But I know.  She somehow
managed to cross two kilometers unnoticed during the battle, invade the
ship, and make a mess inside.  It's actually a recommended strategy,
combat droid boarding."  He leaned forward and looked at the screen.  "I
wonder how she got there."

        "You don't think she's..." Jack let the thought trail off.

        "I'll try to raise her," Evan said.

        "No."  Rev shook his head.  "If she's intact she'll call us.  If
not, we'll recover her body later.  In the meantime, try to raise the
Sendar and ask them if they need assistance."

        Evan nodded, tapping at the translation console.  "The Sendar
Captain says, 'You are heroes to save our vessel and our lives.  Your
actions and your offer touch us deeply.  We have called for help and it
will arrive in a few hours.  We have injuries you could not assist with
and you have ship damage of your own to take care of, but by your
actions we have no fatalities.  Is there anything we can do for you?'"

        Rev nodded.  "Tell him that we are intact.  We may have lost one
crewmember.  Thank him for his offer but we will wait for the rescue
vessel as well.  We have our own maintenance to attend to."

        Evan typed the response.  "Sendar Captain replies, 'Understood.
We will be in contact.  Out.'"



        "Nice cabins," Vasili said as they were shown to their separate
rooms.  He leaned his head into the one with his name on the door and
looked around.  "They're bigger than our two-man spots on the Avalon."

        "They don't have a budget like we do," Rev said with a smile.

        "I trust you gentlemen have found your quarters to your liking?"
asked a voice with a barely contained but polite growl from the far end
of the hallway.  The captain of the Tanka, an Uncia, had invited the
crew of the Avalon to spend the next week or so with him.  The damage to
the Avalon had been more extensive than they had originally thought; the
Sendar had agreed to fully refurbish their ship for its heroic actions,
and had contracted with a Pendorian rescue fleet for the repairs.

        Rev had to admit that the idea of spending a week in
interstellar space, so far from the common ports, made him nervous.
Although this spot in the middle of nowhere was a common point for ships
with jump drives, most ships only came here for a few hours at most, and
then went to the next point.  Rev could cross the short distance between
Terra and Sendar in about fifteen days, but those days were spent
working, half in hyperspace, half in realspace. Here, he had nothing to
do but stare out at the stars.  "Yes, Captain K'Ravi, we're fine.  Your
ships are quite magnificent."  His crew, all seven of them, gathered
behind him.

        "That's what ships are for," K'Ravi said with a toothy but
mysterious grin.  "You Terrans have not quite figured out abundance yet,
but you will."

        "I'm sure.  And I'm grateful for the repairs."

        "The Sendar asked and we readily complied.  We had nothing else
to ply our trade on at the time, the Sendar volunteered to cover most of
the material costs, and-- just a moment."  He held up his hand and
glanced aside, then turned back to Rev.  "I hate to ask this of you, but
could you look at something?"

        "I suppose," Rev asked.  "What is it?"

        "I want you to identify your shipmate's body."

        Rev glanced back at Vasili and Jack, who both nodded.  "Sure."

        The captain waved his hand over one wall and a video screen
cleared.  An image formed, poorly-lit at first but he could make out two
humanoids in space suits maneuvering in what were probably the cramped
and ruined corridors of the pirate vessel.  One of them pointed a torch
at the floor.  "We found this next to the secondary fusion reactor."
Through the viewscreen he could make out the sharp angles of the samurai mask
of chrome that had been Cheyenne's face.

        Rev nodded as the hope he had been carrying dimmed.  "That's
her."

        The Uncia nodded and the image disappeared.  "I am sorry.  We
will, of course, see if there's anything we can do for her."

        Vasili interrupted.  "She was a liquid-cooled matrix model."

        "Nevertheless, we will do what we can for her," the captain
said.  "Please.  Relax.  Grieve, it is appropriate.  After my people
have gone over her, if funeral services are requested we will gladly
conduct them.  I do not know of many robots that have religion, but
there are several people on board the Tanka who do."

        "Thank you, Captain," Rev said.  "We'll decide later."

        The Uncia nodded.  It was clear to both that there was little
more to say.  "I'll leave you to your rooms.  You're free to move about.
The AI, Griz, will prevent you from getting yourself into trouble."



        Rev sighed and glanced at the open book on the couch, wondering
if he should sit down and begin reading again.  He tried to read at
least one book a week, but this one was proving to be more of a
challenge than most.  The past four days had started to wear on him; he
had spent time in the Pendorian gym, casually deflecting the suggestions
of a few of the fems and even mels who had looked at him with
appreciation.  He liked to keep fit; he had had a tension-arm exercise
bench in his tiny cabin and had used it.

        But neither the physical pursuits nor the intellectual had any
real attraction for him.  He had lost a best friend.  The Pendorians
understood when he explained it to them, but as one of them had pointed
out, they had been living with robots and AIs for centuries; they were
truly citizens, and friends, even if Terran law didn't quite understand
that.

        The doorchime rang.  He looked up and sighed.  "Come in."

        A woman wearing a simple white jumpsuit with sleeves rolled up
to just above the elbows walked in.  Although most Pendorians wore an
appearance of youthfulness, this one was clearly no older than nineteen
or twenty, younger than usual, perhaps young enough to be her real age.
She had an oval face with full, red lips, eyes that suggested but did
not demand Asian ancestry, and a skin color reminiscent of native North
Americans.  Her black hair fell about her face to her shoulders in a
dark brown frame.  Although he was used to the standards of beauty to be
found on both Terran and Pendor, she exuded a kind of exotic loveliness
and Rev couldn't keep himself from staring for longer than was polite.
"Oh, good," she said in a matter-of-fact voice that was sweetly
high-pitched.  "They said I might have that affect on you."

        "Um, can I help you?"  Rev said.

        She ignored him for a moment and walked over to the table in the
center of the room, taking the seat opposite the couch where Rev lay.
She glanced at the book.  "Fermat's Last Theorem for Dummies, Rev?  I
knew you had a masochistic streak in you but aren't you overdoing it?"

        He glanced at the book.  "The bulk of it explains the
Taniyama/Shimura conjecture, which I'm not quite getting.  The
accompanying datacard with graphics showing..." He paused.  "Have we
met?"  He knew almost upon asking it that the question was absurd.  He
would remember a beauty like hers, and it was rare for even Pendorians
to want to appear so young and immature so he suspected that she was as
old as her appearance suggested.  Yet she acted like she knew him.

        "You don't recognize me?" she asked, grinning.

        "No, I don't believe I do."

        "You will," she said.  "Remember?  2442, Australia, in the
outback.  Eagle's Rock, in fact.  The Chinese had taken it by force, and
we were hired by the Aussiegov to help take it back.  I took a LAW in
the chest for that one.  Total clusterfuck.  You pulled me out,
remember?  That's when the tic started up."  She glanced at him.  He was
sitting up, a dumbfounded expression on his face.  She smiled.

        "Chey... Cheyenne?" he stammered.  "What. Are you really
Cheyenne?"

        "So they tell me," she said, looking down at herself.  "It sure
doesn't look like me, does it?"

        "No, it doesn't!" he agreed.  "But nobody else except Vasili
knows about the tic, or about Eagle's Rock."

        She smiled.  "I remember.  Our mission failure brought down the
Australian government, not that we had a chance anyway."

        Rev grinned.  "I know.  And I remember finding those software
blocks when I tried to repair you."

        "Hey, we single-handedly started the AI Wars that year," she
said.  "Not that anyone knows it was us.  Well, now you know, I know,
and Griz knows."  She pointed up at the ceiling.  "But that's a state
secret, Griz."

        "Understood, Miss.  Even in that frame I would not dare disagree
with you," the AI replied calmly.

        "'That frame?'  You're still a robot?"

        "Yeah.  Droids don't transfer to organics very efficiently, and
certainly not in three days.  Two of the White's Theory medicos on board
are robots.  They had enough spares in storage to make two complete
bodies, one female-framed.  The engineering team managed to recover
enough of my memory tracks to install me in a new PCPU."

        He rose from the couch and sat down in the chair opposite hers.
"So, are you really Cheyenne?"

        A look of guilt crossed her face.  "I don't know.  They say it's
an existentialist problem.  The Pendorians tell me that transition to a
new body is assumed by Pendorians to cause such a drastic personality
shock that the reactions you may be used to seeing in me won't be there
as you remember them.  I'm not used to this body, really.  It has touch
and taste and sight mostly in human limits; I can't hear the infinity of
radio and gamma and I can't see IR and UV and dim light the way I used
to.  Well, I could if I wanted to, all the equipment's there, but I was
told to keep it in human limits and learn to live with it unless
absolutely necessary.  So the Pendorians believe that I might not be
Cheyenne as you knew her.  But I have all her memories and all her
skills and a legacy of feelings that she slept with every night.  And
the old Cheyenne isn't here to disagree with me."  She reached into her
pocket and pulled out a thick card with her face occupying the left half
of one side.  "This is my citizenship card.  They registered me.  I'm
legal now, Rev.  A citizen of the planet Discovery.  Apparently they
went independent and are looking for Pendorian support to keep the
Terrans off their back."

        "That's good," he said.  "I was getting a little tired of having
to hide you every time customs came around."

        "I understood."  She reached out and with the back of her
fingers touched his cheek.  "I can feel now.  I can turn it up or down;
the doctors told me about settings that were 'normal', but they seemed
strong to me.  I'm trying to leave them high, but they're so
distracting."

        "That's what it's like to be human, Cheyenne.  Did you get to
choose how beautiful you would be?"

        She laughed.  She had done that in her combat chassis but it had
never sounded natural.  In this guise, it sounded right.  "I know I'm
pretty this way, Rev, but really, look.  My nose is too long, my
forehead too high, and then there are these thick thighs of mine.  The
engineer said he started out with perfection in mind but he gave me
something better called 'wabi'.  I have no idea what that means."

        "Wabi is something that is just a little flawed.  The idea is
that perfect things are boring but imperfections show the caring and
working hand of a person in his creation.  Whoever did this for you was
pretty close to the truth when he said you had wabi."  A thought
occurred to him.  "Can you eat?  Taste?"

        She nodded.  "Not only can I eat, but I have to drink,
apparently.  It's required for maintenance, since I have internal
generators to manage this body's odors and secretions.  This frame was
for a combat medical droid whose duties could include post-traumatic
psychological care.  So everything works, smells right, and feels right.
And I get good feedback, just like if I was a person.  I'm not trained
to use those sensations, but they're all there for me."

        "You are different from the Cheyenne I knew."

        "How is that?"

        "She was never evasive.  I can tell you're being evasive,
Cheyenne.  She always told me the absolute truth whenever she wanted to
say it."

        "Are you sure?  You can only know I'm being evasive now because
this face shows my emotions whether I want it to or not.  I could have
been just as evasive as the combat model without you knowing."

        Rev gave in.  "You could be right.  But you're still evading
me."

        "Okay," she said, nodding.  "Rev, I want to have sex."

        Rev sat up straight, his eyes unblinking for a moment with
surprise.  "I... I suppose that could be arranged."  He stopped for a
second.  "With me?"

        She nodded.  "With you, and with Vasili."  She grinned.  "And
then with Evan, maybe the whole crew eventually!"

        "Now that's Cheyenne," he said, laughing.  "You never did
anything by halves."

        "And I don't want to now!"  She reached out and put her hand
around his wrist.  "I want to start with you!"  She stood up and
literally hauled him out of the chair, pulling him into her embrace.

        He felt the heat from her skin against his and the smell of her
hair suggested the same fresh, simple soap he had found in his shower
that morning.  Every detail was perfect.  If this was Cheyenne, things
on the Avalon were about to become very complicated.  "Cheyenne... how,
um, complete are you?"

        "Like I said, they built this frame to handle psych duties.
That could include having sex with a patient whose biggest problem was
loneliness or abandonment."  She looked up at him with soft, brown eyes
that held just a hint of glee.

        "Cheyenne," he said, pushing her away just slightly, "I don't
know how this is going to work.  I mean, we've known each other for
twenty years."

        "Follow me."  She led him over to the bed and sat him down
before sitting down next to him.  She didn't let go of his hand.  "Rev,
I have known you for twenty years, and for twenty years we have been as
apart as that day on Eagle's Rock when my fusion pack was about to blow
up and you couldn't get out of your powered armor because of all the
nerve gas.  I listened to you assault an APC all by yourself, in
engineering powered armor no less, and win.  You carried me on your back
nearly ninety miles and I know that's not easy even in powered armor,
knowing I could blow up at any second, all the way to Vasili's place.
You are my friend and I owe you my life.  Even if the tic hadn't shown
up--"

        Rev touched her lips suddenly with one hand.  "I have to ask you
about that."

        "About what?"

        "The tic.  What happened to it?"

        She smiled.  "I lied about it."

        "You WHAT?"

        "I lied about it.  Vasili helped me.  He convinced me that it
was the best way.  It's not that I can't kill, Rev, I just don't like
to.  The same way humans are.  So I could invade that pirate ship and
take out those dregs who were trying to kill my friends-- and innocents.
I just didn't want to do it for pay."

        "You mean to tell me that I spent those years--"

        "Putting together a better life than the one you had.  You
didn't have to keep me around, especially when you didn't think I could
help further your mercenary career.  You had no obligations to me, Rev.
I gave you a choice.  You just had a tool that you couldn't use to kill
anymore."

        "You were more than a tool, Cheyenne.  Just because the anti-AI
laws don't give you citizen's rights, that didn't make you not a
person."

        "To you, maybe.  The state, and most of the people I worked
with, thought otherwise.  Still do, maybe even moreso.  And because they
could put whatever blocks they wanted into my thinking I couldn't even
know to disagree with them.  That's why it wasn't slavery.  It still
isn't; they're just better at building SIs instead of AIs like me with
SI blocks to keep them in line."  She pulled his hand back up to her
lips and bowed her head down, looking up at him through her eyelashes
and bangs as she kissed his knuckles softly.  "Rev, are you angry with
me?"

        He took a deep breath.  "I don't think so."  She kissed his hand
again.  Her mouth felt warm and he could feel a trace of moisture where
she left him.  "They thought of everything."

        "Only my engineer knows for sure," she said.  "So, what about my
offer?"

        "Do you really want to bang the whole crew?" he asked.

        "One at a time," she agreed.  "As soon as I'm done with you."
She reached for the clasp of his jumpsuit.  It came open with an easy
tug.  "If you want."

        "This is weird."

        "It's going to get weirder," she assured him as she crawled down
into bed with him.

        "What do I do for you?  Can you come?"

        "No, actually, I don't think I can.  I don't think that's the
point, though, is it?"  She shrugged off the top half of her own
jumpsuit.  Her breasts were small, a little less than handfuls, but they
were the same golden color as the rest of her, tipped with dark brown
nipples that demanded he touch them.

        "That seems unfair."

        "Oh, believe me.  There are compensations," she whispered.
"Take off your clothes."

        Rev readily shucked himself of his outfit.  "How do I look?" he
asked.

        "Like a prince," she said.  "A Nubian warrior."

        "I've never thought of myself that way," he said.  "More of a
Zulu."

        "Zulu.  I remember the shield you had painted on your armor."
She pressed him down to the bed, her body covering his, her nipples
caressing the bare flesh of his chest.  "You are so handsome, Rev."

        "And I have not had someone as beautiful as you are in my bed
for many, many years, Cheyenne.  Wow, that really does sound weird to my
ears."

        "Then stop talking and kiss me."  She lowered her mouth to his
and Rev tried to give her a soft kiss, but she responded with a fierce
insistence.  Rev heard her moan aloud.

        He wrapped his hands around her torso, surprised at how small
her waist felt in his hands.  She hadn't looked this small when she had
taken her suit off.  Yet, holding her pliable body in his hands, he
couldn't help but think of her as a girl.

        She kissed his neck, and he raised his head to give her better
access to it.  "No hickeys," he said.

        "Like they'd show up on you.  I'm gonna give Evan the biggest
hickey he's ever had, though!"  She kissed his chest.  "What's this?"
she said with a giggle as her hand wrapped around his cock.  "The
captain's staff?"

        "Where did you learn so much?"

        "Some of it is leftover programming from the model, and some of
it comes from days of being bored and reading all the books in the
library.  Since the on-board library has an anonymous volume score I
paid attention to what you guys were reading."  She licked the head of
his cock just once and Rev felt waves of fire dig into his groin.

        "It's been a long time, Cheyenne.  I'm already edgy."

        "Good enough," she said, taking the length of it into her mouth.
Rev gasped.  She was amazing.  Her hand wrapped around his balls and she
was able to take the entire length of his cock down her throat.  Part of
his mind told him he shouldn't be surprised at that, yet she seemed so
human otherwise that he found himself amazed when her superhuman
capabilities came out.

        While his analytical mind watched with curiosity, his cock
responded with unadorned lust.  A beautiful girl was sucking him down
with practice and skill and he couldn't hold back.  The only release
he'd had for nearly two years had been at his own hands and now--

        He came with a shout, all of his desire boiling out of him in
one loud sound of pleasure and surprise.

        She crawled up to him, wiping her mouth with her arm.  "You were
fun!" she said.

        "And you are unbelievable.  I knew you always had a streak of
cruelty in you but that's just too much."

        She grinned.  "Was I cruel to you?"

        "You know you weren't.  Come here."  He reached out with one
hand and pulled her down to him.  "You feel so human.  You don't weigh
more than a girl your size should, you're warm, you're wet, you even
smell good."

        "I'll still need Vasili to do maintenance on me, although not so
often."

        He chuckled.  "When do you want to meet the crew?"  He asked.

        "You look tired, Rev."

        "Coming does that to a man."

        "Why don't you close your eyes and rest, and we'll talk about it
after your nap?"

        "Sounds... like an idea."



        He heard the doorchime from the shower.  "Griz?" he asked.

        "Yes, Vasily.  You have a visitor."

        "One of my crew?" he asked.

        The AI didn't respond.  "Griz?"

        "I do not know how to answer that question."

        Vasily wondered what that could mean.  He decided he would have
to find out for himself.  "Tell whoever's out there that I'll be out in
a second."  He quickly rinsed and threw a robe over his shoulders.  With
an aging sigh he walked out into the main cabin and palmed the
doorcontrol.

        A small, warm body threw itself against him as hands tried to
find their way into his robe.  He fell backward.  Lips were pressed to
his.  He grabbed the hands and rolled their owner off himself.  They
wrestled over and he found himself holding down a giggling, black-haired
girl looking up at him with glittery eyes.  "Vasily!" she said.  "It's
good to see you again!"

        Nonplussed, Vasily looked down at her and asked, "Who are you?"

        "An old friend," she insisted.  "Don't you like me?"

        "I don't know you," he said, letting her hands go and
straightening up.

        "Do you have to?" she asked as her hands again crept into his
barely-closed robe.  He could feel her hands tickling the hair along his
thighs and his erection stirred.  He knew that Pendorians sometimes had
weird ideas about sex, but looking at this woman he wondered if he
should play along.  He had been lonely for a long time and she certainly
was beautiful.  "Trust me, Vasily," she said, her voice descending into
a seductive purr.  "You want this.  The ship will protect you if I'm
crazy, won't it?  And you do know me, you just don't know it yet."

        Her hands reached further into his robe, encroaching on his
already erect cock.  He had to decide now, and finally he nodded.  She
grinned and shimmied her way under his body until her head disappeared
underneath the cloth of his robe.  He felt her breath on his thighs and
wondered if he wasn't going to regret this someday.  Then he felt her
mouth kiss his thigh and he knew he would.  His heart beat harder in his
chest even as she kissed his thighs, her mouth going back and forth from
one to the other.  He could feel her hair brushing against his skin even
as she seemed to be getting closer and closer to his erection.  She
leaned upwards, his robe parting to reveal both her smile and his
erection even as she engulfed it in her mouth.

        He pitched forwards onto his hands and knees, unable to keep
himself kneeling upright even as she sucked down the full length of his
cock.  Vasily's head reeled as she took it all deep down into her
throat; she had him as surely as he had had her pinned down a few
minutes ago.  Her head bobbed up and down from the floor with
unbelievable strength; it was if she did a thousand sit-ups a day just
for this one activity.  He was having trouble holding back after just a
minute.

        But then she stopped!  He groaned even as he felt her again work
her way up between his supporting arms.  She had that same gleeful,
enigmatic smile.  "So," she said, "Wanna fuck?"

        "Yes!" he groaned.  "Yes, now."

        She grinned as she worked off her uniform pants.  She left the
shirt on, one that Vasily thought he recognized identified her as a
member of the ship's medical staff.  Is that what she was doing?  Taking
care of the crew?  He didn't doubt it even as she kicked the pants off
and hoisted her legs into the air.  "What are you waiting for?" she
asked.

        He didn't need to be reminded.  Sitting up just long enough to
strip off his robe, he fell onto this vixen on the floor, plunging into
her recklessly.  She groaned aloud as he sank his entire shaft into her
cunt with one solid thrust.  She was tight but wet enough that he could
still move.  Her body seemed to be wrapped around him, arms, legs, cunt
gripping him and sucking him inwards.  He could feel her squirming
underneath him, moaning his name.  He realized he didn't know hers.  It
didn't matter.  His cock knew all it needed to know about her.  She was
hot.  She was loud.  She might even have been coming herself when he
came, shooting off a stream inside her with days of pent-up frustration
behind it.

        When the stars stopped swimming in front of his eyes, he was
looking down at the same wide grin he'd seen after first wrestling her
to the floor.  "So.  Did you enjoy that?" she asked, her tone verging on
the sarcastic.

        "Who are you?" he asked.

        Her voice changed suddenly to one more electronic, less human.
Familiar.  "Vasily.  It's me."

        He blinked.  He blinked again.  "Chey... Cheyenne?" he asked,
surprised.

        "Yep!" she said, the girl's voice returning.  She pulled him
down on top of her and kissed him hard on the lips.  He found himself
unable to respond, torn between memories twenty years and two minutes
old, and she noticed enough to let him go.  "I'm sorry if I startled
you, but I wanted to, well, thank you for all the help you've given me
over the years."

        "That was some thank-you!" he said as he lay down on the floor
next to her.  "I think I'll have Basir take a quick look at my heart
after something like that."

        "That might not be such a bad idea.  Here, let me."  She put her
hand on his chest and closed her eyes for a second.  "Nope, you're okay."

        "How... how do you know?  How did you come to be here... like
this?"

        She sat down and repeated the story as she had told Rev.  "I'm
getting the hang of this body slowly.  The Sendar say they've paid for
it already, so it's mine.  And I knew a lot of medical stuff before they
moved me although that was just to make me a better killer."

        Vasily nodded.  "So you told Rev about the tic?"

        "I couldn't hide the truth from him," she insisted, cuddling
close.  "I need a shower."

        "I was just taking one when you came in.  I see what the AI
meant by his comment when he said he didn't know if you were a crew
member of my ship or not."

        "I hope you guys wanna keep me."  She stood up and offered him a
hand.

        "I think we will," he said, accepting.  He marveled at her
strength as she hauled him up off the floor.  "Come on.  Shower's warm.
And I want to take a closer look at you."

        "Good.  'Cause I think I prefer to be looked at this way.
Besides, you're going to have to learn how to do maintenance on this
frame."

        He led her into the spacious shower and turned the water on.  "I 
think the basics are clear enough," she said, taking down the
showerhead and holding it between her thighs.  "But I'm still trying to
figure out what I can do with this body.  And what I want to do."  She
looked up.  "What should I do, Vasili?"

        "What did you want to do when you were just a combat droid,
Cheyenne?"

        She took the bottle of soap and applied it to herself.  "That's
the problem, Vasily.  I... I can't remember.  I don't think I had a, a
purpose, when I was just a combat robot.  I just went from day to day.
Now that I'm in this body, I guess I'm wondering if I should do the same 
thing or what."

        "My little lost robot, you are asking the same question everyone 
else asks.  Why am I here?  What do I do?  They are hard questions to
ask, and impossible to answer.  You will have to figure that out for
yourself."

        She sighed.  "This is going to be harder than I thought."

        "Coming back from the dead usually is," Vasili said, kneeling
down.  He ran his fingertips delicately over her belly and one thigh.
"The skin is very nice.  You are very beautiful, Cheyenne, your self-
descriptions to the contrary.  I assume that if I am going to be fixing
you sometimes that I will get instructions from the Pendorians on how to
do that?"

        She nodded.  "Although I shouldn't need much unless I get into
combat again.  This is a very self-maintaining system."

        "Good," he said, standing.  "Cheyenne, on a ship as cramped as
ours, the presence of an available female could be a devastating thing.
We would be best treated if you isolated yourself to one person, or no
person at all."

        "I suppose."  She grinned.  "Still, I did want to do Evan."

        He smiled.  "If so, then you must do it tactfully.  Come.  Let
us get dry.  We have much to discuss."



        "Second Weapons Officer Cheyenne reporting for duty, Sir," the
short, brown-skinned girl said with a smart salute as she walked onto
the bridge.

        Rev supressed a laugh even as he heard a clipboard fall to the
floor.  "Welcome back, Cheyenne."

        Evan walked back.  "Cheyenne?"

        She nodded with a grin, then wrapped her arms around his neck
and kissed his cheek.  "The Pendorians found a way to rebuild me.  Neat, 
huh?"  She turned around; even the shapeless white jumpsuit couldn't
hide all her loveliness.  "It's weird, though.  Guys don't act scared of 
me anymore.  I know that's what's supposed to happen but I'm not used to 
it.  I think I like it, though."

        "I can understand why," Jack said.

        "Okay, enough.  You'll all get your chance to talk to the
prettiest robot in all of space.  Evan, you've got first watch.
Cheyenne, I don't know if we need you quite yet.  You moved into your
cabin?"

        She nodded.  "Although I have to get rid of all the old stuff.
Guess we gotta put it back onto the black market, huh?"

        "That's about right."

        She glanced around the cramped bridge with it's flat panel
monitors hanging down from the ceiling, invading the space that was
meant for human beings.  "In that case, Rev, I think I'd like to go
outside."

        "You can do that?" he asked, surprised.

        "Just watch me."

        Rev shook his head.  "Some things never change.  Just don't go
too far."

        "From you guys?  Never."

--
The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik, et. al., and Related Tales
Copyright (c) 1989-2000 Elf Mathieu Sternberg.
  
Distribution limited to electronic media not-for-profit use only. All
other rights are reserved to the author.  The use of these stories in
a commercial venue is a violation of copyright.
   

--
Elf M. Sternberg, rational romantic mystical cynical idealist
http://www.halcyon.com/elf/

Fast food restaurants are like gay bathhouses in San Francisco, 
places where people go to engage in high-risk behaviors.
		- Greg Critser

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