Abiogenesis (5 page)

The thick carpet beneath her feet hummed as she wandered about the cabin, alerting her to the fact that the craft was preparing for departure. She moved to the chair before Reuel’s desk and sat, strapping herself in, and then studied the charts on his desk briefly. She had no knowledge of navigation, however, and soon lost interest. Behind the desk were shelves containing row upon row of strange rectangular objects. As the humming increased to a tooth-rattling shake, she pulled one from the shelf and studied it, discovering that it was a very rare, ancient book of paper. There were few in existence any longer since they had not been produced in several hundred years, and many of those produced then had not been designed for the wear and tear of time. She’d seen them, though, in museums. She’d never actually touched one.

The first thing she noticed when she parted the pages was the smell. She held it a little closer, sniffing it, then sneezed. It smelled--more like dirt, she decided, than anything else, but also as if, over time, every smell around it had been absorbed into it and held so that it was such a collection of differing things as to make any single part unidentifiable.

It wasn’t particularly pleasant. On the other hand, she didn’t smell very pleasantly herself at the moment. It wasn’t uncommon, in the field, for her to find herself without the facilities to bathe, but she had never grown accustomed to it, never been able to simply ignore being dirty and unkempt. As soon as the craft settled back into the smooth glide that told her it was safe to unbuckle herself, she placed the book back on the shelf, unfastened her restraints and got up to check out the facilities.

As she’d suspected, Reuel had his own, private, facilities. Doubtless, considering the size of the ship, the other cabins shared a community bath, but she supposed, if she was to remain in Reuel’s cabin, that she would be allowed to make use of his. She intended to, in any event.

The stockings she’d taken had been little protection to begin with and had long since worn through. She tossed those into the incinerator unit. The trousers and tunic were in nearly as bad a shape, but she stuffed them into the cleaning unit before she climbed into the particle shower. To her stunned surprise, water shot from the jets, nearly drowning her when she gasped instinctively. Coughing and choking on the water she’d inhaled, she felt around blindly for some way to turn the thing off. She wasn’t certain if she found it, though, or if the unit was designed to go on and off at five second intervals, for it did just that, startling her all over again the first few times.

Finally, she realized that the water itself was not supposed to clean her. There were cloths and some sort of thick gel-like chemical substance to rub on herself to remove the odor and dirt. The water was to remove the gel.

It seemed curiously inefficient. A particle shower would have cleaned and sanitized her in a matter of moments. Having to scrub herself was more of a job that she particularly cared for, and she wasn’t convinced that she had been sanitized properly even when she was done.

She discovered she rather liked the way the water felt crawling over her bare skin, however. It felt--strange--but at the same time pleasurable. Finally, almost reluctantly, she got out of the unit and discovered two not very pleasant side effects. Scrubbing her hair had felt good, but it had left it in a wet, tangled mess. Moreover, the water still ran down her body and dripped off onto the carpeted floor.

Rain had a similar effect and since she’d been on many worlds unprotected by domes from nature, she knew from experience that neither her skin nor her hair would dry very quickly.

She was still standing in front of the unit wondering whether to put her clothing back on as she was or to stand where she was and wait until she dried when the door opened. She jumped reflexively, whirling to face the threat.

Reuel stood in the opening, surveying her with interest from the top of her head to her bare toes. Finally, he leaned casually against the frame, folding his arms over his chest as if he was getting comfortable to stay a while. "I see you figured out how to use the shower unit," he said after a moment.

Dalia shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, uneasy with his curious interest for no reason that she could immediately perceive. There was nothing threatening in his stance. "I think so," she said a little doubtfully.

His brows rose. "But you’re not certain?"

"I’ve never used anything but a particle bath. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as this water bath. Is it something new?"

His lips curled in a half smile. Oddly, her belly clenched as she looked at it. "It’s something very old--ancient--from the age of decadence."

Her eyes widened. "Then it is outlawed."

Chuckling, he stood away from the door and pulled his tunic over his head. Dalia was so surprised by the sound of his laughter, by the amusement it conveyed as well as the pleasure the sound sent through her, that he’d tugged his boots off and discarded them, as well, before she realized that he fully intended to remove all of his clothes. "I am a rogue, little flower. Why would I concern myself over the laws of man?"

Dalia swallowed with an effort, so mesmerized by the strength and fluidity of his movements, by the sheer beauty of his body, that her mind as well as her eyes were focused completely upon what he was doing, leaving very little room for other thought. Why and how, she wondered, could merely looking at him have such a ... consuming effect upon her?

It was more than the perception of beauty. Anything pleasing to the eye was likely to capture her attention, but certainly not so completely that she lost track of all else.

When he’d removed his trousers, she saw that his lower body was as fascinating as the upper part. His hips were narrow so that his broad chest formed almost a V shape, his legs powerful. He also, for no reason that immediately came to mind, possessed a phallus, and not merely for the sake of appearing to be a male creature. It stood proudly erect above a pair of testicles, sprouting from a nest of dark hair.

She hadn’t noticed it before and she knew damn well she would have noticed something that--enormous. It functioned, at least in the sense that it acted like the erectile tissue on a human counterpart.

Why would a cyborg that had never been designed or intended as a pleasure droid, have been so faithfully reproduced as a man, complete with testicles and an obviously fully functional--make that massive--phallus?

She was so enthralled by the sight of it that it wasn’t until he moved so close that she lost sight of it that she realized he was moving toward her.

She dragged her gaze upward to his face as he stopped in front of her, noticing every inch of flesh, every bugle, ripple, hair follicle and even the texture of his skin, on the way up.

Whoever had designed him, she realized suddenly, and with perfect clarity, had fully intended to create man, not just a facsimile of man. Whoever had created him had been playing god--and it seemed very likely that whoever it was, was the same ‘god’ who had decided to experiment on her. Was that what the tech had meant when he’d said it wasn’t human? Had Reuel’s creator decided to go one step further and see if he could mimic the creation of life through reproduction and birth?

Without a word he caught her shoulders, turned her toward the shower unit, and urged her inside, following her. She turned to face him as the water jetted over her, covering her face. When it ceased to pelt them, he moved away, took the cloth and rubbed the chemical substance into it until he had created a lather. Then calmly, almost methodically, he began to rub the cloth over her body, gliding it over first one arm and then the other, then turning her and rubbing it along her back and buttocks. Instead of urging her to turn once more when he’d finished lathering her back, he stepped up closely behind her, so closely she could feel his flesh brushing against hers with each movement, and reached around her to lather her breasts and belly.

Dalia remained perfectly still, at first because she was surprised, both by his actions and by his gentleness, and also because she wasn’t at all certain where she stood with this dangerous rogue. Surprise gave way to something entirely different, however, as she felt his hands glide over her breasts. Her nipples puckered and stood erect, as if she was cold, except she wasn’t. A strange current flowed from the tips of her breasts through her body, creating an odd sort of expectancy inside her, an involuntary tensing of muscles and, at the same time, a diminishing of tension, creating heat. She dragged in a ragged breath, not certain whether she wanted him to stop or continue as a drugging sort of lassitude swept over her. Slowly, he worked the cloth downward, finally cupping his hand over her femininity, parting her nether lips and delving into the cleft, tracing it.

Dalia’s belly clenched almost painfully. She swallowed with an effort, licked her lips. "What are you doing?"

"Teaching you," he murmured, his voice sounding strangely hoarse, "the finer points of bathing with soap and water."

Dalia’s knees almost buckled, dumping her on the floor of the shower unit, as he stepped away from her abruptly, allowing the shower to pelt the soap from her body. Cool air wafted over her as he opened the door of the unit and stepped out.

Frowning, shivering more from reaction than from the chill draft of air, she sloughed as much water from her body as she could with her hands and stepped out, as well. He’d opened a cabinet in the wall, she saw. He pulled a sheet of fabric from it, tossed it to her, then pulled another one out and began to rub it over himself, soaking up the excess water on his skin.

She scrubbed the cloth he’d thrown to her over her own skin and discovered that it was reasonably effective. Her skin still felt damp, but only a little. Her hair continued to drip even after she’d scrubbed the towel over it. Reuel’s black hair was nearly as long as her own, falling well past his shoulders, so she watched him to see what he would do with his own hair.

He merely rubbed it with the cloth to remove as much water as possible, raked a comb through it to remove the tangles and left it to drip. Shrugging, she combed the snarls from her own hair and left the bath with cold rivulets of water trickling unpleasantly down her back.

He was standing before an open locker in the room, pulling clothing from it, she saw. Turning, he tossed a tunic to her. She caught it, but studied it doubtfully. The clothes she’d stolen before had been too big. Any tunic that would cover his body was unlikely to even remotely fit her.

Mentally shrugging, she pulled it on and discovered she hadn’t mistaken the matter. The tunic fell almost to her knees. The neck opening gaped and the sleeves completely covered her hands.

When he’d finished dressing, he turned to study her. His lip quirked upward on one side. Striding toward her, he caught the fabric in his hands and ripped first one sleeve and then the other from the tunic. She rather thought it might have worked better, however, if she’d merely rolled the sleeves up. The shoulders drooped well down her upper arms and the armholes ended in the general vicinity of her waist. The sides of her breasts were fully exposed and the whole breast threatened to fall out the sides when she moved.

She studied the effect doubtfully.

"We are machines, not men. You needn’t concern yourself that any will be so overcome with lust over your human body as to accost you," he said dryly.

Chapter Five

A combination of anger and discomfort brought color forward to tinge Dalia’s cheeks. Obviously, she had gravely insulted him when she’d allowed him to see how revolting she considered the idea of copulating with a cyborg. He seemed determined to emphasize the fact that he was a cyborg at every opportunity, at the same time giving it the lie by proving that he was far more than a ‘mere’ machine. He was not imitating the reaction of a human to an insult. Clearly, he had felt it. She wondered if his creators realized just how far beyond machines these cyborgs had evolved. She supposed they must if they considered them so dangerous. "It hadn’t occurred to me that it would be a problem," she responded tightly. "I was only thinking that it was not very comfortable."

She could tell by the expression on his face that he knew she was lying.

Was he truly as unique as he seemed? Or had the others she’d destroyed been as he was?

It disturbed her to think they might have been. She had refused to consider that they were anything more than machines, very impressive machines, the cutting edge of technology, but still no different, really, than any other machine when all was said and done. Cutting them down was no different than destroying ... a refrigerating unit, for instance. Except they bled, and the blood gave her nightmares and the look of despair in their artificial eyes as they died gave her nightmares.

If she had not known that strangely beautiful, and very unforgettable, face from the bulletins that had been posted on him, she was doubtful that she would ever have realized that he was not human, and that disturbed her almost as much as the other. How many, she wondered, walked undetected among them? Infiltrating every aspect of their society, possibly preparing to strike down their creators before their creators could destroy them?

Grasping her upper arm, he led her from the cabin and down the narrow passage that bisected the ship. When they reached a stairwell, he pushed her in front of him. Grasping the handrail, she preceded him and found herself in a large room that was obviously intended as a social room. Here comfortably stuffed chairs were arranged in small groupings.

Four pairs of cyborg eyes turned as she entered, examining her with what she could only describe as--interest, curiosity, even a touch of hostility. There was no cool, emotionless appraisal, not from one. There was no similarity between them beyond a general physical build, height and weight. Two were blond, two dark, but the shades varied drastically, as did their eye color and facial features, but then she hadn’t expected them to look as if they’d come off of an assembly line. They had arisen from a new generation of cyborg, and had been touted as ‘each as uniquely different and natural as a real, live human.’ It was one of the things that had made tracking them down extremely difficult. They had been designed to blend in with humans.