Alternate Realities Read Online Free PDF Page A

born-men moved out of Modred’s way, and that was a useful thing with some of the guests Dela had had. Not that Modred would hurt anyone, being like us, psych-set against it, but he looked like he would, and people reacted to that. Actually, he seemed to enjoy doing me small favors I asked, and getting small attentions from me and from Lynn when she was in the mood. Mostly that grim face—handsome, because my lady would not have had him about otherwise—seemed to me to conceal a very blank sort, who did his duty, who thought and calculated constantly, and who liked, like the rest of us, to sleep close at night, with someone close enough to let him feel companied. Vivien avoided sleeping next to him, somewhat scared of him, truth be told—and I always preferred Lance. So mostly Modred, really sexless, slept with his crewmates, who were also sexless during the voyages, and they kept each other company. Likely those four were neither concerned nor jealous about the freedom Lance and Viv and I had to come and go with my lady, to be in attendance on her, to share her luxuries, and in my case, to share her lovers—because they four were psych-fixed to the Maid , and when Modred or the others handled her controls, I think it was really like touching the body of a lover. It was a sort of grim joke, the stainless steel Maid and her crew doomed to love her with a chaste and forever devotion.
    I preferred Lance.
    But I flirted with Modred because it was pleasant. I always suspected he liked my touching him ... at least that killer’s face of his acquired a certain placidity like a pet being stroked by a familiar hand. He was not immune to sensation; it was just sex that was missing in him.
    “Thank you,” I whispered in his ear, leaning close, when he settled back into his place at the console, from disposing of the tape for me. I was not supposed to be on the bridge, any more than Modred was supposed to be doing things to the library records, but supposed was often a very lax word in my lady Dela’s world: Dela cared nothing about laws or limitations in anyone. As long as the Maid served well as what she was, an abode of utmost luxury, and an extravagantly expensive toy, then what her living toys did in their off hours was of no concern. We could have held orgies on the bridge and abstracted the whole library to the crew quarters had we liked, and if my lady was in one of her relaxed moods, she would notice nothing.
    There were, of course, other moods. Remembering those, we always kept the record purified.
    “They’ll be wanting you,” Modred said in his flat way, staring at his screens to find out where things stood at the moment. Gawain was at the main console. I had my hands on Modred’s shoulders and leaned to deposit a kiss on the side of his neck, which, he took about like the touch of my hands, as something relaxingly pleasant. “I think my lady is awake.”
    He could do that, never missing the thread of the conversation when I teased him, which was the difference between him and Gawain or Percy, who at least grew bothered.
    “I’ll see to it,” I said, and patted his shoulder. Actually Modred fascinated me because he couldn’t be moved, and it was my function to move people. I hadn’t seen him in months, and it was a new chance to try.
    I had once tried more direct approaches, in the crew quarters. I think Modred wanted, with some dim curiosity, to do what others did, but it was only curiosity. “Let him alone,” Lynn had said when she saw it, with a frown that meant business.
    So you play the same game with him, I had thought then, but likewise Lynette was not one to cross lightly; and when it occurred to me that I might hurt someone my psych-set intervened and cooled me down at once. I confined myself after that to small games that Modred himself found pleasant.
    “We’re going to make jump in another hour,” Gawain said from his post.
    I wrinkled my nose. That meant getting my lady and the rest of us