Mated with the Cyborg (3 page)

Definitely not that.
“I do not have room for it in my case.” Other than her emotions, she had nothing to hide. She would miss many things, but being watched wasn’t one of them. It would be a relief to relax her guard once in a while and perhaps release some of her despair without being judged.

Thunk
. The android dropped the statue.

“I apologize,” he said, but, after picking it up, he dropped it again. The spy device, half the size of her smallest fingernail, popped out. When he bent to retrieve the icon, he accidentally stepped on the transmitter and crushed it. Oblivious to the destruction, he set the emblem back on the table.

What was wrong with him today? The R-series android was supposed to be the most technologically advanced bot ever manufactured. Was he a factory second? Despite automation, a few androids rolled off the assembly line with small blemishes or defects. Manufacturers claimed the imperfections did not affect performance, but she’d never seen an android malfunction this way.
Imperfection is something we share
. Despite his lack of trustworthiness, she realized she’d grown fond him. Though oversized, if he’d been a
living
being, he would have been considered quite handsome. A catch for any woman who desired attractive offspring.

Her
only chance for mating was with an alien. She suppressed the wave of homesickness threatening to weaken her resolve. If emotion took hold, she would never survive this.

“Are you sure you want to go to Katnia?” he asked.

An odd query from an android. Worse, it fed her insecurity. She stiffened. “Of course I am.”

“Have you done any reading about the Ka-Tȇ?”

“No. You should know I have not.”

“I have been informed there is a library.”

“I have been told that, too.”

“You have not been there?”

“No.”

“Not ever?”

“No.” She frowned.

“I would have thought that one who lived in seclusion would engage in the quiet, contemplative pursuit of reading.”

Since when did robots think? Programming allowed them to respond to the environment, but they didn’t have
brains
. They didn’t deduce or speculate. In some respects, R981 seemed more advanced than her other droids, but in other ways he seemed less complete. There were gaps in his information database. Maybe he
was
a factory second or an unperfected prototype. That would make sense. Until C684, they’d never wasted a new model on her before. She was usually assigned hand-me-downs. The bot before C684 had been so old, he leaked fluids. He’d finally been consigned to the scrap heap.

“I can’t read,” she explained.

His jaw dropped.

Her mouth fell open at his surprise. How could an android be shocked?

They stared at each other.

He blinked first. “You cannot read?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

There
was
a big gap in his programming. Did he know nothing of Lamis-Odg culture? “Females can’t read,” she explained.

“None of you?”

“None of us.” She tilted her head. “Can females on other worlds read?”

“Yes. If a race is literate, it is the norm that all sexes are taught to read.”

“You mean both sexes,” she corrected.

“Two sexes are most common, but some races have three or four genders.”

“They do?” Mariska widened her eyes. “What are they?”

“Male. Female. Hermaphroditic—both male and female—and neuter. Some races have a nonsexual gender.”

He had all that information, yet he hadn’t known Lamis-Odg females were illiterate. That was as odd as having four sexes.

He arched his brows and thinned the Odgidian ridge on his forehead. “If you were not taught to read, what did your tutoring entail?”

Heat flooded her face. Thank goodness the veil hid her blush. Why she should get embarrassed in front of an android baffled her. “The home arts…and how to please and pleasure a man.” She averted her eyes.

When she dared to peer at him again, his expression seemed almost grim. “Ka-Tȇ
males are unlike any you have known. Mating is…rather violent.”

Violent? How violent?
She gulped but lifted her chin. “I am Lamis-Odg. My people are strong and resilient, and I’m the daughter of a powerful leader. I won’t wilt.”

“You should reconsider your decision.”

“It’s not for me to decide, but if it were, I would still go.” Mariska gestured to her luggage. “Carry my things.” She exited before he could say another word and make her departure more difficult than it was. His questions and comments had cut to the heart of her insecurities. It was as if he was trying to undermine her determination.

Unusual behavior for an android.

Unless
... She peeked at him. Both heavy bags were slung over his shoulders like they weighed nothing at all.
Unless
…her father had him programmed to challenge her obedience and commitment.

Despite her best efforts to conceal her mixed emotions, she must have betrayed her ambivalence, and her father sought reassurance. She disliked that he’d sent an android to spy on and interrogate her, but she’d lived under those kinds of conditions her entire life.

Mariska pivoted to face R981. His inscrutable eyes stared over her head. “Relay to my father I will make him proud,” she said.

The android did not reply, but he had to have recorded her comment. Why hadn’t he acknowledged the order? Clearly, he had gone haywire. It seemed like the more advanced a unit, the greater the errors. Simple droids rarely malfunctioned. But R981 and his glitches were no longer her problem.

She stomped down the corridor. A growl halted her in her tracks. She spun around. “Did you say something?”

“No, I did not.”

YOU WILL NEVER make him proud
, Kai had muttered. Obido wanted her dead—or, at the least, intended to sacrifice her for a military base. And Kai’s hands were tied by his mission objective.

Trying to talk her out of going had failed. If anything, it had strengthened her resolve. And what choice did she have? Like she’d pointed out, her father had ordered it.

Holy hell, she couldn’t read. No female of this assbackward civilization could. Many planets practiced customs deemed bizarre by Terran standards, and diplomats weren’t supposed to judge. “Embrace diversity of thought and culture,” the Association of Planets said in its Declaration of Purpose.

Fortunately, Kai was not a diplomat, but a cyborg operative who didn’t have to embrace bullshit. A culture that kept half its population illiterate was plain wrong. Fuck diversity. Besides, the Lamis-Odg were terrorists who believed their mythological Great One had granted them a special pass to an afterlife of luxury in the Blessed Beyond. Everyone else, the Unchosen, would spend eternity as their slaves—those who weren’t destroyed in the Great Purge anyway.

Lamis-Odg terrorized those who disagreed with their dogma, straining the AOP’s progressive ideology and diplomacy. The Association of Planets did not embrace diversity expressed by bombings and murders of innocents.

Mariska was ignorant of that—and her tragic destiny.

Any other woman, upon being informed of the sketchy details of an arranged mating—which itself was anachronistic—would have tapped into a computer, gotten the full info, and said, fuck no! Illiteracy had kept her complacent. She was marching toward a torturous death, believing it her duty.

He fulfilled his duty by letting her.

Preventing her death is not my mission
. Hunting down the reclusive leader was. Executing him to halt the spread of terrorism was.

Some might have cheered Mariska’s impending demise. The organization’s brutality had incited a backlash of negative sentiment against all its members. Many espoused the notion that the only good Lamis-Odg was a dead Lamis-Odg.

Kai couldn’t buy into that. Mariska had been no party to the actions of her father or Lamani. She was vulnerable. Innocent. But not stupid or cowardly. In the month he’d spent observing her, her quiet fortitude and inner strength had impressed him. Even before he’d caught the shocking glimpse of her face, he’d been struck by her beautiful eyes. A rich shade of melted caramel, fringed by dark lashes. Expressive in their attempt not to be. She didn’t trust him.

Her wariness pierced him in a way it shouldn’t. She was a person of interest, and her emotions shouldn’t impact his decision-making. And, in fact, she was wise to be suspicious. Obido had bugged her quarters and employed spybots to keep tabs on her. While Kai wouldn’t intentionally harm her, he would manipulate her to obtain whatever information he could on Lamis-Odg.

The reign of terror had to be stopped. Direct intervention in Mariska’s fate jeopardized that goal. Doing nothing was the right thing to do. Sacrifices had to be made for the greater good.

Why did he feel like he was no better than Obido?

When they approached the gangway inside the small cargo transport bay, one of the smaller shuttle ports on the station, two Lamis-Odg guards drew their weapons. “Halt!” one of them cried.

“It’s okay. He’s with me,” Mariska said.

While one guard leveled his weapon, the other scanned him. “The android is not authorized to board,” the guard said.

“He’s not boarding; he’s loading my luggage. He’ll disembark after he carries it to my stateroom.”

“Negative. He shall remain here.” The guard motioned. “Leave the cases.”

Kai set the bags down, and the sentry scanned them. “Clear,” he announced. He jerked his head at Mariska. “You may take them now.”

She dragged one toward the craft.

“My duty is to serve the daughter of Obido. Allow me to set the bags inside the door. I shall not enter,” Kai said.

The two guards glanced at each other and shrugged. “All right.”

Under armed watch, he deposited both bags inside the portal. There was nothing else he could do. He sought Mariska’s gaze.
Don’t go
. “Have a safe flight.”

“Thank you.”

She boarded. Kai stomped down the gangway.

When the shuttle door shut, the spacecraft hull seemed to shrink and close in. Sweat dampened her temples. Mariska leaned against the wall and fought to draw air into her spasming lungs.

Was she sure about going to Katnia? What kind of a question was that? Of course she desired to go—this was her opportunity for a new life.
Perhaps the Ka-Tȇ
will ignore my deformity, and I can earn their respect. I shall pass the test, Father, and make you proud of me.

She closed her eyes and inhaled to calm her nerves. Then she squared her shoulders and pushed off from the wall.
Once I get to Katnia, everything will be all right.

She reached for a bag then sensed a presence. An android stood there.

Despite their heavy metal composition, robots could move soundlessly. R981 did. Often she’d assumed she was alone, then she’d turn around to find him observing her.

Her heart hitched.
I’ll never see him again
. It should have been a relief to travel without a spybot reporting on every action, but, although she didn’t trust him, oddly, she felt safer with him around.

Nervousness made her fanciful. She focused on the android staring at her. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Mariska.”

“I am Q257,” the droid said. “I am here to assist.”

“Oh, good,” she replied. “Would you carry my bags to my quarters?”

“I am not programmed to carry bags. My function is to deliver the daughter of Obido to Katnia.”

R981 would have done it. He performed many courtesies, to the extent he’d seemed almost lifelike. A pang of loss pierced her again. Funny, she already missed him more than she missed her father, his mates, or her many siblings.
It is only because he is familiar to you and was not unkind. Not unkind for a spy, anyway. Remember that.

“Can you at least tell me where my cabin is?” she asked.

The droid was slight, expressionless. Nothing at all like R981, whose tall, muscular body and quirky behavior caused her to sometimes forget he was a robot. Why would she bring a lamp to Katnia? The memory of how he’d tromped around her quarters picking up random objects brought a thickness to her throat.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry
. She pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth.

“Passenger staterooms are located port side, aft.”

She’d entered starboard side, midship, but it would still be a long way to haul her luggage to the rear of the craft. “How long is the flight to Katnia?”

“Four days, six hours, and seven minutes.”

“That long?” She didn’t know how fast a shuttle flew, but it stood to reason the longer the journey, the farther away the destination. The only other time she’d flown had been when she’d traveled with her siblings and their mothers to the space station. She’d been a small child then, and the journey had seemed to take an eon, but, in reality, had been overnight she’d learned later. She’d been excited, eager to move to a new place where she might have friends, where she might find acceptance. That hadn’t happened, of course. Deformity had been no more accepted here than it had been on Lamis-Odg.

“The shuttle will launch in twenty-nine minutes,” the android said. “Prepare yourself.” He marched away.

R981 would have kept her company.

Stop obsessing about him. Focus on proving your worth, on making Father proud of you.

Mariska decided to leave her belongings and locate her cabin first to avoid dragging her heavy bags while she searched. With determination, she headed down the passageway. It had been more than twenty years since she’d been on a spacecraft, and the sharpness of memories had dulled, but she estimated the size of the current craft as much smaller than the other one.

The previous one had seemed huge, but of course, it had carried a dozen passengers and two dozen bots, while this one ferried only her and a single unfriendly android.

She traversed the craft, noting the android recharging dock, a small galley stocked with expired military rations, an empty area with cleats attached to the walls, a tiny lounge with hard chairs, and, port side aft, a closet-sized stateroom, with two narrow sleeping berths, the gap between the bunks even slimmer. The cabin offered scarcely more space than the android recharging dock!