Key to Survival

Chapter 5 Shee

"You do know I'm on a mission?" Havoc inquired with a tolerant smile. "I should spank you for interrupting it."

"I would accept the spanking, Father, from you," Voila replied. She was a reasonably attractive light-brown-haired young woman of twenty one, the Glamor of Amoeba, and the strongest by far of all the Glamors. Few could have told by looking at her how dreadfully powerful she was, or how alien her outlook. Even Havoc was somewhat in awe of what she had become. "But Weft would be insanely jealous."

Her sister Weft, of course, had always had a thing for him, and was embarrassingly open about it. She would gladly have bared her bottom for his hand. In fact she would have taken him to bed long since, had she found some way to justify it. It was a family joke, to all except Weft herself. "I can't remain here long. Opaline will wonder if she wakes and finds me missing."

"You must remain. Send your double."

He studied her. She was serious, and she always had reason. Then he walked to the front office. "Ennui, set up my double to take my place beside Opaline. Caution: he must not have sex with her."

Ennui nodded and departed. She would handle it competently, including briefing and getting the man rapidly transported there in clothing matching Havoc's of the moment.

"We have learned things," Voila said. "There is a machines spy among us that we are unable to identify, but we must, in order to increase our chance against the machines to fifty percent. They have a number of recruitment prospects, for which they are prepared to pay handsomely. I am first on their list. They are sending a humanoid robot to persuade you to send me to them."

Havoc was used to straight talk from his daughter, but this set him back. "A spy, a prospect, and a robot. By what device of illusion do they suppose I would ever yield you to their power?"

"They will spare our entire human culture if you do. Otherwise they will try to destroy it. Their chances of success in that are three to one. It is because they do not like those odds they are making the offer."

"What odds do they favor?"

"One hundred to one, or better."

"And this golem they are sending—"

"A robot, fashioned of metals and minerals into a most fetching humanoid female. She is designed to become your mistress."

Havoc choked. "I have a mistress."

"Your second mistress."

"And the machines suppose I would ever touch her? Why?"

"Because the future paths suggest that you can maintain our chances of survival at fifty percent only if you do."

"Contempt!"

"Father, you must do it. It is necessary."

He stared at her, knowing she was serious. "I must cohabit with a machine bent on persuading me to give you to the machines."

"Affirmation."

"We can't simply blast her transport ship out of space before she arrives, and be done with it?"

"Negation. We must not harm her."

"The paths show disaster if we do?"

"The paths show a diminution of our position."

That was the same thing. Everything in this monstrous chess game was governed by the paths that led to advantage or disadvantage. Still, the notion rankled. Havoc loved women, but not machines. "This will require some consideration."

"You have an hour."

"Question?"

"Then she arrives here."

He considered. "Question: if you go to the machines, what is your personal fate?"

"Largely comfortable. All my family and friends will be protected. I will have complete freedom of our realm and theirs, and can marry a mortal or a machine crafted to my liking. Mino will return to their control, and Idyll and I will join him regularly for sessions of future paths exploration, as we have done before. But now it would be for the benefit of the machines, to enable them to conquer the remaining galaxy in approximately a third of the time and a quarter of the expenditure of resources as otherwise."

He whistled. "So you really are valuable to them."

She nodded. "Most valuable. They would take very good care of me and mine."

"And if you do not join them?"

"Then it is war. All of us may be destroyed, as we are too dangerous to allow to continue to exist outside their control. They will still conquer the galaxy, albeit it more slowly and with larger losses."

"Then why should you not join them?"

"The rest of the galaxy would suffer."

"Be rendered extinct?"

"Affirmation."

"Mankind is not known as an altruistic species."

She waited.

"But we do have a chance," he added.

"Affirmation."

"So naturally we will gamble."

Again she waited, knowing him all too well.

"But we will keep the decision in abeyance. First I will see how persuasive this female machine contraption can be. They will not act until her mission fails, and that might take some time."

"If she does not persuade you within a year, they will assume her mission is futile, and act. That decision is pre-programmed."

"So the robot proffers us a chance to stall for a year. That is why you say I should take her as a second mistress."

"In part, father."

"Question?"

"You will like her. Perhaps even love her."

"An enemy machine!"

Voila was silent again. She had of course fathomed all the relevant future paths, and knew his decision before he made it. This session had been mainly a show of form, allowing him to act kingly. Voila had been the ultimate authority on human decisions for the past five years or more.

He was resigned. "Thanks for letting me strut and fret my hour upon the stage, daughter."

She kissed him, and for just a moment she was his little girl again. "Welcome, father." She faded out.

Havoc went to his office. Ennui was there, old but able. She was never off-duty when things of importance were afoot, regardless of the time. "Gale and Monochrome await you in your suite, Havoc."

"They know?"

"Naturally." And naturally she knew what he was talking about. She was telepathic, but hardly needed it. There was no mortal person more important to the functioning of the kingdom than Ennui, and everyone knew it.

He went to his suite. Both women greeted him. They were dressed to be attractive, Gale in green, Monochrome in white, and they were the two loveliest women in the human culture despite being well beyond youth. Glamors were ageless.

Havoc paused for a moment to admire them. Queen Gale, now 40, was the Glamor of Mosses and Lichen, slender yet full fleshed, retaining the figure that had in her youth made her perhaps the planet's most beautiful woman. Her hair and eyes were brown and lustrous. She played the hammer dulcimer with marvelous finesse. He had loved her from the time she was a child, and would always love her.

Monochrome was the Mistress of Mistresses of Planet Earth, that planet's Female Spirit or Glamor, lovely and cultured, not looking her age of 55. She was albino, white of hair and skin, her eyes pink because there was no color to mask their blood. Her body was so well formed it seemed to have no bones, just soft curves. She anchored her hair with the two sections of her soprano recorder, which she could play supremely well. Havoc had made her a reluctant Oath of Friendship by Voila's direction, then quickly come to love her; she was as fine a woman in her own right as could be discovered, with subtle yet powerful magic.

"Do you see anything interesting?" Gale asked.

"My sun and my moon, and all between," he answered. "I can never see enough of either of you."

"Then we should show you more," Monochrome said. With that both women shrugged out of their garments and stood nude in all their splendor.

"You know what this means," Havoc said with mock grimness. "I will have to do you simultaneously. Am I man enough?"

"Verification," Gale said as both advanced on him. In moments they had him stripped and on the bed on his back.

Gale took his upper section, kissing him as she set his hands on her breasts. Monochrome took his lower section, bestriding him and taking his standing member into her mouth. Gale ran her tongue into his mouth as Monochrome drew deliciously on his member. "Love," Gale whispered in his ear as he jetted into Monochrome's throat.

They then switched places. Monochrome sat on his face, proffering her cleft for his tongue, while Gale sat on his member, squeezing it with her channel. As his tongue probed the one, his member gushed into the other. As a Glamor he could do it, as they knew. So could they; now both climaxed in unison, answering to his dual attentions to their clefts.

Then they lay on either side of him, their breasts and thighs pressing close. "What does the love machine have that we don't?" Monochrome asked.

"I haven't even seen the expletive machine!" he protested.

"But you'll be into her before the night is out," Gale said.

"Negation!"

"Penalty," Monochrome said.

"You lied," Gale agreed.

"How do you know?"

"We know you," Monochrome said. "She's female."

"And Voila told us," Gale said. "She had it from Idyll."

Then they made him do them both again. And again.

Satisfied that they had punished him enough, they quickly washed, dressed, and departed.

Ennui appeared. "She is here. Put something on, Havoc."

For he was sitting on the bed, naked, his spent member dribbling, where the two lovers had left him. They had prepared him for the first encounter with the machine by depleting him to the extent feasible for a Glamor.

"Is there no protocol?" he demanded as he dressed. "Doesn't she have to get clearance, go through customs, or something?"

"Not on Charm. The paths steer her right to you. If we inhibited her, it would be war with the machines." She produced a comb and touched up his mussed hair in motherly fashion.

He was tempted to kiss her, just to discommode her. He suppressed it; she was not one of his girls. "It will be war with the machines anyway, starting with her."

"Havoc, stop blustering. This is serious business. She is our first direct contact with the machine culture." She straightened his collar and led him out of the suite, to her office.

An inoffensive young woman was waiting there, evidently a human handmaid assigned to guide the visiting machine. Her blue dress, matching slippers, and matching headband served to accent her excellent figure. He checked her mind routinely. And paused. "Oh, no!" For it was no human mind. It was an alien device.

"Shee, this is King Havoc," Ennui said, introducing them. "Havoc, this is Shee Robot, SHEE, representing the machine culture."

The form of the young woman made a gesture of obeisance. "Honored," she murmured.

Havoc just looked at her. She was small, the top of her head hardly reaching to his shoulder. Her hair was glossy and of indeterminate color, shifting from blond to red to brown according to the highlights that changed as she moved.

Her eyes were subtly iridescent, their color also undefined. Her form was man's desire, and so were her lovely features.

In fact she was, in her special fashion, a beauty to match that of Gale and Monochrome.

"But I am a machine," she said. Even her voice was gently evocative. "I will never deceive you, Havoc."

Havoc looked at Ennui, but she was expressionless. This was a situation he had to handle by himself. "Let's take a walk," he said. "Is there anything you would like to see?"

"Trees," she said raptly. "I love trees."

And he was the Glamor of Trees. That could be no coincidence. She had truly been crafted to appeal to him. His mind rebelled against so obvious a ploy. He took her to a small internal city park, because it was night outside. It was quickly apparent that she really did like trees—and they liked her. That surprised him. How could a living thing care about a machine?

She put her hand on a ripe plumb. "May I?"

"Welcome." What would she do with it?

She plucked it and put it to her mouth. She bit into it, chewing. "You eat?" he asked, surprised.

"I can eat," she agreed. "I do not have to, but in social situations it is better to join in, and I need to be able to pass for human at your convenience." She took another bite.

"What happens to it?"

"I can digest it, and utilize its energy to restore my power supply. I can process wastes in similar manner to that of living things. Or I can store its nourishment for the use of living creatures." She finished the plum.

"You ate the pit!" he exclaimed.

She paused. "I forgot. I can regurgitate it, if you wish."

"Needless," he said quickly. "A machine can forget?"

"A machine can temporarily misplace information. I have not eaten before, so overlooked a nuance. I can process all of it. I will be more accurate in future."

Had she really forgotten, or was she showing him something? She had evidently had no trouble with the pit.

She walked among the collections of small trees, admiring each. Then she stopped. "This is wrong."

"It is a coneless pine," Havoc said. "A special type."

"It is not doing well. The light is wrong."

"It is artificial, crafted to suit the indoor trees. They have done well for years."

"Not this one," she said. "See, it is spindly and poorly leafed. It needs a different kind of light."

"Question?"

"Can you fetch an alternate device of illumination? It shouldn't hurt the other trees, but will help this one."

Havoc took her to the bulb supply. "This," she said, selecting one. She took it and substituted it for the existing one. The power from the Silver Chroma stone flowed through it, and it illuminated the region.

There was no apparent change in the plant.

"It doesn't know," she said. "It remains defensive. I will tell it."

This was curious indeed. "Question?"

"Music can be a key. I will try." She opened her purse, which Havoc had not noticed before, and brought out a pair of conch-like shells from some alien ocean. She held them in her two hands, flexing her fingers. The shells squeezed together and expanded, turning out to be soft surfaced.

And music came out. These were wind instruments, with the air pumped through by the rhythmic squeezing. One shell played a delicate melody, and the other did counterpoint. Together they made a lovely duet. It was an unfamiliar melody, not quite like any that Havoc had encountered before. That surprised him, because as Hayseed the Minstrel he had encountered most of the melodies of the planet, and of Earth too. Definitely alien, on an alien tone scale, but also very pretty and evocative.

And the plant responded. Its needles firmed, and its main stem straightened. It sought the light.

Shee put away the shells. "Now it will prosper," she said. Havoc knew she was correct; he felt the mending of the small tree. She had fathomed its problem in a manner he had not, and cured it.

She looked at him. "Apology for intruding on your demesnes," she said. "When I saw it hurting, I forgot myself. I should have asked you first."

Havoc acted before he realized what he was doing. He kissed her.

She kissed him back. "You know I am crafted to love you," she said as they broke. "But I would not have initiated that gesture. I try not to be forward."

"You really are a woman," he said, amazed.

"Affirmation. Merely not a living one."

"We must talk," he said. She had kissed exactly like a woman, and he discovered that he liked her despite knowing that she was a machine. This needed to be sorted out, emotionally.

"I will always be available," she said. "For anything you choose."

"Question: That instrument—what is it? I have not seen its like."

"The shells?" She brought them out again. "They are from an erstwhile culture. I had my choice of musical accessories, and liked these, so learned them."

"Request: May I handle them?"

"Of course. But you will not find them familiar."

"I can play anything." But as he squeezed a shell, it made a noise like a fart.

Shee laughed. "The control is dual. Pumping to make it inhale and exhale, and shaping to vary the tone. So:"

She held the other shell in her left hand, squeezing it gently. It made a fine sustained note, followed by a scale of notes.

Havoc tried again, but managed only a series of grunts and wheezes. He gave it back, smiling. "You will teach me this, in due course."

"Gladly, Havoc."

"Do you sing?"

"I do."

"What songs?"

"I know all of yours. I was crafted for this."

"All?"

"Affirmation."

"How?"

"The machines developed a database of your cultural artifacts. It is part of their process of conquest: they make sure to understand the nuances as well as the gross features. They do not like surprises."

"How?" he repeated.

"A generation ago a series of synthetic human beings was sent to your planet. Their purpose is to collect exactly such information."

"The fifths!"

"Agreement. They are not aware of their mission, but their minds are readily permeable to machine monitors, and all that they learn is grist for the data banks. Such as your folk songs."

"I am keeping company with one of them now."

She nodded, unsurprised. "She is surely receptive to your attentions."

Havoc, shaken, changed the subject. He knew he would have to ponder this revelation in due course, when alone.

He had known about the origin and purpose of the fifths, but to have the robot so readily confirm it—that was significant. He had assumed that the machines would do their best to keep the secret. What could be their ploy?

He brought out his blue dragon scale. "I will sing a stanza, then you will sing one. Then we will sing the refrain together." Did she really know them all?

"Gladly," she repeated.

He chose a song he hadn't sung in years, "Nicodemus," because it wasn't the kind villagers normally understood or appreciated. They preferred love or adventure songs, and as Minstrel, he catered to their preferences. The fifths would not readily have picked it up. It related to the slave days of ancient Earth, when folk of white color made slaves of folk of black color, and to the black folks' longing for freedom.

He played his dragon scale and sang:

Then he paused, giving it to Shee. She squeezed her shells, making her own accompaniment, and sang:

Then they sang the refrain together.

She really did know it! The harmony was beautiful, his tenor, her alto. She was an excellent singer, with delightful melodic nuances, and her voice meshed perfectly with his. Havoc was a thoroughly experienced singer, and knew the difference between amateur and professional quality efforts. She was as good as he was.

They finished, and put away their instruments. He embraced her closely and kissed her, one hand cupping her divine bottom. "Wonder," he said. She was yielding, accepting, participating, and extraordinarily appealing. He had doubted that any machine could win his favor, but he was already losing his resistance. This was scary; the machines had pegged him far more accurately than he had anticipated.

"Kiss me thrice, and you will not stop there," she said.

"I can stop where I choose."

"But you will not choose."

She was probably right. "Yet you serve the machines."

"I am a machine," she agreed. "I was created by machines, and am serving the mission of the machine culture. But my heart is with Havoc."

"Because of your programming," he agreed. "This is not earned love."

"I can be deprogrammed in that respect. Then you will be obliged to earn my love."

"Temptation. Will you depart if deprogrammed?"

"Negation. There remains my mission. I will merely have to express feelings I lack, to influence you."

That did not appeal. "State your mission."

"To persuade you to commit your daughter Voila to join the machines."

"Voila does not answer to me."

She shook her head reprovingly. "Disingenuity. She will do this if you tell her to."

"Why should I tell her to?"

"Because this will save her and you and your species from extinction." She took his elbows and stared into his face. "I love you, Havoc, and want you to survive and prosper, with or without me. I can save you only in this manner."

"We can fight off the machines."

"Negation. Havoc, I think you don't properly appreciate their power. It is overwhelming, and not merely because of their superior technology. They prepare methodically for every conquest, so as to make no mistakes. The fifths, as you call them, are only part of it. The secret spies are only part of it. I am only part of it. Their massive type 2.5 space fleet is only part of it. They are experienced millennia deep and galaxy wide in just such actions. You would be foolish to think that you could successfully oppose them, and I doubt you are foolish."

"Type 2.5?"

"Your culture is magic, but I know you are familiar with the technological types, Havoc. You don't need me to review them."

"Review them regardless." He had done this with Opaline, to establish the limits of her information.

What were Shee's limits?

"When a culture uses only a portion of the energy of a single planet, that is type 0. When it utilizes all the energy of a planet, that is type 1. When it utilizes all the energy of a star, that is type 2. When it utilizes all the energy of a galaxy, it is type 3. The human culture is type 1. The machine culture is half way between 2 and 3 and will be 3 when its conquest of the galaxy is complete and it focuses on capturing all its energy. This is not merely a matter of energy, but of sophistication."

"Doubt."

"And that is part of the reason I am here. I am an example of what a type 2-plus culture can do. You will want to study me, and despair."

Havoc grinned. "You do not make me despair. You make me want to clasp you."

"In due course, Havoc. I long for your clasp. But first you need to fathom the reality of my mission."

"By studying you, I will appreciate the enormous power of the machines?"

"In part. Allow me to make a small demonstration. You will want samples of my substance to analyze in your Science Chroma laboratories. I will give them to you, in the process providing you with a hint of my potential."

"We have seen machines before."

"I am the most sophisticated machine ever to be released to this system. You have yet to grasp my properties."

"What of Mino?"

"Ask him."

Havoc turned to the arboretum's ceiling. "Mino," he said.

A panel became a window to the huge machine's control room. "Havoc," it acknowledged.

"This is Shee, a visiting machine. How does she compare to you?"

The intellect beyond the panel focused on Shee. "I am type 2 technology. She is type 2.5. She can destroy me."

"From here?"

"Affirmation. She has but to speak an applicable code, and I will become useless, or her slave. You should not have admitted her to your sanctum."

"She loves me."

"A machine does not love."

Shee lifted her hands and snapped her fingers twice.

"Correction," Mino said. "She is beyond the threshold, and does experience emotion. But I must warn you: her love is dangerous, because it is supported by power you are not equipped to comprehend. She—"

Shee snapped her fingers once more, cutting it off. The ceiling panel returned to its former state.

That was impressive. Havoc had never seen Mino controlled in that fashion. Shee evidently did know the codes.

Still, it wasn't certain.

"Conjecture," Havoc said. "One machine supports another, to make the demonstration more impressive."

"Now I will impress you directly," she said. She removed her slippers, dress, and headband and stood nude.

Havoc studied her carefully. He had assumed that her clothing had supported and confined her body to enhance its form, as was the case with most women, but now it was apparent that it was the other way around: her form supported the accouterments. Her feet were shapely, the toenails delicately iridescent, matching her eyes. Her hair now hung luxuriously loose to her waist, softly waved, flexing with her every minor movement. And her body—was man's desire. Havoc had seen many breasts, buttocks, and torsos, but none to match these proportions. She had indeed been crafted from an ideal template. "Awe," he murmured.

"First, one hair of my head. Do you care to snap it loose?" She separated her tresses to isolate a single long hair.

Havoc shrugged and took the end of the hair between thumb and forefinger. He jerked on it—and it didn't snap.

He took hold of it near her scalp with his other hand, and pulled hard—and it didn't snap. This was interesting, because as a Glamor he had inhuman power and could snap wires barehanded.

"Lift your hand high," Shee said.

"But that could hurt you."

"Hurt a machine?"

He clamped his finger on the hair and lifted his arm powerfully upward. And Shee came up with it. She dangled over the floor, suspended by the single hair. She was no heavier than a living woman her size would have been, but no such woman could be suspended this way.

He lowered her until she could stand again. Then he brought out his knife and cut at the hair. Unsuccessfully.

The thing was impervious to damage.

"Impressive," he conceded. "Every hair is similar?"

"Affirmation." She smiled. "Perhaps just as well, as my hair does not grow. It would not replace itself if cut. It is inorganic."

He stroked her hair with his hand. It was soft and flexible. He brought a hank to his face and sniffed it. It smelled faintly female. He would not have known it was not natural if he had not tested it.

She took the single strand, brought it to her mouth, and bit on it. It separated. She gave the severed strand to him.

Her teeth could cut what his stout knife could not. That spoke for her teeth as well as for her hair.

"Now your laboratory will want a sample of my urine."

"I will fetch a cup." Would she urinate in front of him? Many women would indulge in all manner of sexual exploits with abandon, but would not urinate in the sight of a man.

"Needless. Cup your hands."

Would she really do that? He bent down and extended his cupped hands.

She squatted over them, her thighs to either side of his arms. She jetted a small amount of warm liquid into them, then rose. "This actually is plumb juice. You may drink it if you wish."

Was that a challenge? Havoc raised his hands to his face and sipped. It was plum juice. He drank it all, rather than let it spill on the floor.

"You are succeeding in surprising me," he said as he licked his hands clean. It was a barbarian mannerism he seldom showed as king.

"All part of the demonstration. I can evacuate the pulp also, if you wish."

He smiled. "Another time, intriguing as the act might be to watch."

"Now you will need a drop of my blood. Take it." She held out her bare right arm.

"Hesitation: You wish me to cut you?"

"Satisfactory."

He brought out his knife and carefully sliced her forearm. The knife made no impression. He cut harder, still without result. "Invulnerable? Like the hair?" He put away the knife.

"Accuracy." She brought her left hand across and ran a fingernail across her right wrist. A cut appeared, from which welled a bright drop of blood.

Havoc hastily fetched a vial and captured the blood. Then she ran her finger over the cut, and it disappeared.

Havoc snapped his fingers. A manservant appeared. "Take these two samples to the science lab and have them analyzed," he said.

The man nodded and left with the samples, not even seeming to notice the nude woman standing there.

"Question," Havoc said. "What will they discover?"

"Invulnerable fiber and inorganic blood. They will be mystified, as neither matches anything they will have seen before."

"So you have demonstrated some of your special physical qualities. Accept my wonder as a given. What is next?"

She laughed. "I suppose I should seduce you, as long as I am naked. That would save me the trouble of dressing and undressing again in short order."

"Interest. But I have not kissed you thrice."

She frowned, prettily. "Expletive! He remembered."

Havoc enfolded her and kissed her.

She returned the kiss savagely. Then paused. "Request."

"Granted."

She smiled. "This first time, allow me to do it. All other times may be at your wish and manner. I will never deny you."

This was curious. "Virgin?"

"Nor will I deceive you. But I prefer not to answer that question."

"Withdrawn."

"Appreciation."

Then she got to work. She led him to a bed of moss she had spied, and took off his clothes, and laid him down upon that bed. His erection stood stiffly. She stroked it, then squatted over him and carefully lowered herself onto it.

The penetration was slow and not deep. There did not seem to be any obstruction; she did not have a hymen. But she was a machine; she could have been made without it. He withheld his orgasm until she was ready.

She put her hands on the floor beside him for additional support. Then she lifted one foot over his body, not breaking her shallow connection with his member. She continued turning, using hands and foot for support, until she faced away from him. Then she lowered herself the rest of the way, taking him in wholly, and lay back on him. Her head came to rest on his collar bone beside his neck. She reached out to find his arms, and lifted them up over her, placing his hands on her breasts.

"Now," she said, and her vagina convulsed, clasping him tightly.

Havoc did not even need to thrust. He immediately spewed into her, one urgent jet after another. She took it all in, and he felt her answering climax.

She lay there a while, letting him enjoy it. He still held her breasts, which were monuments of fine art. Her firm buttocks flexed against his groin, kneading the base of his embedded member. She had little ways he had not encountered before, and he liked them. "Delight," he murmured in her ear.

"Joy to please you, Havoc."

Then she sat up, remaining connected, lifted herself slightly, and made another half turn, completing the circuit.

She lay face down upon him, never having released his penis. She set his hands on her bottom. "Pleasure."

"Agreement!"

"Now you can do me any time, any way, or require me to do it with any other man or woman. I am your mistress, subservient to your will." Her vagina stroked him internally. He was spent for the moment, but this was very nice. Yet also unusual, taken as a whole.

"Question."

"Explanation: I wanted to be in control, this first time with you. In a style you have not experienced before, original with me. With you knowing my inanimate nature. Before giving up my sexual freedom. I know you will not abuse me, but still I needed this reassurance."

"This is an emotional thing?" He still was not quite satisfied that she was truly conscious or feeling.

"Affirmation. My feelings are as real as yours. Merely stemming from a manufactured system rather than a grown one. You have your joys and your hurts from life experience. I have mine, from crafted experience."

He changed the subject without letting go of her supremely evocative derriere. "Question: can you see the future?"

"The far future, imperfectly. One month hence, approximately."

"Not precisely?"

"Affirmation. The future is malleable, and certainty is virtually impossible. I see only percentages."

He found her posterior similarly malleable. "What percentage chance that you will be my mistress that month hence?"

"Eighty five percent, if I seduced you this night. I have done so, and you will desire more of me, so I may have secured my future with you. There are options that could have drastically reduced its likelihood."

"Question?" His finger explored her anus, poking in a slight distance. It felt completely normal.

"If I killed Ennui, my chances with you would drop to five percent."

"Zero percent!" he snapped with a flash of anger. "She is my oath friend, the one I trust most of any I have not bedded."

"And you love her, in your fashion," she agreed. "If I did it, you might suffer a memory lapse, or your staff might conceal it from you for some time, fearing your reaction. So zero is unlikely. Certainty is difficult at either extreme."

She was right. "Appreciation for the clarification," he said. "Do not harm those I value."

"It was a mere example. I will do nothing you do not wish, and anything you do wish."

"Except tell the machines to go away and leave us alone."

"I can't direct them, Havoc. But they will do that if Voila joins them."

"Voila said I should take you as my second mistress because that raises our chances against the machines, even though you are an enemy machine."

"Havoc, I am not your enemy. I love you."

In his flash of irritation he had forgotten her rear. His hands resumed exploration. His member, within her throughout, was expanding. "Why should the machines craft you to be so?"

"Because I am a nexus. A vital connection. One of the channels through which the future of this issue is to be settled. The side that prevents me from pursuing my mission, loses. The machines are not accustomed to losing."

"Question." His finger could feel his hardening penis through the membrane separating her anus from her vagina.

In this anatomy, too, she seemed completely normal.

"I can't explain it, Havoc. The paths are grotesquely tangled, and no one knows how they will unravel. But I must be with you."

This intrigued him almost as much as her marvelous bottom. "You are that important?"

"It seems I am. The machines do nothing without sufficient reason. I represent a significant investment on their part." She wriggled, externally and internally. "Are you going to stop teasing me and do it?"

He laughed. "I thought you'd never ask."

"I am not supposed to ask, merely answer."

"Do you actually desire sex with me, or is it simply the requirement for raising your percentage?"

"They are synonymous. I desire sex with you, and I desire the highest future percentage so as to be assured of always having sex with you. I am designed to be your mistress; it is my fulfillment."

It was a fair answer. "Then ask."

Her vagina quivered with eagerness, and her anus clenched on his finger. Her breasts pressed hotly into his chest. "Please."

"Granted." He bucked and spouted again, and she met him with equivalent energy, her channel coursing with her own climax.

"Gratitude!" she gasped, kissing him desperately.

So she was a machine. She was sentient and sapient and feeling. She would do.

When they subsided, they cleaned up and dressed. Then Havoc took Shee to Ennui's office. "Take time with this creature," he told his oath friend. "Get to know her well, and tell me your impression."

Ennui took it in stride. "That may take time."

"Take the time. Maybe take her to Earth. Consider it a vacation."

She shook her head, bemused. "Never a dull moment, with Havoc," she remarked to the planet in general.

Havoc kept a tight rein on his thoughts, because what was in his mind was explosive in its potential. He nodded to the two women and walked out of the office.