Message-ID: <60365asstr$1276733407@assm.asstr.org>
NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 08:00:02 -0500
From: "Elf M. Sternberg" <elf@pendorwright.com>
Subject: {ASSM} Journal Entry 191 / 01075  Appliance Dreams (0)
Lines: 694
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 20:10:07 -0400
Path: assm.asstr.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d

Appliance Dreams
Seren, Yavar 19, 1075
Ramsavara looked at the vast wailing orange wall of binders and wondered
if there was anywhere in particular he should begin. The indices on the
spines, each printed on a card of paper inset in a little metal frame in
turn stapled to the plastic rectangle base, meant nothing to him. They
ran from A through R, each with a four-three-two digit sequence
following them, and as he caressed the spines in hope of inspiration he
realized that if he were to start anywhere he should at least start
where one began. He picked H.0001.001.01 and returned to the table
across the hallway. He had taken a sitting bench and turned it sideways
to accommodate his Ssphynxian bulk.

It turned out to be an introduction to the *Dyaus*'s robotic maintenance
network: how robots stayed in contact with the ship's core computers,
how they interacted, and the protocols for dealing with them should
anything go wrong. Half of the binder was taken up with an internal
index of where to go to learn more. Lieutenant Heiga had been piecing
together the *Dyaus*'s internal cybernetwork bare-handed and with
Meigi's help. Ramsavara thought he should show this to her.

His involvement in the technical details of the ship's mobile computer
network was so complete that he didn't hear anything until hands crept
up on his back. He turned to see who it was, and leaped away with all
four feet, knocking over the table and sending the binder scattering
across the floor. "Who..."

"I'm sorry, did I startle you?" The woman standing opposite him seemed
genuinely concerned. She walked over to the binder, picked it up and
offered it out to him. "I didn't mean to. I just saw you working so hard
and thought that maybe you could use a massage. Something to relax you."

"Who are you?"

"Just... part of the ship's recreational facilities." She grinned. "Do
you mind?"

Ramsavara recalled that Meigi had been but one of five pleasure droids
on board the *Dyaus*. The other four had been located, but he hadn't
heard anything about them being activated. "You're not dangerous, are
you?"

"No, I don't think so." A puzzled expression crossed her face. "I'll go
away, if you like."

"No, that's okay," Ramsavara said. The other droids were supposed to be
just SIs. Good manufacture, but nothing special in the conversational
department.

"Do you want that massage?"

He looked at her. "Do you mind if I call my captain first?"

She smiled. "No, not at all."

Ramsavara walked over to the wall communicator and toggled its control.
"Chihuro here."

"Uh, Captain? I've met a member of the crew. The *Dyaus*'s crew."

"Explain, Lieutenant." Ramsavara started, but when he turned around to
ask her something the woman was gone.

            *            *            *

Nantonly let his fingers stray along the keyboard, letting each plastic
tine tempt him to strike, call him to play. The sheets of music before
him were as archaic as the internal combustion engine and as precious as
thought: two dozen pieces of classical piano from The Gap Time, the
twenty-year period between 2005 and 2025 when most Terran music had been
encrypted in some way and was so hard to recover that those AIs who even
knew about it didn't bother. If they had the music, they weren't telling
anyone. Music historians assembled the music from that time piece by
piece, often breaking the encryption envelope with their own archaic
clusters of ancient CPUs. Just finding the machinery needed to read a
storage device from a millennium ago was hard enough. He had found the
sheets of music stored in a box, and sheet music from that era was
almost as good as having the artist's own recordings. He depressed a few
keys and let a chord of music fill the room, then launched into
Takemitu's "Cape Cod" Opus, Part 3, "The Whale". It really should have
been played on Spanish guitar, he knew, but he didn't have such an
instrument handy. He had found this keyboard in one of the several
theatres and had been practicing for a week.

The piece was only about ten minutes long, and he let himself enjoy
every strike as he played. When the last, mournful chord passed away, he
heard clapping.

He smiled and wondered who had found him. His obsession with the cache
of music had been no secret among the tiny crew, so he turned to look.
He startled when he realized that he didn't know the nearly naked mel
who walked down the aisle and mounted the seven steps up to the stage.
"Who... are you?"

The mel, a tall, muscular human with sun-bronzed skin and dark hair that
threatened to cover his eyes, strode up and glanced at him, then at the
sheet music "I was walking past and I came to enjoy your music." He wore
only a kind of blue modesty suit that was anything but modest: a
waist-hugging wrapping over his crotch that emphasized the mass of his
equipment and described in detail every curve and hollow of his
buttocks. Nantonly felt the tiny furs between his ears prickle upwards,
followed by the flow of blood to his own groin, and a subsequent lack of
blood to the brain. "I'm Koo," the mel said. "Part of the ship's
recreational facilities."

Nantonly's eyes contemplated this bulk of human sexual signals and then
remembered. "You're one of the pleasure droids?"

"The only male among them," he said. "The other four were all female."

"Meigi included," Nantonly said.

"Yes, her especially. Do you mind that I listened? I haven't heard
anyone play music like that in a while."

"No, I don't mind. I... " Nantonly tried to control himself. He was
proud of his self-control. But he had been controlling himself for
months: there had been damn few bipeds aboard the *Anna O Pendoro,* and
he was the only one aboard the *Dyaus* now. He wasn't prejudiced against
Ssphynx, but keeping up with them took work and he always felt
out-massed. None of the other mels on the *Dyaus* were interested in him
anyway. His eyes kept glancing down at the fat sausage shape deforming
the metallic blue fabric of Koo's shorts.

Koo glanced down. "Sorry, is it... bothering you? I should get dressed."

"No, I think..." He gestured toward the keyboard. "I'm authorized to use
the recreational facilities. Does that include you?"

Koo smiled. "It would if you asked."

"I'd like to use you."

Koo's hands slid under the waistband of his shorts and slowly pushed
them down. His fat, blunt-headed cock sprang out in front of him and
wavered before Nantonly's eyes. "You were staring. Do more."

Nantonly reached out with trembling, desperate hands, his mouth open,
his back bending down just a bit from the piano bench on which he sat.
Koo took a step forward and as Nantonly's hand slid between Koo's legs
and gathered his warm, furry balls in one palm his mouth made contact
with the delicious, salty, pissy, textureless surface of Koo's cock. He
opened his muzzle and felt that meaty missile slide along his tongue,
tasting the ridge of foreskin, the frenulum of flesh along the
underside, until his nose was tickled by Koo's pubic hair. For a moment,
he abandoned all notions of civilisation just to hold Koo's cock in his
mouth. He loved to suck cock, to take and give this kind of favour with
another mel.

Koo's hands grabbed his head. "Damn," Koo groaned. "Never done it with a
Mephit before. You're just as good as anyone!"

Nantonly looked up, taking the cock out of his mouth for a moment. "I
hope so. I love it."

"Do you love fucking?" Koo asked.

Nantonly gasped, "Later! Right now I want this." He wrapped his hand
around the base of Koo's cock, encompassing his balls in the process. He
slid off the piano bench and onto his knees, taking that cock into his
throat without a pause. Koo groaned. Nantonly's own cock was hard and
pulsing within his pants as he mouthed Koo's cock, sucking on its
beautiful broadness. A dribble of precum seemed to seep from Koo into
Nantonly mouth and he moaned at the idea that there might be more. Koo's
body grew tense with the need for release. The dribble grew in flow and
Nantonly sucked and licked at the head, caressed the length of the shaft
with his tongue, and paused to inhale deeply of the manly scents that
lived in the fur of Koo's scrotum. *This* was something he had been
missing for all these months.

Koo pulled away from Nantonly. "I don't want to come yet."

"But..." Koo knelt and reached for Nantonly's own crotch. Nantonly
sprawled back against the keyboard, making the piano tinkle in a moment
of bright chaos. His mind reared as Koo tore open the fly of his pants
and pulled out his cock. The man's head began bobbing up and down almost
immediately. Nantonly was swept away as the sheer ecstasy of giving up
his cock to another man made him want to come within seconds, but he
held off, if only because it would have been unseemly to come so fast.
He gasped hard: Koo was an absolute master of his trade. Nantonly
groaned, his cock stretched, engorged with more pressure than it had had
in many lonely months. He caressed Koo's hair, his body heaving, his
breath labored with intensity, and just as he was about to come, Koo
back off. "I want your cock inside me," Koo said.

Nantonly grinned and said, "Let me at that ass." He stood and grabbed
Koo by the shoulders. Koo was short for a human and they came eye to
eye. Only now did he see the muscles of Koo's broad back, the way his
body was sculpted down to the waist and those two masses of muscle that
were Koo's buttocks. He kissed Koo's shoulders. "We should have more
time to talk."

"After you fuck me," Koo said. But Nantonly took his time. He knew if he
just tore his way into Koo, he would have come instantly. Koo had put
him that much on edge. No, he wished for this to last. He didn't know
how often he would be able to use the "ship's recreation facilities,"
but he knew he wanted to come back to Koo whenever he liked. He kissed
his way down Koo's broad back until he was again kneeling, this time
facing Koo's ass. "Hold yourself open," he said.

"Like this?" Koo leaned his chest against the piano and reached back,
his broad hands pulling at the cheeks of his ass, exposing his dark
hidden hole.

"Like that." Nantonly breathed in the air of Koo's sweaty crotch before
he pushed his muzzle up against Koo's asshole and began to lick. He was
not at all subtle, starting with a shove of his tongue up into Koo's
butt, pressing his way in. He wanted to make sure the road his cock took
was wet and loose and ready for him. Koo groaned. "Yeah, eat my ass. Oh,
fuck, eat my ass. Fuck, man, nobody ever wanted to eat my ass when the
ship was full! What are you?"

"A Pendorian," Nantonly said, knowing it was a poor answer. He didn't
care. He stood up behind Koo, his legs pressing against the well-built
thighs of the man before him. He slid his cock up and down the moistened
crack of Koo's ass with one hand, while with the other he held onto
Koo's waist. Koo pressed his ass back against Nantonly's crotch, and
Nantonly gave him what he wanted. He aimed his cock for that hole and
the two men merged together, Nantonly's cock filling the waiting void of
Koo's ass. Both men gasped as hips met ass. "Oh, yes," Nantonly said.

"Yes," Koo agreed, looking back, reaching with one hand out for
Nantonly's hips, grasping blindly. "Yes, fuck me, man, fuck me."
Nantonly fucked him slowly. He wanted to remember what every square cem
of Koo's asshole felt like. He wanted to concentrate on the top on one
stroke, then the left side, the right, the bottom. He wanted to know
what it felt like as his cock tripped past the opening, and he wanted to
know what the head of his cock felt as it pushed its way deep into Koo's
guts.

He leaned his brow against the broad back before him, wrapped his arms
around Koo's chest, and the two of them became welded together into an
organic engine with one moving part, Nantonly's fleshy piston deep
within Koo's body. His hips bounced off Koo's warm, tight ass like a
piano striker against a taut cable at high octaves, the music of two
men's moans filled the stage and Nantonly was momentarily wishful for an
audience to see his performance, his rise to rapture, his moment of
transport away from the frustrations of daily existence. Their climax
lasted barely a second: Nantonly loud growl of pleasure, the pulse of
semen from his cock shoved with brute action deeper into Koo's ass, the
waves of pleasure, success, and even the sadness that it was over and
the quest would begin anew... all there.

He slid his cock out of Koo's ass. He slipped to the floor where he
landed with the kind of thud a stage is designed to amplify. He looked
up, and Koo was standing over him, his lips curved in warm delight. "Now
I've got to go get clean," Koo observed simply, then he reached down and
patted Nantonly's cheek gently. "But I'll be seeing you again." He
leaned over and picked up the scrap of blue cloth that he had discarded
at the beginning, straightened up, and walked out before the dazed
Executive Officer Nantonly could even ask him where he lived.

It was several more minutes before Nantonly remembered that the pleasure
droids were supposed to be in storage, deactivated.

            *            *            *

"These people were serious about their fresh food, huh?" Mataio reached
over and pulled up a turnip.

His companion, Kennet, had his hands deep into the soil about a head of
lettuce. He wrenched it out with barely a pause and tossed it into the
low gardening wagon he had pulled from a storage closet. "So are we,"
Kennet replied.

Mataio said, "Sort-of. We do all sorts of strange things with yeast
products and hydroponic high-density growth rooms, but this--" He
gestured to the large, domed-over space tall enough for large trees. "I
guess they thought it made for mental health, too."

Kennet shrugged. "All I know is, my mental health isn't done a whole lot
of good digging in the dirt."

Mataio just grinned and decided to keep his opinion to himself. He had
grown up in an agricultural creche' with a bunch of other Ssphynx and
thought of growing his own food as an essential part of his life. He had
paid close attention to the automated farms aboard the *Anno o Pendoro*.
He had even tried his hand at genetically engineering his own new kinds
of vegetables, never with any success.

He tossed another turnip into the garden wagon when he noticed someone
standing on the far edge of the dome. "Who's that?" he asked.

Kennet looked up. "It can't be Nantonly, and he's the only two-legger on
board. Except Meigi. And that doesn't look like her."

"One of the robots?"

"All of the robots on board look like machines except for the sexdroids,
and I thought Meigi was the only one of those that was activated." He
looked again. "Besides, she's the wrong color. A few shades too dark."

"We're in hyperspace. Who else could it be?" Mataio said.

"Let's go found out." They stood up, and both clapped their hands
together to dust some of the dirt off, then walked across to where the
figure stood on a catwalk that ran the perimeter of the dome, about a
meter off the floor.

She wore a tight blue skinsuit that form-fit breasts so large they
looked shaped like missiles with expanded warheads and legs so long the
addition of heels made her look off-balance. Except for her
flesh-and-blood appearance, she might have stepped out of some virtual
fantasy game. She walked over to the stairs that descended from the
catwalk. "Hello, gentlemen."

"Who are you?" Kennet asked.

"My name is Fluff." Her voice was low-pitched, sexy and demanding. "I
came down because I thought you fellows were working a little too hard
for your own good, and might need a break."

"You're one of the sex-droids, aren't you?"

"I'm part of the ship's... recreational facilities."

"Are you sentient?" Mataio asked.

"I can be whatever you want me to be." She looked them over-- one large
Ssphynx, one small Centaur. "Except four-legged." She stepped down the
stairs, reached out and touched Kennet's cheek. "When was the last time
you had someone to fuck?"

"Is that all you want?"

"Isn't that all that I'm good for? You're the one who think I'm a
sex-droid."

"Are you?" Kennet said.

"Of course. And you friend is welcome to join in."

Kennet turned to Mataoi. "What do you think?"

"At the creche', we learned never to turn down an opportunity." He
stripped the tight-fitting shirt off his chest and tossed it up to the
catwalk. Kennet did the same, and then the two of them circled around
Fluff, who boldly stepped into Kennet's arms and kissed him. Mataio
heard Kennet's moan. He came up behind Fluff and kissed the back of her
neck, inhaling the scent of her skin. It was convincingly human-like,
and Mataio wasn't about to be too judgemental. Although he hadn't been
asked, it *had* been too long since he had last gotten laid. He might
have propositioned Kennet, but fraternizing with co-workers was usually
a bad plan in his experience, Fluff reached back behind herself with one
hand and caressed his abdomen, that narrow mass of muscle that did
little more than hold up the humanoid half of him.

Fluff pulled away from Kennet long enough to pull down the tiny zipper
that kept her suit on. It peeled away as if she were ripened fruit. She
turned and offered her breasts to Mataio with her hands. "I saw you
eyeing these."

"They're hard to miss." he said. He reached out and felt one, squeezing
it gently, then closing thumb and forefinger about the nipple. She gave
a soft "yip!" sound as he did so, and then smiled. Kennet's hands were
on her shoulders, and then they caressed her back down to her ass, which
he grasped fully. She moaned, her body radiating a kind of desire.
"Which of you handsome men do I get to do first?"

"Let's move over to the grass," Mataio suggested.

Once down on the grass, Fluff began with her hands on Mataio's lower
body, rolling him over, exposing his cock. "You are built like a horse,
aren't you?"

"In every way possible," he said. Her hands touched his belly, then
slipped down to his erection, which was already throbbing with a need
Mataio had not known he had until Fluff walked into his life. He
wondered how long she would stay, and then her mouth was working on his
cock. He felt warmth, motion, life in that moment when Fluff sucked on
his cock, her mouth and even her throat drawing the pleasure out of him.
He had not known just how backed up his desire could get.

She moaned and he looked up to see Kennet's head down between her
thighs. He glanced along Kennet's torso and saw the Ssphynx's own cock
dangling in the air. He had a strong desire to curl around and take it
into his mouth; at the creche, monosexuals were thought of as weird, and
Mataio had never had a tendency either way himself. He just wanted to
get off.

Fluff was doing that quite excellently. He thought for a moment that he
might want her to stop long enough for him to actually fuck her, but
decided that if she was going to keep going, her mouth was an excellent
place to drop his load. He wasn't that big on humans, but this zaftig
blond creature paying attention to his cock without any obvious pretense
to his equine nature clearly had the right physical attributes when it
came to her lips and tongue.

Her body took on a different rhythm against his belly. He looked up and
saw Kennet grinning over her. "How is she?" Mataio asked.

"Marvellous," Kennet said. He pushed hard, and she moaned low as he
fucked her. Mataio leaned back and let her continue sucking on his cock,
letting the urgency of his climax build. Kennet was a hot guy, and Fluff
was just as hot a girl, and he tensed it all six of his limbs as he
reached critical mass. Kennet shouted out, "Yeah, yeah!" as he came
within the girl wedged between them.

He stretched out, suddenly listless. He had been energetic and ready
when she had invited him, full of the kind of energy that comes from
living a good life, but now he was tired, exhausted. She stood up and
looked down at the two men, then leaned over and kissed Mataio. "You
appreciate a good love 'droid, don't you?"

"Yes, Ma'am," he said. She smiled and walked away.

            *            *            *

Raven pulled up the inventory of spices and wondered what she had left
with which to cook tonight's dinner. She debated contacting her two
farmer volunteers and asking them to bring up some sage for a
pseudo-poultry meal, as she would have liked to do something appropriate
to the ship, say a tandoori chicken and rice pudding dish. She tapped
her nose gently with the stylus in her hand. "You're working too hard."

She jumped. She had excellent hearing and was not used to having someone
sneak up on her. She turned and looked, and was startled again. "Hello?"

"Hi." The human girl walking up was unknown to her. "I saw you staring
at the screen as if you were trying to make it bleed. I wondered if you
would need any help."

"Who are you?"

"Ellie." The girl held out her hand. "Part of the ship's recreational
facilities."

"You're one of the 'love droids'."

Ellie nodded. "Second most advanced model. Nothing like Meigi, of
course."

Raven sat down on a bench. "I remember you. You don't look like the
others. They're all hypertrophied sex machines." She had to admit that
that quality alone made Ellie more attractive than the other sex 'droids
that various wealthy members of the former crew had managed to sneak on
board.

"Oh, I am too, where it matters." Ellie grinned. "But people buy love
droids to fulfill some fantasy they can't otherwise. Sometimes it's
accessibility to the kind of body not usually found in nature. My owner,
it seemed, was obsessed with recreating his first kiss. Over and over."
She touched her lips with one finger. "I have my own way of being
hypertrophied."

Raven nearly laughed. "So, what brings you down here?"

"Oh, curiosity, mostly. Like the other love 'droids, I'm interested in
practicing my craft and finding others to practice on. I've had a chance
to observe most of the crew through the ship's on-board surveillance
network. I thought that you might be the most approachable."

"Me?"

"Yes." She approached Raven. She put out her hands, and took Raven's in
her own. "I'm supposed to be relaxing."

"What did you former owner consider 'relaxing'?"

Ellie shrugged. "Whatever he wanted, so long as I asked nothing
especially strenuous of him. Could you use a massage?" She glanced down
the length of Raven's body. "How about a brushing?

Raven sighed with the mere thought of a proper brushing. "You make a
hard bargain."

"My batteries last for months," Ellie said, grinning. "I'll be right
back."

Raven watched her disappear, her body seemingly lighter than it should
have been against the artificial gravity of the *Dyaus*. A few moments
later she was back with a pair of wooden palm-handled brushes. "Where
did you find those?"

Ellie said, "They've been in among my owner's equipment. I think he
hoped to breed horses when we got to wherever we were going." She turned
one over, looked at the bristles briefly. "It's sad that he didn't make
it. Now, why don't you take off that shirt, stretch out along this
bench, and let your legs dangle? Arms forward. That's right."

Raven did as Ellie instructed. "Now, let's see..." The brushes came down
against her upper shoulder blades and Ellie stroked downwards, down
until she reached the joint where Raven's upper spine met her
forepelvis. "I've never done this on a Ssphynx. I didn't know Ssphinxes
came in black, either."

"It's dye. I like it that way."

"'Kay." Ellie's touch with the brush was wonderful. Each fall of the
sharp bristles against Raven's fell was accompanied by a soft stroke
away, down, down her fur until it reached the base of her spine, then
back. Ellie paid attention to every cem of her forelegs, then began a
repeat performance on Raven's lower half, pressing harder until Raven
was moaning with pleasure. "Doing okay?"

"Oh, yes. I haven't felt this good in so long, and I think we'll have to
do something about those batteries if I'm--"

She was interrupted "All hands report to the bridge. All hands report to
the bridge immediately. No delays. I mean *now*." Captain Chihuro's
voice shook Raven, and she looked up.

"I have to go."

"I know. I hope we can meet again soon."

"Me, too." Raven grabbed her shirt and ran for the bridge.

            *            *            *

When she arrived she found Heiga, Meigi, Ramsavara, and Captain Chihuro
all standing in a circle near the command chairs. Chihuro had the kind
of look on her face no crew member wants to see-- anxious. A crew member
can handle an angry captain, but an anxious captain is one that doesn't
know what to do next. It bothered her. "I'm telling you, Captain, I saw
her."

"I believe you-- Ah, Raven. Tell me, have you encountered any, ah,
ship's recreational facilities?"

Raven said, "You mean Ellie?"

"Yes, I think so. Explain what just happened to you."

Raven explained in detail the young woman she had just encountered, and
the rather innocent time they had spent together. At least, she thought
it was innocent. Chihuro listened to the whole conversation even as
Kennet and Mataio reached the bridge. Chihuro turned to them as they
approached the circle, took a deep breath and said, "Well, I don't need
to ask you."

"Ask us what?" Kennet said. The door opened and Ailiva and Takaku also
approached the circle.

"Whether you've encountered any members of the ship's recreational
facilities wandering the hallways. I take it you both were involved?"

Kennet, somewhat taken aback, nodded. "Yes, Ma'am."

"Good. I'm glad to see you survived the encounter." She asked the other
two who had just arrived, but both of them shook their heads. Others
filtered in until finally Commander Nantonly joined them. "What took you
so long?"

"I was in the shower."

"Did *you* encounter one of the ship's 'recreational facilities'?"

Nantonly took a step back, then nodded. "In one of the theatres. I was
practicing piano. Is there a problem?"

"You're absolutely right there's a problem. Did it occur to any of you
that the other four pleasure robots are supposed to be turned off?"

"Then what..." Mataio began.

"They were my dreams." Everyone turned to look at Meigi. "I'm part of
this ship now. Heiga connected me to all of the ship's sensoria along
with the ship's processing. But with that much coming in I need downtime
to process everything, so Heiga instituted dreaming."

Heiga nodded. "It's standard in smaller AIs, the way it is in humans, to
shut consciousness down and run the dream sequence on top of the
standard CPUs. It takes all of the memories of the day and processes
them, but in doing so, especially in AIs that are fully conscious, there
are consequences. Sometimes, the processing requires facilities with
side-effects. In organics, this is usually handled by sleep paralysis,
and we do something similar in AIs. It doesn't seem to have worked in
Meigi's case. I think each one of you met some part of Meigi's dreams."

"But Ellie..." Raven said. "She seemed so real. I could swear she was
convincingly conscious."

"Not ours," Mataoi said. "Mostly a convincing mannequin. Hot, but not
something I'd bring home to mama."

"That doesn't seem to have discouraged you," Chihuro observed.

"No, Ma'am, it didn't." Mataio was neither embarrassed nor leering. It
was just fact.

"Nantonly?"

"I'd say my encounter was a bit like Mataio's."

"And Ramsavara, the only one with the common sense to call the bridge
*first*, didn't have enough of an encounter to make an assessment." She
turned to Meigi. "Do you think you could have Ellie come to the bridge?"

Meigi stood still for a second, her eyes unfocused and distant. "I can."
Chihuro nodded. "She's on her way."

Ellie arrived wearing the same outfit that Ellie had seen earlier: loose
blue pants, a form-fitting yellow shirt, and a wide-lapeled blue club
coat over it. She looked exactly like someone ready to go spend the
evening at some loud but otherwise overmodest club where the dancing
would be ritualized and the drinks unaffecting. Her long, light-brown
hair framed a bright face with eyes of surprising light and an undimmed,
youthful smile. Kennet whistled. "Wow. And I thought we'd gotten lucky!"

Raven blushed. So did Meigi. Chihuro turned to him and said, "Kennet,
did you ever stop to think that Meigi's dreams might not be nearly as
safe as Meigi herself?"

"We don't know that Meigi's all that safe, Captain," Heiga said. "It
doesn't seem to have sunk in with some of this crew that we're all
living inside the body of an AI that is not part of the Encompassment
Compact. We have no guarantee that she has our best interests at heart,
and we should act accordingly."

"But I do!" Meigi said. "You believe me, don't you?"

Heiga reached out and touched Meigi's shoulder. "I believe you. I've
seen as much of your code as anyone, and I believe that you're safe. But
I'm not an AI. I don't have the power to make those assessments."

Meigi looked down at the floor. Chihuro sighed. "Derrick said this
should be easy, if the engines didn't blow up or life support fail.
Instead, I have to deal with an emergent AI's wet dreams."

<!-- WTF blurb OVER? -->"She's not emergent," Heiga said. "<!-- WTF blurb OVER? -->Emergent AIs
are a myth. Her progress is very deliberate. She's just at the stage now
where she... dreams. And her original function *is* as a pleasure droid.
I don't think any of her instances could hurt anyone. Her memories and
fantasies are all about accomplishing her goal."

Chihuro didn't contradict her. Instead, she turned to Raven. "This is
the woman you met?"

Raven nodded. "Hello, Ellie."

Ellie said, "Hello. Have we met?"

The voice was flat and without affect. Raven felt her heart sink. The
Ellie she had met had been vibrant and vital, not this artless
simulacrum. She shook her head. "It's the same body, but that's not the
same person I met. There was something different about her. She was like
Meigi. I mean, not like Meigi, but like... it's hard to explain. She was
alive, the way Meigi is."

Meigi said, "Is it possible that there was more than one AI experiment
going on inside the *Dyaus* at the time?"

"It's possible," Heiga stated. "I would say that it's likely. Sex 'droid
owners tended to tinker a lot. Like you said, they wanted them to be
'alive'."

"In the meantime," Chihuro said, "I want to know how we prevent these
incidents."

"Do you have to?" Kennet said, clearly trying to make a joke.

"Quiet, Lieutenant." She sighed. "I suppose it's not so bad that you're
using those particular ports of the ship's 'recreational facilities' but
I'd rather they not be part of my girlfriend's inner life when you do."

Heiga said, "We don't know about the one Ramsavara found, but the other
two appear to be rather stock robots, even if their designs are archaic.
I could arrange to have them firewalled off in some respects from Meigi,
but we would still ultimately be reliant on Meigi to honor the firewall.
Still, I could make it so she wouldn't be able to get through the
firewall when she was dreaming."

"And... this one?" Chihuro gestured to Ellie

"I'm off the archiving project until I figure out what made her seem
different from the others."

Chihuro sighed. She turned. "You're my crew, but you're all volunteers.
Remember: until further notice, if you meet one of the sex 'droids in
the hallways, call the bridge and log the incident. And don't get too
intimate until Heiga tells us it's safe to do so. Understood?"

There were nods and salutes. "Are you okay?" she asked Meigi.

Meigi nodded, still smiling her small trademark smile. "I'll be fine. I
have a great crew living inside me."

----------------------
The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik 
and Related Tales.

The entire archive of stories can be found at:
http://www.pendorwright.com/journals

Copyright 2006 Elf Mathieu Sternberg.
Distributed under the Creative Commons License BY-ND-NC/1.0
Some Rights Reserved. 

Elf's latest stories are available in paperback!  Buy 
the genderbending novel _Sterlings_, available
now from http://stores.lulu.com/elfsternberg

--

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| alt.sex.stories.moderated ------ send stories to: <story-submit@asstr.org>|
| FAQ: <http://assm.asstr.org/faq.html> Moderators: <story-admin@asstr.org> |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|ASSM Archive at <http://assm.asstr.org>   Hosted by <http://www.asstr.org> |
|Discuss this story and others in alt.sex.stories.d; look for subject {ASSD}|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+