“It’s yours, sir.” The inflection said of course.
“And why are you here?”
“Sir, I’m your servant. I’m here to serve you, obey your orders, and see that you come to no harm when you are drunk even if I have to risk my own life.” Then she added, with downcast eyes that were more flirtatious than afraid, “I’m at the mercy of your good behavior but I’m allowed to defend myself. It’s in my contract.”
Such a strange word, servant—even though it was in his vocabulary, it didn’t tell Eron anything; he had no context in which to place it. They didn’t have servants on Agander, only service that varied by circumstance and intricate game rules. ‘Then you’re to do anything I ask of you, Girl?”
“Only what is specified in my contract, sir,” she replied coyly. “You can famfeed a copy in the normal way—though I don't advise it. The contract automatically installs behavior constraints.” To say what was unspoken, her hidden hand teasingly poked his erect penis, which he was trying to hide under the covers. She giggled.
He began to see some of the disadvantages that beset a farmen—a farman was constantly having to learn new and amazing rules. “And what does this contract define as your duties?”
“I’m to please you.” There was the tone of catechism in what she said. She had her own private reservations—it was in her tone—and she had no intention of sharing them with him. He would have to guess.
What he was guessing disturbed him because it was so un-Gandarian. As best as he could read her, she was willing to make a flexible interpretation of her duties if he was able to choose a kind way in which to ignore the conditions of her contract. Kindness was one of mankind’s universal. He sensed that she didn’t know who he was and that scared her, but because he hadn’t yet done anything to scare her, she wasn’t doing whatever it was that she did when she felt the need to defend herself. It was her unspoken invitation that upset him—knowing that her desires would always remain unspoken. With the covers now more firmly under his arm-pits, he began to talk to the ceiling. It felt weird to shift into Murek’s valence and begin a tutor’s rhetorical approach to a new student. ‘‘You know what a man of Neuhadra would expect of you, am I right?”
She nodded.
“But you aren’t sure what might please a farman?” A frantic part of him was telling him to stop being an intellectual.
“I’m to please all whom I serve, sir,” she explained.
That kind of ambiguous phrasing drove him crazy. “So you’re here to please me even though I may have very strange demands? Would you be willing to please a farman like me whose greatest delight was eating spit-roasted girls for breakfast with a knife, fork, and teeth?”
She squeaked and pulled herself into a sitting position at the very comer of the bed, holding up the covers around her body until only her eyes showed. “That’s not in my contract!” But her voice rang with mirth.
“Fortunately for you, Girl, I forgot my knife and fork back on Agander!”
She was now staring under the covers to get a good look at the body she had already carefully undressed the night before. It was very much the curiosity of a young child. “It’s your teeth I’m worried about. Deflecting knives and forks is part of my training.” She dropped the covers so that he could see her. And she was beautiful, in a non-Ganderian sort of
way. He wasn’t sure if her breasts were fully formed yet. “After lugging you upstairs last night, I’m too salty to eat without a bath. I’d go for the eggs and sausage myself, if I were you.” She smiled shyly.
“Ah, hunger.” He sighed. “You have eggs?”
With the same squeak that she had used to wrap herself in the covers, she leaped out of bed. That was a request for which she knew the response. With a flick, a wall panel opened up to the cuisinator. “Eggs and sausage coming right up!”
A voluptuous servant to instruct a robocook which had been designed to replace a servant; there, thought Eron, was a new definition of luxury.
Her task quickly done, she asked, “Will you let me dress you now?”
“I’m used to doing it myself.”
“Sir! At that you are incompetent! The togs you were wearing were disgraceful. You have no taste. I put them in the dispozoria. You’ll have to let me dress you. I know everything about clothes! I measured you last night very carefully with my calip while you snorted in your sleep and, by now, the manufacturum in die closet has everything ready for you.”
“You measured me? Really?”
“I’m afraid you disappointed me as a farman, sir, I didn’t find any tentacles, sir. And you were very drunk; your penis only measured two centimeters. Sir.”
While he waited for his breakfast, he watched her spread out his new clothes—collars, even! This was worse than being attended by a robovalet! She hadn’t bothered to dress herself. And watching, he found himself inanely straining to feel like a forty-year-old married man (like his father) who had shouldered the duty of sexually training a young girl. But he wasn’t an older man, and he had no business being with this child and even thinking about sex; if he’d been caught on Agander with this she-sapling, the men of his class would have put him in the stocks for attempted ruination! Young men were not allowed to seduce young girls.
Young girls were reserved for men with already established careers. He had a moment of smug revolt now that he had left Agander forever; nobody on Agander trusted the maturity of their young, even ones who had a straight kick shot! And so much had happened in the last few months that he was now sure of his maturity.
Still, he felt he should have been given a mature woman as a servant. He tried to imagine Melinesa as his servant. And couldn’t. Lover maybe, servant, never. Well, this was Neuhadra and they did things differently—farmen were all crazy. Dingbat crazy! And woe, woe, woe, he was now a far-man himself!
Girl was chattering while she made intricate decisions about color and cut and texture. This was worse than trying to escape Kapor’s mathematical traps! How could anyone care that much about clothes? Now he knew what she used her exquisite little fam for! She probably had forty thousand years of fashion stuffed in there. Her naked back was made enticing by the fascinating curves of that fam. He stopped listening to her while he became more and more involved in coveting it. Maybe the next time they were in bed together and she was snoring away, he could switch with her. He knew it was an idle fantasy; it was already ten years too late. Fams take as long to mature as humans. It drove him crazy to be right in the heart of the worlds where they built such awesome fams. From here one could rule the Galaxy.
Maybe not. Cloun-the-Stubbom had already tried that with the Crafters working their magic for him. If rumor was right, these people had built the original visi-harmonars for Lakgan. “The First Citizen of the Galaxy” had designed his strategy around personal control of minds. That’s what “First” meant. First mind. It hadn’t worked. Why? Cloun-the-Stubbom had missed comprehending the number-one cliche: The Galaxy is a big place. What was it that tutor Ka-por had said about control-vanity? “Men who are obsessed with personal control because they trust no one with their vision end up out of control—like a single puppeteer trying to pull off a mob scene with multiple puppets on stage.” Maybe it wasn’t wise to do what he’d have to do to seduce Girl. 77/ resist her, he comforted himself virtuously, if he could get his penis to agree.