Once again, Kim surprised him.
“Oh, you poor thing…”
She hugged him with the impulsiveness of a hetaera and the forcefulness of a fighter. She made him sit up. Pressed his head against her small, firm breasts.
“Alex… you poor darling…” He was suffering, all right—the pose she had bent him into was very uncomfortable. Besides, his pilot instincts were telling him that this pose would be dangerous, should the gravity vector suddenly change. But Alex kept mum and waited.
“I won’t leave you!” cried Kim suddenly. “I won’t, no matter what! They couldn’t have removed your love completely! You will fall in love with me! I’ll teach you how to love! I swear I will!”
Her skin scent was cool and gentle. Maybe perfume, maybe natural pheromones. When the scent became spicy and heady, Alex realized that it must be pheromones.
He freed his head from her embrace and returned another kiss.
Alex had never been one for great sexual exploits. His best achievement must have been participating in the traditional graduate orgy at the pilot academy. The event started at sundown and lasted till sunrise. And it was devilishly multifaceted, with sex simulators, tonics, invited geishas, fellow graduates… Even some exclusive virtual images from the world’s best modeling agencies. The graduates had held a big fundraiser to get them. Alex had never suspected that one girl, young and inexperienced, could excite him so much.
Kim was putting her heart and soul into it. They tried several old but fun sexual diversions, drank a bottle of dry wine from the bar, then began anew. But as soon as Alex started to feel he was participating in some exhausting sport competition, Kim quieted down. Maybe she really was well tuned to his emotions. Then again, she may have been watching the Demon.
“Should I let you rest?” Kim lay on her stomach, slowly caressing his shoulder. Her pose was a compromise between her next attempt to seduce the captain and the inescapable need to rest. “You’ll have to be back on the bridge soon, right?”
“In three hours and seventeen minutes.”
“Your internal clock is very accurate.”
“Part of my specialization. I feel time to one-tenth of a second.” He slid his hand along her spine. Thank God, Kim didn’t bring up his inability to love again. Perhaps she felt sex was a worthy alternative. Or maybe she was still coming up with a crazy plan to overcome his specialization.
“You have a little scar…”
Alex looked down at his own stomach. Yup. The scar was really thin, but went all around him, like a belt, just below the belly button.
“I told you… there was an accident. I was torn in half.”
Kim winced.
“Poor thing. It must’ve hurt like crazy?”
“I lost consciousness immediately. I hardly remember anything.”
“So what happened?”
“We weren’t going to land on Quicksilver Pit. Docked at one of the orbital ports to get some fuel. Our orientation engines had a small malfunction… so I went to the aggregate module. That’s also a part of a pilot’s job—small engine systems repairs. And then…”
Alex lapsed into thought.
“No, I don’t remember. There was a flash… and that was it. There was a minor problem with the force field generator, and plasma burst out at the very moment I entered the module. The burst was not a big one, so I wasn’t incinerated. But a shard of the generator cut me in half. I got lucky, though—our fighter-spesh was walking down that passage. He heard the explosion, took me out, and hooked me up to an IC unit. Then he took me to a shuttle, delivered me to the planet, and brought me to the hospital. I hope William doesn’t get into trouble for that.”
“Into trouble?”
“Do you have an inkling of how much it costs to regenerate half a body? I had a comprehensive insurance plan, so the company had to pay up. I think they would have preferred to have a nice elaborate funeral for me instead.”
“But they could have just re-attached your other half…”
“Nope, they couldn’t. William didn’t waste any time, and that was what saved me. But he had only one IC unit handy, so he had to choose what was more important—the top half or the bottom half.”
Kim smiled.
“The top half… they patched up the bottom half just fine.”
“Even better than before. My left leg had been broken twice.”
“Another accident?”
“No. I had that since childhood… just kid stuff. I jumped from the fifth floor, on a bet. I figured a pilot-spesh would be okay. What I didn’t take into account was that I hadn’t had my metamorphosis yet.”
“I jumped, too. But not from so high up. My bones aren’t as strong.”
Alex smiled, wrapping two fingers around her wrist. The girl was looking thoughtfully at him. “You know… I have to tell you this one thing…”
“Kim, you don’t have to do anything.”
“Yes, I really do.” Kim got serious. “I have to tell you… about… this.”
She slid a hand across her stomach and held out the gel-crystal a moment later.
Alex said, with no hesitation:
“Kim, I really have to warn you! If the Imperial police have an official search out for this crystal, it is my duty to report you and turn you over to the authorities.”
“There is no search out for it.” Kim shook her head. “I give you my word. It’s a very large crystal, isn’t it?”
“Very large. Very expensive… that is, if it works.”
“It’s working as we speak.”
Alex cocked his head. Carefully took the crystal from her hand, looked through it at the light. Along its facets, a light whitish film was gathering, or perhaps it only seemed to be.
“Then we have to recharge it, Kim. It looks like it’s been running autonomously for quite a while.”
“That’s exactly why I took it out. You do have a spare control center, don’t you?”
“I do.”
Kim nodded.
“The computer in my cabin isn’t capable of feeding such a large crystal. But yours will probably manage.”
Alex got up silently. Went over to the terminal, snapped off the processor panel. In a small port lined with a moistly trembling bio coating, there sat another crystal, a tiny one, less than point two inches in diameter. The brackets of another port were open. Alex tried the crystal against the opening, gave a contented nod. It would fit. Just barely, but it would. Kim had also gotten up and was now standing next to him, pressing her warm, firm thigh against his leg.
“You understand what I’m doing?” Alex unfolded three tiny, thin bracket arms—each one could rotate on its axis and then be fixed in place in two different positions.
“No.”
“These are the crystal’s information chain conduits.”
“But why?”
“Who knows what kind of programs are in it? The crystal will get its charge, as well as access to the infonet. But it won’t be able to interfere with the ship’s controls network. That’s the recommended procedure for recharging uncertified gel-crystals.”
Alex inserted the crystal into the port. Its aperture trembled, then contracted, tightly hugging the transparent cone. Only the three little conduit arms helplessly wobbled in the air, unable to reach the crystal.
“I could cut off the information input as well…” added Alex pensively. “And leave only the recharging function on. Well, this ship has nothing all that secret on it, really….”
“Don’t cut it off!” said Kim hastily. “He’ll be really bored!”
“He?”
“I better start at the beginning.”
Alex looked at the crystal, shrugged, then closed the panel.