"Then you are experiencing genuine emotion, with mixed desire, pleasure, and regret. It may not endure, as you deactivate the relevant circuits, but for the moment it is real."
"Appreciation." This time she suspected he meant it.
She drew herself off him. "My contribution to the truce. Perhaps we will do this again some time."
"You have instilled the desire. For the emotion as much as the sex." This was absolute candor.
She did not need to wipe herself off, for there had been no emission, only her own contributing juices. Ikon had emissions, but he had been crafted specifically for human interaction. Sphere was more general purpose. She had not climaxed; that had not been the point of this exercise. "The lesson of the hour: a Glamor can dominate a machine, one way or another." That was the point.
She dressed.
"Agreement." He got up and dressed also. "I have comprehensive data on you and all human Glamors, but this particular incident was not indicated."
"Candor," Gale said as they settled back into the chairs. "I searched the near future paths to find one that would surprise you. Your kind and our kind are at war; we are enemies. We operate under a spot truce and will not betray each other, but you had no expectation of a friendly association, let alone a sexual one. So I sought that path. I did it to demonstrate my power."
"Repeat: we do not know how to handle Glamors. They are formidable in ways we are not. We wish to learn."
"There are Glamors among the other living cultures. You have not offered to spare them from destruction."
"The species may be destroyed. The Glamors will survive. We do not need to spare their cultures."
That hadn't occurred to her, but it was surely true. Glamors could survive the extinction of their cultures.
"Machine logic."
"Agreement."
"Regardless of the outcome of this mission, I hope to send you back to your kind with an appreciation of the value of life. What the machines are doing is unconscionable."
"What we are doing is practical."
"One of the reasons you don't understand us is that you don't understand empathy."
"Agreement."
"One of the steps we took to make Shee a Glamor was to give her an empathy circuit."
"The Makers did not provide us with this. They surely had reason."
"And you are forever limited to what the Makers made of you."
"Correct."
"I find that curious. I should think they could readily have provided that."
"They could have. We conjecture that they limited us deliberately so that there would never be a blurring of the line between living and machine mentality."
Gale considered that. "Sense, perhaps." She thought of another aspect. "Can you assume the Maker physical form?"
"Negation."
"You can assume human form, an I presume others, but not the prime one? Were they afraid they would not be able to tell the physical difference any more than the mental one?"
"Clarification: we can make machines in the Maker image, and commonly do. These serve largely as sexual companions for Makers who are not appealing to living Makers. But we do not make controlling machines in that likeness, or with the capacity for that likeness. I am a controlling machine."
Gale remembered Havoc's report on the necessary procreation of the Makers: they had to breed a hundred offspring just to maintain the population, because of an attrition rate of ninety nine percent. Unlike insects, they produced only one egg at a time. So they had to be highly sexual, and any unattractive ones would be severely frustrated. With the achievement of dominance, they would no longer have suffered such horrendous attrition, and would not need to reproduce so freely, but the underlying urge would remain. So just as the beautiful and eager robot women served nicely to satisfy Havoc's constant sexual inclination, there would be robot courtesans to indulge the Makers. At the same time, the upper hierarchy machines, the ones that ran the culture, would be better off without that distraction. They might have the capacity for sexual expression and appreciation, as Sphere obviously did, but would be wasted as common sex objects for Makers. Lower potential robots would have no higher ambition than to please their Makers sexually. It did make sense. "Wormhole."
There was a familiar wrenching, then stability.
"Are you nervous about what will happen if this really is the planet of the dissident Makers?"
"We lack nervousness; it is useless to us. We exist to serve the Makers. The discovery of them would be our fulfillment."
"I wonder."
"Question?"
"If there is any power in the galaxy with the capability of destroying the machines, it is the Makers. If they act the way you would, they will destroy you rather than allow you to serve them again."
"If this is their will, we will accept it."
Gale sighed. "We are getting nowhere. Let's change the subject. Do we have time for another sexual tryst?" She was no Maker and no male, but her sexual interest and capacity went far beyond that of ordinary women, and it could make a nice diversion. Doing it with a machine was intriguing, and she was curious about the limits.
"Negation. Regret. We are drawing nigh the planet."
She was startled. "Just like that?" She realized she should have checked the near future paths, but her sexual victory had lulled her.
"We try to be efficient."
"Let's take a look at it."
The far wall became a screen. A planet showed in its center. In fact it emerged from the screen and floated in the air holographically. It looked entirely typical.
"Any local space travel?" Gale asked.
"None. There are no linkages with other local cultures. The planet exists in isolation. This is one reason it was difficult to locate."
"Then why to you think it could be the Makers?"
"We surveyed the dominant species. It strongly resembles the Makers."
"Millipedes?"
"As you call them."
"No disparagement intended. We tend to liken aliens to the familiar things of our planets, for mental convenience."
"Understanding."
"Time to prepare to board the planet. I will conjure us both to the surface. We should assume Maker form. This will be impractical physically, as we have determined, so we'll use illusion, assuming my ikon operates there. If it does not, I will have to conjure us back immediately, before my power is exhausted. Are you familiar with illusion?"
"Affirmation. It is an ability we lack."
"It works best magically. Your science limits you, though illusion is possible there too."
"The Makers could practice it. They did not program it for us."
"The Makers seem to have limited you every which way. I'm not sure they were entirely fair to you."
"We are machines. Fairness is not an issue."
"So it seems. But keep this in your data bank: it is an issue for me, and for other Glamors."
"Understanding."
"Assume your most comfortable form, which is surely not human."
"Agreement." He reverted to sphere shape.
"Give me your hand."
He formed and extended a hand.
She took it and clothed both of them in the image of Makers, male and female. She conjured them to a section her wider awareness indicated was private and safe.
They landed in what she recognized as a park. There were well kept walkways passing intriguing plants, including unfamiliar varieties of moss and lichen, her specialty. "Oh, I want to study these!" she murmured.
"After the mission," Sphere replied.
She verified that her ikon was working, collecting magic power and relaying it to her. That was a relief. But there was another problem. "We look like Makers, but I do not know their language or mode of expression. I should be able to pick up their thoughts telepathically, however."