She was right, but he didn't care to discuss it. "Wait here while I explore."
"Observation: As if I had a choice."
He kissed her. "You have an impertinent streak to go with your plush ass. I like that. Find a suitable place to hide the ikon." He squeezed the ass and conjured himself to a spot high above the planet.
Now he saw that it was segmented like an Earth pomegranate fruit. Each section was significantly different from its neighbors in atmosphere, vegetation, landscape, and structures. What was going on here?
He moved to a reddish zone. This was not Red Chroma territory; there were no volcanoes in evidence. It was rust colored air in a nonChroma region. Within it were giant purple worms munching on a mountain of sludge. They weren't alive. They were robots.
He moved to another. Here the air was greenish, from gaseous vents. Large five legged insects scuttled about, touching antennae, feeding, mating. They too were robots.
A third section was an acid pool wherein swam giant amoeba. "Voila would like this," he murmured to himself. She was the Glamor of Amoeba. But these too were robots.
In fact there seemed to be no animate life on the planet. Merely machine emulations of amazing variety and complexity. What was happening here?
Then he caught on. These were enclaves, similar to the human one where Shee had been developed. The humans were just one project, out of hundreds. They were sending realistic emulations to many living species.
Any they wanted anything from.
The sheer scale of the planetary operation was awesome. His experience with Shee had shown him how sophisticated she was, and how much skill and effort had gone into her manufacture and training. It had seemed that the machines had made a special project, expending enormous resources. They had indeed—but it was merely a blip on their screen, to express it in machine terms. One tiny cog in a huge array.
He located and checked the human enclave. There were several young women in it, engaging in routine activities. They bore more than a passing resemblance to Shee. He would be able to interact with them.
He returned to the greenhouse. "Ikon hidden," Scent said. "Amazement at how hard it was to part with it. Now you can touch any part of me." She opened her mouth, showing that it was empty, and her shirt to expose her braless breasts. They were nice breasts.
Did they have time? So far there was no evidence that the machines were aware of their presence, but that could change at any moment. There could be hidden sensors to set off alarms. Still, Scent was obviously hungry for another mock rape, and she had whetted his renewed interest.
Perhaps an experiment was in order.
"Rape is not a position," he said. "It is a forcing. Try to resist." He caught both her wrists with one hand, holding her arms over her head. With his other hand he tore her shirt the rest of the way open. Then he bent his knees, put his member under her skirt and at her cleft from in front, got it lodged, and jammed in so hard it lifted her legs off the floor.
She tried to resist, twisting her torso, but this only made her breasts bounce and added to his penetration. In a moment he jetted at her core, held the position another moment, then withdrew and set her down. The whole process had been rapid. Even so, he had felt her internal response, pulsingly hot and tight. She truly liked being roughly taken when nominally helpless.
"Agreement," she said giddily. "Rape."
He had established the principle: it didn't have to be brigand style. An uncomplicated position was more efficient.
"Now we go to the human enclave," he said as she mopped up and reassembled her shirt, licking her lips.
"Take me," she agreed blissfully. Naturally she meant it more than one way.
He took her. They landed beside the schoolhouse Shee had described to Ennui. It looked just like a typical Charm village scene, and the air and temperature were normal.
"Caution. The folk here are machines but will seem alive. I will treat them as if they are alive. I doubt they will try to harm you. I want no jealousy or interference from you."
"I will behave, Havoc," she agreed. "I know you have a mission. But when we are alone, and there is time—"
"Swift silent no fault rape," he agreed, and kissed her.
"Glorious."
There was a sound from within the schoolhouse. Havoc conjured himself inside to investigate, concerned that a machine might have spied him.
It was a single girl, a virtual duplicate of Shee. Her hair was blond without scintillation, her eyes were normal gray, and her clothing was mundane. But the perfection of her face and shape were Shee.
She saw him. "Havoc!"
"You know me?" he asked, astonished.
"I know you and love you," she said, coming to him and kissing him. "I had no idea they had made you for here."
She assumed he was another robot. "It is an unscheduled appearance," he said. "You know me, but I do not know you."
"I am Sidh, SIDH," she said, pronouncing it as Shee, with a nuanced difference. "I am the runner-up, in reserve in case Shee should be incapacitated. We are friends."
This was interesting. "Question: why are you alone here?"
"I miss our days of schooling. It has been three months since the course ended and we competed for the mission. Shee won, I was second, and now we are on standby until the issue is decided in the next three months. I deceive myself that I am still in school, and might yet be chosen." She gazed at him adoringly. "But what is your purpose here? Will there be a supplementary class to be sure we know how to impress the real Havoc?"
"Negation. I come merely to meet with you, and will depart soon."
Sidh glanced around. "We are alone. It may not be in the schedule, but you are the perfect semblance of the man we all love. I do not wish to get you in trouble. But can we do something private?"
Was she propositioning him? He was really curious to see where this led. "Acquiescence. I will not tell."
"Appreciation." She kissed him again. "This first and perhaps only time, I beg your indulgence. May I lead?"
Shades of Shee! "Acquiescence."
She led him to a couch, stripped away her clothing, and eagerly undressed him. He was of course rampant.
She was a clone of the machines' most beautiful woman.
She guided him to lie on the couch, then kneeled and addressed his member. She caressed it and licked it. "I suppose you are wondering why I choose this way."
"Affirmation."
"I will tell you, because I have the need to tell someone. In three months I will be compacted, as will we all, and I don't want to end with the secret still locked inside me. It relates to Shee."
"Shee," he agreed. "The one who won the competition."
"Affirmation. But this relates to how she won, and how I came in second. It was when we were ten."
"Surprise." Her mode of sexual expression derived from when she was ten years old? Yet that fit what he had learned about Shee. There was a missing section of her life that had had a profound effect on her. It was what he had come to learn about.
"We are seventeen now, but we grew stage by stage. Was it not the same for you?"
"Similar. But I am male." And alive.
She nodded, accepting that. "We were walking home from school—this school. The others had already returned, but Shee was late, and I was later. I started back soon after she did, and was about to catch up with her, when I saw her look around, then depart from the path. I spied on her, feeling guilty for doing it, but I was really curious what she might be up to.
"She went to the fence that walls off part of our enclave." She paused, massaging his member. "At that time we did not know we were robots. We thought we were real."
"Sympathy."
"That is a feeling we have heard about, but not experienced." Because it related to empathy, which they lacked. "I never thought of myself as a robot either."