A woman appeared before him. "May I assist you, Jack?"
Startled, he stared at her. She was definitely not one of the ones he had seen before. Abbe and Brie were female but conservatively so, really not much more developed than Tappy herself.
This one was comparatively voluptuous, with an orange dress that showed the rounded upper contours of her breasts somewhat more than would have been the case had the fit been perfect. Her dark hair swirled about her face and shoulders cohesively, lending additional sex appeal.
"I have two questions. Three. Four.
"I am at your service, Jack."
"You are one of them? An AI?"
"Yes, Jack."
"Then you must be Candy."
"Yes."
"How did you appear so suddenly?"
"I stepped through the panel." She demonstrated by stepping back. Her body disappeared, first the front side, then the back side. Then her face reappeared, framed by darkness. "It is an opaque screen. You may enter, if you wish." Her face disappeared again.
Jack put out one hand. It passed through the opacity and disappeared. "Oh-like the rock!"
"Like a portal, yes," Candy agreed. She was standing in the chamber, which was like another bedroom. Now he was, too.
"And your fourth question?"
"Why are you so different from the others?"
"We established four of us as the original complement, of a neutral type, to serve the Imago and her companion. We were not certain what was in order, so withheld two pending further information. Our research indicated that your species is highly sexual, and since you did not indulge with Tappy, we crafted my fonyi to be more mature. You may relieve your sexual frustration with me, if you wish."
So he and Tappy had been watched. Somehow he had known that would be the case. The AI intended to protect the Imago, and for all they knew, he could be dangerous to her.
'-I'm not sexually frustrated," he said shortly.
"Then I apologize for our misunderstanding. When your copulatory member became rigid in the night-"
"That's normal!" They had observed, all right' He had forgotten the dream, but now it came back. He hoped they had not been able to see into his mind then.
"We did not know," Candy said. "Your particular species has not come often to our attention. I can assume a less provocative shape."
"You can do that? Just change your shape?"
"Do you wish me to demonstrate this?"
Suddenly he believed it. "No. Keep your present form. I like it."
And maybe, he realized, he should take her up on her offer, so as not to be further tempted by Tappy. Candy might be a robot, but he suspected that she would feel exactly like the most cooperative of women, and she surely knew what she was doing. In that sense, she was adult, regardless of her technical age.
"I will show you more of my body, since you like it," she said, her hand going to her dress.
"No!" For suddenly he realized that this, too, would be wrong.
She was a machine, possessing no emotion, so it would be fake, not real. A cross between sex and masturbation. And to whatever extent it was real, it would be a betrayal of Tappy.
"I apologize for disturbing you. I will confonn precisely to your expectation, if you will advise me what-"
"It's not that. It's-" But again, he did not want to tell her, knowing that in reality she was a neuter machine. "Just how old are you, anyway?"
"In your terms, approximately one hundred thousand years."
Jack tried to keep his jaw from dropping, and half succeeded.
He had assumed she had been constructed within the past year or so. "You've been-a beautiful woman-from before the time there were human women?"
"No, Jack," she said, unsmiling. "I am not human. I have served the Imago in the shape of whatever species the Imago has chosen as host. As have we all. We are long conversant with the Imago, but not with your species."
"But with your fancy building right here on this world near Earth, you must have-I mean, even the 'os of the Gaol are human here!"
She paused just an instant. "I think it is essential that your ignorance be swiftly abated, as Abe advised you. But it is apparent that we are not evoking your cooperation. Please advise me of the manner best to approach you, so that you will be receptive."
Jack stared at her. "You really want to know?"
"Yes, Jack."
"Why?"
"Because the Imago is presently in a human host. She is therefore subject to the idiosyncrasies of the human nature. If we learn from you what those are, we shall be better able to work with her."
"Oh, so it's her you care about, not me!"
"Yes, Jack."
Actually they had never pretended otherwise. He was here on sufferance, because Tappy had brought him, and they treated him courteously, by their definitions, because she wanted them to. They were not ev'l, merely ignorant of the human nuances.
Their very mistakes with him demonstrated the truth of that.
Had these been secret agents of the Gaol, they would have approached him in either a more deceptive or more forbidding manner. Malva had alternately enticed and threatened him. It had all been bluff, but it showed the way she worked. These AI had done neither. Well, Candy had offered him sex, but had done it so clumsily that it was obvious that she knew next to nothing about the emotional aspects of it. That wasn't surprising in creatures who had no emotions.
The conviction was growing that the AI were the genuine article, and that he really ought to cooperate with them. But he -hided something more.
"You are all in mental contact with each other?" he asked.
"When I talk to Abe, it's the same as talking with you, even if you're not there, and vice versa? Whatever I do with you is the same as doing it with him?"
"Yes, Jack."
"So if I had decided to have sex with you, it might as well have been with him?"
"Yes, Jack. He would have fonued an orifice-"
"Give me one decisive reason to cooperate with you."
"We exist to forward the purpose of the Imago."
Jack stared at her. "That's it?"
"Yes, Jack."
They remained at cross-purposes. He pondered a moment. "Sup I said I would cooperate if you ripped off one of your arms pose and threw it away?"
She put her right hand on her left elbow and made a contortion.
The left arm came out of 'ts shoulder socket, dangling tentacular threads. She threw it to the floor.
"That was just a question!" Jack exclaimed, appalled. "I didn't mean it literally!"
"I apologize for misunderstanding, Jack."
He stooped to pick up the arm. It remained warm and soft.
No bone projected from the torn end, just a hard plastic surface.
"Doesn't it hurt?"
"We do not experience pain.
"But it's a shame to waste such a finely crafted limb! Now you can't use it."
the fingers on it flexed. "I can use it, Jack. It merely lacks anchorage."
He handed her the arm. "Put it back on, then."
She took it by the elbow again and pushed the end into the gaping shoulder socket. The shreds of plastic melted and flowed.
sealing over the injury. "It will not be at full strength immediately, but it will serve," she said.
"Okay, I'll cooperate until I find reason not to," he decided.
"Not because I know anything about the Imago, but because I care for Tappy.
"Tell me how to avoid antagonizing you, so that you will not find reason not to cooperate with us."
"For one thing, stop this damned condescension!"