Page 94 of Sway’s Peace (Delivery Service #2)

Alred

Life support systems operating optimally. Air filter life at ninety-nine percent. Small glitch in second deck atmosphere circulator – restarting.

Alred was watching Goldie. Something he found himself doing a great deal.

Even when she was just sitting there, she was fascinating.

He sometimes found himself calculating the curve of her spine when she was hunched over, focused on studying.

Or finding the index of refraction from the light shining off her eyes.

So beautiful. So entrancing. He couldn’t be hypnotized.

His brain was a computer, after all. But this was the closest he could get.

Goldie was in the medical bay. She was sitting on the stool she’d brought over to the mediring console, her eyes moving over the instructions for how to imprint knowledge directly into the brain.

Their mediscanner had the capability, but she was trying to learn the rules and instructions for how to do it.

And that included all the possible side effects or adverse reactions and how to treat them.

It was information that Alred had fetched for her, providing her with lessons that she was reading over so carefully.

Scheduled hull scan commencing. Nano repair bots on standby. Previous hull compromise – thirty-five percent.

“ Alred, ” Goldie called out, looking up at the ceiling. “ You there? ”

He sent out his light projection. The miniature version, small enough to fit in her palm. He made it pop into existence in a shower of yellow and orange sparkles in front of her, floating in the air.

“Always here,” he told her happily, the limbs on his light form splaying out in display.

She started in surprise, laughing, before holding out her palm. She knew that the light projection was just that – a projection. It wasn’t his real body, just something for her to interact with

But interact she did. And he obligingly had his little mini-projection drop onto her palm. He even made it wobble like it was trying to find balance on the uneven surface. She laughed at his antics, and he could swear he felt his core sparking at the sound.

“ Alred! ” Garnet called to him from the galley. “ The food synthesizer is making a funny sound. ”

“One moment,” he told her happily, not bothering to summon his light form for this.

Food synthesizer system scan commencing... Blockage in fat synthesis chamber. Program suggestion: Heat cleaning. Heat cleaning commencing.

“ What’s this word mean? ” Goldie asked, pointing to a part on the screen in the med bay. He used his cameras to zoom on what she was pointing at, and had his mini-light form lean in and squint like it was reading.

Hull scan completed. Hull compromise – thirty-seven percent. Nano repair bots en route to port plate thirteen for diagnostics and repair.

Fat blockage melted. System reset.

“That phrase is pronounced ‘symbioelectro mapping’. It refers to the generalization of imprints through multiple imprint scans to create a multipurpose imprint that should work on most brains. This section is talking about how one imprint can impart knowledge to many brains, but also how some knowledge is invariably lost along the way,” he told Goldie.

“Synthesizer had a blockage. I cleared it. Should be good to go,” he told Garnet.

“ Thanks, Alred! ” The latter beamed happily, pressing against the synthesizer again to get it to make whatever she had decided to bring Vytln for third meal today.

Goldie was frowning at her screen in medbay. Trying to incorporate this new knowledge. She was still holding her hand up for his light projection, so he had it sit, using her thumb as a place to recline as she worked through this new information.

Hull damage diagnostics in progress. Estimated time to completion: One-quarter mark.

Alred kept his light form there for Goldie, a way to silently let her know that she still had the bulk of his attention as she worked if she needed it.

But that was generally always true. She could never have all of his attention.

There were hundreds, thousands of things to keep track of on the Humility.

Cleaning mist tank level – thirty-five percent. Running cleaning fluid recycler.

Cleaning bot – designation: Spot – stuck in the second side storage. Sending re-routing instructions... Acknowledged. Rerouting.

Landing shuttle engine charge – eighty-nine percent complete. Battery life – twenty-three percent. Deterioration increasing exponentially. Repair soon. Estimated life remaining: four tendays.

So many things he constantly had to be doing, as well as listening for his name from any of the crew that might need him for something.

As Vytln did now, asking him to redirect power from the left engine compartment to the right so he could finish repairs on that side before they dropped out of their subspace swing and the engine had to be restarted.

In subspace, they weren’t actually moving, so the engine was turned off.

Vytln often used that as a chance for maintenance.

Though he had it under control, Alred couldn’t help but keep track of the various readings from the engine sensors telling him how many parts were close to death, how many weren’t sending signals any longer, and how many desperately needed replacement and repair. It was a lot.

Of all the bodies Alred had inhabited, the Humility really wasn’t the most up to date.

But it was still the best, because none of the others had Goldie.

He was obsessed with her. He knew that. Why else would he be calculating the pressure she must be exerting with her teeth on her tongue as she bit it while thinking?

Measuring the degree of tension in her jaw, her lower back, and the delicate muscles around her eyes as they squinted with fatigue.

Her skin pallor was increasing by degrees as she got tired.

But he could measure the rounding of her belly from the food he’d reminded her to eat just recently and that was satisfying.

“ Alred, ” Trove called to him from the rec room. “ How much longer until we exit our swing? ”

“Should be out by tomorrow. Why? You have an appointment with another brothel?”

Trove laughed. “ Jealous? ”

He was. Desperately. He’d forgotten what it was like to feel a female. If he ever knew it.

Alred had spent all morning trying to sift through the fragmented remains of his original memories. He had recalled them last night, but they were so old and corrupted and degraded, there was so much that was just gone. Memories he’d never be able to recover.

But Goldie wasn’t like an undroitt female anyway – the only kind he would have touched before. So, did it even matter if he remembered what they felt like? Not when that’s not how she would feel.

It didn’t matter anyway. Though he had recalled the memories of sensations like touch and taste and smell, he couldn’t actually recall what they felt like.

He knew, intellectually, the difference between cold and hot, soft and hard, wet and dry, but he couldn’t remember it.

He hadn’t had a body in so long, he couldn’t force his circuits to recall sensations anymore.

So, he could only hypothesize what it would be like to touch Goldie. To feel her under his hands. She must be soft. The human females were known for that. For smelling pleasant, for tasting amazing. They were a sexual species.

But the undroitt recalls were not. Alred didn’t have the capability of feeling sexual desire anymore. He may retain his male identity, but he didn’t actually possess any of the parts or even the ability to feel attraction in that way.

He couldn’t use that as an excuse for why he was so enthralled with her. He just was. And it was the most frustrating thing he’d experienced in all his recalls.

To be right beside her but as untouchable as the light form she held in her hand.

Sensors so precisely attuned and calibrated, he could calculate the pressure of the blood he could see thrumming through her many pulse points, but unable to caress that skin or touch the vital thrumming.

He could measure her temperature at any spot on her body, but he couldn’t feel her heat.

She was within him, she held the bulk of his not inconsiderable attention, and the most he could do was use his light form to be near her and know neither of them could feel it.

She set him down. Though he was just light, she actually brought him to her console. He obligingly had it step off and turn, smiling up at her as she stood and stretched. Her arms went over her head, and he calculated the angle her back bent in the other direction this time.

Sudden change in vitals: Rok. Heart rate rapidly accelerating. Respiratory rate rapidly accelerating. Sending alert to his combot… Rok waking. Vitals returning to baseline.

“Goldie,” he called to her as she came out of her stretch.

“ Yes? ” She smiled at him.

“I went through my memories. My original ones. Those I could recall anyway.”

She blinked, then beamed, heart pounding just a bit harder in excitement. “ You did? What did you find? ”

“Well, I found my original body. I’ve been reprogramming my light form settings all day. I’ve got it all set now.”

“ Really? ” She gasped, bouncing. “ Can I see? ”

Alred laughed. She was happy. He knew she would be. He couldn’t touch her, he couldn’t even remember what it would be like to feel her. But he could still make her happy. It was enough. It had to be enough.

“I was hoping you would ask. Are you ready?”

“ Yes! ” She squealed, clapping. “ Let me see! ”

“Alright! One…” He banished his mini-light form. Turned off the program entirely and reloaded it with the new skin he had prepared. A body created from the fragments he could remember of what he used to look like.

“Two…”

She was looking at the console, but he wanted her to see him in full form, so he created a shimmer in the air ahead of her. Directing her attention there instead. She immediately looked that way, taking a step towards him.

“Three!”

He projected the light form. Though he knew what it would look like, it was still the first time he’d actually seen it. But he was still more focused on Goldie. On the way she gasped. On the raw, stunned appreciation in her gaze. He hoped she’d like it.

For the first time in thousands of years, the original Alred, as he had once been, stood there. He held out its arms, letting her get a good look at it.

About the only thing it had in common with his basic light form was that he had two legs and two arms on a torso with one head.

But it was bigger than his light form had depicted, stockier in the arms and thighs especially.

Its legs were digitigrade, ending in paws instead of feet.

It also had a tail, long and luxuriously furred.

It matched the mane of hair on its head that was similarly long and sleek, though the hair on its head came to a deep point on its forehead, leading into its rather flat and blocky nose.

It didn’t have a true muzzle, not like some other species, but its jaw was definitely more squared than Goldie’s.

It also had four eyes now, two forward, and two placed more on the side of its head, which would have once given him a much broader range of view when he was in that body.

Its larger jaw made room for the large fangs hidden behind its lips.

He also had fur on his forearms and thighs – and he was rather proud of those features as they were considered masculine and attractive among his kind.

Or they had been once, back when he had been biological.

It had claws on its hands that were short and tough, meant for climbing and digging primarily, but certainly couldn’t be discounted as weapons.

Its ears also weren’t on the side of its head anymore, but more towards the top.

And they were triangular now, less human shaped, with little tufts of fur coming off the tips.

His light form remained yellow – that singular, basic color continuing to define him.

He’d also chosen to keep the light form neutered instead of adding the sac and sheath that would have once hidden his cock from view.

It seemed the females would be more comfortable with that.

It’s not like he had a purpose for it being there anyway.

Goldie was impressed enough as it was. She marveled at his new light form, circling it in amazement as he swished its tail for her. She laughed.

“ This is you? ” She asked, beaming as she came to a halt in front of the light form again.

“This is what I once was,” he said, having the light form inspect itself. “Not bad, eh?”

She giggled, her cheeks brightening by degrees as blood rushed into them with her excitement. “ Yeah. It’s not bad at all. You look real good, actually. ”

“I’m glad you approve,” he hummed, as an alert dinged from his core.

Xenom blood sample from specimen Loyalty analysis complete.

“Anything you don’t like? Anything you’d think to change?”

“ No! ” She shook her head quickly, holding out her hands as if to stop him. “ Don’t change a thing. I like you just the way you are. ”

Alred couldn’t feel pain, but that statement still, somehow, hurt. He made his light form smile at her though.

“I’m glad you like it.”

He couldn’t touch her, but he could change for her. He could do more. He could be more.

For her.

One day, he vowed, he would know what it felt like to touch her.

Beginning thawing of cryogenic sample of undroitt DNA from specimen Alred.