Her Cyborg Awakes (Diaspora Worlds) (7 page)

“I didn’t know you could so soon.” She wiggled her
hips, caressing the round head of his cock with her movements.

Kaistril pushed inside, just a little way. “You
know you’ve uncaged the beast, don’t you?” he groaned.

Sabralia clutched him tight to her with legs and
arms, and he slid deeper into her. “Maybe I’ll tame him,” she whispered,
pulling his mouth down to hers.

Chapter Six

Sabralia awoke alone in bed one night a weeks
later. Only a few hours of their sleep cycle had passed, so she was a little
surprised she was alone. They had reverted to the way they had slept together
as mistress and cyborg, spooned naked together.

All the lights were powered down. She entered the
main room. Kaistril was at the com.

“Couldn’t you sleep?”

His lips curved in welcome, but he shrugged. “The
encryption is finally removed. I opened my case file.”

“Oh.” He seemed so…somber. “Is there something
wrong?”

He reached for her and pulled her onto his lap.
Sabralia stared at him, alarmed. Normally such a move was a prelude to sex, but
he wasn’t hard.

“What?”

He looked away. “There’s a failsafe.”

She was silent for a moment. “On the ship?”

“No. In me.” He tapped his temple where the
appliance once sat.    

Understanding dawned, followed by clutching
horror.

“Will it kill you?” Nausea welled up her throat.

“I don’t think so. I got the temple device off
pretty early on. In the event of missing maintenance procedures, the temple
device sends in nanos that are supposed to shut the cyborg down, but not damage
it.”

“Shut you down? Like kill you?”

“I don’t believe so. They don’t like to destroy
something they’ve put so much research and resources into. I was an experiment.
All the cyborgs in the harem were experiments. Sooner or later Sirn would have
moved me to military duties. They just want to shut the cyborg down until they
can collect it and recondition it, if it begins to remember.”

“Is someone coming to collect you?” she asked,
horrified.

“None of our sensors indicate anyone is following
us. But eventually someone will notice this ship is gone. A ship like this is
worth the gross national product of some planets.”

“When do you think the failsafe will start?”

“I think it already has. I am tired, but I can’t
sleep. Puregens recover quickly, so I am rarely tired. None of my activities
should tire me.”

“What about the weight bearing exercises? Are you
doing many of those?”

“Just the normal sequence. Nothing that would make
me tired.”

 “What can I do?”

 “We’re going to dock at Katherine Hub in just a
few days. I don’t know how responsive I will be by then, but we can get a
prerecorded message zipped to New Prague. It’ll cost, but it is a common
service on the hubs.” He tapped the com and showed her.

“I have it all set. My brothers will come for
you.”

“Us.”

He nodded and gave her a crooked smile. Her heart
raced in fear. This was serious.

“You’ll need to find secure housing and a
reputable buyer for the jewels to pay for lodging. The ship is worth a great
deal, but it will be recognized if we try to sell it. We need to just abandon
it so we can’t be traced to it at the Hub. Hopefully my brothers can retrieve
it when they get us.”

“I think will have more physical maladies than
mental ones. The purpose of the nanos is to shut me down so I can be retrieved.
I think they will make me unconscious but keep me alive.”

Sabralia pulled his face close to hers. “I’ll get
you to New Prague. We’ll get you help.”

“It should be all right, after awhile. The nanos
will not have a power supply. I’m removing my other appliances.”

She uncurled from his lap in shock. “I thought
they were fitted too deep and removing could knick your arteries. Isn’t that
very dangerous?”

“We’re not going to do it unless it is absolutely
necessary. Once we get to Katherine Hub, we’ll hire a medic. But we should go
over the procedure tomorrow, after you’ve slept. Just in case. If there is
trouble, there are medics on the Hub.”

Kaistril insisted she go back to bed.

“I can’t possibly sleep now, Kaistril.”

He captured her face in one large hand, and his
mouth, open and hot, came down over hers. He crushed her against his chest,
firm hands sliding down her back to her bottom. Sweeping her up into his arms,
he carried her back to the bed. “Maybe we can help each other sleep.”

The next day was busy, as she learned about
Katherine Hub’s docking procedures and practices. Sabralia was so thankful
she’d spent the weeks in transit learning how to do systems checks and pilot.

Kaistril…she could see a difference. He didn’t
sleep, but often spent long moments just sitting and staring. His speech became
slower. Kaistril’s movements were jerky and hard to control. Sabralia cried,
quietly, in the bath, especially when she remembered how he’d run with her in his
arms, to safety. She wanted to just take him to the big bed and cuddle with
him, but there was too much to do.

“Sabra, come put some data in for me, all right?”

He was sitting at the com. She did what he asked.

“Look.” Kaistril pointed out a screen with two
bright spots. “We’re being followed.”

“Will they catch up with us?”

“I don’t think so. Sirn does—did—have craft that
could jump and catch us, but no commander would send something like that after
us. They probably want the ship more than they want us. I doubt they know about
the film.” He stretched.

“I’m functioning better than I thought I would. We
can wait until we get to the Hub to remove the appliances.” His speech was
labored, and he sat at the controls, looking tired and drawn. “It wouldn’t be a
great idea to go into the sleep tubes. They’d find us right away. Unless there
is a full power failure, we stay on course.”

“How did they find us?”

“I guess they figured we were on our way to
Katherine Hub. And they may not have sensed us yet, because of the chameleon
hull. I dumped sensors along the way so I would know if anyone was traveling
toward the hub.”

Sabralia checked the monitors. “We’ll be at the
Hub in sixty-six hours.”

“Hopefully I’ll be alert.”

Kaistril was awake but slow to respond the rest of
the day.

“Make cloak…men see you.”

Her choice of clothing was her transparent dress
or the spacer knits with Alfyt’s jacket, both very revealing.

“Right. I should make a cover up.”

There was a tailoring device. She used it to turn
some of the bedding into a loose gown and cloak.

“Are you coming to bed?” she asked as their sleep
cycle approached.

Kaistril was at the com, running some type of
report.

“You go ahead. I’ll be there in a little while.”

Sabralia fell asleep waiting for him. She awoke
some hours later, still alone in the bed. She went out to see what Kaistril was
doing.

He was at the com, but slumped to one side. He was
blinking rapidly.

Something is wrong!

“Kaistril. Kaistril are you all right?” He did not
respond.

Oh no, oh no.  She adjusted his chair so he was
lying down. He felt hot. She ran to the lavatory for a wet cloth. She bathed
his face.

His temperature was high, he was burning up.
“Kaistril, we should get you into the shower. Can you walk?”

He did not respond. She tried to pull him up, but
could not get him out of the chair.

The appliances had to come off. They couldn’t wait
two days—he could be dead in two days.      

She tapped on the com until she found the file
Kaistril had saved, on removing the appliances. Her fingers shook as she tapped
the controls. She started to rush through the file, then stopped and took a
deep breath.

Kaistril needed her to know how to do this
procedure to survive. She studied it for close to an hour, then assembled her
supplies. The ship’s medic kit was well stocked.

“Kaistril, I’m going to give you a neurosed, so I
can take the appliances off. Can you swallow?”

He did not respond.

She tried giving him a sip of water. It dribbled
out.

The medkit contained a synthesizer. She put the
neurosed in that and sprayed it up his nose. Then she undressed him, which was
a heavy job.

Next, the cleaning.  She scrubbed him until his
skin was bright pink.

There were five vials of wound sealant. She would
use two on his arm and three on his leg. She hoped that would be enough. If he
bled heavily, she didn’t have the equipment or skill to save his life.

Sabralia took a vial to his leg. It was made to
harvest a small amount of flesh, to blend with the medical nano technology to
seal the wound. It left a small bloody wound.

Sabralia covered it with a patch and then had to
sit down. There was going to be blood. Maybe a lot of it. Was she really going
to go through with it?

She looked at Kaistril. His face was pale and
beaded with sweat, slack in unconsciousness. All his vitality had been stripped
away, leaving him vulnerable and even weaker than she was.

Yes. She would remove the appliances.

She finished the vials, then set the pressure
point devices, to slow the blood flow on his arm. With that, she took the
scalpel, pried his arm com up with her fingers, and slit into his arm so the
device could be pulled free.

There was blood. She pulled the appliance off as
quickly as she could, then applied pressure to the wound for a moment.

She had to get the nanoseal as close to the artery
wound as possible. Sabralia set the device for higher pressure, then swabbed
the area until she could find the torn artery. She squeezed two vials into it,
then padded it heavily. After the prescribed time, she loosened the pressure
point device, while keeping pressure on the arm with her hands. Blood seeped
through the pad. She added another and pressed hard again.

There was no time to panic, but her heart was
racing.

Her arms, shoulder, and neck ached from pressing
down on his arm. Finally, she was able to raise her hands without seeing blood
color the pad.

She wrapped his arm tightly and checked his
fingers. They looked all right to her, a little pale…but not blue.

She slumped into the console chair. The thigh
would be harder.

It was finally over. Kaistril had lost more blood
than she had hoped, but she was able to add to his fluid levels, and the com
said his readings were in acceptable limits. Hopefully his Puregen heritage
helped him heal really fast. She’d heard that was so.

Sabralia taped his arm and legs to the chair to
keep them still as he woke. The nanoseals would be set in three hours, and she
had no more. She tucked a soft body warmer around him.

She was splattered with blood, and the consul area
was a mess. Slowly, Sabralia cleaned up the cloths and pads, and disposed of
the empty vials. Her arms and legs felt like lead, and her head pounded. She
stumbled to the shower and cleaned off quickly. Her hands and legs were shaking
with shock.

After changing into new garments, she remembered
that a systems check needed to be done. She grabbed a cup of Kaf, which she
drank as quickly as possible, then ate a quick meal that sat like lead in her
stomach.

The systems check took longer than usual, but she
did it right, like Kaistril had taught her, and triple checked. The memory of
Kaistril grinning and joking, yet expecting her to be so exact in doing a
systems check, came to her. Star Goddess above, would he ever be that way
again?

Sabralia checked Kaistril every few minutes,
thankful he remained stable. Finally, she grabbed another warmer, set a timer
to wake her every half hour, and collapsed into the consul chair next to him,
and fell asleep.

An alarm woke her. She leaped to Kaistril, heart
thundering in panic.

The com showed all his systems were fine.

She looked around in confusion.

“Clean the appliances.” Kaistril’s voice was
rough. He spoke without opening his eyes. “Nano…won’t transmit now…my body the
energy source.”

“Kaistril! Are you all right? How do you feel?”
“Right.”

He was awake. Tears of joy flowed as she checked
him. He finally opened his eyes and looked at the console.“After us. Increase
speed. Check systems. We should be able to burst for awhile. They know we’re
headed for the Hub, but we can hide there. Get off ship.”

“I can do that. We’ve made it this far.”  She held
his cold hand tight.

“You did good,” Kaistril whispered, then fell back
asleep.

Sabralia rushed to shoot the appliances into the
hygenie, then set speed and did a systems check. She still felt exhausted, but
Kaistril’s com reports were still good.

Much later, Kaistril awoke again. He groaned.
Sabralia leaped out of her chair to his side.

“What’s wrong? Are you bleeding?” She checked his
wounds. They looked sealed, with no blood. Bleeding was the greatest danger.
“No. Feel fine. Can’t move much.”

She removed the tape from his arm and legs. He still
didn’t move. “You can’t move?” 

Had she paralyzed him?

“Sure I can move. Just don’t want to. Feel weak.”
He waved an arm then dropped it back to the recliner.

“Oh. Well, that is one of the normal side-effects
of the removal.”

“Yes. Thinking and speaking are…effort.” Sabralia
smiled in relief. “It is working! When I decided to take them out you were
unresponsive, but you weren’t really asleep, either. Your eyes were blinking so
fast. Soon you will be able to walk and no appliances will shut you down.” She
ran kisses over his face.

When she stood up he held up his arm with the
fluid pouch attached to it. “I think you can take this out. I can eat and drink
now.”