Her Cyborg Awakes (Diaspora Worlds)

HER CYBORG AWAKES

Book One in the Diaspora Worlds Series

Melisse Aires

Copyright Melisse Aires 2009

This is an adult romance intended for readers over 18.

Chapter One

The gown was exquisite, an artistic creation made
specifically to accentuate Sabralia’s best features. She’d never looked
lovelier in all her life. The finest Tanur lace, in shades of red, blue, and
green, brought out the blue of her eyes and contrasted nicely with her long,
dark brown hair. A low-cut neckline revealed deep cleavage, thanks to the
ingenious cylifters in the gown’s bodice. Alfyt the Harem master was a genius
at knowing what made a woman look alluring.

Sabralia swallowed hard and tried to look pleased.
Alfyt was observant and she didn’t want him to notice anything odd about her
behavior. Like how much she hated dressing in a translucent gown for the
pleasure of the Emperor’s military commanders.

“Turn around,” Alfyt ordered, and she spun. The
lacy gown floated, thanks to the cleverly concealed cylifters in the skirt.

“Yes. I think the sapphire and ruby jewelry will
do.” Alfyt looked at her with narrowed eyes and then punched sensors on his arm
com. “Qy, bring lot one hundred and seventy-four.”

Qy, her personal cyborg, fetched the jewelry from
the Emperor’s vault. Bracelets, anklets, finger and toe rings of the most
delicate workmanship were fitted onto her.

“I don’t like the necklace,” Alfyt said. “Qy, I
want you to fix her hair in an upsweep, and weave the necklace through the hair
so the collar and pendant drop to her forehead.” He held the necklace to her
hair to demonstrate. “Yes, that will bring out her eyes and leave her cleavage
unadorned. Really, it needs no adornment. And apply jeweled lashes, the
permanent type so she won’t have to reapply them. There won’t be much time for
your servant to repair your makeup during the feast days,” Alfyt explained.
“They will have many duties. You’ll have to attend to it yourself.”

Sabralia left the fitting. She sighed and paused
at the doorway of the main hall to see if she could make a swift path through
the Common Harem. The main hall consisted of one huge room with a high-vaulted
ceiling, all in gleaming pink-veined white stone. It was filled with furniture
groupings, pools, eating areas, dance and exercise areas. The community
bedrooms were visible through high-arched doorways off the main hall. Cyborgs
and cleaning droids moved silently around, cleaning and caring for clothing and
other domestic chores. From what she could see most of the harem girls were
still asleep. Good. A few women who were awake sat on the terrace overlooking
the pleasure garden with its pools and lounge chairs, being waited on by staff
cyborgs. Laughter and splashing floated through the high-arched doorways and
windows, so there were a few in the pool. Sabralia doubted they had woken early
and decided to swim. They had probably been up all night making use of the
intoxicants the Main Harem was allowed to use.

Sabralia knew they envied her. She had her own
suite of rooms, her own beautiful cyborg, and she was actually married to Sirn.
Most of the Common Harem came from pleasure centers where they had been sex
workers or dancers who caught the Emperor’s eye, and they wanted a marriage
contract.

Why they would want to be contracted for life to
Sirn, Sabralia wasn’t certain. She was a wife because it pleased his vanity to
have the hereditary Queen of Coloun in his harem, and the treaty which involved
her marriage was favorable to the people of Coloun. In uncertain times of war,
her people had welcomed the offer from Sirn.  She herself had been just a girl,
barely sixteen, and she was given no choice in the matter.

Head high, eyes straight ahead on the staircase
that led to her own rooms, Sabralia entered the main hall and walked swiftly to
her destination.

“Hey. You. Queennie. When you going to share that
cyborg with us? We could teach him a few tricks.”

Sabralia didn’t bother to answer. If she did, the
taunting would get worse and she did not want a scene that would require the
summoning of the harem cyborgs to escort her to her rooms.

As she mounted the stairs she heard the murmurs
and giggles and sighed. They, at least, had friends to talk to and all sorts of
games and amusements, while she had her suite of rooms and her cyborg.  The
other wives lived in a separate residence, but since Sirn had little use for
her she’d been given rooms in the Main Harem. She wasn’t one of the wives he
ever summoned to please him, and she was tucked away where there would be the
least fuss.

Later in her rooms on the third floor, Sabralia
sat in the shade of her balcony and let the familiar sight of the aqua clear
ocean soothe her. The whole idea of this upcoming banquet upset her to the point
where she felt physically ill. She, Sabralia, former Queen of Coloun, legal
wife to Emperor Sirn, was to be nothing more than a pleasure girl for Sirn’s
Commanders. It was wrong, a disgrace—and yet she had no way to refuse. Sirn’s
words were law here on the planet he called Sirn’s Jewel. If she refused, who
knew what could happen? He could cancel the trade agreement with her homeworld,
turn it into a slave world, starve her people by demanding all the agricultural
products Coloun could produce. He could execute her, or cast her out on the
glidepath of some cesspool of a spaceport.

“Mistress, you have a message.” Qy handed her the
small com. She held it for a moment, not wanting to read the message from
Alfyt. “It is a reminder about the Feast.”

With a soft sigh she played the message.

“The Emperor’s Harem will arrive in their feasting
garb an hour before the festivities, to be inspected by Alfyt before the
Emperor arrives with his guests. Instruct your cyborgs to decorate your hair
and skin for a most formal event.” She shivered, feeling suddenly cold, and
squeezed her eyes shut. Sirn cared not at all about his harem; they were just
tools for his use.

“Does something trouble you, Mistress?”

She glanced at Qy. All the cyborgs were spies; it
was built into their programming. They recorded and uploaded all harem
conversations during their nightly maintenance, and a sophisticated program
checked all contents for signs of trouble, especially for disloyalty to the
Emperor. Disciplinary actions followed.

“No. I am just thinking about how I want my hair
arranged for the feast.”

“I will pull the front of your hair high and wind
into decorative curls, to give you some height, and we can leave long curls
down the back. I will entwine the necklace through the curls.”

“Yes. It is to be most formal.”

Qy was exceptional at his job of decorating
Sabralia so she looked her best, as were all of the cyborgs of the Harem. Her
coloring was a rather duller copy of his own, she thought, observing him move
about her quarters doing his chores. Where his hair was blue-black, hers was
dark brown; where his eyes were pale sky blue, hers were a muddy blue gray. His
skin was naturally bronze, hers very pale with a tracery of blue veins.

She was round and sturdy, with big eyes, big lips,
big breasts and hips. There was nothing delicate or elegant about her, but Qy
would give her the illusion of beauty. She had been plump all her life, which
was not at all the fashion here in the Harem full of lithe dancers, and the
inactivity in her life made her curves even fuller. So she was diligent about
getting some exercise every day.

***

Her gown arrived in triplicate, so she could wear
a fresh gown each day of the feast and be easily recognized by the Commanders
who fancied her. Too bad the beauty was all for the enjoyment of men who would
just use her. Rape her.

Sabralia couldn’t breathe. She had to get outside.
“Come, let us walk by the sea. I would like to splash a little,” she said when
Qy finished with her raiment. “It is a lovely day.” She made her voice
deliberately cheerful. If she didn’t get outside for a while she was afraid she
would break down into tears, and that would be reported to Alfyt.

Down by the water she could think—think of a way
to avoid being raped by the Emperor’s finest. And if she cried a few tears, the
ocean water would disguise it. She slipped into a simple swim tunic and thin
leggings and Qy accompanied her down her private stairs to the sandy beach.

The palace was on a hill overlooking a wide bay.
Long stretches of white sand contrasted with the pristine blue green waters of
the sea. This was a beautiful world, with a warm climate and abundant forests
and meadows. It would be an ideal agricultural world, but Sirn had not opened
it to colonists, and none of the native life forms were sentient. Sirn only
used it for military installations and his palace. Sirn held hunting parties
now and then, and the dangerous beasts had been removed from the palace and
spaceport area. The women of the Common Harem did not have access to this
section of beach because it stretched close to the spaceport, and Sirn did not
want them distracting his men. But she had been deemed not a security risk to
the spaceport. She’d been married to Sirn since her teen years and had no
military or spacecraft education, nor was she flirtatious as far as their
records indicated.

A wonderful, scary idea came to her as she
floated, letting a gentle wave glide her to shore. The beach! That was the
answer!

Alfyt and the cyborgs would be tremendously busy
during the feast. She would tell Qy to prepare a luxurious pallet, with food
and drink, at her special place on the beach, because one of the Commanders
wanted to be entertained outdoors, by the sea. Later she would lie and tell Qy
her man had visited while Qy was at his nightly maintenance—her mind raced with
the plan. She would hide on the beach until the feast ended and the Commanders
left.

Leaving the water, Sabralia took off down the
beach thinking of a small cove near the forest, well out of sight of the
palace. The place had a small area of grass fronting the woods, which were just
a short upward trail above the beach. She’d had picnics here before, enjoying
the view of the beach. Wildflowers grew year round in the meadow and the floral
scents mingled with the fresh breezes from the sea, making it even more
pleasant. The forest behind it stretched a long way, all the way to Sirn’s
Spaceport.

“I love this spot, Qy,” she said when they reached
it. “It is my favorite little cove, with the trees. Let us come here for lunch
tomorrow.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

She knew Qy would recall the location at any time
she mentioned her favorite cove. Cyborgs were good that way.

The morning of the feast, Sabralia woke in Qy’s
arms. She had trained Qy to hold her from the time he returned to her room from
his nightly maintenance, until she woke. He was a machine, of course, but his
body was a man’s, fit and smooth skinned. She enjoyed the sensation of his warm
smooth flesh next to her every night. The touching normally helped a little,
with the loneliness. But this morning there was no comfort in his arms. Tonight
was the feast.

Qy gave her an engaging smile. When he smiled like
that he looked so warm and human. His eyes seemed to glow with sky blue light.
With his black curls tousled and covering most of the plate that curved over
one temple and ear, Sabralia could almost forget he was a cyborg. She suspected
that the human body Qy had been fashioned from had been a genetically
engineered human, a Puregen. Emperor Sirn had been pushing his invasion into
the Puregen Systems for years, anxious to gain their wealth and technology.
Most of the cyborgs at the palace seemed to come from that stock. Under their
appliances, they were all startlingly handsome.

“Good morning, my love,” he said in his rich, warm
tone. “Would you like me to feed you your breakfast? Or would you like to bathe
first?”

Her stomach was a tight knot of pain. “I am not
hungry yet. I would like to bathe.”

“Would you like me to bathe with you?”

Sabralia hesitated for just a moment. Qy was
trained to either bathe her quickly and efficiently, or to get into the bathing
pool with her. Baths with him in the pool were far more intimate. Sabralia’s
face turned hot. She wanted the intimate bath, wanted to feel his hard body
naked against hers…and maybe it would help calm her down about the Feast. Or
perhaps it would be her last pleasurable moment for a long time.

Most of the harem cyborgs were used for sex.
Sabralia thought it was disrespectful to the men they had once been, before
their brains had been replaced by processors. Sometimes though, she opted for a
long, slow bath, where QY would wash every inch of her skin.

“Bathe with me, Qy.”

“Yes, Mistress.” Without hesitation, he slid off
his wrap shirt and loose trousers, revealing his golden, muscular body, lithe
and perfect. Broad of shoulder, slim of hip, he only had cyborg hardware on his
forearms, one thigh, and just above one side, stretching back to his spine. If
she put her arms around him just right she could feel flesh, nothing but smooth
flesh, covering taut muscle. His sex was surrounded by a riot of shiny black
curls, and there was a small sprinkling of soft black hair drawing a line up
his torso, and a light growth of hair on his chest. She could have his hair
removed, of course, but she liked the contrast of black hair and golden skin.
She liked how the silky hair on his chest felt under her fingers or against her
cheek when she snuggled him at night. His penis was long and flaccid. He did not
get aroused like a human man. It was something the Harem girls had to
manipulate and teach their bots.

 Qy would breathtaking like that, it was tempting
to have him for sexual pleasures, but the cyborg had to be taught every move,
just like they had to be taught everything else. The idea of teaching Qy how to
have sex, how to pleasure her that intimately, was daunting. It had taken a
long time to teach him to use caressing strokes when he bathed her, and his
deep kisses had only recently become less mechanical.