Stepping Stones (15 page)

Maybe Cam is
right, he thought.  Maybe I do need to loosen up.  A
t any rate, I can’t leave yet.  I
f I return to the bar this early
,
I’ll never hear the end of it from Cam. 
“Okay, Lara, or whatever your name is,” he said.  “Are you programmed to give a massage?”

“Anything you desire.”

“Fine.  T
hat’s what I want
.  And that’s
all
I want
.  Just a massage.”

Though
still
plagued by the suspicion he was making a mistake, Jake followed the cyborg to the
arboreal
bed, stripped to his short
s, and lay facedown on the soft, mossy
surface.  Despite his uneasiness, he felt his body
quickly
relaxing as her strong fingers, slippery with fragrant oil from a vial
she withdrew
from beneath the bed, began kneading the muscles of his shoulders and neck.  Next her hands traveled his back and legs, maintaining a deep, steady rhythm.  Jake closed his eyes, feeling himself drifting into a
comfortable
,
if slightly inebriated,
sleep.

“Turn over,”
Lara
commanded twenty minutes later.  “I’ll do your hands and arms next.”

Jake rolled onto his back.  Lara knelt beside him on the bed, her long legs tucked neatly beneath her.  Taking his left hand, she began working his fingers and knuckles, the web of his thumb, and the cords of his forearm.

A warm breeze
drifted
in, redolent with the sweetness of tropical blooms and the lush
smells of the jungle
.  Jake looked up, noticing that the cyborg’s
auburn
hair seemed to gle
am as it fanned over her shoulders onto the fullness of her
breasts.

“Does this feel good?” Lara asked without glancing up.

“Ummm,” Jake murmured.  Then, easing up on one elbow, “Listen, I’m curious about something you said earlier.”

“
Yes
?”

“That bit about feeling pleasure and pain.  When you make love, do you
experience
, uh . . .”

“O
rgasm?  Of course.  As I said, I’m fully functional.  Here, let me demonstrate.”  Before Jake could object, Lara swung a long, perfectly proportioned leg over his hips and straddled him.

“No, wait—”

“It’s all right,” said Lara, gently pushing Jake’s shoulders back
onto
the bed.  “It’s not necessary
for
you
to
respond
if you don’t want to.  I can do it all.”  Then t
aking his face in her hands
, she kissed him. 
Jake could feel her breasts trailing lightly across his chest
, her nipples hard and erect, and w
hatever
he had
been about to say was suddenly forgotten.

Slowly Lara began moving
her hips in small circles
, the warmth between her legs tantalizing,
first pressing into him, then releasing
.  Taking her lips from his, she arched her back, exposing the long white curve of her
neck
and the thrust of her breasts.  Gradually her flimsy nightgown turned from silky peach to fiery red, then became diaphanous,
insubstantial, and finally disappeared
altogether
.

Still gently rocking, Lara lowered her head.  S
lippery from the massage,
her
hands
explored Jake’s
shoulders,
his
arms,
his
chest.  Her breath coming in increasingly ragged gasps, she intensified her tempo.  And as she did, Jake felt himself responding.  Reaching out, he ran his
palms
over the smoothness of her
breasts
.  Gasping with pleasure at his touch, Lara closed her eyes.  A sheen of perspiration glistened on her shoulders
.  A
bead
of moisture
trickled
down her chest
, tracing a wet rivulet down her flawless skin.  Abruptly, Jake felt her stiffen in a series o
f prolonged, delicious shudders, and
a low sweet moan escaped her lips.

Running his fingers through her hair
, Jake marveled at its softness.  Again
Lara brought her mouth to his
, her lips softly insistent
.  He sensed his desire swelling, whatever reservations he’d had
earlier
dissipating like smoke in a windstorm.  Lara shifted slightly.  Still holding his lips with hers, she
reached between her legs
and
gently
guided him inside.

Jake
closed his eyes.  Waves of pleasure began building within, one upon another
.  There was no turning back, nor did he want to.  Aware only of Lara, he abandoned himself to the ecstasy of her touch.

Beginning her search, she
extended
the tendrils of
her consciousness
into
the nearest galaxy,
randomly
selecting a
tiny
star on the far reaches of one of th
e swirling arms.  S
he chose well.  The third planet circling the sun
there teemed with life.

S
he had
mere
seconds b
efore the Dark Ones arrived.  She needed to
find a suitable organism in which to hide
.

An instant later she made her choice.

Jake’s
passion crested
and flooded and burst inside her. 
Lost in the moment, he circled Lara with his arms.  Inexplicably,
instead of returning his embrace as she was surely programmed to do,
she
began struggling
, surprising him with her strength.

Puzzled,
Jake gazed into
her eyes
, recoiling from w
hat he saw.  Pain
suddenly gripped him in a
blinding
fist of agony.  A scream
on his lips
, Jake Sheridan descended a long dark tunnel into unconsciousness.

*       *       *

Darkness.  And then . . . light!

She tasted her new world, astonished at the richness of sensation
she
was
able to perceive
.  Although
nearly overcome by its complexity
, of one thing she was certain:  A weapon
of some kind
was being thrust
into her.  S
he was being attacked!

Instinctively, she pushed with her mind.  Hard.  Her assailant screamed.  She pushed again.  With a shudder, her
assailant
fell silent.

Fighting to control her alarm, she inspected the organism that had
been attacking
her. 
How had it known?
she wondered.  Sensing it still lived, she decided to question it later.  First she
needed
to examine the
primitive
data banks embedded
in her new form.

Seconds
passed as she assimilated the language, customs, and behavioral information contained in her body’s
rudimentary
memory.  When she
had completed her inventory
, she
knew
she had
made a grave mistake.

Two mistakes, actually.

First, the beings
of this world
—humans, they called themselves—considered the form
she had
taken
to be no more than a
bionic
machine, prope
rty to do with as they chose.  Worse, s
he couldn’t
risk changing to another form.  By now the
Dark Ones had surely broached this dimension and would detect her if she did, even if the switch
to a new body
took only an instant.

Second, and more immediate—the cries of the
organism
she had
subdued were certain to bring others.  Lara glanced at the unconscious human, unsure of how to proceed.  Before she could decide, a door
slid open
behind her.
 
Rising from the bed, she watched as two
additional
humans entered.  Quickly she touched their minds, questioning them without their knowledge—surprised that even creatures as primitive as they could exist without mind-to-mind contact.

The cyborg technician, as she now knew him to be, moved to the
unconscious
figure on the bed.  The other hurried to a hidden alcove and threw a switch, turning off the room’s holographic projectors.  The illusion
created by
the machines abruptly
vanished.  A
round them the tropical paradise reverted to a large rectangular room—translucent plastic walls, a simple bed, air-conditioning ducts traversing the ceiling, speakers and holo projectors
mounted
high
in all four corners.  A moment later
a bank of overhead lights
came on, flooding the chamber with harsh white
illumination
.

The technician left the man on the bed and rejoined the other human.  “What happened?” he demanded, staring at Lara.

She had to say something. 
“The organism
attacked me
and
then
lost consciousness,”
she
replied
,
startled
by the sound of her own voice.

“Not verbally!” the second human
ordered
, pointing to an opaque panel on the far wall.  “Put it up on the screen.”

As she searched her host
memory for an appropriate response, Lara
realized that
the technician
was
regarding her
a bit too closely
.  “Organism?” the man said.  “Is that what you called him?”

When Lara didn’t r
eply, the technician spoke to a concealed
audio pickup in the ceiling.  “Hal, this is Collins.  Run a diagnostic on
eight-five-one.  We may have
a malfunction.  I’ll
help
deactivate her from here.”

Lara took a step backward.

“Hold still,” the technician ordered.

Ignoring him, Lara continued
to
retreat.  Suddenly she felt a tingling in the metal collar around her neck, along with the presence of a
primitive
electronic mind accessing her
host
memory. 
They were trying to turn off her body.  S
he could not allow
that
.  Grasping her collar, she shifted
a layer of
a
toms in the slim metal casing.  A section of the collar
dissolved in her fingers.  With a clatter, the
glowing
photonic circuits enclosed within spilled like jewels
on
to the floor.

The technician’s eyes widened.  “What the . . .?  Cyborgs can’t function without a collar.  How—”

The other human began pulling his friend toward the door.  “Let’s get out of here,” he said nervously.  “
Let s
ecurity handle this.”

She had to act.  As primitive as these humans were,
they had
somehow
a
lready discovered her presence.  She didn’t know how they knew, but
things were about to get worse.  Agai
n she reached out with her mind.  Quickly she
subdued the flickers of consciousness in the two before her, careful not
to extinguish them completely.

How fragile these beings are,
she thought as they collapsed to the floor.

Then came another thought.

Others will come.

She could subdue them as well, but how long could she continue? 
It
would
take time for Command to locate
her
, and billions
of humans
inhabit
ed
the
planet. 
Could she
subdue them all?  And even if
she could
, might not the resulting disturbance attract the Dark Ones?