Page 20 of Smart@ss Cyborg

I glance over to her quickly. “Was that rude to say?”

“No!”

I watch her for a moment to judge her sincerity, but I find I can’t read her. Her expressions don’t quite match the ones I’ve been studying in the entertainment vids. There are nuances I’m completely at a loss to read. “Well then,” I tell her. “Good night. I appreciate that you won’t need to devote our sleeping hours to fruitless matings.”

“You’re welcome,” Becky says hoarsely. And curiously her eyes emit water, leaking more tears. Different ones than the grieving ones, if I can claim to spot a difference.

I lie down on my back, and to my relief her brain’s activity has soothed. It’s still racing, but the activity no longer agitates me; it must be the fear processes that were inhibiting my ability to find rest. I make a note to ensure she doesn’t feel fear, if possible.

As I drift off, I wonder why she was fearing—or dreading, more likely—a breeding if it’s an expected event. Perhaps it is uncomfortable for humans if they aren’t pairbonded before mating takes place. In the breeding vids I’ve witnessed, the females always appear enthusiastic for their partners—sometimes multiple partners—but I obviously can’t read brainwaves from a recording.

I’m relieved that I don’t have to understand the primal drives of Becky’s species in order to be married to her. I’m afraid I would have had to renege on our deal, and if I do that, I’ll surely not be allowed to keep Joel’s horse.

CHAPTER 7

I come awake suddenly, and for the first three heartbeats, I’m disoriented, my body thrashing, expecting to propel me from a bed of seaweed. It takes a moment to register cloth blankets, a linen sheet, and a solid wooden bed frame supporting my body, but I regain my bearings soon enough, and the events of the previous day flood through my consciousness.

Without glancing over, I know Becky isn’t in bed beside me. There is no other bio activity in the whole house.

That realization has me sitting upright with something that might be alarm.

I grab my outer leg and extract it from the covers, then repeat it for my other leg. I swing out of bed, adjust to the planet’s gravity, which feels curiously flat without the ocean buoyancy I’ve had a lifespan to be used to, and move to exit the room.

I tug on boots before I leave the house because I don’t want to damage my cybernetic feet, and clad only in Joel’s boxers, I make my way out the front door and scan for Becky outside.

Paco greets me on the porch, and when I make a muttering noise and brush past him, he latches onto the side of my boxers, nearly yanking me right off my feet.

My exclamation is loud and surely in an entirely different language than he was trained in—and yet his large shaggy ears fall and he lets go of where he has me prisoner, shuffling back as if he understands me when I shout“Gni tway znoch!”Which meansI’ll eat your head raw.

Cursing in Yonderin, I clomp down the steps—and then turn and grab Paco, who needs to be taught how to descend steps in order for him to know how to navigate them by himself, just as Becky said. I set him on the ground and hold him just long enough to confirm he’s steady on his hooves, then I’m stepping around him, striding away.

Of course he follows me. He bumps me in the posterior with his nose every other foot tread just to irritate me, as far as I can tell.

He follows me all across the yard, stopping when I stop, his nose running down my leg.

“Bite me and I will make you regret it,” I warn him.

He snuffles and lowers his nose to the dirt, seemingly fascinated by the dust puffing up care of his nostrils’ exhalations—and then he drops down to his knees, falls to his hip, and kicks out his rear legs, shoving dramatically to his side, and kicking until all four of his hooves are in the air.

He looks like he's dying. He kicks dust up around him in a cloud and makes a loud huffing sound as he throws his body sideways, rolling.

Well. If he's dying, I'll have to dig a bigger hole than yesterday, I suppose. Dodgasted donkey. That's a lot of work.

Shaking my head, I stride on.

Ahead of me, I’ve identified Becky’s location via her bio-readings. She’s behind the wall of a smaller outbuilding, one humans fashion for their edible fowls.

Becky is stepping out of it just as I approach, her hair tied back away from her face, which is puffy and tear-tracked. My appearance must seem sudden. Her reddened eyes widen, her brain lights up for shock or surprise, and her hands splay in some sort of reflexive action. This causes the basket handle she’s carrying to tumble toward the ground.

I lunge and catch it before it strikes the dirt.

“Wow,” Becky breathes. “You’re fast first thing in the morning.”

I nod. “I’m descended from a very efficient species,” I explain.

She makes a face I can’t catalog. “Right.”

With a brief glance, I take note of her outfit: a prairie blouse the color of straw and a sky blue skirt. An apron the color of spurflowers is bumped hugely over her belly and tied under her pre-nursing globes.

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