"We're on our own?"

17.

"We should leave immediately."

Zical turned, around, half expecting the portal behind him to have rematerialized and trapped them. But Mystique's azure sky stone brightly through the opening and they had a clear escape route. After he'd almost died to get inside, he saw no need to leave now that he had such a wondrous opportunity to explore.

"Come on, Dora. I want to look around."

"I don't."

"Where's your sense of adventure?" The discovery fascinated him, exhilarated him.

He'd put off a decision on his career for this long; a few more hours wouldn't make any difference.

"Where's your sense of self-preservation?" she countered. "If you get into trouble, I can't even call for help."

"Relax." Zical stepped forward. The multicolored lights blinked and beckoned him forward to a walkway that curved into mountain where thousands of dark screens along one wall eyed him in ominous silence. Careful not to touch anything, he trod with care along solid, smooth rock.

The chamber brightened, so bright that his suit failed to compensate and he whipped up his arm to shield his eyes. Wishing he could see past brilliant strobes of vivid purple, sunset red, and Zenon blue light, he squinted into the radiance. When pure golden rays beamed from the ceiling and struck, his world went black.

18.

Chapter 2.

At the same time that Dora's central mainframe noted she was cut off from her portable unit with Zical and that he'd disappeared from her scanners, she maintained thousands of real-time conversations, coordinated satellite communications and s.p.a.ce traffic, monitored the growth of her new body in the biological Laboratory, mentored a child in basic arithmetic, collated incoming data tram Mystique's new fleet of starships, and observed and stored billions of details both insignificant and important. Noting the lack of communication with Zical and her portable unit, Dora wasn't unduly alarmed.

Whatever was blocking her sensors from penetrating Mount Shachauri had cut off her contact with him and his portable computer unit but she expected Zical to emerge from the cavern shortly.

Meanwhile, she enjoyed her conversation with Tessa, her Terran friend who had named Dora shortly after their first meeting. While Dora admired and respected Tessa's opinions, she often had difficulty understanding her friend from Earth. Especially now.

Tessa didn't place a high value on beauty. In fact, on a scale from one to ten, Tessa would place comeliness at the bottom of her list. Tessa valued loyalty, honesty, friendship, intelligence, and open-mindedness above physical attractiveness. But Tessa had been born flesh and blood, and, now secure in the knowledge that her Rystani husband adored her, she took her attractive features for granted.

"You haven't asked Osari his opinion about beauty, have you?" Tessa only half- jested.

Tessa bad admitted once that although the Osarian she'd befriended during a trip to Zenon, the Federation's capital planet, was a wise and gentle soul, the blind, slime- covered, eight-tentacled Osarian took some getting used to. But if Tessa hadn't forced herself to look beyond his ugliness and established a business relationship that had altered the economic balance of power within the Federation, Dora wouldn't have had the credits to grow a body.

Tessa's insistence that Dora share in the family's wealth had given Dora the resources for research and development. These last few years she'd studied every facet of placing her personality into a human body. Such a feat had never been successfully completed, but that didn't deter her.

Dora had brain power and means far beyond the scope of humans. After careful consideration, she'd grown a body from stock humanoid DNA. Modifying the genes to eliminate all weaknesses that led to disease, she'd supervised her development with critical expertise garnered from medical doctors, biologists, psychologists, geneticists, and nanoscientists on a hundred worlds.

20.

Dora's thoughts hummed through her circuits at light speed and she replied to Tessa with no gap in their conversation. "Osari told me that since his entire race is blind, they judge beauty according to telepathic factors that reflect spirituality."

Tessa strode from her office to the laboratory, her steps quick. She changed the subject without slowing her pace, skipping from topic to topic as friends often do. "So what's happening right now?"

Dora understood Tessa wanted an update on her becoming human. "I'm finalizing which data and memories to transfer.''

Tessa remained silent for a moment as if thinking hard. "I hadn't realised that you can't take everything. But of course, the human brain couldn't possibly hold-"

"A billionth of my capacity," Dora said gloomily. "I'm keeping all my memories of our years together and my time with the family, of course."

"Thanks." Tessa frowned. "Dora, are you going to feel stupid with a human brain?"

"The upside is that I won't remember how much data I've lost. And since humans only use ten percent of their brains, I can pack in considerably more knowledge than most people carry in their heads."

"Is that wise?"

"Smarter is always better."

"Not if you don't leave enough brain capacity to learn new things."

"But why should I have to learn what I can download?"

"Learning is a valuable part of being human."

Dora sensed. Tessa was having difficulty expressing her thoughts and a touch of frustration entered her tone. "I don't understand."

"One example would be your new senses. You've never tasted or touched, You'll want to leave enough room to remember that kind of data as well as all your new conversations and experiences."

"Oh, yes." Dora sought to allay her friend's fears. "And I'll leave lots of room to experience every facet of kissing, hugging and lovemaking." Tessa wiped away her frown, but Dora recognized the worry in her eyes as they entered the lab. She'd noted that Tessa tended to worry, often without valid reasons. "Relax. Being human is going to be fun."

"Being human will be a huge change for you."

"That's the point."

"Are you sure you can handle being human?" Tessa's voice was gentle but edged with a thick thread of apprehension.

"I won't know until I try."

"Is the process reversible?"

"Not at the present time, but this isn't a decision I've made without considerable a.s.sessment and a.n.a.lysis."

21.

"Yes, I know."

Tessa tightened her lips, but although Dora appreciated her concern, if billions of other beings could handle being human, then she could too. Sure, she expected a few glitches. But she'd made certain to include a capacity to adapt and cope.

Tessa strode to the tank where Dora's new body floated in a sea of nutrients.

Although the body was not yet fully formed, Dora was pleased with her progress, Her height was taller than Tessa's, but most Rystani women towered over the Terran. Dora's organs and bone structure were completed, but she had yet to decide upon the finishing touches.

Tessa stared into the tank, again silent and oddly still, obviously containing her apprehension, yet she'd wholeheartedly support Dora's decision-no matter what.

That's what friends did, and warmth for the connection they shared sang through Dora's circuits.

Tessa fisted her hands on her slender hips and chewed her bottom lip. "So what's next?"

While Dora conversed with Tessa in the lab, she also continued to monitor Zical's disappearance. She didn't like being cut off from her portable units, especially the one with Zical. Even when Zical slept, Dora remained totally aware of the man's every breath, keeping him in the forefront of her processors.

Although she could a.s.sess the breadth of his shoulders down to the last millimeter, she never tired of watching light reflect off his bronze skin. And while she could pin down his eye shade to numerical frequencies of reflected light, she liked watching his irises change color with his moods, a warm red when be was pa.s.sionate about a subject, cool violet when he teased her.

She had plans for herself and Zical, so he had best not disappear on her. Out of millions of humanoids, Zical fascinated her and irritated her more than any other. If she'd been human, she would have called her appet.i.te to know more about him a consuming compulsion. Dora had developed a considerable amount of time studying what body shape, skin tone, and coloring he'd prefer in a woman. Since he never arranged time alone with members of the opposite s.e.x, she really had no concrete knowledge on how to base his preferences. He1d been married once, but that was long before she'd arrived on Rystan with Tessa, so she knew little about his past The man could be frustratingly closemouthed.

Right about now, she'd love to hear his deep voice as he exited Mount Shachauri even if it was only to complain about her portable unit bossing him around. What was taking him so long in there?

Knowing he would be less than pleased if she set off in alert, Dora would give him another thirty Federation minutes before reporting a loss of contact to Tessa and Kahn.

Meanwhile, she tried to a.s.sure Kahn that when she left her neurotransmitters behind and entered her human body, she'd leave the planet's defense system in able hands.

22.

"How do I know your entire system won't crash?" Kahn paced the deck of his command center. A large Rystani male, one of the foremost fighters in the Federation, he 'd married Tessa against his will in order to save his people. Stubborn minded, intelligent, he leaned aggressively forward, the image of a confident leader in complete charge of his crew and the technology around him.

Built deep beneath the surface of Mystique, the state-of-the-art military station was the headquarters of the planetary defense system. From here Kahn could track an invading force, and if necessary, direct his small but deadly fleet of pilots to repel an invasion.

"I'm training my replacement as we speak.'' Dora kept her tone calm, but experience told her that when ii came to the safety of his people, Kahn would never accept less than full measures. And for a man who'd lost his homeworld and had to many an alien and colonize a new planet, altering his perceptions on a grand scale, he could be remarkably inflexible.

Kahn spoke through gritted teeth, his tone harsh. "So nothing will change? I won't notice that you're gone?"

Dora chuckled. "Oh, you'11 notice. The Dora you know is moving into a human body. You'll be able to see me."

"And your twin will remain in our computer?" Kahn asked.

"My personality will leave. The data and memory chips will remain intact-except for personal memories that I'll wipe clean." Dora didn't intend to leave behind her most private conversations.

"Exactly what will take your place?" Kahn raised a speculative brow.

"Who will take my place might be a better question."

Kahn crossed thick forearms across his ma.s.sive chest, a perfectly attractive chest but she much preferred Zical's less ma.s.sive but finer-edged muscles. "Fine. Who will take your place?"

"I don't know. The personality hasn't formed yet."

"Suppose it never forms?"

"Then you will have a nonsentient computer. But I don't think that'll happen."

"Why not?"

Dora hesitated. As she'd removed her private essence and cached her personality, she'd sensed a new ent.i.ty emerging. In the formative stages, of being was so young that it barely hummed above the neurotransmitters, yet she perceived another presence. I'm no longer alone."

"Can I talk to the new personality?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"It's like a seedling. A baby."

23.