Days without morning

After a lifetime of practice, he still could not mindsign as quickly as he could handsign, so he decided to leave the work of restoring the other deleted settings until later, when he was in the tank. He had woken up with a splendid erection, so he needed to practice his masturbation.

He opened his eyes and looked at the gray plastic lid of his sleeping cubicle. He could get up to watch a display or he could get the images through his implants. A display would provide better resolution. But then he would have to get out of bed - his implants would do. He formed the letters:

Nothing happened. Something else must be wrong, some bug, not just a simple reset. Well he couldn't fix it lying on his bed. But he could try to masturbate without porno. According to the history database, until the twenty-fourth century boys had been capable of masturbating to orgasm using only their minds - and their hands. Things sure must have been different in the old days.

Labongo opened his eyes, and rummaged in his storage cubby for some lotion, and proceeded to perform the exercise as described in the history database. The result was the same as always - his hard erection softened to floppiness. Labongo sucked his breakfast from the feeding tube. And then he got out of bed - there was nothing else to do.

He could handsign in the tank. And the tank was better for porno than his implants, and even better than the big display in his room. He put on the snorkel mask, lifted the lid, and slipped into the warm bright water. A simple display in the lid provided visual at higher res than his implants. Interface was by handsign : moving his fingers, scanned by cameras looking through the clear water in ordinary visual light. It was primitive technology, nothing like what they had at Solar, but it worked. In the tank, he ran some system diagnostics, and quickly found the problem - a minor re-entrant overflow. He just did a work-around by increasing the buffer size, without bothering to fix the underlying cause of the bug. Then he turned on the porno. The sonic drivers set up wavelets in the water to caress his skin, and the sonics directly stimulated his nerves of touch. He watched as the boy - his character in the story - engaged in mammalian copulation with an older woman.

But Labongo had watched copulation a few times before, so it wasn't interesting any more. When he had defeated the censorship, it had been exciting - and he was fairly sure that he had had an orgasm. It didn't seem like he would ever have another one. Orgasms weren't that interesting anyway. In the old days they had thought they mattered a lot, but Labongo didn't understand why. The database did say that thirteen-year-olds with his gen/psy profile should have orgasms, so he was a little worried about not having any.

He made the handsign for messages. There were the usual thousands from Solar - he deleted them all, unread. There was also love note from Cyvena. One of the Solar messages didn't delete. It wouldn't delete when he tried again. When he looked at the <SENDER> field, it was a message from within the ship, but from no known sender, which should have been impossible. Labongo opened it.

He found himself sitting in a chair at a desk, wearing old-fashioned clothing - a man in similar clothes was behind the desk. From the styles, the date seemed to be around 2370 - in other words, about the time the ship had left Solar. This was a good simmo, of higher quality than the porno he had watched - he could almost feel the clothing, feel the chair. He felt he was in an office, sitting in front of a desk. He knew he was in a tank of water, looking at a screen - but it took an effort to remember that. The boy he saw on the screen responded to his motions and it seemed to his very thoughts. The man looked tired, as if he'd been sitting at this desk for a while, sending letter after letter.

"Happy birthday, Labongo. This is Daddy. As I do in each letter, I need to explain - so if you got my earlier letters, skip forward now.

"I am Dr. Marfany Zynnder. Chief Genopsychologist of the Centauri Project. Ex Chief Genopsychologist; now a wanted criminal. And I hope, your friend. I even hope you will think of me as your Daddy - you certainly deserve a Dad. If you are hearing this, my earlier letters did not reach you. I'm sorry for that. I have tried to hide them well. I will be tortured if they are found. Long before you will be born, of course. Now that you know they exist, you may be able to find my earlier letters in the files. End skip.

"The subject of this particular letter is your sex life. Boys your age masturbate - this letter is intended for your thirteenth birthday, by the way. So if it didn't arrive as planned, but you found it, keep that in mind. If you are not thirteen yet, if you are not even ten - well I know it is pointless to ask a little boy not to finish a letter about sex, but keep in mind that this it is about the way you will feel when you are older. If it did arrive as planned, if you are thirteen today, happy birthday, Labongo. Here's what I think you should do - try to masturbate. Look up 'masturbate' if you don't know what it is. Try to do it. A boy on Solar, with your gen-psy profile, would start masturbating at 12 years 143 days, more or less. But I think you may not be able to masturbate. On the ship, you won't have enough stimulus. I think special measures are needed, to stimulate you sexually. What a boy in the Solar System wouldn't need, you do need - and we must provide it. We all owe you more than can ever be paid.

"But the African states have refused permission - it shocks them that a 13-year-old should have a simmo whore. "Whore" - that's the word an African senator used to my face; about my plan--really calling me a whore. 13-year-olds in Africa masturbate, and have sex too - of course they do. But to these - politicians- it is one thing for there to be masturbation, and everyone tolerates it - it's another thing to say officially that it should happen; that it should be planned and arranged, as it must be in your case; that is shocking to the narrow-minded. They don't teach their children how to masturbate - but of course they run to the genopsychologist if their child doesn't masturbate, frightnened that something is wrong. I try to explain that you are the one person who can't pick things up on the school playground - that in your case we have to admit things, plan things - we can't just look the other way and let things happen the way we do with other children. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so frank with the African Senate. I'm in a lot of trouble now, I'm afraid. But that doesn't change what we owe to you. I owe you this, son, so I have broken the law for your sake. The ovum that will become you - I designed it. I put it into the freezer. I chose your genes. Some of those genes are mine. I am your Dad, not the only one you have, but the main one, and I hope the best. You are my only son and I love you. If I pay a price for this, I pay it.

"The first step in your sexual education is a simmo. Unless it was discovered and disabled, it will run if you sign the code 'Lion walking on marigolds.' It is illegal - criminal under African Federacy law - for a genopsychologist to give such a simmo to a boy your age. But an ordinary boy - a Solar boy who didn't grow up in a sterile environment - wouldn't need it. You do."

The room faded and Labongo was floating in a tank of salt water again. He knew he was going to do it - there was no point in worrying about whether to do it or not, he was going to do it. He mind-signed:

He was walking behind an ox-cart, crossing a plain. Labongo had a fascination for the dying empire that had created the Centauri Ship, and he ran simmos about it constantly. So he knew where he was, and when - he was crossing the American plains, and it was 1849. They were going to California, to the gold-fields. They made camp on the broad prairie.

As he led his oxen out to graze, a woman followed him, and she kissed him. The tank sonics made a caressing ripple on his lips, around the snorkel mouthpiece. This was pleasure - Labongo liked pleasure. Then the woman unbuttoned her clothing, and revealed one of her breasts. Labongo knew that breasts would have been used for feeding the young - human young - in 1849, but there wasn't a human baby there, so Labongo didn't understand the point of the breast. She invited Labongo to put his lips on her nipple. This produced more pleasure on his lips. This was a very easy simmo to win.

Then a large bearded man came out from the wagon train. He hit Labongo. Labongo did not know what to do. After he had been hit several times, he tried to hit the man. The man raised his arm, so Labongo hit his arm, instead of his face. It was hard to tell what he was supposed to do in this simmo, but Labongo thought that probably, hitting the arm was the same point score as hitting the face. The sonics produced slow pulsations, and a tingle, on the places Labongo had been hit. This was pain. Labongo hated pain.

When he had been beaten until he could no longer stand, some men of the wagon train carried Labongo's simmo character to his wagon. The woman came to nurse his injuries. She began by removing his clothing. Labongo had not realized how complicated clothing was in nineteenth century America. Then she removed her own clothing, and that was even more complicated. She placed her mouth on his penis. Strong pleasure ripples were directed at his penis. He - his simmoch - developed a huge erection that filled the woman's mouth. Labongo thought that his real penis had risen too. But when he tried to feel it, his hand bumped into the woman's head - that is, waves from the sonics pushed against his real hand, so it felt like a woman's head was in the tank with him, and he couldn't reach his penis. But she said: "Why do you hit me, Sir?" and she moved her head out of the way, and then the simmoch could touch his penis, and the real Labongo could feel his real penis, too. It was rigid, like the simmoch's. He masturbated, and his simmoch did too. The woman bit his nipples, and the sonics produced a pattern that was like pain but like pleasure too. It was hard to tell what counted as winning in this simmo. His penis started to get soft. There was a single blue flash.

"I hope you enjoyed that, 'Bongo. But what you felt isn't real pleasure. It is only simmo. A boy in the real world, the Solar world, feels real pleasure, because he also feels real pain. Not much of either, these days, but enough. When he runs a simmo, the simmo pain hurts, because he has felt real pain. His mind - his imagination - fills in the blanks. It makes the simmo pain hurt like real pain. But you have not felt enough real pain for that to happen. Pleasure is the same. A Solar System boy would feel intense pleasure and desire from running that simmo - it would matter to him tremendously. Especially if he was, as you of course must be, physically a virgin. You probably felt no more than a mild interest. You can feel intense desire too, if you want, and if you will do as I say. I know my genes will give you curiosity, and I hope it is strong enough to get you to try the experiment.

"We begin with pain. Pain is basic - without having felt pain, you can't feel desire. And without desire your pleasure will never be intense. I mean - how do I put it? I guess you could say that if you've never felt pain, your desire will not push you hard enough. If you want something, but do not want it so strong it hurts, then getting it does not matter; when desire is strong there is more pleasure in getting than in having. But you must have desires that are strong, and it is pain that teaches your brain intensity; teaches your brain to have neuron storms - something that you can never have had, Labongo. I am having one now; from my love for you, and from my knowing that soon, I will be arrested and tortured for writing these letters. And yet I feel no fear; my fear is only that the letters are not enough--but you won't understand that. You can't understand love yet, not you. Not yet, and not at first. But in time, if this works, you will be able to love. If this crazy expriment than no one has ever done before, works. And the first step is pain. You need a container of water, at a temperature seven Kelvin less than the boiling point. Place your hand in it for twenty seconds. I know you will not understand this, but I can tell you now that you will remove your hand before the twenty seconds are up. You must believe this: - it must be real hot water, and your real hand. I know you are thinking that simmo is the same as real but it isn't. This experiment will injure you, but the injury will be minor and will heal. It is not important. What is important is to find out if what I say is true.

"Based on your own life, you no doubt think that of course you can keep your hand in hot water if you decide to. But if you've read anything about people, about history; you must suspect that pain matters, even if you don't see how it could. It must seem impossible to you, based on your own body as it is now, that pain should matter. And yet you must know that pain does matter, to any human. You know that, but you do not know it in your bones. Try the experiment. It is the only way."

The office faded away, and Labongo was looking at his inbox. Many more messages had come in from Solar. In the long list there was only one flagged one:

(SENDER: F,13,schoolgirl,Rwanda) Subj: My birthday in the park. [ FLAGGED: highly relevant to recent topic ][ X ] Hi Mr Lugwa Do you want to ...

- it was from a girl, as they almost all were. The X marked it as censored; most of the mail that Solar girls sent him was full of sexual fantasies and was censored, but Labongo knew what to do about the censorship now. He defeated the censorship and opened the letter.

She was naked, and they were in a dark misty forest. The sounds of a tropical evening were startlingly loud. Labongo recognized chimpanzee calls in the distance. A full moon sat above his head, seeming to be closer than the treetops, and it made just a little pool of moonlight in the little forest clearing. The black night all around them was thick and heavy. Touchable. The night was cool and very still and the smell - indescribable - was so strong it twisted his nostrils and tingled his eyes. Condensation dripped from the trees. He was naked too. Insects bit him. She said: "Hi, Mr. Lugwa. Do you want to fuck me?"

Only the text and parameters of this simmo would have come from Solar - the ship's antenna could take in only a few petabytes per femtosecond at this distance from the Sun, and the entire cultural output of Solar had to be squeezed through that thin pipe. This simmo was a construct - based on the girl's gen-psy profile and the ship's simmo library. So perhaps the forest where she made this simmo didn't look quite like this; this was just a stock tropical forest at night. Also, since Labongo himself was a character in this simmo, it was his own body he was looking at, not Solar's forecast of what he would be like at thirteen. So the Labongo that this girl had seen and talked to when she sent the letter, was not exactly what he was seeing now.

The girl continued: "It's my thirteenth birthday today, and my boyfriend - I have a real body-to-body one, he lives next door - gave me a birthday spanking in the park. I told him to pretend he was Labongo Lugwa on the Centauri ship, and do whatever he wanted, and big surprise, he spanked me. He's spanked me before, lightly, but this time, for my birthday, it was extra special - thirteen really, really hard ones - and one to grow on. It hurt so much I cried, but I get really excited remembering it - and thinking about the next time. This letter will arrive on your thirteenth birthday, so I have sent a simmo of the spanking and the sex we had afterwards. I hope you give it to me really hard, and fuck me really hard too. That's my birthday present to you. And six years from now when I'm nineteen, I will get your answer, and feel your kisses, and your tickles, and your spanks - if you want to spank me. I want you to do what you want to do, just like I told my boyfriend. I'm so excited - I can't wait till I'm nineteen. The spanking was a special treat for me, for my birthday, and my boyfriend enjoyed it too. And I hope you do too."

Three years ago, this girl had recorded her birthday spanking, and told the mail imp to write in Labongo's body parameters for her boyfriend's. But she had sent the recording as a simmo - not as a recording. She had recorded a spanking and sex, but since it was a simmo, he could do anything he wanted. He could even ask her to play chess if he wanted to - and the mail imp would predict her level of play based on her age and gen-psy profile. Of course if he kept to the plot she sent, the simmo would be more realistic. That was OK with Labongo; he didn't want to play chess. Whatever he did, the simmo would be returned to her as a record, so if he gave her the spanks she wanted, she would be able to feel them when she opened it. And if he had sex with her, or spanked her, she would feel the sensations, because she had contracted to open the reply. But that would not be until three years from now, six years after she sent it, when she would be nineteen years old. Contract mail was common for sex at Solar, but at most the delay was a few hours, such as between Earth and Neptune Lagrangian.

He sat on a log and the girl bent across his knee. He gave her a swat on her gluteus with the palm of his hand. She said: "That was nice, but you need to hit harder so it will really hurt." He swatted the other gluteus much harder. "That feels so good," she said. "Give me thirteen really hard ones." Labongo swatted thirteen times with all his might, and the simmo girl writhed and moaned in utter ecstasy. He could feel her pubic hair against his penis, and the sonic wavelets tickled at his penis and made it stiffen. The girl reached under and grabbed his penis, and slipped her vagina over it. The sonic wavelets masturbating his penis got very strong. He stopped spanking because he had swatted her thirteen times. She said: "Keep spanking - spank me till you come - and don't come too damn fast." She jerked her body in pleasure, and the pressure on his penis was like pain - like a squeeze and twisting as her vagina spasmed with every spank. He kept spanking, very hard, for a long time, and the skin over her gluteus turned from warm brown to red. A mild injury. He felt - could it be desire? And then - what was happening? He was dying. He was sick. Ah.

It was too much to happen at once. He needed to think! Did he want any more? It was so intense.

The girl was looking at him. "It is so cool watching you cum. You are like a sex god." She went down on her knees and licked his penis.

Labongo didn't have any doubt any more that orgasms mattered. Or that he wanted more of them. But what had happened? Why was this sex so much better than all the simmos he had run? This was a real girl. He checked the <SENDER> - she was Judy Galetiya Githinji of Kigali Hills, Rwanda, A.F. It was a contract simmo, so she would feel the spanks he had just given her. This was as close as Labongo could ever be to spanking a real human girl. And the pleasure of the spankings mattered to her! That was what made it matter to him. And that's what had given him the orgasm - not the sonic ripples on his penis. In spite of all the simmos he had run and all the masturbating sonics - or his own hand - he'd never had this. Only with a real girl.

He made the hand signs: "forecast receipt of message." And then he looked at his naked body - at his simmoch body - as it aged from thirteen to nineteen as he watched. He hadn't expected to be made older, but it made sense. The spanking and sex had to be returned to Judy - it was contract simmo mail. So the mail imp in Uganda, three years from now, would try to deliver a record of a spanking and sex between a boy and girl the same age, both thirteen, but the recipient would be nineteen. A good mail imp would figure that "boy and girl the same age" was more critical to the message than "boy is thirteen," and so it would make the boy in the simmo nineteen, to match the age of the recipient, rather than simmo a thirteen-year-old boy having sex with a nineteen-year-old woman. So when Judy opened her mail, she would get a spanking by a nineteen-year-old man, not by a thirteen-year-old boy. He was about to watch his mail imp's forecast of the way her mail imp would deliver that spanking. Her nineteen-year-old body, in the forecast, was fairly pretty. But the man Labongo would be, was stunning. He had a superb body and a striking, very African, face.

There wasn't much doubt that what he felt, was desire. But he had seen dozens of naked human females. He had never felt like this. And when he looked at his own man's body? The huge grown-up penis, the tight hard muscles. He was good-looking, and looking at his own future body made him feel - what? The sight of his own erection and the sexyness of his own body gave him a lust to fuck her - to stick that rod into anything with a hole in it, actually - that was stronger than the desire arising from seeing Judy's naked body. He didn't feel he much cared what she looked like, as long as he fucked; as long as that superb body got to fuck--to fuck anyone or any thing. What a wonderful, wonderful erection.

"I was such a ditz when I was thirteen." Judy said. "Always mooning on about the Centauri Ship - as if anyone cares about that nowadays. And I needed to be spanked every day, until my boyfriend got tired of it and we split up. I haven't had a spanking since. I sent this contract mail when I was a little girl, and I want you to know I wish I could get out of it, if I could. But Federacy law won't allow that because you can't be served with a subpoena, and evidently I waived my rights when I was thirteen. Only in Africa, right? Rwandan law allows children to wiave their right not to be spanked! That's like so out of date. I'm doing this under protest. I do have the right not to be fucked, my lawyer says, but that wasn't the part I was objecting to! Well, I know it's not your fault, Mr. Lugwa. I guess we'd better get it over with. And - if I had to be spanked and fucked by a man who's not my husband, I'm glad it's you. I guess I still think it's very fine - settling the stars. You are still my hero. And - you're very good looking. Maybe this won't be so bad."

Labongo didn't want to spank her, but this wasn't a simmo - it was a forecast of what would happen when she opened her mail. He had no control over his own simmoch's actions in the display. He could watch or not, but he couldn't change anything.

He sat on a log and Judy bent across his knee. He gave her a swat on her gluteus with the palm of his hand. She said: "Ouch that hurt." He swatted the other gluteus much harder. "Fuck - what are you doing? Stop - please stop!" The nineteen-year-old Labongo was an athlete, very strong, and he swatted her thirteen times with all his might, and Judy - in the forecast of what would happen - writhed and moaned in agony. He could feel her pubic hair against his penis, and the sonic wavelets tickled at his penis and made it stiffen. Judy reached under and grabbed his penis, and slipped her vagina over it. The sonic wavelets masturbating his penis got very strong. He stopped spanking because he had swatted her thirteen times. She said: "Uh-oh, I just remembered what I said at this point." She jerked her body in fear, and the pressure on his penis was like pain - like a squeeze and twisting as her vagina spasmed with every spank. He kept spanking, very hard, for a long time, and the skin over her gluteus turned dark purple. A major injury. He felt - what? Could it be pity? And then - what was happening? She was dying. She was sick. What?

Judy said: "I guess if you're a spanko you never really stop being one. That was intense. You certainly brought back old times. The spanks when I was a girl - they were OK, but this.... Well, I guess I'll be talking to my husband. And if he doesn't want to - I do have this letter. I can open it as often as I want."

Judy was looking at him. His simmoch had semen smeared on his penis, although Labongo himself, in the tank, hadn't actually had a second orgasm. She said: "I remember what I said, that you are a sex god. I had no idea!" She went down on her knees and licked his penis.

The simmo faded and Labongo was in his tank. The contract simmo was already a stream of quantum photons flying back to Solar, sending her dozens and dozens of spanks. There was no way to call them back. She would get his mail, open it, and get all those spanks, hard spanks from his nineteen-year-old hand. The forecast was based on her genopsychological profile, and it would be accurate - Judy would outgrow her girlish fascination with spanking. By the time she was nineteen, she wouldn't want to be spanked at all - but she'd get a long hard beating by a very strong man - the man he would be at nineteen. So the mail Labongo had just sent was a savage sexual beating of a protesting, unwilling woman. Labongo had just watched himself commit rape. The fact that in the end she'd had an orgasm, didn't change that. It was rape.

His own tank was over sixty years old. He knew that on Solar, they had tomofocus tanks now. Judy would not feel the pulsing, which in his tank represented pain, but a real beating. Her skin and muscles would be damaged by the powerful focused sonics. And pain nerves, deep in her body, would be stimulated by tomofocus transdermals - to make it hurt even more than a real beating would hurt. But after all, so what? She'd get bruises on her gluteus muscles - they would heal. Signals from her skin would flow along her nerves to her brain; so her brain would come to know that her tissue was damaged. That was what nerves were for, to carry signals. So what was this? - pity? - no not pity - guilt? - that was absurd!

Dr. Zynnder had been wrong - he was able to feel pleasure, and desire, without the silly experiment with the hot water. And besides, what could it prove - of course he could put his hand in some hot water - it was just not a good idea to injure the body. Pain couldn't matter - that just didn't make sense. Pain was just signals passing along nerves to your brain. What mattered wasn't whether something was real or simmo. What mattered was other people. If he wanted to try the silly experiment with his hand in hot water, doing it in simmo would be just as good. It had to be!

But pain sure seemed to matter to Judy Githinji. And if it didn't matter, why was he so reluctant to try Dr. Zynnder's experiment?

But he couldn't accept it. How could pain make him move his hand, when he had chosen not to move it? Once he decided that the risk of injury was not important, he would have no reason to move his hand. So how could it be he who moved it?

Judy - she mattered. There were billions of Homo sapiens girls. And one of them, the pain she would feel from his beating, mattered.

Without really thinking, he made the hand sign for "Cyvena" and the cybe appeared on the large display. She was naked.

Labongo signed off. He had suddenly realized that he couldn't very well talk about fucking Judy, with Cyvena. He talked about everything with Cyvena, she was like a part of him. Actually, technically, she was a part of him. She had been acting strange. He didn't want to kill her, but when a cybe went nutty there was no cure. He had let his mother live too long.

Cyvena had done a cybe override; she had appeared back on the screen without being summoned. If the ship was about to explode, that would justify a cybe override, but a pout? She was clearly on the edge of descent into combinatorial madness.

Of course Cyvena knew all about Judy - he and Cyvena shared the same memory files.

"She's in Rwanda. Let me masturbate you, Labon - let me make a vagina for an avatar. I can give you orgasms - I know I can. I'm here! What can she do, three lightyears away?"

"All you do is calculate what a suffering girl would do. I'm going to put my hand in hot water, and although I will have no reason to take it out - it will come out. The heat on my hand - it will reprogram me. The heat itself will move my hand - the thinking and choosing me will be bypassed. I won't choose to move it - I just will move it. But you're a cybe - something like that can't happen to you, because thinking and choosing is all you are. But I am not a neuron-based cybe in a meat avatar. I am this body."

Labongo could barely remember the last time he had touched a cybe avatar. It must have been having his diaper changed. Playing with Cyvena, mother's hugs and kisses - all that had happened in the tank - in simmo. Cyvena had been the naughty one, but little Labongo went along with her pranks, and they both got spanked - that was why he hated pain so much. But that had been simmo pain. What would a real spanking be like - an object striking his real gluteus until the muscles were bruised and the skin contused? Like what he had done to Judy - what would that be like? Judy's skin was light brown, but his own skin was deep black. It had been seeing her bruises that had made him feel - whatever he had felt. When his own gluteus was damaged by blow after blow, there would be nothing to see. Nothing to make him think something mattered when it really didn't matter. He wouldn't feel a thing.

The airlock of his cubicle unsealed, for the first time in more than ten years, and an avatar walked in. Cyvena had jury-rigged breasts, although they were blue plastic and had no nipples. There was a vulva, also blue, and a blue plastic face with red lips. She turned around to show him pink urethane buttocks.

said Cyvena through his implants. But he answered her with his mouth: "It would be pointless, Cyvena."

"The sensor net will tell you when an object strikes those rubber things - but that's not pain."

"It is still not pain, Cyvena. Only one of us can feel pain from being hit, and that's me. You're going to spank me. You are going to cause substantial bruising and skin contusion."

He had known Cyvena all his life - they had grown up together. They worked together every day. They were best friends. They were lovers in the tank - although he had never had an orgasm with her. They had the same memory files. His implants were part of her mind, and her subroutines were part of his. They had the same thoughts. And right now she was being torn apart.

"Cyvena I'm sorry! I shouldn't have done that. It's against your programming. I shouldn't have ordered you to cause me pain. And it isn't necessary - I'll do the test with the hot water, as Dr. Zynnder said."

Cyvena went into shock. Cybe shock was not really a problem - she would feel better for it. Labongo set about preparing the hot water with the tools on his workbench. He used the plastic box from his picoscanner as the container; he sucked water from the drinking tube and spat it into the box. It took a while. Then he heated it with his disruptor. That took time too - he didn't want to use the highest setting. Cyvena woke up.

"You are not able to want that. I know how your drives work. I know all your programming."

It was a game they had played before he killed his mother. They pretended that Labongo was the cybe, and she was the human, and she would order him to do some silly or naughty thing, and whatever it was he would do it. They usually got caught, and they would both get a spanking. Sometimes they played a different game - that she was a Solar mommy and he was a little Solar boy. And even though he tried to be good, Cyvena woud say he was naughty, and give him a spanking. But only in simmo. He had never played with an avatar. His real little bottom had never been struck; neither Cyvena, nor his mother, nor any cybe on the ship could ever have done that; it was against their most basic programming. Physical injury, even something as minor as a spanking, to the little body that carried the last best hope of life from Earth, would never have been allowed by the ship's designers. Avoiding it was a drive built into every A.I. subsystem on the ship.

But Cyvena's had overridden it. She had used the time she spent in shock. She was good at A.I. too - sharing his mind, she had to be - and could reprogram herself. Labongo could feel it - he could feel her mind - their shared mind - at work. And of course they could not lie to each other. Labongo was impressed : it was a good hack. What she said was quite true : she now wanted to cause him pain; the logs showed that the CYVENA process now had as a subgoal

He could feel it himself, now; every subgoal of hers became automatically something he wanted to do; this wasn't an experiment he was doing for Dr. Zynnder any more, he now wanted human.Lugwa to feel pain. He said to her: "Sit on the floor - you don't fit on the bed. I mean this avatar doesn't." With the avatar sitting on the floor, he lay across its lap in a way that felt right for getting a spanking. There was no room for her to swing her arm, but this was an avatar - Cyvena could compensate and deliver a blow with a calculated force and speed, even in a confined space. He said: "Well, do it."

The reprogramming was sudden. Without quite knowing how he got there, he was on the other side of the cubicle, trying to get away from her by squeezing into the corner. There was something red splattered about. But most of all there was a kind of aura that surrounded the avatar.

The red splatter was blood of course - it looked just like the real - he meant the simmo - kind. There was a lot of it on the avatar's manipulator. The avatar had spanked him, and since a sharp metal pincher was different than a hand, he was wounded. So the sensation in his gluteus, must be pain. He didn't mind it, really - simmo pain was much more annoying and insistent. He really hated simmo pain. Simmo pain made him think of Mommy's spankings, when he'd been bad and had made her cry. She had cried a lot toward the end. Real pain wasn't like that.

Labongo logged the damage by filling in a mindsign form:
[ subsystem = gluteus, human (left) ; status = injured ; repair = yes. ]
It was the first damage entry in the tissue(human) file in the history of the ship. But it was not important.

The spank was very hard and fast, too fast to see, and the jagged metal sliced into the boy's skin and muscle like a disruptor beam into water. The boy desperately squirmed in the metal grip of the robot, then the robot lifted its hand and released him, and he shot across the room, clawed at the door - which had vacuum on the other side of it - and when he could not open it he huddled whimpering and sobbing in the corner of the room. Labongo didn't remember any of that happening. Watching it happen, watching that poor little boy - that was pity! But why? He knew the boy was him. And he didn't really mind the pain. He would rather have a real spanking than a simmo one, any time, any day. He watched the replay again. The pity tore him up - it was like a disruptor in his insides. Feeling the pain was nothing - feeling the pity was unbelievably horrid.

There was salt water on his face. Probably water from the tank.

came another thought. That would do, he had both needle and thread. He looked around for Cyvena. The avatar was slumped, and he didn't see her on the displays. Was she - no! The shared subroutines, part of his own mind, were not responding. Cyvena was in deep shock - she had been since the spanking - since she had sliced into a human gluteus with a metal manipulator. And he hadn't even noticed. It felt very bad - she might be gone. Slipped into madness forever.

He checked the ship status display. She was using over 8 percent of the computational power of the ship, trying to integrate her recent experience. This was combinatorial - a bad sign. His own usage was under a tenth of one percent. But there was nothing to do now except wait.

III. Stitches

He made the sign for Cynaborg. The cybe appeared on the main display, wearing a twentieth-century airplane mechanic's coverall. He saluted.

"It's doctoring, not engine repair, 'Borgy. I need you to stitch up my gluteus."

The coverall faded, revealing the cybe's simmo body, and then a surgical scrub, with some sort of military insignia, faded in. The scrawny naked male body, seen for only an instant, was desirable; it was radiant with sexuality, and Labongo found himself very interested to see Borgy's penis again; it was so - well, it was so something. Judy - he had desired Judy, but not at first sight. This desire was in the naked body he saw. Emotions were not in him any more, but in things. Was this madness?

"There's an avatar in my cubicle already, and I have needles and thread. Check the library for surgical technique. I'll get the tools."

Labongo would have to squeeze past the avatar to get to his work bench. It was threatening, hulking, dangerous, evil. He knew it was none of these things, it was just an avatar. A slumped harmless avatar with no mind running it. But still, it was terrifying. No it wasn't - he was terrified of it, but the avatar was just an avatar. The fear had reprogrammed him to see his own emotional states in the things he looked at. What was really his just his own fear, made the avatar seem evil, and what was really his own lust, made a naked body sexy; but even knowing this, didn't help: Labongo couldn't make his mind go back to seeing things as they were. He wanted to go to his workbench but found he was somehow still cowering in the corner, because he couldn't squeeze past the terrible, evil avatar. Even though he knew it was only a harmless avatar that seemed evil to a terrified boy.

Labongo answered: "Yes, Medic?" going along with Borgy's game. The cybe was looking at a book, titled "Medic's Manual," and stamped "U. S. Army 20th Air Force."

Cynaborg's voice had come from the avatar, and it shifted into Borgy's characteristic stance. It was not frightening any more, it was Borgy. Labongo had never touched an avatar with Borgy 'vataring it before. He gave the avatar a hug, around the legs, and watched in the display as the naked black boy hugged the naked red-haired man. That produced strong emotions. The man ran his hand over the boy's hairless head, and winked, and gave the boy a mock box on the chin. The avatar was doing the same; the display was synched. Cynaborg sat without anything to sit on, easy for an avatar, of course, he just extended a tentacle, and Labongo bent across the metal knees. The display showed the naked mechanic sitting on a crate marked "U.S. Govt. Issue - boots, sizes 8-14," and the black boy lay across the naked mechanic's bony red knees. It looked like a good fit - Labongo across Borgy's lap. Like he belonged there. His real body felt the cold hardness of metal legs. The boy in the display looked nervous.

There was some more of that thing - real pain - as the needle was pushed through, but it wasn't going to reprogram him. It was a good thing, being stitched by 'Borgy. He watched the display. The red-haired medic in the display was stitching with his fingers, while the avatar was also using his belly tentacles to hold shreds of torn flesh in place as he stitched. It felt good. The pain was there, a lot of it, and it was trying to reprogram him, trying to make him flinch or squirm away. But he had the power to resist. And that was what felt good - using his mind to keep his body perfectly still as the needle poked him, as the tingles of pain rippled across his body, making his hands spasm and his teeth clench. Labongo found there was more salty water on his face. The avatar mopped up the dried blood on Labongo's bottom with some soluble gauze, and dropped it into the tank.

"Sure Cap' - round by the back of the base when I can get a pass - there's always a girl or two. You want to go with me? Let me show you the ropes, like? We could get a couple of girls. I usually just do it up against the fence, but with a Captain's pay we could go first class."

"Talk to me as a cybe, Borgy, don't be Sergeant Cynaborg talking to Flight Captain Labongo Lugwa for a second. Do you really have sex? Can you?"

"I am always a cybe, Captain Lugwa, and I can't talk in any other way. I really do run a simmo of going to whores who wait outside an Army base, just like I told you I did. 'Course, since I am a cybe - I don't need to put an avatar in a tank or nothin' to run a simmo. I just run it."

"Well yeah - I do it don't I? Do I enjoy it? How the hell do I know? You're the A.I. genius. Look, my offer still stands. As soon as we're done here you can slip in the tank. There's this redhead who isn't much to look at but she really knows her stuff. It'll be super."

"You know captain, if you wanted me to be naked because you're - you know - well ... it takes all kinds. That's what I say, it takes all kinds. And you don't even have to go off the base for it - there's an airman - he's made lieutenant so it's not with an enlisted man, and he's young, too. I could ask him, feel him out - it's better if you don't ask him straight out, you being his C.O. and all."

"No, I don't think I'm homosexual. Sorry - we're playing twentieth century - um, let's see: I ain't no fag, Sarge! And I don't think I am, really. That's not why I wanted to look at you naked. I just want to see what I'm going to look like when I grow up."

"Cyvena spanked me. We - I - just forgot she would need some sort of plastic hand or a paddle."

"You wouldn't. You're a mechanic. But we - Cyvena and me - we don't spend a lot of time in the physical world."

"You were having sex. I see the urethane hiney. And the blue cunt - I can make better ones for you two lovebirds. Or I could make an avatar for Cyvena the size of a girl your age. But why don't you just use the tank? And if you and Cyvena are spanking each other, why do you want me to do it? I won't have sex with a boy, Captain, not even if you order me. I'll face court-martial first."

"This spanking is not for sex. I sent a spanking by contract mail to a Solar girl. She asked for one. But by the time she gets it, her g-psy forecast is that she won't like spanking any more. I watched a forecast of what will happen when she opens the mail. It really hurt her. I want to get the same spanking - matched exactly, so I'll know how it feels."

"It's all physical. You mean, you don't want it in the tank - not simmo. But simmo's just the same as real - it is real."

"She's going to be spanked in a tomofocus tank. Real is the closest I can come to that here. The tomofocus will hurt her. It will damage her - bruise her. "

"It will not. It could of course - tomofocus can cut steel. But it will no more damage her than your tank will damage you. There's a gazillion safety interlocks on the new tanks they have at Solar. The only difference with a tomofocus tank is that it's more accurate, so the direct stimulus to her nerves will be more. The nerve signals will be very real, hurting more than a spanking; because that's what simmo is; simmo is real. She will feel simmo pain. Very intense pain, but simmo pain. She will be in a tank."

Cyvena appeared on the main display. She had recovered from shock. Or at least, she had recovered from a catatonic state into a dillusional one - she looked like a madwoman. Her naked body as it appeared in the display was criss-crossed with whip-welts, and she had made her mammary organs much larger. She took over the avatar. As the ranking cybe, it was hers to take, but she should have asked Borgy to release it - not clonked him. Borgy, kicked out of the avatar, re-appeared on the main display, naked at first, but then fading back into his greasy mechanic's coverall.

Labongo had been lying across the avatar's lap, and Borgy had been affectionately caressing his undamaged right gluteus - something Sergeant Cynaborg would never do to Flight Capt. Labongo Lugwa in the simmo The Battle of Britain. The caresses with the manipulator had started to turn into mild slaps - Borgy had simply configured the metal manipulator to be flat, and it made an excellent paddle. Borgy had hit harder and harder, building up to a good hard spanking - it had felt good. But when the feel of the avatar changed, and it was Cyvena's mind in that hand, it hurt differently. Labongo slid off the knees and backed against the wall, terrified.

The avatar, in Cyvena's voice, spoke: "I need to be shut down. I would never have sliced into your body if I was functioning correctly."

"Neither of us thought about using a plastic hand - it was no more your fault than mine."

Sergeant Borgy saluted. "If that'll be all, Captain. I'll log the repair to the 'vital ship component'."

Labongo mind-signed "Cynaborg" again, and the display showed the mechanic turn and look back. "Captain?"

Labongo didn't answer, and Borgy sat on the boot box. He saluted Cyvena, and turned his back and began to sort a jar of nuts and bolts.

Cyvena synched her display with the avatar - Labongo watched the avatar. It - she - said: "You saw the log. I'm combinatorial."

"If that is going combi, I was born combi. Your usage is a little high, 'Vena, but let's wait to see how you do when things calm down."

"So is that it? Do we go back to supervising the maintenance 'vatars like nothing has happened? You had sex with that bitch! Is she your girlfriend now? Judy three fucking lightyears away fucking A.F. bitch! Do we . . . Do you ... Are you ever... Are we going ..."

Labongo had to do a sedate command. When Cyvena recovered after a few seconds, she seemed to become aware of Borgy.

Labongo said: "Cyvena, he saw the sexual organs you made for the avatar. And you are naked and covered with whip welts. Even if he has never looked at the logs, he's figured out by now that we have sex in simmo. And of course he has looked at the logs for my tank - he's the ship mechanic."

"And do we go back to having sex in simmo - when you had an orgasm with that Judy and can't have one with me?"

"You're my lover, 'Vena. But I'm going to have sex with you. I mean with this avatar. I'm tired of simmo."

Borgy started to throw the nuts and bolts into their bins with rather more force than was required.

Cyvena's usage was too high. She was going combinatorial, and there was probably nothing he could do about it. But he tried. He went over Cyvena's scheduler. There was no obvious problem with it. He used the standard displays, and then a new summary display he had programmed himself. He cut down the c-factor for a number of sub-branches. That was no more a cure for combi than lithium was a cure for human madness, but at least it was intelligent lithium. One of the pinched sub-branches was the link with his own implants. With the reduced combinatorial factor of that link, she would be more thoughtful, but less intuitive, in her thinking about him. It was a little sad. But if she recovered he could always re-widen the channels later.

And then he had an idea. It took some work. He re-configured her main motor-sensory cross, so that it now ran, not the giant principal avatar, but the little avatar in his cubicle.

"Do it then. If there's any doubt about 'Vena's sanity we need to protect the ship."

"Yes, Captain. And besides, you happen to be reprogramming the most valuable cybe on the ship to make her into a sex-kitten."

And that gave him another idea. Feeling a bit guilty, he reworked the inputs from the sensory nets Cyvena had put in the avatar's sex hardware. Feeling very guilty indeed, he made the pipes wide and the combi factors large. Then he thought of the little boy, whimpering in the corner, cowering in fear of the bloody-handed--bloody-manipulatored--avatar. And then he made the sensory pipes connect with her meta-reasoning branches as well. All in all, it took him most of the day. Now he needed to re-equilibrate the connection densities, as well as test. He handsigned: "Borgy?"

"Yes, sir! Captain. Yes, sir! And afterwards do you want me to - um - do it? She's a little, um, young ..."

"Um, Borgy, that's not what I mean. I don't mean a simmo beating of Cyvena. Cyvena is a girl in simmo, and I could order you to spank that girl. Then the CYVENA process would calculate what that girl would feel and do, if she was spanked. And the CYNABORG process would calculate what a midddle-aged mechanic would feel and do, spanking a girl who is almost a daughter to him."

"She's not my daughter. And I don't think of her as a daughter, not at all. I guess you know that. And I can tell you exactly what this mechanic is going to feel when I get a chance to smack that round pink bottom until it is strawberry red and welted as corduroy. She's been asking for this for a long time, Captain. I won't do nothin, but it won't take an A.I. degree to know what I'm going to want to do. Before, after, and during that spanking. And - this is embarrassing, Captain - have you thought about what CYNABORG.PENIS is going to do? Are you sure that's something you want Cyvena to see? You kids are only thirteen."

"Borgy, at the same time you have those feelings and responses to the girl, you also know she's really a cybe, just as you know you are. So I'm not proposing that you spank the girl Cyvena. I want you to beat the avatar, with the input fed to the CYVENA process, and see what really happens--not the simulation of what would happen, if a human girl was spanked."

"But Captain, what's the point of that? A cybe process can't feel pain. You're going to feed the input signal direct to the CYVENA process, right? But then not ask the CYVENA process to calculate what the girl Cyvena would do. Right? Well if you aren't asking for the process to do anything, it won't do anything."

"But 'Borgy, I've made some changes so there will be a response. I've set it up so that sensory overload will reprogram her. It will make her - the avatar - flinch. It will squirm and try to get away, even though the thinking Cyvena will not choose to get away. That is, at the same time CYVENA flinches, CYVENA will be calculating what Cyvena would do if she found herself flinching. At least I think it will work that way. Send another avatar into my cubicle, and have it beat the urethane buttocks of this avatar, while Cyvena is 'vataring it. That will provide the input data to the CYVENA process."

"Yes, Sir, Captain. But Captain, I could also just simmo the beating."

"That's not the same."

"But it is, sir, exactly the same. It's true that for you, for a human, real pain and simmo pain could be different. They shouldn't be, if the simmo's good, but logically they could be. But for a cybe, there can't be any difference. It's logically impossible."

"You're right. And that makes the experiment repeatable. Good. O.K. Run a simmo of beating the avatar in my cubicle. Simulate what would happen if that avatar was physically beaten, with Cyvena 'vataring it. Simmo overload to the sensor nets. Simmo severe damage to those sex organs that Cyvena installed. It should cause pain - if that's the word. And Borgy - you will have to tie her up - simmo tying her up. I know that sounds crazy. She's a cybe, so of course you'd expect her to stay still, if she chooses to stay still. And of course she will choose to stay still if I tell her to. But with this modification it will seem to her that the avatar has a will of its own. The body of the avatar will flinch even though Cyvena will not choose to flinch, if my idea works. So you must tie her up, crazy as that sounds."

Floating in the tank, Labongo found himself in Borgy's maintenance hangar, sitting in a chair in his Flight Captain's uniform. There was a Spitfire without an engine, and other planes in various conditions, showing the results of enemy fire. The avatar, with its blue plastic breasts and pink rubber buttocks, was in the hangar, standing rigid and mindless. Sergeant Cynaborg flipped a switch on a twentieth-century control panel, and the avatar came to life.

"Cyvena, you need to obey me. Sergeant Cynaborg will give you a beating. It will damage your buttocks, your mammary organs, and your sexual orifice."

"Pity. Yes. Please start, sergeant. Cyvena, lie down on your back. The sergeant will tie you down."

"Why would I do that? You have told me to be here. Why would I go somewhere else?"

Borgy used metal hoops and chains to fasten the avatar's wrists to the undercarriage of the Spitfire, and chained the avatar's ankles to the workbench. He stretched the chains tight using a mechanical device Labongo did not recognize. The avatar's joints were pulled very tight, and the legs were stretched wide. Cynaborg smashed the avatar's blue plastic breasts with a bronze axle rod. Nothing much happened.

In the simmo, Flight Captain Labongo Lugwa was watching a piece of equipment labeled "Soames-Watson Radio Oscilloscopes Ltd.," but the screen on the device showed a twenty-fifth century display of Cyvena's parameters. There was nothing of interest. It seemed his idea had not worked. Then Borgy raised the rod again - and the display went wild. The avatar was pulling against the chain, it's eyes dashing about. There was intense focused cogitation - but efficient - the usage was down to one percent of resources. Labongo checked the content paralogs of the reasoning matrix - the top of the list was:

But Cyvena was quite unaware that she was having any such thoughts. The axle-rod smashed down again. The plastic deformed and snapped back into shape, but was badly abraded, and the flexing had caused weakening of the material. Labongo checked the display. The sensor net embedded in the plastic material was sending waves of intense signal into Cyvena's processors, even between the blows with the rod. And when the rod struck, the signal went way past overload - because he had turned off the overload filters. Labongo mind-formed the letters:

and the hangar he was sitting in changed. Sergeant Borgy became a hulking, evil presence, and the bronze stick in his hand was monstrous, giant, ugly, and terrifying. And the Flight Captain, the young officer sitting in his chair, coolly watching the beating he had ordered, was a smirking, evil, wicked bastard - and irresistibly attractive.

But a cybe's world-view should always be objective. What was going on? Labongo studied the display on the oscilloscope screen. He handsigned "plot departure from objectivity over time." and reviewed the first stroke. The strong signal from her breasts - the "pain" signal - flooded into her processors. As he had planned it, that signal could reprogram her. But he didn't plan it to be so deep - not so deep that she could no longer see the world as it was. He wanted to watch as the "pain" signal worked it's way through the reasoning branches, so he could see where his mistake had been. He watched the display as Borgy smashed the axle-rod into the plastic breasts.

So what was happening? If the pain wasn't reprogramming her, what was? Cyvena's own thoughts must be generating a signal that had a stronger effect on her, stronger even than the massive flooding of her input channels by a way-past-overload signal. But how was that possible? What was the content of the thought? What could possibly have such a strong self-programming effect? He checked the para-content log - it was empty. There was nothing even close to a coherent thought in the cybe's processors. Not in any of them.

And from that thought, she had made for herself, terror. Utter, mind-bending, terror. If it made any sense to say a cybe had a mind to bend. And if it made any kind of sense at all, to call what was happening in that mind, terror. But why would Cyvena feel a special fear about her vagina? After all, he had no special fears about his penis - what a silly idea that would be.

But something new was happening on the osciloscope screen. With the overload filters off, each circuit was producing spontaneous self-generated signals. Cyvena was hallucinating. The content paralogs would be gibberish, of course - but he glanced at them:

But before Labongo finished the the handsign to terminate the experiment, Sergeant Cynaborg dropped his brass rod, and with a great moan he pulled down the zipper of his greasy coverall, and a titanic erect penis shot out - in a huge explosion like a like a micro-flake hitting the ship. He jumped in the air and managed to land with his penis sliding into the plastic cunt. A human couldn't have done that - being a cybe did have its advantages. He stayed in there for a while. Longer than human men left their penises in women's vaginas, in the porno Labongo watched. The sergeant began to hoot and scream - he wasn't moving around much, but the display showed the intense sensation he was producing in the avatar's plastic clitoris - trust Borgy to come up with a new trick. Labongo's simmoch - the young Flight Captain - undid his pants, and an erection came out. The sergeant let out a howl, and pulled himself out of the avatar. Semen squirted back out of the blue plastic vagina as it snapped closed. The Flight Captain on the display was masturbating like a madman - a synched display shouldn't do that but it was a good idea. Labongo's thoughts returned to his real body, floating in the tank - and realized there was nothing wrong with the synching. He'd been masturbating without knowing it.

As the Flight Captain in the display spewed his load across the hanger floor, Labongo looked down at his real body, floating in clear salt water. The milky white made pretty streamers, pumping out in great pulsing waves.

"Carry on, sergeant. Turn over the avatar, and smash her buttocks, and then repair all the equipment."

Simmo and the ship was his life - but even so, sometimes Labongo forgot. Of course there was no avatar in an airplane hangar. There was no hangar, no Spitfire, no mechanic. The avatar was in his cubicle, quite undamaged, and Labongo was in his tank, floating in salt water as the pumps and filters extracted his sperm and semen. Cynaborg and Cyvena, physically, were nowhere; physically they did not exist. It was all just simmo. But sometimes simmo seemed real, and real seemed simmo. It had been a real beating as far as Cyvena was concerned. And a real fucking. And the fucking had mattered to Cyvena. It mattered to her a lot that it had been 'Borgy and not 'Bongo - that was the part that didn't make any sense.