away. “Hold as still as possible.”

Deviant played with her hair. It helped knowing he stayed close. She felt safe and protected. They’d had her strip out of her clothes and put on a pair of panties and a half shirt. It would have made her feel uncomfortable being almost naked without Deviant there.

“We’ll eat as soon as we’re done here. Are you hungry?”

“A little,” she admitted. “You’re trying to distract me, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Is it working?”

“It is. I wish I were wearing more but I know they need to do it to see the connections from my limbs to my torso.”

“Are you cold? I could have them raise the room temperature.”

“It’s more of a matter of wearing so little around two strange men.”

“Both of them are in a family unit. They won’t look at you with sexual interest.”

She smiled, amused by the way Deviant sometimes worded things. “Ah. That makes it all better.”

“Sarcasm?”

“It’s just kind of funny that you believe married men don’t look at other women.”

“Cyborgs don’t. Not in that regard. It would be highly disrespectful to their females to show sexual interest in another one.”

It was yet another reminder that they weren’t quite human, if that were true.

The hum began and she held still, taking slow, deep breaths to minimize her movements. Deviant kept stroking her hair.

“Thank you for doing this for me, Venice. It will sway the council into being more forgiving.”

She smiled. It wasn’t as if they wanted to remove the limbs or open them up to take a peek inside. That would be asking a lot. She kept silent though, afraid her speaking might mess up their scanning techniques.

The time passed fast and they took her off the table, leading her into another room. Deviant hovered close and when she sat, he crouched next to her, holding her biological hand as Quiz opened a kit, explaining the next procedure. They were going to numb her skin on her upper arm and remove a small tissue sample. She turned her head to stare into Deviant’s beautiful eyes.

“I hate that you’re having to go through this.” Deviant frowned.

She opened her mouth to tell him it was fine but didn’t get the chance to speak.

“We won’t harm her, and we’re taking a small sample,” Frax stated. “From the questions we asked when your female arrived, we know she should heal quickly. We’ll watch the process carefully to make certain of that.”

An injector pressed against her skin and it was just a cold bump, then she didn’t feel anything. She glanced once, saw Quiz lift a scalpel, preparing to cut. She faced Deviant again, locking gazes with him.

“Talk to me.”

He used his other hand to reach up and brush her hair away from her cheek. “You’re being very brave.”

“I admit I hate anything to do with medical procedures ever since I woke in that automated clinic, but at least your doctors are real people. They aren’t androids that refuse to answer my questions and just dope me out again.”

“Was it painful when all this work was done on you?” Frax moved into her line of sight.

“They kept me awake when they attached the limbs. They said they needed me to move them when they were testing the nerve connections. I wasn’t in any pain though.”

“That would have taken hours.” Frax frowned.

“It did but they allowed my sister to be in the operating room with me. She updated me on her life while I’d been away and kept me distracted during most of it. They put me to sleep for the internal work they did, and the work on my face.”

“The medical technology has advanced on Earth since we left,” Quiz added. “We sometimes hack into medical information on ships we find abandoned in space but most of them are more than twenty years out of date. We appreciate you being so generous by giving us access to what was done to you.”

“No problem.” She smiled. They really were polite.

She glanced at her arm, seeing a section of skin gone. They hadn’t taken much but the sight still sickened her. She stared at Deviant again as Quiz cleaned the fresh wound, then poured water over it the way she’d instructed them to do.

Frax moved closer, watching. “Fascinating! Look at how fast it’s sealing from the sides. It’s fusing the skin in the same fashion that stitches would. Keep flushing it out with water. It works just the way she stated.”

“The elasticity of the skin is impressive,” Quiz muttered. “This is