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  But if he doesn’t care, why did he heal my knee so gently? Why did he carry me to bed in his arms and cradle me all night to make me feel warm and comforted? Why did he kiss me back and touch me like…like I haven’t been touched in so long?

  Maybe he really was just pretending, like Mr. Metal Teeth had said. Just being polite to the stupid little Feeler. After all, how dumb could she be to let herself feel anything at all for the big Kindred? He was the very definition of emotionally unavailable. She would have to be the stupidest—

  Suddenly she looked up and saw a huge creature bearing down on her. At first she thought it was a man driving a tank with his top half sticking out. Then she realized he was part of the tank—that he was only human or Kindred or whatever from the waist up. The rest of him was the body of the tank whose huge, merciless treads were getting closer and closer.

  Like a centaur, Mei-Li thought numbly, frozen in place as the monstrosity rolled on and on. Only instead of having the bottom half of a horse he’s got the bottom of a machine. He’s a cen-tank. Or a tank-aur. Or maybe just a man-tank—

  “What in the Seven Hells is wrong with you?” Six growled in her ear. A muscular arm swept her out of the way just as the massive tank-man rolled over the place she had just been standing. He hadn’t seen Mei-Li at all—she could tell by the blank, impassive look on his face. Or maybe he had seen her and just didn’t care. Either way, he wouldn’t have stopped and she would have been crushed to strawberry jam if Six hadn’t pulled her out of the way.

  Which didn’t really make her any less irritated with him.

  “Let me go.” She pushed against the muscular arm wrapped around her waist.

  “I don’t think so,” he said, changing his grip so that he was cradling her in his arms like a baby. “We need to get back to my domicile before you get crushed by a wheeler or mobbed by the sniffers.”

  “Wheeler? Sniffers?” She stopped struggling because he clearly wasn’t going to put her down. But she held herself stiff in his grip, refusing to put her arms around his neck for balance or to let herself lean against him.

  Clearly, Six didn’t care about her nonverbal display of irritation.

  “Never mind. I will explain later,” he said, still holding her firmly.

  With long strides that ate up the dull, silvery-gray pavement, he strode along, holding her in his arms until they turned down a slightly less busy side-street. He turned again and they were in a long block of metal doors identical to the one she’d seen on his boss’s house—or apartment or whatever you called the living areas here. Domiciles, she supposed.

  Six put her down at last after giving her a stern look to make certain she wasn’t going to run away. With an inward sign of defeat, Mei-Li admitted to herself that she probably wouldn’t. The half seen sky overhead was starting to grow even darker and she had no wish to be trapped outside after nightfall on this strange planet with no protection from the weird, half-robot people who roamed the streets.

  “This is my domicile,” Six said, stepping back as the metal door slid open and motioning her to precede him. “And yours as well for the duration of our Claiming Period. Welcome.”

  “Thanks,” Mei-Li muttered, walking into the long, narrow metal hall which looked a lot like One’s. She wondered if all the houses looked alike here. It wouldn’t have surprised her a bit it they did. After all, what was the point of individuality or decoration if there was no one who had the capacity to appreciate it?

  “Greetings, Six,” came the same mechanical voice she’d heard issuing from his watch aboard the med barge. “It is good to have you home.”

  “Greetings, Ter,” Six said aloud, addressing the disembodied voice. “This is Mei-Li who will be staying with me for the next nine solar days. During her visit, you will extend the same courtesies to her that you do to me.”

  “All courtesies? What about command sequences?” Ter demanded.

  “All courtesies,” Six repeated firmly. “I wish her to feel as much at home as she can while staying here.”

  “Affirmative. But I must state that I do not believe it is a good idea to allow a Feeler to have access to command sequences. She may make illogical decisions.” The voice sounded cranky now, as much as a robotic voice could.

  “Don’t worry,” Mei-Li said aloud, joining the weird conversation. “I have no intention of setting off your self-destruct sequence or anything like that. I’m just here to do my time and then get back to my normal life on my own planet.” She looked at Six when she said it and he frowned back in return.

  “Ter would not destruct the domicile even if you did order it,” he said. “It is an illogical command and Ter is a thinking, intelligent system, not a mindless drone who will do anything you may dream up in the heat of the moment.”

  “Oh, good for you—you got it right that time.” Mei-Li favored him with a slow clap. “So what you’re saying is that I would do something stupid and illogical like try to blow up your house because I have emotions but Ter wouldn’t follow my irrational orders because he doesn’t have emotions.”

  “This is becoming tiresome,” Six growled. “I have never called you stupid—to the contrary, I have a high regard for your intelligence or I would not have spoken to Ter and told him to allow you free access to all commands. But since you bring it up, I will say that you are acting most illogical now.”

  “Oh, and why is that?” Mei-Li put a hand on her hip. They were through the narrow metal hallway and in what she supposed was his living room now. It had one large blue-gray couch and plain gray plastic flooring. One wall was taken up by a massive screen bigger than any wide-screen TV she’d ever seen on Earth and there was some kind of huge black cube that looked like electronic equipment in the corner, though it didn’t seem to have any apparent use. Probably it was to play the Z4 equivalent of video games or some other perpetual bachelor hobby.

  “I say you are being illogical because plainly you have allowed yourself to grow an emotional attachment to me—hence your current state of anger and unhappiness that I have no such attachment to you.”

  “Why, you…you egomaniacal, misogynistic—”

  “Furthermore,” he continued, while she was trying to think up even worse things to call him. “You are afraid if we continue to follow the Claiming Contract—as we must—that your emotional attachment will grow and you will have considerable difficulty leaving me at the end of our Claiming Period.”

  “Oh, no… No, I can’t believe you just said that!” Mei-Li was so pissed off now, she was literally seeing red through her fancy new lenses. “You think I can’t be just as detached as you?” she demanded, stalking over to him and reaching up to poke a finger at his broad chest. His exoskeleton hurt her fingertip but she didn’t even care.

  Six folded his arms over his broad chest, his face impassive.

  “Honestly? No, I do not. I have heard from reliable sources that a female Feeler cannot give her body without also giving her heart, as the saying goes. I do not believe you will be an exception to this.”

  “So you think I don’t want to do the…contract sex things with you because I’m afraid I’ll fall in love with you?”

  He frowned. “Falling in love? Is that what Feelers call it? Falling seems an odd way to describe an emotional attachment.”

  “Listen, you big jerk,” Mei-Li snarled. “The point is, I can be just as cold and unfeeling and uncaring as you can—even colder!”

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “Meaning you can follow through with the Claiming Contract without forming an emotional attachment? Without ‘falling in love?’”

  “Absolutely—I can hit it and quit it with the best of them,” Mei-Li declared, lifting her chin. “And to prove it, I think we need a little modification in this contract.”

  He frowned. “We must follow it to the letter, you know that. There is no legal room for leeway.”

  “I’m not saying we should leave anything out—I’m saying we should put some things in,” Mei-Li snapped.