I guess you could call this segment “bullet dodged.” As the writer, I am trying very hard to make sure that Alix does not come across, as she says, just as a breeder. It is very difficult and slows me down more than a “normal” story. I was also pleased to learn that Graf and Pai have fights. All couples do; perfectly normal. So long as you love someone, it’s fine to not like them for awhile.

I have a suspicion that things will get very, very ugly when Alix’s mother comes back and finds Pai there. Fun times.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

“Mmm!  May we all sit on the front porch?  My husband and I have seen very little of other people or modern civilization for the past quarter,” Pai said.

“Treat!” Suza again.  Pai reached into her still-dusty jacket pocket, took out a small box, and gave it to Alix.

“A kind of semi-sweet treat from a vendor in Cheyenne,” she said over her shoulder.  Alix, for all her trips in space, had never heard of the place.  “Only one each and they are a little chewy.  Our son might need it mushed up, first.”

Pai, please, he thought, watch her effortlessly pick the children up and carry them out.  It was that strength which she used to save my life when I was moments from letting go and falling down into that ravine.  She literally gouged chucks out of the rock wall to make handholds, then carried me up like a sack of feed.  Not my proudest moment.

Popping into the kitchen to cut one of the treats in two, Alix was mushing one of them up as Pai set the kids on the steps, “No running off!” and taking the right-most of the three chairs.  And, that means me in the middle.  Probably safer that way.  To make sure they didn’t choke, Alix first sat with the little ones before sitting at his left.

“Again,” Pai began, “my sincere congratulations on, ah, the third child.”

“Boy or girl?” Alix asked.  Pai shook her head.

“Even a Mark XV does not possess those kind of sensors.  Only a handful of the Hartmanns would know.  The Empress certainly could.”

As dusk deepened, the streetlights began to turn on.  There were a few cars but they were outnumbered two-to-one by bicycles, even if many were electric bicycles.  For anyone on foot, Suza would have and yell “hello!”  Sometimes quiet is best…

“So Graf says y’all don’t have sex,” Alix said, going there.  “After what we did before dinner, I’m now inclined to believe him.”

“Nice of you,” Pai allowed.

“But let’s define our terms.  What about…?” Alix pointed at her mouth.

“Yes, we kiss,” Pai laughed at her.  She laughed more at the look on her face.  “And, no, we don’t do that, either.  For physical love, he has you, and we vowed to not disturb that balance.”

“That’s something he said,” the mother of their children went on, “that you two will visit different constructs together.  Graf implied there was more, but you best to address it.”

“Did he?” The machine reached over to briefly touch the back of his hand.  “Yes.  It is literally indescribable, but let me try.  Now that he can tolerate a tiny bit of my touch – which means much in a construct – we are able to share one another’s minds, nigh well completely.  Were I religious, I’d call it communion.”

Alix leaned back in her chair, looking out at the bats starting to chase bugs around the streetlights.  “That doesn’t tell me much.”

“I said it was difficult,” Pai admitted.  “We see, hear, feel, think everything at once, together.  Speaking of religion, it is the perfect fusion of two minds; souls, if you like.”

She leaned halfway to Graf.

“And, it is amazingly pleasurable.  What you two do with your crotches, we do with our minds,” she said in a lower voice.  “You know he and I had sex before this arrangement, so I, too, have had that physical feeling, even in this android body.  Were you not a part of our picture, I would have already convinced him that my way is far, far better.”

“You make it sound,” Alix gulped a little and blinked a lot, “as if I’m just here as a breeder.”

“Alix, please,” Graf said.  “You know I love you.  You are the precious mother of our children.”

“’Our,’” she spat.  “From my body, but yours on paper.”

“That is only to open doors for them, on this world and many others,” Pai said.  She stood.  “I am taking them on a walk.  It will wear out Suza and help her sleep.  I’ll carry Tér.  You two retire for the evening.  Once back, I’ll stay on the ground floor to make a scene when Alix’s mother comes back.”

She squatted down next to the kids.  “Let’s go have fun on a walk!”

“Walkies, Auntie!”

“Fon.”

The boy in the crook of her left arm, the girl held her right hand.  “Which way?” they heard her ask.  Suza tugged them south.

“Is she that much better than me?” Alix asked very quietly.

“It’s…really different,” he allowed.  “She did once slip that once I die, she wants to marry one of her own kind and make their children.  Pissed me off so much we didn’t talk for a week.”

“So y’all do fight like a normal couple?” she asked, standing and holding out her hand.

“Maybe more than we should,” he said, getting up.  “Let’s get ready for bed.”

“Got any left in you?” she smiled as they went back into the house.

“As much as you need.” His grin was almost a leer.

Alone in the house, it was only when they finished and caught their breath that they heard Pai coming upstairs to put the children to bed in their room.

“Do you think she heard and waited for us?” Alix asked.

“Likely.  Tér would have no idea, but Suza might think we were in trouble or something.”

“Hmm.” She closed her eyes.  “Let’s get up early and catch breakfast.”

“Good idea.”