to careen out of control…” At his shaking head and raised eyebrow she nodded. “They lied about that too.”

“Your Earth Government lies about a lot of things. We stole Genesis and we also took control of the Discovery Moon ship.”

“But it wasn’t completed when they found major flaws with the construction—” She stopped talking when he smirked at her. She sighed. “They lied about that too. That project wasn’t dumped, was it?”

“They lied about that too. The Discovery Moon was fully operational and was just undergoing final testing when we stole it. Earth probably didn’t want to create a panic by telling everyone that hundreds of cyborgs had taken both vessels to escape. They were afraid, with our superior fighting skills, that we’d start a war. Their fears weren’t logical since it was more practical to find another habitable planet to create our own society than to lose massive numbers of lives trying to belong to the existing society that didn’t want us. We had already lost tens of thousands of our kind who couldn’t escape Earth so a war would have drastically cut what few numbers we had left.”

“They killed everyone you couldn’t take with you.”

He hesitated. “Not all. We were able to go back and pick up more after we found Garden.”

“Garden?”

He nodded. “It is what we named our planet. When we offloaded most of our people to start building a city we knew we needed more resources so we returned to Earth. We realized, when we contacted supportive humans to help us, that a lot of cyborgs had survived but were in hiding.” Flint smiled.

“Humans like you, who didn’t hate cyborgs , were feeding them and keeping them safely out of sight. We managed to save hundreds more on each returning trip to Earth for more building materials.”

“So you have a city on Garden?”

He nodded. “We’re still building. It is going to take hundreds of years for us to colonize the planet as we plan. It is almost the size of Earth but we only claimed a small part of it for our own.”

“Is it like Earth? I mean, does it look like it?”

“In some ways it is but in other ways no. There are two moons and the sun is smaller but closer. It is livable but the water content is more.”

“The air is breathable and the water is drinkable?”

He nodded. “It’s got slightly higher oxygen content but nothing significant. Do you have any other questions?”

“Millions.”

He laughed. “Right now we have somewhere to be.” He stood up and motioned to her. “Let’s go.”

“But…” She glanced down at the oversized shirt she wore. “I’m not dressed.”

“That is where we are going. You need clothing that fits and I’m taking care of you so there’s no property question.”

That made her eyes widen. “What does that mean?”

He eyed her. “Let’s go.” He held out his hand.

She put her hand in his. “My shoes—”

“Are flimsy and useless.I’m getting you a pair of boots.”

Flint led her out of his room and down a hallway. Living quarters, judging by the many doors. He took her to a lift and she clenched her teeth. She looked up at him and braced her hand on the wall. A draft blew up the shirt as the doors closed, reminding her that she wore nothing under the shirt that fell to mid-thigh. She locked her thighs together so she didn’t feel totally exposed.

“I hate these things.”

He grinned as he activated the lift. It jerked upward a level and stopped sharply. The doors opened and she was shocked at seeing more cyborgs in a large room—a converted cargo area that had been turned into some kind of workout space. She counted nine cyborgs , most of them strangers. The redheaded cyborg with the long braid was fighting with Ice in a corner on thick pads. They were both bootless and shirtless.

The male voices silenced and the room grew totally quiet as Flint led her out of the lift. Some of the men had been lifting weights—very old school, but still effective—but they stopped to turn their attention on Mira. She glanced toward the two men who had been fighting to see that they too had stopped and were staring at her. She inched closer to Flint to grip his hand tighter in fear. She was almost na**d except for the shirt that revealed too much of her legs. Her other hand inched lower, tugging the shirt as far down as it would go and holding it there.

Flint