want too.”

He smiled. “We’re in total agreement.”

“We are.”

“I will provide well for you. I don’t want you to worry about being mistreated or what your future holds. I have mentally gone over any concerns you may have. You will be safe on Garden, and I’ll keep you by my side when I travel on my next mission into space. I would never leave you for weeks alone on a foreign planet with strangers.”

He glanced around his quarters. “I apologize for the lack of space we currently share. This is my first mission on the Varnish. It’s a small ship. I am usually assigned to the Star. It’s much larger. But my father and I volunteered when we learned the Varnish needed a few replacements for this mission, because some of Stag’s regular crew was required to spend a month on our planet. Our council demands we stay home at least that long, for our males who work on ships. They feel it helps us keep connected as a society. I can request couple quarters on the Star once I legally establish that you belong to me. They will be more comfortable for you, and you’ll be able to accompany me around the ship.” He peered deeply into her eyes. “How are you at withstanding confinement? Please tell me the truth.”

“I’m okay. I didn’t leave my quarters when I traveled to that space station you found me on. It was too dangerous because there were only two women aboard. Men can get stupid, as the captain pointed out. The room was a bit bigger and I had a space port, but there wasn’t really anything to see. I do wish I had access to some entertainment vids.”

“I can arrange that for you.”

“Cyborgs make entertainment vids?” That excited her.

“No.” He looked amused. “We do not act out plays the way Earthers do to amuse others. We do, however, have an extensive library of Earth-made vids.”

“Do you have any vids of Garden? I’d love to see some footage of it.”

“No. We purposely scrub our computer logs of anything associated with our home planet when we are on missions. It’s always possible we could be attacked and our ship taken over. Someone could discover Garden’s location if we don’t take precautions. We must protect our people. We store the coordinates inside our minds only. All cyborgs are prepared to fry our internal chips if we are compromised.”

“What does that mean?”

He reached out and stroked her cheek. “It means we’re willing to die if an enemy captures us and there is a real threat that they might acquire Garden’s location. We can cause the chips inside our minds to malfunction and cause brain hemorrhages. It will damage the brain tissue around those devices so they aren’t able to obtain any useful information.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Every cyborg aboard this ship would die with honor to protect our family and friends on Garden.”

“Why do you leave Garden then?”

“We patrol our space to make certain no one gets close to finding our planet. Sometimes we also need to trade for things we need, which is the reason we were on that station where you found me. Have you ever heard of Marcus Models?”

“No.”

“You were held captive for years and probably didn’t have access to news while you recovered from your ordeal, before leaving Earth. Marcus Models were produced. They are androids with flesh exteriors that appear human. Earth Government created them to replace us as a workforce. They probably thought they’d corrected their error by making them androids beneath flesh instead of growing them. It was another mistake. They became self-aware, too—and they believe their race is superior to all others.

“Some of those models escaped and sought out cyborgs. Some council members believed they wanted to form an alliance and were just looking for a safe haven from being hunted by Earth Government. We met with them off-planet.” He paused. “They are not sentient beings, but instead, more of a single linked computer mind in many bodies. They have no emotion, no compassion, and their plan was to capture cyborgs to exchange us for more of their models being stored on Earth. We fought them and won. It made us their enemy. They are a threat to our existence and to anyone from Earth. Sometimes they attack space stations, murdering all aboard. We must find them before they track down Garden.”

“That’s terrible.”

“We thought we’d destroyed all of the ones who broke free but more escaped from Earth after we met