March, 2557

 

Something had changed.

It wasn't the hab — that was exactly the same as Judy and I had left it, my plants nice and healthy thanks to the hab AI's care. Everything was where it should be, all my things arranged on shelves and countertops, all of Judy's things tucked away in her den. The rhythms of life hadn't changed: we woke at the same time, I fed Judy at the same times, I worked the same hours with the same Affini attending to the same subjects. In every way, my return from the symposium was a return to normality.

But yet, something was undeniably different. Of course there was the knowledge that my fate, and that of Judy's implant, was no longer entirely my concern, but that had been a worry for some time. I'd never really expected to be fortunate enough for everything to come together perfectly, for Camassia to figure out how to coax a core out of the amalgam of my meat and phytotech, for her to give Judy her implant before anyone could object. Even the inspection I was waiting for on that particular day was something I'd expected for some time.

<I wanna streaaaaaam,> Judy complained, hanging off my vines as I cooked up her breakfast. <When's the inspection thingy?>

<Soon, pup,> I said, glancing up at the clock. We'd slept in precisely because I knew she'd be anxious — not even full-time life as my dog quite cured her appointment-brain problems. One more reason she needed the implant. <You've got just enough time to eat, so no dawdling over breakfast, okay?>

<Kaaaay.> She pouted and licked at my leg as I finished up her hashbrowns, which joined the sectioned honeydew and sausages in her doggie bowl. She waited like such a patient pup, eyes locked onto the bowl as I set it down on her tray.

<Okay, pup, go ahead!> Oh, how precious it was to watch her dig right in, totally un-self-conscious, her tail wagging happily behind her. Being able to give her this peace of mind gave me such immense joy that I could scarcely believe I'd ever lived without her in my life. She cleaned her bowl, and I cleaned her smiling face; then, I hoisted her up into a casual wedding carry and spun around as she laughed and laughed.

And that's how I kept her distracted until the inspector arrived. Like most Affini, she had at least a head of height on me — an Affini-sized head, at that — and carried herself with a confidence that perfectly matched her no-nonsense fashion grafts. Her feathery foliage hung loose around her head, shifting in an invisible breeze. <Tamara Slaine?> she said, greeting me in English. <I'm Sona Dryoptera, Fifth Bloom, she/her, Terran Protectorate Department of Sophont Protection.>

<Very nice to meet you,> I said, putting on my very best (albeit still a touch awkward and halting) smile. <And this is Judy!>

<Hiii!> Judy giggled and waved, and not only did my heart melt, but her sheer sweetness even cut through Sona's businesslike facade — she smiled, leaned in, and gave Judy a few headpats.

<What a sweet little Terran,> she said warmly. <Hello, Judy! Would it be alright if I talked to you on your own for just a little bit?>

<Uhm... okay?> She looked up at me, silently asking for permission.

<Go ahead, Judypup,> I told her. <Be good and do what Sona tells you, okay?> She nodded, and I handed her over to Sona, who cuddled her up close and gave her another rush of affection, petting her and stroking her hair.

<Where do you think she'd be most comfortable?> she asked, glancing at me.

<Her den, probably,> I said, gesturing with a vine. <That door, right there.>

<Thank you,> she said, nodding and setting off. She leaned down and vanished inside with Judy in her arms, and the door shut behind her. I sat down on one of my sofas and waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

I couldn't hear anything coming from Judy's den — the walls blocked sound far too efficiently for that. I could have asked the hab AI to snoop, but I figured that Sona would probably be checking that, and she had asked to speak to Judy alone. I presumed that meant privately. So I sat there and stewed in my own anxiety, and tried to distract myself by thinking of other things to worry about.

If it felt weird to speak English with Judy — to have to actively remind myself to use English with her, the language I'd been speaking all my life — it felt doubly weird to do so with another Affini. The Affini language, or at least, the dialect that I knew, just seemed to flow better. Maybe it was because I could produce the appropriate harmonics and subtones now that I had a biorhythmic prosthetic. Maybe two weeks of nothing but Affini, combined with the extreme neuroplasticity I possessed, had shifted something structurally in my brain. Then again, maybe it just felt weird because, well, speaking Affini made me feel more Affini, and going back to English felt like a step backwards.

Maybe it was all of the above.

Was I losing touch with Judy? I was changing so much, but I hadn't given much thought to what that meant for our relationship. Had I always seen Judy as so small, so fragile, so in need of care? I had always loved taking care of her, I knew that deep in my core (or, at least, the head-meat that passed for it), that much was never in question — what I was worried had changed was the ineffable underlying quality of that love. What I had said to Ardisia was the unvarnished truth: I would do literally anything for Judy. I would do unreasonable things if it would so much as make her smile. The intensity of my love for her felt like it might burn a hole right through me if I sat still for too long. Even then, as I sat in my hab dwelling on my insecurities, there was a part of me that was hard at work conceiving new ways to further shape Judy's life, to take those parts that were already almost perfect and shave them down ever closer to the asymptote of total perfection. Her happiness would be my magnum opus, the single most important thing I did with my life, no matter what else I might accomplish along the way.

I had always loved her, and I had always done whatever I could for her, but this was different. Not bad, per se — she deserved all this and more, and the better I became for her, the closer 'more' became to being possible — but different, in a way I hadn't expected when I chose this path. If I was to do this for her, then it was necessary, but nevertheless in the moment I felt a kind of awed humility at how much I had already changed.

I was still looping through that cycle of thoughts when Sona emerged, sans Judy. <Alright,> she said, <Judy's going to take a little nap for a while, so it's your turn now.>

Thank the Everbloom my biorhythm was probably too weak to give away my confusion and disquiet. I nodded, and replied "If you don't mind, I'd prefer to speak Affini. I find I think better that way."

"As you like," she said, taking a seat opposite me. She held a tablet in her hand, and glanced down at it occasionally to trace in a few notes. "First, how are you feeling?"

"...truthfully, a bit anxious," I admitted. "May I ask how things went with Judy?"

"If you're worried that I'm going to find abject deficiency with you as an owner, I think you can safely lay those worries to rest," she said, giving me the slightest of smiles — which she needn't have done, as I could feel smooth undertones of her voice flowing together in a gentle melody, which gave the same effect. "There are some points, of course, where there could be improvement — particularly if, as seems to be your desire regardless of the legalities, I evaluate you not as a Terran who owns another Terran, but as an Affini who owns a Terran."

"As I am an Affini, yes, that would be the case. Please do tell me if there's anything I can do to improve."

At first, her only response was to stare at me for a long moment. Finally, she spoke again: "Well, the most glaring deficiency is her lack of a haustoric implant," Sona said, "but as I understand it, that's the entire point of..." She gestured at me with a vine and an ever-so-slightly sardonic flourish in her biorhythm. "...so I'm not going to assess that as a mark against you."

"Much appreciated," I said, nodding and doing my best to echo the flourish back at her. If I succeeded, she gave me no sign.

"Beyond that, your care for her is exemplary. In Terran terms. She's physically healthy, emotionally supported, mentally stable, and so on," she said, as if she were moving down a list and ticking off items. "I placed her in a trance, gave her Class-D, and did a little bit of mnemonic regression. You see, normally, in a situation such as this, I'm dealing with one Terran making an ownership claim on another, and I'm sure I don't need to tell you that it doesn't always end up in a healthy place."

I nodded. "I have experience with it through the kink scene, prior to the Compact's arrival." Some people were good owners; others had no business exerting control over another sophont. Under the Accord, all you could do was keep an eye out for the red flags and hope. "I'm glad that you're around to make sure that no one's trapped in abusive situations anymore. This particular issue isn't something we see a lot of at Transitional Decarceralization, but it's one I'm personally aware of."

"Terrans certainly did find a lot of ways to be rather nasty to each other," she agreed. "The ones that really frost my roots are the ones who started it up after we got here, though — behavioral mimicry can be a real problem, even if it is cute on first blossom. Not all xenosophonts can follow a good example, and the position of caregiver can be a real strain for them."

"Mmm. My vet thought that's what we were when we first met," I said, nodding towards Judy's den. "I have, thankfully, convinced her otherwise."

"Well, if we take as granted your status for the sake of evaluation," Sona went on, "there are several areas in which you need to improve. First of all, you lack the appropriate accreditation for xenodrug grafting."

"Camassia — our vet — does thankfully keep us in exogenous xenodrugs. As for that, well..." I shook my head a little, setting the morning glories streaming from my head rolling in waves. "I can certainly take grafts. The only question is, where do I sign up?"

"Well, without the accreditation, no florist would graft xenodrugs for you — but, if you were to take the appropriate courses and prove yourself competent, I personally see no reason why you couldn't be permitted to take the grafts. That said, it would be much more difficult a process than I'm making it sound like. The coursework is intensive and designed for Affini who are both older than you and have been a part of a standard educational curriculum."

"I thrive under pressure," I said. "And Judy's worth any effort."

She nodded. "I'll make those arrangements, then. Don't say I didn't warn you. Second: Judy refers to you by name, rather than by an honorific. Could you explain that, please?"

I couldn't help but laugh a little. "Well, to start with, she's just a silly little puppy, and silly little puppies don't worry about things like name protocol. For another, for most of the time I've owned her I worked in the Terran Accord's legal system, which was very formal and involved a lot of protocol when it came to addressing others, and I felt that developing an arousal response to someone being called by a formal title, even if it wasn't the one I used in my day-to-day work, was playing with fire. Finally, it's just never really.... entangled me, I guess, the way that control and authority itself do. I would say that even though I very much care about the thing itself, I don't much care what one calls it. Does that follow?"

"I think I see your position," Sona said, making a few notes. "And for the record, Judy does seem to be fairly well-trained on first examination. Very polite, too. I didn't even have to prompt her to call me 'Miss Sona.'"

"She picked that up from floret culture very quickly." I let my pride sing out in my biorhythm; surely she picked up on it. "She may be a silly little puppy, but she's a very fast learner too. I don't think she's ever missed an episode of Selene & Selenipedium since she discovered it."

"Good, good. And she has some floret friends, as well?"

"My co-workers' florets, yes. Anthemis's Sammy, Vanda's Lysander. She and Celeste are particularly close, so she sees a lot of Grace, Luke, and Roman as well."

"All florets of one..." She checked her notes. "Senna Colutea, Third Bloom?"

I nodded. "They really like Terrans." Understatement of the century; Senna was obsessed with Terrans.

"Oh, I know the type," she said, actually laughing a little bit. "Terrans are very sweet. One of these days I'm sure I'm going to end up taking one home from the job myself." She paused, and composed her foliage. "You know, for a moment there, I genuinely managed to forget I was speaking to someone who didn't bloom this way."

"I can have that effect on people sometimes," I said. She must have picked up on the burst of euphoria that snuck into my biorhythm, because I caught an echo of pleasant gratification back. "Is there anywhere else I can improve?"

There was — the conversation went on for nearly an hour after that. Sona seemed to accept that I was not only doing the best I could but actively wanted to do better, and rather than being particularly critical she presented each point almost as if it were something I was already aspiring to without realizing it. At least, that's how it felt to me, as each new topic seemed to fill out a new piece of a puzzle that, on reflection, I already seemed to know the shape of. She was methodical and very helpful, and by the end of our time together I had a road map in my head of precisely what and where I needed to focus on in terms of my care for Judy.

"Thank you so much for this," I said to her as I was seeing her out. "There's so much to learn and do, but I feel as if I'm in good hands."

"I'm sure you'll manage," she replied, lingering in the doorway for just a moment. "If nothing else, regardless of how your...personal experiment blossoms, Judy's in good vines with you, and what remains to be done is well within your capabilities. I look forward to seeing the reports on your scholastic performance, and I'll be checking in here personally on a regular basis."

"I'm looking forward to it as well," I said, letting honest excitement shade my biorhythms. "And I'm sure Judy is too."

"She's a very good little Terran," Sona said. "My recommendation, as a professional, is that you go and give her lots of snuggles."

"Oh, I can certainly manage that, I think," I said — and that's precisely what I did, the minute the door had closed behind Sona. Judy was curled up on her plushie-and-pillow pile, chest rising and falling subtly. Everbloom, she was a precious little thing when she slept like this. I watched her for a long moment as I slowly sat down, not wanting to disturb her until the very last moment.

Time can play tricks on you, I've found, when you're just gazing at your floret. It wasn't any more than a couple of minutes, but it felt like I was watching her for hours, my mind spiraling out into plans upon plans for each and every suggestion Sona had made. I didn't have the knowledge to carry most of them out yet, of course, but I could sketch the outlines, create a draft rather than a blueprint, of what I would do to my precious little pet to make her even more perfect than she already was.

I didn't understand how my mind could contain it all. It was like having multiple complete trains of thought, all rushing in parallel, all crossing over onto each others' tracks at a dozen switches at once in perfect timing, coming within inches of colliding but never actually doing so. The volume and precision of my thoughts, at least as far as Judy was concerned, was nothing short of staggering, and yet I could somehow encompass it all as easily as I had, once upon a time, simply looked down at the love of my life and sighed contentedly.

'Awe' wasn't enough of a word to describe the feeling. Not anymore.

"Wake up, little puppy," I purred, running a vine through Judy's hair. She stirred, curled up a little tighter, and flicked an ear, and I couldn't help but let out a soft laugh. <Judypup~> I whispered.

<Mmmmf.> She blinked twice, then yawned and stretched. <...Tam? Did I- oh, right.> She smiled and rolled over on her back, and I happily indulged her with a good bellyrub. She squirmed back and forth happily. <Is Miss Sona gone?> she asked when I finished.

<She is. She said you're a very good puppy, and she told me a few ways I can be an even better owner for you.>

<Doubt,> she said, giggling and climbing into my lap. I cuddled her up in my arms and gave her a good squeeze. <You're perfect.>

<Now, now, there's always room for improvement. For example, once I get my accreditation for xenodrug grafting...> I teased at her collarbone with a vine. <Just imagine what kind of dirty things I'm going to do to you once I have that kind of control, hmm?> Judy bit her lip, her eyelids fluttering as she shifted to straddle one of my legs. She started to hump it, bucking gently, and I felt the firmness of her cage quite clearly against my foliage. <Needy puppy~> I lifted her chin with a vine and stared down into her eyes, and she stared right back. Sweet, precious little creature. I could see every fluctuation of her iris, every little saccade of her eyes as my gaze inexorably drew them back in no matter how she tried to look away.

My eyes weren't like those of other Affini, but they were as close as Camassia could get and still have them interface properly with my greymatter. I had seen them work on Judy before, but now, with Sona's advice still ringing in my ears, I understood what I was seeing. I watched her will, already so flexible where I was concerned, bend like a tree in a storm. <Needy. Little. Puppy.> I emphasized each word with a thrumming burst from my biorhythmic prosthetic, watched her will twist further, watched her jaw fall slack as she fell deeper and deeper into my eyes. I could do so much to her right now — we had played with hypnosis before, but this was different, so much more.

But I wasn't ready for that, not yet. I knew the outlines of what I wanted to do to her, but she deserved better than an outline. She deserved crystal clarity, not a hazy and half-understood image. I cupped her face with one hand, tracing gentle circles on her cheekbone with my thumb. I could wait. I would wait. I would learn how best to do this, master the time-perfected techniques my Affini elders used, and then and only then would I shape the little Terran in my lap.

<I love you so much, Judy,> I whispered to her. <No matter what happens, no matter what I become, never forget that.>

I would give her the perfection she deserved.