Companion 3000

“Then why did you call?” Pierce demanded. He desperately wanted to ask if Leita had put her best friend up to calling but he didn’t want to sound, well…desperate.

“First tell me one thing,” Schneider said. “Did you mean everything you said right before you left? About Leita being important to you? About your time with her being the best time in your life?”

“Aw, hell.” Pierce ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Yeah, of course I meant it. Haven’t been able to get her out of my mind since the day I left. Or should I say the day she made me leave.” He rubbed his chest reflexively. There was still a little bald spot right between his nipples where she’d shot him with the tazer and his chest hair hadn’t grown back. “Why do you ask?” he asked Schneider, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Because she’s missing.” Schneider began grooming his long whiskers nervously. “Kidnapped, I think for who knows what purposes.”

“What? Where? By who?” Pierce sat bolt upright in the Jaunter’s captain’s chair he’d been lounging in to get a better look at the monitor.

“She was taken in the Galleria ship almost two days ago now,” Schneider said, still grooming almost obsessively. “I didn’t get any names—just images from the watch-me she was wearing.”

“If she’s wearing a watch-me, the authorities ought to be able to get a lock on her,” Pierce said. “And if she’s been gone almost two days…why the hell haven’t they located her yet?”

“They—” Schneider started but suddenly there was a loud sound behind him and another face shoved its way onto the screen.

“How may I service you, Mistress? Let me drop to my knees and worship you with my tongue!” a garbled voice begged.

Pierce jumped back in surprise before he saw it was just the blond man-whore sex robot the For Her Pleasure company had sent to Leita. “What the hell?” he growled as the Companion 2000 began humping the screen. This was definitely not something he needed to see right after breakfast. Or any other time of the day, for that matter.

“No, Horny—no!” he heard Schneider say in an exasperated voice. “Go back to the couch—the couch needs your attentions. The mistress wants you to lick it all over. Go, go!”

“Yes, Mistress!” The jumbled images resolved into Schneider’s furry, whiskered face again as the Companion ran off-screen, presumably to go molest the sofa.

“That is why the authorities haven’t located Leita yet,” Schneider said with a weary sigh. “They think I’m joking or making prank calls because that damn walking dildo won’t stop acting the fool.”

“As I recall, I was the walking dildo not too long ago,” Pierce drawled, frowning.

Schneider swished his tufted tail in agitation. “I’ll apologize any way you want me to, Pierce—later. But right now, Leita needs help and no one else will listen to me. Did I make a mistake calling you? Were you just pretending to care about her?”

“No. No, I wasn’t pretending.” Pierce shook his head. “And I just happen to be in your sector.”

What he didn’t tell the furry Tarbian was that he was headed back to Leita’s life pod with a shipload of supplies for her. The way Pierce figured it, he owed her for the food and resources he’d consumed the month and a half he was staying with her. And if she happened to have a change of heart and invite him in for a hot cup of caffeine brew, well, so much the better. It was a desperate move on his part, though he didn’t want to acknowledge it, but in the month since he’d left her, he hadn’t been able to get Leita off his mind.

“Send me the coordinates of her watch-me,” he told Schneider. “I’m only a few hours’ superlight travel from the Galleria ship right now. Is she still there?”

“I don’t know,” Schneider said grimly. “The man who took her found out she had the watch-me on and crushed it. All I have is the last vidstream it sent right before it was destroyed.”

“What?” Pierce ran a hand through his hair. “Then she could be anywhere! Why the hell didn’t you call me sooner?”

“I tried to—I’ve been spending the last two days and nights tracking you down,” the Tarbian snapped. “You’re not exactly in the galaxy’s Who’s Who, you know.”

“Well, send me what you have, anyway,” Pierce said tightly. It was true that he’d been making himself scarce since he left Leita’s life pod. He still had Dal’s enormous bounty hanging over his head and Shie-lu and others like him were no doubt looking to collect.

“Sending.” Schneider’s furry face disappeared to show a waist-high view of a storefront filled with gold and silver boxes wrapped in bright red bows. Leita must have been wearing the watch-me in a bracelet, then. Pierce watched as she walked in to the shop, catching the name on the holo-loop above it as she moved her arm. Xander’s Gourmet Chocolates. Uh-oh, he already had a bad feeling about this. The store seemed too flashy—too tempting, especially for women living on the rough outer frontiers of the system and longing for little-seen luxuries. It was like a honeypot, drawing them in.