Companion 3000

“All right, you’re right.” Schneider groomed his sleek tan fur morosely. “I just don’t like being left alone with that thing. I thought Pierce was bad but at least he didn’t hump holes in the furniture.”

Leita pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger to drive back the stress headache that was hovering behind her eyes like a dark cloud. “Yeah, Pierce was a real prince of a guy. Helped around the life pod, cooked, fixed the ships in the mech bay. If only he hadn’t been a complete liar and an opportunistic bastard, he would’ve been the perfect man.”

Schneider put a small black-furred hand on her knee. “I’m sorry, Leita. I shouldn’t have brought him up.”

“No, it’s all right.” She sighed. “I’ll get over him eventually.”

“I hope so,” Schneider said. “I wish you weren’t going to the Galleria alone, though, Leita. I know everything looks bright and shiny there, but you still have to be careful.”

Leita patted his tiny hand. “I’ll wear my watch-me bracelet just in case so we’ll never really be out of contact. Okay? And in the meantime, I just hope we get rid of Horny soon. Like while we still have any furniture left.” A loud thumping climax from the other room complete with cries of passion from the Companion 2000 served to emphasize her point. Leita shook her head. She had never been so glad to be going grocery shopping in her life.

The Galleria ship was huge, a floating shopping complex divided into sections for the different species that inhabited the Centauri solar system. On it you could find everything from basic necessities to the latest fashions. It only came to Leita’s part of the system once every solar year and she usually loved making the trip to the massive ship to stock up. But this year she had been anticipating making the trip with Pierce. She’d imagined spending several days with him, taking in the sights and maybe seeing one of the latest entertainment vids and eating at the different restaurants. It was going to be so perfect, a romantic getaway for just the two of them, even though she’d been telling herself she wasn’t in love with him because she thought he was a machine.

The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her as she docked her tiny ore collecting ship in the port of the Galleria’s human goods and services section. She had wished that Pierce was a real man and he had turned out to be exactly that. But he’d also turned out to be a jerk, just like every other man in her life. Now she was left with nothing but bittersweet memories and a crazy couch-humping machine that was nothing like the man of her dreams, despite the For Her Pleasure advertisements and guarantees. As her tiny ship connected with the side of the Galleria like a flea clinging to a massive dog’s back, Leita wondered if she ought to invest in a sexual orientation change operation while she was here. She was fairly sure she had a better chance of finding a life partner who would love and cherish her as a lesbian than if she remained heterosexual.

She was still considering the idea as she left her ship and wandered down to the null-grav walkway that scrolled through the human food sector of the ship. The Galleria was so immense that no one could be expected to walk the length of even a section, which could be twenty Old Earth standard miles or more. The walkways allowed shoppers to float gently along until they saw a store they wanted to visit. A touch of the walkway’s guardrail deposited the shopper outside the shop of his or her choice. Once in the store, all items were purchased with credit and delivered directly to the buyer’s ship so no one had to worry about carrying their purchases everywhere they went. It was all waiting at the end of the day or the week or however long you chose to spend back at the ship. Leita found the arrangement very convenient, especially since she was buying supplies for months at a time.

She also enjoyed the ambiance of the Galleria; with its soft lighting and gentle music it was an ideal place to relax. You sometimes heard rumors of kidnappings or muggings since the huge ship was an ideal outpost for organized crime, but in all the years she’d been coming, Leita had never seen anything to support that. As far as she could see, the Galleria ship fulfilled its promise of relaxed, comfortable shopping. The stores along the walkways exhibited colorful displays of every item she could possibly want and quite a few she didn’t know she wanted until she saw them.

Of course, she told herself as she drifted along through the crowd of other shoppers, she wouldn’t be buying as much as she’d imagined she might be earlier. Food for herself and Schneider wouldn’t be nearly as much as food for the two of them plus Pierce would have been. The ironic thing was that she could easily have afforded food and supplies for three since while Pierce had been with her, the ore collection of her mining business had increased dramatically. That was because while he’d been helping her, she’d been able to repair disabled ships much more quickly and efficiently. In fact, if he really had been a Companion he would have paid for himself twice over, just in the time he’d spent in the life pod with her.