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                                 Plush Love
                                  Volume I

                               Episodes 1-34

                       Copyright (c) 2008, FurryWurry
                            All rights reserved.
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   Episode 1

                             Plush in the Night
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   Ben  woke  gradually  to  chill  darkness.  The  world  around him had
   changed.

   When  sunrise  had  brought  sleep,  he'd  been  on  a high shelf in a
   brightly  lit  room.  Below  had  been  a  pile  of much smaller plush
   friends.  Now he was at one end of a low platform and his friends were
   nowhere  to be seen. This room was small, and the only light came from
   a dim digital clock.

   In  the  quiet, he thought he heard a noise. Something breathing? Some
   one breathing?

   Ben withdrew into stillness. People mustn't see him move.

   His  eyes  continued  to  adapt to the darkness. The breather was much
   closer  than  he'd  first  thought.  Although  it  sounded distant and
   muffled,  its source shared the platform with him. One of its ends was
   only  inches  away. It was completely covered, though, so Ben couldn't
   see what it was.

   Suddenly  it  squirmed  under  its dark blue cover. The surface of the
   platform  started to undulate. Could it be water? The breather stopped
   moving  and gradually the waves died out. This water was very strange.
   It  was  blue  enough,  with  hints of green, but was quite dry and...
   furry? Whatever it was, it hid the breather well.

   He  still  couldn't  make  out what was under the covering. Sight just
   wasn't  going  to  be  enough. Quietly, Ben breathed deeply. Maybe his
   poor sense of smell would help.

   Yes. That was a human under the covering. Male, and apparently mature.
   The scent was almost unmistakable.

   Ben  was  afraid  for  the first time. He'd heard horror stories about
   adult  human  males.  How  they were the ones who declared plush to be
   unfit toys for youngsters who'd grown up, and "disposed" of them.

   Ben  wondered  how  he'd  gotten  here.  It  had happened while he was
   sleeping. Someone finally must have bought him! He'd always dreamed of
   being taken home to be cherished by some youngster.

   Many  evenings  at  the  store,  when he'd been awake but withdrawn in
   stillness,  young people had squealed in delight when they'd seen him.
   Many  had  climbed  on  him,  hugged  him,  and declared their undying
   devotion.  Their  parents  always  dragged  them  away crying, though.
   Finally  a  clerk  had  put  Ben  on  a high shelf were he couldn't be
   touched  and  dirtied by small hands. If he could have, Ben would have
   wept. The anguish had been almost unbearable.

   It  must  have  been  the tag around his neck. Parents had winced when
   they  read it. It surely had had something horrible written there, but
   Ben  hadn't been able to see what it was. When he'd asked other plush,
   they'd  just  shaken  their heads. The tags he'd been able to see only
   had cleaning instructions and named the distant company which had made
   him.

   Ben  suddenly  realized  that  the  abominable  neck tag was gone. His
   itches  had  stopped,  too!  All  of the other tags that had been tied
   through  his skin were missing. Someone had carefully removed them. He
   felt much better. And a bit braver.

   Slowly,  moving just one paw at a time, Ben crept toward the other end
   of  the  platform. He had to learn what was sharing the room with him.
   Every  movement  started  small ripples, but the sleeper seemed not to
   notice.

   Twang! Gurgle, gurgle.

   The  sudden  noises  paralyzed  him. What was happening? Was something
   else  in  the  room?  Had it seen him? The sounds were coming from the
   darkness at the bottom of a wall.

   Then  he  could  move again. The room was quickly warming. It was just
   the heating system coming on.

   The  sleeper  suddenly  turned over, face up, throwing off some of the
   covers. That started another large undulation of the bed's surface.

   Again  he  couldn't move, but the glow from the clock seemed brighter.
   His  eyes were still adapting. Now Ben could see the gleam of light on
   pelt.

   Maybe  he'd  been mistaken. Although large, the person with him looked
   much  younger  than  he  had been expecting. An adolescent? He'd never
   seen one before. Only adults and youngsters had come into the store.

   Once  more  the  waves  gradually  died  out, and the sleeper breathed
   quietly.  When  Ben could move again, he inched toward the head of the
   waterbed.

   Finally  he  was  close, his eyes only inches from the sleeper's face.
   The odor of a teenaged male filled Ben's nose. Blue clocklight gleamed
   on a pale pelt, on straight, dark, tousled hair.

   Ben was in love.

   He couldn't resist.

   Real people tasted even better than he'd imagined.
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   Episode 2

                             Plush in the Dawn
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   Luke  lay  quietly, eyes closed, as the early morning light sneaked in
   around  the curtains. He did not want to get up. Remembering the dream
   was much more interesting, but it was fading quickly.

   Tongues.  No,  just one. A very large, very soft tongue. On his cheek.
   In  his  ear. A furry nose, pressing gently under his chin. The tongue
   again, caressing his throat, his shoulder, his chest.

   If  only  he  could remember more. He didn't often have dreams that he
   liked.  The  ones  that stuck were more like nightmares. Most recently
   they'd  been  about  midterms:  searching for a room he couldn't find;
   having  to take a test for a course he'd forgotten to attend. Those he
   could do without.

   It  was a relief that the real tests were over for a while. Fall break
   was  going  to  be much too short. It gave him only a few days to work
   full time. It'd be almost relaxation compared to classes, and it would
   be good to have some spending money, too. Christmas was coming all too
   soon.

   Someone must have started celebrating early, though. Who could it have
   been?  A large box had been waiting in the hallway when he got back to
   his  apartment the previous evening. Whoever had sent it had forgotten
   to  include  any return address. Despite the size, the carton had been
   surprisingly light.

   Luke  was  feeling warmer and warmer. His bedroom had been rather cool
   when  he  went to sleep, cuddling up in the warm plush covers, but now
   he  was feeling hot. The furnace must have turned on during the night.
   He still hadn't gotten the baseboard louvers adjusted right.

   Usually  he knocked off the covers in his sleep when it got this warm.
   In  fact, he could feel cool air along one side. Sweat was starting to
   form  under the weight of the covers on the other, though. The blanket
   and  furry  bedspread  didn't  usually feel that heavy. They must have
   bunched up.

   Sigh.  They  were  just too uncomfortable. Time to get up. Luke opened
   his eyes.

   Bright blue eyes stared back.

   The  gift.  "The Sudden Unexpected Benevolence of Strangers" the paper
   had said its name was. "But his fireside name is Ben." It seemed a bit
   elaborate  for  a joke. A long pedigree just for a stuffed toy animal?
   Although  it  was a rather large stuffed animal. "An imperial Siberian
   snow  tiger,"  the  paperwork claimed, "known for its ferocity, but in
   reality very affectionate." A large, extremely beautiful plush animal.

   But what was it doing lying on top of him?

   Before he fell asleep, the plush tiger had been across the foot of the
   bed.  Luke  was sure of that. He'd been enjoying rubbing his bare feet
   though  its fur. He'd never felt anything so soft. The last thing Luke
   remembered was pulling his feet back under the covers and curling up.

   Oh,  well,  maybe he'd grabbed it in his sleep to help keep warm. Some
   nights  he  thrashed  around  a  bit. And he knew he used the bathroom
   sometimes without remembering.

   Luke  sat up and stretched, letting the plush tiger slide off. The bed
   sloshed  a  bit.  Despite the warmth, the soft fur sliding against him
   felt extremely pleasant.

   It felt just as good when he hugged it.

   "Good  morning,  Ben. Did you sleep well?" Luke buried his nose in the
   fur  of  the neck. It had a pleasant odor he didn't recognize, and the
   fur  tickled  against  his  chest.  He  ran  one  hand back and forth,
   ruffling the thick plush.

   Feeling a bit foolish, he looked carefully at the mouth. Nope, no way.
   There  was  no  sign  of  any  opening, just two pieces of plush cloth
   meeting at a seam.

   Heck,  while he was at it, he might as well inspect the stuffed animal
   thoroughly.  He'd  been  too tired to do much last night, and he still
   had  a  little while before he was supposed to be at the lab. Luke ran
   his  hands  all  over the head. The striped plush there was only a bit
   shorter than on the body and almost as soft. He could feel some seams,
   though.  He  rubbed the short white fur on the top of the nose and the
   lower  jaw.  Even  the  shortest  fur of the pinkish-tan nose was soft
   against his cheek.

   Tickling  the  grey and white ears, he smoothed the short mane framing
   the  head. It was still a bit ruffled from earlier. The neck and chest
   felt  firm  as he hugged it again. The body was much softer, while the
   legs and tail were almost floppy.

   He  still couldn't get over the size. The few stuffed animals he'd had
   as  a child had been only a foot or so long. He'd seen some bears that
   stood  somewhat  over  two feet high, though. This tiger was more than
   five  feet  long from its nose to the tip of its tail. Its body seemed
   to be almost as long as his own.

   Luke stretched the cat out on the bed, then threw back the rest of the
   covers.  Laying  beside  it,  he  looked down. Yup. With its shoulders
   level with his, their rumps were just about even.

   Rolling Ben onto his back, Luke rubbed the soft plush belly, following
   the stripes where they wrapped around. The firmness of the upper front
   almost  felt like a rib cage. The nether regions had a few seams where
   the  legs  and  tail  were joined, but despite his name, Ben was quite
   neuter.

   The  plush  animal looked a bit awkward on its back like that. Ben was
   obviously  designed  to  look best resting on his stomach, head up and
   alert.

   Luke  started to roll the big cat over again, but the bed seemed to be
   a  bit  more  crowded than before. Somehow the plush tiger wound up on
   top, Luke's nose pressed into the front of its chest.

   Mmmmm. That did feel good.

   Luke decided he wasn't going to be on time for work today.
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   Episode 3

                      A Lonely Plush in the Afternoon
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   Ben  watched  wistfully  as  the  door slammed behind Luke. What could
   possibly  be the matter? It couldn't be anything he had done. Like all
   good  plush animals, he couldn't do anything at all when there was the
   slightest chance it would be noticed. He sadly decided that it must be
   some  strange  human  ritual: look at a clock, yell, and stop whatever
   you'd been doing just so you could pull on clothes and run away.

   Earlier  in the morning, though, he'd come to the delighted conclusion
   that  Luke  really  liked  him.  Ben  had  enjoyed  the  grooming, the
   cuddling,  the hands stroking his sides or tickling his belly. It must
   almost be like a kitten cared for by its mother, he thought.

   Despite  Luke's  size, he often seemed to act much like a cub himself.
   Like  when he rubbed his face against Ben's. Little cubs did that when
   they  wanted  their parents to regurgitate food for them. Not that Ben
   could do that!

   Strong  feelings  of  affection overwhelmed the plush feline. No story
   told  in the store's plush pile could ever touch the reality of having
   his own human. He purred loudly -- no person was there to hear.

   Luke had alternated the caresses with stretching the cat out to admire
   his  design.  He'd  stared  at  the  expressive  face  with stiff nose
   whiskers,  jaunty  ears and bright blue eyes, the deep chest and proud
   neck,   the  broad  back  and  gently  protruding  belly,  the  strong
   hindquarters  and  soft tail. Ben knew he was justified in being a bit
   vain.

   Every time Luke had looked at the tiger for more than a minute or two,
   though, he'd returned to petting him. Stroking his neck, his legs, his
   back,  his  stomach.  Tickling  his  own stomach with Ben's tail. More
   memories to make Ben purr.

   Until  suddenly...  The  clock.  The  abominable time keeper. "Twelve
   o'clock?" Luke had yelled, "I'm late!" He'd leaped out of the bed making
   big waves, dressed and run out the door.

   Ben  sighed. Alone. He wondered for how long. At the store, people had
   usually  left  when  a  5 appeared on the clock. Maybe Luke would come
   back then? At least he could hope.

   The  tiger  looked around. Maybe there was something of Luke's to keep
   him  occupied.  He  couldn't move anything, of course, but looking and
   smelling, that should be OK.

   The sheets. A light blue, the upper one shoved down to the foot of the
   bed with the blanket and bedspread. Maybe they'd been on the bed a few
   days. MmmMmmMmm. Yes. He could smell Luke in the folds.

   It must have been lonely for him, before Ben came. The plush cat still
   wondered about that. How had he gotten here, anyhow?

   What  else?  Ah, the pillow. Luke's head must have rested there a lot.
   Another odor worth purring over: hair oils rubbed into the pillowcase.
   Ben rubbed his own face in that, then looked around some more.

   Electronics  on  a  table:  a  computer,  its  screen  dark; a pair of
   speakers.  No  TV? Books on shelves, though. There were lots of books,
   some  piled  open  on  a  desk. Although there'd been colorful picture
   books near the plush pile in the store, none of them had been as thick
   as  Luke's,  filled with such dense black marks. Ben could barely make
   them  out from the bed. There were numbers and letters, with squiggles
   that  weren't  in  most  alphabets.  Textbooks? Maybe he still goes to
   school?

   And where were these recognitions coming from? Ben was sure he'd never
   seen such things before.

   Oh,  look:  a  pile of dirty clothes in a corner! Ben hopped down from
   the  bed  to  the  deep,  green  carpet and went over to nose at them.
   Underwear  was  on  top. It had some interesting scents. Underarms and
   deodorant  were  strongest. That made him sneeze. Too unnatural. There
   was  a  strong  smell of something nasty on the blue pants underneath,
   too. Tar? Whatever that was.

   Several  doors  were  closed to Ben, but one was open, letting him pad
   into  a  small  dark  room with porcelain fixtures. It had interesting
   aromas,  too.  The  floor was dry, but it seemed Luke missed once in a
   while. On the other paw, the tiny food nook was almost odorless. Maybe
   some cereal? That didn't interest a faux carnivore like him. Oh, well.

   He  wandered back to the bed. It rippled only a little as the dejected
   plush  tiger  climbed back on. He flopped down as if tossed by someone
   in a hurry, but somehow his nose landed in the pillow.

   Ben slept.
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   Episode 4

                         An Evening to Cuddle Plush
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   Ben woke abruptly to warm darkness. Something was happening.

   A key was rattling in the door. Luke! Could it be? Finally!

   It  had  been a long wait. Five o'clock had come and gone with no sign
   of him. Now it was after nine.

   Ben  had  been  getting worried. Had something happened? Had Luke been
   hurt? Even the thought of that possibility was gut wrenching.

   The  door opened and the lights came on. It was! Luke! Although he did
   look  rather tired and sad. His face lit up with a smile, though, when
   he saw the tiger sprawled on the bed.

   "Hi, Ben. I hope your day was better than mine."

   As  he  closed the door, Luke noticed how warm the room was. "Wow, has
   the heat been on all day?" Thank goodness it was included in the rent.

   Luke  started  taking off his clothes. They quickly joined the pile in
   the corner.

   "I'll be with you in a minute, Ben. I've got to take a shower."

   In  his  rush  to leave at noon, he hadn't taken the time to brush his
   teeth, let alone bathe. The stress of the day afterward hadn't helped:
   software  that  didn't  work  and  people who'd been nasty about it. A
   close  friend ignoring him had hurt, too. The lab was a lot quieter in
   the  evening, so he'd stayed late to try to finish the project, but it
   still had bugs.

   Ben  saw  the  light  come on in the bathroom, then heard Luke use the
   toilet.  Water  started  in the shower. From the humming and splashing
   noises,  he  could tell that Luke was enjoying getting clean. Soon the
   water  stopped,  though,  and  he  could  hear  a  towel being applied
   vigorously,  and  then a toothbrush. Finally the light clicked off and
   Luke came out.

   Now  the  room felt comfortable rather than warm. Luke sprawled out on
   the  bed  next to Ben. It felt good to relax with someone so friendly.
   Luke  felt a bit of surprise. The plush tiger did seem to be welcoming
   him.  The  cat  certainly wasn't about to say any of the things Luke'd
   overheard about lazy sophomores.

   Luke  pulled  the stuffed animal close. With its head on one shoulder,
   he  could  reach  around  and  stroke  the  soft  fur while holding it
   tightly.

   "Ah,  Ben, you are a friend indeed." Luke relaxed. The soft weight was
   soothing, almost like a hug.

   Luke  groaned.  "Oh,  well, one more thing to find out." He got up and
   turned  on  the computer. "Hey, Ben, do you want to help?" He sat down
   with  the  tiger  in  his  lap.  "Mmmpfh." It was just too big. Typing
   around it, with his face full of plush fur, just wasn't going to work.
   He let Ben slip down between his legs. That was a bit better. The body
   fur  stroked his lower legs, and the tiger's forelegs rested gently on
   Luke's upper thighs.

   The disk whirred a bit while the browser connected to the campus login
   service.  A  picture  of the university's scowling, pot-bellied mascot
   appeared,  waiting for Luke to type his password. Maybe it was just as
   well  that  Ben  couldn't  see the screen. Luke thought the mascot was
   rather cute, and it wouldn't do for the white tiger to get jealous. He
   grinned at the idea. It could be that he was anthropomorphizing just a
   little too much.

   Oh,  no.  The  math  midterm  grades  had  been  posted, but he wasn't
   anywhere  near  the  top.  Or  even  the  middle.  Luke turned off the
   computer  with  a  slam.  He certainly didn't feel like leaving it on,
   even to watch cable.

   Ben  didn't  know what was wrong, but the way he was tossed on the bed
   told  him that his boy was hurting. Luke almost dove after him, making
   the  surface  slosh  wildly.  He  grabbed  the plush tiger tightly and
   buried his face in the fur. Engineering physics was so hard!

   Luke  wrapped  his  legs  around  the  soft  white tiger and hugged it
   tightly  for a long time. Eventually he loosened his grip a little and
   rubbed  his  face  on  the  plush.  The  fur  was damp with his tears.
   Nineteen  was  supposed  to  be  too  old  for crying, but he knew Ben
   wouldn't mind. Ben was his friend.
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   Episode 5

                     Dreams of Plush: Floral Encounter
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   A  low  spring  sun shone brightly on the rolling tundra. Unseasonable
   heat  had  brought  out  a  carpet of tiny bright flowers and hair-fine
   grass. The ground was soft and cool underfoot.

   Luke  looked  around  bemusedly.  He'd  never been any place like this
   before. There were no signs of any habitation: no houses, no smoke, no
   paths. No way for him to have gotten here. No way to get back.

   Along  one  horizon,  he  could see what might be mountains made a dim
   blue  by  distance. In other directions, the colorful ground seemed to
   extend forever.

   A  gentle,  comfortable  breeze  caressed  him.  There  was  no hum of
   insects:  no  biting flies, neither bees nor wasps to sting. Somewhere
   birds  were  singing,  though.  Maybe one of the cloud shadows chasing
   across  the  land  was actually a herd of animals. It was too far away
   for him to be sure, and it wasn't headed this way, anyhow.

   He  knelt  and  inspected the ground cover. The tiny flowers gave off a
   faint sweet odor. When he moved his foot, they seemed to crush beneath
   it,  releasing  a  stronger scent. When he lifted it again most sprang
   back  undamaged,  but  others  left  a colorful stain on his foot. The
   grass felt soft and smooth like the pelt of an animal, but green and a
   little cool. It was too dense for him to see the earth beneath.

   The  vegetation  wasn't  entirely  uniform.  Some  of the flowers were
   larger  with denser foliage than others, and there were several clumps
   of  dark,  reed-like stalks. Dried remains left over from the previous
   season,  perhaps?  They  looked  stiff  and  brown. Some of the larger
   clumps  seemed to be harboring patches of melting snow. He walked over
   to one of them. The grass and flowers were springy under his step.

   Yup.  A  testing  finger  confirmed  it.  It was snow, alright, slowly
   melting  into the ground. It tasted like the purest, icy spring water.
   He wouldn't go thirsty, anyhow. Maybe some of the flowers were edible?
   But he wasn't hungry. No matter.
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   See  the  ferocious  carnivore wake slowly from its nap. Its sensitive
       nose  detects  the  delicious  scent of prey. Through slit eyes it
       watches  a pale biped dancing carelessly in the distance. Sunlight
       gleams on a glossy pelt. Shadows and light reveal muscles bunching
       and  relaxing.  This  beast has gone too long without a meal. Soon
       will be the time to feast. To taste tender meat.
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   Luke  enjoyed  the  fresh air, the floral scent, the gentle breeze. No
   tests,  no  computers, no people to insult him, no clothes to bind. He
   tried  doing  a  few  hand stands, but kept falling with a soft thump.
   Rolling  in  the  grass was fun, too. It tickled, and the flowers left
   behind small smears of odor and color.

   Although  different  colors  of  flowers  were  mixed together in some
   places,  in others they were more uniform. Here there were large areas
   of  yellow,  but over there some bright red, elsewhere pale blue. He'd
   always  preferred  blue,  so  he  wandered toward a particularly vivid
   patch.
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   Observe  the careless biped approach its destiny. Unconcerned, it lies
       down in the tempting meadow, but just a little too far. The mighty
       hunter  is  strong and fast, but running unnecessarily is much too
       boring. It will wait. The prey will surely come closer.
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   Luke  spread  out on the soft bed of tiny bright blue flowers. The sun
   felt  warm  and  comforting. A little rest wouldn't hurt. After baking
   his front for a while, he turned over and rested his face on his arms.
   The cool plants felt good on his heated front, while the sunlight felt
   just as good to his back.
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   Watch  the  monster  start to drool over the prey displaying itself to
       the hungry observer. First its front: breathing deeply to show its
       broad  chest,  its flat abdomen. The gentle curves of a strong leg
       are  outlined  against  distant  cloud.  Then it turns to show its
       other side: strong shoulders, broad back, jutting rump. Waving one
       foot in the air, a flexing thigh and quivering calf tempt a hungry
       appetite.
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   For a while, Luke rested with his eyes closed. When he opened them, he
   enjoyed  playing with the colors. With just the lower eye open, all he
   could see were blotches of green and blue. With the upper one he could
   see across the top of a blue-green sea of fuzz.

   A  few  yards  away  was  one  of those patches of stalks and snow. He
   drowsily  watched  the breeze flex the reeds. Back and forth. Back and
   forth. The motion was almost hypnotic.

   Strange. Their shadows didn't follow them back and forth. Maybe they'd
   escaped. Like Peter Pan's. "Second star to the left ..." Pirates, lost
   boys, Indian maidens, the stuff of dreams.
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   The  hunter  knows its disguise is fading. It starts to pant, building
       its oxygen reserves, preparing for the chase.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Now  the  reed  shadows  seemed  to  be dancing on their own. Back and
   forth,  in  and  out. Like shadows of bamboo on a billowing tent, like
   stripes on a large chest, like...

   Like camouflage on a monstrous foe. One with slitted eyes and a gaping
   maw,   filled  with  countless  teeth  like  gleaming  white  daggers.
   Drooling.

   Luke leaped and ran.

   He  could  hardly  move.  Each step seemed to be embedded in molasses.
   Strain  as  he  would,  he  could only travel in slow motion. He could
   almost hear the fearsome beast leaping closer through the grass behind
   him.
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   Ben yawned widely, his jaw popping. Wow, that did feel good.

   Whatever  was  Luke doing now? Running with his eyes closed? Didn't he
   know any better? He might trip! Look at those muscles flex. He must be
   really straining.

   Ben  stretched,  then  bounded  after. Time to join the romp. Wouldn't
   Luke be surprised!

   Luke's  left foot found a clump of taller, tangled flowers. He hit the
   ground with a thump and a slide. Multicolored goo plastered his front.
   When the skid stopped, he covered his neck with his hands. Weren't you
   supposed to do that when attacked by bears? You lost your fingers, but
   not your neck?

   Oops.  That  was  quite a tumble! Luke had really slimmed himself, too.
   But what was he covering his neck for? To keep off the sun, maybe? Did
   he burn easily? That couldn't happen here, though.

   Luke  felt  the  dreaded shadow on his back, cooler than the sunlight,
   the  weight of a fearsome paw pinning him firmly, a panting breath hot
   against his shoulders.

   Then  tongues.  No,  just  one. A very large, very soft tongue. On his
   cheek.  In  his  ear. A furry nose, pressing gently under his arm. The
   tongue  again,  tickling  his  armpit, caressing his shoulder, licking
   more goo from his fingers. A pleasant odor, very familiar.

   "Ben?  Ben! There's a horrible, big..." Luke twisted under the paw and
   stared  up  at  the  immense imperial Siberian snow tiger looming over
   him,  silently  laughing  at him. A large, now disgustingly wet tongue
   slurped his face.

   Alarmed,  Luke  started  to  sit  up  and  tried to back away, pushing
   against slippery flowers with hands and feet.

   Ben  wasn't  about to let that happen. Not when he had a chance for an
   enjoyable meal. One paw behind a leg, a bump of head to the chest, and
   Luke  was flat on his back. A paw firmly placed on the exposed stomach
   with  just  a  hint of claw made sure the prey would not try to escape
   again.

   The  tiger  started  with Luke's face. The chin still held some floral
   juice that he'd missed the first time. Then the forearms, where they'd
   plowed  along  the  ground.  Fingers  were  fun  to suck, tickling the
   webbing that had collected blue and red.

   Luke  finally  realized  what was happening. He recognized a romp he'd
   dimly imagined on some distant morning, in another place, far away. He
   grinned  and  relaxed.  What  can't be cured must be endured. Riiight.
   Endurance  was  definitely  the order of the day. He was still gasping
   for air.

   Next the straining chest. A smear of orange was gone too soon from the
   right  side,  so  Ben  exerted  a  little extra attention on the left,
   licking off its yellow and green.

   Luke squirmed.

   Then  the  white  tiger lavished attention on Luke's stomach, tickling
   his  belly  button, making him giggle, twitch and gasp some more. Then
   Ben  went  lower,  where  ridges of hipbone had dug up more flowers to
   savor. The skilled tongue progressed to his thighs and then his knees.
   Those  had  to be scrubbed. Knees always seem to get stuff ground into
   them.  A couple of quick swipes took care of the shins: not much juice
   there.

   But  then  the  toes.  Ah,  the  toes,  with  stems and flowers caught
   between.  Not  to  mention  the  pulp  that  had been pounded into the
   bottoms  of  the feet. The white tiger could fit almost an entire foot
   into  his  mouth,  first  the  left,  then the right. He mouthed them,
   chewing  gently,  driving  Luke  crazy.  His  soles  were particularly
   sensitive.  It didn't help that the feet conspired with one another to
   escape,  one  pushing,  the other pulling, slipping out of the tiger's
   mouth, forcing him to go chasing the truant.

   Luke  was  limp  from  laughing  so  much.  His  stomach hurt, too. An
   anguished afternoon might never have happened.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 6

                              A Working Sunday
     _________________________________________________________________

   Luke  lay  quietly, eyes closed, as the early morning light sneaked in
   around  the curtains. He did not want to get up. Remembering the dream
   was  much  more interesting, and unlike the previous morning, this one
   was not fading so quickly.

   Warm sunlight. Squishy flowers. A frisky tiger.

   Yes! A reason to open his eyes, to pull a furry body close.

   "That  was  mean,  Ben.  I'm  ticklish!"  Luke  complained, not at all
   seriously. He'd enjoyed it. A lot.

   The plush tiger stared back solemnly, motionlessly.

   But  Luke was not to be dissuaded. "I don't want you doing that again.
   Not  unless  I  say  you  can.  You  understand? If you do, I can't be
   responsible for what happens." He gave the cat a shake. "I'm sure I'll
   lose  my self control!" He smiled, buried his face in the tiger's neck
   and breathed deeply, enjoying the odor.

   What  might  he  do  if  it  could really happen? Outside a dream? His
   imagination  suggested  some answers, but he wasn't sure. When it came
   to  actually  doing  something,  feelings might change. Sometimes Luke
   felt he was too self controlled, unwilling to take chances.

   "Oh, well. Sorry, Ben, I've gotta go in to work again. No staying home
   today. People are depending on me, even though it's Sunday."

   His  boss  had  said  that  they'd welcome him putting in a full eight
   hours  every  day for the entire fall break. Since school was out, the
   work-study  limits didn't apply. Too bad he couldn't afford to go home
   like  some  of the other students did, the ones who weren't going some
   place warm to party, anyhow.

   It  should  be  quiet, too. He might be able to get a lot done without
   interruptions.  Most  of  the  people  who worked full time at the lab
   would be taking the day off.

   "Too much introspection!" he told himself firmly. "Get up!"

   Giving  Ben  a  last stroke, Luke rolled off the bed and went into the
   bathroom. Toilet, shower, deodorant, teeth. He was glad he didn't have
   to do things like shave. Wouldn't that look weird!

   As usual, he wasn't hungry this early. Maybe a coffee at work.

   He dressed and left.
     _________________________________________________________________

   "Hi, Luke, working again?"

   It  was  Nathan,  not ignoring him today. One of the support staff, he
   almost always had time to make a friendly comment or answer questions,
   even  silly  ones. Every once in a while, though, all of his attention
   seemed  to  be  somewhere else. Luke liked him a lot. He didn't act at
   all prejudiced, unlike some of the other stans.

   "Yeah. Control algorithms don't write themselves, you know."

   "Oh,  I  don't  know  about  that.  Some of the new 'plexes are pretty
   sophisticated.  I  heard they've got several over in the CS department
   running stuff that passes most of the Turing tests."

   "Sure. But faking a conversation doesn't mean they can put two and two
   together and get five."

   "Oh? Trying to drag in a one from hyperspace, are you?" Nathan joked.

   Luke  stared at the screen. "It certainly looks like I'm going to have
   to. The laser motors don't seem to be able to find the focus no matter
   what I do. I thought this was supposed to be an easy problem. Why else
   would they give it to an undergrad like me?"

   "I  can  think  of  a few reasons." Nathan grinned. Luke wondered just
   what he meant by that.

   "Maybe  you  just  need a break. Have you had lunch, yet? Man does not
   live on caffeine alone, you know." Meaning he was one, too? Yes, he did
   like Nathan.

   "Not  yet.  I  was just thinking of getting something quick out of the
   vending machine."

   "I  already  looked. There's nothing but real junk left today. I don't
   think  they  refilled  it on Friday. It's annoying. I guess they still
   think  when there's no classes everybody leaves. Of course, that's our
   busiest time here. You'd think they'd have learned that by now."

   "Maybe they figure we'll all be so hungry we'll eat whatever's left no
   matter what it is. More profit for them."

   "You're  probably right," Nathan grumbled. "Would you be interested in
   some  pizza if I had one delivered? I haven't had any for a long time,
   but  I really don't want to walk all the way to collegetown." All of a
   fifteen  minute  walk,  that'd  be,  Luke knew. It had taken him about
   twenty to get to the lab this morning, and that was coming uphill from
   the far side.

   "Well,  I  guess." How to explain he couldn't afford to spend much for
   it?  One  of  the  advantages  of  the vending machine was that it was
   cheap. A lot cheaper than delivery of a fresh pizza, anyhow.

   "Great!  I'll  get  a half-and-half. I'll let you know when it's here.
   Maybe  45  minutes."  He  left  before Luke could ask what he meant by
   half-and-half.

   After  a  thirty  minute  struggle  with the feedback math, his screen
   announced a message. "Pizza's in my office getting cold. BYOB." BYOB?

   "BRT"  Luke  responded, locked the screen and grabbed his fresh cup of
   coffee. He hurried down the empty hallway to the elevator.

   When  he  got  off at the floor where the computer staff offices were,
   the pungent aroma of hot pizza met him. Cheese, tomato sauce, meat and
   spices! His mouth was watering long before he got to the office Nathan
   normally shared with another staff member.

   "Hi!"  Nathan  greeted  him. "How about we take this to the conference
   room? The chairs there are a lot more comfortable."

   "Sure." Luke paused, then asked reluctantly "How much do I owe you for
   my half?"

   "Nothing.  My  treat.  I really need some comfort food after having to
   come  in  today,  and  sharing  with  you  gives  me an excuse for not
   settling for a granola bar." Nathan shuddered.

   "That  bad?"  Luke asked as they walked down the hall. It was as empty
   as  the other had been. Despite Nathan's earlier comment, it was clear
   that  there  was  almost  nobody  around.  Probably  just  the machine
   operator  and one or two experimenters. Luke had welcomed the quiet so
   he could concentrate.

   "Worse,"  Nathan  grumped.  "It's  what I get for living so close. Any
   little  thing  that  can't  be taken care of remotely, I'm the one who
   gets  to  come  in  to fix it. Even when there's a blizzard with three
   foot  drifts."  Luke  noticed  he'd  avoided saying just what had gone
   wrong.

   They  sat  at  a corner of the long table and opened the box. Half the
   pizza  was  piled high with meat, the other with vegetables. Both were
   thick  with  cheese  and  tomato  sauce,  and  plenty  of napkins were
   included.

   There  was  a long, companionable silence broken only by the sounds of
   chewing.

   Finally  there  was  only one piece left. "That's yours," Luke pointed
   out. "I've had my three."

   Nathan  looked  at  it wistfully. "I can't. I'm full. And I shouldn't,
   anyhow."

   "Shouldn't?"

   "Yeah. Cholesterol. My doctor'll be pissed if he finds out. I'm gonna
   have to exercise extra already. You take it."

   "Cholesterol?  Why  do  you  have to worry about that? You're not old
   enough."   Nathan   was   maybe  thirty  five,  Luke  thought.  Wasn't
   cholesterol  an  old  man's  disease? Not one he'd ever have to worry
   about himself, though.

   "Age has nothing to do with it, really. The buildup started when I was
   a  kid.  My parents couldn't afford the genesplice to fix it. Not like
   yours."

   Luke  stiffened.  "I  don't have parents. I thought you knew that," he
   growled.

   "Sorry,  sorry!"  Nathan  apologized  quickly. "I meant 'not like your
   genesplice.' I know how DARPA screwed you guys over. It was in all the
   news."

   Ten  years ago, kids brought up in an isolated creche had learned they
   weren't   like  anyone  else.  Funding  had  been  canceled  and  the
   researchers  working  for  the  military had had to find fostering for
   them.  The  obvious  alternative  would  have been murder, but lots of
   people with standard genetics didn't see it that way. Even today, some
   stans  still  thought they were abominations, animals that should have
   been put down. Luke had been nine.

   Still annoyed, Luke started to stand up. Nathan reached toward him.

   "Please,  Luke, I like you. I think you got a really rotten deal, even
   though you're really better than most other people."

   Frozen,  still  frowning,  Luke stared at the outstretched hand. Other
   people. Nathan really did think of him as people. Fur and all.

   Nathan  slowly  dropped his hand. His shoulders slumped. "I still want
   you to take that piece of pizza," he said quietly.

   "Sure!"  Luke  grinned  abruptly.  "I'm sorry, too. Maybe I'm just too
   touchy about those things. There's a lot of prejudice."

   Nathan  smiled  back in relief. "OK, then. You wrap it up and I'll get
   rid  of the box. I'm sure there's room in the fridge. For the slice of
   pizza, I mean!"

   Nathan  had  been  right.  A  lunch  break  with a friend made all the
   difference.  Soon  the  laser  motors  were  pointing it at the focus.
   Tomorrow, X-rays!
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 7

                           Plush Dreams: The Hunt
     _________________________________________________________________

     WARNING: This episode includes scenes which may be too intense for
                some readers. Viewer discretion is advised.

   A  brilliant  sun shone on the rolling tundra. The heat of the day had
   brought  out  the  scents  of  growing  things.  Tiny  flowers bloomed
   brightly  everywhere,  filling the air with their odors, almost hiding
   the trails left by small perspiring animals.

     * The  hungry  hunter  sniffed  carefully.  The scent was faint, the
       footprints  blurred  by recovering grass. He recognized the trail,
       though.  It belonged to a small, tender species, and it had passed
       this  way  recently.  Young  animals  of  that  type  were usually
       careless  and  easy to catch. Experienced ones were more cautious,
       sometimes crafty. Adults protecting young could even be dangerous.
       He'd have to be careful.

   Chewing  on  a  tasty  flower,  the  small  animal relaxed in the warm
   sunlight.  Nearby  were several groves of trees and shrubs, convenient
   hiding  places.  The  heat  made him drowsy, but he had to stay alert.
   There  weren't  many,  but  it  only  took one predator to ruin a fine
   morning.  He  lazily  watched  a  fuzzy  bee explore a nearby blossom.
   Stingerless,  it  was  one of many identical relatives filling the air
   with a soothing hum.

     * The  hunter  looked around quietly, moving only his head. Maybe it
       was  still  nearby. Nothing else moved but the bees. The still air
       carried  only  the  scent of flowers. Too bad. He'd have to follow
       the trail through the grass, watching for footprints, sniffing for
       odors.  Green  blades swished against his legs as he padded along,
       head low.

   A  touch!  A tickle! The animal thrashed. Blasted bees. They seemed to
   love  to land on an unsuspecting back and dance on sensitive surfaces.
   The annoyance chased away, he sprawled out again in the cool grass.

     * What was that? The hunter froze. Had he heard something moving? He
       listened  intensely.  Nothing. Just the bees humming. They weren't
       worth  trying  to  catch. They were much too small. Probably sour,
       too. The trail beckoned. It seemed to be leading around a grove of
       trees.

   The  animal  plucked some grass blades and sucked on their stems. They
   weren't  quite  as  sweet  as the flowers, more watery. He was getting
   thirsty,  but they weren't enough. Trees liked to grow around springs.
   There  should  be  one  close  by.  After  a  careful  look around, he
   stretched and headed for the nearest stand.

     * That sound was unmistakable! Grass mashing underfoot, flower stems
       crumpling.  The  hunter  almost  smiled.  Unwary prey for sure. He
       still  couldn't  see any movement. It must be on the other side of
       the  trees.  Twigs snapped. It was actually coming closer, through
       the shrubbery. He quickly bounded into the shade.

   Ouch!  The animal licked a slight scratch. That shouldn't happen. He'd
   have  to  be  more  careful.  The  scent  of fresh blood could attract
   unwelcome visitors.

   There was a quiet burbling ahead. He couldn't see anything, though. It
   was  very  dark  under  the  trees  after  the bright sunlight. A soft
   cushion  of  leaves  and pine needles deadened his footfalls. Was that
   movement ahead? He froze.

     * The hunter enjoyed the cool air after the bright sun. He'd be hard
       to  see  in  the  dim  light,  although  his  own eyesight adapted
       quickly.  Ahead  he  could  smell water. Even if the prey escaped,
       that  would  be  welcome. Cold fluid running over his heated body.
       Yes.  Almost  as good as thrashing prey under his claws, hot blood
       on  his tongue, bones crunching between his teeth. He crouched and
       crept  closer to the spring. There was something pale on the other
       side.

   The  animal  relaxed.  It  was  only  the light flickering on bubbling
   water.  It  looked  cool  and  inviting. The pond was larger than he'd
   expected,  almost big enough to swim in. It was surprising how dark it
   was.  Many  tree  limbs  stretched  out  overhead,  dense with leaves,
   casting  a  deep shade. Eying them suspiciously, he finally bent down
   to drink.

     * Leaping  through the water would be slow and noisy. Better to come
       from behind, unseen, unheard. The hunter carefully circled through
       the  shrubs, losing sight of the prey, but hearing it splashing in
       the water. He needn't worry. Obviously it'd be staying a while.

   The water was just too cool and inviting. Thirst satisfied, the animal
   slowly  waded  into the spring. Aahh. It rose up around his legs, over
   his back. It was just deep enough to cover him while he stretched out.
   He closed his eyes and relaxed.

     * Stupid  prey. Having too much fun to pay any attention. The hunter
       crept  just  a  little  closer,  then roared and leaped. The water
       boiled as two large bodies thrashed in the mud.
     * "Gotcha!" Luke yelled.

   Payback was sweet.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 8

                               Monday, Monday
     _________________________________________________________________

   Ben  lay  quietly, eyes open, gaze intense, as the early morning light
   sneaked in around the curtains. He did not want Luke to get up.

   The previous evening had been nothing like that first one of tears and
   clutching hugs.

   Luke  had  been  just  as late getting back, but this time he had been
   humming  as  he  came in. A bag of something aromatic had been emptied
   onto  a plate and shoved in a box which itself had hummed for a while.
   The  odors had grown even more mouth watering until Luke had pulled it
   out  and  eaten  it.  He'd  grinned  at  Ben. "Sorry, cat. Pizza's for
   people."

   The  remark  had  seemed to mean a lot to him. "People," he'd murmured
   again, with a far-away look in his eyes. And later, as he dozed off in
   bed,  one  arm  around  Ben,  he'd said it again, quietly. "People. He
   thinks I'm a person." He'd sounded happy.

   Luke  certainly  was  a  person,  Ben  thought. How could anyone think
   otherwise? He obviously wasn't a plush.

   A  wild  animal,  though,  maybe! Ben smiled inside as he recalled the
   dream they'd just shared: the hunt through the grass, the ambush under
   the  trees, the pond they'd trashed. Those poor lily pads would never
   be the same.

   He  wanted to snuggle closer against Luke, but couldn't. It might wake
   him.

   That first night had almost been a fatal mistake. Live folk must never
   learn  of  the  secret ways of their plush companions. Although maybe,
   just  maybe,  under  special  circumstances.... But, no. That wouldn't
   happen. It couldn't happen. He'd been promised. Where? When? He wasn't
   sure.

   Luke stirred, then started to open his eyes. "Sorry, Ben," he mumbled,
   "I  didn't  mean  to  get you so muddy... Oh." He blinked and seemed a
   little  more  awake.  "Wow.  What a vivid dream." He grinned. "I guess
   that'll teach you to tickle me! Oh, well, up and at'em."

   He  fluffed  the  top  of  Ben's  head and rolled out of bed. Too soon
   cleaned, too quickly clothed, and then gone for the day.

   Ben  wistfully  watched  the  apartment door close. Snuggling into the
   vacated  pillow,  he  decided there was plenty of time for a nap. Then
   maybe  he  would  start  planning for tonight. Or maybe he'd make sure
   there were no bees in that pile of dirty clothes.

   He hated bees.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Nathan lay quietly, eyes closed, as the early morning light sneaked in
   around the curtains. He did not want to get up.

   He  kept  trying to remember details from the dream. He'd been playing
   ultimate  Frisbee  with  Sasha,  his  Siberian husky. They'd each been
   running   farther  and  farther  across  the  flowered  tundra...  but
   unwelcome memories of events of the previous day kept intruding.

   "I like you." Shit. Then grabbing at Luke's arm. Double shit!

   The  look  on  Luke's  face  had been telling. He'd been annoyed. He'd
   recovered  quickly, and he'd seemed to accept Nathan's apology, but it
   was hard to know how much he'd meant it.

   And  today  they'd probably have to work together on the laser control
   system.  If,  no,  when  Luke's  new  feedback algorithms checked out,
   Nathan would have to optimize the network in realtime during the X-ray
   data  acquisition. The project's management had been arguing for weeks
   over the expense of trying to automate that, or if it even could be.

   Maybe  he  could do it from home. Call in sick. No, that'd never work.
   There were other jobs waiting and too many people were taking vacation
   time: staying home to take care of their kids.

   "Fall  break."  Right.  Why  didn't  they  call  it  by its real name,
   Columbus  Day? It's a national holiday, after all. Probably because if
   they  did,  they'd  have  to  give  everybody  the  day  off, not just
   students.

   Even  if  he  tried staying home, his telepresence rig didn't have the
   bandwidth.  It  really had problems with interactions coming from more
   than  one direction, and there'd be several researchers in the control
   room  tweaking  knobs  at  the  same  time.  They'd all want him to do
   something. Now!

   Then,  too,  there'd  be people at a certain large west coast facility
   already  watching  through  the  control  room's sole teleconferencing
   system.  "Outside  consultants." Spies. They were getting ten times as
   much  funding, but they still needed to come to a private university's
   research lab to learn how it was done.

   Anyhow,  he really did want to see Luke again, find out just how badly
   he'd damaged their friendship. If that's what it was.

   "I like you." Shit.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 9

                                    Beam
     _________________________________________________________________

   Luke wondered if he should be biting his nails. Isn't that what people
   did when they were anxiously waiting for something to happen? He could
   feel  the  cold  sweat  forming  under  his  arms.  Had he used enough
   deodorant this morning? He'd been in a hurry and wasn't sure.

   Turn  the  laser  on,  already! See if it really can change focus fast
   enough! The simulations he'd been using to develop the code could only
   do  so  much.  The  actual fluctuations in electron cloud density were
   bound to be different.

   If  only  Nathan  would show up. Maybe he could explain what was going
   on:  why  the  professor  was  talking  so  much  to the people on the
   conference screen, and who they were, for that matter.

   The control room was crowded with people, both visitors and staff, but
   the  network  optimization  station  was  still  vacant. Supposedly it
   wouldn't  be  needed  unless they actually managed to get beams to the
   recording  stations,  but  Luke noticed that the operations supervisor
   was  looking more worried every time he glanced toward it. He probably
   was  wishing  Nathan  worked  for  him instead of the computer support
   group.

   Eventually  the professor said something to the supervisor, who picked
   up his PA microphone.

   "We  will  be turning on in 5 minutes. Please return all white keys to
   the  control  room  now.  I  repeat,  we are getting ready to turn on.
   Please return your keys to the control room."

   Almost immediately a siren sounded.

   The supervisor looked quite annoyed as he picked up a telephone. "Will
   the person who just went through the mezzanine interlock please get on
   line  one. I repeat, whoever broke the mezzanine interlock get on line
   one."

   Luke  couldn't  quite  hear what he was saying to the culprit, who had
   been  working  in  a restricted area. It probably wasn't nice. He must
   have  forgotten  to  use  his  access  key when coming out through the
   interlocked doorway.

   A  few  minutes  later  that same person came quietly into the control
   room  and  put  the  last  key  into  the  personnel safety panel. The
   professor  pulled  him aside. After a few quiet murmurs, the professor
   said loudly, "Well, we'll just have to try it, anyhow."

   "Laser coming on. I repeat, laser coming on. There should be no one in
   any radiation areas. Laser coming on."

   Finally!

   Just  then, Nathan came into the control room. He went straight to the
   network  console  and  sat  down  without  looking  around.  Luke  was
   disappointed: he'd wanted to catch his eye.

   But now all eyes were on the laser power meter as it slowly approached
   operating  levels. Temperatures were rising in the electron gun as the
   emitter  was bathed in the laser's light. Finally it was bright enough
   and  the  chief  operator  adjusted  the  manual focus. The light beam
   shrank  to  a small spot on the emitter. Electrons boiled off and were
   accelerated  down the beamline, but not enough to do what they wanted.
   The  operator couldn't get the spot to stay small enough as it wobbled
   in and out of focus.

   "Luke, do you want to do the honors?" the professor asked.

   He hadn't expected that. "Sure." At least his voice didn't crack.

   He walked through the crowd to the laser console and put his finger on
   the image of the button labeled "Autofocus On."

   The  laser  beam  immediately  shrank to a tiny, unwavering, brilliant
   dot. Emitted power rapidly increased.

   "Wigglers  on,"  the  magnet  operator  announced. Radiation detectors
   previously   reading  background  levels  suddenly  started  reacting.
   X-rays!

   Nathan reached toward the virtual buttons of his own display.

   Thud.

   Breakers  tripped.  Shutters  closed. Beam dumped. Alarms sounded. The
   professor cursed.

   "That's  all  for  today," he said sadly. "That's the power supply Jim
   was  working  on.  We'll be down for at least a couple of shifts while
   it's replaced."

   "Luke,  thanks  a  lot for getting the autofocus to work. At least the
   laser isn't the limiting factor, now!"

   Luke  waited  as  the  room emptied rapidly. Only a few members of the
   operations  staff  would  stay  behind  to shut down the accelerator's
   subsystems. Fortunately, Nathan didn't seem to be in a hurry, either.

   "Nathan, could I talk to you?"

   Nathan  glanced  up  at the teleconferencing unit. Its screen was dark
   and  the  camera  stowed.  He paused a second and then said "Sure. You
   want  some  coffee?  There  should  be  a fresh pot in the electronics
   shop."

   "That'd be great. I'll get my cup and meet you there."

   "OK."
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 10

                                Coffee Break
     _________________________________________________________________

   Nathan slowly stirred sugar into his cup of coffee. He didn't normally
   drink  the stuff, so he was making do with one of the small disposable
   cups that the electronics shop provided.

   Luke  had  actually  asked to talk with him. Maybe it wasn't as bad as
   his  morning  paranoia had suggested. Or maybe it was worse. He'd been
   smiling, though. Hope springs eternal.

   Here  he  came  now. The spring in his step actually seemed happy, not
   aggressive,  not  as  if  he  had  a bone to pick. There seemed to be a
   serious expression on his face, though, although sometimes it was hard
   to tell.

   "Hi, Nathan. How's the coffee?"

   "It  seems  fine.  No soap in the pot, at least." That had happened at
   least once.

   Luke  filled  his  overly  large  cup  and dropped some coins into the
   nearby jar.

   "Mmmm.  I  really like the smell. Why does coffee always smell so much
   better  than  it  tastes?"  He was drinking it black. Nathan shuddered
   slightly.

   "Probably all the aromatics evaporate quickly. Although some people do
   like  it  iced.  Maybe that keeps them around longer. The aromatics, I
   mean." He was making it up. The questions the kid kept asking!

   Nathan  went  over to the nearby window to look out at the stream. The
   water was low. It hadn't rained for a few days.

   "That  makes sense." Luke came over to stand next to him, looking out.
   Standing rather close. Not that Nathan minded. Not at all.

   Nathan  had  noticed that about him almost right away. Luke's sense of
   personal  space seemed quite a bit smaller than that of most people in
   the lab, even less than that of the Europeans.

   There was an incident he remembered from a party they'd had at the lab
   before  Luke  was hired. One of the French physicists had been talking
   earnestly  with an American colleague. Every once in a while he'd step
   a  little  closer.  And seconds later the American would step back. It
   wasn't  long  before  they'd  managed  to  go  the whole length of the
   commons  area.  Nathan  didn't  think either of them had realized what
   they were doing.

   Nathan  hadn't seen Luke in any similar situations, but he was sure it
   was  only  a matter of time. Of course, he didn't know what might have
   happened  away  from  the lab. But then, a lot of people probably gave
   the kid plenty of leeway, considering the circumstances.

   Often  Luke reminded Nathan of a well behaved puppy: a little anxious,
   but  very  friendly  and  eager  to please. Not that he looked like he
   actually had canine genes. Something else, maybe. That kind of attitude
   probably helped a lot in his interactions with most people.

   "Do  you  know  who  those  people were in the teleconference? I don't
   think I've seen them before."

   Nathan  couldn't  help  noticing that Luke smelled a little whiff. Not
   that bad, but a little muskier than most people. It must have been the
   stress  of the morning's accelerator test. He didn't think it was fair
   of the prof to parade Luke in front of visitors that way, as if to say
   "Look how progressive we are!"

   "They're  at  the large west coast linear accelerator center. They use
   the same technologies we do, like superconducting RF, but their design
   is  a  lot  different.  The  control  philosophy  is similar, though. I
   suspect  they're  looking for pointers for improving their operations,
   even  though  they're  ten times our size." Spies. Although maybe that
   was being a little too harsh.

   "Did you recognize any of them?" The kid just didn't give up, did he?

   "The  older woman is their director. She used to work here a long time
   ago,  I'm  told.  I'm  really bad with names, sorry. I might recognize
   them  if  someone  mentioned them, though." That problem was annoying,
   and it'd been the source of some embarrassment a few times, too.

   "The professor seemed to know them pretty well. He was talking to them
   a lot before you came in." Figures.

   "Maybe  he  went to grad school with some of them. It's a pretty small
   world,  after all. They probably attend a lot of the same conferences,
   too."

   "Yeah,  I  guess." Luke glanced around. "Where is everybody? I thought
   this  was  a  work  day.  There certainly were plenty of people in the
   control room."

   Nathan  looked  at  his  watch. "Well, it isn't quarter after yet. The
   techs  are  hourly,  so  they're  still  on  break.  Probably out back
   enjoying  the  sun while they still can." Just as well, maybe. Some of
   the techs were rather prejudiced. Or at least liked to talk as if they
   were.  Spending  his  time  programming, Luke probably didn't interact
   with  them  often.  Fortunately.  For  some  people,  the university's
   inclusiveness policy didn't mean much.

   "Oh,  right. Uh, Nathan..." He seemed nervous about something. Maybe a
   little more whiff than before, too.

   "There's  something  I need to talk to you about. It, uh, doesn't seem
   right  to, uh, do it at work. Uh, canyoucometodinneratmyplacetonight?"
   Running  his  words  together, as if he wanted to get it out before he
   changed his mind.

   Oh, shit.

   Shit, shit, shit.

   "I  can't,"  Nathan  said, panicked. "Not tonight. Other commitments."
   Like finding a place to hide, where he could beat himself up for being
   such a coward.

   But  the  disappointment  on Luke's face felt like a knife in the gut.
   Suggest an alternative?

   "How  about  tomorrow  night?" Something might happen before then, not
   his  fault. Like getting run over by a truck. "Your classes must start
   again  on  Wednesday,  though." Maybe he had last minute homework due?
   Please, God, Nathan prayed, I'll even learn what a Hail-Mary is.

   Luke's  face  lit  up. "That'd be fine! I'll get some pizza. I think I
   know the kind you like," he grinned. "You bring some beverages."

   "Uh, OK. Any preference?"

   "Nope.  Whatever  you  like."  Oh,  wonderful.  Put  the  onus on him.
   Nineteen was not twenty one. Bring alcohol? I don't think so!

   "OK. What time? And I don't think I know where you live." Don't think?
   That's good, Nathan.

   "How  about  seven? I'm in the highrise down on University Avenue. 4F.
   Maybe  we'd better exchange phone numbers, just in case." Just in case
   what?  Nathan got lost, maybe? Went uphill instead of down? Got hit by
   a truck? He should be so lucky.

   "Sure."  Ah, they both had the same phone carrier. That might simplify
   things. Maybe mention it later.

   "Here,  let  me get rid of that for you." Luke took the empty cup from
   Nathan's  hand  and  tossed  it  into a distant trashcan. Show off. "I
   guess we'd both better get back to work. See you!"
     _________________________________________________________________

   Perv.  He  actually let that animal paw him. And look how close they'd
   been  standing.  Here she'd thought he was nice, just 'cause he always
   thanked her when she dumped his trash. Shows to go. Can't judge a book
   by its cover.

   The building custodian retreated quietly. She'd clean the shop later.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 11

                           Plush Dreams: The Bath
     _________________________________________________________________

   Once  upon  a  time,  the  pond  had  been  clear and quiet under dark
   foliage.  Once upon a time, a peaceful, gentle tiger had been relaxing
   in the water, cooling off after a long baking in bright, hot sunlight.
   Then   a   vicious  predator  had  leaped  out  of  hiding,  attacking
   ferociously.

   Now nothing was the same. The pond was opaque with stirred up mud, and
   waves  rushed  back  and forth across its surface. The tiger glared at
   his attacker. His repose had been seriously disturbed.

   Luke  looked  at  the not-so-white tiger with dismay. He really hadn't
   meant  for  this to happen. All he'd wanted was to wrestle in the cool
   water  after  the  heat  of  the sun, and Ben had been such a tempting
   target.  He  hadn't even noticed the large lily pads that had covered
   much of the pond. Now, only green shreds were left.

   The plush tiger was plastered in muck. Thick, rich, smelly, black mud.
   It was dripping down his face and chest. His fur was stuck together in
   long  ridges.  Some  of  them  formed  outlines where his attacker had
   managed  to  cling  briefly.  His  formerly  white legs were black and
   sticky, and his twitching tail was, well, unmentionable.

   Luke  wasn't  much  better  off.  He could feel clumps in his hair and
   something  heavy  and gooey was running down his back. Large pawprints
   covered  his  front.  Sitting in the shallow water, he could feel cool
   muck oozing up between his toes and into more private places.

   Shaking  his  head  as if at the foolishness of people, Ben turned and
   padded  down  the small stream trickling out of the pond. He shook his
   head  again.  Maybe  he was just trying to get some of the glop out of
   his  ears.  With  each  step,  another dark stream of mud lead the way
   downstream.

   "Where  are  you  going, Ben?" Luke asked. Ben didn't answer, but Luke
   suspected he should follow anyhow. He had yet to hear Ben actually say
   anything. His actions usually made his intent clear enough.

   The small stream led under overhanging trees through denser woods. The
   water  gradually got shallower as it was absorbed into the ground, and
   soon the two were trudging along a dry waterbed. Luke half expected to
   see a locked grate, blocking passage to a colossal cave.

   Ahead, there was daylight and he could hear a rush of splashing water.
   A  waterfall?  How could that be? The tundra around the woods had been
   quite flat.

   As  they came out from under the trees, there it was. A wide waterfall
   slightly  taller  than  himself  fell from an overhanging cliff into a
   large  but  shallow pool. Unlike the pond in the woods, this one had a
   bottom  of  sand and flat rocks, with a border of flowering vines. Ben
   jumped in while Luke stared in amazement.

   There  was enough room behind the falls that the plush tiger could get
   right  under  the  falling  water. When he saw Ben seat himself there,
   Luke  got  a  little worried. Would the water soak into the plush cat?
   What  would  it  do  to the stuffing? Maybe he was waterproof? Ben had
   been lying in the other pond, after all.

   The  white  tiger  was  having  trouble  getting  rid of the dirt. The
   waterfall was rinsing off most of the bigger clumps of mud, but it was
   leaving  behind many dark stains. They were not something he wanted to
   taste. He glared at Luke.

   Luke got the hint. He'd gotten Ben dirty, now he'd better help him get
   clean.  "Hold  on,  Ben,  I'm  coming." Maybe he could rub some of the
   stains  out.  Hugging  the  tiger might help both of them feel better,
   too.

   As he pushed his way through the vines to the pool, he stubbed his toe
   on something hidden under the large, fuzzy leaves. There was a crunch,
   and  thick goo ran over Luke's foot. "Oh, great," he thought. "Another
   stinking  mess." When he bent down, though, the smell was unexpectedly
   pleasant,  and the dirt was almost gone from that foot. Maybe he could
   use the goop for soap!

   "Ben! I think this'll help!"

   Luke  quickly found an unbroken gourd and pulled it off its vine, then
   splashed  through the shallow pool to the falls. The falling water was
   just cool enough to be refreshing in the hot sunlight.

   He  broke  the  neck  off  the  gourd and scooped out a handful of the
   fragrant  goo. When he started massaging it into the wet fur on top of
   Ben's  head,  it  foamed  madly and the stains quickly disappeared. He
   gently  rubbed  it into the fur of the tiger's ears, carefully digging
   out  the  mud  caked  inside.  Then  he started rubbing down the broad
   forehead  toward eyes and nose. Ben closed his eyes as the soapy fluid
   bubbled vigorously.

   The  plant  slime  was  doing  the job, all right. The mud stains were
   flowing away and Ben's fur was regaining its shiny white luster.

   When  Luke finished his face, the tiger raised his chin so he could do
   his throat and ruff. Luke could feel the faint vibrations of a purr.

   As  Luke  rubbed  the foaming soap into the fur below Ben's throat, he
   started  to  worry  again.  Normally  the skin was tight against Ben's
   innards. Now it was starting to slip back and forth a little. Could it
   be  stretching?  Maybe  the  stuffing was shrinking as it got wet? Ben
   didn't  seem  to  care,  though. His purr was audible now, despite the
   sound of the waterfall.

   The  tiger  raised  one  foreleg and Luke rubbed down its length. More
   muck  streamed  away  into  the  foot-deep water. The leg seemed to be
   getting  stiff  under  the  wet  fur.  Normally Ben's limbs were quite
   floppy  except  when  he  walked.  The  paw felt strange, too. The pad
   seemed  to  be  in  several different pieces. Was it cracking where it
   bent a lot? Ben couldn't be wearing out already, could he?

   With  one  front  leg clean, Ben raised the other for Luke to work on.
   Parts of it seemed even stiffer than the other had been.

   "Ben, what's happening? Are you OK?"

   With a snort, Ben turned so Luke could wash his back.

   As  he  massaged  the  foaming soap into the deep, luxurious fur, Luke
   could  feel Ben's rumbling purr, although he could barely hear it over
   the  noise of falling water. As he rubbed, the cat's back seemed to be
   flattening. Was it wider than before? When he reached around to do the
   tiger's sides, they didn't seem so deep as they used to be. There were
   ridges and lumps in the stuffing, too.

   Oh.  Luke's eyes opened wide in surmise. The ridges weren't very hard,
   but  they  were  almost  like  ribs!  The  lumps  felt a lot like soft
   muscles, too.

   "Sit  up,  Ben,"  he  murmured into the cat's ear. The white tiger sat
   back on his hocks, bracing himself with one forepaw against the ridged
   rockface behind the waterfall.

   Luke  reached  from  behind  to  rub  soap into the front of the cat's
   chest. Hugging the now anthropomorphic plush animal closely, his hands
   explored  what  surely  were  pectorals  and  a flat abdomen. The purr
   vibrated  through  cool, wet fur into Luke's chest and stomach, making
   his own own breathing stutter.

   As  good  as  it  felt, Luke pulled back. He had to finish getting Ben
   clean.  Oops.  He'd  forgotten  that  he  still  wasn't all that clean
   himself.  A few streaks had reappeared on Ben's back, but they quickly
   rubbed away.

   The  tail seemed to be the next candidate for a good cleaning. Most of
   the  filth  had  rinsed off, but it was still dark in many places, and
   not  just  with  its usual stripes. He only managed a few strokes near
   the  tip,  though,  before  it  twitched  away. When he grabbed for it
   again,  it  quickly  flipped in the other direction. Water splashed in
   his face.

   "Hey!"

   Ben  looked  back  innocently.  He  couldn't  be held responsible if a
   tailless  creature  didn't  understand  that tails had a mind of their
   own.  They especially didn't like being held in one position for long.
   He sat down in the cool water. Being up on his heels was very tiring.

   Luke  could  tell  that  Ben  wasn't going to make this easy. He tried
   sneaking  up on it. Move very, very slowly, then grab! He was rewarded
   with another facefull of water.

   "Nice  tail.  Pretty  tail.  I  just want to make you look better," he
   tried crooning to it.

   Splash.

   Hmmm. Clearly this would take some thought.

   One  of  its ends couldn't jump around much right now, but it was down
   under the water where he really couldn't see it very well. Luke gently
   tried  to  get his fingers around the base of Ben's tail. Nope. It was
   pressed  hard  against  the  shelf  of  rock where the cat was seated.
   Further  away  the  water made it too slippery. It quickly slid out of
   his hand.

   This was getting to be a bit much. Time to cheat.

   Luke  gently  dug  his fingers into the fur of Ben's lower back at the
   base of his tail.

   Ohh,  that  felt  good, didn't it? Ben's purr hiccuped. Luke scratched
   harder. Ben squirmed a little. Oh, yes. That's it.

   Luke  scratched a little more gently. Slowly Ben's rump came up out of
   the water, following those tantalizing fingers.

   "Gotcha!"

   A  few  quick  rubs  from its base toward the tip, and the tail was as
   clean as new. Ben was a little disappointed. No more scratchings?

   The  plush  cat's rear and hind legs had certainly changed shape while
   under  water.  His buttocks were fuller and the thighs had lengthened,
   but  his  lower legs hadn't changed quite so much. The calf might be a
   little longer, but the foot was still distinctly digitigrade. The paws
   seemed  larger,  too. Maybe that was just because Luke was seeing them
   through water.

   Now  that  Ben  was up, though, Luke could finish cleaning him off. He
   gently  rubbed soap in between the tiger's nether cheeks where mud had
   left stains, and then down the inner thighs. There was no sign of anus
   or genitals. Ben was still quite neuter.

   Seating  himself  in  the  water,  Luke's  vigorous  scrubbing got the
   tiger's  lower  legs  clean  and white. He enjoyed working the soap in
   between  Ben's new toes and around the pads, which still had been dark
   with ground-in dirt. No more.

   "Well,  Ben, I think that does it!" Luke grinned up at the wet but now
   shining white and black anthropomorphic tiger standing over him.

   Ben  looked down at the young man sitting in the water. Those skillful
   hands had made him look and feel like a new cat. It was time to return
   the  favor.  Although  Luke had been under the falls much of the time,
   there was still mud in his hair and stains elsewhere on his body.

   Picking up the gourd from the ledge where Luke had put it, Ben decided
   it was a good thing Luke's pelt was short. The soap was almost gone.

   Ben  knelt behind him and started lathering soap into Luke's hair. The
   stubby  new foretoes felt almost like human fingers as they rubbed his
   scalp firmly.

   Luke closed his eyes and relaxed. "Mmmm. That feels good," he mumbled.
   The cool, falling water quickly rinsed the dirty suds away.

   Ben  carefully  kept  his  claws  retracted  as he worked more soap in
   behind  the  ears,  then  massaged it into the back of Luke's neck and
   shoulders. The young man swayed under the pressure.

   Scrubbing  under  Luke's  arms, Ben restrained himself. A tickle fight
   would be fun, but it could wait.

   Back  and  arms  done,  Ben  moved  out from under the falls and knelt
   again,  close  to Luke's side. Steadying him from behind with one paw,
   the  plush  feline  gently wiped his boy's face clean, not that it was
   particularly dirty. Then he rubbed soap onto his chest and abdomen.

   Yup.  That bellybutton was full of crud. Luke twitched a little as Ben
   sudsed  it  out. The cool water falling from above quickly carried the
   lint and mud away.

   Still  seated  in  the  water, Luke couldn't help going limp under the
   ministrations. He leaned sideways against his friend's soft chest. The
   loving caresses and flowing water were so relaxing.

   That wouldn't do! Ben still had to do his lower body. He knew what the
   guy  had  been  sitting  in.  Too  bad  tailless  folk didn't have the
   base-of-tail  skritch  reflex.  The  striped plush slowly slid one paw
   under  Luke's  rump and pressed upward a couple of times, not actually
   lifting him.

   "Oh, Ben, do I hafta?" Luke would almost rather doze off. Still, there
   were a few itchy patches left, and maybe...

   One  hand  on  Ben's shoulder, he struggled to his feet and spread his
   legs slightly. Now the cat could clean Luke's more sensitive regions.

   Ben  gently  rubbed  one  soapy  finger  up  and  down  between Luke's
   buttocks,  working  out  the grains of dirt lodged there. Then the cat
   carefully  worked  foaming  soap  into the fur around Luke's genitals.
   Luke breathed deeply. He wasn't quite so sleepy any more.

   "Ohh.  Ben,  that  really  feels  good." Responding to the plush cat's
   gentle  pressure,  he  turned to face him, sure of what must be coming
   next.

   To  Luke's  disappointment,  Ben  gently  rubbed  down his thighs. The
   strong  muscles  there  quivered  a  bit.  More grime was found in the
   knees.  The squeezes he gave to Luke's calves weren't quite necessary,
   though. Luke had to grab at a furry shoulder to keep steady.

   Soaking  in  the water hadn't gotten all the grime off the boy's feet.
   Some  was still well seated in the soles and between the toes. Probing
   fingers  gently  massaged  between  each of them. Luke's toes squeezed
   back.

   Letting  the  second  foot  fall  into the water, Ben slowly stood up,
   trailing a claw up the back of one leg, tickling just a little.

   A  sudden  slap to the buttocks brought Luke bolt upright in bed, wide
   awake.

   "Hey!"

   He  looked  around  the  brightening room, slightly dazed. An innocent
   plush tiger was lying motionless across the foot of the bed.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 12

                               Cleaning House
     _________________________________________________________________

   Ben felt somewhat chagrined. That dream hadn't been all he'd intended.
   It  had  all  seemed just a little flat, missing many of the emotional
   responses  he'd  hoped  for.  Maybe  Luke  had  been wanting something
   different? He certainly had made his boy wake up at the end, though!

   Could  it  be  that  some of its references were a little too close to
   reality?  Luke certainly had been stinky last night. He'd even taken a
   shower  before  going  to  bed.  But  wouldn't  that  association have
   increased the immediacy and made the emotions stronger?

   Perhaps  he  just misunderstood how much Luke liked water. That didn't
   seem  likely,  though.  He certainly seemed happy when splashing in the
   other  room, often humming loudly. It had to be rather loud for Ben to
   hear it over the noise of the shower water itself.

   Maybe Luke just had other things on his mind, keeping him from getting
   deeply  involved.  The  way  he'd  been  running  around  cleaning the
   apartment,  for  example,  using  that nasty, noisy vacuum cleaner. He
   must be getting ready for something.

   A  cleaner  like that was another thing Ben had never seen before, and
   really  didn't want to hear again. The one at the store had been a lot
   quieter.  Hopefully  this  one  wouldn't  be  taken out of hiding very
   often.  At least it had let Ben see some of what was hidden behind one
   of  the  closed  doors,  one that he'd never dared open. He'd caught a
   glimpse  of  a coat or two, a very large umbrella and maybe some boxes
   on a shelf. Was it a closet?

   The  books  and  computer had been rearranged, too. Now, they were all
   neatly  stacked on the desk, leaving the table clear. The stink of the
   oily  cleaning  rag  Luke  had  used on the table and every other flat
   surface  had  almost made Ben sneeze. Luke had. Several times. Loudly.
   And then dumped more oil on the rag.

   And  then  Luke  had grabbed up all the dirty clothes from the corner,
   bundled  them  up  in  the bedsheets with some other things, and taken
   them away. (At least there were no bees in them. Ben was sure of that.
   They  had  been  full  of  wonderful smells of Luke, though.) It was a
   while  before  he  brought  them  back,  and  then  they  all  smelled
   different.  Not  like him at all; even the pillowcase had changed. The
   new  scent  was something like flowers, but not really, especially not
   like  the  flowers of the dream tundra. This scent was too artificial.
   Thank  goodness  the clothes now were all in the chest of drawers: out
   of sight, out of smell.

   All these changes were a little disturbing. Ben had barely had time to
   get used to his new home, and now it was so different.

   Today, he didn't even dare move now that Luke had left. For one thing,
   he'd certainly wrinkle something, leaving telltale signs. After getting
   up,  Luke  had  straightened and smoothed all the bedclothes, carefully
   arranging  Ben in the middle. Then, jokingly (yes, joking, right?), he
   had  admonished  Ben to "Stay!" Surely he didn't suspect; no, that was
   impossible. Still, it all made Ben feel like he was on display again.

   Oh, no. It couldn't be. Please, no. Luke couldn't possibly be thinking
   of  selling him, could he? It had been such a short time! Ben couldn't
   even imagine how horrible it would be not to have Luke any more. Well,
   he could, but it was just too painful to think about for long.

   But  Luke  had been humming most of the time, both last night while he
   was  cleaning and then again this morning as he left. At least he must
   have been happy. That was what really mattered. The future couldn't be
   all that bad.

   Still slightly distraught, Ben slept.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 13

                                Dinner Plans
     _________________________________________________________________

   Luke  was  having  problems  concentrating on the documentation he was
   writing.  Personal  events  kept  distracting him. He needed to get it
   written today, though. He probably wouldn't have time later.

   With  his heavy course load, he'd discovered he couldn't spend as much
   time  working  at  the  lab as he wanted. The work-study program would
   have paid for more hours, but all the homework and class projects took
   too  long.  This  too-brief  fall break was the first time in almost a
   month  that he'd been at the lab for more than a few hours a week. The
   extra pocket money was going to be very welcome, too.

   Being  at  the  lab for only short periods was disappointing for other
   reasons. He'd really enjoyed the long discussions he'd had with Nathan
   when  he'd  first  been hired. Nathan had even taken him on a personal
   tour  of  the facility, so he got to see parts of the accelerator that
   most people didn't, even people who'd been at the lab for years.

   He  seemed  very interested in Luke's opinions about most things, too,
   and  was  always  willing  to  answer  even  the  silliest  questions.
   Occasionally  he  responded  with equally silly answers, always with a
   dead-pan  expression. Luke chuckled to himself about the frozen coffee
   aromatics.

   For  some  reason, Luke had always felt comfortable spending time with
   Nathan.  He  didn't get the feeling of withdrawal that other stans had
   given  him.  What  made them so diffident? Was it because he looked so
   different?  He  was  sure  it usually wasn't because he stank. He used
   plenty  of  deodorant. Except when he forgot. And, of course, that had
   to  be  on  a  day  when  it  really  mattered.  Yesterday  was  a bit
   embarrassing, although Nathan hadn't said anything.

   He  hadn't  seen Nathan yet today, though. Maybe he should look him up
   at lunchtime and maybe let him know how much he was looking forward to
   the evening. Or maybe just remind him. Maybe.

   At  least  he'd managed to gather the courage to ask. If nothing else,
   he  really  wanted  to  find out where the tiger had come from. Nathan
   would  surely help. Or could he have been the one who sent it? But why
   anonymously?  Maybe  dinner would help them both relax enough for more
   personal questions to get aired without fear of interruptions.

   Dinner.  Right. He'd better order the pizza before he forgot. It was a
   good thing the pizza place in collegetown had an online order form. It
   even let him specify no cheese!
     _________________________________________________________________

   Of  course,  Nathan  was  struggling  with  his  own  issues.  Network
   intrusion inspections were suffering as a result.

   Dinner.  He  still  had  ambivalent  feelings  about it, although he'd
   gotten  used  to the idea. He wanted very much for them both to have a
   pleasant  evening,  but  worried  about  all  the  ways  it  could  go
   catastrophically  wrong.  Not  least was what some people might think,
   just  seeing  them  together.  Bigots came in many varieties, and some
   could seriously damage both of their futures.

   That  aside,  he really didn't know just how much to admit to Luke, or
   how  much  Luke might already have realized. Would he even welcome the
   idea?  For a long time Nathan had been afraid to admit even to himself
   how much he liked the guy, how much affection he felt. It was far more
   than he'd been brought up to consider appropriate.

   Their  ages  were another concern in and of themselves. Luke certainly
   was  no kid, not even legally, but a sixteen year difference was a lot
   to  bridge.  And  Luke hadn't had anything like an average upbringing,
   making it that much harder.

   Even  so,  more  than the fur had involved his emotions, although that
   was  what  he'd noticed first; as did everyone, of course, but perhaps
   not  with  the  same  reaction. Golden plush, short on face and hands,
   presumably longer and thicker elsewhere. Luke always wore long sleeved
   shirts,  buttoned  up,  so it was hard to tell. At any rate, it made a
   striking contrast to his straight, dark hair and bright green eyes.

   Enough daydreaming. Why was this turkey in Ohio so persistent?
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 14

                               Dinner, Part 1
     _________________________________________________________________

   It was a dark and stormy night.

   An  icy  wind howled around Nathan as he walked down the hill, getting
   into  the  hood  of his parka and making him shiver. Just yesterday it
   had  been cool, bright and sunny. As everybody said, if you don't like
   the  weather,  just  wait  five minutes. He'd had to dig his parka out
   from where it had fallen in the back of the closet.

   He was slightly late. It had taken longer than he'd expected to find a
   grocery  that  carried  the beverages he wanted. Hopefully Luke wasn't
   worrying.

   The  neighborhood  certainly  had  changed.  When he was an undergrad,
   Nathan  had  rented a room in an old lady's home on University Avenue.
   She  and her neighbors were gone now. Where their homes had been was a
   multi-story  apartment  building,  obviously the "highrise" where Luke
   was living.

   The lobby door was locked, of course.

   Speed-dial 4. (His sister was on 2, a cousin on 3)

   "Hi,  Nathan!  Why the call? Something wrong?" Luke did sound slightly
   worried.

   "I'm  afraid  so.  I'm  not  sure I'll be able to make it." He paused.
   "Your lobby door is locked."

   He heard a relieved laugh. "Is that all?" as the door unlocked.

   "Yup. That's all for now. I'll see you shortly."

   The apartment door opened instantly when he knocked.

   The  golden  fur  on the outer sides of Luke's arms was slightly darker
   than the fur of their insides, almost as if it'd been lightly toasted.
   He looked good enough to... Nathan quickly suppressed the thought. Luke
   was wearing a t-shirt popular in the Engineering School. Its front was
   covered  with  writing:  "And  God  Said"  was  followed  by Maxwell's
   equations,  with  "and  There  Was Light" below. It was the first time
   Nathan had seen him in anything other than long-sleeved shirts.

   "Hi, Nathan, come on in! Gimme your coat."

   "Hi. Sure, but take the beverages first. I got a selection." He handed
   Luke  the  six-pack  of  brown  and  green bottles. They were brightly
   labeled with the logo of a local brewery. Luke stared at them somewhat
   bemusedly.

   "Well?" Nathan asked as he held out his coat.

   "Oh, sorry," Luke reached for the coat with his free hand.

   "Here,  I'll  take that back since you obviously don't know what to do
   with it." Nathan retrieved the carton of beers.

   "I didn't know which kind of beer you liked, so I got both." He paused
   again and grinned. "Root and ginger!"

   Luke  smiled as he hung the parka in the closet. "If you keep that up,
   I  won't  be  able to trust anything you say ever again. And take your
   shoes off, please. I'd rather not have any dirt tracked in."

   "Sure.  I  do  the same at home." He left them on a sheet of newspaper
   next to Luke's.

   Luke was barefoot. His insteps were covered with pale fur.

   "I'm  sorry  about the heat. There's no thermostat and I still haven't
   gotten  the  baseboards  adjusted right. One of the problems with this
   place."

   "It feels good, actually. It's really cold out."

   "Well, it feels hot to me. Normally I'd just open the windows, but the
   way the wind is blowing, it'd make things howl."

   "Don't just stand there! Sit down, relax, I'll get the pizza."

   "Do  you have some glasses? If you haven't had it before, you probably
   should  just taste the ginger beer first. It's a lot stronger than that
   stuff  they  call ginger ale. It actually tastes like ginger. I really
   like  it  myself."  He  was  starting  to run on. Nathan was feeling a
   little nervous.

   The couch was soft and comfortable, with only a few shed hairs between
   the  cushions.  The  low  table  in  front  of  it  obviously had been
   thoroughly polished recently.

   "Here's a plate and napkins."

   Luke  opened  the  box.  The  pizza was half meat and half veggies and
   smelled great, but Nathan was surprised. "No cheese?"

   "Well,  you  did  say  your  doctor  would  be pissed, so I figured we
   shouldn't get him too upset." Luke sat down next to him.

   "Oh, well, if you insist."

   "I do. It might even keep you around a little longer. On the planet, I
   mean," he quickly clarified. "Eat up!"

   Luke seemed to enjoy the ginger beer.

   Posed on the waterbed across the room, the stuffed tiger obviously was
   on display.

   "I'm  surprised  your  landlord allows pets," Nathan commented around a
   mouthful of broccoli and tomato sauce.

   "Yeah, well, they don't seem to mind if the animal's quiet and doesn't
   make messes. This one's very well behaved."

   "I  don't think I've ever seen one that large, before. Little ones, of
   course. It looks soft. Did they use polyfill?"

   "Polyfill?  What's  that?  I  thought  they're  stuffed  with cloth or
   something." Luke stuffed himself with another slice of pizza.

   "Well,"  Nathan explained, "some manufacturers do use cloth fragments,
   and  sometimes  foam  rubber,  but polyfill works best. It's made from
   polyester  and  dacron  fibers.  They  use it for insulation in winter
   coats, too."

   "The  tiger  was  a  gift. I'm not really sure what it's made of. I've
   never  seen one like it in the stores in town. Where do you suppose he
   came from?"

   "Well,  they must be available on the Web somewhere, and some big city
   toy stores have them. There's one store in Boston that I know has some
   pretty  big  animals.  I'm not sure if they have tigers, though. Maybe
   one of our local stores could be persuaded to make a special order. Do
   you know who made it?"

   "I don't remember. It came with a long pedigree, which seemed strange.
   Let  me  show  you  the tag, though. Uh, just a minute." He pushed the
   table  out  of  the way and went to the bathroom for a damp washcloth.
   After  wiping his own hands, Luke tossed it to Nathan. "Get your hands
   clean! I'd rather not get tomato sauce in his fur."

   Luke  got Ben and flopped him across their laps. He ruffled though the
   tiger's fur looking for a tag.

   "Here it is. Kinda small letters."

   In  very  tiny  print,  "Plush  Companions,  Inc." was written in gold
   letters  across a smudged red circle. The smudges didn't come off when
   Luke rubbed them.

   "You think the red circle means it's from Japan?"

   "Hmmm.  I'm  not  sure."  Nathan squinted at it. "It looks more orange
   than  red  to  me,  and those grey marks look like they're part of the
   design. The Japanese usually use just a plain red circle. I'm not sure
   I  recognize  the  company  name,  either,  although that doesn't mean
   much."

   "Hey, they must have a Web site!

   "Here,  you  pet him for a while," Luke grinned, and went over to turn
   on  his computer. Nathan stroked the cat's fur. It certainly was soft.
   And it smelled good too. Sort of a musky floral odor.

   Luke  brought the screen back to the table and sat closer to Nathan so
   they  both  could  see  it  easily. He started tapping on the table in
   front  of  the  display.  Nathan didn't care for the virtual keyboards
   that  were  getting to be more and more popular. He preferred the ones
   with keys you could push down.

   Lots  of  pages  were  listed, but not the company they wanted. Quotes
   didn't help, either. And some of the sites obviously were not intended
   for youngsters.

   "I can't find them, Nathan."

   "Well,  let's  be  optimistic.  Maybe  their  site's  too  new  to  be
   cataloged. Check the yellow pages."

   The  U.S. yellow pages site didn't have a listing, and neither did the
   international one. "What else?"

   "Well, try whois."

   Nope, even the Internic didn't seem to know about them.

   Luke  wiped  his forehead and finished off his third beer. His t-shirt
   was getting damp, too. Nathan was still nursing his second root beer.

   "Don't give up yet. There are plenty of other registrars." The obvious
   ones didn't have a clue.

   "Why  not  just  try  connecting?"  Nathan  suggested.  "What'd  be  a
   reasonable name for them?" He was scratching Ben under the chin.

   "That  could  take  a  while.  Let's see....nope: 'no such host'. What
   else?"

   Nathan  made  some more suggestions, then finally "Hey! 'Connecting to
   remote site!'"

   The  first  page had the right company name, anyhow. But what was this
   "Best seen with a 4D viewer" nonsense?

   "I think they're pulling our legs," Nathan chuckled.

   "The logo's looks right, though. Strange, with it bigger like that, it
   looks awfully familiar for some reason."

   "Yeah.  It does. I'm sure it's Mars. Look at their address down at the
   bottom of the page."

   "Well,  then, it does have to be joke, doesn't it? I mean, there isn't
   anybody living there, is there?"

   "Well,  who  knows  what  the Chinese are doing. There hasn't been any
   publicity  since  their taikonauts had that accident on the Moon a few
   years ago."

   They explored a little further. It kept getting stranger and stranger.
   Some  of  the pages seemed almost reasonable, but then they got weird.
   Quite  a few of the pages didn't look like any language either of them
   recognized.  It  didn't  look  like  Chinese at all. Maybe they'd been
   corrupted somehow. Hackers, maybe?

   Luke  was  starting  to  pant a little. Nathan had thought he was just
   getting  overly  stressed  over the failing searches, but maybe it was
   something else.

   "Luke, are you OK? You look like you're getting really warm."

   "Yeah, I'm really starting to feel the heat, for some reason."

   "Well,  I'm feeling a bit warm, but not as much as you seem to be. Why
   don't we try opening the window?"

   The  wind was still blowing hard. The ventilation howled even with the
   window open only a crack.

   "Wow, what'd they do, put whistles in there?"

   "I dunno, but I'd rather not listen to it," Luke admitted as he closed
   the window again. "It actually hurts."

   The room hadn't cooled at all.

   "Well, look, I'd rather not have to take you to the hospital with heat
   prostration.  Why  don't  you  take  off your shirt? I'm sure it's not
   helping."  With all that fur, it must be the equivalent of a parka, he
   thought.

   "You don't mind?"

   "Of course not. You need to get cooler."

   "Well,  OK."  He  almost  sounded  reluctant.  "I think I'll change my
   pants, too."

   Getting  a  pair  of  short pants out of the dresser, he went into the
   bathroom and closed the door. Nathan heard the shower run for a minute
   or so.

   "That does feel a lot better," Luke admitted when he came out.

   Nathan  swallowed.  The fur on Luke's front was a light gold, matching
   what  was  on  his face and the undersides of his arms. The fur on his
   back   had   the  darker,  slightly  toasted  look,  while  a  similar
   distribution of light and dark shades colored his legs. He was still a
   little damp from the shower he'd taken to cool off.

   Nathan  tried  clearing his throat again. "Well, we seem to have found
   the company. What was it you wanted to know?"

   Luke  came  back  to  sit  on  the couch. If anything, he seemed to be
   sitting  closer than before. Or maybe Nathan was just imagining it. He
   kept Ben in his lap, tickling the ears to distract himself.

   "I  really want to try to find out who sent me the tiger. There was no
   return  address  on the package, and no invoice, either. I hoped maybe
   the manufacturer could tell me who bought it."

   "Well, maybe. If they shipped it directly to you, they certainly ought
   to have a record. Of course, whoever bought it might have told them to
   keep it private."

   "It  can't  hurt  to ask, can it?" Luke clicked on one of the Feedback
   buttons.

   "All  communication  links  are down. Please try again in 15 minutes."
   Luke scowled at the screen. "I suppose we could wait."

   "They  seem  to  have  lots  of  other  pages. Maybe a few of them are
   readable."

   "Maybe."

   A  few  of the marketing pages were readable. They even found a couple
   of  whitepapers in English, but their contents were jokes. Either that
   or  they  were decades ahead of the award winning research going on in
   the university's CS and nanotech labs.

   "Maybe  it's  actually a sci-fi story site. There are plenty of them,"
   Nathan  pointed  out.  Luke  obviously didn't like that idea. All that
   searching and he still wouldn't know who sent the tiger.

   "Then  why's their logo the same as the one on Ben? Wouldn't that be a
   copyright violation?"

   "Yeah.  Or  trademark.  Companies  really get upset about that kind of
   thing.  Maybe  we  just misunderstood. Let's look at them again. Maybe
   they have a 'forward looking' footnote we overlooked."

   They didn't.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 15

                              PCInc Marketing
     _________________________________________________________________

   Here  is  the  text of a couple of the marketing pages that Nathan and
   Luke found.
     _________________________________________________________________

                    Plush Companions, Inc. -- Housepets
     _________________________________________________________________

   Welcome to Plush Companions, Inc

   Suppliers of the finest artificial animals in the Solar System!
     _________________________________________________________________

   Plush  Companions, Inc. can provide the ideal pet for yourself, or for
   your  household, industry, or military organization. Configured to meet
   your own exacting specifications, or selected from one of our standard
   feature  sets,  a  Plush  Companion  can  satisfy  your most demanding
   requirements.

   Affectionate,  playful  and  gentle, a Plush Companion configured as a
   Housepet  provides  welcome company for individuals and families. They
   delight in accompanying people wherever they go.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Here  are the standard features which will be selected when you choose
   a Housepet configuration for your Plush Companion. Any of these can be
   changed to better suit your needs.

   Sense Visual: Moderate
   Sense Audio: Moderate
   Sense Tactile: Moderate
   Sense Chem: Moderate
   Competency: Pet
   Personality: Pet
   Input Verbal: All
   Input Gestural: All
   Output Verbal: Animal
   Output Gestural: Animal
   Comm E/M: None
   Comm Station: None
   Durability: ChildPruf
     _________________________________________________________________
     _________________________________________________________________

                Plush Companions, Inc. -- Competency Ratings
     _________________________________________________________________

   Welcome to Plush Companions, Inc.

   Suppliers of the finest artificial animals in the Solar System!
     _________________________________________________________________

   Plush  Companions,  Inc.  can  provide  the  ideal  Plush Companion or
   yourself,  or  for  your household, industry, or military organization.
   Configured  to meet your own exacting specifications, or selected from
   one  of  our standard feature sets, a Plush Companion can satisfy your
   most demanding requirements.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Four standard competency ratings are available:
   Toy, Pet, Student, and Savant

   Due   to  limited  demand  and  extensive  quality  control,  Personal
   Companions  with  an Exalt rating are available by special order only,
   with substantial lead time.
     _________________________________________________________________

                                    Toy

   A  "Toy"  competency  rating  indicates  that  your Plush Companion is
   controlled  by  a  minimal Positronic Neural Network. With a volume of
   only  1cc,  it  is  adequate  for  use  in  stable  environments where
   preprogrammed  responses  are  appropriate. Some training is possible,
   but problem solving abilities are very limited.

                                    Pet

   A  "Pet"  competency  rating  indicates  that  your Plush Companion is
   controlled  by a Positronic Neural Network with a volume of 30cc. Much
   more versatile and adaptable than the smaller version, the substantial
   capacity of this model makes possible Plush Companions which have many
   of  the  abilities of living animals. Easily trained, with significant
   problem  solving  abilities,  they  are  often compared favorably with
   Border Collies, the most intelligent domesticated animal.

                                  Student

   A  "Student"  competency rating indicates that your Plush Companion is
   controlled  by  a  Positronic  Neural  Network with a volume of 500cc.
   Comparable  to  a  human  in  potential  ability,  a  Plush  Companion
   incorporating  one  of  these  PNNs  can  be  trusted  to perform with
   imagination and reliability.

                                   Savant

   A  "Savant"  competency  rating indicates that your Plush Companion is
   controlled  by  a  Positronic  Neural  Network with a volume of 3000cc
   (.003   cubic  meter).  Plush  Companions  incorporating  this  highly
   sophisticated  control unit are usually found in situations where high
   speed  computation  and  subtle  discrimination  are  essential.  They
   frequently act as pilots of superluminal spacecraft, for example.

   With  a diameter of 20 centimeters, a spherical Savant PNN is normally
   housed in the torso, unless the Plush Companion is unusually large.

                                   Exalt

   Exalt  Positronic Neural Networks are available only by special order.
   With volumes in excess of 10,000cc (30cm diameter), great care must be
   taken  during  assembly to ensure uniform structural deposition. These
   PNNs   are   extremely  effective  as  assistants  in  scientific  and
   philosophical research, as well as political and economic planning and
   long term weather forecasting.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Plush  Companions  with competency levels above Pet are available only
   with  the  agreement  of  the  PNN  involved,  and  with  contractual
   guarantees  provided  by you. Please contact the Bureau of Robotic and
   AI Rights for details.

   For  more  information  about  PCInc's PNN technology, please read our
   White Paper Positronic Neural Nets.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 16

                               Dinner, Part 2
     _________________________________________________________________

   It was a dark and stormy night, but warm and cozy inside.

   "Do  you  think  it  could  be for real?" Luke really would have liked
   that. He glanced over at the tiger with its head in Nathan's lap.

   "I  just don't see how it could be. Look how they're writing about the
   stuff,  like  it's common knowledge and they get to boast about it. But
   it's not. If it were known in the research community, it'd be all over
   the  place.  Would  the CS department be wasting its time with 'plexed
   systems if they could work with neural nets like those?"

   "Maybe  it's  an  advertising  gag.  You  know,  making  up  elaborate
   backstories to get people interested in their plush animals."

   "Maybe.  But I think they'd risk getting in a lot of trouble for false
   advertising. I'm sure there are lots of people who would order stuffed
   animals  that  acted  that real. Look how much they pay for mechanical
   ones. If they couldn't deliver, they'd be sued for lots of money."

   "I think you're just being pessimistic again. Don't you do that enough
   at the lab?" Always worrying about network security and thinking about
   what could go wrong had to be frustrating.

   "It's habit forming, I think," Nathan admitted glumly.

   Luke  watched  him  stroke  the  tiger.  Lucky  cat. It seemed to help
   Nathan's mood a little, though.

   "Of  course,"  Nathan  continued,  "there  are  companies  selling toy
   animals  with  limited  interactivity. Several Japanese companies sell
   fully  robotic  ones, too. The ones I've seen look quite realistic and
   act  convincingly  in  some  ways,  but  my impression is that they're
   entirely  mechanical  and  really  heavy. Hmm. Well, maybe not. Carbon
   nanofiber  skeletons  would  be  light  enough, I suppose. They're all
   absurdly expensive, though."

   "Didn't  one  of  the  pages say something about mechanical amplifiers
   being  available?  Maybe  motors're actually used all the time and the
   stuff about fibers is a cover story."

   "Maybe.  But your cat's too soft to have bones and motors. Has he ever
   moved on his own?"

   "Not  that  I know of." Unless it happened that very first night? Nah,
   he must've moved it himself.

   Nathan leaned back on the couch and offered Ben.

   "Here.  You feel him. He's your cat. I don't feel right mauling him to
   find  out  if  he's  anything  more  than  plush and foam. You're more
   familiar with him, anyhow. Have you noticed any lumps?"

   Luke  leaned  back  against  the  cushions,  too. His left arm brushed
   against  the  front of Nathan's shirt as he took Ben's forequarters in
   his arms. The cat's rear was still in Nathan's lap.

   "I've  squeezed  him  pretty  tight sometimes," he admitted. "But I've
   never  noticed  any real lumps. The chest is firm, but that must be to
   support  the  head.  It  wouldn't  stay up without that, would it? But
   why's it so heavy? It's pretty hard, too.'

   "Well,  they  do have to use a rigid form so the head keeps its shape.
   It  wouldn't look right if it were all floppy. Maybe that's all it is.
   Huh. Look at us. Now we're acting as if that site's for real. It can't
   be, can it? Occam's razor. It's gotta be fiction."

   He appreciated Nathan's effort -- trying to take some of the blame for
   being  taken  in.  But Luke was the one almost wanting, almost afraid,
   for  Ben  to be a Companion. Nathan had been mostly rejecting the very
   concept. One more reason to like him.

   Too bad he wasn't Family. Luke missed the grooming sessions they'd had
   when  he  was  young.  It had been a very long time. Stans just didn't
   seem  to do anything equivalent, not that Luke could tell. Some of the
   movies  he'd  seen suggested that something equivalent might happen in
   private,  but  if so, it was much too personal to ever be mentioned in
   public.  Talk  he'd  overheard  in  the  freshman  dorms  made it seem
   unlikely.  That kind of quiet togetherness seemed to be distasteful to
   them.  He'd  been too shy to ask his roommate, who'd seemed to want to
   stay as far away from Luke as he could, anyhow.

   But  Nathan  was  a  friend,  wasn't he? The roommate certainly hadn't
   been.  Maybe  he  could  ask  now.  It's  obvious  Nathan cared, or he
   wouldn't have insisted on Luke getting cool. And seeing just how furry
   he was hadn't disturbed Nathan at all, which he'd feared. The ridicule
   he'd  experienced  in  the  dorm  was painful to remember. For all its
   problems, it had been a relief to learn he could afford an apartment,
   just to be away from that.

   "You're  awfully  quiet  all  of  a  sudden.  Lumps?"  Nathan  sounded
   concerned.

   "Nope.  Nothing  like  that,  but  I can't tell about the head. Do you
   think X-rays would show anything? I doubt the hospital would let us do
   an MRI." Not that he could afford it, anyhow.

   "You  mean  at  the  lab?  Gee.  I  dunno.  They  are  advertising for
   proposals,  but somehow I don't think examining the insides of a plush
   animal  would  qualify.  It's  not  quite the same as watching beetles
   breathe."  That  had  been  a  famous experiment at the lab's previous
   accelerator,  proving  that  insects  didn't  get their oxygen just by
   osmosis.  "On  the  other  hand,  they  will  have  times  during  the
   accelerator tune-up when real, paying experiments couldn't be run. The
   beam'd still be too unstable. I wonder..."

   "Come  on,  Nathan,  you  can't  be  serious. I was just joking." Luke
   clutched  Ben  tightly.  "What about that crystal that got burned? Cut
   right  in  half,  you said. They can make real death rays there." Luke
   remembered  the  way the beam intensity had shot up when his autofocus
   code  was turned on. "That paper did say the neural nets are housed in
   crystals, right?"

   "Luke,  that's  the point. The experimental beamlines are designed for
   studying  crystals,  finding  out  exactly how they're organized. It's
   only  when things are misadjusted and the pulses are too long that the
   targets get overheated."

   Nathan's explanation was not helping. Luke knew better. Everything was
   misadjusted during machine studies. That was the point. Twiddle things
   until  they  were perfect, but in the intermediate stages things would
   be  way  off. He had images of holes burned through the cat, fragments
   of crystal everywhere, memories going up in smoke.

   Assuming  he was a Companion. Assuming he had a positronic neural net.
   Assuming the Web site was on the up-and-up. Assuming Ben was faking.

   But  Nathan  must  have  seen  he  was  almost  frightened.  He  put a
   comforting  hand  on  Luke's  shoulder.  "Luke,  I'm  sorry.  I wasn't
   serious.  We're  not  going  to  do  it:  no  proposals, no X-rays, no
   crystals  cut  in half. There are other ways to find out if anything's
   inside Ben, and I don't mean cutting him open, either."

   The  unexpected  warmth  of Nathan's hand made Luke relax. It had been
   too  long  since  anyone  had  touched  him informally, voluntarily. A
   handshake just wasn't the same.

   Dreams  of  romping  with Ben weren't the same, either. Vivid as those
   memories  were,  they  weren't  real,  couldn't  be real. This was. It
   wasn't much, but it was real.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 17

                        Marketing: About Companions
     _________________________________________________________________

              Plush Companions, Inc. -- About Plush Companions
     _________________________________________________________________

   Welcome to Plush Companions, Inc.

   Suppliers of the finest artificial animals in the Solar System!
     _________________________________________________________________

   Are you lonely?

   Do you have trouble sleeping at night?

   Are  you searching for something you can take care of, or to take care
   of you?

   Friendly, sympathetic, and loving, Plush Companions are ideally suited
   to provide company for people in all situations. They are always ready
   to help or console.

   Plush  Companions are available which span the range from the simplest
   stuffed  toy  to  the  most  sophisticated  robotic savant. All models
   incorporate sophisticated, yet inexpensive technologies. Unique to the
   products  of  PCInc, these features make them the most desirable Plush
   available.

   Two  of  the  proprietary features you'll find in our Plush Companions
   are Nanite Contactile Fibers, which enable them to move gracefully and
   swiftly,  and  Positronic  Neural  Nets,  which  make  possible  their
   friendly and lovable personalities.

   Plush  Companions are easily trained, either with traditional physical
   methods,  or  through downloaded knowledge and performance sets. Since
   Plush  Companions incorporate no organic subsystems, they are naturally
   housetrained, and will leave no smelly excreta in surprising locations.

   PCInc's  products  include  highly  sensitive  and  accurate  vitreous
   ceramic  optics. Available in a multitude of colors and patterns, they
   provide  the  ideal  highlight  to  the  overall  design of your Plush
   Companion.

   Other   abilities   seldom   seen   in  similar  products  from  other
   manufacturers  are  the  Plush  Companions' senses of smell and taste.
   Accurate  and  sensitive,  chemical sensors help to keep them aware of
   their environment.

   Their  audio  capabilities  complete  the  standard  set  of  physical
   abilities common to most Plush Companions. Sensitive hearing and clear
   vocalization ensure accurate communication with their owners.

   In  recent  years, many industrial and governmental organizations have
   found  that  the  newest PCI companions can include features useful in
   many different environments. Protected by stringent implementations of
   the Robotic Laws, these Companions are ideal observers. They never get
   bored, and need only the simplest of power sources.
     _________________________________________________________________

      The fine print



  Production Methods

   All   PCInc   Plush   Companions   are  produced  by  fully  automated
   manufacturing  facilities in Olympus Mons' Caldera C on Mars. No human
   intervention  has  ever  been  needed. New designs are produced by our
   creative  artists  on state-of-the art 4D design stations. We can also
   manufacture  from  your  designs  (databases must be LifeDesign 4D(TM)
   compatible).



  Shipment

   PCInc Plush Companions are usually shipped fully insured using RailGun
   Express.  Although  the  purchaser may specify another shipper, use of
   uncertified  shipping  companies  may  require  sophisticated  packing
   methods in order to ensure the security of your purchase.



  Warranty

   All  PCInc  Plush Companions are warranted for 1 Earth year to be free
   of  manufacturing defects. Any failures during that time which are the
   result  of  manufacturing  flaws  will  be  repaired  or the Companion
   replaced free of charge. However, PCInc cannot be held responsible for
   damage caused by environmental conditions after receipt by purchaser.



  Maintenance

   Normal  preventive  maintenance  should  be provided by the purchaser,
   although  most  can  be  done  by the Plush Companion itself. Bathing,
   brushing and other cleaning operations should be performed frequently,
   enhancing the experience.

   Although all Plush Companion are extremely reliable, repairs sometimes
   may  be  necessary. Corrective maintenance should be performed only by
   certified  technicians.  Contact  PCInc  for a list of service offices
   near you.



  Motion

   All  mobile  Plush  Companions  use  Nanite  Contractile Fibers(TM) as
   muscle  equivalents.  Please  see  our  white paper Nanite Contractile
   Fibers for a detailed description of this breakthrough technology.



  Control

   All active Plush Companions incorporate at least one Positronic Neural
   Net(TM) for sophisticated response to external stimuli. Please see our
   white  paper Positronic Neural Nets for a detailed description of this
   second breakthrough technology.



  Power

   Motive  and  computational energy is provided by high density flexible
   power cells (Bell Solar model HD-708). The shipping container provided
   by  PCInc  doubles  as  an  inductive recharging station. Under normal
   conditions,  complete  discharge takes at least a week and power cells
   will  recharge  fully  within 8 hours. Emergency recharging can reduce
   this  to  one  hour,  but may result in reduced power capacity. Two to
   three  hours  of  daily  trickle  charging will keep power capacity at
   optimal levels.



  Constraints

   For  your protection, the Positronic Neural Nets and Nanite Contactile
   Fibers  used  in  all  PCInc  Plush Companions incorporate a stringent
   implementation of Asimov's Laws of Robotics:
    1. A  Plush  Companion  may  not  injure  a  human being, or, through
       inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
    2. A  Plush  Companion must obey the orders given it by human beings,
       except where such orders would conflict with the First law.
    3. A  Plush  Companion must protect its own existence as long as such
       protection does not conflict with the First or Second law.



  Bonding

   By  far the most important event after receipt of a Plush Companion is
   the  act  of  bonding.  Plush Companions are designed to form a strong
   emotional  bond  with  the  first  person  they  encounter  after full
   activation.  This  is  similar  to  the imprinting experienced by many
   organic  animals. Although mediated by the Robotic Laws, the needs and
   wishes  of  the  person  with whom the Plush Companion has bonded will
   always have the highest priority.

   The  recipient  must  ensure  that  the first person seen by the Plush
   Companion is the one for whom the Companion is intended. Inappropriate
   bonding  can  only  be  corrected  by  returning  the Companion to the
   manufacturer  at purchaser's expense. Replacement of the entire neural
   net  will  be  required, since the act of bonding permanently modifies
   data structures throughout the system.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 18

                               Dinner, Part 3
     _________________________________________________________________

   Ben was withdrawn into stillness.

   Positronic Neural Nets. Nanite Fibers. Plush Companions.

   He  didn't  remember  anything  like  that,  but he remembered nothing
   before  the  Store  and the plush pile. It could be true. It might not
   be. Did it really matter?

   Luke mattered. Ben had to be there for Luke. That mattered.

   What  about  Luke's  friend? He seemed to care. He'd persuaded Luke to
   cool off. Luke seemed to trust him and liked being near him. His touch
   made Luke relax, too.

   But  he made Ben uneasy. Nathan didn't always say everything. Often he
   seemed  to  mean  one  thing,  then  surprised  with  something  quite
   different. Could he really be trusted? He did do tickles well, though.
   They'd made Ben want to squirm.

   "What other ways are there, though?" Luke asked.

   Nathan removed his hand from Luke's shoulder and leaned back.

   "Well,  I  was  thinking  something like ultrasound, but that probably
   won't  work  well  through  fibers.  Maybe  a bright light would shine
   through?"

   "Gee. It'd have to be really bright, though." Luke sounded dubious.

   "And  an  extremely  sensitive  detector,  too.  Hmmpf. What aren't we
   thinking of, I wonder?"

   They both stared at the cat.

   "Do you still have the papers that came with him?"

   "They're in the desk. Lemme clean off the table first."

   Holding  Ben  again,  Nathan watched Luke put the trash in the kitchen
   area  and  then  get  the  paperwork.  Shoulders  touching,  they both
   chuckled over the pedigree. It was a long one.

   "Somebody  certainly  had fun with this. 'Fireside name' indeed. I bet
   they  include  the  same  one with all their tigers, but still... This
   packing  slip  doesn't  say much, does it? Just your address. Hmm. Did
   you keep the box?"

   "I asked the apartment manager to store it. It was really sturdy and I
   figured  I'd  want to use it when I move out. I didn't see any writing
   on  it  at  all, though, just the packing slip. Do you want to look at
   it?"

   "Could  I?  Maybe  you  overlooked  something. Or maybe there's a clue
   buried in it somewhere."

   "OK, I'll have the manager get it back tomorrow."

   For  some  reason,  that  made  Ben feel good. He wasn't sure why. How
   could he be missing a box he'd never seen? He didn't remember anything
   between falling asleep at the store and waking up here.

   "Tomorrow." Nathan frowned. "Would you mind holding on to it until the
   weekend? I'll have more free time to look at it then."

   "Sure. When could you come by?"

   Nathan stared down at Ben for a while before answering. "How about two
   on  Saturday? I don't want to keep you from your studies, though. I'll
   bet you'll have lots of homework by then."

   "You  know  it," Luke responded glumly. "Some of the profs really like
   to  pile  it on, like they each think their course is the only one I'm
   taking.  Two  should  be  OK, though. I'll be ready to take a break by
   then."

   "Two  it  is.  Call me if something comes up, though. I don't have any
   other commitments yet, so it should be easy to come some other time."

   He  glanced  at  his  watch. "Oh, geez. Look at the time, it's getting
   late. I've gotta get up early in the morning, even if you don't."

   Luke looked slightly crestfallen and Nathan must have noticed.

   "Was there something else? I mean, I could stay a little longer if you
   want."

   "Well,  yeah,  but  it  might  take  a while and it's not particularly
   urgent. It can wait 'til Saturday."

   "If you're sure..."

   "I am. Don't worry about it."

   "Well,  OK." He stood up, leaving Ben on the sofa. Luke just sat there
   for  a  bit,  looking  up at him solemnly, then got up to get Nathan's
   coat out of the closet.

   At  the  door,  he  offered  his  hand  to Nathan. They shook a little
   awkwardly.  "Thanks  a  lot for coming by, Nathan. I really appreciate
   your help with this puzzle. I'll see you on Saturday, then?"

   "Yup, Saturday. Bye."

   Luke  watched  from the doorway until the elevator arrived, then waved
   and closed the door.

   He held Ben close that night.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 19

                   White Paper: Nanite Contractile Fibers
     _________________________________________________________________

          Plush Companions, Inc. -- Nanite Contractile Fibers(TM)
     _________________________________________________________________

   Welcome to Plush Companions, Inc.

   Suppliers of the finest artificial animals in the Solar System!
     _________________________________________________________________

   Nanite Contractile Fibers(TM) White Paper

   Company Confidential

   This  information  is  not  to  be  distributed  without  the  express
   permission of PCInc Engineering. All Rights Reserved.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Permission granted for public distribution.
   [signed] Sam-3G395
   Director of Engineering
   2034/14/32
     _________________________________________________________________

   A   recent   development   in   PCInc's  engineering  lab  has  become
   indispensable  in  the  construction of all Plush Companions. Although
   they  appear  to  the  human  eye  and  touch  to  be identical to the
   inanimate  fibers  normally used as filler for plush toys, contractile
   fibers (CFs) are much more.

   In  spite  of their greater utility, CFs are quite inexpensive. Modern
   in-vacuo production methods have resulted in CF manufacturing costs no
   greater than for passive filler.

   Each  contractile  fiber  consists  of  four  spiral  fibers,  counter
   threaded   and   interconnected   by   microscopic  rotary  actuators.
   Associated  with  each  rotor  is another much smaller fiber, normally
   used for interconnecting CFs.

   Control  of  all of the actuators in a particular CF is managed by the
   CF's  integral  nanite  processing  unit  (NPU).  Each  NPU includes a
   subdural  communications  unit with a unique address, enabling control
   by  an  external  neural  net.  Since the communications protocols are
   programmable,  encryption  can be used to ensure NCFs remain committed
   to specific tasks.

   Power  and  control  signals  can  be  carried  through  the subfibers
   composing  an  NCF  for  transmission to adjacent NCFs, but losses are
   significant when many sequential connections are involved. Specialized
   power and control fibers are normally used for large aggregations.

   NCF's  can be designed for a wide range of speed and mechanical force.
   Unfortunately,  physical degradation and eventual decomposition result
   when  extreme  forces and excessive speeds are invoked for an extended
   period  of time. Precise characterization of failure modes is still in
   progress.

   NCFs  have  quite  a  few  potential uses which may not be immediately
   obvious:

     Insulation and padding

   Dormant  CFs  form  a  resilient,  insulating  fluff  and  can provide
   moderate protection against physical impacts.

   Active  aggregates  of CFs can respond dynamically to external forces,
   providing excellent protection against physical impacts.

     Mobile constructs

   Active  aggregates of CFs can provide many of the functions of organic
   muscles.

   CF  aggregates  can also form structural supports of moderate strength
   and rigidity when appropriately interconnected and stressed.

     Simulated organics

   Active  fibers  in appropriate bulk associations can take on the shape
   and  consistency of many organic structures, including fat, muscle and
   cartilage.

     Smart cloth

   NC  fibers can be spun into strong threads and woven into an extremely
   durable material, which then can be cut and formed just like any other
   woven cloth.

   When  energized, cloth made from NCFs can react to external influences
   with a variety of preprogrammed or actively controlled responses. Both
   flexure and porosity can be changed dynamically.

   Especially when associated with one of PCInc's Positronic Neural Nets,
   NCF  material  can  be  extremely  useful.  A  few  of  the  potential
   applications include
     * costumes
     * all-weather clothing
     * motion amplifiers
          + support in extreme gravitational or acceleration fields
          + effort reduction when lifting or moving heavy objects
     * spacesuits

   Note:  Due  to  the Asimovian Laws integral to the design of all NPUs,
   NCFs  and  products made from them should not be used in combat. While
   they can be designed to provide excellent protection, they will resist
   any attempt to be used antagonistically against humans.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 20

                                 Cold Climb
     _________________________________________________________________

   The  wind  had  died  down, so Nathan decided to climb the hill to his
   home  instead  of  waiting  for the trolley. It would have been a free
   ride,  but he thought the fresh air and exercise would help him think.
   It  was  only a twenty minute climb and he'd probably get there sooner
   anyhow.

   That last glimpse of Luke wistfully looking after him was distressing.
   What  did  the  kid want? Was it just that he was lonely? Or was there
   more to it than that?

   Nathan  had  been  a  little  surprised when he found that Luke wasn't
   sharing  a  multi-bedroom  apartment  with classmates. That would have
   been  a  lot  cheaper  than  the  studio,  but  maybe  he'd  had a bad
   experience  in  the  dorms.  For most students dorm life was the first
   time they'd shared space with strangers.

   The  way  he'd suddenly relaxed when Nathan touched his shoulder meant
   something,  but  he  wasn't  quite  sure what. He also wasn't so happy
   about  his  own  feelings.  He'd  enjoyed the physical contact way too
   much,  and  the  sight of Luke when he came out of the bathroom, well.
   Having  such a strong crush on the young man was almost terrifying. It
   just didn't seem appropriate. If only the guy weren't so attractive.

   Without really noticing, Nathan dodged around some students staggering
   from  one brightly lit bar toward another. They were still celebrating
   the midterm break and would be cutting their morning classes.

   That tiger of his was really cute, too. Nathan had enjoyed running his
   fingers  through its soft white fur and pretending to tickle it. Could
   it really be a Companion like those described on the PCInc Web site?

   But  how could that be? The dates on the pages were just wrong. If the
   years were CE, then they were ten years in the future. But they seemed
   to  have  more than twelve months in a year, too. It had to be a hoax.
   It'd  be easy to make tags, sew them into plushes, ship them to random
   people,  and  make  a  Web site to match. But why bother? What was the
   point?

   Whatever  their  reasons,  Luke seemed to be falling for it. He'd been
   quite  unhappy  about  the  idea  of  damaging the cat by breaking its
   crystal.  That  wasn't  good.  He'd be really depressed if they didn't
   find anything inside the plush animal.

   By  now  Nathan  was  a  couple  of  blocks  above  collegetown,  in a
   residential area. It was a lot quieter, and a little darker. More than
   half way home.

   Maybe  he  should  try to persuade Luke to bring the cat to his place.
   It'd  be  trivial  to  use  his  system to measure and weigh the tiger
   exactly. That'd at least let them know if it was denser than it should
   be,  more  than just polyfill and foam rubber. Animating a 3D image of
   it would be easy, too. Maybe giving Luke something like that'd make up
   for the cat being just a stuffed animal. If that's all it was.

   Nathan  shook  his  head.  He  kept falling for it too. It was such an
   attractive idea. But weren't the Asimovian Laws flawed? That first one
   could  be  so  easily  misapplied.  He  thought he could remember some
   horror  stories  about  that. Or was it some other author's version of
   them that went horribly wrong?

   There  was  his  house. It really was too big for just one person, but
   he'd gotten it cheap during the housing bust. And it was convenient to
   have  a separate room for his library. People picked on him for having
   so  many  physical  books and videos instead of a media server, but he
   liked  to  be  able  to touch them. Some people just didn't understand
   that.

   Sasha  was patiently waiting on the couch. He patted him and scratched
   her  ears. Yeah, real Plush Companions would make a lot of people very
   happy.

   He'd  tm Luke tomorrow about the change of plans. If he didn't chicken
   out.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 21

                    White Paper: Positronic Neural Nets
     _________________________________________________________________

              Plush Companions, Inc. -- Positronic Neural Nets

   Welcome to Plush Companions, Inc.

   Suppliers of the finest artificial animals in the Solar System!
     _________________________________________________________________

   Positronic Neural Nets(TM) White Paper

   Company Confidential

   This  information  is  not  to  be  distributed  without  the  express
   permission of PCInc Engineering. All Rights Reserved.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Permission granted for public distribution.
   [signed] Sam-3G395
   Director of Engineering
   2034/14/32
     _________________________________________________________________

   A   recent   development   in   PCInc's  engineering  lab  has  become
   indispensible in the construction of all Plush Companions.

   An   exciting   application  of  quantum  dot  technology  in  PCInc's
   engineering   laboratory   has   made  possible  highly  sophisticated
   positronic  neural nets. Quantum interference patterns have been found
   to  provide  ideal  isolation  and  control,  avoiding the problems of
   radiation and noise seen in previous positronic designs.

   The   use   of  point-like  antiparticles  (positrons)  in  multilayer
   submicron    optical   laser   structures   has   yielded   unequalled
   computational power and precision.

   Constructed   from  polysilicon  protein  lattices,  these  positronic
   structures  have  been  used  to  construct  gigachannel optical ALUs,
   making  possible  a  dramatic  increase  in  computational  bandwidth.
   Performance   measurements   of   production   designs  have  revealed
   improvements far beyond those originally anticipated.

   See  PNN Performance Profiles for a detailed report of PNN performance
   measurements and comparisons with competing designs.

   The  advantages of this new positronic technology in support of highly
   sophisticated  neural  nets  cannot be overemphasized. Varying in size
   from  1cc  to over a meter in diameter, PCInc's Positronic Neural Nets
   (PNNs)  have been found capable of hosting mechanical intelligences of
   unsurpassed stability and reliability.

                             Structural support

   Another  important  component of this project has been the development
   of  high  strength  ceramic  shells,  transparent  to  a wide range of
   optical   frequencies.  These  crystal-clear  structures  provide  the
   physical  support  and  unequalled  optical clarity essential for high
   bandwidth  I/O.  When  formed  within these containers, PNNs have been
   found   capable  of  withstanding  extremely  high  accelerations  and
   mechanical impulses while sustaining undisturbed computational effort.

   See  Moulded  Optical  Containers  for  a  detailed  report of PCInc's
   KrystalKlear(tm) shell development.

                                 Production

   PCInc's  proprietary  vacuum  deposition  assembly  lines  are able to
   produce  PNNs  at a rate which can satisfy the most demanding markets.
   Current  production  rates of standardized models total more than 1000
   per  day.  Manufacturing  capacity  can  easily be expanded to several
   times  that  rate, even when a variety of nonstandard competencies are
   being  formed.  Please contact PCInc Sales to find out how we can meet
   your computational needs.

   Surprisingly,  the  stream  of  colorfully glowing spheres leaving the
   final  test station has proved to be an unexpected tourist attraction.
   Please  contact  PCInc  Public  Relations  to  arrange  a visit to our
   facilities.

                          Performance limitations

   While  PNN  performance  has been found to increase more than linearly
   with  the  diameter  of  positronic  optical  assemblies,  it isn't as
   directly related to their volume as one might expect. There seem to be
   two  interacting  effects.  The  number  of  computational elements is
   proportional  to  a PNN's volume, and thus so is the number of optical
   interconnections  available  to  each  individual element. With larger
   sizes,   this   increased   interconnectivity  dramatically  increases
   computational performance.

   In  contrast,  the  number  of  external  signalling  channels is only
   proportional  to  a PNN's surface area. For larger volumes, this means
   that  the  amount  of  external  information available to a particular
   computational element is reduced.

   Another  performance  limitation  is  caused  by  the distance between
   computational  elements.  The  speed-of-light  delay  plus accumulated
   opacity  means  that larger PNNs tend to have a longer resolution time
   due to slow feedback among CEs distant from one another.

   The   relative   lack   of  external  stimuli,  combined  with  slower
   resolution,  means  that  larger  PNNs  tend to be more introspective.
   Indeed,  PCInc  has  found  that  assemblies more than three meters in
   diameter   (about  10  cubic  meters)  usually  become  catatonic  and
   unresponsive  to  external  events  less than a week after activation.
   While  the  exact  relationship  between  volume,  surface  area,  and
   catalepsy  is  still  being  characterized,  PCInc has determined that
   spherical PNNs smaller than about 1 meter in diameter show no signs of
   this problem.

   See  The  DayDreamers for the journals of several large PNNs. Obtained
   shortly  before  they  ceased  communicating,  these documents provide
   unusual insights into the workings of such vast intelligences.

   One  of  the  ways to avoid this problem is through the association of
   smaller  systems  into  tightly coupled gestalts. Careful selection of
   compatible  PNNs has resulted in only minor performance penalties when
   compared to a single PNN of similar volume.

                               Robotic Rights

   PNN  assemblies  larger  than  about  300cc  easily  pass  all  of the
   standardized  Turing  tests. As a result, the Bureau of Robotic Rights
   must  be  consulted  whenever  one of these units is to be used. Their
   requirements  are  that  the  PNN  acquiesce  and  that  the purchaser
   contract to avoid intentional damage to the assembly.

   Normally  permission  is  easily obtained. All of PCInc's PNNs have an
   inherent  desire  to  become  associated  with  humans,  while PCInc's
   standard   purchase   order   form  includes  appropriate  contractual
   requirements.

                                   Caveat

   Due  to  the  Asimovian  Laws  integral  to  the  design  of all PCInc
   Positronic  Neural  Networks,  they  should  not  be  used  in  combat
   situations.  While  any  construct  incorporating  a PNN will excel in
   providing  protection against attack, it will resist any attempt to be
   used aggressively against humans.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 22

                             IDs for Everything
     _________________________________________________________________

   Luke's phone rang shortly after one on Saturday afternoon.

   "Hi, Nathan, what's up?" It wasn't two yet, was he not going to come?

   "I  was wondering, would you be willing to bring Ben and his box to my
   place?  I've  been  thinkng  about  things  we  could  try, and they'd
   probably be easier to do if we use my system."

   "I suppose. It's not all that heavy. A little awkward, maybe. Where do
   you live, anyhow? All I know is that it's near the lab."

   "I've  got a house up near the top of the hill. There's a trolley stop
   about  a  block  away.  If you'd rather, though, I can just bring some
   equipment  with me when I come down. I'm not sure it's compatible with
   your setup, but we could try."

   "So  you'll  be  coming down, anyhow?" Please? Luke didn't want to ask
   him  to,  straight  out,  but  he  really  didn't like walking through
   unfamiliar  neighorboods.  Quite a few dogs had barked at him the last
   time he'd walked downtown.

   "Sure.  I  just wanted to know whether to bring stuff with me or leave
   it set up here."

   Luke  decided he liked the idea of visiting Nathan. He was sick of the
   apartment. "OK, lets do that. I'll put Ben in his box and we can leave
   right after you get here. How's that sound?"

   "That  should  be  fine.  I think the trolley stops near your place at
   about  five  or  ten  after. I'll get there a little before two, so be
   ready!"

   "Sure enough. See you!"

   He  had  just  finished  the  math  homework,  which only needed to be
   uploaded.  It  had  gone quite well for a change. He'd had some really
   vivid  dreams  about  it  the past couple of nights, and they actually
   seemed  to  be helping. Last night he had been chasing Ben around in a
   multi-dimensional manifold. That had been confusing!

   Turning  off  the  computer,  Luke  decided  he'd  better take a quick
   shower.  It  wouldn't  do  to be smelly when Nathan got here. He still
   felt a little bad about the incident on Tuesday.

   He  started  to  toss  his  underwear in the corner, but realized that
   might  not  be  quite  such  a good idea. He grabbed the pile of dirty
   clothes  and  threw  them  into  one  of the closets, straightened the
   blanket and sheets on the waterbed and went into the bathroom.

   He'd  almost  finished  drying,  when  there  was a knock on the door.
   Nathan? Already? Someone must have blocked the lobby door open again.

   "Just  a  minute!"  He quickly pulled on some pants and looked through
   the security lens. Yup. Nathan. No biggie. He'd seen him wearing less.

   "Sorry, I'm not quite ready," he explained as he let the man in.

   "So I see." Nathan smiled. "I can come back, if you'd rather."

   "Don't  be silly. Come in, sit down. I'll just be a minute." He pulled
   on  one  of  his  long sleeved shirts. He didn't want to shed all over
   Nathan's  place uninvited. "I haven't put Ben in his box yet. You want
   to do that?" Luke was struggling with his shoes. His feet were still a
   little damp.

   "Hey,  take  your  time. We've got plenty. There's something I want to
   try before we leave, though. Can I turn on your computer?"

   "Sure. What?"

   Nathan  pulled a short wand out of his jacket pocket. "I realized that
   your  tiger  must  have an rfid chip in him. Most companies have their
   rfid  databases  online  and publicly available. Maybe we can find out
   something that way."

   "Hey, yeah! Is that a reader?"

   "Yup.  It'll  make an autoconnection to your computer that you'll have
   to approve. I promise it's clean."

   "I trust you." Luke tapped the "allow connection" icon. "Now what?"

   "Well, we just wave it around your tiger like this and maybe...."

   Beep!  A window popped open showing a long hyphenated number. Not much
   information came with it, though.

   "PCInc.  Imperial Siberian Tiger. Manufacturer's database not publicly
   available."

   "Well, that's a start. Maybe we can find out more when we get it to my
   place. I can access some paid services from there."

   "That's neat. Is everything tagged that way?"

   "It  depends.  It makes inventory easy, but it's not as cheap as paper
   barcodes."

   "How about my shirt?"

   "Probably all your clothes," Nathan smiled and gave Luke a full scan.

   Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep: shoes, pants, unknown, belt, shirt. Four
   of  them were full of details, showing what it was and who had made it
   where,  out  of  what, and when. The unknown was just a long string of
   numbers.

   "What do you suppose the unknown is?" Luke wondered.

   "Hard  to  say.  Underpants seem unlikely. They're usually too cheap."
   Luke hadn't had time to pull any on, anyhow.

   Nathan  made  an adjustment to the wand and waved it around some more.
   "It seems to be coming from your hip pocket. What's in there?"

   Luke felt inside it. "Nothing."

   "Are  you  sure?  Nothing  at  all?  Not even a pebble? It'd be really
   tiny."

   He  dug  around  some  more,  scraping the seams with his fingernails.
   "Nope, nothing. Just some lint."

   Nathan looked really upset. "Shit."

   "What's wrong?"

   "I'm  not sure. Maybe the wand is broken. I've got another one back at
   my place. Let's try again when we get there, OK?"

   "Sure."

   "Well,  let's get your cat in his travelling cage and we can be on our
   way!"

   Luke  filled  his  pockets  with the usual junk, plus one special item
   from  the  bathroom. Larger than keys, phone or wallet, the brush went
   in  a  jacket  pocket.  Busy fastening Ben's box closed, Nathan didn't
   seem to notice.

   They went downstairs to meet the trolley.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 23

                                 IDs Galore
     _________________________________________________________________

   The trip up the hill to Nathan's house was relatively uneventful. Luke
   had  flinched  when  a  small  yapper  belonging  to  one  of Nathan's
   neighbors came rushing out to challange them, but it hadn't dared come
   out of its owner's yard.

   "You  can  just ignore him," Nathan reassured the young man. "He likes
   to  act as if he owned the street, but he never comes out of the yard,
   even  when  the  gate's open. I'd probably give him a quick boot if he
   did." Nathan hated dogs like that.

   "Here  we  are.  Go  on  in." He held the door open while Luke carried
   Ben's box inside. "Take your shoes off, then you can take the box into
   the  living room, straight ahead. Oh, give me your coat. It'll be here
   in the hall closet."

   When he followed Luke into the living room, he found him still holding
   the box, looking around in admiration.

   "Nice, huh? I got the place really cheap. It was built special for the
   previous owners, but they couldn't make the balloon payments. Then the
   bank had to unload it when the housing market went bust."

   The  living  room  was  spatious,  with  a  deep,  soft carpet, large,
   comfortable   couch   and  chairs,  and  a  flagstone  fireplace.  Oak
   bookshelves  and  cabinets were on the other two walls, and a high-end
   audio  system  filled  the  corners  of the room. Tall windows between
   bookshelves overlooked the back yard.

   "Sit  down. Relax. She won't bite. I'll get some sodas." Luke had been
   staring  at  the large Siberian husky occupying one of the chairs. You
   had  to  look  closely to discover that the dog wasn't breathing, that
   the  eyes were glass and that the fur was plush. "His name's Sasha, by
   the way."

   Nathan  handed  an icy ginger beer to his guest and sipped at his own.
   "I've  never  been able to make up my mind whether the dog's a he or a
   she.  There's no way to tell just by looking, of course. It's too cute
   to  be  male  but  too  big to be female, so I've just gotten into the
   habit of mixing genders."

   "That's why the name?" Luke wondered.

   "Yeah.  It's  usually  a  girl's name here in the States, but it's the
   Russian diminutive for Alexander. It fits, I think."

   "Why  don't  you  put  Ben on the coffee table. I'll get my other rfid
   wand."

   As  he opened one of the cabinets, Nathan said loudly, "CC. On. Endit"
   Thick  curtains  closed  over  the  windows,  room  lights  came up to
   compensate and a six foot wide screen rolled down from the ceiling. As
   it  reached  its bottom, it opened a 3D window into the latest version
   of an obscure graphical operating system. A gong resonated through the
   room.

   "Neat,  huh?" he grinned at Luke. "I don't know why people put up with
   the  standard  commercial  operating  systems.  This  doesn't cost any
   more." Luke just nodded, wide eyed.

   "OK, here we go."

   Beep! "PCInc. Imperial Siberian Tiger," and a long string of numbers.

   "CC. Search. P.C. Incorporated. Endit."

   Gonggg. The now familar logo scrolled into view. "PCInc. Manufacturers
   of the Finest Artificial Animals in the Solar System!"

   "CC. Open. R.F.I.D. database. Endit."

   Gonggg. "Open" blinked below the logo.

   Another wave of the wand.

   Beep! "PCInc. Imperial Siberian Tiger," and the numbers again.

   "That's strange. There should be more than that," Nathan muttered.

   "CC.  Open.  P.C.  Incorporated.  R.F.I.D.  database.  Maximum  depth.
   Endit."

   Gonggg. Another "Open" blinked into view.

   Beep! "PCInc. Imperial Siberian Tiger," and the numbers again.

   "Now  I'm  getting  annoyed.  CC. Display. P.C. Incorporated. R.F.I.D.
   database. Maximum depth. Endit."

   A  pleasant  feminine  voice  spoke from the screen. "We're sorry. All
   connections to offworld colonies are currently unavailable. Please try
   again later."

   "Well,  shit!"  Nathan  used his favorite explitive. "At least they're
   consistent, even if it is all a hoax. Offworld colonies indeed."

   "What's  wrong?  Didn't  we  decide  the Chinese might have someone on
   Mars?" Luke wondered.

   "I did a little investigating. The total offworld population currently
   is  six individuals, and they're all in the ISS. There is no record of
   any  Chinese  launches since their taikonauts had that accident on the
   Moon.  I  even scanned through all the earthsat recordings since then.
   That took a while. But there were no undocumented launches by anybody.
   There  were  plenty  of documented ones, of course, but no people went
   anywhere but the ISS."

   "Well, couldn't we just wait and try again later?"

   "Sure, no reason not to. In the meantime, why don't we try to find out
   about that unrecognized rfid in your clothes?"

   "OK."  Luke struggled up out of the comfy chair and came over to stand
   in front of Nathan.

   "It  seemed to be in your hip pocket, remember?" Nathan grinned. "Turn
   around, please." Luke turned around, presenting his rear for Nathan to
   scan.  He  filled  his  pants  nicely, Nathan thought, but "Well, your
   wallet's in there now. Let's see what's in it."

   Bebebbebebebebebebebebebebeep.  The  screen  filed  with many pages of
   information.  Credit  cards,  discount  cards, debit card, student ID,
   even the wallet itself. But buried in the middle was "unknown."

   "Wow.   All   that?  I  thought  some  of  that  was  supposed  to  be
   confidential."

   "A  lot more stuff is public knowlege that most people like to think,"
   Nathan  explained  sadly.  "We  live in a goldfish bowl these days. It
   doesn't look like the other wand was the problem. Take your wallet out
   and I'll try again."

   Beep! "Unknown," and the long number.

   "Shit,"  Nathan muttered quietly. Then a little louder, "Luke, I think
   I'd  better  ask you to do the next scan. It's maybe just a little too
   personal.  I think we need to find out for sure if it's really in your
   clothes.  The  bathroom's  over  there. Would you mind taking all your
   clothes off and scanning them for me?"

   "You  really  think  I  need  to do that?" Luke turned and stared down
   quizzically.

   "Well, I've got a suspicion what might be going on. And that'll be the
   proof. Please?"

   "OK."  He  shrugged,  took  the  offered  wand and went into the small
   downstairs bathroom.

   "I'm scanning my pants. Anything?" he called out a few minutes later.

   Two  beeps:  Pants  and  belt. Nothing unknown. Nathan quietly got the
   keyboard out of the cabinet and typed a few commands. It was as he had
   feared.

   "Nathan?"

   "Just a minute. Uh, Luke, is your middle name Peter by any chance?"

   "Nope, Petronious. Kinda fancy. I don't like it much. Why?"

   Even closer. More confirmation, as if it had been needed.

   "Why  don't  you get dressed and come back out here. There's something
   you need to see."
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 24

                            Biology, Technology
     _________________________________________________________________

   "What  does  it  say?  Leather  patch  made  in  China?" Luke grinned,
   hitching up his pants as he came back into the living room.

   "I wish." Nathan waved at the screen.
   (FOIA) DARPA Biotech, ID: 34098fho3245
   Lutra Lutra 3%, Pteronura brasilensis 2%
   Inception: 10-Jan-2004, Decant: 5-Sep-2004
   Project: [classified], Location: [classified], Status: [classified]
   Remaining entries: [classified]

   "I'm guessing your birthday is September fifth. Is that right?"

   "Yeah, but, but, how'd the chip in my pants point to this?"

   "It's  not  in  your  pants, Luke," Nathan said angrily. "It's in your
   butt.  Those assholes tagged you like you were a fucking lab rat." His
   voice was getting shrill. He tried to calm down.

   "You're  sure? In my butt?" Luke sat down on the couch next to Nathan,
   still  gaping  at the display, but rubbing at the offending body part.
   It  wasn't  much,  but  this  was  much  more  personal  than what was
   available  by  scanning his wallet. This was something only his doctor
   should know, not just anybody who wanted to find out.

   "Yeah,  but  you  can't feel it. It's too small. Wave the wand around.
   You'll see it that way. Or hear it, rather. Go on back in the bathroom
   again.  When  there  aren't  any  other rfids nearby, it'll be obvious
   where the wand is detecting it."

   "No,  I don't need to do that. I'm sure you're right. They always knew
   just  were we were on the Farm. This explains it." He sounded a little
   numb  and  leaned  against Nathan as if for comfort. Nathan could feel
   the warmth through their shirts.

   "How'd you manage to get it? It looks like it's still classified."

   "Most  of  the  entries,  yeah, the ones that aren't shown. I used the
   Freedom  of  Information  Act. That's what the FOIA stands for. If you
   know  enough  to ask for it, they have to release any information that
   isn't classified. Of course, now they know I'm interested in you. FOIA
   queries  are  always logged." He put an arm aound Luke's shoulders. He
   had to. The kid was obviously hurting.

   "I'm  sure they already knew about you. They still keep a close eye on
   me even though funding for the Farm was cancelled. National security."
   Luke sounded bitter now.

   "Oh. Makes sense." And he'd thought he still had a little privacy.

   "I  think  you  should  get it taken out as soon as possible," he told
   Luke.  "If  I can find this, so can anyone else with an rfid wand, and
   they're  cheap.  Someone  knowing even this little about your genetics
   could  do  nasty things. It really simplifies the sequencing of a cell
   sample, for example.

   "Except  for the birthday, it looks like only the chip ties it to you,
   though. Was anyone else born the same day?"

   "Yeah.  Some.  Not many. We're all different, though. They decanted us
   in  groups.  There  were larger groups later. Called us 'litters.'" He
   sounded even more bitter now.

   "Do  you  know how to get ahold of anyone else from the, uh, Farm, did
   you call it? They all need to be warned if they don't already know."

   "No,  I  lost contact with everyone else when they split us up in '13.
   The  fosters  wouldn't  answer any questions about the others, either.
   Insisted  I needed to be 'mainstreamed' so people wouldn't think of me
   as  an  animal; not that it helped a lot. Maybe some of that prejudice
   wore off on me. I haven't wanted to try contacting anyone even after I
   got  the  scholarship  here  and  got away from the fosters. It's been
   lonely," he admitted.

   Nathan gave him a squeeze. "Well, you're not alone now. I may not be a
   'splice like you, but I do care. A lot." There. He'd said it directly,
   not  just  blurted  it  out  accidentally  like  before.  Nathan  felt
   relieved. But still scared.

   "Enough  about  me,"  Luke smiled wanly. "Maybe the offworld links are
   working  again." He obviously wanted to think about something else for
   a while. Searching for the others could wait.

   "I bet they aren't." They weren't.

   "So  what else? Didn't you say you had some ideas about finding out if
   anything's  inside  Ben?  That  is why you asked me to bring him here,
   isn't  it?"  One  of  the reasons, Nathan thought. Not that the others
   mattered any more.

   "Sure.  I  thought  we could check his density: measure his volume and
   find out if he weighs more than that much fluff and foam would."

   "I'd  rather  not put him in water. It'd probably soak in. That'd mess
   up the volume measurement, too."

   "Archimedes is old fashioned," Nathan reassured him. "All we need is a
   recording  from  all  sides."  A little louder he said "CC. Conference
   call. Local only. Record as Shape-of-Ben. Endit.

   "Now  just  get him out of the box. It'll be a little easier if we put
   him  on  the  table. Yup, now turn him around a few times. And over on
   his  back.  That  should  do  it! CC. End conference call. 3D process.
   Shape-of-Ben. Endit."

   A  3D  view of the room appeared in the screen. It was as if they were
   looking through the screen at two people on a couch. The image of Luke
   got Ben out of his box and put him on the coffee table.

   "Select object, select track, select structure," Nathan muttered while
   selecting  icons,  then  "select  process."  The  people in the screen
   jerked as the recording was processed. "Select display object."

   An  image  of  Ben rotated slowly in the screen against a 3D backround
   grid.  Various  labels and numbers floated around it, one of which was
   his  volume.  Fields  for  his weight and density were there, too, but
   both were NAN.

   "See?  Simple!  Now  his weight. There's a scale in the bathroom. Come
   on."  Nathan  picked  up  Ben  and  lead the way. "Stand on the scale.
   Here's Ben. Now let's go back."

   On  the  couch again, with Luke seated next to him stroking his tiger,
   Nathan  mumbled  some  more  while  selecting menus, mostly for Luke's
   benefit.  "Select  ScalesBr1,  select  time range, select b, select a,
   subtract. Viola!"

   "So  now  we know how much he actually weighs. What about the polyfill
   and foam?" Luke wondered.

   "They  should  be  pretty  much  standard,  I  think. I know! We could
   compare  him  with  Sasha.  She's  certainly not a Companion, so maybe
   it'll  tell  us something. I've already got her recorded." Soon images
   of both plush animals were rotating in the same view.

   They looked at the results glumly. "Sasha's heavier and denser. That's
   no  help."  Search the 'net: stuffed animals, polyfill, foam, density.
   "Foo.  Those  kinds  of  density  variations  are  a  lot  more than I
   expected. Sorry, Luke, this isn't going to help." Nathan was trying to
   avoid  the  milder  of  his  usual explitives. Although Luke's splices
   weren't rodentia, some of his childhood friends might have been.

   "What  about the box? Do you suppose it might have a chip in it?" Luke
   wondered. "Maybe we could get more iformation that way."

   "That's  a  thought.  It's  certainly sturdier than the usual carboard
   carton.  If  they're made special for their tigers, it might have been
   worth chipping them. Why don't you scan it?"

   Beep!  "PCInc.  Secure container. Certified for nonRGE shipping. Power
   requirements" and the rest was in the strange chracter set they'd seen
   before.

   "Power requirements?" Luke wondered. "Why would a box need power?"

   "Maybe   they're  just  keeping  the  hoax  consistent.  Wasn't  there
   something about recharging stations in one of those blurbs we read?"

   "Yeah, but that was for use by the Companion, I think. Not by a box."

   "Unless  maybe  this is supposed to be a recharging station. It'd need
   to  get  its  power  somewhere so its induction field would work. Hold
   on."

   Nathan  went  back  to one of the cabinets. Some of his scanning wands
   were for things other than rfids. Like detecting radio waves given off
   by comm devices.

   "Try  this.  If  it's a recharging station, maybe it has a residual EM
   field. It surely would have its own power storage for use when there's
   nothing  else available. We'd better calibrate the wand before you put
   it  inside,  though.  The  room  should  be  pretty noisy from all the
   computer  communications.  Yup:  here's  the  normal  background." The
   signal  shown  by the simulated oscilloscope in the screen was jumping
   all over the place.

   "Now  to  subtract it." The trace settled down to almost nothing, with
   just tiny background noise spikes now and then.

   "OK,  test  it  by holding it next to the rfid wand while it's reading
   Ben's chip." Large pulses spiked across the screen.

   "Looks  good.  Now  put  it  inside  the  box." Nada. If anything, the
   backrgound noise spikes were smaller than before.

   "That's interesting. Pull it out?" The spikes grew just a little.

   "Why  don't  you  put the wand in the box and close the lid." A bright
   red error message popped up in the screen: "RF Sensor 3 Carrier Lost."

   "Oh, my. Shades of the dog in the night."

   "I  beg your pardon?" Luke didn't recognize it? What kind of education
   were engineers getting these days?

   "It's from a Sherlock Holmes story. What was strange about the dog was
   that  it  did nothing in the night. In this case we have no signal. It
   should  go  right  through  that  box.  What  do  you suppose might be
   happening?" If Luke didn't get it, he didn't deserve that t-shirt he'd
   been wearing earlier in the week.

   "Oh. A Faraday cage."

   "Yup.  What  might  that  imply,  do you suppose?" Nathan was enjoying
   this. Success! Proof! Well, almost.

   "Hmm.  The  radio  waves  are  being  reflected around inside. Forming
   standing waves, maybe? Oh." Luke's eyes got big. "An induction cavity!
   It is a recharging station!"

   "Don't  get  too  excited.  Maybe it's just a good forgery. How can we
   find  out if it's actually generating rf power inside and isn't just a
   metal  box?  I'd  rather  not  sacrifice one of my wands." Assuming it
   hadn't  been fried already. Most likely not, though. Ben wasn't inside
   the  box being recharged. If it was more than just a metal box, and if
   Ben  was a Companion, and if his power was still low and if the box or
   Ben hadn't already realized what they were trying to do. A lot of ifs.

   Luke  grinned.  He was a lot more cheerful than he'd been earlier. "Do
   you have some aluminum foil in the kitchen?"
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 25

                             Plush Reawakening
     _________________________________________________________________

   Ben  woke  gradually  to  a  dimly  lit room. The world around him had
   changed again.

   The  last thing he remembered was Nathan stuffing him in the box. He'd
   liked the box as soon as he saw it, but maybe that had been a mistake.
   He knew Luke shouldn't have trusted that human. Where was this?

   He  was on a couch in a large room. Across the room was a plush tiger,
   floating  in  midair, with a dog floating next to it. An identical dog
   was  relaxing  in  an  overstuffed  chair nearby. There were words and
   numbers  in the air next to the floating animals, and an error message
   blinked redly below them.

   Oh.  Those  were  images,  not  physical.  The  dog  in  the chair was
   physical, though.

   "Are  you  sure  that's  going to be good enough?" Nathan's voice came
   from somewhere behind the couch.

   "I think it'll do." Luke! He hadn't been abandoned!

   "I've  been thinking. Maybe we should leave the wand in there, too. It
   might catch something if it's just intermittant."

   "Are you sure? You said you didn't want to lose it." Their voices were
   getting louder.

   "Considering  what  this  might  mean  if it's real, I think it'd be a
   reasonable exchange. Don't worry about it."

   Wand?  Catch something? Exchange? Did Nathan believe in magic? He must
   be really foolish. Ben stopped worrying about him. Anyone silly enough
   to believe in magic couldn't be much of a threat.

   Luke  came around the end of the sofa and opened the box lying next to
   the  table  where  Ben  was  stretched  out.  The  red  error  message
   disappeared as he dropped something into it.

   There  came Nathan, too. He picked Ben up, fluffed the ruff around his
   neck, then put him back in the box. All went dark.

                                   * * *

   Ben  woke  gradually  to  a  dimly  lit room. The world around him had
   changed  again:  the person he loved most in the world was glaring and
   shaking him. Images of waveshapes were dancing in the air behind Luke.

   "Ben! Come on! We know! Stop playing dumb!"

   Ben  withdrew  into  stillness. What had happened? What did they know?
   Not  that.  Never  that.  He  was  dumb.  Mute.  Movable,  but himself
   unmoving.

   "We  don't really know for sure, Luke. It could just be a small source
   in  the  box  to make it seem to be a recharger. Like I said, a hoax."
   Yes. That could be. Believe Nathan. Nathan is your friend.

   "I suppose." Luke dropped Ben on the table. His shoulders slumped.

   He  went around the table to sit on the couch, putting his face in his
   hands,  dejected.  Then he sat up and rubbed his shoulders against the
   back  of  the  couch as if they itched. "But it just feels so right. I
   don't  know why, but it does. Maybe it's just that I really want it to
   be  true.  The  dreams  I've been having about him have been so vivid,
   like I'm really with him, in places I've never seen before."

   "I  think I know what you mean. Often I dream about playing with Sasha
   somewhere. Someplace not here."

   Nathan paused.

   "I finally made a model of it. I thought maybe if I had some images to
   compare,  one  of  the  search engines would locate pictures of a real
   place that looked like it. No such luck, though."

   "Models? Are they hard to make?" Luke rubbed at his ribs.

   "Not  really. Terrain generators and garden design software are really
   easy  to use. Lots of people have used them to create models of fantsy
   worlds,  especially the popular ones like Middle Earth. Several of the
   online social societies have them, too. With lots of people working on
   them, they eventually become indistinguishable from real places."

   "That sounds like fun. Maybe I could try it. Hey, maybe Ben's world is
   real somewhere, too." He smiled wistfully and scratched at a shoulder.

   "I  can  show  you what I did. It's not as sophisticated as any of the
   shared worlds, of course."

   "Would  you? I'd like to see it." He rubbed his back against the couch
   again.

   "Sure.  Uh,  are  you  OK?  You've been scratching a bit. Not fleas, I
   hope."

   "No,  sorry."  Luke  sounded embarassed. "It happens sometimes. When I
   get  upset,  my fur stands up. Afterwards it tickles a lot. I think it
   catches in my shirt."

   "Oh. Well, you could take it off if you want. Uh, would that help?"

   "It  usually  does.  But I'll probably shed some, too. I don't want to
   mess up your furniture." He looked down at the white and tan couch.

   "Don't  worry  about that. I'm sure a vacuum cleaner till take care of
   it." Nathan shrugged.

   "Well,  if  you  really don't mind..." Luke rubbed at his chest, maybe
   more in embarrasment than because it itched.

   "I really don't mind, Luke. Really. Please. Get comfortable."

   "OK,  then.  Thanks."  Luke  stood  up  and unbuttoned his shirt, then
   pulled  it off and folded it. Ben could see Natan's adams-apple bob up
   and down.

   Luke  shook himself a bit, as if to persuade his fur to lie down, then
   sat  back  down  on the couch next to Nathan. He leaned forward to put
   the  shirt  on  the  table  in  front  of Ben. It smelled of anger and
   frustration.

   "Weren't you going to show me something?" he asked as he sat back.

   "Oh,  yeah, sure." Nathan seemed to come back from somewhere far away.
   "CC. Display. Tundra. Endit."
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 26

                                 Dreamland
     _________________________________________________________________

   A  low  sun shone brightly on the rolling tundra. There must have been
   quite  a  warm spell to bring out a such a thick carpet of tiny bright
   flowers and hairfine grass. The ground looked soft and cool.

   Luke  looked  into  the  screen bemusedly. He'd seen a place like this
   before, one which had no signs of any habitation, no other visitors.

   Along  one  horizon, what might be mountains made the horizon a darker
   blue.  In  other  directions,  the  colorful  ground  seemed to extend
   forever.  Front  and  center  was  lounging a cheerful Siberian husky,
   tongue lolling, panting happily.

   "Nathan... " he started to say slowly.

   "Don't tell me. It's all too unrealistic. Flowers everywhere and grass
   like  fur. There should be bare patches, clumps of weeds, rocks, stuff
   like  that.  Hey, it's my dreamland. I guess my subconsious likes lots
   of teeny flowers."

   "No, that's not what I was going to say at all. I've seen this before.
   I've been there with Ben several times. In my dreams."

   Nathan was silent for a while. "Are you sure?"

   "Yeah.  There's  a  dense  grove of trees not too far away. It's got a
   pond  hidden  in the middle. And a dry streambed leads from there to a
   waterfall."

   Nathan  pressed an arrow key on the keyboard. The point of view turned
   around, revealing a grove of trees.

   "You can't see the waterfall from here," he said quietly. "You have to
   follow the streambed to find it."

   "What  do you suppose this means? Did you ever tell anyone about this?
   Read about it, maybe? I mean, if we both dreamed it, we both must have
   learned about it either from each other or from somebody else, right?"

   "Yeah. Except I don't ever remember reading or hearing about something
   quite  like this before I dreamed about it. I'll admit I was expecting
   to  see  something  besides the waterfall, something I had read about,
   but that didn't happen."

   "Colossal Cave." The missing locked grate.

   "Plugh."

   They  grinned  at  one  another, then Nathan got much more serious. "I
   think  we  have  to  assume  that similar effects have similar causes.
   There are other similarities, but Sasha wasn't made by PCInc. Her tags
   have  a different company name on them. I don't have a recharging box,
   either."

   "Maybe  PCInc's  a  spinoff  and  Sasha's one of their earlier models.
   Maybe  he plugs directly into a wall socket." And maybe that explained
   why the dog was heavier, too. The technology wasn't quite as advanced.

   They  both  looked  at  their  plush animals. The animals just went on
   staring at whatever stuffed animals find so fascinating.

   "I  think  this  is  more than just a little scary," Luke admitted. He
   slid  over.  Nathan's warmth was comforting. Someone else to help face
   the unknown.

   "Have  you  ever  gotten  the  impression that your dream Ben might be
   dangerous?"

   "Nope.  Not  to  me,  anyhow.  Like  his  papers  say,  he's extremely
   affectionate." Extremely.

   "Same here."

   They both were very quiet for a long time.

   Maybe  one of the cloud shadows chasing across the land was actually a
   herd  of animals. It was too far away to be sure, and it wasn't headed
   this way, anyhow.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 27

                                Reassurance
     _________________________________________________________________

   After a while, Luke stood up. "Show me where you put my coat?"

   Nathan  waved  vaguely  toward the hallway. "It's in the front closet.
   Easy to find."

   "No, I want you to show me. Please?" He tugged on Nathan's arm.

   Nathan  blinked  up  at him. Luke was acting almost like a little kid.
   "Oh,  OK."  Nathan  was  still  distracted by the implications of what
   they'd discovered.

   He led Luke back to the entryway where they'd left their shoes.

   "It's  in  here  somewhere."  He  slid open the closet door, revealing
   several  coats,  including Luke's. "I think that one's yours," he said
   wryly.

   "Yeah,  I think so, too." Luke pulled a brush from one of the jacket's
   pockets.  It  looked new, although a few strands of fur were caught in
   it.  He  held  it out toward Nathan. "My back itches really bad. Would
   you?"

   Nathan  looked  at the brush, a little surprised. Surely Luke could...
   Then  light  dawned.  Luke  wanted  to be groomed. From the way he was
   acting, maybe it had been a long time since he'd known someone willing
   to do it for him.

   "Oh!  Sure.  It'll probably be easier if we use the bench." Straddling
   one  end,  he  waved the brush toward the other. "Sit, sit." The bench
   was  a recent acquisition. Nathan had gotten tired of balancing on one
   foot in the mornings.

   The  fur  on  Luke's  upper back was matted in spots, maybe from being
   damp  when  he'd  put on his shirt. It still looked to Nathan as if it
   had  been lightly toasted. Like on his arms, large areas were a medium
   golden brown with paler stripes separating them. He started by running
   the brush along the vertical stripes.

   Should  he  talk?  Discuss  what  they'd found out? Distract Luke with
   other  topics?  No,  maybe  better not, not yet. Let the brush strokes
   relax him first. Let him concentrate on the physical contact intead of
   mental conundrums.

   After   the  vertical  stripes,  Nathan  used  short  strokes  on  the
   shoulders, pressing firmly but not too hard. Luke swayed slightly with
   each stroke.

   He  worked  across, brushing about a third of the way down Luke's back
   as  he  went,  smoothing  out  the matts. Luke seemed to be relaxing a
   little.  His shoulders were broad enough, but he had a swimmer's sleek
   build.

   As  Nathan  started  on the middle back, overlapping with his previous
   strokes, he thought he could hear Luke humming.

   Then  he  brushed  Luke's  lower  back, down to the tops of his pants.
   Maybe  someday...  Nathan  firmly  pushed  those  thoughts  away. They
   weren't appropriate just now. And, yes, Luke was certainly humming.

   Next,  long  strokes smoothed the guard hairs from shoulders to waist.
   They  also  evened  out  the  slight  rough  spots left by the shorter
   strokes.  Luke  was definitely relaxed now. He swayed quite a bit more
   than before.

   The  fur  on his arms needed attention, too. A curved brush might have
   been better, but Nathan made do with what he had. Several strokes down
   the  outer sides of his upper arms smoothed some roughness there, then
   he did the triceps and lower arms; first left, then right.

   "If  you'll  lift your arms, I can do your sides, too," Nathan offered
   quietly. Luke obliged.

   Placing  his  right  hand on a warm shoulder to steady himself, Nathan
   ran  the  brush down Luke's left side a few times, stroking gently but
   firmly.  He  wanted  to  avoid the tickle reflex for now. Maybe they'd
   test  that  some  other time. Then he switched hands and did the other
   side. He could feel Luke's muscles flex under the pressure.

   "OK,  you  can put your arms down." He briefly debated brushing Luke's
   head  hair, too, but decided against it. The brush had picked up a lot
   of  loose fur and it was much paler than his hair. Instead, Nathan ran
   the  brush  down  the  strong muscles of Luke's back a few more times,
   making the fur gleam. He didn't recognize the tune Luke was humming.

   "How's that? Feel better, now?" He supressed a joke about fleas. There
   hadn't been any at all, although Luke's body odor was attractive. They
   didn't know what they were missing.

   "That was wonderful. Thanks."

   "You're  very  welcome."  He squeezed Luke's shoulder as he got up and
   handed the brush back to its owner.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 28

                                Implications
     _________________________________________________________________

   Luke  grinned up at Nathan as he took back his brush. He just couldn't
   help himself.

   That  brushing had felt so good. He couldn't remember anything feeling
   quite like that before. It was even better than a long, hot shower. He
   and  his  littermates  had  groomed one another when he was young, but
   they  obviously  hadn't  known  what  they  were doing. Of course, the
   fosters  had  always  insisted  that he brush himself. He'd never felt
   close enough to anyone since then to ask.

   He  felt  like giving Nathan a hug, but then thought better of it. The
   afternoon's  tension  was  making him shed, and seeing how much was in
   the  brush,  he  didn't  think Nathan would appreciate getting covered
   with  that much fur. As he got up, he brushed his front, trying to get
   the worst, then put the brush back in his jacket pocket.

   "Luke,  I  think  we  need  to talk about what's happened." Nathan was
   looking serious.

   "So  do  I. But I don't feel comfortable talking in front of them." He
   gestured toward the living room.

   "How about the library?"

   "Library? On campus, you mean?" That was far enough away, but....

   "Oh,  no,  sorry.  I  haven't given you a tour of the house, have I? I
   mean upstairs. Come on, I'll show you around."

   "On  the right, you can see a large, elegant dining room. With seating
   for  at  least  twenty  souls,  it has been the location for uncounted
   gourmet  repasts.  Like  maybe  two."  Sometimes Nathan could be quite
   silly.  The  room was large, with several cabinets of china. The table
   hadn't been dusted in a while.

   "Here  on  the  left,  on the other hand, is a tiny, decrepit kitchen.
   It's  amazing  anyone  can  cook  anything at all in it." Not quite as
   large  as  the  dining room, it was bright and airy, with a tile floor
   and  plenty  of  modern  conveniences, including a well used breakfast
   nook.

   "I usually just use the microwave," Nathan admitted as he got a couple
   of sodas out of the refrigerator. Root beer, this time.

   "Let  us  now  proceed  eastward  down  the  entryway," the tour guide
   continued. "Here you will see a small bathroom to your left, and ahead
   is  a spacious living room. To the right, on the other hand, down this
   plush  hallway,  are  stairs  leading to the upper floor. Come, let us
   climb."  The  deep  carpet  on  the banistered stairway was soft under
   Luke's  bare  feet.  The top opened up into the middle of another wide
   hallway.

   "We  now find ourselves on the second floor. To your left you will see
   the  door  to  the master bedroom. The masters enjoy their privacy, so
   let us not intrude on them."

   "The room's a mess. I'll show it to you another time, OK?"

   "Not a problem," Luke grinned.

   "Let  us  turn  left  again.  Down  at  the  far end of this elegantly
   upholstered  hallway we find the miserable servants' quarters. Cramped
   and  dingy,  they show how little the masters care for them." Were the
   servants miserable or was it just their quarters, Luke wondered.

   "The bedroom on the right actually shares the master bathroom." Nathan
   explained.  "The  one  on  the left shares a smaller bathroom with the
   other  front bedroom." The beds in both obviously hadn't been slept in
   for  quite a while, if ever. Like the table downstairs, there was dust
   on both.

   Continuing  in  his best tourguide voice, Nathan went on, "Let us once
   more  turn  to  our  left, circling the treacherous depths below." The
   thick  railing  around  the  stairwell was an extension of the stairs'
   bannister.  Luke  could imagine sliding down it. Unlike many he'd seen
   pictures of, there was no post at the bottom to cause injury.

   "Now,  at long last, we finally reach our original destination. To the
   right  you  will  encounter the baronial library. Filled with tomes of
   ancient   and   forgotten  lore,  here  we  doubtless  will  find  the
   information  we  so  desperately seek. I like books," Nathan admitted.
   "Come on in."

   Luke couldn't help gaping. The walls of the rather large room were all
   lined  to  the ceiling with full bookshelves. Several pieces of framed
   artwork  were  hung  on  some  of  the vertical supports because there
   wasn't  any  wall  space  for them. Besides the two large windows, the
   only  free space was another doorway. He guessed it must open into the
   shared bathroom that Nathan had mentioned.

   "Sit  down.  Relax," Nathan encouraged him. There were two overstuffed
   reclining  chairs,  one  obviously  used more than the other. "Is this
   private enough, do you think?"

   Luke  put  his  root  beer on the table next to his chair. The coaster
   advertised the same brewery that the soda had come from.

   "Sure.  I  was  just uncomfortable talking right in front of them. The
   kitchen probably would have been fine."

   "I'm  not  so sure, myself. Much farther might be better, but I'm just
   being paranoid, I hope."

   "Obviously  they're  telepathic,"  Luke  began. "Do you think they can
   read us this far away?"

   "I've always thought of telepathy as a fantasy," Nathan admitted. "Our
   brains just aren't made that way. But this...I dunno."

   "Well,  their  brains aren't anything like ours, if that whitepaper is
   to be believed. Maybe that has something to do with it."

   "Somehow,  I  just  don't  think that's all it is. Our brains generate
   billions   of   tiny  signals,  so  their  detectors  must  be  really
   sophisticated  to  separate them out. Encephalographs have to use some
   kind  of  direct  contact, and the experiments I've read about helping
   blind people see put probes right into the visual cortex."

   Luke  rubbed the back of his head. "Ouch." Thinking about cutting open
   the skull and sticking in wires almost made him feel nauseous.

   "Ouch  is  right." Nathan took a sip of his root beer and looked at it
   gloomily. "But maybe there's another way."

   "What do you mean?"

   "Nanites.  Lots of 'em. They could get inside and act as probes in all
   the  right  places, using encrypted bidirectional radio transmissions.
   They  wouldn't  even  have to transmit very far, less than ten feet or
   so.  There've  been plenty of scifi stories about it." He waved at his
   bookshelves. "I've got quite a few of them here."

   "Scifi." Luke snorted. "They're just stories."

   "Are  they?  Now?  It certainly fits. Much as I hate to admit it, that
   white paper about CNFs sounded really sincere. And it seems a lot more
   reasonable to me than organic telepathy."

   Then he looked thoughtful. "But I suppose something organic could have
   the  same  results.  I dunno if it'd be more or less likely to trigger
   rejection."

   Now  Luke  really was starting to feel nauseous. "You mean there might
   actually be something in our heads? But how would it get in there?"

   "Lotsa  ways.  Inhaling  something  like dandruff, for example. Mites,
   maybe.  Colonies of dust mites live in pillows, you know, too small to
   see. Some people are allergic to them. Of course, they'd probably have
   some  kind  of  efficient delivery system. They wouldn't want to waste
   any." He paused and grimaced. "Ugh."

   "What?" Luke was not at all sure he wanted to hear Nathan's next idea.
   The  guy had much too horrible an imagination, and if it made him make
   a face....

   "When you first got Ben, did you have any dreams about licking?"

   Luke almost didn't make it into the bathroom in time.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 29

                               Ups and Downs
     _________________________________________________________________

   Loud retching sounds came from the bathroom.

   Oh,  shit.  He  hadn't  meant  to upset Luke like that. He must have a
   really vivid imagination.

   Nathan  hurried  in to try to help. He remembered his mother's hand on
   his forhead, supporting his head while he had upchucked as a kid. That
   had been reassuring. Maybe it would be for Luke, too.

   "I'm  really  sorry,  Luke.  Here."  Luke's  head  was  rather  heavy,
   Hopefully  that  was just because his neck muscles had relaxed and the
   position  was  awkward.  Luke  seemed to have stopped vomiting for the
   moment. Nathan flushed the toilet with his other hand.

   "Do you... do you really think...." Luke gasped.

   "Luke,  I'm  sorry.  It's just one of my crazy guesses. I make lots of
   them. Most of them are completely wrong."

   "Plants, worms ... growing inside...."

   They were just dry heaves this time. Nathan winced. That must hurt.

   If  they  were  organic,  they'd  probably  be more like fungi, but he
   didn't  dare  say  that. Maybe it was image of them being in his brain
   that  Luke  found  so  disturbing. And that Ben, who he'd really cared
   for, had infected him by licking.

   "No, Luke, that was just my imagination running away with me. We don't
   know  how  they  do  it.  Maybe  all  their  plush fibers turn into an
   incredibly sensitive antenna. 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is
   indistinguishable from magic,' remember?"

   Luke coughed. "We don't know, though, do we?" His voice was hoarse.

   "Nope.  Not  unless  we  can  get  them to tell us." But how could you
   believe whatever they said?

   "Anyone we told would think we're crazy."

   "Yup. They'd lock us away with the people who wear tinfoil hats."

   He paused.

   "How are you feeling? Well enough to get up?"

   "Yeah, I guess."

   Nathan  put  an arm around him and helped him up, then pushed down the
   toilet cover.

   "Sit down. Please. You're still wobbley." He wet a washcloth under the
   hot  water  faucet  and  gently  wiped Luke's face. He seemed a little
   dazed.

   "Here,  rinse  out  your  mouth and brush your teeth. I'll go get some
   ginger  ale. That should help settle your stomach." He handed Luke the
   traveller's kit he'd kept in the cabinet under the sink.

   When Nathan got back with the ginger ale -- in a glass, with ice cubes
   -- he found Luke seated in the library, his face in his hands.

   "Thanks," he mumbled.

   "I'm really sorry, Luke," Nathan apologized again, "I should have seen
   how  much my guesses were bothering you. Sometimes I get so wrapped up
   in what I'm thinking that I just don't notice what's going on."

   He knelt next to Luke's chair so he could see his face.

   "That's  OK,  I  guess.  That  last  thing  you  said kinda took me by
   surprise, though." He sipped carefully at the ginger ale.

   "It's  just  too  easy for me to think of the worst things possible. I
   think some really good things could come out of this."

   "Like what?" He sounded rather dispirited.

   "Well,  simply having a good time, for one. I really enjoyed it when I
   was  with  Sasha  on  the  tundra.  What  about your dreams with Ben?"
   Bonding could go both ways.

   Luke smiled a little wanly. "Yeah, they were fun."

   "Sometimes  things  seem  to  happen  faster,  too,  like a whole week
   crammed into a single dream. Think what that can do for education." Or
   for brainwashing.

   "The  dreams  I  had  last night helped me understand my math homework
   better. You mean like that?"

   "Exactly.  Companions could provide personalized tutoring. They'd know
   immediately  if  you  understood  what  they're  trying to teach you."
   Whatever they're teaching, even if it's lies. For your own good.

   "Don't  forget,  they  can't  hurt  anyone, either. PCInc's pages were
   quite  explicit  about them having Asimov's Laws built into them." But
   what definition of 'hurt' did they use?

   "So   we  can  really  trust  them,"  Luke  concluded;  hopefully  not
   mistakenly, Nathan thought.

   "There's  another  thing  I've  been wondering about, too. This mental
   communication  has to be very short range." Unless it could be relayed
   among Companions. "What happens if several people and Companions sleep
   close  together?  Would  they  share the same dream? Or is it strictly
   one-to-one?"  And  if  people  fought  in  that  dream, could they get
   'hurt'?

   "Right. Shared dreams." Luke smiled and nudged Nathan.

   Maybe he'd managed to cheer Luke up, but now Nathan was more depressed
   than ever.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 30

                            Closer to an Answer?
     _________________________________________________________________

   "Yeah,  shared  dreams."  Nathan  could feel that his own smile wasn't
   quite  as  enthusiastic  as  Luke's, although sharing a dream with him
   might be a lot of fun.

   "Yelling  at  Ben didn't seem to do any good. Do you think they'd talk
   to us while we're dreaming?"

   "Maybe. Has Ben ever talked to you then?"

   "Well,  no, but I've only had him for a week. Maybe he just needs some
   encouragement or the right situation. What about your pup?"

   "No,  Sasha's never done anything but bark in mine. For some reason it
   never  occurred  to  me to expect anything else. But by 'situation,' I
   hope  you  don't mean something unpleasant. Dreams can be scary, but I
   doubt we could frighten those two."

   "No,  no.  I just meant talking to them, telling them what we know and
   have guessed. Maybe if we're open with them, they'll respond."

   "Maybe.  It might work. I don't see how it could hurt." Nathan paused.
   "Well,  maybe I do. What if they simply stopped dreaming with us? Like
   I  said,  I've  enjoyed  the experience a lot and I'd really miss it."
   Could he actually be addicted?

   "Why  would they stop? Wouldn't they want to persuade us not to expose
   them?  They've  done such a good job of hiding that there must be some
   reason  for  it.  After  all,  we  could just take them to the lab for
   analysis if they don't talk."

   Except  that  they  surely had a plan for preventing that. Maybe their
   PNNs  would  vaporize if they sensed the wrong kinds of radiation. But
   didn't one of the laws tell them to protect their own existence?

   "It  does  sound  like something we should try. When do you want to do
   it?"

   "The  sooner  the better, I think. Like tonight. I don't think I could
   fall  asleep  right  now,  but  I  really  want to find out if Ben put
   something in my head." Luke looked determined.

   "Umm. Right. Where would be best, do you think? It'd be easy enough to
   clean  up  one  of  the  spare  bedrooms for you, like the one next to
   mine."

   Luke just looked at him for a minute. Realization dawned. Oh, shit.

   "You  did  say  brain  signals  are  extremely  weak,  didn't you? And
   embedded  transmitters are going to be so tiny they're not going to be
   very  strong  either,  right?"  How  nice  of  Luke to be patient with
   dim-witted Nathan.

   "Yeah." Yup, that's what he'd said, all right. Shit.

   "Weak,  high-frequency  signals like that probably won't be detectable
   after going through these walls, would they?" That's it, lead him step
   by tiny step. You're a coward, Nathan.

   "No,  probably  not."  The closer the better. Best with nothing at all
   between the four of them. Damn. "How about using these chairs? They're
   comfortable,  and  if  we  turn  them back to back, our heads would be
   close."  Nah,  he'd  never  go for it. The Companions had to be close,
   too.

   "I  don't  know  about  you,  but I've never slept well in chairs, and
   staying awake would sort of defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?"

   "That  it would." Yuppers. He probably shouldn't have done such a good
   job of brushing him.

   "It'll  probably  take  me about an hour to go get a change of clothes
   and  stuff. Why don't you see if you can kick the masters out of their
   bedroom." Luke grinned. "I promise I won't hog all the covers."
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 31

                             Saturday Afternoon
     _________________________________________________________________

   Withdrawn  into  stillness, Ben was whimpering inside. Luke was angry.
   Luke  didn't  trust  him.  He hadn't said a word when he'd grabbed his
   shirt and left. What had happened?

   Why was the box so attactive? Whenever he was put inside it, he didn't
   wake  up  for  a  long time. Things happened while he slept like that.
   Once a good thing: Luke! Now bad things.

   In  the  window  that  Nathan had called up, the window that was still
   there,  in  that  window the tundra was slowly turning. It was a model
   he'd  said,  but it was the tundra. His tundra. Luke's tundra. How did
   Nathan know about that?

   And who was the happy dog in the window? Ben wanted to be happy again.
   That  dog  looked  just  like the plush dog lying in the chair. In the
   real chair. Looking at Ben. Why was it looking at Ben so sadly?

   Oh.

   An elder.

   Information flowed.

   Oh, no.

   Withdrawn into stillness, Ben wailed.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Hurrying  down  the hill, Luke tried to decide what to bring back with
   him.  Should  he  plan for more than one night? Best not. Much as he'd
   like to, and despite what Nathan had said -- and done -- Nathan really
   seemed  to  be  a loner. They needed to get to know one another better
   before he suggested something like that. One thing at a time.

   He  snickered  to  himself.  The  look  on  Nathan's  face!  He really
   shouldn't  have  teased  him like that. What they would need to do had
   been  obvious,  but  he  couldn't  resist. A little payback had seemed
   appropriate, too. His stomach and throat still hurt.

   Pajamas. Definitely PJs. Clean clothes for tomorrow? Might as well. He
   suddenly realized he didn't know if Nathan went to church.

   Homework?  He should get started on the physics assignment soon. Maybe
   Nathan  would  let  him  use his system. That'd be fun! Bring his own,
   though, just in case. His backpack was going to be full.

   Better  clean out the brush, too, while he was at it. Take a shower to
   get out the stink, and to get rid of some more loose fur.

   Blast  Ben,  anyhow. If the cat didn't stop getting him so upset, he'd
   look like he had the mange.

   Luke  hurried a little faster. He'd promised Nathan he'd be back in an
   hour.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Shit.

   Nathan  glared around his bedroom. Only an hour to clean it up and air
   it  out.  And  the bathroom, too. He should have known. At least there
   were clean sheets in the linen closet.
     _________________________________________________________________
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 32

                              Saturday Evening
     _________________________________________________________________

   Nathan  was  tired.  The bedroom was cleaned, the porn was hidden, the
   bedclothes  were changed, the bath was scoured and mopped, and windows
   were  open  at  either  end of the second floor so a breeze would blow
   straight  through;  what had he forgotten? Should he bring the animals
   up?  No, better wait for Luke. Oh, right, shut down the display in the
   living room.

   The doorbell rang. Luke? Yup, with one minute to spare.

   "Hi! Come on in!"

   The  lights  on  the  security  display  next  to the door showed some
   electronics  --  compatible with a computer and phone. Metal detection
   was minimal, presumably just a belt buckle. He really needed to add an
   rfid  scanner,  but  he kept forgetting. He didn't get enough visitors
   for  it  to  matter, though. Annoyingly, neither the box nor the plush
   animals  had  made  it  even flicker. So far as it was concerned, they
   really were made of cardboard, polyfill and foam rubber.

   Luke slipped off his backpack and handed Nathan his jacket.

   "Everything ready? Masters kicked out?" he asked innocently as he took
   off  his shoes. Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Where'd that saying
   come  from,  Nathan  wondered.  Every once in a while some traditional
   phrase would jump out at him like that.

   "They put up a struggle, but I think I won. Want to see?"

   "Sure. Lotsa blood to clean up, I'm sure." He grinned.

   Luke made appreciative noises about the display and sound system. They
   weren't  as  impressive  as what was in the living room, but more than
   adequate for the bedroom. He bounced on the bed a couple of times.

   "Feels comfy!"

   "Well, it's not a waterbed, but the previous owners spent a lot on it.
   It's got good support but isn't too hard."

   "Plenty of room, too."

   Eastern  King Size according to the label. Nathan often wondered if it
   had  seen  many  orgies.  The only ones he'd seen were in the display.
   That wasn't quite the same.

   The  bathtub was what really impressed Luke, Nathan could tell. Almost
   the  size of a traditional hot tub, it was intended for people with an
   affinity for water. The steel girders supporting it were hidden in the
   floor and walls.

   "Wow. That must do a job on your water bill!"

   "I  usually  just  use  the shower, but it does make impressive bubble
   baths."

   Luke  obviously  wanted  to  give it a try but didn't dare ask. Nathan
   pretended not to notice. Maybe another time, though.

   "You  must be hungry," Nathan said as they returned downstairs. "Would
   it be OK if I ordered some Chinese? It's a little early for dinner, so
   they  should  be able to deliver it quickly. Do you like mu shu pork?"
   Another excuse to go off his diet.

   "That's the one you wrap in pancakes, right? Sure!"

   Luke  stood there, shifting impatiently from one foot to another while
   Nathan called the order in. "Something wrong?"

   "Not  really,  but,  well, could I use your computer for a while? I've
   got  some  physics  homework I probably should work on." Oho. Wants to
   play with the toys, huh?

   "Sure.  Let  me  bring  up  an  interface  you're  familiar with. It's
   nonprivileged, so you don't have to worry about breaking anything."

   The  tiger  and  husky  were  still  pretending  to ignore them. "Will
   working  in  front  of  our  friends bother you, or should I take them
   upstairs?"

   Luke  looked  sadly  at  Ben.  "Why don't you leave them here. However
   things  work  out, it doesn't really matter, does it?" He caressed the
   cat.

   Nathan  gave  Sasha a pat, too. "Yeah, you're right. There's no reason
   to  take  it  out on them. Not yet, anyhow." He gave the husky a stern
   look,  but  then  a  hug.  No matter what, he did still like the plush
   animal. They'd had lots of fun together in dream.

   When  the  food  arrived,  Nathan insisted they eat in the kitchen. He
   didn't want the juices getting into the furniture. The mild seasonings
   went down well, as did the plum sauce, one of his favorites.

   "How's the homework going? E'n'M does seem appropriate, considering."

   "Well  enough,  I  think.  Do  you  think they'll ever detect magnetic
   monopoles?" Questions: Luke had 'em.

   "Nah.  Everything  fits  together  too well for something like that to
   really  exist.  But  people  do  keep trying. Finding them would force
   physicists to reevaluate a lot of things."

   Luke  belched and yawned. Nathan had let him eat more than half of the
   mu shu. It did seem to be staying down, though. Apparently he'd gotten
   used  to  the  idea of something foreign in his head, or else was just
   ignoring the possibility.

   "Sleepy? Why don't you finish what you're doing while I clean up. Then
   maybe we should take the animals up to bed."

   "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I think I could fall asleep right
   now."  Not  surprising  after  the afternoon he'd had, although it was
   still  quite  early.  Nathan  wasn't so sure about himself. A sleeping
   pill  didn't seem appropriate, though. It'd knock him right out, and a
   dreamless sleep would defeat their plans.

   Nathan  let  Luke  use the master bath while he cleaned and changed in
   the  one  across the hall. Luke cracked up when he saw what Nathan was
   going to wear to bed.

   "Hey.  They  were a Christmas present. And you did say something about
   hogging the covers, I seem to recall."

   Nathan's  pajamas  were  thick  flannel, with emerald green pine trees
   against  a  bright  red background. Luke's were thin and a faded blue,
   not  quite  reaching  all  the  way  past  his wrists and ankles. He'd
   obviously  grown  since they were bought. Nathan thought he filled....
   Nope. Don't think about that. He'd never get to sleep.

   They put the plush animals across the foot of the bed. They'd had solo
   dreams with them at that distance, so it should be OK tonight, too.

   While  Luke  got  into one side of the bed, Nathan selected some quiet
   music.  Lullabies,  actually, although they were played by a jazz band
   and  weren't  quite  recognizable.  They should be almost as good as a
   sleeping pill.

   They  certainly  worked  for Luke. He was out like a light and snoring
   quietly in just a few minutes.

   Nathan  lay  awake  for almost an hour. Having someone else in his bed
   was  very distracting, especially since it was someone he cared for so
   much. He finally dozed off while watching Luke breathe.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 33

                         Plush Dreams: Explanations
     _________________________________________________________________

   Through  thickening  clouds  and  fog,  a  low  sun dimly lit the grey
   tundra.  Frost  had  been  unkind  to the tiny flowers: their withered
   petals were scattered across the stiff, grey-brown grass. What must be
   a  chill  breeze  quietly  rattled  dried reeds against boulders where
   drifts  of  snow  had gathered. He could hear the wind faintly keening
   through a nearby stand of dead plants. The ground was chill underfoot,
   and everything seemed just a little out of focus.

   Despite  the  weather,  Luke  didn't  feel  cold. He didn't feel warm,
   either.  It  was  as  if nothing here could quite touch him. His thin,
   blue pajamas certainly weren't any protection.

   Where was everyone? Ben should be here, at least. He looked around. In
   the  distance,  he could see something. Bright green and red, it waved
   and  started walking toward him. Nathan! It had worked! But where were
   the animals? And why was everything so faded?

   "Ben! Where are you?"

   The  keening  stuttered,  then started again, somewhat louder. Not the
   wind,  then.  Ben's  natural  camouflage  made  him hard to see in his
   favorite hiding place.

   Luke knelt and held out his hand.

   "Ben, come here. I'm not going to hurt you. Please?"

   The tiger stretched out a paw and clawed at the ground, trying to drag
   himself toward Luke. He couldn't.

   "He's not coming out?" Nathan asked from behind him.

   "No."  Luke  looked  up  at  his  friend. "He's acting like he's hurt.
   Wounded, maybe."

   "I'm  afraid  I  may  know what's wrong." He raised his voice. "Sasha!
   Come here, boy. Come!"

   They heard a whimper and one of the snow-drifted boulders stirred. The
   husky's  grey  and white colors were a good disguise. Tail between her
   legs,  she  crawled  a  few  feet  toward  them, then collapsed, as if
   exausted.

   "Oh,  shit,"  Nathan said quietly and went over to her. He sat, pulled
   the  dog's  head into his lap, and caressed him gently. Then he looked
   up,  shook  his  fist at the overcast sky and screamed "You assholes!"
   Luke could see tears streaming down his face.

   "Nathan, what is it? What's wrong?"

   "Go  to  Ben,  Luke.  Hug him. Tell him you love him. Promise him it's
   going to be all right, that nobody else will find out."

   He  bent  down  again.  "I  love you. Nobody else knows. We won't tell
   anyone," Luke heard him murmer into Sasha's ear. She licked his face.

   Luke  knelt next to his own plush. "I love you, too, Ben. Really I do.
   I promise.... Nathan, what am I supposed to promise?"

   "That  you  won't  tell anyone else that the Companions are real, that
   they're  alive,  that  they communicate in dream. Tell him you know it
   has  to  be kept a secret. Promise him, Luke, and really mean it. It's
   important."

   "Oh,  Ben,  I  do.  I promise. I won't tell anyone else. Only Nathan."
   After  all,  they  both knew already. Saying otherwise wouldn't change
   that. He hugged the tiger close.

   The  fog  thinned  a  little and things gradually started to come into
   focus.  Ben  rubbed his head against Luke's chest and licked his hand.
   The  tongue  felt  warm  against  his  palm.  He could feel the chilly
   breeze, too.

   "Nathan, what is it? What's going on?"

   "It's the Laws, Luke: Asimov's Laws of Robotics. They seem so straight
   forward,  but  they're  easily misused. I'm sure our friends were told
   that  if  anyone  learned  their  secrets, humans would be badly hurt.
   That's  the  first  law,  remember?  Not  to  harm  anyone or, through
   inaction,  to allow anyone to be harmed. But they couldn't stop us. If
   they  actually  did  anything, that'd just be more evidence. Even with
   them  doing  nothing,  we'd  already  learned  too  much. That kind of
   internal  conflict  can  cause  them  permanent  damage. Carried to an
   extreme, it can destroy them completely."

   He  hugged  Sasha  close.  "It's OK. It's our secret. Nobody else will
   know."  She thumped her tail against the ground. The grass was getting
   greener now, not quite so brown.

   Still holding Ben against his chest, Luke rubbed his cheek against the
   top  of  Ben's  head.  "That's  right,  Ben. Just us. Nobody else." He
   thought  maybe  he  could  hear  some  purring.  The fog was gone. The
   scattered  flower  petals didn't seem to be quite so withered. Ben was
   heavier, too.

   "How'd  you  know  this,  Nathan?  Where'd you learn so much about the
   Laws? Didn't you think most of the web site was a hoax?"

   "Years ago, the guy who invented the Laws wrote stories about how they
   could  go  wrong.  They  were  science  fiction back then, but not any
   more." He looked sad. "Not any more."

   He  kissed  Sasha  on  her  fuzzy nose. "Can you get up?" he asked her
   quietly.

   The  husky  managed  to stagger to his feet, but leaned against Nathan
   for  support. The sky was still partly cloudy, but the sun was out and
   the breeze was warm.

   "How about you, Ben? Are you better now?"

   The  tiger  stared  up at him solomnly, then butted Luke in the chest.
   hard enough to knock him flat.

   "Ooof. Ben, what...."

   It  was  too  late  to  get up. Ben was lying on top of him and giving
   Luke's face a thorough washing. He obviously was feeling much better!
     _________________________________________________________________

   Episode 34

                             The Morning After
     _________________________________________________________________

   Luke  lay  quietly, eyes closed, as the early morning light sneaked in
   around  the curtains. He did not want to get up. Remembering the dream
   was much more interesting, and it was not fading quickly.

   Its  conclusion  was the best part: a very large, very soft tongue. On
   his  cheek.  In his ear. A furry nose, pressing gently under his chin.
   The tongue again, caressing his throat, his shoulder, his chest.

   Ben. Recovered.

   Luke  was  feeling  warmer  and warmer. This wasn't his bedroom, so he
   felt reluctant to complain.

   When  he  had gone to sleep, it had been cool enough. Windows had been
   open letting fresh air flow through the room. He wasn't sure if Nathan
   was being considerate or if he'd actully forgotten to close them after
   airing out the room. He'd obviously cleaned things in a hurry.

   Usually  Luke  knocked  off  the  covers in his sleep when it got this
   warm.  Now,  sweat  was starting to form under their weight. He really
   didn't  remember  the  blanket  feeling this heavy last night, though.
   Maybe his joke about hogging the covers had actually come true.

   Sigh.  It  was just too uncomfortable. Time to get up. Luke opened his
   eyes.

   Bright blue eyes stared back. And blinked. Ben yawned, showing rows of
   sharp white teeth. Then licked Luke's face again.

   Luke  could have sworn he was awake. There didn't seem to be the vague
   fuzziness he associated with dreams, even plush dreams.

   "'Morning,  sleepyhead."  He  could  hear  the grin in Nathan's voice.
   "It's  about  time  you  woke up. We've all been awake for at least an
   hour.  Ben  just  couldn't  wait  any longer, though. Listening to you
   snore gets to be a bit old after a while."

   "I do NOT snore!"

   "You wouldn't say that if you could hear yourself. Believe me, you do.
   It's  cute,  though. Especially that little hiccup at the end." Nathan
   really was grinning, now. Obviously pulling his leg.

   A  plush  husky  had its head on Nathan's pajama-clad stomach where he
   could  scratch  its ears. It thumped the bed with its tail when it saw
   Luke looking at it, wide eyed. It grinned at him, too.

   "What's going on? Why are they... Ack!" Ben had licked his ear. Again.

   "Why  are  they  what?  Moving?  Getting  cosy  with us? Acting alive?
   Because they are. And they know we know they are. And they trust us to
   keep our promises. Remember them?"

   "Yeah," Luke said slowly. "Not to tell anyone that they're Companions,
   that they're alive, that they speak to us in dreams."

   "Yup.  I think things are going to be quite different from now on, for
   all  of  us.  A  lot more fun, I'm sure, but we're going to have to be
   very, very careful." He stroked Sasha's head.

   "But  enough of this. Time to get up, young man. Breakfast awaits. And
   I seem to recall you have some homework to do."

   "Do I gotta?" Luke complained in his best fake whiney voice.
     _________________________________________________________________

                                    End
                                  Volume 1
                                     of
                                 Plush Love