Nelson knew the computer construct was not real. The graphics, though close to perfect, failed from time to time as the program ran through rough patches. The aesthetics of the world it created were not important to him, and he was certain the Red Corsair had forced her technicians to load in anomalies to distract him.

The speed with which she'd recovered from her wound surprised him. Sooner than he would have thought possible or even prudent, she had used the simulators on the ship to prove she could still pilot a 'Mech. Shortly thereafter Bryan challenged her to a fight in a Circle of Equals and she gladly accepted the challenge.

She had allowed Nelson to watch the fight, and seeing her square off against Bryan made him fully realize just how close to death she had been on Zhongshan. Wearing a green leotard that covered her from throat to groin but that left her arms and legs bare, she engaged Bryan in a bout of unarmed combat. He out-massed her by at least ten kilos, but her speed and length of limb gave her all the edge she needed to defeat him.

As Nelson had expected, Bryan came in at her from the left, aiming a kick at her head that she had to parry using what should have been her weak arm. She dropped beneath the kick, then lashed out with her left leg, catching Bryan's left foot with a solid blow that knocked him over.

Bryan scissored his legs through where she had been crouching, but she leaped up above his feet. She landed on one leg, then spun around, her left foot clipping Bryan hard above his left eye. The blow split the skin and dropped him to the deck hard.

It took the Red Corsair about a half-second to see that Bryan was dazed and all but out of the fight. She pounced on him, pinning him to the deck the way she had pinned Nelson barely two weeks before. Bryan instinctively tried to heave her off, but he could not. She glanced over at Nelson, as if to say "this could have been you," then administered the coup de gracewith her left hand.

If he had imagined she would feel any jubilation at her victory, the Red Corsair quickly disabused him of the notion. "It's your fault I had to go through that, you know," she told him as two raiders carried the unconscious Bryan off to the sick bay.

"And you showed compassion by not killing him." Nelson gave her a smile that he knew would further kindle her anger.

"That was a practical consideration. Bryan is my second-in-command and only did what any other responsible officer would have done in his place." She grabbed his jumpsuit front and bunched the material up under his chin with her fist. "Now it is time for you, a slave, to learn what you will be doing for the rest of your life."

She hauled him off to a cabin that adjoined hers. Aside from the treadmill and some equipment lockers, it was featureless. For a moment Nelson thought it might have been a private gymnasium for her, but he had never known her to use anything but the communal facilities on Deck Twelve.

She fitted him with the goggles and gloves, and stuck little electrodes on his knees, ankles, elbows, and shoulders. "These will allow the computer to track you and determine where you are and how you are standing."

He turned toward her voice because the goggles turned his world into a sphere of static. "Why?"

"Why?" He heard her laugh heartily. "Because, slave, you will learn your duties. I have decided that when I return from this mission it is time for me to have children. I have also decided that you will care for them." He felt her hand start at his knee and slowly begin to caress its way up to his groin. "Perhaps I will even let you father them."

That prospect shot a jolt through him and she laughed. "Perhaps I will makeyou father them."

The edge in her voice got to him and elicited a shudder that seemed to satisfy her. Nelson said nothing and told himself it was to deny her the satisfaction of hearing his protests. Deep down, though, he knew that part of him wanted her desperately.

As much as he wished to deny his attraction to her, he could not. Every time he tried to push it way, it came back, stronger and stronger. It fed on his denial. He found himself thinking about her, fantasizing about her, and all the multiplication tables in the world couldn't snuff out his ardor.

He felt her fasten something around his throat. It felt heavy at the front and had two cool spots where it pressed against the flesh over his Adam's apple. She tightened it and he felt the thing snap shut at the back of his neck.

"This exercise will be simple, Nelson. You will see a clock and a schedule in a corner of the world the computer will create for you. You must get to the appropriate places at the correct time or you will be disciplined."

A small shock trickled through the electrodes on his throat. It hurt, but not enough to incapacitate him. "That is the mildest shock the system offers. If you do your-work well, you will never feel even that much. Make a mistake, and depending on how bad it is, you will hurt a great deal."

The twin monitors in front of his eyes stopped displaying static and instead filled his sight with a world of walls and floors. Off to his left sunlight poured reddish glory through a window. Straight ahead he saw one corridor extending the length of the building. To the right he saw a door to the exterior. He moved toward it, and as he raised his hand to where the doorknob seemed to hang in space, he felt a jolt at his throat.

"You may be allowed out later, if you are good. For now, do what is on the schedule."

"Where am I?"

"Where are you?" The Red Corsair laughed airily. "This is a construct of my true home, Nelson. It is the place where you will spend the rest of your life."

. The virtual world became a game for the two of them as the environment became more and more complex over the next two weeks. Nelson had two sessions per day, each lasting six hours realtime. That would comprise a whole day in the computer world, with an hour passing every fifteen minutes. As he became proficient with the system, the Red Corsair started giving him more complicated assignments.

For the first four sessions he had been alone in the computer world, but after that, new and interesting people and creatures started to show up. Nelson suspected that idle crew members were being invited to program little distractions into the world for him while everyone waited for the ship's jump drive to fully recharge its coils and for the JumpShip's lithium-fusion batteries to load up.

At first the other creatures bothered him, but he quickly became able to discriminate between what the Red Corsair was making him do and what the others did to interfere with him. It was not that the others had a trademark that allowed him to distinguish between them or discover who the realworld author was. Instead he found that their simulation tricks lacked one key element that was the trademark of the Red Corsair's work.

What she did was always cruel. He remembered very well the first time the assignment "Tend the children" had showed up on his schedule. He searched all over the base for a nursery. The shocks to his throat, building in intensity and duration the further he got from the children, helped herd him back toward the Red Corsair's private domain. Finally, when he searched the house, he found a new addition to it that was jam-packed with tiny children.

Most of them had a surreal quality because they were constructed from spheres and cones and other easily generated geometrical shapes. They looked more like toys come to life than real children. Yet whenever he came close and focused on one, the child changed from the awkward and ridiculous construct to a wriggling, crying child.