Free Surfacing by Walter Jon Williams

a dozen blind alleys. Progress seemed measured in microns.
    “What’s B1971?” Philana asked once, looking over his shoulder as he typed in data.
    “A taste. Perhaps a taste associated with a particular temperature striation. Perhaps an emotion.” He shrugged. “Maybe just a metaphor.”
    “You could ask them.”
    His soul hardened. “Not yet.” Which ended the conversation.
    Anthony wasn’t sure whether or not he wanted to touch her. He and Jockstrap were at war and Philana seemed not to have entirely made up her mind which side she was on. Anthony slept with Philana on the double mattress in the peak, but they avoided sex. He didn’t know whether he was helping her out of love or something else, and while he figured things out, desire was on hold, waiting.
    Anthony’s time with Philana was occupied mainly by his attempt to teach her to cook. Anything else waited for the situation to grow less opaque. Anthony figured Jockstrap would clarify matters fairly soon.
    *
    Anthony’s heart lurched as looked up from lunch to see the taut, challenging grin on Philana’s face. Anthony realized he’d been foolish to expect Telamon to show up only at night, as he always had before.
    Anthony drew his lips into an answering grin. He was ready, no matter what the hour.
    “Do I know you?” Anthony mocked. “Do we have business?”
    Philana’s appraisal was cold. “I’ve been called Jockstrap before,” Telamon said.
    “With good reason, I’m sure.”
    Telamon lurched to his feet and walked aft. He seemed not to have his sea legs yet. Anthony followed, his nerves dancing. Telamon looked out at the sea and curled Philana’s lip as if to say that the water held nothing of interest.
    “I want to talk about Philana,” Telamon said. “You’re keeping her prisoner here.”
    “She can leave me anytime she wants. Which is more than she can say about you.”
    “I want the codes to the yacht.”
    Anthony stepped up to Telamon, held Philana’s cold gaze. “You’re hurting her,” he said.
    Telamon stared at him with eyes like obsidian chips. He pushed Philana’s long hair out of his face with an unaccustomed gesture. “I’m not the only one, Maldalena. I’ve got access to her mind, remember.”
    “Then look in her mind and see what she thinks of you.”
    A contemptuous smile played about Philana’s lips. “I know very well what she thinks of me, and it’s probably not what she’s told you. Philana is a very sad and complex person, and she is not always truthful.”
    “She’s what you made her.”
    “Precisely my next point.” He waved his arm stiffly, unnaturally. The gesture brought him off-balance, and Philana’s body swayed for a moment as Telamon adjusted to the tossing of the boat. “I gave her money, education, knowledge of the world. I have corrected her errors, taught her much. She is, in many ways, my creation. Her feelings toward me are ambiguous, as any child’s feelings would be toward her father.”
    “Daddy Jockstrap.” Anthony laughed. “Do we have business, Daddy? Or are you going to take your daughter’s body to a party first?”
    Anthony jumped backwards, arms flailing, as Philana disappeared, her place taken by a young man with curly dark hair and bright blue eyes. The stranger was dressed in a white cotton shirt unbuttoned to the navel and a pair of navy blue swimming trunks. He had seen the man before on vid, showing off his chest hairs. The grin stayed the same from one body to the next.
    “She’s gone, Maldalena. I teleported her to someplace safe.” He laughed. “I’ll buy her a new boat. Do what you like with the old one.”
    Anthony’s heart hammered. He had forgotten the Kyklopes could do that, just teleport without the apparatus required by humans. And teleport other things as well.
    He wondered how many centuries old the Kyklops’ body was. He knew the mind’s age was measured in eons.
    “This doesn’t end it,” Anthony said.
    Telamon’s tone was mild.