As soon as Cir had said that, he regretted his impulsive words. Oh, he did want to have sex with Alec, very much so, but he seriously doubted that Alec would want to do it...

Still, he turned to look at his Master. Alec was staring at him thoughtfully and Cir sighed inwardly. He didn't look very interested in having sex. Perhaps it was because he now knew more than every other Master what Cir really was.

"Um... Alec?" he said hesitantly, prompting the Master for a more definite reaction.

Alec looked at him seriously. "Why?"

"Why what?" Cir asked, slightly bewildered.

"Why do you want me to have sex with you?"

Cir frowned, trying to find the right answer. He wanted very much to say "Because that's what I do," but he could guess already that this answer would be wrong.

"Do you want to know," he asked, "or do you want to avoid doing it?"

Alec smirked slightly. "Why would I be *avoiding* it? Do you think you can force me into having sex, Cir?"

Cir sighed inwardly. After all that happened today he knew perfectly well the answer to *that* question. "No..."

"So?" Alec might not like to be called Master, but Cir could not even for a second to imagine him as a Key. "I'm still waiting for the answer to *my* question..."

"But I don't know!" Cir exclaimed, feeling like it was some game and he was losing. "I just do, that's all! Nobody ever asked me why!"

"So you want everything to be as usual," Alec said slowly. "You're perfectly satisfied to have sex with anybody who happens to own this piece of metal."

When Alec said it like this, it sounded... bad. "I don't understand what you want from me," Cir said with some bitterness. "I have to serve my Masters anyway — are you angry with me because that doesn't make me unhappy all the time?"

Alec sighed. "No," he said quietly. "I'm not angry at all. Only...I don't want to be just another of your Masters. Perhaps I'm asking too much of you..."

Cir thought about that for a moment. "But you aren't," he said finally. "You aren't just another one of my Masters. Do you think I show everyone what I am? I revealed my true self only once before, and even then I did not explain my abilities..."

Remembering Iason gave him something like a bitter taste inside — as well as he could establish tastes from other people's impressions and descriptions, — and Cir fell silent. Probably Alec will disappear as Iason did, but he wanted to have as many memories of the man as he could...

He wanted to add another thing, but hesitated. Suddenly he could not explain that no matter how many Masters he had, Alec was the only one to touch the *real* him. After all, it must be a common ocurrence for Alec to enter other people's minds, and Cir was being ridiculous when he attached such importance to this.

Suddenly he became aware of Alec looking at him oddly and realized that he was procrastinating. Strangely, though, he did not feel an intrusion into his mind. His thoughts were safe; and Cir felt somehow disappointed.

"But it disturbs me, you know," Alec said slowly.

Cir looked at him, startled. "No, I don't. What disturbs you?"

"This... setup. Sexual slavery. *Using* a slave."

"You don't understand!" Cir said, feeling almost angry. "If I want it myself, how are you using me?"

"Ah," Alec noted with a hint of sadness, "but I've been inside your mind, and quite deeply. You have been conditioned, Cir, to make you a good slave, I suppose..." He shivered slightly.

Cir unconsciously moved closer, taking Alec's hands in his and squeezing them. "Weren't you so intent on proving that I am not a machine? Machines can be fully reprogrammed, but people can't. If I am human, I can want things for myself, no matter what I'm taught." And if I'm a machine, he thought, then it doesn't matter, nothing matters besides having something to remember you by...

Alec looked at him intently and then smiled a little. "I'll think about it, I promise." He squeezed Cir's hands back.

It wasn't Cir's flesh he was touching, and yet the Key's heart leapt in joy, grateful for this voluntary caress. Still, he tried to keep things light. After all, he was supposed to make his Master relax. "We've got plenty of time, haven't we?" he said. "So we'd need something to occupy us. And there are only so many massages I can give you."

Alec laughed. "Oh yes, entertainment is important. Tell me, can you leave this room?"

"Um-mm..." The question was logical, and yet difficult to answer. "Not really. It's the only one set to interaction between real things and holograms. But since I can make it anything you want to, there's no need..."

"But that means you stay here alone when your Key isn't taken?"

Trust Alec to get to the point he didn't usually discuss with Masters. Or with pages, for that matter. "Not exactly here... And not exactly alone..."

Alec looked at him with interest, expecting him to explain.

"Well," Cir began, "since I can access the Palace systems, I can talk to the pages."

"And where are you when you do that?" Alec stopped and shook his head. "I think we need to clear what terms we're using first. I mean, you're in the capsule, but..."

"I know what you mean," Cir smiled. While questioning him Alec lost his detached and wary look. The signs of animation weren't many, but his eyes were gleaming with excitement, and he was leaning closer to Cir's holographic body instead of sitting as if he was ready to run at any moment. "I always keep some sort of holographic presence out there. It... helps me to get physical impressions of things."

It seemed like Alec wanted to ask another question but then he apparently changed his mind and just nodded, waiting for Cir to go on.

"I can vary my own looks too, but I have several favourites." Cir grinned at Alec and in the next moment a black kitten appeared instead of the young man. The kitten climbed Alec's lap and butted his hand affectionately.

Alec laughed in surprised delight. "Oh, you're cute in any form," he said, picking the kitten up to look at him closely. Cir wriggled like a true cat would — this body, like the human one, was built according to the collected recording of movements as well as appearances. But the mind that controlled the body was still the same Cir, staring at suddenly too-big Alec with yellow kitten eyes.

He purred, and Alec started scratching under his chin, and then his belly. But at that moment Cir changed again, and instead of a soft little kitten Alec now held on his lap a grinning young man. Alec grinned in answer and dragged him closer, scratching Cir's belly again. "Very impressive," he said approvingly.

Cir silently agreed for quite another reason. So Alec liked cats... and Cir liked to be held like that. "Well," he said with a sigh, still not moving away, "but there are also middle stages between my mind in contact with the machines and my presence in this room. At least, that's how I think about it."

He turned to look at his Master. Alec was serious again, but he was so close now, and not telling Cir to move away. Somehow this closeness made difficult things easier to discuss.

"So," he went on, collecting his thoughts, "there's me in the capsule and my presence in this room. When I deal with pages, that's more or less official. I use their communications network, or office network — that's how I can get to Palace records. It's like," he said with an audible gulp, "like I'm one more computer in these networks."

Alec just drew him closer still and stroked his shoulder, but this time it was accompanied by a stroking sensation in his mind, so good and so sweet that Cir was sure even his real body had felt it. He heard a purring sound and suddenly realized that he was the one making it, even though he stayed in human body.

Finally he sighed again and looked at Alec. "Thanks," he whispered quietly and then went on in a normal voice. "Sometimes, though I combine these connections I use, and my Scrying abilities, and I can contact people outside the normal networks."

"Interesting," Alec said. "And this might come in useful..." Cir looked at him questioningly, but Alec did not elaborate, and so he went on explaining.

"I mean... Keys are not really supposed to interact with each other," he said uncertainly and looked to see whether his Master was angry. But there was no anger in Alec's expression, and so he went on. "It distracts us from our duties — we are meant to concentrate on Masters, and prepare ourselves for their arrival. And also, I think, we are not meant to get attached to anyone besides the current Master..."

He fell silent again, remembering his hopes for a Master who would stay, but then went on resolutely. "Anyway, I get lonely sometimes... And others get lonely too. I found out at some moment, I do not remember when, that I can project myself a little to other Keys' rooms. It's not like here, not a solid body, but I can talk to them and see them, and they see and hear me. Of course," he hastened to add, "we only do that when we have no Masters; but that's what you wanted to know, wasn't it? That's why I'm not so lonely, but it's a secret, and I only do this with some Keys; and lately they all have been busy," he added with a sigh.

"Why not with everyone?" ALec asked, evidently curious.

Cir frowned. "Not all of them want or need that; I watch them first before making contact. Some are... unbalanced. They might think they're going mad if they saw me. And there are also those who would tell the pages..."

Alec smiled. "Very prudent of you."

Cir smiled in answer. "I just... Perhaps I am breaking the letter of the rules, but I do not think I'm doing anything wrong. I *know* I do not mean any harm to the Palace. It has been good to me. Not to all the Keys, no, but to me the Palace was good. It took care of me..." He knew somehow that Alec did not understand, but it was important to him to explain himself to this Master as it never had been with others.

"This Palace is a strange thing," Alec said thoughtfully. "I do not think there is another one — do you?"

"No-o," Cir answered slowly. "Sometimes Keys are taken away by their Masters, but always this is a single Key belonging to a single Master. All the rest are here."

"And yet you don't know how it started," Alec stated. "If all the Keys are here, all the records should be here too..."

"I can look for them if you want to," Cir offered. "I never thought to search for the origin of the Palace, but this *is* interesting..."

"It would be interesting — and useful, I think." Alec frowned. "Do you think I can participate somehow?"

Cir looked at him, thinking, and suddenly smiled. "I think you can!" he announced happily. Previously the prospect of the search alarmed him, for although he would be doing his Master's bidding, he would have to leave Alec alone. "If you can join your mind to mine somehow, I can, well, drag you along."

"Yes," Alec answered, "of course I can. I rarely do such things because it isn't safe, but here with you and guided by your link with your body and with the projection..." He fell silent, obviously thinking and planning, and then looked at Cir again with a gleam of anticipation in his eyes. "Shall we do it now?"

"Why not?" Cir realized that they wouldn't be having sex right now, but this, he felt, could be as good as sex and maybe even better. Having Alec's mind so close to his would be very... intimate; and such close contact might also serve to change Alec's mind about having sex.

"You need to lie down as comfortably as possible," he said, returning the bed to the room. "Come on, let's do it." He took Alec's hand, dragging him up. Now that they decided what to do, he felt really impatient.

Alec followed him, laughing quietly, and they both flopped down on the soft bed. Alec drew him close and Cir snuggled into his arms with a happy sigh.

::Now what?:: Alec's already familiar mindvoice asked.

::Now close your eyes and hold on to me.::

In the next moment the two bodies on the bed relaxed as if sleeping, but their inhabitants weren't in the room any more.