Still, the experience was familiar enough. The beating of his heart quickened and there was a stirring in his blood, a heat in his limbs that he associated, perhaps wrongly, with desire. Desire made flesh.
The door lock consisted of five numbered dials, which he had to set physically before the door would open. The number of possible combinations was large by human standards though trivial to the AI. But Michael had no body; the bots that obeyed Syvian on these decks were, supposedly, sealed against interference by the ship; the ship’s own bots did not function on this deck. Syvian often wondered what would happen to the cargo if he had died on the voyage; Michael must have wondered the same thing.
Syvian, of course, knew the answer though Michael could not. There were elements that did
