Liva was in trouble, and she knew it. It had just been a bit of fun. The sexy slinky slit had been looking for fun and had latched on to Liva, and to the big blond hunk who had been sat near Liva in the bar, wondering about his chances of scoring with Liva if he offered to buy her a drink.
How was she to know the slinky slit was the Planetary Ambassador's daughter? Or that some enterprising security officer at the hotel had seen the action on the hotel security cameras and had sold the tapes to the City's biggest sleaze-sheet? The scandal had been all over the newsstands and tele-vid channels before she had even showered and dressed the next morning.
So now his personal Police Squad was out looking for her. From what she had heard, the blond hunk had been picked up quickly, so now they could focus all their efforts on finding the female "companion", eighteen Earth years of age, dark hair, five foot four, slim build, namely her. And with the size of reward being offered for information, Liva had no illusions that her few friends on this planet would hesitate to cash in on it. Her chances of living long enough to welcome in the half-millennium of twenty-five hundred in six weeks time were looking rather slim.
So, problem with a capital P-how to leave a securely-policed city-state with the only transport out being the road-convoys, or the space-ships. And what were the odds that both convoy boarding station and spaceport would be heavily policed? Added to which, road convoy vehicles were searched and sealed before departure and not unsealed until arrival at the only other city-state on the planet. And what was the betting the Police there would be watching for her?
Leaving just the spaceport and getting off-world. Getting in would be difficult but possible-barely. Getting on board a ship and hiding until departure was impossible. Every ship was routinely searched from control room down to engine room. She could probably get on easily enough, but staying hidden? With the hunt going on for her, the search would be even more stringent. So how to get away on a spacecraft? Forget the small two or four-man jobs. Too small and nowhere to hide. It would need to be one of the big ones, a cruise ship maybe?
An idea slowly started knocking at her brain for attention. It was risky, daring, and she was not certain she had the self-discipline to pull it off, but it seemed to be her only chance. The old Edgar Allen Poe story from her schooldays, The Purloined Letter, had popped into her mind, so old but so perfect for what she needed to achieve. She could still remember being made to read it in her class.
Later that day, a sealed crate was delivered to the Earth registered cruise ship, Queen Katherine IV, Addressed to Cybernauts Inc, New York City, Earth, and marked Cybernautic Supplies-TO BE OPENED BY AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The ship was not due to depart for another twenty-four hours, and the crate would be stored safely for collection when the ship made landfall at NY City in three weeks time. It was a few hours after midnight when the crate opened, and a cramped Liva slowly emerged from it, closing it carefully as she made sure nobody was around. She had spent a few hours earlier that day in the public vidi-library, checking deck plans for the ship, along with flight schedules, personnel, and facilities aboard.
Then there followed a rushed two hours shopping and a visit to a tattoo shop and the make-up and hair salon to prepare her for her escape. Now, she called on her recollection of the deck plans of the ship and made her way to a certain area which she expected to be deserted while the ship was ground-side. The problem was, how to hide something when you knew there would be a massive search for the item? In this case, the item being herself. Edgar Allen Poe gave the answer. You hide it in plain view.
Like all large ships, cruise ship or merchant's vessels, the crew had several weeks in space, and crew, male and female, got horny. Cruise ships discouraged the intimate liaisons between crew and passengers, while merchant ships wanted to avoid the possible jealousies and friction arising from mixed crews having intimate relationships with each other, so the answer thanks to modern twenty-fifth-century technology, was Sex-bots. Robotic companions engineered to be almost undetectable from humans and programmed to please the sex partner in any and every way imaginable, with the ability to learn new techniques if necessary.
On a cruise ship like this one, with some passengers who might also need the use of them, there were many of them of both sexes, all stored waiting for when they were needed. Opening a storage area, Liva found one 'bot roughly her size. Making sure it was in a deactivated state, she pressed the correct control to activate it and led it to where her crate was stored. Putting the sex-bot into the crate, she again deactivated it and then removed the control core from the machine so it was lifeless until a new power unit was input.
She resealed the crate, and then went back to the sex-bot storage area to stand in the storage bay waiting. Anybody looking into the bay would have seen just one more sex-bot, wearing the same kind of skimpy short skirt and top as the others, with the typical heels and stockings that even now were preferred by twenty-fifth-century men. The hair was a perfect metallic blonde that glistened in the slightest light. On the side of the neck were the standard bar-code and registration numbers almost hidden by the hair. The storage area was cool and the padded bay was comfortable, and Liva slept for several hours, waking when she heard noises in the room beyond. She stood carefully upright, eyes unseeing as lights came on in the storage area and two men entered, one carrying a clipboard. They counted the inert forms lining the bays. One of the men stood near to her.
"Hey, Chief, they are making these sexier every year, seems like," he said laughing.
The Chief came closer, looking at the one next to Liva, and lifting its skirt, sliding a hand underneath.
"Damned if I can tell it from the real thing," he said, stroking gently between the legs, "we better hope they never get intelligent, or we are in trouble."
The other man stroked a hand against Liva's tits, squeezing gently.
"Isn't that what you used to say about women?" he laughed, "Think I might try one of these out this trip. You ever indulged?"
"A few times, " the Chief admitted, "Pretty good fuck, and no having to talk to them before or after."
They left the bay, and Liva heard them moving along the corridor. At least that was the main search and check over with. The ship should be blasting off very soon. She started thinking about food. The kitchens were on this level, just a short way along the corridor. Like all ships, this would be run on planetary time, scheduled for Earth, its port of registration, so after a certain time, the kitchens should be empty of any crew. This would give her time to slip along and help herself to something, added to which she had secreted several packs of military-grade ration packs in the crate in case she should need them in an emergency.
She dozed again until she woke to the vibrations going through the ship as the engines ignited and the great vessel of space blasted free from the planet. So that was part one, escape from the planet, achieved.
