Chapter No.44.

Chara summoned Myra to a meeting in the mission room, essentially an office off the command center. Myra could sense that Chara was upset and decided to let her vent.

"I am putting you in charge of disciplining the human males."

"Why are you concerned about their compliance?" Myra asked her. "They have done what you asked of them, and they have not shown any signs of rebelling."

"I am concerned that they will rebel," Chara said.

"They're not going to do anything stupid like that. You're worrying about something that won't happen. I thought you and Ryan had come to a peaceful relationship. Why are you worrying about him now?"

"I don't know," Chara said, turning her head away momentarily before looking back at Myra. "I have this fear that he is plotting a revolt to take over."

"Well, I can assure you that he's not, but if you keep ranting against him, you could cause a rebellion that would be disastrous. My advice to you is to relax and allow them to do what they do best."

Chara lowered her head. "Yes, I must adjust to their presence." She looked back up at Myra. "What must I do to relieve my hatred of them?"

Myra stared at her for a moment before replying. "Do you trust me?"

Chara stared at her for several minutes before replying. "Yes."

"Then let me handle them. It's better that I humiliate them instead of you. They don't like you telling them that they don't need clothing."

Chara did something that no one had ever seen. She sighed. "Yes, I understand, I am not qualified to discipline them."

"Okay, l will make sure they obey orders and respect you. I think it best that you tell Ryan that you respect him and will not personally punish him. I think he'll accept that as a form of mediation. Let me humiliate them. They'll accept my forcing them to go without clothing as a method of punishment."

"I accept your help in this," Chara said. "I will relax and let you handle them."

"Yes, by all means. You need to chill out and let Alma and I handle the control of both the androids and the humans. You need to concentrate on where we will go and how we will avoid being destroyed."

"I am happy that I had this discussion with you," Chara said. "I feel better already."

Myra smiled. "Good!"

Myra was relieved that she had settled the silent war between Chara and Ryan. She realized that she was dealing with a thinking machine, not a human. But now she had to convince Ryan and his buddies that this détente was tenuous and that they needed to allow her to humiliate them in order to keep the peace. Essentially, she had become a diplomat.

That meeting happened in her quarters. She had summoned Ryan, Evan, Vince and Gary to come to her quarters to discuss her dominion over them. They sat down on a couch while she stood up and pranced in front of them.

"I had a serious discussion with Chara about her systematic hatred of you men. I finally made her realize that she's not qualified to be in charge of you and discipline you. I have been given that job. I think she's satisfied with the arrangement, but I'll have to make it appear that I am serious, or she'll get bent out of shape again. She has this incipient hatred for human males. It took a while to convince her that you men are not plotting to take over. "

"I don't understand why she thought we were plotting a coup," Ryan said. "That would be a stupid move on our part."

"Yes, she understands that now, but this tenuous peace must be secured by me showing that you guys are obedient to me."

"We don't have a problem with that," Ryan said.

"Does this mean that you gals are not going to entertain us?" Vince asked.

"I'm afraid that it'll be the other way around," Myra replied with an ornery grin.

The men laughed, but they realized that it was a ridiculous turn of events.

The Avenger came out of warp the next day a million miles away from a habitable planet orbiting a G2 dwarf star with six other planets, it was obvious that the planet was home to an advanced intelligent species.

"There is a space vessel in orbit around the planet," Alma reported.

"I have gone to full cloak," Chara said. "I will adjust our velocity and heading to stay at a stable distance from the planet. Begin electromagnetic scans."

"I am not detecting anything at the usual wavelengths," Alma said. "I will try lower wavelengths."

"I am detecting what appears to be structures on the planet's surface," Myra said. "At this distance, I am unable to get detailed images."

"I will move our ship closer," Chara said.

Everyone on the command deck remained tense as the Avenger moved closer. Fortunately, nothing happened. After several minutes of silence, Alma had a report. "I have detected modulated signals in the lower radio spectrum. They appear to have image information."

The first images that Alma displayed on the main screen didn't make sense.

"Are those the aliens?" Ryan asked.

Alma turned to him. "I don't know, but they appear to be moving around in a manner that suggests that they are intelligent."

"What the hell!" Evan said. "They look like chickens."

"They're too large to be that, although they do resemble some sort of bird," Ryan said. "However, some have feathers. The rest of them look like plucked chickens."

"I believe they only vaguely resemble chickens," Myra said. "They have beaks, but their eyes are more like ours because they point out from their face, not from the side."

"Why do some of them have feathers?" Evan asked.

"That's a good question. I think that the feathers are part of a coat or cloak. Why only some of them have that is not obvious," Myra said.

"Let's assume that these creatures are intelligent and that they evolved from birds," Ryan said. "If that were the case then they all would have feathers. However, if the ones wearing feathers as a cloak were males, then the rest of them would be naked females."

"That sounds sexist," Myra said.

"Is there some way you could translate their vocalizations?"

"I am running them through the universal translator," Alma said. "But it's having trouble with them."

"I'm not surprised," Ryan said. "It's not designed to handle bird tweets."

"There's movement at the vessel," Myra said.

"That looks like shuttles arriving from the surface," Ryan said. "Maybe it's getting ready to go somewhere."

"I have found images of the naked aliens being hoarded into shuttles on the surface," Myra said. "Maybe they're preparing for an evacuation."

"That doesn't make sense," Ryan said. "Maybe we should trace their course trajectory in case we want to find out what they're up to."

"I will do that, Ryan," Chara said.

"So, if the naked aliens are female, that would suggest that the males have harems," Myra said.

"That's possible, but we really don't know what they're doing."

The universal translator has acquired a rough translation. It appears that I'm right."

Ryan didn't want to get involved in a gender inequality argument, especially when he was outnumbered by the female gender, but later, after the traditional communal supper, Myra came to his quarters and found him relaxing on the couch listening to a piano trio professionally played by his three android companions.

"Is there something wrong?" Ryan asked.

"Nope," Myra said. "I wanted to discuss some things I would like to do to placate Chara's desire to punish you human males for being human males."

He offered her a subtle smile. "What did you have in mind?"

"How about you guys wearing towels?"

He frowned. "That's crazy."

"Yeah, but I have to do something to show Chara that I'm doing my job."

"Why towels?"

"It's better than nothing."

"I agree," Ryan said with a sigh.

"Good. I'll let you alone now. Have fun." She hesitated. "Oh, you only have to wear the towels during the evening when we meet for supper and after." She flashed a teasing smile before turning and walking away.

Ryan watched her leave his quarters before he signaled for his companions to resume playing. He realized that Myra was doing this as a tease. She loves to prank, and who better for her to do it to.