The shock was still visible on Alex’s face as Vitale grabbed a cable and opened the rear cranial port to Tabby’s head. Just like that, a sliding strip opened to reveal a power connection.

“She’s not real?” asked Alex, very confused. “How could that be?”

Vitale gave him an odd look. “You’ve never been around androids before? Never seen an ArtFriend or an I-Mate?”

“I’ve seen them both but it’s not hard to tell that they’re not real,” explained Alex. “Even the I-Mate, which is supposedly the top of the line android out there, is still kind of crude when it comes to sentience. But this, what is this?”

Vitale hoisted Tabby to her feet and pulled her closer to his workstation, where he was able to set her upright. The look on her face was vacant as power flowed from his computer into hers.

“Tabby is my own invention,” said Vitale with a beaming grin. “You see, Alex, I was of the same opinion as you. I found what was available on the market in terms of sentient androids to be extremely lacking. And while I’ve only inspected some of the I-Mates that have recently arrived with the other new colonists, I’m still not impressed. They’re hardly one step above ArtFriends. You still feel like you’re communicating with something that’s been programmed by a human, and I despise that. So I did the next best thing. I created my own.”

“How?” asked Alex, still flabbergasted. “The company that makes the I-Mates, Inspiration Technologies, is thought of to be as cutting edge as it gets. You’re just one guy here, right? How did you create something so much more life-like than they did?”

“It wasn’t easy, let me tell you. I’ve been working on Tabby for years. Not so much her body but her mind. The computer that works her brain has been one of my greatest accomplishments. I’ve poured into her years of programming for every possible scenario and speech that I could think of. For the first few years, she was still incredibly basic but I eventually reached a point that she was passable. From there, I worked on refinement, tinkering with her pattern responses until I have her almost perfect.”

Vitale beamed proudly as he looked at Tabby. “She is my most important life’s work. I’ve figured out how to clone her brain, creating what I call ‘personality packages’ so that anyone can get their own Tabby, personalized to their likes and dislikes. I’ve even created another version of her that is very similar but with subtle differences in her personality. I call her Tammy, and they treat each other like sisters. For their bodies, I use old ArtFriend packages which have been upgraded with the new personality package. Personally, I’m extremely pleased with them.”

“Where is Tammy now?” asked Alex, very curious to see more of the android.

“She’s over here,” said Vitale, gesturing for Alex to follow. They moved further back into the laboratory until they found a similar-looking android to Tabby lying prone on a workbench. Just like Tabby, her rear cranial passage was also opened.

“I found a glitch in Tammy’s software that I had to overwrite. She should be back in action in a day or two,” explained Vitale. “In those early years, I spent more time with the girls turned off than I did with them turned on. But once they were turned on, well, they were . . . incredible.”

Vitale couldn’t help the smile that filled his face. It was one that Alex recognized instantly.

“I know the ArtFriends were equipped with real anatomy,” said Alex. “I’m guessing when Tabby said that you were her lover that she wasn’t exactly mincing words.”

The smile left Vitale’s face. “Some people think that I’m weird for that. Especially my fellow Vestans. I’m attached to two incredible women, but does it make me less of a man because neither of them are considered real women? That they are women that I’ve built from the ground up? Tabby and Tammy are more real than most of the women in Vesta. They have dreams, they talk intelligently, and they care about me deeply. How is that any different from what I can get from a real woman?”

“It’s very impressive technology,” said Alex. “But it sounds like it’s made you the outcast of Vesta.”

Vitale blew air through his cheeks. “To say the least. For many years, people speculated that I was gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that but I prefer my rear rectal cavity be used for what nature intended it for. It was only once Tabby and Tammy were born that I found the fulfillment and partnership that I needed. I’m a happy man, Alex. And I like to stay that way.”

“How much tension has it caused here in Vesta?” asked Alex. “I’ve only been here a day and I’ve already found the women to be . . .”

“Oversexed, pushy harpies?” finished Vitale.

Alex chuckled. “Let’s just go with aggressive.”

“You should have been here a few years ago, when the bears first arrived. It was even worse then, if that’s believable.”

“How so?”

Vitale shook his head quickly. “Vesta has had a very hard decade to say the least. It all started when the bears came. We had even numbers of men and women for most of our existence and that tended to produce monogamous marriages where just about everyone was happy. They were pretty stable marriages as well. With most of the people here attached to someone else and with the close proximity that we live to each other, there wasn’t a lot of room for adultery or the bachelor lifestyle. People tended to get married young and stay that way.”

Vitale took a deep breath before he continued. “But once the bears took off a good portion of the male population in Vesta, things started to change. Our gender balance was completely destroyed. There were three women for every man in Vesta. For the longest time, we tried to carry on with the same monogamy that we’d been ingrained with but it started to show cracks very quickly.”

“I’m guessing the cheating and sleeping around really started to ratchet up a level.”

“You have no idea, Alex. Suddenly, you had guys who never had much attention in their lives become viable husband prospects overnight. The remaining women sought desperately to be attached to one of the surviving males but since most of them were already married, there was slim pickings. They took what they could get. Even a slacker twenty-year-old had his pick of some of the hottest women in the colony. And marriage vows became a farce. Women would regularly seduce and sleep with another woman’s husband with the hopes of stealing him away for herself. All the men here were being fought over and sex was the way the women fought those battles.”

Vitale shrugged. “If you were a man on Vesta in those days, you weren’t that unhappy with the outcome. Sure, the bears could mean death at any time, but you had a constant flow of women hoping to share your bed and eventually become your wife. Sex with a new partner was just around the corner so the men weren’t complaining much but it was tearing the women apart. Cattiness and drama were found everywhere. Women who’d been friends for their entire lives were suddenly ripped apart because they went after the same man. Families were torn apart. It became rare for children to live with their actual biological parents because they’d probably switched partners several times before they were a few years old. It was a mess.”

“At least our birth rates never plummeted,” continued Vitale. “The women here saw pregnancy as a means to keep men and so they never used birth control when they went after someone else’s husband. A lot of kids were born out of wedlock and that only added to the misery. Finally, something had to be done. There are a few people out there who still argue about who did it first. Some claim it came from one of the council members of the time while others claim it came from the men who were tired of pretending. But what happened was the men started being public about how many women they were seeing. And that meant the women had to accept that they were no longer in a monogamous relationship.”

“They had to have known that was the case though,” said Alex. “With all that sleeping around that was going on, they knew their man was probably getting something else on the side.”

“They knew but they had blinders on,” replied Vitale. “They kept their heads buried in the sand for as long as possible, turning a blind eye to their husband sneaking out of their biosphere in the night and returning in the morning. Or to other women hanging around their husband. Finally, enough was enough. Once the first polygamous pairs became public, there was a shift in the mindset of the colony. Logic started to win for the first time in years. It was seen that with the gender imbalance, polygamous pairings were the only way that there could be stability here. It took some time for that idea to gain acceptance but everyone was happier for it once it did.”

Vitale held up a finger. “For one, the women were happier. They could share a man publicly and both be acknowledged as his wives. It took away all the sneaking around and backstabbing that was going on. Most of the time, the mistresses were invited into the family home and they started sharing a bed together. Over time, those mistresses were invited into the marriage itself. The levels of drama and cattiness went down drastically and a lot of friendships were mended in the process.”

“The men were still happy as well, if not happier. No longer did the specter of discovery hang over their heads. Their wives now accepted their mistress as a co-wife, bringing stability back into the household.”

Vitale shrugged. “The last few years have been much better ever since it happened. As a people, we’re open about our customs not out of pride but out of necessity. This is the lot that’s been forced on us and we’ve made the best of it. That’s not saying there’s total harmony now though. Of course, you’ll still have some aggressive women who move from husband to husband. And you’ll still have an openness to sex here that you won’t find elsewhere, mainly because most of the people here see sex as not a big deal since there’s so much of it going on. But for the most part, we’re happier because of it.”

“Very interesting to hear the entire story,” said Alex. “I came in with Ellie Vesta, who briefly explained it to me as well, but hearing the full history of it, it makes sense now.”

“Ellie Vesta was one of the first to accept a polygamous pairing,” replied Vitale. “This was years ago, mind you, when she’d only turned twenty but it was her and her cousin Annette that started one of the first pairings with a man named Walker Haas. You can say that it was because of Ellie that we have mass acceptance of our Vestan way of life.”

Alex was still thinking about Ellie when Vitale suddenly stood up. “So I know hearing the whole thing is a bit of a drag. I mean, what man gets excited about unlimited sex with multiple partners? But is it something you think you can tolerate while you’re here?”

Alex started to laugh. “You guys drive a hard bargain with that but I think I can manage.”

Vitale grinned. “As long as you don’t try to take Tabby or Tammy from me, we’ll be fine. Those two are mine. By the way, that reminds me of something. I know most of the new colonists were issued I-Mates on the passage to Vesta. Do you still have yours?”

“No, actually, mine was destroyed,” replied Alex. “There was an . . . issue back on the ship.”

Vitale pursed his lips. “Oh, I understand.”

Then Vitale leaned in closer to Alex. “What would you think if I could bring her back?”