"Alaema, can you hand me the pruning clips?" Mericlou said. She was so immersed in her work that she did not look up from the flowerbed; she only held out her left hand, waiting.
A hand pressed the handle of the clips into her palm, and she began to snip away at the young, purple outgrown branches of the dwarf plinki shrub beside the rainbow-hued Lemsram lilacs.
And then she paused. The hand was slender, but not Alaema's. Hers were not so heavy. More curious than nervous, she slowly glanced over her shoulder.
"I was wondering when you'd notice me," Aldrec said, smiling as cheerily as ever. He was kneeling beside her.
"Aldrec! When did you get here?" Mericlou asked, pleasantly surprised and grinning broadly.
"Just a moment ago," he said, gesturing back towards the entranceway. "Glad to see me?"
"Well, of course," Mericlou said. "I'm always glad to see you. But for a moment, I thought you were Alaema."
"Who?" "Oh, yes, that's right; I didn't tell you about her, did I?" Mericlou said.
"I think you mentioned her once, back when we first met," Aldrec said. "She's part of your family, right? The one you talked to on your ether link?"
"She's been working with me here in the garden for the past week," Mericlou said, nodding. And she's been a big help. To be honest, I was a bit skeptical when she asked to help me, but she's better at it than I thought she'd be, all things considered."
"Is there something wrong with her?" Aldrec said, curious over Mericlou's tone of voice.
"Oh, no; It's not that," Mericlou said, straining to pull out an unusually tenacious weed from the lilac bed. "Remember when I told you that we tend to specialize in our individual talents?"
"Yes. What about it?"
"Well it's the same with me as it is with Alaema. I'm an Alerian model, and Alaema, well … She's a Setru model."
"A love doll?"
Aldrec's knowledge of androids was limited, but Setru models were a familiar type to all. As the only legally sanctioned "recreational" type android, Setru models, though sentient, had little more intelligence than a ten-year-old human and were overlooked by the android rights laws after the Liberation War. No one cared much for living sex toys. They were cheap to make, and easily replaceable. Of all androids, they were the lowest, and most miserable.