The Yotair pleasure satellite was located on the rim of the Milky Way galaxy and not on one of the main galactic trading lanes. But it wasn’t far off from the trading lanes either.

If you came to Yotair, you meant to come there. There wasn’t any other reason to be in that part of the sector. But Yotair was reason enough.

The pleasure satellite offered excitement that all human and humanoid beings could appreciate. Gambling, glitzy revue shows, fine dining featuring exotic foods from all the known galaxies, drinking, drugs, and, of course—sex.

The Humanistic Garden was a small establishment that catered to men, whether human or one of the species recently categorized by the Intergalactic Council as humanoid. The sex workers were all male SDS robots.

The sex and domestic services robots came in two types—pure SDS robot and SDS hybrid robot.

Joon, until fairly recently, had been an employee of the Garden. Due to a certain …  relationship—he guessed he could call it that—he was now exclusive to a very special individual.

It was that individual that preoccupied his thoughts at the moment. Actually, he’d been thinking about Benjamin Smith for a while. If he was being honest, and as a pure SDS he was incapable of lying, he had to admit that he’d been concerned about Smith for a few weeks now.

To distract himself, he’d been making desserts. It was one of the ways he showed his appreciation to Smith who was from Earth and loved sweet foods. Today’s concoction was a creamy purple substance consisting of mashed berry fruit with whipped froth on top.

Serrin walked in. “I see you’ve been busy,” he said. “What is it today?”

“A rare berry from Earth called a boysenberry, topped with milch froth from the flightless birds of Ren,” Joon said serenely. “Would you like to try it?”

He held out a spoonful, and Serrin tasted it. “It’s good. He should enjoy it when he gets back.”

Joon nodded. Both men fell silent. It wouldn’t be long before Serrin was gone too. He had given notice as the Humanistic Garden’s manager to return to his home planet of Horon and his lover Prince Levan of the royal family.

“Have you … heard from him?”

“No,” Joon replied.

Benjamin Smith, the trillionaire AI inventor and entrepreneur, investor in thousands of businesses across the universe, was the owner of the Humanistic Garden. Among his many homes, the penthouse in the next-door building that he shared with Joon was one of his favorites.

His work took him everywhere so he wasn’t on Yotair often. But he’d been gone without word for a while now.

“Don’t worry. He knows you can’t stay for long. Prince Levan is waiting for you, after all.”

“I don’t want to leave you in the lurch,” Serrin replied mildly. “I can stay until you hire my replacement.”

The Humanistic Garden’s break room was called the party room, due to the odd sense of humor of the men who worked there. They serviced male clients in their own rooms which were the real party rooms, not this dull but serviceable break room.

The party room’s best feature was huge windows that looked out on Yotair’s glittering city. The satellite was on a twelve-hour day and night cycle. For twelve hours the sky was set to night and tourists partied while Yotair’s service workers worked. The next twelve hours were a simulated day cycle, when the tourists would sleep and Yotair’s residents went out and did their grocery shopping and other errands.

The U-net screen pinged, indicating a special news bulletin. Joon used the remote to turn up the sound. He was startled to see Benjamin on the screen. “Benjamin Smith, the trillionaire investor and AI genius from Earth, has been served with a summons from the Intergalactic Criminal Court on the Sagitta Settlement.”

Serrin glanced at Joon. “What is this?”

The bulletin continued. “Smith has been charged with crimes against humanity, based, according to reports, on his creation of the SDS line of robots.”

Joon frowned. Smith created the SDS robots years ago. Why would they be charging him now? Besides, the ethics issue had been resolved in a lower court. Or that was his understanding.

He triggered an internal module that mined information sources on the U-net, trying to trace the history of this criminal case. Benjamin hadn’t told him about it. As one of the universe’s wealthiest and most famous figures he got sued a lot. But Joon was sure he’d have remembered this case if Benjamin mentioned it.

“The Court indicates that more details on this case will be released soon.” Smith’s image faded and regular programming resumed.

“I don’t know what this is about,” Joon told Serrin. He held up a hand indicating he should stand by, then closed his eyes and turned his internal U-net research module up to its highest setting. Information flew through his head at lightning speed about all of Benjamin’s legal cases. He settled nearly all of them, as they were filed just to get money from the trillionaire.

Joon’s eyes opened. It was an old case from the early days of the SDS robots. A human rights organization had sued Benjamin Smith on ethics grounds, allegedly on the SDS robots’ behalf. The judge had ruled in Benjamin’s favor but also ordered him to make modifications on the SDS hybrids.

He typed on his U-tab. “I’m contacting him now. The report didn’t say he’d surrendered on Sagitta yet. Maybe I can catch him wherever he is and—”

He abruptly stopped as he read an incoming message on the tablet.

“What is it?”

“It’s Benjamin,” Joon said slowly. “He says he’s going to surrender to the authorities on Sagitta.”