“Is it gross, Airlock?” Weapons asked, leaning forward and looking me right in the eyes. “Did it gross you out?”
My ears and whole face were burning hot now. I wanted to just slide down in my chair until I was under the table and no longer had to face them.
Emissary glared at Weapons, then looked at me with a softer expression. She even reached out and put her hand over the back of mine. “Airlock Eve, as a former member of High Command, I’mfamiliarwith the…broad outline of sexual intercourse. You two probably think I know everything, but even in High Command we sought to protect ourselves as much as we could. I actually know very little about what it would really be like to…to do it.”
Goddess. We were all ignorant. We really were a virgin planet, weren’t we? Even High Command were just a bunch of fumbling virgins afraid to touch first base.
Emissary cleared her throat. “You probably both think we were lying to you about our archives getting scrambled. That part was true, actually. We have fragments and pieces, but not much more than that. We couldn’t reach out to other colonies to recover the data, as there was too much risk of male contamination. So, there’s a lot of things we don’t know, and potential dangers we should be watching out for.”
“For example?” Weapons asked.
“Cooties,” Emissary said. “The archives mention them as something that men can give you. There was a type of innoculation that men and women would get at a young age to protect against cooties, but we don’t actually know what cooties were or how dangerous they may have been.”
“Maybe they don’t exist anymore,” I said.
“Or,” Weapons suggested, “maybe the Khetar don’t have them. Maybe cooties are a human thing.”
“That’s just it,” Emissary said, “we really don’t know. I may have been High Command, but Airlock Eve is the only one—”
“Do I still have to be Airlock?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we change our roles now?”
“Breeding Eve,” Weapons said, snickering.
I glared at her. “And Breeding Weapons, and Breeding Eve II. What do you think you two are going to be doing here? We’re all going to have the same role now.”
“No,” Emissary said, sitting up straight and sticking her chest out. “We’re women of Eden. We won’t just roll over and do what these men tell us. We still have a duty to our planet and to our people. It seems inevitable that our old way of life will be gone, but the three of us are the first ones to establish what our new life will be like. Like it or not, we’re going to be important women in the history of Eden. We have to set the tone for what women for Eden will do. We show the Khetar that we are not weak and will not just do whatever is asked of us.”
“Which is why I’m not Airlock anymore,” I said.
“I’m still Weapons,” Weapons Sojourner said, “whichever alien man I fuck, I’m going to get him to tell me how this technology works. I want to figure out all this Hive Mind shit, and I’m going to find a way forusto interface with all of this. I don’t fully trust these aliens, and I’m pretty sure the only way we’re ever going to fight back—assuming we need to fight back—is if we can control their technology. Their weapons. So I’m still Weapons.”
Emissary nodded. “I’ll take a more diplomatic approach. I’ll work to get good terms and treatment for the women who come over, and inevitably for all the women on Eden when the Khetar start landing on our world. So I’m still Emissary.”
“I’m not Airlock,” I said.
“Excuse me,” the ship said, “but Thuliak has declared that youareAirlock, and anyone who addresses you by any other name will be thrown in the brig.”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“So,” Weapons said, “if we try to call her by her new role, you’ll suck us through those walls and spit us out in a jail cell?”
“Yes,” the ship said, “at least until you agree to call her Airlock again.”
“Looks like you’re Airlock,” Weapons said, laughing.
I glowered, thinking of Thuliak’s smug grin. “Fine. I’m Airlock. Whatever. I guess I’ll just get used to it. This ship doesn’t evenhaveAirlocks, you know?”
“I am well aware of that,” the ship said, “and Weapons Sojourner?”
“Yes?”
“You have nothing to fear. We seek only to peacefully breed with your world. You have no need to use our weapons.”
Weapons just raised an eyebrow and gave us a sly smirk that told the two of us that she was in no way deterred, and that she’d definitely be trying to figure out how to get control of the alien technology.
“Tell us now,” Emissary said. “About the sex. Did you get any cooties?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I mean, I don’t feel sick or anything. Just sore.”