“It’s still hard though,” Life Support Athena said.
“It has to be hard,” Weapons Sojourner said, “to penetrate the airlock.”
It got quiet. We were on dangerous ground here. That was another “rumor.” That dicks had to be hard to go in. Most women thought they were probably hard like large fingers, with several joints in the dick so that it could move around inside.
Everyone seemed to realize what we were really talking about, and so we stopped talking about it. Whispering in small groups was one thing, but talking aloud amongst the entire crew was just not done. Even through euphemisms.
“You should go,” Weapons Sojourner said, breaking the silence.
She was looking at me.
Shit, yeah, the men might already be waiting for me to open the airlock.
I was still suited all the way up, and I moved as fast as I could with the bulky suit toward the airlock.
Crew Chief Athena and Emissary Eve were waiting for me. I nodded to Emissary Eve. “Emissary, Crew Chief.”
“Crew Chief Athena discussed the delicate matter with you?” Emissary asked.
I nodded. “Yes, Emissary.”
She gave me a tight-lipped smile. “Any questions?”
I hadsomany questions, but when High Command asked if you had questions, you weren’t actually supposed to ask any. At least not any of the questions you really wanted to ask them.
“Airlock Eve,” she said, leaning in closer. “If you haveanyquestion, please ask. It’s possible I won’t be able to communicate with you once you’re in the airlock.”
I chose my words carefully. “I did maybe have a few questions, then. D you expect a technical malfunction is very likely? Considering what happened with our probes. A malfunction of the airlock, I mean.”
“It’s quite likely,” Emissary said, “that you’ll need to go into full manual operation to cycle the air.”
Which meant the screening software wasn’t going to work. If the dumb machines that cycled the airlock didn’t work, there’s no way the AI in the screening software could figure out what to censor in my field of vision. Theyknewit wasn’t going to work, and they were telling me as much without outright saying it.
I was going to see a man.
I didn’t want to ask many more questions, but there were some pressing technical ones that I needed answered to do my job correctly. I was Airlock. That put emphasis on my job. I hadonejob, and the seamless operation of the airlock to let the alien men in and out was my job. I wasn’t going to mess it up.
“Do we know the composition of the atmosphere in their ship?” I asked.
She shook her head. “They’ve been tight-lipped with their information.” Ah, so they had lips too? If they had lips and dicks, then they had to resemble human men more or less, otherwise High Command wouldn’t be so apprehensive about us seeing them. If they looked like giant spiders, I doubt they’d care what we saw of their anatomy. “But they have assured us they can breathe in our atmosphere. They makeveryconfident assurances.”
What did that mean? She’d heard them? They were close enough to us that she could imply how confident they were just over comms?
“Good,” I said, “it will minimize any risks of disaster if there isn’t a toxic atmosphere on the other side of the door. This should be very simple and by-the-book.”
Except for the dick-having alien standing in a tiny airlock with me.
Chief Athena was standing a good distance back from us, and Emissary Eve leaned in and spoke right next to the glass of my visor. “Do what you must to get our visitors through the airlock. As important as all the rules are, it’s more important that we keep our visitors happy.”
Why? Because they’ve threatened to blow us up if we don’t keep them happy? Or was it because High Command was hoping to get something from them, like technology? Would aliens give us something like that for free, or did they expect something in exchange? What could we possibly give them? Just from their ship, they seemed much more advanced than us, so what could we have that would be of any value to them?
All of these were exactly the kind of questions you didn’t ask High Command.
“I’ll keep my head down and get the job done, Emissary Eve.”
She smiled at me, then spoke in the lowest whisper I’d ever heard from a woman of High Command. “Do you know how you can’t really look at the sun or it hurts too much? Airlock?”
I nodded.