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Chief Athena read me like a book and gave me a warning look. “Listen, Airlock, I know this is probably…exciting.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head quickly.
“You don’t have to lie. By necessity, you’re going to be making first contact, but it’s only technically going to be first contact.”
“How’s that?”
“You will operate the airlock, but you will not touch, see, speak to—”
“I know the rules, Chief Athena.”
“So really,” she said, “there won’t be any contact, will there? Emissary Eve will communicate with the alien men through proxy, that will be the first contact. It would be wrong for High Command to put such a dangerous job onto an engineer.”
“I understand.”
And when was she going to get to the “delicate” part? Little tidbits like this were priceless on the whispered rumor market. That’s how I found out that the male plug thing was called a “dick,” because someone heard from High Command that when you call someone “a dick” it was actually referring to the male anatomy. Growing up, when I caught one of my moms swearing, I’d been told that a “dick” was a kind of Earth animal that we’d forgotten about, but that I also shouldn’t ever say that word, as High Command didn’t like it.
Chief Athena started looking around. We were in the sleeping quarters now, next to all the bunks, but we were the only two women in the room. Still, she looked around and seemed to even listen for several silent moments for footsteps. Finally she leaned in closer to me, and she spoke in a whisper. “There’s a possibility you will not be able to follow all of the rules, Airlock Eve.”
My chest tightened, and it felt like my heart jumped up into my throat. I tried putting all of my effort into not looking excited, but surely she saw through that. “I will follow all the rules, Chief—”
“Listen,” she whispered, “we’ve sent probes, but they malfunction when they get near the alien ship. We had to keep sending dumber and dumber probes, and only the dumbest ones managed to get near the ship. They took some pictures and opened some comms channels, but…”
I didn’t understand where this was going, but I held my tongue to avoid seeming excited in any way about breaking a rule. Breaking a rule withpermission? How had I lucked into this?
“The screening software built into your suit,” Athena said, “may not function as it’s meant to.”
The airlock is usually run by the shuttle’s AI, and I hadn’t really understood why I was going to be Airlock Eve on this mission. I was usually Engineer Eve, but for this mission I was very specifically Airlock. Now it made sense, of course. The ship’s AI might stop working as the alien ship got closer to us, and I needed to be in there to make sure something awful didn’t happen, like our first contact with an alien species resulting in the airlock blowing him out into space and killing him, or having him float away forever if he was somehow able to survive the vacuum.
“I could close my eyes,” I suggested.
“You will need your eyes open to do your job, Airlock, but if the screening software fails, and should you get a glimpse of our visitor…”
She did the trailing off thing again. She couldn’t say “it’s okay if you look at him, just this once” but she could heavily imply it. I knew I wouldn’t get away with staring at him, but I definitely could sneak a peek. If the softwares failed, that is.
“You’re doing a critical job, Airlock Eve,” she said, “and High Command understands the circumstances. I would expect them to be lenient, provided you do everything in your power to follow the rules whenever possible.”
“Understood.”
“Good,” she said, patting me on the shoulder. “Now, go suit up, we’re almost ready to dock. They’re close now.” Her voice took on a reverent,excitedtone. “Very close.”
* * *
Life Support Athenahelped me to suit up while the rest of the crew got very busy preparing for our rendevous with the alien men.
“Sorry about earlier,” she said, tightening the right glove into the socket on my wrist.
“You mean when Chief made you dress me down to make her point?” It’s fine,” I said, “you weren’t a bitch about it or anything. And Chief was actually really nice to me right after. It’s water under the bridge, Life Support.”
Life Support smiled. “What did Chief talk to you about?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Or something,” she whispered.
We both looked around. We were alone. Life Support Athena didn’t even have to ask me again, she just stared at me without blinking, waiting for me to spill my new, juicy gossip.
“How do you think pants work for men?” I asked.
