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Airlock Eve started zoning out again. Her eyes were looking forward, but I’m sure if Chief Athena noticed, she’d yell at her again. I tried to give her a pointed look, but she ignored me.
This crew was mostly a skeleton crew. After my conversation with Chief Athena, I realized that this was intentional. They wanted as few women as possible onboard a ship that men would step foot on. Especially naked ones with their dingdongs just out in the open. I still really couldn’t visualize a dingdong no matter how much I tried. I’d heard so many conflicting accounts in gossip circles. The most ludicrous thing I’d heard was that a dingdong was actually soft and velvety, but after a woman touched it, it would change shape, getting much bigger. Somehow.
I assumed most gossip I heard was just that: Gossip. It was obvious to every woman on Eden that women had a kitty, which was a hole. So it didn’t take a genius to figure that a man’s dingdong was probably something that would fit inside of our hole. Thus it had to be a protrusion, and probably a certain length and circumference.
I didn’t speculate about it. At least not out loud. High Command tended to let gossip circles say what they wanted, provided the circles were small enough. I didn’t want to take any chances though. I liked my roles on Eden, and exile was not for me. Most worlds probably only let men handle weapons. I’d have no role on another world. If I believed everything High Command said, another world wouldmakea role for me. They’d get me pregnant, then make me take care of the babies. I wouldn’t be allowed anything else.
Taking care of babies was something every woman on Eden did here and there. I’d had a lot of moms growing up, and I didn’t understand why it would be so horrible to just get assigned a Mother role. If you liked it, which I thought I would. I wasn’t old enough to have ever had that role yet.
To be honest, I couldn’t really visualize anything on another world. The idea of a “man” was just this big hole in my awareness. I could visualize these aliens about to dock with your ship just as well as I could visualize a human man. All I knew was that he probably had a dingdong of a vaguely specific size and shape poking out of whatever in Goddess’ name the rest of him looked like.
“No looking,” I said, joining all the other women’s voices. There were only fourteen of us counting Chief Athena, and not counting Emissary Eve, who didn’t have to repeat all the rules with us, because she was High Command too.
“No Looking” and “No Touching” were the two big rules. As long as you followed those two, you were probably safe.
Still, Chief made us go through all the rules. I wondered if she really thought we might be at risk of seeing a naked Khetar? Or was she just trying to scare us into not wanting to sneak a peek if the chance arose?
I wouldn’t sneak even a small peek. Seeing a dingdong for one or two seconds was not worth being exiled over. Even if men weren’t as bad as High Command said, what were the chances I’d get a Weapons role on another world?
If I had to choose a dingdong or a gun, I was choosing a gun. Preferably lots of guns.
Emissary Eve entered the bridge after we were done repeating all the rules over and over. 30-40% of the women on Eden were named Eve. On our small skeleton crew, we had five Eves. Airlock Eve and Life Support Eve were both engineers, and thus lower ranking than me. Comms Eve and Co-Pilot Eve were the same rank as me, but Emissary Eve was part of High Command. Based on her title for this mission, she would be the only woman who would actually communicate directly with the Khetar in an official capacity. Emissary was speaking for our whole world.
The huge amount of women named Eve on Eden is why we’d taken to using our roles over our names. Even though Sojourner was a fairly rare name, most women just called me by my role rather than my name.
“Weapons,” Comms Eve said, walking up next to me.
I nodded to her. “Hey, Comms.”
“We’re both compartmentalized together,” Comms whispered, low enough that no one would overhear, “I know about the pirates too. I’ve been trying to intercept their signals.”
“Any luck?”
“I’ve intercepted plenty, but it’s all coded. I know this has nothing to do with the mission, but I’m actually kind of scared.”
I gave her a sympathetic smile, even though I wasn’t scared. “Of the aliens, or the pirates?”
“Of men in general,” she said, laughing nervously.
“We’re not going to have to see them.”
Chief Athena and Emissary Eve—which was the entirety of High Command for this mission—was gathering around Airlock Eve. Life Support Athena joined them. It looked like they were briefing her on whatever she was going to have to do with the airlock.
With High Command busy, a few other women slowly slithered up toward Comms and me, and a gossip circle formed.
I didn’t like the idea of a gossip circle when High Command was literally across the room from us, but it was also important for the women who were scared, like Comms was, to get some gossip in before we docked with the Khetar ship.
“How do you know we won’t have to see them?” Co-pilot asked. “We’re docking with their ship. I heard from Pilot.”
I took in a deep breath. “High Command has protected us from the male taint for centuries. I don’t see any reason that they’d give that up now.”
“That ship,” Co-pilot said, “is like nothing we’ve ever seen. I’m not supposed to mention this…” she looked around nervously, “but you’re all about to see it anyway. The alien ship has no visible thrusters. No visible airlocks. When it moves, we can’t even detect any output or propulsion. It’s completely beyond anything we could even imagine let alone make.”
“I heard they’re naked,” Comms said. “Like, they never wear clothes.”
“We’re not going to see them!” I hissed.
“It’s weird that we might see an alien dick before we ever see a human one,” Co-pilot said.
