I pressed accept and smiled back.
“Are you by any chance, homo?” he asked, which strictly speaking was on the outer edges of socially acceptable public communication, but I put that down to him being in the colonies where social comms are a bit more unusual and sometimes much more direct than those of Earth’s.
“No, up to now I’ve only explored hetro,” I said, still smiling. “But thanks for the contact and if I find myself at a loose end I’ll get in touch.” The screen told me that I should use the carry on provided in my locker to pack my personal belongings in and to make sure that I sealed it properly, which would be indicated by a flashing green light on the lock.
The door of our craft opened, and with my personal belongings recaptured in the carry on with a huge Virgin Galactic logo emblazoned across it, I walked out of the craft and through a corridor into the Orbiter.
As we entered the spaceport, some of the travelers reached down and switched off the gravity in their boots and pushed off. I didn’t feel comfortable enough to do that yet, and instead walked following the lights called up by my Devstick to the nearest port where a ship would take me to the Moon. Another glance at my Devstick told me I had a fifty minute wait before I could pick up a connecting flight. Because I was grounded by the artificial gravity of the boots, I wasn’t disoriented — something that the Dev in the headrest had warned me about. In fact, I was hungry and headed over to a food stand.
Near the food dispenser was a measuring stand where, for a cred, you could see how much taller you were in space. A couple of kids with gravity boots on were laughing and having their image taken. I consulted my Devstick again and checked my data stream. Still nothing. I might be extremely lucky and no one in the UNPOL unit charged with tracking down Gabriel would pick up on the Nineveh reference, but somehow I doubted it. It was too unusual and when taken with my decision to travel to the Moon would definitely cause a flag. I reasoned that when interviewed I would simply say that the idea struck me to go to the Moon and on a whim I went. Without any other evidence, they would have to believe me. That is, if they restricted themselves to a simple debrief. If I was subjected to Truth Treatment then the discussion with Gabriel that had taken place in our minds would be revealed.
The man who was tethered to the food dispenser just above me let out a loud fart. Another of the effects of weightlessness as gas in the body tends to go out through the bottom rather than the top half of our bodies. He smiled apologetically at me and I just waved a hand about to indicate it was normal. I credded a few units and bought a ProCarboVite bar that promised to give me all the protein, carbohydrates and vitamins my eighty kilog body mass would need for the next twenty-four hours, and also a space sickness pill as I had felt a slight headache and nasal stuffiness come over me. This was normal, according to the FAQ in my Devstick, and the Aspamo pill from Pfizer that I had just taken would provide ‘Instant, long-lasting relief from headache and nasal congestion caused by space sickness’.
A bunch of little kids were floating around in something called the ‘Ball Cage’. Filled with hundreds of hand-sized foam balls of all different colors, a huge net enclosed the kids, with their parents tethered to railings around the exterior of the net. Their shrieks and laughter echoed in the huge cylindrical port and somehow lent an air of a family outing to the moment. About three hundred meters away, off to my left and up from where I was tethered, I saw the entrance to a relax lounge. Its large circular structure was painted a dark grey and padded as the rest of the interior of the port. Well, I thought, if I am to look like I’m trying out space travel then it would be very natural for me to have a go at flying.
There’s a kid in all of us, and I’m no exception. In fact there are those who say I still have way too much kid in me and not enough adult. I strapped my carry on to my outers and clicking off the button on my grav boots, pushed off from the food stall, just missing the legs of the guy who had just again farted. Flying unaided by anything other than the propulsion of your push off is awesome. I loved it and flipped a somersault as I approached the entrance. Unfortunately my somersault led to me getting totally lost and I struggled to get some sense of where I was. A tether from a fixed newsfeed screen was just within reach. I grabbed it, stopping my tumble. It took a moment but I reoriented myself with the relax lounge and pushed off again, this time restricting my enthusiasm to stretching out my arms and pretending I was a plane. As I neared the entrance a tether was floated out to me by the woman on the door and I grabbed it.
“Hi,” she said with a big smile. “I thought you were going to fly right past us there for a minute. Welcome to Orbital Dreams, sir.” Pulling the tether in, she reached down and turned my grav boots back on. When I was firmly anchored to the floor outside the entrance she asked me, “How are you looking to relax today, sir?”
“I’ve been travelling since this morning — I wouldn’t mind a shower if you have one,” I replied, giving her my best smile.
“We do have shower cubes, however can I recommend the assisted sponge bath and happy ending,” she said, and continued in the same singsong twangy voice that marked her as having come from the Geographic of the west coast of America. “Showers are a bit amazing in space, and if you haven’t had one before you tend to choke on the water. And ejaculations in space are just fabulous,” she gushed, with an attempt at a coy smile and a flutter of her eyelashes.
I hadn’t been with a woman sexually since the night of Milo’s leaving party, and the thought of this beauty or someone like her giving me a sponge bath was very appealing, but a quick glance at my Devstick told me I only had thirty-five minutes to my flight.
“Um, actually I think I’ll skip the shower and just have an alky, OK?”
“Sure,” she said, and led me into the interior. She handed me a tether and reached down to turn off my grav boots. “The tether will take you to the lounge and my colleague will take care of you there.” With that the tether started reeling me towards another circular structure seemingly suspended from what passed for a ceiling — or was it a floor — by a single thick band of polymer tubing. Reaching the entrance I was pulled inside and another woman clicked on the button on my grav boots again. I was beginning to see how all this moving around in space was done.
Leading me down a corridor, the woman held my arm in a light grip, and by the end of the corridor I was walking as normally as I would be on Earth. I took a seat around a plush circular table. In the middle of the table was a woman with a small globe of the Earth floating from a chain attached to her belly button.
“My name’s Christine; what can I do you for?” she said and leaning forward her rather saggy breasts floated unevenly at eye level. She was quite a bit older than the beauty at the door and space wasn’t being kind to her wrinkles. I felt glad that I hadn’t gone for the sponge bath.
“Have you got an Endorpho 80?” I asked.
“Sorry, we don’t have that, but we do have a Marsmellow. It’s a mild psychoactive that lets you view the world through a rose-tinted hue that lasts for about an hour and a half.” She had really long nipples and they were pointing in opposite directions.
“Hmm, I’m not really looking for something hallucinogenic — space is trippy enough. How about something that just takes the edge off but leaves me in full cognitive control?” I said with a smile at her, regretting my unkind thought about her wrinkly body. That we are all beautiful, and each of us is a unique miracle, is something that every morals class teaches from when we are the age of three. But somehow physical attraction is still a main qualifier when it comes to sexual partners. “How about the Valkyrie?” she said. The smile in her eyes that told me she’d picked up on my glance at her elongated tits waving around in front of her. “It’ll give you a real lift, and if you’re on a long haul, you’ll have a great sleep after an hour of great flying.” Her lips stretched into a warm smile, and returning it I gave her a nod and leaned back in the Siteazy.