Surface Detail

She worried that she might have insulted him, insulted the ship somehow, by being so cautious, even suspicious. But Demeisen just pursed his lips and looked thoughtful. “None I can think of.” He shrugged. “Anyway, it’s yours if you want it.” The tattoo was already moving, all over him, changing from silver circles to wavy dark grey lines and sliding back the way it had come, up from one hand, down from his head, face and neck, away from his chest and back down the other arm until it rested coiled, grey-blue and immobile back in his palm again.

She still held that hand. “All right,” she said softly. “I’ll take it.”

“Keep your hand there,” he told her.

The tattoo moved up his palm, along two of his fingers and then onto her fingers, hand, wrist and forearm. She could only just feel it as it slid slowly along her tawny skin, faintly disturbing the fine, downy hairs on her arms. For some reason she had assumed it would be cool, but it was skin temperature.

“Any particular pattern you’d like it to assume?” Demeisen asked.

“That first one you had,” she said, watching it settle over her fingers on the hand it started on. She flexed her fingers. There was no resistance, no feeling of tightness, even where the lines seemed printed over her knuckles. The pattern he’d had first, the one with the whorls and swirls, expressed itself over her arms. She pulled her sleeve up to see. “I can change it later?” she asked, glancing at him.

“Yes,” he said. He made a hand-shaking gesture. “You can let go now,” he said. She smiled at him, let go of his hand.

The tattoo went smoothly onto her upper chest; she could feel it go quite quickly across her back between her shoulder blades, heading for her other arm. It wrapped round her chest and torso and spread up over her neck and face and head. She stood up as it covered her belly and flowed down over her behind. She stepped down to where Demeisen stood. “Can I-?” she asked, and immediately Demeisen was holding a mirror, showing her her own face. She raised her other hand to watch it move down from her wrist to her fingers. It slid easily under the silvery ring which was her terminal. She looked back at her reflection.

“Mirror,” Demeisen said. He twirled the mirror’s handle, presenting her with the other side. “Or invertor; a screen, in other words.”

She gave a small laugh, shook her head as she watched the dark patterns settle over her face like tiny trajectories, like tracks in a bubble chamber, like the slightest, finest spiral-vines in a mini -ature forest. She touched her fingers to her cheek. It was as though it wasn’t there. Her fingertips felt as sensitive as they ever had and her cheek felt just as it always did. “Make it go silver,” she whispered.

“Your wish, ma’am,” he said.

It went silver. She regarded her face. Silver would never look as good as when her skin had been black. “Black, please,” she said.

It went perfectly black. She felt it complete its spread over her torso and back. It settled and joined between her legs, close by vagina and anus but not covering. It moved down her legs, spiralling towards her ankles and feet.

She pulled the material of her blouse out, looked down. “Is there any strength to it?” she asked. “Could it act as support, as a brassiere?”

“There is a little tensile strength to it, naturally,” Demeisen said quietly. She felt and – blouse neck still pulled open – watched as the tattoo pushed her breasts gently upwards. Now there was a slight tightness around her rib cage, just under her breasts. She let the material go, grinned at him. “Not that I’m vain,” she told him with a suddenly shy smile. “Or really need one. You can let it go back the way it was.”

She felt the tightness around her chest relax and disappear. For a moment she was aware of the weight of her breasts, then they just went back to feeling normal again.

Demeisen smiled. “Also, it can go skin coloured.”

She felt it squeeze between the soles of her feet and the thin slippers she wore. At the same time, the tattoo disappeared. She peered at her image in the invertor again. There was no sign of it whatsoever. She put her fingers to her face once more. Still nothing to be felt. “Bring it back?” she asked, missing it already.

It faded slowly up, from her precise skin tone to soot black again, like an ancient photograph.

“What’s it made of?” she asked.

“Mased-state transfixor atoms, woven long-chain molecular exotics, multi-phased condensates, nanoscale efines, advanced picogels… other stuff.” He shrugged. “You weren’t expecting anything simple like ‘plastic’ or ‘memory mercury’, were you?”

She smiled. “Did you make it yourself?”

“Certainly did. From pre-existing patterns, but tweaked.” The tattoo had settled everywhere upon her skin. It had stopped moving. She closed her eyes for a moment, flexed her fingers, rotated both arms in an exaggerated windmilling motion. She could feel nothing. As far as her skin was concerned, the tat might as well not be there.