Surface Detail

“As things stand, if nobody alters power, about two hours.” The avatar frowned. “Which is shortly before we’ll get to the Tsung system, where the Disk is. Now isn’t that a coincidence?” The avatar plainly didn’t expect an answer, so Lededje didn’t attempt to provide one. Demeisen tapped one fingernail on a front tooth. “One slightly worrying nuance here is that it expects me to see it about halfway into my approach. It’s assuming that I’m stopping at Tsung, which is not unreasonable.” The avatar was more muttering than talking now. Lededje remained patient. “But I’ll be slowing down, halfway to dead stop, when it expects to pop up on my sensors,” Demeisen said quietly, staring sideways at the screen. “And, if you were being paranoid about it, that’s almost a hostile act in itself, because that sets our chum up for an attacking pass, unless he slows too or peels away.” The avatar laughed, raised his eyebrows at her. “Golly. What shall we do, Lededje?”

She thought. “The smartest thing?” she suggested.

Demeisen clicked his fingers. “What a splendid suggestion,” he said, swivelling round in the seat to look at the screen. “Naturally we have to ignore the awkward fact that the smartest thing is all too often only obvious in hindsight, but never mind.” He turned to look at her. “There is just a very small chance that this could get awkward, Lededje. I might actually get in a proper fire-fight here.” The avatar grinned at her, eyes bright.

“A prospect that patently fills you with horror.”

Demeisen laughed, might almost have looked embarrassed. “Thing is,” he said, “big space fights between grown-up ships ain’t no place for a young slip of a girl such as yourself, so if that’s what looks like happening I’ll try and get you away. Right now you’re safest here, inside me, but that could change in an instant. You might find yourself inside the shuttle inside one of my subsections, or just inside the shuttle alone, or even just in a suit or even a gel suit with scary empty space only millimetres away. All with no warning. Actually, be better even if you still had a lace; we could back you up and make you nearly as shock-proof as me, but never mind. You ever worn a gel suit?”

“No.”

“Really? I suppose not. Never mind. Nothing to it. Here you go.”

Just to the side of Lededje’s seat, a silvery ovoid swelled, popped and disappeared, depositing what looked like a cross between a large jellyfish and a thick condom the size and shape of a human onto the floor. She stared down at it. It looked like somebody had had their skin turned transparent and then been flayed. “That’s a space suit?” she asked, aghast. In her experience, space suits looked a little more reassuringly complicated. Not to mention bulky.

“You’ll probably want to empty your bladder and bowels before putting it on,” Demeisen told her, nodding back to where the shuttle’s living area was already reconfiguring to its shiny hi-tech bath/shower/toilet aspect. “Then just strip off and step in; it’ll do the rest.”

She picked the gel suit up. It was heavier than she’d expected. Peering at it, she could see what looked like dozens of thinner-than-tissue-thin layers within it, boundaries marked out with a hint of iridescence. There were some parts of it that looked a little thicker than others and which were sort of mistily opaque. They made the thing appear a little more substantial than it had at first glance, but not by much. “I suppose I’d only be exposing my hopeless naivety if I asked if there was some alternative to this.”

“It’d be more of a hopeless inability to come to terms with reality,” the avatar told her. “But if it appears a bit flimsy don’t worry; there’s an armoured outer-suit that goes over the top. I’m getting one of those ready too.” He nodded at the now fully formed bathroom. “Now do your business like a good little biological and don’t tarry.”

She glared at the avatar but he was staring at the screen. She wheeled out of the seat and stamped to the bathroom.

“Do you need to pee and poo?” she called from inside the bathroom. “In your human form there?”

“No,” the avatar called. “Not biological. Can do, though, if I’ve been eating or drinking for what you might call social effect. Comes out just like it went in. Though chewed, obviously, in the case of solids. Edible and drinkable. Well, unless I‘ve kept it inside long enough for any airborne or already-present organisms to start to break it down. So I can do convincing, if very delicate, belches and farts. Some human people actually like to eat what comes out of avatars. Very odd. Still, that’s people.”

“Sorry I asked,” Lededje muttered, starting to strip off.

“Ha! Thought you might be,” the avatar called back cheerily. Sometimes she forgot how good its hearing was.

She had a token pee and then laid the gel suit out on the floor. The mistily opaque bits were mostly on its back. Or front – it was impossible to tell. They tapered smoothly, looking like long, nearly transparent muscles.