Mind Over Ship by David Marusek Page B

bench to ponder what was clearly a second hatch on the inner wall. Mary came in and sat opposite him. After a while Fred said, “Well, this is unexpected.”
    “Think we’ll be safe from the nasty old nitwork in there?” She expected him to laugh and say yes. But he took her question seriously.
    “I think so, Mary,” he said at last. “For a while at least.”
    “Then we should probably use it as soon as possible, don’t you agree?” Mary pulled off her shoes and unfastened her blouse.
    Fred watched with growing interest.
    They set the sauna controls and climbed out. They helped each other undress, Fred grinning like an idiot. The blue bee was still under her jacket lapel. “Your little chaperone will have to wait out here,” he said.
    “Yes, sir.”
    They each drank a liter of expressing visola before entering the sauna and sealing the outer hatch. They were naked, and they brought nothing in with them. The floor started to hum beneath their feet as motors and pumps came to life. A bluish fog entered through ceiling ports and grew so thick in the tiny space that for a little while they couldn’t see each other. And then the itching began. At first, only Mary’s arms itched, and she was able to keep herself from scratching. Then there was a fizz up her nose that made her snort and pinch her nostrils. Then the skin at her ankles began to itch very aggressively, and she fought to keep from clawing at herself.
    Fred said, “The nits?”
    “I hate this part.”
    “It shouldn’t last much longer.” Fred didn’t appear uncomfortable at all, which wasn’t fair.
    Mary remained strong for as long as she could, and when her scalperupted in flames and an army of ants marched up her legs, Fred leaned over and grabbed her hands. “Just a little,” she pleaded, but he held her until the nits had worked themselves out of her skin. Then he kissed her hands and let them go. He ladled water on the furnace rocks, which hissed and billowed steam.
    “A good idea combining a null lock with a sauna,” he said. “Sweat all the crap out of you.”
    He was right, and they spent a half hour in the heat as the in-lock completed its cycle. At last, a draft of cool, purified air rushed in, and the inner hatch to the null suite unbolted with a clank.
    Mary was delighted to discover that the null suite was not a cramped space with only a cot and port-a-potty but a full mini-suite in its own right. Full kulinmate, bath, closets, a resident arbeitor and house cleaning scuppers, and, dominating the main room, a bed large enough to stretch out in.
    Fred opened cupboards and the oversized refrigerator. “We have provisions for a month,” he said, amazed. He took out a couple of liter bottles of Orange Flush and opened one for her. “First things first.”
    They found bathrobes, and they toured the suite as they forced down the sweet diuretic concoction. Fred’s erection hadn’t flagged since Mary removed her shoes in the sauna, and she allowed herself to feel optimistic.
    While they were waiting for the effects of the Orange Flush to kick in, they took a shower together. They soaped each other and rinsed away all the tiny broken machinery littering their skin. Then they had a picnic on the bed in their bathrobes. They drank liters of ’Lyte and dashed to the toilet every few minutes. After an hour or so of this, their urine ran clear and the urgency subsided. They each took a memorable dump, like quicksilver sausages. Finally, with their bodies purged inside and out, their thirst and hunger satisfied, there was only one urge left to appease.
    Mary said, “Are the nits watching us?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Are we completely, absolutely alone?”
    He opened her robe and ravaged her with his gaze. “Thank you, Mary, for this gift.”

 
     
Skin
     
     
    For all the pent-up desire, the forced separation, the long tube ride from the prison, the nudist intimacy of the sauna, and especially the utter privacy of the null