Today's Reading
Her guide light winked out as she stepped into the entryway, and Morrigan stopped, looking around, not certain where to go. Several dozen people were engaged in conversation and senshares just within the broad atrium at the end of the walk, a partially enclosed space opening both into the building proper and the decks and gardens outside. Social nudity was common for all sexes, though there was a glowing, flashing array of gowns, suits, animated tattoos, and ostentatious jewelry. Morrigan had neither dressed nor undressed for the evening; the invitation had explicitly told her "come as you wish," so she was wearing her Navy dress blacks, a uniform deemed proper attire for any and all social occasions.
Around her, pairs and threesomes cuddled in sheltering pods, while other guests stood on the deck or lounged or coupled in adaptive furniture that grew and shifted to accommodate moving bodies. Architecture and furnishings both tended toward the abstract, with soft lighting, large sculpted plants, and plenty of softly rounded walls and surfaces beneath an open night sky or under vaulted ceilings lost in darkness. Sometimes it was difficult to tell whether you were inside or out.
"Mist?" a man's voice said at her side. She turned to face a small man offering her what looked like a crystal ball on an ornate platter. Morrigan's corona seemed at a loss to identify him and could only tag him with the word SERVANT floating within her visual field. He was old—shockingly so in this glittering crowd of young, athletic, and, above all, wealthy humans...people so wealthy they could afford to have human servants. He wore a plain dark jumpsuit that made him all but invisible within this setting.
She didn't normally indulge, but something inside wouldn't let her refuse the old man. "Thank you," she said, and lifted the crystal from its stand. "You... work for Lady Logan?"
"No, miss. Not usually. I'm with the catering service."
"What's your name?"
But another voice interrupted inside her own mind. Captain Morrigan! So nice of you to come! Morrigan turned to face a young woman wearing a full sensory helm that covered her face save for her lips and chin. A dazzling spray of silver filaments spread out and down from her crown, framing her in glittering light; that and the silver wrappings on her arms were all that she wore.
But Morrigan's corona was cranking out data, ID'ing the woman as LADY DAPHNE LOGAN, with a cascade of biographical and genealogical data spilling down the right side of her visual field. Morrigan knew that Lady Daphne had been born well over 250 years ago; this person looked to be no more than fifteen.
Ah, the miracle of ENS...
"Don't bother the servants, dear," Lady Daphne told her, speaking out loud now. The voice was that of a teenage girl; the will behind it was mature and implacably unyielding. An emotil appeared beneath her name reading [MILD IRRITATION]. "They have so much work to do."
"My apologies, Lady Daphne." She wasn't going to argue social ideologies now, especially not with the function's hostess. "Thank you for having me."
"Of course, dear. My...you do look so fetching in your uniform!"
Morrigan gave the woman a quick helmet-to-toe-and-back glance. "At the moment I think I'm overdressed."
Nonsense, my dear. The words sounded once more in her head, placed there through her corona. Whatever makes you comfortable.
Social nudity didn't make Morrigan uncomfortable in the least. It was, after all, more or less the norm throughout what passed for Earth's tangled principal culture and had been for centuries, with clothing worn only for comfort or protection or to broadcast a particular social message. What irritated her was the blatant display of bare flesh simply to showcase the owner's use of ENS and gene edits, a kind of genetic one-upmanship.
"There's someone over here I'm sure you'd like to see, dear," Lady Daphne told her, taking her by the arm.
Morrigan grudgingly permitted the unwanted familiarity and allowed herself to be led inside the manse. Beyond the entryway was a large sitting room, its ceiling invisible in the shadows somewhere overhead. A man in the gold-heavy uniform of a Navy admiral sat on a low, comfortable dais, the center of a conversational group of women, men, neuts, genmanips, and robots. Several were other fleet officers, like her wearing dress blacks. Dek, she saw, was already there. She'd wondered where he'd gotten to.
Rear Admiral Jaime Koehler looked forty but had been born in 2185, giving him a truage of 263. He was on... what? His fourth lifetime? His fifth? She honestly wasn't sure.
Not that it mattered.
He turned to face Morrigan with a large smile, his emotil flashing [PLEASURE]. "Ah! Here's my esteemed flag captain now!" he said, saluting her by raising his mist crystal. "Alex! Get yourself over here!"
"Hello, Admiral," she said, ignoring this familiarity as well. "I didn't know you would be here."
...
