Space station of the sluts

Station Chief Megan Xio felt doubly naked as the black-haired Consortium tech passed his hands above her body, readouts in his pupils gleaming like distant stars. Her skin was naked before the eyes, flesh and electronic, that peered not only at but through the skintight turquoise seal of her daysuit; her trust and charge, Saturn VI Station, was naked before the chip in his brain, spreading and unfurling as a set of schematics and diagnostic results.

“Ah,” the tech said, and then, “Mm-hm.”

He was not unattractive, as far as Megan could judge such things: slim, athletic; olive-complexioned with a pointed chin and gently-hooking nose. His hair was longer than hers, swept straight back in faintly-gleaming waves where hers simply stood a quarter-inch straight up in a stationer’s burr. She wondered if his dark skin were purely genetic, or if he spent time downside somewhere with a real atmosphere and direct sunlight.

She also wondered when he would be done and off her station. And what the final bill would be.