~The fluffy little sheep pranced around the lush green meadow. Simon felt deep Pleasure. He awoke in a good mood. As always.
The sleeping cradle's prosthetics detached the bleeder/feeder tubes from their respective nozzles on his lower abdomen. His neural nanonics gave him a mild surge of adrenaline. He was ready for a New Day.
He put on his sleeveless coverall and house slippers and went to prepare breakfast for his Mistress. Life here On Assignment was much simpler than back at the Karaal.
At the Ninth Karaal of Ma'at – Simon shuddered in Fear/Awe every time he heard, spoke or even thought of of any Goddesses' Name – there were so many Sisters and Servitors it could get very confusing. It was the Karaal's Master Servitor who had guided Simon when he first arrived from the Ministry of Service creche. That memory, sense of Belonging, which he had at the start of every New Day, gave him Pleasure.
Simon's intellect was that of a Baseline Human seven year old, so it was largely through repetition and the programming in his neural nanonics that he had the capacity to be of Service. Of course he had never met a Baseline Human. He knew only Sisters, who were born above Baseline, and Servitors, who were mostly born below it. Simon didn't even know if any Baseline Humans still existed and had never really thought about it so far in his short life.
This morning's breakfast was three medium poached eggs and four well done pork sausages with two pieces of wholewheat bread, lightly toasted, each with two teaspoons of butter spread evenly upon their surface within forty five seconds of the end of toasting. Simon knew this was a favorite of his Mistress and prepared it with an extra amount of his usual precision.
He had already put out food and water for Tristabel, his Mistress' cat, who would come out into the kitchen area when she heard Simon moving about. She would purr and rub his ankles, but have her face in the bowl before he took breakfast to his Mistress' bedroom.
Marinel, his Mistress, was stretching and yawning in her bed, her own neural nanonics having awoken her a few moments before. She smiled sleepily at him, her usually wide green eyes still narrow with sleep, the chocolate brown skin of her shaved head softly radiant in the morning light. Simon missed brushing her long luxuriant black hair, but here On Assignment, that hair was Non-Regulation.
“Good morning, Simon.” He felt Love/Awe.
“Good morning, Mistress,” he said in the soft pleasant tone she liked at this hour. He knew that because, as her Body Servant, his neural nanonics were Bonded to hers.
He paused as she leaned her face back and a small nozzle emerged from the head board – that was a personal modification of her own – giving her face a quick fine mist. She wiped her face with the small towel Simon placed upon her nightstand every evening before she went to bed. It became a 'napkin' with breakfast.
Simon placed the tray before her.
“Ah, my favorite,” she said with a grin, then tousled his short blond hair. The feeling of Love/Pleasure went deep into his core. He bowed and withdrew.
While his Mistress showered he returned to retrieve the breakfast tray and then laid out her Service Skin Suit upon the bed. Tristabel promptly draped herself on top of it. She could be conditioned not to, but Marinel found it endearing.
Marinel emerged from the shower naked and knelt before the small altar in a corner of her bedroom. It held numerous small statues, many images on the wall above. candles, bowls, incense holders and various Majickal tools. She prayed quietly for a few minutes. Simon stood utterly still, while Tristabel watched from the bed, purring softly. She had been conditioned to stay off the altar and to not disturb Marinel when she knelt there.
And then Marinel was suited up and ready to go out the door.
Even if he was not programmed to feel so, Simon would have been Awed by his Mistress, towering over him – he was only five feet tall, she was six plus – her black Skin Suit alternatively matte and glossy depending upon how the light hit it, fitting her finely muscled body like..well, skin. Over her right breast were two six pointed silver stars denoting a Lieutenant. Beneath them lines of code. Simon's neural nanonics read them; Savastri-Nemmara, Marinel: Space Force/Corps of Engineers.
“I'll be back in about a week,” she said, kissing him on the top of his head, and then was out the door, off to The Project. He had a few seconds of Fear and Loneliness before his neural nanonics gave him a quick surge of endorphins. Refreshed, he stripped her bed and put the bed clothes in the washer. He also Messaged Maintenance to confirm a General Servicing in forty three hours.
And then he put on his outside shoes and went for a walk.
When his Mistress first brought him out here to Chang-Ngo Sixteen Simon had been very disoriented. Though it had been explained that this was a Gaeome, a small world that was 'inside out', living on land inside of a sphere was rather confusing, especially the river that flowed in a circle all the way around the middle.
He had looked at it flowing down toward what appeared to be a wall yet then flowing up that 'wall' and then around and over his head and then back down behind and it gave him such terrible vertigo that his neural nanonics had to work very hard to restore his equilibrium. Six months in a medical coma for the trip here by Loop Ship didn't help.
But now, a over a year later, even though he never did quite grasp the concept of gravity, Simon was perfectly at home. Now his favorite thing to do was walk along the bank of that circular river, the Fiumeanello, which meant 'ring river' in some old language he'd never heard of before.
He started off on the 'south' bank, which was the 'lower' half of the sphere where the residential area was located. The 'north' bank was full of farm land, being closer to the translucent lens at the end of 'upper' half of the sphere where sunlight came in. Simon tried not to think too hard about all that up/down-north/south stuff or he'd get dizzy again.
He walked slowly as usual, taking in the wonderfully odd vista of the Gaeome. The crops to the 'north' were ready to be harvested, their bright hues changing the very light itself. There were Sisters rowing on the Fiumeanello in both single and team sculls, their diaphanous athletic singlets soaked to their bodies with the sweat of going against the current.
And 'above', in the empty center, two Sisters on hang gliders dipped and swooped in an aerial dance that could be mating or fighting or a combination of both. They wore broad feathery flippers that alternately pumped furiously to push them forward or held still and straight to guide a dive or turn.
Simon took all this in and felt Awe/Pleasure/Belonging on an organic level that his neural nanonics merely reinforced.
Soon he came to his first destination, one of the service tunnels that ran under the river connecting 'north/upper' and 'south/lower'. Bridges were not ergonomically practical in this small a Gaeome. The passage was wide and well lit, the floor a soft, firm materiel, the walls and ceiling raw gray metal.
Not far from the northern exit Simon could see a flower garden, his next destination. The garden was rectangular, oriented 'north', with rows of flower beds on either side of a central path which led from the gated entrance to a stone monument. About Simon's height, it was made from compressed stone tailings, highly polished, with a holographic embed of a smiling Sister with a big nose and an inscription in a cursive writing that Simon didn't recognize. His neural nanonics could have translated the writing, but his friend Bobby said her name was Ghuljaan. This was simply Mistress Ghuljaan's garden and that was good enough for him.
In the thirty one years that Chang-Ngo Sixteen had so far been in operation, seven Sisters had been killed while On Assignment. Space was not at all a forgiving environment. And, like Simon's own Mistress, each of those Sisters had a Body Servant who had accompanied then out here. Two of those surviving Servitors were so distressed by the loss of their Mistresses that they had to be put to sleep. Being this far out their bodies were Rendered and Recycled on site. Nanonics and physio-comps extracted and sent to Fabrication. Tissues and viscera sent to the Meat Vat [were those pork sausages came from]. Bones powered and spread on the 'northside' fields. Four others had fared better and been placed in a medical coma to be shipped back to Mother on the next Loop Ship.
And then there was Bobby. He had been with his Mistress for over three decades when she died, nearly all of that time in space, with the last eleven when she was CO of Chang-Ngo Sixteen. She had loved to garden and had started the memorial gardens for the Sisters who died In Service. And Booby was her assistant gardener.
When she was killed – a freak head strike by a non-ferrous slag micropartical while on EVA – Bobby requested that he be allowed to stay and tend the gardens. He was too old to be Bonded with another Mistress, but wasn't mentally destroyed by his Mistress' death. And the gardens were good for everyone's morale, Sister and Servitor.
His Mistress was a Spacer through and through, so her Will stated that her body also be Rendered and Recycled. The new CO had her bone dust given to Bobby for the gardens. At the time he said with a happy grin, “Chang-Ngo Sixteen is now my Mistress.” He parceled it out carefully as knew enough to realized that in time more gardens would be needed. In the decade since, two more were planted.
Simon found Bobby rummaging around in one of the beds in back by the river bank. He seemed old to Simon, though his Mistress was likely twice Bobby's age. Sisters and Servitors aged differently.
He smiled at Simon. “Hello, friend Simon.”
“Hello, friend Bobby.” He felt Pleasure/Belonging again.
“You just missed friend Sil.” Sil was another Body Servant whose Mistress let him tend to the gardens when she was off at The Project.
“Ah,” said Simon.
Bobby looked at him thoughtfully. “Your Mistress is off to The Project?”
“Yes,” said Simon softly.
“Ah.” Bobby stood up, brushed soil from from his apron. “That's good for now.” He rinsed his hand under a motion activated water spigot, splashed some on his face, wiped himself with a small rag he pulled from his jumpsuit pocket.
He smiled at Simon. “Let's take a stroll.” Simon nodded and they walked out of the garden. A little was down the river bank they came to a Service Kiosk. It had a spiral staircase heading all the way down, past various access tunnels, to the Outer Shell. From there they went a few yards along a walkway to a glazed surface embedded in the 'floor'.
Bobby opened an access panel on the floor and tapped in a code. He was one of the few Servitors who was allowed to have that particular code. Underneath the glazing a metal shutter slowly slid open, revealing the stars and the blackness of space.
Simon always felt Fear/Awe upon seeing that vastness, like hearing a Goddess Name. His Mistress had once told him that it was the True Face of all The Goddesses, which was why the Sisterhood was out here. Bobby had nodded sagely when he repeated that.
Bobby peered out for a moment, then pointed. “There,” he said. Simon switched on his Enhanced Vision. A large number of dull red spheres popped into view, the infrared heat signatures of other Gaeomes. Then he saw the tiny blue/white pulsing of a plasma drive; Mistress Marinel's transport heading out to The Project.
And beyond was The Project itself, a half dozen crescents, the sun reflecting off of naked metal, curving ramps of an incomprehensible massiveness, all orbiting around each other in a circular formation. His mind still rebelled at its size.
Mistress Marinel had explained The Project to him as being like the Fiumeanello, that the force of its spinning would keep the air inside of the ring, together with high walls along each edge, its 'banks' so to speak. She also said that it was encompass an area over ten thousand times larger that all of Mother's surface combined when finished.
The entire concept scared him deeply as it made his Mistress and her Sisters seem like Goddesses themselves and he was certain he could not live with such a constant state of Fear/Awe. Therefore, like so many billions of humans before, he simply chose to ignore the idea.
He watched the pin point of the transport's plasma drive for a few moments, then looked at Bobby, who smiled gently. “Mistress Kalley's garden needs a bit of work,” he said softly. Simon nodded and Bobby closed the shutter.
Several hours later Simon returned to quarters. He was tired and dirty, but happy and content. He stripped off his coveralls and sat naked on the floor while Tristabel excitedly searched both them and him for new smells. Then he fed her and took a shower.
Clean and relaxed, Simon climbed into his sleeping cradle. Its prosthetics attached the bleeder/feeder tubes to the nozzles on his lower abdomen and he began to drift off. He was vaguely aware of Tristabel climbing onto his chest and curling up to sleep.
He smiled slightly...and then those fluffy little sheep once again began their dance upon that lush green meadow and Simon went down past them into a deep and restful sleep.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
