Just friendships with no hang-ups about nudity

Without having to look down at himself, Snipher noticed his cock was erect as he exited the officers' apartment. There was no reason for it. None that he knew. Or did he? He searched his feelings, as he had learned in religious school many years ago.

He had an internal mix of bad emotions. He knew that Kimo was superior to him in many ways, but she did not need to make him feel so inferior. He tried to think of what she had said or done to hurt his feelings but came up with nothing. She had been polite but hurried. She had no time for him. There could have been any number of explanations why she couldn't be social and treat Snipher like an equal crew member instead of a lesser servant who might steal her jewelry. ... or cock up the bathroom worse than it already was.

But the worst part was that he had covered up his feelings. That was a religious imperative among his type of nudists. Concealing one's emotions was tantamount to telling a lie and deceiving someone, a major sin in his view. At first, he forgave the slight at the doorway, but there was a slippery slope as the bits of micro disrespect piled up, and he was genuinely offended. But, he could not fault her entirely. He should have thought of a polite way, maybe a joke or a playful jab at geologists to even up the score. No, that wasn't the right response either. His mind definitely wasn't quick enough to invent just the right wording to get across just the right amount of indignation.

It was just too much. He couldn't think of a solution to that social puzzle. He would have to try to forgive and forget the slight for now.

He couldn't think of a solution to that ... puzzle.

The question of why his phallus had hardened remained. Something about a woman being... Dominating? Disappointed? Disapproving? Dismissive? He couldn't quite figure himself out in that regard, either.

Strangely, the dread of what fault of his might have drawn the Captain's attention did not shrink him. His body just wasn't making sense today.

Sometimes public erections have no cause - until you find the cause.

He followed the directions between his wrist device and the common hallway signal displays to reach the Captain's office close to the control bridge. He waved his hand, expecting a delay before the Captain would see a lowly janitor like himself, but the door vanished into the floor immediately, giving him no time to steel his emotions.

"Enter, Snipher," she commanded.

He entered two steps and stood at attention (in more ways than one).

The Captain slowly raised two fingers to her temple the ship’s standard salute.

As soon as Snipher realized it, he snapped his hand into the salute (as he was supposed to have done before she did) and held the salute until she brought her hand back down.

Like many "textile" people, the Captain hid her emotions behind a metaphorical mask of humorless calm, but he read something negative from her glance at his hard phallus, which today just would not obey his will and shrink away.

He countered her lack of noticeable emotions by allowing all of his to be visible to anyone. He humbly knew that he had made many more mistakes that she could have possibly noticed, and he was ready to apologize and willing to take his spanking like a man.

The Captain and the janitor

Ignoring a lot, the Captain picked up a flexible flimsy piece of clear plastic (which passed for paper in the ship) and handed it to Snipher. He read temperatures, air pressure ranges, relative humidity, and other atmospheric data. She waited for him to figure out the significance.

He did not say, "What does this have to do with me?" but his face said exactly that.

"Doc tells me you are a tantric nudist. Did I pronounce that right?"

"Yes, we endeavor to be open and honest people," he quoted from his creed.

She looked at the flimsy. Suddenly it occurred to him what she was hoping for him to say.

"I can survive these conditions naked," he told his commanding officer as quickly as he realized it himself.

"Indefinitely?" she asked.

"A full shift. Maybe a few hours longer."

"How about with a smart suit?"

That was against his religion, but he knew of an alternative.

"A simple MEMS casing would be fine to protect me through my sleep cycles. Then, I could go indefinitely with standard rations," he said, sounding more certain than he really was.

The Captain began briefing him, "That Baker's Dozen of planets you see highlighted," pointing to the display on her conference table, "seem to have at least some form of life. We've arrived at an auspicious time. Jeremy predicts that within 86 years, five of the planets will finally collide, destroying their weird forms of life. We don't have much time to study them all."

He nodded, incredulous at the timing.

"This little planetoid here. Twenty years ago, an expedition was lost here. Find what happened to them. Secondarily, document a standard study of the life forms. Bring back samples as appropriate. The Quartermistress will provide you with a basic shuttle, some MEMS material, and seven days of rations."

He swiped one finger across the sheet to see other pages of documentation on the failed expedition. Tunnel vision blanked out the rest of the room so he could focus on speed reading the report.

"Snipher," the Captain called.

"Yes, Ma'am," he said, snapping out of his research mode to return to awareness of his surroundings.

"If you have no questions, Dismissed."

"Uh," he hesitated, "One. The elephant in the room."

"More like an elephant's trunk," the Captain joked dryly, "at one twelfth scale."

"Oh," he looked at his penis, still erect despite the mental research, "I apologize, Captain, I usually have better control of myself. What I meant is that ... this is a low priority mission, and I'm expendable if I don't come back," he spoke from his heart, he thought.

She took hold of both his arms at the biceps and shook him gently.

"Hey," she told him, locking her eyes onto his eyes with a grip even stronger than her hands, "just because this ship will go on without you, and just because the Wyldspace's mission will go on after I am gone, does not mean that either one of us is expendable. You got that?"

He did. He nodded. He felt her belief penetrate deep into him... and it felt good, the belief that he was of value... at least a little value. He knew he could follow this Captain anywhere. He could obey her every command.

He blurted out, "If you ever want my body, please take it. It is yours," hoping for any additional moments of absorbing her faith and certainty.

"I'm flattered," she said with questionable honesty, "but let's have no more sexual proposals."

"Yes, Ma'am," he accepted her rebuff and hoped she would change her mind someday. But she could certainly have any man (or woman) she wanted, so he knew it would probably remain just a fantasy forever. But he would follow her just to keep that impossible fantasy alive. He knew it.

"Go learn what you can learn," the Captain told him with an approving smile, "Dismissed."

He turned to leave, still with his phallus pointing straight forward when she called out to him, "Snipher!" making him stutter step and turn around to face her again.

"Don't forget your mop."

He saw he had done just that. He obediently picked up his janitorial tool and removed it from the Captain's conference room.

Shuttle flying through a very thin atmosphere

The shuttle was an old design, very old, with modern materials and software. It had a nearly complete absence of smells inside, perhaps indicating that it had been assembled just for this mission. It was an economy design and similar to his practice training. Flying it without any training coach trying to shoot him down was fairly easy. The experience of receiving the authorization from the burly Quartermistress (with her unique fairytale-godmother fashion) was a mind bender. Apparently she had a good amount of discretionary budget and could program a hologram of a muscular nude Triton to look like her devoted servant just for her own entertainment. The programming had been as impressive as the amount of computer power wasted for the extravagance was.

Holographic Triton in the docking bay

The shuttle's navigation system alerted it had found the wreckage site. Dang it. Snipher mentally flagelated himself once for daydreaming about a powerful successful burly woman when he should have been living in the current moment and once again for letting the computer do the searching that his human eyes were quite capable of doing for himself. The previous expedition's landing site was clearly marked electronically, twenty years after being marooned here. He took the controls and performed the landing with adequate skill, knowing that the nav system would have corrected if he had made any major mistakes.

Another shuttle looking only a few years older than his retro-styled one laid on a flat plane with a light covering of water snow. It was sending a weak homing beacon after all these years, but it did not respond to any signal from the Wyldspace's shuttle, even using age-appropriate communication protocols. So, then it was time to open the door and explore in person.

The shuttle lands

The shuttle had already gradually reduced its air pressure during the trip from one standard atmosphere to the much thinner pressure of the as-yet unnamed planetoid. Sniffer had once played an Orcball game in Mile High City on his homeworld, so a hike through the low oxygen levels of this planetoid was known to be within his capability. That left temperature as his next obstacle to overcome. He began his Tantric breathing, his abdominal contractions, and rythmic pulsing of his pubococcygeus muscle. He could feel the circulation throbbing happily down to his toes and fingers.

With no need to say goodbye to anyone in the empty shuttle, he opened the hatch and climbed down the ladder to the soft snow.

He hurried back up and inside to pick up his mop, and then he climbed down the ladder to the soft snow.

Snipher hiking from the shuttle