Space Nudist

Mister Snipher gave a quick nod of recognition to Sonic as they passed in the hall. It was the standard minimal salute between two men that showed respect without any pageantry. Sonic wore a white fundoshi and white sandals, the standard uniform of the males onboard the warp ship Wyldspace (if there could be said to be a standard). The Captain had her own retro-futuristic style (like what fashion was predicted to be in the A.D 1950's), and she allowed the crew on board her ship to dress as they chose to express their own personal style.

...to dress as they chose...

That's not to say there was any lack of discipline. Discipline strictly applied to each task the crew had to complete, everyone doing what they did best, but how you look when you do your job was left up to personal freedom.

Snipher thought Sonic's outfit unusual, knowing that he was also a nudist at heart (but not as religiously committed as Snipher), but Sonic did like to sport a green plaid kilt indicating his family lineage on special occasions. Snipher would have to ask him if he was getting a promotion or had some other reason to be in formalwear today but not the kilt.

Snipher had no further time to think about it because he arrived at his workplace for today, the personal quarters of two officers. His wrist device told him he was on time, sporting a good fat-burning heart rate, and was permitted to be naked in their chambers. The last piece of data was important to Snipher. Most of the crew were fine with his choice of no attire. Only a scant few disliked looking at his anatomy, and half of those said otherwise just to be polite, so he did his best to please everyone, even if they did not speak up for themselves. After all, honesty was the whole point, and a major constituent of his joy to not dress as he pleased hinged on everyone around him allowing him that freedom, so it would not do if he avoided the irritation of dressing the way a (vaguely defined) society commanded if he irritated someone else. He already knew the residents' preferences because he did some quick research of the officers' backgrounds and asked them in an electronic message before making this house-call appointment.

He waved his hand (the one carrying his mop) in front of the door to signal he wanted to enter. A moment later one of the occupants, Kimo, an Asian woman in her early 30's, in an athletic pantsuit which had stylings reminiscent of an ancient silk kimono, wearing a vanilla herbal scent in her hair, (a geology specialist who enjoyed Neo-Renaissance photography, flower arranging, and bonzai), opened the door and greeted him. She looked him up and down and smiled, "Bright Suns, Janitor! The trouble is in our shower stall. Have you lost weight? How are you?"

She looked him up and down and smiled...

"I'm here to... Oh, thank you," he stammered a bit. He also knew she was also an accomplished pilot with a lot of respect from the crew. Trying not to be too star-struck by her skills and beauty, he answered the question, "Oh, yes, lots of aerobic exercise. The whole cleaning crew is staying busy ever since Young brought those plants onboard that make the green goo sticky lubricant. It took us a while to figure out how..." He realized she had turned and walked back to the entertainment room of her suite, not really listening to his reply. She was just being polite.

It was funny how sometimes politeness could be just as painful as rudeness.

He was assaulted when he stepped into the small foyer area by smells of many various flowers and herbs, so many that he could not separate and identify them. But he did recognize that they were all natural scents, not artificially created in a laboratory.

He went right to the shower stall and recognized the problem immediately. He rubbed his mop onto the greenish mottled stain on the otherwise sparkling clean walls. His wrist device displayed chemical constituents that the mop had detected, verifying his instinct. It was what passed for pollen from a Young plant. He set the mop to apply the right chemicals to remove this new alien addition to the ship’s ecology and rubbed the problem away.

He crouched down in the shower and accessed the controls by waving his hands and gesturing. He smelled Kimo enter the shower stall behind him before he heard her.

"Has a fungus outsmarted you?" she joked.

She joked with the inferior male.

"Oh, no ma'am," he said respectfully to the officer, "This is happening all over. It's pollen from your Young Plant. I'm having the disinfect system increase the amount of good old fashioned ammonia it uses. That gets rid of the pollen." He looked up at her like a dog looking to its master for approval and praise. "Also, it should get rid of the ammonia smell before the door auto-opens after cleaning, too."

She gave him approval and praise with a smile and a nod, but just for a second.

"That was fast! Thank you very much. Thank you for coming by," she said, walking to the doorway. He obediently stood and started to exit as his wrist device alerted him to some news he had never seen before.

"The Captain wants me," he said aloud in disbelief."

"Better not keep her waiting," Kimo said as if the same happened to her often (which perhaps it did), holding the door open for him, "Thanks again."

One more task checked off the list. And one disturbing task to add to the list. Situation normal.

But why would the Captain of the whole ship call for him in particular? He had never seen her except when he was part of a large group she was addressing. He hoped he hadn't horribly ruined one of his jobs. His wrist device said he had no complaints... and Kimo had just given him a five-star approval. He had no idea what the Captain might have in store for him.

He hurried with his mop.

He hurried [to the Captain's conference room] with his mop.