Challenge #00221: Relics

Easy come, easy go-go.

The name of the vessel was the Remembrance Maru, and according to her registry, she was a pleasure vessel. All passengers and crew had evacuated after a micro-meteor shower had pierced both her defenses and the hull. Now, after a slow cruise from eternity, she’d turned up again in Amalgam’s local space.

Shayde was instantly interested, of course. She all but carried Rael down the long and winding route to Dry Dock’s observation ports to watch the old wreck getting towed in.

Rael hadn’t even known Dry Dock had observation ports.

Even after hundreds of years in space, the Remembrance Maru was still magnificent. Rael, perpetually worried about picking up Human insanity from long time association with them, would never admit he could read the ghost of the original vessel in her pock-marked hull. The mixture of horror at that revelation and awe that such a thing had once been, and was here again, was downright vertiginous.

The gravity generator on board the vessel had died, and the Nae'hyn were allowed in first to both remove the device and give it funereal rites. Following them, the Archivaas historical documentation team and Shayde. And wherever Shayde went, Rael was obliged to follow.

Shayde’s job, when she wasn’t being an Ambassador for 1986(Old Terran Calendar), was old things. Part of her duties, today, was to go aboard the Remembrance Maru and point out all the things she recognized. Also to provide historical details as she recalled them.

Rael’s job was to translate her idiosyncratic dialect so that the Archivaas could understand it.

She burst into laughter when she saw the dance floor. “They got th’ disco floor in wi’ the go-go cages an’ a moon swing… Aw God…” Further hilarity erupted when she discovered a set of ‘stripper poles’ behind a drift of old tables.

“There appears to be an array of anachronisms in this room,” Rael translated. He waited for Shayde to at least wind down to giggling to gain an explanation.

What they got was a demonstration. Often amended with, “Ye understand the ladies weren’t wearin’ much at all ye ken.” The 'stripper poles’ were a display of sexualized acrobatic prowess. The moon swing used the out-of-reach feminine ideal for display purposes only… and the go-go cage…

O Powers, the go-go cage. It was so astonishing to watch that Rael had a hard time interrupting. Then an equally hard time making her stop before her Glamor ability conjured up the short-shorts, bikini top and the titular boots on her lithe frame. It displayed feminine power in such a way that the men of the time could handle it - restrained in a cage like a wild animal.

It was all he could do not to shrivel in sympathetic mortification.

Lunch finally pried her out of there and he quietly advised the Archivaas to keep the relic locked away for everyone’s mutual safety.

It was a short trip to the Docker’s favourite den of unsuitable food, Deep Fried Everything Eat, for a quick fix of calories a la carte.

“Did you have to do that?” Rael whined. He did not appreciate it when she demonstrated. For her, they were toys. For everyone else, they were valuable historical artifacts.

“Ye know what they say,” she grinned. “Easy come, easy go-go.”

Rael glared at her. They were going to be going through the vessel for days… “Can you at least try to restrain yourself?”

“I thought I was…”

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