time,” he said, tracing the shell of her ear with his fingertip.
“I don’t know how you can tell time up here,” she lamented with a sigh. “There is no sunlight. It’s the one thing I miss about life down there.”
“We have engineered sunlight,” he reminded her. “The ship’s lighting mimics a day and night cycle. The climate does the same. We can adjust the screens on the windows so you have a similar view to what you had in your cabin. It will help you adjust.”
“Do you ever miss it? Real sunshine and fresh air and the smells of nature?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been in ships so much of my life that I start to miss the comfort of climate control when I’m on the surface.”
“I can see that. Having cool air all the time is nice. It sure beats sweating through a sticky, hot night in my cabin.”
“Well,” he nuzzled her cheek, “you’ll probably still have plenty of hot, sticky nights here in these quarters.”
She giggled and hid her face. “You’re terrible.”
“You didn’t think so earlier.” He nibbled her ear lobe. “You have enough time for a bath before dinner is ready.”
A hot soak sounded really good. Wondering how sore she was after making love to Cipher, she tested the situation by moving her legs. Surprisingly, she felt only a slight ache. It was more of a throbbing feeling, similar to the way her hands sometimes felt after a long day of working in the mines.
“Are you in pain?” He gently rolled her over and studied her face. “There are pills you can take or creams to apply.”
“I’m a little sore, but it’s not bad.” She drew her finger along the outline of one of his tattoos. Her earlier shyness had all but vanished. After the way Cipher had enjoyed her body, she no longer felt embarrassed by her slim figure and small breasts. More importantly, now that she had gotten a taste of how good sex felt, she wanted more of it.
“Later,” he said as if reading her mind. “Bath first and then some food.” He nuzzled her cheek. “Then we can play.”
She nodded in acceptance of his schedule and let him help her out of the bed. Her hand in his, she followed him into the adjacent bathroom. Like the rest of their quarters, it was done in muted grays and whites. He sat on the edge of the tub and activated the faucet with a wave of his hand. As he tested the temperature of the water, a thought struck her. “How do you get freshwater up here?”
Cipher looked at her and smiled. “I wondered how long it would take you to ask questions like that.” He hesitated. “Are you sure you want to know?”
“Yes.”
“It’s manufactured and recycled. Mostly,” he added and reached for a bottle on a small built-in shelf. As he twisted off the lid and poured some of liquid inside into the bath water, he explained, “The ships are loaded with freshwater when they set out on their maiden voyages. Every drop used on the ship goes through a series of filtration systems that cleans and reclaims it. Our environmental systems extract water vapor from the air to keep the humidity on the ship at the correct value. The extracted water is condensed, cleaned and reclaimed.”
As she watched the pink bubbles form in the water, she wrinkled her nose at the idea of drinking reclaimed bath water but then decided it was no different than drinking water filtered through layers of rock and sand. It was likely cleaner and safer to drink reclaimed water than to sip straight out of her well back home.
“The sewage too?” She suspected it was also reclaimed and filtered.
“Yes.”
She made a face but not for the reason he was likely thinking. “I would hate to have that job!”
Cipher laughed. “It’s mostly automated. Engineers keep an eye on the processes. It’s rare that plumbing engineers have to get their hands dirty.”
“But what happens as you lose water in the cleaning system? Wouldn’t the levels eventually drop so low that you wouldn’t be able to sustain the loop?”
“Yes. We receive shipments of water to replenish what can’t be cleaned or reclaimed. It’s only a fraction of what we recycle, though.”
“The weight of all that water must be an incredible burden on the ship’s engines,” she murmured, thinking of how hard it was to carry a bucket or two from the well to her house.
“The physics of all that is