Cultural anthropologist Jo Anderson was not an exotic woman, but as she talked about her work a sort of fire built up in her pale green eyes. The tiny hint of a smile tugged the corners of her mouth, transforming her into something almost radiant and certainly a little bit more than just attractive.

But it was hard as hell to try and pay much attention to an animated Jo Anderson when a three hundred mile long… well… there were ogling blue-collar men sitting around the window who you could tell had just been shipped in. The main feature of the bay windows on this side of the Toe Lounge was the view of giant soft sloping legs stretching far up into the horizon.

I was being manipulated, and I knew it. The chin had better selections of restaurants, but Jo pretty much figured that if she sat me next to a window looking up the thighs of the 6,500 mile long woman we walked the surface of I would let her say yes to whatever it is her department wanted.

So of course I murmured "yes."

"It's fascinating," Jo said, now that she had what she wanted out of me, "that the inhabitants here are the only race we know of that has their mythology dead on."

"Huh?" I looked down at the table. I needed more beer. I usually tried not to come face to face with the reality of existence on… Her.

"They believe they live on the corpse of a giant."

"Maybe it's because they do," I said, sneaking another look back down the inner thigh that dominated the western hemisphere.

A month later I sat in a bar with Director Thomas. Thomas was a short chubby man with a goatee and a shrewd sort of ruddy intelligence that comes from being administration. It ran in his family, he'd told me once: "My great-grandfather Barry was an administrator of a star-plex, grandma Stella ran an inter-galactic courier service. Dad ran things here when we first landed, and uncle Brad ran things after Dad died in the cheek-wars…" the nuclear exchange responsible for that blemish on the left cheek, "…and my brother runs shipping and trade out by the Toe. As far as we can trace it back, we've run things."

Thomas showed me a piece of paper with my signature on it. We were on the tip of the chin; on the edge of the dimple that overlooked the sharp roller coaster drop of her neck that flowed into the deep valley between her ample but firm breasts.

For a coin you could use one of the telescopes and zoom in on the spaceport on the left areola, or see the developments of skyscrapers being built into the hill-like curves. Zoom in again and one could even see the lattices of tracks being laid down for trains, like veins, only raised and ridged across the acres and acres of skin.

"Is there any particular reason you allowed Anderson to head off for the pubic region?"

"She took me to the Toe Lounge," I said.

Thomas rolled his eyes, but folded the paper and put it away. "I've been trying to keep out of the region for the past year."

The indigenes lived among the thick pubic hair, declared a protected reserve. They logged the massive hairs and used them for building houses, pulped them into clothing and paper, and built roads with them. In fact, several hundred years of logging had resulted in bare patches. Eventually, maybe, the pubic area would become smooth.

"You're going to have to do better than that," Thomas said. "Come on, if one group gets to go into the pubic area, everyone else will want to."

I sipped a beer. A large starship, easily ten miles long, winked into existence and spiraled in towards the left breast, plasma streaming out its tail end as it jetted towards the spaceport.

"Thomas, how long do you really think any indigenous group will be left alone, or unassimilated?" I asked.

"Who knows?" He replied. "But we have to try and respect that this is their land."

The universe is not only stranger… I thought.

On Thursday I met with representatives of several of the major local churches. I didn't enjoy meeting with those of the religious persuasion, as they still were a bit hot/cold about the idea of a giant human floating in space at the edge of the known universe. Some said She was God. Other more patriarchal religions strongly protested, though the possibility really ate at them.

So I sarcastically suggested that we meet at the Toe Lounge but they politely declined and instead settled for a location on the dome of her head, near one of the major logging and mining operations.

When men first landed they'd cleared most of the locals out, taking the prime logging areas; the long locks of space-dark, carefully braided hair that stretched down to the shoulders. Sections of the scalp near the top of the head were already showing, thanks to years of zealous logging. The hair could be used for orbital tethers; it was incredibly strong. Other uses abounded, although it involved smelting the hair to reform it.

Mining operations found bone to be the most troublesome substance, but ground back up could be used as the most remarkable concrete. The skin, tanned and dried, could be found in stores sewed as canopies, or if combine with muscle, composted to provide an excellent loam.

So it was here I met the church members. Some of them dressed in formal robes, others in jeans and loose shirts. Catholics and Protestants, Buddhists, Muslim, Methodist, Taoist, Moonies, Hare Krishna, and so on. I wondered what miraculous act had bought most of humanity's religions all together on accord.

"We want you to cover up the genitalia," they said. And handed me a long printout on pale fleshy parchment, with hundreds of names cut into it. "It is an affront to decency, and encourages moral decrepitude."

"How is that?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"Men should not see such things," Gene Grady muttered. "It is pornographic that the thousands of people living on the legs see her daily, and lust for her."

My head hurt. "How exactly do you suggest I do this?" I said. "Do you happen to have some hundred odd square miles of fabric?"

"Leather can be made out of skin," Father O'Toole declared. "Just between the ribs is easily mineable."

"And expensive," I said. "Unless you're going to do it yourself, we'll do no such thing."

"Then we would like to pass an edict stating that no man should past the waistline."

"If you would pass such a thing on to your congregations," I said, "that would be fine. But I'm not going to pass any such edict. The taxes on toenail mining are generous, and fund most of our civic projects."

And that was that. They all left in a dark mood, and I continued to sit there, ordering lunch.

"They say they can do this with minimal impact on the inhabitants."

I nodded. Thomas sighed.

"Some religious leaders have expressed an interest in letting them come in, they're hoping they can get the entire area mined out, or at least rendered unrecognizable."

"I'm not surprised," I said.

Three months, and Jo's group was sending us back enthusiastic reports by satellite on the local culture and habits, the first such real records in almost fifty years. The inhabitants believed that since they lived on the body of a woman, the broad stream of the Milky Way in the sky was actually a fertilizing stream of sperm. It was apparently from a male deity in the act of ejaculation. They called it the big bang.

Thomas called me up to meet with a starship-guild captain. His name was Evergror, and he had thick vacuum-proof reddish skin. His large all black eyes bubbled out as ridiculously, and he didn't wear any clothes. His genitalia slid back up into a radiation proof slit, which made all the starship-guild people look like they had vaginas whether male or female.

He said he was the keeper of records, a sort of historian, and starting to tell a hell of a story about a group of old Earth fellows who'd set out in a slower than light ship. I looked at Thomas, Thomas looked at me, and we both shrugged.

Evergror's story beat going into the industrial zoning debate raging in our office over the armpit regions.

"The name of the ship was 'Seed of Hope' and they wanted to settle a star system according to their own religious beliefs," he said. "But every time they showed up, someone would be there already. Then they would re-equip their ship with the latest technology found at the latest stop and try again. This went on for almost two thousand years, until finally, they aimed their ship off into the abyss, aiming at no star, no reasonable destination."

"Hey," I cried out, seeing where this was going. We were located in a similar location, in the middle of nowhere.

"Yes. Their ancestors are here. We, the starship guild, have identified the remains of 'Seed of Hope' lodged in the inside of the toenail of the left little toe. The inhabitants aren't really habitants."

Thomas leaned back in his chair. I leaned back in mine.

"Would you be willing to make a public statement?" Thomas asked.

Evergror nodded.

"For a small fee, or course."

"Of course."

As we all knew, mining rights to the pubic area were worth quite a bit. We weren't even sure if this chap was telling the truth, but it provided the perfect opportunity we needed to undermine the bleeding heart environmentalists that claimed we needed to leave her body untouched…

Then onto the foundries set between her breasts, belching fire into the air.

I squelched the feeling that we'd done something wrong and took a nap.

When Jo got back I took her sailing in the right corner of the right eye. Salt filled the air as a slight wind crossed the large sea of the agate pupil. We were on a delightful little ketch made out of hairplank, and it tracked into the wind just beautifully.

The ropes snapped as I dodged us around other traffic and sailed out in no particular direction.

Somewhere out there we paused to eat lunch, a fruit basket I'd put together. In the far distant north great eyelashes curved up into the sky, blocking out the harsh sunlight of the distant sun we orbited.

"Do you ever wonder about her?" Jo asked.

"About who?"

"All this." She made a gesture. I shrugged and ate a turkey sandwich.

"But… what about it all? What will happen when the inhabitants get assimilated, what will we do when we use it all up?"

"I think about that sometimes," I said. "But it won't happen anytime soon."

Jo smiled and reached down in the water, cleaning her face. The sea glistened on her cheeks as she lay back, in repose, and looked up at the sky.

"The old Earthers, some of them used to believe, before they became advanced, that it was Mother Earth."

"Earth is a dump," I told her. "I went there once."

Jo unwrapped a sandwich. "But it didn't used to be."

"I know."

After the sandwich we hoisted the sails and headed for shore. Later that night I even managed to seduce her.

The next morning, of course, Thomas and I drew up plans for putting a new rail system down the gentle curve of the stomach and down between the legs. Already new skyscrapers were going up on the inner thighs.

There was a lot to be done.

The End

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