Sisters

Sisters

Month 6 Day 31

1702 Hours

Bugalu

Mac hadn’t been home. She wasn’t in the library, either. Bugalu stood in the doorway and looked all around, but saw nobody at any of the tables. She said they’d be here if she wasn’t sleeping. So where is she? Think, Bugalu. Where would they go, if she forgot I’d look for her here?

Eventually, he became aware of whispers. Is that Gaelunder? It wasn’t easy to follow the faint sounds to a source; the shelves of computer chips bounced the words into a meandering trail. But he came to a table beyond the shelves, where the two redheads sat together. He waited until Kolla stopped speaking, and both women giggled. “Here you are!” he greeted.

Kolla cringed and reached for her personal translator. Mac adjusted the speaker in her own ear. “I told you we’d be here,” she chided softly, her face pink.

Remembering they had been whispering, Bugalu lowered his voice. “You didn’t say you’d be behind all the computer chips.”

“It’s easier to not be interrupted back here,” Mac answered.

“I’m sorry for interrupting, but you wanted me to find you.”

Mac smiled. “You aren’t interrupting. We had... veered onto a tangent.”

Kolla giggled, and foreign words emerged from her translator. Mac tweaked the woman’s controls. “Kolla, you adjusted the sound level, but you didn’t change it out of Yukosk.”

“-d when I can’t see the controls,” was the end of Kolla’s next statement.

“It takes practice, like everything.” Mac answered. “You’ll figure it out.”

“What did she say?” Bugalu asked. “In her own language.”

Kolla gave him a coy, secretive glance. “I said, ‘it might be unimportant and a tangent to us, but it is vitally important and the main subject to men.”

Well, that makes it as clear as a nebula. Before Bugalu could say anything else, Kolla turned in the direction of the library entrance. She fumbled with her translator, cupped her hand over it and said something to the shelves of chips. Mac told the computers to save their work, then turned off the screens.

S’thyme found his way to them, pulled his wife close for a kiss. Mac leaned against the table to wait. She looked uncomfortable, so Bugalu smiled and mouthed, “Newlyweds.” at her. Mac’s face turned pink, and her gaze drifted.

The couple broke apart, and S’thyme studied Bugalu. “Coline, is this your boy friend?”

Surprised, Bugalu automatically said, “No.”

“She’s adopted,” Kolla stated softly. “He’s her brother.”

“You have so much in common,” S’thyme told his wife.

Kolla gave a brief grimace. “I never got adopted.”

“I almost envy you,” Mac inserted. “I had 8 brothers, all older than me, who saw me as a pest. The youngest, Matt, went to the academy, where he met Bugalu, this guy. Then I went to the Academy. By himself, Matt couldn’t keep me from finding trouble. With 8 brothers protecting me back home, I didn’t know how to avoid it. Luckily, Bugalu became an unofficial brother. He taught both of us ‘wild Gaelunders’ how to behave in a civilized society.”

S’thyme studied both of them for a moment. “What is a gaylanda?”

“A person from the planet Gaelunde,” Mac answered. “Didn’t we go through this, Kolla?”

“Before we separated, it was how you thought of yourself. I thought it was your… tribe.”

“I thought you were human,” S’thyme stated.

“I am,” Mac replied. “About a hundred years ago, a group of humans from Earth started a colony on Gaelunde.”

“She makes it sound so easy,” S’thyme told his wife.

“It wasn’t,” Mac retorted. “Gaelunde is larger than Earth, and the first couple generations were short-lived, even with Earth’s help. If I hadn’t been born there, I don’t know if I’d have been brave enough to be a colonist.”

“S’thyme dreams of a colony on the next planet,” Kolla explained.

“I’m sure the Fleet could give you some information on the various problems our colonies have faced,” Bugalu stated.

S’thyme nodded. “I’ll look into that, thank you. Right now, I want some time with my wife before tonight’s party.” S’thyme took his wife’s hand and started to turn away.

“Lunch tomorrow?” Kolla asked Mac.

“Of course.”

After the Yukosk couple left, Bugalu asked, “You enjoy being with her, don’t you?”

“We are sooo-oo much alike. The 2 of us remind me of any 2 of my brothers.”

“Sounds like you’ve found a sister to adopt.”

Mac froze for a moment. “I’m not sure how to behave with a sister.”

“You worry too much,” he told her. “If you like her, you have things in common and you can talk about anything, then try it. When I heard you 2 whispering and giggling, it reminded me of my sisters.”

“It did?”

“Yeah. They always stopped when I came around, because they were talking about boys.”

She gave him a sharp look. “They didn’t want you to know they were talking about boys?”

“They didn’t want me to know which boys they were talking about. I didn’t want them knowing which girl I currently liked, either, so it was fair. You and Kolla are working on a project? And shall we get supper?”

Mac headed for the exit. “We’re trying to modify the scanners in the sick bay doorways. Kolla knows more biochemistry than I do, but it’s Yukosk biochemistry. I could learn – I picked up a smattering when we needed to get separated. But it’s not a subject I find interesting, so it would take time. More time than we’ve got. I could ask Beth to join us. But Beth is day shift, so we’d have to do this on C shift, and Kolla has a celebration party every night. Maybe Mags. She’s C shift.”

Mags? I don’t know any nurses called Mags. What did Mac shorten? Maguire? Do I know any Maguires? “Who is Mags?”

Mac lifted one corner of her mouth. “Dr Davis.”

“You call Dr Davis ‘Mags’?”

“Not to her face. Yet. Do you think she’d object?”

Bugalu considered that as they got into line in the messhall. “I don’t know her well enough to guess how she’d react.”

“Who?” Dr MacGregor asked as he got in line behind them. “Bugalu, there’s a woman aboard you don’t know well enough to know how she would react? To what?”

“Dr Davis on C shift,” Mac responded. “Bugs doesn’t know how she would react if I call her ‘Mags’. Which, if she joins Kolla and me on our project, I will do, sooner or later.”

“Why do you need a doctor for an engineering project?”

“We’re trying to modify some Yukosk technology. Well, blend it with some of ours. Theirs has a biochemistry basis, so we need someone with a strong knowledge of human biochemistry. And Mags – Dr Davis – hopefully would be available during the latter half of B shift.”

MacGregor smiled. “Perfect. She’s very interested in xeno-biochemistry. As for calling her ‘Mags’, don’t do it while you’re a patient. But as co-workers on a project… I don’t think she’d object. Too much. If she did, would it do her any good?”

Mac frowned. “If she got mad, I’d attempt to use her real name.”

“You never did that for me!” Bugalu pointed out.

“Or me,” MacGregor chimed in.

Mac chuckled. “For you guys, I’m supposed to be a pest!”

She called me Bugs long before she accepted me as a brother. Probably the same for MacGregor. But it won’t do us any good to point that out.