Seeing Double

Month 9 Day 6

(Shore Leave Day 7)

0754 Hours

Abdulla

Yellow Dog was rotating her ankles under the table as Abdulla joined her at the ‘sidewalk’ cafe on Level 1 of the Grand Ulsess Mall. Has she been up all night or something? I find myself doing that when I’ve been on my feet for an entire shift. “How’s your shore leave been so far, YD?” she asked as she studied the menu.

“Yes,” was all the AmerInd said.

What does that mean? Sometimes I don’t understand YD at all. Mac, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have any difficulty understanding her. I’m jealous, if Mac doesn’t need the other person to say anything at all.

“Temple,” YD called out suddenly, and raised a hand to signal to the nurse.

Beth approached and sat down. Her hand shook a bit as she stabbed at the button to activate her own menu holograph.

“Is something wrong?” Abdulla asked. “You look as if you’ve seen an impossibility.”

Beth gave her a quick glance and cleared her throat. “Maybe not, but... something I certainly never thought I’d see!”

“Well, it must have been something truly strange, because we’ve seen a lot of odd things during our travels.”

“It was,” Temple agreed. “But... I don’t want to gossip, so let’s get started with our day.”

“Sure, we can order breakfast,” Abdulla agreed. “YD didn’t wait for us, and I imagine Mac will be here shortly.”

“Or she won’t,” Beth muttered.

“What do you mean?”

“I came in on the 2nd floor of this restaurant. That’s where Mac is, in a private booth. With... a man.” Abdulla gave her a sharp look of interest. “Don’t ask questions, because I won’t answer!”

“Not Mac,” YD stated.

“Certainly I never expected it, but that red hair of hers is hard to miss,” Beth responded.

YD raised one hand, snapped her fingers and pointed down the shopping mall corridor. “Mac.”

Abdulla turned to look, and at first couldn’t find the younger woman, for she saw no fiery hair. Then her eyes settled on a short young woman dressed in boots, dark pants and a flowing top of black lace over a blue underlayer. The woman’s red hair was snuggly confined under a scarf and couldn’t be seen, and her pale face was overwhelmed by a pair of large, dark glasses. “Well, that’s a look I haven’t seen on her before.”

Beth stared at the approaching woman as she entered the cafe’s patio and took a seat at their table. “Guess I’m late,” Mac stated and smiled.

“How did you get down here?” Beth asked. “Out here? And... you didn’t have a scarf!”

Mac’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “Down here? Out here? I’m not sure what you mean.”

“She says she saw you upstairs, the upper level of this cafe, in a privacy booth,” Abdulla explained.

All the color drained from Mac’s already pale face. “Oh.” She activated her own menu.

“You don’t seem surprised,” Abdulla observed.

“Not really,” Mac said quietly, and a moment later, she sighed. “I suppose I’ve been waiting for something like that. Because I was mistaken for her earlier on this shore leave.”

Abdulla blinked. “You mean, there’s somebody who looks just like you on this planet?”

“I guess so. It took a bit to convince - uh, him, that I wasn’t her.”

“Who would have thought?” Abdulla wondered. “Although, I have heard that with the human population as large as it is these days, everybody has at least one doppelganger in the universe.”

“I find it kind of... creepy,” Mac stated, and pressed buttons to place her order.

“You didn’t seem to mind when the other ‘you’ was Kolla,” Beth commented.

“I knew which one I was,” Mac answered. “Besides, her coloring was a bit off.” They all chuckled.

“You knew which one you were?” Abdulla asked. “I seem to remember you said something else to the captain.”

“I did?” Mac sat back and took off her sunglasses as she thought about that. “I guess so. It did get confusing after we separated. I had memories of life within both bodies. Not just memories, but knowledge and skills. It was disorientating. But the other one of me that’s here; I’ve never seen her, don’t know anything about her. But I... keep wondering what it would be like to be in her shoes.”

“You mean, is she also the baby of a big family of boys? Did she grow up with an over-protective father? That sort of thing?”

“Um, yeah. That kind of thing,” Mac agreed. She watched as Abdulla and Beth finished placing their orders. “Okay, this shopping mall is huge!. I hope we don’t get lost. I saw a shop on the next concourse that had bikinis, but I don’t think that’s the kind of swimsuit I want. Plus, I want a new work-out suit. And hobby materials. Other than that, this shore leave has been pretty expensive, and it’s making me a little uneasy.”

“We can look at that swimshop if anybody wants to,” Beth stated. “But I’ve heard the best place to get a swimsuit is in the basement. A huge shop just before you enter the water park, with thousands of suits of all designs, and each one in a dozen colors.”

“Really?” Abdulla returned. “It could take us a week to decide which one we want.”

“Possibly,” Beth agreed. “The best part is the prices are half what you’ll find anywhere else.”

“Okay. I have got to see this place!” Abdulla declared. “And I, for one, have not even touched my credit yet.”

Mac sat up straighter. “Credit! I forgot all about my credit line! I’ve never used it!”

“Never?” Beth repeated. “Well, my advice is to try to go easy with it. You don’t want to spend an entire year paying off one shore leave.”

“Why?” Mac asked. “How often do we get one?”

Abdulla paused. From what Bugalu says, Mac had a very sheltered childhood, and because of her previous captains, she still doesn’t really know how life works. “The length of them varies, the time between varies, but they average out to about 4 weeks a year.”

“Wow. It would be hard to enjoy another shore leave if I’m still paying off this one.” Mac shook her head “So I still need to be... cautious. I’m surprised Bugsy hasn’t warned me about that.”

“Bugalu makes more than you do,” Beth stated. “More seniority. But it’s a fact that might not have occurred to him.”

A waiter arrived with their breakfast, plus a fresh glass of juice for YD. As they ate, the talk turned to other shops they wanted to visit before going to the water park.