Research

Month 10 Day 10

0404 Hours

Tall Bear

TB was surprised when a supper tray was placed on the table next to his and Mac joined him without so much as a ‘by your leave’. But having supper with her seemed to have fallen by the way-side the last few weeks, so he decided to just enjoy her company. “Hey, Short Stuff, long time no see.”

“I hoped you’d be here. I have to ask for permission to take my break at a specific time.”

“Evans giving you a hard time today?”

“No, he’s on D shift these days, so I only see him twice a week. Amano has her own rules for deciding who goes to lunch when.”

“Still, I bet she’s a breath of freshness, after Evans.”

“Plus, now that I can sleep - like a normal person - I can ignore Adams and Evans much more easily.”

“Any idea why Evans and Amano got switched? Nobody seems to know.”

“Well, I have my personal theory, but that would be spreading gossip.”

“Sometimes gossip is the only way to find out anything,” he answered.

“Well, about a week before they were switched... it was the last shift of my official probation period... Cap suddenly emerged from her office about 0300. Adams and Evans were hanging at my station, as usual, but I wasn’t paying any attention. Between incoming mail, I was listening to Yukosk radio stations. Somehow I got the idea she knew exactly what they were doing.”

“Yeah, she would,” Bear stated.

“Anyway, that was when she took me into her office and gave me a pop quiz. What I didn’t know that Smit was hidden in the shadows, listening. So when he said I had passed probation, that time I could accept it.”

“Good.” TB stated, and looked across the room to where Evans and Adams were sharing a table. “The captain is a smart woman, Mac. Seeing how Evans handled - or in this case, mis-handled - his position on the A shift, she quietly shifted him to D shift at the first opportunity. She’s hoping he’ll take the hint and straighten up.”

“Not that I’ve noticed so far. But I haven’t paid attention. I have projects that the captain lets me work on in odd moments during my shift, so I keep busy. Sometimes, it comes as a complete surprise when Abdulla arrives to relieve me. Or Chun.”

“Well, I’m glad Amano let you take a break when we could eat together. I’d gotten used to those funny little conversations.”

“I specifically requested it,” she returned. “I want to ask you some questions.”

He grinned. “I don’t think I’ve gotten any news from home since the last time we discussed my siblings.”

“No, these questions are about the holidays.”

“Holidays?”

“I hear they’re coming up. We had Christmas and New Years on Gaelund, but I understand the ship celebrates a whole bunch of holidays over the course of a week.”

“Oh, white man’s winter holidays.”

Her eyes widened a bit, and then her cheeks went pink. “I’m sorry. I think of you as ‘one of the guys’, so I never thought you might not observe these upcoming holidays.”

“Now, wait, I never said I didn’t. Fact is, when white men showed up in the Americas, they tried to save the souls of us ‘red devils’ by teaching us their religion. Some adopted it, some adapted it to not conflict too much with our traditional religion. We had our own ceremonies for winter solstice. So when I joined the Fleet and found myself facing an entire week of celebrating everybody else’s holidays, I took some time to decide how to proceed.”

“Oh, good. This is almost exactly what I wanted to ask about.”

“Then pay attention. It seemed to me that the main thrust of Christmas - if you remove religion from it - was to acknowledge family members and friends by giving them a present. And that seemed like a good thing, to remember our friends, so I do that, although the list of people I give gifts to might change from year to year.”

“Not family members?”

“I don’t have any family aboard,” he reminded her. “I send a lengthy letter home with a few words for each family member, so they know I remember and love them. That gets a little hairy, figuring out when to send that letter to get there by Christmas time on Earth. I doubt if Grandma - and a few others - have any idea that Christmas time on Earth and holiday time on the ship are seldom the same.”

“That sounds good. I don’t have time to send packages to Gaelund. If I had any packages to send.”

“And then there’s new years. At the Academy, it seemed like everybody spent New Year’s Eve saying good-bye to the old year. The incoming year barely received a couple seconds of blurry-eyed, hung-over attention on New Year’s Day. That’s not my style. I spend New Year’s Eve reflecting on the past year; did I make mistakes, could I have done things better? On New Year’s Day, I make plans on how I’m going to do better. Not so different from White Man’s resolutions.” He glanced at the chronometer. “Hope that answered your questions, Shorty.”

“Almost. How do I know who I’m supposed to give a gift to?”

“It’s not a matter of ‘supposed to’. You decide who you want to give a gift to. Then you figure out what to give them.” At her puckered brow, he went on. “In my opinion, if all the people you are giving gifts to are the same gender, then maybe you should reconsider your reason for giving.”

She tilted her head to one side. “You give gifts to both men and women?”

“That’s right. Bugs and I exchange gifts at Christmas. Abdulla, too.”

“Because you date her.”

“Not that often,” he returned. “Frankly, I don’t date any woman often. And I don’t use Christmas to give a gift to a woman I’m dating. In my mind, Christmas is for friends.”

“So, Abdulla is your friend. And you date her.”

“That’s right.”

“And you have sex with her.”

“Some times.”

Mac took a final drink of her tea and got ready to leave. “I couldn’t do that,” she muttered.

“I haven’t asked you to,” he responded.

She gave him a strange, half-scared look, picked up her tray to leave.

“One last thing, Shorty.” He touched the edge of her tray to get her attention, and she obediently paused. “You don’t have to accept every present thrust at you. Someone like Evans, for instance. Be blunt, tell him you don’t want a gift from him. Somebody else, someone you think might become a friend, you can say you’re embarrassed, but you didn’t have time to find a gift for them. Then they have the option of keeping the gift, or of trying to convince you they’d like you to have it anyway. Think about this ahead of time, Red, because you never know who might decide to give you a gift. You have a whole range of responses to choose from, and punching them shouldn’t be one of them.”

She gave him a brilliant smile. “Thank you, oh wise one, for always trying to keep me out of the brig.”

He stood up with his own tray. “Head out, before you’re late and I never get to see you for lunch again.” He followed her at a more sedate pace. If we can’t get together for lunch, and she doesn’t need to see me at lunch anymore, then maybe we can get together for breakfast. I do miss our conversations.