She Could Do Better

Month 12 Day 12

2002 Hours

Smythe

 

 “Mac, am I late?”

Smitty looked up from his technical manual to see Ferguson approaching Colleen across the rec room. “Not really,” she answered. “Sit down. I hope Darznok is okay with you.”

“Um, I said a game,” he answered uncertainly.

“Darznok is a game,” she pointed out, equally uncertain.

Ferguson doesn’t look happy. “Mac, I meant something physical, like hoops.”

“Oh.” Now she doesn’t look happy. “I’m sorry, Ferg, I’m more in the mood for an electronic game tonight.”

The assistant chef eyed the game console. “I’ve never played Darznok.”

“And I’ve only ever watched it being played,” she returned. “Just hang on a second.”

Well, that date won’t last long, if neither of them have played the game before, Smitty surmised, and turned back to his manual. He raised his head again, realized she hadn’t yet sat down at the game console. Colleen was bent over the side of the table, and had opened a small access panel to the interior of the game, where her nimble fingers were hard at work. She finished what she was doing and looked around the rec room. “Hey, Freyer!”

“Yeah?” The young technician left the group watching Atakke and came over. “What’s up?”

“Look that over, would you?” Colleen asked. “Make sure I didn’t screw it up.”

Freyer rolled her eyes. “Mac, I’ve seen your work. You wouldn’t screw it up.”

“There’s an owner of a business specializing in recreational games who wouldn’t agree with you,” Colleen reminded the other woman. “Please check it out. I don’t want anybody claiming I broke it.”

She didn’t technically mess up the game. She cleared out a lot of gobbledygook and made it run more efficiently. Which wasn’t what the business owner wanted.

Freyer shrugged and considered the inner workings of the game table. “What were you trying to do?”

“Slow the game down to quarter speed.”

“Well, that’s what it’s set for,” Freyer agreed. “But why in space do you want it so slow?”

“Neither of us knows how to play Darznok.”

Freyer grinned. “You’re supposed to play with instincts, not thinking. Well, put it back the way it was when you get done with it.”

“Thanks, Stephee,” Colleen told the other girl as she moved off. The redhead sat down facing her date. “You were hoping for hoops, because you’ve seen me play with Bugalu and Yellow Dog, right? Yeah, I know how. But I can’t play with just anybody. For instance, I don’t dare play hoops with Tall Bear.”

“Are you still that touchy?”

“I probably always will be. So it surprised me when you asked for a date.”

“But you accepted.”

“To play a game. Since the game wasn’t specified, I thought it would be... safer to play something electronic. I don’t have any reason to dislike you. But don’t expect too much from me in the way of dates, Ferg, ‘cause I don’t have much to offer.”

Ferguson thought about that for a minute, then smiled. “Okay, what are the rules of this Darznok?”

Smitty turned back to his technical manual on the reading screen, and lifted his cup for a drink. It was empty. Oh, what’s the use? He gathered his things together and left, frowning as his eyes slid across the open access panel on the Darznok table.

He headed for a lower deck, not sure where he’d wind up with his tech manual in search of a fresh cup of coffee. He tried not to frown at Bugalu and Dahlquist when he passed them in the hall. That’s the 4th woman he’s been with in the past 5 days, and that doesn’t count Colleen. Pretty shabby treatment of a woman he was totally absorbed in only a month ago, it seems to me. She should date more than one. Bugalu’s fine enough, I’ve nothing against him, but she shouldn’t tie herself down to just one boy friend at her age. There’s still time for her to... find the right guy.

He entered the deck 11 rec room and chose a seat, sliding his technical manual into the viewer. Then he got a coffee from the dispenser and sat down to do some serious reading.

“I didn’t think that was possible on a starship,” a voice came up from the arboretum on the deck below. They must be inside the maze. Somehow, the hedge walls don’t dampen voices, but bounce them straight up. To here.

“Oh, it’s possible,” a female responded. “Just rare. But she’s got that Gaelunder metabolism, which doesn’t react the same way to inoculations.”

Gaelunder. Colleen. Is she ill?

“Are you sure? I mean, it’s supposed to be impossible.”

“Well, she hasn’t come to sick bay and had it confirmed. But I wouldn’t expect her to. That would get her a one-way ticket out of the Fleet, her being single. But I’ve been watching her, and I’ve seen all the signs.”

“Well, whose do you suppose it is?”

“There’s only one man whose it could be.”

“Bugalu? He’s dating everybody aboard again.”

“Funny how he can’t make up his mind, isn’t it? First they were inseparable, until she managed to pass probation. Then it was hit or miss for a while, and now she’s his constant once-a-week date. I think she hasn’t even told him yet.”

“You’re probably right. If a girl told me that, I’d be running like crazy.”

“You aren’t him. She’d know exactly how to say it. She’d play on his sense of responsibility. Even if he’s not the father, I’m sure she’d convince him he was.”

Father!

“You just said he was the father.”

“Well, how would I know?” the unseen woman returned, sounding peeved. “It seems logical that he’s the father, they’ve spent so much time together.”

“Well, who cares?” the man decided. “That’s their problem to figure out. Listen, all these plants are well and good, but I’d just as soon we go someplace with more guaranteed privacy.”

“Hmm, well, why didn’t you say so?” the woman purred. “We could have gone there straight away.”

Smitty didn’t know how long he sat in the now-silent rec room, trying to digest what he’d just heard. At long last, he had one coherent thought: Well, that’s that, then. They’ll get married before long, so any... dreams I might have had are completely out of the question now. As if they weren’t before. Unable to cope with that thought, he got up and made his way to his quarters, where he lay in his bed, unable to sleep. Or even to think clearly.

Trouble Thinking

 

Month 12 Day 9

2010 Hours

Ivy Wilson

 

 The four of them had built a tidy 7-foot-tall cage of sorts, with equipment off to the side that took up twice that much room. Ivy heard Smythe ask, “I wonder what that piece does, exactly.”

Mac’s answer consisted of little more than stutters. “I... I...” And her voice died completely away. Ivy looked up from consulting the translated tech manual to see Mac’s eyes clouded with confusion and... what? Consternation? She had pink flags on her cheeks that blazed in an otherwise white face. What’s going on? Mac hasn’t had trouble talking around Smythe in several weeks. Why is she suddenly having trouble now?

Abdulla spoke from where she was making adjustments to another piece of the machinery. “Well, something has to tear the molecules apart, right? Sounds gory, but how else do the molecules get transported on radio waves?”

A slight movement on Smythe’s part made Ivy realize he’d had his hand on Mac’s shoulder. Now that he had moved it, Mac slipped a few inches away, to complete her work on attaching that particular piece Smythe had asked about. Her face resumed its normal coloring. Is that it? Was she caught by surprise, and had to fight the urge to hit Smythe? She’s very touchy about men touching her. Most men.

“I don’t think that’s the particular piece Colleen’s attaching now,” he stated.

“This piece holds the molecules in a tight stream so they can all be transported more or less simultaneously,” Mac stated softly. “I think Ivy’s working on the part that strips the molecules apart.”

“I am?” Ivy asked. Mostly, she’d just been following the manual for this piece, without trying to figure out what it was for.

“If I remember the manual right, that piece goes right next to the piece I’m attaching. It makes sense that the piece that strips the molecules apart would feed into the piece that keeps them in close proximity. Doesn’t it?”

“Great. Now if it doesn’t work, it’ll be all my fault,” Ivy complained with a half smile.

“Now, none of that,” Smythe chided. “We’ve all worked on it, and there’s plenty of things that could go wrong. Every single piece we’ve built and added to this contraption has at least a dozen places where something could be off just enough to not let the thing work. We think we understand the Yukoskian measurements, but we might be off.”

“How long before you think we might be ready for a test, Mr Smythe?” Abdulla asked.

“He answered, “We’re close. I’ve been trying to think of a suitable test object.”

“I don’t think we should start with a human subject,” Mac stated.

“Oh, Black Space, no,” Smythe agreed at once. “I’m relieved we didn’t suffer any unintentional side-effects from using their transportation device while we were there. For all we knew, the machine might have put us back together with Yukoskian bio-chemistry, rather than our own.”

“I don’t think it would,” Mac demurred. “They use the same transport equipment to transport supplies, food, not to mention the clothes people are wearing. So they early on decided not to assume the biochemistry would be the same as theirs. Or chemistry, in the case of building supplies and such. They certainly did not want to send somebody to the moon to start building the base, only to have them arrive with holes in their spacesuit. So they didn’t take the shortcut of assuming anything about the people or stuff they were transporting.”

Smythe’s forehead wrinkled as he thought about that. “Did you get that from the manual? I don’t remember reading that.”

“No, I think that came in one of Kolla’s letters. I must have asked some question, and she tends to run off on tangents when she’s answering, particularly about the history of their technology. It appears to be a hobby of hers, the history of technology.”

“It’s good to hear, but we should be extra careful to test everything that we send through the machine, just to be sure it came out the same as it went in. A far more in-depth study than how does it look?”

“You mean an in-depth chemical analysis before we send something through, and another when it comes out?” Abdulla asked.

“Yes, exactly,” he agreed. “And the lab will need time to conduct their analysis. So, whenever we do start testing, I propose choosing no more than 3 items to test on any given day, and then seeing what the analysis says the following week.”

“That will certainly slow us down,” Adbulla stated as she finished working on that piece, and moved across the room to attach an identical piece to the twin piece of machinery over there. “Mac, how many pieces do we still need to build and then attach?”

Mac stepped back and ran her gaze slowly over the first cage and attendant assemblage. After a long moment of pointing to one area after another, and ticking things off on her fingers, she looked around. “I think the piece Ivy’s putting together is the last one. I’ll start putting together the 2nd one for the receiver machine.”

“Why are we calling one machine the transmitter, and the other the receiver? They’re built exactly alike and should be able to do either function,” Ivy wondered.

“You’re right,” Abdulla agreed.

“If they were located some distance from each other, we probably would have called them the base unit and distant unit,” Smythe stated. “They really are identical, and we might as well call them Unit A and Unit B.”

“Or Joe and George,” Mac suggested.

Ivy laughed. “I like that idea! It sounds like names one would give a pair of identical twins. And they are identical twins, of sorts. Built at the same time, of the exact same components.”

“Very well, there’s no rule against a bit of whimsy,” Smythe said with a smile. “Joe and George it is.” He started inspecting the pieces that had just been added. “Very good work, ladies, as always.”

“Thank you,” both Mac and Abdulla said.

Smythe turned and bent over Mac where she now sat, his hand on her back. Mac stopped working to look at him, their faces merely inches away from each other. Her work seemed completely forgotten. “You’ve come a far distance from when you first came aboard, Colleen.”

She didn’t respond for a long moment, then she finally got out a faint, “Yes,” of agreement.

Smythe smiled, gave her back a pat and stood up, removing his hand. “Once we get those last components put together and added to, um, Joe and George, we’ll call it a night. Perhaps we could all go to the mess hall and have a piece of cake to celebrate.”

Ivy resolved to hit the gym after the piece of cake, or her uniforms would soon cease to fit. “Sounds good to me.”

Abdulla gave a slight grimace, probably with a similar concern. “Sure.”

“Okay,” Mac agreed softly.

There she goes again, soft voice, like she isn’t sure of herself. But look at how she’s working. Not a single wasted movement. If I’m not careful, she’ll beat me getting this piece built and installed.

Ruminations & Regrets

 

Month 11, Day 30

2327 Hours

Jane Burke

 

 Jane watched the two lieutenants move off and finished her coffee. “Well, between the sugar and the caffeine, that’ll probably keep me awake for a while,” she stated.

“But you wanted—”

“I did,” she agreed, and eyed his remaining pie. “Apparently, you weren’t so keen on the idea. Shall we go?”

“Yes,” Smitty agreed, and stood up. They returned their trays to the disposal and headed for the closest lift. “You choice of conversation subject surprised me, captain.”

“I’m happy to hear that MacDowell is dating,” she answered. “Too often I see these youngsters frittering their time away.”

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

“Oh, this isn’t a mood I relish being in,” she returned. “Tell me, Smitty, did you ever think you had met the person you could marry?”

“Ahhh...”

She wasn’t surprised by his reticence. “I did. Once. We were lieutenants at the time, and quite the hot item. I was sure we’d be married before either of us made Lt Cmdr. But then he was promoted. And shipped out. He tried to get a spot for me on the same ship, but they didn’t have one available. So we separated, and then... things never quite worked out for us.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get married while the iron was hot, so to speak. If we had already been married...”

“They would have had to make arrangements for both of you to transfer together,” he ended for her.

“True,” she agreed as they got onto the lift. As the machine started off, she wondered, “On the other hand, maybe I’m better off without having tagged along on his shirt tails. I certainly wouldn’t have gotten the same assignments as I did get. Can’t even be certain I’d currently be a captain. Or in the Fleet.”

“Captain, I’m certain you—” Smitty started to protest.

“No, hear me out,” she cut him off. “That young man transferred out with his new promotion, and got married before he’d been gone for a year. His bride got pregnant almost immediately and went on maternity leave. She had 3 children in rapid order, and she’s still got 6 years left before the youngest turns 18, at which point she has the option of returning to the fleet. As a lieutenant. I haven’t thought about it for a long time, but whenever I do, I arrive at the conclusion that that could have happened to me. And I’m not sure I’d come back to the Fleet at that rank, at that age. On the other hand, I don’t think being a mother and housewife would have been that fulfilling for me. I’m sure I would have done something, to fill my own longing to make a difference in this universe. Thankfully, I haven’t had to try to figure out what that would be, because I am very happy where I am.”

“And you do a marvelous job, captain.”

She held up a hand to cut off his compliments. The lift door opened, and they got off, continued walking together. “I’m just trying to point out that Fleet regulations and organization is behind the times. Most women don’t need to go on maternity leave as soon as it’s known they’re pregnant. The fleet will make arrangements to keep a family together, so long as that family consists of just 2 people.”

“Well, what else would you expect the fleet to do?” he asked.

“We aren’t a war fleet, per se.” She stated. “Yes, we have weapons, but that’s because most of space is full of the unknown. We’ve been called a peace-keeping fleet, but we hardly ever use our weapons, even for that. When we do, it’s usually on some of that unknown I mentioned. I truly do not see why ships cannot have accommodations for entire families.”

“You mean, babies and children?”

“Exactly. Yes, there would be a whole new level of support personnel needed; child care, teachers. But you wouldn’t have families separated by light years for months or years at a time. I would think that would be a lot healthier for everybody involved.”

“I think I understand what you’re trying to say,” Smitty said. They had reached the door to the captain’s quarters, and he nearly stepped away, to go to his own room, but she didn’t seem to be done yet.

“Well, I didn’t mean to get onto that particular topic,” she stated. “What I was starting to say was that too many young people seem to think they have all the time in the world to find the love of their life, and they’re assigned to a ship for several years, most likely. A ship with only 500 crew members, or even less. Definitely less than that are the same rank. What if they don’t fall in love with anybody who’s available to them? Say that happens, and then they go to another ship, and they still don’t find the love of their life. If we’re talking a woman, she could be approaching the end of her child-bearing years. Her biology is eager for her to settle down. She either snatches up someone she thinks she can tolerate for a few years, or she has to ignore that biological urge.” She got a far-away look in her eyes. “I hope I pass away before I wind up in some old officer’s home, unloved and forgotten.”

“Captain!”

“No, that isn’t what I was trying to get to, either,” she said. “I just think young people should look around them, look hard at their crewmates, and see if they can’t find somebody to marry. Whether they have children or not, that’s up to them. And since I’ve finally gotten to the real topic I wanted to express, let me encourage you to do the same, Smitty. At your rank, there’s only a couple women aboard you can date without getting into trouble. Get another promotion, and your choices would be even fewer. If you ever thought of getting married, think about it now! Before it’s too late!” She turned and entered her quarters. I couldn’t have said it more bluntly than that.

Light Conversation

 

Month 11, Day 30

2305 Hours

Bugalu

 

“Good, a chance for light conversation,” the captain said as she sat down opposite Mac. “Sit down, Smitty.”

“Captain, perhaps we’re intruding,” the engineer stated.

“Not at all,” Bugalu told him, surprised by the interruption, but wondering what the captain had in mind. Another woman who always has a reason for her behavior.

“There, see? It’s settled. Sit down and stop dawdling,” the captain told the engineer. She cut a piece off her pie, but paused to ask Mac, “MacDowell, I’ve heard rumors that you’ve started dating.”

“Ah, yes,” Mac agreed, her voice high and choked. “Some.”

“Seems to be a favorite activity,” Burke stated. “Off the record, I imagine even Smitty participates from time to time. Right, Smitty?”

His face turned red. “I don’t care to go into that, Captain.”

Jake tsked. “We’re off-duty,” she reminded him. “You can call me Jane.”

“Never the less, a gentleman doesn’t—” He seemed at a loss for words.

“Kiss and tell?” Burke asked. “Very well, we’ll leave it at that. But what I was about to ask you youngsters is, what are the current trends for dates? Where are the popular places to make out?”

Smitty cleared his throat. “One might wonder if you’re asking in order to use them. Or to raid them?”

“I’m simply curious,” she responded, her voice light. “In my younger days, one of the favorite places was the observatory. They were set up differently then, but they were a popular place for lovers.”

A vise had clamped down on Bugalu’s thigh, bringing his gaze to the redhead. He was thoroughly surprised and confused to see both Mac and Smythe blushing furiously. What in space does that mean?

“It’s still popular today,” Bugs stated. “But since the door can’t be locked, that location isn’t private enough to suite me, personally.”

Burke toyed with her pie as her gaze moved from Smitty to Mac. “I wasn’t asking about you personally, Mr Bugalu. Just asking in general. And I suspect that there are some who like the privacy rooms. There was some consternation when ships started to include them in their floor plans, for that exact reason. Plus there’s a number of privacy rooms, and only one observatory.”

“The observatory is nice for setting the mood,” Bugalu stated, wondering at how violently Mac’s hand was shaking against his leg. “But I don’t need a privacy room; I’m lucky enough not to have a roommate.”

“True,” Burke agreed. “But MacDowell, you have a roommate, correct?” Mac nodded stiffly, apparently not able to speak. “Do you think you would prefer having a date in the observatory or a privacy room?”

There was absolute silence at the table as a beet red Mac stared at Smythe, who was engrossed in his pie and coffee. At long last, she opened her mouth and softly uttered, “I liked the observatory.” Past tense?

Smythe cleared his throat, but didn’t look up. “I didn’t hear you object to the privacy room.”

Now she seemed confused. “Well... That was... different.” Her brow furrowed. “You seemed to object that it wasn’t... intimate enough.”

“You should have locked the door, if you wanted intimacy.”

Burke moved her coffee cup to rest atop her empty pie plate. “I’m a little confused, MacDowell. If you agreed to go to a privacy room on a date, it’s implied that the door would be locked, in order to facilitate intimacy.”

“Well, that isn’t why we were there,” Mac stated. “We just needed a quiet place to talk.”

Burke nodded. “I see. And when you got there, the young man had other ideas. In that case, you tell him to put it back in his pants, and you walk away, find a higher officer to report him to,” she stated firmly.

Bugsy winced. Now she’s going to ask what he needs to put back in his pants. Surprisingly, Mac didn’t ask.

“You are allowed to change your mind,” Burke went on. “Especially if you weren’t informed exactly what he had in mind. Don’t you agree, Smitty?”

The engineer looked up briefly, his eyes bleak. “Absolutely,” he agreed softly.

“But that would make me a tease,” Mac blurted out.

Burke waved a hand in dismissal. “Don’t worry about being called that. It’s a man’s effort to manipulate a woman into doing something she doesn’t want to do.” She sipped her coffee and added softly, “For the most part.”

“Well, what does it mean when a man... changes his mind, in the middle of... you know.”

“Sex?” Bugsy asked in wild disbelief. Who has she been that intimate with?

Mac’s head jerked and she stared at him in horror. “Kissing!” she whispered.

“Colleen!” Smitty groaned, as if what she was saying was painful for him to hear.

“Smitty?” the captain asked him.

He stared at her in distress, then his eyes veered toward Mac, who was staring down at her meal. “I-- I-- didn’t finish a report that was due today,” he stated, pushing his chair back. “I should go do that.”

“As you were,” the captain told him before he could stand up. “The report can wait. We have a young crew member asking for guidance.” Smitty subsided uneasily, but didn’t seem inclined to add to the conversation. He stared at his half-eaten pie and empty coffee cup instead. “Now, what was the question?” the captain mused. “Is the man being a tease, if he changes his mind in the middle of... getting intimate?” She pursed her lips and glanced around the table. “I wouldn’t think it would happen very often. Once a man gets started on that... process, biology urges them to continue. But if it did happen, I’m inclined to believe that, for whatever reason, they had decided that to continue would be... wrong.”

“Wrong?” Mac repeated.

“Any reason will do, if he believes it strongly enough,” Burke continued. “The female is too young, or already has a boy friend. The families don’t approve. There’s no future in the relationship. Even a difference in rank, for Fleet members.”

“That’s a lot of reasons,” Mac muttered at her half-eaten meal.

“And it only takes one of them,” Burke reiterated.

Mac looked up. “So, if a man changes his mind, it’s because he has a good reason. But if a woman changes her mind, she’s being a tease.”

“That’s not what I intended to say,” Burke told her. “All of those reasons—and more—are just as valid for the woman. I don’t feel a woman is being a tease unless she makes a habit of getting started and calling an end to it. But then, I’m a woman. Men see it in more black and white rather than shades of gray.”

Mac considered her lunch some more, moved her green beans into the potato and gravy mixture, then suddenly put her fork down. “Well, this has been an interesting conversation, sirs. Thank you for including me. But I have duty tonight, so I’d better be on my way so I can get ready for it.”

“It was our pleasure to include you and Bugalu in our conversation, MacDowell,” Burke told her graciously. “Thank you for letting us join you. And take over the conversation. Sometimes my curiosity gets engrossed in the strangest of subjects. Such as places to make out on our ship. Smitty, being a senior officer, didn’t seem to have any answer to where ‘the young kids’ make out these days. I appreciate the candor you both exhibited. I hope you have a quiet shift tonight.”

“Thank you, captain. I appreciate the thought. Are you walking me home, Bugsy?”

“Yes,” he agreed, and stood up with her. They deposited their dirty dishes and left the mess hall.