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.