Chapter Seven
Mooska's
Crystal considers it reasonable that before today she'd never imagined a fancy dining establishment (or would it be more of a Night Club?) as standard on a Union vessel.
She must grant, of course, that her knowledge of Union starships extends to exactly one other, but she has the feeling that this establishment takes its essence from the ship and its crew rather than any standard feature of the fleet.
The 'Night Club' is well filled with crew and probably families (no one wears a uniform so who can tell?) so it isn't the terror that she'd been convinced it would be.
Of course, she's only been in the long, curved room which hugs the shape of the portside hull for five seconds but the soft instrumental music, the dim light enhanced by short electric faux candles on the tables and the relaxed, casually mingling guests resemble very little a medieval torture dungeon so just maybe….
John LaMarr, a step behind her, comes beside her and very gently touches her bare arm, and she looks to her left to the conversing quintet. "This is Linda, Peggy, Helen, Joe and Pete. Guys, this is Crystal."
xx
The next hour is a whirlwind of informal socializing during which Crystal hears not a single last name nor rank, even among those she's met earlier. Few are the uniforms that appear, Captain Mercer being a notable exception even in his off-shift, and the styles and colors of other crew-members' attire range from the unique to the outlandish but they are ways of silently establishing ones' self. The women tend to go to gowns to which the spectrum contributes liberally while the men's styles can be generously described as non-uniform.
Mooska himself is far removed from anything she could have dreamed up. Taller than she, he wears a black and white tuxedo of bygone era rather than the sober attire Kate (whomever) has told her he usually wears. There is nothing somber in his manner, he is the quintessential host keeping the party going.
Were she to try to describe him she would get little further than an extraordinary face of mingled mild green and light brown that flows in complete disregard for the expected, coupled with pointed ears that launch themselves from either side of his head and keep going as far as is desired. He is a jolly [what is he?] elf - okay, maybe not but in keeping with the spirit of the Season she'll think of him as an elf until corrected - who sets the social tone and, by tacit agreement she and her fellows from the Tesla do not spend more than moments together. There are simply too many beings to meet even on the cross shifts.
x
She met with Commander Gr – with Kelly, who's wearing a green dress she wishes she could have had, none of this half-bared thing that makes her feel too sexy for … for anything. They'd spoken for a few minutes during which the subject had turned to elevator music and someone named Dann, who she should get together with here to discuss Thursday's music. That's an easy thing, she thinks with relief. She can rattle off a hundred titles without any thought at all – something she feels is the way she does most things anyway, but there's going to be absolutely no references to Grandma getting run over by a reindeer nor to Frosty and his magical top hat. She's finally in something she's confident in and her 'flock' is going to be brought in right.
x
She has her first brief moment of comfort, only because it's so familiar, when the vast buffet has been laid out on a table that gave new depth to the term 'groaning board', when Captain Mercer, one of the few in the room still in uniform, says in slightly more than conversational volume "Mother McGee, would you please lead us in Grace?"
She's relieved because she hadn't known the most discreet way of raising the point, had not wanted to be conspicuous and had resolved to offering a silent private prayer for everything and everyone. With the Captain's words she realizes that the days of underscored discretion in such scenes are over.
She raises a hand, pretends comfort and familiarity as though she's done this type of thing at every meal –
And promptly forgets every Blessing she's ever learned.
x
"Thank you, Captain," she temporizes, her arm slowly falling as if of its own weight. "Ladies and Gen – I mean 'brothers and sist' – that is…. I know we… we represent different cultures and cust – I mean –" The music shifts to something appropriate. 'Who's doing that?'
Perhaps it's her Guardian Angel come to her rescue, perhaps not, but there flashes into her mind the voice and image of Fr. James McKnight: 'When called upon for extemporaneous prayer, and you will be, don't try to think or remember, just raise your voice and charge ahead.'
She raises her hand again and fights not to stammer.
"Father, we thank you for this day, for friendships new and renewed. We ask you to Bless this food to our use, our lives to thy continuous Service, in the Name of – in Your Holy Name, Amen."
There's a comingled reply in more words and languages than she can discern; she just works to hold her smile and forces herself to breathe.
First one is done, only three hundred thousand to go, but she remembers to give the small replies of gratitude at the compliments that come at the start of each conversation she drifts into. Everyone in the lounge is very much at casual ease and in due course she finds herself with Alara at the bar.
x
"What are you drinking?" Alara asks, taking note of the thicker than usual remnant coating the upper half of her glass.
"Pear nectar."
"What's that?"
"It's from my planet, the juice of a fruit together with some of the fruit itself to give it 'body'." Finding a used glass in reach and a paper napkin, she scrubs the glass inside and out and pours a measure in. "Try it."
Alara is cautious; humans and Xelayans are compatible, as she's lately confirmed once again and most thoroughly, but still little can be said for taste. She tries a sip of the sweet, somewhat thick concoction.
"What'll it be?" Mooska asks in jovial tones from the other side of the bar. "Your usual?"
She chunks the glass down upon the wood. "Pear nectar."
The look he favors the new priest with says 'you've started something'.
"Surprised you're not having something stronger," Alara observes. She would and this isn't even her party, it's for the newcomers.
"Never. I do not touch alcohol. Even the wine I use in the Eucharist is unfermented grape juice."
"Is that 'legal'?"
"Absolutely."
x
Alara has no idea, having only ever heard of 'bread and wine' in the ceremony she thinks her new friend is alluding to. For her part, she revels in down time and the opportunity to chat with her new and apparently no longer nervous friend, right up to the moment when she sees the Priest's eyes light, predictably, upon the blinking silver band around her throat, declaring it 'a very lovely piece'.
She wishes the woman hadn't noticed it, but it's hard not to see, particularly in the dimmed light, the sets of three tiny irregularly blinking lights at the ends of each silver band. Contact with her bare skin sets the blue, green and red lights on each side in complex independent blinking patterns of light.
"Thank you. It's called a Talmed."
"Tal - med?"
"It's worn, well, in Thuzindra, one of the nine countries of Xelaya. I'm amazed he found it." 'And I wish he hadn't.'
One of Gordon's endearing qualities is his diligence. Tonight, it's not a blessing.
x
"Do the colors mean anything?"
She can't look at the woman's face, looks out the huge port and its view of passing celestial matter instead, but she's never been one to run from anything and won't start it now, not with a new shipmate and especially one whose job is that she's intended to be a Confidant.
Who knows, maybe some day she may be a friend?
She forces herself to meet the woman directly. "Yes. Yes, they do."
"Why am I sensing something really terrible?"
She wants to deny it, to fight it, but "Because you are sensing something really terrible."
x
"What?" Crystal asks, her voice low.
Alara doesn't know this human priest, but "Can I trust you to keep a secret?"
Now it's the woman's turn to look uncomfortable. She drops her voice so low that she supposes only Xelayan ears could pick up her words clearly. "As Security Chief you'll understand that I'm legally bound to tell you that outside of the Absolute Confidentiality of a Sacramental Confession, I must report anything that has to do with your being a danger to yourself or someone else, if a child is in danger, or if I am to testify in Court."
"I respect that. No, none of those things."
"Then I'm all ears."
Perhaps it's a subconscious thing but Kitan reaches up, touches the straight canals of her distinctive pointed ears but she smiles briefly, lowers her hand and admits "That's usually my line with humans."
"Sorry."
"No. It's –."
x
Crystal can count the number of seconds her new shipmate is caught under the music, decides she's intruded into something intensely personal and flashes through her mind for a graceful way to end the conversation when Alara touches the unsynchronized blinking band very briefly.
"This is known among a subculture in Thuzindra," she says, the point emphasizing her discomfort, "and it announces the terms of a relationship between two people. The colors have meanings, the pattern has a meaning. He had his own interpretations about each of the colors, doesn't know a Xelayan's and thought I'd like it."
"And you don't?" She keeps to her quietest voice.
"It's not that exactly, it's that the colors…. To a Thuzindran the blue announces I'm paired, what to a human would be 'engaged', which is fine because he doesn't know it and who knows, maybe some day…." She visibly reconsiders the point before resuming.
"Actually, it's more like 'bonded', a deeper attachment or, well, more than what humans perceive an engagement to be."
"Sounds good." 'So far,' she keeps from her face and her non-committal tone. Her friend's announces that another boot is about to drop and she realizes neither of them want it to.
"The green announces I'm sexually active but with only one person, which is also true though I'd crawl under the deck plating if someone were to read that. That is absolutely no one's business."
"Definitely not," she says with as much emphatic agreement as seems appropriate. 'I don't want lights announcing my sex life – if I had one.' "And the red?"
Kitan's face reddening to the same shade as the light, she whispers "It tells everyone who can read it that I am totally Submissive to my Master."
"Master?" The floor seems to drop out from anything romantic.
"The message, for anyone who can read it, is that I'm a Taken, Owned and Bonded Sex Slave."
x
Crystal's eyes widen; she's sure if they could get wider it would hurt. Her mouth slowly falls open before she can stop it and clamp it shut. "Oh my God," is the tiniest of whispers. "And he doesn't know?"
"Absolutely clueless. He chose the colors because he thinks it's pretty. He would neverhumiliate me like this."
"I swear, I'll never tell a soul."
x
Alara believes the woman, suspects she had better learn to trust her for if she understands her new friend's job, which she doesn't, the Chaplain's role is to be a confidant and, if necessary, mediator, but telling her this only solidifies her determination that "I am never going to put this on again. Thank Xinxis this is only the second Reception we've had all year and if we do have another, I'm reporting myself sick."
"Hardly a reason for that. What woman wears the same jewelry to two consecutive parties?"
A Human trait? But these are humans. "Thank Xinxis."
"Now that is something we can talk about," Crystal says at normal volume. "Beside the obvious, who is Xinxis?"
That's when the room goes black.