Fox's first morning with the Consortium security had been an unmitigated disaster, in his own opinion. Chief Master of Arms James Sutton, Fox's immediate superior officer, had been shocked to find him reporting for duty. "Shouldn't you be on medical leave or something?" he'd asked.
Fox had been tempted to turn around and return to his bunk. He would have except that he knew from the talk they'd had last night, that Captain Lannister very much wanted Fox on duty.
The head of Corelean's small security department was Chief Bankim, a broad, dark haired man. He and Sutton had started by having a long awkward moment while they attempted to sort out each other's salute. Eventually Sutton managed a passable Consortium salute and they set to the meeting.
There were nine people assembled. Fox, Sutton, Crestor and Haroldson from the Cambridge, all men. The Consortium's crew included Bankim, Harish, Shania, Sukira and Nara; three men and two women. Or at least, Fox thought so; Sukira was tall, slender, graceful and androgynous. They were broad and had a deep voice, like a man, but moved like a woman. He tentatively put them in the female category.
It was clear from the way Bankim emphasized that "their respective captains" had decided on joint security, that Bankim himself did not approve. After a short speech that did not mention any sort of welcome, he stated that they should get to work. And stopped.
After a painful long pause, one that made it quite clear that neither Bankim or Sutton had any clue what working together actually meant in this situation, Nara had suggested they go over some expectations and protocols.
Sutton had warmed up once they got going. He explained the role of Master at Arms, the navy's version of military police. While Sutton was a little too by the book for Fox's taste, he had to admit the man was good at explaining said book.
When it came to the Consortium, it was Sukira rather than Bankim that led the conversation. The Corelean was attached to the base ship. Her flight crew was military and so was the security personnel. The rest of the crew were civilian contractors. While it put them in an odd position from the point of view of security, it was not that uncommon. The healers answered first and foremost to their own chain of command, both on ship and off. The crew answered to the Captain while on duty, but were considered free citizens in their off hours. It meant that each crew person and each situation was unique and which law applied could vary. Sukira alone of the security crew, had a background in civilian law enforcement and they were regarded as the expert when dealing with minor crew infractions.
Overall, the Corelean was something of a cushy job, or so it seemed to Fox. The healers, the flight crew and the tech crew were all professionals. They were not prone to causing trouble and when they did the threat of a professional discipline on their records was usually enough to make them tow the line. That left eighty some civilian crew, mostly under the quartermaster's command. In the months before the Americans had come onboard, there had been only a handful of incidents that required security's involvement.
After lunch one of the data engineers had come to speak to them. That, too, had been Nara's suggestion and Fox found Nara a welcome addition to the crew.
The engineer's name was Su-nin. They appeared to be male but wore a long blue dress.
"Are you a boy or a girl?" Haroldson had practically demanded, causing Fox to groan inwardly.
Su-nin raised an eyebrow as though they felt the question obvious and impertinent.
"She is galatura," Bankim snapped. "Obviously."
Fox would later ask Nara, more politely, to explain the term galatura. They were, she said, people who were biologically male but identified as women. When Fox offered the word transgender, she assured him that translated differently.
Once Su-nin started speaking, any question of their gender was lost. Fox found it fascinating. Su-nin explained the nano-bot surveillance as best they could given that none of the American crew had the necessary background in electronics to actually comprehend how it worked. What happened to the information gathered was fascinating enough.
The ship's ten data engineers processed this information in a way that was both incredibly general and incredibly detailed at the same time. They constantly monitored the environment of the ship, weight, temperature, air quality, etc, and fed that to the various maintenance and tech crews. Biometrics on crew and passengers could be monitored by the healers remotely. Actual visual feeds were carefully restricted, security had to go through the information bureau and justify each and every instance.
#####
"Good morning, Cheyenne," Dan said as he entered the medibay that morning. "How are you?"
"Awesome," she replied. "This morning, that was awesome." Dan wondered what had happened that had her in such a good mood. "Did you get a call? Or is there a line?"
"Call?" Dan echoed.
"From home," she said.
"You got a call from home?" Dan asked.
"Command set it up. Didn't you know?"
"No," he said.
"Are you going to? I'll bet your mom is worried sick."
"I don't know. I don't know anything about that. They haven't said... Maybe it was just you. You're the hero after all."
"Yeah, but..."
"Don't worry about it," he said. "Mom knows where I am and that I'm okay. I'll get to talk to her when we go home, right?" He found a seat and they talked about nothing. What was there to talk about? He'd had breakfast and a blue treatment. That was all the more exciting his life was right now.
Well, there had been one thing, but he wasn't sure he wanted to talk about it. Kavi had been on duty this morning when he arrived for treatment. He'd been avoiding her without trying to make it look like he was avoiding her, but today there was no such luck.
"No need to get you undressed and in the tank this morning," she'd said as she looked him over. "Unfortunately," she'd muttered, biting her lip. She blushed suddenly, and Dan knew she hadn't meant to say it out loud. He looked away, blushing as well.
After Dan left for lunch Lana said, "This Dan, he cares very much for you."
Cheyenne nodded. She had no clue if Lana could see her face, floating in the tank like she was, so she spoke, "yeah, he's a great friend."
"You are no longer with the father of your children," Lana commented and Cheyenne had a sudden suspicion where this conversation was headed.
"No," she said. They had discussed this before. "We've been separated awhile, divorce we call it."
"The term translates," Lana said. "Advanced technology doesn't perfect human nature and relationships can be hard. I am curious. If it is private, just say so, but you and this Dan?"
"We're just friends," she said. "He's..." she broke off. She knew Dan wasn't always open about his sexuality.
"He's?"
"He's gay," she finished. Lana didn't seem the type to judge or gossip and Cheyenne had her own suspicions about Janda.
"Hmm," Janda said. "This word, it's caused much confusion between our people."
"Yeah, I seem to have heard."
"Perhaps you could enlighten us?" Lana said.
"It means men who are attracted, sexually that is, to other men," Cheyenne explained. "Don't you have men like that in the Consortium?" She felt afraid for Dan, afraid she would discover his sexuality would be dismissed as primitiveness.
There was a long awkward pause before Lana answered. "Men can fall in love with men, surely. They can have sex, just fine. What we don't understand is this, why does that make them different? Why is it a thing on your planet?"
Cheyenne laughed in relief. "I suppose in a perfect world it shouldn't matter. But on our world it does. A lot of people don't approve."
"I think I had a boyfriend like that once," Janda put in casually, "only interested in men."
"Are you?" Cheyenne asked.
"Gay? I don't know." Janda's tone was curious and open. "I've dated all over the spectrum, I guess."
"Remember that Kurgara on the printz station?" Lana asked.
"Oh, Vavva-voom that woman was fine," Janda said. "Best hook up ever."
"Kurgara? Like the woman warriors?"
"There can't be two," Lana joked. "And I agree, that was a fine looking woman."
"But we thought they were all lesbians or something," Cheyenne said.
"What's that?" Lana asked.
"Lesbians, women who only like other women," she clarified.
"Hmm, that's a thing, too?" Lana said. "I suppose if they want they can be. But there's no rule they have to."
"But it brings up a good point," Janda said. "What about the spectrum?"
"What spectrum?"
"The gender spectrum. I mean take the Kurgara. They start out as women, yes. But they aren't women, they are Kurgara. What about eunuchs? What about a Saras Prakitta?"
"Now I am lost," Cheyenne said. She thought for a moment. "We have people, we call them transgender. They might be born one way but they feel like they should have been another, like born a boy but then they want to be a girl. They take medicine and stuff. Do you have that?"
"Born a boy?" Lana echoed. "What do you mean born a boy?"
"You're born a boy or a girl," Cheyenne said.
"No, you're not," Janda shot back. "You're born a baby."
"But, but," Cheyenne sputtered, suddenly out of her depths, "babies are either boys or girls. I mean, either you have boy parts or girl parts, right?"
"Oh, that's a tale for old men to tell," Lana said. "You can't determine gender from sexual organs. If you could, there would have to be, like, fifteen different types of genitals. Gender is a broad spectrum."
"Okay, I am starting to see why this is so confusing, so how does it work on the Consortium?" Cheyenne asked.
"Gender, or sex?" Lana asked.
"Let's start with sex, the whole spectrum idea is making my head hurt. So boys and boys can be together and that's okay? Or girls and girls?"
"Yes, but it doesn't make them something," Lana insisted.
"What about bisexuals? People who are with both men and women?"
"At the same time?" Janda asked.
"No, I mean sometimes you are attracted to a boy, another time a woman?"
There was another painfully long pause. "Isn't everyone?" Janda asked.
Comprehension was starting to dawn on Cheyenne. "What about heterosexuals?"
"What are those?"
"People who are only attracted to the opposite sex," Cheyenne said.
"Now that's a thing? How many things do you have? Can't people just fall in love with whomever without it being a big deal?"
"I am starting to think you guys might have the right idea. It's a lot simpler if you just don't care."
After sometime Lana said. "Here is the thing I don't get. You keep saying attracted to, attracted to men, attracted to woman."
"Yeah."
"But attractive means someone has desirable traits, that they are somebody people might be attracted to. So if you see a beautiful person, male, female or whatever, won't you be attracted to them? Isn't that what the word means? Why does it mean something about me, that I am attracted to someone who is attractive?"
"I guess I can see what you're saying. I've heard people say, 'I'm not blind.' Like you still notice attractive women, even if you aren't a lesbian. But you don't want to do stuff with them."
"No, not unless you love them," Lana said.
"I'm going to have to think about this," Cheyenne said. "It's making my head hurt."
"Don't worry too much about it," Lana said. "Some of our best linguist and cultural diplomats are working on the same issue, and they can't figure out how to translate the terms either."