"Rise and shine, sleepy head," Madsen called, slapping Dan on one shoulder.
He groaned and rolled over.
"You were out late," Kleppie said.
Dan rubbed his eyes. "Cuz you assholes left the forward bay a mess after the movie," he lied. The truth was that clean up had been a snap but he and Bakala had been up late.
"Well, you were the poor sucker that drew the unlucky egg," Kleppie said.
Dan rolled off his bunk and landed heavily on his feet. "You, too? Kavi said that, unlucky egg."
"It's just a saying they have," Kleppie said.
"And I'm the one taking their language class," Dan replied. He pulled on a pair of pants and slid into a shirt. There was no point thinking about a shower until after his blue treatment.
"Speaking of eggs," Madsen said. "I wish they had them, for breakfast. Come'on I'm hungry."
They headed out and down the passageway. "Stairs or lift?"
"Stairs," Dan said, still feeling groggy.
"Lift," Kleppie contradicted, running down the hall.
A group of four sailors came out from the far left. They passed the lift and marched down the hall.
"Good morning, gents," Dan said.
"Sir," they replied and marched on. Dan watched their retreating backs, wondering how they managed to say sir and make it sound like an insult. What had he done? He could guess, he planned a movie, at the Captain's orders nonetheless, but in doing so he was now one of the fraternizers. So be it.
He took a deep breath at the lift, waking himself enough to not hit his head on the way up. As they made their back towards the mess, the men were coming up the stairs and entering. By the time Dan and his crew made it they had gotten their food and were sitting together in one corner, not looking around or talking. He shook his head.
"We made American food!" one of the cooks told them excitedly as they got in line.
"Yeah, we see that," Madsen said with a smirk. He lifted a burrito and showed it to the others.
"They are trying," Dan muttered as he helped himself. "And it smells divine," he added to the cook.
They found a seat near the video display, amongst a more casual and mixed crew of American and Consortium crew members. They were playing the base ship morning news. The top news story was the discovery of a grouping of systems that included several "high potential" planets, planets that could either support life, or in one case had the right spectrogram to possibly contain life.
"Cool," Kleppie said, watching it closely.
"Princess Sarasvat is expected to give an official reaction later today," Holi said. "Most likely to commission a deeper exploration of the area, or even a station to be built in the area."
After breakfast Dan left the group and went to the healer. Kavi was on duty and greeted him warmly. He went to her. "How are you this morning?"
"Good. May I treat?"
He nodded his approval and she scanned. "Mostly healed," she said. "No need for tank or even any special treatment, just get you into a blue machine. We're a bit backed up." She leaned in conspiratorially. "Someone fraternized all over room three. You wouldn't know anything about that?"
Dan blushed and laughed. "Room three? No, I don't know anything about room three." And Bakala made sure he cleaned room five when we were done.
#####
That night there was a meeting in one of the side lounges, the first of several they would have about cultural differences. It was well attended, almost as well attended as the movie had been. Dan was glad to see that.
Looking around the room, the crowd seemed to have already negotiated a lot of differences. Mandy and Daksha were seated almost on top of each other. Runningbear was there, hand in hand with some Consortium woman. Cross crew romances seemed more the norm than the exception, at least among those who had shown for this meeting.
Oh well, these are probably the ones who need it most. Who knew what could possibly come up?
Janda came in and called for silence. "Drew the unlucky egg?" Dan had joked when he found Janda was going to be in charge.
"Naw, I volunteered," Janda had replied. "Figured we'd had some conversations already and I'd done research. Thought it would be interesting."
"Your patient will miss you, I'm sure," Dan joked.
"Will not," Cheyenne had contradicted. "I plan on taking a nap this afternoon so I can be there, too."
She had come too. Lana was with her, sitting close. Close enough that Dan wondered, not for the first time, if something was going on between them.
Janda directed them to gather in a circle. "This is a discussion, not a lecture." Once they were in a circle he went on. "That said, I will talk for a bit first. I've field a half dozen or so anonymous questions which I will be answering and then we'll open it up.
"Now they teach us in speech class to start by warming the crowd with a funny story. So I've got a story for you.
"You have to understand," he began. "There are a number of reasons why there's been such confusion about certain cultural beliefs around gender and sexuality. Some of it is simply practical. As I've looked through your internet for information on what you call transgender people, a lot of the issue seems to focus on legal issues, documentation, etc. We don't have any of that. Gender is a social, cultural construct for us. It has nothing to do with anyones legal status."
"What do you mean by legal status?" someone asked.
"I found one article about changing someones gender markers on a drivers license," Janda said. "It made me laugh, frankly, because what does your gender have to do with driving?"
There was a smattering of laughter around the room and one muttered attempt at a joke about "women drivers."
"It's on our drivers license," Dan explained, "because that the form of identification most of us carry. It's what we would show authorities to prove who we are. Of course, you guys have bio-identification which would eliminate the need for that."
"Exactly," Janda said. "And it's been that way for centuries, eons. So my point is that gender is recorded in a person's data profile, but it's all self declared and not legally binding. It's there as a social convention, a way to let people know how you wish to be treated, or how you see yourself."
"Self declared? Like you can just say, I am woman?" one of the American men asked.
"Yes," Janda said.
"So are you saying it's not real, being transgender or whatever?" someone persisted.
"No, not at all," Janda replied. "It's just not, a legal thing. That's the part that confuses us. We understand that some sort of identification might be necessary, without our data system to provide biological identification. But it's odd for us to think that the local government, or the school system, or anyone other than the individual really, gets to declare someone's gender."
"So what your saying," Cheyenne clarified from the back, "is that self declared gender, whatever that means to you, is the only real gender you recognize. You can't tell somebody else what gender they really are."
"And the system records the gender you declare. But it's not legally binding and you can change it whenever you want. Which brings me to my funny story. When I was a kid, fourteen, fifteen, I think, I made a bet with my brother. I don't even remember what it was over. But, anyway, I lost. So, based on the terms of the bet, I had to change my public profile to make my gender 'poopy pants' for a period of at least six weeks."
There was laughter around the room.
"But that's not the real story," Janda insisted as the laughter died down. "You're gonna like this," he pointed to one of the girls as he said it. "You are. So years passed. I had practically forgotten. As I was preparing for this little group, actually, I decided to check the records for statistical data, see how common certain gender distinctions are recorded. Our culture has seventeen common gender distinctions." There was a whistle around the room.
"It's not as bad as it sounds," Dan said. "A lot of the distinctions are just how masculine or feminine someone is."
"Exactly," Janda said. "And they are self declared and there are many sub cultures with the Consortium, so there are other less common distinctions. And guess what I found on that list? Poopy pants." Everyone laughed. "Seriously, I was not the only person to have ever lost a bet as a kid. In fact a relatively large percentage of the population has identified as poopy pants at some point in their life."
One of the Consortium women raised a hand. "When I was very young I had two dresses, one blue and one red. In our culture, blue is seen as a feminine color, so that was a very girly dress in my mind. Red is fiery and masculine color, so when I wore it, I thought I was a effeminate boy. I even had picked out a boy name, Cheetadka. When my mom wouldn't get it right, I would get so mad." She laughed.
"Yes," Janda said. "Our culture accepts and even encourages young kids, second dek â thats from age seven to fourteen for those who haven't encountered the term, to explore and experiment with their gender."
"Just like we might encourage kids to play at jobs, to explore what they want to do with their life," Dan put in.
"Around fourteen, the beginning of the third dek, a number of things happen," Janda went on. "We believe that gender becomes more stable then, that people naturally figure out which roles they want to play and how they see themselves. Puberty and sexual feelings begin. And children in their third dek, while they are still considered children until twenty one, have more rights. So if they are starting into puberty and they are uncomfortable with their sexual organs, they might speak to a healer about this..."
"And you guys do sex changes?" someone asked.
Janda paused and thought. After some time he said, "This is another point of confusion, I think. I've adjusted my translator collar," he tugged on his collar, "to tag certain words, because their usage is different. This word, sex? Are you referring to the state of someone's genitals, to someone's gender identity or to the range of pleasurable actions relating to the procreative act?"
"Umm, someone's parts I guess," the man replied.
"Yes, those are fairly easy to treat medically, if they fail to match the person's identity."
"We had this discussion in language class," Mandy said. "The words for the act in Consortium are different than the medical term for a person's genitals or their gender. So when we ask about, say, two men having sex it might, depending on context, be translated as two masculine behaving people or two people with similar types of genitals. Which is why they don't always know how to answer."
"That," Dan said, "and the fact that Consortium is much more nuanced. We often have trouble identifying someone's gender because we don't have the linguist cues that you are constantly giving each other."
"What about aliens?" one of the guys asked with a smirk.
"What about aliens?" Janda asked.
"You know..." he gave a suggestive look.
"Partnering with one?" Janda said. "Permanent partnering? Like marriage?"
"Or just, you know, for a night." The man was blushing now. "I mean a lot of our science fiction..."
"Has green scantily clad women," Mandy put in with a laugh. "Or something like that."
"I saw that show!" one of the healers put in.
"Curiosity, I suppose," Janda said. "It happens. Not so common as Simian romances. C'thon and human is the most common permanent coupling." He made a gesture and a holographic projection came to life. The C'thon was a tall humanoid with bluish skin. It's head was conical, or nearly so, and topped with short tentacle-like protrusions.
"Eww, who would want to do it with that?" one of the men said.
Janda paused and looked at the figure.
"I don't know," one of the consortium women said. "I'm not into C'thon as a whole, but he's a pretty handsome specimen as they come."
"Simians are a remarkably social race," Janda said. "It's fairly well known that there is a direct connection between being raised in proximity to another race and having partnerships with them. For example my home on Rym station was home to a fair C'thon population. I grew up with C'thon kids in my school." He paused and looked at the holograph. "I am not particularly attracted to this guy, but then again I'm not attracted to you either," he said to the man who had made the comment. "You are both just...people to me.
"As far as permanent partnering," he went on pulling up a chart. "We have a chart."
"Aww, I can't get a Raji lover?" one of the Consortium women joked.
"Very funny," Janda said. "So this chart shows different races and their relative compatibility. And no Chitee, Avar-Raji are black. No Raji lovers.
"These icons show physical, intellectual, hormonal and cultural compatibility. These icons show various accommodations..."
"Accommodations?" Dan asked.
"The odds that two races are physically, sexually compatible? Very low. Still sometimes there is love and love will find a way."
"Even if it means climbing into a fur lined mechanoid and wrestling your Bonichi uncle?" Daksha said with a smile.
Janda laughed. "Hey, we've all done crazy things for love." There was a smattering of laughter. "Actually it's a decent enough example." He showed a holograph of a creature that looked like an oversized Saint Bernard and talked about how relationships with humans and Bonichi were extremely rare, but did happen.
It required classes to understand their social patterns, which were significantly different from simians, and the use of mechanoid devices. "It is not the concern of the government who you love, or how. Marriage is between the participants, not the Consortium. However, not all races see mating, love, or marriage the same."
"It's not so different than business," Daksha said. "I mean you can't make a contract with an alien being unless there is some assurance that both parties have the same understanding of the contract. The economic bureau has a similar sort of chart for that, which races have the same kind of understanding to contract logic, and which are different."
"So give us an example of a race you can't be with," Dan prompted.
"Avar-raji," Janda said, gesturing at the woman who made the joke about a raji lover. "Eat their mates when they are done. Unless a woman is suicidal..."
"Okay I get it," Cheyenne said. "But these others, like C'thons. You say you see them just as people, since you grew up around them, but are you really like attracted to them?"
Janda shrugged the question off. "Probably not in the sense you are thinking. I understand, we understand, the thing in your science fiction, the curiosity, the excuse to have a cute person dressed up in some strange way. You can find that in our video stories as well. But in real life it's almost never about that. That kind of instinctual lust is likely only going to be found for someone genetically close to you. But there are other reasons for falling in love besides lust."
They talked awhile longer and while it was fascinating, Dan felt compelled to bring the conversation back to the original topic, simian relations and cultural differences. The Corelean didn't have any other aliens onboard and it just didn't seem applicable.
They talked for nearly an hour. It seemed to go well. Dan had only two concerns about fraternization. Their consortium hosts were almost dangerously naive about Earth taboos. Everyone he'd talked to, and this group was no different, seemed to downplay the potential problems. They simply couldn't comprehend that taboos on sexuality and gender could run so deep that someone might lash out. Glancing down the hall as he left, he added his second concern, those who hadn't shown. They were the ones more likely to overreact anyway.