My First Christmas

I should’ve listened when the union rep told me I should wait for another navigator — any navigator — as long as they weren’t human. “Too much trouble,” they said. Noooo, I was in too much of a hurry and hired on the human.

It is important to me that I am good captain. To that end, I’ve accumulated a set of rules, guidelines, if you will, to keep me moving in that direction. I’ve written them all down in a tablet; sixty-eight rules so far.

Rule thirty-one: Allow the crew to express themselves when it does not interfere with the operation of the vessel or the morale of other crew members.

Now there were multicolored lights that served no purpose strung up through the passageways, decorations of giant ice crystals on the bulkheads, and one of a fat human in some sort of ceremonial garb on a bulkhead in the mess.

The human’s cabin had been piling up with small, brightly colored boxes. At every station she left with another of the crew to “go shopping” and would return with more stuff that got piled in her cabin. At the last station she’d been ecstatic to return with a replica Terran tree.

As soon as the human’s contract expired, I’d let her go and hire another navigator…even one fresh out of academy. Perhaps then, my life could return to some semblance of normal.

I absentmindedly groomed my mandibles with my forelimbs. Not exactly good manners, but I was never known for that.

“Hey, Cap, you alright?” the human asked.

“Why do you ask?”

“It’s just that when you start grooming your mandibles it usually means you’re moody or thinking hard.” She turned toward me with her strange face. 

Humans were in that weird place between predator and prey, sharing features with both. When they looked right at you with their binocular vision, though, they felt like complete predator, tickling some long-forgotten part of my hindbrain.

“Navigator Katerina, what is the meaning of the lights and water ice crystals?”

“Cap, I told you before, just call me Kat. The lights and snowflakes and Santa are decorations for Christmas.”

“Nav—Kat, what is it? Some human thing, I assume. The way you’re hoarding in your cabin, I’d think it was a nesting display, but I haven’t read of any such thing with humans.” That gave me a disturbing thought and I did my best to keep my forelimbs and antennae from giving it away. “Is it a nesting display? Are you going into heat?”

“Why, Captain Hintoolia of the Creela, Hin — you don’t mind if I call you Hin? — I think you’ve embarrassed yourself.” She laughed. While it might be taken by some as a threat display, I knew it was a gesture of mirth.

She regained her composure and ran one of her fleshy hands across my shoulder cap carapace. “No, Hin, humans don’t have a season to go ‘in heat’ like some. I’m not hoarding, just storing presents away until Christmas.”

“Again, what is it?!” I’d just broken one of my rules for being a good captain.

Rule twelve: don’t raise your voice in anger or frustration.

She shrunk down in her seat. “Sorry, Captain.”

“No, no, I’m sorry, Kat. I shouldn’t have raised my voice.” I settled my wing carapaces and calmed myself. “Please tell me what Christmas is.”

“Christmas is a mid-winter festival,” she said. “It started out with pagans that worshipped the rebirth of the sun, got picked up by a few other religions, then a really popular religion picked up on it as the birth date of their messiah.

“From there, it turned into a more secular, commercial holiday. A decorated tree, like the pagans, a saint turned into a symbol of commerce, stuff like that. Mostly, it’s an excuse for everyone to gather in the dark of winter, eat too much, and exchange gifts.”

“A religious holiday, then?”

“For some. Not for me.”

“As the only human aboard, are you giving all those gifts to yourself?”

She straightened up and her face brightened. “No, silly. Those are everyone’s gifts. The rest of the crew are excited for it. I was going to loop you in at the next port. You’re the last one to join in.”

“Why would you want to celebrate a human midwinter festival on a ship where you’re the only human and there is no winter or summer or even days and nights?”

“Well, I’ve been on the crew for half a cycle, and everyone’s made me feel like part of the family. It just seemed right.” She placed her hand on my shoulder carapace again. “I’ll make you a deal: join us for this, and if you don’t like it, we’ll cancel the plans for the other holidays.”

“Other holidays?” I asked. I hated to admit it, but her fleshy hands felt good on my carapace; warm, smooth, and I could feel her heartbeat.

“We decided that we’d celebrate one holiday from everyone’s home world once a cycle. That’s currently seven holidays per cycle, unless we hire on someone from another world.”

I thought about it. The human hadn’t been nearly as disastrous as I’d been led to believe they were. She was a competent navigator, even finding us a path around a border skirmish that let us get to our destination on time with the fuel we had.

“Deal,” I said, holding out a manipulator for the human “handshake” gesture.

The next station we stopped at for refueling, she invited me to go shopping with her. The experience was at once unnerving and relaxing somehow, as she walked me through the hustle and bustle of the station’s shopping quarter. She pointed out trinkets and knickknacks, naming which crew member each was perfect for.

It was fun until she said, “You should decide who you want to give a gift to. Nobody is forced to participate, and no one will take it badly if you don’t get them something. But if there’s anyone you feel you should give a gift to, now’s the time to get it.”

That sounded fine and well, but I couldn’t, as a “good captain,” only give gifts to specific crew members.

Rule twenty-eight: Never allow favoritism to affect your actions or choices.

I would either need to get everyone a gift, or no one.

Rule sixty: Anything that improves morale without jeopardizing the ship or the mission is a Good Thing.

“Gifts for all it is,” I said. “But, um….”

Rule one: Never be afraid to admit mistakes.

Rule seven: Never hesitate to ask for help when you need it.

“Kat, I’m very sorry, but I wasn’t paying close attention when you were pointing out which items were a good choice for specific crew members. Could you…help me?”

Her face brightened. “Of course, Hin! Let’s do it!”

I worried that her sudden exuberance might cause an issue in the crowded shops. I needn’t have worried; she navigated them as though she had an innate sense of where the crowd would part and where it would compact. Maybe it was one of those mythical human powers I’d heard about. I decided I’d ask her about it another time.

We were finishing up at the last shop and she was so excited I thought her skeleton would jump out of its meat…or however that human saying goes. She’d found the “perfect” gloves for the engineer, a four-armed creature with six grasping digits on each manipulator that could move in ways that would make one think they didn’t have an endoskeleton.

After paying for the gloves, she bounced out of the shop to wait for me on the promenade. The shopkeeper totaled up my purchases and piled them into a disposable tote. “Humans, huh?” he asked.

I just clacked my mandibles once and caught up to her on the promenade. “We’re done, right?” I asked.

She pointed to a small shop. “One more stop,” she said. The shop had human goods; mugs shaped for human manipulators — although the size of some of them made me think that some humans must be gargantuan — shirts made for a body with two arms on level with the head opening, and a host of trinkets, gadgets, and snacks that I didn’t begin to comprehend.

We carried our goods in, and she walked up to a side counter and waved over a human working there. “We have a bunch of gift-wrapping to do.”

“No problem,” the human male said. “What’s the occasion?”

“We’re declaring it Christmas.”

“Nice! If you fill out those slips there and put each one with the item we’ll get ’em wrapped and tagged for you.”

She filled out the slips and laid out the gifts, fifteen in all, including the gloves for the engineer. How she could remember what gift went to which crew member was beyond me, but she did seem to have a sharp mind when she applied herself.

“I’ll ping your comm when these are ready,” the human male said.

“Sure,” Kat said, “let me give you my con—”

“Contact me, instead,” I said. “Most of these are my fault anyway.”

“You sure, Cap?”

“I’m sure,” I said. “Can you check with the courier office and see if there are any priority packages we can pick up for Sigre-7 station? It’s not much, but a little extra cash doesn’t hurt.”

“Sure thing, Cap. When you’re done you can stow all that in my cabin. I don’t mind, since it’s just until the next jump. We’ll celebrate while we’re in the lane with nothing else to do.”

Navigator Katerina was not the only person capable of sneaky planning. I don’t know what got me so in the mood, but as soon as she left the shop, I caught the male’s attention.

“What would be a good gift for an adult human female, class one navigator?” I asked.

“Tell me some more about her,” he said, “and we’ll figure it out together.”

I left the packages on the pile in her cabin, save one that I hid in my own cabin. Something made me want to surprise her with it. I wasn’t sure whether it was a dominance thing or a predator thing or something else entirely.

True to her word, as soon as we jumped and were in the hyperlane, she set the small artificial tree on a table in the mess and piled the packages around it. She asked me to wait for everyone in the mess while she gathered them all.

On the way, I snuck the package out of my cabin and hid it at the bottom of the pile of packages. Just in time, too, as the entire crew piled in in a rush.

Kat entered, wearing a hat like the one in the picture of the fat human, and called out, “Merry Christmas!”

We all returned the greeting, curious about what would happen next.

She pulled a tray of snacks out of the galley, along with mild-intoxicant drinks. The snacks and drinks were all different for each species’ specific metabolism. Guessing by the sweet-grubs and prathjuice she supplied for myself and Loadmaster Misteel, they were all special occasion dishes and drinks.

“Now,” she said, “while we all sit around and get fat and happy, I’ll play Santa and pass out the presents.” With that, she began picking up the packages and delivering them to the person on the tag.

After she’d delivered three or four, she stopped and looked at us. “Well, go ahead and open them! Half the fun is discovering what you got!”

It soon turned into a frenzy of ripping open the brightly colored paper, being pleasantly surprised by the thoughtful gift, finding the tag, and thanking the one that provided the gift. Kat laughed and sang some silly song in a human language that was peppy and bouncy.

At Kat’s suggestion, I had gotten Engineer Gr’flktn a multi-tool with a knife that seemed to fascinate her to no end. Even as she opened other gifts, she kept manipulating the tool in one hand, opening a tool, feeling it, then closing it.

“Cut-proof gloves?!” Gr’flktn called out. “Kat! How did you know?”

Kat put an arm around her and pointed to the bandages on three of her digits. “I’m observant.”

It seemed as though every one of the crew bought me something. Some were decorations for my admittedly sparsely furnished cabin, some were treats from my home world, and one, from Kat, was an antique navigation calculator.

It was beat-up and of no use for modern navigation, but it was the same make and model as my brood-mother’s brood-mother had used so many cycles ago. It looked just like the one that sat on the shelf in my brood-mother’s home.

I turned it over, and there it was, the markings my ancestor had made on it when she received it brand new.

“How...how did you get this?” I asked.

Last time we were on Krola station, I called your brood-mother to find out what would be a good gift for you. She said she wanted to pass it on, and had it couriered to one of the stations on our route. So, I guess it’s really from your mom.”

“My brood-mother may have supplied it, but you were the one who thought to reach out to her to ask. And that was only a few ship-days after you boarded.”

“Well, you were willing to take a chance on a human, so I thought I would get you something that showed I appreciated it.” She went back to handing out the gifts until the only one left was the one I’d placed there.

There were murmurs and apologies from the crew for not getting her something, when she’d done so much for everyone. The general consensus was that they’d make it up to her next time.

“Really, don’t worry, guys. Everyone here has been so helpful. I told you, you didn’t have to get me anything, and I meant it. Giving gifts is the best part for me, anyway.”

There was a great deal of conversation going while she looked at the package. I got the feeling that she’d be getting special treatment from most of the crew for a while.

Finally, she opened the package, and her eyes began leaking liquid. I’d heard this was a bad thing. “I—I’m sorry,” I said, “if that made you—”

“No,” she cut me off, “there’s nothing to apologize for.” She lifted the tea mug with built-in strainer out of the box and showed everyone the picture of her as a child with her parents on the mug.

“I guess the guy at the gift store helped you find my socials,” she said, “but it’s just so thoughtful of you. It’s been ages, but I still miss them every day, and now they’ll always be by my side on the bridge. Thank you so much.”

Gr’flktn tested the cut-proof gloves with the very sharp blade of the multi-tool, then turned to me. “Captain, have you decided whether you’ll extend Kat’s contract, or are you still thinking it will be just the one cycle?”

Rule fifty-four: Good crew members are hard to find, so when you find one, sign them for as long as you can.

“I think we can negotiate a long-term contract with the union, if you are so inclined Kat? I mean, this is only my first Christmas, and I wouldn’t want to mess it up next cycle.”