17. The Warmth #3
The day before Earth Night, Borran appeared in the library doorway with his arms crossed, filling out the entirety of the door with his overpowering frame.
Charlie and Orion watched him as he'd looked to Orion, then to Charlie, and then focused on the semicircle of chairs.
His glance returned to where Charlie and Orion stood, and said just one word.
"No."
"No... what?" Charlie asked, slightly confused.
"No event without food, Spark Plug," he said flatly, as though no arguments would be accepted of any kind. "I will cook." And then he walked away, presumably to go to his kitchen and begin planning the intended food.
Orion looked over at Charlie, and she looked back. A smile spread on Orion's face, crinkling his eyes.
"I believe we have just been upgraded to a catered event," Orion said. Charlie chuckled.
The next night at seventh bell, Charlie and Orion stood by Orion's desk as they watched the crew begin filing in.
Borran was good on his word, and the crew saw trays of food arranged along Orion's reference table for their taking.
Earlier that day, Charlie had helped Orion move all his materials off the reference table in order to accommodate the best place for the trays.
At one point, Charlie had noticed him gently relocate a stack of data tablets with a careful hand, in order for his desk to be commandeered by invaders. In this case, appetizers.
Charlie hadn't really known what to expect. She'd originally told Orion she'd be over the moon if five people showed up. But instead of agreeing with her, he'd looked at her knowingly, saying, "I think you may want to prepare for more than five."
And he was right. As they stood there, Charlie watched as crew members kept arriving, the library soon bursting to full.
There weren't enough to create a standing-room only section or anything, but every chair they had put out was occupied.
Not to mention that there was this energy of anticipation coming from each and every person in the room.
There were crew members Charlie worked with, crew members she'd only seen in corridors, and even a few she was fairly certain she'd never seen at all.
The library had fully transformed into something communal and lively.
Tavi walked in among the crowds and made his way over to Charlie. As soon as she saw him, her grin escaped her control, and he sauntered over, bowing before her when he reached where she stood.
"M'lady," he said, rising from his bow. "I have brought you this.
" At this, Tavi handed Charlie what looked like a bouquet but not of flowers.
No, Tavi had gone all out, having made the bouquet completely out of spare parts she knew for a fact had been lying around just that afternoon in the Engineering Bay.
"Tavi!" Charlie exclaimed. "These are amazing!" The bouquet was a tangle of plasma relay coils twisted into spiraling blooms, conduit caps clustered like buds between them, and spectral filament strands trailing through the whole thing like ribbon.
"I knew you'd like 'em," Tavi responded, the smug grin on his face entirely earned.
"Did you see I got one of the conduit caps to balance right on top of that center coil?
Remember how we had a bunch leftover and didn't know what to do with them?
Well..." Tavi indicated the bouquet in Charlie's hands.
"This is the best way to use the leftovers," Charlie stated. She leaned down and wrapped her free arm around Tavi in a tight hug. "Thank you."
"Are we hugging now?" Maren said as she approached the two of them.
"Aw, do you want a hug, Maren?" Charlie asked, not even waiting for an answer before she wrapped Maren in a hug as tight as Tavi's.
"I am always available for hugs," Tavi said, a bit dejectedly.
"Wanted or not," Maren quipped.
"Hey, now. I am a respectable gentleman. I will never hug without consent."
"Good man," Charlie said.
"So, where do I lay my claim? Where will my 'date' be for this evening's festivities?" Tavi asked.
"I'll be standing up here, so feel free to take this spot next to me," Charlie said, pointing to the seat closest to the stand she and Orion had set up.
"Works for me!"
"May I sit next to you, Tav?" Maren asked.
"Always a pleasure, Maren. Be my guest," he said, pulling out the chair next to his for Maren to sit down.
Charlie smiled and then continued to look around the room.
She saw more people she knew, most by sight instead of name.
But even Selowen was there, settled in the back with a cup of tea and a Niblet in her lap.
She saw that Borran had stationed himself near the food table, watching the crew eat.
Charlie could see what looked like a smile on his face, but she still didn't really know how to tell through all his fur.
Kess was there, too, seated near the back by Selowen, her legs crossed and her datapad on her knee. To Charlie, it looked as though she may be attending a lecture or wanted to take notes. But, even still, she was there, and that counted.
Charlie looked around the room. She suddenly felt a familiar feeling wash over her, one she hadn't felt in a long time but remembered immediately.
She'd always remember. When she was a little girl, sitting at a kitchen table four houses down, telling stories to people who listened to what she had to say.
She would be telling stories again, to a new group of people, ones from different planets, different species.
But Charlie remembered the warmth, and that was the same.
"I think they're ready for you," Orion whispered as he patted her shoulder, then walked to his seat. Charlie took a deep breath and moved to the front of the group. The room quieted as she approached, and by the time she turned around, all attention was on her.
Well that's not intimidating, Charlie thought. But she reminded herself that they were all there because they were interested in what she had to say. They were interested in Earth, and humans, and that was one thing Charlie could talk about with ease.
"So," she said, figuring now was as good a time as any.
"If you don't know me, I'm Charlie and I'm from Earth.
And, yeah, I got here because of a failed PERS device, and, yeah, I did land in Borran's desserts," she paused here, looking up at Borran, "sorry again, Borran.
" The crew around her laughed at her admission but also at Borran's dissatisfied grunt.
"Anyway, Orion here said that, perhaps, some of the crew would want to learn about Earth.
So we are starting our first 'Earth Night,' where I'll share some information, experiences, and stories from my life on Earth while Orion scratches it all down on his datapad for record-keeping.
" At this, Charlie stopped and looked over at Orion, who had his datapad in his hand and his stylus at the ready.
"Case in point," Charlie commented, indicating Orion, who shrugged his shoulders.
This caused the crew to laugh once more.
"And with that introduction, what's going to happen tonight is I'm going to start by telling you about a place called Yellowstone, a location Orion seemed to find of interest once I gave him the rundown."
Orion nodded his head from his seat. "Wait until you hear this."
"Hear what?" Maren asked, literally sitting on the edge of her seat. As Charlie looked at her and the crew around the semicircle, she saw that many of the crew members were in the exact same position. Huh, she thought. This may turn out to be a pretty engaging event.
"Yellowstone is one of the United States's National Parks, a group of protected land areas containing some of the most beautiful sights you can ever see.
And though Yellowstone is beautiful, it's actually a giant hole in the ground in a place called Montana, a state in the United States.
The funny thing is, this hole could destroy my entire planet, and humans went ahead and decided to make it a great place to go camping. "
Tavi immediately raised his hand, waving it wildly to get Charlie's attention. "Yes, Tavi?"
Tavi leaned forward. "What's 'camping'?"
"Oh, buddy," Charlie said with a snicker. "Buckle up."
And then, she just... talked. She told them about Yellowstone, with the geysers and the bison and the fact that humans voluntarily slept in structures made of thin fabric literally beside Earth animals that could kill them.
And how they went on to call it "vacation.
" She told them about Old Faithful, and the way it erupted on a schedule so reliable that humans planned their whole day around it.
At one point, Charlie fired up her datapad and connected the music system to the library, playing "Take Me Home, Country Roads," a song to match the mood and the location of Yellowstone.
As it played, Charlie looked around the room, seeing some of the crew enjoying the song while others merely listened to it politely.
But then her eyes fell on Borran, as he had completely stopped rearranging the food table, and was listening.
Intently. He didn't start up again until the song was over.
Charlie made a mental note of it, knowing just what kind of playlist to make for Borran in his kitchen.
She went on to tell them about the Grand Canyon and how it was carved solely by water over millions of years.
She told them about how humans stood at the edge, and how she and Katie had once made the stop on one of the road trips to and from Indiana and California.
She spoke about how she had looked down that mighty natural formation and felt a sense of how small she really was in a world so big and vast, and how, in a way, that thought was somehow comforting rather than terrifying.