What’s that smell? (Haasha 37)

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Humans stink. Not in a bad way, mind you. It’s just that they lack a broader range of smell and thus don’t quite understand how their soaps, shampoos, and other cleaning products are rather more pungent to my nose.

This did mean I could sometimes identify who was in the room as I entered.

“Morning, Rosa!” I said as I smelled floral notes with a hint of strawberries to my left as I entered the galley for breakfast. I also knew before entering the room that it was French toast day, so my breakfast would likely be a piece of French toast with strawberries and eggs. Maybe some whipped cream on top.

“Haasha,” Rosa mumbled as she stumbled past with a tray that was remarkably light on food. However, she had her oversized morning mug with heat activated writing that stated, ‘If you can read this I haven’t had enough coffee yet.’

From there, the room was just a mix of smells. Some floral, some sharp, a few fruity - although sadly the human need to create artificial smells rather than use natural means some of the fruity ones have a harsh chemical scent to them. At least when it comes to scent, the harsh aspect comes off more as medicinal and “clean”, not chemical warfare like artificial flavorings on the tongue.

As I walked towards the chow line, I passed an area that had a distinct pine tree smell and a lone mug ¾ full of coffee was sitting at the end of the table. I looked around the room and James was nowhere to be seen. I rolled my eyes and grabbed the mug. 

“Thanks for cleaning that up, Haasha,” Adam said with a smile. “It’s been sitting there for a little while and we didn’t know whose it was.”

“It belongs to James,” I commented. “I’ll grab a travel lid and bring it down to Engineering. Hopefully he hasn’t gotten a new cup yet.”

“Oh,” he said flatly in response. “That makes sense.”

As I stood in line, the usual mix of smells from the serving line seemed far more limited than usual. I picked up fried eggs, but that was it. When I got to see the options… French toast, fried eggs, oatmeal, and various forms of sugary chemical warfare humans call cereal. My nose had not deceived me, although for a moment I thought the kitchen staff had as the spread was rather disappointing. No sausage, fruity turnovers, strawberry sauce, burritos, or fried potatoes.

When it comes to potatoes, it was shocking to see how often they appeared on the menu and generally in remarkably different forms. Stars forgive you if you suggest hash browns for dinner, as you should be eating roasted potatoes. Fries are acceptable at lunch or dinner, but never breakfast where it would be hash browns or diced and seasoned potatoes. They can be chopped or diced and put into soups, stews, mashed, and all manner of other preparations such that humans will eat them at every meal without objection. In the back of my mind, I figured you could probably use the following catchphrase:

Humanity - powered by potatoes!

Which is why the lack of potatoes on the menu shocked me. 

“What would you like, Haasha?” the server asked pleasantly as I pondered the limited options.

“Just a piece of French toast with one of the liquid center eggs on top,” I finally decided.

“French toast with one over-easy egg coming right up!” she responded happily. 

I took my tray with a sigh and moved along, still a bit disappointed at today’s breakfast when it hit me. Today was briefing day! Definitely not the day to complain about breakfast or fill up too much by asking for seconds.

First Officer Auggie understands humans well, and as such some of his management methods can be a little devious but incredibly effective. Mission briefings are mandatory for all crew, but tend to be boring. As a result, it wasn’t unheard of for people to skip the main briefing and have to be chased down by Auggie or one of the other officers to get the required information. His solution - hit everyone where it matters most. Their stomachs.

Breakfast on briefing days would be minimal and lackluster. However, the post-briefing spread in the shuttle bay? That would be glorious with a wide selection of treats and munchies! You want to choose a fresh baked donut from a selection of over 20 flavors? It would be there. Burritos with freshly made salsa? Check! The menu always rotated yet was always filled with freshly made rare treats.

The rules were simple. To get the good stuff, you needed to be at the briefing in Shuttle Bay Two with your butt in a chair precisely at 10:00am ship time. Then you’d sit for the likely incredibly boring but mandatory mission briefing for up to two hours, followed by one of the snazziest lunches.

To Auggie’s credit, this updated method to encourage briefing attendance was remarkably effective. Officers generally only had to arrange for on-duty personnel to attend an evening briefing to get everyone ticked off the mandatory briefing list, and the on-duty folks were guaranteed to show up as they got a catered meal in the officer’s mess. Unlike us in the ship-wide meeting who had to wait, they were allowed to eat during the briefing. As a result, it wasn’t uncommon for some crew to intentionally swap shifts to get the catered meal instead of the glorious buffet. 

I found a seat with some crew I hadn’t talked to in a while and happily stabbed my egg, so the yellow liquid spilled out and over my French toast as a sauce instead of maple syrup. 

One quick meal later, and I skipped down to Engineering for my pre-briefing duties. 

“Morning, all!” I called out as I entered the room and instantly picked up the pine scent of James. He liked woody smells, so his soap and shampoo selection would rotate between ones with hints of pine, sandalwood, and cedar. I went over and put his coffee down at his station. 

“You forgot your coffee in the mess hall again,” I said dryly. 

“What? Oh, thanks,” he said sheepishly as he quickly grabbed the mug and took a swig. “Oh, yeah. I need this today. I was about to get another cup.”

I rolled my eyes and headed to my work station. There’s a reason he beat out Auggie for the ‘Dude, where’s my coffee?’ Award.

Aside from knowing who is in a room before you see them or knowing what’s on the menu before getting into the galley, one of the other advantages of having a keen sense of smell is grabbing things you need. I was working on a drive exciter which needs electrolytic fluid to operate. The exciter can be a little finicky to reassemble as you need to hold the outer housing in place, then pour a small amount of the electrolytic fluid down the bolt hole to prevent air bubbles when you assemble and then fill with fluid. 

I hadn’t put the bottle of fluid on my workbench and would need to pick it up from my bin of fluids. For humans, this would mean taking your eyes and a hand off the project to grab the right one. Doing that would risk the cover plate getting out of alignment. I simply reached down to the bin with my tail, grabbed a bottle and brought it up to my nose. A quick sniff told me that it was antifreeze.

It was just two more blind grabs and sniffs to get the correct bottle of electrolytic fluid, all the while I was able to adjust the plate into perfect position. Holding the plate in place with my left hand, I grabbed the fluid with my right and used my finger and a thumb to unscrew the thankfully not over-tightened cap.

Should I have put the fluid bottle on my bench and had it open before aligning the drive plate? Probably. But grab and sniff works well enough. I got the required fluid into the bolt hole to prevent air bubbles without much extra difficulty. The remaining assembly was fast and I filled up the exciter with fluid. The remainder of my time before the mandatory briefing would be testing and tuning the exciter to get it back into spec with the fresh electrolytic. 

This didn’t mean the process didn’t go off without incident. Rosa caught what I had done and stood at the end of my station with a grumpy look. Her gaze alternated between my tail and my eyes.

“You’re cheating again,” she said flatly. “One of these days we’ll do some proper testing of that tail to maximize repair efficiencies.”

“Not my fault evolution failed you and left you with only one thumb on each hand and no tail,” I responded with a smirk.

“Cheating!” she declared as she walked away.

The rest of the shift went without incident, and we all gathered to head to the shuttle bay for the mandatory briefing. Unsurprisingly, conversation turned to food and the post-briefing buffet.

“I hope they have the peanut butter cup topped donuts,” James said with a dreamy look in his eyes.

“Those would be awesome, but I’m hoping for snickerdoodles,” Rosa responded.

As we entered the shuttle bay, I was overwhelmed by smells. Sure, I could detect the buffet and some of the wonderful things it contained. However, mostly it was like walking into a wall of scents all fighting for attention. The worst aspect for me was just the confusion it created in my brain. Hints of Susan turned out just to be Andrea standing next to Andrew, with somebody else that used the same lotion as Susan. Rather than have any sense of who was in the room and where, I had to do the human thing - use my eyes.

The entire engineering team including myself let out a groan as we realized we were late, so the majority of the seats were already taken. We would have to break up and find seats rather than sit together.

I found a seat with the bridge crew and settled in for what promised to be a long briefing. Like most of the crew, I tuned out the briefing and mostly sat back and relaxed. While the briefing was mandatory, it was an administrative requirement the captain and Auggie had to follow. Realistically, all of us would rely on the written briefing officers would send out, which was actually more useful as department heads would highlight the important bits we would need to know.

As I sat there, the one pleasure I had was getting some good hints at what waited in the buffet. While the mix of human soaps and scents filled the shuttle bay, it’s a well known fact that good food rises above. Definitely pizza, and not the junky frozen boxed stuff they usually served. However, what caught my attention most was something truly a gift from the stars.

I smelled some sort of fruit concoction, a subtle mix of orange blossoms, citrus, florals, and hints of spice that was absolutely heavenly. I sat back and closed my eyes, tuning out the briefing and breathing deep enjoying the scent.

“Hey, Haasha!” Katie said in a worried whisper. “Are you okay?”

I opened my eyes and looked up at her, and she intentionally looked down at the seat of my chair then back up into my eyes. I looked down and got just a smidge embarrassed as I realized I had been drooling at the thought of whatever fruit concoction the chef’s had come up with. My puddle of drool not only soaked the edge of my chair, but also had gotten onto Katie’s pants.

“Sorry!” I said while crouching down a little bit sheepishly. “Whatever orangey pastry or thing the kitchen came up with for today. It smells absolutely amazing, and I can’t wait to try it.”

“Oh,” Katie said with shock and embarrassment. “That’s not lunch. That’s my hair. I got a new shampoo infused with natural essential oils. It’s called ‘Orange Spice and Everything Nice’ and I’m sure the manufacturer would be flattered to find out you approve of it.”

She then leaned down, tilted her head towards me, and let her long hair hang closer to my nose. The smell got noticeably stronger.

“I could eat your hair,” I said absently which earned me a giggle from Katie and a number of “shushes” from the people around us. 

At the end of the briefing, Katie let me up on her shoulders so I could take a moment to bury my nose in her hair and get a good smell. It was absolutely amazing, and I’d have to send a message to Rashaak, Max, and Max to see if they could come up with a pastry or other food that smelled and tasted like this. If they could, I have a feeling it would be a smash hit with humans and Py’rapt’ch alike.

I thanked her for indulging my nose and wished her a good day so I could head off and get a full plate of happy. Freed from her hair, I was able to find that my smell-o-vision hadn’t led me completely astray and there was indeed fresh pizza. I grabbed a slice and also found a bowl of fruit salad that was hands down the best mix the chefs had ever put together.

As I sat down to eat, I let out a deep sigh as I took a large bite of the fruit salad.

Susan saw me, and noticed I looked a bit disappointed.

“Haasha!” she called out as she approached with a worried expression. “Is everything okay?”

“This is really good,” I began as I motioned to my plate of food. “But it just doesn’t taste as good as Katie’s hair.”