On docking at the station, the first thing the crew noticed was that it was Silly Season. The second thing that they noticed was that, while they had been being distracted by the colorful streamers on the walls and the semi-random bursts of soft flower petals falling from above, their human had vanished. Hopefully, whatever souvenirs they picked up for pack bonded crew-members would be benign this time.... -- Anon Guest
Silly Season is not a specific time on any planet's calendar. Indeed, it does not appear in any planetary calendar at all. Planets have the progression of seasons and regular festivals as part of the cycle of weather patterns. It gives a form of structure to the Humans living there. Silly Season only ever happens on ships or stations, where there are no seasons and the festivals are nominally present in shore leave.
Humans despise monotony. Once every day is the same and easily forgotten, then some kind of internal pressure hits the collective Human subconscious until something... breaks loose. The Human Hive Mind unanimously screams, "Flakk this," and then every single one of them... goes silly. Humans, it seems, need to party. They need variety to spice up their lives.
It is unpredictable, unplanned, and unorganised. It was also, amazingly, mostly harmless. The Humans involved danced, sang, threw harmless things at each other, and generally created a form of benevolent mayhem that also meant the Cleaners got a feast as well. Many of the Humans got drunk, but very few of them were dangerously so. It became something of a tourist attraction amongst certain groups, though there was never an opportunity to sell tickets. There was barely enough warning for visiting crews to protect or guard their Ships' Humans from joining the melee in progress.
Companion Threq did not know this, and was quite upset to find that their Human had vanished. Ze had just been about to ask if the noises in the larger public area, but Human Ber was no longer there to ask.
Humans love an excuse to party. They're social creatures to begin with and having a time with other Humans seems to be an enormous psychological need. This was known. What wasn't known was how attractive any given Silly Season was to any given Human. Companion Threq was about to learn about it first hand. Again and again, as it turned out.
At Stop'N'Go Station, the Beast of Burden was only there to slot another link into their trade chain. Nevertheless, they happened to arrive at the station's Silly Season. Human Ber was off into the celebrating crowd before anyone had noticed she was gone.
When she came back, she was smeared with assorted colours, grinning, and bearing many bags full of entirely useless objet d'art. One for each crew member of the Beast of Burden. They thought it was over at that point. Their Human had had fun, they had indulged in some variety of pack bonding activity. That should have been that.
Their next stop, Market Square Station, was also having a Silly Season. A time that they thought Human Bar was now immune to, now that she had it out of her system. They were wrong. The only warning Companion Threq got was an almost inaudible, "Whooo," and then Human Bar was gone.
Scruffy, bruised, but otherwise unharmed, Human Bar returned to the Beast of Burden with even more bags almost overloaded with useless objects as pack-bonding material. The crew were pleased, since their Human had obviously had their fill of fun. Humans operate on the Rule of Threes, they thought, surely, their third encounter with a Silly Season will not result in such shenanigans. Besides, what were the odds of encountering a third Silly Season in a row?
The Universe has ways of answering questions like that. It's never a very nice or friendly answer.
The third time, alas, was not the charm. Human Bar, once more, was lost in the soup of madness. Human Bar, once more, returned to the Beast of Burden having blown most of their available Time on functionally useless objects that only baffled the rest of the crew. It was appreciated as a pack-bonding offering, of course, but they were running out of room for the things.
Threq urgently contacted security, knowing that ze could not actually enter the maelstrom. Ze had one urgent mission, and that was to stop Human Bar from indulging in even more retail-themed pack-bonding therapy. Not that they didn't appreciate love gifts from their Human... it was just that none of them had any room for anything like a life-size huggable teddy bear.
Thankfully, this time, Human Bar was satisfied with hand-made friendship bracelets. However, the crew of the Beast of Burden decided to make certain their following stops were not experiencing nor due for a Silly Season.
It was just safer that way.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Simanovskiy]
If you like my stories, please Check out my blog and Follow me. Or share them with your friends!
Send me a prompt [53 remaining prompts!]
