Assisted Living

by E. M. Foner

  “Can’t you smell the grease?”

  “No. I mean, I can when we’re in front of the counter if they’ve been frying that vat-grown bacon, but not from here.”

  “I forgot that your species is a bit lacking in the olfactory department. Sam told me that Drazen Foods exports perfumes from Earth, and they use dogs to do the quality control.”

  “Who’s Sam?”

  “A friend from the Open University on Union Station. His mother is the EarthCent Ambassador.”

  “Did you go to university for martial arts?”

  “I was in Dynastic Studies, but I don’t want to get involved in the family consortium, at least not yet.” Jorb studied Bill’s profile as they walked, as if sizing him up for a confidence. “Drazens mainly do arranged marriages, and if your family has shares in a large consortium, it turns into a business thing with job interviews and balance sheets.”

  “Can you get out of it?”

  “Only by getting married before they find me somebody. There’s a choir mistress on board who I want to court, but I can’t approach her myself. I saw her sing once on Union Station and I could barely breathe.”

  “You don’t strike me as the shy type.”

  “I’m not,” Jorb said, following his nose through a maze of shuttered food booths until they came out at the table-service area in front of the diner. “If I seek her out, she’d never agree to date me. It has to happen the other way around.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s just the way things are done,” the Drazen said, taking a seat at the empty counter and slapping the plunger on the chrome bell. “Ringing the bell is my favorite part about this place.”

  “And here comes mine,” Bill said under his breath, watching as Julie came out from the back with a tray of baked goods to replenish the counter display with its old-fashioned glass cover.

  “Hey, Bill. Jorb. Staying up for the jump?”

  “Just finished my first day in business with Flower, though it’s more like being an employee than a partner,” Bill said. “Jorb hired on to help unload packages at stops after Dewey and I bring them up.”

  “It’s nice of the library to let you use the bookmobile.”

  “It’s not actually theirs. Flower rents it to them.”

  “I’m starting a new self-defense class at the dojo,” the Drazen told Julie. “Can I sign you up?”

  “If the hours work out, I’d like that. Does it count as a team sport?”

  “It’s my first circuit too, so I’m not an official sports provider yet,” Jorb said. “Hey, I’ve got a special offer for you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Sign up for singing lessons and I’ll teach you for free.”

  “You want to teach me how to sing too?”

  “Not me. There was this Drazen girl on Union Station who presented an idea for a remedial choral school on Flower when I was on the student committee. I told my family about her, but negotiations sort of stalled, and then I heard she joined Flower to replace the first choir mistress who only signed on for two years.”

  “So she’s an intelligence agent?” Julie asked.

  “No, she just teaches singing and music appreciation. If you take a few lessons and get to know her, then you could invite her somewhere and I could happen to be there.”

  “You want me to help you ambush a girl?”

  “It’s not like that, she’ll know exactly what you’re doing. Her host family must have told her I’m on board because I stop at their shop at the bazaar every week. A little voice training will help you with tips,” Jorb added hopefully.

  “Are you saying that I sound funny?”

  “To me, all Humans sound funny, but I know that you underrate the importance of vocal control as a species. The Grenouthian director always complains about it after theatre practice.”

  “When will I have time for singing lessons?” Julie asked. “I have my half-shift at the library five days a week, my waitressing job here, our theatre practice, and now a class at your dojo.”

  “That’s, what? Like ten hours taken out of your twenty-four hour days? If you’re really that jammed up, I’ll let you out of the dojo class.”

  Julie sighed. “If it’s that important to you, I guess I can try. But I’m warning you that Flower is the only one who’s ever heard me sing, and she can’t hear very well with the shower running.”

  “What did Flower think?” Bill asked.

  “She said something about keeping my day job, but you know the Dollnicks all sound like songbirds when they’re just speaking, so I can’t even imagine their singing.”

  “It’s what you hear in the lift tubes all the time,” Jorb told her. “Dollnick opera. Thanks, I’ll owe you.”

  “I’m the one who owes you,” she told the Drazen. “I saw what you did to that assassin who came after me at the blacksmith shop. Are you guys eating?”

  “I’ll have the special,” Bill said.

  “The special and a bottle of hot sauce,” Jorb added.

  “Just coffee and a muffin,” a familiar voice joined in.

  “Captain Pyun,” Bill said, jumping off his stool, and then standing awkwardly in front of a man dressed in a uniform that looked like it dated to the American Revolution.

  “Sit down, Bill,” Woojin told him. “You’re not a crew member and they don’t stand up for me in any case. Hello Jorb, Julie.”

  “Is something wrong, Captain?” Julie asked.

  “Just came down to do my usual stowaway check before I remembered that the only way on or off the ship during this stop was on Flower’s shuttles. It’s the private transportation and taxi services at the habitats and orbitals where we usually pick up a few contract runners.”

  “Like me,” Bill said.

  “And happy to have you. We don’t have a problem with stowaways, Flower can always find work for willing hands, but sometimes they’re pretty young and we want to make sure that nobody takes advantage of them.” He leaned over the counter and helped himself to a coffee while Julie started working on the meatloaf specials. “You boys keeping busy with the new shipping business?”

  “You know about that?”

  “My wife mentioned it,” Woojin said. “Lynx is responsible for maintaining a shipboard business directory for EarthCent, and Flower paid extra for a prominent listing.”

  “I can’t understand why Flower is bothering with a little delivery business,” Bill said. “I mean, she must be collecting millions in rents and other services.”

  “She’s also paying a flock of expensive Dollnick lawyers and publicists to repair her reputation back home,” Julie said over her shoulder.

  “Flower is under capacity in more ways than one,” Woojin explained. “As a colony ship, she’s ninety-five percent empty, and as an AI capable of dealing with five million inhabitants, she has a lot of spare time on her hands.”

  “The Stryx station librarian on Union Station does back-office work for all of the big businesses and runs her own multi-species dating service,” Jorb contributed. “Stryx Jeeves is the ‘J’ in the SBJ Fashions business that sponsors Colonial Jeevesburg, and he taught a LARPing course I took through the Open University.”

  “So you think that Flower started the package delivery business just to give herself something new to think about?” Bill asked.

  “She can hear us over my implant,” Julie muttered.

  “Mine too, and it’s strange that she hasn’t commented, but I’ve never been one for poking slumbering giants,” Woojin said. “Lynx thinks that Flower is getting impatient with EarthCent for not convincing more people to come live on board, and she’s trying to take matters into her own hands.”

  “Why doesn’t EarthCent send more people?” Jorb asked.

  “The problem is giving them a reason to stay. As a circuit ship, we’re constantly stopping at sovereign human communities, and between Flower’s rules and the lack of good job opportunities on board, most people quickly find somewhere else they’d ra
ther live.”

  “What’s wrong with the job opportunities?” Bill asked. “I found two jobs within days of getting here.”

  “You’re easy to please,” the captain said. “Most people have educations or experience in a specific career path and they feel underemployed doing manual labor. But I’m keeping you from your meals, so enjoy the jump, and I’ll see you later.”

  “Don’t forget to return the mug,” Julie called after Woojin. She set plates of the special in front of her two customers and slid a bottle of hot sauce to Jorb’s place setting. “Can I get you anything to drink? Orange juice is free today.”

  “Orange juice for me, vodka for him,” Bill said.

  “The two of you could make a screwdriver.”

  “What’s that?” Jorb asked.

  “A mixed drink. Somebody asked me for one the other day and Flower explained it.”

  “I should take you both to a little Drazen place in the food court that serves real mixed drinks. It’s always open during jumps. When do you get off work?”

  “Pass,” Julie said, Bill echoing her a second later.

  “Don’t know what you’re missing,” Jorb said, dumping the whole bottle of hot sauce on his meatloaf. Then he made an indent in his mashed potatoes and added a generous shot of vodka.

  “Minor point of interest,” Flower said to the captain over his implant when he paused to glance back at the diner. “I wouldn’t normally bother you with this, but you’re going to hear about it anyway.”

  “I saw the lights flicker,” Woojin said. “Did you make an unexpected course change?”

  “We encountered a navigation hazard and I had to employ my secondary asteroid repulsion system.”

  “Didn’t you tell me that you can go thousands of years at a stretch without encountering any space debris big enough to cause damage?”

  “It wasn’t exactly debris. More like three armed ships.”

  “Were these the same ships that attacked us last cycle? Did you destroy them?”

  “They could be friends of the Bitters so I settled for punching them in the nose,” Flower said. “I didn’t want to bother you while you were chatting, but I thought I should mention it in case you see the video on the Grenouthian news again and get upset that I didn’t tell you.”

  “I’m the captain, Flower. I’m even wearing the hat. I realize there may not have been time to call me to the bridge, but you could have at least informed me beforehand. And how is it that the Grenouthian network keeps getting the footage?”

  “Thanks to my open Stryxnet connection to Union Station, I sell it to them. You wouldn’t believe what they pay me for a few seconds of ship-to-ship combat video.”

  “Lume,” Woojin addressed a four-armed alien, who was buttoning up a heavy overcoat as he headed around the back of the ice cream place. “On your way to debriefing a field agent?”

  “I really wish you could talk Flower into a better privacy arrangement for us than a walk-in freezer,” the Dollnick intelligence agent responded. “I’ve read a little about your history and I’m beginning to feel like a cold war spy.”

  Five

  “Where are you going, Irene?” Harry asked, as his wife rose from the lunch table with her tray immediately after finishing off the healthy bean-based dessert. “We’re having a board meeting and I thought you wanted to sit in.”

  “I was shopping at the bazaar today while you were baking for aliens and I saw an announcement about training to be an information desk volunteer. I checked with Flower and it will cover my community service requirement.”

  “Do you mean you’ll be volunteering at the library with Nancy?”

  “No, I’m talking about the information desks at the amusement park and the bazaar. You wouldn’t believe how many people visiting the ship for the day get lost.”

  “I’d believe it. Does that mean you’re going to have to memorize where everything is?”

  “I’ve been shopping here for almost two months, Harry. I’ll bet I know the bazaar better than some of the vendors who work there. And I can always ask Flower for help pointing people in the right direction in the amusement park or the food court. Visitors to the ship don’t realize that talking to her is even an option.”

  “I don’t think Flower can hear us over the crowds in the amusement park or the bazaar. But I guess if you’re at an information desk…”

  “If I pass the test I can also become a roving greeter. You must have seen greeters in those cute smocks walking around helping people in the public areas.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” Harry confessed. “Don’t work too hard.”

  “I won’t,” Irene said. She carried her tray to the bus cart before leaving the common room.

  “Couldn’t talk her into staying?” Brenda asked, taking the seat Irene had just vacated. “I thought she’d have good input for us about creating group activities because she’s so social. Your wife is one of the friendliest people I’ve ever met.”

  “Irene always took care of the counter at our bakery, and she would have stayed for the meeting, but she signed up for a volunteer job. Have you figured out your own community service yet?”

  “I’m with legal aid,” the retired attorney said. “It’s actually a lot of fun because most of the questions I get are related to alien laws that I don’t know anything about.”

  “Is that helpful to people?”

  “It’s the best advice they can expect for free,” Brenda said. “Besides, I’m learning on the job.”

  “Any idea where the others are?”

  “We’re early. I’d guess they haven’t eaten yet or they went elsewhere, but I’m sure they’ll be here.”

  “I have a legal question,” Flower announced out of the blue. Harry and Brenda both looked up at the speaker grille above their table in surprise. “What? Did you think I know everything?”

  “Pretty much,” Harry said. “You’re almost twenty thousand years old and you were probably a lot smarter than us to start with.”

  “Smart enough not to act as my own lawyer. It’s a hypothetical question.”

  “About a friend?” Brenda asked, rolling her eyes at Harry on hearing the AI pull out the oldest ploy in the book.

  “Yes. Imagine a Dollnick colony ship, no, a trade vessel, visiting a planet leased by Humans that doesn’t have an established government.”

  “They’d all kill each other,” Harry commented.

  “Say they don’t because they’re too busy playing games,” Flower continued. “And say there was a business on the colony ship—”

  “Trade vessel,” Brenda interrupted.

  “Right, on the trade vessel, that arranged to deliver cash-on-delivery packages for a repair depot on the planet. And say the repair depot demanded to get paid upfront before handing over the packages.”

  “For the full value of the eventual collections?”

  “I bargained them down to ten percent.”

  “This isn’t hypothetical.”

  “The point is, I suspect the repair depot inflated the potential value of the collections and created false cash-on-delivery tags for the packages to deceive me. Is there anything in Human law that gives me grounds to get my apples back?”

  “Is that a Dollnick expression for money?” Brenda asked.

  “You don’t think I paid cash, do you? I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  “Why apples?”

  “Because they wouldn’t accept plums or pears. Bartering fresh fruit is trickier than I thought.”

  “Bits is an anarchy, and if they’re smart, they’ve already eaten the apples,” Brenda said. “How much do you think they inflated the true value by?”

  “Probably a thousand percent, but that’s not the real issue. I had Dewey scan all of the labels for me, and it appears that at least some of the addressees are as fake as the amounts.”

  “You mean they made it all up?”

  “Unless there’s a Donald Duck living on Timble,” Flower said grimly. “A Bugs Bu
nny I might have believed.”

  Brenda started laughing and covered her face with her hands.

  “What’s so funny?” Harry demanded. “So they’re both ancient cartoon characters.”

  “Bunnies,” Brenda managed, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Timble is a Grenouthian orbital.”

  “Flower made a joke?”

  “It’s not funny if it has to be explained,” the Dollnick AI said. “If there’s no legal recourse, let’s just keep this a little secret among the three of us, shall we?”

  “Don’t you think anybody else heard?” Harry said, looking around at the other members of the independent living cooperative who were finishing their lunches at nearby tables.

  “No, I’m very good with acoustics.”

  “I still can’t believe you got taken in by a bunch of hackers.”

  “This may come as a surprise to you, but I’ve realized that I have limited experience dealing with Humans who aren’t living on board my ship. I’ve discussed this with my Stryx mentor, and she pointed out that in my usual business arrangements with your people, I’ve been negotiating from a position of power.”

  “Like changing the name of our independent living cooperative after we had already picked one, and refusing to serve ice cream at every meal,” Brenda enumerated.

  “Exactly. There are things I know that I know, and things I know that I don’t know, but this was a case where I thought I knew something that I didn’t. It won’t happen again.”

  “What won’t happen again?” Jack asked. He pulled out a chair for Nancy to sit and then took his seat next to her. “Did we miss something?”

  “My catering service didn’t bring enough plates for all the new members,” Flower lied smoothly. “Fortunately, you and Nancy chose to eat elsewhere today, and Dave is on a diet. Have some fruit.”

  “Thank you, it’s lovely,” Nancy said, taking a ripe plum from the bowl on the table.

  “Where did you two go for lunch?” Brenda asked the new arrivals.

  “A little Italian place in the food court owned by a friend I worked with decades ago,” Jack said. “He opens for lunch on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays while Flower is underway. I’m trying to recruit him for the cooperative.”