Con Living

by E. M. Foner

  “So Flower isn’t necessarily trying to make a profit on the con?”

  “I think she is. I mean, she could have made everything free otherwise, but I guess the fees we’re charging for the art show and the vendors are in line with other cons. But Flower takes a long view of things, I guess most of the aliens do, and she really wants the con to be a success for the visitors. Maybe she figures that it’s all good advertising for her anime studio business. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out that her real goal is finding more talent to hire.”

  Eleven

  “Not taking the bookmobile down to the surface?” Bill asked Dewey. “I thought you usually left as soon as Flower reached orbit.”

  “She asked me to stay on board and help out with the early arrivals today,” the assistant librarian replied. His binocular cameras spun in the direction of the lift tube. “Good morning, Third Officer Pyun.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you that it’s Lynx,” the captain’s wife said as she joined them. “Something’s different about you today, Dewey. You look naked somehow.”

  “I left my shelving attachment home,” Dewey told her. “Flower thought it would just get in the way. I gave myself a tour of the residential section of this deck on my way here, and there are hundreds of maintenance bots floating in and out of the cabins like giant bees.”

  “They’re still changing out the bedding,” Lynx guessed. “Flower hasn’t ever hosted humans on this deck before, and sleeping in Dollnick nests gives most people a backache.” She removed three handheld scanners from her shoulder bag and placed them on the table. “And how come you’re not down on the planet yourself, Bill? Woojin tells me you picked up a part-time job recruiting intelligence sources for Yaem.”

  “You know about all the spies too?”

  “I was the first agent EarthCent Intelligence ever hired, the first human agent, I mean. Are you grabbing the shuttle to the surface later with the independent living tour group? These Drazen worlds are quite interesting.”

  “Flower said that around a quarter of the people who took her up on the early arrival offer are coming from open worlds, so it would be more efficient for me to stay here and watch for potential recruits. If you guys see any likely candidates, send them to me.”

  “What exactly are you looking for in a spy?” Dewey asked.

  “I guess anybody who lives on an alien world with a sovereign human community, though it would be a bonus if they know anything about the small spacecraft industry since that’s what the Sharf are interested in,” Bill said. He checked the battery status on the scanner. “Did Flower explain to you guys what we’re doing?”

  “Scanning IDs, answering questions, and handing out programmable badges,” Dewey said. “It will be just like working at the library, except with smart badges in place of books.”

  “Here comes the first batch,” Lynx announced, as a half-dozen humans rushed out of the nearby lift tube and mobbed the front of the table.

  “Are we the first?” a breathless young woman asked. “Did we beat the lines?”

  “Yes you did,” Dewey told her, and held up one of the portable scanners that Lynx had brought. “Your ID please?”

  The young woman presented a plastic card of some type with her picture and Dewey scanned it. The man on her left held up his ID for Lynx without being asked, while the novice intelligence recruiter attempted to strike up a conversation with the first person to approach him.

  “Where are you from?” Bill asked.

  “Earth,” the man said, handing over a programmable cred which doubled as an ID. “Do I get a prize for coming a long way?”

  “Just curious.” Bill scanned the coin and got a green light, which meant the owner had in fact registered and paid. “Here’s your con pass,” he said, handing the man a smart badge on a lanyard.

  “Did you charge me for the lanyard?” the man asked suspiciously. He dipped in a pocket and pulled out a flat cord with promotional printing on it from some other con. “I brought my own if it’s not free.”

  “We don’t charge for the lanyard, and it actually doubles as an external antenna for the smart badge and increases the range if you should go on any off-ship activities,” Bill said.

  “How do I get it to show my name? Is this thing turned on?”

  “You have to push the button on the bottom and then it walks you through the setup. It works by voice or touch screen, but you might want to find a quiet corner to do voice.”

  The man looked around the gently curving section of deck devoid of any partitions or furniture other than the registration table. “I don’t see any corners.”

  “You’ll work it out,” Bill said. “Next?”

  A person who looked like Jorb when the Drazen martial artist was tired and his tentacle was hanging limply stepped up to the table and presented a crystal. The alien ID was pinched between the man’s real thumb and the opposing prosthetic that brought his finger count up to six per hand. “My Two Mountains passport,” he said. “Can you understand me?”

  “Uh, yes. You’re speaking English, aren’t you?”

  “Drazen,” the young man said. “You must have an implant.”

  “I do. Cool costume, but don’t you speak English at home?”

  “My family speaks Drazen,” he said proudly. “They make us learn English in school but it sounds funny to me.”

  “Here’s your smart badge,” Bill said. “You have to—”

  “The button, I see it,” the young man said impatiently. “Is this the whole registration?”

  “The badge will lead you to your room, and if you come back after lunch, we’ll be ready to start assigning jobs. Hey, you don’t happen to work in a shipyard or know anything about two-man traders?”

  “I’m strictly into mining.”

  A middle-aged woman with a shoulder duffle stepped up in place of the faux-Drazen. “The lady on the end told me to talk to you.”

  Bill glanced over and saw that Lynx and Dewey had already processed the first batch of guests, though another group was just exiting the lift tube.

  “Did you get your badge?”

  “Right here,” the woman said, fishing it out of her pocket. “I’ll put it on once I get it programmed. The lady said you were involved in the shipping business and might have something for me to check on when I return home.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Tzeba. It’s a Frunge open world. We’re famous for our semi-metallic cloth exports, and we also do a big business in craft goods, so we have independent traders coming and going all the time.”

  “I actually work for a Sharf who is trying to gather information about the shipping business,” Bill said, producing one of Yaem’s chits with the contact information. “He’s really interested in the market share of the used two-man traders that his species sells to humans. He’ll pay for the kind of information that you can’t just read in the Galactic Free Press.”

  “Is he some kind of spy or something?”

  “Maybe. How did you guess?”

  “This isn’t my first con, kid. They’re hotbeds for recruiting casual sleeper agents. I make decent money as a pattern consultant, but I couldn’t afford my lifestyle without bringing in side jobs. I’m signed up with half the species on the tunnel network to keep my eyes open for this and that.” She noted his expression of disbelief and added, “I wouldn’t sell any information that would hurt the Frunge, of course, but once I got a nice bonus from the Vergallians for reporting about a Horten dance school that opened up on Tzeba.”

  “I see,” Bill said, somewhat taken aback by her matter-of-fact attitude towards spying for aliens. “So the contact info is all on the chit there, and I guess you know how to get paid.”

  The woman winked and sauntered off to program her badge in quiet.

  “Cool costume,” a young man said to Dewey as he handed over his ID. “You must be pretty cramped in there, though.”

  “It’s my body, I’m artificial intelligence
.”

  “Are you competing in the costume contest? I was hoping to find enough stuff to fabricate a robot costume in the crafting track, but it will be a complete waste of time if you’re entering.”

  “I heard that species won’t be allowed to compete as themselves, but I haven’t read the rules because I’m not an attendee,” Dewey said. “I’m just here to help out with registration.”

  Lynx handed a smart badge to the man she had just processed and then joined the conversation. “People can compete as humans, but it can’t be their whole costume.”

  “You mean I can cosplay as a mercenary, but I can’t just show up in a T-shirt and jeans to compete for Best Human,” the young man said, nodding in agreement with his own analysis. “That makes sense. I’ve been to cons back home where aliens who happen to be working on Earth show up and sweep all the prize money without putting any effort into it.”

  Two hours later, Bill handed one of the last smart badges in the box to a woman in her early thirties. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about small ships, would you?” he asked her casually.

  “My father builds sailing craft if that’s what you mean. I grew up in the lofting room.”

  “Like, boats for the ocean?”

  “Or big lakes,” the woman confirmed. “I heard that Dollnick colony ships have a reservoir on the outermost deck that goes all the way around. Is there any wind?”

  “Not that I remember, and there were catwalks all over the place, so I don’t think sailing would work,” Bill said. “You can rent a scull though, and rowing qualifies as a required team sport for residents.”

  “Then why did you ask me about boats?”

  “I work part-time for a guy who’s interested in the small spaceship market.”

  “Well, I don’t know anything about the economics, but I tried a Frunge sunboat on vacation last year. As soon as I got back to Earth, I started designing a hull that would be compatible with those magnetic envelope masts they use.”

  “Hire her,” Flower said over Bill’s implant.

  “What?” he asked out loud.

  “Magnetic envelopes,” the woman repeated. “You know, to catch the solar wind.”

  “If she knows how to loft a hull and she’s designed her own sunboat I want her for my shipyard,” Flower said.

  “You don’t have a shipyard,” Bill protested, looking back and forth between the woman and the ceiling.

  “It’s my father’s shipyard,” the woman said, though she was starting to sound a little put-out. “You don’t believe me?”

  “Just repeat what I tell you,” Flower said. “I’m speaking for the ship’s AI and she wants to offer you a job.”

  “I’m speaking for the ship’s AI and she wants to offer you a job,” Bill said, looking back at the guest. “I have an implant and she’s talking in my ear. Sorry, I forgot to point.”

  “Your ship wants to hire me? But I’m already committed to working here the next month helping to set up the con.”

  “This is different,” Flower said. “You know what I want, just explain it to her.”

  “This is different,” Bill repeated. “Flower, uh, she’s always starting new businesses, and I heard she’s trying to license the old two-man trader design from the Sharf to put them back into production. I think she figures a shipyard will employ a lot of people.”

  The woman looked from Bill, to the ceiling, and back again. “I don’t know anything about Sharf ships.”

  “Flower says if you can loft a hull for a sailboat you can learn.”

  “Tell her I know all about magnetic envelopes,” the Dollnick AI added in Bill’s ear. “More than the Frunge, anyway.”

  “And she says she can teach you all about magnetic envelopes,” Bill repeated. “Can’t you just give her an external ear cuff and talk to her yourself?”

  “Who?” the woman asked.

  “Tell her to hold her smart badge up to her ear,” the Dollnick AI said. “I don’t want everybody hearing this.”

  “Uh, Flower wants you to hold your smart badge to your ear so she can talk to you in private,” Bill said.

  The woman looked at him skeptically, no doubt wondering if it was all part of some elaborate gag. Then curiosity got the better of her and she pressed the badge against her ear and listened.

  “How did you know that?” she demanded thirty seconds later. “No, not you,” she said to Bill and began walking away from the table. “How much? That’s three times what my father pays me. And all the fresh fruit I can eat?”

  “Sounds like Flower’s hooked another one,” Dewey said to Bill. “I think the rush is over, so why don’t the two of you break for lunch and I’ll handle any stragglers.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Lynx said, and pointed at her ear for a moment. “Flower confirms that’s it for this morning. She’s had four hundred and sixty-one badge activations and that’s how many people were on the first shuttle. The next group won’t be here for another three hours, so we can all take a break.”

  “It’s probably best I stay in case anybody has a question and doesn’t realize they can just ask out loud,” Dewey said. “Go ahead. I have a lot of thinking to do, and this is a good a place as any.”

  Bill followed the third officer into the lift tube, and Lynx requested the food court.

  “Is Flower really serious about this shipyard business?” Bill asked her. “Yaem mentioned it to me as a cover story for when I try to recruit sources for him, but it’s got to be more complicated than setting up to sell fruitcakes.”

  “I own a two-man Sharf ship myself,” Lynx said. “I was an independent trader before I was recruited by EarthCent Intelligence, but I bought it back when used ships were still cheap and you could pay down the mortgage in ten years if you worked at it. I don’t know if Flower could manufacture every part, but I think she just wants to build the hulls and customize them for our independent traders, which is something you could do in any space that’s big enough.”

  “But wouldn’t she need to hire far more experts than would be willing to come and live on board?”

  “It’s the drive and the fuel packs that are complicated. Well, the navigation system and the controller are probably the most high-tech, but those are mainly supplied by the Verlocks, who manufacture them under license from the Stryx.”

  “You mean a single person working alone could really build a spaceship?” Bill asked.

  “I’m sure Flower plans to employ more than just the one woman you hired for her. And the funny thing about spaceships is that if you don’t care about landing on planets, almost anything that holds air can be fitted out with a propulsion system that will get you around the tunnel network. The Sharf stopped building the type of two-man ships that independent traders want because they were never that profitable and the styling aged out. Do you have an interest in the ship-building business?”

  “I never even thought of it before,” Bill said. “No, I still want to be a baker, but it depends on what Julie wants too.”

  “You really are smitten,” Lynx said with a sympathetic smile.

  When they returned after lunch, there were around fifty people listening as Dewey filled them in on Flower’s way of doing things. A couple of minutes later, Yaem and Julie showed up.

  “And here’s the con’s program director, who will be telling you about the work opportunities,” Dewey concluded his speech. “Yaem?”

  “Where are the rest of the people we registered?” Bill whispered to Dewey.

  “Flower broke them into ten groups and she drafted greeters from the bazaar to take them on tours of the ship,” the assistant librarian explained. “It will also make things easier for Yaem and Julie.”

  “Right,” the Sharf said, finishing his silent head count. “If anybody has experience managing a labor crew, please step forward.”

  A few people hesitated, and then a man in his forties separated himself from the crowd. “Don Harper. I ran a framing crew for almost twenty years.” />
  “Humans need a crew of workers to frame a picture?” Yaem asked incredulously. “I realize that the corners are tricky, but there are plenty of specialized tools.”

  “We framed houses, not pictures,” Don said. “Ranches, mainly. Don’t they have wood houses where you come from?”

  “Not that I’ve ever heard of,” the Sharf said. “We like to keep our trees on the outside. When I visited Earth, I thought the individual dwellings were made out of plastic.”

  “Vinyl siding, it goes over the wood.”

  “I see. Well, if you can frame a house, I’m sure you can put up pre-built partition walls.”

  “Do you have prints?”

  “Why is he back to framing artwork?” Yaem whispered to Julie in his scratchy voice.

  “I think he means blueprints,” Julie said.

  “What difference does it make what color the prints are?” the Sharf asked plaintively, and then thrust his tab in Julie’s hands. “The basic layout for the merchant sections is on there and you can check with Lynx if you have any questions. According to the questionnaires submitted through their smart badges, most of the early registrants claimed to have been panelists at previous cons, so I have to get back to the office and start sifting through it all.”

  Julie watched in dismay as Yaem hurried back to the lift tube, and then she turned and offered the tab to Don. “Does this make any sense to you?”

  “The layout is clear enough, but what are those dimensional units? Pliffs?”

  “Flower?” Julie subvoced. “Can you remotely translate the units on Yaem’s tab?”

  “Done,” the ship’s AI said, and Don grunted in satisfaction. “I’m sending bots with the partitions now. The group you’re addressing are the ones who didn’t claim to have any special con skills. If anybody doesn’t want to help with the build-out, send them back to their cabins and I’ll find something else for them to do.”