by E. M. Foner
“A planet,” Bunk upped the ante.
“A star system,” Poga shot back.
Baa raised her arms and lightning flashed from her fingers, the rolling thunder drowning out even the driving beat of the band. It wasn’t clear whether she was incinerating an attacker at a distance or just putting on a show, but that didn’t stop the Drazen from declaring, “Devastating. Never mess with a mage.”
The other models all came back out behind Baa, lining up in a loose arc that ended with Thomas, and they all did their best to stare haughtily at nothing for a full five seconds before spinning on their heels and heading backstage.
“That was great, people,” Dorothy told the models as the scene in the holo studio shifted to an underground cavern where a team of adventurers walked into a goblin ambush. “Catered after-party in our offices in fifteen minutes.” The ambassador’s daughter sidled up to Marilla on the way out and told the Horten girl, “I invited the band, so you better come.”
By the time the models arrived, the Gem caterers had already laid out a spread that consisted mainly of desserts for humans, but also included a fruit and cheese platter that the Frunge could enjoy without feeling guilty. Shaina and Brinda stopped in to congratulate the design team and models on the show, but neither of them could stay long since it was almost bedtime and they had stories to read to their children.
“Don’t even think of lighting that in here, Stick,” Affie hissed at her on-again, off-again boyfriend. “If you have to burn some Kraaken Red, do it in the corridor.”
“Why?” he complained. “Everybody is cool with it.”
“Dorothy and Judith are wearing watches,” the Vergallian girl said significantly. “The kind the Farling doctor hands out.”
“Oh, sorry.” Affie’s boyfriend replaced his namesake Kraaken Red stick in an inner pocket and looked around. “Where’s the drinks?” he asked Flazint, who was making up a plate of grapes and cantaloupe chunks for herself and Tzachan to share.
“SBJ Fashions has adopted an alcohol-free workplace policy for the length of Dorothy’s term,” the Frunge girl told him.
“Some party,” Stick complained, and then slipped out into the corridor for a quick burn. Jeeves floated into the office past him while the door was open.
“I think we’ll get the most out of our sponsorship if we alternate giving enchanted bags and accessories to professional players with more mini-fashion shows,” Dorothy was telling Baa as the Stryx came up behind her. “You had a good time, didn’t you?”
“I’d have had a better time if I’d gone out first,” the Terragram replied, staring over Dorothy’s shoulder at Jeeves. “And look who shows up for the party when all the work is done.”
“Jeeves,” Dorothy greeted the Stryx happily. “Everything went smooth as glass, almost. You’ll have to get a copy of the broadcast from Libby.”
“My parent brought me up to date the moment I arrived,” Jeeves said. “Why did you have Judith attack an animated pillow?”
“Thomas and Chance designed the interactive hologram and that was their way around the Farling’s prohibition on Judith’s fencing,” Dorothy told him.
“I might have suggested employing a different model, but I suppose fashion shows could all use a little comic relief. Baa, please come with me. I have something important to discuss with you.”
“I didn’t do it,” the mage replied flatly. “I’ve been here slaving away enchanting fashion accessories ever since you left.”
“I didn’t say you did anything,” Jeeves replied patiently. “I have something for you that I think you’d prefer to see in private.”
“I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of,” Baa replied stubbornly. “My co-workers are the closest thing I’ve had to friends in the last ten thousand years. I want them to see how you treat valued employees if you’re here delivering court summons from the Stryx in another universe for illegal energy siphoning.”
“You’re siphoning energy from another universe?” Dorothy asked Baa.
“It has to come from somewhere, doesn’t it?” the mage retorted.
Jeeves spread the manipulators on his pincer in a sign of submission and then a panel slid open on his casing. Baa turned white as a sheet as the Stryx reached in and pulled out a brilliant red orb that pulsed with a strange energy that was immediately felt by all of the sentients in the room. Flazint shocked herself and Tzachan by suddenly standing on her tiptoes and kissing the surprised attorney, and Mornich and Marilla flung aside their food and embraced each other.
“What is that?” Dorothy said, hugging her belly and wishing that Kevin were there.
“My heart,” Baa croaked, and staggering forward as if her legs were about to collapse, she took the glowing orb from the Stryx and pressed it against her chest with both hands. There was a brief moment of resistance, and then Jeeves released the force field he’d used to contain the energy and it disappeared into the Terragram’s body. All around the office, couples suddenly broke apart.
“I trust everything is satisfactory,” Jeeves said to the mage. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that—”
“I know. I owe. It’s off to work I go,” Baa half-sang, and it seemed to Dorothy that the mage’s entire body was leaking light.
“Would you describe Baa as iridescent?” Tzachan whispered to Flazint.
The Frunge girl nodded, sighing in relief because his tone showed that he didn’t think the less of her for her momentary loss of control.
“Where are you going, Baa?” Dorothy asked.
“To scrape that lying, cheating, free-loading, double-timing, heart-stealing, good-for-nothing, feather-chested mage off the wall of my workspace,” the Terragram replied happily.
Eighteen
“How do they look?” Joe asked, stepping back from the last set of custom cabinets he’d just finished welding into place on the bridge of Baa’s ship.
“Like original equipment,” Kevin told his father-in-law, the highest compliment he could pay the self-taught spaceship mechanic.
“If Baa can’t keep her ship tidy with all of this storage space, she’s just a slob,” Paul added. “I hope she doesn’t try to bargain you down on the price now that the work is finished. She’s getting a reputation on the station as a deadbeat, but the small merchants who give her credit are too scared to collect.”
“Money’s already in the bank,” Joe said, patting his pocket. “Baa came by early while Beowulf was dragging me through my morning constitutional. She paid in hard creds, even though the job wasn’t quite finished, and added a twenty percent bonus because I didn’t charge her for parking.”
“Is she sick?”
“I asked her if she was feeling alright, and she said, and I quote, ‘It’s only money.’ Then she hugged Beowulf, sneezed, and ran off.”
“That must be what Dorothy was talking about when she got home from the party,” Kevin mused. “She was half asleep when she came in, but she said something about Jeeves returning Baa’s heart. I thought she was just exaggerating to make me feel like I missed something.”
“Why didn’t you go?” Joe asked.
“I was here helping Paul carry in these storage lockers,” Kevin reminded his father-in-law. “Besides, it was going to be all fashion people. I don’t really fit in.”
“Do you think I fit in with diplomats? Does Paul look like he enjoys all of those Grenouthian network events he attends with Aisha? It’s part of being married to somebody with a career.”
“It was just in their office with employees,” Kevin protested. “I did feel bad about it, because if I had been there, I would have gotten her home earlier. I told her I’d go to the next one. Dorothy admitted that even Shaina and Brinda just stuck their heads in and left, and then she asked me to add some pickle slices to her omelet. I stole some pickles out of your keg room, by the way.”
“That’s why I begged all of those little cucumbers from Dring and put them up,” Joe said. “Kelly was always craving pickles when she wa
s expecting.”
“Just for the record, I actually enjoy going to Grenouthian dinners,” Paul said, shouldering his tool bag. “There are always a few bunnies who think that I’m Aisha’s agent, and it’s worth the shocked look they get when I turn down their bribes to show her scripts for commercials.”
Joe pointed at his ear, listened for a moment, and then said, “No rest for the weary. Good thing you already have the tools together, Paul. They should be exactly what we need.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Kelly pinged me from the embassy. The furniture finally came in, and ‘some assembly required’ exceeds the capabilities of our diplomatic staff.”
“I’ll come too,” Kevin offered. “Dorothy’s taking the whole day off from going into the office and I think she enjoys running the chandlery when I’m not there.”
“I never thought of her as a wheeler-dealer,” Joe said. “Is she making you any money?”
“She’s not losing any, and she takes stuff in trade that I wouldn’t think of touching.”
“How is that good?”
“It’s stuff that she wants. Her latest thing is gathering alien fabric scraps to make baby quilts.”
“Then let’s get going. The sooner we put that furniture together the sooner Kelly will stop talking in her sleep. I really wish she had just given the renovation contract to the Dollnicks back at the start.”
By the time the three men arrived at the embassy, the floor was ankle deep in the Drazen equivalent of packing peanuts. Kelly and Donna were trying to gather the little air-filled spheres in webbed recycling sacks, but the peanuts were so lightweight that the small breeze created by reaching for them tended to drive them away.
“Don’t worry about those,” Joe told the women. “The shell material is engineered to disintegrate under strong ultra-violet. Libby can just crank up the office lights for a few minutes and there won’t be anything left.”
“I never knew that,” Donna said. “I always thought you had to pop them all individually.”
“That’s just something kids and dogs like doing for fun,” Joe told her. “Some adults, too. So where’s all the furniture?”
“Daniel just took the last chair into the conference room,” his wife told him. “It’s the table that’s the problem. According to the packing list, it’s in those four boxes.”
“Makes sense that they’d ship it disassembled,” Joe said. “The way you described the seating capacity, it wouldn’t have fit in a standard lift tube capsule, and moving it down a corridor wouldn’t have been any picnic either.”
“Look in the box,” Kelly told him. “No, wait. Look at the picture from the catalog first.”
The men gathered around Donna’s display desk and the embassy manager brought up the full-scale image of the conference table.
“Interesting pattern,” Paul commented. “Is it symbolic?”
“Worse,” Kelly said. “It’s literal. We thought that the table top only looked like puzzle pieces.”
“You mean…” Joe trailed off.
“According to the instructions, the average human can assemble the tabletop in less than twelve hours,” Donna said. “The manufacturer included an adhesive that’s guaranteed to be stronger than the onyx, but it’s recommended that we lay all the pieces out dry before applying any glue, just in case. The adhesive’s working time is only a few minutes and the warranty specifically excludes misplaced pieces.”
“Sounds to me like a job for young eyes,” Joe said. “I’ll get to work on assembling the substrate and the metal track for the legs.”
“Did they ship the black pieces and the white pieces separately?” Paul asked.
“I’m not sure,” the ambassador admitted. “I kind of freaked out when I looked in the box and saw all those stacks. Does it matter?”
“The table is all black on one end and all white on the other end, so separating the colors gives us an easy place to start,” the former game-master said, studying the hologram. “You know what? A lot of these shapes are repeated, especially on the interior pieces, so that makes it easier as well. Is it possible to blow this up, Donna?”
The embassy manager spread her hands over the display desk and the hologram grew towards the ceiling.
“I’ll bet that’s the size of the actual table,” Kevin said when the 3-D image refused to expand any further. “Hey, are those little squiggles numbers?”
Daniel came up to the group holding a large onyx puzzle piece that covered the palm of his hand and was about as thick as his index finger. “Quality stuff,” he declared. “I knew we couldn’t go wrong ordering from one of our member worlds.”
“Can I see the unpolished side?” Paul requested, and then broke into a wide smile. “That’s it. They’re all numbered and this one goes—” he scanned the hologram and pointed, “—there. This is going to be a breeze.”
“Does that mean we can skip the dry fitting?” Kelly asked.
“No!” Joe called from where he was laying out the track segments.
Kevin continued studying the hologram and announced, “The numbers are sequential. The white corner piece at the start is zero and the black corner piece at the end is six hundred and thirteen. Maybe we should clean a space on the floor and arrange all the pieces face down.”
“The stacks are in order as well,” Paul said, having pulled a couple more onyx puzzle pieces from the protective sleeve that Daniel had opened. “We can fit all the pieces together like Kevin said, glue them, and then stick the substrate strips on the back.”
“These metal tracks have holes for guide pins that are pre-installed on the substrate planks,” Joe said. “Let’s all step into the corridor for a minute and ask Libby to crank up the ultra-violet and get rid of the packing peanuts.”
“I’ll take care of it as soon as you’re out,” the station librarian responded to the indirect request. “It will take just under a minute to break down the material, and another two minutes to filter the atmosphere. While the airborne particles are not harmful to biologicals, they tend to create a messy film on display desks if allowed to settle out.”
“Take all the time you need,” Donna said, as her display desk was the one at risk in the reception area.
“Dring,” Joe greeted the Maker, who was carrying a large box in his short arms as he approached the group waiting in the corridor. “I hope this doesn’t mean you’re moving out.”
“Dorothy told me you’d all be here assembling furniture,” the alien shape-shifter replied. “I brought an embassy-expansion gift.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” Kelly said, praying that whatever gift the artistic Maker had created would fit in with the décor because there was no way she could refuse to display it. “Did you bring us a sculpture?”
“A globe,” Dring replied, setting down the box and drawing out a perfect facsimile of Earth about the size of a beach ball. “It’s lacquer on copper, and there’s a permanent magnet embedded at the North Pole to suspend it below a ceiling mount that Jeeves will be bringing. The controller handles the axial tilt and wobble, and the globe rotates once a day so you can use it as a clock if you have a good memory for geography.”
“It’s beautiful, Dring,” the ambassador exclaimed. “I can see it hanging directly over the center of the conference table. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“All finished,” Libby announced, and the embassy doors slid open. Dring replaced his globe in the box and carried it in behind the humans. Kelly led the Maker into the new addition to show off the chairs, wall panels, and kitchen, while Paul and Kevin began laying out the onyx puzzle pieces on the floor. Daniel kept the two kneeling men supplied with pieces from the sequentially ordered stacks.
By the time Jeeves showed up with the ceiling mount and controller for Dring’s globe, Donna had ordered take-out from the new vegan place in the Little Apple, and the table top was ready for gluing. Everybody took a break and ate while Joe studied the instructions for the adhesive.
“This is great stuff,” he commented. “I’m used to Dollnick epoxy, but these Drazen glue-tubes are designed with a special metering applicator that’s guaranteed to lay a perfect bead. All we have to do is squeeze a reasonably straight line all around the edges of the pieces, and when we stick them together, the glue will fill the micro-channels scribed into the onyx without any waste.”
“Do we use the same stuff to join the top layer to the substrate planks?” Paul asked.
“Yes, and it’s also certified as surgical glue for standard humanoids. Does that include us, Jeeves?”
“It does, but given the engineering that went into your table, I wouldn’t count on there being any leftover tubes for you to take home for your medical kit.” The Stryx rotated a quarter-turn to address Kelly. “I haven’t had a chance to talk with you since the new civil service exams for EarthCent were announced, Ambassador.”
“Libby told me that it was your project,” Kelly said cautiously. “Are you just trying to convince the aliens that Earth is moving beyond being a Stryx protectorate, or will the exams really result in EarthCent hiring different employees than would have been chosen for us?”
“I worked very closely with the president’s office on this,” Jeeves replied. “I found Hildy to be an impressive collaborator, and I tried to lure her away to work for SBJ Fashions.”
“And you didn’t answer my question.”
“I never should have written that For Humans guide about manipulating sentients for fun and profit. None of you ever fall for changing the subject anymore.”
“Which guide was—I’m still waiting,” the ambassador caught herself.
Jeeves vented a mechanical sigh. “Then I’ll be blunt. The ideal outcome would have been a system that chooses exactly the same people that we would have picked for you, but that also would have defeated the point. The resulting civil service exams represent a large departure from the way we used to do things in two ways. First, we, I mean, EarthCent, will no longer be extending unsolicited job offers to people who don’t sign up to take the tests. Second, individuals who score high on the exams will be given the benefit of the doubt, even if we are aware of minor discrepancies between their answers and their characters.”