by E. M. Foner
Career Night on Union Station
Book Fifteen of EarthCent Ambassador
Copyright 2018 by E. M. Foner
One
“In conclusion, it is the view of Union Station Embassy that our lack of a dedicated conference room suitable for hosting meetings with the alien ambassadors has limited our ability to gain traction on the more important inter-species committees, and as I have a standing promise from a private donor to pay for renovations to the recently vacated travel agency next door, I will be signing a lease and beginning the work of expanding our space immediately.”
“Immediately?” Libby repeated back.
“Yes. In fact, I’d like to sign the contract before you transmit my weekly report, if that’s possible. It would be just like the president to be working in his office in the middle of the night and waiting for me to suggest something like this so he can object.”
“Why would he object?”
“You’ve never been to Earth, Libby, but the president’s office is a bit of a joke.”
“Very well,” the station librarian replied, popping up a holographic lease over the ambassador’s display desk. “There’s no need to actually sign, of course. I’ll just record your voice approval after you’ve read it.”
“I trust you, Libby. I approve the contract.”
“You surprise me, Ambassador. I’ve had the pleasure of hearing you quote my advice about reading the fine print of contracts many times over the years.”
“That’s different. You wouldn’t see me signing a contract with Jeeves, even after reading it, unless I got you to check it first. You’re practically my attorney, after all, and a man who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client.”
“Don’t you even want to know the rent?”
“Donna’s husband once tried to explain to me how station rents and the Stryx cred all tied together, and frankly, it made me a little dizzy.”
“As you wish. I’ve recorded your approval and released your weekly report to EarthCent. Congratulations on doubling the size of the embassy.”
“When can you get somebody in to start on the renovations?” Kelly asked, retrieving her purse from the display desk’s otherwise unused deep file drawer and rising from her chair. “Does Gryph just send in maintenance bots that take care of everything? It would be great to come in Monday morning and find the meeting room ready to go. I’m going to have Donna help me pick out the furniture.”
“We leave all interior modifications to the tenant, Ambassador. The terms are identical to the arrangement under which your husband leases hold space on the station core for Mac’s Bones. Speaking of Joe, he just exited the lift tube down the corridor and is on his way here to pick you up.”
“Great! I’ll show him the new space and get his advice.”
“You don’t have much time,” Libby reminded the ambassador. “The Station Scouts fundraiser starts in twenty minutes.”
“I never got around to writing a speech,” Kelly groaned. “What am I going to say to all of those people after the meal?”
“Most of them are there because they have children in the scouts or because they plan to win something at the auction and get free advertising for their businesses in the Galactic Free Press. The money raised at these events more than doubled when Chastity’s paper began running a special section featuring the winning bidders.”
“That makes it even worse! What if the paper reports my speech?”
“Do you remember what you said when you mediated the disagreement over lane violations for the all-species bowling league?”
“You mean about how we all have a shared responsibility for the children on the station, even if our species are engaged in trade wars? I wrote that part out ahead of time,” Kelly admitted. “I didn’t know you were listening.”
“I’m always listening, and I think it would make a very nice after dinner speech for the arts-and-crafts auction.”
“I guess that could work. You know, sometimes I think I put more hours into preparing for meetings while I was on sabbatical than I did as an ambassador. Czeros and Srythlan both do mediation work as a side job, but I don’t think I could find the time.”
“Find the time for what?” Joe asked as he entered his wife’s office.
“Part-time mediation work, like the Frunge and Verlock ambassadors,” Kelly replied, grabbing her husband’s hand and pulling him towards the exit. “I want to show you our new conference room on the way out, but we don’t have much time.”
“You signed the lease for the space next door? How long does it run?”
“I guess it’s year-to-year or something. Libby?”
“I gave you the standard short-term contract, one thousand cycles.”
“What does that translate to?” Kelly asked as she led Joe into the corridor and they hurried to the adjoining office space.
“Approximately one hundred and thirty-nine years. Just swipe as you would at the embassy. I’ve reprogrammed the locks to respond to EarthCent authorized personnel.”
Kelly waved her hand in front of the door and it slid open, allowing them to enter the former travel agency.
“Whatever happened to broom-clean?” Joe asked in disbelief. “Is that a half-eaten pizza or a new life form we’ve never encountered?”
“The previous tenants left the station on one of their own vacation junkets last cycle and never returned,” the station librarian explained. “Their lease expired only yesterday so it wouldn’t have been proper to send in cleaners before then. We use a Gem contractor in these situations, but they’re on holiday.”
“Chocolate Day,” the ambassador confirmed. “Donna and I went to the event at their embassy for lunch and my stomach still hasn’t forgiven me.” Then she realized she had admitted to breaking her diet in front of her husband and quickly changed the subject. “So what do you think of the space, Joe?”
“Between the two of us, you’re the conference room expert. I’d guess you’ll want a large table in the wide area there, so the counter has to go, and this office lighting is a bit harsh. But other than that, once the Gem clean up and get rid of all the old furniture, I think it mainly comes down to decorating.”
“What’s your opinion on wood paneling?”
“Aren’t you forgetting the Frunge?”
“Oops,” Kelly said. “I guess that would be pretty offensive. But I don’t want the conference table to be a giant slab of stone or some metal monstrosity.”
“You can get tabletops made out of anything these days, and some of them look more like wood than the real thing.”
“Maybe you’ll find some nice artwork at the benefit that will fit in with the decor,” Libby hinted.
“That’s right, we have to get going,” Kelly said. “Will the Gem have the room cleaned out by Monday? It’s going to be my first full week back from sabbatical and I want to jump right in.”
“Have you written up your post-sabbatical assessment?” Libby replied with a question of her own as the ambassador and her husband headed for the lift tube.
“Is that really necessary? You know how hard I worked, and all of my mediation sessions included at least one alien species. It really was a good experience.”
“The report is for EarthCent, not me.”
“I’ll do it as soon as I get a look at Donna’s write-up,” Kelly promised. “I’m not going to copy from her,” she hastened to add. “I just want to make sure that we use the same format since we’re establishing a precedent for everybody who follows.”
“Empire Convention Center,” Joe told the lift tube. “We agreed on a two hu
ndred cred maximum for tonight, right?”
“We talked about it,” Kelly hedged. “You know that some of the other ambassadors will be there, and I don’t want them to think we’re too cheap to support a good cause, especially with Aisha’s daughter joining the Junior Scouts this year.”
“Fenna is ten now?”
“Nine. The organization has lowered the age since Paul was involved. It’s an acknowledgement that humans have shorter childhoods than any of the other oxygen breathing species on the station.”
“I wonder if they still sell raffle tickets,” Joe said as they exited the lift-tube capsule in the giant Empire Convention Center complex. “Back when Paul was in the scouts, I won a dog-washing coupon and Beowulf loved it. It took a whole troop of scouts to scrub him clean, and then he dragged me to a park deck and rolled around in the dirt.”
“Tell Donna you were late picking me up,” Kelly instructed under her breath as they approached the entrance of the Meteor Room.
“Hi, Donna,” Joe greeted the embassy manager, who took the lead for all of EarthCent’s special events on the station. “Sorry we weren’t earlier but I got side-tracked by a job and—”
“You were right on time,” Donna interrupted. “I had Libby ping me when you got to the embassy. And the two of you are actually early so your wife’s watch must be running fast again if she’s asking you to make excuses for her.”
Kelly compared the time on her faux-mechanical wristwatch to her implant and sighed. “The Dollnicks are supposed to be millions of years ahead of us. Why can’t they make a fake watch that’s accurate to better than a quarter of an hour?”
“When’s the last time you changed the battery?” Donna asked.
“It has a battery? I thought it was powered by my body heat or something.”
“Let me see it,” Joe said, holding out his hand for the watch. Kelly slid the flexible band down over her wrist and passed it to him. “You had this before we were married, right?”
“I bought it in the Shuk the first time I met Shaina,” Kelly confirmed. “That was around twenty-six years ago.”
“Ambassador Crute,” Joe called to the Dollnick, who had just arrived in the company of Ortha, the Horten ambassador. “May I ask you to read something for me?”
“Certainly,” the towering diplomat replied. He extended one of his lower arms and accepted the watch from Joe. “The little hand is on the six and the big hand is on the eleven, so I believe in the Human timekeeping system that would make it five minutes before six.”
“Thank you, but it’s the engraving on the back I’m interested in.”
“Genuine Earth watch replica manufactured under the authority of Prince Drume,” Crute translated. “Twenty-five year unlimited warranty.” He returned the watch to Joe, who gave his wife the thumbs down and stuffed the malfunctioning timepiece in his pocket.
“Thank you for coming, Ambassadors,” Kelly belatedly greeted her colleagues. “Early is on time. Shall we go in?”
“You’re all at the head table,” Donna called after her. “Chastity gave the auctioneer a reserve bid of two hundred on everything, just so you know.”
“Did you hear that, Joe? And I have to buy something or it wouldn’t look right.”
“It’s not the money I’m worried about, it’s the space,” her husband explained. “I thought we were going to have extra room after Dorothy and Kevin moved into their shipping container, but I opened the door to her old room the other day and boxes began falling out.”
“She was never very good at stacking,” Kelly observed. “When she and Metoo used to play with building blocks, he built the elaborate structures and she knocked them down. Besides, it’s not like it rains in the hold, and you’ve been storing all of your work tools behind the ice-harvester for years.”
“Just don’t bid on any of those abstract sculptures that Dorothy’s Vergallian friend Affie donated,” Joe whispered as he pulled out a chair at the head table for his wife. “They all look like two melted blobs connected by a cube and they take up too much space. I’m not in any hurry for Sam to move out, and if he and Vivian get married, we’ll want the extra room.”
“That’s years away. She just turned seventeen.”
“Who just turned seventeen?” the Drazen ambassador asked, taking the chair to Kelly’s left
“Thank you for coming, Bork,” Kelly said to her neighbor. “We were talking about Blythe’s daughter, Vivian.”
“It seems like yesterday that Blythe herself turned seventeen,” Bork mused. “I remember because a Drazen consortium asked me to approach her about buying out InstaSitter, but she wasn’t having any of it. She was remarkably mature for her age.”
“Vivian is the same,” Joe volunteered. “She couldn’t have been fourteen when she left Libby’s school and started at the Open University because Samuel was going.” He paused and looked up and down the table. “I don’t see Czeros. I was going to ask him about the contractor he used when they redid their embassy reception area last year.”
“Czeros has a time conflict with a Frunge event,” the Drazen ambassador excused his colleague. “Ah, I believe we’re ready to begin.”
A small woman made her way to the auctioneer’s stand and cleared her throat. If anything, the volume of conversation in the room rose. The auctioneer grinned at the challenge and then let rip at an astounding volume.
“Welcome to the benefit arts and crafts auction for the Station Scouts. I’m Shaina Cohan, and I should start by disclosing for the record that I’m not a disinterested auctioneer because my son Mike is starting in the Junior Scouts this year.”
“The little boy who was on ‘Let’s Make Friends?’” Bork whispered to Kelly. “I wouldn’t have thought he was old enough.”
“They lowered the age for humans,” Kelly whispered back. “Mike and Aisha’s daughter, Fenna, both joined as soon as they turned nine.”
“I have two important announcements to make before we begin,” Shaina continued. “In the interest of raising the maximum funds and selling all of the donated items, we’ve decided to delay the meal until after the auction. Second,” she bellowed over the loud chorus of groans, “all buyers tonight will have their names and items published in the Galactic Free Press, along with a brief bio and your thoughts about the piece you’ve purchased. Brinda?”
A woman who was easily recognized as Shaina’s younger sister and the ‘B’ in SBJ Fashions, stepped up to the lectern and tapped the control pad, bringing to life a giant hologram of a canvas that might have been confused with a police identification kit for a crime scene perpetrated by dogs. Brinda pitched her voice for the large hall and easily matched her sibling’s unamplified volume.
“Our first item today is an ensemble piece titled ‘Family Portrait’ and I’ll start the bidding at two hundred creds,” she announced.
“Two-fifty,” Joe called out. “That’s Beowulf’s paw print up top next to Pava’s,” he told Kelly excitedly, “and I’m pretty sure the second one in on the bottom row is Alexander’s.”
“Why would you want to hang paw prints on the wall when we have them all over the floors?” she demanded. “And what happened to two hundred creds?”
“Two-fifty, now three. Will you go three? Two-fifty, give me three? Tweedle dum-dee. Three. Now two-seventy-five. Give me two-seventy-five.”
“Two-seventy-five,” somebody called out.
“Now three, give me three. Come on, Joe. I’ve still got paw prints all over my apartment from when they got together to make it.”
“Three,” Joe confirmed.
“Three hundred,” Brinda revisited the bid. “Now three-fifty. Will you give me three fifty? Three-twenty-five? Going once. Going twice. Sold, to the lucky Cayl hound lover for three hundred.”
“Next we have an untitled abstract work from an anonymous donor,” Shaina announced, and a hologram of two blobs connected by a pyramid shape appeared above the lectern.
“Looks like Affie has been experimenting,�
�� Kelly whispered to Joe.
“Do I hear two hundred?” Shaina began.
“Two thousand,” the Vergallian ambassador sitting two seats to Kelly’s right declared.
“Two thousand?” the auctioneer repeated to make sure she’d heard right. “I have two thousand, now three. Will you give me three? It’s for a good cause, people. I’ve seen this sculpture in person and it’s twice as big as I am. Three, three, three. Can I hear three?”
“Three thousand,” Aainda called out.
“You’re raising your own bid?” Shaina asked the Vergallian ambassador in disbelief.
“It’s strategic, to discourage competition. Besides, we support station scouting.”
The two Hadad sisters conferred briefly, and then Shaina took up the chant again, purposely looking away from the head table. “Four thousand, I have three, will you give me four. Four, four, let’s get some more. Four?”
“Getting hungry over here,” the Dollnick ambassador muttered loudly enough to carry to the auctioneer.
“Sold, to the Vergallian ambassador for three thousand creds,” Shaina wrapped up.
Brinda auctioned off the next piece, and in less than an hour, the sisters had disposed of all of the donated art and raised over eleven thousand creds for the station scouts.
“It’s nice to see Aainda and Joe getting along so well,” Bork commented to Kelly while they waited for the food to be brought out. “I seem to recall he once had a bit of a phobia about upper-caste Vergallian women.”
“I’m just happy she’s still here,” the EarthCent ambassador replied. “I must have worked with almost a dozen Vergallian ambassadors since coming to the station and she’s the first one who takes our side. What I can’t figure out is why she hasn’t been reassigned yet. They’re the only species that rotates ambassadors every couple years and I’m sure she’s overdue.”
“Didn’t you read your intelligence report about it?” the Drazen ambassador asked.
“I might have gotten a few weeks behind,” Kelly admitted. “I had a lot of mediation work to wrap up before returning from sabbatical. Can you fill me in?”