by E. M. Foner
“Funny she didn’t set off an alarm when she came in,” the invisible Chert ambassador commented.
“The company of Ambassador McAllister would have prevented it,” Srythlan replied slowly.
Aainda loaded her plate with fruit salad from Earth trees cultivated on the station, and Kelly followed suit, adding a few crackers and pouring herself a half-glass of wine from the bottle Czeros had nearly depleted. She couldn’t help watching the Vergallian out of the corner of her eye to see if she would carry on with her deception. It was obvious that all of their colleagues had either been informed by their own intelligence people beforehand or had figured it out on the spot, but Aainda appeared to be as perfectly relaxed and poised as always.
The ambassadors had all worked out their places at the table and started on their food by the time their host made it back to his seat with a small wooden box of salt cod imported from Earth and called the meeting to order.
“A small matter of official business before we begin,” Srythlan announced, and several of the other ambassadors groaned with their mouths full. “Today’s meeting marks the third time in a row I have hosted, and protocol requires that our next meeting be held in the embassy of another nuisance-species treaty signatory.”
“Booked up solid,” the Grenouthian announced immediately. “Our network is shooting a docudrama about diplomacy and I’ll be lucky if I can get into my office for the next ten cycles, much less our conference room.”
“My sisters are uncomfortable enough with my attending these nuisance-species meetings without hosting one,” Gwen Two excused herself apologetically. “It wasn’t so long ago that some of you tried to add clones to the nuisance-species list.”
“We’re still decontaminating from our last interspecies meeting,” Ortha said. “I suspect the Fillinduck was molting.”
“We hosted the meeting before you,” Crute pointed out.
“And we hosted before the Dollnicks,” Bork said.
“I would be honored—” Aainda began, but Czeros cut her off.
“No, no. You just arrived and should be given time to settle in. It’s between you and me,” the Frunge ambassador said to the Chert. “Rock, foil, scimitar?”
“Wait a minute,” Kelly interjected. “I’d be happy to host the meeting. It’s every two cycles, right?”
“I don’t think we could all squeeze into your office,” Czeros said apologetically.
“We’re expanding our embassy into the old travel agency office next door,” Kelly declared proudly. “I signed the Stryx lease and we’re shopping for contractors to do a quick renovation. I’m sure it will be ready long before the next meeting.”
“Have you issued the RFP?” Crute asked.
“The what?”
“Request For Proposals,” the Dollnick explained patiently. “Or are you planning to award the contract to a favored family member without a bid process?”
“Of course not. I’ve never really done anything like this before but I was going to contact three contractors for prices.”
“And then what?” Bork asked, taking a napkin in his tentacle and carefully wiping the crumbs from his vest.
“I’ll—I’m not sure,” Kelly admitted. “I guess I’ll take the middle bid since I don’t want to overpay, but I don’t want sloppy work either.”
“That makes no sense at all,” Crute informed her. “Let me send over an engineering firm and they’ll draw up plans for your approval. After that, the contractors will know exactly what they’re bidding on.”
“It’s just a conference room,” Kelly protested. “I want to have a counter removed, maybe change the lighting, and get a new entry cut through to our embassy’s lobby, but other than that, it’s just interior decorating.”
All of the ambassadors stopped chewing and a sudden silence blanketed the room.
“Did you say you want to cut in a new entrance?” Crute whispered.
“What’s the big deal?”
“Have you discussed this with the Stryx?” Ortha inquired.
“They rented me the space. Of course they know I want an entrance from the embassy.”
“It’s not regular metal, you know, and the honeycomb nature of the decks means that even partition walls become structural,” the Dollnick ambassador informed her. “There’s an environmental impact statement to file, you’ll have to clear the change with the station’s historical preservation society, and then there’s the public meeting where your neighbors can raise objections. You’ll be retired by the time it’s all ready.”
Kelly gaped at Crute, who suddenly pointed at her with all four of his index fingers and whistled, “Gotcha!”
“Sorry,” Bork said in her ear as the other ambassadors dissolved in laughter. “There’s a new Grenouthian documentary out about Human construction practices on Earth before the Stryx opening. You must not have seen it. All the spectacular collapses are worth the price of admission.”
“Maybe I’ll watch it and learn something,” the EarthCent ambassador said defiantly. “I want to do this renovation right, and if you think about it, your future comfort in meetings is at stake as well. I welcome any suggestions you have.”
“Don’t forget the kitchen,” Gwen Two told her. “A catering cart is fine for a meeting like this, but if you ever want to host a party, you really need to set aside a space for food preparation, even if it’s not fully equipped.”
“Hear, hear,” the ambassadors rumbled their agreement.
“And a cloak room,” Aainda suggested. “It doesn’t have to be large, but you don’t want your guests all piling their coats on a chair in the corner.”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Kelly said. “The travel agency was around the same size as our current embassy so it’s not that large of a space, but maybe we can have the whole wall removed so it opens on our current reception area.”
“May I?” the Grenouthian ambassador asked their Verlock host, who nodded his approval. The giant bunny activated a device on his wrist, and a large hologram of the EarthCent embassy and the adjoining space appeared over the conference table, complete with dimensions and materials. “The ambassador is talking about removing this wall,” he said, waving that divider out of existence with a paw. “Putting aside any structural considerations, which I’m sure are minimal, I would locate the kitchen in this corner.”
“That’s my office,” Kelly objected.
“The cloakroom could go there,” Crute said, poking at the hologram with a laser pointer taken from his utility belt.
“That’s where my embassy manager sits.”
“The cloakroom has to be at the entrance,” the Dollnick pointed out. “If it’s not here then you’ll have to sacrifice space in your conference room. If you insist on keeping your corner office—”
“Yes,” Kelly said firmly.
“—then you should put the cloakroom where I said and make this room the kitchen.”
“But that’s Daniel’s office.”
“Perhaps we should form a committee,” the Frunge ambassador suggested mischievously.
“Or, you could hire a construction management firm like Ambassador Crute suggested,” Bork said. “There’s no need to reinvent the wheel in this case, and I can suggest a Drazen consortium that specializes in rapid station renovations for retailers.”
“That’s a good idea,” Kelly said. “I know from my friends that shops don’t make any money while they’re under construction so they need to get through it quickly. I’ll check into it right after the meeting, but what I want to know,” she added, turning to the Grenouthian ambassador, “is why are you walking around with the plans to our embassy on your wrist?”
“Oh, please,” the bunny retorted. “The plans aren’t on my wrist. I’m pulling them from our station subnet, and I’m sure all of the ambassadors here could have done the same. Am I right?”
“It’s what we pay our intelligence people for,” Ortha added after a general chorus of assents. “If you’re not
getting access to our embassy plans, Ambassador McAllister, I suggest it may be time to replace your minister of intelligence.”
“But I’m the minister of intelligence.”
“He knows that,” Bork muttered. “It’s just his way of welcoming you back from sabbatical.”
Five
“Don’t go in,” Joe warned Samuel. “We’re waiting for Jeeves to get here and disarm any security systems.”
“Didn’t Baa do that when she brought the ship in?”
“She said she wasn’t sure she remembered every little thing, and what amounts to a ‘little thing’ for her could turn into a hole in the head for us. I asked Libby for any technical plans to Terragram vessels in her library, but they come under the ‘competitive information’ exclusion.”
“It sure doesn’t look like much,” the teen said, tilting his head back to study the vessel’s prow. “Where does it fall on the Dollnick scale?”
“Class H, if you considered it to be a yacht. She displaces about two times as much space as our tug, and going by the portholes, I’d guess that it’s ninety percent technical deck and ten percent bridge.”
“Is Jeeves inside?” Paul asked, coming up to the other two men. “Sorry I’m late, but Aisha is on a Station Scouts thing with Fenna.”
“So who’s watching little Stevie?” Joe asked. “Did you call InstaSitter?”
“Dorothy and Kevin took him. They’re practicing being parents.”
“I think it’s really neat that Kevin has set up as a chandler,” Samuel said. “I was afraid that he was going to go back to trading on his own, and then Dorothy would be moping around the whole time.”
“Selling ship supplies is a good match for our repair business and I’m glad to see the bay doors getting more use,” his father said, gesturing up at the ceiling which opened onto Union Station’s core. “The traders like dealing with Kevin because he put in ten years out there himself and knows what they’re up against. We had a twelve-man trader stop by the other day, and if the size of the vessels keeps going up, he’ll have to hire somebody to start running the supplies out to them in a bumboat.”
“If his business keeps growing we won’t have room for it in Mac’s Bones unless you evict the EarthCent Intelligence training camp,” Paul commented.
“Don’t do that,” Jeeves said, floating up to the group. “The other species will suspect it’s a strategic move, and then they’ll all run around the station planting new bugs and drilling holes in the bulkheads.”
“Thanks for coming, Jeeves. Are you sure there’s nothing in there that can hurt you?”
“This robotic shell I wear? I doubt it, but the Terragram mages have been around forever and their mix of technology and magic can be surprising at times. Don’t tell Baa, but I find it interesting to watch how she does things.”
“It’s not really magic, is it?” Samuel asked. “I thought it was just more math that we don’t understand.”
“It all comes down to definitions in the end. If you believe that any repeatable action that yields the same results would be amenable to a scientific explanation if you just knew enough, than all magic is science.”
“That’s not a very useful reply.”
“Then I’ll give you my parent’s stock response,” the Stryx said, referring to Libby. “That’s competitive information.”
“Baa claims she shut down everything she could remember and that you can activate the comm system on her bridge for us so she can describe the work she wants done,” Joe said. “I think Beowulf must have snuck in there this morning before I woke up because his hair smells a little burnt and he won’t go near the ship now.”
“That may have been the atmospheric scouring system. Baa’s allergic to dog hair. I’ll just go in and have a look around.”
Jeeves floated up the ramp into the bowels of the ship and disappeared. A minute later there was a muffled thud, and then the portholes lit up with brilliant flashes like somebody was arc welding inside. Next a sudden chill settled over the observers, and the hull of the mage’s ship turned white with frost from moisture condensed out of the air. Three minutes later the frost was gone and the McAllisters all backed away as the exposed metal surfaces all began to glow cherry red. Finally, an alien orchestral score swelled from hidden audio projectors at a volume that would have sufficed for an outdoor concert.
“He must have reached the bridge,” Joe said. “Baa mentioned that Terragram vessels all come equipped with public address systems for giving instructions to their worshippers on primitive worlds.”
“I am the great and powerful Jeeves,” the Stryx’s voice replaced the music. “Who dares appear before me?”
“Is it safe to come in now?” Paul shouted.
“Those of faith may approach and be spared my wrath!” Jeeves thundered.
“And he says that we get carried away with role playing,” Samuel muttered, following his father and step-brother up the ramp.
“Is that a Cayl pile?” Paul asked Joe. “I’ve only seen the one, but the geometry looks similar.”
“It might be,” Joe allowed. “We haven’t worked much on the really advanced stuff, in part because it tends to be pretty bullet-proof.”
“Who uses bullets?” Samuel asked.
“It’s an Earth expression for gear that’s indestructible,” Joe said. “Baa told me she doesn’t remember how most of the technology on board works, though she was confident she could figure it out if she had to. I don’t think there are that many Terragram mages around, at least in this galaxy, and if their equipment can go hundreds of thousands of years without repairs, it makes sense that not many of them would maintain an interest.”
“This looks like it might contain the main drive,” Paul said, patting a curved bulkhead. “I’ll bet it takes up more than half of the ship’s total volume.”
“And it’s sealed,” Jeeves told them, floating out of an opening that might have been an airshaft. “Steer clear of the circle on the floor until you’re ready to go up. It’s a lift.”
“Did you leave the capsule at the top?” Joe asked.
“No, you just stand in the circle and you’ll float up. Make sure you keep your arms in when you get to the opening.”
“It sounded like something blew up when you entered the ship, but I don’t see any damage,” Samuel said to the Stryx.
“Baa forgot to disable a robot trap,” Jeeves explained. “It triggers on certain profiles of energy expenditure. I didn’t want to shield myself because the reflection might have done unintentional damage so I had to go supersonic to avoid the payload.”
“And what happened to it?”
“Chased me around the drive a few times and dissipated,” Jeeves said.
“And the lightning?”
“Terragram mages are fond of weather effects as a method of impressing non-technological species. Her lightning circuits were fully charged and I thought it would be safer overall if I cleaned them out and transferred the energy to the station grid. Besides, she owed us a cup of electrons.”
“Was the frost another weather effect?” Joe inquired.
“Executed properly, a ship hidden in rain clouds can cause snow or hail,” Jeeves confirmed. “There’s more to it than just manipulating the temperature, but the ship is full of such tricks.”
“If they want to impress the natives, why don’t they make it rain when the crops need water?” Samuel asked.
“They use off-the-shelf weather control satellites from the other species for that if they stick around a world long enough. A Terragram mage’s ship like this one is built for first encounters.”
“How does this circle thing work?” Paul asked, standing on one leg and gingerly extending a foot over the outline to see if it would kick up. “Doesn’t feel any different.”
“There’s a non-sentient AI ship controller,” Jeeves told him. “It’s smart enough to know not to lift you until you’re in position. I’m afraid it only has two speeds and you wouldn’t l
ike the fast one,” he added, after Paul stepped into the circle and began rising towards the opening in the upper deck no faster than if he were climbing a ladder.
“What’s the mechanism, Jeeves?” Joe asked. “It can’t be gravitational nulling since our weight is based on the station’s spin, and he’s not wearing a special suit like the Physics Ride the two of you developed.”
“It’s a basic form of manipulator field, but don’t let my elders know I told you that.”
“I’m sure Libby can hear you,” Samuel said.
“That’s why I answered at the beginning of my sentence, before she could interfere.”
“Come on up,” Paul called down to them from the deck above. “You aren’t going to believe this.”
Joe took his place in the circle and was lifted by the invisible force, followed by Samuel, who was amazed by the fact that it felt like he was standing on the deck the whole way.
“Is this lift Terragram technology or do other species have it as well?” he asked the Stryx, who floated alongside for the journey. “How come you don’t do it on the stations?”
“It’s disruptive to living cells,” Jeeves explained. “No worse than standing an hour in the sunshine for a short trip like this, but you wouldn’t want to use it twenty times a day for year after year.”
“And it doesn’t affect Baa?”
“Self-correcting DNA,” the Stryx blurted out. “Ha, that’s two I’ve gotten past the censor.”
“It looks like Baa has been raiding tombs and stashing the loot on her bridge,” Paul told them. “This stuff looks like a museum exhibit from an Egyptian pyramid.”
Joe whistled in admiration. “I think that’s real gold on the sarcophagus, and those feathers look so lifelike I expect her to spread her arms and fly.”
“It’s the Terragram equivalent of an acceleration couch,” Jeeves explained. “Her body is much tougher than most humanoid species, but g-forces will eventually turn any biological life into jelly. The sarcophagus pumps the occupant’s lungs full of a breathable liquid, as well as filling in the space around the body.”
“The Cayl do something similar for high-G reentry craft. Woojin told me about it.”