Word Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 9)

by E. M. Foner

  “What did they leave out?” Kelly asked.

  “The last Grenouthian update included video of your president eating with a woman who was identified as his mistress. It also said that she was in charge of public relations for EarthCent, and that they were here to solicit the advanced species to establish factories and educational institutions on Earth. I believe there was something about the whereabouts of the president’s wandering wife as well. Did it say she was traveling with a Vergallian?”

  “I don’t understand how they could have found all that out,” Kelly said in frustration. “I know we only discussed the visit over a secure channel or in the embassy, which we sweep for bugs all the time now, and I’m sure that the president’s office takes similar precautions.

  “It appears that your guests were indiscreet during their breakfast conversation this morning,” Bork said. “In fact, I believe our intelligence service has contacted your intelligence service to make sure they know, though I’m sure Blythe and Clive must follow the Grenouthian feed as well.

  “Oh. I had a ping from Clive a few minutes ago, but I wanted to come and see you first.”

  “I did a quick record search after seeing the Grenouthian report and I couldn’t come up with any instances of Drazen universities operating an extension campus on an alien world. I’m afraid that our academic institutions are famously hidebound. You wouldn’t believe the grief my daughter went through back home trying to get recognition for the Open University coursework she did here.”

  “The Drazen schools don’t recognize Stryx competency exams?” Kelly asked in disbelief.

  “It’s a bit of a sore point for those of us in the diplomatic corps,” Bork admitted. “It’s not just us, though. I think the sole species whose academia fully recognizes the Stryx system is the Verlocks. There’s just something in the academic mindset that makes them look for difficulties where none exist. Fortunately, the only people who care about academic credentials are the academics themselves, and it wouldn’t have affected Minka at all if she hadn’t been interested in taking an advanced degree in choral arrangement. It’s just not something they offer at the Open University.”

  “If your universities behave like that to their own expatriates, I can’t imagine they’ll be interested in working with humans. The president will be very disappointed.”

  “There’s no reason for you to deal with the official universities,” Bork reassured her. “The vast majority of Drazen professionals take advanced training through their employers or the military, and it’s the same with the other species, I believe. What you need to do is sit down with your president and find out specifically what skills he wants to see humans develop. Then we’ll contact some Drazen consortiums which work in those fields, and ask them to bid on educating humans as if they were employees. I’m sure it will just be a matter of price and availability.”

  “Did you graduate from a university, Bork?”

  “Certainly not. Our diplomatic service offers extensive vocational training for candidates. I’m sure I told you about the many decades I spent working in junior positions before graduating to this assignment.”

  “I just assumed you went to school before that.”

  “I completed the same basic curriculum as all Drazen children while I lived with my parents, but school is school and work is work. The diplomatic service would send me for special courses with other candidates from time to time, but those were also taught by career diplomats.”

  “Well, that’s great news, then, and I look forward to telling the president. But there was something else I wanted to ask you about.”

  “Apparently your president didn’t discuss it at breakfast because I thought that was everything,” Bork teased her, a twinkle in his eye.

  “An EarthCent president has never visited Union Station before so we wanted to make an impression with the reception. We have permission from the Stryx to hold it in the new Libbyland attraction before it’s opened to the public, and since it’s an Earth-themed medieval castle, I think most of the ambassadors will enjoy it. But they’re only just starting to hire staff now, and the concept calls for a large number of professional reenactors.”

  “I’ll do it,” Bork said.

  “What? You don’t even know what it is yet.”

  “If it involves weapons and acting, you’ve come to the right place. Do you think it’s easy to find reenactment gigs? My practice group has been so desperate lately that we’ve started playing children’s parties.”

  “I thought you might be able to suggest where we could find actors with weapons skills who could play humans,” Kelly said in embarrassment. “I’ve watched your demo reel many times and I’m sure if you hadn’t gone into diplomacy you could have made a living as a principal, but there is the, uh, extra appendage.”

  “This?” Bork said incredulously, waving his tentacle behind his head. “I’ll just tape it down my back like I always do when I’m playing other humanoid species. I’ve been a Horten spearman in more low budget dramas than I can count and the tentacle was the least of my problems. Can you guess how long I spent in a makeup chair for less than two minutes of background work?”

  “I, uh, no.”

  “Six hours! By the time we got to the last two skin color changes they didn’t even bother cleaning off the previous coat, they just sprayed a new layer on top. It was like acting in a death mask.”

  “I see,” Kelly said, wondering how the president would feel about Drazen actors playing human reenactors for his reception.

  “Speaking of Hortens, they have a large theatre group on the station that’s mainly historical reenactors as well,” Bork said. “We try to put aside politics when it comes to the arts, and they hire our whole group every year for their Warriors Day celebration. We usually do a skirmish from the Battle of Scort Woods or the Taking of Death’s Head Castle. I’ve been meaning to ask Dring if he’s interested in a fly-on role as a fire-breathing dragon.”

  “But I thought that the Drazens and the Hortens practically go to war every year over ratings for your historical broadcast series.”

  “Network stuff is big business. We’re talking about live performances here, a completely different animal. Do you think it’s easy for performance artists to find audiences? I’m sure that anything involving Libbyland will pay scale, but the truth is, most of the actors in my group would do it for a chance to dress up and storm a castle, with maybe a round of Divverflips at the end of the day.”

  “I guess that will work, Bork. Thank you. But I’m also counting on you to be there to meet the president and help set the tone for the other ambassadors. How can you be part of the entertainment and a guest at the same time?”

  Bork looked stricken for a moment and his tentacle drooped. “How about I get one of my staff to pretend to be me? Your president would never know the difference.”

  “But I’ll know the difference, Bork, and so will the other ambassadors.”

  “What sort of entertainment did you have planned? Will there be a show and then a dinner, or will it be fighting after dinner, or do you want martial activity going on in the background throughout the reception?”

  “I really don’t know,” the ambassador admitted. “Donna does most of our planning, but since it’s a new venue, I don’t have anything to go by. We did visit the castle and the interior rooms aren’t finished yet, so I guess the fighting will go first and then we’ll hold a reception on the ramparts.”

  “I’m sure I can make this work,” Bork said. “You tell whoever is in charge of hiring that I can deliver two medieval armies with paid-up Thark accidental dismemberment insurance, and we’ll want to get in there before the reception to practice. We have five days, right?”

  Kelly nodded. She couldn’t remember the last time the Drazen ambassador looked so energized, so she decided to swallow her misgivings and accept the generous offer. A shrill trumpet sounded, and Bork growled in the direction of his display desk, “What is it?”

  “
Ambassador Czeros here to see you,” the disembodied voice of the Drazen embassy secretary responded.

  “Send him in,” Bork said, rising to his feet.

  Kelly also rose, expecting to follow the Drazen ambassador to the door to meet their colleague, but instead Bork walked over to the wall and grabbed the hilt of what looked like a very nasty broadsword. For a moment, Kelly was sure that he intended to cut down the Frunge ambassador for interrupting a conversation about acting, but it turned out that the hilt served as the handle for the door of a hidden liquor cabinet. Bork rummaged through the contents for a moment, and then came up with a bottle of red wine that looked suspiciously familiar.

  “Is that the wine from the gift basket my embassy sent for your hundredth anniversary with the diplomatic service?” Kelly asked suspiciously.

  “My family ate all of the fruit and the individually wrapped pieces of cheese and meat,” Bork said. “We’re just not big wine drinkers. In fact, I’m not sure I have the right technology to remove the stopper.”

  “Cork,” Czeros announced, entering the office. “It’s alright, I carry one with me.” The ambassador reached into his belt pouch and drew out a Frunge army knife that put Joe’s antique Swiss army knife to shame. Czeros pulled out a number of attachments, cursed, and then something clicked into place, leaving him holding a two-handled bottle opener with a geared worm drive and a tri-spiraled corkscrew.

  “Help yourself,” Bork said, handing over the bottle.

  The Frunge ran a professional eye over the challenge, then he spun his complicated opener into place, held the bottle clamped between his elbow and his body, and managed to work the two levers, smoothly removing the cork.

  “What happened to your old corkscrew?” Kelly asked.

  Czeros handed her the open bottle, then struggled to collapse the complicated assembly and fold the individual attachments back into the handle. “This is a new product from the Frunge blade-makers,” the ambassador replied. “They combined a traditional army knife with Human bottle opening technology. It’s a bit over-engineered, but it was a gift, so I’m stuck using it until it breaks.”

  “And what brings you here, my friend?” Bork asked politely, extending a wine goblet at the same time.

  “Trouble,” the Frunge grunted, giving up on getting the knife fully closed and dropping it in his belt pouch with several pointy looking bits still sticking out of the handle. He accepted the wine back from Kelly and filled the glass to the rim, emptying a good third of the bottle. “Neither of you are joining me?”

  “Too early for me,” Kelly replied, waving off the offer.

  “Too sweet for me,” Bork said, retaking his seat.

  Kelly settled back down on the couch and Czeros plopped down beside her, the large goblet in one hand and the bottle in the other. He took a long swallow, which turned into a chug, and drained the glass. “You aren’t likely to see me do this again for a while,” he said sadly, refilling the goblet.

  “Is something wrong?” Kelly asked. “Have you developed a medical problem from drinking Earth wines? I thought they were chemically very close to the wines the Frunge make from those little red berries.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me physically,” Czeros said. “It seems that somebody informed the Frunge diplomatic service that I have a drinking problem.”

  “Who would do that?” Bork demanded.

  “My wife,” the Frunge ambassador admitted glumly. “She’s also taken the shrubs to stay with her sister, and I’m stuck home with both of our ancestors creaking up a storm.”

  “I never got to know her that well…” Kelly began, but Czeros cut her off before she could complete her sentence.

  “Of course you didn’t. She’s xenophobic from the tips of her hair vines down to the roots of her feet. I’m aware that I sometimes overdo it at diplomatic events, but that’s because I know when I get home, I’ll have to listen to her bad-mouthing all of the species I think of as friends. Imagine if you had to sleep with somebody who kept talking about how the galaxy would be a better place if all of the Humans and Drazens would just disappear.”

  “My understanding has always been that alien affective disorder runs much higher among the Frunge than any of the other tunnel species,” Bork said. “I seem to recall from an intelligence briefing that as many as one in twenty Frunge have serious difficultly accepting the existence of aliens. It’s supposedly very common in those of your people with self-fertilization in their family histories.”

  “We don’t talk about that in public,” Czeros muttered. He took another gulp of wine. “We don’t talk about the inspector general either, but he or she has the power to remove me from my post. This wasn’t my first choice for a career, you know, but I’ve tried to make the best of it and I don’t want it to end with dismissal.”

  “When is the inspector general arriving?” Bork asked. “Are you expecting a direct confrontation or an undercover investigation?”

  “Both,” the Frunge ambassador replied. “Our internal investigations typically begin as undercover, and when sufficient evidence has been gathered, it’s presented to the subject in an effort to avoid the need for a public hearing. I only know that it’s happening because a friend who was appointed to my confidential honor court tipped me off.”

  “So the investigation is already under way?”

  “My friend contacted me immediately after he was empanelled and sworn to secrecy so I doubt the inspector general is here yet. But these things tend to move very quickly, in part because the internal investigations division knows how hard it is for diplomats to keep a secret,” Czeros concluded, showing a flash of an ironic grin.

  “What can we do to help?” Kelly asked. She eyed the bottle for a moment, as if she was considering taking it from him, but it didn’t seem right to interrupt what could be his last hurrah.

  “I imagine the inspector general will contact you both, probably with some idiotic cover story. They’re fond of posing as official historians gathering information for either a petrification plaque or a biographical entry in the Frunge Encyclopedia of Diplomacy.”

  “It would help a great deal if we knew who it was ahead of time,” Bork mused. “I’ll ask my intelligence staff to look into it and perhaps you can request the same of your own cultural attaché.”

  “I can’t let on that I know,” Czeros said. “There could be an information leak in the opposite direction, and then my old hedge friend would be in an awkward place.”

  “I’ll check with Clive,” Kelly offered. “Maybe Libby would know something as well. Libby? Do you know if the Frunge inspector general has arrived?”

  “There are no recent records of Frunge officials visiting the station,” the Stryx librarian replied. “If you are asking because an inspector general has been assigned to investigate Czeros, I’m afraid I would have to deny further requests on the topic as being protected competitive information.”

  “Any encyclopedia salesmen?” Czeros asked, which surprised Kelly, since the alien diplomats rarely spoke directly to the Stryx in her presence.

  “No, but a researcher for the Frunge Encyclopedia of Diplomacy is on the passenger manifest of the liner Deeply Rooted, which just cleared tunnel traffic control.”

  “Does this researcher have a name?”

  “Fandaz,” Libby replied helpfully. “I could pop up a hologram on Ambassador Bork’s desk if he’ll permit it.”

  “Please do,” Bork said, lifting a bushy eyebrow at Kelly.

  A hologram of a severe-looking Frunge woman with close-cropped hair vines wearing a black leather uniform appeared. An embroidered patch on her shoulder reminded Kelly of the emblem on the binding of her collected works of Sherlock Holmes. “Is that an inspector patch?” she asked.

  “That does look rather like a Frunge inspector general’s uniform, doesn’t it,” Libby commented innocently. “My mistake.”

  The hologram winked out.

  “When you meet her, say something nice about the way
she looks,” Kelly suggested. “I’ve never seen a Frunge woman with such short hair and I can’t imagine she gets many compliments.”

  “I feel better already,” Czeros declared, standing up and placing his empty goblet on Bork’s desk. He looked at the bottle which still contained a good third of its contents and added, “I suppose I’ll just take this along with me unless you have one of those re-corking tools. No? I didn’t think so.”

  “Well, that was interesting,” Kelly remarked after the Frunge ambassador departed. “We’ll have to be careful around the inspector person.”

  “Don’t make Czeros out to be an angel,” Bork warned her. “Those internal affairs types can sniff out a lie. I think the best approach would be to convince her that our friend’s drinking is an act he uses to gain an advantage over the other ambassadors. We’ll have to try to think up some diplomatic coups we can claim he achieved.”

  “I’m sure I’ll come up with something,” Kelly said. “So, you’re guarantying two medieval-style forces of reenactors who can stage a castle siege without accidentally cutting off anybody’s head and you want practice time before the reception. Is there anything else?”

  “It’s traditional to bring in catering for the performers,” Bork hinted. “You know we Drazens will eat anything, but the Hortens have always been a bit finicky, so you may want to order from one of their restaurants.”

  “Horten catering. Will do.” Kelly rose from the couch. “Thank you so much for your help with this. I hope your family will be attending the reception.”

  “Of course,” Bork said, escorting the EarthCent ambassador to the door. “Before I forget, will the reception guests be in a shielded area of the castle?”

  “I’m not sure,” Kelly replied. “Why do you ask?”

  “If there’s no shielded area we won’t use projectiles,” the Drazen ambassador replied. “Things can go wrong in the heat of battle, er, reenactment, that is. Some of the guys specialize in arrow clouds, but we can stick with swords, stabbing spears and axes. You can never go wrong with a good axe fight.”