by E. M. Foner
“What were the little packages Blythe was handing out to the graduates?” Bork asked.
“That’s on a need-to-know basis,” Kelly told the Drazen ambassador sternly, then dissolved in laughter when he appeared to take her seriously. “They each received a programmable Stryx cred linked to the InstaSitter register, it’s how Blythe handles payroll. I wish the embassies used the same system, it would save a lot of aggravation.”
“And where are your offspring today?” Bork inquired, noticing that Kelly wasn’t carrying Samuel, and Dorothy wasn’t running circles around them.
“Donna babysat for them inside during the ceremony,” Kelly replied. “She’s probably playing a game with Dorothy since they aren’t out yet. Blythe was annoyed that I didn’t call for an InstaSitter, but Donna is trying to send her a message.”
“What message is that?” Blythe asked, joining the line behind them. “Clive, did my mother say anything to you?”
“Just the usual,” Clive replied, ostentatiously counting the people between them and the grill. “Did you get a chance to talk to Kelly about the Gem double agents? Maternity leave is over tomorrow, right?”
“Actually, the six months was officially up at 02:37 this morning, but I don’t go into the office weekends unless there’s something important,” Kelly admitted. “You did tell me about the strong double agent response during the show, and I heard through channels that some of the other embassies are getting grief from the local Gem ambassadors, but I just assumed that the clones are suffering from groupthink. They all have the same brain, after all.”
“The Gem appear to be the only species whose agents took our offer literally,” Clive explained. He paused to remove a Drazen sweeper from his tunic and checked for bugs as the line shuffled forward. “All of the other double agents volunteered in order to feed us false information.”
“And to get the cool button,” Blythe added in an I-told-you-so undertone.
“But the Gem double agents are actually hoping to work against their own government,” Clive continued. “Apparently, there’s a growing clandestine movement to reestablish the original genetic lines of the species from samples kept on file by Farlings. I passed the information along to Herl, of course, but it’s more of a diplomatic issue than an intelligence issue as far as we’re concerned.”
“Herl did mention it, and we’ve been bringing it up quietly with the other species,” Bork responded after checking his own bug detection device. Then he took a little box from his pocket and released a dragonfly. “The station is infested. Better safe than sorry.”
Over at the traditional McAllister table, Lynx asked Tinka, “So you’re going to keep working for InstaSitter even while you serve as our liaison to Drazen Intelligence?” She batted with the back of her hand at a parrot-fly attacking her fruit salad and missed. “Aren’t you kind of young to be spreading yourself so thin?”
“Your headquarters and analysts are going to be sharing our office space, and I doubt it will take more than a few minutes of my time,” Tinka replied causally. “It makes sense because both sides trust me, but I’m sure Clive and Blythe will work directly with Herl for anything really important. I’ll be more of a Drazen filter for your analysts than anything else.”
“You owe me eighty creds,” Jeeves announced, appearing out of nowhere. The Stryx dropped a flat plastic box in front of Lynx, coincidentally crushing the parrot-fly. A disappointed dragonfly veered off and began hunting for fresh prey. “If you’re going to keep up with this hobby, you should talk to Kelly about sneaking your film into the diplomatic pouch. It will take even longer to get back that way, and from what you told me, waiting is half the fun.”
“What is it?” Tinka asked out of curiosity, never having seen a similar package.
“My prints are here!” Lynx exclaimed, pushing aside her plate and opening the box. “Look how sharp they are, and it’s the first time I used that camera!”
“Vacation images on paper?” Tinka asked, looking curiously at the collage of photographs that spilled out on the table. “And who’s the cute guy with the yellow eyes?”
“That’s a picture of the Chert who was selling invisibility projectors at the trade show,” Lynx replied, looking at the off-center image of the slightly-out-of-focus alien. “But I took this picture when I couldn’t see him. I thought I was joking when I claimed the camera was an invisibility field neutralizer.”
“Highly effective,” Jeeves commented. “Just take an exposure with chemical-based film that the invisibility projector doesn’t recognize as an optical detection system, send it back to Earth by the fastest means available, and in approximately ten days, you’ll know if there was somebody standing in front of you swinging an axe.”
“I don’t believe it!” Tinka exclaimed, holding up another photograph in front of her face as if she were about to kiss it. “You have a picture of Jeelop Huir! He’s so gorgeous and—Ick! You photographed him going to the bathroom?”
“Let me see that,” Lynx grabbed at the print, not knowing who Tinka was talking about. “Oh, yeah. That’s the Horten guy on Seventy who almost caught us. I didn’t see what he was doing until I took the picture because I was focusing on his face. Operating a camera isn’t like just looking at something and saving it on your implant.”
“But he’s the biggest Horten immersive star! They say he gets thirty million cred per production.” Tinka took the picture back from Lynx and stared at the image in puzzlement. “What would he be doing on a Farling world dressed like a Forest Knight. Do you have any other pictures?”
Lynx separated the Farling Seventy prints from the pictures of the spy show and the other odd shots she’d taken to use up the roll and pushed them over to Tinka. The Drazen girl studied the prints, frowning and shaking her head. “There’s something funny going on, that looks like an immersive production crew to me. Is Ambassador Bork here?”
“He’s coming now,” Lynx replied, as Kelly and Bork approached the table with heavily laden plates. “Over here, we saved you seats.” Clive and Blythe followed just a few paces behind the ambassadors.
“Are those your show photos?” Clive asked. “Don’t forget to submit the receipt for development.”
“She has a picture of Jeelop Huir that she took on Farling Seventy,” Tinka told Bork before the Drazen could even sample his hamburger. “Never mind what he’s doing. Look at the uniform and these other pictures.”
Bork accepted the prints in his fatherly way, as if to humor the young Drazen woman. But in a matter of seconds, his expression changed from amusement, to incredulity, to anger.
“They’re doing the Battle of Scort Woods,” the Drazen ambassador said hollowly, almost as if he’d received a blow. He turned to Lynx and asked, “When were these taken?”
“Maybe a week after we left Earth, a little over four months ago,” Lynx replied. “I could check with Thomas.”
“Did I hear my name?” Thomas said, looking up from his conversation with Jeeves at the end of the table.
“Do you remember when we took these pictures on Seventy?” Lynx asked.
“Seems like yesterday,” Thomas replied, and then thought for a bit. “No, it couldn’t have been yesterday because we were here. It must have been a while ago.”
“Call it four and a half months,” Lynx told the Drazen ambassador, kicking herself for having asked the time-impaired artificial person for help with a date.
“The production would be finished by now,” Bork said fiercely, his tentacle rising behind his head. Then he lapsed into silence, staring at the prints as he carried out a subvoced conversation with somebody, probably transmitting the images through his implant as well.
“What’s this all about?” Kelly asked Lynx and Tinka.
“DHP, Drazen Historical Productions, are making the Battle of Scort Woods for the new season,” Tinka explained. “Don’t you get Galactic Entertainment Guide? DHP only produces one really big budget historical drama a season, and it looks like th
e Hortens are trying to jump our ratings.”
“What was the Battle of Scort Woods?” Kelly asked.
“It took place hundreds of thousands of years ago, I once visited the planet to see the battlefield,” Clive stepped in to explain. “It was soon after the Hortens joined the galactic community, and they and the Drazens were very active in one of the orders of knights that kept the peace on the fringes of Stryx space. Scort was a technology ban world almost completely covered in forest, and the knights fought an epic battle against the Pullrip, who are fire breathers. The Pullrip never have joined the tunnel network, and their empire remains out-of-bounds today.”
Bork came out of his trance looking even angrier than before. “Jeelop Huir is back on Horten Eight, but our people lost track of him for several months when he was supposedly taking a long honeymoon with his new wife. Herl has already contacted DHP to warn them and apologize for the intelligence breakdown. This is going to be very expensive for somebody.”
“So we’ve scored our first intelligence coup,” Kelly declared triumphantly. “But why are you so unhappy?”
“The Battle of Scort Woods was my vacation role,” Bork explained, his tentacle drooping to half-mast in disappointment. “I went as a background actor, but the director bumped me up to a full knight position and gave me a speaking part. I’ve never had a line before.”
“Maybe they’ll just delay the release date a few cycles, give people a chance to forget the Horten version,” Tinka suggested. She didn’t look particularly disappointed, and Kelly got the impression she would rather see Jeelop Huir playing the lead role than Ambassador Bork delivering his first line.
“More like a thousand cycles, and that’s assuming DHP doesn’t abandon the project before they finish shooting the interior scenes to cut their losses,” Bork grumbled. Then he stood up, placed one hand on his chest, held an imaginary sword over his head and proclaimed, “Let death be my bride today!”
Everybody clapped politely.
“Where’s Chance?” Lynx asked Thomas. “She was on the orbital when the Hortens were shooting the immersive on Seventy and she might know something about it.”
“She probably hid after the ceremony,” Thomas replied. “Chance isn’t really that comfortable in social situations with humans unless there’s drinking and music. If you need to find her, just ask yourself, ‘If I was an artificial person hiding in Mac’s Bones, where would I be?’”
“You are an artificial person, Thomas,” Kelly reminded him.
“Oh, right,” Thomas responded cheerfully. “I guess she’s over there behind the tug, then. I’ll go check.”
Lynx moved down next to Jeeves when Thomas rose. She wasn’t yet comfortable talking with the disembodied voices of station Stryx, and she had some questions she was hoping to get answered.
“I suppose you’ll want a receipt for the developing now,” Jeeves remarked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Lynx told him. “When I originally took this job, I was supposed to pay myself and Thomas through trading profits, maintain my ship, and remit the surplus to the home office. Since Blythe and Clive took over, I get a salary that’s more than I’ve earned in years, and any trading profits are mine to keep.”
“My partners and I have talked it over, and our auction business will be subscribing to your intelligence feed when you get it up and running,” Jeeves told her. “Some of my elders are skeptical that I can restrain myself from using information that would take unfair advantage of any competition, so I’m keeping myself on a very short leash when it comes to business intelligence.”
After reflecting on the meaning of the Stryx’s words, Lynx said, “That can’t be much fun. You must see your partners making mistakes and missing opportunities all of the time, and not be able to say anything about it.”
“You and I are both outsiders in a way,” Jeeves observed. “We Stryx don’t have a government in any human sense of the word. We’re all free agents, but free will loses a good deal of its meaning when everybody agrees on the path forward.”
“Are you feeling alright, Jeeves?” Lynx inquired in concern. “I’ve heard that the original Stryx were designed around a set of stable solutions to the equations of self-awareness, but you sound a bit depressed.”
“Would you invite me to a poker game?” Jeeves asked suddenly. “I promise not to keep track of which cards are which, or monitor any biological signs other than facial expressions.”
“I’ll play with you, Jeeves, but I don’t know that any strangers would be willing,” Lynx replied honestly. The Stryx’s conversation was so strange that she began to wonder if he was trying to lead her somewhere, so she threw out a line to see if he would give it a yank. “I’m sure Paul and Joe would set up a game for you. Why are you asking me?”
“Because you’re a genuine gambler,” Jeeves replied, making it sound like she had solved a problem for him. “You started a new life based on a coin flip.”
Lynx felt a tingle at the back of her neck that ran through her shoulders and down her arms, as if she had read a ghost story before bed and then had the feeling that somebody else was in the room. She bit back on a dozen immediate questions to put together the clues that Jeeves was feeding her, guessing that it might be a one-time opportunity.
“If the Stryx all agree on the necessary shape of the future, wouldn’t you have to use your resources to keep it on the right path?” Lynx asked softly. “Does everybody in the galaxy have free will except for the puppet masters?”
“Free will is overrated,” Jeeves practically snorted. “You’ve had free will your whole life, but you’re still on the path to become the next head of EarthCent Intelligence.”
“The guy who recruited me in the bar on Earth was a stringer hitting on redheads at random,” Lynx replied in objection to the Stryx’s implication.
“Do you think a low-rent theatrical agent would miss the chance to make an extra hundred creds by ‘randomly’ picking a person who had been described to him?” Jeeves asked.
“I flipped the coin too,” Lynx insisted, after digesting the fact she had been chosen by the Stryx after all. “I could have walked away.”
“You flipped a programmable Stryx cred,” Jeeves corrected her. “Programmable.”
“But that’s just the amount!” she protested. Jeeves placed a programmable cred flat on the table and Lynx watched as the amount and the image of the space station swapped back and forth. “Alright, so I waited ten years to be offered a job with EarthCent and I got it. It’s just that I’m a spy rather than a diplomat.”
“And I’m an auctioneer and a puppeteer,” Jeeves replied.
“What are you two talking about down there?” Kelly called.
“Nothing,” Jeeves and Lynx answered simultaneously.
Kelly gave them her best cynical look before returning to her self-appointed task of to trying to cheer up the Drazen ambassador. A little bell went off in her head, and this time it was her mother calling.
“Are you busy now?” her mother inquired. “One of your nephews is talking about joining the next colony ship and I want you to stop him.”
“I’m in the middle of a graduation picnic,” Kelly subvoced back. She checked quickly to see if Bork was waiting for her to say something, but he and Clive had started a discussion about the aftermath of the Battle of Scort Woods. “Why do you want me to talk him out of it?”
“Because I’ve learned that when family members leave Earth and say they’ll come back to visit as often as they can, it’s all hot air,” her mother pointed out mildly. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you to use any of your maternity leave to bring my newest grandson to visit?”
“Babies hate Zero-G,” Kelly replied, seizing on the first excuse she could think of. “Anyway, it’s back to work for both of us tomorrow. You know that you and dad are welcome to visit us anytime.”
“We didn’t want to make extra work for you while you were involved with setting up the new spy agency,” her mother rep
lied. “Did the graduation go well?”
“It was supposed to be secret!” Kelly reacted in surprise “Maybe not secret-secret, but at least not common knowledge. How did you find out?”
“Dorothy keeps me up-to-date,” her mother explained. “Such a smart little girl, she reminds me of your sister at that age. I’ll let you get back to your picnic.”
Kelly was still trying to get over the fact that she had a spy in her own household, when the little girl in question appeared at her shoulder. Dorothy put an index finger to her lips, and let her mother see a strangely familiar device that looked like a tiny flashlight in her other hand.
Donna finally arrived carrying Samuel, who had a small pair of goggles strapped over his eyes, reminding everybody of those cute “baby wearing sunglasses” advertisements. She placed him face down on the end of the table, and he immediately lifted his head and looked up and down the row of adults. Then he raised his chest, and began to squirm forward.
“He’s crawling,” Kelly cried in excitement and spread her arms out to welcome her six-month-old. “Come to Mommy, my precious.”
Everybody along the table pulled their plates and drinks out of the way as Samuel picked up speed, but he went right past his mother and charged into Blythe’s chest. Donna had worked her way around the table to behind Kelly by this point, and she whispered in the ambassador’s ear, “We raided your free samples bag from the show.” Then Kelly recognized the device in Dorothy’s hand. It was the ultraviolet projector for the pathfinder goggles the baby wore.
Blythe stripped the goggles off of Samuel’s little head and looked suspiciously into his baby blue eyes.
“It’s the extra-purple light,” Dorothy proudly whispered to her mother. “We trained Sammy to crawl to it.”
Blythe picked up the baby and half grudgingly, settled him on her lap.
“Buh,” Samuel declared in satisfaction.
Spy Night on Union Station is getting a sequel. The first carnival to take place on Union Station since humanity joined the galactic community is coming, and the ambassadors of the different species are all entered in the election to become Carnival King or Queen. It’s not a job that Kelly wants, and fortunately for her, the humans get a late start at electioneering. Book Five of the EarthCent Ambassador series, Carnival on Union Station, is due out at the end of March, 2015, and is available for pre-order on Amazon.