Family Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 12)

by E. M. Foner

  “How did you know that you’d been moved?”

  “The geology of our world makes no sense,” Methan elaborated. “The fossil record stretches back thirty thousand years or so, and before that, nothing. As near as we can tell, our planet was a lifeless ball of rock until somebody prepared it for our arrival and then transported our ancestors and their ecosystem here to inhabit it. We now know that that somebody was Stryx Wylx, though she hasn’t elaborated on her reasons.”

  “Have you ever heard of your Stryx doing anything similar, Dring?” Kelly asked.

  The Maker paused his enthusiastic mastication long enough to reply, “Yes, on rare occasions.”

  “Excuse me,” Methan addressed Kelly. “Did you imply that the Stryx belong in some way to our reptilian friend?”

  “Dring? He’s a Maker. They’re pretty much immortal, and his people created the Stryx nearly a hundred million years ago when it looked like a race of killer AI was going to destroy all life in the galaxy. The Makers intended the Stryx to run away and survive, but instead they came back and won the war, saving the biologicals.”

  “And now they’ve taken on the role of the galaxy’s nannies, approaching species who develop faster-than-light drive and helping them integrate into a peaceful society?”

  Kelly hastily swallowed a mouthful of delicious fruit that reminded her of peach before replying. “It’s more complicated than that. The Stryx don’t recruit species to the tunnel network if there’s already an empire or some other form of government in the region, and a good chunk of the galaxy belongs to an ancient race of vacuum-dwelling dragons who aren’t crazy about outsiders. The Stryx don’t always fill us in on the details.”

  “Was your system hidden from the rest of the galaxy before you developed faster-than-light-drive?” Methan asked.

  Kelly took her time finishing the peach while formulating her answer. “We were invited to join the tunnel network as probationary members before our technology advanced that far. It’s a sort of an outreach program the Stryx sometimes extend…”

  “To species who are on the verge of destroying themselves or being invaded,” Abeva interrupted from the other side of the table. “These purple fruits are scrumptious, even better than Earth lemons.”

  “How did you know that you weren’t the survivors of a colony ship?” Kelly asked Methan. “Your people might have lost their original technology in a disaster and then slowly reinvented it all.”

  “Some of our fiction writers did explore those themes, but the evidence pointed to a history of continuous development starting from a primitive level,” Methan replied. “I could show you images of our early cave art, which is very well preserved, and someday the Stryx might clear you to visit our world, though I was cautioned not to extend an invitation at this point.”

  “So they’re still protecting you from pushy aliens,” Kelly said with a smile.

  The Alt leader coughed and averted his face for a moment. “Actually, Stryx Wylx didn’t say anything about the other aliens.”

  “It’s just humans who are banned?”

  “Uh, some humans,” the Alt qualified.

  “Just me?”

  “No, no,” Methan protested. “Stryx Wylx also cautioned us against inviting two young correspondents who recently left your homeworld.”

  “I’m glad to see everybody getting along so well,” Jeeves said, floating up behind the ambassador. The room fell silent as everybody waited to see what the Stryx had to say. “I just popped out for a look at your ship, Methan, and while it’s likely capable of reaching Union Station and returning, Stryx Wylx and I will feel much better if you accept our hospitality for this trip.”

  “You’ve already agreed to come visit?” Kelly asked the Alt leader.

  “We could hardly turn down such an invitation, especially as it originates with our benefactor,” Methan replied. “I would have preferred to make the voyage in our own ship for the sake of gathering technical data, but I bow to your superior knowledge,” he concluded, literally bowing his head in the direction of Jeeves.

  Immediately, every one of the ambassadors present began pitching the nearest Alt adult on a visit to their respective embassies back on Union Station. Crute managed to keep up a game of cat’s cradle with each of the children on his lap while extending offers of hospitality to both sides, his head snapping back and forth like that of an observer at a tennis match. Kelly overheard Bork appointing his young Alt friend as an honorary Drazen ambassador and sending him off on a mission to recruit others of his kind to the cause, while Czeros launched into a demonstration of how the metallic fabric of his outfit could instantly conform to and hold any shape.

  “So, everything is already settled about your joining the tunnel network,” the EarthCent ambassador surmised.

  “That decision will be taken by my people at some point in the future,” Methan replied. “My mandate extends to visiting a Stryx station on an inspection tour, but I’ll only have one voice when the time comes to discuss the matter. My colleagues and I were chosen for this task because we crewed the jump ship to your system and were still onboard when the Stryx invitation was received. While we have established bases on the moons of several of the planets orbiting our sun, all of the individuals living on those are already engaged in important tasks of their own. Likewise, our launch capacity is scheduled well in advance, and while we could have rushed another team into orbit, the crew of the ‘Long Jump’ has already been through first contact training.”

  “We named our first faster-than-light ship the ‘Long Jump’ as well,” Bork contributed.

  “Everybody does,” Abeva chipped in from across the table. “Everybody who develops faster-than-light drive, I mean.”

  “So let me make sure I have this straight,” Kelly said. “Here you are, aware that there’s other sentient life in the galaxy, some of it far more technologically advanced than your own civilization, and you develop a faster-than-light drive. You delay using it because you’re not that sure you want to meet the rest of us, and when you do take the first jump, your primary mission is to look back at your home system to confirm that it’s invisible from the outside.”

  “That’s right,” the Alt confirmed.

  “Then you’re contacted by Stryx Wylx, who informs you that she is responsible for moving you to your world, and that there’s a network of tunnels interconnecting tens of thousands of other worlds that you’re invited to join. Your people decide to welcome an outreach mission, which arrives within weeks, and now your crew and families agree to visit Union Station in return.”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “When the Stryx contacted my own world, there were riots in the streets. Nobody wanted to accept the fact that sentient machines existed, not to mention that they were so much smarter than us. My parents were just children at the time, but they didn’t go to school for nearly a year because governments were collapsing and nobody could figure out how to pay the teachers. But your people welcome both the Stryx and alien ambassadors with open arms and agree to visit a space station halfway across the galaxy as if you were spending a weekend with friends!”

  “I hope you do think of us as friends,” Methan said with a smile.

  “And it’s not halfway across the galaxy,” Jeeves put in. “More like a twentieth. Speaking of which, I think we’ve kept the press and your trade reps waiting in the corridor long enough.”

  The door to the room slid open, allowing in the volunteers from Pub Haggis, two Children’s News Network reporters in their mid-teens, Chastity, and a Galactic Free Press photographer loaded down with 3D imaging equipment. The Alt children held back from rushing to greet the influx of humans, and Kelly would have sworn she saw one or two of them actually hiding behind alien ambassadors.

  “Official image,” Chastity announced. “Everybody up, now. I think four lines arranged by height with the tallest in the center would be best. Morty?”

  “It’s going to take me a few minutes to set all this
junk up,” the cameraman told her.

  “It’s all right,” Jeeves said, floating out to greet them, “Wylx can take much nicer images in any case.”

  “Why are we even here?” Kelly mouthed at Chastity, as everybody lined up for the 3D image. Fortunately, the first two lines were made up entirely of young Alts, so the smallest children who were obviously uncomfortable around humans had an adolescent Alt as a buffer behind them.

  Eleven

  “He’s going to be mad when he wakes up,” Kevin warned Dorothy.

  “But it will help keep his claws from chipping, and black is a masculine color.”

  “He looks like a goth Cayl hound, and Beowulf is going to laugh at him. Besides, that chipping is part of the process that keeps his nails from getting so long that they need to be clipped. I still get the shivers when I think about taking care of Borgia’s claws when I was a kid and cutting one too close. She yelped and started bleeding—the look she gave me—it was like I betrayed her to a cat. It was heartbreaking.”

  “You’re such a softie. If Alex’s nails need clipping, I’ll do it,” Dorothy said, putting away the little bottle of protective lacquer. “I just hope it has time to dry before we get to the elevator.”

  “That won’t be a problem because I’m not waking him. The Frunge don’t allow alien dog breeds on their worlds. Their own dogs are too territorial, which is why you don’t see any of them on mixed species stations.”

  “Oh, that explains why Flazint makes such a fuss over our dogs. I never thought to ask.”

  “I’m hoping that the special visa from your mother’s friend will speed things up, so we can visit Flazint’s cousin, deliver the gifts, and then get a week’s worth of trading in at the elevator hub. I’ve been to Frunge worlds before and there are merchants who specialize in bringing trade goods up to the elevator hub by the container load.”

  “But what do we have that they’ll want?”

  “You never know with aliens, that’s the fun part. There’s no market at a fully developed world for the kinds of commodities and species-specific goods that go well at small space stations or on the frontier, but if I lay out enough odds and ends, it usually turns out that something is trending. One time at a Frunge elevator hub, I traded a box of Verlock memory-metal drinking cups that cost me less than fifty creds for a decorative suit of armor that I later disposed of for ten times that. And after we knuckled on the deal, the Frunge merchant told me that each one of those cups was worth a whole suit of armor on the surface at the moment. That’s the best kind of trade, where you both win.”

  “So why wouldn’t they ship all of their suits of armor to wherever you sold yours and make a killing?”

  “Because markets aren’t static, it’s all about timing. And I didn’t actually get five hundred creds cash for that suit of armor. A few weeks later, I took four princely measures of Dollnick tubers in trade, which practically filled the hold of my old ship.”

  “What did you want with a bunch of potatoes we can’t eat?”

  “I was heading for Prince Kluge’s space docks to barter for spare parts that a human colony on a Dollnick open world needed, and fresh tubers always go like hotcakes to Dollys living in space.”

  “How did you know that the colonists needed spare parts, or that they wouldn’t already have them by the time you got there?”

  “It was in the trader supplement of the Galactic Free Press,” Kevin explained. “Full subscribers can put a lock on orders they intend to fill within the time limit.”

  “But what if somebody just locked a bunch of orders to try to get rich and then didn’t fill them?”

  “You can only lock one open requisition at a time, and if you don’t fulfill it, you lose your locking privilege for ten cycles. Everybody is really careful about that.”

  “So the colonists paid you five hundred in cash?”

  “No, they paid me in T-shirts, which I took to…”

  “So how do you know that the suit of armor was worth five hundred creds if you just kept recycling it into more stuff?” the girl interrupted.

  “It’s all in the logs. You have to keep good books as a trader.”

  “Why?” Dorothy cried. “It’s your ship, your goods, nobody is charging you any taxes. What difference does it make as long as you come out ahead?”

  “How would I know I was coming out ahead if I didn’t keep records? Besides, I have to supply the Stryx with a manifest every time we use a tunnel if I want to get the profit sharing discount rather than paying the regular toll.”

  “I thought that was only for ships carrying Earth exports!”

  “They give small traders plenty of wiggle room, and believe me, there are times the Stryx come out ahead on the deal. Once when I was cash rich, I gambled on a shipping container of athletic sleeves at an auction. They were incredibly cheap, and I thought they would trade well, since most species strain a muscle now and then and the sleeves were made of good stretchy stuff. A cycle later, I stopped at a Drazen station for fuel, and it turned out that the weather control satellites for the nearby colony were saturated and the place was in a deep freeze. A local seamstress saw the sleeves and snapped them all up to stitch together as tentacle warmers. She paid cash, and I tripled my money just like that.”

  “So you had to give a percentage to the Stryx the next time you used a tunnel?”

  “They just skimmed their cut off my programmable cred when we did the transaction. Hey, we’re here already.”

  The traffic control alert began to flash and ding, and Kevin hit the manual override switch to hand over control of the ship. As soon as they were docked, Dorothy was at the hatch with her daypack, ready to exit.

  “This is exciting,” she said. “Flazint told me that the sun here is red.”

  “You packed a sunhat and plenty of protective cream, right? The Frunge like worlds that will give humans wicked sunburns in nothing flat.”

  “I’ve got everything I need for a three-day outing right here. It looks like you’re bringing enough for a month. I thought you said no trading on the surface.”

  “Did you want to carry some of Flazint’s gifts?”

  “Oh, I forgot.” The safety interlock released and the hatch popped open. “Magnetic cleats on. Let’s go. Let me do the talking in customs this time.”

  Kevin shouldered his pack and followed Dorothy into the docking arm. A metal conveyer belt zipped them along to a large open space which proved to be the customs hall. Fortunately, there was no queue, and Dorothy was soon presenting the special visa that Ambassador Czeros had happily provided for them.

  “Theros, an old pal of mine,” the female customs agent said.

  “Czeros,” Dorothy corrected her.

  “Right, Czeros. Did he mention that he owed me, uh, fifty creds?”

  “The ambassador told me that it was twenty,” Dorothy replied, giving special stress to the job title. Then she put on a bright smile and offered the Frunge woman a handshake, during which she transferred a twenty cred coin that she had secreted between her middle and ring fingers in preparation. The customs agent pocketed it without looking, proving that she could tell currency denominations by feel.

  “All right then. Are the two of you together?” the agent asked.

  “Yes. I’m sure that the ambassador said he owed you twenty for the both of us.”

  “I don’t see any rings or tattoos. Are you siblings?”

  “Just friends.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Do you think you can tip me to turn my head from immoral behavior?” the Frunge woman demanded indignantly.

  “She didn’t understand your question,” Kevin interjected. “I have our companionship contract right here.” He twisted out of his backpack and removed the stone slab, passing it to the customs agent.

  The Frunge woman carefully read the tablet before handing it back and sniffing in disdain. “Pretty weak terms, but I’ve heard that Stryx stations are dens of iniquity. If you want to ruin your life,
young lady, that’s your business. Next.”

  “Where did you learn how to bribe a customs agent like that?” Kevin demanded as they headed for the elevator.

  “The EarthCent Intelligence training camp has been my front yard for years. I’m not as into it as Samuel, but I guess I’ve been through most of the training once or twice, and it’s starting to come back to me. How long is it going to take to reach the surface?”

  “I haven’t been here before, but the Frunge elevators run a variable grip system, so the cars really zip along until we hit the atmosphere. Probably less than a day. It’s all bunk seating in any case, so we can catch up on our sleep.”

  Twenty hours later the couple emerged into the bright red sunlight, stepping carefully as they allowed their bodies to acclimate to the gravity. A Frunge woman with a towering trellis construction on her head and two shrubs in tow waved excitedly at them from behind the chain separating the waiting area from the exit. Even without the enthusiastic greeting, Dorothy would have recognized the family from the SBJ Fashions travel cloaks all three sported.

  “Barzee,” Dorothy greeted the young mother. “You look just like your holo images.”

  The Frunge woman looked puzzled for a moment, then irritated, and she pulled out a tab and began swiping through menus.

  “Bad language?” Kevin guessed.

  “You speak Frunge!” Barzee said in surprise. “Yes, I bought a Humanese upgrade at the implant kiosk but it’s not working.”

  “I only a small words speaking,” Kevin replied, causing the children to burst out laughing, and then to cover their mouths. “Trader words.”

  “But the two of you understand me perfectly through your station implants, right? Good. Let’s stop at the kiosk and I’ll get my money back. I should have just bought the upgrade from the local travel agency, but I thought I’d save a few coins.”

  Barzee led them to a kiosk in the lobby of the elevator terminal where she immediately demanded a refund. The clerk pulled up the recent transaction from memory and shook his head, making a hand movement that cloned his holo display so the customers could see the same thing he was looking at.