by E. M. Foner
Rinla noticed the arrival of the ambassador and looked up, a bloody towel in her hand.
“Can you get another one of these from that nice clerk?” she asked. “The paint they use just won’t come out of his hair.”
“Paint?” Kelly sagged in relief and quickly found a fresh towel under the counter to hand the Alt woman. “They never allowed red paintballs when Paul was running the place. Are you sure you’re alright, Methan?”
“To be perfectly honest with you, I feel a bit strange,” he said, opening one eye to look at the EarthCent ambassador. “I understand that in order to score points in this game one needs to collect paintballs. But somehow we went from catching paintballs in our baskets and shooting them back at inanimate targets to shooting at each other. I suppose it’s true that sometimes the other players catch the balls that are shot in their direction, my children demonstrated an innate facility for this, but there were moments when I almost felt like we were struggling for survival.”
“But what happened to you? Your head should have been protected by the hood and the face shield.”
“I thought that if I just talked to all of the young people, I might persuade them to work together to maximize the opportunity for catches, rather than covering each other in paint. So I took off the hood and the shield, but I’m afraid I wasn’t able to make myself understood over the music.”
“Does the paint sting in your closed eye? I’m sure it’s supposed to be nontoxic for all species.”
“My fault, I’m afraid. I put on a miniature over-the-eye recorder to capture the memory for my children, and I forgot it was there when I tried to wipe the paint away. I might have scratched my cornea, but I’m sure it will heal quite nicely on its own.”
“I’m taking you to have it checked out by a doctor,” Kelly insisted. “We can’t have you walking around for the rest of your visit with one eye closed, and what will your people think if we send you home with an eye patch?”
“They’ll think he’s become a pirate,” Rinla said, and to the ambassador’s surprise, the two Alts shared a smile. Methan’s wife went on to explain. “We took the family to an animated immersive about piracy last night. It’s supposed to be the biggest hit on your tunnel network, so I’m sure you must have seen it.”
“The one where the animal performers take over the spaceship that’s transporting them to a new circus, and then go around the galaxy rescuing everybody?” Kelly fought back the urge to tell the Alts that the production had been financed by an umbrella organization of real pirates working to improve their image. It hadn’t escaped EarthCent’s attention that the bad guys were all human zookeepers.
“The little squirrel in command was so cute with her tiny eye patch. And the bear that couldn’t stop himself from stealing honey!” The Alts shared chuckle at the memory.
“I’m glad to see you’re feeling good enough to laugh, but you still have your eye squinted shut,” Kelly said testily. “Please let me take you to a doctor. I feel guilty about suggesting that Paul bring you here.”
“Very well,” Methan said, straightening up on the cot. “Am I presentable enough to appear in public?”
“Almost,” Rinla said, folding the towel to get a clean section and taking a final swipe at her husband’s face. “We’ll have to be careful or you’ll start a new fashion trend with the funny colors in your hair.”
“I’ll ping the station librarian to find out where you are so I can bring him back after we see the doctor,” Kelly promised Rinla. “If you ever get the children out of their flying suits, I recommend you ask Paul to bring you to the Wetlands Machine. It’s my favorite place in Libbyland.”
Methan kept his left eye closed as Kelly led him to the nearest lift tube, which she instructed to bring them to the Stryx emergency med bay. When the doors slid open, they found themselves just a few paces away from the operating table in a room loaded with specialized medical equipment for treating all of the oxygen breathing species that had ever presented at Union Station.
“You!” Kelly said.
“There’s always a couple of Humans at the end of every shift,” M793qK grumbled. “And for somebody who objected so strongly to wearing a sterilization envelope generator, you show a marked reluctance to part with it.”
“I haven’t had the time since we got back, and I keep forgetting that I have it on,” Kelly admitted, annoyed with herself. “And Methan isn’t human. He’s the head of the Alt delegation to the tunnel network.”
“That’s what I get for trusting my multifaceted eyes rather than paying attention to the scanners. I thought he was just a Human with a large head.” The Farling approached with his blood draw pistol, which he pressed against the Alt’s neck. “That didn’t hurt a bit.”
“No, it didn’t,” Methan agreed. “The problem is with my eye. It’s just a little scratch on the cornea, but the ambassador insisted.”
“Hop on the table and I’ll have a look,” the beetle instructed his patient. “I’m going to pull up your eyelid and put in an anesthetic drop so you can keep it open without pain.” The Alt nodded his assent, and the doctor quickly followed through on his words using a device attached to an articulated metal arm, which he pulled down from an array of accessories above the operating table. “Better?”
“Yes, thank you.” Methan peered around the room.
“Close your other eye. How many ambassadors do you see?”
“Just the one,” the Alt replied. “But her head seems to be offset on her neck.”
“Look up a little higher.”
“Now her nose is off center.”
“That’s what I thought, but I wanted a second opinion,” the Farling cracked, rubbing his forelegs together with glee.
“Are you going to do a standup routine or fix his eye!” Kelly practically shouted, stamping her foot at the same time.
“If you damage that sterilization equipment on your ankle you’ll have to pay for it,” the beetle warned her. “As to the gentleman’s eye, I have no objections to carrying out a repair if he is willing to allow me.”
“It would be a shame to walk around with monocular vision when we’re only here for a brief visit,” the Alt replied.
“Look at my left mandible,” the beetle commanded, and pulled down a particularly complex-looking piece of equipment that reminded Kelly of her recent visit to the ophthalmologist’s office. “Will you be able to keep your eye steady while I operate?”
“Yes, I think so,” Methan answered.
“I’m going to count to three, slowly so the Human can keep up with me. One. Two. Three.”
Kelly caught herself counting along with the Farling surgeon, and decided on the spot that if he had the gall to show up for another one of Joe’s poker games, she was going to spit in his beer. The only saving grace was that the Alt didn’t seem to notice the stream of insults, probably because nobody was snarky on their homeworld.
“How does it look?” Methan asked.
“I’ll just have to make a tweak to the other side to make sure you don’t start favoring the good eye.”
“I’m sure when the injury heals my vision will return to its natural balance. I’m fortunate that the damage was to my weak eye.”
“Humanoids,” the doctor said dismissively. “Only two eyes, but you’re ready to settle for just one in good working order. I’ve restored your damaged eye to its maximum possible efficiency, and if I don’t bring the other one up to par, you’ll end up not using it.” He pushed the rig to the other side of the Alt’s head, and then reached out with a pair of limbs to keep the patient’s head straight. “All together now. One. Two. Three.”
“Did you say you already repaired his eye?” Kelly asked the doctor. “I thought you were just measuring.”
“I believe your husband mentioned that Humans have a saying about measuring twice and cutting once, but as you mature as a species, you’ll find that it makes more sense to measure and cut at the same time. It eliminates quantum uncertainty.�
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“Can I stand up now?” Methan asked.
“Just a moment,” the Farling said, issuing a silent command to the med bay. Then he pointed to a holographic vision chart which had appeared at the far end of the room. “Tell me the number of fingers held up by the humanoids on the smallest line of the chart you can see.”
“Five. One. One. Two. Four. One.”
“That’s as good as the mechanics of your eyeballs will allow,” the doctor said, satisfied with the results of his work. “If you’ll change places with the ambassador, I can remove her ankle bracelet, and we’ll all be on our way.”
Kelly was tempted to stay put for the sake of refusing, but she wanted to get the device off her ankle, so she complied grudgingly. Sitting on the table, she glanced over at the holographic eye chart and found that even by squinting, she could only make out the fingers held up by the figures in the largest row. The Farling looked up from fiddling with the lock on the ankle bracelet and caught her at it.
“Just read off the fingers in the highest row you can manage,” he instructed her.
“Five. One. One. Two. Four. One,” Kelly recited from memory.
“Come now. Do you really think I didn’t change the test while you were swapping places?”
“You’re bluffing,” the ambassador guessed.
Methan, who hadn’t stopped peering at different points in the room with a childish look of wonder since he rose from the table, inspected the eye chart again.
“Four. Six. Six. One. Six. Six,” he read off. “Must have drafted a bunch of those Drazen fellows to pose for the illustration.”
“If you come by my shop, I’ll fix those eyes up for you,” the Farling told the ambassador, unsnapping the ankle bracelet and straightening up.
“My vision has never been so good, and I didn’t feel a thing,” Methan encouraged her. “Mashing that miniature camera into my eye turned out to be a tremendous bit of luck. Thank you, Doctor.”
“Why can’t you just fix my eyes here?” Kelly asked suspiciously.
“My shift is almost up and med bay usage is allocated by the Stryx. Of course, if you ask the station manager for special treatment…”
“No. I’ll think about it,” Kelly said, hating herself for the fact that she was even considering letting the Farling fix her eyes. Besides, she had just paid thirty creds for new prescription reading glasses, though she avoided letting anybody outside of the family and Dring see her wearing them. “How much would it cost?”
“Ten creds an eye,” the beetle offered, which made her feel even worse. “And I’d waive the charge if you’d give me permission to extract a few of those interesting microbes from your gut. I have a theory that if I combined enough genetic material from your microbiome, I could come up with a new species at least as advanced as Humans.”
“You can harvest microbes from my gut,” the Alt offered.
“I’ll let you know if I want to take you up on the offer after I get back to my shop and run a sequence from your blood sample. I can see from the med bay scanners that both your diet and digestive system are superior to the ambassador’s, so you aren’t as dependent on symbiotic relationships with your intestinal community.”
“How can you make comparisons about our digestive systems when we’re different species eating different things?” Kelly objected.
“You and your diets are more compatible than you realize. If I were going by outward appearances, I’d put you at two-thousandth cousins, or thereabouts.”
Kelly’s implant pinged with an incoming message from Paul, so she pointed at her ear to be polite and listened to his update. It turned out that Bork had told Antha about the medieval castle where the Drazen had participated in a battle reenactment. Rinla was curious to see if there were parallels between human and Alt history, so they were heading there for lunch.
“Let’s go,” she said to Methan. “Your family is on their way to visit the last Libbyland attraction that Paul helped build before he went into the used spaceship business. It’s a sort of a generic reconstruction of a castle from around a thousand years ago.”
“Castle?” the Alt inquired.
“A giant pile of stones from which one group of Humans could dominate another group by dropping things on them from a height,” the doctor explained. “The Grenouthians produced an excellent documentary on the subject in which they examined whether the walls were intended to keep people in or out.”
“What was the final determination?”
“The scientists on the panel couldn’t agree on why anybody would want to live in a cold and drafty building to start with, but the whole point became moot when Humans developed siege engines that could batter down the walls.”
“It all sounds very violent,” Methan said.
“Most humanoids go through a phase of bashing each other on the heads with hard objects, and a surprising number of them look back on such times with great sentimentality,” the Farling explained. “From what I read off the chart, your species is an exception.”
“He has a chart?” Kelly asked skeptically.
“The Stryx provide background data for all patients referred to the med bay. And in answer to your next question, no, you can’t see it.”
“That wasn’t my next question,” Kelly lied, but she couldn’t think of another one to substitute.
Nineteen
“Dorothy’s home,” Vivian announced, stepping back and lowering her foil.
“You think I’m falling for that old trick?” Samuel replied scornfully. He remained on his guard, not giving in to the temptation to look over his shoulder, but the girl proceeded to remove her protective face shield. “You’re serious?”
“I’m flattered that you’re so focused on me, but you really should learn to keep an eye on your surroundings. I just completed the InstaSitter training course, and they stressed that most accidents happen when the sitter is paying too much attention to the client to notice that the cat has fallen into the fish tank.”
“You’re talking about situational awareness,” the boy said, removing his own mask. “It’s part of the EarthCent Intelligence training.”
“I’ll bet they stole it from us. Incoming,” she warned suddenly, going into a protective crouch.
“What?” Samuel spun towards the parking area and registered the fact that Kevin’s ship had in fact arrived and the ramp was already descending. Then a fast-moving blur coming in from an oblique angle tore his mask out of his hand and streaked away across the hold. “Alexander!” he shouted after the dog. “Bring that back!”
“Look, Beowulf is already chasing him. I’ll bet Alex just took it to get his dad’s attention.”
“We’d better go see if Dorothy and Kevin need help with anything. I’ll come back for our stuff later.” Samuel piled his remaining gear on the unused scorer’s table, and Vivian followed suit. Then the two teens headed for the recently arrived ship.
“I can’t believe we’re already back,” Dorothy said, looking out at Mac’s Bones from the top of the ramp. “It feels like we left yesterday.”
“Yesterday you were complaining that we’d been in the tunnel forever,” Kevin reminded her.
“What did I tell you about repeating things I say back to me? And don’t forget that our companionship contract stipulated that I get half of the profits for this trip.”
“Why do you think I kept asking you to go over the books?”
“I’ll have Paul do that for me. Or Dad. Or Jeeves. Or anyone. How’d we do?”
“Pretty average until Ailia’s business agent bought all the trade goods that fit under their tech ban and overpaid with cash.”
“Where did you put the gifts she gave us for the family?”
“Stow. I stowed the gifts in the set of lockers right next to the ramp so they would be easy to get at.”
“Here comes Samuel. He must be in a hurry to see what Ailia sent him.” Dorothy opened the locker with a palm swipe and began pulling out the presents. “I’
ll bet you that Aisha breaks down and cries when she sees this tapestry that the princess wove for her.”
“It’s the cylinder Ailia sent for Vivian that I’m curious about, but remember not to mention it to Sam.”
“What’s in the metal chest?”
“Dog toys for Beowulf. She had the blacksmith solder it closed so that Alexander wouldn’t steal them. Hey, Sam. Hello, Vivian. How’s university treating you?”
“A lot of work,” the boy replied.
“Ailia said that she’s told you to drop the dual major in Vergallian Studies a dozen times, but you won’t listen,” Dorothy said. “It’s not like you could ever get a space engineering job on a tech-ban world.”
“A man needs something to think about when he’s walking behind a plow.”
“That’s why I don’t pester him about it,” Vivian spoke up, and proceeded to repurpose Samuel’s reply. “A space engineer needs something to dream about or he’ll turn into a machine. Besides, learning about the most populous humanoid culture on the tunnel network can only help us down the road.”
“This one is for you, Sam,” Kevin continued, handing over a garment bag. “There’s a box here for your family as well, Vivian.”
“She sent a gift for everybody she knew on Union Station,” Dorothy added. “There’s a sculpture for Dring, presents for all the cast members who were on ‘Let’s Make Friends’ with her, and she even gave us something for Jeeves. Where is everybody, anyway? I asked Libby to ping the folks when we came out of the tunnel.”
“They’re all inside,” Samuel said, adding the thin package for Jeeves to the pile of gifts for the McAllister household.
“A surprise party, huh?” Dorothy asked, trying to sound bored by the idea. “I told mom not to do anything special.”
“She’s just having another work meeting. There’s a new species that’s practically human and everybody’s pretty excited about them. I think tonight’s the official press conference before the Alt delegation returns home and puts the tunnel network to a vote or something.”