Wanderers On Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 6)

by E. M. Foner

  “Don’t we all,” Libby said to herself, as Kelly headed off to catch up with her family.

  Two

  “So, are we attending as the EarthCent cultural attaché and escort, or as spies?” Thomas asked Lynx this question as they waited for the shuttle that would take them out to the Wanderer mob.

  “Well, as the attaché and escort, I guess, though everybody knows it means the same thing,” Lynx replied. “Have you ever come across these Wanderers before?”

  “When would I have had the chance?” Thomas asked. “You keep forgetting that I’m not even half your age, and I’ve spent practically my whole life on Union Station.”

  “Right,” Lynx replied, watching as the returning shuttle whisked through the atmospheric retention field protecting Union Station’s excursion platform for nitrogen/oxygen breathers. The small craft that were usually rented by sightseers to tour the outside of the station were now employed shuttling station inhabitants back and forth to the visiting ships of the mob. For some reason, Gryph wouldn’t allow the Wanderers to establish their own shuttle service, but local small craft owners like Joe were working around the clock as casual space taxis.

  “I’ve been watching the mob arrive over the station feed, and I saw that one of the ships is designated as a dance hall,” Thomas said. “I sort of promised Chastity that I’d check it out for her.”

  “It’s probably as good a place to start as any,” Lynx replied. “When I asked Libby how long the mob would be here, she said, ‘Too long,’ so I guess we don’t have to hurry to do our survey.”

  “I’m especially curious to see if the species all live together or if they mainly stick to their own ships,” Thomas said, as they boarded the shuttle. “I’ve been reading through everything I could find about the Wanderers and it isn’t at all clear. It’s almost as if nobody thinks they’re worth studying.”

  “I’m not really sure they are,” Lynx said. “I traded with some Wanderers out on the Drazen frontier maybe ten years ago. They were from a relatively small mob, and I didn’t accept their invitation to come out and visit because, well, I’d heard things about them. You know?”

  Thomas frowned and shook his head. “I don’t know. What kind of things?”

  “Like single women going out to visit a mob, sending messages back to their families that they were happy there, and then disappearing for years, if not forever.”

  “Did you hear anything about artificial people going missing?” Thomas asked, sounding concerned.

  “I don’t think so, but I probably wouldn’t have remembered if I had,” Lynx replied. “Besides, they’re in Stryx jurisdiction here, so I can’t imagine they’ll try anything.”

  “But you still invited me along,” Thomas pointed out.

  “It’s your job, too,” Lynx retorted. “I would have asked Woojin, but he’s taking turns with Paul and Joe flying the Nova as a shuttle. They’re working three shifts.”

  “Why didn’t we go with them?” Thomas asked, pausing before he strapped himself into the acceleration seat.

  “They wouldn’t have accepted our money,” Lynx replied. “You know how Blythe and Clive feel about not muddling up work-related expenses. By the way, if you can’t use your programmable cred for something, remember to ask for a receipt.”

  “There’s nothing in my personality enhancement to suggest that spies ever ask for receipts,” Thomas grumbled.

  “That’s because your personality enhancement was based on fictional works,” Lynx reminded him. “Do you think that the traveling salesman cover story would hold water if you ran around spending cash on everything?”

  “Are you two really spies?” asked a little Horten boy, who was sitting with his mother on the facing pair of acceleration seats. The Horten matron turned pale with embarrassment.

  “We sure are,” Thomas replied kindly. “Do you want to sign up as a double agent? I have a badge around here somewhere.”

  Before he could find it, the shuttle completed loading, and the chairs all pivoted around to face the front of the ship. Immediately after it cleared the atmosphere retention field under its own power, Gryph took over with manipulator fields, as he did for all of the shipping traffic in the station core. The ship accelerated smoothly all through its passage of the long core, and by the time it emerged beyond the station, it was moving so fast that it had to follow a gentle looping course to approach the mob.

  There was a brief moment’s weightlessness at the halfway point of the journey, during which the shuttle rotated in space to point its main engines towards the mob and began to decelerate. The whole trip lasted about twenty minutes.

  “Welcome to the Phygorean Mob transportation hub,” a voice intoned as they emerged from the shuttle. “We offer shared-taxi service to all of the vessels that are receiving guests, free of charge. This hub is a Zero-G environment, so if you don’t have magnetic cleats or a companion to tow you, wait near your shuttle and an attendant will be along shortly. Please note that shared taxis will only depart when all of the seats are taken or three Zarents have expired. Private taxi service to all destinations is also available.”

  “Was that in English or translated?” Lynx whispered to Thomas. She held onto her partner’s elbow as she clicked her heels to activate her magnetic cleats. At times she really missed her old trader implant, which did a good enough job without confusing her brain as to what was actually going on. The translation through the diplomatic implant supplied by EarthCent Intelligence was so seamless that she didn’t know what language was being spoken unless she could watch the speaker’s lips.

  “It was Verlock, oddly enough,” Thomas informed her. “It was speeded up by a factor of three, but definitely Verlock. Hey, where did that little boy go? I found a badge.”

  “Too late,” Lynx said. “They bolted the second the safety locks came off. My guess is that the free shared-taxi service isn’t any great bargain if you get stuck waiting around for three Zarents, however long that is. I wonder why my implant didn’t translate the time units?”

  “Zarents aren’t a unit of time, they’re a species that’s dedicated to deep space maintenance work,” Thomas explained. “I don’t think they even have a home world, they just live with Wanderer mobs and other permanent fleets.”

  “So when they said a shared service would only depart with empty seats after three Zarents expired…?”

  “I think we should splurge on a private taxi,” Thomas replied significantly.

  Lynx and her artificial partner glide-stepped their way out of the shuttle, which was moored haphazardly to a pier just inside one of the least-convincing atmospheric retention fields the former trader had ever seen. The so-called transportation hub was basically a big metal box filled with air and pierced at regular intervals with portals for arriving and departing craft. Holographic representations of the more popular vessels in the mob appeared above various shared-taxi stands and empty slips, but the majority of the arriving visitors were queued in line at the paid stand.

  “Paradise? Paradise?” a young Drazen inquired, working his way along the queue. “Just two short for the shared service to Paradise. Come on, give it a try. How about you two?” he asked, stopping right in front of Lynx.

  “No thanks,” Lynx replied. “We’re going to Dance Hall.”

  “Dance Hall is lame,” the young Drazen told them. “You can dance in Paradise too, plus there are all sorts of opportunities for, you know—can’t spell humanoid without M-A-N.”

  “That’s a very penetrating observation for such a young Drazen, but we have prior plans,” Lynx replied.

  “Hey, I was just being nice,” the Drazen retorted. “I don’t usually go for older chicks.”

  Thomas held Lynx back as the young Drazen resumed his search for fares to get the shared service moving.

  “Older chicks?” Lynx fumed. “Let go of me and I’ll show that Drazen brat who the chick is.”

  “Take it easy, partner,” Thomas soothed her. “He’s probably be
en waiting for hours to save a few creds on the ride. Didn’t you have money problems when you were his age?”

  “His age?” Lynx turned her fury on the artificial person. “First you tell me that I’m twice as old as you, and now this punk who probably has more notches in his tentacle than I ever will is supposed to be a younger generation? I’m barely thirty.”

  “If you say so,” Thomas agreed noncommittally. “Wow, this is one of the fastest lines I’ve ever been in.”

  Lynx swallowed her indignation and peered around the large Dollnick couple who were shuffling along in front of them. Sure enough, they were just a couple steps from the gate where taxis were continually halting, disgorging passengers, and taking on new fares.

  “Where to?” a scruffy-looking human asked from the pilot’s seat of his short-hop space taxi.

  “Dance Hall,” Thomas responded quickly, in case Lynx was having second thoughts about the whole thing.

  “Hop in,” the driver said.

  Lynx and Thomas stepped over the sill and strapped themselves in with the loose harnesses on the bench seat. As soon as the transparent bubble closed over the passenger compartment, the taxi-stand operator triggered the magnetic catapult to fling the little craft into space.

  “Shouldn’t you start the meter?” Lynx asked politely.

  “Nah, I’ll give you a deal,” the driver said. “How does fifty creds sound?”

  “Do you accept programmable creds?” Thomas inquired.

  “Sure thing,” the driver replied. “Just slot it in the mini-register slot in the back there.”

  “Wait a second,” Lynx said, grabbing her partner’s wrist before he could insert the coin supplied by EarthCent Intelligence for paying salary and covering expenses. “Fifty creds is at least twice what a little jaunt like this should cost. Do we look like a couple of dumb kids to you?”

  “Fifty creds is fair for Dance Hall,” the driver replied sulkily. “If you’re going to be cheapskates about it, I can do forty-five, but I won’t make a dime after paying the company.”

  “Cut the big act and turn on the meter,” Lynx said, becoming annoyed with the driver’s persistence. “We both know perfectly well that the mini-register back here isn’t taxi equipment, it’s your personal currency holder. If you don’t want to do things legal, then take us back to the hub and we’ll get another cab.”

  “I can’t start the meter now, we’re halfway there already,” the driver protested, changing tack. “Look, thirty creds and it’ll be the best bargain you ever made. Just wait until you catch a cab back later and you’ll find out what a great deal you got.”

  “Start the meter,” Lynx demanded, her voice turning cold. She nudged her partner and gestured with her chin.

  “Yeah, start the meter,” Thomas repeated, this time employing one of the command voices that came with his secret agent personality upgrade.

  “This is what’s wrong with humanity,” the man whined, turning on the meter. “Nobody trusts anybody anymore. Now I’ve wasted my lunch break to make more money for my boss, and who’s going to make that right for me?”

  “I checked the time when we left the hub and I’ll add on the difference when we arrive at Dance Hall,” Lynx said, relenting a little. “But don’t take us on a grand tour of the mob. I can see Dance Hall from here, and the fastest way between two points is a straight line.”

  The driver cheered up a bit when Lynx mentioned making up the difference, since she’d be paying for off-meter time that he could embezzle out of the cash box without coming up short. Before another two minutes passed, they were entering the core of Dance Hall, which looked like an enormous spoked donut from space. The AI handling traffic that entered through the spinning habitat’s axis caught the taxi in its manipulator fields and quickly spun it up to Dance Hall’s rotational speed for docking at the taxi stand.

  “Alright, the meter says nine creds, so adding the time you spent trying to con us, I figure we owe fourteen,” Lynx said. “Just tell the real mini-register that we’re offering a five-cred tip.”

  The driver’s only reply was to speak the figure to the taxi’s meter, which immediately extruded a mini-register slot of its own from an articulated arm that pivoted around to the back bench. Thomas inserted his programmable coin, confirmed the amount, and received it back, fourteen creds lighter. The two humans exited the cab, and the taxi-stand controller moved it forward to the departures gate, where new fares were waiting to get ripped-off.

  “How did you know he was overcharging us so badly?” Thomas asked.

  “How could you not know?” Lynx asked in reply, though it was hard to be irritated with her partner’s lack of trading sense when she was still basking in the glow of vindication. “Nobody ever gives you a deal off-meter. It’s just how dishonesty works. Once they decide to cheat their boss, why would they do their passengers a favor?”

  “There’s the lift tube,” Thomas said, guiding Lynx through the crowd of exhausted revelers on their way home. “From what I read, practically all of the ships in the mob are like miniature versions of Union Station, spinning cylinders with multiple decks that simulate gravity with angular acceleration. But Dance Hall is more of a flat ring, just one giant dance floor, though the curvature is probably obvious unless the ceiling is really high.”

  “I’ll be glad to get down to the dance floor,” Lynx admitted. “I never would have thought it possible back when I was trading, but I think I’m beginning to lose my space legs.”

  “What do you mean?” Thomas asked, as the lift accelerated outwards, giving Lynx the feeling that she was oriented with her feet in the wrong direction.

  “Zero-G, I’m not used to it anymore,” Lynx complained. “I’ve barely been off Union Station since I took this job. For ten years before that, I practically lived in space on my two-man trader.”

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” Thomas exclaimed. “We should have taken your ship and saved on the shuttle and taxi fare.”

  “I had Gryph move it to off-station parking for me last year,” Lynx told him, and then sighed. “It’s basically mothballed. I doubt I even remember how to fly it,”

  “I could teach you,” Thomas offered helpfully. “I watched you back on our first mission and I never forget anything.”

  “Except the time.” Lynx elbowed him playfully, feeling better as the increasing distance from the core gave her a more definite sense of up and down. “Wow, look at all those people.”

  The EarthCent Intelligence operatives found themselves descending towards a mass of dancing sentients, only slightly distorted through the transparent cylindrical walls of the capsule and shaft. A rainbow of low-intensity lasers bounced off of clouds of mirror balls suspended from the ceiling, making it difficult to accurately identify the species of the dancers in different sections, even as they drew closer. Only when the capsule halted at the floor, and then separated like a bell jar to allow the passengers to exit, did an obnoxiously loud mix of techno-music overwhelm the new arrivals.

  “This isn’t real dancing,” Thomas shouted to Lynx in disappointment. “They’re just jumping around like the floor is too hot, and waving their arms like they’re under attack by biting insects.”

  “It’s so huge, there must be other dances going on,” Lynx shouted back. “We must have missed a map or something.”

  “You’re right!” Thomas yelled in reply, looking much more cheerful. “Bring up the information channel on your implant.”

  Lynx blinked a few times and made some selections with practiced movements of her left pupil, even though she could have navigated faster by just subvocing. For some reason, she liked doing things the old-fashioned way. When she reached the standard information channel used by markets, museums and spaceports around the galaxy, a detailed map appeared. It included the standard “You are here,” arrow, and a graphical breakdown showing the different dances currently going on.

  “Argentine tango is right out at the end,” she remarked loudly, counting on he
r partner’s ability to separate her voice from the background noise. “Wait a second. They have a tango going on at the other end as well.”

  “It’s really just one dance, they cut it in half to create a flat projection for the map,” Thomas replied, bending to speak directly in Lynx’s ear. “We took exactly the wrong lift tube and came down opposite from where we need to be. Do you want to hoof it, or should we go back up and then down again?”

  “We’re here to do research, so we may as well walk,” Lynx replied, looking doubtfully at the slow curvature of the floor. “How far do you think it is?”

  “Maybe a half an hour if we can find a clear lane,” Thomas responded. “Follow me. I’m taking the shortest path off of this alleged dance floor.”

  Lynx fell in behind Thomas, who was using his shoulders and elbows in a much more energetic fashion than she had ever seen him do before. Either he was in a genuine hurry to get to the tango, or the weird music and the spastic dance moves really bothered him.

  Three

  Dring was the last of the invited guests to arrive at the brainstorming session Kelly had set up to discuss show ideas for the Grenouthian network. She wondered idly if it was some kind of galactic rule that the sentients with the longest commute showed up first, since Czeros had been almost fifteen minutes early. Then again, the Frunge ambassador had problems at home, and he could be counted on to show up early anywhere that alcohol was on offer.

  “Thank you all for coming,” Kelly said, surveying the living area of the ice harvester with a sudden lump in her throat. During the first half of her career working for EarthCent, the diplomatic service had moved her about constantly, so she rarely stayed at any posting for more than a year. She was sure that she must have made friends during that period, but after fifteen years on Union Station, she couldn’t remember any of them.

  Donna and her husband sat on the couch with Czeros, Gwendolyn was in one of the easy chairs, Bork and his wife Shinka occupied the new love-seat, and Dring, as was his habit, remained standing in preference to crushing his tail. Joe was in the basement drawing a fresh pitcher of his latest homebrewed Pilsner to test on the guests, and Beowulf was sprawled on the throw rug, gnawing the latest in chew-toy technology. The faux bone was a new novelty item that Peter Hadad was considering for Kitchen Kitsch, and Beowulf had volunteered as the quality tester.