Book Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassasor 13)

by E. M. Foner

  “With all the books you brought up earlier, that makes four-hundred and eighty creds,” Donna told the aliens after tallying up on a tab. “You must be some serious readers.”

  “How dare you!” the shortest Fillinduck hissed.

  The dominant partner of the trio smoothed the ruffled feathers of the shorter alien and informed the embassy manager, “None of us have the slightest interest in reading Humanese. We’re interior decorators and I have just the place for these ornaments picked out in my mind’s eye.”

  Kelly felt a flash of anger at the waste, but then again, Dorothy had told her about the fiery fate that awaited unloved books on Earth, and perhaps a curious alien might one day open one of the volumes and fall in love. Then something Kevin had related about the visit to the abandoned university library came to mind, and she inserted herself into the conversation.

  “Excuse me, but if you’re looking for books for strictly decorative purposes, there used to be an entire industry on Earth dedicated to manufacturing them. My embassy can supply the contact information, and my understanding is that you can get them much cheaper than these.”

  “What is the name of this product?” the Fillinduck demanded.

  “Monographs.”

  After the aliens moved off, Donna tallied up the paperbacks in Kelly’s box and added the money to the large jar she was using for a till.

  “Who ever knew that Stryx creds were so heavy,” the embassy manager commented.

  “How much have we raised so far?” Kelly asked.

  “A few thousand, at least. I know that even if we sell all the books it’s not a drop in the bucket of what the refit is costing, but I still think it’s important to get people involved and interested in Flower’s mission. Jeeves even overpaid for his books, though he wouldn’t let me see them.”

  “How do you know he overpaid, then? He might have tricked you.”

  “No, he opened the box and let me pull one out a little to see how thick it was. They were all large paperbacks, but he had packed them with the spines down. I guessed there were around thirty in the box, and he paid a hundred creds, even though they would have been just a half cred each if he let me add them up.”

  “You couldn’t see what they were at all?”

  “I could only see the cut paper edges and a bit of the cover on the one I pulled out. The color scheme reminded me of that kiddie ride Kevin brought back from Earth. My two-year-old grandson learned how to say ‘Bee’ when Chastity put him in it.”

  Twenty

  “Aren’t you glad we came early?” Kelly asked her husband as they browsed through the displays in the lobby of the Empire Convention Center. “I’ve never seen so many different alien books in the same place before. Somebody should open an all-species bookshop.”

  “I wonder what this one costs?” Joe looked around for the Dollnick in charge of the booth, but the alien was with another customer. “These illustrations and technical diagrams of colony ship engineering are incredibly detailed. I’m not sure if I’m looking at a work of art or a technical reference.”

  “Take a snap of the back cover with your visual implant and ask Libby to translate it.”

  “I don’t know if Dollnicks put prices on the cover.” Joe lifted the book closer to his face and he squinted to focus at the short distance. “I can’t even tell what it’s printed on, though the fibers—you’re not going to believe this, Kel. I think it’s woven.”

  “That would make it more expensive, but I’m sure I’ve heard of handcrafted books from Earth printed on woven paper.”

  “No, I mean with different colored threads of some sort that have been dyed to spell out words and form pictures once they’re woven in place. I’m sure of it. If you look at the edge of each sheet, you can see that it’s really two back-to-back weavings sewn together along the margins.”

  “That’s unbelievable.” Kelly accepted the book from Joe and confirmed his assessment. “These books must cost a fortune.”

  “Because they’re worth a fortune,” the overdue Dolly salesman declared, looming over them. “However, the naval architecture book you’ve wisely chosen is a reprint edition produced on machine looms for the consumer market.”

  “How much is it?” Joe asked.

  “Let me tell you about our financing program for first-time buyers, for which I’ll assume you qualify.” The Dollnick drew a laminated reference table from the oversized pocket of his immaculately tailored suit as he spoke, and ran a finger along the columns. “If we spread the payments over a hundred years—no, I see that won’t work for your species. May I ask how old you are?”

  “Skip the actuarial tables,” Joe said. “What’s the cash price?”

  “Eighteen hundred creds is a pittance when you consider—”

  “How about fifteen hundred?” Joe interrupted. “That’s more than I earned in a month before I retired.”

  The salesman looked quickly to both sides to see if anybody was listening in, then flapped all four hands in a gesture of good-humored submission and declared, “Done.”

  Kelly bit her tongue while Joe completed the transaction with his programmable cred. It was the most money she had ever seen him spend on anything, but she could hardly complain given her own book habit, especially since she was counting on him to build her a new bookcase. Then she spotted Walter and Brinda wending their way through the displays and moved to intercept.

  “So?” she demanded.

  “Do you really want to do this now?” the editor of the Galactic Free Press asked with a sigh. “All right, then. It won’t fly.”

  “What do you mean? Libby read my manuscript and she was very complimentary.”

  “Exactly,” Walter replied. “It’s too good.”

  “What?”

  “You completely ignored our outline and wrote the book you wanted to write. I’m sure you’ll have success with a different publisher, but it’s not a For Humans title.”

  “I have a contract!”

  “Which includes a fitness for publication clause. You’re lucky you didn’t sign the first contract I offered or you’d have to return your advance payment.”

  “But I haven’t been paid yet,” Kelly pointed out.

  “Really? Well, I wouldn’t spend the money in that case,” Walter warned her. “Seriously, it’s a fine manuscript and I read every word. Perhaps we could serialize it in the paper, but it’s not the book we hired you to write.”

  “It doesn’t count as hiring if you don’t pay me,” Kelly groused, but she was secretly relieved to be out of the contract and had been expecting something of the sort for weeks. “If you need help finding another writer to finish the book with your outline, one of my colleagues might be interested.”

  “I’ve already engaged the author of Economics for Humans, and he’s promised me a completed manuscript by morning,” Walter said. Then he pointed at his ear to indicate that he was being pinged, and turned to his wife. “I’ll see you after the awards. Chastity is waiting for me in the ready-room.”

  Kelly chatted a bit with Brinda and then made her way back to Joe, who was showing off his purchase to Bork and Czeros.

  “Yes, the Dollnick page-weaving technology is very advanced,” the Frunge ambassador acknowledged. “My own people experimented with a similar approach due to our aversion to paper but we never got the cost down to a practical level for books.”

  “Neither did the Dollys,” Joe informed him.

  “I’m looking forward to our prize for illuminated scrolls,” the Drazen ambassador said to Kelly. “It’s nice to see one’s cultural heritage draw the respect of other species.”

  “I never expected that literary prizes would be such a big hit with everybody,” Kelly admitted. “Chastity told me that several of the alien publishers have already asked why the Galactic Free Press can’t host an annual awards show every week. The Grenouthians are broadcasting it live on their network.”

  “And I’ve arranged for a pop-up shop featuring all of the
winning titles in our deck’s boutique section,” Aainda announced, gliding up to Kelly’s side and taking her arm. “I believe it’s important to foster interest in the other species among my people, and I hope you honor us with a visit.”

  “Are you sure the empire knows you’re here,” the EarthCent ambassador asked half-seriously. “You’re not like any of the Vergallian ambassadors I’ve ever met.”

  “I had the pleasure of participating in a mission to your Alt cousins before assuming my post. They made such a favorable impression that I decided to throw away the briefing materials about Humans provided by my intelligence service and go with my childhood experience and instincts.”

  “So you’ll be instructing your spymaster on the station to meet with Herl and Clive as I proposed?” Bork asked the Vergallian.

  “Already done,” she replied with a gracious smile. “The potential for cost savings alone would have convinced me, and the opportunity to contribute to Flower’s worthy mission just adds frosting to the cake. Excuse me, I’ve been ignoring Ambassador Ortha and he’s looking a bit pink.”

  “What proposal?” Kelly asked the Drazen ambassador.

  “Hasn’t Clive briefed you yet? It only trickled down to me this morning, but apparently the Verlock intelligence head has followed up on his scheme for sharing intelligence targets with a suggestion to run a trial on your colony ship. If Aainda has convinced her people, that means that everybody is onboard.”

  “Onboard with what?”

  “We’re all going to send agents along with Flower, undercover of course. It will save everyone quite a bit in transportation and lodging costs, since they’ll be able to recruit local sources on all of your outposts worth mentioning without leaving the ship.”

  “May I enquire what we get in return?” Kelly asked, somewhat taken aback by the news that the head of the EarthCent spy agency, for which she was nominally the Minister of Intelligence, had agreed to host alien spies on a guided tour of humanity.

  “Paid,” Czeros chipped in to the conversation. “The agreement is that all of the species will contribute half of their savings over what we would have spent spying on you otherwise. It’s not a tremendous sum of money as you don’t have anything worth hiding, but it’s a bit of a diplomatic coup for you since nothing like this has been tried since the Drazens and Hortens joined the tunnel network.”

  A loud bell dinged in the Empire Convention Center lobby, indicating that it was time for the awards show attendees to enter the Nebulae room and find their seats.

  “I suppose I’ll get an earful if I don’t sit with our publishers and scribes,” Bork said, taking his leave of Kelly and Czeros.

  “Same here,” the Frunge ambassador excused himself, though he made a sharp detour for the lobby bar before entering the Nebulae room.

  The EarthCent ambassador and her husband delayed for a few minutes, Kelly to avoid getting caught up in the alien crush, and Joe to admire his purchase under the bright lights. They were just heading in when Blythe and Clive arrived along with Chastity’s husband, Marcus, and accompanied by Shaina and Daniel.

  “Great timing,” Blythe greeted them. “We’re all sitting together with mom and dad. Chastity sprang for our table.”

  “I wondered about that,” Kelly said. “I didn’t see a seating chart or name cards with table numbers.”

  “That’s mom’s style. With all the interest from aliens, Chas went with selling whole tables. We’re at a big one up front, and Dring bought a table for everybody who didn’t fit right behind us. Vivian and Samuel are with the kids from the committee. Didn’t you get a ping from the Empire Convention Center?”

  Kelly frowned, activated her heads-up display, and navigated with eye movements to her incoming message queue. “Oops. I really cranked down on my spam filter after Libby started with the holo ads, and the seating notification got filed as a commercial solicitation.”

  “Those ads work phenomenally,” Marcus told them. “Chastity did a trial spend for my dance studio, and by the third day I was turning away new students and we had to cancel the ad. She’s still arguing with the station librarian over whether we should have to pay for sales that we turned down.”

  “You’re fashionably late,” Jeeves greeted the group when they reached their round banquet table right in front of the raised stage. “I took the liberty of ordering your drinks so the poor waitress wouldn’t fall behind.”

  “Thank you, Jeeves,” Blythe said. “Have you seen Lynx?”

  “She just ran backstage a minute ago to help Woojin get ready. Something about ‘wigging out,’ if I understood her.”

  “I’d be wigging out too if I was him,” Kelly said sympathetically. “How did he get stuck reading the names of the award winners?”

  “Flower wanted to see how he interacts with aliens in a formal setting before accepting him as captain, and this is the best opportunity we could come up with on short notice,” Clive explained. “It’s surprising that an AI would care so much about appearances.”

  “Hey, everybody,” Lynx said, looking a little nervous as she took her seat next to Shaina. “I hope Wooj doesn’t screw this up.”

  “I didn’t know you were so anxious to leave the station,” Kelly addressed the embassy’s supposed cultural attaché.

  “I’m not, really, but I think Woojin likes the idea of being in command again more than he’ll admit, and then when I heard that our doctor had signed on, that clinched it. We’ll probably come back when Em is old enough to start at Libby’s school.”

  “Shh,” Brinda said. “They’re starting.”

  Walter stepped up to the podium and began, “Welcome to the first annual—”

  “Semi-annual,” somebody at the head Dollnick table interrupted.

  “Quarterly,” a Horten called out.

  “Weekly,” a Grenouthian publisher bellowed.

  “Thank you for your enthusiasm, but as I already told you, that’s a discussion for another time,” Walter said. “Welcome to the first celebration of the Union Station Book Awards. We are gathered here to recognize the best efforts of our industry and to confer status on those authors and publishers who have produced these exemplary works for the benefit of tunnel network members. But first, a word from our sponsor.”

  There was a polite round of applause as Walter and Chastity exchanged positions, and Joe took the opportunity to show his Dollnick book to Clive, who was duly impressed.

  “I’d like to thank everybody who purchased tickets for a table tonight, the proceeds of which are being donated to Eccentric Enterprises for the Flower project. I also want to request that audience members hold their applause while the presenter is speaking. The winning books were chosen by our three-judge panel, whose identities we are keeping private for obvious reasons. The Galactic Free Press will be publishing a book supplement tomorrow which will list all of the finalists, including a special section for runners-up, second-runners-up, and honorable mentions. Official artwork of an award medallion suitable for inclusion on book covers and other marketing materials is available on request.”

  “Request. Request,” a number of rambunctious aliens cried out.

  “The official presentation will be done by Pyun Woojin, who will serve as Flower’s captain for her maiden cruise as a circuit ship. Woojin?”

  The unfortunate ex-mercenary reluctantly climbed the short stairs onto the platform and strode to the podium, drawing choked laughter from the humans. The aliens reacted quite differently to Woojin’s elaborate uniform, with the Dollnicks whistling in admiration and the Grenouthians patting their bellies, while Kelly distinctly overheard Bork at the next table saying to Herl, “Not bad at all.”

  “Why is Woojin dressed like George Washington?” Joe whispered to Daniel. “And I know that’s not his real hair.”

  “Didn’t Dorothy mention it to you? Flower insisted on uniforms, and to prevent her from designing them herself, Blythe agreed to let SBJ Fashions come up with proposals based on historical uniforms fr
om Earth. Jeeves did the negotiating in the end, and Flower really went for the buttons, wig and colonial hat.”

  “Now I know what Jeeves meant about getting even one day after Wooj cleaned him out three times at our last poker game.”

  “The first prize tonight,” Woojin read from a tab, “is for the longest running serial novel written by members of the same family.”

  “Huh?” Kelly muttered.

  “And the winner, with no runners-up, is, Irrational Numbers. This mathematical thrill ride has held Verlock readers enthralled for over a thousand generations, so let’s have a big hand for Hylneth, accepting for his extended clan.”

  A Verlock who was conveniently waiting at the foot of the stairs shuffled onto the stage and accepted the heavy medallion mounted on a marble slab. Hylneth graciously deferred when offered the opportunity to make a speech, and Woojin began announcing the next prize the moment the slow-footed alien turned ponderously to return to his seat.

  “In the category of novels based in an imaginary universe where all of the inhabitants have belly pouches, the winner is, Warren Master. Beloved by Grenouthians and sophisticated readers of all species, this recent release is destined to become a new classic. Other titles making the final cut include, Furry Warrior, Pink Stripe, and The Producer’s Daughter.”

  “Who came up with these categories?” Kelly asked Brinda, as the Grenouthians in attendance broke into loud arguments and flung accusations at one another.

  “I’m sworn to secrecy,” Walter’s wife replied. “Let’s just say that it was complicated.”

  The unnamed bunny who accepted the prize for Warren Master thanked his extended clan for their efforts to influence the judges on his behalf, and hopped back to his place.

  “In the category of best translation of a romance to the languages of three or more different species, the winner is our station librarian, for her renderings into Drazen, Frunge, Horten and Vergallian of the Bea Hollinder novel, Her Only Choice.”