Guest Night on Union Station

by E. M. Foner

  Dorothy placed the blue sphere on the potter’s wheel and gave it a gentle spin.

  “Tzvim data locker and passenger transponder,” the artificial voice intoned.

  “There, you see?” the alien said aggressively. “Hand it over and I’ll be on my way.”

  “Does the data locker contain a collection of Grenouthian documentaries purchased this morning?” Flazint asked the filing system.

  “Data locker encrypted. Requesting assistance.”

  “If the sphere is damaged, you girls are going to pay for this,” the Tzvim threatened.

  “Decryption completed,” a different voice said. “Checking contents.”

  “Is that you, Libby?” Dorothy asked.

  “Yes,” the Stryx librarian replied. “The documentaries recorded on this device are pre-release copies from the Grenouthian editing studio. Please wait while I review our security imaging and contact the studio to determine if the transaction was legitimate.”

  “I paid good currency for those documentaries,” the alien protested. “Is it my responsibility to determine if the individual selling them had all of the proper authorizations?”

  A hologram sprang into life above the 3D scanner’s turntable, showing the turtle-backed alien in a corridor outside the main Grenouthian studio on the station. He held a bag out to a young bunny who accepted it, looked inside, and then withdrew a device similar to a flashlight from his pouch. The Tzvim held up the blue sphere and the Grenouthian zapped it with the data transfer device. In just a few seconds, the transaction was done and the pair split apart.

  “You see?” the alien repeated querulously. “Perfectly legitimate trade.”

  “Awaiting confirmation from the studio,” Libby said. The hologram continued to play, showing the Tzvim walking down the corridor to a lift tube. He entered the tube with the blue sphere still in his hand and gave the capsule his destination. Thirty seconds later he emerged in the all-species entertainment district, where he was met at the tube by another of his kind.

  “Get it?” Geed asked bluntly.

  “Got it,” the alien confirmed, displaying the blue sphere.

  “Celebration,” the Tzvim emissary said, flashing her teeth.

  The two Tzvim linked arms and strolled off in search of a drinking establishment near the Empire Convention Center. Libby speeded up the action, as the pair took corridor seats in front of a Dollnick bar and began ordering and quaffing glowing concoctions, one after another. Eventually, they bumped fists and headed off in their own directions, the blue sphere forgotten on the table, which was littered with the detritus of the celebration.

  “Confirmation of an unauthorized transaction from the Grenouthian studio,” Libby reported. “Wiping data. The studio will reclaim your payment from their former employee and forward it to the Grenouthian ambassador, who will return it to your emissary.”

  “This is illegal search and seizure,” the Tzvim shouted, working himself into a passion. Dorothy and Flazint both backed away, and a pair of maintenance bots streaked into the room, as if summoned by rubbing a magic lamp.

  “Take your sphere and go,” one of the bots said in its mechanical voice.

  The alien swept the blue sphere off the turntable, glared at the girls and the bots, and then stomped out.

  “Thank you. Come again,” Dorothy whispered to Flazint, and the two girls struggled to suppress their giggles. But they stopped almost immediately as a trio of gold-masked Loods strode in.

  “You,” the center figure in the trio proclaimed, pointing at the human girl. “Somebody in your Little Apple stole my purse. Return it immediately or face the consequences.”

  Relieved that it wasn’t the young Lood from the Physics Ride, Dorothy put on her best customer service smile and tried to calm the agitated alien.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, sir, but this is a lost-and-found and we don’t receive stolen goods. Are you sure that your purse wasn’t lost?”

  “Look here,” the Lood ordered imperiously, and for a moment Dorothy thought he was going to remove his mask. Instead, he held up a hand, wiggled his fingers to draw her eyes, and then put the hand in the pocket of his expensive cloak. His fingers continued right through the pocket to the outside of the garment. “Some scum sliced my pocket open and stole my purse while I was engaged in defending myself from ruffians.”

  “I see,” Dorothy said, wondering where the two maintenance bots had gone. “But I’m afraid that means the thief has your purse, unless he removed the money and threw it away. Could you describe it?”

  “Describe it?” the Lood shouted. “It looks like my purse!”

  One of his companions intuited that this description was unlikely to move the process forward, and he removed his own purse from his cloak. It was made out of some sort of tanned skin or artificial substitute, and was tooled with a detailed hunting scene taking place in grasslands.

  “His purse looks like this, except the animal being killed is a Shorinth rather than a Jalop,” the companion explained helpfully.

  “Black purse with a dying Shorinth,” Dorothy repeated “We’ll just take a look.”

  This time it was Flazint who located the purse in one of the overflow bins after several minutes of searching, during which time the girls struggled to ignore a running commentary on their inefficient methods offered by the angry Lood. The purse was heavy and made the sound of shifting coins as the Frunge girl placed it on the scanner’s turntable.

  “That’s my purse!” the Lood declared, approaching the counter and reaching for it. He jerked his hand back in surprise as it encountered an invisible barrier that flashed yellow and delivered a shock.

  “We have to check out all items,” Dorothy said. “It’s for your own protection, to prevent somebody dishonest from claiming it.”

  “Lood change purse and assorted coins from the Cayl Empire with a current exchange value of eighteen-hundred and seven Stryx creds,” the cataloging system’s voice announced.

  “And it’s mine,” the Lood declared, rubbing his hand. “Are we through here?”

  “Why would a thief return a full purse?” the helpful member of the trio asked.

  “Don’t forget we’re talking about a human thief,” the third Lood said. “They’re all idiots.”

  “Libby?” Dorothy asked. “Do you have a holo of how the purse was stolen?”

  “Retracing,” Libby answered. A hologram appeared above the turntable, showing the purse lying on top of a mound of kebab sticks and food wrappers in the trash receptacle where a maintenance bot had found it. The scene seemed to jerk around for a moment as the Stryx librarian matched the bot’s recovery record against images from the security system, then a positive lock was achieved.

  “Can you start a minute before the loss?” Flazint asked.

  Three cloaked figures, viewed from above and behind, popped into existence near the trash receptacle. They were engaged in a loud dispute with a woman wearing an apron.

  “Do you think because I’m human I just fell off the turnip cart?” the angry woman asked in English. “That’s three breakfast specials for nine creds total, and you’re lucky I don’t charge you for that bottle of vinegar you dumped all over your toast.”

  “And this is a ten-cred coin,” came the voice of one of the Loods. He held out the tiny copper-colored disc they were arguing over. “It includes a tip for your fine service.”

  “It’s not ten Stryx creds,” the woman said. She lifted her arm and waved a large ladle at the aliens. “I’m not afraid of anybody who has to hide behind a mask, so fork over something that my register likes and I’ll make the change.”

  “Watch out,” one of the Loods shouted. “She’s got a Frazzleopper.”

  All three aliens drew long knives out of back scabbards concealed under their cloaks, and in bringing them around their bodies, one of the Loods sliced through the cloak of his neighbor. The change purse dropped out into the trash can.

  Several large men pushed into the scene
, brandishing kitchen knives and meat cleavers. At their head Dorothy recognized Ian, who was wielding a Claymore that usually hung over the bar in Pub Haggis. David followed behind his employer with an iron frying pan.

  One of the Loods reached for his mask but another one knocked his hand away. “Don’t,” he admonished. “There’s too many of them. We’d never make it out of here.”

  “That’s nine creds you owe me,” the woman repeated, waving her ladle under the middle Lood’s nose.

  “Of course, it was just a misunderstanding,” the alien gritted out. “Z’harp. You changed some money with that Thark, didn’t you?”

  “Cheapskate,” muttered Z’harp, who the girls now recognized as the helpful one of the trio. He returned his knife to its sheath and dug out a ten-cred piece from his purse. “Your kitchen implement looks very much like a neural overload device used by Shuga cutthroats,” he said apologetically to the woman. The hologram blinked out.

  “Here you go, sir,” Flazint said, handing the purse to its owner.

  The Lood accepted the purse angrily and stuffed it in the pocket of his cloak, where it immediately dropped through the slit and landed on his foot. He glared wordlessly at the companion who had cut open the cloak with his sloppy knife-play, and that Lood quickly bent to retrieve the purse.

  “Pay the fee, Z’harp,” the leader said. “Z’ding is taking me shopping for a new cloak.” He strode out of the lost-and-found with an unhappy companion in tow.

  “How much will my older brother’s error cost me this time?” Z’harp asked in a resigned voice.

  “There’s no fee,” Flazint told the Lood. “Some sentients tip, but it’s not mandatory.”

  Z’harp reached into the change purse with the scene of the Jalop hunt and pulled out a five-cred piece, which he placed on the counter. Then he looked at it and hesitated, as if he had mistaken the coin for one of smaller value. Z’harp cleared his throat nervously.

  “Would it be possible to purchase a copy of that hologram from the breakfast place?” he asked.

  “It’s free with the tip if you have your own storage device,” Flazint told him, much to Dorothy’s surprise. The Frunge girl added an aside for her co-worker. “People come back and ask for the security holograms all the time, usually friends and family members. The high resolution version is only available for a couple of days, though. I guess even the Stryx run out of storage space eventually.”

  When Flazint turned back to the Lood, he was proffering his knife, held by the tip.

  “My personal storage unit is in the handle,” he said. “Can your device access it?”

  “Sure, it works with everything,” Flazint asserted. She accepted the knife, placed it on the turntable, and requested a copy of the confrontation. The hologram they had just watched played again, but at twenty times the speed. In a few seconds, the transfer was over.

  “Thank you,” Z’harp said. “We’re not all, uh, you know.”

  “No species is,” Flazint answered philosophically, spinning the Lood’s five-cred piece on the counter. “Come again any time.”

  “Thank you,” Dorothy added.

  “There’s our lunch money,” Flazint said as soon as the Lood took his leave. “Are you feeling adventurous?”

  “Humans can’t tolerate much cross-species food,” Dorothy admitted. “Just some of the grains and vegetables, and you guys don’t eat grains.”

  “We could get something from the Little Apple,” the Frunge girl offered generously. “Sometimes my family orders a pizza special without the dough, but you could get it under your half.”

  “Great! We’ve got plenty in the tip jar to splurge on delivery.”

  “Oh, I forgot. Somebody will have to go for it,” Flazint said. “They won’t take a crustless order unless you show up in person. I guess they have trouble with pranks.”

  “You go ahead,” Dorothy said. “Business seems to have slowed down a bit, probably another big party in the hotel district.”

  “If things get busy, just ping me, and I’ll come back as soon as they take the order. Otherwise, I shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes.”

  Dorothy decided to use the time to familiarize herself with the objects in the overflow bins behind the counter, which were effectively blocking the bottom row of shelves. She was puzzling over a device that looked like a cross between a tiny folding chair and a pair of headphones when the Lood returned.

  “Is something wrong with the recording, Z’harp?” she inquired.

  “I know nothing of a recording,” the Lood replied, reaching for his mask.

  Dorothy’s blood ran cold when she recognized the voice of the young Lord Z’fark from the Physics Ride. She blanched in horror as the Lood removed his mask, revealing a lidless third eye in the middle of his forehead which glowed with a malignant inner light.

  “I am happy to encounter you again, Dorothy McAllister,” Z’fark said in a honeyed voice. “Wouldn’t you like to come with me and see my ship?”

  As much as she was disgusted by the third eye, Dorothy felt compelled to stare directly at it, and her mind began to feel oddly blank. Wasn’t there somebody she was supposed to call or something she was supposed to do? All of her thoughts seemed to be pulled towards that awful eye, and then she found herself wondering why she had never seen the inside of a Lood ship. The light emitted by the eye grew brighter and brighter, and without thinking, she raised a hand to try to keep it from blinding her.

  “Witch!” the Lood cried in fear. He dropped to his knees, turning away and replacing his gold mask at the same time. “Forgive me, witch. How could I know you were appearing in the form of a lowly Human?”

  Dorothy blinked as her own thoughts rushed back and her vision returned to normal. The first thing she saw was her hand raised before her face, the black bracelet displayed prominently on her wrist where the sleeve of her blouse had fallen back. The runes engraved in the strange metal glowed like lava.

  “Get out!” she screamed at the Lood, who half stumbled, half crawled to the exit and disappeared. Dorothy sank down on the floor, her arms around her knees, taken by a sudden fit of trembling. It took her a minute just to catch her breath enough to say, “Libby?”

  “Yes, Dorothy,” the station librarian replied. “Your adrenalin levels are highly elevated and they’ll return to normal faster if you walk back and forth behind the counter. I’ll keep the doors closed until Flazint returns. Our careless open house guests can come back later.”

  “He was going to make me go with him,” Dorothy whispered. “Why didn’t you explain that the bracelet would protect me?”

  “The Lood’s fear of what the bracelet represents is what protected you,” the Stryx librarian explained. “If I had sent a bot to escort him off the station, he might have tried something again in the future, maybe finding you in some place where you’d truly be alone. Some sentients will go to extreme lengths to avenge an imagined injury. This way, he’ll want to keep as far away from you as possible as long as he lives, and he’ll tell his friends that human girls can be dangerous.”

  Dorothy struggled to her feet and began to walk shakily back and forth behind the counter. After a few minutes, her heart rate began to slow and she started thinking about practical things.

  “Libby?”

  “Yes, Dorothy.”

  “Don’t tell my parents about this. They might get all weird about my going out alone on dates with David.”

  Eighteen

  “Thank you for keeping the hostages entertained all morning,” Pava said to her mother-in-law. “I hope you’ve given them a chance to win back some of their losses.”

  “The hostages really have a gift for this game.” The Dowager Empress looked up from her tiles and peered at the Union Station delegation. “The funny-looking one almost took the deal from me.”

  “It’s very similar to the Korean version of Mahjong that my husband taught me on our honeymoon,” Lynx replied. After weeks of daily exposure to the emperor’s mothe
r, she had developed a soft spot for the blunt old Cayl. “We used to play with the ship controller as a third.”

  “And I learned the traditional four-handed version playing in the tea house at the Shuk during slow hours.” Brinda swapped a tile from the front to the back of her double row and added, “Don’t ever get into a game with a Stryx.”

  “Would you be referring to young Jeeves, the Stryx who arranged for the hostage swap?” the Dowager Empress asked. She played a tile inscribed with an ancient Cayl character, making clear she had no intention of letting the humans go before the hand was finished. “I thought he caught on to the strategy a little too quickly for somebody who claimed never to have played before.”

  “I’m still a little fuzzy on what all the lizard pieces mean,” Woojin said.

  “They’re bonus pieces, think of them as doublers,” the Dowager Empress explained. “Speaking of which, I have four of them, and thanks to your discard, I also seem to have made Cryan Hah again. Shall I total up the points?”

  “When you said we have a gift for the game, I think you meant we’re a gift TO your game,” Lynx grumbled good-naturedly.

  “Were you involved in the hostage negotiations, Kiki?” Woojin asked. He was the only one who had taken the emperor’s mother at her word when she told them to ignore her official title.

  “Oh, yes,” the Dowager Empress replied. “It’s one of my few official duties, along with choosing a new emperor should my Brynt not return or do something equally unacceptable. I specifically requested of Stryx Jeeves that he select hostages with an aptitude for Cryan Hah to console me for my son’s absence.”

  “I should have known he wasn’t serious about holding an auction for you when he didn’t draw up a draft contract,” Brinda said. “Wouldn’t it have been more conventional to ask for a hostage of equal value?”

  “And where would the Stryx have obtained one of those?” the old Cayl asked imperiously. “I’d have to request the population of an entire world to get within clawing distance of equal value for my Brynt, and then my daughter-in-law would have to feed them all.”