by E. M. Foner
“Can you undo it?”
“Of course, but it wouldn’t be fair to QuickU to quit without giving it a serious test. Chance didn’t load this enhancement so she’s the control group and we’ll see which one of us is more successful at bringing in new applicants.” Thomas caught sight of a couple approaching his table and broke off the conversation with a terse, “I’m on.”
Dorothy grabbed Kevin’s wrist as he turned to go back to his side of the booth where Marilla was chatting with a couple of CoSHC members whose excessive make-up suggested that their community was located on a Horten open world. “Who will you sit across from when we go out to eat?”
“You’re talking about double-dates?”
“Yes, but don’t call them that in front of Mizpah. It’s chaperoning duty as far as she’s concerned.”
“Give me a second,” Kevin said. “The Frunge probably want to maximize the physical separation between the couple, so they can’t sit next to each other, and probably not across from each other either. Diagonal?”
“If you’ve already read the book, just tell me and I’ll stop asking questions,” Dorothy said irritably.
“It was an educated guess. I spent ten years trading with aliens and you learn how to extrapolate from what you see. There’s a Grenouthian standing in front of your table tapping his foot.”
“When the bunnies tap their feet, it means they’re impatient.”
“I wasn’t quizzing you.”
Dorothy spun around to see a tough-looking bunny wearing a blue sash labeled “Visitor” glaring at her with his big black eyes.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“First you made me wait and now you’re trying to insult me? Perhaps standing on the business side of that folding table has gone to your head, but there’s nothing any Human can possibly do to help me.”
“Then why are you here?” Dorothy demanded.
“Because our ambassador strong-armed me into agreeing to attend a demonstration at this booth on the last day of the trade show.”
“Do you manufacture noodle weapons? I’m Dorothy McAllister and—”
“I know who you are,” the bunny interrupted. “Unlike some species, we do our research.”
“So why are you here three days early?”
“Do you think I’m going to show up for your demonstration without laying the groundwork? That sales tactic might work on the Verlocks, but you’ll have to get up earlier in the morning to pull the fur over my eyes.”
“We’re not keeping anything secret,” Dorothy protested. “SBJ Fashions employs a Terragram mage to enchant some of our clothing and accessories for LARPing and we want to expand into noodle weapons. We wouldn’t be talking to you at all if the professional league hadn’t—”
“Given us an exclusive on providing noodle weapons for official league matches,” the bunny interrupted again. “I should know, I helped write that contract.”
“I still don’t understand why you’re here.”
“Will you allow me to check your booth?”
“You mean, to come inside the tables? There’s nothing in here other than the five of us and a few boxes with hand-out materials.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
Dorothy hesitated a moment over whether to ping Jeeves, but she couldn’t think of any grounds to refuse the request, other than the alien’s rudeness. “Alright. Can you just duck under?”
The Grenouthian gave the ambassador’s daughter a scornful look and then hopped over the table without even crouching first to gather himself. “Feel free to go back to whatever you were doing,” he said, and then removed a device that looked like a hand-held medical scanner of some sort from his pouch and began examining the deck.
“Are you looking for anything in particular?” Dorothy couldn’t help asking.
“The President of EarthCent. I heard a rumor that he abandoned his post. Now if you’ll leave me to do my work, I’ll be out of here that much quicker.”
A saleswoman wearing a wreath of laurel leaves on her head arrived at the booth carrying an immense book of fabric samples. She set it on the table and opened it in front of Dorothy, whose jaw dropped at the iridescent threads used in the expensive micro-weave. Neither of the women even noticed when the rude bunny finished whatever he was doing and hopped back out of the booth.
“Order today and receive a ten-percent discount on quantities over one thousand,” the saleswoman from the Frunge open world concluded her pitch.
“One thousand what?” Dorothy asked.
“SFU. Standard Factory Units. I’ll just put you down for a starter order and we’ll take it from there.”
“I’m not supposed to spend any money,” the EarthCent ambassador’s daughter confessed. “I mean, we are looking for new suppliers and production facilities, but—” she gazed longingly at the shimmering fabric samples, “—how much is a starter order?”
“With the discount, ninety thousand creds, but you’ll make back millions when your fashions hit the market. The cloth is produced with the latest Frunge process and our community is the first to be authorized to sell it to aliens.”
“You mean humans?”
“Right, it gets confusing living on an open world. I’d offer you the designer pack, which only includes enough fabric to run up a hundred dresses for a fashion show, but I’d be doing you a disservice. As soon as your competition sees that you’re using our cloth, they’ll rush in their orders and you’ll lose your head start.”
“So you’re saying you won’t sell your fabric to anybody else on Union Station if I take the starter order for ninety thousand?”
“It’s sort of all we’ve produced so far, and our delegation brought it along in the transport,” the saleswoman admitted. “If you buy me out, there won’t be any more of the new micro-weave on the open market for at least six cycles. It’s incredibly time-consuming to manufacture.”
“Oh, I want it so much but my boss would kill me. How much is the designer pack?”
“Two thousand creds.”
“Can you bill us?” Dorothy asked in a whisper.
“Of course. We have an EarthCent Intelligence business subscription and I checked your credit rating before approaching the booth. Where would you like delivery?”
“I’d better take it at home. We don’t have much room in the office these days with all of the enchanting work going on.”
Seventeen
“Thank you for inviting me to participate in your meeting,” the head of Drazen Intelligence greeted Kelly. “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve brought my new assistant.”
“Not at all, Herl,” the EarthCent ambassador replied, and directed a smile at her son’s girlfriend. “Hello, Vivian. I’m sorry to make you work after hours.”
“I’m on the Drazen clock now and it’s morning for us. Will Samuel be here?”
“Although our relationship with the Vergallian embassy is much improved, I don’t think it would be appropriate for him to attend such a sensitive meeting.”
Vivian looked past the ambassador’s shoulder at Aabina and opened her mouth to speak, but recalling her own position as a co-op student working for Drazen intelligence, thought better of it. Her parents entered the EarthCent embassy conference room with Wrylenth in tow, and she felt a pang of sympathy for the young Verlock as he struggled to keep up with his employers.
“Everybody grab a seat,” Kelly instructed the newcomers. “Don’t be shy about taking Srythlan’s chair, Wrylenth. As soon as Chastity gets here, Daniel will bring in our special—here she is.”
“Sorry I’m barely on time,” the publisher of the Galactic Free Press apologized, taking the seat next to her sister. “I got ambushed by the Grenouthian editor of their shipping news. He tracked me down to gloat about scooping us again.”
“Anything important?” Blythe asked her sister.
“Apparently the president is here. Our president,” Chastity clarified. “The bunnies are running with a story t
hat he’s on Union Station to abdicate his throne to Kelly.”
“It sounds reasonable, except for the throne part,” Herl observed. “I seem to recall that your last president fled office and had to be replaced.”
“Did he arrive with Hildy Greuen?” Clive inquired.
“How did you guess?” Kelly asked.
“I knew that Hildy was coming to talk to CoSHC representatives about coordinating their public relations with the president’s office. For the record, the president really should keep us in the loop about his travel plans. Maybe you could bring it up at the next steering committee meeting.”
“You can tell him yourself in a minute. Libby? Could you inform Daniel that everybody is here?”
The associate ambassador and his surprise guests must have been waiting for the announcement, because a few seconds later, Daniel led Stephen Beyer and Hildy Greuen in through the large sliding doors separating the conference room from the embassy lobby. Aabina, Wrylenth, and Herl all stood and offered a polite round of applause, forcing the others to follow suit.
“Sit, sit,” the president said. “I’m here unofficially so there’s no need to stand on ceremony.” He ran a hand over the conference room table’s inlaid puzzle pieces and then gave his attention to the lacquer-on-copper scale model of Earth suspended from the ceiling. “Our holographic conferences don’t do the globe justice.”
“Dring made it,” Kelly told him. “And I’m afraid I’ve just learned that the Grenouthians are running a story about your visit.”
“How did they find out I’m here? We bought the tickets under Hildy’s name and I traveled as Mr. Greuen.”
“They probably have an agent on Earth watching your office by this point,” Clive said. “The documentary tour business is turning into a big money maker for them and the Grenouthians are very proactive about protecting their investments.”
“Pretty hard for bunnies to work undercover on Earth,” the president observed.
“They probably have enough cameras installed around the neighborhood to keep an eye on you.”
“The Grenouthians have floating mini-cameras that can follow a target from above,” the Drazen intelligence head informed them. “The Dollnicks sell a version of their dragonfly counterespionage technology that can take down the cameras, but we rarely bother.”
“You just let the Dollys spy on you?” Kelly asked.
“We use adaptive jamming, of course, but setting up that sort of system on Earth would cost you millions of creds,” Herl said apologetically.
“Let them follow me if it makes them happy,” the president said. “Now that I know about it, I’ll find a way to use it to our advantage.”
“Apparently the story goes beyond simply announcing your arrival,” Kelly said. “Can you show us a feed of the Grenouthian’s news report on the president, Libby?”
“The story is just going live,” the station librarian reported. A hologram appeared at the end of the conference table where everybody could see it, and it opened with a scene of the president with his arm around Hildy entering the EarthCent embassy.
“Breaking news,” the Grenouthian newsman announced. “The president of the Stryx-backed diplomatic organization for Humans has fled Earth with his lover and was spotted entering the EarthCent embassy on Union Station. Informed sources tell us that Stephen Beyer intends to resign his office in favor of Kelly McAllister, the current Union Station ambassador. In related news, the Conference of Sovereign Human Communities trade show at the Empire Convention Center will open for its third day at nine in the morning on the Human clock. Check with the station librarian for the actual time as it’s become a moving target.”
“If you want to make a statement to set the record straight, Mr. President, I can have it on the front page of the Galactic Free Press in minutes,” Chastity offered.
“Can you hold off a while?” Hildy requested. “I know that it’s your business to report the news as soon as you get confirmation, but this could really work well for me.”
“Being identified as the president’s lover?”
“The whole story about Stephen fleeing office. Do you think Earth would have made the headline news if we were here on an announced visit? And the Grenouthians probably wouldn’t have mentioned the trade show at all if they weren’t trying to fill out a thin story. It’s a public relations dream.”
“And we don’t mind having our relations public,” the president punned. “If I’ve learned one thing in my time with Hildy, it’s that all publicity is good publicity, at least until the moment you’re being led off to jail.”
“So I can assure our diplomats that you aren’t here fleeing your responsibilities as president,” Herl surmised.
“I came along to carry suitcases of pamphlets for Hildy because we couldn’t spare anybody else. My administration held an all-hands-onboard staff meeting last week to plan the trip, and it turns out that I’m the least important person working in EarthCent headquarters.”
“No, you just have the most flexible schedule,” Hildy corrected him. “Everybody else has a job to do, while your job is being available to meet important aliens and take midnight panic calls from ambassadors.”
“Executive responsibility,” Wrylenth pronounced slowly.
“May I ask if you took our EarthCent civil service exam?” the public relations expert asked the Verlock co-op student. “I was involved in creating the test.”
“It was very entertaining. I recommended it to my friends.”
“And you must be Aabina,” Hildy continued, turning to the Vergallian ambassador’s daughter. “I remember your perfect score. If you find yourself wishing for a change of scenery, we’d be happy to give you a job in the president’s office.”
“The paper has dibs on her,” Chastity jumped in. “Besides, she’s still a minor under Vergallian law so you’d have to get her mother’s permission before taking her off the station.”
“This is all very complimentary, but I don’t recall seeing my future employment on the agenda I prepared for this meeting,” Aabina announced in a firm voice. “First, is this conference room secure?”
“It was when we swept it this morning but you know how that goes,” Clive replied. “Herl?”
The Drazen head of intelligence shook the sleeve back from his heavy bracelet and glanced at the glowing crystals. “It’s clean of everything our technology is capable of detecting, but with those Gem caterers running in and out all the time, you never know if there are some nano-bugs around.”
“My belief is that secrecy is overrated,” the president said. “We’ve been doing without it ever since the Stryx opened Earth so why start worrying now? What’s on the agenda?”
“As long as you’re here, our main goal is to convince the Grenouthians to allow human settlements on some of their worlds that are open to immigration from the other advanced species,” Aabina said. “We believe that the exponential growth of documentary tours to Earth gives you leverage in their entertainment community, and the Grenouthian diplomats will bend over backwards for their business leaders.”
“And we’ve been picking up intelligence chatter that indicates the bunnies will be approaching us with a new proposition,” Clive added. “Some of that has come from our Drazen allies.”
“My new assistant is filling in for a vacationing analyst on our Earth desk,” Herl said. “Vivian?”
“There’s been a definite spike in communications traffic from Union Station-based Grenouthians the last three weeks, with much of it directed towards Earth,” the girl said, looking down at her tab. “It’s all encrypted beyond our ability to decode, but a source in the entertainment industry reports that the Grenouthians have been quietly lining up options on large numbers of background actors who are willing to temporarily relocate to a Tier-9 location with a space elevator and a tunnel connection.”
“I’m not familiar with entertainment industry rankings,” Kelly said. “What’s the significance of Tier-9?”
“The Grenouthians who negotiated with us for rights to our archival footage complained vociferously about the lack of video coverage from ancient wars,” the president mused. “Could they be planning to shoot a major immersive on Earth? From what I understand, that could pump a lot of creds into the economy.”
“I wonder if it has something to do with my daughter’s latest project,” Kelly said. “SBJ Fashions is trying to negotiate a deal with the Grenouthians to license some kind of toy manufacturing, and they even got Aisha involved.”
“Noodle weapons, not toys,” Daniel spoke up. “I didn’t want to say anything about it, because as most of you know, my wife is the ‘S’ in SBJ Fashions.”
“So what’s the problem?” Herl asked. “It sounds to me like the ideal opportunity to work for your family and your species at the same time.”
“But that would be nepotism,” Kelly protested.
“Grenouthians take family seriously,” Wrylenth contributed.
“I don’t have any objections to double-dipping,” the president said. “I’ve learned the hard way that when it comes to the bunnies, you can do things their way or not at all.”
“If getting a toehold on Grenouthian open worlds is important to EarthCent, you should put all of these issues together in a package deal and have President Beyer handle the negotiations,” Herl suggested. “Grenouthian businessmen always recruit the most senior diplomat available to represent them in contract talks, which in this case will be their ambassador.”
“I’m happy to be of service while I’m here,” Stephen said. “Somebody will have to brief me about these noodle weapons, though. I’ve never heard of them.”