Date Night on Union Station

by E. M. Foner

  “So why do you keep promoting the service to humans?”

  “For one thing, it’s a business, and for another, I like a challenge. At this point, I’m mainly using the dates to learn more about human relationships. Do you want to hear my conclusions?”

  “Uh, OK,” Kelly replied, not really sure this was a good idea, but unwilling to try to explain her discomfort to Libby.

  “Uniquely among the biologicals, large numbers of humans either don’t know what they want or they lie to themselves about what they do want. It’s why your immersives and literature do so poorly in translation. To use your own words, the rest of the galaxy just doesn’t ‘get’ humans. Your development as a species depends on natural selection, yet your mating selections are most unnatural.”

  “Is that why you don’t provide pictures or videos before the dates, just the vague physical description? You think we’re too picky or something?”

  “No, I like to leave the door open to chance. The important thing when you go on a blind date is that you’re open to meeting somebody new. Maybe you’ll mistakenly meet the wrong person, but it’s simply meant to be. I often schedule multiple Eemas introductions for the same location at the same time, just to give nature a chance.”

  “Doesn’t sound very omniscient to me,” Kelly objected.

  “Humans are tough to quantify. At the risk of sounding egotistic, I’m afraid the fault lies with human inconsistency, not my analytical ability. So if I may ask again, why did you cancel your date?”

  “Oh, that’s just because the embassy is sponsoring a singles mixer,” Kelly replied, but she was no longer sure that it was true.

  “I see,” Libby responded after an artificially long pause, confirming Kelly’s suspicions that the Stryx didn’t believe she knew her own mind.

  “Anyway, I don’t believe my dates were really dates at all. You’re just using me to catch bride-stealers or cancel contracts and the like.”

  “Or perhaps I concluded from your personal data that you needed preparation,” Libby offered the alternative explanation. “Matchmaking isn’t a simple service, it’s a process. Maybe I’m just making sure you’ll be in the right state of mind to accept Mr. Right when I drop him in your lap.”

  “I’ve got to get going or I’ll be too late to meet anyone.” Kelly rose abruptly and headed for the corridor. Then a flash of bravado led her to add, “I’ll let you know tomorrow whether or not you can cancel my remaining introductions.”

  “I think I’m safe there,” Libby responded dryly and withdrew from contact.

  Thirteen

  The opposing battle fleets scrambled and unscrambled themselves in the intricate ballet that preceded a full-scale commitment to total war. Paul controlled the blue fleet, Joe the red, and although they sat just an arm’s length apart over the glowing Nova cube with its holographic projections, they were barely aware of each other’s presence. The game was famous for its intensity, and even combat veterans of multiple fleet actions like Joe were liable to break into a cold sweat just skirmishing over the initial dispositions. Beowulf sat by the man’s side, occasionally whining softly or scratching the floor plates when he didn’t agree with Joe’s choices.

  A full game of Nova lasted on the order of four hours, although the exact timing depended on how long it took the host star to explode, which was a random element in the game. The fleets were evenly matched in size and strength, an artificiality never encountered in the real world, which meant that victory went to the player with the best battle management abilities. A blast of X-rays released from the star teetering on the edge of self-destruction signaled the start of the game.

  “Damn!” Joe muttered as tiny flashes in the left wing of his formation witnessed the compromise of his starting position. “Aren’t you even going to let me compete, boy?”

  Paul didn’t answer, intent on the holo-gesture controller on his side of the Nova cube. Practiced finger movements allowed him to maneuver and fight the squadrons, even individual ships within a squadron, a level of control that Joe could only marvel at. He ground his teeth and executed one of his previously programmed fallback plans, bringing the right wing and high squadrons to cover the retreat of the left, which left his forces in a defensive hedgehog.

  With Paul already ahead on ships, Joe would have to transition to the offensive at some point before the star went nova and Paul won on points. He moved his hands within the controller space and dripped beads of sweat as Beowulf whined louder and nipped at his arm. It was beginning to look like he could lose his fleet before the star even popped, the ultimate humiliation for a Nova player. It was time to get serious.

  “What do you know about girls?” Joe managed to ask in a casual tone, even as one of his tunnel projectors took a direct hit. “I’ve been thinking it’s time we had a little talk.”

  “Don’t bother, Joe.” Paul didn’t miss a beat as his ships attacked and swirled around Joe’s staggering formations. “The Stryx school covered all that stuff in the biologicals survey last year, and they say we have pretty outlandish mating habits. Speaking of which, what happened to your big date tonight?”

  Beowulf barked frantically and gestured at the incoming flare with his nose, but Joe’s forces were hemmed in, and the hot plasma from the star tore through his reserves like water from a dam bursting above a matchstick boat race.

  “Triggering a flare is cheating!” Joe griped, even though he knew that it was within the rules if you had the ability to pull it off. What it meant was that Paul had been decimating Joe’s fleet with just a fraction of his own forces as the rest concentrated their weapons on the star’s photosphere to create instability. Joe had been so busy defending he’d never even seen it. But now, with his operational forces shrunk to half of their original size, he was more comfortable maneuvering and chose to beat a strategic retreat. His best hope now was that the induced flare would speed up the nova clock. Beowulf shook his giant head and curled up to go to sleep.

  “Sorry, Joe,” Paul apologized, easing up on his attack pressure. “I’ve been waiting to try that against somebody good. I’ve passed the final qualifiers for the station tourney, and there are going to be some Natural League grandmasters there. I just don’t want to look bad.”

  “Alright,” Joe grumbled. “Then I’m glad I could be of service. But I’d been hoping to fill in some time this evening after my date cancelled, and it’s been what, fifteen minutes?”

  “Are you trying to get married, Joe?” The ships in the Nova cube sorted themselves back into distinct colored masses as the opposing forces regrouped.

  “Well, I’ve never had a chance to put down roots. This junkyard is the first home I’ve had since I was a kid. I was thinking it might be nice to give it a shot, being a real family and all.”

  “Is it my fault you aren’t married yet?” The boy lifted his eyes up from the game for the first time, looking both younger and more vulnerable than Joe had seen him in some time.

  “Yes,” Joe answered, then took advantage of Paul’s momentary shock to trigger his pre-programmed last stand. A haze of flashes filled the Nova cube as suicidal attackers struck home and wreaked havoc among the boy’s recently reformed battle groups before he could recover. Conversation over, the two players became reabsorbed in the game and fought it out for another half an hour, before the star ripped itself apart prematurely. Paul still won the game handily on points, but Joe felt he’d achieved a moral victory.

  “Never take your mind off the game, kiddo,” Joe crowed to the boy. “Oldest trick in the book.”

  Beowulf came out of his nap with a soft growl and lifted his head, tilting an ear towards the entrance of Mac’s Bones. But after an elaborate stretching routine, he clunked back down on his rug and returned to his dreams.

  “It’s Jeeves,” Paul reported. “He was coming by for a game tonight, but I told him to hold off after you ended up staying home. I just let him know we finished, so I guess he was in the area.”

  “He was in
the area because you didn’t expect me to last this long,” Joe grumbled. But he was proud that the boy could beat him easily at most games, and he could always claim the credit of having been Paul’s first teacher. “Who’s this Jeeves? I don’t remember hearing you mention him before.”

  “Oh, you’ve met him. He’s the Stryx kid that went out on that tug job with you a few weeks ago, the one where you brought back that Sharf cabin cruiser. I ran into him at the gaming club after that, and we’ve been playing pretty regular since.”

  “He’s a Stryx kid? I thought he was on the immature side. I guess that explains the attitude anyway.” Joe grimaced, recalling the robot’s continual put-downs. “First Stryx I ever met with a self-esteem problem.”

  “I didn’t realize you were such an expert on Stryx,” Jeeves voice broke into the conversation, causing Joe to jump up and spin around. The small robot floated soundlessly through the makeshift door into the improvised living room of the converted ice harvester, looking oddly naked without all the attachments he’d borne the last time Joe had seen him.

  “Hey, Jeeves,” Paul greeted him. “I tried that flare trick I’d been developing. It worked great.”

  “Of course it did,” Jeeves replied dryly, leaving no doubt in Joe’s mind that the Stryx was crediting Paul’s success to weakness of his opponent, but the boy didn’t seem to notice. “I believe there’s enough time for us to play before you need to sleep.”

  “What are you going to spot the boy?” Joe asked, having better sense than to match wits with an adolescent robot.

  “We play straight up,” Paul told him, showing a rare flash of pride. “Jeeves always wins, of course, but I think I’m improving faster than he is.”

  “I’ve learned a great deal from playing Paul, which is especially remarkable given his early training.” The robot addressed his remarks to Joe, who couldn’t help wondering if all young Stryx had issues interacting with human adults. Maybe that’s why they spent so much time playing with children, Joe thought, which gave rise to an idea.

  “So, you’d say that playing against Paul has been valuable to you?” Joe inquired innocently.

  “Very much so,” Jeeves replied, in a show of youthful solidarity.

  “And how have you been compensating him?”

  “Hey, we’re friends,” Paul protested. “And whatever he says, I’m sure I’m learning more from him than he’s learning from me!”

  Jeeves pivoted from one human to the other while he floated in place, like the needle of a compass dragged between headings by a magnet. The strict adherence of the Stryx to an honest barter economy was what enabled them to control so much of the galaxy without having to conquer by force. Everybody, even the species that hated the very idea of a non-biological intelligence, knew that the Stryx represented the best chance for a fair deal. The main opposition to the Stryx came from the empire-building cultures who couldn’t risk attacking areas under Stryx protection, and the Natural League members, who resented what they saw as Stryx favoritism to backwards biologicals.

  “The old one is correct,” Jeeves addressed Paul. “The games were my idea, and my own schooling is finished. I really should be providing something in return. Perhaps you’d like to move to more civilized quarters on a residential deck?”

  “No, I’m fine here with Joe,” Paul replied in embarrassment. “Never mind all that and let’s get started.”

  “If you want to work off your obligation to the boy, I have a little job you can help with here,” Joe spoke over Paul’s protest. “I promise that the profits will go into fixing this place up so it’s less like living in a spaceship that happened to crash into a junkyard. Maybe I’ll even hire some housekeeping help so Paul can stop eating sandwiches for every meal.”

  “May I enquire as to the substance of this little job?” Jeeves voice reflected a newfound respect for Joe’s negotiating skills.

  “Just helping me to identify some of the junk I’ve got lying around out there. Half the time I can’t guess close enough what something might be to even start asking Libby questions about it,” Joe admitted. “It’s not the stuff I buy, but the junk that was here before I took over. Some of it could turn out to be dangerous for Paul or even for the station. Like a gravitational vortex mine leftover from the Founding Wars.”

  “Vortex mines?” The little robot sounded like he would have raised an eyebrow if he’d had eyebrows. “Alright, you have a deal. Now run along to your date while we serious gamers get down to business.”

  “Date cancelled,” Joe and Paul spoke simultaneously.

  “It’s a wonder they all don’t cancel,” Jeeves commented absently as he began arranging his forces for the game.

  Fourteen

  The mixer was held in the Meteor room, one of the smaller ballrooms of the Empire convention center, which was popular with interstellar trade shows and academic conferences. Donna had logged just over a hundred preregistrations at two creds a head, which covered the room rental for two hours and included one free drink. Walk-ins were welcome for a 50-centee premium, and hopefully there would be enough to pay back the embassy’s petty cash fund for the finger food provided by Empire catering.

  It was really a Beta affair, and if it worked out, Donna planned to add a band at the next event, maybe open it to couples as well. The “classical” tracks pumped in softly over the room’s sound system were only marginally better than the unidentifiable music that played in the tube capsules.

  Kelly arrived late, found out that she had forgotten to preregister, and paid the premium for her nametag. Donna looked her up and down, obviously unimpressed that she had come straight from work without going home to change, but Kelly just mumbled “Long story,” and entered the ballroom.

  Once inside, she headed hopefully for the folding tables with the white tablecloths, but the party platters looked like they had been attacked by a flock of ravenous birds. There were still plenty of crackers, but nothing remained of the dip, and the only slices of cheese left behind bore the telltale marks of having been sampled and rejected.

  Then she spotted a discarded napkin formed like a crumpled canopy over the corner of a silver platter. With a sense of heightened anticipation, she grasped the peak between her thumb and forefinger and raised it slowly, while turning her head sideways to see what would be revealed. At the moment of truth, the torso of a blue-jacketed figure loomed into her vision.

  “Hello. I’m Thomas. I arrived just after you.”

  “Hi Thomas, I’m Kelly.” She straightened up, embarrassed, but unable to keep her eyes from straying back to the napkin and what it potentially concealed.

  “I’m sorry, I think I interrupted you,” Thomas apologized with an exaggerated look of concern. He appeared to be a few years younger than Kelly, with medium length brown hair and no outstanding features that spoke for or against his looks. “Please continue what you were doing.”

  Kelly hesitated for a moment because the whole thing was so silly, getting caught hunting for a bit of finger food under a discarded napkin and then turning away from a conversation to do so a second time. But she decided to take him at his word.

  “Thanks, I’ll just take a quick peek,” she replied, and whipped off the napkin without any further ado. It revealed two slices of a spiraled bread roll that included some kind of white filling flecked with green olive. Synthesized tuna salad? Synthesized chicken salad? Her mouth began to water.

  “Please, you have them both,” Thomas encouraged her. “I don’t need to eat things like that.”

  “Well, if you insist,” Kelly agreed quickly, moving both rollups to a small plastic plate, then taking a nibble of the first.

  “They say the way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach,” Thomas ventured with a smile. His whole face rearranged itself around the upturned corners of his mouth and his strong, even teeth. Kelly immediately felt guilty.

  “I think they usually say it about a man’s heart and stomach,” she admitted, and held out the plate. “
It’s very good. One is all I really wanted.”

  “A man’s heart and stomach,” Thomas repeated. “I believe you’re right, but truly, I can’t eat a bite.”

  “If you’re sure?” Kelly smiled in relief, and made quick work of finishing the first rollup. Thomas stood quietly, observing, so she swallowed quickly and asked, “Have you been on Union Station long?”

  To her surprise, Thomas suddenly appeared to be acutely embarrassed. She looked at him curiously as he shuffled his feet and looked around self-consciously, before he finally came out with, “Actually, I’m not very good at dating.”

  An uncomfortable silence followed as Kelly chewed the second rollup and tried to come up with a polite way to lose the poor guy and try again before the evening was shot. But then she spotted Donna looking skeptically in her direction, and she had the sudden urge to prove she could manage a date on her own. What could it hurt to give the shy guy another chance?

  “So, do you happen to know anything about the Union Station gaming tourney?” Kelly asked. She hoped to give the guy an easy conversational entrée while picking up some background information to help with the Blanker conspiracy that had just landed in her lap. “I’m supposed to attend the planning session as a diplomat, but I really know very little about it.”

  “I know a lot about the Union Station gaming tourney,” Thomas responded with a burst of enthusiasm and renewed confidence. “Do you want to know about the history of the games, the events this cycle, the contestants, the prizes? I may be entered in one of the peripheral events myself if I qualify.”

  “Tell me about the contestants, Thomas. I’m especially interested in knowing about the competition in any games where humans will be competing for the championship.”

  “There are thirty-six events in the tourney, and humans can compete in seven of those. Of the seven, humans have a chance of winning five. The Drazen will win at Three Square until the rules are changed, because the endgame is a perfect match for their tentacle, and either the Frunge or Dollnicks will win at Trikado, because they can turn off their pain receptors and regenerate limbs later. But humans have a good chance at Phalnyx, Backgammon, Terror Drive, Foosball and Nova.”