by E. M. Foner
“Excuse me a minute,” the ambassador’s son said and went over to talk with his fiancée. “Have you finally started looking for a dress? I’m working right now so I can’t talk long.”
“You know that Dorothy would kill me if I didn’t let her make my wedding dress,” Vivian said. “I asked Libby where you were so I could see you in person before I leave.”
“You’re going somewhere?”
“Echo Station, it’s my first solo field mission. There’s a Horten immersive festival, and my handler wants me to circulate and see if I can pick up any leads about their upcoming season.”
“Why you?”
“Because I can pass as human.”
“That’s because you are human, Vivian. Sometimes I worry that you’re spending too much time wearing the prosthetic tentacle and that custom facial overlay.”
“And you think I don’t worry about you waltzing at work with upper-caste Vergallian women who are just waiting for a chance to dose you with their pheromones? Anyway, I’ll be gone for twelve days, and I just stopped to see you on my way to the travel concourse.”
“How could an assignment spying on an immersive festival come up all of a sudden?”
“We had an agent in place, an entertainment critic from one of the Earth networks. Herl just found out that the guy is a double agent working for the Hortens. You can’t trust humans.”
“If you say so.” Samuel bent a little to give her a goodbye kiss, and Vivian wrapped her prosthetic tentacle around the back of his neck. When she finally released him and ran for the lift tubes, the EarthCent ambassador’s son was as red-faced as Jenna.
“You’re dating an alien?” the round-eyed teenager asked him.
“She’s my fiancée,” Samuel said, and then realized that the family may take it the wrong way. “I mean, she’s not a Drazen if that’s what you’re thinking. The tentacle is fake, and she’s wearing a facial overlay to—”
“I think we’ve seen enough for today,” the father interrupted. “Come on, kids. Let’s get something to eat, and then we’ll stop by the travel agency and see about tickets to Earth. I don’t think this place is going to work for us after all.”
The EarthCent ambassador’s son watched helplessly as his charges cut short the orientation tour and most likely their stay on Union Station as well. Then he remembered his mother’s advice about dealing with diplomatic disappointment. After a quick stop in Hole Universe for a triple-chocolate donut, he felt appreciably better about the morning. He was considering going back for seconds when his implant chimed with an incoming ping from Aabina.
“Accept,” he said. “Did my group already report me for inappropriate behavior?”
“I haven’t heard anything,” his mother’s special assistant replied. “I was pinging to ask if you’d meet me at the Empire Convention Center after the tour.”
“The tour is over, they dumped me,” Samuel said. “Where will you be at the Empire?”
“The Galaxy Room. I’ll leave the embassy now and meet you on the lower level, under the stadium seating at the Andromeda entry.”
“Andromeda. Got it.” Recalling his mother’s warning about how the universe maintained balance by punishing donut lovers with excess weight, he ran back to the lift tube, and then continued jogging to his meeting, arriving before the Vergallian girl. Just to be safe, he did a set of push-ups while he was waiting.
“What’s with you?” Aabina asked. “First you lose your orientation group, and now you’re in training for the professional LARPing league?”
“Humans don’t have the caloric intake regulation options that Vergallians do,” he said as he straightened up. “Stick told me you can just increase your body temperature to burn off excess fat.”
“I’ve never resorted to such a thing in my life,” Aabina said indignantly. “And how did you scare off that nice family you were showing around?”
“Vivian dropped by in full Drazen disguise for a goodbye kiss before leaving the station on an urgent mission. She’ll be gone until the tradeshow.”
“Your loss is the EarthCent embassy’s gain,” the Vergallian girl said. “It means I can schedule you for more hours. Are you sure you want to go back to work in my mother’s embassy when she returns?”
“If she’ll have me. I’ve been thinking about some of the things she said when we saw her off, and I’m beginning to suspect she’s easing me out.”
“My mother wants what’s best for you,” Aabina said. “She’s talked to me about your situation and she knows there isn’t a meaningful career path for a Human in the Vergallian diplomatic service. She can keep you employed as long as she’s the Union Station ambassador, but what happens when she leaves?”
“I just thought that was a long way off.”
“Mom has already accomplished everything she wanted to achieve as ambassador. The only reason for her to return after Jubilee is that it gives her an excuse to let my aunts take turns at playing queen at home.”
“Oh,” Samuel said and was silent for a minute. “So why are we meeting here?”
“The Dollnick who manages the convention center was so pleased with our Empire@Empire campaign that he offered us early access to the galleries under the seating. We have so many vendors signed up for the tradeshow that we’re splitting them between the Nebulae Room and the space down here. The other species are beginning to realize that Humans aren’t the only ones who come to these tradeshows.”
“How do you choose what vendor goes where? I’d think everybody would want to be in the Nebulae Room.”
“That’s true for the small stuff, but we saw a big jump in heavy equipment last year. We’re offering the vendors who reserve space down here the bonus of rotating turns on the Galaxy Room stage for demonstrations.”
“You mean like heavy equipment, or will you have salesmen showing off juicers and other fun stuff?”
“It’s primarily construction and mining equipment on the schedule so far. The delegation from Chianga is even going to stage a floater race, with the audience on the stage, and the drivers using the upper seating sections as a velodrome.”
“Like the time that nutty alien stole a demonstration floater and the Cayl emperor chased him down?”
“I wasn’t on Union Station when the Cayl visited,” Aabina reminded him. “Donna and I have worked up a map of the vendor spaces on my tab, and since the Empire is letting us load in early, we need to get the partitions straightened out. I didn’t want to ask the Dollnick manager to assign the work to his facility staff because he’s already doing us a huge favor.”
Samuel walked over and gave one of the partition walls a shove. For a temporary divider, it didn’t show any sign of wanting to move. “Have you ever done this before?” he asked.
“No, but Donna said that she and her daughters used to move these walls around when the girls were still in school. Supposedly a twelve-year-old can rearrange the room without help.”
“So if we can’t figure it out, you can ping Daniel and ask him to send us his son Mike, or I could check with Aisha and see if Fenna is available.”
“Very funny. There has to be some kind of control mechanism somewhere. Check near the corners. That’s where I’d put the locks if I were designing partitions.”
Samuel approached the outer corner of a room and ran his hands over the surface as if he were looking for invisible hardware. He crouched down to inspect the bottom of the partition, but the wall was flush with the floor. Finally, he gave up and walked over to where Aabina was having no better luck.
“The problem, as I see it, is that we have to think like twelve-year-olds,” he said.
“So what would you have done when you were twelve?”
“Kicked something? But now that you mention it, I kind of remember Vivian was always asking questions at that age. If I didn’t know the answer, she’d talk to the station librarian.”
“Asking the Stryx for help moving a partition seems a little frivolous,” Aabina said.
“But it gives me an idea,” Samuel said. He walked back to the corner where he had started and addressed himself to the wall. “Move.”
A little panel popped open showing a control pad. “I cannot comply without authorization and a grid destination,” a mechanical voice reported in oddly accented English. “Please identify yourself.”
“I’m Samuel McAllister, with the EarthCent embassy. I’m here doing setup for CoSHC.”
“Identity not confirmed,” the wall said, and the access panel snapped shut.
“Let me try,” Aabina suggested. “You probably don’t show up in the public database as working for EarthCent, and the Dollnick was very enthusiastic about the branding for the tradeshow. “Wall,” she said in English. “I am Aabina, special assistant to Ambassador McAllister at the EarthCent embassy, and Samuel is with me today. We wish to reconfigure the partitions for our upcoming Human Empire tradeshow.”
The panel snapped open again, and this time the voice intoned, “Identity confirmed. Grid destination required to carry out your request.”
“I have a map but it doesn’t have any grid coordinates,” Aabina said. “Can we—”
“Look up,” the voice interrupted, and Samuel and Aabina both complied without thinking. A grid showing a double set of numbers was now displayed on the translucent drop-ceiling which diffused the light from hidden fixtures above.
“Thank you,” the Vergallian girl said. “Samuel, can you take a quick run around the perimeter and make a note of the coordinates at each entrance? I’ll use those to calibrate the map on my tab, overlay a grid, and then the job is practically done.”
“That wasn’t some pre-programmed routine telling us to look up,” the EarthCent ambassador’s son muttered. “There’s a Dolly sitting in a control room somewhere laughing at us.”
“He who laughs first laughs longest,” the wall quoted. “You Humans have the expression wrong, as usual. Now run along and note the coordinates for Aabina so we can get the partitions moved and I can go back to my nap.”
Samuel began to jog around the perimeter of the space, which, unlike the amphitheater above, was square rather than round. At the exact midpoint of each wall was an over-sized sliding door, large enough to allow a piece of heavy equipment to drive through. He paused at the centerline of the first door and looked up to check the grid coordinates, which made him scowl. Just to be safe, he ran around the rest of the perimeter before returning to Aabina.
“The closest door to us is at zero/one,” he told her, pointing it out on her tab. “The next one is at one/two, after that is two/one—”
“And the fourth door is at one/zero,” Aabina surmised. “Of course, they used a simple grid and the center of the stage is at one/one. It is so simple that a twelve-year-old could figure it out. The grid locations we see looking up are all decimals, they just divided the coordinates by a thousand.”
“A thousand whats?”
“Princely hands,” the Dollnick informed them. “It’s our foundational measurement unit. The space you’re renting is two thousand hands on a side, or four million square hands, and the radius of the Galaxy amphitheater is one thousand hands.”
Aabina used the four points to calibrate her tab, and the locations where she and Donna wanted to place partitions were now shown in Dollnick coordinates.
“So we have to go around talking to every partition and give it the grid locations for both ends?” Samuel asked.
“That would work,” the wall informed him.
“Is there another option?” Aabina asked, putting a restraining hand on Samuel’s arm. “Could I just send you my drawing?”
“That would work too,” the Dollnick admitted in a whistle that came out like a sigh. “Just hold your tab up near the closest control panel and select share, but be prepared to run.”
“Run?” Samuel repeated.
Aabina held her tab up near the control panel and shared the map. The partition began to retreat soundlessly, at the same time changing its angle relative to their position. Then something shoved Samuel from behind, and it was only the balance and coordination he’d acquired in fifteen years of ballroom dancing that saved him from falling on his face.
“Run!” Aabina cried. “All of the partitions are moving at the same time!”
The two of them dodged around the partition wall that had run into Samuel, and the EarthCent ambassador’s son guided Aabina to the nearest exit. For a fraction of a second, he thought the door was going to refuse to budge, but then it slid back into the wall, and the pair escaped into the corridor. The door hissed closed behind them.
“I knew he was going to be a joker the minute I saw the coordinates over the entrance,” Samuel said. “He could have just told you, but he wanted to make me run a lap.”
“Dollnicks do have an interesting sense of humor,” the Vergallian ambassador’s daughter agreed. “I wonder how long it will take the partitions to sort themselves out?”
“I wonder what the controller will do with all the extra ones. Your layout couldn’t have used half as many partitions as were in there.”
“My guess is that they’ll just go double-width, or place them against the outside walls. I didn’t see any wheels, so the driving force was probably inset magnets getting moved around by coils embedded in the deck. It’s impressive how quiet the system is.”
The door slid open again, and both of the young people reflexively jerked back, as if they were afraid that the partitions were coming in pursuit. But all motion had ceased in the room, and a quick check proved that the walls now corresponded exactly with the map that Donna and Aabina had drawn up.
“You’re welcome,” a booming Dollnick whistle assailed them. “Don’t they teach manners in the Human Empire?”
“Thank you,” Aabina said to the nearest partition.
Seven
Daniel was in the reception area waiting for Kelly when she arrived at the embassy. “Did you see the new Grenouthian documentary?” he asked.
“That’s why I’m a little late,” the ambassador said. “I stayed up last night to watch it with Joe, and then I couldn’t fall asleep because I was worried about investing our cookbook money.”
“I can see how it would have that effect, but the important thing is that they didn’t make any Human Empire jokes.”
“No, they just made fun of Earth’s pre-Stryx financial system. It’s the first time I’ve seen a Grenouthian documentary use so much content from the Children’s News Network. That interview the girl did with the Swiss insurance executive was an eye-opener.”
“The Grenouthians broadcast that last year, and the ratings on reruns were probably what drove the bunnies to go deeper into the subject,” Daniel said. “They made a whole series of documentaries about Earth’s financial system decades ago, but those focused primarily on Ponzi schemes and stock markets. This might have been the first documentary that was entirely about government-issued bonds.”
“I understand why it was beneficial to the Swiss government to sell a hundred-year bond with a negative coupon, but I still don’t get why anybody purchased them.”
“The documentary implied that we just aren’t too bright as a species. But I watched it with Shaina, and she assumed that most of the buyers were practicing a form of asset allocation which forced them to choose the best of the worst. If they were committed to investing in bonds, and everything else looked riskier than paying the Swiss government a small amount every year for the privilege of loaning it money, it makes a certain sort of sense, relatively speaking.”
“That’s not what the Thark ambassador would call investing,” Kelly said. She fished her paperback diary out of her purse and checked her notes. “He says that investors have to exercise some sort of control over their money or it’s the same as gambling. I doubt that the Swiss government took administrative advice from people just because they bought bonds.”
“Probably not,” the associate ambassador agreed. “How’s your schedule looking t
his morning? Shaina arranged a meeting with a Verlock expert on the tunnel network treaty if you want to sit in. He’s going to demonstrate a mathematical proof for the transparent decision-making process.”
“I think I’m free,” Kelly said, flipping her paperback around in her hand and opening it from the back. “I’ve started jotting down my appointments so I don’t have to rely on Libby to be my memory, and, oops—it looks like I’m expecting Bork.”
“His embassy manager pinged me fifteen minutes ago to confirm,” Donna spoke up from her desk. “He wanted me to tell you that he’ll be bringing Glunk, his friend who runs Drazen Foods.”
“I haven’t seen Glunk since I toured his factory on Earth with Joe and Samuel. I’ll meet them in my office so that Daniel can use the conference room. Please send Aabina in when she arrives.”
“Sorry, I’m borrowing her,” the associate ambassador said. “Just in case Shaina and I can’t figure out what the Verlock is talking about.”
“I suppose it can’t be helped. Where is Aabina now?”
“With your son, shopping for party favors,” Daniel said. “I think they were going to split up to cover the Horten and Frunge decks this morning. Donna let them raid petty cash.”
“And I expect you to pay me back with cookbook money,” the embassy manager said. “Petty cash pays for our dance mixers.”
“What party favors?” Kelly asked Donna after Daniel headed into the conference room to brew an extra-strong pot of coffee in preparation for the Verlock expert’s presentation. “Are we hosting something at the embassy that nobody bothered telling me about?”
“Party favors are what I call the extras for the alien observers who are coming to witness the birth of the Human Empire,” Donna explained. “We’re expecting a pair from each of the tunnel network species, and there have been a few reservations coming in from off-network empires as well. Aabina said that species-specific cosmetics and grooming products are the minimum they’ll expect, and Shaina has the design staff at SBJ Fashions hand-embroidering Verlock swag bags with the names of the observers as we get their reservations.”