Empire Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 18)

by E. M. Foner

  “I guess I don’t understand what’s going on,” Samuel confessed. “I thought you’d have the week off because all of your rentals were taken by sales reps coming for the tradeshow, and they’d return home in the same ships. Didn’t Tunnel Trips offer a special discount in honor of the Human Empire or something?”

  “Yes, but after Paul made me vice president, I decided to study up on the Human travel industry and I took an extension course at the Open University. Have you ever heard of double booking?”

  “Isn’t that Earth’s version of accounting where they try to balance assets and liabilities? I’ve seen Grenouthian documentaries where they poke fun at it.”

  “This is something else, though the same potential for abuse is there. Suborbital flights on Earth always sell more seats than there are on the aircraft because they know that not every ticketholder will show up. There’s a surprisingly sophisticated mathematical model behind it, and it gave me the idea to try something similar with rentals.”

  “You’re re-renting ships that are already taken? Doesn’t that violate the rental contract?” Samuel asked.

  “Finally,” Marilla said as the dried gum released from the seat without taking any fake leather with it. “No. Tunnel Trips accepts practically no responsibility for anything. I suspect that Jeeves wrote the rental contract for Paul.”

  “So what are you going to do when the sales reps who paid to rent a ship for the duration are ready to go home?”

  “I got Aabina to share the data from last year, and it turns out that the reps who arrive early to set up for a tradeshow stay for the whole thing, plus at least one extra day to break down their booths and recover. The guests attending the show almost never stay the whole week, and since most open worlds don’t have direct commercial service to Union Station, they’re looking at days of travel time. We can offer them huge time savings for short-term rentals.”

  “So you’re getting attendees to cash-out half of their round trip ticket on a liner and take a one-way rental home? Isn’t there a big penalty for breaking a ticket?”

  “A significant penalty, but these are mainly business travelers, and they’re gaining at least a whole day. And I only offered the promotional price for destinations where there’s an unfilled request for a rental to Union Station before the tradeshow wraps up.”

  “So you were able to get two extra one-way rental trips out of a ship that’s already been rented for the duration of the show,” Samuel surmised. “But wait a second. How are the people who come for the end of the tradeshow going to travel back when the convention wraps up and the original renters need the same ships to go home?”

  “I guess you’ve been so busy that you haven’t heard about the new ships,” the Horten girl said. “Remember those Dollnick taxis we bought from the Sharf ship-carrier in the auction lot? The ones Paul and your father reconditioned and sold on to new franchises?”

  “It was mainly cosmetic work since the taxis were extremely well maintained.”

  “The advance team for the ship-carrier visited Mac’s Bones last week and offered us a deal on another lot from the same Dollnick taxi company. They even offered to swap out the seats and the Zero-G toilets for us. Paul agreed, and the Sharf will start delivering them on Saturday.”

  “So you’re going to use the late renters returning home to distribute the new ships around the Tunnel Trips network,” Samuel concluded. “That’s pretty clever.”

  “If the other franchises want to buy more, Paul will sell them for an immediate profit, and otherwise they’ll just become part of our home fleet. But it means that instead of those round trip rentals sitting here all week, we had to get them turned around and out again. Today we started getting in the final wave of ships from visitors arriving for the conclusion of the tradeshow, and they need to be ready to go out again by Friday evening.”

  “But if you already cleaned the ships once, why did this one have week-old gum stuck to the seat?”

  “They aren’t the same ships. All of the franchisees operate on a first-in, first-out basis, so even if we’re keeping the numbers in balance for the booking system, the ship utilization is spread across the whole fleet. That’s the way Tunnel Trips is set up.”

  “It sounds like you made a lot of extra work for yourself to earn money for the business. I hope Paul is paying you overtime.”

  “I’m very well compensated. My shares in Tunnel Trips vest in just another three cycles.” She glanced around to make sure nobody else could hear, and added, “I’m going to be a ten percent owner, you know. That means Mornich and I will qualify as financially stable and we’ll be able to move ahead with our relationship.”

  “You’re finally tying the knot? Congratulations!”

  “Knot? We get to start taking the advanced compatibility tests.”

  “Are you serious? You’ve been going out together for years.”

  “Hortens may not be as strict about dating as some of the other species, but we take marriage just as seriously as any of them,” Marilla said proudly. “So, are you psyched to clean up some Zero-G vomit? I really don’t understand why Humans have so much trouble using the bags.”

  “Beats me,” Samuel said. “Maybe first-timers get carried away with floating around the cabin and then they can’t get back to their seats quickly enough when their stomachs rebel. Have you ever considered giving out sick-bags with cords so that customers can hang them around their necks rather than storing them under the seats?”

  “You don’t think they’d be offended?”

  “Humans have pretty thick skins about stuff like that. Where’s my first job?”

  “Kevin has been helping out by moving all of the really bad ships to the other side of the training camp field—the ones where people threw-up or didn’t follow the Zero-G bathroom instructions. Your father said that he had an idea for getting them cleaned up quickly, and Paul is over there too. I have to stay near the kiosk to deal with any customers who come in and to keep an eye on the kids.”

  “All right. I’ll see if they can use any more help.” Samuel began jogging towards the training camp and Beowulf came out of nowhere and started trotting alongside. Then Alexander showed up and began running circles around both of them.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Samuel responded to the younger Cayl hound’s implied criticism. “Four legs are better than two, I admit defeat.”

  “Just in time for the big show,” Kevin called to his younger brother-in-law. “Don’t trip over the hose.”

  “What are you guys doing with the power washer?” Samuel asked. “You can’t use that on ship interiors, can you?”

  “Have you already forgotten that we stopped by your Vergallian embassy booth for lunch today?”

  “You ate the last roast beef sandwich and filled your swag bag with cookies.”

  “I put my card in the fishbowl and took one of each brochure,” Kevin pointed out.

  “But I sincerely doubt you and Dorothy have any intention of moving to a Vergallian open world, and I know Paul and Dad aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Maybe I’ll meet somebody looking for a new home and pass the information along. That’s how word-of-mouth works. Anyway, there were some pretty interesting vendors at the tradeshow, and your father was so impressed by a start-up from a Dollnick open world selling retrofit wands for Horten power washers that he bought one on the spot.”

  “You mean the industrial type with high-pressure steam that the Hortens developed for cleaning restaurant kitchens? I know that Dad has one of those, but I thought he said it made too much of a mess to be used on interiors that aren’t designed with a drainage system.”

  “That’s where the new wand comes in. Some clever engineers figured out how to combine it with the containment technology from the standard Zero-G showers the Dollnicks sell for small trade vessels.”

  “Don’t those require a special shower basin with a superconducting coil around the outside to form the containment field?” Samuel asked. “I rem
ember reading about that technology in my intro to Space Engineering survey course.”

  “They sell the superconducting coil with the wand, and it’s sealed in a rubber gasket with Verlock magnetic monopoles that don’t interfere with the current. We tested it on a few hull sections and now your dad and Paul are setting up to try it in that rental.”

  “Why aren’t you in there with them?”

  “In case the containment field doesn’t work. They both put on environmental suits, and there’s not much room for maneuvering equipment in those rental ship cabins in any case. Don’t forget there’s no drain, so Paul has to operate the wet/dry vac while your dad does the wash.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” Samuel said. He climbed into the rental craft, staying close to the hatch. Joe and Paul had just finished arranging a large rubber loop around a spectacular stain spread over the deck and were stepping back to admire their work.

  “Just in time, Sam,” Joe said to his son. “We decided to start with a tough one, and I’m pretty sure whoever failed to seal that space-sickness bag properly was drinking red wine.”

  “How can you tell it was in a bag and not directly from the stomach?”

  “From the way it’s distributed,” Paul said, pointing to the base of the fan-shaped mess. “Plus, the bag failures always happen when the ships come out of the tunnel and traffic control starts decelerating them to create weight. If the bag isn’t secured, it goes flying against the bulkhead, and if it’s not sealed properly, this is the result.”

  “I never realized that,” Samuel said. “What’s that container of blue stuff mounted on the wand? Some kind of solvent?”

  “It’s an optional tracer dye that shows the containment field’s integrity,” his father explained. “Plain water can be tough to judge. Why don’t you double-check the seal for us?”

  Samuel crouched down and examined the rubber outlet where Paul had attached the hose for the wet/dry vac, and as soon as he gave the thumbs-up, his father pressed the button on the power-washer wand. A well-shaped stream of blue-tinted water hit the stain, blasting away the solid matter. Joe swept the stream back and forth, rapidly removing all foreign matter from the deck, and Paul powered on the vacuum.

  Samuel stepped back from the swirling mess, scanning for any leaks in the containment field, but the technology combination appeared to work perfectly.

  “That looks pretty good, but I’m not going to be able to vacuum it dry as long as the field is in place,” Paul said a minute later. “Want to try switching to steam?”

  Joe nodded and used his foot to switch the power washer to steam mode. He gave it ten seconds, enough time for the containment field to fill with a blue cloud, and then shut down the flow. Paul kept the vacuum running until there was just the faintest tint of blue water vapor left. Then Joe thumbed the switch on the wand to kill the containment field.

  “Uh oh,” Paul said, examining the area inside the rubber loop containing the superconductor. “The cleaned spot looks just like new metal and the rest of the deck has a thousand-year-old patina.”

  Joe grinned and turned to Samuel. “I expected this would happen so I saved the hard job for the youngest knees. I thought it was going to be Kevin, but it looks like you volunteered.”

  “To do what?”

  “The Horten power washer comes with a color-matching accessory kit,” Joe explained, detaching a case from the side of the unit and handing it to his son. “There’s a scanner in there that analyzes the light spectrum reflecting from the area surrounding the cleaned patch and then it mixes a new stain to match. Just rub it on with a rag and it dries almost instantly, but don’t go over the same area too many times or it will end up darker than the rest.”

  “And wear these,” Paul suggested, removing the gauntlets from his environmental suit. “If you get that Horten stain on your skin, it takes weeks to wear off.”

  “I guess I know why Kevin was really waiting outside,” Samuel grumbled good-naturedly. “How many of these ships do we have to do?”

  “Two dozen or so, and I’ll leave you boys to it,” Joe said. “I just wanted to see how the technology worked, but I promised your mother I’d sit down with her to talk about our estate planning this evening. Kevin can take over the power washing, and then all three of you should come to see us at the ice harvester when you’re done because you’re our beneficiaries.”

  By the time Samuel finished staining the first power-washed area, Paul and Kevin were two ships ahead of him. But it turned out that most of the digestive failures left behind by renters looked worse than they were, and the majority of them cleaned up so easily that the patina on the steel decks wasn’t blasted off. Moving the equipment from ship to ship ended up taking more time than the cleaning process, and it was almost three hours before Paul shot a playful spray at the dogs and announced that they were finished.

  “Do you think your mom will still be up?” Kevin asked Samuel. “Go and check. Between the tradeshow and the whole Human Empire thing, she must be running down by now.”

  “Ping Dorothy,” Samuel suggested. “She may be there already if Margie is sleeping.”

  Kevin fell silent for a moment, and then without bothering to subvoc, said, “Where are you?” He nodded at the other two. “They’re all waiting for us. Aisha is there too.”

  Before the three men even made it up the ice harvester ramp they could smell freshly popped popcorn.

  “Did you skip dinner, Sam?” his mother asked as soon as he walked in the door. “Your father said you’ve been helping with the rentals since you got home.”

  “I ate all the lunch leftovers before I shut down my booth,” Samuel said. “I’m going to put on weight this week, no question about it.”

  “Grab a seat at the table, there are glasses for anybody who wants a beer,” Joe said. “We haven’t had an official family meeting since—I don’t know if we ever had one. Kel?”

  “Not that I can recall,” the EarthCent ambassador replied, and then looked down at her diary. “Before we start handing out the goodies, Sam, your father wants you to quit working for the Vergallians and sign up with the Human Empire. Now, I’ve purchased animal stickers—”

  “What!” Samuel interrupted her, turning to his father. “You want me to quit my job?”

  “First I’m hearing about it, though your mother has a point,” Joe said. “You know that before the current Vergallian ambassador came along, none of them stayed on Union Station for more than two years. When she goes, your job is going to go with her. I know it’s been a great experience for you, but even if the next ambassador is willing to keep you on, do you really want to spend the rest of your life working for the glory of the Empire of a Hundred Worlds?”

  “You and Vivian are the only two humans on Union Station who passed the EarthCent civil service exam,” Kelly reminded her son. “The working groups voted to move ahead with the Human Empire on the Thousand Cycle option, and it’s going to be a real challenge keeping it on track when the timeline allows almost a century and a half for procrastination.”

  “But the Stryx sent me to work at the Vergallian embassy,” Samuel protested.

  “Years ago, for a co-op job. And then you stayed on and helped your ambassador with one of the greatest diplomatic coups of the last galactic rotation. But this could be your chance to contribute to the future of the entire human race. Would you honestly rather spend four hours a night dancing with aging Vergallian women, half of whom would dose you with pheromones if the ambassador wasn’t there to protect you?”

  “Affie had to go through Vergallian Intelligence vetting before she started handling the Alt affairs out of their embassy,” Dorothy put in. “She told me that the officer who interviewed her asked a lot of questions about you and made it clear that they don’t want you around. I didn’t say anything then because I know how much you like your job, but you should at least think about the Human Empire thing. Besides, Vivian hates it that you work for the Vergallians.”

 
“Well, I’d been dreading bringing that up, and now I feel a hundred percent better,” Kelly said brightly and looked back down at her notes. “I should start by saying that your father and I aren’t planning on dying anytime soon. We are both very proud of all of you and we’re confident that you can secure your own futures without any help from us. But people do tend to accumulate material things as they go through their lives, and we want to make sure that our passing doesn’t create any bad feelings.”

  “Feeling bad about our dying is fine,” Joe interjected. “What your mother means is that we don’t want to create any resentment among you over our estate.”

  “Right,” Kelly said. “When my own mother passed, she divided her assets evenly among her grandchildren without taking into account your circumstances in life. Perhaps if we lived on Earth, your father and I would do the same, but to make a long story short, we feel it’s more important to leave what we have where it will do the most good.”

  “Within the family,” Joe added.

  “Right,” Kelly said again, wondering how she had ever gotten through a speech before Aabina started ghostwriting them for her. “Our most valuable asset turns out to be the lease on Mac’s Bones, which we’re leaving to Paul, along with all the equipment and the caveat that he and his heirs respect Dring’s sublet as long as the Maker chooses to remain.”

  “But we need the money less than anybody,” Aisha protested.

  “Technically, a lease is an expense rather than an asset,” Joe told her. “It’s like leaving you a bill that repeats every cycle.”

  Kelly opened her mouth to object, and then scribbled a note to check her husband’s definition with the Thark ambassador.

  “It makes sense to me,” Kevin said. “I’m fine with running the chandlery as long as Dorothy wants to keep working for SBJ Fashions, but someday I hope to convince her to get back to trading with me. I miss traveling, and I think it’s a great way to bring up kids.”