by E. M. Foner
Thirteen
“I can’t believe I let Flower talk me into this,” Julie complained to her voice teacher. “I thought I’d seen the last of my Refill costume until next season.”
“You look really cute as a superhero waitress,” Rinka said, and then checked her own outfit in the corridor display panel that Flower had helpfully set to mirror mode. “Do you think the green ribbon suits my tentacle?”
“It’s lovely,” Julie said, wishing for a moment that she had a tentacle of her own to accessorize. “Aren’t you nervous about singing in front of a bunch of aliens? At least all I have to do is pretend to throw a tray and autograph my action figures.”
“Drazens don’t suffer from stage shyness, at least not when we’re singing. And you should consider doing a number yourself. You’re quite good for a Human with less than a year’s training.”
“Not a chance,” Julie said, leading the way to the lift tube. “Do you have your magnetic cleats on?”
“They’re built into this pair,” Rinka said. “Will the boys be coming to watch us?”
“Bill and Jorb? I hope they don’t even know we’re performing. Flower didn’t finalize her scheme until after lunch. Did you mention it to Jorb?”
The lift tube capsule set off before Julie could tell it where they were going, which was only fair as the whole outing was Flower’s idea.
“I hate to bother him while he’s at the dojo because I know he’ll drop everything and rush over,” the Drazen girl said. “Who knew he would turn out to be such a gallant.”
“Is that a word in English? If the meaning matches the sound, I could probably use it in a book. It’s weird how you have a bigger vocabulary in my language than I do.”
“I studied up so I can beat Jorb at Scrabble,” Rinka admitted. “Gallant is a seven-letter word, and it fits him well.”
“Can you come up with a seven-letter word that describes Bill?” Julie asked. “I see so little of him these days that I could use something to remind me that we’re really engaged.”
“Loverly.”
“Is that even a word?”
“It is in an old Earth musical I found,” Rinka replied. “I’m hoping to have the travel chorus perform it. You know, you’d make the perfect Eliza…”
“Did you feel that?” Julie asked. “The capsule has shifted to one of the radial tubes and we’re moving pretty fast.”
“Flower told me that the show will be in her engine room, or rather, the space between her jump engines and the bulkhead of her docking bay. I can hold the high notes better at a lower weight so I’m looking forward to it.”
“I guess I never really thought about how far her docking bay on the axis reaches into her hull since I haven’t had the time to explore. Flower?”
“The docking bay extends for exactly one-quarter of my length,” the Dollnick AI replied immediately. “The rest of the core, or hollow keel if you prefer, is occupied by my physical plant.”
“And why are we doing the show there rather than in a theatre?” Julie asked.
“Your audience prefers Zero G. And don’t let the little ones climb all over you or you’ll never be able to pose properly.”
The capsule slowed, changed directions again, and then the lift tube doors opened on a scene that somehow reminded Julie of the rigging of a pirate ship from an old movie. There were giant nets stretched every which way, with plenty of solo ropes as well, all swarming with furry little Zarents.
“It looks like they have thousands of sleeping bags strung along the axis where they’re completely weightless,” Rinka observed. She stretched her own tentacle as if she yearned to grab hold of one of the ropes and swing herself up. “I’m not sure I can tell which part of their anatomy is which, other than the eyes, but they sure seem a lot happier than when they first came on board.”
“That doesn’t look like Dollnick text on the banner,” Julie said, pointing at a giant printed sheet stretched across the bulkhead. “I wonder what it says.”
“Club Flower,” the Dollnick AI informed Julie by way of her implant. “Don’t forget the plan. Now I’ve told the Zarents that you’re here, so get ready for—”
“Puppy Pile,” Rinka squealed as dozens of young Zarents piled onto the two girls. Without their magnetic cleats to help hold them in place, the swarm of little aliens might have carried the girls away onto the nets just like real pirates, but an older Zarent arrived on his unicycle, and the little ones fled back into the rigging.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” the new arrival said through his external speaker device. “I am Chief Engineer Miklat, which makes me the official representative of our community. Flower informed me that the two of you asked to perform for us while we rest and recuperate.”
“That’s right,” Rinka said, not contradicting Flower’s characterization of the volunteering process on board. “I understand that Zarents were designed to communicate telepathically and have limited vocalization abilities, but I’ve also been told that you have excellent hearing. I’m a certified Drazen choral mistress, and I’d like to try singing a few pieces to see if they suit you.”
The chief engineer performed a sort of a bow by tilting his unicycle forward. “We enjoy the music of other species, the Drazens foremost among them. Do you require a special platform?”
“Anywhere is fine,” Rinka said. “Flower assured me she could correct for the performance space with acoustic reflection and suppression fields, but it would be good if anybody who wants to listen gathered in front of me.”
“Ah yes, acoustics are a Dollnick specialty.” The chief engineer waved his tentacles around for a moment, and Zarents from all over the core began making their way through the nets and ropes towards where the girls were standing near the lift tube.
“Do you have a name other than Chief Engineer?” Julie asked.
“Snap,” the Zarent replied. “It’s a nickname that attached to me after an unfortunate incident in my youth when I was attempting to prove that a flawless crystal rod I had grown couldn’t be broken by tentacle strength alone. I know from the anime that Flower showed us that your name is The Waitress, but do you have a nickname you would prefer we use?”
“Uh, Julie,” she said. “I hope I don’t look too funny dressed in my costume, but Flower assured me that the short skirt wouldn’t offend anybody’s sensibilities.”
“You all look funny to us, and if you’re talking about the propensity some bipeds have for covering their skin, keep in mind that all of us are naked,” Snap said.
“Could you tell me something about the frequency range of your hearing so I can calibrate my performance?” Rinka asked.
“Our auditory organs were optimized for troubleshooting, and while we hear perfectly over the entire range that’s typical for tunnel network species, we’re especially well adapted to sounds above seven hundred and fifty cycles per second, where the frequencies associated with containment field tuning begin to manifest.”
“So basically, soprano,” Rinka said. She nodded and passed two little plugs attached by a cord to Julie. “You might want to put these in your ears.”
“Earplugs?”
“I don’t think you’ve ever heard me hit the high range on the Drazen scale, but I know that some Humans find it to be hard on their nerves,” she said apologetically. “Oh, look how many Zarents are coming!”
“Our group includes some three thousand individuals, though a third are apprentices,” the chief engineer said.
“Plus the children?” Julie asked.
“Our children are apprentices from birth,” Snap explained. “See how they arrange themselves with perfect symmetry.”
It looked like all three thousand Zarents had decided to attend Rinka’s concert, most of them hanging from nets that had been pulled down near the deck level. The furry octopus-like creatures had ranked themselves by size, with the littlest front and center. Between the stretching of the nets and the distribution of weight, within minutes they had formed
their own natural amphitheatre. The chief engineer whipped out a device that let him check the curvature in three dimensions and he expressed his approval with a loud buzz.
“We’re ready when you are,” he said and pedaled off on his unicycle to take his place near the back.
“Do you want to hold my music tab for me, just to have something to do?” Rinka asked Julie. “It’s only a prop as I’ll be sticking with old classics that I’ve known since I was a child.”
“I’d probably get nervous and drop it,” Julie said. “I think I’ll stand near the lift tube and make sure nobody interrupts.”
The Drazen cleared her throat, stretched her tentacle, and announced, “I’m going to start with a little folk song for a warm-up and then we’ll get to the good stuff. If anybody has heard this one before, feel free to join in telepathically.”
She began to sing a song about a Drazen farmer who had a whole collection of animals, and even though Julie had no telepathic sensitivity, she somehow knew that the little Zarent children were all joining in for the chorus with their interpretations of the noises made by the farm’s inhabitants. When Rinka finally wound down with the Brizat, an elephant-like creature that made a “Zratt, zratt here, and a zratt, zratt there,” all of the aliens, young and old, were practically radiating happiness.
“Next I’d like to sing the first aria from Hard Rock Asteroid Mining, a classic of early Drazen space exploration that I’m sure you’ve all heard,” Rinka said. She glanced over at Julie, gestured at her own ears, and delayed a moment while her friend reluctantly installed the earplugs. Then she let out a high, clear note and Julie winced.
The Zarents hung enthralled from their nets, occasionally poking one another with a tentacle to express their admiration of the Drazen soloist. The performance continued for just over an hour, and not a single one of the aliens, down to the littlest furry octopus, moved from their spots. When Rinka brought the performance to an end, looking both exhilarated and exhausted, the Zarents all linked their tentacles and performed a sort of a group bow in her direction.
Snap rode forward again on his unicycle as the aliens began to disperse. One of his tentacles was kept suspiciously behind him, and then he brought it around and presented Rinka with a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers.
“That was truly lovely, the best vocal performance most of us have ever had the pleasure of attending,” he enthused. “Please accept these flowers as a token of our appreciation, along with membership in the honorary guild of Zarent friends. Chief Purser Miklat will bring you the medallion as soon as she can manufacture one. And you,” he continued, turning his unicycle toward Julie, “Some of the anime fans in our group bought a whole case of The Waitress action figures and we understand you are willing to sign them and pose for souvenir images.”
“Of course,” Julie said. “I never would have guessed that Zarents would have an interest in Everyday Superheroes.”
“But then again,” Snap said, tilting closer on his unicycle before having to lean back to maintain his balance, “we both know that’s not the only reason you’re here.”
“It’s not?”
“Club Flower?” the Zarent asked by way of a reply. “Not many sentients can even decipher our written language, yet Flower went to the trouble of producing an expensive banner. While I’d like to believe that she means it as a sign that we are permanently welcome, I suspect that the reality of the situation is that she’s desperate to rid herself of the Wanderers and sees no way of doing it unless we agree to return to the Miklat.”
“There’s some truth to what you’re saying,” Julie allowed, “but that’s not the whole story. Flower feels that the Zarents have been treated as outcasts by the galactic community, and as an outcast herself, she empathizes with your cause, even though you may have different goals.” A little alien landed on Julie’s shoulders and wrapped several of its tentacles around her neck, and the girl paused to stroke the soft fur. “The Farling doctor has told Flower that the Zarents he revived from stasis are undergoing treatment and will all live, but he prescribes a long period of recuperation in Zero-G, away from the temptations of endless work. So returning them to the Miklat is out of the question.”
“We agree on something,” the chief engineer said. “But Zarents cannot survive without a community of at least several hundred members. It’s an acquired form of co-dependency that we have no desire to outgrow.”
“Exactly,” Julie said. “That’s why Flower really does want you to stay on board. She told me that this whole section of her core is underutilized because the bipedal species all prefer to weigh something more substantial and they aren’t comfortable around operating power plants the way the Zarents are.”
The unicycle stopped its constant motion, and Snap would have fallen over sideways if he hadn’t reached out with a pair of tentacles at the last second, steadying himself between the two girls. “The Dollnick A.I. is offering us a home?”
“As much as she would love to have you all on board permanently, she’s afraid that your work ethic would eventually lead to clashes with the way she does things,” Julie said, reciting the memorized lines as if she was thinking them up herself. “Flower’s idea is to create a resort for Zarents, a place where any of you living in the Wanderer Mobs can come for a few cycles of vacation and then return to your large communities refreshed. Of course, as the seed group, we’d need at least several hundred of you to stay on with the injured, whether the others decide to sign up with another ship or end your strike and return to the Miklat.”
“That was smooth,” Flower murmured over Julie’s implant. “Get him thinking about it as an option again.”
“My people have no experience with resorts, but I understand them to be expensive,” the chief engineer said slowly. “Since the Zarent way is to retire within our working communities when we can no longer function, we’ve never seen the need to build up substantial savings. On the Miklat, we were compelled to spend whatever money came our way for repair parts.”
“Flower was hoping to come to a barter arrangement,” Julie said. “She’s undertaken the startup of a small shipyard for producing Sharf two-man traders and has acquired the original factory tooling, but we’ve run into a snag trying to set it up. I realize that it may not be your thing, but—”
“Sharf two-man traders?” The chief engineer lifted his body from the seat of the unicycle and let out a buzz of laughter. “Why, the little Twelfth Apprentice Life Support clinging to your neck can already trace the schematics for one. Many Zarent communities keep a Sharf two-man trader in the preschool playground, something the youngsters can take apart and put together without adult supervision.”
“So you think you’d be able to help set up the assembly line?”
“Certainly, and if there’s any difficulty with the existing equipment, we could manage something from scratch. They really are some of the simplest ships of any practical value in the galaxy.”
“Then I think that your help getting the factory started would be a fair trade to cover the expenses for the share of your community who want to remain behind with the recuperating patients,” Julie said. “Flower apologizes that she doesn’t have the sort of social connections that could help the rest of you find a place where your work would be appreciated…” She let the sentence hang.
“No, I don’t expect that Flower would,” Snap said. “We have feelers out on the Stryxnet to the other Wanderer mobs. To be perfectly honest, labor actions such as ours are rare, and they carry with them a stigma of laziness.”
“That’s so unfair,” Rinka said. “Even Drazen consortiums recognize the validity of strikes for forcing resolutions to problems that resist amicable solutions.”
“But there’s nothing as disheartening to a Zarent as the order to down tools. We aren’t even in negotiations because the captain of the Miklat resigned his commission as soon as Flower took us all on board. In the Wanderer legal system, the Miklat no longer exists as a mob ship. I heard a rumor th
at the entire ship’s company has requested refugee status on Flower, with the exception of the Humans, who are holding out for the Human Empire.”
Julie hesitated for a moment while stroking the twelfth apprentice’s fur before springing the last part of Flower’s stratagem on the chief engineer. “As of four hours ago, we have a legal ruling from the Stryx declaring the Miklat abandoned and granting us the salvage rights. I’m authorized to offer the ship to you.”
All motion in the giant open space came to an abrupt halt, and even the little alien wrapped around Julie’s neck froze as the telepathic connection the Zarents shared spread the news instantaneously.
“Flower is gifting us the Miklat?” Snap asked, his electronically synthesized voice emerging like a whisper.
“I’m sure you’ve noticed that Flower is operating at less than twenty percent of capacity herself, even with all of the refugees on board,” Julie explained. “If she was full up, we could repurpose your ship as a tender or warehouse space, but there’s just no need. If the Miklat had been built by any other species, Flower might have sold it for scrap, but since it served honorably as a Dollnick colony ship, she won’t consider that option. Yet the Miklat’s condition means that selling it on the open market would create an enormous liability. You’ll be doing her a favor by accepting.”
“It’s too big of a decision to make without discussion,” the chief engineer said. “In the history of the Zarents, we’ve always served on the ships of other species. It’s why the Farlings created us.”
“If it’s a philosophical issue, perhaps you could talk it over with M793qK,” Julie suggested. “I’m just Flower’s executive assistant and I can’t pretend to understand the inner workings of her mind.”
“This could change everything. If we returned to the mob as the owners of the Miklat, we could set the rules for any Wanderers who want to join us.”