by E. M. Foner
“Plus nine hours and thirteen minutes,” the giant beetle said. “Mr. Lynx refused to leave her until I arrived to confirm the obvious, though I fear I am setting a bad precedent for doctors everywhere by making house calls. For you,” he added, presenting the host of “Let’s Make Friends” with a watch.
“What’s this?” Aisha asked, even though she had heard all about the alien doctor’s famous countdown watches.
“I checked with the Stryx librarian and I understand that a wristwatch is the appropriate gift for a fifteenth wedding anniversary,” the alien beetle reassured her. “Sometimes a watch is just a watch.”
After Woojin and the Farling continued on towards the grill, Paul asked his wife, “What time does it say?”
“It’s not showing a time, it’s counting down,” Aisha replied in a whisper. “Ten months and two weeks.”
“Why do I get the feeling that sometimes a watch is an advertisement,” Paul said. He looked around for the doctor as he spoke, and was surprised to see his adopted daughter run up to the Farling and greet the alien familiarly. “Honey? Has Fenna been talking to you about the baby brother thing again lately?”
“Happy anniversary,” Thomas and Chance declared together. The two artificial people were the last ones left in the reception line, and both were dressed to the nines in their tango togs.
“Thank you for coming,” Aisha responded sincerely, though she was still trying to wrap her head around the Farling’s gift. “We’re counting on you guys to help the kids get the dancing started. You know what these mixed species crowds with children are like.”
“Looks like they’ll be busy demolishing the food for a while yet,” Chance said. “Would you mind if I asked the band to play a little tango? I heard them at a wedding for one of our trainees last month and they’re surprisingly good at cross-species music.”
“Hortens have perfect memories for musical scores, but very few of them can sing,” Thomas contributed. “Their ambassador’s son is an exception.”
“I think that would be lovely,” Aisha said, acquiescing to Chance’s request. She glanced again towards the entrance of Mac’s Bones to make sure that she wasn’t turning her back on any late-arriving guests, and then headed with Paul towards the food tables. The pair broke up when Aisha stopped at the vegetarian spread and her husband continued on to the grill.
Standing behind the grill line, Vivian was toasting hamburger rolls while explaining to Samuel that she was really older than him because girls mature faster than boys. “Being female is worth at least three years, so you’re almost a year behind me.”
“I’m two years older than you,” Samuel insisted. “I turned fifteen a couple months ago and you just turned thirteen. The Vergallians say…”
“The Vergallians aren’t here,” she cut him off abruptly. “Are we done, Mr. McAllister?”
“These two are for you,” Joe said, sliding a medium burger onto a toasted roll for each of the kids, and a patty directly onto his foster son’s plate. “Paul is off of bread until he gets rid of that spare tire. Thank you both for the help.”
“I haven’t let my belt out in years,” Paul objected loudly, and then asked under his breath, “Have you heard from Jeeves?”
“Everything is set and he’ll check with you before popping the bay doors.”
“Great. Are you shutting down the grill line already?”
“I wasn’t figuring on the Frunge bypassing the Gem caterers and practically cleaning me out of raw meat,” Joe explained. “It’s a good thing they all came late or some of your friends would have gone hungry. I am kind of surprised to see the adults who accompanied Aisha’s cast members are ordering drinks like it’s the end of prohibition.”
“She said that a lot of them don’t have any experience with humans outside of their kids being on the show. They’re probably nervous about us doing weird human stuff.”
“Get some potato salad to go with that burger, but don’t take too long eating or Jeeves will have time to start improvising. I don’t think you want that.”
“Good point,” Paul acknowledged. He took his plate over to where Aisha sat at a table of mixed aliens and was working to put them at ease.
Libby subtly altered the lighting in Mac’s Bones so that it seemed as if the couple on the dance floor had appeared out of nowhere when the Horten band struck up a tango. Within moments, everybody’s eyes were fixed on the artificial people. Thomas and Chance moved with such extraordinary grace and speed that anybody who hadn’t witnessed a professional Argentine tango could be forgiven for thinking that the couple’s legs were in danger of becoming hopelessly intertwined in a knot.
Paul massaged the skin under his chin between his thumb and forefinger as if he were regretting a bad shave, but in reality he was trying to cover up subvocing to Jeeves. “We’re all eating. Yes, Aisha asked where you were, but I don’t think she suspects anything. Thomas and Chance have everybody mesmerized, so now is perfect.”
The large bay doors of Mac’s Bones silently slid open, and the triple-decker habitat painted to match the ice harvester slipped through the atmosphere retention field, suspended by Jeeves. Paul and Joe were the only ones who witnessed the Stryx deftly guiding the boxy structure around the overhead lights so as not to cast shadows. Joe had cleaned up an area of deck next to the ice harvester, joking that he wanted to raise chickens in his retirement, and Jeeves eased the renovated alien habitat into position.
When the tango came to an end, Paul touched his wife lightly on the shoulder and whispered, “Happy Anniversary.”
Aisha smiled as she set down her spoon and turned toward her husband. Her eyes went wide and there were gasps from the surprised guests as Libby dramatically brought up the lights on the new dwelling. It seemed to have appeared out of nowhere as if conjured by magic.
“Paul! Is that what I think it is?”
“It’s from the auction lot you gave me, though I had the Dollnicks a few bays over spruce it up for us. It might be a few days before Joe and I can get the plumbing hooked up, but it’s all freshly painted with that Cappuccino White you said you like, and Dorothy made the curtains. I know you’ve always wanted a meatless kitchen, and living next door is a way of having our own home without losing out on the babysitting. It’s just empty rooms now, but you can furnish it any way you want—any way you and Fenna want.”
“It’s beautiful,” Aisha breathed, struggling to take in the giant blue ribbon, which included a bow right over the front entrance.
The guests all began clapping as if the Grenouthians had lit up an “applause” sign, and taking Fenna between them, Paul and Aisha approached their new house.
“Nice hutch,” the producer of “Let’s Make Friends” called to his star as the humans passed the Grenouthian table.
“Does this mean they’re moving out?” Kelly asked Joe. “Nobody ever tells me anything.”
“I was worried you might explode if you had to keep a secret for two weeks,” her husband joked. “Besides, you’re so wound up in the review business that I doubt it would have registered. Now you’ll have two more rooms available for bringing home strays to run off with Dorothy’s boyfriends.”
The Horten musicians struck up a techno-waltz, the small-band substitute for ballroom dancing, and this time Samuel and Vivian put on an exhibition for the guests. A few of the more adventurous humans joined in the next song, along with Thomas and Chance, but the aliens all sat on their hands and watched passively.
Dorothy approached the bandstand and motioned Mornich over. “Aisha put me in charge of the entertainment and she wants everybody to participate,” she told the Horten. “I don’t know anything about getting alien children to dance. I only go to parties with people our age.”
“Your friends were too good,” Mornich explained. “Humans don’t care how they look after a few drinks, but most species hate to make fools out of themselves on the dance floor, especially in front of each other. They might have gotten over the two arti
ficials doing the tango, that’s specialist stuff that none of them have ever seen, but those kids dancing Vergallian style are intimidating.”
“I’ll get them to take a break,” Dorothy promised. “My sister-in-law really wants the children from her cast to have a good time. Don’t you have any standards for those coming-of-age parties you do that will get them all out on the dance floor?”
“Well, there’s always the Stryx dance,” Mornich said with a sigh. “I don’t pull that one out unless I have to because the music is just dreadful and I get stuck leading it.”
“Does it get everybody to dance?”
“Like zombies under compulsion,” the Horten replied with a barely restrained shudder. “As soon as I announce it, the parents will push their kids onto the dance floor, and then they’ll follow themselves, like it’s been programmed into their genes. It almost scares me sometimes.”
“Will humans be able to do it?”
“I don’t know. Can you all count to four?”
“Let’s put it in next. I’m afraid some of the kids might leave before Aisha even gets back from checking out her house.”
Mornich nodded his assent and began making hand signals to the band members, who were winding down the current instrumental. Dorothy headed back to the twenty-something table and harvested Kevin.
“You’re dancing in this next one,” she told him. “It’s make-or-break for the party.”
“As long as you don’t expect me to be any good,” he replied, rising to his feet. “I’ve only danced with my sisters, and that was a long time ago.”
“This should be perfect, then,” Dorothy said as the music died out. “It’s…”
“Time to do the Stryx dance,” Mornich announced, walking out onto the dance floor with a large handheld microphone that was obviously designed to draw attention rather than for functionality. “Come on, parents. Get those kids on the floor.”
The percussionist began playing a sort of an extended introduction in four/four time. As the Horten had predicted, every one of the aliens moved onto the dance floor, including the Grenouthian crew, whose whiskers twitched weirdly with the beat. Another member of the band began playing a lilting melody on a keyboard, and the dancers all formed up in a grid, as if the deck had been marked with crossing lines.
“Left foot,” Mornich called, sliding out his left leg and touching the toe on the floor. He repeated the move twice with the beat and called, “Right foot.”
“It’s the Alley Cat,” Kelly said to Joe, getting up from the table and pulling him to his feet. “Come on. Even we can do this.”
“Left knee,” the Horten cried, lifting his left knee twice in time with the keyboard notes, and then shifting to the right. “Clap and turn.”
Over a hundred aliens, many of them wearing maniacal grins by this point, clapped simultaneously and jumped in the air, landing faced ninety degrees from their original position.
The keyboardist began replaying the exact same melody from the start, but the percussionist picked up the beat almost imperceptibly, and the dancers all worked their way successfully through three hundred and sixty degrees, including the slow-footed Verlocks.
“Arms!” Mornich commanded, and the sequence repeated, this time with the dancers moving their arms in time with their legs, and opening their hands at the end of each reach.
“This isn’t that bad,” Joe admitted, dancing never having been his thing. “Reminds me of kindergarten.”
“Double,” Mornich cried at the end of the second rotation. “Back and kick.”
Kelly and Joe were both caught clapping and jumping when all of the aliens and most of the humans were instead extending a foot out behind them for two counts on each leg, and then kicking forward, doubling the length of the sequence. Meanwhile, the percussionist continued to slowly increase his beat, and the Verlocks began struggling to keep up.
“What are you doing?” the Horten ambassador called to Kelly as she tried to settle into the new regime. “You’re out.”
“What do you mean I’m out?”
“It’s an elimination dance,” Ortha said, lifting a knee high in perfect timing with the notes. “No mistakes allowed.”
“Come on, Kel,” Joe said, putting an arm around his wife’s waist and leading her off the dance floor. “The kicking bit is dicey for my knees in any case.”
“Opposing arm!” Mornich ordered as the round came to an end, and the dancers began doing the reach move with the arm opposite to the leg being moved. The tune repeated a little faster, and the older Verlocks shuffled off of the dance floor.
Kelly and Joe returned to their seats, where Dring was chatting with M793qK. The ambassador looked around and realized to her surprise that Thomas and Chance had also sat this one out. The artificial people, the Maker, and the Farling were the only ones in the hold who weren’t at least bobbing their heads compulsively with the beat.
The beetle noticed the EarthCent ambassador observing him, and inquired, “Out already? Something wrong with your genetic programming? If you come into my shop I can take a look.”
“What are you talking about?” Kelly demanded.
“He’s just joking,” Dring said, scowling at the Farling, who spread a number of his limbs in a mock sign of surrender. “There’s nothing wrong with a little line dance competition from time to time.”
“Double tap, triple clap” Mornich called, and the dancers began double tapping their toes at the end of each leg reach and triple clapping with each jump, a move that eliminated most of the remaining humans and older aliens.
“When does it end?” Kelly asked.
“That depends on the caller,” Dring explained. “Since this isn’t a competition and the crowd is mixed, I suspect he’ll stop on the tenth round, depending on whether he feels the guests are sufficiently loosened up to keep on dancing.”
A triple clap sounded from behind them, and Kelly turned to see that Paul and Aisha had returned from their tour of the remodeled habitat with their daughter and Jeeves. Fenna had started mimicking the moves of the dancers, while Aisha and Paul were bobbing their heads.
“Give up already?” Paul inquired.
“We got eliminated, it’s not the same thing,” Joe replied. “Did the Dollies finish everything on time?”
“It’s wonderful,” Aisha enthused, moving her hands unconsciously in time with the music. “The kitchen is gorgeous, and I’ve never seen such a large bathroom. Paul said that you’ve already fabricated stairways to weld in so we can get to the upper floors.”
Beowulf, who along with the puppies had been watching the dancers, twisted his head towards the new arrivals and sniffed suspiciously. Then he went right up to Jeeves, his tail wagging like crazy, and thrust his nose against the Stryx’s casing.
“The nose always knows,” Jeeves said. He slid his pincer into a hidden slot and pulled out a well chewed boomerang toy. “I found this bouncing around Union Station’s core while I was bringing your house over, and I recognized the bite marks.”
Out on the dance floor, Mornich called, “Four-fifty,” and with the next clap the dancers all tried to complete a full turn and a quarter as they jumped in the air. When the melody began to repeat, Samuel, Vivian, and Jonah were the only humans left in competition.
Sixteen
“It’s in the Galaxy Room at the Empire Convention Center?” Kelly asked in surprise. “I thought it would be held in the Stryx meeting room, maybe with some immersive coverage.”
“It’s a public hearing,” Libby explained. “We had planned on a smaller venue, but ticket sales went through the roof when the Hortens announced that Advocate Jursha would be representing the pirates.”
“Representing them how? Is he going to claim that the people taken hostage were actually attacking the pirates or something? And what did you mean by ticket sales?” she added, when the middle part of the station librarian’s reply sank in.
“Surely you don’t begrudge Gryph earning back the fees he paid the
Farling for the medical care given to Clive’s long-lost relatives and the Crick boy.”
“But the Verlocks were willing to pay for that,” Kelly argued. “And you didn’t answer my question about Jursha.”
“That’s because you changed the subject. Even though this is a hearing and not a trial, it wouldn’t be fair to solicit just one side of the story.”
“One side of the story? But you’re the ones who told the rest of us to do something about the pirates or else.”
“That was Jeeves, actually, and he might have expressed our views a little more forcefully than we intended. It’s his first major diplomatic assignment, after all.”
“So this Jursha guy is going to get up and say nice things about the pirates?”
“We try to accommodate the practices of member species in all official tunnel network business. I’m afraid that the Hortens conduct their legal system in the manner of a game, and Jursha is the reigning advocacy champion. If we hadn’t set aside blocks of tickets for each species, the amphitheatre would have sold out to an all-Horten crowd. Of course, you have to prepare for scalping.”
“Our witnesses are in danger of being assaulted?”
“Ticket scalping, not the frontier kind. There are several businesses on the station that specialize in purchasing and reselling reserved blocks of tickets for popular events.”
“And you allow it?”
“Nobody is being forced to sell,” Libby pointed out. “Our intention is to provide equal access to the public events we schedule, but attendance isn’t compulsory, and there are plenty of profits for everybody to share around. You really should get going if you want to arrive early.”
“Good grief,” the ambassador said, rising from her desk and heading for the lift tube. “It’s starting to sound like a circus.”
When Kelly reached the Empire Convention Center, she found that the lift tube had brought her to the deck below the public entrances for the Galaxy Room. The ambassador hadn’t been through the maze of tunnels and meeting rooms underneath the stadium seating for a number of years, and got herself hopelessly turned around several times before asking Libby for directions. When she finally emerged on the stage at the center of the amphitheatre, she found that chairs of the proper type for each of the oxygen-breathing tunnel network ambassadors were placed in an arc facing twin lecterns. Only one of the chairs was unoccupied.