Review Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 11)

by E. M. Foner

  “On time is late,” the Grenouthian ambassador remarked loudly as the EarthCent ambassador passed him on the way to her seat.

  Kelly checked her heads-up display and discovered that she had arrived just as the hearing was scheduled to start. The room was eerily quiet. She squinted against the lights to get an idea of the audience in attendance, and concluded that ticket holders were approximately eighty percent Hortens.

  A moment later, at precisely the correct time, Crute rose and began to speak from where he stood. His voice was picked up and amplified for the audience by the array of directional pickups above the stage.

  “Welcome to our public hearing assessing the impact of piracy on tunnel network members. The testimony will start with the presentation of four Human witnesses, as most of us believe that this disruption in the status quo is due to the Stryx’s desire to protect their latest favored species.” The Dollnick ambassador paused as thousands of Hortens stomped their feet and hissed. “The first witness is a young man who lost his ship to the pirates shortly after paying off the mortgage. He escaped from captivity by stealing a museum-quality Verlock trader with two Human accomplices and activating the obsolete VTGERN device. Kevin Crick, please take the stand.”

  Kevin walked from one of the tunnel openings under the stadium seating and approached the nearer lectern as Crute sat back down. Since the Dollnick had already introduced him, the young man launched directly into his testimony, starting with the day that he responded to a distress call from another human ship, only to find that it was a false signal sent out by a pirate squadron looking for easy prey. By the time he reached the end of his story, touching briefly on the radiation poisoning treatments, even a few of the Hortens in the crowd were looking sympathetic.

  “We have heard the testimony of the first Human,” Crute announced, not bothering to stand this time. “I now invite Advocate Jursha to cross-examine the witness.”

  “Cross-examine?” Kelly subvoced the station librarian.

  “It’s a Horten tradition,” Libby replied.

  Jursha strode up to the second lectern, looking exactly like an immersive star in a courtroom drama, and the audience burst into a roar of applause. The Horten smoothed a few imaginary wrinkles from his ten-thousand-cred suit, and made a little movement halfway between a wave and a salute to acknowledge the crowd, which responded with renewed enthusiasm. Then he turned to face Kevin with a friendly smile.

  “Mr. Crick. I’ve been retained by the Free Republic to clarify their position vis-à-vis the allegations you have made today.”

  “It’s all the truth,” the young man asserted.

  “I’m sure you believe that,” the advocate replied evenly, “but as a point of order, I must ask that you speak only when addressed. I’m sure you appreciate that nobody interrupted your testimony.”

  Kevin shrugged and nodded.

  “Thank you. I would like to start by asking you to put a monetary value on the ship and cargo you claim to have lost to my clients.”

  “Two hundred thousand creds for the ship, a used Sharf trader for which I had just paid off the mortgage. The cargo was primarily sporting equipment and processed foods, for which I paid twenty-three thousand two-hundred creds wholesale.”

  “Let’s be generous and round up to a quarter million Stryx creds,” the advocate offered. “Would that be fair compensation, including your time?”

  “It’s very generous, but…”

  “No need to protest that it’s more than you deserve,” Jursha interrupted. “Now, if we can revisit one of the highlights of your testimony, you admit to having overloaded the stasis field generator on your host’s asteroid base, after which you absconded with an antique Verlock vessel. Can you describe the state of said stasis field generator the last time you saw it?”

  “It was smoking, and I guess there were sparks shooting out of the vents.”

  “You guess there were sparks shooting out of the vents. Do you know how much a stasis field generator with that kind of coverage capacity costs?”

  “A lot?” Kevin hazarded a guess.

  “Over five million creds, and that’s if you can get the Stryx to sell you the components,” Jursha thundered. “Industrial stasis field generators are on the restricted list, and none of the local species have succeeded in duplicating the effect.”

  “The pirates probably stole it somewhere,” Kevin objected.

  “Immaterial! And what value would you put on the Verlock vessel?”

  “Well, the Stryx accepted it in trade to pay for our rescue and…”

  “You took a ship that did not belong to you and sold it?” Lorsha interjected.

  “In a manner of speaking, maybe, but…”

  “I think I’ve made my point about monetary damages, but my employers are willing to waive their rights in this case,” the advocate continued, drawing a round of laughter and applause from the audience. “After all, we are all friends on the tunnel network, and I believe I saw you just the other evening doing the Stryx dance. Is that so?”

  “I don’t remember you, but I guess it’s possible.”

  “May I ask the identity of the lovely young woman you were escorting?”

  “I don’t see why I should answer that.”

  “Then let me answer for you,” Jursha said. “You were dancing with Dorothy McAllister, the daughter of the EarthCent Ambassador, who is the Human member of the committee responsible for this hearing!”

  The audience exploded in another round of boot-stomping and hooting. Jursha inserted one hand in the breast of his suit, and began pacing around the lectern to make sure that the entire audience got a chance to see him from the front.

  “I’m not here to make accusations about nepotism and insider dealing among Humans,” the Horten continued. “My question for you is, do you love her?”

  “Do I what?” Kevin stuttered, blushing beneath his radiation tan and looking around as if he expected support from some unseen ally.

  “Although I don’t pretend to be an expert in Human color changes, I believe ‘Yes,’ is written all over your face. My final question to you is, would have been dancing with the object of your affections if not for the intervention of my clients in your otherwise humdrum existence?”

  Kevin gaped at the Horten advocate, at a complete loss for words.

  “No further questions,” Jursha declared to the thunderous applause from the packed amphitheatre.

  Crute waited for Kevin to leave the lectern before calling out, “The next witness is one Katya Wysecki, an employee of the Galactic Free Press who was a guest of the Free Republic, I mean, pirates, while on a journalistic assignment. You may give your testimony, Ms. Wysecki.”

  “Guest?” Kelly demanded of the Stryx librarian over her implant. “Chastity had to pay a ransom to get her back!”

  Libby didn’t answer, and Katya took her place at the lectern. She repeated her story about trying to find a pirate crew that would accept an embedded reporter, only to find herself held hostage for ransom. Jursha could be seen nodding sympathetically as she spoke, and made no effort to dispute any of the darker incidents she reported.

  “A disturbing tale of a life-altering experience,” the Horten said when Katya reached the end of her testimony. “Does that sound familiar to you?”

  “It’s certainly a fair summary,” the reporter replied, but then a strange look came over her face. “Isn’t that the cover blurb from my pre-release book? I just got that myself.”

  “Your pre-release book,” the Horten repeated. “Tell us honestly, now. Would you have landed a six-figure advance for a book deal if not for the time you spent with my clients?”

  “That’s blaming the victim!” Katya retorted, but nobody heard her words over the boot-stomping and whistling from the audience.

  “And may I ask your current occupation?” Jursha continued as soon as the noise died down.

  “I’m the roving food and lifestyle editor for the Galactic Free Press.”

&nb
sp; “Editor. So the time you spent with my clients led to a promotion and enhanced career opportunities?”

  “You’re twisting what happened,” Katya objected, but if anybody could hear her over the renewed applause, they weren’t buying it.

  “In addition to the book contract and your promotion, didn’t you take away something else from your time on the frontier?”

  “An aversion to synthesized Vergallian vegan,” she replied, drawing a few sympathetic chuckles from audience members who had spent time eating the galaxy’s safest diet for humanoids.

  “Are you sure there’s nothing else you’d like to share with us?” Jursha insisted.

  “I don’t—do you mean my tattoo?” Katya asked.

  “I’m told that a sixty-four color full-back tattoo in the Free Republic style takes many weeks to ink and would cost several thousand creds on this station.”

  “But that was in payment for the work I did.”

  “As a member of the ship’s crew,” Jursha insinuated.

  “Yes, as a—no,” Katya corrected herself, but it was too late, and the whole amphitheatre sounded with cries of admiration for the Horten advocate.

  “No further questions,” Jursha declared.

  “This is a travesty,” Kelly hissed at Crute, but the committee chairman waved her off with one of his lower arms while pointing at his own ear with the upper arm on the same side. After completing the subvoced conversation, he rose to speak.

  “It appears that our third Human witness, a correspondent of the Galactic Free Press who stowed away on a Free Republic vessel, is unwilling to face Advocate Jursha and has flown the proverbial coop.” Deafening hoots and stomping from the Horten audience drowned out the Dollnick ambassador’s next sentence, and he waited impatiently for the opportunity to continue. “The final witness is one Molly Blackthorne, who was carrying out an archeological survey contract with her son prior to joining, I mean, being taken by the Free, uh, pirates.”

  Molly emerged from the tunnel, stalked proudly to the lectern, and shot the Dollnick ambassador an angry look before commencing her testimony. She described the moment her ship was hit by a suppression field while in orbit over the ghost planet of Hevel Five, and the terror of having the outer hatch of the airlock forced open by pirates in armored spacesuits. When she concluded her testimony with how she awoke to seeing a giant beetle standing over her, and punched him with her good arm before learning that he was a doctor, the audience remained respectfully silent.

  Jursha allowed a full minute to pass, his head bowed in sympathy. Then he touched a control on his lectern and a giant hologram of a spaceship appeared over the stage, rotating slowly through three hundred and sixty degrees. The advocate nodded his head in satisfaction, took hold of the lapels of his suit, and addressed Molly.

  “Do you recognize the vessel in this hologram?”

  “That’s the Ivy League Explorer, the ship our sponsors provided my husband for the contract.”

  “And after your husband’s unexpected demise, you decided to continue his work and complete the contract.”

  “I met my husband in graduate school where we were both studying archeology, and I also hold a doctoral degree in that field.”

  “And your only crew on this mission was your young son?”

  “Yes, that’s correct,” Molly replied cautiously, unable to see where the advocate was leading her.

  “May I assume that neither of you are experts in fusion cores or spaceship engineering in general.”

  “Yes, but I can recognize the ship. The name is painted on the stern.”

  “Prow,” Jursha corrected her gently, and touched another control on the lectern. Something that looked like a circulatory system appeared in the hologram, thick lines pulsing with reds and blues, all connected to a wavering white blob on the technical deck. A sudden chorus of whispers rose from the audience, and the advocate allowed time for a full rotation of the hologram before asking, “Do you understand what is represented here?”

  “It looks very familiar,” Molly admitted. “I recall seeing something similar projected from the ship controller when we arrived at Hevel Five.”

  “What we are looking at is the critical systems failure warning which was downloaded from the Ivy League Explorer’s ship controller. The yellow outline around the hologram indicates that the controller was instructed to suppress all warning messages short of impending catastrophic failure. May I ask if you know where the ship was purchased?”

  “I went with my husband to look at it before we accepted the contract. There was a dealer in Earth orbit selling used Sharf vessels, and the university consortium had just bought it for the mission.”

  The Horten touched a control in his lectern again, and the hologram of the ship was replaced by an image of a handsome man who one might expect to see in an advertisement for corporate services.

  “Do you recognize this individual?”

  “He’s the dealer who showed us the ship.”

  “The Human in question is currently serving a life sentence in an Earth penitentiary for knowingly selling defective spaceships purchased as scrap metal from a Sharf recycling facility. His offenses ranged from removing ‘condemned’ stickers to disabling error reporting functions on controllers. A number of buyers less fortunate than yourself have found their deaths in this evil man’s merchandise.”

  A sound like heavy rain filled the room as the Hortens in the audience all tapped their heels to indicate a lucky escape.

  “You’re trying to claim that the pirates saved our lives?” Molly asked incredulously.

  “There can be no doubt,” the advocate asserted. “Your ship could not have broken orbit on its own, and the suppression field extended by my clients prevented an impending implosion.” Jursha waved in acknowledgement of the loud round of applause, before adding for Molly’s benefit, “The data I just presented was reviewed and approved by the Stryx. There’s just one more line of inquiry I’d like to pursue if you are sufficiently recovered from the ministrations of the Farling.”

  “I’m fine,” Molly replied when the laughter subsided.

  “I understand that you are the biological sister of Clive Oxford, the director of EarthCent Intelligence.”

  “That’s true, but there’s no connection between our relation and my captivity. I didn’t even know I had a brother…” she trailed off.

  “Didn’t even know I had a brother,” Jursha repeated for the floating immersive cameras. “Can you tell me how many Humans there are in our galaxy?”

  “I don’t suppose we exactly know anymore,” Molly mumbled. “Around ten billion, maybe?”

  “So as a scientist, you must know that the odds of your ever meeting a brother who you didn’t even know existed would be…?”

  “Around zero,” Molly admitted.

  “So if not for the Free Republic rescuing you from the defective vessel in which you were surveying Hevel Five, without a permit if I may add, you never would have been in a position to activate one of the few remaining VTGERN devices, which led directly to your encounter with a large beetle who collects humanoid genetic samples and who matched you with your unknown sibling!” Jursha declared triumphantly.

  The entire room suddenly took on a brown tint from the cheerful faces of Hortens exchanging the alien equivalent of fist bumps, and Kelly found herself sinking lower in her chair while wishing that she had a desk to hide behind. Crute rose from his own seat and patted the air with all four arms in an attempt to calm the audience.

  “Hortens Four, Humans Zero,” he announced. “I see no reason to extend this hearing any longer.” Then he moved forward and pushed to the front of the line to get an autograph from Jursha.

  Seventeen

  “This is embarrassing,” Ambassador White declared. “I was finally getting used to the aliens calling us Stryx pets, but now they think that even the pirates are running some kind of charity for our benefit.”

  “I admit the Horten advocate was good,”
Kelly said, glancing around the holo-conference at the other members of the Intelligence Steering Committee. “If we had seen it coming, we could have prepared better and perhaps chosen different witnesses, but I didn’t know there would be a cross-examination until it was under way.”

  “Perhaps the Stryx intended it as a lesson for us,” President Beyer speculated. “I never realized how overly dependent I had become on our station librarian until I returned to Earth. They may have conjured up this whole crisis as a polite way to tell us to take responsibility for ourselves.”

  “Or to start growing up,” Carlos Oshi, the Middle Station ambassador, corrected the president. “Although our local Verlock ambassador assures me that I am sadly deficient at statistical analysis, I can’t believe that the review of our probationary status taking place at the same time as the policy reset on piracy is a coincidence.”

  “I got blindsided by the review feedback,” Ambassador Zerakova said. “The frustrating thing is that colleagues I think of as my friends—they are my friends—had apparently been bottling this stuff up for years to save my feelings. All that time I thought that the Vergallians and the Grenouthians were looking for excuses to put us down, it turns out they thought they were going easy on us.”

  “I’ve collected and collated the responses from all of our ambassadors to Stryx stations and the pattern is crystal-clear,” the Void Station ambassador spoke up. “With the exception of the Verlocks, who universally encouraged their human counterparts to study remedial mathematics, the feedback consisted almost entirely of complaints about the things that make us human.”

  “Maybe being bad at math is one of the things that makes us human, Zhao,” the president commented.