by E. M. Foner
“Everything about everything. When you add up all of their sources of information, they may as well be omniscient. That doesn’t translate well to multiple choice tests, but Jeeves didn’t want to start from scratch so he asked Chastity and I to let him use the questions we ask kids who apply for jobs at InstaSitter.”
“But most of your babysitters are aliens,” Kelly pointed out.
“We’ve still hired millions of humans over the years,” Blythe said. “And since we track every single babysitting assignment, we’ve been able to continuously tweak the test questions for the best outcome, which happens to be more or less the same as what you’d look for in a diplomat. If you were in charge of hiring EarthCent employees, what qualities would you insist on?”
“Wait a second,” Kelly said. “I remember the president once telling us in an intelligence steering committee meeting that he’d hired a Thark consulting firm to analyze EarthCent’s personnel files in order to determine how the Stryx were selecting us. The first thing was,” she paused trying to recall, “no megalomaniacs.”
“Right,” Blythe said. “The last thing we want in a babysitter is a girl who thinks her job is telling our clients what to do.”
“And the other thing was that diplomats have to display empathy for what aliens and AI are feeling.”
“Exactly. We need sitters who can empathize with all sentients.”
“Not to mention maintaining a professional appearance and showing up on time,” Clive added.
“But how do you test for megalomania and empathy?” Kelly asked.
“It takes a lot of questions and they get repeated in tricky ways to try to catch people who are faking,” Blythe said. “Back when we started, Chastity and I explained what we were looking for and Libby helped create the tests.”
“And they’re really just multiple choice?” Daniel asked.
“Yes.” The co-founder of InstaSitter hesitated for a moment, then added, “Of course, the station librarian grades the tests for us.”
“Based on the answers or something else?” Kelly inquired suspiciously. “Libby?”
“I would never invade the privacy of station residents to compliment the results of a test. Ethical considerations aside, doing so would be the same as granting a competitive advantage to InstaSitter. Our neutrality on business matters is the glue that holds the tunnel network together.”
“That and the tunnels,” Clive commented cheerfully. “And the Stryxnet.”
“Ship controllers,” Daniel contributed.
“Not to mention the peace dividend for members,” Kelly said, “but I accept your explanation.”
“Thank you for your trust and for finally turning in your sabbatical report,” Libby replied mischievously. “I especially enjoyed your account of the great Union Station chocolate war.”
“Chocolate war?” Blythe asked.
“You had to be there,” Donna said. “It was tasty.”
Sixteen
“Next, please,” the Dollnick clerk behind the add/drop counter called out.
“Hi. I’m Samuel McAllister and—”
“I have a quota and you’re wasting time,” the towering alien cut off the ambassador’s son. “Just hold up your student tab until it syncs with my interface. Good. Now are you adding or dropping?”
“Both. I’m actually—”
“What are you dropping?” the Dollnick interrupted again as he brought up a holographic display of the teen’s academic records.
“Structural Engineering 202, Materials Engineering, Field Theory 100, and Beginning Concepts in Containment.”
“You aren’t registered for Beginning Concepts in Containment.”
“I’m auditing.”
“So it doesn’t matter if you show up or not,” the alien said, casually wiping out several lines of Samuel’s records with a wave. “What are you adding?”
“That’s the thing. When I changed my study track at admin, they—”
“What are you adding?” the Dollnick repeated in a bored tone.
“Diplomacy 302, Interstellar Resource Economics, Advanced Conflict Resolution and, uh, Public Toasting,” he added in an undertone.
“Good course, Public Toasting. Never know when you’ll be called upon at a meal to stand up and say nice things about somebody you despise. Is that it?”
“But I don’t know how I got approved for all the advanced courses,” Samuel protested. “I don’t want special treatment just because—”
“Next,” the Dollnick called loudly, and as the teen stepped aside to make room for a burly Grenouthian, he overheard the clerk saying to the bunny, “How was that for conflict resolution?”
Samuel shook his head and jogged down the corridor to the cafeteria, where he was already late for lunch with Vivian and their friends. After he went through the serving line and paid for his food, he couldn’t see his girlfriend anywhere. Spotting Marilla eating with Jorb and Grude, he headed over and took a seat next to the Drazen.
“What’s wrong with you?” the Horten girl asked, studying the ambassador’s son from across the table. “You look different.”
“He was expecting to see Vivian and got stuck looking at you,” the Drazen said.
“I dropped out of Space Engineering,” Samuel told them in a rush, in part to get it over with, and in part to head off another silly name-calling contest between Marilla and Jorb. “And I did think Vivian would be here.”
The Dollnick leaned forward, extended both of his upper arms, and placing his hands on Samuel’s shoulders, gave a solemn squeeze. “You did the right thing,” Grude said. “Your lifespan is too short to waste your university time studying a subject that isn’t your passion.”
“He can’t do the math either,” Jorb added. “It would be like me trying to learn musical notation at my age.”
“You didn’t do something really stupid and drop out of the university altogether, did you?” Marilla demanded.
“I swapped into Diplomatic Studies,” Samuel admitted sheepishly, given that his friends had all recommended exactly that course of action on multiple occasions. “But they gave me credit for a bunch of courses I never took.”
“That’s a good thing,” Grude said as the others returned to eating. “It wouldn’t make any sense for you to start with intro courses. You’re practically a diplomat already.”
“I don’t mean they just put me in advanced courses, I mean they gave me full credit for the earlier ones based on life experience. It feels like I’m cheating.”
Jorb started to talk and choked on something, which he promptly spat out in his hand after pounding his own back with his tentacle.
“Gross,” the Horten girl said, turning her chair ninety degrees so she was facing Grude rather than the Drazen, whose eating habits she was always complaining about.
“You Humans crack me up,” Jorb said when he recovered his breath. “Who complains about getting credit for life experience?”
“It’s just that I think they gave it to me for being our ambassador’s son,” Samuel said. “You know that the station librarian makes all the decisions about this stuff.”
“Of course they gave it to you for being who you are, that’s what life experience means,” the Drazen cried in frustration. “Look. What’s our ambassador’s name?”
“Bork. Half the students in the university probably know that.”
“What are his hobbies?”
“He does historical reenactments. But what does that have to do with anything?”
“If you offered him a bribe, would he take it?”
“Sure. Most of the ambassadors take bribes, but it doesn’t mean you’ll get any special consideration in return. It’s just a perk to them.”
“And who’s our ambassador,” Marilla asked, catching on to Jorb’s game.
“Ortha,” Samuel replied, frowning. “I could have gotten the names of all the ambassadors out of a single story in the Galactic Free Press.”
“What’s his bigges
t fear?”
“That the Horten pirates will do something so outrageous that your navy will be forced to go after them for real,” Samuel said. “It would practically cause a civil war, given all of the family ties involved, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of years of tacitly accepting piracy on your frontier as a buffer zone between the tunnel network and Sharf space. And there’s a rumor that your people use the pirates as a dumping ground for nonconformists and criminal elements from your worlds.”
“If you really needed something from our ambassador, I mean, if it was life and death for your people, how would you go about it?” Crute asked.
Samuel turned to the Dollnick as the lesson that his friends were trying to teach him began to sink in. “I’d start with an assessment from EarthCent Intelligence, but I think the main thing would be to offer him enough in return that he wouldn’t be insulted, even if it meant promising more than I could actually deliver.”
“How many of the students in Diplomatic Studies do you think could have answered those questions off the tops of their heads?” Jorb demanded. “And that doesn’t even take into account how you ran our committee for outfitting Flower. You’re a natural at this. Denying it is like saying that I’m cheating at life by being so good-looking.”
Orsilla began to choke on something and Grude reached over and thumped her on the back with one of his giant hands. A round Picaf bean shot out of her mouth and landed in the Drazen’s soup, where he quickly mashed it in with the other vegetables before she could reclaim it.
“Hey, guys,” Vivian said, setting her tray down next to Samuel. “What did I miss?”
“Samuel changed into Diplomatic Studies and Jorb’s lost what little was left of his mind,” Marilla said. “You’re running late.”
“I had to go by admin.”
“Did you drop out of Dynastic Studies?” Samuel guessed immediately.
“I just don’t see the point anymore,” Vivian confirmed with a sigh. “I signed up for Inter-Species Intelligence. And guess what?”
“You got advanced placement for being who you are?”
“They waived my physical education requirement entirely,” the girl reported proudly.
“You’re a good fencer,” Jorb said. “I’ll bet you could beat all the Hortens in our dojo.”
Marilla glared across the table at the Drazen.
“Actually, they gave it to me for the years of Vergallian ballroom competitions I entered with Samuel when we were kids,” Vivian said. “Apparently dancing is a more important skill for spies than combat. I’m going for the femme fatale track.”
“You’re what?” Samuel sputtered.
“I’m kidding,” the girl said. “I couldn’t believe how many Intelligence courses there are to choose from, including Advanced Seduction. I checked with Libby, and it turns out that students studying business and industrial engineering have intelligence and counterintelligence courses in their core requirements.”
“So Grude and I won’t see you in our Dynastic Studies courses anymore,” Jorb said to Vivian. “I’m going to miss you calling out that princeling on all the mistakes he makes.”
“You’re still taking Dynastic Studies courses?” Samuel asked Grude. “But you’re doing Space Engineering and you don’t want to take over the family bakery.”
“My father made me promise to audit the Dynastic Studies courses in case I changed my mind and decide to take over the bakery chain,” the Dollnick replied.
“And I won’t see you in my courses anymore,” Marilla said to Samuel. “You were our only Human.”
A beautiful Vergallian student glided up to the table and stood behind the Horten girl, her eyes on the ambassador’s son.
“Aabina?” he asked, recognizing the Vergallian ambassador’s daughter from the Dynastic Studies seminar he’d attended as Vivian’s minion.
“May I have a word in private?” Aabina favored Samuel with a dazzling smile that made Vivian grit her teeth.
“Uh, sure,” the ambassador’s son said, grabbing the apple from his tray as he stood. “I’ll be back in a minute, guys.”
Aabina led Samuel to the cafeteria’s dead zone, an area set aside for students who wanted to study without distractions while they ate. The overlapping acoustic suppression fields at the dead-zone tables made it impossible for sounds to travel more than an arm’s length. The Vergallian girl waited for Samuel to pull out a chair for her, took a seat, and then leaned in close when he sat down next to her.
“Am I the first to find you?” she asked. “I just saw the notice that you switched to diplomacy and I asked the station librarian for your location.”
“The courses we sign up for are posted publicly?”
“You didn’t know that? How else do you find students to borrow notes from when the class schedule is so far off your biorhythm that you’d be attending in your sleep?”
“I always set an alarm and drank a lot of coffee,” Samuel admitted. “But I just changed those courses fifteen minutes ago. How did you happen to notice so quickly?”
“We track all of the offspring of senior diplomats on the tunnel network.”
“You’re in Vergallian Intelligence?”
Aabina pulled back as if he’d slapped her, but she shook it off quickly and leaned in closely again. “No. My family is on the other side of that particular fight. I’m here about the student secret society for the diplomatic track.”
“I’ve never heard of any student secret societies,” Samuel said, then blushed as the Vergallian girl giggled prettily. “Okay, that was a dumb thing to say. But I’m really not a cloak-and-dagger type. I believe in open communications and information sharing.”
“Your naiveté is charming. I can see why my mother is so taken by your species.”
“I appreciate the invitation but my friends are waiting,” Samuel said, rising from the table. The Vergallian girl captured his wrist in a surprisingly strong grip and pulled him back down, again bringing her head close to his.
“This would have gone much smoother if I was forty years older and my pheromone glands were functioning,” she said in frustration. “As the son of a tunnel network ambassador taking Diplomatic Studies, you’re going to be pestered about this by every member in our secret society looking to score points. Let me be your sponsor for the initiation and you can always decide to quit if you don’t like the way we do business.”
“But why does a student club for diplomacy need to be secret?” Samuel persisted.
“It’s a compromise. Half of the members are just as eager to do everything in public as you are, but history has shown that it creates too many hard feelings with the students who are left out.”
“I don’t get it. Why should anybody be left out?”
“Come on, I know you’ve been on committees. Can you hold an intelligent discussion with a thousand people in the room? How about a hundred? Does everybody get to speak or do you just have a self-selected group do all the talking? Secret societies at the Open University don’t exist to keep secrets, they exist to limit the membership to groups of sympathetic students who can work together. For all I know there could be a dozen other secret societies for diplomacy students that I’m not even aware of. Do you remember the Dollnick princeling from the Dynastic Studies seminar you attended?”
“Is he in your secret society?”
“No, and that’s the point. When his name came up for consideration, the bowl practically overflowed. I swear there were more black balls than there were members at the meeting.”
“So, wait. You mean you already voted on me?”
“Back when you ran your student committee, but the invitation was deferred until you publicly manifested a career interest in diplomacy. We aren’t a social group for the offspring of politicians.”
“I don’t know,” Samuel said. “Can I have a little time to think about it?”
“Sure, but it’s not like you’re that long-lived. You’ll see an official invitation from me on your
student tab next time you look. All student secret societies are chartered by the Open University, and they give us group messaging capabilities and free access to meeting rooms. Oh, and there’s dues.”
“How much?”
“It’s just ten creds a year for record keeping, but there’s a fifteen-cred charge for every meeting you attend, and you should always reserve your space in advance so we can tell the caterers to have something for your species. Cash bar.”
“We drink at meetings?”
“It’s good training for diplomats.”
“I’ll let you know soon,” he promised, and headed back to the table. Jorb, Marilla and Grude were still there, but Vivian was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’d she go?” Samuel asked.
“Some Verlock dragged her off,” the Drazen said casually. “He’s probably recruiting her for a secret society.”
“That was the Vergallian ambassador’s daughter, right?” Marilla inquired. “If she offered to be your sponsor for a diplomatic secret society, it’s an honor.”
“You guys know about the secret societies?”
“Of course,” Grude said. “I’m in two of them.”
“Why didn’t anybody ever tell me?”
“Because they’re secret?” Jorb suggested, sneaking a celery stalk from Vivian’s abandoned plate. “You know how slow the Verlocks talk,” he said apologetically. “Her food will all be spoiled by the time she gets back.”
“Is everybody playing with me or something? I never heard of student secret societies until five minutes ago, and now I find out that all of my friends not only know about them but are in them.”
“It’s awkward,” Marilla said. “Nobody wants to tell a friend about the existence of secret societies unless they can extend an invitation at the same time. If you had known there was a secret society for spaceship engineering, would you have been offended that you weren’t invited?”
“I’m offended now. You’re a member?”
“I would have put your name up if I thought you’d be approved, but most of the other students were skeptical you’d make it through any of the advanced courses. It doesn’t mean you couldn’t have done interesting things with spaceship design,” she hastened to add. “It’s just that you wouldn’t have been able to follow so much of what our alumni speakers talk about at the meetings that it would have been uncomfortable for everybody.”
