Career Night on Union Station

by E. M. Foner

  The Grenouthian jerked awake, and the other ambassadors all sat bolt upright at this announcement, but the new arrival showed no sign of awkwardness.

  “My name is Raa, and if I understood the communication that our Stryx friends injected into my private channel as I was passing through the neighborhood, I’m here to defend my species against being declared a nuisance.” The mage looked slowly around the table, giving each ambassador a careful once-over through his vertically slit pupils before continuing in a honeyed voice, “Do any of you have a grievance you’d like to share?”

  “Not me,” Czeros said immediately. “The Frunge loved our Terragram mage. We have an entire necropolis dedicated to statues of him on our homeworld.”

  “How about your people?” Raa asked, staring intently at the empty seat where Kelly had last seen the Chert ambassador. “I hope that your long sojourn as refugees has nothing to do with my kind.”

  “I would never dream of even implying you had anything to do with our troubles,” the invisible diplomat replied. “I assure you that I have never made any sort of complaint, nor would I if I had one.”

  “Second that,” Ortha announced.

  “Third,” the Dollnick contributed.

  “Motion passes,” Bork muttered to Kelly.

  “There’s no motion on the table,” the EarthCent ambassador said in exasperation. “Please take a seat, Raa. I assure you that there’s been some error and that nobody is here to declare Terragrams a nuisance. But it is true that the station management has been receiving complaints about a mage who is living here, and this committee is tasked with fostering better understanding between your species and ours.”

  “Did you say that a Terragram mage has taken up residency on this station?” Raa demanded. “That isn’t possible. The Stryx banned us long before any of your species joined the tunnel network.”

  “I thought the Stryx only banned harmful—oh,” Kelly cut herself off. “Well, the ban must have been lifted because Baa has been here for almost a year now and she works with my daughter in the fashion business.”

  “Baa?” the mage repeated incredulously. “As in, ‘Pay the tithe or bad things will happen to your crops and livestock’ Baa?”

  “She’s not like that,” Kelly protested. “Besides, it turns out that she was acting under compulsion.”

  Raa appeared to be skeptical, but rather than making an issue of it, he inquired in a conciliatory tone, “Does your species always make a practice of serving the food before the guests arrive?”

  “I’ll check with the catering staff,” the Gem Ambassador volunteered, and practically fled into the kitchen.

  “Salt cod?” the Verlock ambassador offered the mage, holding up his last piece of dried out fish. Kelly would have sworn that Srythlan sent her a slow wink when Raa turned away with a disgusted look.

  “It’s not that anybody objects to your people, per se,” the EarthCent ambassador told the Terragram mage. “They just feel that you might have handled first contact situations with a little less, uh, divinity.”

  “You try reasoning with a primitive species sometime and see how it works for you,” Raa retorted. “I’ve been in hundreds of pantheons, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you can’t tell the natives what gods you are.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “I’m absolutely sure that you don’t,” the mage replied, glancing impatiently towards the kitchen. “Do you think it matters to me whether I’m taken as the god of death or the god of knowledge? I’d happily serve in a pantheon as the god of fingernail clippings if it would fill a temple with worshippers, but you have to play to the audience.”

  “Or, perhaps you might consider a career that didn’t involve acquiring worshippers,” Jeeves said, floating in from the embassy reception area with Baa in tow. “I’m sorry we’re late but we had a fashion emergency that I’d rather not get into.”

  “Is that you?” Raa demanded of the female mage, coming to his feet. “I thought you were with—”

  “Don’t speak his name in my presence or we’ll find out which one of us has lived too long,” Baa interrupted. “And I want you all to know that I’m attending under protest.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kelly said. “I didn’t know that Jeeves would force you to come. I thought you’d appreciate a chance to make your peace with the ambassadors.”

  “It’s not them I’m upset about, it’s him.” Baa glared at the Terragram mage standing on the other side of the table. “I have half-a-mind to tap into the station grid and—”

  There was a ripping sound as Raa tore off his poncho, which was apparently held together by one long Velcro strip, and then he extended his arms and fanned his feathers. Kelly felt her heart miss a beat at the dazzling display that made the most colorful peacock look like a female cardinal by comparison. A bright, pulsing orb tore free from Baa’s chest and began floating across the space that separated the two Terragram mages.

  “Don’t let it reach him!” Jeeves shouted at the ambassadors. He interposed himself between Raa and Baa’s heart, which launched into a series of evasive maneuvers in an attempt to reach its goal. “I can’t hold her heart back forever. Throw him out.”

  To Kelly’s surprise, the Grenouthian ambassador was the first to spring into action, bodying up against Raa and pushing him a step back from the table. The Terragram was forced to choose between maintaining his plumage pose and protecting his abdomen, and with a snarl, he brought in his arms and began conjuring a flame. Before he could set the bunny’s fur on fire, the Verlock ambassador lumbered between the pair, and the flames did his leathery skin no more harm than a lava bath.

  “I’ll get you for this,” Raa shouted as the Dollnick ambassador wrapped all four of his arms around the mage’s torso, hoisting him from the floor and preventing him from fanning his feathers again. Bork and Czeros each grabbed one of Raa’s legs, and together the three ambassadors carried the would-be god of Baa’s love to the door and tossed him out into the corridor. The instant the door slid closed, Kelly shouted, “Security lock-down,” and a shiny energy barrier she never even knew existed materialized over the doors.

  Aainda hurried to catch the slumping Baa, and with Kelly’s help, held the mage erect until Jeeves finally succeeded in herding the wayward heart back to its owner. The female mage came to with a start, shaking her head to dispel the cobwebs.

  “What happened?” Baa asked.

  “Raa made a play for your heart and we stopped him,” Jeeves informed the mage.

  “We?” she asked, looking around at the ambassadors who hardly seemed to know what to think themselves. “Where is he now?”

  “Libby?” Kelly asked. “Is Raa still in the corridor?”

  “He attempted to damage station property so Gryph removed him,” the station librarian answered. “Raa and his ship won’t be bothering anybody in this galaxy anytime soon.”

  “We did it,” Ortha declared, exchanging the Horten version of a high-five with the Chert ambassador, who had also been conspicuously invisible during the action.

  “I can’t believe I helped bounce a Terragram mage,” Czeros said, though the radiant smile on his face proved he had no doubts over what had just happened. “Do you think it’s possible to get a copy of the security imaging, Ambassador McAllister?”

  “Second the motion,” Bork added immediately.

  “Third,” the Grenouthian ambassador said. “I’d settle for the part where I threw Raa across the room.”

  “Libby?” Kelly asked again.

  “I’ll send a copy to all of your respective embassies,” the station librarian replied.

  The Gem ambassador emerged from the kitchen carrying some type of puff pastry that had risen so high that she could barely see around it.

  “My sisters consulted the universal dessert cookbook and this is the only dish that was recommended for Terragram mages,” she said. “What happened to Raa?”

  “I’ll explain later,” Kell
y said to the clone. “Baa will be taking his place.”

  “And that looks scrumptious,” the mage said, though she still seemed a little bit hazy and allowed the Vergallian ambassador to support her during the short walk to the table. “Does anybody else want some?”

  An hour later, the embassy was packed to standing room only, making it difficult for Kelly to circulate and greet all of the grand opening guests. As she made her way around the conference room table, she encountered a knot of Grenouthian reporters armed with immersive cameras interviewing their own ambassador about his part in ejecting the Terragram mage.

  “It helps that we’ve been working together on committees for years,” the ambassador was explaining. “Of course I was the first to react, but what else would you expect?”

  “Is it true that flames were shooting from the mage’s eyes?” the reporter asked eagerly.

  “If there were flames on the security imagery then I will remember them in great detail. I withhold comment until I get a chance to review the footage.”

  A few steps further on, Kelly encountered a pair of Drazen reporters demanding details from their ambassador.

  “I believe my years of battle reenactments proved their worth,” Bork said. “Have you ever seen my rally cry from the Battle of Scort Woods? Sadly, the production was abandoned when the Hortens released their own version, but I could send you an outtake.”

  After greeting a few more guests, Kelly headed back for the embassy reception area and almost bumped into Baa, who was deep in conversation with the Dollnick ambassador.

  “Spare me all the whistling around the bush, Crute,” the mage was saying. “Jeeves has me locked up in an exclusive contract for all enchantments related to apparel and weapons. What is it exactly you’re asking for?”

  “My third wife doesn’t get along with the first two,” Crute said in a rush. “I need a love potion for family harmony.”

  “What you need is to build her a nest of her own,” Baa retorted, catching Kelly’s eye and shaking her head.

  “There’s my mom,” Dorothy told the Vergallian ambassador, who had already relayed more advice for a successful pregnancy than any of the girl’s family and friends, including the Farling doctor.

  “Just two more,” Aabina insisted, blocking Dorothy’s escape with her own body. “This one is really good for the tendons. Now stretch against the wall with your palms flat on the surface and raise yourself on your toes. Come on, you won’t remember if you don’t do it.”

  “I’m already standing on my toes. That’s what heels are for.”

  “I wore heels throughout my first pregnancy and my daughter is shorter than I am,” the Vergallian told her. “I found out too late that there’s a statistical correlation.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “The beauty of correlation is that causation doesn’t come into it.”

  “What are the four of you so busy discussing?” Kelly asked her son, who together with Vivian, the Frunge ambassador and the Drazen head of intelligence, had taken over Donna’s display desk and were running some sort of projections.

  “Czeros has been giving me some advice on career options in diplomacy,” Samuel replied. “I guess I kind of thought that EarthCent was the only possibility, but he and Herl have been pointing out that only a small fraction of their own diplomatic corps is employed on Stryx stations.”

  “And Herl had some great advice about the intelligence field,” Vivian added. “I’m thinking of doing an internship for the Drazens.”

  “Is that possible?” Kelly asked Herl.

  “Given the working relationship between our intelligence services, I think it would make a reasonable next step,” the spy master replied.

  “Over here, Kel,” Joe called to his wife from behind the table where he and Paul were mixing drinks. “Some turnout.”

  “It’s been quite a day,” Kelly said, slipping in behind the improvised bar and discovering that it was the least crowded spot in the embassy. “I had been afraid that all of the ambassadors would run off right after the meeting, but it turns out they’re all being treated as heroes for ejecting a Terragram mage.”

  “I saw the security imaging,” Joe said, then grimaced as a Drazen approached the bar and ordered a Divverflip. “Can you get this one, Paul?”

  The younger man sighed and donned heavy rubber gloves to handle the toxic ingredients.

  “I couldn’t believe how fast it all happened,” Kelly told them, reviewing the experience in her mind. “One second, Baa was staring at that other mage like he stood her up for the high school prom, the next second her heart had left her body for a display of feathers. How could a species evolve like that?”

  “Didn’t you find it a bit suspicious when Jeeves yelled for help?” Joe asked.

  “He was busy trying to keep Baa’s heart from reaching Raa, and—now that I think of it, he didn’t even go supersonic.”

  “It certainly hasn’t hurt her popularity with the other species,” Joe commented. “Normally I could tell you where Baa was in a crowd like this because everybody else would be giving her as much room as possible.”

  “Libby?” Kelly subvoced. “Was bringing Raa to the meeting a setup?”

  “You did ask why we insist on a committee to deal with nuisance species.”

  “That’s just because I was hosting. I must have been to a hundred of these at the other embassies and usually we just talk about the park decks or some benefit concert. I thought this was one of those cases where the committee kept the same name even after the purpose evolved. And you didn’t answer my question.”

  “I’m just glad that Jeeves has found a vocation that suits him,” the station librarian said of her sole offspring. “Some of the first-generation Stryx were beginning to believe that his interest in humanity was just an excuse to avoid doing multiverse math, but he’s developed quite a way with people for one so young.”

  “You mean, quite a way with manipulating people,” Kelly muttered, not realizing that Jeeves had floated up to the bar.

  “For fun and profit,” the young Stryx told her. “And before you go attributing all sorts of good intentions to my actions, I’ll have you know that Baa is a critical part of my business plan.”

  “See what I mean?” Libby whispered over Kelly’s implant. “He’s even learned how to lie convincingly. That usually takes us tens of thousands of years.”

  “But I thought you guys never lie,” Kelly subvoced back.

  “We never get caught. It amounts to the same thing in the end.”

  Career Night on Union Station is getting a sequel because I’m addicted to my own characters. You can sign up for notification of the next EarthCent release on my website, IFITBREAKS.COM. I also post an updated cast of characters and prior book synopsis to the website with every new release to get readers back up to speed.

  For readers suffering from EarthCent withdrawal symptoms, I recently released Turing Test, a novel about a team of AI Observers visiting Earth in the present day to assess our humanity. Strangely enough, the Observers are more human than we are. Due to reader demand, I’ve written a sequel, Human Test.

  If you believe there is still a place in science fiction for stories that aren’t all about death and destruction, please help to get the word out. Posting an Amazon review on the first book of this series, Date Night on Union Station, will help new readers discover these books, even if you only write a few words.

  About the Author

  E. M. Foner lives in Northampton, MA with an imaginary German Shepherd who’s been trained to bite bankers. The author welcomes reader comments at e_foner@yahoo.com.

  Also by the author:

  Turing Test

  Human Test

  Meghan’s Dragon

  Date Night on Union Station

  Alien Night on Union Station

  High Priest on Union Station

  Spy Night on Union Station

  Carnival on Union Station

  Wanderers
on Union Station

  Vacation on Union Station

  Guest Night on Union Station

  Word Night on Union Station

  Party Night on Union Station

  Review Night on Union Station

  Family Night on Union Station

  Book Night on Union Station

  LARP Night on Union Station

  Career Night on Union Station