Word Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 9)

by E. M. Foner

  “He’s been busy working with Paul at Libbyland lately,” Thomas said. The artificial person glanced around the table at the unusual combination of participants, which included Tinka in her Drazen women’s business suit and Walter Dunkirk, the managing editor of the Galactic Free Press. “Besides, Jeeves is only interested in the spy stuff, and this is more about the newspaper.”

  “It’s only about the newspaper because we’re publishing the stories that you guys keep secret,” Chastity said. “Why do you think it’s been so easy for me to hire away your agents?”

  Blythe began ticking reasons off on her fingers. “Better hours. Flexibility in choosing assignments. Press-pass access to concerts, shows and sporting events. The chance to see their names in print. Great dance parties.”

  “You could have great dance parties too if you’d hire Marcus to give the men a few lessons,” Chastity retorted. “All of the free beer in the world isn’t going to teach anybody how to tango. And it’s our reporters who are getting kidnapped and held hostage all the time, not your agents.”

  “That’s because we train our agents to avoid needlessly dangerous situations,” Blythe pointed out. “Clive and I went through the records and none of your kidnapped reporters were former agents who went through our training camp.”

  “And that’s one of the things we’re all here to discuss,” Clive said. “But first, we need to talk about the president’s visit. He’s planning to conduct sensitive negotiations with alien diplomats and I hope the press will show restraint in covering his activities until he’s ready to announce the results.”

  “But the president is a public figure,” Walter protested. “The Grenouthians keep track of the comings and goings of diplomats on all of the stations as part of their shipping news so they’ll spot him immediately. If we pretend nothing’s happening while the bunnies are reporting that the president of EarthCent is on Union Station looking for handouts, we’ll have missed the opportunity to put a positive spin on the trip.”

  “I didn’t think of that,” Clive admitted, turning towards Blythe.

  “He’s right,” Blythe said. “I’ll warn Kelly.”

  “So why is Tinka here?” Lynx asked with her typical bluntness. “I mean, the Galactic Free Press has already stolen so many EarthCent Intelligence agents that we’ve practically merged, but are we going to start integrating InstaSitter now?”

  “Tinka is here to talk about our scholarship program,” Chastity replied. “She’ll do a brief presentation and then we’ll explain why it matters. Tinka?”

  The young Drazen woman, who had effectively been running day-to-day operations at InstaSitter since Chastity left to start the Galactic Free Press, rose from her seat. She glanced at her tab, tapped the corner of the screen, and the wall of the conference room behind her lit up with a densely packed bar graph.

  “These are the basic InstaSitter financials as prepared by our CFO, Stanley Doogal, who couldn’t be here today,” Tinka began. “The girls told me to share everything, so you should know that I’m a ten-percent stakeholder in InstaSitter. Please don’t let that information leave this room or my parents will get buried in proposals from all the wrong suitors. As far as the Drazen community knows, I just have a symbolic share.”

  “Is ten percent a lot?” Lynx asked.

  “Let’s just run through the numbers and you’ll see,” Tinka replied, sounding rather like Libby during one of her presentations. “InstaSitter is now active on seventy-one Stryx stations, many of which have larger populations than the hundred-million-odd sentients who live here. In all of the locations where we operate, the station librarian handles our reservations and back-office work for a percentage of the gross. That leaves our management free to focus on the hiring, training and retention of quality babysitters. Although the adolescent girls of some species have begun imitating the human tradition of offering paid babysitting services to neighbors, we have one-hundred-percent market share as the only commercial provider of on-call babysitters for every species living on the stations.”

  “Is that graph with all the station names showing your annual profits?” Lynx asked. “It looks like you’re making hundreds of thousands of creds on every station.”

  “It’s totaled at the bottom,” Woojin said. “Just over twenty million.”

  “That’s not our profit,” Tinka informed them. “It’s the number of InstaSitters we employ.”

  Lynx felt her jaw drop and swallowed. “You employ over twenty million people?”

  “We employ over twenty million sentients of all species, including artificials,” Tinka corrected her. “The majority of them are part-timers, and just over a quarter-million are Humans. Working for InstaSitter has become a rite-of-passage for the young females of some species.”

  “Wait a second, let me do the math,” Woojin said. “If your sitters average one gig a week, say, five hours, that’s about a hundred million billable hours a week, or five billion hours of babysitting a year.”

  “The average is closer to ten hours a week,” Tinka informed him. “Some of the sitters work full-time or more, especially the artificials.”

  “How much do you net on an hour of babysitting?” Lynx asked, her voice sounding strangely hoarse.

  “After the Stryx cut, we target around one cred per assignment, say, two-hundred millicreds an hour. Ninety percent of our gross goes to the sitters in pay and benefits. It’s why nobody has bothered trying to compete with us on a commercial scale.”

  Woojin whistled. “So you’re hauling in over a billion creds a year. I guessed you were millionaires, but I was off by a factor of a thousand.”

  “It just turned out that way,” Blythe said, reentering the discussion. “We got this far by ethically employing a lot of kids, many of them the same age as the so-called ‘clients’ the new labor agencies are recruiting. Let’s see the scholarship numbers, Tinka.”

  “When the girls first asked me to set up a scholarship program a few years ago, I didn’t understand what they were talking about,” the Drazen girl continued. “But students of all species are happy to have a little extra spending money, so we provide a stipend to sitters who show financial need while studying. Humans end up being the main beneficiaries, so I’ll just show those results.”

  “Why are humans the big winners if we’re barely over two percent of InstaSitter’s workforce?” Lynx asked.

  “The rest of us solved our student financing issues a long time ago,” Tinka explained. “Education is the best investment a species can make in its future. But the interesting thing is where your sitters are spending their scholarships.”

  “It’s just a list of Stryx stations,” Woojin commented as he skimmed through the names and amounts. “Oh, there are some alien worlds at the bottom.”

  “Nobody goes back to Earth?” Lynx asked.

  “There it is, between a Verlock academy world and a Frunge factory that takes student trainees,” Woojin said. “Is there any detail beyond the stipend amount?”

  Tinka selected the sum displayed for the Earth listing and a breakdown appeared.

  “Three music students, a Russian literature major and a chef?”

  “Practically all of the InstaSitter alumni end up studying in the Stryx Open University system, which is why the stations dominate the list,” Tinka explained. “The five InstaSitters currently studying on Earth represent the highest number we’ve seen to date.”

  “Blythe and I both think that we’re approaching an important turning point for people living away from Earth,” Chastity said, taking over from Tinka. “New labor agencies owned by humans are rushing into the vacuum created by expiring alien contracts and counting on an affinity pitch to sign up workers. They use bonuses to tempt young people to go directly into the unskilled labor market, rather than pursuing an education or vocational training.”

  Clive picked up where his sister-in-law left off. “I didn’t understand the importance of the Galactic Free Press stories on the labor market until B
lythe and Chas sat me down and explained them. Given the numbers involved, I see a danger that a few unregulated contracting agencies will become a sort of default government for humans. And it’s in their best interest to maximize the number of humans working as low-skilled laborers, because workers with advanced skills can find jobs on their own.”

  “Does EarthCent have a policy position on this yet?” Walter asked.

  “If these new labor agencies were recruiting on Earth we could regulate them, but since they’re strictly focused on workers coming off of expiring alien contracts, they’re operating out of our jurisdiction,” Clive replied. “We think the best solution is to offer young people a viable option by rebuilding the educational and industrial infrastructure on Earth to provide them with marketable skills.”

  “Which is why I hoped Jeeves would sneak in,” Blythe said. “He’s our expert on how the Stryx will react.”

  “I thought he was their expert on how humans react,” Walter objected.

  “Six of this, half-dozen of the other,” Blythe replied with a shrug. “He got Daniel promoted, didn’t he?”

  “I’m still trying to understand that one,” Walter admitted. “Why would the Stryx wait for Daniel to print new business cards before offering him a promotion?”

  “The Stryx have always respected actions over words,” Chastity said. “It’s the same reason they won’t put in a tunnel connection to a new world until they see enough of an investment in money or people. If EarthCent can convince human expatriates to return to Earth for training, I’m confident the Stryx will work with us on the transportation costs.”

  “Alright, let’s move on to the kidnapping issue,” Clive said. “The Galactic Free Press hired EarthCent Intelligence to look into the reasons the number of kidnappings has been growing faster than the number of active correspondents. While it’s always possible that the Grenouthians are involved, my gut feeling is that it comes down to insufficient training for reporters and poor supervision on the part of the editorial staff.”

  “Tell us what you really think,” Walter said sourly.

  “I just did,” Clive replied, ignoring the sarcasm in the managing editor’s voice. “To be fair, your stories prove that you’ve taught your correspondents how to investigate tips and report the relevant facts. My contention is that the paper has gotten caught up in competing with the Grenouthians. You’re sending people into situations they’re unequipped to deal with, especially since they don’t have the backing of the bunny networks. Do your subscribers really need daily updates about the pirates who lurk around the edges of the tunnel network?”

  “Clive’s got a point,” Chastity interjected, before her mercurial managing editor could object. “We got into this business to provide an alternative to the sensationalism peddled by the Grenouthians. And some of our correspondents have displayed extraordinarily bad sense when it comes to putting themselves at risk.”

  “Is it finally my turn to speak?” Thomas asked. “We’re currently losing a third of each new class of EarthCent Intelligence agents to the Galactic Free Press within two years of graduation. I suggested to Blythe that we could reduce the demand if we offer to train reporters for the paper. Our regular staff will teach situational awareness and use role-playing to walk the reporters through some of the dangerous scenarios they may encounter in the field. The paper will provide somebody to train the younger reporters in what constitutes a reasonable journalistic risk.”

  “How long would you need them for?” Walter asked.

  “A week would be ideal, in part because we could fit a few classes in between our regularly scheduled training camps for new intelligence hires. We would give them an hour of self-defense training to start each morning, but other than teaching them the best spots to kick the various aliens, the main purpose of hand-to-hand combat exercises is to get them to take us seriously. The real goal of the course will be teaching them how to avoid getting into a situation where they need to remember where to kick an alien.”

  “I have to admit that sounds reasonable,” Walter said. “How many reporters can you handle at a time?”

  “I suggest we start with a dozen or so, and if it works well, we can always ramp up.”

  “And we won’t need to retrain any of the staff we swiped from my sister,” Chastity added.

  “As long as we’re all laying our cards on the table, how many subscribers does the paper have?” Lynx asked suddenly.

  “We’re over seven million paid subscribers, and closing on three hundred million unpaid,” Chastity replied. “The cost to paid subscribers varies with whether they take the whole paper or just their regional news.”

  “I didn’t know there was a free version,” Thomas said. “What am I getting in the paid version that I’ll lose?”

  “You actually get more with the free version,” Chastity replied with a grin. “Assuming you like reading advertisements, that is.”

  “Let me make sure I have everything straight,” Lynx said. “You think that if Earth can’t provide the children of contract laborers a way to move up the ladder, the people running the labor agencies will end up becoming the kings of humanity?”

  “Look at the Dollnicks,” Clive said. “Their entire society is structured around the wealth of their merchant princes. I’m not saying it can’t work, but the Dollys have had a couple million years to establish networks of family retainers and work out the kinks. And their wealth is based on their engineering accomplishments, primarily terraforming new worlds.”

  “Have you been reading the stories in the paper?” Chastity asked Lynx. “The contracts these new agencies are pushing make me ashamed to be human. The only thing keeping them from turning vulnerable people into virtual slaves is that the aliens have higher standards than we do.”

  “You mean the human labor agencies are offering human workers worse conditions than the original contracts their parents signed back on Earth?” Lynx asked.

  “That’s exactly what I mean. Although much of the compensation was deferred until contract completion in the Stryx-approved agreements, the employer had to supply all necessities. Not just food, clothing and shelter, but medical services, teacher bots for children, a defined workweek and vacation days.”

  “The new contracts don’t cover that stuff?”

  “You have to read the fine print,” Chastity said. “Millions of young people signed a contract with the GoHuman agency that would have obligated them to buy their own food, clothes and rent living space at fixed prices from the employer. The agency worded the contract so it looked like they were listing the value of benefits, but in fact, it was an agreement to purchase. We ran the calculations and it turned out that the average worker would have gone into debt before the two-year term was up.”

  “So what happened?”

  “GoHuman couldn’t find any aliens willing to accept workers under those conditions. Then word got out and the management disappeared.”

  “You know, I spent ten years as an independent trader before I got recruited by EarthCent Intelligence and I used to get mad about all the aliens I met looking down on us,” Lynx said. “Now I’m beginning to wonder if they were right. What kind of galaxy is it when alien businessmen treat humans better than we treat each other?”

  “There’s a reason we call them advanced species,” Chastity said without irony. “Putting aside technology, the aliens we know have all had ample time to work out stable systems. Some of their solutions are plain weird, like the Vergallian tech-ban worlds where they run a feudal society backed by a space fleet, but none of them are looking for shortcuts. When the Dollnicks invest trillions of creds in terraforming a new world, it’s because they’ve long since worked out the economics and they know that it’s good business.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better business if they got the laborers cheaper?” Walter asked.

  “The cost of the human laborers on a terraforming project is a minor part of the equation compared to all of the other factors involved,�
�� Chastity explained. “The last thing the Dollnicks want is problems with the labor force. They’re willing to pay a fair wage, the same as the Drazens who employ humans for mining and factory work, or any of the other species who hire us.”

  “I still don’t understand why they don’t just use robots,” Walter said.

  “That’s because you refuse to take the time to go through Libbyland,” Chastity told him. “The advanced species, the stable ones, have all learned that automation is ultimately a work-killer, and without work, biologicals atrophy. If they can’t hire cheap biological labor, most species will use mechanicals sparingly for planting and harvesting, but that’s pretty much it.”

  “And the artificial people from various species handle a lot of the Zero-G mass-manufacturing that does use automation,” Thomas pointed out. “On the tunnel network, since the Stryx recognize AI as sentients with the right to self-determination, most of the advanced species have long since given up creating artificial people, except as research projects. That’s why there just aren’t that many of us.”

  “Alright, we’ve gone way off topic here,” Clive said, rising from the table. “Thomas will be point on training the reporters, Woojin and Lynx will be assigned to the president for his stay to provide any support he requests, and Walter will coordinate press coverage for the presidential visit.”

  “What are you going to be doing?” Lynx asked.

  “I’ll be working with Blythe and Daniel behind the scenes to try to line up alien manufacturers willing to talk to the president,” Clive replied. “I hope he’s a good salesman, because when it comes right down to it, I have a hard time seeing what Earth has to offer them in return.”

  Four

  “I know I promised I’d stop, but this one is driving me nuts,” Kelly said. “What’s a five letter word for ‘poor man’s chocolate’ with an ‘r’ in the middle?”

  “Carob,” Donna replied. “How can you not know that? Aisha and I both bake with it all of the time and you eat half of what we make. The Hadads always let us know whenever a new shipment of carob comes into the Shuk.”