by E. M. Foner
“Go ahead,” Affie said. “It’s perfectly safe for Humans. Besides, you won’t want to touch any of the drinks in the Drazen lounge. It’s a good thing you brought your own because their idea of a stiff drink would eat through your stomach lining.”
Dorothy hesitated, but not wanting to come across like an innocent kid, she waved a little of the smoke under her nose and inhaled. The drug took effect immediately, and when she tried to pass the stick to Affie, she ended up offering it to the empty space between the two Vergallians.
“Uh, oh. I didn’t think anybody could have a worse head for the stuff than you, Affie,” Stick observed.
“Don’t pay attention to him,” the Vergallian girl told Dorothy, taking the Kraaken stick from her hand, then on second thought, relieving the girl of her drink as well and giving it to Stick to carry. “He’s just jealous of the fact that we can catch flight without burning a handful of the things. Come on.”
Dorothy might have stood paralyzed or perhaps sat down on the floor if Affie hadn’t grabbed her arm and towed her into the Drazen exhibit area. Several students had pooled their resources to create a concept lounge which looked like it had been copied from a human bar as depicted in pre-immersive films. The main features were a high bar with the bottles displayed on shallow shelves. Strategically placed mirrors and candles maximized the allure of the liquids, and the picture was completed by a bank of taps, the handles displaying human brands of beer that were no longer available on Earth, much less the station. For some reason, the students and their guests seem to find the décor irresistible.
“I don’t get it,” Dorothy said, struggling against the numbness of her tongue. “This is just a copy of a human bar.” Sweeping her arm to illustrate the scope of her disdain, she knocked over a glass on the table they were passing. Fortunately, it was a sweet drink rather than a Divverflip, or somebody might have gotten hurt.
“Easy, Dorry,” the Vergallian girl said, tightening her grip on Dorothy’s other arm. “Let’s just find a table with some open chairs.” As she spoke, she gave her companion a sharp look. The Vergallian male moved ahead of them and bribed a trio of Drazen students to abandon their table in return for a pair of Kraaken sticks.
Dorothy might have missed the transition from standing to sitting if not for the fact that everybody else in the room suddenly got taller. “Hey,” she said weakly, but then her eyes fell on the guttering candle in a colored glass globe that had been placed in the center of the table. No matter how she concentrated, she couldn’t get the little flame to stop dancing about, leading her to repeat, “Hey,” in protest.
“Drink some of your juice,” Affie said, retrieving the grapefruit juice from Stick and placing it on the table in front of Dorothy. The ambassador’s daughter stopped staring at the candle and started staring at the cup. The Vergallian girl sighed and lifted the cup to the human’s mouth, carefully pouring a bit of juice between her lips. Dorothy struggled to remember something that she was forgetting, and just before the juice began to dribble out, it occurred to her to swallow.
“That’s better,” Stick said. “I was afraid you were going to zone out on us for a minute there. Good stuff, huh?”
“Mmm,” Dorothy replied.
“It’s important to try new things with new sentients,” Affie said, launching into her favorite topic. “That’s why the arrival of a new species on the galactic stage always shakes things up. Humans are like catalysts.”
“Cat lists,” Dorothy agreed.
“I didn’t choose the Open University campus on Union Station at random, you know. I studied up first, and this place has been the nexus of activity on the tunnel network for the last two decades.”
“Nexus. Next us,” Dorothy pronounced, feeling that she had unraveled one of the mysteries of the multiverse.
Affie waited politely for a moment to see if her new friend wanted to elucidate the point, and then continued. “Do you know that Union Station is the only place in the galaxy where little Stryx go to school with young biologicals, and it only started around twenty years ago?”
“Metoo,” Dorothy confirmed.
“And the whole business with the Kasilians giving away all their stuff and turning back from species suicide. Do you think something like that comes along every day? And then, before you know it, the Gem revolution gets its start here.”
“Mist,” Dorothy concurred.
“I missed something? Do you mean that stupid Verlock game everybody was playing for a while? Fads like that happen all the time, though come to think of it, I guess Raider/Trader was kind of major. Anyway, when I heard the Wanderers came through, I was like, there’s just something going on at that place. Then your Stryx librarian opened a theme park, and I told my parents that this is where I wanted to finish my education.”
“Libbyland? So tired,” Dorothy said, struggling to keep her head up.
“And what happens next? The Emperor of the Cayl decides to dissolve their seven-million-year-old empire, only after spending a few weeks on Union Station, he changes his mind and everything goes back to normal. I got here during the open house and I couldn’t believe how the Stryx let those aliens run amok. But I never would have gotten to see the Cayl and their dogs otherwise. I did a piece depicting a warrior and his hound.”
“It looks like two melted blobs connected by a cube,” Stick affirmed.
“Blobs,” Dorothy murmured. Then she put her head on the table and fell asleep.
Twelve
As the assistant producer counted “Let’s Make Friends” back in from the second commercial break, Aisha looked over to make sure that EarthCent’s president hadn’t wandered away from his mark. In the week since the president and his mistress came to stay in the ice harvester, Aisha had concluded that the titular leader of humanity suffered from an attention disorder. Fortunately, Hildy had come along to keep him on his toes. The instrumental version of the show’s theme song began to play, and the red “live” on the front immersive camera came on.
“Is everybody ready to meet today’s special guest?” Aisha asked the cast.
“Yes,” the children chorused in their own languages. The Grenouthian studio dubbed the show for all broadcast audiences in real time so that watchers didn’t require translation implants. The children were all equipped with an in-ear feed for their own language.
“The man we’re about to meet is the president of EarthCent, which employs the human ambassadors on Stryx stations,” Aisha said. She regretted the convoluted explanation, but given the limited jurisdiction and authority of EarthCent, it was the best she could do. Most of the children nodded, willing to take her word for it, but the little Horten girl raised a tentative hand.
“Yes, Noninth?” Aisha asked.
“My mother is an entertainment consultant for the Horten embassy, and she says that the Human ambassadors work for the Stryx.”
“Well, that’s one way to look at it,” Aisha acknowledged. “Because we humans are new to the tunnel network, the Stryx pay most of the bills for EarthCent. But the ambassadors work for the president, sort of.”
“So the president works for the Stryx and the ambassadors don’t know?” Noninth followed up.
“Why don’t we invite him on and then you can ask him yourself?” Aisha suggested. She missed having Blythe’s son on the show, since Jonah could instantly come up with an explanation for any question posed about humanity without worrying about accuracy. Unfortunately, he had aged off the cast.
The children all turned toward the waiting president and chanted, “Let’s Make Friends, Mr. EarthCent President.”
“Thank you, children,” the president replied, approaching center stage with a bouncy step. “Please call me Stephen. May I ask your names?”
“I’m Cudge,” declared the not-so-little Dollnick girl. “And I’m hungry.”
“Tump,” said the little Drazen boy.
“Noninth,” the Horten girl said. “Do you really work for the Stryx?”
&nbs
p; “It depends who you ask,” the president responded diplomatically. “And who’s that next to you?”
“Thyntorial,” the young Verlock rumbled.
“Fajav,” squeaked a shy-looking shrub.
“At least part your hair vines a little so he can get a peek at you,” Aisha admonished the little Frunge girl. Fajav complied for about two seconds before covering her face again.
“And I’m Harry,” announced a six-year-old boy. “My parents met at your dance.”
“My dance?” the president responded, looking questioningly at Aisha.
“The monthly EarthCent mixer,” the host explained. “The embassy manager runs it.”
“Then I’m happy to take credit and glad to be of service,” Stephen told the boy.
“I’m the youngest,” said the last child, a pure-white bunny whose parents both worked on the show. Fortunately, the president remembered from his ambassadorial days that the Grenouthians rarely shared their names with outsiders, so he didn’t pursue the matter.
“I’m very happy to be here on ‘Let’s Make Friends,’ and I hope you’ll all treat me just like a kid who happens to be big,” Stephen said. “I’m looking forward to playing games and telling stories, and I also brought Aisha a present. Should I give it to her now or later?”
The children replied with a contradictory chorus, so the president pointed at each child in turn.
“Now,” said the Horten.
“Later,” declared the Dollnick.
“Later,” said the human boy.
“Now,” piped the Grenouthian.
“Later,” squeaked the Frunge girl.
“Now,” the Verlock said.
“Later,” was the Drazen boy’s response.
“That’s four to three, so I’ll give it to her later,” the president said agreeably. “So, Noninth,” he continued, turning to the little Horten girl. “All of you just made a decision for me, so am I still working for the Stryx?”
The Horten girl looked puzzled. “Maybe you work for the Stryx part-time.”
“Higher Determinism,” the young Verlock mathematician rumbled, but everybody ignored him.
“Do you ever have young Stryx on your show?” the president asked Aisha.
“Not yet,” Aisha replied. She swallowed her annoyance at the president for going off script so quickly since she couldn’t help being impressed that he came up with the obvious question that nobody else had ever asked. “Do you have a human game to share with the children?”
The president hesitated for a moment. He had rehearsed this part of the show with Aisha and Hildy and they had come up with a variation on the telephone game. The idea was that the little aliens would sit in a circle, remove their in-ear translation devices, and whisper a repeated word to see how badly it got distorted. But looking at the cute little aliens, the president had another idea.
“I always like playing the ‘One Of These,’ game,” he replied. “Everybody sit in a circle and I’ll teach you.”
Sitting in a circle was the most common arrangement on the show, and in a matter of seconds, all seven of the children were seated on the carpet, more or less evenly spaced. Aisha would usually sit with a child on each side, but something about the name of the president’s unplanned game made her nervous, so she sat cross-legged next to him.
“Great,” the president continued. “It’s a simple game, really. “You say, ‘I have one of these,’ and then you touch different parts of your body. Then the player on your right says, ‘I have one of these,’ and starts with the third part the last player touched. So if the third thing I touch is my ear, Harry, who is on my right, would have to touch his ear first or he’s out. When somebody goes out, the next person starts fresh. Get it?”
A feeling of dread overtook Aisha as she thought of myriad ways the president’s touching game could go wrong, but the feed went out live on the Grenouthian network so it was already too late. At least the children were too young to try to embarrass each other on purpose.
“I’ll start,” the president said, and turned to Harry. “I have one of these.” Then he rapidly touched his own knee, his left elbow, his nose, and his ear.
“I have one of these,” the boy said immediately, and correctly touched his nose. He turned to the Verlock boy sitting next to him and repeated the key phrase, “I have one of these.” Then he rapidly touched his nose, mouth, his nose again, his left ear, his right ear, his nose again, and the top of his head. Thyntorial gaped at the human.
“I think you might have gone a bit fast for our Verlock friend,” Aisha hastened to say. “Perhaps we could try a different game?”
“I have one of these,” the Verlock grated out, and touched his left ear. Then he slowly began turning to the young bunny next to him.
“You’re out,” Harry said. “I touched my nose third.”
“You touched your nose first,” the Verlock replied slowly. “Doesn’t count the second time.”
“Is that how Verlocks play this game?” the president asked. “I don’t have that rule.”
“Now I’m out,” Thyntorial rumbled.
“So it’s your turn to start, Youngest,” Stephen addressed the Grenouthian child.
“I have one of these,” the bunny said, touching each ear in turn, and then putting a finger in his abdominal pouch.
“I don’t have one of those,” the Horten girl said in dismay.
“You’re out,” the other children chorused. Noninth looked pleadingly at Aisha, but the host shook her head sadly.
“I have one of these,” the Drazen boy who was next in the circle declared. He touched his nose, his ear, and then grabbed his tentacle.
“No fair!” the Frunge girl cried. “Nobody else has a tentacle.”
“You’re out,” the children chorused, enjoying the novelty of the game. The Horten girl who had already been knocked out seemed to take great satisfaction in the elimination of the Frunge.
“I have one of these,” the Dollnick girl announced with a broad smile. She used one of her upper arms to touch her nose, her ear, and each of her lower arms in turn.
“I’m afraid I only have two arms,” Aisha said. “But I…”
“You’re out!” the children all shouted, drowning out the rest of her words.
“Cheer up,” the president said to Aisha. “I just counted ahead, and unless Harry gets the Grenouthian out, I’ll be the one short a set of arms next round.”
“You’re all out,” the assistant director called. “We’re on commercial break. The booth says we have to move on to Storytellers when we get back because it’s already in the network’s synopsis for today’s show.”
Aisha smiled with relief. “Did you hear that, children? The director says we have to start Storytellers or all of our watchers will be disappointed.”
“That’s not fair to Stephen,” Tump protested. It wasn’t often that he got a chance to show off his tentacle on the show, and after counting ahead, he was sure he could eliminate at least one more of the cast. “We didn’t finish playing his game.”
The children divided into two arguing camps over the injustice of the programming change, the composition of the sides depending on whether or not they had already been forced out of the game by lack of a physical attribute.
“It’s too bad we’re on commercial break,” the president said to Aisha. “The children are providing a perfect example of how species form alliances based on their competing interests.”
“I think that’s a bit advanced for the six-year-old demographic,” Aisha replied. She had a policy of letting the children guide the show, and now she was at a loss for how to convince them to agree on abandoning the game midway.
The president suggested a solution. “How about we play Storytellers and I lead?”
“You know Storytellers?” Aisha asked in surprise.
“I do my homework,” the president replied confidently.
Before the host could quiz the president on his intentions, the assista
nt director counted them back in and the cameras went live.
“We ran out of time to show the rest of the ‘I have one of these,’ game, so our special guest is going to lead in today’s Storytellers. Stephen?”
“Once upon...” the president began.
“A TIME!” the children all shouted.
“The planet Earth couldn’t catch up with the advanced species and the children were all sad. The president of EarthCent came to Union Station to ask for help from our alien friends so we could have a better future. First the president went to the Dollnicks and he asked how they could help.” Here the president stopped and pointed at Cudge.
The Dollnick girl replied without hesitating. “The smart Dollnicks taught the Humans about terraforming and colony ships, so they could make new places to live.”
“Thank you,” the president said. “After the Dollnicks taught the humans terraforming for a fair price, the Grenouthians arrived.” He stopped and pointed at the bunny.
“And we—,” the young bunny paused and thought for a moment. “And the Grenouthians taught the Humans how to make shows that everybody likes.”
“That’s right,” Stephen said encouragingly. “The Grenouthians lead the galaxy in news and entertainment. But we humans don’t have the math to understand holograms and colony ships, and our science says the tunnel network can’t exist.” The president nodded to Thyntorial.
“The Verlocks built Earth a math academy,” the Verlock boy said slowly. “And a magic school.”
“Now we’re cooking,” Stephen said enthusiastically. “But the humans were so far behind that the biggest businesses on Earth could only export simple things, like food, silicon crystals and carbon nanotubes.” The children all giggled, and the president pointed to the Drazen boy.
“So the Drazens taught the Humans to make new things to sell without getting their planet all dirty,” Tump said excitedly.
“Exactly what we need,” the president said. “But the traders from Earth could only afford to buy old Sharf ships with money borrowed from the Stryx because we don’t build our own.”
