by E. M. Foner
“Don’t you think calling the actor playing the head of the agency a director is confusing?” asked the woman formerly known as Belinda, whose head had been swapped with that of a giant talking carp.
“Calling it an agency definitely makes it confusing,” Troll replied. “All we need now is a producer and we’ll be in the immersive business.”
“Could we just let all that slide for the moment?” Home Boy requested, suddenly sounding very tired. “Does anybody have any constructive feedback about the recruitment process?”
“The office was an embarrassment, I’m surprised Lynx didn’t walk out on us,” Toto commented. By chance or design, her code name was a perfect match for the Cairn terrier head that the other committee members saw speaking. “And while I agree that her profile is just what we were looking for, her story about being contacted in a bar didn’t give me great confidence in the field recruiter.”
“Yes, that was unfortunate,” Home Boy replied. “The field agent our office hired to do the recruitment got cold feet at the last minute, so we had to use the director’s agent.”
“Tinkerbelle here. I thought the director was an actor,” objected a python-faced woman wearing what looked like a white nightgown. Her forked tongue darted out to test the air between each word, leading some of the others to suspect that the anonymity filter was just showing off. “Where did he get his own agents?”
“Agent as in booking agent,” Home Boy explained. “We found the director through a talent agency, so we asked his agent to provide another actor for the field agent role. Apparently, when he heard that the job included approaching young women visiting Earth, the director’s agent chose himself for the assignment. We won’t make that mistake again.”
“If we agree that he got the right candidate in the end, why not continue to use him?” Troll asked.
“Interesting,” Home Boy replied. “Any thoughts?”
“Well, I guess the Stryx would keep him in place,” Toto mused. “It’s just that he sounds kind of sleazy.”
“Spying is a sleazy business,” Lion pointed out archly.
“Alright, then. If nobody objects, we’ll keep the director and the field recruiter in place, but we’ll find a new office space for Acme Exporters,” Home Boy summarized.
“I think we’re heading for a disaster if we have to explain which kind of director or agent we’re talking about every time we have a discussion,” the carp pointed out. “I wouldn’t want to accidentally send an actor to do an agent’s work.”
“It’s three o’clock in the morning here and you animals are talking in riddles!” the chimp complained, scratching his side through his silk top. “Can’t we just forget about the fact that we’re relying on people from the entertainment industry to help get the recruiting off the ground? From now on, let’s only talk about the real agents and director.”
“Second the motion,” Lion chipped in.
“Any objections?” Home Boy asked. “No? Great, though I should remind you that we don’t have a real director yet, which is why we hired an actor.” The animals all grimaced at this last comment, with the chimp looking especially fearsome.
“Do you have any candidates for a real director?” Toto inquired. “I understand we can’t rely on the Stryx to do the recruiting as they do for EarthCent, but leaving the job unfilled during the start-up phase doesn’t make any sense.”
“Are you trying to keep the Stryx in the dark about EarthCent Intelligence?” asked the elephant.
“Not while we’re using their tunneling real-time communications network,” Troll replied. Nobody’s code name was more incongruous than Troll’s, whose head had been replaced by that of a bird of paradise.
“Are you saying that the Stryx can break the encryption on the secure channels?” asked the former Belinda.
“Who do you think is doing the encryption and decryption?” Troll pointed out.
“Uh, nobody in this case,” Home Boy interjected.
“I knew there was something missing!” Toto exclaimed. “I’ve been on secure conference calls with aliens, and there’s always a little red lock symbol in the upper right corner of the hologram!”
“The first meeting of EEK, and you cheapskates couldn’t pay for a secure channel?” Troll asked in disgust.
“It costs three thousand cred for a seven-way, it just wasn’t in the budget,” Home Boy defended himself. “If I had listened to the bean-counters, the whole meeting would have been voice-only.”
“Maybe we should have discussed these issues through paper correspondence,” Tinkerbelle suggested. “If there’s a security breach, we can always eat the paper.”
“Brilliant!” Troll contributed sarcastically.
“Perhaps this is a good time to discuss our budgetary constraints,” Home Boy said. “Do any of you have any extra funds in the budget you’d like to remit to EarthCent HQ?”
“No!” the attendees chorused.
“How about something like the ‘Adopt an Embassy’ campaign?” Toto suggested. “It’s really the business community that’s pushed the hardest for us to establish an intelligence service, so they might pony up.”
“Adopt a spy?” Home Boy said out loud, as if testing the catchiness of the phrase. “I’m not sure.”
“Maybe if we did it privately,” Troll suggested. “I don’t think we want to see any “Proud sponsor of EarthCent Intelligence” ads from InstaSitter.”
“I love their ads,” the former Belinda commented. “The little red-headed girl is an angel. I can’t believe anybody could charge to babysit for her.”
“Me either,” Toto replied, suddenly warming to the talking carp head. “Maybe we could kill two birds with one stone and find a director who’s willing to fund EarthCent Intelligence? No offence about the bird thing, Troll.”
“That’s really not a bad idea,” Troll mused. “And if we keep hiring agents who own two-man ships and can pay themselves out of their own trading profits, it shouldn’t even cost that much. Just rent for an office and some support staff.”
“All in favor of Toto finding us a wealthy director, raise your hands,” Home Boy declared. “One, two, three, four, five, six. All against? One. Sorry, Toto. You’re outvoted six-to-one.”
“Alright,” Toto barked, realizing she’d been hoisted by her own petard. “I’ve got one or two people in mind. But they’re good, so don’t come crying to me if one of them accepts and stages a putsch.”
“Who would want to take over EarthCent?” Home Boy laughed. “I’ve been trying to quit for years but the Stryx keep rejecting my resignation. Would any of you like to come back to Earth and take over?” Everybody waited in silence. “Anyone? Alright then. If we could get back to business, the main item on the agenda is to create a charter for the agency that sets down in black-and-white the scope of intelligence operations. Obviously, we don’t expect to get this done today, but if you would suggest your priorities, my staff can put together a working document for the next meeting to critique. Shall we start with Bel—I mean, Mrs. Carp?”
“I’ll come up with a new code name for the next meeting,” Belinda promised, her fish lips puckering as she spoke. “You just caught me unawares. As to priorities, we need to know about everything that affects humanity. The only intelligence I get these days comes from hanging out in bars and reading digests of alien news broadcasts, which are probably propaganda.”
“We’re all aware of the lack of intelligence, that’s why we’re here,” Home Boy admonished her. “What I’d like from you now is just your top concerns. This isn’t an exclusionary process, you can always add to it later. We just need a starting point to draft an operating charter.”
“Well, military capabilities, obviously,” she stated. “The Stryx are pretty close-mouthed about the alien fleets, they consider it competitive information. Even though we don’t have any warships ourselves, it would be useful to know what our colony ships and traders can expect to run into when they jump away from the tunnel net
work. And who is competing with us directly for markets and resources, the Stryx are absolutely silent on that point. The local merchants know more about it than I do. Uh, that’s just two, right? So I guess it would be useful to know more about the relations between the different species, beyond how they act in public. For example, we know that the Drazen and the Frunge hate each other, but maybe it’s all a big act.”
“Military, markets and inter-species relations,” Home Boy summed up. “Pill Bottle?”
“We need to know who is actively expanding,” the elephant head replied. “The aliens we’re competing with for new colony worlds are the ones who’ll need the closest watching. We aren’t a military threat to anybody, so we have to look where our commercial interests collide. That would be colonization, providing cheap labor, low-tech manufacturing and farming. Other than that, we need to learn something about the intelligence services we’re up against. I’ve done a bit of asking around, and I get the impression that most of the other species depend heavily on their expatriates to report anything interesting through diplomatic channels. From there it gets passed on to specialists. I didn’t count, but that’s all I’ve got.”
“Collision points and counterintelligence,” Home Boy recapped. “Lion?”
“Military, collision points, and data mining,” the chimp replied. “No point in reinventing the wheel on the first two, but I’m concerned with how little I know about the relevant history of the aliens I deal with every day. The Stryx are helpful if I ask the right questions, but there’s such a thing as information overload. When I meet an alien delegation, I’d like to know what they had to say to the last dozen or so Stryx fostered species they met, and whether they kept their word.”
“Data mining,” Home Boy nodded. “Not very sexy, but important. Don’t forget to bring it up when you’re scouting for a new director, Toto. For every agent in the field, we can probably use several at home, just mining information from publicly available sources. Any priorities of your own?”
“I think we need to keep a close eye on the Vergallians,” Toto replied immediately. “They were getting ready to take us over when the Stryx stepped in and opened Earth, and I don’t trust them and their empire of a hundred worlds. And though I know in my heart that the Stryx only want the best for us, I think some of their attempts to protect us are childish. Has anybody ever looked at the official holomap of the galaxy that they supply with their quantum-coupled ship controllers? There are whole areas of the galaxy that are cordoned off due to ravenous space monsters, and if you keep zooming in, they actually show up as giant winged things with pointy teeth. What do they eat, stars? The Stryx are just trying to scare us off, so I think some independent surveying or collaboration with other species on map checking is in order.”
“Vergallians and mapping,” Home Boy noted. “Tinkerbelle?”
“I think we need to know more about magic and mind control,” the python replied, looking particularly evil. “Sure, everybody knows that the Vergallian elites can play tricks with pheromones, but that’s not the same as being able to reach into somebody’s head and control them directly. For all we know, any one of us could already be compromised. And it’s not just telepathy we have to worry about, it’s magic. If magic is just processes that we aren’t smart enough to understand, so be it, but we still have to be prepared to deal with them.”
“Magic and telepathy, very good,” Home Boy acknowledged. “And that leaves, Troll?”
“I was going to say mind control,” the bird of paradise squawked. “Anyway, somebody else mentioned points of collision, but I think we need to pay more attention to points of exclusion. If all the other species are nuts over something we’ve never heard of, whether it’s a source of food, a game, or a new way of singing Happy Birthday, there’s probably a good reason. I think all of the points brought up here are very good, but they’re mainly reactive. I think we need to be proactive. After all, the best defense is a good offence.”
“Well said, well said,” Home Boy repeated rapidly. “You’ve all given us plenty of meat to chew on until the next meeting. As much as I’d like to discuss these points further, I know a couple of you need to get back to sleep, and we only rented the zoo filter for a half an hour, so our time is almost up.”
On six Stryx stations scattered around the galaxy, the holographic projections over the display desks of the ambassadors glitched, and the seven humans found themselves looking at each other without the animal filter.
“I guess we’ll know for next time to buy an extra minute for the anonymity fil..,” Home Boy remarked sadly as the channel cut out.
Four
“It’s funny how cargo loading has come full circle,” Lynx commented, as she worked with A.P. to transfer the contents of the elevator container filled with EarthCent-supplied goods into the hold of her small trader. The Prudence was docked at one of the low rent extension spokes of Elevator One’s anchor satellite, and the two agents were working rapidly in the Zero-G of the cargo station’s geostationary orbit. The tether continued through the anchor satellite to a counterweight that supported the whole elevator structure from further out in space. “I watched a Grenouthian documentary about ocean shipping just a few months ago, and most species ended up using standardized containers that could ride high above the waterline and be easily transferred to ground transportation.”
“The large cargo spaceships still use containers, though there are too many different versions to really call any of them standard,” A.P. replied, as he stowed the case of mixed liquor bottles in the spot Lynx had indicated. “These magnetic cleats keep slipping when you throw me boxes. Just because the weight is gone doesn’t mean the mass disappears as well.”
“I’ve been doing this for ten years,” Lynx reminded him. “You just need to relax when you catch crates, don’t try to stop them dead. Let your arms act like shock absorbers and redirect some of the momentum to conserve energy. Let’s just swap places for now. It will be more efficient if you tell me what’s in the boxes and I stow them, since I’m the one who knows where to put things.”
Both agents momentarily deactivated their magnetic cleats and pushed off, passing each other mid-air as they switched positions. Lynx executed a slow spin and landed gracefully on the open spot of the deck she’d chosen, while A.P. sailed out the cargo hatch and into the elevator container, grabbing the edge to bring himself to a sudden halt.
“Ouch,” agent Malloy complained. “I almost tore my arm off.”
“Let’s go, time is money,” Lynx exhorted her partner. “If we can empty the container and get out of here before 24:00, we’ll save a whole day’s rental on the docking arm. I left the cargo management tab up there. Just read the labels out loud like I’ve been doing and the tab will add them to the manifest.”
“Canned baked beans, one gross,” A.P. read the label off the next box, braced his back against the container, and sailed it towards Lynx at nearly twice the speed she had been throwing him boxes. Lynx corralled the case and guided it to the deck in a single fluid movement, letting the ship absorb the kinetic energy.
“That’s the ticket,” she called to A.P. “Keep them coming and we’ll be out of here in no time.”
“Hand-made soap, Anne’s Boutique, five hundred pieces,” A.P. sang out as he sailed her the next box.
“Wow! I guess the Old Man knows something about trading after all,” Lynx said as she stowed the soap. “I was beginning to wonder if this whole operation was just some sort of weird experiment, but I have to admit they put together an interesting cargo for a small trader.”
“Watch the mass on this one,” A.P. warned, sending a box her way at a fraction of the speed he’d thrown the last two. “Hunting knives, Buck 110, one gross. Two of these boxes would weigh more than you down on Earth.”
Lynx clicked her heels together to hit the momentary kill switch on the magnet cleats, launched herself straight up to the ceiling of the hold, executed a flip like a competitive swimmer at the e
nd of a pool, and intercepted the box of knives as it drifted by below her, using her momentum to carry it to the deck. She turned back to her partner and clapped her hands, waiting for the next box. He fumbled around for a moment with his back shielding the box and his hands from Lynx before straightening up and sending it in her direction.
“Synthetic high-temperature lubricant, ten liters,” A.P. called as the case floated gently in her direction. “Box has been opened and the flaps are just folded together, so be careful.”
“Not exactly a gold mine here,” Lynx grumbled as she stowed the box, quickly securing it in place with the thin magnetic cargo webbing “You can buy this stuff on any orbital factory for a song. The artificial people go through it like crazy.”
“Decorative rosewood chopsticks, one thousand count,” agent Malloy read off the label of the next box before launching it in her direction.
“Fantastic!” declared his partner as she guided the large box into the perfect space. “I hope there’s another box. These things are worth their weight in gold out on the fringe. Well, silver maybe.”
“There are three more boxes,” A.P. replied as he shoved the second her way. “You must be very good at Tetris.”
“What’s Tetris?” Lynx asked, as she reoriented the oblong box to fill a matching vacancy.
“It’s a computer game,” her partner explained. “It involves fitting falling shapes into places at an ever increasing speed.”
“Yuck,” she replied, fielding the third box. “It does sound like the sort of game computers would play, but why would I be interested?”
“Never mind,” A.P. muttered, before sending the fourth box of chopsticks in her direction. He continued to work his way through the loosely packed container. “Ping pong balls? What are we supposed to do with these?”
