by E. M. Foner
“We’d be happy to do that,” Clive replied. “Thank you for the introduction, Ambassadors,” he continued, nodding to both Bork and Kelly. “I’ll have these chairs straightened out in a moment.”
The room emptied rapidly, and in a moment, Kelly was left alone with Samuel, who was sound asleep. Donna entered the office looking amused, and headed right over to the baby.
“Did you get her to hold him?” she asked, leaving Kelly to figure out she meant Blythe and Samuel.
“No,” Kelly responded. “They talked about sports and fishing for a few minutes and then they left in a hurry. I’m going to take Sammy and head home.”
“Enjoy the rest of your maternity leave,” Donna said. “If you need a sitter, just call me.”
Sixteen
“So, tomorrow is the big day,” Joe said, leaning back from the table with a satisfied sigh. He liked his own barbeque and Kelly’s cooking wasn’t bad, but Aisha was on the professional level when she cooked Indian food. “You kids might want to visit some of the clubs around the convention center hotel district, see what you’re going to be up against.”
“Are you assigning that as a training mission?” Lynx asked, simultaneously tapping Thomas on the shoulder to get his attention.
“I’m number five on the chart,” Joe reminded her. “How can I assign you anything?”
“It sounds like a good idea to me,” Thomas said. “It feels like we haven’t done anything constructive since the trip to Seventy. Besides, I’ve been promising Chance we’d take her out one night, let her show off her new fuel cell.”
“Why didn’t you suggest it to the trainees?” Lynx asked Joe. “They’ve all been working hard, and a chance to combine a little work and recreation is always a good idea.”
“Things can go downhill in a hurry when aliens and alcohol are involved,” Joe explained. “Besides, the trainees have to be here first thing in the morning for a covert communications class conducted by the Drazen expert Herl loaned us. I’m looking forward to that one myself.”
“I still think Thomas and I should take it as well,” Lynx complained.
“Hey, I don’t make the rules,” Joe replied with a shrug. “Clive and Blythe have been spending a lot of time with Herl, and apparently he convinced them that it’s important for morale and the command structure not to let the new recruits get too familiar with their superiors. If we had let you keep training with them, they would have ended up thinking of you as just another agent, rather than the crown princess.”
“Is Lynx royalty and nobody told me?” Kelly asked, returning to the table after checking on the baby.
“Sorry, it’s all those worlds with monarchies I served on,” Joe said. “I keep on thinking of Clive and Blythe as the king and queen, which makes these two the crown prince and princess.”
“You told me I was the princess,” Dorothy piped up. “And you said Sammy is the little prince!”
“Of course I did, princess,” Joe replied, rising to his feet and lifting his daughter out of her chair. “We were talking about a different kingdom for grown-ups.”
“Oh, then you can be a princess too,” Dorothy told Lynx graciously.
“Uh, thanks, I guess,” Lynx replied, having lost track of the royal succession by this point. “Is EarthCent doing an official welcome thing at any of these bars?”
“Oh, I knew I forgot to tell you something,” Kelly exclaimed. “Donna rented out a place called Casablanca for the night, apparently it’s the biggest human-themed bar in that area. She’s going to set up a table and start handing out conference badges for the preregistered attendees so they won’t have to wait in line tomorrow. It was a last-second thing Stanley suggested to reduce the crush in the morning, and Chastity will be there tonight to help as well.”
“So I guess we’ll make the Casablanca our first stop,” Lynx replied. “All set, partner?
“Yes, and thank you for dinner,” Thomas said politely as he rose from the table. “I’m sorry about not eating anything, but it all looked delicious.”
“I understand,” Aisha said, blushing lightly. She hadn’t encountered any artificial persons on Earth, and not that many since arriving on Union Station, so she was still a little uncomfortable socializing with an AI that was indistinguishable from a human. “Maybe I’ll see you at the Casablanca later, if Paul wants to go out.”
The two EarthCent Intelligence agents exited Mac’s Bones and walked to the nearest tube lift. When the door slid shut, they spoke simultaneously, Thomas saying, “Casablanca,” and Lynx saying, “Prudence.” The lift, intelligently, remained stationary.
“Need something back at the ship?” Thomas asked.
“I just didn’t want to get there too early,” Lynx replied. “I love eating with Joe and his family, but they’re kind of on kiddy time, if you haven’t noticed.”
“Not really, but time was never my strong suit. Besides, I already pinged Chance and she’s on her way to meet us.”
“Casablanca,” Lynx commanded, and the lift capsule accelerated smoothly. In less than a minute, the door opened on a cacophony of blaring musical styles from dozens of different species. The sounds emanated from the fronts of the open café-style bars that dominated the corridor. Lynx had been to her share of rowdy bar districts on stations and trading outposts around Stryx space, but the sheer gaudiness of the scene took her breath away.
“I hope there’s a dance floor in the Casablanca,” Thomas shouted over the noise. He led Lynx off to the left, where he had spotted the name ‘Casablanca’ spelled out in red neon letters, with a brace of green neon palm trees hanging over them.
“I hope there’s an active acoustic filter,” Lynx shouted back. “Why is it so crazy here?”
“Salesmen,” Thomas asserted loudly. “I worked at the Empire as a busboy and a runner back before I got the InstaSitter job. Normally I can tell the different species apart by their behavioral characteristics before processing the visual data. But with salesmen, it’s faster to look for visual cues, like a tentacle, the number of fingers or the color of the skin.”
“You mean they all act the same way?” Lynx shouted back as they pushed through a crowd of tipsy Frunge and into the Casablanca, where the noise level instantly dropped off as if they had passed through an invisible wall. It was replaced by the sound of a live quintet: piano, two violins, a guitar and a bass, along with the tinkle of ice in liquor-filled tumblers against a background of subdued conversation.
“Pretty much,” Thomas replied softly, lowering his voice to match the environment. They looked around the bar for Donna and Chastity, but apparently Lynx was right about arriving early. Her partner nudged Lynx and pointed to the bare back and prominent spine of a woman placing an order at the bar. “Hey, that woman is practically naked!”
“Chance,” Lynx called, and the woman in the slinky dress turned from the bar, a bottle of vodka in one hand, and a small tray with three glasses and a bowl of peanuts in the other. The artificial person had her hair piled up, revealing a slender neck, along with perfect collar bones, and a skirt that was slit up the side almost to the level of the plunging back line. All cleaned up with a full charge, Chance featured a million-watt smile.
“Hi, guys,” she called breezily, meeting them halfway across the room. “Thanks for inviting me out early, Thomas. I was beginning to go stir crazy waiting for the starting time.”
“So you’ve really joined the firm?” Lynx asked cautiously.
“Yes, I have, but tonight is my first official assignment,” Chance replied. “I had been hoping to pick up some extra cash working for InstaSitter, but Chastity said I failed the babysitter profile on every possible match point.”
“That’s amazing,” Thomas remarked as he steered them to an open table. “I matched every point in the babysitting profile. Funny how AI works.” He took the bottle and filled all three glasses.
“Skol!” Lynx toasted, lifting up her glass. Chance and Thomas quickly followed suit and tossed theirs
back in one swallow, leaving Lynx behind with a half empty glass and a pessimistic outlook for the evening.
“You know, Clive showed me the organization chart for our agency, and I found out that I’m working for you guys,” Chance continued with wide-eyed enthusiasm. “Isn’t that great?”
“Sure,” Lynx replied with all of the team spirit she could muster. “But we only came at the last minute on Joe’s suggestion to take a look around tonight. Did you say you were coming out later on a mission anyway?”
“I’m ready to start working any minute,” Chance replied perkily, twisting her shoulders back and forth and smiling like the Cheshire cat. “I’m supposed to have a good time and keep my ears open, of course. You guys might think that I don’t have any experience at this sort of thing, but I’ve worked the bars for a few businesses over the years.”
After finishing her shot to keep from commenting that she wasn’t at all surprised, the burn in her throat and stomach made Lynx wonder if they were feeding her grain alcohol. She excused herself and went to the bar to order a plain orange juice as a mixer. By the time she got back, the table was abandoned, and she worried for a moment that somebody had put the bag on her fellow agents. Then, a spotlight focused on the small dance floor, and there were Thomas and Chance in a classic pose. The band struck up an Argentinean tango, and they began to move counterclockwise in an intricate weave of motion.
Lynx stared in fascination as the dancers alternatively extended themselves in graceful lunges, one leg stretched far behind, and flowed into a spin move that included intricate patterns drawn mid-air by the lower leg and foot. But her jaw dropped when Chance threw a leg high in the air and brought it down over her partner’s thigh, then lifted her other leg off the ground while Thomas supported her weight, her knee reaching his shoulder and her toe pointed in the air well above his head. The slit in her dress exposed both of her legs to the waist, revealing her lacy black panties. The crowd burst into applause, Lynx joining them.
Three minutes later, the dancers were back at the table, Thomas his usual cool and debonair self, Chance blushing and panting, despite the fact that she had no lungs and a full charge. Lynx was beginning to see how the artificial person might prove an effective Mata Hari, one of the more interesting personages described in the so-called training materials. And as Thomas poured a glass for his tango partner, Lynx detected something she never would have expected to see, a tremor in his hand.
“That was incredible!” declared a voice over Lynx’s head. She turned in her chair to see Chastity had arrived, along with Tinka and Donna. “Can you teach me?” the girl asked Thomas.
Thomas gave Chance a questioning look, to which she responded with a demure smile and a little hand motion. Lynx’s partner bounded to his feet and led Chastity to the dance floor, where the band left off the instrumental number they were playing and struck up another tango.
“She just finished telling me how good she was at alphabetizing alien names,” Donna complained as she watched her daughter go. “Ah, there’s our reserved table. I’d invite you girls to help, but it’s probably better for your business if you aren’t seen with me.”
“Our business?” Lynx asked Chance, as the EarthCent embassy manager and Tinka begin setting up columns of preprogrammed show badges on the large table with a “Reserved for EarthCent” sign.
“Making friends and extracting information,” Chance replied brightly. “I never would have guessed that Thomas was such a good dancer,” she added, casting her eyes back to the dance floor where Chastity was apparently trying to poke holes in the artificial person’s shoes with her heels. “He seemed rather stuffy up until now, you know?”
“Oh, he’s a barrel of laughs once you get to know him,” Lynx replied reflexively, wondering if this was really why Joe had suggested the outing. She reached for the bottle, telling herself she would have just a little dash in her orange juice, when a strange man settled into the chair that had been occupied by Thomas.
“If you’re going to drink that swill, you may as well just hit your head on the wall until you get dizzy for all the pleasure it will bring you,” the man declared in a strange accent. “Allow me to order a bottle of the good stuff.” Without waiting for their response, he snapped his fingers in the air and pointed at the table. The barman, whose attention Lynx had struggled to attract just a few minutes earlier, immediately said something to a waitress and indicated their table.
“Did you invite this guy to sit down?” Lynx asked Chance, forgetting for a moment that the mission was to mingle.
“No, he’s all yours,” Chance replied, rising to her feet. Either she had misunderstood the sarcasm in Lynx’s question or she had spotted a target of opportunity approaching the EarthCent table. Before Lynx could respond, the waitress arrived with a bottle of aged, single malt Scotch. Chance turned on her smile and intercepted a Vergallian male who was wearing a uniform that made him look like an admiral or an opera star.
“I’m Ronk,” Lynx’s new table companion said with a leer, pouring out two glasses of the expensive booze. She studied his face and noted that the man might be wearing some kind of makeup, but the lighting was too low to tell if it was cosmetics or a minor radiation burn. “How does a beautiful babe like you end up in a hole like this?”
“I thought it was rather nice, until now,” Lynx replied pointedly. Then she reminded herself of the mission and accepted the glass he was offering. It smelled heavenly, so she took a little sip and immediately started feeling better. “So what species are you, Ronk?”
“Drazen born and bred,” the man admitted, throwing back the amber liquid in one go, and without the respect it deserved, Lynx thought. He looked at her in exasperation and added, “Were you planning on letting that Scotch evaporate and inhaling the fumes? Come on, live a little.”
Lynx stared back at the Drazen, dumbfounded by his approach to tippling, then shrugged and tossed off the Scotch. It was his money, and she figured she may as well have a snort or two of the good stuff before he figured out she wasn’t his type and moved on with his bottle. He immediately poured her a fresh one.
“Yeah, we Drazens really like you human women,” he continued, draining a second glass and looking at her expectantly. When Lynx failed to respond by dissolving into blushes or bending her elbow, he paused to reassess the situation. She noticed for the first time that his tentacle was out and hanging limply, and she thought he must be pretty drunk already not to be discomfited by the way it was crushed between his shoulder and the chair.
“Are you on the station for the EarthCent show?” she asked, primarily because she wasn’t interested in hearing whatever lame line he might come up with if left to make conversation on his own.
“Vendor, I’m working a booth,” he responded. “Heard that you humans are finally getting in the game, and I got me an expense account, so I thought, why not make nice and get a jump on the show?”
“I only heard about the show through friends,” Lynx ventured cautiously, sipping at her new drink. “I’m an independent trader myself.”
“Of course you are,” Ronk replied with an exaggerated wink. He even threw in the archaic ‘okay’ sign she had seen only in historical dramas, making a circle with his thumb and forefinger and holding the other three fingers out.
“Wow,” Lynx said out loud, struck by the incredible cheesiness of the guy. If he had been from any other species, she could have tried to pump him for information, but Blythe and Clive had concluded a cooperation pact with the Drazens, making them allies. She wondered why he was wasting time on her, and what it was about him that struck her as a little off.
“So tell me about the trading business,” her companion said, topping off her glass even though she’d barely downed a third of the contents. “I do a lot of traveling myself, so I’m always interested in hearing about the latest conditions here and there. Been anywhere interesting lately?”
“Oh, round and about,” she started to reply, but then she had a sudden
urge to shock the complacent look off of his unnaturally colored face. “To tell you the truth, I had to dump a cargo of contraband on my last trip. Turned out the stuff was banned in Stryx space.”
“Really?” He leaned forward, and Lynx got the impression that his face had become tinged with purple. “Just stuff you were bringing in for yourself, or on the job?”
“What job? I’m an independent,” she repeated, causing the expert in human behavior to flash another ‘okay’ sign. Lynx froze for a moment as she finally picked up on what was bothering her. Didn’t Drazens have six fingers? She tried to distract him by leaning forward herself while looking surreptitiously at his other hand to see if he had lost a finger in an accident. Nope, and furthermore, when she looked up he was staring in her eyes, when a real Drazen would have been looking down her dress.
Steeling herself, she smiled and leaned even closer, so their noses were almost touching, then reached around him with her free arm as if to pull his head in for a kiss. Instead, she grabbed his tentacle and sat back in her chair, hard. The rubberized prosthetic came away in her hand and she slapped it down on the table between them. The faux Drazen yelped and began to look very annoyed.
“You pulled off a layer of skin with the glue,” he accused her. “One spy to another, what gave me away?”
Lynx tossed back her Scotch to counter her surging adrenaline and extended the empty glass. “One spy to another, it’ll cost you.”
He grudgingly refilled her glass, but she could tell by the way he pulled the bottle back afterwards that the party was over. She looked again at his hands, and this time, she noticed that the palm of his drinking hand was too red. A glimpse of his glass showed that some make-up had rubbed off on it, the Scotch was probably a solvent.
