Family Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 12)

by E. M. Foner

  “Everybody slide in,” Blythe ordered. “It’s going to be a tight squeeze.”

  “I’m going to go get some refreshments, and there’s seating behind the benches for the people who aren’t bowling.” Joe said. “Come and carry, Stan?”

  “I’ll help,” Clive volunteered. “Pop’s probably the only one who knows the rules.”

  “Do you know the rules, Grandpa?” Vivian asked.

  “Let me get my feet wrapped,” Stanley said. “I don’t want to scratch up the lanes.” He inserted first one foot and then the other into the Drazen foot wrapper. There was a hissing sound as something was sprayed right over the shoe, followed by an intense blue light that cured the liquid, and each foot came out sheathed in a flexible white substance.

  “Where are your shoes?” Blythe asked her daughter, who was suddenly a half a head shorter than she had been a few minutes earlier.

  “I don’t care how good the Drazen technology is, I’m not letting it spray stuff on my dancing shoes,” Vivian replied.

  “You had your bare feet wrapped?”

  “I’ve got hose on, and besides, I checked with Libby and it’s perfectly safe. Drazens who live on swampy worlds wrap their bare legs all the way to the hip instead of wearing shoes and pants.”

  “All right, kids,” Stanley said, rushing through a few perfunctory stretches and picking up a ball. “There aren’t any finger holes in these, unlike the bigger balls used in Ten-pin bowling, so just hold on the best you can and roll the ball down the middle of the lane until you get the hang of it. Watch me.”

  Stanley took three steps, terminated in a graceful glide, and launched the first ball down the lane. It hooked to the right and fell into the gutter.

  “Nice bid,” snorted a young Horten in the next lane. He winked at his three friends, who all contributed to a sarcastic chorus.

  “Are you going to leave them like that?”

  “You must be in a league.”

  “I’ve never seen it done like that before.”

  “Just ignore them, Dad,” Blythe said. “You probably haven’t played in forty years.”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” Stanley grumbled, grabbing a second ball. This time his luck was a little better, and the ball knocked down six pins, leaving a set that looked like a gap-toothed smile. “Now, watch me as I pick up the spare.” The third ball described a graceful curve towards the lead pin on the left side, then slipped through the gap without touching wood.

  As Stanley returned to his seat and Jonah stood up to take his place, Donna exclaimed, “Hey, the pins are back up again already. I forgot to watch for the Dollnick.”

  “You take turns with Grandpa, and Samuel and I will play against you in the other lane,” Vivian told her brother.

  “All right,” Jonah said, taking a ball from the return. He stared down the Horten kids before striding forward and releasing it like he’d been bowling all of his life. The ball hooked right into the front of the formation, pins flew, and a moment later, there were only two left standing, one at each corner. The combined McAllister and Doogal clans cheered.

  “Aim for the pin that’s lying down out front,” Vivian suggested. “It might fly into the one on the right, and then the ball will go left.”

  “Don’t get greedy,” Stanley advised his grandson. “Just try picking them off one at a time. You get three balls a frame in candlepin.”

  “Why are you helping him?” Samuel complained to Vivian, having barely clipped one pin off the corner with his own first roll.

  Jonah took another ball, executed a graceful slide, and released. Just before his ball reached its target, the pin disappeared in a blur, then rematerialized after the ball passed harmlessly though the space it had occupied.

  “What was that?” Kelly cried. “Is the whole thing a hologram?”

  “Sorry,” the owner said, coming up behind the curved couch seat, which was covered with an imitation leather fabric. “The Dollnicks can’t help themselves sometimes. Fast, aren’t they?”

  “You mean a Dolly grabbed the pin right before the ball hit and then put it back?” Stanley asked.

  “Yeah. The way they play at home involves another player swinging a long bat at the pins, but they seem to think that this is actually better.” The manager put two fingers in his mouth and gave a piercing whistle that rose and fell like a complex birdsong. “There. I told them to lay off on the early pin grabs until you get warmed up.”

  “You speak Dollnick?” Kelly asked in astonishment. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

  “Just enough to get by on this type of stuff,” John said modestly. “When I needed a break from Grenouthian documentaries back on Earth, I started watching lots of alien sports, especially paddle-cup-mitt-ball. You pick up some of the lingo after a while if you pay attention to the subtitles, but the Dollnick children make fun of my accent.”

  Joe and Clive returned with a variety of drinks in plastic cups and a large assortment of snack food, and everybody ate while watching the team of Stanley and Jonah eke out a win against Samuel and Vivian. The deciding factor was that the Dollnick setting pins in lane sixteen kept subtly varying the spacing to make it harder to knock them all down.

  Shaina arrived with her son and Spinner, and everybody agreed to let Fenna, Mike, and the little Stryx go next. Paul joined in to make the teams even, and the aliens in adjacent lanes on both sides stopped to watch when the little robot took a ball in his pincer and floated up to the line. Then he spun around a few times for momentum and released the ball, which shot down the lane like it had been flung from a slingshot. The pins scattered with a crash, and Fenna and Mike cheered.

  “Strike!” Stanley shouted triumphantly in the direction of the Hortens.

  “How did you do that?” Mike asked his friend.

  “It’s just math,” Spinner said modestly. “I could teach you, if you could float and spin and do vector calculus, I mean.”

  “I’m not spinning,” Fenna said, taking her turn at the line and rolling the ball with both hands from between her legs. It made its way lazily down the center of the lane, impacting the pins with barely enough velocity to knock a few over.

  Blythe nudged her husband and indicated the owner of the bowling alley, at the same time making an “O” shape with her thumb and forefinger, holding it up near her chest like a badge.

  “Right,” Clive said, standing up and accompanying John back towards the register. “So, you’re planning on opening up on alien worlds in the near future?”

  “We’re going to focus on Dollnick planets for the time being, since they’re the most enthusiastic and we can get them to play at both ends. Bowling would be a natural fit for Dollnick open worlds with humans, but Eccentric Enterprises is more interested in extending human visibility to alien homeworlds.”

  “Did you know that there’s a program that may cover the cost of certain employees deployed to alien worlds in return for a flexible work schedule?”

  “You mean EarthCent Intelligence?”

  “Somebody from Eccentric spilled the beans?”

  “No, but one of the Dollnicks who approached me about a franchise brought it up as a way to reduce labor costs. He said it’s pretty much assumed that all alien businesses employ spies. It’s lucky that I’m meeting you because there’s a special form he said I’ll need to get somebody from EarthCent Intelligence to fill out for each agent he employs in his bowling alley.”

  Ten

  “I’m glad you decided to come along, Dring,” Kelly told the Maker. “I’ve never been so nervous. I feel like some of the other ambassadors are just waiting for me to make a mistake so they can step in and save the day.”

  “Don’t forget that Stryx Wylx is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the mission,” Dring reminded her. “The rest of us are only here to put a friendly face on the tunnel network.”

  “That’s why I’m dressing casual. Dorothy would go crazy if she saw me, but if I were a member of another
species meeting aliens for the first time, I’d feel more comfortable if they didn’t all look like they were dressed for a funeral.”

  “An interesting outlook. I believe we should start for the reception hall if we want to be early.”

  “Early is on time,” Kelly replied reflexively.

  The science ship was constructed like a miniature version of Union Station, and Stryx Wylx was maintaining a rotational rate that brought their weight in the guest residential area to something like ninety percent of Earth normal. The trip to the Alt homeworld had taken four days, just enough time to keep the biologicals from feeling the side effects of jumping long distances too quickly.

  “Dring. Kelly,” Bork greeted them in the corridor. He was resplendent in some type of military uniform that the EarthCent ambassador had never seen him wear. “An exciting moment awaits us.”

  “I’m sure it will be of great historical interest,” Dring concurred. “I have never attended an Opening negotiation for obvious reasons.”

  “Ambassadors. Maker,” Czeros said, emerging from his cabin clad in a stunning metallic suit that flowed like water. “I can’t remember ever being this excited about a meeting. In fact, I can’t remember ever being excited by any meeting before this one.”

  “You don’t feel overdressed?” Kelly hinted to her colleagues.

  “My wife insisted,” Bork said. “She expects the press to publish images of the meeting and she wanted me to look my best.”

  “And I received an intelligence report just before we left Union Station,” Czeros told the EarthCent ambassador. “I would have let you know, but I assumed your daughter would take advantage of the opportunity to wrap you in designer fashions.”

  “She’s away, and what do you mean about an intelligence report? You spied on how the other ambassadors would be dressed?”

  “A strategic wardrobe assessment,” Czeros explained. “A good offense is the best defense.”

  “Why does the universe have to be so weird?” Kelly muttered to Dring as they rounded the corridor to the appointed meeting place.

  A small knot of Union Station ambassadors stood outside the reception hall, looking like characters from an opera. Half of them wore dress military uniforms with elaborate hats, several others were dressed like Czeros, in state-of-the-art fabrics of native manufacture. Even the Grenouthian ambassador, who at most wore a sash on fancy occasions, was draped in a sort of cloak that was studded with jewels and heavily embroidered with thread made from precious metals.

  “Interesting choice of wardrobe,” the Vergallian ambassador addressed Kelly. “If you’re wearing that because the Stryx lost your luggage, I believe I have a bathrobe that would fit you while providing a significant upgrade.”

  “My only goal is to put the Alts at ease,” Kelly retorted with a confidence she didn’t entirely feel. “Why are you all standing in the corridor?”

  “Jeeves said that the doors will be unlocked on time,” Ambassador Crute responded. “The Alts have already arrived and they are negotiating directly with the Stryx before meeting the rest of us.”

  “I thought we were supposed to be here to break the whole AI thing to them gently,” Kelly murmured to Dring, who shrugged his scaly shoulders. She kept an eye on her ornamental wristwatch while the other ambassadors all fidgeted with their uniforms and fancy clothes, and finally the doors slid open. Jeeves floated out, extending his pincer to prevent them from surging into the room, and the doors closed again behind him.

  “It’s all set,” the young Stryx said. “Before you go in, a few words of advice. First, it’s clear that family is an indivisible unit in Alt society, so don’t be surprised that the members of their delegation are accompanied by spouses, children, and even a few grandparents. Second, they are somewhat more expressive than the typical tunnel network species, to the point where several of them kissed me.” Here Jeeves spun around slowly, displaying a series of smudges along his casing.

  “They’re going to touch our clothes?” Abeva asked in horror.

  “If you hurry and change into your bathrobe, I’ll make an excuse for you,” Kelly offered facetiously.

  “And if you’ll permit me to finish,” Jeeves continued, floating between the two ambassadors. “The Alts were expecting us. It turns out they already know quite a bit about the tunnel network through passive monitoring of some of your public broadcasts. They couldn’t access the Stryxnet, of course, but they’ve been very innovative about intercepting radio frequency signals, especially those from Earth. The Alts delayed development of faster-than-light drive much longer than one would expect for a species of their technological prowess because they felt that the risks outweighed the rewards.”

  “Ah,” Dring commented softly, apparently deriving some meaning from this last statement that wasn’t immediately clear to Kelly.

  “I’ve updated all of your implants, and I’ve provided compatible equivalency tables for the earpiece translation technology developed by the Alts, so you should be able to communicate reasonably well.” The door to the reception hall slid open, and Jeeves announced, “Ladies and Gentlemen of the Alts. I present to you the tunnel network ambassadors who breathe a similar mix of gasses.”

  A group of little children charged the ambassadors and began hugging their legs and waists. One boy got a grip on Bork’s tentacle and tried to pull himself up the Drazen’s back, and the ambassador obligingly extended that appendage to its full length, so the child could clamber up onto his shoulder. Two more children grabbed Crute’s lower set of arms and began swinging on them, while a teenage boy was frozen in place, ogling Abeva with his mouth open.

  “My youngest,” an Alt woman said, passing her baby to Srythlan, who cradled the infant cautiously. The Grenouthian ambassador picked up a little girl who was tugging on his cloak and deposited her feet-first into his belly pouch, where she peered out like a baby kangaroo.

  “Let us eat together,” declared a handsome Alt man, who could have passed as Vergallian. He indicated the large table surrounded by chairs, each place setting a cornucopia overflowing with fruits. “The Stryx have assured us that our native bounty may be safely consumed by all of you.”

  “I’m Ambassador McAllister,” Kelly introduced herself to the man who she took to be the Alt leader. “The Stryx appointed me head of the biological contingent of this mission because you jumped into our system.”

  “I am honored to…” the man began to reply, but at that moment the Alt infant who was being pressed into Kelly’s arms began to scream at the top of his lungs. All of the conversations in the room came to an instant halt, and the mother snatched her baby back from the ambassador. He stopped screaming immediately, but refused to look in Kelly’s direction.

  “I don’t know what’s come over him,” the woman said to the Alt leader. “I’m so embarrassed, Madame Ambassador.”

  “What are your names?” Kelly asked.

  “Methan,” the leader replied. “My wife, Rinla, and you just met our youngest son, Methanon. The others are busy climbing on your colleagues.”

  “Does ‘Methanon’ mean ‘Son of Methan?’”

  The Alt couple exchanged a puzzled look before Rinla answered, “No. It’s a type of flower.”

  “Does this one belong to you?” Bork asked, approaching them with the boy still sitting on his shoulder. The child was holding onto the Drazen’s ears for balance, and the ambassador kept his tentacle wrapped around the boy’s waist to keep him steady.

  “Antha!” his mother admonished her child with a smile. “Don’t pull on the nice alien’s ears. Say ‘Hello’ to Ambassador McAllister. Doesn’t she look like your Aunt Felda?”

  “Don’t want to,” the boy replied, letting go of Bork’s ears, but folding his arms over the alien’s tentacle to keep it in place. “She’s scary.”

  “Scary?” Kelly and the adult Alts asked simultaneously.

  “Like a big cat,” the boy said, half daring the EarthCent ambassador to contradict him.

 
; “Maybe it’s my green eyes,” Kelly suggested.

  “Felda has green eyes,” Methan replied. “They’re quite common in our people. Red hair as well.”

  “You and Ambassador McAllister look to me like you could be from the same planet, and I don’t mean that as an ‘all aliens look alike’ joke,” Bork commented. He took a seat at the table and extended his tentacle to deposit the boy in the chair next to him. “So who’s your favorite tunnel network species?” he prompted.

  “Drazens!” the boy shouted happily.

  Crute took a seat on the other side of the table, where the two children who had been swinging on his lower arms scrambled into his lap. He kept them both amused by simultaneously peeling two pieces of fruit, using the upper arm from one side with the lower of the other on each piece, just to show off. The remaining ambassadors found places, interspersed between Alt representatives or their family members, but when Kelly tried to sit next to a little girl, the child disappeared under the table. Methan took the seat on one side of the EarthCent ambassador and Dring waddled up to the table on the other side, remaining standing, as was his fashion.

  “I don’t understand,” Kelly said. “I have children of my own, and I’ve always gotten along well with the little ones of the other species.”

  Methan shrugged. “Our children are highly empathic so they probably took their cue from the baby.” He leaned forward a bit and smiled at the Maker. “Hello. Please help yourself to some fruit.”

  “Thank you,” Dring replied, picking something that looked like a stalk of raw rhubarb out of the woven cornucopia and giving it an experimental chew. “Excellent.”

  “All of you seem very comfortable meeting aliens for the first time,” Kelly couldn’t help remarking to Methan. “Have you had other visitors before us?”

  “We’ve been aware of the other species for some time. We also suspected that our space was somehow hidden from the outside, which is why when we perfected our jump drive, we popped into your system for just a moment to take a look back and confirm the fact. It’s been clear to us for tens of generations that we were moved to our current home by some benevolent species. Our sociologists claim that the knowledge has had a strong influence on our culture.”