Family Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 12)

by E. M. Foner

  “So say we were married Grenouthians and your mom had a point in their news network.

  “A point in the entire network, not just one show? She’d be incredible wealthy, like a Stryx librarian or something.”

  “I meant could she sell it, or give you a quarter of the point, and could I spend all of that income forever without having to do anything?”

  “Oh, you’re back to usus fructus. I don’t really know how it works with the bunnies because they’re kind of secretive. We have twelve of them in the class and nobody knows their names, so we just refer to them by numbers.” Vivian pointed at the tab that the boy was still holding. “Ask me something else now. Property law isn’t just about rights and inheritance.”

  Samuel took another minute to skim forward. “Okay. Contrast the concept of private property in the old Gem Empire versus the new.”

  “Ugh, you had to pick that one? Other than small personal items, the clones didn’t have private property in their old empire. Everything was owned by the sisters in common, but the elites had access to consumable goods that the peons could only dream of.”

  “And?”

  “That’s the hard part. Since they overthrew the elites and started cloning other members of their species from the samples they bought off the Farlings, the whole society is sort of waiting to see what happens. They’re talking about distributing some of the commonly held property to individuals, but their old society was so geared to cloning that they don’t have a lot of normal stuff.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All of the other tunnel network species have extensive land holdings for farming because nobody eats synthesized food by choice. Nobody except the Gem, who shut down their agricultural sector in favor of factory produced food that was supposed to be perfect. But what’s the point of distributing a billionth of a percent of a cloning facility or food factory to the local Gem? They can feed and clothe themselves, but for hundreds of generations their entire economy was based on cloning more Gem, and they can’t replace that overnight.”

  “How about apartments or housing?”

  “Even the elites lived in shared housing, it was just more luxurious than the worker dormitories. And the workers all had roommates, so what would you do with a quarter of a room or a half of a bunk bed? They’re trying to move in the direction of a time-based currency system, where you bank the time you work and will eventually be able to spend it on community products.”

  “They could buy stuff from the other species.”

  “With what money? They were pretty isolated the last ten or twenty thousand years. The other species buy some of the nanobot technology that they developed primarily for spying purposes, but that’s about it.”

  “So they’re in worse shape than humans, even.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Most of their technology isn’t up to that of the other advanced species, but they’ve had faster-than-light drives for a couple of hundred thousand years. It’s just that they spent all their energy fighting each other and then cloning the winner.”

  “I’ve never heard it put so succinctly,” a new voice spoke from behind Vivian, who almost fell off the counter.

  “Sorry, I didn’t see you come in,” Samuel said to the clone. “Did you lose something?”

  “A great deal of self esteem, though it’s reassuring to hear that we aren’t at the absolute bottom of the heap. But I came looking for my spare double boiler. Our cooperative catered a picnic event for Humans last cycle, and I’m afraid my clean-up crew grew tipsy drinking wine from unfinished glasses and somehow left it behind during the cleanup. I didn’t notice it was missing until we had two events that needed a double boiler at the same time yesterday.”

  “What’s a double boiler?” Samuel asked.

  The clone and the girl exchanged a universal eye roll over the ignorance of men.

  “How else would you melt chocolate for dipping strawberries?” the Gem demanded.

  “Oh. So it’s like a crock pot?”

  “You explain it to him,” the clone said to Vivian.

  “It’s a pot with an insert so you get uniform heat and the chocolate doesn’t separate,” the girl said. “We have a Frunge one that can also be used as two separate pots, but Grandma just puts a glass bowl directly in water, brings it to a simmer, and then turns off the heat. She claims it’s better than a double boiler.”

  “Really?” the caterer asked.

  “Grandma says that slower is always better with chocolate, and she doesn’t even stir it.”

  “Is it this?” Samuel called from a shelving unit, where he had located two stainless steel pots that seemed to be stuck together.

  The cloned glanced over and answered with an impatient, “Yes, yes,” before turning back to Vivian. “Does your grandmother know other chocolate secrets? I’d be willing to pay for the information.”

  “No, she’s more into working with odd alien ingredients that we can eat after baking. She makes really good Thorian spice tarts.”

  “Who are the Thorians?”

  “They aren’t on the tunnel network, but sometimes their stuff shows up in the Shuk. Even though they aren’t oxygen breathers, they export some weird spices and stuff that aren’t poisonous to us when properly prepared.”

  “Thank you, young lady. I intend to try your grandmother’s technique, but it’s good to have my double boiler back.”

  “Hold on, I have to remove it from inventory,” Samuel said, placing the pots on the turntable. “Double boiler from location PS 109/103 claimed by Gem caterer.”

  After the clone left, Samuel picked up the girl’s tab again and skimmed a little further through her notes. “How do the property rights of artificial people differ from those of the species they are modeled on?”

  “They’re the same, at least on the tunnel network,” Vivian qualified her answer. “I don’t know how enforceable their rights are where the Stryx aren’t watching everything.”

  “Does that include body mortgages?”

  “What about them?”

  “Artificial people usually need them to get started in life, at least, human-created AI does.”

  “So? A mortgage is a mortgage. Plenty of people have them, though I suppose with the advanced species, it usually takes the form of a family or clan loan.”

  “But we’re not talking about a spaceship or a house. It’s their bodies.”

  “I know you’re used to seeing Thomas and Chance in their current bodies, but those are really just machines, right? Their minds are what matter.”

  “But their minds can’t exist without the machines.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true. Libby? Can artificial people exist without machines?”

  “They can be stored, but they need a system capable of processing their instructions to maintain sentience, and physicality is sometimes linked to consciousness,” the Stryx librarian responded.

  “But it’s different with Jeeves and his body, right?” Samuel followed up.

  “Stryx aren’t on the exam,” Vivian said.

  “Why not? They’re a tunnel network species.”

  “Thank you for including us, Samuel,” Libby said. “It’s true that although young Stryx inhabit a physical body, they aren’t dependent on it for sentience, and most of their consciousness resides…elsewhere. The property concern you raised is valid, but I can assure you that in the tens of millions of years that the Stryx have offered body mortgages to newly sentient AI, we have never foreclosed.”

  “Then why does Chance tell all those stories about hiding out off the tunnel network when she stopped making payments?” Vivian asked.

  “Chance was hiding from her conscience, not the repo man.”

  “Other than the body mortgages, are there property rights differences for artificial people and their species?” Samuel asked the librarian.

  “Theoretically, no, but issues surrounding inheritance arise with all types of AI who live in systems run by biologicals.�
�

  “Why’s that?”

  “If an artificial person came to Union Station a hundred thousand years from now and claimed to be the offspring of Thomas and Chance, it would be easy for me or any other Stryx who knew the parents to verify the relation with a consensual scan. Otherwise, for AI to establish a line of descent requires registrations and recordkeeping.”

  “You mean there’s no simple DNA test for relatives, like the way the Farling doctor found my dad’s long-lost sister,” Vivian said.

  “Precisely. Because artificial people live in manufactured bodies which are often engineered by species other than those who created them, their identity must be established in other ways. For example, the artificial Sharf use closely guarded cryptographic systems and one-time keys to establish their rights. But the infrastructure and recordkeeping required for authentication is only available in Sharf space.”

  Vivian dismissed the subject with, “Sharf aren’t on the exam either.”

  Thirteen

  The studio audience applause was thunderous, and Aisha finally understood why her producer had insisted on making her return from maternity leave into the first extended-length special for the show. Between foot-stamping Hortens, whistling Drazens, and belly-slapping Grenouthians, she gave up trying to begin her prepared speech several times, and even had to turn her face from the front camera to wipe away a few tears. After five minutes, the crowd finally settled down, allowing Aisha to speak.

  “Thank you all for…” she began, but was drowned out by another deafening greeting. This second round of applause was just a form of alien good manners, and stopped as abruptly as it started.

  “Thank you, thank you. As you know, I’ve been out on maternity leave following the birth of my son, Steve, who we named after my mother-in-law’s father.”

  “Let’s see the offspring!” an alien shouted, and the rest of the audience took up the chant.

  Fenna, who was in the front row of seats holding her baby brother, stood up turned around so everybody could see the little boy in his blue fleece jumpsuit, with Dollnick noise-cancelling earmuffs hiding half of his face. The girl took one of his little hands and waved it, causing the more susceptible aliens to launch into their equivalent of baby-talk praise.

  Aisha waited for all of the cooing, trilling, and lip vibrating to exhaust itself before continuing. “I want to take a moment to thank the substitute hosts who filled in while I was on leave. During the last two cycles, Dzally showed us that she has a heart of gold, and I’m sure you all agree that she deserves her own show.”

  Another round of applause rocked the studio, and the Frunge present began chanting, “Dzally! Dzally!”

  “And Shola’s gift for communicating with children made her time on the show a blessing for all of us.”

  The Hortens all stamped their feet in appreciation, and the rest of the audience applauded politely.

  “Finally, I want to apologize for Jeeves,” Aisha said. “I know that the ratings for the shows he hosted were through the roof, but I’m afraid that the activities he introduced weren’t age appropriate, even though I’m sure that the children were never in real danger.”

  “Bring back the ‘Spiral Slide of Death!’” a younger member of the audience cried out.

  “That’s exactly the sort of…” Aisha began, but out of the corner of her eye she saw the assistant director making the ‘move it along’ gesture, and reined herself in. “Today we have a special guest from a new species. Her family has just arrived on the station with an invited delegation to consider membership in the tunnel network, so let’s all be on our best behavior. We’re also beginning the final cast rotation for one of your all-time favorite groups, so let’s give a big ‘Let’s Make Friends’ welcome back for Orsilla, Vzar, Clume, Spinner, Pluck, Krolyohne and Mike.”

  The audience responded enthusiastically, and the children entered the set one by one. The Grenouthian engineer in the booth projected a hologram over each of the cast members, displaying a brief bio of their time on the show. Orsilla carried a bouquet of flowers, which she presented to the host with a formal curtsey.

  “Thank you so much for the flowers,” Aisha said. “It’s very thoughtful of you.”

  “The producer gave them to me backstage,” the Horten girl replied. “Your baby is so cute. Can we play with him?”

  “Maybe after the show. Has everybody been well the last six cycles?”

  “I guess,” Orsilla replied, and the other children all chipped in with similar noncommittal responses.

  “And how is school?”

  “Hard,” the aliens chorused, but Mike and Spinner both said “Fun,” at the same time, drawing envious looks from the others.

  “Why don’t we all share what we learned while we were away from the show. Pluck?”

  “I don’t know,” the Drazen boy replied with a shrug.

  “Krolyohne?”

  “Infinite dimensional vector space,” the Verlock girl responded.

  “Oh. I don’t exactly know what it is, but it sounds interesting,” Aisha said. “How about you, Clume?”

  “Zero-G fabrication techniques,” the eight-year-old Dollnick replied. “I liked the cold welding part, but I had trouble with galling.”

  “You need to avoid sliding the pieces together,” the young Stryx advised him.

  “Orsilla?” Aisha prompted.

  “I tried to replicate the results of a Human experiment using white rats in a maze for my alien psychology elective.”

  “Aren’t you a little young to be studying alien psychology?”

  “That’s why the teacher made me do Humans. You’re so simple.”

  “Did you succeed?”

  “No, but I got top marks for methodology. I determined that either the rats or the Humans must have cheated in the original experiments.”

  “And how about you, Spinner?” Aisha asked, prepared to hear the usual answer about multiverse math.

  “I learned how to change diapers,” the Stryx said proudly. “Fenna taught me on Steve.”

  “Did she teach Mike too?”

  “He wouldn’t even try. He said it was gross.”

  “Vzar?”

  “I sintered molybdenum,” the Frunge boy said, picking an achievement that would most impress his schoolmates.

  “Really?” Orsilla asked skeptically.

  “Well, I was there, and I watched the temperature readout,” Vzar said.

  “Either way it sounds fun,” Aisha said. “How about you, Mike?”

  “I helped my grandpa in the Shuk,” the boy said. “I want to sell stuff when I grow up.”

  “I thought you wanted to be a pirate,” Spinner reminded him.

  “I grew out of that,” Mike said. “Besides, Grandpa says there’s more money in retail.”

  “Well, it sounds like everybody learned something new, except for Pluck,” Aisha summed up. “Are you sure you can’t think of anything?”

  “I learned how to play the harp,” the Drazen boy admitted.

  “Boys don’t play harp,” the Horten girl said dismissively.

  “Orsilla!” Aisha scolded her. “Music is a wonderful gift, and the instruments don’t know who’s playing them.”

  “Our instruments do,” Krolyohne interjected.

  “I only started learning because my aunt left the station and we needed a harpist for the family ensemble,” Pluck said. “As soon as my younger sister’s tentacle is long enough, I’m changing to percussion.”

  “I won’t be a bit surprised if when the time comes, you find that you’ve fallen in love with the harp and decide to stay with it,” Aisha predicted. Pluck just made a face in response.

  “What did you learn during your maternity leave?” Spinner asked the host.

  “Did you see the Snorinth actually bring your baby?” Clume added.

  “Snorinths don’t bring Human babies,” Pluck said. “They come in baskets carried by a giant bird, just like Drazens.”

  “Who ever h
eard of babies getting delivered by birds?” Orsilla said scornfully.

  “Well, where do Horten babies come from then?” the Drazen challenged her.

  “My mother and father fasted and prayed to Gortunda, and then I appeared in a shoebox,” Orsilla replied confidently, though the titter from the studio audience made her wonder if her parents hadn’t been entirely truthful. “Where do Verlock babies come from, Krolyohne?”

  “We’re shaped from lava and then our parents blow into our mouths until we start breathing,” the Verlock girl said. “That’s why my mommy lost so much weight after my little brother arrived. She held her breath for cycles and cycles to make sure she would have enough, and it made her belly stick out.”

  “So if a Snorinth didn’t bring your baby, who did?” the Dollnick child asked Aisha.

  “Uh, Pluck was right,” Aisha said, acutely conscious of her eight-year-old daughter sitting in the front row. “A giant bird brought Steve in a basket.”

  “So why were you so fat before your vacation?” Orsilla challenged her.

  “I was holding my breath to help the poor stork take off after bringing the baby,” Aisha improvised. “They get very tired so they need the extra boost to get airborne again. Oh, it’s time for an announcement from our sponsors, but we’ll be right back with our new friend.”

  The status light on the front immersive camera winked out, and Aisha took the flowers over to the mantle above the set’s fireplace, pretending she couldn’t hear the follow-on questions about babies. A relative of the show’s producer who was listed on the payroll as a ‘fourth grip’ led a young Alt onto the stage. The girl rushed around giving each of the alien children a hug, including Spinner, but avoided Mike, saving the boy from an embarrassing smooch. Then the assistant director counted them back in, and Aisha launched into the second segment of the show.

  “Today our special guest is Meena, from the newly discovered Alt species. You have a very pretty name, Meena. Does it mean anything?”

  “It’s a type of gnat,” the girl replied cheerfully.

  “Oh, how interesting. Do the Alts commonly name their children after bugs?”

  “And fish, and trees, and animals, and flowers,” Meena listed on her fingers. “And rivers, and mountains, and birds, and…”