Family Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 12)

by E. M. Foner

  “Your people must honor nature,” Orsilla cut her off.

  “We do! You’re so smart to see that right away.”

  “The other children have just returned to the show after a long break,” Aisha told the Alt girl. “Right before you came on we were discussing what they learned since we last saw them. Have you learned anything recently that you’d like to share?”

  “I’ve been studying asymptotic series for numerical methods,” Meena said enthusiastically. “My mom tutors me.”

  “That’s advanced for a Human your age,” Krolyohne rumbled.

  “Meena may look human or Vergallian, but she’s from a different species,” Aisha reminded the children.

  “I think her head is larger than a Human’s,” Clume observed. He raised his lower set of arms with the hands spread apart and peered at Mike between them. At the same time, he held up his upper set of arms with the hands spread so he could visually measure Meena’s head for comparison. “Yup. Maybe ten percent more volume?”

  “She smells a lot like a Human, but better,” Pluck said, sniffing the air.

  “Grab my hands and push,” Vzar demanded. The Alt girl obligingly pitted herself against the Frunge boy, and after a few seconds, he said, “Stronger than Humans too.”

  “But can she do this?” Mike demanded, putting his thumb to his nose and wiggling his fingers at the girl.

  “Mike!” Aisha exclaimed. “Where are your manners? Tell Meena that you’re sorry.”

  “It’s my fault,” the Alt girl said. “I should have hugged him, but he scares me a little.”

  “Mike scares you?”

  “He didn’t do anything bad,” Meena rushed to correct herself. “It’s just like, you know, if you hear a dog growling in the dark, and even though you know that dogs are good, you don’t want to go that way?”

  Aisha found the alien girl’s honesty strangely disconcerting, but she remembered suffering from a similar fear when she was a child. “I think the best way to get over our fears is to play a game together. Do you have any Alt games you could teach us?”

  “Most of our games are for a family,” Meena replied. She bit her lower lip and thought for a moment. “I know. We can play Deretz.”

  “What’s that?” Vzar asked.

  “Everybody sits in a circle and you have to say something really nice about the person next to you.”

  “I like the sound of that,” Aisha said enthusiastically, gracefully seating herself on the floor. “Would you go first to show us how to play?”

  The children all followed the host’s lead and began arranging themselves in a circle on the floor of the set. The Alt girl moved as if she planned to sit next to Mike, but then she chickened out and managed to put Orsilla between herself and the human.

  “So we always play to the left,” Meena said, and turned to face Clume. “You’re so strong and well put-together. I wish I had four arms like you do.”

  “Thank you,” Clume said, the first time Aisha could ever remember hearing the words escape the Dollnick child. He turned to his left and addressed the Verlock girl. “If I could do math like you, I’d drop out of school and start building space stations.”

  “I’m not so smart,” Krolyohne protested, embarrassed by the praise. She turned to the young Stryx who floated by her other side. “Spinner is the real genius. And you’re so generous to make time for helping us learn when you could be exploring the multiverse.”

  “Thank you,” the young Stryx squeaked, running all of his case lights into the red end of the visible spectrum to simulate blushing. He spun around a few times, and stopped facing Aisha.

  “You treat me like one of the family even though I’m not from a biological species. You’re my favorite grown-up.”

  “Thank you, Spinner. That’s so kind. And I couldn’t wish better friends for my daughter than you and Mike.” The host turned to address the young Frunge who sat on her left. “You’ve never complained even once about anything on the show, even though I know the lighting must be hard on your hair vines. I think you’re a very fine boy.”

  Vzar mumbled something polite under his breath and turned to Pluck.

  “You’re okay for a Drazen, even if you do play the harp.”

  “Whatever,” Pluck replied, turning to Mike. “You come up with cool rules when we play games, even though Orsilla always changes them.”

  “I know,” Mike said. Then he turned reluctantly to face the Horten girl, who always seemed to take the opposite side any time he ventured an opinion. An inspired thought hit him and he told her, “You’re really pretty,” laughing inside as he set the trap.

  “Thank you,” Orsilla replied. “I didn’t know you were capable of such insight.” She turned to the Alt girl, completing the circle. “You could be a nurse or a kindergarten teacher, you’re so nice.”

  “Do you really mean that?” Meena asked, and she impulsively hugged the Horten girl. Then she turned to Clume, and said, “When I turn off the translation device the show staff gave me and listen to your speech, it sounds like birds singing.”

  Clume was so shocked by this compliment that he sat with his mouth open. Mike took the opportunity to ask, “How do we win this game?”

  “Everybody wins,” the Alt girl replied, looking puzzled. “If you run out of nice things to say, you can ask for help from the others.”

  “So when does it end?” Pluck asked.

  “We can play for hours and hours back home, but then somebody gets called for a meal or chores, and we have to stop.”

  A snort came from outside of the set, and Aisha looked over to see the assistant director miming falling asleep and hanging himself at the same time. “I think it’s a lovely game, but we probably don’t want to overdo it,” she said. “I heard that you’ve never seen our show before. Is that right, Meena?”

  “Yes. Am I doing something wrong?”

  “No, you’re the perfect guest. I just realized that you probably don’t know our song, and I don’t want you to feel left out at the end of the show when we all sing. I think there’s just enough time left before the next commercial to teach it to you with the help of the other children.”

  “I’d like that very much.”

  “Pluck?” Aisha asked, giving the boy an encouraging look.

  “Don’t be a stranger because I look funny,” the Drazen sang.

  “But you don’t look funny,” Meena reassured him. “I wish I had six fingers and a tentacle.”

  “It’s the first line of the song,” Pluck told her.

  “Oh, that’s why you were singing. You have a lovely voice.”

  “Spinner?” Aisha prompted.

  “You look weird to me, but let’s make friends,” the Stryx sang.

  “I look weird to you?” Meena asked, hugging herself. “I know I’m not metallic, so I guess that makes sense. Would you feel better if I wrapped myself in foil?”

  “It’s the second line of our song,” Aisha reminded her, becoming a little frustrated with the Alt girl’s exaggerated sensitivity.

  “Right. I won’t forget again.”

  “Orsilla?” Aisha prompted.

  “I’ll give you a tissue if your nose is runny,” the Horten girl sang.

  “You would? Thank you. Look,” Meena said, opening her own little handbag. “I also carry tissues to give people, and cough drops. Plus these tweezers, for if somebody gets a splinter.”

  “You’re incredibly nice,” the Horten girl couldn’t help saying. “Are all Alt girls like you?”

  “I think so. My friend Halla carries Pitto beans to give the other children, even though she doesn’t like them herself, and Dintill carries bandages that her mom draws little pictures on. I pretended I hurt my finger just to get one because they’re so pretty,” Meena admitted.

  “Mike?” Aisha asked.

  “What did I do?”

  “Tell her the last line of the song,” Orsilla said.

  “I’m as scared as you, so let’s make friends,” th
e boy half sang, half mumbled.

  Meena stared at him and her eyes began to tear up. “That’s so beautiful. Who wrote this song?” she asked Aisha.

  “Uh, I worked on it with Libby, our station librarian, so the lyrics rhyme in all the tunnel network languages.”

  “They rhyme in Alt too.”

  “They do?” Aisha asked in surprise. “How is that possible?”

  “And we’re out,” the assistant director said. “It’s a long break, so feel free to get up and stretch.” He hopped up onto the set and pulled Aisha aside. “Listen. I know this is your comeback special and everything, but the director and the producer are both in my ear about your guest.”

  “Isn’t she perfect?”

  “Perfectly boring. She can stay on the set, but don’t ask her any more questions or we’re going to run a test of the emergency station evacuation system.”

  “I’ve never even heard of that.”

  “Neither had I until the producer told me about it. It’s just a loud tone and an animation artist’s conception of the station blowing apart.”

  Fourteen

  “So what’s the difference between what you’re doing and industrial espionage?” Kevin asked Dorothy as they shuffled through the docking arm of the Chintoo orbital with their magnetic cleats activated for Zero-G.

  “Industrial espionage is like aliens spying on each other to steal technological secrets,” the girl replied. “The whole point of fashion design is for your clothes to be seen and appreciated.”

  “But aren’t we here because your competitors will be showing fashions that haven’t launched yet?”

  “We’re here so I can meet Ug, the Sharf artificial person whose group does our manufacturing.”

  “If your clothes are manufactured on Chintoo, why are you and Flazint always sewing little bits onto stuff?”

  “Little bits onto stuff! I know you aren’t really interested in women’s clothes, but you could at least pretend to listen. I pay attention when you talk about ship maintenance with my Dad and Paul.”

  “No you don’t.” Kevin said, his voice starting high on the first word, dropping for the second, and splitting the difference for the third.

  Dorothy stopped in front of the open safety hatch at the end of the pressurized spoke and pulled her arms in tight against her sides, her wrists crossed over her chest. Kevin sighed and picked her up by the elbows, then gently tossed her feet-first through the opening. Her cleats stuck to the opposite wall, where she waited impatiently for him to arrive so they could resume the argument, albeit in a new orientation.

  “Anyway, we do all of the customization for our bespoke line on the station,” Dorothy continued. “Flazint and I both enjoy working with our hands, but we have aliens all over the station doing piece work at home.”

  “Affie doesn’t like sewing?”

  “She hates it. And even though Affie’s really good at math, she doesn’t like to work on marketing strategy or any of the other business stuff because it reminds her too much of royal training. She’s really just into art and hanging out. Flazint says we’re lucky that she has such a laid-back boyfriend or we’d never see her.”

  “Stick? I don’t think that guy even has a job.”

  “He sells—never mind. The point is that Jeeves wants me to get more involved in strategy. He’s supposed to be the Stryx expert on the human psyche, but he admits that he just doesn’t get young women.”

  “So your idea of strategy is to sneak around Chintoo looking at new designs from your competitors to find out what teenage girls are thinking? We’ll have to go back to the ship and get spacesuits then, because most of this place is open to the vacuum.”

  Dorothy pivoted gracefully and punched Kevin in the shoulder without even slowing. “I knew you weren’t listening when I told you that there’s a job fair going on. You kept saying, ‘Yeah, I get it,’ but you were really playing that Frunge maglev game.”

  “Those are going to sell big to the Vergallians. Games like that are just the sort of thing that slips in under the tech ban because they don’t have any practical application. Besides, I got them for a song.”

  “No, you got them on the Frunge elevator hub for that weird metal powder you bartered for on the Drazen station. And the fact that the Drazen woman sang when you closed that deal tells me that you gave her too much.”

  “She was happy to get all of those blank Horten holocubes I traded for back on Union Station. The Drazens and the Hortens have some kind of feud going, so you can always turn a cred selling stuff from one species to the other.”

  “Go on,” Dorothy said with an exaggerated groan.

  “Go on what?”

  “I know you want to tell me what you traded to get the holocubes.”

  “Just some Horten e-rations from one of the ships in Paul’s collection. You know he’s not really into bartering, so he gives me the little stuff like that to dispose of and we split fifty-fifty.”

  “What is Paul going to do with blank holocubes?”

  “Record home holograms. They’re the permanent kind, not the one-shots, so lots of species use them for baby tricks.”

  “Right. And when we get to Ailia’s world with those maglev toys, what are you going to trade them for?”

  “Horten e-rations,” Kevin replied earnestly, and then dodged out of the way before Dorothy could punch him again. “Besides, I was just teasing about the spacesuits. I knew why we’re here. Chintoo only has one large biological-friendly space for fairs and that’s where we’re headed. Did you see that spherical section during our approach?”

  “I shut my eyes after we almost hit that hazmat dumping arm,” Dorothy said. “How can an AI traffic controller be so bad at docking a ship?”

  “Chintoo inhabitants have a love/hate relationship with biologicals. The artificial people and AI come here because they want to get away from the species that created them, but they don’t have a lot of material needs, so biologicals provide most of their business.”

  “If they don’t need stuff, why work so hard to make money?”

  “I guess they just like to keep busy, and you never know when money will come in handy. Anyway, that’s the entrance just ahead, so what should I expect?”

  “It’s a job fair. The message Jeeves sent me said that this is the main one on Chintoo for the new fashion manufacturing season, and I’ve never been before.”

  “Jeeves wants you to get an undercover job as a fashion spy? What about our companionship contract? I own you for another five cycles.”

  “You’ve got the ownership bit backwards, and I’m not here for a job. Businesses that have products they want mass manufactured at low cost show the prototypes at these job fairs. The artificial people and AIs who live on Chintoo bid on the work. I thought you’d been here a bunch of times.”

  “Just to pick up factory seconds and overruns. I never knew they held job fairs to get work.”

  “Wait. You come here to buy defective merchandise and leftovers from large orders? I’m pretty sure those are all supposed to be recycled or destroyed.”

  “No wonder they’re such a good deal. Hey, don’t look at the central light orb or you’ll be blinded.”

  Dorothy squinted up at the tiny artificial sun that provided the light and heat in the Chintoo exhibition hall, and managed to say, “It’s really bright,” before Kevin put a hand on the back of her head and forced her gaze down.

  “I don’t want to spend the next six hours describing dresses to you because you can’t see. Wow, there’s some really weird stuff on display.”

  “None of that is for humanoids,” Dorothy told him. “We can check it out after looking at the good stuff.” She started right up the spherical deck towards a section that was dominated by Horten designers, and then pulled Kevin close to whisper, “See that yellow lady showing a handbag to the AI with all the metal tentacles?”

  “Hard to miss.”

  “I recognize those bags. The Hortens market them as handmade
.”

  “Maybe they’re handmade by artificial people.”

  “It’s still cheating. I’m kind of surprised I don’t see more Vergallian designers here,” she added.

  “Think of all of their tech-ban worlds. I bet they have tens of millions of women doing piece work on every one. Most of the Vergallian trade goods are handmade.”

  “Oooh, look at those sashes.” Dorothy shuffled off rapidly on her magnetic cleats towards the display where a Horten designer was demonstrating to a skeptical artificial person how the long silky bands could be wound around a torso to create different looks.

  The Horten woman glanced up at the newcomer and demanded bluntly, “Who are you with?”

  “I’m just looking.”

  “I know you’re just looking. I want to know who you work for so I can keep an eye on your catalog for copies. It’s only fair.”

  The artificial person looked on in amusement as Dorothy struggled to come up with an answer.

  “I’m not going to bite you, honey,” the Horten continued. “Just look around. This place is crawling with fashion designers.”

  “Oh, I wondered why there were so many biologicals,” Dorothy said. “I work for SBJ Fashions. We’re mainly on the stations.”

  “I’ve heard of you. Somebody gave me one of your hats as a gift. Is the young man with you?”

  “We have a companionship contract but we left it on the ship,” Dorothy replied defensively before realizing that the Horten wasn’t interested in her lifestyle. “He’s just a trader.”

  The Horten nodded and turned back to the Sharf artificial person. “Look, 21F9ku73. I know this can’t be first time somebody designed a dress that requires a reusable adhesive strip. What’s the problem?”

  “Call me, ‘Ku,’ and I’m afraid you don’t understand the physics. There must be a dozen different mechanisms holding the folds of your prototype together, including surface tension and static electricity. You may as well sell people boxes of the plastic cling film you all use for food preservation and tell them to wrap themselves in it.”