Family Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 12)

by E. M. Foner

  “No, I was about to offer you both my congratulations. But first, tell me the truth. Were you using that drug when you told Ug to make the deal for the heels?”

  “The beetle assured me that he took out the addictive part and whatever made it illegal,” Kevin interjected in Dorothy’s defense. “Besides, I started cutting the patches in half after the first time she got, uh, overly energized.”

  “Try cutting them in quarters on the next trip,” Brinda suggested.

  Dorothy shushed the other humans and grabbed onto the Stryx’s pincer so he couldn’t float away. “What congratulations?”

  “On your marriage,” Jeeves said calmly.

  “WHAT MARRIAGE?”

  “The one you entered into by fulfilling the terms of your Frunge contract.”

  “Congratulations!” Flazint shouted. “When were you going to tell us?”

  “I don’t have a clue what Jeeves is talking about,” Dorothy spluttered, letting go of the pincer and turning to her boyfriend. “Do you, Kevin?”

  “I’m too tired to follow all of this. Can you dumb it down for me, Jeeves?”

  “Perhaps this will jog your memories,” the Stryx said, producing a document. “This is a copy, so there’s no point in trying to destroy it. I’ve already deposited the original affidavit with the Frunge Honor Court.”

  “I can’t read this,” Dorothy objected. “What is it?”

  “It’s in Frunge,” Flazint said, taking it up and beginning to read. “I, Ailia, heir to the throne of Avidiya, daughter of Atuba, granddaughter of Avilia, great-granddaughter of Aagra, do solemnly witness the fulfillment of a Frunge companionship contract engraved in the names of Kevin Crick and Dorothy McAllister of Union Station. They exchanged their vows in the presence of myself and the Cayl hound Alexander in the private dining room of the Mercenary Tavern in the ninth year of the reign of Royal Protector Baylit, my half-sister.” The Frunge girl turned to Dorothy, her cheeks wet with tears. “You finally did it. You’re married.”

  “What vows? We didn’t exchange any vows that I know of!”

  “Are you sure? The contract uses the standard formula. If you said, ‘I want to marry Kevin,’ and he said, ‘I want to marry Dorothy,’ in front of two witnesses, then it’s a done deal.”

  “I kind of remember that now,” Kevin said, coming wide awake. “So we’re really married?”

  “It doesn’t count because Alexander is underage,” Dorothy objected desperately.

  “I hate to be the one to point this out, but Vergallian royals count double as witnesses,” Affie told her. “That’s why the queens are always saying stuff like, ‘We are not amused,’ in dramas.”

  “But this is even worse than getting married by a fake Elvis!” Dorothy wailed. “Mom is never going to let me live it down. Listen, none of you can tell anybody. We’ll have a real wedding as soon as I can make a dress.”

  “Of course you will,” Flazint cooed to comfort the distraught girl. “The contract is just a legal thing. Everybody still has weddings.”

  “The delay will give you time to go through rehab for your Zero-G drug addiction,” Jeeves suggested. Dorothy took a swing at his metal casing and would have broken her knuckles if the Stryx hadn’t retreated at supersonic speed.

  A minute later, Jeeves eased his way into the ballroom of the Camelot hotel/casino, where the Alt press conference was just getting under way.

  “Bob Steelforth, Galactic Free Press. Will you be recommending that your people vote in favor of joining the tunnel network?”

  “Thank you for the question,” Methan responded politely. “First let me say that my colleagues and my family have asked me to speak for them today. Unfortunately, I’m afraid that none of us are familiar with this concept of ‘voting’ that we’re suddenly hearing so much about.”

  “It’s another term for coming to a collective decision, sort of,” the reporter tried to explain. “Were you chosen as the delegation leader through an election? I mean, a vote? I mean, you know what I mean.”

  “We discussed the options and everybody thought it best that we speak with one voice.” Methan seemed to feel he had answered the question adequately because he pointed at a Vergallian reporter. “Yes?”

  “Imperial Times,” the correspondent declared, without bothering to give his name. “Now that you’ll be joining the Vergallian Empire, will you be seeking royal status for any of your own people, or will you petition the high council to have queens assigned to your worlds?”

  “Thank you for the question,” Methan said, ignoring the sudden chatter from the diplomats and reporters present. “It’s true that your lovely ambassador has officially invited us to join the Vergallian Empire, and my people will take it under consideration along with the tunnel network tender.”

  “Do you seriously mean that your people would risk offending the largest empire on the tunnel network by refusing?” the reporter demanded.

  “Next question,” Methan said, sounding like an old pro at politics and pointing at a Horten.

  “Legal Informer. Will you seek the return of your former property on Earth?” the alien correspondent asked.

  “Stryx Wylx has explained that our population was limited to a relatively small number of hunter-gatherer clans when she removed us from our original home. I don’t know what territorial claims our ancestors may have made, but I believe I speak for all of my people in saying that bygones are bygones and we’re perfectly happy with our current situation.”

  “How about trademark infringement?” a Thark correspondent inquired, without waiting to be called on. “You’re practically the same species.”

  “I’m not sure I understand the question.”

  “They’re running around the galaxy opening up businesses like ‘Human this’ and ‘Human that’ as if they owned the trademark. I happen to know an excellent intellectual property attorney.”

  “Ah, a semantics issue. It’s not my field of expertise.” Methan turned to the group of Alts standing behind him, but nobody seemed inclined to take up the legal question. “I don’t see a problem with our distant relations from Earth using their name for themselves for commercial purposes.”

  “Is it true that Stryx Wylx intervened to prevent the Humans from killing you off?” a Grenouthian reporter demanded.

  “Please watch your language, there may be children listening,” Methan scolded the reporter. He offered a silent thanks to his wife for talking him into accepting free InstaSitter babysitting for all of the young ones during the press conference. “I have no information that any violence was offered to our ancestors by the Humans. In fact, the genetic analysis provided by my Farling physician suggests that we are more them than they are us, if you want to talk percentages. He speculated that the admixture is based on the relative sizes of our founding populations.”

  “Kristine, Children’s News Network,” a teenage girl announced herself. “Will you be visiting Earth anytime soon?”

  “We would like very much to visit your planet, but due to our similarity at the cellular level, the life sciences team is concerned about the possibility of our contracting diseases to which we have no immunity. My Farling physician has offered a solution, but I’m not sure we can afford it, at least for large numbers of us.”

  “We’ve had reports that your children are instinctively frightened by Humans,” a different Grenouthian reporter called out. “Isn’t that proof that you were removed from Earth for your own safety?”

  “I don’t see any advantage to pursuing that line of questioning,” Methan responded. “Stryx Wylx hasn’t given her reason for removing us, nor will she confirm or deny transplanting other branches of our common family tree to as-of-yet hidden worlds. Perhaps we were the aggressors and the meek were left to inherit the Earth.”

  “Baloney,” the bunny practically spat. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d watched any of our documentaries.”

  “What about it?” Kelly muttered to Dring, who had accompanied the McAllist
ers to the press conference, where they stood with the other ambassadors and their spouses. “Do you know anything about this that you aren’t saying?”

  “It’s all very recent history to me, if you can even call it such,” the Maker whispered. “I haven’t heard a specific date cited, but I was on the other side of the galaxy for most of the last few million years.”

  “Michael, Children’s News Network. When can we expect a decision on your joining the tunnel network or the Vergallian Empire?”

  “Ah, yes. All of our people will gather to discuss these offers in their own families, though of course some of the younger children will need time to mature before they can participate in a meaningful manner. The offer was extended to all living Alts, and it wouldn’t be fair for those of us who happen to be older to make such a momentous decision that would be nearly impossible to reverse at a later date.”

  “Follow-up question,” Michael called politely. “Are you talking about a number of years?”

  “Yes, precisely,” Methan said. The noise level in the room swelled as everybody began talking at once, and the Alt representative inclined his head to his wife, who whispered in his ear. “I should add that we will first consider the issue of trade with other species, starting with the import of Frunge bicycles.”

  Then a Verlock asked a question about the mathematical system the Alts had employed in developing their model of the universe, and Methan launched into an enthusiastic explanation. The other correspondents began slipping out of the room to file reports, and some of the alien diplomats and their spouses started looking around for chairs.

  “I’ve never heard of the Stryx choosing a group of sentients from a viable world and moving them to their own planet,” Kelly said to Dring in what was now a general murmur of conversation. “They may have interfered in the development of humanoid species by diddling with our genes, but playing nursemaid to a bunch of hunter-gatherers?”

  “It’s possible that the Stryx were acting on assumptions they made about our history,” Dring admitted quietly. “Don’t forget that their scientific ability surpassed our own soon after we created them, and they may have tracked our origin to your Earth. I don’t remember our homeworld, and neither do my brothers, but some of us speculate that we chose to forget in order to lessen the trauma of a great disaster.”

  “But I guessed that fifteen years ago!” Kelly cried, drawing attention from the other ambassadors, who preferred anything over Methan’s verbal recitation of a mathematical proof. “Joe. Didn’t I say that the Maker’s lost world was Earth the first time Dring shifted into a dragon?”

  “Are you saying that the Stryx view you and the Alts as family?” the Grenouthian ambassador demanded loudly. The room fell silent, and everybody waited for the EarthCent ambassador’s response.

  “No, I—how should I know what the Stryx are thinking?” Kelly spotted Jeeves floating at the back of the room and pointed at him like she was making an accusation. “Have you been treating us special all along because you think that the Makers started out on Earth?”

  “I like to think of all sentient beings as my family,” Jeeves replied evasively, and then employed one of his favorite tactics from his soon-to-be-published manual on diplomatic conversation changers. “Did you know that Dorothy is married?”

  “I think that Aunt Kelly may have a cavity in her third molar on the upper right,” Vivian observed, as the Grenouthian cameraman zoomed in on the gaping mouth of the EarthCent ambassador.

  Blythe waved the hologram of the press conference out of existence as a stunned Kelly began accepting congratulations from her alien friends, and everyone else present took the opportunity to flee, leaving the Verlock taking mathematical notes as Methan droned on.

  “How does it feel to witness history?” Blythe asked the twins.

  “I’d rather make history,” Jonah replied seriously. “I’m taking the dog for a walk. Want to come, Viv?”

  “I’ve got homework to finish,” his sister replied, eliciting groans from the whole family, including the dog. “What? You have something against higher education?”

  “I had a look at the senior year electives for your Dynastic Studies major,” Clive said. “There’s a course on consolidating your power that looked an awful lot like a euphemism for eliminating competing family members.”

  “Don’t worry, Dad,” Vivian said, leaning over and planting a kiss on the top of his head as she passed behind the couch. “I don’t see any of you as competition.”

  “When I figure out what that means, young lady, you may be in trouble.”

  “So what was in that scroll tube that Princess Ailia sent you?” Blythe asked her daughter.

  “A title. It’s sort of a friendly joke on her part since it doesn’t have any legal validity for humans.”

  “Countess Vivian, I presume,” her father said in a mock serious voice. “You know I have ample experience as a royal bodyguard.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind when I’m consolidating my power,” the girl shot back. Then she stuck out her tongue at him and fled to her room. There she took up the metal tube Ailia had sent her and carefully removed the rolled-up parchment, laying it face down. On the back was a line with a few words printed in Vergallian and a signature followed by a royal seal. Vivian got out her calligraphy supplies and carefully wrote her own name below Ailia’s signature. Then she blew gently on the Verlock ink, the warmth from her breath drying it immediately.

  “Well, I guess that’s that,” she said out loud, turning over the parchment and admiring the picture. “All I need now is a frame and a mat with a wide border.”

  The watercolor and ink drawing of Samuel at age seven, sitting on the ramp of the ice harvester next to Beowulf and looking impatient, bore witness to the fact that the princess was blessed with photographic recall. On a blank space of the ice-harvester hull, in an area that Ailia must have known could easily be concealed by framing, the Vergallian girl had printed in English:

  Certificate of Title. New owner must sign back to complete transfer.

  Family Night on Union Station is getting a sequel because I’m addicted to my own characters. You can sign up for notification of the next EarthCent release on my website, IFITBREAKS.COM.

  Readers who suffer from “ran out of EarthCent books to read” syndrome may gain temporary relief from the symptoms by reading my stand-alone novel, Meghan’s Dragon.

  If you believe there is still a place in science fiction for stories that aren’t all about death and destruction, please help to get the word out. Posting an Amazon review on the first book of this series, Date Night on Union Station, will help new readers discover these books, even if you only write a few words.

  About the Author

  E. M. Foner lives in Northampton, MA with an imaginary German Shepherd who’s been trained to bite bankers. The author welcomes reader comments at e_foner@yahoo.com.