Book Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassasor 13)

by E. M. Foner

  “So this next place is like a junkyard for carnival rides?” Dorothy asked after polishing off her apple.

  “Used rides, not junk, though I guess a lot of them haven’t been used much lately.”

  “How can you trade for carnival rides? Have you ever even seen one in your life?”

  “Sure. Alien rides, anyway. Besides, your dad can fix anything that has most of the parts, and he gave me a list of rides that he’s interested in with suggested prices.”

  “Any roller coasters?”

  “No, it’s all the smaller stuff that could be trucked in and quickly set up for a fair, I think. I wrote them down because the names all sounded so similar I was afraid I’d get confused.”

  “Like what?”

  Kevin fished a handwritten list out of his coverall pocket and read, “Zipper, Whirlwind, Landslide, Skydiver, Dive Bomber, Zamperla Disco, Rampage Stampede, Sizzler, Kamikaze, Tivoli Tumbler, Yoyo, Oribter, Banzai, Power Surge, Vortex, and any small merry-go-round or carousel. And keep an eye open for kiddie rides with good paint.”

  “Isn’t Rampage Stampede a bit redundant?”

  “Maybe the first half is the brand name.”

  “When will we get there?”

  “I didn’t ask,” Kevin said. “Floater. How long until we get to Carny Purgatory?”

  “Arriving at Carny Purgatory in one minute,” the autopilot replied.

  “There’s nothing around but farmland, and a lot of those barns and silos look abandoned,” Dorothy commented.

  “If it wasn’t winter, we might see that those fields are mainly weeds. Probably cheap land.”

  “How much of this junk does my dad want you to buy?”

  “Their slogan is, ‘Gently used carnival rides with a money-back guarantee.’ And your dad arranged credit through Eccentric for whatever we can fit in my ship, which is a decent amount now that the library books are taking care of themselves.”

  “You mean Peter and Drazen Foods will take care of the books.”

  “As long as it’s off my plate it amounts to the same thing. We’ll probably fill one container with the books your grandmother bought for the benefit sale, so that leaves three containers left for rides.” Kevin squinted against the winter sun as the floater began to slow. “What’s with all the giant metal rings?”

  “Those must be Ferris wheels,” the girl said. “Wow, some of them are pretty tall.”

  “I don’t want to spend the next month taking one of those apart. I told the tunnel controller we’d be here a week, max.”

  “Carny Purgatory,” the floater announced, coming to a halt in front of a giant Quonset hut, one of a dozen clustered at the end of a field full of snow-covered equipment.

  “Sure looks like junk,” Dorothy commented as they climbed out of the floater. “Is there even anybody here? If we had brought Alexander like I said, he could have sniffed them out.”

  “I didn’t know how long we’d be at the library and your mom warned me that dogs aren’t allowed inside most places on Earth. Isn’t that crazy? Besides, it would have been tough to haul him away from the door to your grandmother’s kitchen with the smell of whatever she was cooking us for dinner.”

  “Probably take-out that she’s pretending to make. My mom must have learned that trick somewhere.” Dorothy stopped and stared at the heavily tattooed figure that suddenly loomed out from behind a pile of tires and into their path. “Horten?”

  “Morton,” the man introduced himself, not realizing that the girl had mistaken him for an alien. “You’re the ones from space?”

  “I’m Kevin and she’s Dorothy. We’re here about the rides.”

  “There’s no other reason for anybody to come this way. Let me warn you right off that most of the stuff under the snow in the yard is spare parts at this point. If you want a bigger selection than what I’ve got inside, you’ll have to head out west where the weather doesn’t eat everything. There’s a place in the desert with thousands of rides in near mint condition.”

  “We were in the area so it can’t hurt to have a look.”

  “That’s what the gal from the president’s office told me. Struck me as kind of funny, EarthCent getting interested in carnival rides. I haven’t been out on the road in years. It’s all the fault of floaters, like the one you came in.”

  “How so?” Dorothy asked, hoping the man wasn’t an escapee from Haven.

  “Travel’s so cheap and quick now that what people are left don’t want to go to a little county fair. They hop in the floater and take a nap, wake up at one of the big theme parks with rides the size of buildings. Everything I got in the Quonset huts was built to go out on trucks, or with some of the older stuff, rail cars.”

  “That’s good for us,” Kevin said. “My ship has room for a little more than three standard elevator container loads once we get the merchandise up to the hub.”

  “I’ve been up on the elevator to take a look so I’ve seen those containers. About the same as four old trailers, each of them, so you’ve got plenty of room. Come on inside and have a looksee. Lights are on, but you’ll think you’re blind at first. It’s the snow.”

  Morton was correct, and the visitors found themselves halting just inside the door as everything went dark. Gradually their eyes adjusted, and the contents of the giant building slowly became more distinct, resolving into individual rides. Some were set up for operation, but the majority were only partially assembled, due to height constraints.

  “My father-in-law gave me a list of the rides he’s interested in,” Kevin told the carny. “Might be a good place to start.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Morton said, and responded to each name Kevin read off with, “Got it. Got it. Got three of them. Yup. Uh-Huh. Maybe the last one on the east coast. I can go two-fer-one on those. Got a whole hut full of carousels, and two huts full of kiddie rides,” he said, after hearing the last two items. “What’re you planning on doing with this stuff, anyway?”

  “EarthCent, I mean, Eccentric Enterprises, is preparing a colony ship to run around to all of the independent human communities that are popping up,” the ambassador’s daughter explained. “I think that the plan is to load the ship up with as many attractions as possible to make it worthwhile for people to visit. We just came from arranging for a library’s worth of books.”

  “You’re talking about a carnival in space?”

  “One deck, anyway, or part of it. Colony ships are really big. I mean, like millions of people can live on them.”

  “Got room for one more?” Morton blurted out.

  “Uh, we’re not in charge or anything, but I’m sure they do,” Dorothy replied. “You’re willing to leave all of this?”

  “It’s not going anywhere on its own, other than rusting into the ground. Besides, even if you’re only talking about setting the rides up once then moving the whole carnival, you’ll need a crackerjack wrench man to keep them all operating safely. If you’ve got as much space as you say, I’d be willing to bring everything I’ve got in good working order, and I’ve had the last ten years to get ready.”

  “If I know one thing about EarthCent it’s that they aren’t the types to look a gift horse in the mouth,” Kevin said, glancing at a wooden carousel pony on a stand where the carny had been touching up the paint. “Do you think you could arrange transport to the elevator?”

  “I’ll have my buddies from Drazen Foods take care of it,” Morton said confidently. “They’ve been handling my cross-country shipping for years, though they’ll be sad to see me go.”

  “You have friends working for the Drazens?”

  “My friends are Drazens, managers at the plant. I couldn’t have kept going here without their help. They come with their families for the rollercoaster, and the more rickety it gets, the more they like it. I bet they’ll handle the move in exchange for the stuff I don’t ship. I already made my will to leave it all to them anyways.”

  “So these rides in here are ready to go?” Dorothy asked.
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  “Just got to turn on the generator and I can fire up the Yo-Yo there. I modified it to run at a higher speed for the Drazens, they’re kind of thrill seekers. When the seats swing out, your head will come pretty close to the roof, but that’s part of the fun.”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea with your motion sickness, Dorothy?” Kevin couldn’t stop himself from asking.

  “I don’t have motion sickness, I have a little problem with Zero G, which I wouldn’t, if you’d stop being so stingy with my medicine,” the girl replied as Morton headed off to start the generator. “Just give me a half a patch now and I won’t kill you for holding back when we were in the tunnel.”

  “I wouldn’t be doing this if Libby hadn’t assured me that it’s safe,” Kevin relented, fishing a reserve strip of patches out of his inner pocket. “It’s just that you get so aggressive.”

  “I KNEW you were lying,” she cried, snatching the strip from his hand. She ripped a patch in half, peeled the backing, and stuck it to the side of her neck. “Anyway, it seems like we took care of our business for the whole trip already, so I can hang out with my grandma all week.”

  “Always pays to do a test run before loading people,” the carny informed them on his return, powering up the Yo-Yo ride. The top wheel began to spin, and the seats suspended by cable around the periphery flew out from centrifugal force and then dipped or rose as the top wheel tilted.

  Dorothy watched it for almost ten seconds before supplementing her dosage with a half a patch on the inside of her wrist.

  Thirteen

  “Why did you book us into a theatre room?” Samuel asked the committee secretary.

  “It’s what the admin gave me when I told them we needed a place to evaluate proposals,” Lizant replied. “You try arguing with a Verlock, I would have been there all week. No offence, Wrylenth.”

  “None taken,” the Verlock replied, settling his bulk into a padded chair. “Good view.”

  “We did ask for written proposals,” the ambassador’s son persisted. “I don’t think it’s fair to make the students give oral presentations at the last minute.”

  “They can just read off their tabs, Sam,” Vivian reassured him. “Besides, it’s good practice for students who are entering the business world. Shy doesn’t cut it in sales.”

  “Who is determining the order of presentation?” asked the Sharf committee member, settling into a seat one row behind the other students.

  “It’s first come, first serve, Yvandi,” Samuel replied. “The Grenouthian is handling it.”

  “Then it’s highest bid, first served,” the Sharf corrected the ambassador’s son.

  “Marilla is keeping an eye on him, and hopefully screening the proposals at the same time. We probably should have scheduled the presentations after reading the proposals rather than doing an open call, but we’re kind of working on admin’s schedule.”

  “Sorry we’re barely on time, just came from the dojo,” Jorb announced, depositing a large gear bag on an empty seat and plopping himself down next to it. “Sit by me, Grude. You can see over the Humans easy.”

  The Dollnick student entered on the row behind where the Drazen and Sharf were sitting and then stepped over the seat backs to ease himself into the open spot between them. “Is anybody taking notes?”

  “The Open University records everything in this room, which means our Stryx librarian, and for a fee, she’ll provide a transcript,” Vivian said. “Listen, guys. I’ve never actually done anything like this before and I’m not sure about the etiquette. Do we have to hear out every proposal to the bitter end, or can we interrupt if they’re just going on about something that doesn’t make sense?”

  “When the Grenouthian comes back, he can handle that part,” Lizant said. “He grew up in a network family so he was probably taking auditions before he could hop.”

  “But these aren’t exactly auditions,” the girl objected. “I mean, we’re supposed to be evaluating the ideas, not the presenter.”

  “Indivisible,” Wrylenth rumbled. The other students all waited to see if he would add anything to this pronouncement, but he apparently felt it was self-explanatory.

  “All the same, Samuel and I worked up some criteria—”

  “Committees For Humans?” Yvandi interrupted.

  “Well, we used the book to create the proposal guidelines, so it only makes sense to refer to it for judging the submissions,” Vivian said defensively. “The first step is to evaluate whether the proposal meets the guidelines. Otherwise it wouldn’t be fair to the students who followed the instructions.”

  “Bad criteria,” the Verlock grunted. “Content is emperor.”

  “You’re saying we should ignore our own guidelines?”

  “Why don’t we just let them start and see how it goes,” Jorb suggested. “Here comes the Grenouthian and what’s-her-name now.”

  “Marilla,” Samuel informed the Drazen for at least the third time in their short acquaintance. Jorb shrugged dismissively.

  The Horten girl sat down next to Samuel in the front row, while the bulky Grenouthian continued up the aisle and then took a full row to himself behind the Dollnick, Drazen and Sharf students.

  “We set a five-minute time limit and told everybody after the first twenty students they’ll have to try the next open audition,” the Grenouthian informed the others. “Complete waste of an opportunity. We could have picked up lunch money for the semester just by letting them bid on the spots.”

  “Did you make a note of the order so we’ll know they aren’t selling spots amongst themselves?” Vivian asked.

  “I did,” Marilla said from the other side of Samuel. “First up is a Frunge student with a smithy proposal.” Then she raised her voice and called out, “Razood,” at a volume that made the humans flinch.

  A Frunge student strolled confidently onto the stage in his oversized boots and then threw something at the floor directly between his own feet. There was a flash as the one-time holocube formed its projection, and it was as if Razood had suddenly come into possession of an old-fashioned blacksmith’s wagon, though it was constructed from lightweight alloys and other artificial materials rather than wood. He produced a large hammer from under his jacket, and sticking his other hand into the hologram where a sword blade was balanced on an anvil, he curled his fingers around the projection to grasp the tang. Then he swung the hammer through a tremendous overhead arc.

  “Clang,” Razood shouted at the top of his lungs as the hammer head flashed through the hologram and almost bashed into his kneecap. “Clang,” he shouted again, miming a second blow as he allowed the follow-through to bring his arm around like a windmill. “Clang.”

  “Thaaaannnnk you,” the Grenouthian called out in a bored voice. “Next.”

  “But you haven’t heard my proposal yet,” the student objected as the hologram faded out of existence. The hammer remained in his hand, lending a serious air to his protest.

  “Time is creds,” the bunny sang out in the same tone.

  “I just wanted to add a little sizzle,” the student muttered, and then launched into a prepared speech. “Who is the most important man in a frontier town?” he demanded, and then answered his own question. “Why, the blacksmith, of course. He shoes the horses, fixes the plowshares, even repairs the six-shooters. The most welcome sound to Humans scratching out an existence on the frontier is the clang of the blacksmith’s hammer on the anvil. It’s the sound of civilization.”

  “You stole that last line from our documentary about Humans killing each other over cattle and riding their horses to death,” the bunny accused the Frunge student.

  “I’m using it satirically,” Razood shot back. “I know galactic copyright law.”

  “You may know the law, but I think you’ve mistaken Grenouthian entertainment for reality,” Vivian said, trying her best to temper the blow. “The frontier we’re talking about visiting with Flower consists of settlements on open worlds managed by tunnel network s
pecies, plus various space stations and habitats. I’m afraid there’s no need for a smithy in those places.”

  “Everybody needs a smithy,” the Frunge protested, though he was unable to hide his surprise that his proposal had missed the mark so badly after he had done his best to bone up on the target audience. “Who else is going to forge blade weapons?”

  “Next,” the Grenouthian called again.

  “We have your contact info if the need for a smithy arises,” Samuel told him. “Maybe Eccentric will want to include a traveling Wild West show to reconnect humans born on alien worlds with our past.”

  “Our past with an alien blacksmith,” Vivian muttered as the disappointed student left the stage.

  A Drazen girl took his spot, and placing her hands on her abdomen, began to sing.

  “I’m in love,” Jorb whispered, devouring her with his eyes. He turned fiercely to the Grenouthian and hissed, “Don’t you open your mouth.”

  The girl’s song came to an end sooner than any of the enthralled audience would have liked, and she produced a tablet from her shoulder bag and began to read.

  “Only one in twenty Humans are truly tone deaf yet the majority still can’t sing on key. My hope is that by establishing a remedial choral school on Flower, we can do for Humanity what Astria’s Academy of Dance has done for graceless humanoids across the tunnel network and beyond.”

  “Give the Vergallians an easy way to spy on our homeworlds?” Marilla inquired acerbically.

  “Well, of course I’ll approach Drazen Intelligence to subsidize the choral instructors. It’s in the cost analysis, but we’re friends with the Humans anyway.”

  “How long of a course do you think would be required?” Lizant asked, intrigued by the Drazen’s idea.

  “I realize that we’re talking about a circuit ship so I’ve outlined a variety of programs for every time budget. We start with a simple breathing evaluation and tune-up that can be done in a single visit, and progress all the way to preparing for advanced choral exams, which takes many years, but is probably out of reach for most Human vocal registers in any case.”