Party Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 10)

by E. M. Foner

“I guess I can see why you’re keeping this secret for now,” Daniel replied. “I can just imagine what the alien conspiracy nuts back on Earth would make of it. It must be an awful lot of extra work for you, Libby.”

  “It’s a librarian thing,” the Stryx replied modestly.

  “So if you haven’t guessed already, Daniel, I made a deal with the student newspapers to provide ad-free editions of the Galactic Free Press in return for the rights to republish some of their stories,” Chastity said. “You probably noticed the change because you’re so obsessed with your open worlds and we don’t always have a lot of other news from those places, but it’s really less than one percent of the content we publish.”

  “So when Mike comes home and tells me what he learned in school today, there are human children all over the tunnel network saying the same thing to their parents?”

  “I customize lesson plans for each student in my school,” Libby said. “If your son never shows an interest in math, I won’t try to cram calculus down his throat. The limited time that any teacher has with students is best spent on helping them unlock their potential, rather than meeting some arbitrary curriculum.”

  “I know you have a lot of spare capacity for work, but can you really personalize lesson plans for a billion students?” Daniel asked.

  “I don’t even try,” Libby admitted. “The data I get from the teacher bots isn’t nearly as useful as what I learn about the children in my school through working with them directly and watching them grow up on the station. But the bots have access to an archive of over a thousand different paths to learning that I’ve developed over the years for students like your son. Of course every child is unique, but there’s give-and-take in each interaction, and I believe most of the full-time teacher bot students are well served.”

  “Daniel? Can you come out here?” Donna’s voice came over the office speakers. “We seem to have an issue.”

  Daniel rose from behind his desk and moved rapidly into the outer office, with Chastity right behind him. The entrance to the embassy looked like it had grown several metal arms and legs, and then he realized that there was an alien in a hard-shelled encounter suit stuck in the door.

  “Hold up, stop struggling,” Daniel said to the alien, hoping that it had the appropriate translation technology. The metal-encased feet on all four legs, or perhaps they were walking fins since the face inside the transparent bubble on the front of the suit appeared quite fish-like, halted their ceaseless scrabbling at the floor. “I can see over your, uh, shoulder, that you’re wider in the corridor than you are in here, so moving forward isn’t an option.”

  “Ball invitation,” the alien requested curtly.

  “The ball isn’t really an EarthCent affair,” Donna explained. “Dring, the Maker, is the one who is throwing the party and paying all the bills.”

  “Ball invitation,” the alien demanded.

  “If you leave your name, I promise we’ll pass it along to Dring,” Daniel offered.

  “Ball invitation,” the alien repeated a third time, its voice taking on a threatening edge.

  Daniel ran out of patience with the rude creature and challenged it with, “Do you even know how to dance?”

  To his surprise, the alien started to whistle a waltz, and its center pair of legs began lightly stepping through a dance figure, while it supported itself with its outer legs. The creature even held an imaginary partner in its arms, and inclined its head as if executing a dip, though being wedged in the door frame robbed the maneuver of any grace.

  “How many do you need?” Donna asked in a resigned voice.

  “Two,” the alien responded immediately. “Myself and my brood partner.”

  “I guess we can make an exception this once,” Donna said, hoping that Dring wouldn’t count them against her allotment for humans. “To whom shall I send the invitations?”

  “Supreme Dictator Vissss, temporarily residing at the Zifgit Hotel. Now, could you help me extricate myself?”

  Daniel and Chastity stepped forward and pushed on the dictator’s hard-shelled encounter suit, and with all four of his front legs scrabbling together, he suddenly sprang free like a cork coming out of a bottle. The back of his suit smashed into the corridor display panel opposite the embassy entrance, but neither seemed to be damaged.

  Immediately after the jam was cleared, Lynx entered the embassy and asked, “What was that all about? I was stuck waiting in the corridor for five minutes. I tried knocking on the back of whatever that was, but it ignored me.”

  “Another ball aficionado,” Donna replied. “Libby. Where does the Supreme Dictator Vissss hail from?”

  “Vissss. It’s the name of the volume of space administered by the Coryth in the Magellanic Clouds. We’ve never had a Coryth visit the station before, so I’m sure that Dring will be pleased.”

  “But how could the dictator have known about the ball, much less have arrived here in time to demand an invitation?” Daniel asked.

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,” the station librarian replied.

  “Hey, I think we may have a different problem,” Lynx said. “While I was waiting in the corridor, all of the display panels flipped to showing an ad for Astria’s Academy of Dance.”

  “It’s not surprising that the Vergallians would be looking to cash in on the ball,” Donna said. “A week’s worth of lessons could make the difference between causing a traffic accident on the dance floor and circling with your dignity intact.”

  “The ad wasn’t for lessons. It read, ‘Do you have a ticket to the EarthCent ball? Highest prices paid, discretion guaranteed. Contact AAD on the Vergallian dance deck.’ I think the artwork of the couple dancing was ripped from the Grenouthian documentary.”

  “What ever happened to honor among aliens?” Donna complained.

  “l lifted the local publication moratorium when the ambassador’s shuttle launched,” Libby informed her. “It’s easy enough to prevent news about the ball from reaching Earth for the next few hours, and I’m sure that the crew of the Vergallian freighter will have the decency to keep it to themselves if they hear anything at their stopovers.”

  “Aliens are weird,” Lynx muttered. “Didn’t Dring give the Vergallians enough tickets?”

  “He gave them the most invitations of any non-human species for the sake of aesthetics,” Donna said. “A lot of the aliens aren’t going to be able to handle the dances, and if we get many more looking like the Supreme Dictator Vissss, it will take all the upper caste Vergallians Dring invited to balance them out. Besides, I’ve been to enough competitions to watch Vivian and Samuel dance, and you have to admit that the Vergallians have style.”

  “Not to mention a dance deck,” Daniel commented. “I never knew that, but I guess they’re all fanatics and it must take up a lot of space. Why did the name of that advertiser sound so familiar?”

  “Astria’s Academy of Dance,” Lynx repeated. “You’ve heard of it before because it’s a well-known front for Vergallian Intelligence.”

  “They don’t actually teach dancing?”

  “Of course they do. It’s the top dance academy franchise on the tunnel network, if not in this part of the galaxy. That’s what makes it effective as a front.”

  “But what are they going to do with invitations for somebody else?” Daniel asked. “Isn’t Gryph supplying station bots to confirm the identities of aliens at the door?”

  “I thought that printing up souvenir tickets would be a nice plus for the humans,” Donna admitted, taking an example out of her purse. “Dring insisted that the printer use real gold foil after I explained the idea. It wouldn’t be easy for an upper caste female to pass as human, they just look too perfect. But I’m sure there will be a huge market for tickets with the Vergallian commoners, and all they really need to do is get a bad makeover.”

  “I’ll bet that none of Kelly’s friends sell their tickets,” Daniel asserted.

  “We’re giving them awfully short notice, and some
may have other commitments or be unable to make the trip,” Donna pointed out. “I suppose there’s no reason to worry about it. More Vergallians isn’t going to hurt a ball.”

  “How about all of the aliens that Dring invited?” Lynx inquired. “Has Kelly even met any of them before?”

  “I know that Dring got the Stryx to send a science ship to the Gem homeworld to pick up Gwendolyn, and he was trying to locate the retired high priest of Kasil, but most of the guests are just important leaders from species that Dring has come across in his travels. I thought he was doing it all to honor Kelly, but he told me that when he made the list, he realized that he couldn’t invite some of the high-whatnots and not the others without putting them at risk of a war.”

  “Hey, everybody,” Shaina said, entering the embassy with her daughter in a baby sling. “Mind if I hang out here? Brinda warned me that our old friends from the Shuk were showing up at SBJ Fashions to beg for tickets, and I figure it’s just a matter of time before they try me at home.”

  “We just caved in and promised invitations to an alien dictator, and I imagine it won’t be long before everybody thinks of trying the embassy,” Daniel said. “Maybe we should all just go into hiding for the rest of the week.”

  “It’s better to face them down now so we don’t create the expectation that we’ll give in,” Donna said philosophically.

  “May I suggest blaming Dring for the ticket distribution?” Libby chimed in. “He won’t mind, and everybody outside of your immediate circle of friends is too awed by him to protest.”

  “Works for me,” Daniel said immediately. “I’ve got another holo-conference scheduled in—two minutes ago, so I have to get back to work. You and the little chipmunk are always welcome,” he added, addressing his wife and the baby. Then he retreated into his office and closed the door.

  “I liked him better before he began taking his job so seriously,” Shaina said. “I guess I’ll head into the office and tell Brinda the company line on invitations.”

  “Hold on a second,” Donna requested. “I’ve been watching your son on Aisha’s show and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen subtitles. It seems they only pop up when Mike is speaking to the Drazen boy.”

  “I’m always in the studio when they shoot so I haven’t seen them myself, but I’ll bet it’s the first time they’ve had a child speaking, or trying to speak, an alien language,” Shaina explained. “I guess the Grenouthian engineers are afraid that Mike’s Drazen isn’t good enough for all of the Drazen children watching, but they don’t want their translation technology dubbing over it in real time since he’s trying so hard.”

  “I never would have noticed,” the office manager replied. “I guess my implant doesn’t have any trouble making sense of what he’s saying, so I thought he was just speaking English.”

  “That’s probably because he gets the words right but his syntax is more English than Drazen,” Lynx speculated, having participated in her share of language training sessions in the EarthCent Intelligence camp. “That’s pretty cool that he’s speaking an alien language on the show, and the Drazens must take it as a compliment. How’s that little Stryx from Libby’s school that Mike and Fenna pal around with working out?”

  “Spinner?” Shaina paused and smiled. “He’s settling down, and he really brings a fresh perspective to the broadcast. Even though he knows so many facts, I’ll bet that if you took a vote, the audience would say that either the little Horten girl or the Verlock child is the smartest kid on the show. On the first day, they all thought that the little Stryx knew everything.”

  “Which language does Spinner speak?” Lynx followed up.

  “English. He can translate from any language into any other language if you ask him, but he’s only comfortable expressing himself in English. What do the Stryx think of Spinner’s performances, Libby?”

  “I think he’s the best bit of public relations we’ve had since Gryph and the other first generation Stryx saved the galaxy from the killer AI.”

  “What do the other Stryx think?” Donna inquired.

  “None of them admit to watching, aside from Jeeves, and you know him. He wants to stand in for Aisha if she ever takes a vacation.”

  Seventeen

  “That must be it,” Kelly said, pointing out of the shuttle’s window at a ship with Vergallian markings docked at the transportation hub. “It looks much bigger than the one we came out on.”

  “That donut section is a centrifuge for the living quarters,” Joe commented, looking out his own port from the seat behind his wife’s. “Hopefully they’ll spin it up once we’re underway.”

  “Why wouldn’t they?” Kelly asked.

  “Some of those freighter captains know how to squeeze a cred until it cries for help. Maybe they’ll tell us that there’s an extra charge if we want to feel gravity, or worse, they could run it fast if they’re adapted to a heavier world, and then charge us to lighten up. You never know with the Vergallians, they occupy so many planets.”

  “It’s a 0.91 G ring,” Samuel asserted, looking out at the ship. “The rating is painted on the hull.”

  “There you have it,” Kelly said. “It looks like we’re in for a pleasant trip home. I don’t know about you two, but I’m looking forward to a week of being out of touch with everybody. Sometimes I feel like all of this communications technology just doesn’t give us time to catch our breath.”

  “It’s a good thing they don’t spin the transportation hub, or we’d have to hire a porter to help with our luggage,” Joe commented.

  “I know I brought too much, but for what we’re paying, it didn’t make sense to let the personal baggage allowance go to waste,” Kelly replied defensively.

  “I didn’t mean your clothes and stuff, Kel. I was thinking about that giant cooler of fresh fruit that Glunk sent. Samuel and I had enough trouble just loading it into the shuttle, and we’ll never eat it all before it spoils.”

  “Vergallians like some of our fruit, especially citrus,” Samuel said.

  “Make sure you get something in trade,” his father told him. “The aliens will think less of both you and the fruit if you don’t put any value on it.”

  “I, for one, will be glad for the change from those dehydrated meals we brought for the trip out,” Kelly added. “I know that you’re going to say that they were gourmet compared to the field rations you used to live on.”

  “It’s just that I already ordered all of our supplies for the return trip from the chandler’s on the hub. Don’t tell me what the overweight charges were for this shuttle. Mass equals fuel to get off a planet, but taking the space elevator instead would have added another day to our trip.”

  “I negotiated with the ticket agent while you were loading the cooler,” Kelly said proudly. “I think he was new, because he let me bill the charges to EarthCent.”

  “Hope he doesn’t lose his job over it,” Joe replied.

  An hour later, the McAllisters left the chandler’s shop and began shuffling along the concourse of the transportation hub on their magnetic cleats. Joe and Samuel strained against the momentum of their loosely bundled baggage as they turned into the docking arm that led to the Vergallian freighter. Ahead of them, a body stretched and contorted, trying to make contact with one of the surfaces of the docking arm, but somehow the unfortunate individual had ended up floating in the very center of the tube.

  “Hang in there, Miss,” Joe called out. “We’ll be there in a second.”

  “If you throw something you’ll move in the opposite direction,” Samuel added helpfully.

  Her slow rotation finally brought the woman’s head around to face the McAllisters, albeit upside down, and Kelly recognized Hannah, the young woman from her conference session who had dreamed of being kidnapped by an alien.

  “Ambassador McAllister,” the girl cried when she recognized her rescuers. “I can’t believe it’s you. I took your advice to travel on a freighter and this was the cheapest ticket to Union Station I c
ould find.”

  “My wife didn’t mention magnet cleats?” Joe asked.

  “I can’t think of everything,” Kelly replied. She pushed her carry-on at Joe, who resignedly undid one of the bungee cords that were threaded through the handles of the other bags and food containers that he and Samuel were already shepherding, and added Kelly’s. In the meantime, the ambassador grabbed the upside-down woman’s shoulder, reached high above her own head to get a hand on Hannah’s knee, and spun her gently around.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” Hannah gushed, “I was starting to feel sick from being upside-down.”

  “It’s all the same in Zero G,” Samuel pointed out. “If you’ve never been before, it takes a while to get used to.”

  “So how are we going to work this, Joe?” Kelly asked, still holding onto the girl who wore a full-sized backpack.

  “She can ride on the cooler and the three of us can handle the mass together, at least until we get on the ship. How did you get this far, Miss?

  “One of the passengers from the space elevator offered to tow me along to the docking arm since his departure gate was past here. He gave me a push down the center but I sort of drifted to one side, if a tube can have a side. When I made contact I was facing the wrong way, and my pack hit one of the ribs and got stuck. Struggling made things worse, and somehow when the pack worked free, I was barely moving.”

  “If you went through all of that without throwing up, you’ll do fine in space,” Joe told her. “Hold on to the cord and don’t be surprised if I grab your foot when we get there. It’s easy to start things moving slowly in Zero G, but it’s rare that you have the same time to slow down. Your mass will just stretch that bungee cord out like a rubber band if we need to stop or make a hard turn.”

  “Did you send anything ahead, or is that pack all you brought?” Kelly inquired of the young woman, as the group resumed its shuffling journey towards the Vergallian freighter.

  “It’s everything I own,” Hannah said. “I don’t plan on returning to Earth, and I wouldn’t have enough money for a ticket anyway. I sold all of my apartment stuff, but some of it was only mine on credit, and I had to pay off the bank before the space elevator agency would sell me a ticket.”