Carnival On Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 5)

by E. M. Foner

  “I don’t have any strong opinions on the subject,” Thomas contributed.

  “Maybe we didn’t make it past the spaceport on either planet, but I’d still call it a successful mission,” Woojin commented. “The best fights are the ones that never happen. And I always sleep well in Zero-G.”

  Clive agreed, and the journey back to Union Station took two weeks longer than the outbound trip to the human colonies, including the time spent on their surfaces. With the help of Jeeves and the Effterii, the crew agreed on an itinerary that let them stop at a number of resort worlds and stations to break up the trip. None of the casinos allowed Jeeves to gamble.

  Thirteen

  The parade went about as badly as Kelly would have expected, starting with the Drazen float, the superstructure of which was constructed entirely from replica battle axes. On the bright side, none of the axe heads were sharp enough to cut through the string tied around a box of cupcakes, as Dorothy soon discovered. And the float was narrow, fitting easily through the corridors of the Little Apple, while leaving ample room for spectators to gather on both sides.

  The first time she heard somebody yell, “If you need help from EarthCent, just axe the ambassador,” Kelly thought it was kind of cute. By the third time, she was ready to hit somebody with one of the dull axes. Then the crowd started in with the chant, “Our ambassador gives one hundred and seven percent!”

  Thanks to kids running alongside the float and hanging off the axe handles, it swayed back and forth, like a small boat in harbor swells. Kelly wasn’t as sure on her feet as she had been a few years back, so she was stuck sitting on a throne constructed from the skulls of enemies whom the Drazens had defeated in their early history. She both hoped and assumed that the bones were all replicas.

  Dorothy and Mist were both dressed as princesses, according to their own ideas of what the royalty wear. In Dorothy’s case, it was a white tutu her grandmother had sent for her last birthday present, along with most of Kelly’s costume jewelry and a red headband. Mist had laboriously constructed a full-length dress out of candy bar wrappers, using a princess from one of Dorothy’s fairly tale books as a model. She smelled fantastic.

  The young Gem wore an earpiece that looked like an over-sized hearing aid, but which in fact was a language training device that Dring had hunted up for her. Rather than translating directly from English to Gem, it kept track of Mist’s growing vocabulary and offered hints on request.

  The rest of the parade consisted of Joe walking along in front of the float, guiding it with a leash as if it were a large, recalcitrant dog. The float’s length made taking corners tricky, but the crowds were generally cooperative about moving the tables and chairs of the cafes out of the way. Everybody except for the ambassador was in a great mood, thanks to the free drinks and finger food available from the restaurants and bars, which were celebrating a cycle without rent.

  The parade ended at Pub Haggis, where Ian stood out front in a traditional tartan kilt. His wife, standing beside him in a similar outfit, began blasting “Scotland the Brave” on her bagpipes as Joe brought the float to a halt. The crowd dispersed rapidly, some of the women and children fleeing with their fingers stuck in their ears.

  “Thank you, Torra!” Ian yelled at his wife after two minutes, but she just started playing faster. Kelly worried that Dorothy’s hearing would be damaged, but the two girls had sat down on the front of the float, grinning widely with their hands pressed over their ears. By the time Joe was ready to help them all down, the song had come to an end.

  “That was very, uh, effective,” Kelly complimented Mrs. Ainsley loudly, having lost all sense of volume.

  “What?” Torra said, then indicated the ambassador should wait for a minute before repeating herself. The piper removed a flesh-colored lump of plastic from each of her ears, and Kelly saw that they were connected by a thin wire that ran to each of the pipes in turn. “Dollnick active noise cancellation earplugs,” Ian’s wife explained in a normal tone of voice. “The Dollys have a similar instrument that they play in large groups, and without these babies, they’d all be deaf.”

  “It’s a beautiful song,” Joe said, “I haven’t heard it played since I fought with a Scottish brigade on some Vergallian world or another. Bit loud in a closed space, though.”

  “That’s why I keep them in the pub,” Torra replied proudly. “Twenty years without a broken table or chair. The pipes can stop a bar brawl before it gets started.”

  “I thought we owed an appropriate welcome to the woman who made caber tossing the most voted for Carnival event in history,” Ian said happily. “One hundred and twelve percent! When those Stryx set out to cheat for you, they do it right.”

  “I had nothing to do with that,” Kelly protested, drawing an exaggerated wink from both Ainsleys. “It was all my daughter and her friend, Metoo.”

  “Then where’s little Metoo so we can thank him?” Ian asked.

  “Gryph told on him to Farth, and now he’s grounded!” Dorothy reported sadly. “I wanted him to ride on the float with us, but he said it’s not the same as being able to float himself. He rolled over to Dring’s this morning and he said he’s going to stay there until he can fly again. Two whole days!”

  “Mommy needs to meet with the Carnival Committee for a little while,” Kelly said to Dorothy and Mist. “Do you girls want to play here and then have a Scottish lunch, or do you want Daddy to take you home now?”

  “What’s a Scottish lunch?” Mist asked, always intrigued by the concept of new food.

  “Haggis,” the Ainsleys said in chorus, with Torra pointing at their sign for emphasis.

  “Do you really get a lot of demand for haggis?” Joe asked.

  “It usually builds as the night goes on,” Ian replied, miming a man pouring back a pint of ale. “It’s not authentic haggis in any case because the local vat growers won’t produce sheep innards. More like a mystery meat pudding cooked in a bag, but it was that or change the pub’s name on everything.”

  “It’s a wee bit salty,” Torra added helpfully.

  “Happy days,” Peter Hadad called out, as he approached with Shaina. Brinda walked behind them with Stanley, the two of them sunk in discussion. “Sorry we missed the parade, Ambassador, but we wanted to make sure that any late entrants for the contests got a chance to apply this morning.”

  “You’re forgiven,” Kelly replied. “I gave Aisha a pass too, in return for babysitting. She should be showing up with Samuel at any minute.”

  “We may as well go in and have a drink while we’re waiting,” Ian suggested. “As long as we agree on the lists today, we can confirm availability with our contestants and submit them by the deadline tomorrow.”

  Everybody followed the pub owner into the bar, where Ian took his accustomed position behind the tap and began pulling pints.

  “How’s the complaints department doing, Mrs. Ambassador?” Shaina inquired.

  “I asked Gryph to batch them all and let me know when the count passes ten,” Kelly replied. “I don’t really get the point of the whole exercise, but I certainly didn’t want aliens waking me up in the middle of the night to complain about other aliens, which I’m guessing is the way it will go.”

  “We’ve been studying up on Carnival traditions, and it turns out that all of the species on the station take these first two days off. It’s the closest thing to a universal holiday on the tunnel network, though it’s only celebrated on one station at a time,” Brinda said. “According to Libby, way back in the beginning when there were fewer species involved, they used to hold the competitions right after the election. It seems the two-day festival break evolved from the Verlocks winning so often and holding slow-motion parades that just dragged on forever.”

  “Ma!” cried a little voice, as Aisha entered with the toddling baby, who she was helping to keep upright by holding both of his hands. Kelly brightened noticeably when Aisha let go and he made a beeline for his mother.

  “Alright, now that
everybody’s here we can get this show on the road,” Ian declared. Although Peter was officially the committee chair and his daughters had effectively taken over the competition preparations, being behind the bar evoked the pub owner’s natural sense of being in charge. “Did we get any last minute candidates?”

  “Surprisingly not,” Shaina replied, though she managed to direct her answer to the group as a whole. “You guys saw the main batch of aspiring champions that first weekend. We didn’t get half of that number in the open auditions that followed. I think it’s because none of the humans on the station knew that Carnival existed a month ago, much less that it was coming up right around the corner.”

  “But we can at least show that we’re good sports and not forfeit any matches,” Aisha said. “That’s the important thing, after all.”

  “Well, the only permanent event that didn’t draw any interest was four-dimensional art. I asked Libby whether any of the human pieces submitted for three-dimensional art would qualify, but she said they wouldn’t meet the temporal scoring criteria,” Shaina replied.

  “That’s right, I almost forgot,” Kelly exclaimed. “Dring asked me if our four-dimensional slot was available. As an unaffiliated alien and the only one of his kind on the station, he has to find a species with an opening to let him compete.”

  “Done,” Brinda said, making an entry on her note tab. “But we’re still left with the five elective events chosen through the voting, and the only one we currently have filled is caber toss.”

  “I still think we should have gone for bagpipes,” Ian’s wife said. “I would have had fun piping against those Dollys.”

  “Are you any good at ballroom dancing?” Brinda asked. “That was the Vergallian win. The Chert bid for a hide-and-seek was approved, along with the Harrian sport of reverse osmosis diffusion, but you have to be liquid or gaseous to play that one. Was that all five?”

  “One more,” her father said.

  “Funny, I can’t find it here,” Brinda said, flipping through screens on her tab. “Libby? The official results for the elective events are only showing caber toss, ballroom, hide-and-seek and diffusion. What’s the fifth?”

  “Hello, Brinda,” Libby replied instantly. “I’m sorry to report that the fifth elective selected didn’t make it past our authenticity check, so it was dropped. We don’t go to the next one on the list in these cases.”

  “What was it?” Kelly asked.

  “A rather transparent Grenouthian attempt to create a sport that could only be played by species with pouches,” Libby replied. “It appeared nowhere in my records, and the ambassador failed to respond to my request for documentation of its historical relevance to their culture.”

  “So we only need to find a couple for ballroom dancing and a hide-and-seek champion,” Brinda concluded.

  “I turned away a few ballroom dancers the first weekend because the dance competition from the permanent events is for individuals,” Aisha said. “I’ll check my notes and try pinging them.”

  “So that leaves hide-and-seek,” Brinda continued. “Where are we going to find a hide-and-seek champion on short notice?”

  Everybody turned and looked at the two girls playing with the Ainsley’s mixed-breed terrier.

  “Dorothy?” Joe asked. “Do you want to play hide-and-seek?”

  “Start counting,” she ordered, and before anybody could stop her, Dorothy turned and fled out the door, with Mist and the dog at her heels.

  “Good move, Joe,” Kelly commented dryly. “Now all you have to do is find her before the competition.”

  “It’s times like these I really miss Beowulf,” Joe said, rising to his feet and polishing off his beer. “How many days do I have?” he asked Brinda.

  “Hide-and-seek is the first event scheduled. Tuesday afternoon,” the younger Hadad replied. “Is she really that good at hiding?”

  “Clive is talking about making her an adjunct instructor in concealment for our training camp,” Joe replied ruefully.

  “I’ll come with you,” Torra offered. “They won’t shake Bonnie Prince Charlie, and he’d sell his claim to the throne for a handful of dog treats. We’ll have her back in time for lunch.”

  Kelly and the official committee members relaxed and listened as the Hadad girls ran through the contestant list for the events, pinging the leading candidate and an alternate for each slot as they progressed. Other than the caber thrower, the bartering champ and the last minute entry for hide-and-seek, nobody present was familiar with the names of the other human contestants.

  The only category they couldn’t settle right away was best costume, since the people who showed up at Mac’s Bones for the trials had only brought examples, not their final presentation. After the costumers got a chance to see each other’s work, they had amicably settled on three of their number to create a full rig for a final run-off. Aisha contacted all three and invited them to Pub Haggis.

  By the time Ian had lunch ready, Joe and Torra had corralled the girls and the dog and herded them back to the pub. Dorothy was pointedly ignoring Bonnie Prince Charlie, her punishment for betrayal. The terrier looked suitably apologetic.

  “Is this Scottish food?” Mist asked, eyeing the lox and bagels with cream cheese that the owner of Pub Haggis had laid out on the main table.

  “Salmon is very Scottish,” Ian said defensively. “It’s just a bit early in the day for haggis, you know, and you don’t get to be president of the Little Apple without patronizing the local bakeries. Try the herring with sour cream.”

  “The herring’s been pickled, hasn’t it?” Joe asked.

  “With onions, makes it sweeter,” Ian replied. “It’s not exactly a Scottish recipe, but I’m sure you know the saying, ‘The only miserable herring fisherman is him with a full boat, for he cannae fill it.’”

  “I’ve seen these before,” Shaina said accusingly, picking up a pastry and looking at it from different angles. “It’s rugelach, right? And those look like knishes.”

  “Alright, alright. We run a catering business on the side and we did a Bris yesterday, Levi and Sons, the jewelers. Now it’s Levi and Sons and Grandson. There’s kugel warming up in the oven, if you were waiting.”

  “I’m pinging Donna to invite her,” Stanley said. “She was afraid it was going to be all sheep’s pluck and intestines, but this stuff is soul food for her.”

  “It’s so chewy,” Mist said, having finally softened her first bite of bagel enough to swallow, and managing the feat without losing any teeth. “Can I keep mine to bring home for my sisters to try?”

  “You can take all the leftover baked goods,” Torra told her kindly. “This stuff just gets stale if you don’t eat it within a day or two. But if you ever need a food to carry you through a guerilla war against the British, you can’t beat oatmeal.”

  “I used to carry matzoh in my field pack for emergencies,” Joe commented. “It’s the closest I could come to hardtack. Plus, if you keep it dry, enough layers will stop an arrow, just like ceramic armor.”

  Kelly recognized that Joe was engaging in the mercenary game of made-up food stories one-upmanship, and she was about to reel him in, when she received a ping from Gryph.

  “Your complaint count is up to ten, Ambassador,” the Stryx told her.

  Kelly hesitated for a moment. She didn’t want to be a rude guest, but it didn’t appear that anybody needed her to keep up the conversation, so she said, “Go ahead and play the first one.” Then she reached for the herring and sour cream.

  “This is the Verlock Ambassador. I am lodging a formal complaint against the humans for contributing to the delinquency of a Stryx minor and influencing said minor to alter the pre-arranged results of a station-wide election to create an outcome advantageous to humans. The Verlock Rigging Guild spent months preparing for this election and invested sums totaling over three hundred thousand Stryx creds, not to mention calling in innumerable markers from other species. We request that the Stryx take responsibility to mak
e right our losses, including the cycle of free rent for our citizens, which was unjustly awarded to the humans. Thank you for your consideration.”

  “Are they all like this?” Kelly subvoced, almost choking as she was attempting to swallow a crumbly rugelach at the same time.

  “Most of them are longer and have to do with the elective events,” Gryph said. “Remember, the other species know that you have to listen to them, it’s just their way of getting something back.”

  “Do you ever agree to paying damages?” Kelly subvoced.

  “It would set a bad precedent,” Gryph replied. “I’ll play the next one for you.”

  “This is the Chert Ambassador. I am lodging a formal complaint against the Stryx authenticity commission in protest of their rule change for our traditional hide-and-seek competition. Hide-and-seek has been played by the Chert as a competitive sport for hundreds of thousands of years, including a long stretch on Union Station. While the introduction of invisibility technology to the game is relatively recent, it certainly predates the birth of all extent Chert champions. By stripping our beloved game of invisibility technology, you’re putting us at a disadvantage versus those species who are used to hiding by crouching behind things or crawling into closed spaces. We hope you will reconsider this action, especially as this is our first Union Station Carnival and we doubt we can be competitive at anything else.”

  “That’s kind of sad,” Kelly subvoced. “I can only imagine how embarrassed the Chert will be if my ten-year-old daughter beats them at their own pastime.”

  “Maybe this will cheer you up,” Gryph replied. “It’s a message that Jeeves added to the complaint queue with a time delay before he left on the Effterii.”

  “So this is Jeeves, and I want to lodge an official complaint on behalf of the third generation Stryx that we don’t get to compete in Carnival. I, for one, have a fine singing voice, and I know several younger Stryx who are accomplished jugglers and knife throwers. And since you’re receiving this complaint, Mrs. Carnival Queen, you must have seen young Metoo in costume. I’m predicting that Dorothy will persuade him to fix the election as a favor to you, but I can’t settle on whether he’ll be wearing a lampshade, a sheet or a brown paper bag. Perhaps that counterfeit embroidery from your living room.”