by E. M. Foner
“Dring? The Maker?” Phillip asked, his voice rising.
“He lives in our junkyard. Well, it’s not a junkyard anymore, more like a second-hand alien spaceship business since Aisha bought a lot of abandoned ships at a Stryx auction. Our whole family lives there.”
“The Aisha from the children’s show?”
The office doors slid open and Blythe stuck her head in. “Busy? We walked right past mom without her even seeing us.”
“Come right in. Bring chairs.”
Blythe continued into the office first, and Clive appeared a few seconds later, carrying a spare chair from the reception area under each arm. “With all the meetings you have in here you could buy a few more chairs,” he suggested. “It’s not like you’re using the space for anything else.”
“But I don’t want my office to become the default meeting room,” Kelly said. “Libby promised to hold the space next door when the travel agency moves. Then we can finally expand and have a real conference room like all the other embassies. I just have to convince the president to raise our budget. Hey, where’s the food?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what mom and her understudy were busy doing when we came in. I pinged her right after we talked to you, and she’s probably showing Janice every place we’ve ever ordered from on the station.”
“Oh, that makes sense. I was just getting Phillip up to speed on who everybody is. Maybe I should give him a week to recover before I bring him home and introduce him around Mac’s Bones.”
“Don’t feel bad if you’re a bit overwhelmed,” Clive told Kelly’s replacement. “I married into this mess and I still can’t believe it at times.”
“So speaks the man who just found out he has a long-lost sister,” Blythe retorted.
“My mind went into overload back when the ambassador said that the Galactic Free Press belongs to your sister and that the two of you founded InstaSitter,” Phillip said. “I just don’t see the connection between babysitting, spying, and journalism.”
“Intelligence work and newspaper reporting are practically the same things, and Chastity is always poaching our agents. Babysitting pays the bills, plus it gets the aliens to take us seriously.”
“Come again?”
“I don’t want to steal Kelly’s thunder, but you’re going to find that when the other ambassadors contact you, there’s usually a business issue at the bottom of it.”
“And it’s the aliens we’re here to talk to you about,” Clive added. “Kelly said you were in Bork’s office when we pinged, so what did you make of him?”
“We barely had a chance to sit down before he grabbed an axe and ran off somewhere,” Phillip said. “He did make a great cup of coffee.”
“His friend, Glunk, was one of the first alien entrepreneurs to open a major business on Earth. Drazen Foods is the largest exporter of agricultural products on the planet today. If you need something shipped out from Earth that the Stryx won’t accept for the diplomatic bag, the president’s office can usually get the Drazens to throw it in with a cargo of hot sauce or coffee beans.”
“Didn’t I hear something about our people reverse-engineering a Drazen jump ship?”
“An early one, under contract to the Drazen museum for the history of space travel, though our people have to do the work at Glunk’s factory city because the museum’s board insists that the ship remains in Drazen custody.”
“So what can you tell me about Bork?” the bench ambassador asked.
“Very sympathetic to humanity, but as with the other species, business always comes first with the Drazens,” Clive said. “While he’s a fanatic for battle reenactments, he’s also convinced that there are ample opportunities to keep his people challenged for the foreseeable future within the bounds of the tunnel network, so he doesn’t favor pouring funds into colony ships. That puts him at odds with the majority of the Drazen diplomatic corps who see expanding their area of control as the easiest way to create economic activity.”
“I thought that the tunnel network rules prohibit conquest.”
“They do, but the galaxy is full of unoccupied or abandoned worlds that can be terraformed. It’s mainly a question of economic justification, especially when the Dollnicks can probably do a better job for less money.”
“I’ll bet they can,” Phillip proudly said of his former employers. “How are our official relations with the Dollnicks on the station?”
“Reasonable,” Kelly told him. “I don’t think that Crute ever took me seriously, in part because I’m female, but he hasn’t actively opposed our interests in years. They didn’t object to the Stryx arranging for us to lease Flower, and I know that the factory on Earth licensed to produce human-optimized floaters with Dollnick technology runs around the clock.”
“We’re hoping Phillip will be able to help us cultivate a closer relationship with Dollnick Intelligence,” Blythe said. “We’re trying to crack down on corrupt labor contractors, and if we could get the Dollys to play along rather than refusing shady deals outright, it would make it easier to build court cases.”
“You want the Dollnicks to negotiate with the bad guys?”
“We want to stamp out the practice before the crooked human agencies figure out a way around alien ethical standards through creating mazes of subcontractors or falsifying balloon payments. Our greatest fear is that our crooks hook up with pirates to send human laborers beyond the tunnel network where protections are spotty at best.”
“I can whistle a couple hundred words in Dollnick and I participated in labor negotiations when I ran a crew, so maybe I’ll have better luck with Crute than Ambassador McAllister,” Phillip said. “What kind of budget do we have for bribes?”
Kelly laughed outright at her replacement’s sense of humor, and then realized she was the only one doing so. “Are you serious?”
“Showing up empty-handed to ask a favor from a Dolly is like saying that you consider his status to be so low that you can boss him around,” Phillip explained. “I always carried a tin of Sheezle larvae on the job site, just to have a little something to offer the equipment operators to chew on if I had to ask them to do anything that wasn’t specifically included in the work order.”
“I can give you a budget for gifts related to EarthCent Intelligence activities,” Blythe said. “Just don’t put anybody on retainer without checking with us first. We consider that to be recruitment and we’d need to assign a handler, especially since you’ll only be on the station for the length of Kelly’s sabbatical.”
“If the Dollnicks are willing to play along and pass us recordings of meetings with dirty labor contractors as evidence, do we even have jurisdiction to do anything?”
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” Clive said. “As long as we can grab the bad actors and get them back to Earth, the court system there can deal with them. The president’s office always had authority to create a judiciary for dealing with interstellar crimes, but until we started building up EarthCent Intelligence, there wasn’t any enforcement mechanism. Now we’re pushing ahead with it, and the alien businesses on Earth are helping where they can because criminal activity is bad for their profits.”
Eleven
“How cool is this?” Jonah demanded and made a fist. The chunky memory-metal bracelet on his right wrist instantly transformed itself into a small, round shield. “And it’s been ensorcelled by a Verlock mage to attract missile weapons!”
“It would have to be,” Vivian told her twin brother. “I’ve been reading through the LARPing catalogs, and while bucklers are handy for dueling, you’d need incredibly fast reactions to deflect an arrow with one.”
“How many gold coins?” Samuel asked.
Jonah relaxed his fist and the buckler shrank back down into a bracelet. “Thirty thousand,” he said. “Did anybody check the virtual gold to creds exchange rate?”
“It’s just over a hundred to one, so you’re talking three hundred creds. I wonder why it’s so expensive?”
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“Must be the enchantment,” Vivian said. “It’s no good for us anyway because it’s not a noodle shield. You can’t mix noodle weapons and real weapons in LARPs or somebody could really get hurt.”
“Who uses real weapons in LARPs?” Jonah asked.
“Verlocks, when they play by themselves. Of course, they fight in slow motion, so maybe it doesn’t matter.”
“Hey, Humans,” Jorb said, joining the group. “Looks like I’m not the late one for a change.”
“Marilla is in the changing room trying on a blouse with scale armor,” Vivian informed him.
“Noodle?” the Drazen asked.
“Yes, and it’s actually pretty cheap.”
“I wouldn’t mind picking up a chainmail tentacle sheath if anybody sees one. I tried an old-style scale one, basically bits of noodle plate sewn onto a sleeve, but it wasn’t flexible enough.”
“There’s something funny about all of this stuff,” Samuel observed from where he was crouched sorting through a bargain bin of supposedly enchanted objects. “It reminds me of the collection of random household junk they keep at the training camp to teach trading basics to potential field agents.”
“Ask the woman running the booth,” Vivian suggested.
“She was here a minute ago,” Jonah said, looking around. “Oh, there she is, in front of the next booth over.”
A tall female humanoid dressed in a loose-fitting housecoat and wearing a beekeeper’s hat with black netting elbowed a Grenouthian out of the way and approached the teens. A long straw pierced the lid of the oversized takeout coffee she had just purchased from the pushcart stand which was operated by students in the intramural LARPing league to raise funds for studio time.
“Excuse me,” Samuel asked politely. “I was wondering if you could tell me what these objects do?” He held up the last item he had examined, a plastic ladle.
The vendor turned to the ambassador’s son and seemed to freeze for a moment. Then she reached up and touched the heavy veil obscuring her features as if to make sure it was still in place before answering, “You serve soup with that one.”
“Yes, I know that, but the sign says it’s enchanted.”
“Anybody who eats the soup will fall into a deep sleep.”
“Really? How about this,” he asked, holding up what appeared to be a box of tissue.
“That shouldn’t be in there,” the woman said, snatching it away from the teen. As the vendor extended her arm, Vivian thought she caught a glimpse of feathers beneath the cuff of the housecoat’s sleeve.
“And this pot lid?” Samuel inquired, holding up the cheap aluminum item by the little round handle.
“A magical shield. It reflects any curse back on the caster at twice the potency.”
“Then why is it in the bargain bin?” Vivian demanded.
“Because my brief time on the LARP fair circuit has taught me that you silly players care more about appearances than results,” the vendor replied bitterly. “If I had known, I never would have wasted my time and talents enchanting this garbage.”
“You’re a mage? I thought the Verlocks were the only ones who can perform magic.”
“Ha!” the woman barked, and then shocked her audience by blinking out of existence and reappearing on the other side of the table. “Now are you going to buy something or shall I turn you all into newts?” As she raised both of her hands to shoulder height and began to perform some intricate casting, her sleeves fell back to reveal fully feathered arms and a dark black bracelet on her wrist.
“Baa?” Samuel asked, attempting to make out her features by squinting through the heavy netting suspended from the brim of her hat. “Is that you?”
“Keep it down,” the Teragram mage hissed, dropping her arms and her voice simultaneously. “None of these superstitious twits will buy my stuff if they find out what I am.”
“I don’t get it. Jeeves still complains about the size of the bribe Libby made him pay you to vacate our couch after my mom invited you to stay. We thought you left for some primitive planet to buy your way into a pantheon.”
“I was betrayed,” Baa said mournfully, her hands involuntarily clenching into fists as she spoke. She motioned for the young people to approach closer and then she touched her bracelet. The background sound from all of the visitors and vendors at the LARP fair faded away as they stepped into the acoustic bubble that formed, and then the Teragram mage triggered some kind of recording to play back.
“It’s a sure thing,” a honeyed male voice said persuasively. “With the creds you extorted from that Stryx youngster, I can finally perfect my inter-dimensional displacer and we’ll be the most powerful techno-mages in history.”
“You got conned?” Jorb asked.
“Watch your mouth, boy, or I’ll turn your tentacle into a trunk.” The Drazen covered his nose with his hand and tucked his tentacle down the back of his jacket.
“Was the mage your boyfriend?” Vivian asked.
“If you could only see him when he fans his feathers…” Baa said in a dreamy voice, which trailed off as her whole body shivered from the sense memory.
“Aren’t you worried about Jeeves finding out that you’re back on the station?” Samuel asked.
“That child?” Baa sniffed. “We’ve already met and come to an amicable arrangement to share the galaxy between us. I’m just here to sell off my stock so I can be finished with this miserable retail existence.”
“And this stuff really works?”
“Guaranteed. Go ahead, pick something out for yourself. I’ve been here for hours and nobody is buying from the bargain bin anyway.”
“Does the little backpack on the table do anything?” Vivian asked, pointing at a small leather bag featuring straps studded with metal rivets.
“I’m only giving away the things in the bin,” Baa told her. “I paid forty creds for that pack before enchanting it.”
“I have virtual gold, money too,” Vivian said. “What does it do other than holding stuff.”
“Nothing,” the mage said. “I’ll let you have it for two hundred creds.”
“What? You just said you paid forty!”
“And in any LARP on the tunnel network that pack will hold fifty different items with no limit on the quantity of each item.”
“She means it’s a bag of holding,” Jonah said. “They’re pretty valuable.”
“What do you mean about no limit on quantity?” Vivian asked.
“Exactly what I said. The pack holds fifty unique items in any quantity, so whether you put in one spear or a thousand, it’s all the same.” Baa picked up the small black pack by one of its straps and began swinging it slowly back and forth like a pendulum, perhaps attempting to hypnotize the girl. “Did I mention that it preserves all of your possessions if you die? You want this.”
“Buy it if you like it, Viv,” her twin advised. “I can loan you the money if you’re short. Tinka just paid me for the time I spent beta-testing.”
“I have the money, but it feels like cheating,” the girl said. “I mean, two hundred creds is twenty thousand in virtual gold. We’ve done two of the university LARPs and we haven’t earned a thousand between us.”
“Gold is much easier to make in normal role-playing games where there are plenty of monsters to kill,” Jonah told her. “You’ll probably be the only one at your university LARPs with a bag of holding.”
“One-eighty,” Baa offered.
“Go ahead, Vivian,” Samuel said. “You can carry all of our stuff for us.”
“What about the weight?” the girl asked suspiciously. “Will I be able to lift it with a thousand spears inside?”
“Make it two hundred and I’ll throw in a ninety percent weight reduction,” Baa replied, and stopped swinging the pack. “Just give me a minute.” The mage put both of her hands on the leather backpack and began mumbling under her breath. The runes inscribed in her bracelet began to glow and the lights in the exhibition hall briefly dimmed. “There,
” she said, tossing the pack to Vivian.
“Did you just tap into the station’s power grid to enchant my pack?” the girl asked.
“Maybe. Where’s my two hundred creds?”
“In my purse,” Vivian said. She glanced inside the pack to make sure that Baa wasn’t sticking her with a dead body or somebody’s recycling and then slipped into the shoulder straps, so it hung in the middle of her back. Then she unsnapped the flap on her SBJ Fashions purse and fished out her programmable cred from its special pocket. “Here.”
“I don’t have a register,” the mage informed her. “You’ll have to get cash somewhere.”
“Any suggestions?” Samuel asked.
“The coffee cart is charging one percent to—oh, what is it now?” Baa demanded in irritation as Jeeves appeared with an audible pop.
“It seems that somebody borrowed a cup of gigawatts from the station grid and I instantly thought of you. Gryph sent me to warn you not to do it again.”
“My booth rental included power,” she shot back.
“Read the fine print,” Jeeves retorted, and projected a dense block of holographic text. “Power draw not to exceed three billion joules/second for longer than one second. Surcharges may apply.”
“You know I’m broke,” Baa said sullenly. “Besides, it was for the Human. You Stryx like them.”
“Maybe we like them because they don’t place reckless demands on our infrastructure. Gryph will let it go this time, but if you try it again without notifying him, you won’t enjoy the results.”
“Hey, Marilla,” Samuel said, intentionally stepping into the path of the staring match between the Stryx and the Teragram mage as he greeted the girl. “That armor looks great on you.”
“I think it’s too restrictive,” the girl complained. “The elbows are all right, but when I try to rotate my shoulders, the scales kind of bunch up.” She demonstrated the issue by wind-milling both of her arms, forcing Jorb to jump back to avoid getting hit. “But it was really a bargain, so I bought it, and I’m going to cut off some of the shoulder scales.”
