LARP Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 14)

by E. M. Foner

  “This isn’t right. This isn’t right. This isn’t right.”

  “Who knew the Drazen was hiding such talent,” Marilla said. “I should introduce him to Mornich.”

  “Is he trying to tell us something?” Samuel asked.

  “This isn’t right. This isn’t right,” Jorb sang.

  “This song is a bummer,” Vivian said. “I’m going to try a higher level of the mood enhancer.”

  The three winged students came in for a graceful landing by the fountain, and they all made new requests, but no silver threads were forthcoming.

  “It’s not working,” Vivian said in frustration. “Hey, drop the singing, Jorb. We’ve got a serious problem.”

  “I can’t enhance either,” Marilla complained. “Maybe there was a limit.”

  “I can see it now that I look,” Samuel told them. “The fountain started with a fixed amount of manna and we’ve used it all up.”

  “That’s it? We can’t get more?”

  “Jeeves!” Vivian called. “Your LARP is broken.”

  “This isn’t right,” Jorb repeated, finally managing to speak in his regular voice rather than singing. “You were just going to try one enhancement each and stop.”

  “Like you didn’t make any additions while we were away,” Marilla said accusingly. “I’ll bet you’re the one who used up all the manna.”

  “No, I didn’t, because even this first one is too much. It says right here in the book of—”

  “We don’t care about your stupid book,” Vivian said. “If you don’t want your enhancement, give it back, and then we’ll be able to use the manna.”

  The Drazen stiffened in surprise at the girl’s speech, and then replied with a sad shrug, “I can’t give it back. I tried. Korf’s whole philosophy of combat is based on gaining fluency through training. These enhancements are just cheating.”

  “Don’t be a spoilsport,” the Horten girl said, glancing down at the backs of her hands. “If I were doing anything unethical, my color would be changing. See? Same as always.”

  “That was your first enhancement, Marilla,” Jorb said softly. “Don’t you remember?”

  “Remember what? You’re just trying to make us all feel bad because you didn’t grab the mood enhancer while you could.”

  “What enhancement did you add first?” Samuel asked the Horten. “It’s slipped my mind.”

  “Oh, I don’t remember. What difference does it make?”

  “This isn’t right,” the Drazen said again. “It’s not like you, not like any of you. That fountain is a drug.”

  “Jeeves wouldn’t drug us,” Samuel said confidently. “It’s just an educational experience, right?”

  “And what did you learn?”

  “Flying is the best!”

  “Time’s up,” Jeeves announced, and the rocky ground they were standing on disappeared. All four students suddenly found themselves floating motionless in their sensory deprivation pods and hastened to pop the lids open.

  “That was terrible,” Jorb told the Stryx, rising from the pod like a corpse sitting up in a coffin. “I’m never doing another LARP with you in charge.”

  “You don’t have to,” the Stryx replied. “The four of you completed the course today.”

  “Was he right, Jeeves? Did you drug us?” Samuel asked.

  “I did nothing of the sort. Some of the enhancements you chose necessarily affected your outlook, but what do you expect?”

  “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Jorb,” Vivian said. “It was so real and so good. But I somehow feel like I failed a test, and I’ll never try anything like it again.”

  “Same here,” Samuel affirmed.

  “I had a good time,” Marilla said, staring intently at the skin on the back of her hands, which began to turn blotchy and blister with the lie. “Praise Gortunda! I was afraid I lost my color forever.”

  Nineteen

  “Welcome back,” Joe greeted the extended Crick clan as they rolled their baggage up the ramp into the ice harvester. “We’re going to farm a few of you out to Paul and Aisha next door, and Dorothy and Kevin have a spare bedroom in their new cargo container, I mean, home, but there’re five empty rooms right here.”

  “Thank you, Joe,” Mary replied, looking around the living area of the ice-harvester which she hadn’t seen in almost eighteen years. “Who are these big boys?”

  “The one with his nose in your luggage is Alexander, Kevin’s Cayl hound, and you met the one with the begging bowl in his previous incarnation,” Kelly told her. “Put that bowl away, Beowulf. They’ll think we don’t feed you.”

  Shaun pulled the handle on his rollaway bag upright and offered Joe his hand. “Good to see you, in-law. Who’d have thought the kids would end up getting their hands roped? I always wondered why our Kevin wasn’t willing to stick around such a sweet place as New Kasil, but now it makes sense.”

  “I’m glad to hear the world turned out to your liking,” Joe said. “Still, it must be nice to see some human faces for a change.”

  “Oh, we’ve got plenty of those, thanks to Becky.” The Crick patriarch jerked a thumb over his shoulder at his daughter. “Over a hundred thousand at the last tithing count. I’m in charge of tithes,” he added, patting his wallet pocket and winking.

  “You’re in charge of keeping track of tithes,” Becky corrected him, stepping out from behind her parents. “That’s not the same thing.”

  “It’s wonderful to see you again, Becky,” Kelly said. “Kevin tells us that you’ve become quite the prophetess.”

  “I’m merely Nabay’s instrument,” she replied modestly. “The visions come unbidden. My oldest daughter also has the gift, which we discovered when she began bringing home perfect grades from school.”

  “I just study really hard,” the red-haired girl in question protested, drawing a series of snorts and guffaws from all of the Cricks present.

  “So where is my dashing son?” Mary asked.

  “I see a vision of him sweating in the dark,” Becky answered before anybody else could respond. “But whatever for?”

  “Dorothy and Kevin have been performing various alien rituals to prepare for their wedding,” Joe explained. “It started as a lark to please a couple of Dorothy’s co-workers, but when the word got out, all of our friends began sending suggestions, and the kids didn’t want to offend anybody. Spending a week before the wedding in a sweat lodge is a Verlock thing, though I don’t know if the kids got the idea from the local ambassador or the engineer who invented Dorothy’s heels.”

  “They’re spending a week in a sweat lodge?” Shaun demanded. “That’s daft.”

  “Just Kevin, and only a couple of hours,” Kelly hastened to explain. “Paul and Samuel, our younger son who you haven’t met, went to keep him company.”

  “And where’s my daughter-in-law?” Mary asked.

  “She’s taking a nap in either a Grenouthian warren or a Dollnick nest. I’ve forgotten the details, but they both involved sleeping.”

  “They sound like symbolic rituals to promote fertility,” Becky observed. “Couples on New Kasil often sleep in a hayloft on the night before the wedding.”

  “I just know that she needed the rest since she was up half the night gabbing with her friends. This afternoon we’re all heading over to the Empire Convention Center to put up decorations in the hall.”

  “Is there a theme?” asked one of Kevin’s other sisters who made the trip. “I’ve done some wedding planning back on New Kasil, but everybody always wants the same thing.”

  “What’s that?” Kelly asked.

  “Square dancing in a barn. And we only have one decent fiddler and one good caller within wagon distance. The only real difference from wedding to wedding is the menu, or to be honest, the dessert.”

  “My daughter takes after her father in her gift for exaggeration,” Mary told their hosts. “It’s true that we’ve learned from the Kasilians to follow a simple life, but part of that includes changing o
ur diet with the seasons. And of course, it’s the people who make the weddings, so every celebration is different.”

  Beowulf barked sharply and glared out the door of the ice harvester, but he didn’t go as far as Alexander, who ran off to investigate the new arrival.

  “I’ve always said that dogs are better than doorbells,” Shaun declared. “Maybe the kids are back.”

  “Beowulf wouldn’t bark for anybody in the family,” Joe said, squinting into the distance. “Looks like a Dollnick. Were you expecting any mediation clients, Kel?”

  “No,” the ambassador said, and went on to explain to her guests, “I’ve been working as a mediator during my sabbatical. I’ve already been able to help settle four interspecies disputes without anybody resorting to court. It’s surprising how many seemingly intractable problems can be cleared up if everybody just calms down and listens to each other.”

  “I’d appreciate any tips you can give me,” Becky said. “All of the humans on New Kasil bring their problems to me to see if I’ll give them a better deal than the high priest.”

  “Like venue shopping?” Joe asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “When one party in a dispute tries to find a sympathetic court before filing a lawsuit. It comes up a lot in the used spaceship business.”

  “I guess it’s similar,” the prophetess mused. “I don’t charge anything for advice so the humans on New Kasil figure it’s worth trying me first to see if I’ll offer a solution they can live with. If you go to the Kasilian High Priest, there’s a required contribution, and her word is law.”

  “May I come in?” a giant Dollnick inquired, halting at the top of the ramp in front of the growling dog.

  “Down, Beowulf,” Joe commanded. “Please share our space and water,” he offered a standard Dolly welcome. “How can we help you?”

  “I’m Bru, from the Empire Convention Center,” the Dollnick said, twitching nervously as if he didn’t know what to do with his four hands. “I’m here about your reservation.”

  “Did I forget to send the rest of the deposit?” Kelly asked, her eyes going wide. “No, wait. I remember asking Donna to do it and she’d never mess up a thing like that.”

  “Your reservation is in perfect order,” Bru assured her, and fishing a handkerchief out of his pocket, wiped a bead of perspiration from his chin. “There’s just a minor issue of force majeure,” he continued, bringing the hands on his lower set of arms together to illustrate the smallness of the problem.

  “Oh, you gave me a good scare. Is it about our getting in early to decorate this afternoon? We could wait until evening if it’s a problem.”

  “How about a week from this evening?” the Dollnick suggested.

  “No, that won’t work,” Kelly replied, frowning. “You see, the wedding is tomorrow, so decorating in a week wouldn’t…” Her voice trailed off, and the Dollnick began to whistle rapidly, almost overloading the ambassador’s diplomatic-grade implant.

  “You see, all of our contracts this cycle contain a force majeure clause stating that if the Horten revival is bringing more than ten thousand souls a day to Gortunda, they can extend their run. The Hortens have been staging their Union Station revival at the Empire Convention Center for over a hundred thousand years, so you can understand why we would bend over backwards for such a customer.”

  “Extend?” Joe asked as Kelly struggled to find words.

  “It’s a week-to-week situation that only came about because a Horten colony ship put in for emergency repairs. The delay meant five million bored colonists with nothing to do, and when heading for the other side of the galaxy with a dicey jump drive, a little insurance of the religious sort can suddenly look like a sound investment.”

  “So you’re saying that the hall we reserved for my daughter’s wedding…”

  “I’ve spoken to the Gortunda’s Guides and they were very understanding. If you want to work the wedding in as part of the revival—”

  “What about my reservation!” Kelly shouted, shaking her fist in front of the giant Dollnick’s chest, which was as high as she could reach. “I’ll sue!”

  “I’m afraid that the Force Majeure clause specifically prohibits such action,” Bru said apologetically. “I’m here to offer you a full refund and your choice of a future date for free or double your money back.”

  “I don’t want my money back, I want that hall!”

  “You’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” Shaun observed unhelpfully.

  “I don’t want any damned flies,” Kelly snapped, and grabbed one of the nattily dressed alien’s lower sleeves. “And I don’t care what the contract says. You give me my hall.”

  “Please calm down and listen to me,” the Dollnick pleaded, but Kelly spoke right over him.

  “No! You listen to me. My embassy is always making reservations at your convention center, and we’ve been staging the Sovereign Human Communities Conference there for, uh, years. I know you can make the space if you try.”

  “My humblest apologies,” the Dollnick repeated, and crossed all of his wrists together in front of his chest. “My hands are tied in this situation, and if our offer of another date with a full refund or double your money back isn’t acceptable, there’s nothing else I can do.”

  “If they won’t give us the hall, they won’t give us the hall,” Joe reasoned with his wife. “We still have twenty-four hours to get ready, and I’m sure we can rent five hundred matching chairs somewhere and—”

  “I’ll give you the chairs for free,” Bru interrupted.

  “I am NOT marrying my daughter off in this hold!” Kelly gritted out, sounding just like Dorothy. “You!” she glowered at the Dollnick. “Under the interspecies dispute process of Union Station, I demand mediation by a station ambassador.”

  “Excellent,” Bru replied, breaking into a wide smile. “I request you as the mediator.”

  The ambassador stared at the Dollnick in surprise. “Can you do that?”

  “Of course. As the challenged party, the right to choose a mediator is mine.”

  “But how can I mediate a dispute that I’m part of?”

  “You can’t,” Bru said, attempting to sound sympathetic, but failing miserably. “I believe that in these cases, a mediator with a conflict of interest is expected to accept whatever settlement is offered in good faith by the other party. You’d be surprised how often this situation comes up when so many of our events are scheduled by ambassadors.”

  “You tricked me!”

  “It’s just business,” the Dollnick said. “I’m truly sorry about the situation and I’m sure that you’ll work something out. Double your money back is nothing to laugh at, you know.”

  “Wait,” Kelly called as the convention center’s manager turned to go. “Libby. Can you talk to him for me? This is Dorothy’s wedding.”

  “I’m afraid that Bru really has very limited autonomy in this situation,” the station librarian informed her. “Jeeves is on his way to offer an alternative, but unless you want all of your daughter’s wedding guests to pledge their hearts to Gortunda, the Empire Convention Center isn’t an option for tomorrow.”

  “Thank you for coming in person,” Joe told the Dollnick, escorting him to the door. “That took guts.”

  “I really tried to line up an alternative space with my colleagues in the hospitality industry, but I assume you’d prefer not to stage the ceremony in a working casino with a requirement that the guests each buy two hundred creds of chips…”

  “No, you assumed correctly. We’ll work something out.”

  Kelly pulled out a chair from the table and slumped into it. “I’m sorry for making a scene, but I was sure we had everything under control. Dorothy is going to be so disappointed if we have to hold the wedding here.”

  “It will be lovely,” Mary told her. “We’ll put up crepe and you’ll inform the caterers about the change in plans. Kevin tells us that you stage events here all the time.”

 
“Never fear, Jeeves is here,” the young Stryx announced as he floated through the door. “Libby told me all about it and I have the solution to your problems.”

  “Are you serious?” Kelly demanded. “I’m not in the mood for one of your elaborate practical jokes.”

  “I can offer you the medieval castle in Libbyland,” Jeeves told her. “There was a conflicting reservation, but I made a deal with them and we can hold the great hall for eight hours.”

  “Are you positive, Jeeves? Can we get enough tables set up for the meal and then move them out for the dancing? I thought it only seated a few hundred.”

  “There are actually four great halls separated by pop-up walls. When they’re all down, the great hall comfortably seats twelve hundred average size humanoids for dinner, with plenty of room left for those who wish to dance. We’ll stage the ceremony in the original room, which has the folding benches that come out of the floor. I’ll arrange for the regular staff to work with your caterers so you’ll have plenty of hands available for any last-minute changes.”

  “Oh, that’s such a relief. Am I missing anything, Joe?”

  “We should probably ping all of our friends who already knew about the Empire Convention Center reservation so they don’t go to the wrong place.”

  “Libby knows everybody you invited and I’m sure she’ll make sure the lift tube takes them to the castle,” Jeeves said. “I have to go check with the Grenouthian crew I hired for the wedding since they’ve made their production plans based on a different space. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, Jeeves,” Kelly called after the departing Stryx. “I mean it.”

  “Is Metoo here yet?” Becky inquired. “Everybody on Kasil owes him a debt of gratitude. He’s come back to visit us a couple of times, and he helped create a new math test for high priests to replace the set of problems he solved.”

  “Metoo sent word through Jeeves that he would arrive in time for the ceremony,” Joe said. “I think he’s afraid that if he shows up early, Dorothy will try to make him part of the wedding party. But let’s get you settled in before the kids return. Who wants to stay here with us?”