by E. M. Foner
“Well, well, isn’t this cozy,” Donna’s elder daughter commented in an artificially cheerful voice. Paul jerked back his hand and hid it in his pocket, while Aisha placed the last pot in the drying rack and turned to greet the new arrival.
“Please excuse my appearance,” Aisha said, rapidly stripping off her pink rubber gloves. “I was just cleaning up after dinner, as you can see.”
“Paul is way too old for an InstaSitter and you’re a little too tall to be one of Dorothy’s playmates, so why don’t you just tell me what you’re doing here all alone with my boyfriend and then we’ll all know how to act,” Blythe replied in an angry rush, staring daggers at Paul the whole time.
“Boyfriend?” Aisha responded, looking at the pair in shock. “I didn’t know, I mean, not that I have any right to ask such questions. I think perhaps I should leave?”
“If you’re not going to answer, I’ll get it out of this one,” Blythe declared, poking Paul in the chest with a finger. “Would you care to explain how I find you making a move on a girl in the kitchen when your whole family is nowhere to be found?”
Aisha’s sharp inhalation at Blythe’s accusation brought Paul back to his senses and he felt his own temper begin to rise. The scene was out of character for Blythe, but on returning to the station she had rushed to see Paul, even before going home to her sister and parents. Finding his lab empty, she had come ahead to Mac’s Bones still hoping to surprise him with her early return. It wasn’t turning out to be the surprise she had planned for either of them.
“Your intelligence network must be breaking down if you didn’t know the ambassador is off on a special mission for the Stryx,” Paul answered sharply. “I thought pretty much every business-savvy ship owner in the galaxy was queued up at the tunnel entry, waiting for the go-ahead to plunder Kasil. And this is Aisha Kapoor, the new diplomatic intern for EarthCent. She’s living in Laurel’s old room.”
Blythe recovered immediately after her first burst of emotion was spent, and she kicked herself for losing her poise for the first time in months. Two-plus years of running BlyChas Enterprises, a business that now operated on dozens of Stryx stations with millions of customers for the InstaSitter service, had developed her interpersonal skills to a scary degree. Paul once witnessed Blythe working her magic on a trio of Fillinduck parents whose child had unexpectedly molted out of season with nobody but a panicked young InstaSitter for company. Within months, it became fashionable among the Fillinduck upper classes to intentionally arrange for InstaSitters during molting.
“I apologize for losing my temper.” Blythe turned back to Aisha with a friendly, if tightly controlled expression, and offered the girl a handshake. “I’m Blythe Doogal. You must know my mother Donna from the embassy. My only excuse is that I’ve been away from the station for an entire month, which is as long as I’ve gone without seeing Paul since we started dating three years ago.”
“I understand how you feel,” Aisha responded openly and shook Blythe’s hand, reserving an accusatory look for Paul. “I’ve heard your mother talk so much about you, and your sister Chastity has helped me get settled into station life. We eat lunch together at least once a week. But nobody mentioned to me that you and Paul were engaged,” she added, her breath suddenly short, as if she had tried reading one of Kelly’s weekly reports out loud.
“Everybody around here is a joker,” Blythe replied philosophically, taking a seat at the breakfast counter before Aisha’s last word sank in. “Uh, and we’re not engaged,” she added quickly, finding herself rather startled by the misunderstanding. “I’ll only be twenty on my next birthday, which is just twelve shopping days away in case somebody has forgotten. And I hope you’ll come to the party, Aisha.”
“You’ve been dating three years and you aren’t even engaged?” Aisha asked, surprise overcoming her embarrassment and natural reticence at getting involved in discussions about other people’s social norms. “Why, where I come from, you’d be married with two babies by now.”
For Paul to be at a loss for words was nothing new, but for Blythe to open and close her mouth without speaking was virtually unheard of. Beowulf sat up to pay closer attention to the conversation, his massive head swinging from one human to the next, as if he was watching a tennis match.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about station society,” Aisha apologized hastily for her unseemly question. “I’ve spent most of the past month just trying figure out which of our alien friends can’t stand the sight of each other, so I haven’t had time to learn about the local human customs. Donna did mention that Kelly was thirty-five when she married Joe, and that it took an expensive Stryx dating service to make the match, so I suppose twenty is very young here.”
“It’s not a question of age,” Blythe protested automatically. Running a galactic scale business in her teens had made her sensitive to any imputation of immaturity, one of her few weaknesses. “It’s just that, well, we’re only dating, you see?” she concluded awkwardly.
Aisha tried to see without success and Beowulf looked equally puzzled. Unlike the humans, the dog found that scratching himself vigorously always put his mind at ease, after which he relaxed onto the floor in a sprawl.
“So, how was your trip,” Paul broke the heavy silence in hopes of changing the subject. “Sign up any new franchisees?”
“Oh, it went fine,” Blythe responded distractedly, even looking a bit puzzled at the mention of business. She studied Aisha closely, as if assessing a potential employee for InstaSitter, but then she shook the cobwebs from her brain and spoke with her usual decisiveness. “So you must have arrived on the station just after I left for my trip. How do you find working for EarthCent?”
“It’s such an honor,” Aisha replied, with the enthusiasm of a new recruit. “There’s so much to learn, and the work is so important. I still can’t believe that Kelly and your mother were the only full-time employees at the embassy. I’m talking with the Stryx as if they were just another family in the neighborhood. It’s almost too much for me at times.”
“I can imagine,” Blythe responded sympathetically, having correctly categorized Aisha as country girl recruited through EarthCent’s obscure no-application-required process. “I hope you’ll tell me if there’s anything I can do to help. We’re all like a family here.”
“Thank you so much,” Aisha replied, feeling herself unwillingly won over by the force of Blythe’s personality. Paul shifted uncomfortably on his feet, and Blythe rose from the breakfast counter stool.
“Well, I was going to take Paul out to dinner, but I guess I’m a little late for that tonight,” Blythe said nonchalantly. “I should be getting home to see Chastity and my parents.”
“I guess I should be getting back to the lab,” Paul added quickly. “Thanks for dinner, Aisha. I’ll be back late.”
“It was so nice meeting you,” Aisha told Blythe, pointedly ignoring Paul. “I’ll be happy to attend your birthday celebration, and please tell me if I can bring anything.”
“I’m glad I met you as well,” Blythe responded, already planning to pump her mother and sister for details about the newcomer. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”
Seven
The delegation from Union Station waited nearly a week at Cathedral for the High Priest to return from a tour of regional monasteries. Kelly used the extra days on the ground to interview all of the local Kasilians willing to take time out from their labors, but none of them struck her as being repressed or dissatisfied with their form of government. To the contrary, Kasil appeared to be just the sort of agrarian paradise that many of the advanced species liked to fantasize about. Of course, those fantasies rarely included hauling well water by the bucket or shoveling dung by the cartload. Finally, the appointed day arrived, and they were told to expect a meeting with the High Priest after lunch.
“I’m going with Kevin and Becky to the candle-making place,” Dorothy announced as soon as they finished their communal lunch. K
elly glanced at Becky to make sure the girl was actually part of the plan, and received a smile and a nod. The smaller children were fascinated by the dipping process, and would watch in rapt attention as the candles slowly grew fatter before their eyes. Cutting-edge astronomy and candle-making, Kelly thought to herself. What a combination.
“Have a good time,” Kelly said to her daughter. “Just remember that wax is hot.”
“I know that,” Dorothy told her mother in exasperation. She pulled Kevin from the table just as the poor boy was reaching for another piece of the tasty purple fruit with the name that didn’t translate into anything pronounceable.
“Is Metoo going with you?” Kelly asked, suddenly realizing she hadn’t seen the little Stryx hovering around Dorothy lately.
“Don’t think so,” Dorothy answered with a shrug, which struck her mother as a bit heartless given the years of devotion the robot had shown her daughter. But Kevin also lavished attention on the girl, and he had the advantage of being human and not quite as infuriatingly infallible as the young Stryx.
“Now that I think about it, I don’t believe I’ve seen Metoo around at all the last couple days,” Joe commented. “But I know Jeeves keeps tabs on him so I guess he’s just looking around on his own.”
“Maybe the poor little thing is feeling displaced by Kevin and is sulking,” Mary suggested after the children left the room. Shaun coughed and looked embarrassed, causing his wife to grimace and address him sternly. “What did you do, Shaun Crick?”
“I didn’t do anything,” her husband protested. “I just asked the little fellow to keep his eyes open for opportunities to help the Kasilians.”
“Help them with their wealth disposal problem,” Mary said accusingly.
“Well that’s what we’re here for, darling, isn’t it?” Shaun responded. He paused and looked around the table at his wife, the McAllisters, and Dring. “While the four of you run around playing at being cultural detectives, I have to be thinking about our future, don’t I? I’ve kept my word not to accept any gifts until Kelly talks to this High Priest fellow after lunch, but there’s no harm in scouting about a bit, especially when we’ll be leaving tomorrow and the barbarians will come flooding in.”
“So now you’re the Prophet Nabay, that you can say what will happen tomorrow,” Mary rebuked her husband. “I have full confidence our Kelly here will convince the High Priest to put everything on hold until she can report back to the Stryx. And the children like it here, it’s a healthy place, so I’m in no hurry to be leaving.”
“Welcome, honored guests,” spoke an old Kasilian woman who had quietly entered the room in the company of Jeeves. “I have been assured by Stryx Jeeves that you will understand my words through implanted translation devices, and can generate the Kasilian tongue through similar technology. I am High Priest Yeafah.”
Kelly shot to her feet, followed instantly by Shaun and then the others, but the High Priest motioned with both of her hands that they should sit.
“Please, don’t make such a fuss for an old woman,” Yeafah continued. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting so long, though I can’t imagine it mattered to you, Ancient One.” She addressed this last missive to Dring with a glow in her eye.
“It has been many ages since I had the pleasure of speaking with a High Priest,” Dring replied in the old tongue, giving the special ambassador a few extra seconds to pull her thoughts together. It didn’t help.
“You’re a woman,” Kelly observed cleverly, and remained standing despite Yeafah’s hint that they should seat themselves. “Oh, and I’m Kelly McAllister, the Stryx ambassador.”
“I’m honored to meet you, Kelly McAllister. I didn’t know that the Stryx were employing ambassadors from humanoid species,” the High Priest replied politely. “I suspect that your translation devices misled you as to the nature of my office, but I assure you that I am both female and the High Priest.”
“Of course,” Kelly replied, taken off guard by the misalignment of her mental preparation with the actual facts. She had planned on saying something generous about the High Priest’s appearance, an iron-clad rule from the first contact handbook, but the Kasilian was wearing a drab brown toga which exposed one ancient breast, and her fur was patchy in spots. Then Kelly’s eyes caught a flash of crystal. “What a lovely necklace you’re wearing. Is that your badge of office?”
“Please, take it,” Yeafah replied, stripping off the necklace with an unexpected alacrity and stepping forward to press it into Kelly’s hands. “There, there, now. Don’t protest, you’re doing me a great favor. Just put it on and let’s see how it looks.”
Kelly stammered an objection and tried to hand the necklace back, but the High Priest must have studied some sort of martial arts form involving wrist manipulations in her youth, because before Kelly knew it, the thin chain was slipped over her head and she was wearing the piece. Shaun took advantage of the commotion to slip from the room, but not before he caught his wife’s eye and gave her a triumphant grin.
“Sit, all of you,” The High Priest continued. “I conferred with the local priests when I arrived this morning and they reported that you are brought here by multiple concerns for our well-being. Taking first things first, you are worried that our effort to divest ourselves of a meaningless accumulation of wealth will result in our world being overrun by the worst sorts of scoundrels.”
“That’s nowhere near as important as the survival of your species,” Kelly objected immediately. “Yes, we’re concerned that the gold rush may set off local fighting that could snowball into something bigger, and that your beautiful planet may be scarred in the process. But the real issue is the choice between life and death for you and your children.”
“Please, slow down,” Yeafah chided her. “By first things first, I meant to address your concerns in chronological order, not to rank them by importance. Of course our ultimate destination is more important than anything related to the disposal of material trinkets, but the final disassociation of the space through which Kasil travels is still years away.”
“I’ve seen no indication of a police force on your world,” Joe interjected, living up to his honorary role of military attaché. “Can you call on a militia if things get out of hand?”
“Ah, I see your point,” Yeafah replied, turning to Kelly’s husband. “No, we have lived in peace with one another since Prophet Nabay first calculated the path to transcendence. But the Sending to our Followers catalogued all of the objects that we wish to divest ourselves of, and we hoped our visitors could arrange the division of the goods beforehand. Is it your belief that there won’t be enough for everyone who responds?”
“If you can ask that question seriously, you really have lost touch with how everybody else in the galaxy thinks,” Kelly replied. “You are offering great wealth in return for simply showing up. Every valuable object that you give away will draw a hundred or a thousand new treasure seekers to your world. I have no doubt that the biggest wave will arrive after everything of value is gone, and they won’t want to accept that they made the trip for nothing.”
“Perhaps we have miscalculated the variables in this case,” the High Priest admitted thoughtfully. “I see an ironic analogy between our position and that of our domestic animals, who after untold generations of breeding for farm life are unsuited to spend even one night in the forest.”
“There are already hundreds of vessels from dozens of species waiting at Stryx tunnel entrances for us to reopen your exit to the public,” Jeeves reported. “And that’s just the early birds, the ship owners who were willing to take a gamble on a historical legend. Ambassador McAllister is undoubtedly correct that when the first ships return home with your wealth, the numbers of incoming vessels will swell by orders of magnitude.”
“That is alarming,” Yeafah acknowledged calmly. “Yet, while I’m confident in the good will of the Stryx and the Ancient One, our collective memory holds no recollection of the species of your chosen ambassador.�
� The High Priest nodded to Jeeves and Dring as she named them before addressing herself directly to Kelly. “Your outer appearance is close to that of a Vergallian, or perhaps a Drazen without the tentacle, but your aura is of a different order and there’s a duality about you. May I ask who you are and how you became involved in our situation?”
“Our Earth was opened by the Stryx just two generations ago,” Kelly explained. “One of our people on the station, this woman’s daughter, received your Sending. I’m actually the EarthCent ambassador to Union Station, but I’m currently here for the Stryx because I’m detached.”
“I see the Stryx made an excellent choice,” the High Priest said approvingly. “Tricky situations are often best handled by individuals with no emotional involvement. Is your detachment achieved through rigorous professional training, or is it a characteristic of your species?”
“That didn’t come out right,” Kelly spluttered, “I’m really a very caring person, it’s just my job I’m detached from. Oh, never mind what I mean. If we can get back to the problem at hand, this giveaway is going to turn your whole planet into a frontier town with battles in the streets. Is that really what you intended?”
“I believe her assessment, however unscientific, is a probabilistic near certainty,” Dring offered in support.
“This is very unfortunate,” Yeafah responded with a sigh. “While the continued presence of unwanted objects of desire can have no impact on the cosmological outcome of our path, we have long striven for consensus on ridding ourselves of such trappings. Now that we are finally all in agreement on divestiture, to remain burdened by unwanted wealth at the moment of transformation is unthinkable.”
