Last Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 16)

by E. M. Foner

“You didn’t ask for a calendar? Mizpah will want to see a record of our dates, and you’ll need it to make sure we aren’t going out too often. The calendar handles all of the calculations.”

  “Calculations?”

  “You don’t have to repeat everything I say. Anyway, it’s better this way because the calendars the matchmakers sell in their offices are the same as the ones in the shops, but the matchmaker charges a markup.”

  “As long as I don’t need to do math,” Dorothy replied philosophically. “Are we going to have to bring it on dates with us?”

  “Of course, and as the chaperones, you start and stop the built-in timer.”

  “So it’s not made of stone,” Kevin concluded. “That’s a relief.”

  “I don’t want to sound pushy, but when can we see each other?”

  “We’re seeing each other right now,” Dorothy said.

  “Not us,” Flazint said in frustration, pointing back and forth between herself and the ambassador’s daughter. “Me and Tzachan.”

  “Oh. Well, you just saw each other now.”

  “That didn’t count. I mean a date!”

  “I was kidding. We need to buy a calendar first, right?”

  “You need to have the calendar in time to bring it along, but we can arrange the date now. I’m free whenever.”

  “How about Tzachan?”

  “He’s free whenever too.”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “We don’t care. Pick something you and Kevin will like.”

  “How about a restaurant?”

  “Except a restaurant. No eating on first dates.”

  “We could go to an immersive,” Kevin suggested.

  “No sitting in the dark,” Flazint told them.

  “I guess we could do a LARP,” Dorothy ventured.

  “No holograms.”

  “How about you choose the place and we’ll choose the time?”

  “Bowling?” the Frunge girl asked hopefully.

  “Bowling it is,” Dorothy agreed. “I know my mom will be home to babysit Friday night, so you can take me shopping for the calendar before then, and it’s a double date.”

  Fourteen

  “—and if you sign up today to participate on one of the new planning committees, you’ll receive a complimentary year of the ad-free version of the Galactic Free Press. Thank you.”

  Thunderous applause followed the EarthCent ambassador as she stepped away from the rostrum and returned to her seat on the stage. Kelly could no longer remember which parts of the speech were ghostwritten by her talented Vergallian co-op student and which were her own, but she made a mental note to have Donna contact the Open University to check if they could give Aabina a raise.

  Daniel let the applause run a few more seconds before motioning for the audience in the half amphitheatre to let him speak. “For those of you who have never attended a conference at the Empire Convention center, most of the session rooms are located below the stadium seating in this half of the Galaxy Room. The trade show is taking place in the Nebulae Room, which can only be reached through the upper exits from the amphitheatre, as the lower exits come out on the deck below.”

  Aabina hurried up to Daniel, showed him something on a tab, and then retreated back into the wings.

  “I want to take a moment to thank the For Humans publishing arm of the Galactic Free Press for providing these printed versions of the convention program,” the associate ambassador continued, waving a glossy booklet above his head. “Please note the single sheet addendum tucked inside the back cover which lists changes in room assignments and schedules since the program was printed. I also want to inform you that due to unexpectedly high demand, the session titled, ‘Alien Import Duties – Is Bribery A Better Option?’ will be held right here in the Galaxy Room rather than its assigned location. The first session begins in ten minutes, so let’s carry Ambassador McAllister’s inspirational message into our day, and don’t forget the free cocktail hour sponsored by EarthCent Intelligence in the lobby area after the last session.”

  Approximately half of the audience remained in their seats and began talking with each other, while the other half headed for the lower exits that led to the smaller conference rooms. Kelly accepted the effusive praise of the senior CoSHC representatives who had also been seated on the stage and then studied her dog-eared program booklet to refresh her memory as to her own schedule. Before she knew it, she found herself standing in the rapidly emptying corridor below the stadium seating, trying to decipher the signage.

  A Grenouthian correspondent accompanied by a cameraman approached and addressed her. “An impressive speech, Ambassador. My producer has already informed me that they’ll be rerunning part of it on our main update loop throughout the day.”

  “Uh, thank you?” Kelly said, temporarily flustered over receiving a compliment from one of the furry aliens. “Could I ask which part of the speech worked for you?”

  “The whole thing. I ran it against our SpeechCheck application, just as a precaution, you understand, and the only part that was listed as possible plagiary was your opening joke.”

  “I got that from my husband, actually. He said it was old.”

  “All basic types of jokes are old, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that new types are never funny. Do you have time for a quick interview?”

  “I was planning to attend a session,” Kelly replied, brandishing the program guide as evidence. “Could we do it during the lunch break?”

  “Which session are you attending? I’ve been assigned here for the convention and they’re still setting up the trade show so the sessions are the only action.”

  “The Grenouthian news is covering the entire convention? I thought you normally rewrote a few stories from the Galactic Free Press for your text feed and maybe bought video from the station librarian if there was an accident.”

  “If I had to guess, my producer must have a stake in some potential new business venture that involves CoSHC. I just go where they send me.” The Grenouthian’s cameraman whispered something in the reporter’s ear. “We need more video of your associate ambassador. Is he participating in any of the sessions?”

  “Thank you, I knew I was forgetting something,” Kelly said. She paged quickly through her booklet, paying attention to the presenter names rather than the session descriptions. “He’s on a panel about abusive labor contracts in the first session and I told him I’d attend. It’s room B12, this way.”

  The EarthCent ambassador set off down the corridor, but within two steps she realized that the bunnies weren’t following her, so she turned and looked back over her shoulder. The Grenouthian correspondent took the opportunity to point at the sign over the door they had been standing in front of, which read, “B12.”

  A chime sounded telling attendees they had thirty seconds before the doors would be closed, so Kelly hurried back and entered the room on the heels of the reporters. Daniel was seated at the panel table, along with Shaina’s husband Walter, Donna’s daughter Blythe, and Aabina. A volunteer wearing a CoSHC T-shirt closed the doors, and Kelly slipped into one of the few untaken folding chairs. The burly bunnies remained standing at the back, along with a Verlock who apparently didn’t trust the human-sized chairs with his weight.

  “Welcome to our panel discussion titled, ‘Affinity Schemes in Contract Labor.’ Our panel this morning consists of Walter Dunkirk, the managing editor of the Galactic Free Press, Blythe Oxford, the co-founder of InstaSitter and co-director of EarthCent Intelligence, and Associate Ambassador Daniel Cohan, who you all know. My name is Aabina and I’ll be moderating the discussion. Yes?” the co-op student said, pointing towards a person with a raised hand.

  “Aren’t you Vergallian?”

  “I am, but I work for the EarthCent embassy. Yes?” she pointed at another hand.

  “I heard that some of the peripheral star systems of the Vergallian Empire were considering opening their planets to sovereign human communities. Is t
hat true?”

  “The Vergallian embassy is sponsoring a booth at the trade show and I’m sure they’ll be happy to answer your questions,” Aabina replied primly. “I’m here representing EarthCent.”

  “Can you comment on the news that Ambassador McAllister is replacing President Beyer?”

  “I was with Ambassador McAllister all week and I can assure you that she has no intention of leaving Union Station.”

  “Even when the Cayl take over? I just heard that Gryph cancelled the auction and is swapping the station for—”

  “I think you may have misread your conference program,” Aabina interrupted. “The session on rumors is scheduled for the Galaxy Room this afternoon.”

  “Well done,” Kelly muttered to herself under her breath.

  “After our panelists each give a brief summary of grey-area contracting from their professional perspectives, we’ll open the session up to questions from the floor. Could you start us off, Mrs. Oxford?”

  “Thank you, Aabina,” Blythe said. “If anybody here plans to establish a field office on Union Station and is looking for high-quality temporary help, I can’t say enough good things about the Open University cooperative education program. They sent us a Verlock student two weeks ago who has already reorganized our filing system, in addition to helping pull together the data for this presentation.”

  Kelly turned again to look at the Verlock standing against the back wall and noted that he was wearing a co-op badge identifying him as Wrylenth.

  “Why do I recognize the name of Blythe’s co-op student?” she subvoced to the station librarian.

  “Wrylenth was on Samuel’s student committee for Flower,” Libby replied over the ambassador’s implant. “The experience made him an excellent candidate for the co-op job at EarthCent Intelligence, plus he was only one correct answer away from a perfect score on the civil service exam. He ran out of time.”

  “I understand you placing Vivian with Drazen Intelligence since we work together,” Kelly continued to subvoc as Blythe started talking about the categories of affinity schemes, “but as much as I like Srythlan, I’m not sure that I’d want a young Verlock running around—alright, shuffling around—with our secrets.”

  “As opposed to a Vergallian?”

  “Aabina is different. Her mother is on the other side of the schism in their Empire, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

  “Wrylenth won’t be sharing EarthCent Intelligence secrets with anyone because it would be a violation of the Verlock code of honor,” Libby explained. “In addition, all co-op students sign a contract agreeing to put their employer’s interests above their own.”

  “Samuel didn’t mention that.”

  “It was in the small print. Aren’t you going to pay attention to Blythe’s presentation at all?”

  “I’ll ask Aabina to summarize it for me later,” Kelly said, but she broke off her conversation with the station librarian.

  “…so while we’re hopeful that the trend is moving in the right direction, we don’t intend to let down our guard until unethical labor contractors become a footnote in a future Grenouthian documentary,” Blythe concluded.

  As soon as the polite applause for the co-director of EarthCent Intelligence died down, Aabina announced, “Next we have Mr. Dunkirk to tell us about how the Galactic Free Press has been covering this issue.”

  “Thank you, Aabina. And if you decide that the embassy isn’t for you, just tell the Open University and we’d be happy to have you on the paper.”

  “He can’t do that!” Kelly subvoced the station librarian again. “We have a contract.”

  “Did you read it?” Libby asked in reply.

  “You know perfectly well that I don’t read contracts when you’re involved. Is there really a chance that I’m going to lose her?”

  “Cooperative education assignments aren’t a new form of slavery, whatever some students may think. She can quit at any time, though it’s unlikely that the co-op office would agree to send her on a new assignment.”

  “But the Galactic Free Press is a business. They could just pay her more than we do. I was going to ask Donna to check with the Open University about giving Aabina a raise, but as long as I’m talking to you…”

  “The program compensates all first-time co-op students on a scale that reflects their financial need and the general expectations of their species. Aabina is still an adolescent by Vergallian standards, which is why you’re able to afford her.”

  “Joe said that his Horten co-op student is a bargain at any price. She really enjoys the work, but he worries he might be teaching her the wrong way to do things since he never had any formal training himself.”

  “…and we will continue our investigative journalism of shady labor practices until the problem is stamped out,” Walter concluded to a polite round of applause.

  “Our final panelist is Daniel Cohan, the associate ambassador here on Union Station, and the driving force behind the creation of the Conference of Sovereign Human Communities,” Aabina announced.

  “Have you been watching little Grace on Aisha’s show?” Kelly subvoced as Daniel began his presentation. “I always thought that Dorothy and Samuel were as different as two siblings could be, but you would never guess that Grace and Mike are from the same family.”

  “I was a bit concerned about Twitchy, but she’s settled in nicely,” Libby replied. “Her parent is the Echo Station librarian and we go back hundreds of thousands of years together, so I feel personally responsible.”

  “Do you think the show is making a difference?”

  “It’s certainly done wonders for the Grenouthian ambassador’s financial situation.”

  “I meant in terms of helping the species get along together.”

  “The demand for Let’s Make Friends related merchandise has opened up some new trade relationships with civilizations who aren’t even members of the tunnel network.”

  “That’s not what I meant either, but how do they even watch the show if they aren’t on the Stryxnet?”

  “Piracy. I know what you’re asking, Ambassador, but the answer isn’t that simple. It certainly doesn’t hurt for children around the galaxy to be able to put a name with an alien face and to watch the cast interacting with one another. But if you’re asking me to quantify the effect of watching a children’s show for a few years as opposed to the influence of family and society, it will take a few generations before I have a definitive answer.”

  “You can’t make a prediction?”

  “I expect there will be a positive effect, but it’s small enough to fall within the margin of error based on the limited data set. Keep in mind that Samuel was in the original cast rotation and he’s still in school himself. The children from the other species who were at the same stage of emotional development when they appeared on the show with your son won’t reach adulthood for several more decades.”

  “…but thanks in large part to cooperation with ISPOA, the Inter-Species Police Operations Agency, we now see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Daniel concluded his prepared remarks.

  “Before we open the floor to questions, I see my boss in the back of the room and I should ask if she has anything to add,” Aabina said. “Ambassador McAllister?”

  “I’m just here to listen and learn,” Kelly responded, straightening up in her chair as the other attendees turned in her direction. “Please carry on as if I wasn’t present.”

  “Very well,” the Vergallian girl said, and a number of hands shot up. “Yes, in the front row?”

  “Janet, I’m on the delegation from Dolag Twelve, where a group of us coming off a thirty-year contract was recently given permission to set up our own community. Many of us are nearing retirement age ourselves and we’ve been looking into bringing in picking crews for the harvest, but we don’t want to end up with a contractor who’s exploiting the labor. Is there such a thing as a list of good human contractors?”

  Aabina nodded and turned to
Blythe. “Mrs. Oxford?”

  “EarthCent Intelligence does offer our subscribers ratings for a variety of human-run businesses but I have to admit this is the first time I’m hearing your question. Our focus to this point has been on chasing down the bad actors in labor contracting, but I’m sure we must have the data to be doing the opposite. Wrylenth?”

  “I created a list of ethical contractors while organizing the data for your presentation,” the Verlock co-op student said, though the sentence took him almost a half a minute to get out.

  “I think we can provide that information outside of our subscription model,” Blythe said. “Would the Galactic Free Press be willing to run it in a supplement, Walter?”

  “Glad to be of service,” the managing editor responded.

  “All set?” Aabina followed up with the woman who had asked the original question. “Great. The man in the back wearing the glove with the prosthetic thumb?”

  “Horm. I’m with the delegation from Wuger, a Drazen open world. We recently had a bad experience with a contractor who brought in a crew of underage kids to sort mine tailings by hand. Nobody realized what was going on at first because the job site was at an abandoned mine on the other side of the continent from our community and we didn’t have any direct oversight. When the Drazen authorities made us aware of the situation, we fired the contractor, but there was no justification to withhold payment for the work that was already done.”

  “Did your CoSHC representative report the incident?” Daniel asked. “It doesn’t ring a bell and I’m sure I would have remembered.”

  “This just happened before the conference so I thought I’d report in person,” Horm said. “A bunch of us forced our way onto the contractor’s transport and talked to the kids to see if any of them wanted to stay behind, but they probably thought that the devil they knew was better than the devil they didn’t know.”

  “Were you wearing your gloves?”

  “These? I always wear them. Wait a minute. Do you think we scared the kids?”

  “How old were they?”

  “Late teens, mainly. Maybe a couple younger siblings mixed in. We all felt terrible about letting that transport lift off again, but we couldn’t justify detaining the workers when they all insisted they wanted to stay together and leave.”