by E. M. Foner
“Aren’t they registered?” Aleeytis asked.
“Srythlan wanted to get them something with a personal touch,” Joe explained.
“That’s a mistake,” the Thark ambassador observed. “If the couple is registered, they may be counting on a cash kickback from the retailer to finance the wedding.”
“Oh, Blythe is paying for everything and handling the arrangements,” Kelly said. “I think the only decision she and Vivian let Sam make was to choose the band.”
“And a very good choice he made,” the Horten ambassador said, working his way in between the EarthCent and Gem ambassadors. “You’re just lucky that Universal Human Time is so out of sync with our clock, because my son’s band was booked solid for the next two years on our calendar.”
“What’s that you’ve got there, Ortha?” Czeros asked, indicating the glowing pair of rods in the Horten ambassador’s hand.
“A little investing opportunity my uncle asked me to promote.” Ortha fumbled a moment to separate the rods, and then drew them apart to reveal a holographic illuminated scroll packed with dense alien hieroglyphs. “It’s in the Maker’s language, so good luck reading it, but this is for you, Ambassador,” he said, passing the open scroll to Kelly.
“Did you copy this from his history of the birth of the Human Empire?” Kelly asked. “It’s beautiful.”
“I’ve never seen a holographic scroll,” the Dollnick ambassador commented. “It’s an interesting juxtaposition of the new and the old. How much are you selling them for?”
“The scroll-style projection handles will be less than twenty creds when we go into mass-production. They include a scanner function, of course, so you just pass the rod over the scroll you’re copying. It only took me two minutes to duplicate Maker Dring’s history once he rolled it all out on the deck. In addition to saving on wear-and-tear for rare scrolls, you can advance through the hologram without actually having to wind a roll of parchment onto the handles.”
“I can see where that would be useful for religious texts,” Aleeytis said.
“My uncle is a follower of Gortunda,” Ortha told them. “It’s where he got the idea of creating holographic scrolls. But it turns out that the scribes of the Old Tongue were granted an eternal monopoly on Horten religious scrolls over a half-million years ago, so he has to look elsewhere for a market.”
“Have you asked Maker Dring if you can use his name in promotions?” the Thark ambassador inquired.
“He offered a testimonial to the accuracy of the reproduction,” Ortha replied with a grin, and produced a handful of thin holo-chits from his pocket. “I brought copies of the prospectus if anybody is interested.”
As the ambassadors mobbed the Horten, Kelly felt a gentle tug on her sleeve and turned to find Jeeves floating behind her. “I had a message that you were looking for me,” the young Stryx said.
“I have a couple of questions,” the EarthCent ambassador said, following Jeeves out of the scrum. “First, has Dorothy told you that she’s expecting?”
“She hasn’t informed me yet, but I’m sure I noticed before she did.”
“Oh, I forget who I’m talking to sometimes. I don’t want to tell you how to run your business, but I was wondering if you could grant her a longer maternity leave this time around.”
“Grant her? I practically begged her to stay home longer than six months when she had Margie, but she insisted on coming back to work. I even threatened to revoke her family-adjustment raise if she came back sooner than a year after giving birth, but my sentient resources officer told me it would violate our employee guidelines. That’s what I get for not writing them myself.”
“Sometimes I wish I could stay home all day and watch the children for her, but Donna just checked EarthCent’s retirement age for ambassadors, and it’s still seventy-five.”
“Don’t tell Dorothy, but when we moved to the office, I set aside a room for a nursery,” Jeeves said.
“Why can’t I tell her?” Kelly asked.
“Because if she knows, she might try coming back to work in three months instead of six,” the young Stryx explained. “I’m hoping that between her maternity leave and Myst starting at the Open University, I might be able to keep SBJ Fashions out of the jewelry business until the franchises are producing an income stream.”
“I guess all of this investing I’ve been doing has started to sink in because I actually understand your logic,” Kelly said. “I had another question for you. Can the Stryx spot retail trends before they start?”
“You know better than to think I can answer that,” Jeeves said. He deftly deployed his pincer to turn her back towards where the ambassadors were still clustered together, trying to interest each other in new business ventures. “I just heard Bork telling Aleeytis that you might know something about that yourself.”
Kelly returned to the group and addressed the Drazen ambassador. “Did you have a question for me?”
“We’ve been putting our heads together trying to figure out where this new craze for all things related to writing started, and I seem to recall your racy notebook being the first one I saw,” Bork said.
“I remember commenting on it myself when you came to the off-world betting parlor to talk with me about investing,” the Thark ambassador added.
“Do you remember where you got the idea to start taking notes that way?” Aleeytis asked her.
Kelly thought for a moment, shook her head, and then pulling her notebook out of her purse, flipped to the first page. “Sorry,” she said. “I guess I didn’t think it was important enough to write it down.”
From the Author
The next EarthCent book will be Space Living, the fourth book of the EarthCent Universe spinoff taking place on the circuit ship Flower. For notifications of new releases, sign up for the mailing list at www.ifitbreaks.com. You can find me on Facebook at facebook.com/E.M.Foner, if they haven’t banned my account for my not owning a smartphone, and my e-mail is [email protected].
