Family Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 12) Read online

  Family Night on Union Station

  Book Twelve of EarthCent Ambassador

  Copyright 2017 by E. M. Foner

  In response to reader requests, a character and plot synopsis to bring readers up to date for Book Twelve is now available free on the author’s website:

  www.ifitbreaks.com/cast.htm

  The first ten books of the EarthCent Ambassador series are now available in paperback through Amazon.

  In memory of my father, Mitchell. He introduced me to Victorian literature, 1930’s madcap comedies, and taught me to appreciate happy endings.

  One

  “In conclusion, it is the view of Union Station Embassy that bedtime should be when we get sleepy.”

  “My turn, Fenna. That was your third one in a row.”

  “But my conclusions are much shorter than yours,” the eight-year-old girl protested. She hung onto the edge of the ambassador’s display desk as Mike tried to pull the chair away. “Tell them, Libby.”

  “I agree with your report to EarthCent one hundred percent,” the Stryx librarian said. “I’ve analyzed the feedback from over forty billion InstaSitter assignments around the tunnel network stations, and an arbitrary bedtime is the primary cause of friction between sitters and clients across a broad range of species.”

  “You sent Fenna’s report to EarthCent?” Mike asked in horror. “But we’re just playing ‘bassador.”

  Fenna pushed off with both of her hands and kept the chair moving with her feet, as if she had suddenly discovered that the display desk was on fire. “Did you really send my report, Libby? Grandma Kelly is going to be so mad.”

  “I didn’t send it in the ambassador’s name,” the Stryx reassured her. “I signed it, ‘Young Sentients Committee of Union Station.’”

  “You can go next, Spinner,” Mike offered, the attraction of playing at the ambassador’s desk having suddenly lost its allure. If he had learned one thing from his father, who had recently promoted himself to Associate Ambassador, it was how committee work inevitably expanded to the point that there was no time left for playing.

  Spinner floated up to the display desk and did a few half rotations from side to side before commencing.

  “In conclusion, it is the view of Union Station Embassy that Stryx students in the station librarian’s experimental school should not be coerced into studying multiverse mathematics while the biological children are sleeping, and I further request that the EarthCent president file an official discrimination complaint with the station management on the behalf of said victims.”

  “Where did you learn all those big words?” Mike demanded.

  “Reading,” the young Stryx replied modestly.

  “Did you send that one too, Libby?” Fenna asked.

  “Directly to Spinner’s parent,” the station librarian replied. “I imagine he’s heard back already.”

  The young Stryx sank to the floor, rolled into the corner on his treads, and began reciting, “I will stop complaining about multiverse math homework,” over and over again.

  The door slid open and Kelly entered her office, blinking in surprise at finding the youngsters.

  “Hey guys, what’s up? Why is Spinner standing in the corner talking to himself?”

  “Libby told on him to his parent,” Mike said indignantly.

  “And why is my chair so far from the desk?”

  “We didn’t want to accidentally send any messages to EarthCent or anything,” the boy fibbed, shaking his head at Fenna to keep her from confessing. “Is my dad’s door open yet? He was supposed to take us to Libbyland, but he said he needed to stop in for a holo-thingy.”

  “I thought your mother was training the dog to keep your dad away from the embassy on weekends.”

  “She did, except Queenie won’t leave the apartment when my mom is home alone with my little sister. Aunt Brinda says that the female Cayl hounds like to keep an eye on the youngest member of the pack.”

  “Well, I’m still the alpha ambassador around here, so let’s go get your father out of that meeting. And Libby, I’d like to make an official EarthCent request on behalf of Spinner that you grant him a pardon for his latest transgression.”

  “I’ve relayed your communication, but that’s up to his parent,” the Stryx librarian responded.

  “Thank you, Ambassador,” Spinner said a moment later. He rose into the air and knocked out a number of rapid rotations to celebrate his reprieve from being grounded.

  Kelly led the three youngsters out of her office and to the left. Then she almost punched Daniel in the nose by attempting to rap assertively on his door just as it slid open.

  “Close call,” the freshly-minted associate ambassador remarked. “It didn’t occur to me that somebody might be assaulting my door when I recalibrated the proximity trigger.”

  “Why would you want the door to delay opening until you’re practically hitting it with your face?”

  “I like to move around the office during holo conferences, and I got fed up with triggering the door opener by mistake. My office isn’t as large as yours, you know.”

  “I guess that explains why you let the children in to play at my desk,” Kelly shot back. “I wondered how they got past the security.”

  “Spinner opened the door for us,” Fenna confessed. “He’s really good with locks and stuff.”

  “Sorry if the kids were bothering you,” Daniel said. “I thought I’d be off the conference call in a jiffy, but you know how that goes. Hey, why are you here on a weekend?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll find out in seven minutes,” Kelly replied after consulting her ornamental wristwatch. “I heard that you’re all going to Libbyland.”

  “I promised to take Mike and Fenna on the Physics Ride now that they’re old enough. Spinner is coming along to give them flying pointers.”

  “But no spinning,” the girl added.

  “Have a good time, then,” Kelly said. “I’ll ping you, Daniel, if my conference call turns out to be critical to the fate of the galaxy.”

  The ambassador and her associate shared a quick laugh over the well-worn EarthCent joke, and then the flying party set off, leaving Kelly alone in the embassy. She reentered her office, made a swiping gesture to lock the door, and pushed her chair back over to the display desk before taking her seat.

  “What’s this all about, Libby? I don’t remember the last time the president called an emergency intelligence steering committee meeting.”

  “I hope you’re using that as an expression and not because you’re forgetting things,” the Stryx librarian replied in a concerned voice. “And it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to steal the president’s thunder, especially when the conference is beginning in less than four minutes.”

  “Just a hint,” Kelly pleaded. “Give me the first letter.”

  “A.”

  “Anarchy? Audit? Alarm?”

  “Those all do begin with ‘A,’ but if I were a psychologist, I might infer a preoccupation with disaster on your part,” Libby observed.

  “Attack? Asteroid? Apocalypse?” Kelly continued undaunted. She closed her eyes and racked her brain for more candidates. “Abduction? Accursed? Avalanche?”

  “Avalanche?” the president repeated in an amused tone.

  Kelly’s eyes snapped open and she saw a holographic projection of the president sitting across from her. “I just assumed it was something bad,” she admitted. “Where are the other ambassadors?”

  “They’ll be with us in a minute. I wanted to talk to you first so you don’t look surprised in front of the others, since you are our M
inister of Intelligence. To be brief, an unidentified alien craft jumped into our solar system this evening. It jumped out again so quickly that we might have missed it, but the captain of a Dollnick cargo carrier waiting to dock at the space elevator hub sent us their assessment. The AI controlling our tunnel entrance for the Stryx confirmed the report.”

  “So it could have been some rich kids from any of the tunnel network species fooling around. What’s the big deal?”

  “We’re confident it was a first contact situation, even though they left without saying anything. The other ambassadors will be coming on in a few seconds, and we’ll be joined by Hep, who will explain further.”

  Holograms of the other steering committee members began popping into existence around Kelly’s display desk, with several of the ambassadors nursing take-out cups of steaming coffee. The president waited a minute for everybody to exchange greetings, and then repeated what he had already told the Union Station ambassador.

  “So what do the Stryx have to say about all of this?” Ambassador Oshi inquired.

  “Let’s hear from our faster-than-light drive expert first, and then we’ll get into that,” President Beyer responded, and beckoned to an unseen figure. “Hep?”

  The Verlock academy-trained mathematician stepped into the president’s hologram and looked around at the steering committee ambassadors. “Real time holographic conferencing,” he commented. “Stryxnet bandwidth must cost a fortune.”

  “EarthCent Intelligence covers the bill for our steering committee meetings,” the president informed him. “They run at a small profit.”

  “As long as it’s not coming out of my budget,” Hep said agreeably. “Let me begin by saying that I don’t want to waste any more of your time or my time than I have to. Although we have yet to come up with a theoretical explanation for basic jump drives that fits within the framework of humanity’s current model of how the universe operates, our ongoing restoration contract for the earliest successful Drazen jump ship has allowed us to reverse engineer a mathematical simulation for testing new hypotheses.”

  “English, please,” President Beyer interjected.

  The scientist shot the president a sour look and continued. “One interesting observation is that even the crudest jump drives can be configured in an infinite variety of geometries, making the resulting usage signatures unique.”

  “You mean they leave fingerprints?” Ambassador White asked.

  “Roughly speaking, yes. Although the Dollnicks wouldn’t normally share telemetry data with us for competitive reasons, the captain of the cargo carrier who initially spotted the jump was nice enough to alert EarthCent that the drive signature didn’t match anything in their records. The tunnel master confirmed the Dollnick’s assessment and sent us the actual data, which was really quite exciting in…”

  “So we know whoever jumped into the solar system was using a jump drive configuration which even the Stryx haven’t seen before,” the president interrupted.

  “Yes, and that’s been the case every time that a new species independently develops their own faster-than-light drive,” Hep replied. Then he added, “We could probably construct a working drive of our own at this point, but the signature would closely match that of a Drazen jump ship from around a half a million years ago.”

  “How is it that there are so many answers to the same question?” Ambassador Enoksen asked. “I could understand there being a number of different ways to solve a problem, but an infinite set of solutions?”

  “Think of a jump drive as a bridge,” Hep urged the diplomats. “Engineers around the galaxy who are tasked with spanning a wide river face the same basic challenge. But even if they were all utilizing an identical system of mathematics, their solutions would be influenced by the choice of local materials, the history of construction on their world, even aesthetics. Light years of distance represent a very wide river, and even small differences in design choices will leave their mark on the fabric of the space-time continuum. That is the signature.”

  “Clear as mud?” the president inquired of the ambassadors cheerfully. “Good. Thank you for stopping in, Hep. I won’t keep you from your work any longer.” The scientist gave the ambassadors a brief nod and exited the hologram.

  “So we know that a new species has developed faster-than-light drive, but that must happen pretty regularly,” Kelly pointed out.

  “In geologic time, I’m sure it does, but consider how long life on Earth has bumbled along without creating our own jump technology,” Ambassador Fu observed. “And now that I think of it, what are the odds that a species just reaching that level would put in their first appearance at our homeworld?”

  “An event that carries with it a certain responsibility on our part,” the president informed the others. “I’ve been notified by the Stryx that as the first point of contact for this as-of-yet unnamed species, humanity, or more particularly, EarthCent, has a contractual obligation to the tunnel network to lead the biological contingent in the welcoming mission.”

  “The Stryx welcoming mission?” Svetlana asked.

  “Exactly. Transportation will be provided by one of their science ships, which I’m sure you all know is practically a mini-station in terms of capabilities. Normally, this is the point at which I would ask for volunteers, but it happens that Wylx, the second generation Stryx who inhabits the science ship in question, put in a special request right before I initiated this call.”

  “Wylx,” Kelly mused out loud. “Why does that name sound so familiar?”

  “Apparently it should, because Stryx Wylx requested that you be appointed the plenipotentiary tunnel network ambassador for the mission. I don’t recall the exact wording of the message, but it was something about one good official request deserving another. I can’t help wondering if it had to do with the high priority message about bedtimes that arrived from your embassy before this meeting.”

  “Oh, no! I just asked our station librarian to grant a pardon to one of her Stryx students who was misbehaving in my office, and Libby passed the request to his parent. Wylx must think I’m some kind of a busybody.”

  “Better you than me,” Ambassador Zerakova said. “As exciting as a first contact with an unknown species sounds, a mission like that could turn into an open-ended commitment.”

  “It’s lucky you have an associate ambassador to cover for you now,” Belinda added. “I saw Daniel’s promotion announced in the Galactic Free Press before it even showed up on the EarthCent organizational chart. How come Union Station is the only embassy with the associate position?”

  “Daniel Cohan is a genuine pathfinder,” the president said. “One day he’ll promote himself to associate president and then I’ll be able to take a long vacation.”

  “Wait a minute,” Kelly objected. “Wylx requests my presence and I don’t get any say in the matter?”

  “You are eminently qualified,” the Echo Station ambassador said soothingly. “I’ll bet you’ve handled more first contacts than any other EarthCent ambassador since our introductory period on the tunnel network.”

  “I’m more interested in the high priority message about bedtimes,” Ambassador Tamil declared with a yawn, and then cast a longing look at his empty coffee cup.

  “I’m afraid it referred to children only, Raj,” the president replied. “And while we’re on the subject of parenting, I should point out that the Stryx have a special interest in this new species, which they apparently took under their wing some tens of thousands of years ago.”

  “Didn’t you just say that the jump drive signature was unknown to the Stryx?” Ambassador Fu said.

  “Yes, Zhao, but that’s only because the technology is brand new, and Earth was the first known destination visited by the aliens. The Stryx informed me that the star system in question is actually one from a hidden reserve they keep for relocating promising species who are in danger of extinction from phenomena beyond their control. I won’t pretend to understand the explanation, but i
t seems they employ some kind of multiverse origami to fold the space around the star system so that these newcomers could see out, but nobody could see in.”

  “How long ago did all of this happen?” Kelly asked the president.

  “They didn’t exactly load me down with details, but I’m sure Stryx Wylx will fill you in. In any case, the request made it clear that they expect you to put together a delegation, and I thought the other ambassadors might offer ideas on who you should bring.”

  “Wouldn’t it be a good idea for her to take Hildy?” Ambassador Enoksen suggested. “It couldn’t hurt to have a public relations professional along.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do without Ms. Gruen for an indefinite period,” the president replied shortly.

  “How about representatives from some of our allies?” Belinda asked.

  “That’s up to Ambassador McAllister to negotiate with her colleagues. The mission will also be accompanied by one of the younger Stryx to give a physical presence to their views, as the newcomers may be uncomfortable negotiating with a disembodied voice.”

  “I would suggest you have your associate ambassador choose some representatives from his Sovereign Human Communities organization,” Svetlana said. “They’re used to working with aliens, and the ones I’ve met were fantastic salesmen.”

  “Do you think it would be classless to bring some of our spies along?” Ambassador White asked. “After all, we are the intelligence steering committee.”

  “As long as they identify themselves as intelligence agents,” Zhao said. “It’s likely the newcomers will have counterparts who will want to talk with them.”

  “It’s a bit embarrassing that we don’t have any military people to bring,” Ambassador Tamil commented tiredly. “We must be the only species on the tunnel network without dress uniforms for formal occasions.”

  “Don’t forget the journalists,” the Middle Station ambassador reminded them. “You should really invite some Earth-based reporters in addition to the Galactic Free Press.”