Swap Night on Union Station Read online

  Swap Night on Union Station

  Book Nineteen of EarthCent Ambassador

  Copyright 2021 by E. M. Foner

  One

  “In conclusion, it is the view of Union Station embassy that ambassadors reaching the traditional Earth retirement age of sixty-five years should be allowed to hire an additional special assistant, or, if they currently employ a special assistant who does the work of three people, to double her compensation before she decides to return to her homeworld and resume her royal—do you think I’m being a little too transparent, Libby?” Kelly interrupted herself.

  “If you’re hoping that EarthCent will believe your suggestion is meant for all embassies and not just your own, it would have been wise not to mention Aabina by name so many times in the examples you gave,” the station librarian replied.

  “Aabina is the perfect special assistant and she’s already turned down a number of better job opportunities to continue working here. I know she’s not in it for the money, and I doubt what EarthCent pays even covers her rent on the Vergallian deck, but I don’t want her thinking that all of her hard work goes unnoticed.”

  “I’m sure she already knows how much you appreciate her. I don’t think I would be violating anybody’s privacy by telling you that I’ve heard Aabina say that you’re her dream boss. In addition, she recently renewed her lease.”

  “For how long?” EarthCent’s ambassador to Union Station asked.

  “Three years,” Libby replied.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Scratch the last fifteen minutes and let’s go with the report I recorded this morning.”

  “You were just getting to the conclusion when Joe dropped in to take you to lunch.”

  “You’re right, and I still haven’t made up my mind about the whole thing,” Kelly said. “Where did I leave off?”

  “You were speculating about whether one of the advanced species might gamble on providing humanity with an unsecured loan for a few trillion creds,” the station librarian told her.

  “It doesn’t sound very realistic when you put it that way.” Kelly sighed and took a minute to compose her thoughts. “In conclusion, it is the view of Union Station embassy that the purchase of Earth Two would provide limitless employment opportunities to humanity while allowing us to build equity, but the down payment is beyond the resources of our backers, and I consider it unlikely that any of the aliens will be willing to advance us the money or act as co-signers on a planetary mortgage.”

  “Coded and sent,” Libby reported. “It does seem a shame to let a world that was custom-terraformed for your species slip away entirely.”

  “Thanks to Donna’s daughters and Aisha putting up their cash, we still have an option to counter the Alt’s bid. But even if the girls mortgaged InstaSitter and Aisha sold the residual rights to Let’s Make Friends back to the Grenouthians, it wouldn’t be enough for a trillion cred down payment.”

  “Then perhaps you should think of an alternative, but first it’s time you make up your mind about the ambassadorial exchange,” the Stryx station librarian said.

  “I’m thrilled to be the first EarthCent ambassador chosen for the honor, but I’m concerned about accidentally giving offence to embassy staff and visitors alike,” Kelly said. “Do you think I’m just being a worry wart?”

  “I suspect you’re over-thinking an established tunnel network tradition for outstanding ambassadors who reach the seventy-five percent mark of their estimated tenure,” Libby said.

  “It feels like more than seventy-five percent.”

  “You’re sixty-five years old and you made ambassador at thirty-five. You have ten years to go before reaching the current EarthCent retirement age for diplomats, so thirty years served out of forty projected is seventy-five percent.”

  “I can still do that much math in my head, Libby. I just meant that I feel old. And the truth is, I’m worried that the other ambassadors will take advantage of their position when they come here.”

  “Although visiting ambassadors assume the full authority of the office during the exchange, the tunnel network species have had hundreds of thousands of years to establish safeguards against abuse.”

  “But I’m the first EarthCent ambassador who’s been invited to participate,” Kelly pointed out. “We don’t have any such safeguards in place.”

  “Nor do you have war fleets for anybody to cause mischief,” Libby said. “I shouldn’t be surprised if the Drazen and Horten ambassadors engage in a little tit-for-tat recipe sabotage since your embassy controls the All Species Cookbook, but diplomats accepting an exchange are honor-bound to do their best for the host species.”

  “All right,” Kelly said, “I’m in. I’ve always believed that the key to diplomacy is forming personal relationships, and I can’t do that sitting around my office all day waiting for retirement.”

  “Donna asked me to pass on that she had to leave early, and Dorothy pinged while you were recording to remind you that it’s your turn to cook Friday dinner.”

  “I knew I was forgetting something,” Kelly groaned. She grabbed her purse from the deep drawer of her display desk and headed for the door, where she disabled the security lock with a wave. “Could you tell Aabina that—there you are,” she greeted her special assistant, who was waiting just outside the office. “I was about to ask Libby to tell you that I’m cooking tonight. Would you like to join us for supper?”

  “I’m afraid I have a prior engagement,” Aabina replied a little too quickly. “Do you want to look at the new space before you go?”

  “Why is it that when Aisha cooks, you make the time, but when I cook, you’re always engaged?”

  “I’m sure you’re misremembering,” the Vergallian girl said. “If I had known you would be inviting me I would have scheduled my interview at the Open University for another time.”

  “Interview?” Kelly grabbed Aabina’s wrist. “As in, a job interview?”

  “It’s just an adjunct faculty position lecturing once a week about royal training in the Empire of a Hundred Worlds. I’m perfectly happy with my job here, but the dean of Vergallian students asked our ambassador to recommend somebody for the position and she gave them my name.”

  “I knew Aleeytis was going to cause trouble eventually,” the EarthCent ambassador said. “You can’t trust lawyers.”

  “Ambassador Aleeytis fell in love with inter-species law and abdicated the throne to her younger sister in order to practice on Union Station,” Aabina reminded her boss. “She ran a law office here for over a century before replacing my mother as our ambassador.”

  “Whenever I agree with her in a meeting, I always find out afterward that she’s tricked me,” Kelly complained. “But what did you say about a new space?”

  “The office on the other side of our conference room is finally vacant and Associate Ambassador Cohan signed the lease this afternoon. You were on a tunneling conference call and it all moved so quickly that I guess he forgot to check with you.”

  “We’ve spoken about it enough times lately that he knew I approved. The Conference of Sovereign Human Communities work Daniel does has been generating so much walk-in traffic that it’s beginning to disrupt our operations and it’s not fair to Donna. She’s just a year younger than me and she has twice as much work managing the embassy as she did thirty years ago.” Kelly paused, pointed at her ear, and remained silent for almost a whole minute, but the Vergallian girl was capable of reading the subtle movements of the ambassador’s throat caused by subvocalization and had to look away to avoid unintentionally eavesdropping. “Okay, dinner is set. Let’s look at that office.”

  “Did you ask your husband to barbeque something?” Aabina asked.


  “I ordered take-out from the new Indian restaurant in the Little Apple that Aisha said we have to try. Are you sure you don’t want to come to dinner?”

  “Maybe I’ll stop in after the interview if it goes quickly. I think they just want to make sure that I’m not a princess.”

  “But you are a princess,” Kelly observed as she followed her special assistant out into the corridor.

  “I meant it in the sense of a stuck-up Vergallian royal who talks down to the lower castes,” Aabina said. “To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t have even considered accepting a teaching position if it weren’t for the experience I’ve gained in your embassy working with so many different segments of Human society. I don’t think I was ever a snob, but my mother’s friends and family were all from the upper caste.”

  “I’m glad to know you’re getting something out of working for us. Are we all authorized for access?” Kelly asked when her special assistant stopped to wave open the door to the right of the corridor entrance for the embassy’s conference room.

  “Yes. Daniel checked with EarthCent and received permission to add the new space to the basic embassy lease.” Aabina led the way into a small anteroom with a glass reception window soaped to make it opaque and indicated the wall to the left. “He wants to cut through from this side so we can share the conference room, but the Stryx only allow structural changes between spaces when they’re leased by the same entity.”

  “Good fences make good neighbors,” Kelly said, nodding her understanding. Then a sudden chill came over her and she found herself shivering. “Did the last tenants use this place as a refrigerator? I thought it was a retirement counseling service.”

  “According to Associate Ambassador Cohan, the last occupant sublet the space from Golden Years after the owner retired early with a few months to go on the lease,” Aabina said. “Daniel told me it was another counseling business of some sort or another.” Then the Vergallian girl frowned and her complexion turned slightly red.

  “I think the draft blew out into the corridor because I feel warmer now,” the ambassador said. “Are you blushing?”

  “I increased my metabolism and dilated my capillaries to compensate for the cold, but now I feel hot so you’re probably correct about the corridor air mixing in. I’d ask the station librarian to duplicate the climate settings from the embassy, but the Associate Ambassador is always complaining that it’s too warm.”

  “You’re right, we should leave well enough alone,” Kelly said. “Poor Daniel is practically sweating at the temperature that Donna and I find comfortable. Are you looking forward to taking over his old office when he moves in here?”

  “I’m not sure,” Aabina said. “The advantage of having my desk in the reception area with Donna was that I saw all of the visitors, and you and Daniel always stopped to tell me the latest when you were coming or going. There will be fewer distractions in an office, even if I leave the door open, but I suspect it will make me less accessible.”

  “That’s a debate that people have been having for centuries, whether productivity is better with an open office plan, cubicles, or individual offices like we have,” Kelly said. “I know that the Galactic Free Press and EarthCent Intelligence both favor the open-office concept for most of their employees.”

  “Daniel mentioned that he’s thinking of an open office plan here, with shared workspace for any visiting members from the Conference of Sovereign Human Communities.” She swept her hand past the door that led from the small antechamber to the main office, and then repeated the gesture with the same lack of result. “There seems to be something wrong with the door.”

  “That looks like an old-fashioned doorknob from Earth,” the ambassador told her special assistant. “Try turning it and pushing.”

  Aabina followed Kelly’s instructions and the door opened inward on hinges, but the room was strangely dark. “How odd. First an antique door, and now there appears to be something wrong with the illumination.”

  “Am I imagining things, or is the whole room painted black?” Kelly asked.

  “You’re right,” Aabina said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I think that the light sources have been covered with black filters as well.”

  “At least it’s mainly empty,” Kelly said, following her special assistant into the space that was devoid of furniture, though there was a bit of paper litter strewn about. “It feels rather theatrical, if you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t like it,” Aabina stated bluntly. “I can’t even tell if there are other office doors in here. It seems much smaller than the embassy space, but Daniel said it’s the same size.”

  “I think that could just be the dark color making it feel smaller.” The ambassador walked over to where her office door would be located if they were in the EarthCent Embassy and began running her hand over the wall. “The paint feels very odd. It’s almost like I’m touching glass rather than metal.” Then a panel suddenly slid aside and revealed an office with white walls that were almost blindingly bright. “Whoever decorated this place had serious problems.”

  “I found the other office,” Aabina said from off to Kelly’s side. “Ugh, it’s painted solid red.”

  “I hope that Daniel has a budget for renovations because I’m too old for a painting party.” Kelly rejoined her special assistant in the main area and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

  A piece of paper that must have been caught in a draft from the ventilation wafted up from the floor, fluttered about for a moment, and then seemed to race forward to paste itself to Kelly’s stomach. She peeled it off in annoyance and crumpled it up, but failing to spot anything resembling a recycling receptacle, she just held onto it. Aabina headed off for her interview at the Open University, and the ambassador entered the nearest lift tube. “Mac’s Bones,” she requested. The doors were just closing when a brown hand with two thumbs slipped in the gap, triggering the doors to open again.

  “Bork,” Kelly greeted the Drazen ambassador. “I’m sorry I didn’t see you coming up when I entered the lift tube.”

  “I was approaching from behind you and stopped for a moment to discuss our schedule with Aabina,” Bork said. “I came as soon as the station librarian notified me that you are going ahead with the exchange. May I accompany you?”

  “Certainly, and you’re welcome to Indian food in about forty-five minutes if you care to join us.”

  “Did Aisha make it?”

  “It was my turn to cook the family meal this Friday,” Kelly told him.

  “I should probably wait a few more hours since I had a late breakfast,” the Drazen said.

  “But I was running late so I ordered take-out from a new place.”

  “Maybe just a taste then. You know I like to keep up with the Human food scene.” Bork glanced down at Kelly’s hand and asked, “Are you picking up litter in the corridor again?”

  “That was the one group of tourists from Earth, and it was just by chance they visited the embassy right before our last meeting,” Kelly said. “This was in the new office space that just became vacant on the other side of our conference room. Daniel is going to move over there and turn it into the main office for the Conference of Sovereign Human Communities.”

  “Is this CoSHC’s reaction to your son basing the Human Empire on Flower?”

  “The one doesn’t have anything to do with the other. Even though the sovereign human communities are officially members of the Human Empire, CoSHC is their main business organization, and it will remain that way for at least the next century.”

  “In either case, why bring their trash home with you?” Bork asked.

  “Daniel hasn’t moved in yet and the office space is badly in need of remodeling. This,” Kelly raised the crumpled ball of paper, “sort of floated up and blew into me. I think there’s something wrong with the climate controls.”

  The Drazen frowned. “That doesn’t seem likely. May I see it?”

  Kelly handed over the paper as the doors
opened on the corridor outside of Mac’s Bones. “I’m sure it’s just an advertisement.”

  “You didn’t read it?” Bork asked as he began carefully flattening out the sheet.

  “I don’t need to. Humans have a sixth sense for advertisements that’s evolved through hundreds of years of people shoving flyers at us when we walk down city streets. I don’t know what it is—maybe the combination of fonts and colors—but our brains can recognize a hand-out ad without reading the words.”

  “Well, my Humanese is far from perfect, but I’ll give it a try,” the Drazen ambassador said as he walked alongside Kelly to the entrance of Mac’s Bones. “Madame Zarathustra, Palms Read, Fortunes Told.”

  “See?” Kelly said. “It’s an ad for one of those psychic frauds. I wonder if she was the one who sublet the space for the time remaining on the lease.”

  “Specializing in communication with loved ones who have passed over to the other side. Proof of relationship required before attempting contact,” Bork continued reading. “Certified psychic by the joint EarthCent-Verlock tourism agency. License P421XY.”

  “Let me see that,” Kelly said, taking the wrinkled flyer back from the Drazen ambassador. “The nerve of that woman. She’s invented a connection to EarthCent and the Verlocks to drum up business. I’ll bet that’s why she took the space next to the embassy. I’m going to have Donna ask her daughters to look into it.”

  “That’s an interesting chain of command you have, and I’ll have to remember it when we do the exchange. But why do you assume that Madame Zarathustra is a fraud? I just ran that license number through my implant and it comes back as valid.”

  “How can it be valid when there’s no such thing as a joint EarthCent-Verlock tourism agency?” Kelly asked, and then added, “Libby?”

  “Yes, Ambassador,” the station librarian replied.

  “Does EarthCent have some kind of deal with the Verlocks that I don’t know about to certify psychics for the tourist trade?”

  “It was set up a few months ago at the insistence of the Verlocks who were concerned about their tourists to Earth being defrauded by charlatans,” Libby replied. “The Verlock Academy of Mages provides a standardized test to separate the legitimate fortune tellers from the pretenders.”