Career Night on Union Station Read online

  Kelly pinged the EarthCent Intelligence hotline again and didn’t bother subvocing this time. “Cancel that agent,” she said. “The fake inspector left in a hurry and the station librarian informs me that he wasn’t breaking any Stryx laws.”

  “What was that all about?” Daniel asked, stepping through the opening into the construction space with a coffee in one hand. “I heard you yelling.”

  “Some conman came in and ran off our construction crew,” Kelly replied angrily, but then something hit her. “I wonder why they went for it.”

  “The workers?”

  “Yes. You’d think they would know better, but they just put down whatever they were doing and left.”

  “That does sound funny. Did you check out the outfit before you hired them?”

  “All I really know is that they’re one hundred percent human and they were available,” Kelly admitted. “I never realized there was a skilled construction labor shortage on the station, at least as far as humans go. I guess I’m spoiled by the fact that Joe and the kids always do everything at home.”

  Donna joined the other two and said, “I’ve got bad news, Kelly.”

  “Let’s get it over with,” the ambassador said with a sigh.

  “I just pinged Chastity and asked her to put me through to the editor who handles the services directory for the local edition of the Galactic Free Press. It turns out that Union Builders is a husband-and-wife business and they didn’t have any more free time in their schedule than any of the other contractors you contacted.”

  “Then who were all the men working this morning?”

  “Actors. Union Builders hired them to keep the jobsite warm until they finished with a restaurant interior they’re doing in the Little Apple.”

  “Actors cut the opening between the embassy and the travel agency?”

  “That’s the bad news,” Donna continued. “Union Builders subcontracted a Dollnick crew to come in and do the cutting last night. I think we better change the security codes again.”

  “I can’t believe this! We would have been better off if I’d just accepted Ambassador Crute’s suggestion two weeks ago and hired that Dollnick engineering firm to do the whole job. They probably would have been finished by now.”

  “Why not bring in a crew from one of my sovereign human communities?” Daniel suggested. “They’re building all the time on some of those open worlds, but it’s boom-and-bust, so availability won’t be a problem.”

  “But we don’t have any time to lose,” Kelly objected. “How long would it take them to get here?”

  “You just need basic metal construction skills and some finish workers to install the trim package, right? I’ll check the boards right now and I bet I can have a crew here in four days from a tunnel network world.”

  “Thank you, Daniel. Please do. Donna and I will concentrate on ordering the millwork and the furniture.”

  “I bet I can have a crew here in four days,” Daniel repeated significantly. “Twenty creds. Any takers?”

  “If it will help get the job done, yes, I’ll bet you twenty creds.” The associate ambassador disappeared into his office and Kelly followed her office manager back to her desk. “I better tell Joe it’s time for a poker game before we lose Daniel to the casino circuit. That’s the third bet he’s made with me since we got back.”

  “Have you won any?” Donna asked as she took her seat and called up another holographic furniture catalog.

  The ambassador nodded. “He was sure that the Junior Scouts jamboree was two weeks off, but I knew that it starts on Sunday because Aisha and Paul are taking Fenna.”

  “I wondered why Daniel was scheduling sick days a week ahead of time but I didn’t get a chance to ask. I guess he and Shaina must have volunteered as chaperones to go along with Mike.”

  “Whose catalog is this?” Kelly asked, her interest piqued by the holographic presentation above Donna’s display desk. “Some of those benches look pretty nice.”

  “Choral Suppliers. It’s a human-run factory town on one of the Drazen open worlds. They specialize in furniture for music halls and houses of worship, but Tinka was at our family dinner last night and she tipped me off that they’re branching out into conference room furnishings. InstaSitter is trying their products in a new training room concept.”

  “What’s that material? It looks more like marble than plastic, but the colors are so pure.”

  “Onyx,” Donna told her after zooming in on the small print. “It’s considered a gemstone on Earth, but miners on Dorl have recently discovered large deposits that make it practical as a furniture material. The onyx is glued to a carbon fiber substrate for additional rigidity,” the embassy manager read on, “and the table legs can be positioned anywhere along a steel track to accommodate different lower body spacing for aliens. Some assembly required.”

  “That sounds ideal! What other patterns are there?”

  Donna flipped through a number of holograms of tabletops, some of which were almost too bright for the eyes, then stopped on a simple black-and-white design that was reminiscent of a jigsaw puzzle.

  “It’s certainly eye catching,” Kelly said.

  “I like the way that it’s all black at one end, all white at the other end, and mixed-up in the middle. It’s almost like you’d be making a statement that diplomacy isn’t as simple as choosing between one extreme or the other.”

  “You know, I hadn’t thought of using the furniture to send a message. Where’s the price?”

  “It depends on the size,” Donna told her. “Wow, they really are out to attract nonhuman business. The sizing doesn’t go by table dimensions. Instead you enter the number of guests you want to accommodate, specify the species of each, and then they give you a minimum required length and width for the room.”

  “Put in all the oxygen-breathing ambassadors, and then add an extra Verlock and an extra Dollnick for a margin of error,” Kelly instructed.

  “How about multiple human spots? It is our conference room.”

  “We fit in anywhere, it’s just a matter of the right chair height. Speaking of which, where are the chairs?”

  “Um, it looks like we order those separately,” Donna said as she entered one each for all the oxygen breathing species. “Should I have included the Fillinduck?”

  “He refuses to attend meetings at other embassies when I’m going so I doubt he’ll come here,” Kelly said. “Skip the Fillinducks. If the ambassador shows up he can take one of the empty places or sit against the wall.”

  “There’s going to be a sitting wall?”

  “Bork suggested that we buy extra matching chairs and just line them up along the walls. Sometimes ambassadors like bringing support staff to critical meetings and it’s normal for them to sit around the periphery.”

  “You never bring me to critical meetings.”

  “I guess I’ve never been to one of those. They don’t come up often, but you know how far-sighted the aliens are.”

  “Scratch the Fillinduck, add an extra Verlock and Dollnick for a safety margin,” Donna said as she made the final adjustments. “Oh. I think I better call Blythe.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Donna grimaced and pointed to the price, which had appeared in small figures under the calculator.

  “Is that five hundred creds? It seems cheap for such a large table.”

  “There’s no decimal point.”

  “FIFTY THOUSAND CREDS? For a table without chairs?”

  “I know, it sounds like a fortune…”

  “It doesn’t sound like a fortune, it is a fortune. Our combined salaries don’t come anywhere near that in a year!”

  “An embassy should have something nice,” Donna insisted, and pinged her elder daughter through the display desk’s conference calling function. “Blythe?”

  “What’s up, Mom?”

  “Kelly and I were looking at furniture for the conference room and it’s a bit more than the budget we talked about.” />
  “Like ten percent more or a thousand percent more?” Blythe asked suspiciously.

  “Well, maybe the money you already gave us will cover the chairs,” Donna said, though she didn’t sound that hopeful.

  “Do you have a ballpark?”

  “The table is fifty thousand.”

  “That’s an awfully round number, Mom. Did you ask for a diplomatic discount? It’s a human manufacturer, right? It ought to be worth something to them that their table is going to be used in the Union Station embassy conference room.”

  “I can bargain in the Shuk, do price comparisons on catering, and ask the Dollnick manager at the Empire Convention Center for a quantity discount, but these sorts of numbers…”

  “Send me the catalog information for what you pick out and I’ll see if I can talk them down. Try to get everything from one vendor to give me extra leverage.”

  “Love you.” Donna broke the connection and beamed at Kelly. “Let’s pick out some chairs and see what else they have.”

  One hour of intensive shopping later, the embassy manager forwarded a list of catalog numbers for all of the conference room furnishings the two women could think of. The grand total was just under two hundred thousand creds.

  “I’ve never spent so much money on anything in my life,” Kelly said in a hushed tone. “Do you think she’ll go for it?”

  “Blythe has more money than she knows what to do with, and if Chastity finds out, they’ll end up fighting over who picks up the tab,” Donna reassured her. “Besides, you’re forgetting that you were a trillionaire after the Kasilian auction. You once bought a whole planet.”

  “No, the Stryx used me as their tool to buy a planet,” Kelly corrected her. “It was fun shopping for it, though.”

  “Assuming Blythe places the order before lunch, delivery is guaranteed within thirty days. As long as Daniel’s work crew comes through, I don’t think we’ll have any trouble meeting our deadline.”

  “Speaking of deadlines, is there a due date for my sabbatical report?”

  “You haven’t sent that in yet?” Donna rapidly navigated through a number of diplomatic service menus, but got caught up reading a special bulletin.

  “Libby?” the ambassador asked. “Is there a drop-dead date for my sabbatical summary?”

  “If you had gone out under the current rules your report would already be overdue, but since the program parameters hadn’t been decided when you and Donna took your sabbaticals, the rules for you are grandfathered.”

  “Does that translate to a particular date?”

  The station librarian affected a sigh.

  “What’s this announcement about changing the EarthCent recruitment process?” Donna asked. “Are the Stryx going to stop picking all of our new employees, Libby?”

  “The president’s office has been pushing us to allow them to play a part in recruiting for the sake of appearances,” the station librarian replied. “Although we believe that our track record in selecting EarthCent staff speaks for itself, we recognize that the process works against your public relations bureau’s attempt to foster a reputation for independence, so we’re willing to try a hybrid approach.”

  “What does it say?” Kelly demanded, pleased at the opportunity to change the subject away from her tardy sabbatical report.

  “A special team headed by Hildy Greuen has been negotiating with the Stryx to create a competitive exam system that will attract the best and brightest candidates to EarthCent,” Donna read out loud.

  “The best and the brightest willing to work for peanuts,” the ambassador added.

  “An announcement describing a Beta trial of the new system will be released on Opening Day. That’s a week from Monday.”

  “You once told me that we’re hundreds of years away from self-government, Libby. Have we made that much progress, or will the new system just be a show for the aliens while you continue to pick all of our key personnel behind the scenes?”

  “The goal of our negotiator was to arrive at a mutually acceptable system that would identify the same qualities we currently look for in candidates. If it works as intended and cheating is kept to a minimum, there would be no need for us to override the results.”

  “Who handled the negotiations with EarthCent? One of the first-generation Stryx?”

  “We left it to our expert on human behavior.”

  “Jeeves!?”

  “My offspring has matured alongside your children and the creation of this new system is a test for him as well. His extracurricular activities have left him behind the other Stryx his age on multiverse studies, but this is his opportunity to prove that he’s settling into a career. I expect that whatever Jeeves comes up with will serve admirably.”

  “The way you put that, it sounds like you’ve allowed him to negotiate without consulting you or the other Stryx.”

  “It wouldn’t be a fair test if we were looking over his shoulder the whole time.”

  “Isn’t he a bit—young?” Kelly substituted at the last second.

  “He’s certainly too young to take on the responsibility of a science ship or a station librarian,” Libby replied. “You know that since I opened my experimental school, we’ve been undergoing a minor population explosion with a half-a-dozen or more new offspring a year, but with the exception of Jeeves, they’ve followed the path we’ve all taken for tens of millions of years.”

  “Becoming a specialist on human behavior doesn’t sound like a very challenging career for a Stryx,” Kelly said. “You could have bought Jeeves a full subscription to EarthCent Intelligence instead, but I suppose you know what you’re doing. Still, I can’t imagine that spending his time trying to figure us out can be that interesting for him.”

  After Kelly and Donna headed home, Libby said to the empty embassy, “It’s what Jeeves does with his conclusions that makes the job interesting.”

  Eleven

  “Over there, Fenna! That old Horten dropped something.”

  The two children and the dog raced for the bench where the elderly alien had dozed off, but a little Grenouthian bounded past them and reached the prize first. The Horten woke up just as the bunny was bending to pick up the fallen water bottle and he thanked the furry scout.

  “You should have cut him off,” Mike grumbled to the Cayl hound. “You could have caught that bunny easy and then we would have won.”

  “Don’t be mean to Queenie,” Fenna scolded her friend, and gave the crestfallen dog a big hug around the neck. “Picking up the Horten’s water bottle wouldn’t have counted as a good deed if we had stopped the Grenouthian from doing it anyway.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Mike argued. “My mom says it’s all about supply and demand.”

  “Scouting badges?”

  “Everything, I guess. There sure isn’t much demand for good deeds around here.”

  “I already told you we can just pick up litter.”

  The dog disappeared into the bushes at this comment and returned a moment later with a food wrapper she’d sniffed out.

  “Good, Queenie,” Fenna praised the Cohan family’s dog, taking the wrapper and putting it in her Junior Station Scouts utility bag. “Can you find more?”

  “I want to help an old alien,” Mike insisted. “It was at the top of the list.”

  “I think that’s just the way you copied the suggestions. Picking up litter was at the top of my list.”

  “Maybe we could find somebody who’s lost and help them get home.”

  “But they could just ask the station librarian and she’d send a maintenance bot.”

  “Stupid bots. That’s why there isn’t enough litter to pick up.”

  “But you said you don’t want to pick up litter.”

  “I said that because there isn’t any,” the nine-year-old replied perversely. “Maybe we should just go and help build the rope bridge.”

  “My dad said that everybody agreed that the Dollnick kids should build it,” Fenna said. “They practi
ce field engineering on their regular campouts, and this is our first overnight.”

  “I don’t know why we couldn’t have had a jamboree with Drazens and Frunge instead of Grenouthians and Dollnicks. They’re so much bigger than we are.”

  “The Verlocks too,” the girl added. “My mom said it has to do with the clock. They try to do these things with species that are going to sleep at the same time on that day.”

  “They better know some scary ghost stories. They’re all older than us so they should.”

  “You’re thinking about their biological ages. My mom says we grow up a lot faster than they do.”

  Queenie returned with something wrapped tightly in metal foil and dropped it at the boy’s feet. Mike unwrapped what turned out to be half of a sandwich and the dog gulped it down.

  “Did you pick that out of a trash can?” Fenna asked the dog, and received a toothy smile and a lolling tongue in return. “It’s not litter if somebody put it in the trash.”

  “Doesn’t count as a good deed,” Mike concurred, still nursing a grudge that Queenie hadn’t headed off the Grenouthian from helping the Horten. Then the sound of a horn being blown in short blasts rolled across the park deck. “That’s the recall. Race you back.”

  Dozens of children, humans and aliens, soon found themselves in a footrace for the camp area, with the bunnies easily coming in first. The dog forged ahead of the children at the end and led them directly to the row of green-and-white striped tents that the chaperones had just finished erecting.

  “Is it time for the bonfire yet?” Mike asked his father.

  Daniel consulted his implant. “Dusk will begin in a few minutes. Tell me as soon as you see the overhead lights begin to dim.”

  The other Junior Station Scouts from the human contingent naturally clustered around Aisha, easily the most recognizable person in the galaxy thanks to her hosting role on ‘Let’s Make Friends’, the hit children’s show for all species produced by the Grenouthian network. Fenna tugged on her mother’s sari and asked, “Are you going to tell one of the ghost stories, Mommy?”