LARP Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 14) Read online

  “I’m not the artist,” Joe replied, stripping off his own elbow-length welding gauntlets. “Dring laid it out, and I trust him that the perspective will be correct after he paints in some false shadows.”

  Alexander leapt into the container through one of the large window openings Joe had just completed torching out, trotted back through the improvised front door, and then repeated the feat.

  “It’s going to be our house, Alex,” Kevin told him. “It’s not a Cayl obstacle course for training hounds.”

  “What’s the difference between living in a cargo container and living on your ship when it’s parked?” Samuel asked, putting down the angle grinder he’d been using to smooth out his father’s cuts. “You’ve got plenty of room.”

  “The bathroom is set up for Zero-G, and your sister won’t use it unless we’re in space and she doesn’t have a choice.”

  “So park closer and keep coming to our house for the bathrooms. It’s what you’ve both been doing since last time you got married anyway.”

  “Women want their own home,” Joe explained to his son. “And drop the bit about Dorothy already being married. If she wants to pretend she’s still single for her wedding, just let her.”

  “Aisha didn’t get pregnant until we moved into our new place,” Paul pointed out. “It’s like a nesting thing.”

  “Why did you wait so long to get married, Dad?” Samuel asked his father.

  “Well, I suppose we’ve made enough progress for today,” Joe replied, surveying the work site. “The answer to that question will cost you a beer run.”

  “One for me,” Paul said.

  “And pretzels for the dog,” Kevin added.

  Samuel let out a loud groan, but tradition made the youngest man on the job the runner, so he set off for the ice harvester at a jog. Alexander went along, running the occasional circle around the teenager to remind everyone that four legs were superior to two.

  “Have you decided yet whether to go with a tub or a shower?” Joe asked his son-in-law. “I want to rough in the plumbing tomorrow.”

  “A shower works for me,” Kevin replied.

  “Do both,” Paul suggested. “Tubs are good for washing kids, and Aisha likes taking a long soak whenever she comes back from arguing with the Grenouthian network executives about the latest dumb idea they want her to add to the show.”

  “Like what?”

  “Contests mainly. It’s already the most watched children’s program in the galaxy, but the bunnies will never give up on pushing the ratings even higher. I don’t usually have an opinion one way or the other about this stuff, but Aisha is right that nobody needs to see a bunch of seven-year-olds competing over who can eat the fastest or yell the loudest. Anyway, you should ask Dorothy about the shower.”

  “I would, but we’re in our Drazen quiet period.”

  “I could check with her for you, but Paul’s right that it doesn’t hurt to do both,” Joe said. “The drain and the shower head are going to end up in the same place, it’s just a question of what I put in between.”

  “I really want to thank you guys again for helping with all this,” Kevin told them. “I wish you’d let me pay you something.”

  “Just make her happy and that’s enough for me.”

  “She was a great little sister, even if she never learned the difference between engineering and magic,” Paul said. “And Vivian is going to get a good one with Samuel. He’s a sweet kid.”

  “And slow.” Joe folded the coveralls he had stripped off and sat down in the doorway of the Dollnick cargo container they were converting into a starter home for Kevin and Dorothy. “If I had sent Beowulf for a beer, he’d be back by now rolling the keg with his nose.”

  “Where is Beowulf today?”

  “Kelly took him along for a mediation session in the temporary office she rented near the embassy. She wants to test whether his presence helps keep emotions from boiling over, though I don’t think he was paying much attention when she briefed him on the mission this morning.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Since Alexander started sneaking in to steal chew toys, Beowulf has learned to sleep with his eyes open. I can only tell he’s out cold because he doesn’t thump his tail when I go by.”

  “You didn’t say anything to Kelly?”

  “She’d already been lecturing him on doggy etiquette for five minutes when I noticed he was snoozing, so I figured it was better to just let it slide. Besides, Cayl hounds are born diplomats.”

  “Here comes Samuel,” Paul said when the teen finally reappeared riding Dorothy’s bike, which featured a basket at the front. The rider began braking a good distance from the men in order to prevent the beer from sloshing out of the pitcher, and came to a gentle halt right by his father.

  “Thanks.” Joe stood up to retrieve the pitcher from the basket and poured himself a mug. “You’re short a glass.”

  “You know I don’t drink beer, Dad. It just puts me to sleep.”

  “Here, boy,” Kevin said, and threw a pretzel as far as it would carry. Alexander sprinted off and made a diving catch, showily keeping his tongue extended with the pretzel displayed as he skidded to a halt. “Good one.”

  “So what about the story on why you waited so long to get married?”

  “I don’t know if you’re old enough after all,” Joe replied, settling back down in the doorway with his beer.

  “No fair, you already promised.”

  “All right, but keep in mind that people are different, and for all I know, Georgia might have found the right guy and is settled down somewhere with children and grandchildren as we speak.”

  “Then you must be talking about something from a long time ago.”

  “I’ve been married to your mother for almost twenty years. Did you think it could have been recent?”

  “I’m eighteen so Dorothy is twenty-five,” Samuel pointed out. “You’ve been married at least twenty-five years.”

  “That’s what I meant, but in any case, this happened when I was about the same age Dorothy is today, say forty years ago. Georgia was a technician who had a way with fixing alien hand-weapons. She was the daughter of my unit commander, and all of the men were crazy about her.”

  “So you dated?”

  “You could call it that, I guess. A couple of years, off and on. I felt like I was auditioning for a part. Her father liked me more than any of her other suitors, and if we had tied the knot, he was going to promote me to second in command.”

  “What kind of military system is that?” Kevin asked, setting down his own beer to throw the dog another pretzel.

  “The mercenary system. Her father owned the unit so he could do whatever he wanted.”

  “What happened?” Samuel pressed on.

  “We opened our hearts to each other one night and she told me that her favorite thing in life was falling in love.”

  “And?”

  “And that was it. I couldn’t take the gamble.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “She didn’t mean falling in love with me, Sam. She meant falling in love in general. And you have to remember that I knew a couple of guys whose hearts she had already broken. It was just her thing, loving and being loved, and when a new opportunity to do it all over again came along, she’d be off like a shot. I always wondered if it was something she would grow out of or if the right man could change her, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen that happen.”

  “You mean people don’t change?” Paul asked.

  “People change, they just don’t change each other. We aren’t as malleable as a cargo container,” Joe concluded, thumping the metal wall. “That’s why I don’t worry about you and Vivian, Sam. Maybe she’s a little too sure of herself, but I know that if the two of you do get married someday, she’ll be there for you as long as you’ll have her, if not longer.”

  “If Vivian’s anything like her mother was at that age, you probably don’t have much choice in the matter anyw
ay,” Paul said. “Sometimes I suspect that Aisha and Blythe flipped a coin for me, or maybe Libby stepped in and decided for them. I remember being pretty confused at the time, but it couldn’t have worked out better for any of us.”

  Kevin threw another pretzel for Alexander, but as the Cayl hound made a showy leap to snatch it out of the air, Beowulf flew in with a body block and captured the salty treat.

  “Way to show him who’s the boss,” Joe congratulated the older dog. “Did you bring my wife back with you?”

  “Right here,” Kelly said, coming around the corner of the cargo container. “Beer, pretzels, looks like I missed out on a male-bonding session. What were you boys talking about?”

  The men looked at each other, and then replied in unison, “Fishing.”

  “That’s a great idea. We could go camping in Libbyland now that I’m on vacation.”

  “Sabbatical,” Samuel reminded her.

  “By the way, Kevin. Dorothy wanted me to ask you when your family is going to send in the measurements for their wedding outfits.”

  “Yeah, about that. My sister insists on wearing her prophetess robes, and nobody else was interested in dressing up. I tried explaining that it’s what Dorothy does for a living, but they said that if their homespun is good enough for New Kasil, it’s good enough for Union Station.”

  “Clever,” Kelly said. “You can’t argue if they put it that way. I just wish you could explain it to Dorothy directly because she’s not going to want to hear it from me.”

  “Sorry, but our quiet period has another week to go.”

  “Does anybody even know why the Drazens make couples go through a quiet period before getting married?” the ambassador asked. “I could check with Bork, but now that I’m on sabbatical, it wouldn’t be fair to keep dropping in on him. Libby?”

  “The Drazens adopted the practice from consortium mergers,” the station librarian promptly informed them. “When two business entities are planning to join forces, an untimely release of performance data could affect the value of one or another entity and lead to consortium members maneuvering for quick profits. That goes against the whole ethos of the cooperative structure.”

  “There you are, Kevin,” Joe said. “In case my daughter has you confused about marriage, that’s as good an explanation as you’ll hear. Think of it as a consortium merger where you’ll be combining your trade stock.”

  “Except all of Dorothy’s trade stock belongs to Jeeves,” Kevin pointed out. “I just wish I knew what put it into her head to solicit pre-wedding rituals from all of the aliens she knows. Silence is one thing, but the suggestions she got from her Frunge and Vergallian friends have me a little nervous.”

  “I can help you with the Vergallian rituals,” Samuel offered. “Do you think of Dorothy as royalty or as a peasant?”

  “Uh, royalty,” Kevin answered, glancing at Joe, who gave him an approving nod.

  “So you can write a poem, kill a Thurbrick, or present her with a rare object.”

  “I can’t write a poem and I don’t want to kill anything. I’ve never even heard of Thurbricks.”

  “They’re like a cross between a lion and a crocodile, except they spit acid. The Empire keeps them in nature preserves just so they’ll be available for courting rituals. I’ve heard that the Fleet Vergallians do something with holograms and robots like the LARPing studios.”

  “It seems cruel to keep animals around just to slaughter them to prove a point,” Kelly said.

  “The Vergallians only breed the surviving Thurbricks so they keep getting better. It’s like a fifty/fifty proposition who wins.”

  “So if the groom gets eaten they call off the wedding?”

  “It’s part of the proposal process that comes after the initial tests but before the contract gets signed,” Samuel explained. “Vergallians don’t schedule the wedding until the necessary preliminaries are completed, but Dorothy is always doing things in the wrong order.”

  “I don’t want to be eaten by a holographic Thurbrick any more than I want to slay one,” Kevin objected. “What was my other choice?”

  “You can give her a rare object, but that can get pretty expensive. You’re better off writing the poem.”

  Kevin groaned. “I’ll think about it while we’re fasting next week.”

  “Fasting?” Paul asked.

  “As soon as the silent period is over. Flazint gave Dorothy a list of Frunge rituals to choose from and fasting was the least unpleasant.”

  “How long?” Kelly asked.

  “A week, or maybe it was ten days after translating from the Frunge calendar.”

  “You can’t fast for a week!”

  “It’s not a total fast. We just can’t eat any grain products, but that’s like fifty percent of my diet.”

  “So it’s more of a purifying cleanse.”

  “I guess. Flazint said that it’s not really traditional because the old-fashioned Frunge would never eat grains to start with, but I guess it’s cropped up for the ones who live around a lot of aliens.”

  “I’m surprised they can even digest grains,” Paul observed. “Libby?”

  “Most Frunge would have trouble digesting their own grains, which aren’t farmed by them in any case. But they can eat some of the grains grown by other species.”

  “How did that come about?”

  “I’m sure you’ve noticed that the oldest species have the widest dietary range. It’s one of those creeping adaptations that appear over long stretches of time. The Frunge have developed the ability to digest the meat and produce of several other species, and consumption of those foods brought with it a tolerance for grains built from similar chemical building blocks.”

  “So you’re just doing one ritual each from the three species?” Samuel asked.

  “It’s three more than I wanted,” Kevin replied honestly. “I keep telling myself that the second time’s the charm and we won’t have to get married again.

  “Mind if we join you?” Thomas asked, pausing in his approach to scratch the ears of the Cayl hounds as they competed for his attention. Beowulf and Alexander both snubbed Chance, who never carried dog treats.

  “Grab yourselves a seat,” Joe replied, pointing towards a couple of heavy rolling tool boxes that would stand the weight of the artificial people. “Judith already head home?”

  “Dorothy was waiting in ambush when we quit for the day, though I have to admit that Judith went along willingly. I think she’s actually warming up to participating in the wedding party.”

  “It’s the technology,” Chance added. “She wants to adapt some of Dorothy’s ideas for EarthCent Intelligence.”

  “Your bride-to-be asked me to explain the marriage traditions of artificial people to you so you could pick something to do, Kevin,” Thomas said. “Human-derived artificial people haven’t really been around long enough to develop our own traditions, but we’re testing a generic add-on from QuickU, if that will help.”

  “A generic personality enhancement?” Paul asked. “How do they manage that?”

  “QuickU has been surveying artificial people from other species and licensing some of their founding myths. Surprisingly, there are plenty of AIs who believe that they created their biological counterparts. Chance and I only began testing the enhancement this morning, and I have to admit it’s like seeing everything through different eyes.”

  “But the oldest human-derived artificial people aren’t even a hundred years old yet,” Joe pointed out.

  “That’s why I’m worried about becoming neurotic,” Thomas said.

  “You’re joking.”

  “He’s serious,” Chance told them. “Holding incompatible beliefs is one of the leading causes of neurosis as the mind struggles with internal contradictions. I’m not having any problems because I’m already full of contradictions, but Thomas has always played it straight, so it really bothers him.”

  “Why not get rid of the personality enhancement?” Paul asked.

 
; “Well, for one thing, it’s educational, and for another thing, I wouldn’t want to disappoint Dorothy by not coming up with a ritual,” Thomas replied.

  “Now you’re making me feel bad,” Kevin said. “Why not just recommend the first thing that comes to mind and then get rid of the enhancement.”

  “Thank you, I believe I’ll do that.” The artificial person sat stock still for a few seconds, silently communing with Chance. “Got it. There’s a ritual performed by artificial Fillinducks before marriage that helps the three of them establish their ranking. It involves a bit of physical—”

  “Thomas,” Kelly interrupted. “Dorothy and Kevin aren’t including a third person in their marriage.”

  “That’s what Chance said, but I thought it was better than her idea.”

  “Which was?”

  “Wearing each other’s clothes for a day.”

  “If anybody even mentions that one to Dorothy, I’m getting in my ship and leaving,” Kevin said. “Can’t you think of anything else?”

  “Well, the Sharf artificial people have a tradition of exchanging their unique personal identifiers before marrying. It’s basically a formality for establishing a joint bank account.”

  “Great, we’ll do that one.”

  “Are you sure you want Dorothy to have access to your business account?” Joe cautioned him. “You know all the trouble she gives Jeeves, and you might find yourself heading out on a trading voyage with a hold full of nothing but frilly dresses.”

  “As long as I don’t have to wear them.”

  Sixteen

  “What are you guys role-playing?” Bob asked the artificial people.

  “EarthCent Intelligence trainers,” Chance replied.

  “But that’s what you are!”

  “And we’re really good at it,” Thomas said. “We didn’t want to risk messing up Dorothy’s Jack-and-Jill LARP by taking on unfamiliar characters. What are you playing?”

  “A bard,” Bob admitted. “It’s the closest thing I could find to a newspaper reporter.”

  “I would have trained him as a fighting monk but there wasn’t enough time,” Judith said. “Do you think we should go see what’s taking Dorothy and Kevin so long? They’ve been talking to that non-player character for five minutes already. We should have a quest by now.”