Vacation on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 7) Page 18

  “Are we answering separately or together?” Kelly asked. “Are there forms to fill out?”

  “There are tabs with the survey ready to go on every counter.”

  “Is this a pop quiz?” Samuel asked, looking up from his remote control. “I’m sick and I forgot to study and Beowulf ate my homework.”

  “There aren’t any right or wrong answers today, Samuel, so please don’t copy from Ailia. I’ve swapped the feed on your remote control tabs for the survey, the same with your interactive books, girls, so you can start any time.”

  Ailia sat on the deck with her back against a display case and began reading the first question. Samuel sat down next to her.

  “The company deck,” Dorothy said out loud to Mist, who nodded her agreement.

  “Did you choose the robot deck?” Samuel whispered to Ailia, leaning in her direction.

  “It’s supposed to be secret,” she said, tilting her tab to hide it from him.

  Kelly took two tabs off of the counter and handed one to Joe. The first question read, “Which deck was your favorite?”

  “The first deck, with all the nature,” she said out loud as she tapped in her answer.

  “Ghost,” Joe said to the tab, shaking it when it failed to transcribe the answer. “How do I enable voice control on this thing, Libby? It will take me forever if I have to type.”

  The Stryx librarian gave an exaggerated sigh and enabled voice control for Joe and Samuel. Jeeves had bet her that the humans were too social to keep their answers private, but she thought it had been worth a try to keep them from influencing each other.

  Beowulf figured out the question from the answers, trotted over to the giant mosaic, and tapped the picture of the wastewater treatment deck with his forepaw.

  “Those ghosts were kind of scary at first,” Dorothy said to Mist, after reading the second question. The clone nodded as she tapped in the same answer.

  “I’m never scared,” Samuel asserted out loud.

  “Every new deck,” Ailia said in Vergallian as she tapped in her answer.

  “I don’t think I was scared,” Kelly said, turning to Joe for confirmation.

  “The roller coaster? The ghosts?” he asked.

  “Well, maybe a little. Maybe a lot on the roller coaster,” she confessed.

  “Not that I can remember,” Joe said to the tab. Beowulf barked once to concur. He might have added that Huravian hounds selectively excise the scary parts from their memories through the dreaming process, but nobody asked.

  “What do you mean about sharing the campgrounds with more aliens?” Samuel demanded, not understanding the next question. “There weren’t any aliens at all.”

  “I’m an alien,” Ailia reminded him.

  “Me to,” Mist said over her shoulder.

  “And me,” Banger added.

  Beowulf barked again.

  “Oh,” Samuel said. “Well, I guess more aliens would be good, then.”

  “It was too quiet on most of the decks,” Kelly commented to her husband as she tapped in her answer.

  “I wouldn’t want to get bowled over by a herd of stampeding Grenouthians,” Joe said to the tab, and went on to the next question. “Hmm, hotel rooms, cabins or campsites. I can’t say I have a preference.”

  “Cabins,” Dorothy said as she tapped in her answer. “With fireplaces that have kettles hanging on a tripod for making magic potions.”

  “Hotels with room service,” Mist mouthed, as she put in her own answer.

  “Those inflatable sleeping bags were pretty good, but I still like a bed,” Kelly said, adding her vote for hotels.

  “How come I can’t say a boat?” Samuel asked. “I want to sleep in a boat, under a waterfall.”

  “I didn’t think of boats,” Libby admitted. “You can change it to boats if you want.”

  “Can I put a castle?” Ailia asked.

  “I want to change mine to a castle,” Dorothy said immediately.

  “Me too,” Mist added.

  “Camping,” Joe said to the tab. Beowulf barked in agreement.

  “What’s educational value?” Samuel asked a minute later.

  “She means did the vacation teach you anything,” Dorothy said without looking up.

  “Emergencies are good because you get chocolate bars,” Samuel said. Then he thought about it some more. “And I don’t want to grow up to be a ghost or an empty robot.”

  “I want to get a job in product research and development,” Dorothy answered the question.

  “I knew there was something suspicious about those decks,” Kelly said. “The whole thing is supposed to be an educational experience. Isn’t it?”

  “Not the whole thing,” Libby parried. “You can think about this one and get back to me later if you want.”

  “There definitely weren’t enough bathrooms,” Mist said, moving on to the next question.

  “And the one before the marshes on the first deck was out of paper,” Dorothy added, tapping rapidly on the screen.

  “More bathrooms,” Kelly agreed.

  Joe and Samuel looked at each other and experienced a father-son male bonding moment. There had been plenty of places to step out of sight and take care of business.

  As Joe cupped a hand around his mouth and whispered, “Bathrooms adequate,” to the tab, Beowulf nodded in agreement. He might have asked for a few more trees, but there had been plenty of rocks and other little landmarks to raise a leg against. His main objection to the whole vacation had been a lack of interesting things to smell, but that would change once there were more visitors.

  The questions seemed to go on much longer than twenty minutes and Kelly was beginning to suspect that Libby had outmaneuvered Joe on the trade after all.

  “Finally, do you have any naming ideas for my multi-deck theme park?”

  “The Hidden Decks of Union Station,” Joe suggested.

  “She’s supposed to fit that on a Pilsner glass?” Kelly asked skeptically.

  “It would work on a beach towel.”

  “Inside Union Station,” Mist suggested.

  “But we’re always inside Union Station,” Kelly pointed out.

  “Inside Robots,” Samuel said.

  “Now you’re being too specific,” Kelly objected. “That was just the one deck.”

  “Jeeves said that humans would react best to a one-word name,” Libby said. “It doesn’t have to be a literal translation in all languages.”

  “Explorations,” Kelly suggested, feeling rather pleased with herself.

  “Sounds like the title for a piece of music the composer couldn’t finish,” Joe said.

  “I’ve got it,” Dorothy declared. “Libbyland.”

  Eighteen

  “I’m back,” Kelly announced, striding through the embassy door. Donna wasn’t at her desk, which was strange for a Friday afternoon. The ambassador passed through the reception space and peeked into her own office, where she expected to see Daniel. There was a jacket hanging on the back of her chair and a box of donuts from Hole Universe on her display desk.

  At least he got me something, Kelly thought, going in and opening the box. Other than crumbs, it was empty. Clearly she hadn’t been expected, but then again, she hadn’t sent any messages. She’d just assumed that Libby would have told the embassy staff that the vacation was over and the ambassador was returning to work.

  “Where is everybody?” Kelly asked the ceiling.

  “At the HEEL rally,” Libby replied. “Donna was going to reserve the Meteor room at the Empire Convention Center, but Daniel and Walter were afraid they couldn’t get a big enough crowd to make it look full. So they held the rally in the Little Apple to try to get a boost from the lunch trade. They’ll be returning shortly.”

  “What’s HEEL?” the ambassador asked.

  “It’s the Human Expatriates Election League,” Libby explained. “Walter is their organizer on Union Station, and Daniel has gotten very involved. HEEL’s message isn’t entirely co
herent, but Walter either wants to hold galaxy-wide elections for humans to establish their own government, or he’s trying to move humanity to a hierarchically-based society. In either case, they want to throw off the yoke of Stryx domination.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?” Kelly demanded, staring up at the ceiling. “Doesn’t this qualify as your idea of an emergency? I could understand Daniel going in for something like this, but not Donna. And I saw her just a few days ago when she and Stanley brought us dinner.”

  “Everybody agreed not to disturb you while you were on vacation,” Libby replied. “Besides, I’m sure that Daniel has his reasons which he’d rather explain to you himself than having me steal his thunder.”

  “At least tell me that they’re not paying for it with the embassy budget,” Kelly said, removing Daniel’s jacket from her chair and hanging it on one of the guest chairs next to the desk.

  “Not a single cred,” Libby reassured her. “HEEL appears to be very well funded, and any additional expenses are being picked up by EarthCent Intelligence. Donna was going to offer free entry to her monthly mixer for people who attended the rally, but Blythe insisted on paying the tab to buy them tickets instead, so it won’t cut into the embassy’s petty cash fund.”

  “Wait a minute. EarthCent Intelligence is giving out free tickets to the EarthCent dance mixer to people who attend a political rally to replace EarthCent?”

  “It shows a certain broadmindedness you don’t see in many intelligence services. Of course, Blythe was one of my best students,” Libby added proudly.

  “I give up,” Kelly said, sitting down at her display desk. “I wasn’t really going to start working again until Monday, but since I’m here, I may as well start wading through my backlog of messages.”

  “Shouldn’t you enjoy the weekend first?”

  “Thanks to Libbyland, I’m all refreshed and ready for action. Besides, what could be worse than my junior consul and my best friend plotting to replace EarthCent. Go on. Give me the bad news first.”

  “There isn’t any,” Libby said, sounding slightly embarrassed.

  “Really? That’s great. Let’s have the good news, then.”

  “Actually, there’s just the one thing. EarthCent human resources agreed that the retroactive change to the paid maternity leave policy was improper, so your vacation time has been restored.”

  “All six months? Hah! That’ll teach them to mess with me. Now if I get any pushback about being out on walk-about for a month, I can plaster it over with vacation time. What else?”

  “Daniel and Donna did an excellent job covering for you with EarthCent, and of course, all of your friends and fellow diplomats knew you were on vacation so they didn’t leave messages. By the way, the interview you recorded with Ambassador Srythlan went over very well. It didn’t get the same ratings as the one with Dring, but I’m sure the Grenouthians were pleased with the results.”

  “Stop trying to change the subject,” Kelly said, wagging her finger at nobody in particular. “Are you telling me that I was gone for a month and nobody even noticed?”

  “They’re back,” Libby said, right before the outer door to the embassy office opened.

  “Hello? Is somebody here?” Donna called. “I could have sworn I locked the door. We’re going to have to sweep for bugs now.”

  “I’m in here,” Kelly replied, getting up from the chair and going to meet her office manager. “It was locked when I arrived, which I thought was kind of funny, but I assumed there was a meeting going on or something.”

  “No, we were all at the rally. It was a huge success. The rest of them are headed over to the conference room at EarthCent Intelligence to edit the footage now. I imagine it will shoot Walter to the top of the HEEL ranks.”

  “Why does everybody want to help some guy who thinks the Stryx are oppressing us?” Kelly asked.

  “To find out what’s really going on,” Donna replied.

  Before Kelly could ask for an explanation, Donna pointed at her ear, indicating that there was an incoming call to the embassy. She moved to her desk, brought up the hologram Kelly recognized as the spreadsheet for her mixer, and entered something with a finger gesture.

  “People are starting to call to confirm their reservations with the free tickets we handed out at the rally. I might have to get a bigger room for the next mixer,” Donna said happily. “Oops, here’s another one—I’m going be busy for a while. You should just run over to EarthCent Intelligence and see the recording.”

  “I’ll do that,” Kelly said, but Donna’s attention had already shifted to another lonely-heart human. The ambassador gave her friend a goodbye wave just in case, and headed back out into the corridor. A few minutes later, she arrived at the offices of EarthCent Intelligence.

  “They’re in there,” said a grouchy-looking young woman with a sword. “They didn’t let me bring my rapier to the rally so I had to leave it here.”

  “I’m sure they didn’t mean anything by it,” Kelly replied automatically, walking up to the camera that covered the conference room door. All of the business with cameras and door buzzers seemed to her incredibly clunky compared to relying on Libby to identify visitors. But EarthCent Intelligence wasn’t directly supported by the Stryx, and they used off-the-shelf hardware for many security functions.

  “Welcome back,” Clive said as Kelly entered the room. Everybody stopped what they were doing for a minute to voice their pleasure in seeing that the ambassador had returned from vacation. The ambassador’s greeters included one young man whom she didn’t recognize.

  “Ambassador McAllister. Allow me to introduce Walter Dunkirk,” Daniel said, bringing the two together.

  “I’ve heard so much about you, Mrs. Ambassador,” the HEEL organizer said.

  “I’m afraid you have the advantage of me,” Kelly replied. “I heard about you for the first time from Libby a few minutes ago, and she implied you were trying to put me out of a job.”

  “Not immediately,” Walter protested.

  “One month,” Kelly continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “I go on vacation for one month, my junior consul joins a crackpot revolutionary movement, and nobody thinks it’s worth disturbing me. Should I assume that HEEL was behind all of the political incidents that we discussed in my last—is this guy even trustworthy?”

  “We’re grooming Walter to be our first mole,” Blythe told her. “He’s going through the training camp now, and we’re hoping that with this performance, he’ll be called into HEEL headquarters to show the other organizers how it’s done. They haven’t had much success to this point from what we can tell.”

  “And you want to help them,” Kelly said, crossing her arms and letting the sarcasm enter her voice. She was pretty steamed over finding herself so out of the picture.

  “The HEEL organizers make some interesting points,” Jeeves said. “And humans will have to take care of themselves eventually.”

  “And when did you join EarthCent Intelligence?” Kelly asked pointedly.

  “He hasn’t, but he’s very keen on HEEL, and Clive doesn’t have the heart to ask him to stop coming to the meetings,” Blythe replied.

  “It’s great that you’re here, Ambassador,” Daniel said. “You’ll be seeing the footage for the first time, while the rest of us know it from the live performance. We want to cut it down to about ten minutes, just the parts with the highest impact.”

  “And you’re going to broadcast this?”

  “No, ma’am,” Walter said politely. “I’m going to submit it to HEEL headquarters as proof that I’m reaching the people and following the platform.”

  “Are there donuts in that box?” Kelly asked grudgingly, taking a seat at the table.

  “I just picked them up,” Shaina replied. “And I think the tea is ready by now.

  Kelly tried to look nonchalant as she claimed a triple-chocolate donut, but her hand showed a visible tremor. She had wanted to set a good example for the children while they were on vacati
on, so other than the emergency supplies, she hadn’t requested chocolate with any of their meal deliveries. It was inexplicable to her that none of her friends had read her mind and just brought some along. Not even Gwendolyn, and the Gem were chocoholics.

  Shaina poured several mugs of freshly brewed herbal tea for the non-coffee drinkers and slid one over in front of Kelly. Daniel did something with the camera to interface it with the conference room display system, and an image of the central plaza area of the Little Apple popped up over the table. It wasn’t a true hologram, since it was taken with one camera, but the display equipment used a series of holographic optical tricks to provide a frontal view from all angles.

  “Thank you all for coming,” Walter’s hologram greeted the crowd. He was standing beneath a giant banner stenciled HUMAN EXPATRIATES ELECTION LEAGUE. A number of the people crowding in behind him in the image frame held signs with slogans, though the only one that caught Kelly’s attention was brandished by Chance and read, “One human-derived sentient, one vote.”

  A hundred teenage girls began chanting, “HEEL, Walter, HEEL. HEEL, Walter, HEEL,” which left Kelly with the impression he was either a rock star or a naughty puppy.

  “Thank you. Thank you.” Walter waved to individuals here and there in the crowd, making frequent eye contact with the camera and establishing a sort of intimacy with the viewers. The cheering and chants continued unabated.

  “How did he become so popular with teenage girls?” Kelly asked.

  “InstaSitter,” Blythe replied. “Don’t worry. It’s not on the embassy budget.”

  Walter extended both of his arms and made some gentle patting motions with his hands, which the paid babysitter section of the crowd correctly interpreted as a request to quiet down.

  “As you all know, I’m here today to talk about self-government for humans. It would be a violation of all I believe in for me to simply present a political platform and tell you that this is the way it must be. Instead, I’m going to offer the principles of the Human Expatriates Election League for your approval, and I want you to let me know what you think.”