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  “Give him another chance and I’m sure he’ll come up with something sweet. You put down all seven-letter words too.”

  “But I didn’t put down DOLLNICK.”

  “She probably thinks I’m too competitive now,” Jorb said to Bill. “You have to help me out and get some points.”

  “I’m trying. It’s just that I’m not a big reader and I’ve never been that good at spelling. I don’t get how you do it.”

  “Games like this are probably easier for non-native speakers with good memories. It’s just a big puzzle for me. Look,” the Drazen said, reaching across the table and turning Bill’s rack sideways so they could both see it. “You’ve got a blank and an ‘S’. That’s a perfect setup.”

  “I thought the blank was like a penalty tile I couldn’t use. I’ve had it all game.”

  “No, you should have asked. It can be anything you want. And you’ve got an ‘X’, that’s worth a lot of points.”

  “I can’t think of any ‘X’ words.”

  “Can’t think of any—there must be millions of them. And ‘C’ from COURTING is a great open space because you’ll get the triple word. Look, you have ‘ING’ too. COAXINGS.”

  “Is that a word?”

  “Do I have to coax you to put it down?”

  “Very funny. But plural?”

  “Why not?” Jorb turned the rack back to Bill. “If you can find something better, put it down, but COAXINGS is worth a hundred and four points.”

  “But Julie will know that I’m cheating.”

  “You’re not cheating, I’m cheating. Help a friend.”

  “Listen to the Drazen,” Flower advised over Bill’s implant.

  “Did you miss us?” Julie asked as the girls took their seats.

  “I did,” Bill said, and the tips of his ears turned bright red. “I mean, I have a good word. C, O, A, X, I, N, G, S.”

  “That’s a hundred and four plus one twenty-two, and you’re up to two twenty-six, just like that,” Jorb said. “You know, I never would have even thought of DOLLNICK if I didn’t draw the letters in the exact order. Stuff like that happens sometimes, but it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I’m not putting down a seven-letter word this time,” Rinka said, though something in the look she shot the other Drazen implied that it was a matter of choice rather than necessity. “D, R, E, A, M, Y.”

  “Sixteen,” Jorb exhaled, and his whole body sagged in relief that she had stayed on message. “That makes four ninety-six for us.”

  “Is yoyo hyphenated?” Julie asked Bill.

  “Flower?” he relayed the question, not bothering to subvoc.

  “Yoyo is acceptable with or without a hyphen.”

  “Flower says it’s okay.”

  “Thirty,” Jorb counted up. “Good triple word, and you just broke two hundred and fifty.”

  “Did you take your letters yet?” Julie asked Rinka.

  “Thank you,” the choir mistress said, accepting the bag and drawing her tiles. “Oops, we’re out. I’m sure you would have caught up otherwise. Right, Jorb?”

  The dojo master stared at his rack, his muscles all tense as if he was trying to restrain himself. Then he couldn’t hold back any longer and began arranging his tiles around the ‘O’ that Julie had placed on the triple.

  “B, E, L, O, V, E, D, S,” he said. “It’s only worth sixty-three, but Rinka and I get the points left in your racks because I went out first.”

  “You don’t have to add them all up, Jorb,” Julie said. “You more than doubled our score.”

  “BELOVEDS?” Rinka asked in an unnaturally high voice. “Can somebody have more than one beloved?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Jorb replied before his brain caught up with his mouth, and then he began to stutter. “I muh-muh-mean, not muh-me. Na-na-not at the sa-sa-same time. Wa-wa-wait,” he cried as the Drazen girl rose from the table. “I meant not at all.”

  Rinka grabbed Julie’s wrist and dragged her off in the direction of the bathroom again, while Jorb began thumping himself on the head with his tentacle. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could I say that? I’m going to the Farling doctor to have my head examined.”

  “She must know that you didn’t mean it,” Bill said. “You probably shouldn’t have added that bit about ‘not at the same time,’ though.”

  “How could he say that?” Rinka demanded of Julie. “Not at the same time? Does he think I’m some sort of mining colony girl looking for a one-night stand?”

  “He’s just nervous,” Julie said. “Bill is always making mistakes like that around me.”

  “It would have been perfect without the ‘S,’” the Drazen girl fumed.

  “He couldn’t have put it down without using the ‘S’ in DOLLNICKS,” Julie pointed out. “It’s not easy finding places for long words at the end of the game.”

  “DOLLNICKS!” Rinka growled. “DOLLNICKS and BELOVEDS. What’s more important to him? Me, or using up all of his letters?”

  “I’m sure it’s you. Males can’t help showing off. Did you see me giving Bill a hard time for putting down COAXINGS? I know he got the word from Flower.”

  “It was Jorb,” the Dollnick AI informed Julie.

  “Flower says he got it from Jorb,” Julie corrected herself. “You see? Jorb felt so bad about beating us that he helped Bill.”

  “Really?” Rinka said, her eyes lighting up. “Do you think he meant to say he was coaxing me?”

  “Would that be a good thing?”

  “Yes. A proper Drazen girl doesn’t throw herself at the first suitor to chase her halfway across the galaxy. She has to be coaxed.”

  “Then I’m sure that’s how he meant it. Did Jorb really join Flower because of you?”

  “I have a cousin on Union Station who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody in Drazen Intelligence, and that’s what I heard,” Rinka told her. “I never would have agreed to this otherwise.”

  “So we should go back before he does something crazy from remorse,” Julie said.

  “Are you ready for a rematch?” Jorb asked as soon as the girls returned. “We could try different teams.”

  “I think a different game would be better,” Rinka said. “Maybe something with dice.”

  Eighteen

  “Trust me on this,” Harry said. “Lume loved my last fruitcake, and this one will be better because it’s had a couple of weeks to relax.”

  “But princes tend to be sticklers for tradition, and your recipe may remind him of the modern take on Holiday Loaf with a bit of fruit added in,” the Dollnick AI argued. “The safe play would be to stick with alcohol and some vegetable sticks.”

  “I may not be an interspecies diplomatic consultant, Flower, but I know something about baked desserts. And nobody could mistake my fruitcake for Holiday loaf. There’s a lot more fruit than there is cake.”

  “What’s the ultimate shelf life?”

  “It depends on how you store them, but the tradition in my family is to wrap the cake in a brandy-soaked cloth and then to put it in a plastic bag and suck out the air.”

  “With a vacuum pump?”

  “With my lungs,” Harry said. “Some people store fruitcakes for years, but I think they’re best served at between six to eighteen months. The biggest factor for shelf life is whether you bake with dried fruit or fresh fruit since a higher moisture content will lead to more microbial activity. Of course, with a soaked fruitcake, the alcohol acts as a preservative.”

  “I’m sure a little ionizing radiation would take care of any microbial problem,” Flower told him. “All right. We’ll try it your way. Do you want to slice it at the table or should I have Lume do it?”

  “Why not Bill?”

  “Because Prince Kuerda himself is coming—he must have been visiting the planet on a secret inspection tour. In addition to being one of the wealthiest Dollnick princes, he sits high on the Princely Council. Lume understands court protocol and can help in the negotiations.”
/>   “If the Princely Council is the closest thing you have to a government, and Lume is actually undercover for Dollnick Intelligence, doesn’t that mean he’s working for Prince Kuerda?”

  “In a manner of speaking, but he’s also working for me, and I pay better bonuses,” Flower said. “I sent him to the docking bay to meet the delegation, which arrived a few seconds ago. Your captain and third officer just entered the cafeteria.”

  The swinging door into the kitchen opened inwards, and Woojin walked through, carrying a wooden crate. He set it down on the counter next to the sink with a grunt. “I’m getting too old to carry around boxes of booze,” he said. “Especially in this uniform when I have to be careful of the buttons.”

  “What is it?” Harry asked.

  “Some thousand-year-old Dollnick cactus juice if I understood correctly,” Woojin said, fishing out one of the dusty bottles. “Are we supposed to serve it like this, Flower?”

  “Rinse it off in the sink, but don’t break the seal. Lume will remove the cork at the table.”

  “Let me do that,” Harry offered. “You’ll get your sleeves wet.” The baker took the bottle from Woojin and rinsed off the dust. “It looks like there’s something floating in the bottom of this one,” he said. “Maybe we should try a different bottle?”

  “That’s a Sheezle larva,” the Dollnick AI told them. “It’s traditional. Just dry the bottle with a towel and put it out. Woojin, the prince will try to stare you down before the negotiations even start. Don’t look away, but don’t challenge him either. And remember not to speak before him, not even in greeting.”

  “Got it,” Woojin said, winking at Harry and taking the bottle. “Is that cake for us too, or is it only safe for the Dollnicks?”

  “It’s been soaked in brandy and I need you and Lynx sober for the negotiations. I’ll serve the leftovers to the other aliens when they come in for their supper.”

  Harry picked up the cake and followed the captain out into the small cafeteria where Lynx was examining the place settings that one of the ship’s maintenance bots had laid out.

  “This dish is solid gold! That goblet too,” she said, pointing at the middle setting on the Dollnick side of the table, where three high-seated chairs had been placed to allow the aliens to sit comfortably. “The rest of us got crystal.”

  “I hope you have the bots do the washing up, Flower,” Harry said. “I’d be afraid to drop one of those glasses in the sink, and they look like they’re worth a fortune.”

  “A small fortune,” the AI informed them. “They’re all from my good set for special occasions. Does everybody understand their instructions?”

  “You’re not here,” Lynx repeated back the main point Flower had drummed into her. “If I need to ask you anything, I’ll subvoc. The prince and his aides know that you’re present and that Trume Six is your elective stop, but your legal status makes it impossible for them to speak with you directly.”

  “I have a question,” Harry said. “If the Dollnicks agree to your plan and we’re here for a week or more, what does that do to the schedule for the rest of the circuit?”

  “Our next stop is the midpoint break at Union Station for twelve days, so it doesn’t matter if we’re late. Anybody who is waiting there to come on board will still get their chance.”

  “Will our cooperative be able to go down to the surface for a visit here even though it’s an alien world? Would it be safe for us?”

  “The terraforming project employs millions of human laborers,” Flower answered him. “They were brought in for the end of a job that’s been going on for hundreds of years, so you’d have no problems with the atmosphere. It’s up to the management whether or not they want visitors.”

  “So these are the workers Jack was talking about that finished the job early.”

  “Yes, and under the Stryx regulations, at the end of a contract the host species has to pay to either send the workers on to their next job, or to a tunnel network station so they can travel home,” Woojin explained. “If we can convince the Dollnicks to release the workers early, Flower is hoping to get them to remain on board.”

  “She’s looking for another twenty thousand people in one chunk?” Harry asked.

  “More like two hundred thousand. That’s why we’ll be here all week if the negotiations pan out. But there’s a catch. Did you hear about the attack when we were leaving Bits?”

  “We were attacked by pirates?”

  “That’s what I assumed, and Flower sold the footage to the bunnies. But this morning she admitted that the three attacking ships weren’t actually pirates. They were Dollnick mercenary process servers firing across her bow.”

  “From her court case?”

  “That’s why she pushed them off rather than destroying them. I should have guessed at the time because Flower doesn’t have any patience with real pirates. The point is, Trume Six is in Dollnick space, which means we’re in their jurisdiction.”

  “So you and Lynx are supposedly here negotiating for us, not for her,” Harry concluded.

  “The prince’s representatives would never have agreed to talk directly with me,” the Dollnick AI said. “Even without my legal issues, I’ve been effectively blacklisted for conduct unbecoming a colony ship. It’s the reason I went to court in the first place.”

  “You know, I think I better let Lume slice the cake and I’ll sit this one out in the kitchen. This diplomatic stuff is way over my head.”

  Harry disappeared through the swinging door, and Lynx, resplendent in her third officer’s version of the ship’s uniform, took her place standing next to her husband and tried to imitate his military posture.

  “Are you positive the Dollnick prince will be willing to negotiate with a woman?” she subvoced. “In my experience as a cultural attaché, the diplomats and regular businessmen were willing to talk to me, but a prince?”

  “I’ve already negotiated that in Woojin’s name,” Flower replied. “It’s acceptable because the two of you are married and you handle the family’s business affairs.”

  Lume ushered three Dollnicks into the cafeteria, and after a brief pause in front of Woojin and Lynx, during which not a word was exchanged, the delegation took their seats. Woojin nodded to his wife, and they took the two seats on the other side of the table.

  Lume showed the bottle with the larva to the prince and then used a pocket knife to cut off the sealing wax before taking up a Dollnick cork-puller and removing the stopper. He poured a generous shot of the expensive liquor into the gold goblet for the prince, who sniffed it and nodded his approval. Finally, Lume poured smaller amounts for the two other Dollnicks in cut crystal glasses and then went to stand at the end of the table like a sommelier.

  Woojin returned the stare of the haughty Dollnick, knowing that if he allowed the prince to establish dominance, negotiations would be short and one-sided. After nearly ten minutes of silence, the prince finally spoke a single word, “Steward.”

  “I am Durbe, Prince Kuerda’s steward on Trume Six,” the smallest Dollnick addressed Woojin. “Explain your proposition.”

  “We understand that the unfamiliarity of some of our contract workers with your processes has led to the work on Trume Six being completed prematurely,” Woojin said diplomatically.

  “I assure you that the job is on schedule, as are all of our terraforming projects,” Durbe replied indignantly. “If you’ve invited us here for the sake of making insulting accusations, we have nothing further to talk about.”

  “Forgive my clumsy attempt at speech, I’m just an old military man. My wife is on detached duty as an EarthCent cultural attaché, and I’m sure this meeting would be more productive if she speaks for me.”

  The prince took a sip from the golden goblet and made a gesture to the steward with one of his lower arms.

  “You may proceed,” the smaller Dollnick said.

  “We’re willing to work with you on the narrative, including taking the blame for interfering with you
r schedule,” Lynx offered. “Our mission is to extend whatever help we can to humans living in space, and that includes providing transportation services. We’re in a position to offer discounted passage to Union Station for any workers you can part with, and if they agree to stay on board and work through the rest of our circuit, we won’t charge anything.”

  “You’re offering free passage?”

  “For those who are willing to join the ship, at least for a trial period,” Lynx reiterated.

  The Dollnick who Woojin had taken for a bodyguard whistled something behind his hand, and the prince made another gesture to the steward.

  “How much?” the steward asked.

  “We could provide passage to Union Station for just three hundred creds a head,” Lynx said, but she was unable to keep the disappointment from her voice since she knew what Flower really wanted was new residents. “If you tell your workers about the opportunities on board—”

  “I meant, how much are you willing to pay us per Human?” Durbe interrupted impatiently.

  “Pay you? At the expiration of the contract, you have to provide passage for your workers anyway, and that would cost at least double what we’re offering.”

  “But the contract isn’t up for another six months on your odd calendar,” the steward replied shrewdly. “It’s clear you want these Humans for something, and I don’t need to tell you that there’s a reputational cost to Prince Kuerda if letting them go early is misinterpreted as a scheduling error on our part.”

  “I’ve heard that back-dated engineering change-orders can be created to explain any scheduling irregularities,” Lume spoke up. “In fact, I understand that since we began employing Human contract laborers, the percentage of large projects completed without late-stage change orders has fallen by more than half.”

  “I’ve heard something similar myself,” Durbe said, without turning his head away from the humans. “Engineering change orders can certainly explain deviations from the published schedule. Of course, somebody has to pay for the work.”