Space Living (EarthCent Universe Book 4) Read online

  “Are you serious? Flower wants to get four new independently produced series up and running for the next season, and our studio has already contracted to do the animation work for a half-dozen others.”

  “Captain on deck,” Flower announced via the overhead speakers. A moment later the kitchen door swung open again and Woojin entered, still resplendent in his uniform that was copied from portraits of George Washington.

  “Looks like an intelligence convention in here,” Woojin said, and then his eyes lit up. “Are you making ramen?”

  Jorb tossed another package to Bill, who snagged it out of the air and added it to the pot he had just put on for the director and Brynlan.

  “Ramen is the best thing ever to come out of Japan,” the captain continued. “And that’s saying something for a Korean.” He looked around the kitchen, and then asked, “Where’s Razood?”

  “I saw him scarf down an entire cheese platter at the reception,” Avisia said. “He’s probably in his cabin sleeping it off.”

  An angry buzzing came from the service entrance and M793qK stormed into the kitchen, his wings popping out of his carapace in anger. “Oh, now this is just perfect,” he rubbed out on his speaking legs. He snatched the remaining truffles from the Vergallian, glared at her through his multifaceted eyes, and then pulled open a cabinet and placed the box on the top shelf. “From now on, these cabinets are officially reserved for Flower Certification Labs, and I’m going to have her send a bot to install surveillance cameras. Bill, I’m disappointed in you.”

  “Go easy, M793qK,” Jorb said. “I’m the one who made him start cooking.”

  “Which is exactly what I’d expect from a Drazen, but I had higher hopes for the young Human, especially since Flower insists he play a role in this new business.”

  “Another job?” Bill asked in dismay.

  “I thought you’d appreciate the chance to earn some extra income to save for your wedding,” Flower said.

  Two

  “Are you sure they want a tour of the ship on the first day of their honeymoon?” Julie asked. “Vivian didn’t say anything about it to me.”

  “I pitched it to them this morning,” Flower replied over the girl’s implant. “Take down the caution tape and then I’ll tell them that you’re here. If you wind it up carefully, you can reuse it on your own door one day.”

  “Stop nagging,” Julie replied reflexively. She unstuck the end of the “Just Married” caution tape that she and Rinka had stretched back and forth across the door of the honeymoon suite the previous evening, and began winding it onto her left hand. “How did they get out for breakfast this morning?”

  “They didn’t. The honeymoon suite has a small kitchen which I stocked with their favorite foods before you sealed the happy couple in, and of course, they had a complimentary basket of fresh fruit.”

  “So where do you want me to take them on the tour?”

  “Let’s start with the library and then we’ll wing it depending on their reaction,” Flower said.

  “I meant to ask you yesterday why this caution tape is heavier than it looks,” Julie said as she pulled the improvised roll off of her spindle-hand and placed it in her purse. “What do you put in it?”

  “Ground-up quality control rejects from a Verlock magnetic monopole manufacturer. They provide just enough attraction to keep the tape in place without interfering with electronics.”

  “Okay, I’m ready,” Julie announced and looked at the door expectantly. “Aren’t you going to tell them that I’m here?”

  “They’re in the shower.”

  “Together? I mean, of course they can take a shower together if they want to. They’re married.”

  “Hmm, I don’t know why I never noticed this about you before,” Flower said.

  “Noticed what?”

  “It’s not important. Why don’t we take advantage of the time to go over your schedule for the week? Now that your principal animation actor work for the second season of Everyday Superheroes is complete, what are you planning to fill in the time?”

  “Last year we went back to regular theatre practice. I think I was finally beginning to understand Shakespeare,” Julie said.

  “The Grenouthian director is going to be too busy for live theatre, so you’ll either have to find a replacement for him or choose another activity for your team sport.”

  “You’re asking me to find a replacement director? I’m surprised you don’t already have a dozen candidates lined up.”

  “You and Bill are always telling me that I’m too controlling, so I thought I’d leave it up to you what to do,” Flower said.

  “What about the aliens in the cast?” Julie asked. “Don’t they have a team sport requirement as well?”

  “The truth is that they’re all active enough without me telling them what to do, so I’m inclined to grant them waivers if you don’t keep the troupe together during the offseason.”

  “I should talk it over with Bill and Harry and see what they think. They’re as much a part of theatre practice as I am.”

  “Didn’t you know that M793qK put Harry in a medical stasis pod and shot him off into space?” Flower asked.

  “What? Oh, you mean Harry’s character on Everyday Superheroes. I knew the writers were going to kill Gerryman off at his request, but I didn’t ask for the details.”

  “Stasis was a compromise in case I can convince him to return for a guest appearance. But Harry won’t be joining you for live theatre in any case. He and Irene have already signed up for a waltz class in the independent living cooperative that I’ve certified as a team sport.”

  “Could I take that with Bill?”

  “It’s acceptable to me if they’ll have you, but you’d be the only ones younger than sixty-five in the class,” Flower pointed out.

  “Oh. Maybe not. How long do I have to decide about this?”

  “Until this evening. You should talk it over with Samuel and Vivian as well.”

  “Why?” Julie asked. “They’re just here on their honeymoon tour.”

  “That’s no excuse to skip their team sport requirement—the rules apply to everybody.”

  “I know they didn’t come out in the corridor to do calisthenics this morning because the tape was still up.”

  “I gave them a waiver for their first morning after the nuptials,” Flower said. “I’m not as heartless as you make me out to be.”

  “I don’t think you’re heartless, just oblivious at times. And you change your mind pretty often for a supposedly omniscient AI.”

  “I never claimed to know everything, or even zero-point-two-six percent of everything.”

  “That’s a pretty specific number,” Julie said suspiciously.

  “I might have asked my mentor for an estimate of my ultimate intellectual capacity,” the ship’s AI replied. “And the ability to change one’s mind when new facts present themselves is a mark of high intelligence.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind when I see my new business cards. Who am I working for this time?”

  “Flower Enterprises. I’m moving you from the entertainment division to the umbrella company that will include all of my major subsidiaries. You start after lunch.”

  “I’m a twenty-two-year-old former money courier for the drug syndicate who never even went to high school!” Julie exploded. “What am I possibly going to do working in the headquarters of a company that controls Flower Entertainment, Flower Foods, Flower Studios, and the new spaceship construction business you’re starting?”

  “I trust you,” Flower said. “You might not get everything right the first time, but you’re smart enough for a Human, and you don’t put your hands over your ears and make humming noises when I talk to you.”

  “Do people really do that? Besides, I granted you access to my implant so it wouldn’t help.”

  “Ah, they’re out of the shower and dressed now. I’m telling them that you’re here.”

  The door to the honeymoon suite slid o
pen, and Julie heard a young woman’s voice call, “Come in.”

  “I’m sorry if it’s too early, but Flower told me you were ready to take a tour,” Julie apologized as she entered the suite. Then she realized that she was talking to an empty room and raised her voice. “Hello?”

  “I’ll be out in a sec,” Vivian’s voice came from down the hall.

  “Morning, Julie,” Samuel said, emerging from the kitchenette. “We’ve got lots of food if you want anything.”

  “This suite is huge,” Julie said. “I’ve never been in a cabin that had a hallway like that.”

  “I think Flower modeled it after the honeymoon suite in the Empire Hotel that’s attached to the convention center on Union Station. I’ve never really traveled, other than a trip to Earth with my folks, but Vivian says that the Empire chain has a convention center and a hotel on most of the Stryx stations,” the EarthCent ambassador’s son said.

  “And you’ve been in a honeymoon suite at the one on Union Station?”

  “The EarthCent embassy rented them out for the alien observers who showed up for the Human Empire launch a couple of cycles ago. I was working for the Vergallian embassy back then, but my ambassador gave me a leave of absence to help my mom, and somehow I ended up swapping jobs.”

  “So you work for your mom at the EarthCent embassy on Union Station now?” Julie asked, attempting to make sense of the diplomatic musical chairs.

  “I got traded to the Human Empire’s startup team. Vivian too. In fact, we’re sort of the whole thing for now.”

  Vivian came into the room wearing something like a summer dress, her long hair hanging freely down her back. There was something a little off about her overall appearance, but Julie couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

  “Thumbs,” Samuel said, with a long-suffering sigh. “You promised to stop wearing them after we got married.”

  “Sorry, I forgot,” Vivian said, making no move to remove the Drazen prosthetics. “I promise I’ll start weaning myself off them tomorrow. Where are we going?”

  “We’ll start with the library,” Julie told them. “I’ve worked there part-time ever since I came on board, but lately Flower has been monopolizing my time with her businesses.”

  “I haven’t been to the library in years,” Samuel said, as he and Vivian followed their guide out of the suite. “We always pop over to see Jorb when Flower stops at Union Station, but he’s more into the food scene.”

  “I’m going to have to get used to talking to Jorb all over again now that I don’t work for Drazen Intelligence anymore,” Vivian added. “We used to share secrets.”

  “How does a human get a job as an alien spy?” Julie asked, forgetting for the moment that Bill now had a part-time gig recruiting agents for the Sharf.

  “My father is the director of EarthCent Intelligence and he wanted me to work for him, but the Open University co-op program sent me to the Drazens,” the new bride replied. “It’s the same way Sam got his job working for the Vergallians. We figure now that it was just the Stryx getting us some practical work experience to prepare for the Human Empire startup, but you can never know for sure.”

  Julie came to an abrupt halt at the lift tube despite the fact that the door had slid open at their approach. “You mean the Stryx try to manipulate everybody the same way as Flower?”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of Convergence Theorem?” Samuel asked her.

  “No,” Julie replied as they entered the lift tube. “Library,” she instructed the capsule before asking, “What is it?”

  “Supposedly the Stryx manipulate everything to obtain their idea of the best outcome, and they do it by creating an endless series of choices for biological actors until we pick the right one. It’s an unproven alien theory, but the idea is that the Stryx influence our decisions just enough that the average result converges to some predestined endpoint.”

  “Flower’s not that subtle,” Julie said with a laugh. “She just pushes everybody until we give up and do what she wants.”

  “That might be a nice change,” Vivian said. “Some of us who grew up on Union Station end up second-guessing ourselves all the time about our motivations.”

  “And some of us don’t,” Samuel said as the capsule doors slid open. “I’m with the aliens who say that worrying about what the Stryx want is like worrying about the weather on a planet without weather control satellites. My mom thinks that this whole thing with the Human Empire is a Stryx scheme to keep the sovereign human communities from drifting permanently into the diplomatic orbits of the host species on the open worlds. But a thousand years from now, what difference will it make why we got started? The important thing is getting it right.”

  “Sam’s a pragmatist,” Vivian said to Julie. “He’s actually a good choice to run a start-up empire.”

  “Aren’t you both kind of young to be in charge?” Julie couldn’t help asking.

  “It’s more like a school project,” Samuel explained. “We’re supposed to start laying the groundwork for building a governmental infrastructure that won’t take control for a hundred and fifty years or so. The Stryx had veto power over our faculty advisor.”

  “Your what?”

  “Our mentor, from the Cayl emperor’s family,” Vivian told her. “She’s waiting to hitch a ride back to this section of the galaxy with a Stryx science ship, and we’ve been putting off doing anything other than gathering information until she gets here. We haven’t even rented office space yet.”

  “Is the Human Empire going to start collecting some sort of tax to pay for everything?” Julie asked.

  “We’re fully funded by royalties from the All Species Cookbook for as long as we don’t spend too much,” Samuel told her. “It’s another part of my mom’s theory about the whole thing being a Stryx setup.”

  “Shush,” Vivian said, putting a forefinger to her husband’s lips. “We’re in a library now.”

  “It’s not that strict,” Julie told them, though she did lower her own voice. “The Dollnicks mastered acoustic suppression technology like a million years ago, and Flower isn’t shy about using it to keep the noise down. Is there anything in particular you want to see?”

  “Some of my Dad’s friends at our wedding said that the Galactic Free Press publishes a Marriage For Humans book that I’d better read,” Samuel said. “Do you have those?”

  “We keep them hidden because the head librarian hates the branding,” Julie said. “I don’t see her anywhere so it’s as good a time as any.” She led the honeymooners to a blank section of bulkhead and sent the “Open Sesame” command via her implant. A large panel slid aside, revealing hundreds of identically bound books, the only difference being the title on the spine.

  “There,” Vivian announced almost immediately, pointing at the book in question. “Between Mariachi Bands For Humans and Mars Colonies For Humans.”

  “Wow, you’re really good at this,” Julie said as she extracted the volume from the tightly packed shelf and handed it to Samuel. “Have you worked in a library?”

  “It’s just a visualization trick I learned at Drazen Intelligence,” Vivian explained. “It takes a little practice, but you can train yourself to only see what you’re looking for, assuming that it’s there. You have to be careful about applying it to anything other than picking items out of a collection, because if you let it influence your regular data analysis, you’ll end up with a wicked case of confirmation bias.”

  “Making the wedding night a success,” Samuel read out loud from the first chapter. “The intimacy of pair bonding is critical to a happy marriage and—” he stopped reading and his ears turned red.

  “And what,” Vivian prompted. She reached for the book, but Samuel employed his superior height to hold it out of reach.

  “You can look at it when we get back to our suite,” he told her, and glancing at Julie, lowered his voice to a whisper. “They have diagrams about—you know.”

  A man with immersive star looks approached
and returned a book titled Careers For Humans to a narrow gap on the top shelf.

  “Good morning, Dewey,” Julie greeted the assistant librarian, a rare human-created AI who had recently purchased an android body to become an artificial person. “It looks like you still haven’t made up your mind about continuing at the library.”

  “I’m going to keep a single eight-hour shift every day and spend the other sixteen working for Flower. You know that I don’t require sleep. Are you going to introduce me to your friends?”

  “I’m Sam and this is my wife, Vivian,” Samuel said, unconsciously staking his claim in the face of the handsome android. “We’re on our honeymoon.”

  “Yes, I knew who you were, but asking for an introduction is a proven sales technique for building relationships,” Dewey said. “I met with your mother in her official capacity while I was representing this ship, and Flower suggested that I talk with you about our offerings. Is this a working honeymoon, or are you on vacation?”

  “A working honeymoon?” Vivian asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard the expression.”

  “I believe that’s how our third officer, Pyun Lynx, described her honeymoon with Captain Pyun back when they were both working for EarthCent Intelligence. They went on a tour of the open worlds and laid the groundwork for the original network of sovereign human communities.”

  “I guess we sort of planned on working, but I’m not sure we want to jump right into it our first day,” Samuel said.

  “It’s not like I’m a mail-order bride and we met for the first time yesterday,” Vivian said. “I’ve known that Sam was the one for thirteen years.”

  “How interesting,” Dewey said. “I would have estimated your age at approximately twenty.”

  “Exactly twenty.”

  “So you chose your mate at the age of seven. Forgive my curiosity, but as an artificial person who until recently occupied a robotic body that most people confused with an industrial appliance, I have limited experience in affairs of the heart. Is it acceptable to ask how long Samuel has reciprocated your feelings?”