Carnival On Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 5) Read online

  “What’s happening, Libby?” Kelly asked. “Has there been a surprise attack? Are they all dead? Are my Gem alright?”

  “Everything appears to be going according to plan,” the Stryx librarian replied. “Just wait and listen.”

  After several minutes of the video montage, the scenes of which were plainly recorded from far-flung locations all around Gem space, the studio announcer reappeared.

  “Less than an hour ago, our sisters put into motion a daring plan to bloodlessly overthrow the entrenched elites of the Empire,” the announcer continued. “A suspended animation drug obtained from the Farlings was added to the nutrition drink supply for the high tables throughout the population centers of the Empire and the capital ships of the fleet. We all owe a debt of gratitude to our waitress sisters who carried out the secret plan, conceived by the human ambassador on Union Station.”

  “What are they talking about?” Kelly cried, bringing the kitchen crew running and waking the baby from his nap. “I didn’t say anything about drugging half of the Empire into a coma. I recommended negotiations!”

  “The Farling antidote is being administered to our working class sisters who were unavoidably dosed along with the elites,” the Gem Tomorrow announcer continued. “The deposed leadership will remain unconscious for one or two cycles, allowing us ample time to establish a new government and prevent any attempts on their part to regain power. For the time being, they will be collected by maintenance crews and stored in dormitories, where they will be provided with intravenous fluids as necessary.”

  “You have a visitor,” Libby announced brightly, killing the volume on the hologram. Everybody looked towards the open door as Gwendolyn entered. The clone’s face displayed a strange mix of exultation and anxiety, and she clutched a gift bag from the Chocolate Emporium in front of her like a shield.

  “Gwendolyn! What’s happening?” Kelly demanded, trying to prevent hysteria from creeping into her voice. “Hold on, I’ll find the translation box,” she added.

  “I have a translation implant now,” Waitress Gem reassured her. “I’m the first one, so the other sisters sent me to talk to you. Some of them are worried that you’ll be angry about our pretending to go ahead with negotiations, but I told them it was all part of your plan.”

  “Plan? What plan was that?” Kelly demanded, struggling to maintain control. “My plan was to engage the Empire Gem in meaningful discussions in order to reach a compromise and establish fair elections. You put them all to sleep!”

  “But that was your plan,” Gwendolyn insisted stubbornly. “We had to guess at what you meant in parts since you disguised it as a children’s story. Matilda said you did that for the sake of plausible deniability as a neutral diplomat, but the whole business about the good fairies putting the whole kingdom to sleep until the prince could awaken the princess was pretty clear.”

  “But that’s the plot from Sleeping Beauty!” Kelly protested. “I didn’t tell you any of that.”

  The ambassador and the clone stared at each other in mutual disbelief. The spell was only broken when Dorothy and Mist charged into the room.

  “Mommy! Mommy! Beowulf is back! Daddy is keeping him outside until he calms down again so he doesn’t wreck the house,” Dorothy cried in excitement. “Where’s Laurel?”

  But it was Mist who captured the attention of the ambassador and the Free Gem. The girl screeched to a halt when she saw Kelly and Gwendolyn looking at her suspiciously. At that moment, the hide-and-seek champion would have sold her soul for a Chert invisibility projector.

  “Just one minute!” Kelly ordered, but Gwendolyn had already begun interrogating the girl, and the two clones stared at each other in the focused way the Gem had when they were communicating without speech. After a minute, the older clone turned towards Kelly with an apologetic smile.

  “Mist admits that she was so excited from reading the picture book with your daughter that she got it all mixed up with what you were telling us about negotiations,” Gwendolyn explained. “She says she meant to correct herself, but every time she tried, we all told her how proud we were of her English and didn’t listen. And when the Stryx gave her the ten-million-cred gift coin for Farling Pharmaceuticals, we assumed you’d fixed it with them, like the Carnival election.”

  “Ten million creds for winning at hide-and-seek!” Kelly squeaked. “I think I recognize the lion by the print of its paw.” She plucked Samuel out of his playpen, where he had been loudly protesting being awakened in a sudden manner, and handed the boy to Gwendolyn. Then she put her fists on her hips and asked the ceiling, “Is your Sleeping Beauty revolution really going well, Libby?”

  “Smooth as the little bear’s porridge or Rapunzel’s golden hair,” the station librarian replied.

  “I guess this means your sisters won’t be coming for my diplomacy workshop,” Kelly said to Gwendolyn, trying not to sound too disappointed that her own plan had been displaced by something better. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in getting Gem Tomorrow to issue a retraction about my involvement, since nobody will believe it anyway.”

  “We just wanted to make sure they gave you full credit,” the Free Gem representative said, and for just the second time Kelly could remember, the clone began to laugh. “Matilda spent hours searching for human quotes about war since you enjoy them so much,” Gwendolyn continued when she caught her breath. “She came up with, ‘All warfare is based on deception,’ but I guess in this case, we all deceived ourselves.”

  A loud snarling came from outside, and everybody heard Joe shouting, “Leave it! Leave it!” The snarling continued and rose in volume, and as Kelly and the others followed Dorothy and Mist back down the ramp, she heard Joe say, “Fine. Do whatever the hell you want, but don’t expect me to throw it for you.”

  Scratching at the floor in an attempt to back up, Beowulf had a death grip on the tapered end of Ian’s caber, holding it up so that only the heavy butt end was contacting the deck. Paw by paw, he dragged it towards the ice harvester. After expending a great deal of energy and slobber, he dropped it at Joe’s feet.

  “Well, I guess that deserves a beer,” Joe said grudgingly, scratching behind the massive puppy’s ears.

  “Are you kidding?” Kelly objected. “Even if Beowulf really is inside there, he’s just a puppy now. No beer until he’s at least, uh, three.”

  Beowulf looked at her in shock, cocking his giant head. Then he scratched the deck methodically with his right forepaw, three times.

  “People years,” the ambassador pronounced the dread sentence. Beowulf gave a little whine, and settled to the deck to gnaw on the log for consolation.

  “Well, look what the galaxy dragged in,” Jeeves declared, floating up to the dog, who sniffed at the Stryx suspiciously. “Congratulations on your revolution, Gwendolyn. Ambassador, this just came for you,” he added, extending a present.

  “Oh, look at the pretty wrapping,” Dorothy said.

  “Are you going to ask Metoo to open it for you?” Mist inquired.

  “Let us do it, Mommy. We won’t rip anything,” Dorothy promised.

  Kelly let her daughter take the package, and was turning back to ask Jeeves how the Stryx could possibly square their noninterference claims with footing the bill for the Free Gem coup, when her implant chimed in with, “Call from mother.”

  “Mom?” Kelly subvoced. “It’s a little crazy here right now. Is anything wrong?”

  “Everybody is talking about your honorable mention on Gem Tomorrow,” her mother told her immediately. “All of the Earth networks interrupted their regular programming to show the feed from the Grenouthian Galactic News. I already got solicited for a quote, so I told them you are very dedicated to your job and that I’m sure you have humanity’s best interests at heart, whatever the commentators are saying.”

  “But I didn’t do anything,” Kelly objected. “It’s all based on a big misunderstanding, and it’s as much your fault as mine.”

  “Really, Kelly. A
ren’t you a bit old to be blaming things on your mother?”

  “It was the storybook you sent for Dorothy,” Kelly protested. “She and her little Gem friend read it over and over again, and when the girl tried translating diplomatic advice to her older sisters for me, she was so excited by the story that she mixed it in.”

  “It’s been decades since I read the book myself, but I do seem to recall the older sisters being a big part of the problem,” her mother observed. “I am glad to hear it arrived safely since I’ve never used the diplomatic bag service before. Anyway, I was just calling to let you know that you’re famous, again, and to remind you that your father and I are coming to visit next month.”

  “I think they were fairies, not older sisters,” Kelly corrected her mother reflexively. “And most of them were good.”

  “I’m quite sure they were evil, or at least, mean-spirited,” her mother insisted. “Didn’t they make her scrub the floors and clean the chimney while they went to the ball?”

  “It’s another princess story!” Dorothy cried excitedly, after carefully extracting the book from the wrapping paper with the help of Mist.

  “Cin-der-ell-a,” the young Gem read the title.

  “I’m not talking about the new book, Mom,” Kelly said. “You sent her Sleeping Beauty last month.”

  “Not me,” her mother replied with concern. “When my daughter can’t keep her books straight I know she’s been working too hard. I’ve got to run now, somebody at the door. Probably another reporter.”

  Kelly wanted to pursue the gift argument, but the call had already disconnected. It was amazing how her mother’s conversational habits had changed since she stopped calling collect and started footing the bill for the Stryx tunneling communications herself. Then it hit Kelly that she knew exactly what was happening.

  “Jeeves!” Kelly practically screamed, but the Stryx was nowhere to be seen.

  “Jeeves go bye-bye,” Samuel observed happily from Gwendolyn’s arms.

  “Joe! Sammy just said his first real sentence!” Kelly exclaimed, momentarily forgetting her anger.

  “Uh, I think he said something about Libby to me the other day,” Joe replied, and squinted one eye as he tried to remember. “Libby hide now?”

  “His first sentence too?” Kelly wailed dramatically. “The Stryx have been getting into everything again. They even used a phony gift to Dorothy to manipulate the Gem into revolting!”

  “What’s a phony gift?” Joe asked. “Do you mean they brought her a present and then took it back?”

  “No, they gave her an illustrated copy of Sleeping Beauty and tricked me into thinking it was from my Mom,” Kelly groused. Somehow, it didn’t sound so nefarious when she said it out loud. “Now the workshop Aisha and I spent weeks preparing for has been cancelled, and the girls are cooking up a storm with no guests.”

  Beowulf barked once to draw everybody’s attention, and then he pulled in his stomach to make his already prominent ribcage stand out even more.

  “I don’t think using up the food will be a problem,” Joe said with a laugh. “But you may as well ping a few people and we’ll have a picnic. I’ll invite Dring and Lynx. I think you told me Woojin was coming for the workshop. Just tell Donna to round up the usual suspects and I’ll get the barbeque going in case somebody else wants meat for a change.”

  “Libby?” Kelly asked out loud. “Couldn’t you figure out how to fix the galaxy once in a while without tricking me into something?”

  “You know we don’t believe in directly interfering with the progress of biologicals,” Libby answered. “Now Gryph has something to ask if you have a minute.”

  Dorothy and Mist broke off from reading Cinderella to listen to the interesting grown-up conversation. It wasn’t often Gryph said anything in the hearing of children.

  “I know I haven’t finished listening to all of the complaints yet. I’ll get to it soon,” Kelly pleaded.

  “It’s time to ask about your prize, Ambassador,” Gryph said. “It’s traditional to award the Carnival Queen with a gift after a successful celebration, so just make a wish. And we do appreciate your assistance with diffusing the Gem situation and helping to nudge them back towards a more promising future.”

  “She should get three wishes!” Dorothy interrupted.

  “It’s always three wishes.” Mist nodded in agreement.

  “Does anybody take them all at once?” Gryph inquired.

  “No,” Dorothy replied slowly. “You usually need the second wish to fix the first wish, and the third wish to put the genie back in the bottle.”

  “One wish for now, then,” Gryph continued. “What shall it be?”

  “How many more complaints do I have to listen to?” Kelly asked.

  “Just a hundred and seventy-one left,” Gryph told her. “You could get through them in less than twenty hours.”

  “Can you make them all go away?” Kelly asked.

  “If that’s your wish,” Gryph replied. “But you just lost me a bet with Jeeves. That’s exactly what he predicted you’d do.”

  Carnival on Union Station is getting a sequel. Three years have passed, and the children are growing like weeds as Aisha grows into a new career. A mob of alien party animals has settled near Union Station like a plague, but nobody seems willing to see them off. They bring word of a new wave of helpful artificial intelligence, but perhaps there’s such a thing as too helpful? Book Six of EarthCent Ambassador series, Wanderers on Union Station, is due out at the end of June, 2015, and is available for pre-order on Amazon.

  About the Author

  E. M. Foner lives in Northampton, MA with an imaginary German Shepherd who’s been trained to bite bankers. The author welcomes reader comments at [email protected].