Space Living (EarthCent Universe Book 4) Read online

  “I can supervise,” the old Verlock offered and rose ponderously to his feet.

  “Yes, very nice doing business with you,” Ronald said, quickly shaking hands with the four youngsters. “If you’re ever in the neighborhood, feel free to drop in.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting the anime special about Wanderer storytellers Flower Studios agreed to make?” Samuel asked innocently. “Surely you don’t plan to leave before recording interviews for your characters. Isn’t that scheduled for—”

  “Another time,” Ronald said over his shoulder as he shuffled after the Verlock, the only Wanderer slow enough to still be in the lobby. “Hey, wait for me!”

  Nobody said anything else until the doors closed behind the last of the storytellers, and then Vivian burst out laughing.

  “Would somebody please explain to me what just happened?” Julie asked.

  “Me too,” Bill chipped in. “Did we win or lose?”

  “We won,” Flower trumpeted through the overhead speakers. “Nobody has ever gotten rid of a Wanderer infestation so cheaply.”

  “But how about all of the work you did on the Miklat?” Julie asked.

  “I’ll get reimbursed for that by the Stryx, and we really did it for the Zarents,” Flower said. “Did you hear Samuel beat them down to fifty thousand creds? Priceless.”

  “It’s still a lot of money.”

  “Not when it’s counterfeit. I bought in all the five-cred coins that the Wanderers passed off on our vendors and it came to just over fifty thousand. The Stryx will reimburse me for that as well.”

  “Won’t the Wanderers just pass it off on somebody else now?” Julie asked.

  “Caveat emptor,” the Dollnick AI said. “It’s a dangerous galaxy, after all.”

  “It’s a shame they’re taking one of the LARPing studios,” Bill said. “I was really starting to get into role-playing.”

  “Running two of them was getting to be a distraction, and my Stryx mentor wants her dragon back. I’ll have to look into upgrading some of my own systems if I go beyond one studio again.”

  “Samuel? Are you alright?” Vivian asked, shaking her husband’s shoulder.

  “Sorry,” he said, jerking as if he’d suddenly come awake. “I’m just a bit stunned, I guess. After all those weeks of setting them up through negotiations, I was beginning to worry that they’d call my bluff.”

  “What bluff? The Cayl emperor’s granddaughter really is due tomorrow, which reminds me, I told Flower we’d vacate our reservoir deck chateau for her. I don’t think she’d be comfortable living on one of the regular residential decks, especially with all of those warriors following her everywhere.”

  “Our mentor’s last message only mentioned a pair of hounds,” Samuel said with a sly grin. “I was sort of exaggerating about the two columns of Cayl warriors. Is anybody hungry?”

  “You made it all up?” Bill asked.

  “Exaggerated. The Vergallian ambassador I worked for wrote a treatise on the subject of exaggeration that’s become a standard reference in their diplomatic service.”

  “It’s just past noon,” Julie said. “If it’s alright with Flower, we could help you move, and then we could all eat a late lunch out to celebrate. Bill?”

  “I thought I was going to be here all day so I’m open,” Bill said happily. “How much stuff do you guys have? Should I get a floater cart?”

  “It’s just the luggage we brought for our honeymoon, and some things we picked up at the bazaar that will fit in a couple of boxes,” Vivian said. “The four of us could probably take everything in a single trip. The funny thing is that I was just getting comfortable with those giant Dollnick fish swimming up to the deck and begging for food.”

  “You told me that you missed having neighbors, and the only time we ever saw people on the reservoir deck they were either sculling, or jogging on the catwalks,” Samuel said. “Anyway, I’m just happy that Flower finally agreed to put us in a normal cabin and charge monthly rent. If our mentor approves of keeping the Human Empire headquarters on board, we can talk about remodeling or getting a bigger space later if it becomes necessary.”

  “This is a public service announcement for all Wanderers on board,” the captain’s voice sounded throughout the ship. “The Miklat will be departing at oh-eight hundred on Universal Human Time tomorrow, so you have less than twenty hours to vacate. Flower will be running her large shuttles in a continual ferry service until that time on a first-come, first-serve basis. Please restrict your gleaning to the usual towels, soaps, and sundries, or your baggage may be subject to search and seizure. The furniture in your cabins will remain on board.”

  “I guess we really did it,” Samuel said, standing up and stretching to crack his spine. “Let’s get this move out of the way and then I could go for pizza and beer.”

  “I’m so proud of you,” Vivian said as they exited the Human Empire’s headquarters. “Your first diplomatic coup and you didn’t even have to threaten the use of military force, much.”

  “If we’re going to need boxes, we can stop by Flower’s delivery service and pick some up,” Bill said. “I used to work there.”

  “We’re all set,” Samuel told him. “I bought a Grenouthian trader’s pack at the bazaar. It’s huge, and the compartments can all be separated into individual backpacks.” He entered the lift tube and waited for the others to board the capsule before requesting, “Reservoir deck.”

  “You’re lucky,” Julie said. “Flower doesn’t wait for me to tell her where I want to go anymore. She just takes me there.”

  “And what if she guesses wrong?” Vivian asked.

  “She’s never wrong, at least, she would never admit to it. Does the same thing happen on Stryx stations once they get to know you?”

  “No, they like leaving us the illusion that we have some control over our lives. I guess subtlety isn’t Flower’s strong suit.”

  “Being right is my strong suit,” the Dollnick AI broke into the conversation. “I would be derelict in my duty if I stood by and watched my inhabitants make a mess of their lives. And selecting the lift tube destinations for Julie and Bill is a beta test of a paid service I’m thinking of rolling out. I chose them as the test subjects because I know them so well.”

  “You might have told us that,” Bill said.

  “I wanted to get your natural reactions to the service. If you had known what I was doing you might have put on an act to please me.”

  “I don’t want to discourage you, Flower, but I’m not sure there would be much of a market for omniscient lift tube service,” Vivian said. “Most people would see it as an invasion of privacy.”

  “Really?” Flower asked. The capsule came to a halt on the reservoir deck but the doors remained closed. “How so?”

  “Well, in order to know where people want to go, you’d kind of have to be watching them all the time.”

  “Humans are creatures of habit. The vast majority of your movements from deck to deck are commuting to work, school, or your required team sports and other scheduled ship’s activities. I estimate that less than three percent of lift tube trips would require any thought on my part to determine the desired destination. But if you don’t think it’s a service people would be willing to pay for…”

  “We don’t,” all four of the passengers chorused.

  “Very well, then I won’t offer it,” Flower said, and the lift tube doors opened.

  It took the McAllisters less than fifteen minutes to pack the things they’d brought from Union Station on their honeymoon and the household items they’d picked up while living on Flower. Vivian and Julie called dibs on the rolling baggage, leaving Samuel and Bill to divide the remainder into two backpacks.

  “Where’s your new place?” Julie asked.

  “Flower said it’s on a regular residential corridor and she’ll talk us through getting there,” Vivian said. She glanced over the edge of the catwalk at the reservoir and gave a wave. “Goodbye, giant Dollnick man-eat
ing fish.”

  “Are you going to miss them?”

  “No, but you have to admit that they’re beautiful.”

  When the lift tube capsule arrived, they moved inside and the men unburdened themselves of the packs. Almost thirty seconds passed before they figured out that Flower was waiting for somebody to give the destination.

  “Uh, our new place?” Samuel requested.

  “Could you be more specific?” the Dollnick AI responded.

  “All right, we get your point,” Vivian said. “I guess even on Union Station people normally tell the lift tubes who or what they’re going to visit rather than giving an actual deck or corridor number for the destination.”

  The capsule began to move, and Flower asked, “Did hearing Samuel say ‘our new place’ make you realize what you’re missing?”

  “Are you talking to me?” Julie asked.

  “Bill too,” Flower said. “As long as we’re playing musical chairs with cabins, why not move in together and get on with your lives?”

  Vivian put a hand over her face and choked with silent laughter, and Julie turned red from either embarrassment or anger, but Bill said, “You won’t hear any objections from me. It’s not like we haven’t been talking about this for the last few months, Julie.”

  “And we would probably have gotten to it by now if Flower wasn’t keeping us so busy,” Julie said, scowling at the ceiling of the lift tube capsule.

  “I may have heard somewhere that absence makes the heart grow fonder,” the Dollnick AI said. “And for somebody who was worried about the cost of weddings, saving the monthly rent on a cabin will go a long way.”

  “Come on, Julie,” Bill said, taking her hand in both of his. “If we started not doing things just because Flower was pushing us we never would have gotten engaged.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Julie said as the capsule doors opened. “Okay, I’ll clean out a few drawers. Bill doesn’t have any more stuff than you guys and he’s been living here almost as long as me,” she added to Vivian.

  “Isn’t this your corridor?” Samuel asked as he followed the others out of the capsule. “I think I recognize the Dollnick nomenclature.”

  “It’s just down on the left,” Flower informed them through the closest speaker grille. “I’ll open the door when you get there.”

  “Did you find them a place near us?” Julie asked.

  “Yes. I thought they’d be more comfortable doing morning calisthenics in front of friends.”

  “Hey, that’s my cabin,” Bill said when a door slid open. “It’s empty!”

  “I had the maintenance bots move your things to Julie’s cabin, swap in a larger bed, and repaint,” Flower said.

  “Repaint? But I only agreed to move in with Julie a minute ago.”

  “I assumed you would accept my suggestion and set my bots to work after you both left this morning to give the paint time to dry.”

  “I don’t know why I even try,” Julie said in exasperation. She waved open her own door and could barely recognize the cabin she’d been living in for almost two years. “Did the room just get bigger?”

  “I found a better place for your next-door neighbor and connected the two cabins to make room for a home office and a nursery,” Flower said. “I won’t raise the rent since I benefit from your working at home. I think the nursery speaks for itself.”

  From the author

  The next release will be a sequel to Freelance on the Galactic Tunnel Network. If you’ve read the four EarthCent Universe books starting with Independent Living without reading the original EarthCent Ambassador series, I recommend starting with the three book bundle, Union Station 1, 2, 3. You can sign up for e-mail notification of my new releases on the IfItBreaks.com. If you want to wear the cover art, Amazon has T-Shirts.

  About the Author

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