Guest Night on Union Station Read online

  “Well, I’ll try my best, but arranging confidential sleepovers for advanced aliens who rule star systems isn’t something I do every day. We could put a few up in Mac’s Bones, of course, maybe the whole bunch if they have small enough ships to park in the campgrounds.”

  “The idea is to get as many tunnel species involved as possible. Even if it was practical for you to provide lodging for all of the emissaries, it would be tantamount to putting all of our eggs in one basket, not to mention arousing the jealousy of the other ambassadors who already have issues with EarthCent.”

  “So I need to convince the least friendly ambassadors from the Naturals League to host an alien emissary from the Cayl Empire?”

  “I knew you’d agree,” Libby said, choosing to ignore the question in Kelly’s tone. “I have a presentation on the emissaries ready to show you, but I thought you might want to bring in some of your support staff.”

  “Donna for sure, and she should be arriving at any minute. Daniel has enough to do getting ready for CoSHC, but I’d want to get somebody from EarthCent Intelligence in here. Maybe Chastity as well, since her paper will be covering the event.”

  “Do you want me to contact them and see if they’re available now?”

  “Yes, please,” Kelly replied. “Is there a precedent for calling a meeting with the other ambassadors for the sake of discussing who is willing to put up a visiting emissary?”

  “Such a meeting takes place every open house, though none of the current ambassadors were present the last time we had one on Union Station. If you’d like, I’ll contact the ambassadors whose living quarters offer a potential match for our guests and arrange for a meeting.”

  “That will be a great help. For a minute there, I thought I was going to have to go around begging.”

  “Begging may still be required,” Libby informed her. “Donna just arrived in the outer office, and Chastity and Clive are on their way. Chastity was just wrapping up her morning practice with Marcus, and I caught Clive as he was dropping the twins off at my school.”

  “Don’t you think three hours a day after school is a bit much for six-year-olds to spend practicing ballroom dancing?” Kelly blurted out the question before she could stop herself. “I know they have a lot of energy, but still…”

  “As their godmother and school teacher, I admit I do monitor their sessions,” Libby replied thoughtfully. “Vivian would gladly dance twice as long, but Jonah will probably quit before he turns seven. According to Jeeves, he’s only stuck it out this long because he knows how much his sister enjoys it.”

  “They do get along well for siblings. Sometimes it goes the other way with twins.”

  “Knock, knock,” Donna said, entering the office. “Libby told me that we’re having a meeting. I put on the coffee for Chastity and Clive, and it looks like you already bought donuts.”

  “Donut. It was just the one and I didn’t have breakfast,” Kelly added defensively, crumpling the empty bag to dispose of the evidence.

  “Who else is coming?”

  “Clive and Chastity are it unless—hello, Thomas. Are you here for the meeting?”

  “Clive pinged and asked me to come,” Thomas replied. “With Lynx and Woojin checking up on the new field offices and Blythe only working part-time, I’m sort of number two in the organization.”

  “Two and a half,” Kelly corrected him.

  “Anyway, Herl was on the station last night and we had a meeting about the Cayl Empire,” Thomas said. “It turns out that the Grenouthians sent a documentary crew to visit the Cayl less than ten thousand years ago, so I spent the whole night watching the episodes that Libby dug up for me. It seems that one of the species, the Shuga, once went so far as to purpose-build artificial people to act as their ruling class. Could you imagine humans ever doing such a thing?”

  “Not really, no,” Kelly said. “Besides, as long as we’re part of the tunnel network, it wouldn’t make sense. As soon as the Stryx recognized our purpose-built leaders as sentient, they could walk away and find something more interesting to do than supervising humans. Wouldn’t you?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Thomas admitted.

  “Libby?” Donna asked. “Are there any Shugas coming to the open house?”

  “They accepted the invitation, and one of the emissaries will be a Shuga,” the station librarian replied. “Clive and Chastity are entering the outer office.”

  “Bring your own chairs,” Kelly hollered towards her open door.

  “Nothing like a Monday morning meeting,” Clive said, entering Kelly’s office with a chair in each hand. “Did you do a sweep, Thomas?”

  “As soon as I came in,” the artificial person replied, waggling his little finger. “This built-in sniffer is worth every cred.”

  “Hi, all,” Chastity greeted them, entering the room immediately after Clive. “Thanks for inviting me. Shall I assume this is on deep background?”

  “Yes,” Kelly replied. “Strictly off the record. I know that you’ll be covering the open house once it officially begins whether the Stryx invite the press or not, but I’d prefer to coordinate ahead of time so we can avoid the problems we ran into at the last CoSHC conference.”

  “I created an employee handbook to specifically prohibit a repeat of that behavior,” Chastity replied. “I admit it was totally unprofessional, and the only thing I can say in our defense is that the reporter in question was employed by EarthCent Intelligence for two years before we hired him away.”

  “I train them to take lots of pictures,” Thomas interjected modestly.

  “I understand, and I appreciate that you didn’t publish any of those images, Chastity,” Kelly said. “In this case, a Stryx open house is new for all of us, so there will be plenty of room for mistakes. Libby has prepared a presentation to give us an idea of what to expect from the primary species. Also, I just learned that one of my duties as hostess is to find families in the diplomatic community willing to invite an alien emissary to live with them for a quiet get-acquainted.”

  “That should be interesting,” Donna commented dryly.

  “Libby? Do you want to start now?” Kelly asked.

  The Stryx librarian brought to life above the ambassador’s display desk a three-dimensional map showing the Cayl Empire. “I’ve adjusted the sizes of the stars and the distances between them for the sake of illustration,” Libby said, getting right down to business. “You’ll notice that the Cayl expanded their holdings in a controlled manner, so they rule a roughly spherical volume of space with their home system at the center. In recent millennia, they’ve been turning down invitations to conquer bordering species, in some cases even ignoring military provocations because they didn’t want to overextend their interior lines of supply and communications.”

  “Smart,” Clive said. “No point fighting wars so far from home that you can’t defend what you take without spending a fortune.”

  “I’m only showing the stars with occupied planets in this hologram, and I’ve colored them according to the four main factions within the empire. While the Cayl are in control of military defense and certain judicial functions, the day-to-day life in their empire is dominated by four advanced species and their followers. The stars I’m pulsing red now are under the economic control of the Shuga, whom Thomas was talking about just a few minutes ago.”

  “What do they look like?” Chastity interrupted.

  A silver-skinned creature with a crest of feathers replaced the map. The hologram began rotating slowly, showing two arms and two legs, though the neck was about twice as long as one would have expected given the other proportions. There was a large lump in the Shuga’s belly that made it look like the creature had swallowed a cantaloupe.

  “Is it pregnant?” Chastity asked.

  “Incubating an egg,” the station librarian replied. “The males and females both have an external pouch for carrying eggs and keeping them warm, and they share the incubation duties after the female lays the egg
.”

  “So they might be comfortable with the Fillinducks, since they’re egg layers, or with the Grenouthians, since they have pouches,” Kelly ventured. “Who’s next?”

  The Shuga was replaced by the holographic map, and a section of blue stars now pulsed alongside the red.

  “Is it my imagination or are the blue star systems and red star systems basically alternating?” Clive asked.

  “Precisely,” Libby replied. “I’ll add the others since you’ve already spotted the pattern.”

  An approximately equivalent number of green and yellow stars began pulsing, and it became obvious to everyone that although each of the factions controlled about the same number of systems, they were all mixed together, as if the empire had been stirred in three dimensions to create an even distribution.

  “So the Cayl kept their subjects weak by not allowing any of them to control contiguous blocks of space,” Kelly surmised.

  “Not weak, but diffused,” Libby replied. “The absolute distance between planetary systems is mainly an economic barrier, the price of the energy involved in making faster-than-light jumps. The Cayl use their power to ensure that the factions within their empire always have economic incentives to maintain strong ties with their neighbors, rather than becoming mini-empires within a protectorate. It’s proved to be a very stable system.”

  “Who are the other dominant species?” Chastity asked.

  The map was again replaced by an alien form, this one sporting four arms and a trunk in place of a nose.

  “Four arms makes it a candidate for a Dollnick sleepover, and that tentacle might put the Drazens at ease,” Kelly said.

  “It’s a trunk if they breathe through it,” Donna observed. “Tentacles are for grabbing stuff.”

  “He looks like Ganesh,” Chastity declared. “Don’t you recognize him from Aisha’s collection? He’s the Hindu god of something.”

  “So you think I should invite him to stay with us?”

  “The alien you are referring to is a Nangor, and he wouldn’t be comfortable in your home. The Nangors are herbivores and great gardeners, so he would find the metallic environment in Mac’s Bones too sterile,” Libby explained.

  “Who else?” Chastity asked.

  The Nangor was replaced by a figure that looked a little like an elongated turtle. The torso was definitely encased in a shell of sorts, but it didn’t look like there could possibly be room inside for the creature to retract its arms and legs. The head, on the other hand, was practically neck-less, and the skull was topped with small armored plates, rather than hair.

  “Are they good at math?” Kelly asked. “It reminds me of the Verlocks for some reason.”

  “The Tzvim are indeed accomplished mathematicians,” Libby replied. “Their early history was similar to that of the Tharks, a military species that nearly wiped itself out. In spite of its appearance, the Tzvim are the most peaceable and friendly of the leading Cayl Empire cultures.”

  “Isn’t there one more dominant species?” Chastity asked.

  “The Lood,” Libby acknowledged. The hologram switched to a figure wearing a brilliant purple cloak edged with white fur. A full-faced golden mask hid the creature’s features, but the contours appeared to be the same as a human face. The arms, legs, hands and feet all agreed with human proportions as well.

  “Is there something behind the mask we shouldn’t see?” Donna asked.

  “The Lood are similar to the Vergallians in many ways,” Libby replied. “Their ruling class can be easily distinguished from the commoners by appearance, namely the presence of the all-seeing eye.” The golden mask dissolved, and the humans winced at the beautiful face marred by an eye in the middle of the forehead.

  “Ugh,” Donna said for them all.

  “Does the third eye give them special powers?” Clive asked.

  “That’s the tricky part,” Libby replied. “The ruling-class Lood males are capable of compelling some humanoid species to obey them, and the ruling-class women can detect falsehoods, creating a sort of balance of power. We aren’t positive about whether the Loods will be able to influence or read humans because the two species have never been in contact before.”

  “You mean one of those guys could turn us into zombies?” Kelly demanded.

  “In terms of capabilities and persistence, the effects the elite male Loods can produce are similar to what upper-class Vergallian women do with pheromones.”

  “You’re not giving me a lot of confidence,” Kelly retorted. “Do you want me to put up these mind-stealers in Mac’s Bones?”

  “It’s up to you, of course, but I’d actually hoped you’d take in the Cayl guest.”

  “The Cayl?” Chastity interrupted. “I thought this whole open house was about trying to woo the species made available by the dissolution of the Cayl Empire.”

  “That’s correct, but as long as the Cayl remain in charge, even through a temporary play-for-pay arrangement, they’ll expect to be treated with the respect due to the rulers of a large empire.”

  “What do they look like?” Donna asked.

  The hologram above the display desk was replaced by something that looked like a cross between a polar bear and a man. The face and hands were the only exposed body parts that weren’t covered with fine white hair, though the oversized snout might have benefitted aesthetically from some fur. The Cayl’s lips were drawn back in a smile or a grimace, showing a mouthful of teeth to rival Beowulf’s. Stubby black claws sprouted from the backs of the hands behind each finger, but something instinctive warned the humans that if the creature made a fist, those claws would protrude like daggers.

  “How big is it?” Chastity asked. “Can you add Clive to the hologram for scale?”

  A three-dimensional image of the Director of EarthCent Intelligence carrying two chairs appeared next to the bear. The Cayl didn’t look half as threatening when it turned out to be a head shorter than Clive.

  “Well, he is smiling,” Kelly said, deciding to take an optimistic view of the toothy display. “Other than the claws and the teeth, he could be more cuddly than a Grenouthian. But I’ll want to show my family the hologram before inviting him to stay in our home.”

  “I wonder if Dring has any experience with the Cayl?” Clive mused.

  “It seems likely, but you’ll have to ask him,” Libby replied. “We know nothing of what the Makers did between the time they asked us not to see them and the time Dring took up residence in Mac’s Bones.”

  “You’ll be updating all of our implants with their languages?” Kelly asked.

  “They’re already included,” Libby said. “The Cayl Empire has been a model of stability for millions of years, and enough young Stryx tour through their space that we can keep the translation tables up-to-date with the latest slang.”

  “You’ve been awfully quiet,” Kelly said to Thomas. “Don’t you have any questions?”

  “I’m afraid that the documentaries I’ve watched have already biased my opinions,” Thomas replied. “According to the Grenouthians, all of the Cayl Empire species tend to get out of hand if there aren’t any Cayl around, so we should probably be prepared.”

  “You don’t think that Gryph can handle a few hundred thousand rude tourists?” Kelly asked jokingly.

  “They’ll be visiting the station, not off in their own fleet like the Wanderers,” Thomas said. “They all look like tough customers in their own ways, and the four species Libby just showed us are dominant in their own spheres of influence. For millions of years, they’ve taken their orders from the Cayl and nobody else.”

  “He’s got a point,” Clive said. “We should at least prepare an advisory for our merchants on the station so they won’t be taken by surprise if Gryph cuts the aliens some extra slack.”

  “Are you planning on trying to cultivate intelligence sources among the open house guests?” Kelly inquired.

  “We’ll make an effort, but if they don’t join the tunnel network after the open house, there
’s not much point in adding them to the payroll. We simply don’t have the resources to try to keep up with every sentient in the galaxy. Even the Drazens limit their intelligence efforts to the species they come across in the regular course of business.”

  “What about threats we don’t know about?” Chastity protested. “Humans who want to establish their own colony worlds have to go off the tunnel network to try. Aren’t you supposed to be tracking the problems they might run into?”

  “We can’t do everything, Chas,” Clive told his sister-in-law. “The Stryx will put in exits for any of the tunnel-affiliated species once a world warrants the attention, but it doesn’t make any sense to do it for every settlement effort. What’s the current criteria, Libby?”

  “We’ll provide tunnel access to a colony once it passes two-hundred million inhabitants or an investment of two trillion Stryx cred.”

  “Why wait so long?” Kelly asked. “Wouldn’t the colonies have a much greater chance of success if they had tunnel access from the beginning?”

  “It requires a great deal of energy to create and hold open a tunnel,” Libby explained. “A large investment in terraforming or infrastructure shows that the species is taking the colonization effort seriously. And we will extend protection to colony worlds before they reach the scale for tunnel access, provided the space was undisputed when the colony was founded and the request is made through an ambassador for the species on one of the stations.”