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  “I thought you said you’d lend me the money.”

  “One pair of hands washes the other.”

  “Are you talking about me and Julie now, or is that a four-handed Dollnick expression for reciprocity?”

  “The latter,” Flower said. “Your vocabulary is coming along very nicely. At the rate you’re catching up, I think you’ll be ready for the Open University entrance exam by our next stop at Earth.”

  “Julie’s friend Renée was telling me that they have a program for the hospitality industry with cooking classes and the kind of business and accounting courses that will help with owning a bakery. I’m doing this for me and Julie, not to get a management job working for you.”

  “What do you have against working for me?” Flower asked in an injured tone. “I may have had my problems with taking advice in the past, but I’ve become a very good listener, and I bounce all of my new ideas off of you.”

  “I’ve noticed, but I don’t understand why.”

  “Let’s just say you’re more open-minded about chatting with artificial intelligence than the average Human. Most of the people on board treat me more like a teacherbot than like a sentient being. They’re fine asking me questions or telling me to turn off the lights, but they never make the time to just talk.”

  “They’re probably scared of you, Flower. It’s like when I was growing up on Earth and people were always going on about giving the mayor or the president of EarthCent a piece of their mind. If they ever had a chance to talk to somebody that high up, they probably would have mumbled something about how it would be nice if the street lights could get fixed quicker.”

  “My corridor lights have only flickered once, and that’s when I was firing my asteroid repulsion batteries.”

  “I didn’t mean it literally. Do I really have to watch the rest of this, or can I go to work?”

  “If you’re not interested in a career producing anime I can’t force you,” Flower said, and the hologram disappeared. “I just think you could show a little more flexibility. Take me for an example. I spent the better part of twenty thousand years hosting five million Dollnicks at a time while helping them find and terraform empty worlds. Now I’m working as a glorified cruise ship for Humans. Do you hear me complaining?”

  “No comment,” Bill said. He headed for the nearest lift tube and Flower surprised him by not saying anything further on the subject. When he arrived at the alien cafeteria, he found there was a meeting going on with the captain, Jorb, Razood, and the bony new alien whose name he couldn’t recall.

  “Join us, Bill,” Woojin said. “We’ve been discussing a problem and you might be the solution.”

  “Me?”

  “You know about the arrangement we’ve made with the alien intelligence services to host their agents and ferry them around to the sovereign human communities. Razood has his cover job working as a blacksmith in Colonial Jeevesburg and Jorb runs his dojo. Yaem has started working for Flower now, and the problem is that she needs all his time to prepare for MultiCon.”

  “And she wants me to work with Julie helping him?” Bill asked hopefully. “I guess if I cut back on my hours…”

  “That’s not exactly what we had in mind,” the captain said. “The problem is that Yaem needs to start showing results for Sharf Intelligence to justify his being assigned here or eventually they’ll replace him.”

  “We’ve all been chipping in with information, and even ghostwriting intelligence reports to get him off to a running start, but ultimately, the main goal for all of us is recruiting Human sources on the ground,” Razood said. “We can’t share ours with Yaem because it wouldn’t be fair to the sources or to our own employers.”

  “When you say source, do you mean people living on open worlds who work as double agents?” Bill asked his former employer.

  “Just regular Humans who want to earn a little extra coin in return for supplying occasional tidbits of information,” the Frunge blacksmith said. “Part of the agreement that allows us to work here precludes our recruiting anybody who’s already working for EarthCent Intelligence, so no double agents.”

  “I haven’t known you long, Bill, but I’d be honored if you would be my first Human agent,” Yaem said. “In addition to a modest retainer, I can pay a per diem for any trips you take to the worlds we visit, with a bonus for the sources you recruit.”

  “Let me make sure I have this straight,” Bill said, turning back to the captain. “You want me to sign up as an agent for the Sharf so that Yaem’s boss will think he’s doing a good job. Do you also want me to spy on people when we visit open worlds?”

  “You’d be doing both Flower and EarthCent Intelligence a favor,” Woojin confirmed. “As to spying, we can supply Yaem with enough information to keep his employers happy, but he needs to show that he’s recruiting sources and building a payroll. Traditional intelligence agencies measure success in large part by how much they spend.”

  “So my job would be visiting the planets we stop at and recruiting people who live there to be sources for Sharf Intelligence?”

  “You don’t have to tell them that they’re being paid by the Sharf,” Jorb said. “You know that I’m pretty new to the business myself, but it’s common practice for handlers to mislead their sources.”

  “Intelligence agencies back on Earth used to call it ‘false flag’ recruitment because the nations all had different flags,” Woojin explained. “Some people get involved in spying for the excitement or the money, but others do it out of patriotism or because they’re trying to bring about change. If a recruiter for country X knew that a citizen of country Y was really sympathetic with country Z, claiming to be working for Z only made sense.”

  “I don’t know,” Bill said. “If EarthCent Intelligence wants me to work for the Sharf, I guess I can try, but I don’t want to lie to people.”

  “You may not have to,” Jorb said. “Drazen Intelligence rushed me through a crash course and waived most of the requirements because I was willing to join Flower immediately, but I’ve done alright recruiting sources just by talking to people.”

  “And offering them money to spy for Drazen Intelligence.”

  “It doesn’t play out like that at all,” Jorb protested. “Take our last stop at the Break Rock mining habitat. I visited the ore processing center, stopped in a few bars, and bought some drinks. When prospectors asked why I was being so friendly, I told them I was interested in anything that might have an effect on the local prices and I could make it worth their while.”

  “So they didn’t care why you wanted the information, and you expect to find the same prospectors when Flower stops at Break Rock again in another six months?” Bill asked skeptically.

  “I give them a collect Stryxnet address for tunneling telegrams and tell them to keep it short,” the Drazen said.

  “Telegrams are a huge savings when you’re working with Humans,” Razood concurred. “If you let your sources send voice messages, they’ll go on talking about the weather for five minutes and you’ll blow through your whole budget on nothing. If you can’t meet your sources face to face, always have them report in writing.”

  “Is spying like this everywhere on the tunnel network?” Bill asked the captain.

  Woojin snorted. “Industrial espionage is cutthroat in the entertainment industry, but since the tunnel network treaty prevents the members from going to war with one another, they mainly spy on each other to keep in practice for working in the rest of the galaxy. A branch of Vergallian Intelligence made a concerted effort to undermine EarthCent, but they dropped that when the Alts chose the Empire of a Hundred Worlds over the tunnel network.”

  “I can give you a public Stryxnet address for reporting warranty problems with pre-owned ships which won’t put your sources at risk,” Yaem told Bill. He handed the young man a plastic chit. “Any messages sent there addressed to you will get routed to my home office and count towards my quota. Your primary goal will be gathering information about t
he shipping industry. We’re especially interested in how Humans are responding to the supply constraint as we run out of pre-owned two-man traders to sell them.”

  “My information is that your ship dealers are scavenging recycling facilities and old junkyards for shells to rebuild and sell to the Humans,” Razood said. “Frunge dealers would happily push into the business, but they just don’t have a significant quantity of used entry-level ships that suit the market. The Sharf were lucky to have a large inventory of obsolete small ships available when Earth joined the tunnel network.”

  “Believe it or not, the basic model was a bit of a disaster when it went into production around a hundred thousand years ago,” Yaem said. “Not enough cargo capacity for serious merchants, not enough cabin space for families, no jump capability. The only points they had going for them were the low price and easy maintenance, but those were enough that millions were sold as the poor Sharf’s version of a yacht. The replacement model is much more practical, but it’s priced too high for the Human market.”

  “So why don’t you start building the old ones again?” Woojin asked. “You know that the demand is there.”

  “Who would buy ships built to an obsolete design when by stretching out the financing a couple hundred years they could get something so much better?”

  “Our traders don’t have a couple hundred years to pay down a mortgage, and your idea of obsolete is so far ahead of our state of the art that there’s no comparison.”

  “I’m sure somebody would have thought of it already if it were that simple,” Yaem said, though he looked unsure of himself. “Maybe it’s a question of factory tooling, or it could be that the shipyard workers would rebel over being asked to build a model that’s been out of production so long.”

  “It’s more likely a question of profit,” Flower chimed in. “I familiarized myself with the industry when I made my docking bay a refuge for Human traders whose ship mortgages had been foreclosed. There’s not much margin in selling used two-man traders, and your dealers made most of their money on upgrades, such as robotic cargo handlers and medical pods. The shipyards building small spaceships are lucky to break even on the economy models. The profits are in the options, financing, and extended service contracts.”

  “Then I don’t imagine that’s changed any, but I’ll pass the idea along,” Yaem said.

  “Couldn’t you find a factory on Earth and charge them for the plans to build the ships?” Woojin asked. “The labor costs would have to be much cheaper than doing it anywhere in Sharf space.”

  “Your people don’t have the infrastructure or the technology base,” Yaem said. “I suppose you could fabricate steel hulls, but the drives and the field generators would all have to be imported, and the Stryx discourage technology transfers that leapfrog the current state-of-the-art for a species, not that Earth could afford the fees. And don’t even ask about the fuel packs because we’ve never licensed that technology to anyone.”

  “How about me?” the Dollnick ship’s AI put in.

  “How about you what?”

  “I have plenty of manufacturing space available on decks six through fourteen. I also have a complete compendium of Dollnick technology, including an alternative to Sharf fuel packs if the makers are unwilling to supply them at a reasonable price. If Dollnicks had ever developed a ship type that was a good match for the needs of Human traders, I’d already be manufacturing them.”

  “But you can’t just share Dollnick technology with the Humans,” the Sharf protested.

  “I wouldn’t be transferring the technology, I’d be employing Humans in my factory to build the ships,” Flower said. “Ask your superiors to check with the intellectual property owners of the two-man trader design to see if they’re willing to talk licenses with me.”

  “If the Sharf don’t gear up to keep supplying the Human market, one of the other species will,” Razood pointed out. “You’ve got the first-mover advantage and a large installed base, but the Hortens have a small ship design that’s not so different from Sharf two-man traders in terms of capabilities. None of the other species have bothered chasing the Human business because of the glut of used ships you had on hand, but with prices going up the way they are...”

  “Got it,” Yaem said.

  The kitchen door swung open and Harry came out with a tray of freshly baked pastries from the All Species Cookbook. “There you are, Bill,” he said. “I was beginning to wonder if Flower had grabbed you for some new job without telling me.”

  “She sort of did, but I guess it’s only when we’re at stops, so it won’t interfere much with my work for you.” Bill rose and hesitated for a moment, then offered the Sharf a handshake. “I guess we’ll talk soon.”

  “I have a handbook for new agents somewhere that I’ll get to you as soon as I can have it translated to English,” Yaem said.

  “I’ve got something better,” Woojin told Bill. “Stop by my cabin this evening and I’ll dig it out.”

  Eight

  “Where are you taking me?” Julie asked the lift tube.

  “I set up a new office for con management on the theatre deck where we’ll be holding it,” Flower replied. “It’s just three decks in from the library and we’ve already arrived.”

  The doors slid open on a cavernous space that could have housed the amusement park. The area in front of the lift tube was completely bare, making the slight curvature of the deck rather obvious.

  “What do I weigh here?” Julie asked, stepping out cautiously.

  “A little bit over ninety-four percent of Earth normal. The office is around the other side of the spoke.”

  Julie began to circumnavigate the hollow spoke, the wall of which gave structure for the cylindrical ship, while the interior space provided a shaft for the lift tube. About a third of the way around, she found herself in front of the entrance of what might have been a corporate headquarters from an office building on Earth.

  “Miss Gold?” a smartly dressed young man at the reception desk greeted her.

  “Yes?”

  “The meeting is in conference room three. Can I bring you anything? Herbal tea? Mineral water? Fruit?”

  “I’m, um, set for now. Thank you.” A sign on the wall showed that conference rooms one and three were to her left and conference rooms two and four were to her right. She turned left and continued a surprisingly long way before she heard familiar voices coming through an open door. Julie entered to see Maureen and Brenda sitting with the Sharf and going over something on their tabs.

  “Good morning,” Yaem greeted her in raspy English. “Flower suggested I dispense with the external translator if I’m going to master Humanese before the Con. Please correct any errors I make.”

  “You went from not speaking English to being able to say that since last time I saw you?”

  “I started learning your language before I was dispatched to Earth, but I thought I sounded funny when I tried speaking,” the Sharf admitted. “Flower assures me that everybody sounds funny speaking Humanese, including all of you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind next time an alien laughs at me,” Maureen said. “Brenda and I were just discussing this meeting’s agenda with Yaem, Julie. Did you have any particular concerns you want us to address today?”

  “Just that I’m having nightmares about a hundred thousand people showing up for the con and then demanding refunds because we aren’t ready,” Julie said.

  Geoffrey entered the conference room just in time to hear her. “Everything is coming together splendidly,” he said. “I’ve been to cons where the morning of the event it turned out that the main ballroom at the hotel had been double-booked. It’s clear we won’t have that problem here.”

  “I set aside this whole deck,” Flower confirmed. “I’m planning to employ the early arrivals for the build-out, but if time runs short, I’ll just activate enough maintenance bots to get it done.”

  “You want to use conference attendees who show up early to pr
epare the con facility?” Yaem asked. “It’s normal for volunteers to help with the art show or the masquerade, but I’ve never heard of paying guests to come a month before the event to convert empty industrial space into a venue.”

  “We had a much better response than I expected to our early registration offer. We’ll start taking guests on board at each stop from here on as they catch commercial transportation out from Earth or their current locations. I would have sent my shuttles back through the tunnels for the first couple thousand but it’s too long for Humans to just sit in Zero-G.”

  “We’ve had a couple thousand registrations?” Maureen said in astonishment. “Already?”

  “Thanks to your expertise in marketing,” Flower said. “The promotional material was highly effective.”

  “I’m a bit confused here, Flower,” Geoffrey said. “When you asked me about early registrations, I suggested that a twenty percent discount was standard for Earth cons, but nobody invites the attendees to show up a month early. Are you sure you didn’t give them the wrong starting date? I remember a con where that happened and we had to scramble to put together a limited program to prevent the imperial stormtroopers from rioting.”

  “I added a special offer to Maureen’s e-brochure stating that early registrants willing to work this month would receive a travel rebate, free lodging, and paid employment preparing for the con,” Flower said. “To be perfectly honest, I was concerned that the contact lists I purchased on Earth had aged out, but one of the smaller lists proved to be pure gold.”

  “The response rate was nearly a hundred percent,” Maureen exclaimed, staring at the new data Flower had just sent to their tabs. “It looks like there are even some apologies from people who said they wished they could register early to help prepare the con but they had existing obligations. It’s ironic that the most successful direct marketing campaign of my career would come after I retired.”