High Priest on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 3) Read online

  Shaina nodded and then cranked her voice back up to operatic volume. “Moving to item sixty in the catalog. All items we skip over will be assembled in lots for a post-auction session. Early responders to the Sending who don’t use their credit on a more expensive item will have a chance to bid separately on items from lots that don’t make the reserve bid.”

  A hologram of a group of panels depicting a primitive battle scene, featuring aliens Kelly didn’t recognize but which she assumed were Hoongian gods and mythical creatures, appeared floating over the stage. The panels were carved in some type of white stone that was fine-grained like marble and heavily gilded with precious metals set with gemstones. The work was clearly a cultural treasure, and unless the Hoongians were indifferent to their history, Kelly was sure they would be the buyers at any price.

  “Item sixty is a complete set of Sun Temple panels from Hoong Prime,” Shaina read the description and paused for a moment out of respect for the artistic labor that had clearly gone into their making. Then she plunged into her chant, starting at a hundred million, as if she auctioned off unique artifacts worth more than a fleet of spaceships every day.

  “Start at one hundred million, do I have—now two hundred,” she interrupted herself, taking a bid from the front of her own section. “Now two hundred, I have two, now five hundred, now a thousand,” Shaina ramped up without blinking as she picked up bids from aliens without having to wait for the spotters. “A thousand million, now one billion Stryx cred,” she reset the chant. “Now one, give me one.”

  Kelly had once asked Jeeves how many Stryx cred billionaires there were in the galaxy, and the robot had told her that most industrial worlds had a dozen or so. The home worlds of the more advanced species usually boasted a few trillionaires, though their assets weren’t liquid. So the amount of money Shaina was asking for the panels was inversely related to the population that could dream of bidding. Maybe one in a billion sentient beings had that kind of money or credit at their disposal. And it was all to be deposited to her name?

  “One billion!” Jeeves reported, and this time he threw in a bell-ringing noise.

  “Bid one, now two, can I have two?” Shaina continued, swiveling her head about to watch the spotters in the crowd.

  “Two billion!” Jeeves reported, causing the amount under the hologram to flash and ringing the virtual bell twice.

  For the next six hours, Kelly performed mechanically, calling bids from the rows right in front of her and occasionally repeating bids from spotters in her section who didn’t have loud voices, but it was clear that she wasn’t cut out for the auction business. Chastity declined a turn at bid calling, saying that it made no sense for an amateur to interrupt professionals at their jobs. When the Hadad girls called it quits at midnight, they had worked through a fifth of the catalog, though they were skipping past nine out of ten items to be lumped into lots for later.

  “Why aren’t you exhausted?” Kelly asked Brinda in wonder, noticing that the young woman simply looked energized.

  “This is the chance of a lifetime, a thousand lifetimes,” she replied with shining eyes, and Kelly suspected she might have even detected a tear. “I can’t thank you enough for giving me this opportunity. I may never be able to own or even touch artifacts like these, but you’ve made me part of their history.”

  “It’s been a blast,” Shaina added. “I told my dad he’s on his own for the next week or so, though the truth is, it’s going to be hard going back to the Shuk and selling egg-slicers for centees after auctioning off a trillion creds of fine art and artifacts to the wealthiest institutions and collectors in the galaxy. Is that your total, Brin?”

  “I lost track around five hundred billion,” Brinda admitted. “I thought those big numbers only came up in physics. So what are you going to do with it all, Kelly? Buy a couple worlds?”

  “Do with it?” Kelly repeated. At some point in the long evening she had forgotten that she was the legal beneficiary of the auction. Her last raise as EarthCent ambassador had brought her annual salary up to six thousand Stryx cred, and she and Joe had around eight thousand in hard-earned savings between them. Kelly desperately searched the stage for some dark corner before running out of time and throwing up directly under the hologram of the last item sold, a ten-ton golden bunny that had driven the Grenouthians into a bidding frenzy.

  “I’ll call a maintenance bot,” Jeeves offered kindly. “You can thank me for suggesting that Yeafah make you the beneficiary when you’re feeling better.”

  Ten

  Shaun returned to Mac’s Bones from the last day of the odd lots after-auction in a much better mood than he’d been in since they initially set out for Kasil three weeks earlier. He’d come away from the planet empty-handed, thanks to Dring, Jeeves and Kelly talking the High Priest into returning to Union Station before making a decision, but he’d received a ten-thousand cred voucher towards the auction for being an early bird. By waiting for the final lots, he’d managed to convert his bidding credit into gold at very near the market price. While ten thousand Stryx creds wasn’t the treasure he’d dreamed of, it was the largest windfall the Crick family had ever seen.

  The McAllisters were throwing a post-auction party for all of the staff, which by this point included over three hundred InstaSitters who had been hired as spotters for the eight sessions it took to work through the catalog. Kelly hadn’t returned to the center stage after the first night, but the Hadad sisters and Jeeves were the ones who really ran the auction in any case, and the three of them had the time of their lives. Jeeves had surprised everybody by developing his own auction chant, complete with nonsense words for maintaining the rhythm, and a concluding cry of, “Sold!” that made the phony stone benches in the amphitheatre vibrate.

  Kelly and Aisha helped the crew hired from Laurel’s old culinary college set up for the picnic, while Beowulf got in a final nap before the action began. Chastity and Tinka also came early to help, and they greeted the InstaSitters as they arrived, basically hijacking the party as a BlyChas event. With Blythe traveling so often, Tinka had become Chastity’s right hand, and in addition to the kind of salary that Kelly could only dream of, the girls had given the Drazen a small equity stake in the business.

  Shortly after the tables filled up with InstaSitters and the grills started going full force, Shaina and Brinda arrived with Jeeves in tow. The young spotters broke into a rousing cheer. Joe approached the Hadads as soon as they were seated and presented each of them with a pint of his latest ale.

  “Worst crowd we’ve ever had for beer drinkers,” he complained to the auctioneers, who along with Chastity, Tinka, Shaun, Mary, Kelly and Aisha, made up a grown-ups table. “Kelly suggested I start brewing a small beer for kids, which sounded great until I found out it was Medieval euphemism for low-alcohol. What does InstaSitter have against hiring adults?”

  “Kids work cheaper and have much more flexible schedules on the stations,” Tinka explained. “Besides, if we hired adults as sitters, they’d probably need to call us to look after their children or parents while they worked, so they may as well stay home and save everybody the overhead.”

  “I love your approach to business,” Shaina complimented the InstaSitter management team. “It’s no wonder you guys have been so successful. And the kids worked out great as spotters. It really helps to have a whole variety of species who can learn the difference between a twitchy whisker and a bid.”

  “Well, you did such a great job you must be ready to retire after the last week,” Chastity returned the compliment. “What’s the auctioneering commission on a sale like that? I hadn’t even thought of it, but you guys must be the richest people on the station now. After Kelly, I mean.”

  Kelly opened her mouth to protest but quickly closed it again as she felt a surge of nausea. She took a sip from Joe’s half-finished beer, hoping it would calm her stomach so she could eat something, but she hadn’t been this queasy since she was pregnant with Dorothy. Waking up a trillion
aire because the High Priest of Kasil had used martial arts to force a necklace on her was enough to give anybody an upset stomach. Why did the universe have to be so weird?

  “We weren’t working on commission,” Brinda replied cheerfully. “Shaina didn’t think it would be right since we really aren’t professionals and my appraisals were just off-the-cuff guesses. The Kasilian catalog really did most of the work for us. Besides, we’re too young to retire, though I’m not sure I can go back to work in the Shuk selling kitchen gadgets now.”

  “I would have paid Kelly for the opportunity to run that auction,” Shaina confessed. “Anyway, we took the job from Libby in return for Gryph waiving the Kitchen Kitsch rent for the next two years. Still, I feel a little like an athlete who isn’t even thirty yet and knows that her best days are behind her.”

  “That’s not so,” Aisha protested. “I mean, you did a beautiful job and aliens all over the galaxy recognize you for it, but none of us had even dreamed of this auction two weeks ago. Your business in the Shuk is something you’ve worked at building all of your lives.”

  “She has a good point,” Shaun chipped in unexpectedly after polishing off his burger. “I’ve been a bit crazy since our Becky told us about the Kasilian intentions, but truth be told, we just got lucky. It’ll be nice to buy some things for the kids, but I’m glad I’m not in Kelly’s shoes.”

  “Shush up now,” Mary told her husband with a glance at their hostess. But the comment had gone unnoticed by Kelly, who was occupied by a chiming in her ear and the message “Collect call from mom,” floating across her vision.

  “Accept charges,” she subvoced in a grumble. “Hi, Mom. I thought you were all done with this collect call nonsense.”

  “What? Has my daughter turned into a cheapskate in her middle age?” her mom’s voice sounded incredulous. “You could buy and sell me a million times over. You could probably buy the tunneling communications network from the Stryx and then I could call for free!”

  “Don’t exaggerate mom. It’s just a few trillion creds,” Kelly replied, instantly realizing how lame that sounded.

  “Well, I’m glad you haven’t lost your sense of perspective yet,” her mother replied in an ironic singsong. “You’re one of the richest people in the galaxy now, though if it had been me, I would have held onto some of that Vergallian jewelry you sold in the small lots. Such beautiful work.”

  “It’s not my money,” Kelly retorted, then backtracked. “I mean, it’s legally mine, but I’m just doing the Stryx a favor by accepting it. I’m sure they’ll tell me what to do with it soon.”

  “Did they tell you not to spend it?” her mother inquired.

  “That’s not the point,” Kelly protested desperately. “Libby knows me better than I know myself. She set me up with Joe, remember? They’re just playing one of their noninterference games, but I’m sure in a few days, I’ll get a hint that there’s a nebula in need of renovations or something.”

  “A nebula in need of—Kelly, you know even less about space than you do about business,” her mother chided her. “I just wanted to check in and make sure you weren’t letting this wealth business go to your head, but I can see you’re still in total denial. If you’re really convinced the Stryx are going to ask for the money back, my only advice is that you don’t start giving hand-outs to whoever calls you with a sob story or you’ll end up poorer than you started.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Kelly replied, thinking that it wasn’t such bad advice. “We’re having a post-auction party so I really have to go now.”

  “Give my love to Dorothy and Joe,” her mother replied. “And tell those auctioneers they can sell my stuff anytime. Half of the people left on Earth watched your auction, they were calling it ‘treasure porn.’ The Stryx must have made the feed free because competing networks were broadcasting it at the same time. Some chains even started showing it in immersive theatres for people who wanted the full auction experience.”

  “Bye Mom,” Kelly replied gloomily and rubbed her belly. So half of Earth’s population had seen her mistake a Frunge scratching his head for a bid. I’m never leaving the station again, she said to herself. Alright, I can make an exception for Kasil to try to talk them out of planetary suicide, but they don’t watch video.

  She took another small sip from Joe’s beer and tried to refocus on the conversation at the table, but everybody was sitting silently and staring at her. Finally, an abashed looking Joe said, “Uh, you were sort of talking out loud at the end there, Kel.”

  Kelly quickly reviewed the conversation and her face began to glow like a tomato. She had broken herself of constantly subvocing for Dorothy’s sake, and now it appeared there a was price to changing habits. “Why didn’t you stop me?” she demanded.

  “Didn’t figure out what was happening quickly enough,” Joe admitted. “You’re not the only one who’s getting older. It was just something about Libby setting us up on a date and you waiting for a hint that the galaxy needs repairs.”

  “Drat,” she muttered and looked around the table. “My mom says that you guys are big stars on Earth,” she addressed the Hadad girls. “She said you can sell her stuff for her anytime.”

  “Kelly’s mom has the right idea,” Chastity brushed over Kelly’s accidental monologue. “You guys really should start an auction business. If Blythe was here, I’m sure she would already have tried to hire you to start an InstaAuction division for BlyChas, but you don’t really need us as middlemen. With the Stryxnet infrastructure and the convention centers on all the stations, you could set up an auction circuit, and you know our Stryx will back you. You’re the two most famous auctioneers in the galaxy at the moment, so you may as well take advantage before everybody starts to forget.”

  “What do you think, Sis?” Brinda asked her older sister. “I thought about trying to cash in by starting a business, but given that every sentient with a brain prefers barter, I didn’t think there would be enough local demand. Chastity’s idea of setting up a circuit might make it work.”

  “I didn’t want to get your hopes up,” Shaina replied. “You know it’s not going to all be art and artifacts. We’ll probably end up auctioning off a lot of broken-down repossessed spaceships and distressed resort world time-shares for centees on the cred. But the video of you knocking down the Forever Stone that incited the Founding War for two hundred billion creds would make priceless advertising.”

  “If you need help with video production, we could let you borrow Thomas,” Chastity offered. “He does the editing for all the InstaSitter commercials, and he can always use the extra cash. He’s saving for a new body.”

  “Thanks,” Shaina replied. “We’re going to need a different system than Kelly’s auction, though. Everything in the last week was guaranteed by the Stryx, so there was no question about accepting payments in escrow or delivery fraud. Speaking of which, who is going to arrange for delivery?”

  Everybody turned to Kelly, who spotted Jeeves hovering at the end of the table out of the corner of her eye.

  “How are we going to deliver everything?” she called to Jeeves loudly, just as the dozens of conversations at the picnic hit a momentary lull. Everybody waited to hear the robot’s reply.

  “Didn’t any of you read the ABA?” the Stryx replied in exasperation.

  “ABA?” Kelly asked, even though she suspected Jeeves was setting her up as the straight-man for a one-liner.

  “Auction Bidding Agreement,” he explained in a rapid chant that Kelly was surprised she could understand without relying on her implants. “All bidders agree to delivery at the Stryx station of their choice within two cycles. Payments must be received in escrow before delivery location may be requested. All items are guaranteed to be as described in the Kasilian catalog and holograms. Any disputes over the condition or identification of the merchandise will be decided at the sole discretion of the local Stryx librarian. All sales are final.”

  The whole room burst into applause at his machine-gun delive
ry of the small print, and Jeeves bobbed in place, the robotic equivalent of taking a bow.

  “We already sent a science ship to effect the pick-up at Kasil, and they’ll shuttle everything up from the surface and deliver it to the stations for distribution,” he concluded in his normal cadence.

  Brinda whispered something to Shaina and then addressed the robot.

  “Is there any chance you’d be interested in going partners in a new auction business?” she boldly asked Jeeves. “We wouldn’t ask you to auction off the odd lots of radiation-damaged food or space salvage clothing, but you could help out with the legal stuff and give the firm instant legitimacy on the stations.” Not getting any reaction from the Stryx, she hastily added, “And of course, you could do auctioneering whenever you wanted.”

  “Sold!” Jeeves thundered, bringing another round of applause, and waking Beowulf from his dreams in time to start the endless hunt for leftovers.

  Eleven

  “I’ve never been in a swimming pool before,” Aisha admitted to Kelly as they stood a few paces apart at the shallow end. Dorothy swam energetic laps between them, doing a dog-paddle that Joe had taught her in preparation for Blythe’s twentieth birthday party after temporarily filling an old hull in Mac’s Bones waist-high with water rented from the Frunge.

  Joe had been relieved to have an excuse to teach his daughter to swim because he was brought up to believe that not doing so was the height of folly. Mary Crick was quick to take him up on his offer to teach her younger children as well. But swimming, or even floating, was not really an essential survival skill on a space station where access to the sole human swimming pool was both limited and expensive.

  “And I’ve never been in an executive club before,” Kelly responded. “In fact, I didn’t even know this place existed before we got Blythe’s invitation.”