Review Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 11) Page 9

  Dring completed the deal and announced, “Pair of aces bets.”

  “Perhaps a blue,” the Farling said, sliding the chip forward, and then using the same limb to extract a pretzel from the bowl. “Is the substrate of this salt delivery system edible?”

  Jeeves folded, and Herl absently gnawed the tip of his tentacle for a moment before conceding the pot with a growl.

  “It’s just flour and water,” Joe replied.

  The Farling transferred the pretzel to his mandibles and gave an experimental nibble while raking in the pot. “I believe the wheat flour has been adulterated with niacin, reduced iron, and folic acid. Hmm, on second taste, add thiamine mononitrate and riboflavin to the list. The flour has been further mixed with malt, dextrose, some type of unidentifiable vegetable oil, soda, and the remains of millions of single-celled fungi.”

  “If the dogs knew Farling they’d be gagging right now,” Woojin said.

  “Naw, Beowulf knows all about yeast,” Joe pointed out. “Can’t brew beer without it.”

  “Five card draw,” Woojin declared, gathering the cards and shuffling. “Same ante, nothing wild, no drawing four on an ace.”

  “Is it normally allowed to change the value of an ace by drawing on it?” the Farling asked. “It seems like you would require a new deck every hand.”

  “Draw poker allows you to replace cards that don’t help you by drawing new cards from the dealer,” Clive explained. “You can ask for up to three cards, but some games allow you to draw four cards on an ace. There’s a betting round after the cards are dealt, and another after the draw. The dealer can also call a blind, a forced bet to get things started, but we rarely play that.”

  Woojin completed the deal rapidly and the players all studied their cards. Joe, Woojin, and Clive held their hands mercenary style, up close to their chests, while Dring held his cupped between both hands. Herl quickly rearranged his cards and then returned them to the table. The Farling, whose head was already low due to his belly-down position, barely raised the top edge of his cards and surveyed them on the table. Jeeves let out his version of a snort.

  “Worried that I’m going to sneak a peek, M793qK?”

  “While I accept Dring’s statement that neither of you would knowingly take advantage at cards, it’s been my experience that young Stryx are the nosiest sentients in creation,” the Farling replied. “Busybodies, as well.”

  “A hundred,” Dring announced, tossing a red chip in the pot.

  “You guys showing off for the Doc or something?” Joe grumbled, moving in a red chip of his own.

  “Is it me already?” The Farling toyed with his blue stack and then tossed a single red into the center of the table. “I hear that for your latest performance, Jeeves, you’ve decided to tinker in the age-old business of freebooting.”

  “Fold,” the Stryx said. “Are you upset because the pirates handle distribution for the Farling-manufactured illicit drugs in this part of the galaxy?”

  Clive looked up sharply, folding his hand as an afterthought. “The pirates are part of the drug trade? I thought they only operated on the boundaries of the tunnel network.”

  “Call,” Herl said, flipping in a red chip. “Pirate ships stay on the fringes of civilized space, but their crime syndicates reach into the holdings of many tunnel network members.”

  Woojin pushed a red chip into the pot and picked up the deck. “How many?”

  “I’ll take two,” Dring said, dropping his discards and picking up the two replacements dealt by his neighbor.

  “Three,” Joe announced, looking sadly at the Maker, who almost never bluffed. “My unit used to work some anti-piracy operations for the Vergallians. You said, ‘many,’ Herl. Which species are immune?”

  “None for me,” the Farling said, eliciting a groan from the Drazen. “Crime doesn’t create criminals, it attracts them. The Verlocks have little tolerance for such behavior, but the Grenouthians have always been a bit shady.”

  “One,” Herl spat, throwing out a card and glaring at the giant insect. “Your analysis of our characters only extends to the two oldest oxygen breathing species on the tunnel network?”

  “Dealer takes three,” Woojin announced, making up his hand. “Your bet, Dring.”

  “Pass,” the Maker said.

  “I suppose it’s time to find out what effect these blue chips have,” the Farling mused. “I’ll put in five, one for each card of my flush. And as to my analysis of tunnel network members, Herl, species come and species go. I’m waiting to see if the rest of you stick.”

  “You’re bluffing,” the Drazen Intelligence chief barked, his tentacle standing rigid behind his head. He reached for his blue chips, hesitated, looked at his cards again, and folded. “It’s not you I’m afraid of, but anything beats a missed straight.”

  “I’m on a strict allowance,” Woojin said, tossing in his own hand.

  “Are you aware that a full house beats a flush, M793qK?” Dring asked, pushing a stack of ten blue chips into the pot.

  Joe rolled his eyes and folded, leaving the two aliens the field.

  “I’m not sure how to interpret that,” the Farling replied, pausing to take a long sip from his beer. Then he reached for the pretzels and held one out to his side, immediately attracting Beowulf, who shouldered the puppies out of the way. “You look like an intelligent dog. What would you do?”

  Beowulf thumped down on the floor, rolled on his back, closed his eyes, and let the full length of his tongue dangle out of the side of his mouth.

  “Playing dead,” the Farling observed. He gave the dog the pretzel and folded his hand. “And so shall I.”

  “Hey, Beowulf could have seen Dring’s cards,” Herl protested.

  “I have no objection,” the Maker said, raking in the pot. “For future reference, M793qK, Beowulf is very intelligent, but he only bets on aces.”

  “My deal,” Joe announced, gathering in the cards. “And here’s Walter.”

  “No Daniel?” Clive asked, as the managing editor of the Galactic Free Press took a seat.

  “Kelly cornered him and started quizzing the poor guy about his open worlds,” Walter replied. “The rest of the women were polishing off the baked goods, and Shaina was preparing some shower games, so I got out while the getting was good. I must give all due credit to Thomas, though. He’s hanging in there and recording everything like some kind of alien anthropologist.”

  The Farling eyed the newcomer and asked, “Are you the Walter responsible for the crossword puzzles in the Galactic Free Press?”

  “No,” Walter lied smoothly, taking the seat between Jeeves and Clive. “What have I missed?”

  “Doc bet us all that humanity wouldn’t pass the Stryx review,” Woojin said. “And he called Jeeves a nosy busybody.”

  “Can I put you down for twenty on the review results?” the Farling inquired.

  “I never bet on politics, it’s all fixed,” the newspaper editor replied. “By the way, Clive. I checked on those reporters you asked about. Two of them are still working for us, and I called them both back to Union Station to be available to give testimony if that’s required.”

  “The reporters you ransomed from pirates?” Herl asked.

  “I thought that if the committee is going to do a hearing, I didn’t want my sister and the young guy she escaped with to be the only human witnesses,” Clive explained. “The Hortens might have accused us of putting them up to it.”

  Nine

  “Can she have cake?” Judith asked the hostess of the baby shower.

  “As long as she continues to be a good puppy,” Shaina replied, giving the family’s recently adopted Cayl hound a smile.

  “What’s her name?”

  “She hasn’t chosen it yet. We keep trying new ones on her, and I’ll know we’ve hit the right name if she actually comes when I call her without making me beg.”

  “Good, Shaina,” Brinda cooed, patting her older sister on the head. “Way to show her who’s i
n charge.”

  “So when do I get to open my presents?” Lynx asked, her eyes on the table piled high with nicely wrapped packages. “Thank you Affie, Flazint,” she added, nodding to Dorothy’s friends, who added their own gifts to the mound. The two alien girls were attending because they were curious about human rituals and wanted to be prepared if they should ever be called upon to host such an event for the ambassador’s daughter.

  “After the games,” Shaina said. “Have another glass of milk.”

  “I don’t understand why we have to play games,” the expectant mother groused.

  “Because otherwise it would be cake, presents, and done,” Chastity said. She settled onto the couch next to Lynx, cradling her newborn boy in both arms.

  “Why do you get a say? You didn’t even have a baby shower,” Lynx complained.

  “I’m rich and I like to do my own shopping,” Chastity replied matter-of-factly. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable accepting presents from people and then not using them. Hey, Dorothy. Good to see you out and about.”

  “Do you like my frock? I had the idea months ago but somehow I never got around to it. You won’t believe the new shoe prototypes we’re working up. I’ll bring them by your office next week.”

  “I gave myself forty days off,” the publisher of the Galactic Free Press informed the ambassador’s daughter. “Besides, it will be a few weeks before I’m ready to even walk in heels, much less tango.”

  “All right everybody, gather around,” Shaina called out in her auctioneer’s bellow. Conversations in the crowded apartment came to a sudden halt, with the exception of Kelly badgering Daniel in a corner about some obscure alien etiquette. “You too, Ambassador. Leave my poor husband alone so he can go play poker.”

  Kelly reluctantly relaxed her grip on the EarthCent consul’s sleeve and joined the crowd around the couch. “Any cake left?”

  “I saved you a piece,” Donna whispered, handing the ambassador something squishy wrapped in a napkin.

  “So the prize for whoever wins the first game is a family dinner at Pub Haggis,” Shaina announced. She nodded to her sister Brinda, who began passing out Dollnick stylus boards, a cheap plastic substitute for paper and pencil that could display preloaded text.

  “Finish Mommy’s Sentence?” Dorothy read out loud.

  “I asked Lynx five questions earlier, and the first half of each of her answers is loaded on the Dolly boards. Everybody tries to complete how she responded, and whoever comes the closest wins.”

  “You didn’t tell me that’s what the questions were for,” Lynx protested. “This is embarrassing.”

  “No kibitzing,” Shaina remonstrated. “Just write in your answers, and when everybody is finished we’ll read them out loud.”

  The women all set to work, a few laughing as they wrote in their guesses.

  “This is fun,” Molly whispered to her sister-in-law. “Do all of the expectant mothers on Union Station have baby showers like this?”

  “I’ve gone to quite a few for our InstaSitters, but they usually just have a meal at a restaurant,” Blythe replied. “It’s probably a generational thing.”

  “All right, is everybody finished?” Shaina asked. “Good. Who thinks they know Lynx’s answer to, ‘If I had a million creds, I would ____.’”

  “Hire a surrogate mother,” Chance said confidently.

  “Where were you with that answer eight and a half months ago?” Lynx demanded over the laughter.

  “That’s incorrect,” Shaina informed them. “Who else?”

  “Buy a twelve year subscription to InstaSitter,” Chastity read off her board.

  “That’s what I had,” her older sister and co-founder of InstaSitter complained.

  “Me too,” most of the women in the room chipped in.

  Lynx shook her head. “I hate to sound cheap, especially since I know that InstaSitter funded a good part of my EarthCent Intelligence salary when we started out, but Thomas already volunteered to come by and babysit whenever Wooj and I need a break.”

  “You poor fool,” Kelly addressed the artificial person, who was moving about in stealth mode recording video of the party.

  “I always enjoyed babysitting. And if I’m tied up, my better half is probably available.”

  “Chance?” Kelly asked incredulously. “To babysit?”

  “She’s much more responsible than when we first got together,” Thomas said defensively. “Besides, Libby can supervise.”

  “Who else has a good answer?” Shaina called, clapping her hands to regain everybody’s attention.

  “Acquire a sister wife to change the diapers,” Molly suggested.

  “Close enough,” Shaina declared over an explosion of laughter. “Molly wins. The next partial answer is, ‘When I first met my husband, I thought he looked ____’”

  “You should have told me it was for a game,” Lynx moaned, turning red and burying her face in her hands.

  “Korean?” Kelly guessed, not needing to refer to her board.

  “Trustworthy,” Donna said, having been impressed with Woojin from the first time she met him.

  “Desperate?” Chance suggested. Lynx growled and threw a pillow at her.

  “Hungry,” Blythe said confidently. Shaina pointed a finger at her, as if the co-founder of InstaSitter had placed a winning bid.

  “How did you know that?” Lynx demanded.

  “My husband mentioned it,” Blythe replied. “The first time you saw Wooj was when Joe brought him to meet you and Clive for a recruitment dinner. It was hamburgers and fries at first sight.”

  “Two down,” Shaina announced, and began the next partial sentence. “When my husband and I play poker with my friends, I try to ____.”

  “Win all of his money,” Judith blurted out, having played in one of the Mac’s Bones games.

  “Keep him from drinking too much beer and staying in every hand,” Kelly said.

  “I almost told her that,” Lynx admitted.

  “Keep Beowulf from looking at my cards,” Blythe read off her board.

  “I should have told her that,” Lynx said.

  “Stay out of pots with Jeeves,” Dorothy read off her own Dolly board.

  “Come out ahead of Shaina,” Brinda proposed.

  “Make my husband look good?” Molly guessed.

  Shaina kept shaking her head in the negative, and when all the answers were exhausted, she read, “Win enough to cover Woojin’s losses.”

  “Really?” Kelly asked, surprised by the admission.

  “He’s terrible at poker,” Lynx said in exasperation. “All of those ex-mercenaries play their cards rather than the other players. He thinks it’s all about betting big on good hands regardless of what everybody else is doing. And I can’t teach him anything.”

  “Your father was a professional gambler,” Brinda reminded her. “That’s a pretty high standard.”

  “But Wooj doesn’t even try,” the expectant mother complained. “He can do statistics in his head and compute the odds for infantry engagements, but when it comes to placing bets and day-to-day living, it’s all superstition and instinct. He keeps asking me if I dream about flowers, and I swear that every time he goes shopping, he comes home with another package of seaweed soup for me to eat after the baby arrives.”

  “That’s sweet,” Chastity said.

  “But he has more faith in those old Korean traditions than in M7-whatever, the Farling doctor who made it all possible and gave me the watch.”

  “M793qK,” Thomas interjected.

  “You’re still wearing that novelty countdown watch?” Kelly inquired, unable to hide her skepticism.

  “The Farling may be a jerk, but he knows human biology,” Lynx replied, glancing at the watch. “Thirteen days, seven hours and forty-two minutes from now I’ll be meeting my brown-eyed son.”

  “I’m sure he was just pulling your leg,” the ambassador insisted.

  “I’ve got five creds that says it’s accurate within an
hour,” Lynx said stubbornly.

  “I’ll put five on four hours early,” Chastity took her up. “That’s when mine arrived.”

  “Yeah, but you’re always in a hurry,” Blythe reminded her sister. “Can I get two hours late?”

  “Give me one of those Dolly boards so I can mark these down,” Lynx said. After recording the three bets, she looked up and asked, “Anybody else want in the pool?”

  “And you all think I’m a spendthrift,” Chance interjected. “How can you bet against her when it’s her own body?”

  “Babies come out when they want to,” Donna explained to the artificial person, and then turned to the expectant bookmaker. “I see you as a six-hours-early person.”

  “So the closest time wins?” Brinda asked. Receiving an affirmative nod, she said, “Give me two days late.”

  “What?” Lynx squawked, looking up in horror.

  “It’s strategic,” the younger Hadad sister said apologetically.

  “And give me two days early,” Shaina requested.

  Lynx recorded the times and looked to the ambassador for her bet, but Kelly responded indignantly, “I’m not gambling on your delivery time, and I don’t understand how you can.”

  “It’s not gambling when it’s a sure thing,” the cultural attaché retorted confidently.

  “Can I get one hour early?” Dorothy requested.

  “You should take two hours early,” Thomas said. “She wins if she delivers within an hour either way, so you only win if she’s between an hour and two hours early.”

  “I thought you de-integrated your professional gambler upgrade from QuickU,” Lynx said accusingly.

  “Choosing a time in a delivery pool isn’t exactly counting into six decks,” the artificial person replied. “And put me down for six hours late.”

  “Four hours,” Molly called out.

  “Early or late?” Lynx asked.

  “Whichever is open, I forgot.”

  “One more and it’s a fifty-cred pool,” Lynx said, peering around the room for takers.

  Judith whispered something to Thomas, received a reply, and said, “Give me twelve hours late.”