Guest Night on Union Station (16 page)

“No!” the boy’s first victim remonstrated, reaching over and preventing his companion from removing his mask. “My father said nobody unmasks without permission. Besides, you wouldn’t want to lose your third eye to a stray ball.”

Dorothy caught a ball and splattered it right over the one David had recently delivered. She was pleased to discover that shooting floating humanoids a short distance away was much easier than hitting disc targets moving rapidly around the perimeter, especially after what the Lood had said to her.

“Catch balls,” ordered the Lood who had been about to remove his mask, and the two of them began to display reasonable flying skills, twisting around and watching for incoming ammunition. As the bulk of the fliers engaged in a free-for-all, the four enraged combatants at the edge of the melee concentrated strictly on shooting each other. Dorothy and David targeted each of the Loods equally, but the two aliens focused on getting the boy out of the fight. Fortunately, he had stored up enough points in the first round to hold out, and before the time expired for the second round, the humans had succeeded in eliminating one of the Loods.

“Looks like somebody bit off more than he can chew,” Dorothy taunted the remaining Lood, her blood up.

The alien fought to control himself, his hand jerking towards his mask and then away again. Finally, he couldn’t restrain himself any longer and he spoke to Dorothy directly.

“Easy to talk big in a public space,” he snarled. “I’m going to be looking for you.”

“You won’t have to look,” the girl shot back. “My name is Dorothy McAllister and I work at the lost-and-found. Just ask a lift tube.”

“Consider it a date,” the Lood replied, his tone conveying that he meant it as a threat. As Jeeves announced the third round, Z’fark executed a lazy barrel roll and moved away from the young couple, who clearly had him outgunned.

“What did he say?” David demanded, gripping Dorothy’s wrist. “Why did you tell him where to find you? What if he shows up with his friends and I’m not around.”

“We’re on Union Station,” Dorothy said, though she was already beginning to regret her rash statement. “The Stryx are always watching.”

“But you said the aliens with the gold masks can make people do stuff,” David retorted. “What if he makes you want to leave with him? How are the Stryx supposed to know the difference?”

“Libby would know,” Dorothy replied confidently.

Sixteen

Kelly opened the meeting as soon as the Chert appeared. “Thank you all for coming on such short notice. Ambassador Aluria was kind enough to make her conference room available for this emergency consultation, and I want to take a moment to say that the renovations turned out quite nicely.”

When the new Vergallian ambassador had arrived on Union Station, she made a point of snubbing the species she didn’t approve of by not inviting them to her first official reception. It had backfired when several powerful diplomats turned down her invitation. Now that Aluria found herself needing the EarthCent ambassador’s support, being reminded of her earlier mistake was galling, and she was surprised that the human was capable of that degree of subtlety.

“It’s a shame I can’t say the same about the embassy’s wine cellar,” Czeros commented, shaking his head over the vintage of Vergallian Yellow on the table. “What’s the point of building an empire if you can’t make decent wine? In any case, I assume that the true purpose of this meeting is to hear your complaints about the open house guests.”

“They’re the worst sentients I’ve ever met,” Aluria declared, not even bothering to contradict the Frunge. “The Lood emissary staying in my home is bad enough, but his people are absolute animals. Some of our women have been forced to draw knives to preserve their honor, in public cafés no less!”

“I know that the Stryx have already banned a number of the guests for the duration,” Czeros replied, sounding a bit more sympathetic. “We’ve seen both Loods and Nangors being escorted off of Union Station by bots. One of our merchants from the market deck informed me that the other species are having trouble with a sudden rash of shoplifting, but none of the guests have proven dumb enough to try stealing from a Frunge blade-seller.”

“I’ve heard similar stories from our own merchants, but I wouldn’t characterize it as a crime spree quite yet,” Kelly said. As the official hostess of the open house, she felt a responsibility not to condemn the guests on anecdotal evidence. “I think it could be a cultural misunderstanding, like if you took your kids somewhere and they acted like they do at home.”

“Your children steal from merchants and accost women at home?” Aluria inquired icily.

Kelly decided not to dignify the question with a response.

“I originally took in the alien emissary because I wanted to convince him not to join the tunnel network,” Crute admitted, bowing his head as if he were in a Dollnick confessional. “There’s plenty of competition around here already, and we’ve had enough dealings with the Nangors in the past to understand their intentions. But I swear that if those four-armed imposters move to Union Station, I’ll resign my post and take my family to live on an all-Dollnick world.”

“What have they done?” Kelly asked.

“What haven’t they done?” Crute replied in disgust. “My wives are at me constantly not to let Timba near them with that filthy trunk of his. And he expected me to put up his family when they arrived, including his second and third cousins. I told him that if I see another Nangor on our deck, I’m going to have it shredded for fertilizer and sell it to the Frunge.”

“I hate to pile on, but I regret inviting the Nangor emissary for dinner,” Bork said. “He spent the whole meal cracking tentacle jokes, as if an overgrown nose makes him an expert. I doubt he could even hang from that trunk without breaking his own neck.”

“I’d pay to see it,” Crute muttered.

“Geed seems very nice,” Kelly interjected, hoping to salvage the situation. “I haven’t heard any complaints from Grenouthian quarters.”

“Then hear them now,” the Grenouthian ambassador stated flatly. “The Tzvim is spying on us.”

“Maybe she’s just very curious about everything,” Kelly suggested.

“Our studio engineers were able to crack her in-eye recorder encryption. It turns out she’s been copying everything she could get her hands on, including a highly confidential report about the rates for commercial time on our networks which I accidentally left in the bathroom. I should have known something was wrong when she was in there so long, but I assumed she was having trouble using the facilities with that turtle shell of hers.”

“What were your engineers doing trying to break into her head?” Kelly asked. The other ambassadors favored her with looks ranging from incredulous to pitying. “Never mind. How about your guest, Ambassador Ortha?”

“Guest?” Ortha said. “Albatross is more like it, if there’s a comparable term in your meager language. From the moment that feathered maniac set foot in my home, I haven’t had a moment’s peace. My children have started taking off their clothes and changing their skin colors to blend in with the furniture when Tarngol is present. I would have sat on my little daughter the other day if she hadn’t screamed at the last second.”

“Happens in my house all the time,” the Chert ambassador commented.

“We are asking the wrong question,” the Verlock ambassador rumbled. “Knowing what’s at stake, why would they behave so badly?”

“Are you suggesting that they don’t want to join the tunnel network anymore than we want them to?” Aluria was obviously taken aback by Srythlan’s hypothesis, and her beautiful face did nothing to hide the calculations taking place behind the perfect skin. “It makes sense, unless it’s a feint, and they just want us to think they don’t want to join so that we won’t work to stop them.”

“Before somebody takes that logic to the next level of what they think that we think that they think, let me summarize the possibilities,” Czeros said. “Either they are acting the way they do because that’s how they always act, or they’re acting unnaturally because they’re trying to pull the vines over our eyes. It’s also possible that the Cayl Empire emissaries and their people are reading from different scripts.”

“How is it living with the Cayl?” the Chert ambassador inquired.

“Brynt has been the perfect houseguest,” Kelly practically gushed. “He eats our food without any problems, he’s patient with my nine-year-old boy, and he even plays with the dog. My stepson, Paul, who is a champion Nova player, said that as soon as the Cayl learned the rules, he played like a grandmaster. And when I left home for this meeting, Brynt was helping my husband rebuild a Sharf engine for a small trader.”

“Maybe you can get the emperor interested in visiting the hotel district and training the open house guests how to behave,” Crute replied sourly.

“He doesn’t show any hesitation about disciplining the emissaries when we’re together, but Brynt would never do anything that he thought could be interpreted as a criticism of Gryph’s management of the station. I recently learned that the Cayl Empire has been sending out colonizing expeditions for millions of years, but they don’t keep in touch because they think it could be taken to imply that they doubt the abilities of their emigrants. Their code of honor has evolved to the point that their behavior is frequently irrational and perhaps even self-destructive.”

“For a species that knows so little of honor, that’s an astute observation,” Aluria said grudgingly. “I requested a write-up on the Cayl from the Vergallian Military College, as their academics are the only people I could think of who are interested in species with which we have so little contact. They sent me a one-word answer.”

“Are you waiting for a drum-roll?” Bork asked, stealing the thunder from her dramatic pause.

“Selfless,” Aluria pronounced, looking rather glum.

“We didn’t need to hear that,” the Dollnick ambassador said.

“Such was also our assessment,” the Grenouthian ambassador concurred.

“Back to the drawing board,” Ortha grumbled.

“What’s wrong with being selfless?” Kelly asked. “I mean, I wouldn’t want my children becoming martyrs, but for the military government of an empire, they could do a lot worse.”

“A selfless man is not for sale,” the Verlock explained succinctly.

“But the Cayl aren’t the ones looking to join the tunnel network,” Kelly said. “Oh, wait. Were some of you planning on pooling your resources and bribing the Cayl to keep their empire together?”

“If you had a Shuga sleeping in your home, you’d be thinking the same thing,” Ortha said heatedly. “If we thought we could bribe the Stryx not to accept them, we could have kept our business local, but now it’s going to come down to what those insufferable emissaries decide to do.”

“Why not buy them off?” Kelly inquired sarcastically. “Nobody could accuse the emissaries of being selfless.”

“We don’t even know if they want to join yet,” the Grenouthian ambassador pointed out. “If we show what’s in our pouches too early, their price will go up.”

“And none of you care that the Stryx believe that getting these species signed up is the right thing to do?”

“Who knows what the Stryx believe,” Aluria said dismissively. “If you’d been around as long as the rest of us, you’d have more sense than to take them at their word. If the Stryx really want those species on the tunnel network, they’ll get them no matter what anybody does.”

“I still think it could all be a giant misunderstanding,” Kelly said. “Maybe I’m the only one who sees this because I’ve been taking the emperor and the four emissaries on outings every day, but the Cayl treats them like overgrown children. He’s quick to let them know when they get out of line, but he’s just as quick to forgive them.”

“So the EarthCent ambassador knows more about the emissaries than those of us who have been hosting them in our homes,” Aluria said, a cold smile playing across her face. “I was just thinking that we should approach the emissaries and ask them directly what their intentions are, but I don’t feel myself on good enough terms with the Lood to undertake the task.

“I don’t have a clue what the Nangor is thinking, if it thinks at all,” Crute grunted.

“The Shuga’s intentions are impenetrable to me,” Ortha added.

“It does seem silly not to employ the services of an expert on the psychology of Cayl Empire species when we have one available,” the Grenouthian ambassador added sarcastically.

Kelly groaned inwardly and wondered why she ever opened her mouth in emergency sessions.

“I fail to see the point of sending the EarthCent ambassador to ask the emissaries about their plans,” Bork said, coming to the rescue. “Should she also ask them if they’re telling the truth? Based on my brief experience with the Nangor, I can see how hosting these alleged diplomats in your homes can be stressful, and clearly it’s not giving you the strategic advantage you had counted on. Now that the official open house is underway and the station is flooded with guests, why not tell your temporary lodgers that their presence is needed in the hotels to calm the situation?”

“You mean kick them out?” Ortha mused. “I’m willing.”

“Does anybody mind if I consult with the Stryx for a moment?” Kelly asked. She decided to take the look of disgust from Aluria as a sign of acquiescence and spoke out loud. “Libby?”

“Yes, Ambassador,” the Stryx librarian responded.

“Now that the official open house is underway, the ambassadors were wondering if it’s necessary to continue hosting the emissaries in their homes.”

“Union Station is not a penal institution,” Libby replied. “If the ambassadors who volunteered to take the emissaries into their homes have run out of patience, I will inform those guests that we are moving them into hotels.”

“Without prejudice, Stryx?” the Grenouthian asked.

“We appreciate the work you have done and will consider ourselves in your debt,” Libby replied.

“Thank you,” Kelly said. “I’m afraid you’ll need to find rooms for all four emissaries in that case, but I’d like to continue hosting Emperor Brynt.”

“I’ve been dreaming about evicting Timba since the first day, but I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of the Stryx,” Crute said. He stretched out one of his lower arms for a bottle of the mediocre Vergallian wine Aluria had supplied, grabbed a corkscrew with the upper arm on the same side, and a glass with the lower arm on the other side. “This calls for a celebration.”

“You didn’t think of asking because you suffer from the same tunnel vision as the Cayl,” Gwendolyn declared suddenly. The Gem ambassador had appeared to be lost in her own thoughts throughout the emergency meeting, but apparently she had been paying attention after all. “The four of you are so pleased with yourselves for not requesting help from the Stryx that you act like idiots. No, don’t stop me,” she said, as Kelly put a hand on her friend’s shoulder to calm her. “If hosting those nasty emissaries failed to open the eyes of our colleagues, somebody should do it for them.”

“Somebody whose species overthrew their rightful government with the help of the Stryx?” Aluria inquired.

“Oh, stuff it, Aluria,” Gwendolyn replied. “Everybody here knows that the Stryx gifted us the money we needed to stage our revolution and buy back our genetic lines from the Farlings. Everybody here also knows that the only reason the Farlings didn’t attack the Vergallians in retaliation for your rogue captain’s raid on Farling Pharmaceutical’s orbital three years ago was because you’re part of the tunnel network.”

Aluria sniffed loudly, but didn’t contradict the angry clone.

“And you,” the Gem ambassador continued, pointing at the Horten. “How much of your economy depends on laundering pirated goods, something the Stryx choose to ignore since you all swear that those Hortens are outcasts. And where would your precious networks be without the Stryxnet for real-time broadcasts,” she added, turning on the giant bunny.