Guest Night on Union Station (5 page)

“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.”

“I have a question,” Thomas said suddenly. “Do the Cayl recognize the artificial people created by members of their empire as sentients, the way the Stryx do? If not, does that mean they can keep AI enslaved?”

“The Cayl policy on AI is currently similar to ours, which is one of the reasons we’re sorry to see their empire winding down operations,” Libby replied. “Some of their member species would prefer a different approach, and it may be a sticking point if negotiations get that far.”

“Who’s going on the exchange delegation you mentioned, Libby? Are any humans welcome?”

“We’ll be sending a science ship to anchor the tunnel for the open house, and there’s room for a few humans to accompany the ship and visit the Cayl homeworld. Jeeves has been in touch with the Cayl at the highest levels, and he suggested sending Woojin and Lynx, providing Clive approves. And he said something about adding Brinda in case there’s an opportunity for a ‘going-out-of-empire’ auction.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” Clive said. “Lynx has plenty of diplomatic experience from her cultural attaché work, and Wooj is our military expert, so he’ll appreciate what the Cayl have done.”

“Sounds good to me,” Kelly said. “Are any Stryx going, Libby?”

“Our science ships are all built around a resident second-generation Stryx,” the librarian replied. “Think of them as miniature versions of our stations that spend all of their time moving around and looking into things. The science ship that will be carrying Lynx and Woojin is run by Stryx Vrine.”

“Banger’s parent? Small galaxy.”

Five

“I only need half of the Galaxy room, and only for the first morning,” Daniel reiterated.

“Your reservation shows that you reserved the full amphitheatre for four human days,” the unemotional Dollnick administrator of the Empire Convention Center replied. “That’s twenty-six thousand creds, which includes the multi-day discount.

“Then there’s been some kind of mistake,” the junior consul insisted. “I made a three-day reservation for the Nebulae room for the trade show, and I went back later and added a day to the front-end, to give the vendors a chance to set up before the event.”

“The only reservation I’m showing for you is the Galaxy room. The Nebulae room is no longer available on the dates you’ve requested. The Hortens have it reserved through the end of the cycle for a religious revival.”

“I don’t believe this,” Daniel practically shouted. “I made these reservations three cycles ago and I have confirmations!”

“If you don’t believe me, let’s walk down to the Nebulae room right now and you can accept Gortunda as your savior,” the Dollnick responded dryly. “I understand that the Hortens have reduced the tithing obligation to seven percent for new converts.”

“Look,” Daniel said, waving his tab under the towering Dollnick’s nose. “Three-day reservation for the Nebulae room, deposit accepted.”

“You must have cancelled and transferred the deposit to the Galaxy room,” the Dollnick said. “I suggest you check with the station librarian, since she does our recordkeeping. If you want to change your reservation for the Galaxy room at this late date, there will be a six thousand cred cancellation fee, per day.”

“This is ridiculous,” Daniel yelled, losing his cool completely. Then he turned on his heel and stalked out of the administrator’s office towards the nearest lift tube. “EarthCent Embassy,” he told it on entering.

As the lift tube door slid closed and the capsule whisked him away towards the embassy, he tried to figure out what had gone wrong. Daniel remembered making the reservations and then later putting in the change request over the display desk in his small office next to Kelly’s. The only explanation he could come up with was that one of the advanced species had altered his reservations through some technological trickery, perhaps a Vergallian attempt to sabotage CoSHC. He thought about contacting Clive or talking to Libby, but when he exited the lift tube, he decided to start with Donna.

“You look pretty unhappy,” the embassy’s office manager observed when Daniel slumped into the chair next to her desk. “Some last minute problems with the conference?”

“The convention center messed up our reservations,” Daniel admitted. “I know perfectly well that I ordered the Nebulae room for three days, and half of the Galaxy amphitheatre for the first morning. At the last pre-conference holo-meeting, some of the attendees complained that they needed more time to set up, so I added a day to the beginning of the Nebulae room reservation. Now the convention center is saying that I reserved the whole Galaxy room for four days, and that the Nebulae room is booked solid by the Hortens to the end of the cycle. I showed the Dollnick the original confirmation on my tab, but he said I must have cancelled.”

“Was it the same Dollnick who took your order?” Donna asked.

“I made the reservations on my display desk. I didn’t talk to anybody.”

“Hmm. Shall we ask Libby if she still has the records from your desk?”

“Knock yourself out,” Daniel grunted. His mind was running a light-year a second as he tried to figure out what he was going to do with over two hundred vendors from CoSHC. The conference part of the event could take place almost anywhere with enough space, but the vendors could hardly set up booths on the steep coliseum seating of the amphitheatre.

“Libby? Can you locate all transactions from Daniel’s display desk regarding the Empire Convention Center reservations for the upcoming event?”

“Three transactions located,” Libby replied. “I’ll display them in order, starting with the initial reservation.”

“You see!” Daniel exclaimed, pointing as a ghostly image of his own hand blocked out a three-day section on the human calendar interface for the convention center’s reservation system and hit the “Book it now” button.

“And here’s the second transaction, which took place just a few minutes after the first,” Libby said. This time, they watched Daniel’s fingers squeezing a 3D representation of the Galaxy room until it transformed from a full amphitheatre to a half. Then the fingers moved to the calendar and tried shrinking a day down to a half a day, but it kept springing back. Eventually, he gave up and selected “Book it now.”

“Maybe I did take it for a full day and forgot,” Daniel admitted. “I remember I intended to reserve just the morning.”

“And here’s the third transaction, from right after your last pre-conference meeting,” Libby informed them. This time the ghostly hand seemed to wander through the reservation system menus, searching for the right option. The three-day reservation for the Nebulae room finally appeared, and the fingers tried stretching it to cover the previous day without success. Daniel’s other hand entered the hologram, and he appeared to be trying to hold the end date of the reservation pinched with the fingers of one hand, while pulling the start date with the fingers of the other. Instead, the reservation period lengthened in the wrong direction. Next the fingers pushed the two ends back together, squeezing the date range down to nothing as he prepared to start from scratch. The hologram seemed to glitch, and suddenly the calendar showed a one-day reservation.

“Freeze,” Donna said. “Did you see that? I think you must have accidentally brought up the other reservation by gesturing with your left hand. It’s dangerous to use both hands at the same time in these holo-systems. Continue.”

Daniel watched in horror as he stretched the Galaxy room reservation to cover four days, and then poked the “Confirm changes,” button, apparently not taking the time to read a block of small print that popped up.

“Freeze,” Donna said again. “Libby? Can you zoom in on the small print?”

“Reservations for one half of the Galaxy room may not be extended beyond three human days,” Daniel read out loud. “The date range you have selected will result in your order being changed to a reservation for the whole room.”

“I’m afraid the Dollnick was right,” Donna said.

Daniel pulled out his tab and scrolled rapidly through his correspondence until he saw the unopened change confirmation from the Empire Convention Center. He’d been so confident in his actions that he hadn’t bothered reading the later confirmation when it arrived. Opening it now, he saw that the reservation was exactly as the holo-record had shown.

“I can’t believe I messed this up and it’s nobody’s fault but my own,” Daniel said angrily. “I remember now that you asked me if I had confirmations for the reservations and I told you I did. I should have just let you handle it from the start.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Donna told him. “It was your first time using their reservation system. I’ve been booking rooms at the Empire for over thirty years and I still ask Libby to double-check that I get it right. It could have turned out worse, you know. You’ll just have to do everything in the Galaxy room.”

“The central stage isn’t big enough for all the booths, and half of the delegations to this thing only come for a chance to market their products. More than half.”

“So you’ll have to use the floor space under the seating tiers where there’s plenty of room. The delegates will probably compliment you for keeping down costs and saving them some walking.”

“There’s meeting space under the seating? I thought it would all be taken up by stone arches.”

“The Verlocks are the only species that uses real stone for anything on the station. The Galaxy room seating is some kind of plastic stuff that looks like stone, and it’s all supported by carbon fiber webbing that’s hung off of the station spokes. I’ve been under there a number of times helping with props and scenery changes for the productions the girls were in when they were younger.”

“You’re serious?” Daniel felt like the weight of a Verlock amphitheatre had been lifted from his shoulders. “How’s the access?”

“There are four passages to get from the stage to the galleries under the seats,” Donna said, working from memory. “Visitors normally enter and exit the Galaxy room on the same deck as the convention center, which brings them into the seating area about two thirds of the way up. But half of the seats and all of the stage are really on the deck below, and you can tell the people who reserved booth space to have their stuff delivered to the lower level, so they don’t have to carry it down the stairs.”

“It’s almost perfect, then. The only thing I have to worry about is salesmen fighting over the prime space on the stage.”

“You haven’t talked to the vendors about their booth space yet?”

“I figured I’d do it when they arrived,” Daniel said. “Isn’t that how these things always work?”

Donna stared at the junior consul incredulously. “You don’t remember all of the planning we did for the last trade show?”

“I remember you and the ambassador talking about moving around tables and which vendors to put next to each other,” Daniel said nonchalantly. “I thought all that rearranging furniture and telling people where to sit was just something women do for fun.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Kelly said, emerging from her office. “Are you finalizing the floor plan for the show?”

“Daniel just reconfirmed the reservations and we were about to get started on the trade show booth assignments,” Donna replied. “He decided to hold the whole conference in the Galaxy room and to use the floor space under the seating for the show and the smaller conference sessions. We’ll probably go half and half, since the area under the seats is so large, and the convention center supplies all the temporary walls you want to create different-sized spaces.

“Good idea,” Kelly said. “The Empire really whacks you for the first day of any rental, so doing it all in the one room should save a bundle. Am I still on the hook for the keynote?”

“Well, they’re expecting you,” Daniel said, after a brief hesitation to marvel at how smoothly Donna had covered for his mistake. “If you don’t think you can do sixty minutes, we can…”

“Sixty minutes?” Kelly interrupted, her voice rising an octave. “Do you know how many words that is? My weekly reports only average around five minutes, and besides, you’re the one who’s supposed to be the expert on these people and their communities. What can I possibly talk about for an hour?”

“I was going to suggest that you find some people to act as an economic development panel, and then you could do a little introduction and moderate the discussion. The one thing I’m sure of is that the attendees are more interested in business than politics.”

“How am I supposed to find a panel of human economic and business experts on one week’s notice?” Kelly demanded disingenuously, watching Donna out of the corner of her eye.

“Was that a rhetorical question, or were you requesting a favor?” Donna inquired sweetly.

“If you get me Stanley and the girls, I’ll owe you big.”

“Isn’t three from one family being a little greedy?”

“They all have different last names now so it won’t be obvious,” Kelly replied. “Maybe I can get Blythe to wear a disguise so people won’t notice that she and Chastity are sisters. She is a spy after all.”

“I guess I can get you my father-in-law and either Shaina or Brinda,” Daniel offered. “That covers retail and the auction business.”

“Then we have a deal, but it will have to be your wife,” Kelly said. “Brinda is going along with Lynx and Woojin to the Cayl homeworld to check on business opportunities. I’ll try to find one more person to get the panel up to six. Keep up the good work on the conference and let me know if you have any problems.”

The ambassador ducked back into her office and smiled as the door slid shut behind her. After racking her brain all morning trying to come up with ideas for a speech, she had given up and decided to talk Daniel into going with a panel presentation instead. It was much better with the idea coming from him.

Immediately after she sat down, “Collect call from mother,” appeared floating before her eyes. Collect? “Accept charges,” Kelly said out loud, wondering if her mother had lost her wealth by over-leveraging her real-estate investments.

“Is everything all right?” Kelly asked before her mother could even speak.

“If you’re wondering why I’m calling collect after we talked just yesterday, it’s because Dorothy’s job cost me a pair of direct tunnel tickets to come see you. We’re on the elevator to orbit now and we should be there by Friday.”

“You’re coming to see us? That’s great. Samuel is always talking about grandma and grandpa, even though he hasn’t seen you in years. But what did Dorothy’s job have to do with it?”

“You know how your father loves to fish. Dorothy told him a story about some alien fishing rod that came into their lost-and-found. This morning he woke up and insisted we visit Union Station immediately to buy one. I tried to convince him to let Joe do the shopping and send it in the diplomatic pouch, but he wasn’t having any of it.”

“And that’s it? You agreed?”

“Kelly, I’ve been putting off telling you this, but your father has been going through some changes.”