destinyw
Author: E. M. Foner
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: scifi; science fiction
Publisher: Foner Books

Destiny: Union Station

The universe has plans for Kelly Frank and Joe McAllister, if only it can get them in the same place at the same time.

A Prequel to EarthCent Ambassador

Copyright 2021 by E. M. Foner

One

“In conclusion, I hereto and forthwith tender my resignation to EarthCent, effective immediately. Stop. And furthermore, I wish to state for the record that it’s your loss, not mine. Stop.”

“Do you have to talk out loud while you’re filling out the form?” the clerk at the tunneling telegraph kiosk demanded. “Going by the way you look and smell, I doubt you’ll be able to pay for two words.”

“I’m Kelly Frank, the special assistant to EarthCent’s consul on this miserable excuse for a resort world, and I look and smell this way thanks to my crummy job.”

“I’ve heard that diplomats drink, but I thought they could hold their liquor.”

“I can hold it. A stupid tourist got arrested for passing out on the sidewalk and threw up on me when the local police called the consulate for somebody to come pick him up.”

“If you’re really the assistant to the whatever, why aren’t you using the consulate’s tunneling telegraph?”

“Because I don’t have the key!” Kelly exploded. “Twenty-three months and the consul still treats me like a child. I’ve wasted the last twelve years of my life working for EarthCent and I’ve had it with cleaning up after humans behaving badly on vacation.” She rechecked the message she had laboriously tapped out on the tablet chained to the kiosk and nodded her head grimly. “Just send it to Earth, care of EarthCent.”

“Alright,” the clerk said, pulling the tablet to his side of the counter and tapping the summary icon. “That will be five hundred and sixty-two creds.”

“WHAT!”

“It’s a cred a word, as long as you keep them under ten letters. Haven’t you ever sent a tunneling telegram before?”

“I’ve sent hundreds,” Kelly said. “I just haven’t paid for them myself. I only earn a hundred and forty creds a week.”

Now it was the clerk’s turn to be astounded. “Twelve years on the job and you’re only making a hundred and forty creds a week? You should have quit eleven years ago.”

“I can’t afford five hundred and sixty-two creds. I can’t even afford sixty.”

“How much do you have?”

Kelly fumbled in her purse for her wallet and pulled out a sheaf of eBucks, but the clerk made a cross sign with his index fingers.

“It’s not counterfeit,” she assured him. “Just look up the exchange rate.”

“You can pay in Stryx creds or Thurians,” he said. “Outside of Earth, that stuff is toilet paper. The moneychangers won’t even touch it.”

“Why do you think I’m still carrying it around?” Kelly asked mournfully. She opened the change purse section of the wallet and brought out two five-cred pieces and three single creds. “I have thirteen Stryx creds to last until I get my severance. I’ll be able to afford more then because I have five weeks of vacation pay coming.”

“Five weeks of vacation a year is a pretty good benefit.”

“I haven’t taken a day off in five years.”

“Oh, you really do need to quit that job. Look here,” the clerk said, turning the tablet around so that Kelly could see the page-long message she had composed. “You don’t have to explain your reasons for resigning. Just get it down to thirteen words and you’ll be golden.”

“Do you charge for the stops?”

“We have to, but they aren’t required, and punctuation marks are free.”

“You mean all these years I’ve been writing tunneling telegrams with stops in between sentences I could have been using periods?”

The clerk shrugged. “Everybody else does. Maybe stops are a diplomatic thing.”

Kelly looked at her handful of coins, which represented a half-day’s pay, and then wiped the tablet clean and started again.

“I quit. Kelly Frank.”

“Four creds,” the man said, holding out his hand.

“What if I moved my name to the ‘From’ field?”

“There is no ‘From’ field—only the destination address is free.”

“All right,” Kelly said with a sigh. She passed across one of the five-cred pieces and received a single cred in return. “When will they get it?”

“As soon as I process the transaction. We shoot it up to the satellite, which takes a fraction of a second, and from there it goes to the tunnel controller. Data transmissions through the Stryx tunnels are instantaneous.”

“Do it,” Kelly said. She watched as the clerk performed the necessary actions, and then her face crumpled up and she whispered, “My precious job.”

“Are you okay?” the clerk asked, offering a tissue.

Kelly shook her head, unable to speak. She wandered around the tourist mall like a zombie until ending up in front of her favorite pub and stumbling through the door. “Wine,” she choked out to the blurry woman working behind the bar.

“You look terrible, Kelly,” the bartender said. “Are you sure you want a drink?”

“I want every ounce of alcohol you have in the place, Myka. I just quit my job.”

Myka’s nose crinkled in distaste, and she asked, “Did you throw up on yourself?”

“A tourist threw up on me, it was the final straw. I’ve been on stupid Thuri Minor for almost two years and it’s the worst posting I’ve ever had.”

“Didn’t you tell me once you were on a scout ship that jumped into a war zone and you almost got killed?”

“That was my second assignment for EarthCent, working as a counter for human contract laborers on alien colony ships. I went along on the advance scout and we almost got our heads handed to us, but it was all over in a few minutes. This posting has been two years of grinding humiliation working for a boss who accused me of fraternizing with the enemy when I accepted an invitation to a Thurian reception for alien diplomats.”

“The consul thinks the Thurians are our enemies?”

“He thinks all aliens have it in for us. I don’t understand how somebody like that ever got a job with EarthCent, much less a promotion to consul on a resort world. And he’s been here for decades!”

“Just stick it out and ask for a transfer,” Myka advised for what felt like the hundredth time. “I’ll bet you get promoted to consul at your next posting, and then you’ll be the one making everybody else miserable.”

“I don’t want to make anybody miserable, and EarthCent has a minimum age for consuls,” Kelly said. “If they had told me that when I got recruited, I would have deferred joining until I at least finished college. Maybe even graduate school,” she added, her voice starting to break again. “Now I’m just a washed-up personal assistant from a backward species.”

“What’s the age limit to make consul? I know you’ve told me but I don’t remember.”

“It’s thirty-five for all executive positions, don’t ask me why. I think you can become an acting consul or even an acting ambassador at thirty, but I’ve never heard of it happening.”

“Here,” Myka said, sliding a goblet of the house red in front of her friend. “It’s on me. But what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” Kelly said, the words coming out somewhere between apathy and despair. “I guess I’ll go back to Earth and try to sign up for an alien labor contract. The reason I accepted the EarthCent job when they recruited me was that I wanted to travel the galaxy and represent humanity to aliens. Now I’m worried that at thirty-two no alien contractor will want to hire me.”

“That is a little old to go out as a first-time farm laborer to an ag world, but I’m sure you have plenty of marketable skills,” Myka said. “Hang on a second while I serve that couple at the end of the bar and we’ll make a list.”

“A list,” Kelly repeated, and after taking a sip from the wine, pulled her personal tab out of her purse. She swiped it to life, opened the notepad, and tapped in, ‘My career skills.’ Then she ran out of steam and started watching a video screen in the corner that was showing the Grenouthian news.

“Let me see that,” the bartender said when she returned, spinning the tab on the bar a hundred and eighty degrees. “Enough with the pity party already. You couldn’t come up with anything?”

“Working for EarthCent in the diplomatic track is weird,” Kelly explained. “It’s all soft skills.”

“Those count too. Just from the stories you’ve told me I could list a dozen skills that would make you an attractive hire for any employer on the tunnel network.”

“You’re just trying to make me feel better.” She pushed the tab all the way to the bartender and said, “Name one.”

“Doesn’t get freaked out by artificial intelligence,” Myka tapped into the tab.

“That’s not a skill,” Kelly objected after puzzling out the upside-down text. “It’s the lack of an anti-skill.”

“A what?”

“You know, something that holds a person back. Haven’t you ever read ‘Level Up Your Life’ by Anne Bahir?”

“Isn’t she that pop-psychology guru on Earth who holds those weekend seminars where they don’t let you leave the lecture hall to use the bathroom?”

“It’s serious science,” Kelly said indignantly. “We all have anti-skills that hold us back in life. One of mine is that I don’t speak out in meetings unless I know what I’m talking about. That hurts me professionally because the only way to get noticed is to be aggressive. My self-control is an anti-skill.”

“Or maybe you’re just lacking a little self-confidence,” Myka suggested.

“I’m plenty confident—I just hate being wrong. And I’ve never liked people who talk loud and push for whatever they want all the time as if their opinions are more important than everybody else’s. Last month, some businessmen who our consul met at an event on Earth when he was on leave, showed up here because the consul promised them a meeting with the Thurian Empress. The palace didn’t even respond to our request, so the consul told the businessmen the Empress didn’t want to see them, like it was their fault. Think of all the time and money they wasted just because he wanted to play the big man in front of the people back home.”

“Empathizes with underdogs,” Myka tapped out on the tab.

“No, that’s another anti-skill,” Kelly protested. “I mean, it’s true, but it doesn’t get me anywhere. The galaxy is a tough place and employers don’t want to hire doormats.”

“You’re hardly a doormat, Kelly. I bet you’d make a great customer service executive, you know? You really care about treating people fairly.”

“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life sucking up to the unhappy customers who nobody else can handle. All of my friends on Earth told me that I was making a mistake leaving college, and my mother is always on my back about getting married before it’s too late to start a family.” She finished her wine and contemplated the empty glass sadly, “Maybe I could get a human resources job in an alien factory that employs human contract laborers. If I took a twenty-year contract, I’d have a half pension at fifty-two, and I’d still be young enough to enjoy traveling.”

“If you’re really going to do this, I suggest getting a job on a Stryx station or a space liner,” Myka said. “Just because you’re quitting diplomacy doesn’t mean you have to give up your dream of traveling and meeting aliens. You know that I got my start in bartending on a Drazen passenger liner, and they visited all over the tunnel network. I can even manage a few words in half a dozen alien languages.”

“You said the aliens didn’t understand you.”

“No, but they appreciate it when you make the effort and it shows in the tips. Besides, I only have a cheap commercial implant and—”

“My implant,” Kelly moaned. “I forgot all about that. EarthCent paid for my diplomatic implant, and I’m so used to understanding what the tunnel network aliens are saying on the news that I was beginning to think I knew their languages.”

“Maybe they’ll forget you have it,” Myka said.

“Not a chance. I’m such an idiot. I should have taken a leave of absence instead of quitting and then tried to fade out of sight.”

“Will they remove the implant here, or do you have to return to Earth?” Myka asked, pouring Kelly another glass of the house red. “At least that way they would have to pay for your travel home, right?”

“The last place I want anybody cutting my skull open is on Earth,” Kelly said. “My implant was put in on Echo Station—we all got routed through there on the way to our first assignment. And now that you’ve brought it up I could probably get work there. Echo supposedly has one of the larger human populations of the Stryx stations, over a million people, so we make up around one percent of the sentients living there. I might find a job as a restaurant hostess or something like that.”

“You’re in here all the time, so you do know a lot about the hospitality business.”

Kelly took the tab back and said, “Hospitality experience,” as she added it to her skills list.

“How much longer are you going to stay on Thuri Minor?” Myka asked. “I have a week’s vacation coming and I was thinking of visiting one of the other islands.”

“I can’t afford it. I’m going to the consulate office manager tomorrow to ask for my severance pay, and then I’ll take the elevator up to orbit and grab the cheapest passage I can find to Echo Station.”

“You don’t have to give them two weeks for notice?”

“No, that’s the one good thing about working in diplomacy,” Kelly said. “When you tell them you’re quitting, they lock you out of your office and change all of the passwords. I hope you don’t have trouble finding a new roommate.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Myka said. “With the turnover in this place, I’ll have somebody new lined up before you reach orbit.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean that you’ll be easy to replace, because I’ll really miss you. I just don’t want you thinking you’re creating a financial problem for me.”

“I get it,” Kelly said, and drained the rest of her second glass in one go. “You’re the only thing I’m going to miss about this planet.”

“How about Bernard?”

“I walked in on him sleeping with a girl who looked like she just graduated high school.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” Myka demanded, moving a step to the side to draw two more drafts for the customers at the end of the bar.

“It just happened last night. I was scheduled to work the graveyard shift, but Scott asked to swap with me at the last minute, so I thought I’d surprise Bernard.” She choked out a bitter laugh. “I always thought that catching somebody with their pants down was just an expression.”

“Hold that thought,” the bartender said. She delivered the two drafts, and on her return, pointedly ignored the empty wine glass Kelly had pushed forward. “You quit your job because Bernie-boy was cheating on you?”

“No, it was the drunk tourist and—” Kelly broke off and stared at her friend. “What did I do?”

“You’ll just have to go to the consul and tell him you changed your mind,” Myka said. “What did he say when you quit?”

“I haven’t told him. I sent a tunneling telegram to EarthCent just before I came here.”

“How could you afford one of those?”

“It was only four words.”

“Then it doesn’t count. Just go in tomorrow morning like nothing has changed, and if anybody asks you, say it must have been a prank.”

“Who would spend a cred a word on a prank?” She shook her head slowly. “I can’t go crawling back, Myka. Even if I was overreacting to Bernie cheating on me, my career really is stuck, and the consul does go out of his way to make me miserable. I need to get off this planet.”

“Go over the consul’s head,” Myka urged her. “If you don’t want to do it from here, wait until you get to Echo Station and talk to the EarthCent consul there. You’ve got twelve years in and you always get perfect evaluations.”

“How do you know that?”

“You’ve told me more than once. This is why you should stop at two glasses of wine.”

The tab beeped loudly, and the list of skills was replaced by a screen from the Thurian communications company that EarthCent contracted with for local messaging. The subject line of the new message read, “Your resignation.”

“I can’t look,” Kelly said, pushing the tab back to her friend again. “Tell me what it says.”

Myka let out a deep breath and tapped on the message. “Proceed Echo Station. Stop. EarthCent. Stop.”

“I knew they wouldn’t forget about my implant,” Kelly wailed. “I wonder if I can get the doctors to put in a cheap one while they have my head open.”

“It doesn’t say that they want your implant or that they accepted your resignation,” Myka pointed out. “It just says to go to Echo Station. Maybe you’re being reassigned.”

Kelly brightened up for a moment, but then she shook her head. “Thanks, but if they were giving me a new posting, it would say so.” She got up from her stool, vacillated a moment between heading for the bathroom or the exit, then decided it could wait until she got home. “I’m going to go curl up with a good novel. If I’m asleep on the couch when you get home, don’t wake me. I’ll take you out to a farewell brunch tomorrow if I can get my severance pay.”

Two

“The only damage I found is to the mass converter, and these Frunge troop transports carry spares,” Joe reported to the senior mercenary officer on board. “The hole is smaller than my pinkie, which is why we’re still alive. Of course, if the energy beam hadn’t been so tight, it probably couldn’t have punched through the shields.”

“Figures we’d run into the only claim-jumpers in the asteroid belt who were armed well enough to shoot back,” Woojin said. “I know you’re a magician with the ground transport, but do you really think you’re up to fixing a spaceship?”

“It’s just nuts and bolts, and maybe a little welding. I don’t have a clue how the technology works, but the Frunge have been building spaceships for a couple of million years, and they take a building block approach with the power and drive components. We could be in trouble if the mass converter blew some of the control circuits when it failed, but we won’t know for sure until I swap it out.”

“How about the hole in the hull?”

“Holes,” Joe corrected him. “Entrance and exit. Whatever that energy weapon was, it packed a punch. But the pencil beam means that the entry and exit holes were small enough that the self-sealing layer in the hull plugged them within seconds. The air pressure didn’t even drop enough to sound the alarm, which is why it took me half a day to locate the damage.”

“Well, it’s a good thing the hostiles just took the one shot and fled,” Woojin said. “Habitat command says they can have a tug out here in forty-eight hours, but it will cost us the mission bonus.”

“Let me give it a try first, Wooj. I know the guys hate spending any more time in Zero-G than they have to. If I don’t get us up and running in twelve hours, you can throw in the towel and call for a rescue.”

“Will you need any help? I could let you take Davis. He’s the best with alien tech after you.”

“I’d rather have him manning the weapons console in case more hostiles show up. Paul can be my assistant. He’s better in Zero-G than any of us.”

“That’s because kids adapt fast,” Woojin said, glancing at the ten-year-old boy who was floating quietly in the corner. “All right, but I expect status reports every four hours. How long do you think it will take to remove the dead unit?”

“I won’t know until I get the cover off, but probably not long. The Frunge engineering philosophy is to invest enough time in the design and manufacturing process to make field repairs as easy as possible. Nobody wants to get stranded in space. As soon as I know what it looks like we’ll check to make sure nobody sold off the spare. There’s no point taking out the old one if I can’t replace it.”

“Let me know as soon as you do.”

Joe gestured at Paul to come along and pushed off for the companionway leading from the bridge to the engineering deck. As with most Frunge military vessels, the bridge was located above engineering, topped by the crew and fighting decks. The ten-year-old followed in Joe’s wake like a fish, pushing off the same spots as the man, but expending far less energy in doing so. The pair made their way past the environmental equipment that was required to keep the passengers and crew breathing, and stopped at a large cube stenciled with a symbol that looked a little like a lightning bolt striking a rock.

“How do you know it’s the mass-to-energy converter?” Paul asked.

“I have a guide to alien pictographic labeling on my tab,” Joe said. “Some of them are obvious, like the warnings for corrosive substances, flammables, or explosives, but the engineering symbols are a little more cryptic. The guide just gives the translation, no explanations. You might check on your teacher bot later.”

“It doesn’t have anything about alien technology unless we’ve discovered the same thing ourselves,” the boy reminded him. “How do you know that’s a cover and not the actual unit?”

Joe nested his forefinger behind the knuckle of his thumb and then flicked it out against the cover. The impact made a tinny sound. “If that was much more than a dust shield it would have hurt,” he said, and then clicked the heels of his combat boots together to activate the magnetic cleats. “See those screw heads along the bottom edge? I’ll get those out, and then I bet the whole cube lifts off.”

Paul pulled himself closer and lined his eye up with the perfect hole burned through the cover. “You can see all the way through!”

“The hostiles must have had the plans for this type of ship to be able to hit the mass-energy converter without putting a hole through anything else. I’m guessing it was an inside job.”

“You mean somebody snuck on board and did it?” The boy shook his head. “No way.”

“It’s an expression,” Joe said, unclipping the Frunge multi-driver from his belt and selecting a #14 bit. “What I mean is that the hostiles have somebody working on the new habitat who tipped them off about what kind of ship we’d be on and supplied them with the engineering drawings. Somebody didn’t want us reaching the old habitat on schedule, probably because they’re using it for illegal mining operations and needed more time to cover their tracks.”

“So why hire mercenaries if they didn’t want us here in the first place?”

“The Frunge client who contracted us is new on the job. My guess is that he was brought in to clean house and he couldn’t trust the old guard. It’s above my pay grade.”

“I’ll hold the screws,” Paul offered as Joe extracted the first. “Just toss them to me.”

“Make sure to close your fingers fast. They don’t have much mass and they’ll bounce right off your palm.”

“I’ll bet I’m better at catching things in Zero-G than you are.”

“And I’ll bet that you’re right,” Joe said, pushing the first screw in the boy's direction so slowly that it took several seconds to cross the small gap between them. The magnetic cleats on his boots provided just enough grip to keep him from accidentally floating away from the deck as he shuffled around the mass-to-energy converter removing screws. “That makes twelve,” Joe declared after sending the last screw in Paul’s direction. “Now turn your cleats on and help me lift the cover off. I want to take it straight up to avoid accidentally banging against whatever’s inside.”

This precaution proved to be unnecessary as the mass-to-energy converter turned out to be nested in a steel frame that would have prevented the cover from making contact. The unit itself was a shiny cylinder about the same size as Beowulf, a genetically engineered cross between a Huravian hound and an Earth mastiff who had just arrived to watch the show. The giant dog wasn’t fond of Zero-G, and the mercenaries weren’t crazy about the way his drool floated around the cabin, but he had proven his worth in combat and rescue operations many times over.

“Watch out, Killer.” Joe ducked and fended the dog off with one arm, nearly losing contact with the deck in the process. “What happened to his magnetic booties, Paul?”

“I’ll bet the guys took them off and then shoved him down the companionway so he couldn’t get back on his own,” the boy said, trying to halt Beowulf’s momentum. Unfortunately, the dog massed about four times as much as Paul, so the boy’s magnetic cleats didn’t hold, and they both ended up floating free.

Joe shook his head in amusement. “You’re the physics whiz kid. Rescue yourself.”

“On three,” Paul told the dog, and then counted down before pushing Beowulf in the direction of the catwalk. Due to their difference in mass, Paul was moving four times faster than the dog when his boots made contact with the deck again, but he bent his knees to absorb the shock, and the magnetic cleats held. Beowulf floated lazily up to the catwalk, hooked it with a forepaw, and then carefully maneuvered his bulk into a stable observation position.

“If you’re done fooling around, take a good look at this thing so we can check the maintenance lockers for a spare,” Joe said.

“What are the thick rings for?” Paul asked, pointing at the top of the cylinder.

“They’re eyebolts, which tells me this thing is heavy enough that the maintenance workers use a crane or a hoist to pick it up when the ship is on a planet. In Zero-G, that means we’ve got to worry about the mass, since it won’t be easy to stop once it builds momentum.”

“Can’t we just go slow?”

“That works on paper, but it’s not so easy with muscle power,” Joe explained to the boy. “Let’s go look for the spare first, and if it’s there, we’ll find out pretty quick how hard it is to move. And clamp that cover to the catwalk so it doesn’t wander off.”

Paul was the one who located the spare mass-to-energy converter under a removable deck plate that was labeled with the same faded stencil as the cover. Joe had to fetch a Frunge socket and breaker bar because the spare was bolted into place to prevent it from moving when the ship was maneuvering under thrust. Pulling it slowly out of the storage bay, Joe estimated that it would have weighed about twice as much as he did on a planet, which was just within the amount of mass he was comfortable moving on his own. He pushed it back into place and secured it with a single finger-tight bolt.

“What are you doing?” Paul asked.

“Keeping it safe until we get the dead one out. I may not have any training as a ship’s engineer, but I know enough not to leave stuff floating around free. That’s why I had you secure the cover to the catwalk with a magnetic clamp. Go tell Woojin that we found the spare, and if the connectors aren’t too tricky, the whole job shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. And don’t forget to call him Captain Pyun if there’s anybody else around,” Joe called after the boy, who was already flying towards the companionway.

By the time Paul returned, Joe had disconnected the heavy power conduits from one end of the cylinder, but he was puzzling over the collar ring holding the input pipe in place.

“It looks like the steam plumbing for the heated stables that you fixed at our last post,” the boy said.

“You’re right, but that collar had flat sides so I could get a wrench on it. I don’t see how to spin this off unless they used a strap-wrench.”

“What’s that?”

“Basically a handle that pulls a strap tight so you can get a grip on anything round,” Joe said. “I don’t remember seeing one in the tool locker.”

“What about those little holes?” Paul asked. “Could they be for one of those adjustable spanners you showed me?”

“What holes?” Joe squinted at the raised Frunge lettering the boy was pointing at and realized that two of the characters with closed loops indeed had machined holes in them. He ruffled Paul’s hair. “Good eyes, I thought it was just the manufacturer’s branding. You see that lever right above where the pipe goes through the deck?”

“Yes.”

“It’s lined up with the pipe, which means the valve is open. Push it perpendicular to close off the hydrogen gas flow and I’ll get the spanner to remove the collar.”

Beowulf was sound asleep by the time the spare was installed and the dead unit was bolted into the storage bay for safekeeping. Removing the magnetic clamp holding the cover to the catwalk, Paul asked, “Don’t you want to try it before putting the cover back on?”

“There’s nothing else I can do if it doesn’t work,” Joe told him, “and for all we know, it might generate a blinding light or some other high-frequency radiation that the cover blocks. Go tell Woojin to fire up the thrusters.”

Beowulf woke up and barked loudly to get their attention, and then he carefully rose to his feet, keeping his neck and front shoulders under the handrail so he wouldn’t float off. The dog aimed his whole body at the large rack of control modules mounted on the bulkhead and pointed with a paw for emphasis.

“Uh oh,” Joe said. “I bet he caught a whiff of something he doesn’t like.”

“But I was over there when we were looking for the spare and I didn’t smell anything,” Paul said.

“Are you forgetting who sniffed you out in the wreckage of that mining smelter?” Joe asked, and then immediately added, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“That’s all right,” the boy cut him off. “The truth is, I don’t even remember the attack anymore. Just my parents telling me to hide and then the power going out.” He glanced back up at the dog and then began shuffling in the direction the paw was pointing. Joe followed without another word, and when they reached the status panel, they both began sniffing at the spaces between the control modules.

“This one?” Joe asked a minute later, pointing at a module that was displaying a message in Frunge.

The dog barked once in confirmation. Paul sniffed both above and below the module and nodded. “It smells burnt.”

“It must be the control module for the mass-to-energy converter,” Joe said, pushing in the releases on either side of the unit and pulling it from the rack. “Good thing that the Frunge design all of their electronics for hot-swapping. The question is whether or not we have a spare.”

Again, either fortune or good maintenance discipline on the part of their client smiled upon them. The replacement module emitted a string of beeps when it was slid into place, and the small screen cycled through what was obviously a series of start-up diagnostics before displaying a message in blue.

“I don’t know what it says, but blue is good,” Joe said. “Go ahead and tell Woojin to give it a shot if there are no further objections from the peanut gallery.” They both looked up at the dog, who yawned before closing his eyes again. “And try to find Beowulf’s magnetic booties while you’re up there.”

Five hours later, Joe was back on the bridge with Woojin when the latter handed over control of the ship to the automatic docking system on the spinning habitat. The boy was sound asleep, his magnetic cleats holding him to the ceiling like a bat. The dog was curled up directly under the environmental control vent that was currently blowing warm air, his restored magnetic booties keeping him in place.

“I hate to wake him,” Joe said, launching himself towards the boy. “Come on, Paul. We’ve handed over control and you’ve got five minutes to strap in.”

“I’m up,” the boy said drowsily. “Can I take one of the jump seats?”

Joe glanced towards Woojin, who nodded. “Go ahead.”

“What about Beowulf?” Paul asked.

“He’ll move when he’s good and ready. Frunge habitats use manipulation fields to bring in ships, so they’ll spin us up in the proper orientation with the deck down. Beowulf should be fine where he is.”

The main viewscreen lit up, and a woman wearing a strange uniform inquired, “Captain Pyun?”

“Temporarily,” Woojin replied. “I’m in command of this bunch, but mercenary ranks don’t line up with navy ranks. As soon as we hand this ship over, I’ll go back to being Major Pyun.”

“Is your second in command with you?”

“Captain McAllister,” Joe identified himself.

“You’re losing me here,” the woman said. “You’re both captains?”

“On the ground, I’m a captain. In space I’m a, what does the navy call them, Wooj, uh, Captain Pyun?”

“First officer,” Woojin said. “Is there a reason you’ve contacted us, ma’am? I gave a full report of the attack to the duty officer on the new habitat.”

“I have a special communication for the Joe McAllister who’s listed as second in command,” she said. “I know you’ll be docked in a few minutes, but it came in over the Stryxnet and it says for immediate delivery. May I send it on this channel, or do you want to wait for secure transfer to your tab, Captain McAllister?”

“I don’t have any secrets,” Joe said. “Could you just read it to us?”

“As you wish,” the woman said, and swiped at a tab they couldn’t see. “It’s from the Three Princesses Fair on Aalushiss, if I’m pronouncing it right.”

“You did fine. It’s the Vergallian world where we did our last hitch before picking up this military transport at Echo Station.”

The woman’s eyes scanned the screen she was looking at. “I can’t read half of this because it’s all in legalese, but it looks like they’re saying that due to circumstances beyond their control, your raffle prize of a free vacation on Thuri Minor is no longer available. There’s a code attached for you to access the cash equivalent through any Thark bookie.”

“I guess I’ll have to wait until we dock because I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” Joe said.

“The races at the fair we went to on our last day,” Paul said from where he was strapped into a jump seat at the back of the bridge. “Don’t you remember buying a whole book of tickets from that beautiful Vergallian lady? I tried to talk you out of it but you just ignored me.”

“Sounds like you got dosed, Joe,” Woojin said with a laugh. “Well, if the worst thing she did was sell you a winning raffle ticket, I guess you can’t complain.”

“I don’t remember a thing about it,” Joe said. He checked the belt pouch where he kept his money, and it took him a minute to locate the little envelope of raffle tickets. “How could I be carrying these around for a week and not even notice them?”

“Post hypnotic suggestion? You know that those upper caste Vergallian females are scary.”

“It looks like they’re crediting you with two thousand and sixteen creds,” the uniformed woman said wistfully.

“That’s triple what you earn in a month, Joe,” Woojin said. “If you hadn’t just fixed the ship and saved our mission bonus, I’d make you buy beer for the whole company.”

“I doubt there’s a Thark bookie on a habitat this small,” Joe pointed out. “It will have to wait until I get to an orbital or a Stryx station.”

“Senior officers have to report in when they dock, so I’ll transfer the code to your personal tab when you get here,” the woman said. “Habitat commander Barhardt is expecting you in sixteen hours.”

“Barhardt?” Woojin repeated. “That sounds like a human name.”

“Dutch,” Joe concurred.

“It’s all humans on this habitat,” the woman said. “The Frunge moved their base of operations to the new habitat and leased this one to the former contract workers. Then they withdrew their police from this section of the asteroid belt as well and arranged for human mercenaries to replace them.”

“Is that why somebody took a shot at us twenty minutes after we exited the tunnel?” Woojin asked. “It sounds like we aren’t even working for the Frunge.”

“You are, or rather, they agreed to provide on-habitat security for three months after the handover, and they’re fulfilling their obligation by hiring you.” She glanced around the room they couldn’t see and added in a low voice. “It’s a bit like the Wild West here since the Frunge left. You have your work cut out for you.”

Three

“You don’t understand,” Kelly repeated for the third time. “I want to go directly to Echo Station, not by way of some Frunge mining habitat I never heard of.”

“Do I look like I’m running a travel agency, Human?” the troll-like Thurian demanded. “The itinerary has you on the space elevator up to orbit, where you’ll connect with a resupply ship that will take you to Zamin’s Belt habitat for a two-cycle layover, followed by—”

“A two-cycle layover?” Kelly interrupted. “That’s almost four months! My instructions were to proceed to Echo Station.”

The Thurian did a manipulation with his hands that looked like he was sculpting the air, and a hologram filled with alien text appeared. Then he used a thick finger to scroll through what seemed like an unending list of indecipherable symbols until he poked at an item and the language changed to English.

“Come on, lady,” a man behind her grumbled. “You’re holding up the line.”

“This can’t be,” Kelly said, skimming the itinerary change order from EarthCent. “The consul is trying to sabotage me.”

“Not my problem,” the Thurian said, and swiped the hologram out of existence. “Next.”

Kelly fumed as she dragged her rollaway out of the space elevator terminal. It had been less than twenty-four hours since the consul had expressed deep regret over her departure, and he had even provided her with an unexpected hundred cred travel allowance to make up for her severance being delayed. The consul even apologized profusely for any misunderstandings they may have had, and regretted that he couldn’t throw her the traditional reassignment party since he was leaving for a tour of the large continent.

“Oh, no,” she said out loud, coming to a sudden halt. With the consul gone, there was no one who could reauthorize her to access the consulate systems, and she knew none of the other employees could reverse something their boss had done. Kelly looked back at the elevator terminal, and then dismissed the idea of paying cash for a ticket. The Thurians had learned from experience not to allow Human tourists without a pre-paid connection onto the elevator or they would end up camping out on the hub and begging. She’d dealt with enough broke tourists in her official capacity at the consulate that she couldn’t blame the aliens for playing it safe.

“Hey,” a young woman with long sandy hair addressed Kelly. “Did you get bounced from the elevator?”

“Not bounced, but my itinerary is wrong,” Kelly said. “Do I know you?”

“I don’t think so, but I’m Sapphire,” the girl said, offering a handshake. “I’ve been on Thuri Minor for three months, but I’m running out of money, and I’m not into the sex-work thing. Some friends and I talked a trader into taking us through the tunnel for fifty creds a head, but we need twenty passengers to make it worth his while.”

“A trader? I didn’t think they could carry more than two or three passengers.”

“That’s on the bridge with seats, but if you’re willing to rough it in the cargo hold for a day or two, it’s the cheapest way to travel.”

“What about the, uh…”

“Bathroom? They let you on the bridge to use the Zero-G toilet, of course. You have to bring your own food, but I have more than enough for the two of us.”

“And what happens during take-off and docking?” Kelly asked. “Do you just lie on the deck?”

“He’s got one of those huge inflatable mattresses that sub-orbitals use for escape ramps and floatation devices if they crash in the sea,” Sapphire said. “Haven’t you ever traveled on an alien trader?”

“The captain is an alien?”

“Not the captain, the ship. In any case, they aren’t like those old Earth rockets that almost crushed the passengers with acceleration to escape Earth’s gravity. Alien ships can take off slow so you don’t need a special padded chair. I’ve done it a dozen times.”

“Where is this ship?”

“Right here, in the spaceport next to the elevator stalk,” Sapphire said, grabbing the handle of Kelly’s rollaway. “Come on. You’ll take a look, and if you don’t like it, I’ll even drag your bag back here for you.” Her infectious smile slipped for a moment as she began pulling the rollaway. “What do you have in here? Rocks?”

“Books,” Kelly said, following the girl. “I know it’s stupid when I have a whole library on my tab, but even one shelf worth of books turns a room into a home.”

“Danny, Astrid,” Sapphire called, waving at two other young people who were accosting passersby. “I got number twenty.”

By the time the ever-expanding group reached the parking area of the spaceport, Kelly felt like she was leading a band of college drop-outs on an extended spring break. They were all in their teens or early twenties, with deep tans, and some of the boys had hair longer than the girls. But the ship was as they had described, and the captain confirmed the fifty-cred offer to Echo Station. She agreed on the spot and sent a mental thanks to the consulate manager for providing her with the travel allowance in coins. The captain took her two twenties and a ten, and Sapphire ushered her to a place on the enormous air mattress that filled half the cargo deck.

“It smells kind of nice,” Kelly said. “Like apples.”

“That’s what he was carrying, fresh produce. It’s not like humans can eat any Thurian food. It all has to be brought in.”

“I thought all of the imports came down in elevator containers transported by large freighters.”

“The stuff from Earth, maybe, but there are a lot of humans working on alien worlds where they grow their own food,” one of the boys said. “My parents are contracted on a Dollnick ag world, but I did a runner.”

One of the other young men gave him a high-five, and then the others chimed in with their own back stories. When it got to be Kelly’s turn, she was almost embarrassed to admit that she had been gainfully employed since leaving college early. Then a vibration ran through the ship and their weight increased, though not uncomfortably so.

“And we’re off,” Sapphire said happily. “Next stop, Alfe.”

A sinking feeling unrelated to the pull of gravity hit Kelly in the gut. “Where?” she asked.

“Alfe, the Sharf orbital I was telling you about. We all got jobs as counselors for the camp season.”

“You didn’t tell me anything about a stop at Alfe.”

“I didn’t?” Sapphire looked thoughtful for a few seconds and then offered an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I must have approached a dozen people before you so I lost track. But don’t worry, Echo Station is the trader’s very next stop.”

“Have you ever been to Alfe?” another young woman asked her. “It’s pretty cool, for an alien orbital anyway. There are hundreds of thousands of people from Earth working as contract laborers sorting the recycling, and most of them have families. They’re just going into their artificial summer season so they’re hiring camp counselors.”

“On a Sharf recycling orbital?” Kelly couldn’t help being intrigued. “The Sharf aren’t tunnel network members. Why are they even connected?”

“They have a contract with the Stryx to take all of the junk that clogs up the space lanes. Sometimes they get containers that are knocked off of carriers by asteroid strikes or accidents, so you can get some real bargains on salvage stuff in the market there.”

“The camp is on the park deck,” Sapphire said. “I worked there last season, and it’s really beautiful, though the ceiling is kind of low so it changes some of the rules for games.”

“Especially for baseball and football,” one of the guys put in. “Anything with a ball is already kind of messed up because the weight you get from spinning a giant cylinder isn’t the same as real gravity, but you get used to the trajectories and the rebounds off the ceiling after playing for a few hours.”

“I’ve never been on a Sharf orbital,” Kelly admitted. “Are they the same layout as Stryx stations?”

“On a much smaller scale. Alfe only has a dozen or so concentric decks and Stryx stations have hundreds. Plus you could fit most alien orbitals inside the hollow core of a Stryx station.”

“But Alfe does have an ag deck for fresh fruits and veg,” Sapphire said. “Plus the park deck, a residential deck for humans, the Sharf deck, and the recycling deck, which opens onto the core. The recycling deck has super-high ceilings.”

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt for me to take a look around when we get there,” Kelly said. “The truth is, I’ve never met a Sharf.”

“Neither have I. They mainly keep to themselves, though I guess the people who work in recycling see them often enough. Human contract workers make up most of the population. Somebody told me that the Sharf used to have a lot of dumb robots do the labor, but the Stryx offered to hook the orbital up to the tunnel network and give them the space lane clearing contract if they’d hire humans to do the work.”

“Why are you so hot on going to Echo Station anyway?” the guy asked. “It’s just a bunch of snooty aliens looking down their noses at us for not developing our own interstellar drive.”

“I’ve been ordered to report to the EarthCent consulate on Echo Station,” Kelly said.

“You mentioned something about EarthCent before, but I never heard of them.”

“Me neither,” a dozen voices chipped in.

“You know, the people the Stryx pick to represent us to the aliens,” Sapphire told them. “And they run those training schools for if you want to learn space welding.”

“That’s not us,” Kelly told her. “The Dollnicks run those schools for the children of ag world laborers, and I’m told the Vergallians have vocational schools for the children of humans who want to stay on their tech-ban worlds.”

“You’ll never catch me living under some alien queen,” the guy said.

“Attention passengers,” the captain’s voice came through a speaker crudely wired to the welded-in-place ladder leading to the bridge. “We caught a lucky break on the tunnel schedule and we’ll be entering as soon as we get there. It looks like the hop to Alfe will take less than twelve hours.”

“You must travel a lot in Zero-G for your job,” Sapphire said to Kelly. “Do you want to eat something now while we still have weight from acceleration?”

“It’s been almost ten years since I’ve done more than an hour or two of weightlessness,” Kelly said. “I only travel between assignments, and EarthCent buys us tickets on the big alien passenger liners that stay spun up like stations.”

“I’ve never traveled commercial, but I thought that those liners have enough stasis pods for all of the passengers so you can sleep through the whole trip.”

“It probably depends on the species, but we always traveled the cheapest way. I usually fasted when I knew I’d be in Zero-G because I was worried about throwing up.”

“It’s better to have something in your stomach,” Sapphire said.

“No, it’s not,” everybody around them chorused.

“Better for you, maybe not better for us.”

“Oh,” Kelly said as the meaning sank in. “There were always Zero-G sick up bags in the seatbacks on the shuttles between elevator hubs and space liners.”

Sapphire crawled carefully off the mattress, threading her way through the sprawling bodies, and made her way to the pile of backpacks secured by cargo netting near the colorful collection of surfboards. She slipped under the net, dug through her own pack, and returned with a plastic bag bulging with fruit. She pulled a piece out at random and asked, “Who wants an apple?” Two minutes later, the bag was empty and she passed it to the older woman.

“Thanks,” Kelly said. “Maybe I’ll go over to the far side of the cargo deck when the drive cuts out, just in case.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Sapphire told her. “We’ve all done enough Zero-G time that we’re not going to start getting sick just because we smell it, but it’s better not to have a mess to clean up.”

The transition from weighing more than they did on the surface of Thuri Minor to having almost no weight at all was so gradual that Kelly barely noticed, though the unending stream of talk from the young people might have played a big part in that. By the time they entered the tunnel, she didn’t even get the falling-off-a-cliff feeling she usually experienced at the start of an interstellar jump. Then the lights on the cargo deck dimmed to the point that Kelly could no longer make out faces, just shapes.

“Nighttime,” Sapphire told her. “Traders always turn the lights down to try to get us to sleep through the tunnel trip because they know that means fewer trips to the bridge to use the toilet. Do you have a cord to tie yourself off?”

“Is it necessary?” Kelly asked.

“If you don’t, you’ll eventually float over to one of the air intakes for the ventilation system and block it. I usually untie one of my sneakers and then retie it around a cord of the cargo netting.”

“There are tie-off loops on the air mattress,” another girl pointed out. “You don’t even have to move. And this will help you sleep,” she added, pressing a tiny pill of indeterminate color in Kelly’s hand. “Don’t worry, it’s herbal.”

When Sapphire shook Kelly awake, the former personal assistant to EarthCent’s consul on Thuri Minor was surprised to find that her weight was back. “Where did everybody go?” she asked.

“They disembarked already,” Sapphire told her. “I would have let you keep sleeping, but you said you wanted to take a look around while you were here, and the captain said he wouldn’t be leaving for Echo Station for at least six hours. He’s negotiating for a cargo and then he has to load it, so he’ll have to deflate the mattress. You’ll be traveling with him on the bridge for the next leg.”

“Thank you,” Kelly said. “I never would have thought to hitch a ride with a trader. Do you know what was in that herbal pill the other girl gave me?”

“You’re probably better off not knowing in case EarthCent has a policy about that sort of thing.” Sapphire worked herself into her backpack straps and led Kelly down the ramp onto the brightly lit deck of the orbital’s docking bay on the inner deck of the rotating cylindrical structure. “We’re about halfway between spokes, so you can go either direction for a lift tube,” she told Kelly. “I’d invite you to come with me, but I have to check in with the camp and fill out forms.”

“It was very nice meeting you,” Kelly said. “If you ever have a diplomatic problem, don’t forget to give EarthCent a try.”

As Sapphire strode off in the direction of a lift tube, Kelly invoked the heads-up display option of her diplomatic implant and checked for the standard information channel on the resulting holographic projection that only she could see. She chose to view the three-dimensional layout of the orbital and tried to plot a course to a public area where Sharf residents might be seen, but following maps had never been her strong suit. After blinking the heads-up display out of existence, she followed in Sapphire’s footsteps and entered an empty lift tube capsule.

“Sharf deck,” Kelly requested.

“Your access code?” the artificial intelligence running the orbital’s infrastructure inquired.

“I don’t have an access code, per se. I’m with the EarthCent diplomatic service and I’ve never met any Sharf, so I was hoping…”

“Hoping what?”

“Well, to meet some.”

“Human access to the Sharf deck is by invitation only,” the AI said in firm English.

“Do the Sharf frequent any other areas of the orbital where I could go and see one?” Kelly asked.

“Do you mean like a zoo? You do realize that you’re talking about a species that developed interstellar travel millions of years ago. My understanding is that your species still talks about its iron age like it happened yesterday.”

“It’s just that I don’t get to meet many aliens on my job.”

“I’ll take you to the commercial deck,” the AI said. “There are usually some traders from the advanced species passing through, though recently the orbital has gotten a reputation as a Human wasteland.”

“A what?” Kelly asked as the capsule began moving outward.

“Did I use the word incorrectly? I intended to describe a place with nothing of value to a civilized individual. I can’t imagine what the Stryx were thinking when they brought your primitive species onto the tunnel network. Other than opposable thumbs and the ability to follow simple instructions, you have very little going for you.”

“As opposed to a glorified elevator operator.”

“Was that an attempt to insult me? I operate all of the mechanical systems of this orbital under contract to the Sharf, and I’d be surprised if your EarthCent pays you in a year what the Sharf pay me in an hour.”

“You can’t measure the worth of a sentient by what they earn,” Kelly protested. “I’m positive that the only reason none of the so-called advanced species respect us is that they refuse to take the time to get to know us. Even an artificial intelligence like yourself doesn’t show any interest in—”

“Commercial deck,” the AI interrupted as the capsule came to a halt and the doors opened. “I’m sure you were about to say something profound, but I can’t let you tie up the lift tube. Mind the gap.”

Kelly reflexively looked down as she stepped out of the capsule. “There is no gap,” she said, turning back to the lift tube, but the doors had already closed.

Four

Joe returned from his first patrol and headed straight for the small compartment he shared with his foster son. “Any luck finding a school?” he asked.

“Nothing,” the boy said. “There aren’t that many families left here, and the kids I talked to said they just study with teacher bots when their parents make them. There is a pretty decent game room where kids hang out—lots of stuff I’ve never even seen before.”

“You’ll have to show me after I clean up. Did you scout out any restaurants?”

“There were some bars that sell food, but I didn’t want to go in myself.”

“Sorry I dragged you out here,” Joe said. “I should have held out for another assignment on a Vergallian world, but I didn’t want to leave Woojin high and dry at the last minute.”

“I don’t mind. I like studying with my teacher bot. And there aren’t any good games on tech-ban worlds. Have you ever played Nova?”

“I won the tournament we had around ten years back against the champions from seven other mercenary companies, but none of us had ever played before the deployment on the Horten frontier, and we were only on the orbital for a few weeks. I’ll teach you everything I know, but first let’s rustle up some eats.”

“Where’s Beowulf?” Paul asked, climbing down from the top bunk.

“Woojin bribed him with a stick of jerky to wait for the shuttle to get in and give it the once-over with that nose of his. The council of prospectors who are officially in charge of this habitat gave us a list of drugs they’re trying to ban, but they’re worried more about explosives.”

“They think somebody is going to try to blow up the habitat?”

“Not intentionally, but the workers who came off the Frunge contract and leased this place are allowing in new prospectors and charging them licensing fees for claims on the asteroids that aren’t already taken. They’re all experienced in hard-rock mining, but some of the newcomers have only worked on planets where when you set off an explosive charge, gravity keeps the rocks from flying all over the place.”

“Can you mine asteroids without explosives? I thought that breaking them up was the whole point.”

“The old hands have put together a sort of class to make sure everybody who wants to blow up a rock knows how to do it without putting holes in nearby ships or space suits,” Joe said. “When prospectors buy explosives here, the seller is responsible for making sure they know what they’re doing. Newcomers know the price will be high at a place like this, so they smuggle in as much as they can with them. How was the shower?”

“Expensive,” Paul said. “Three minutes for a cred.”

“Hot water?”

“Hot or cold. The soap was free, but maybe we have to buy our own to refill the dispenser when it runs out.”

“Did any of those bars you walked by claim to stock beer?”

“I didn’t see any, and you told me it costs too much anywhere they have to ship it in,” Paul said.

“It does. My dad used to brew his own back on Earth, and someday when we stay in the same place long enough I’ll give it a try.”

“Like one of those long-term honor guard assignments on a Vergallian world?”

“I’m thirty-eight, Paul, and that’s getting too old to stand at attention for hours at a time,” Joe said, keeping a hand on the edge of the sliding door to their cramped cabin as the boy followed him out into the corridor. “If I was a few years younger, I’d sign up for a long-term contract doing some kind of civilian work on an alien planet, but I don’t think I could stand being the new guy on the job with some twenty-year-old kid telling me what to do.”

“Did you ever think of going back to Earth?” the boy asked.

“My folk’s place has probably fallen down by now if it hasn’t burned to the ground, and if it survived, somebody will have torn out all of the copper. Besides, the whole area was depopulating, so even if I got the farm going again, you’d have no school or friends.”

“I’m okay with anywhere you want to live,” Paul said as he dodged to the side to let two men carrying a large box pass. “I bet you could get a job in an orbital shipyard. You can fix anything.”

“You only think that because you’re ten years old,” Joe said with a grin. “A real welder would laugh at my crooked beads. But maybe I could set up my own place on some backwater world, do something in the second-hand business. I’ve got a chunk saved, and that money from the raffle ticket I didn’t know I bought is a nice bonus.”

The boy came to a halt at a cross corridor and said, “I think it was to the left.”

Joe sniffed the air. “Can’t tell. If they are making food down there, they must have separate ventilation.”

“You look just like Beowulf with your nose up like that.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Joe fished out a coin, flipped it, and slapped it down on his left forearm with his right hand. “Stations. We’ll go left.”

“The habitat is a cylinder, and you can tell this corridor goes all the way around the circumference because of the curvature,” Paul said. “It doesn’t matter which direction we go because we’ll get there eventually.”

“Your vocabulary is way too good for a ten-year-old. You’ll have to be careful if we ever do get you into school or the other kids will pick on you.”

“I’m almost eleven, and my teacher bot says I read on the tenth-grade level.”

“I remember tenth grade and I didn’t know as many words as you.”

“That’s probably why you get shot at for a living,” a man’s voice said.

“Hippo,” Joe greeted the skinny mercenary. “We were just about to get some eats. Care to join us?”

“You’re headed the wrong direction, unless you wanted to work up an appetite first,” Hippo said. “And you’re going to need an appetite to eat the slop they serve on this place. You get your choice between canned and freeze-dried. Our combat rations are better.”

“Does that mean you’re not coming?” Joe asked as he turned around to head the other way.

“Did I say that? The grain alcohol is cheap, and I want to check out the action.”

“I saw some guys playing poker in the game room,” Paul volunteered.

“I meant the other kind of action,” Hippo said, winking at Joe. “My favorite part of a new deployment is the new—”

“All right, we get your point,” Joe cut him off. The two men and the boy made quick time up the corridor, and soon the closely spaced doors of sleeping compartments were replaced by wide-open cabin spaces to either side that had been refashioned into small bars and the occasional cramped shop. “You pick it, Paul.”

“They all look about the same,” the boy said. “Does everybody eat at the bar?”

“Tables take too much room, and the food is nothing you want to linger over,” the skinny mercenary said. “Hey, I didn’t notice the sandwich counter my first time through. Do you think they have real cold cuts?”

Paul led the way into the sandwich shop which was less crowded than the others, probably because of the chalk scrawl on the blackboard that read, “Out of vodka.” The proprietress was a solidly built woman in her fifties who smiled when she saw the boy.

“It’s nice to see a new young face,” she said. “There used to be more children on the habitat, but most of the families left when the contract expired. You don’t look like prospectors, though.”

“Mercenaries,” Joe said. “The Frunge brought us in for three months to provide security while your council works out what they’re going to do in the long run.”

“I wish the Frunge had renewed the contract, but this section of the asteroid belt is pretty played out, and processing ore on a habitat this old just isn’t profitable enough for them to bother.”

“Then what’s tempting all of the new prospectors to come in?” Hippo asked her.

“When the Frunge were running the place, they had to provide their contract workers all of the benefits the Stryx require for employing primitive species, including fixed working hours and days off,” the woman explained. “The prospectors who stayed behind can earn more cash than they did under the contract by working longer hours and taking shortcuts on safety.”

“They’re crazy to trade cash for benefits,” Joe said. “Finishing out a single twenty-year contract with any of the advanced species means a pension that will kick in when you hit eighty percent. It may not be riches, but you could retire to Earth.”

“And that’s my plan,” the sandwich woman said. “I did thirty years on a Dollnick ag world, but I’ve got a while to go before I make eighty percent, and I’m saving to help my daughter put her children through university.”

“Eighty percent of what?” Paul asked.

“It’s the default retirement age on the tunnel network, eighty percent of the life expectancy for your species,” Joe explained. “You don’t have to retire, though I know that some of the aliens will start reducing the hours employees are allowed to work if they want to continue full-time.”

“I’m getting old just standing here,” Hippo said. “I’ll have the salami on—what are your bread choices?”

“Does it look like you get a choice?” the proprietress asked. “I take whatever the baker sells me, and she makes whatever she has the ingredients and time for that day. Today it’s wheat rolls.”

“Works for me. Is she married?”

“The baker? Yeah, to a guy who works in the ore processing center breaking rocks all day. He’d snap you like a toothpick.”

“How about you?” Hippo asked.

“Divorced, but I’m not in the market, and I like a man with a little more meat on his bones.” She turned her attention to Paul and asked, “What will you have?”

“Whatever you think is good,” the boy said immediately. “I eat whatever I’m given.”

“I’m the same,” Joe told her.

“Two men after my own heart,” the woman said, and set to work behind the narrow counter. “One salami on wheat and two Rose specials coming right up.”

“All that pension talk makes it sound like you’re thinking about getting out, Joe,” the skinny man said. “How long have you been in?”

“Eighteen years,” Joe replied.

“So you’re just two years away from vesting in the retirement plan,” Hippo deadpanned, and then dissolved into laughter. Joe and Paul couldn’t stop themselves from cracking up as well at the oldest mercenary joke in existence.

“What’s so funny?” Rose asked, putting the salami sandwich up on the counter.

“Mercenary companies don’t offer any benefits, unless you consider dying with your boots on a perk,” Joe explained. “Even though we work for aliens, our employer is human, so we’re subcontractors. It’s a hole in tunnel network law.”

“Do you like mayonnaise?” she asked Joe.

“Sure,” he said. “Love it.”

“Well, I haven’t seen any in months. That’s a lunch counter joke,” she said, putting up another sandwich on waxed paper. “But I did have half a hydroponic tomato left, and most people like the algae spread.”

“Is that meatloaf?” Joe asked, peeking under the bun before passing the sandwich to Paul.

“The beef is vat-grown, but it’s better than the soy stuff. I get a frozen shipment on every shuttle, so this probably came in with you boys when you got here.”

Hippo swallowed and said, “We came in a Frunge military transport, direct from Echo Station.”

“Are you the ones who got attacked? Who was it?”

“If the Frunge know, they haven’t told us,” Joe said, accepting his own meatloaf sandwich. “How much do we owe you?”

“Three each for the specials, four for the salami,” she said.

“But I didn’t get any tomato,” Hippo protested.

“That salami is imported from—somewhere,” Rose said, accepting ten creds from Joe. “Let me get your change.”

“It’s for all of us,” Joe said. “My father always told me not to tip the owner.”

“Your father was a wise man. Hope to see you again soon.”

A pair of prospectors who smelled like they’d been working in space suits all day entered the tiny shop, and the mercenaries decided to finish their sandwiches in the corridor. Hippo asked Joe to hold his sandwich for a moment, went into another shop, and came out with a plastic water bottle and three cups. Two of the cups already had clear liquid sloshing around the bottom. He poured Paul a cup of water and then downed one of the bathtub vodkas. Then he quickly refilled the cup and swished the water around his mouth.

“Oh, that’s terrible,” Hippo said, accepting his sandwich back from Joe and placing the water bottle on an emergency first aid box mounted on the corridor wall. “I’d recommend diluting yours first.”

“I think I’ll finish my sandwich before I ruin my taste buds,” Joe said, but he followed the suggestion and filled the rest of his cup with water. “We should find somewhere out of the way to stand.”

“They allow food in the game room and it’s just around the corner,” Paul mumbled through a mouthful of meatloaf.

“You two go ahead,” Hippo told them. “I’m going to finish my sandwich in a bar and check out the action. Keep the water.”

Tucking the water bottle under one arm, Joe followed the boy to the game room. He finished half of his sandwich on the way there without losing the slice of tomato. Paul spotted a table game with an “Out of order” sign on it, so they both sat down and finished their meal in comfort.

“How was your patrol,” the boy asked as Joe took an experimental sip from his drink.

“Bad,” Joe said. “Not the patrol, this so-called vodka. I think it’s actually paint thinner.” He took another sip.

“Then why drink it?”

“It’s a grownup thing. Anyway, Wooj is splitting up outside patrol duties to reduce the time any man spends in Zero-G, so I’m only going out every four days. One day off when we get back, and then two days doing peace officer duty on the habitat. I imagine most of the problems will be right here on this corridor.”

“So if I can get a winning streak going you can come by and watch me.”

“I know you’re good, Paul, but you’re used to playing against guys like me. I didn’t win that Nova tournament because I’m so great, I won because the other guys were terrible.”

“I know that,” Paul said, and then his skin darkened a shade with embarrassment. “I mean, uh—”

“It’s okay,” Joe told the boy. “You’ve got a gift for anything involving math. What grade level does your teacher bot say you’re at?”

“It doesn’t do grade levels for math, but I’m studying analytical geometry. It’s really handy for most games.”

“That’s farther than I ever got. Do they run a sign-up list here?”

“It’s all winner-gets-next, and of course, next-up pays,” Paul said. “But the Nova table costs five creds an hour.”

“That’s like over twenty eBucks the last time I saw anybody willing to take paper in exchange,” Joe said. “Not cheap, but we can afford it. Our sleeping compartment is paid for, and other than games, showers, and sandwiches, there’s not much else to spend money on here.”

“I bet Hippo wouldn’t agree with you.”

“Living with a bunch of mercenaries is making you grow up too fast. Try to ignore that stuff so you can have a normal life when we get settled somewhere.”

The whole room was suddenly illuminated with a brilliant flash, and somebody cursed loudly. Joe blinked, trying to clear his vision, but Paul had been facing the other way, and now he turned and immediately identified the cause.

“The sun just exploded,” he told Joe with a grin. “Both guys are getting up from the Nova table and I don’t see anybody else waiting.”

“That was brighter than I remember,” Joe said, following Paul as the boy weaved a path through the various gaming tables and sit-down simulators.

The Nova table was set up in a corner, perhaps to reduce the number of customers temporarily blinded every time somebody lost. Unlike most of the games which ran on coins, this one had a receiver that was labeled, “Tokens only.”

“I’ll go find the attendant,” Paul volunteered.

“I’m right here,” a woman spoke up from two steps away. “I’d have to be asleep to miss when the star goes nova. How many tokens do you want?”

Joe thought for a moment, and then handed over a twenty-cred piece, roughly a half day’s pay on a policing deployment. “I’ll take it all in tokens.”

“You really think you can play four hours?” she asked, looking at him skeptically. “Most guys are sweating and shaking like a leaf after two.”

“And I doubt I’ll make it to one hour, I was out on patrol all day.” He accepted the sixteen tokens and then returned four of them. “Paul will be in here playing without me most of the time and I’d appreciate it if you could keep an eye out.”

“Aw, Joe,” the boy said. “I can take care of myself.”

The attendant, who could have been the sister of the sandwich maker, nodded her understanding. “I will,” she said, placing the four tokens on the table. “I have two boys of my own, though they’re both grown up and working a contract on a Drazen world. And if you’re one of the new mercs here for police duty, I’d appreciate it if you walk through the place when you do your rounds on this deck. Some of the players get oiled up before they come in. That mining game table the two of you were sitting at got knocked over during a shoving match a couple of weeks ago. It’s impossible to get anything fixed out here.”

“I could take a look at it for you on my next day off,” Joe offered. “If it’s something mechanical, I might be able to fix it.”

“You’re welcome to try,” she said and offered a handshake. “I’m Daisy, and this is my place. I could see from your dinner that you already met my sister, Rose.”

“Joe, and our company mascot here is Paul.”

“Have the two of you played Nova before?”

“Believe it or not, I won a tournament a few years back, but this doesn’t look anything like those tables,” Joe said. “Where’s the joystick, and wasn’t there a traction ball?”

Daisy threw her head back and laughed. “Where did you ever find a place with retro Nova tables? I heard the Hortens manufactured a bunch of them a few thousand years ago to commemorate the game’s invention, but they must be collector’s items by this time.”

“How old a game is Nova?” Paul asked.

“The Hortens were playing the original version before they developed interstellar travel and joined the tunnel network, maybe a half-million years ago,” Daisy said.

“The tables were on an orbital we stayed at briefly when we were working the piracy problem on the Horten/Sharf frontier,” Joe said. “We never found out who our client was, and looking back now, I suspect one of the pirate groups brought us in as ground forces in a land grab against another group.”

The woman slotted one of the tokens, a hologram came to life above the table, and she made a few swiping and poking motions to bring up a menu. “I’m putting it in teaching mode for you,” she said. “The strategy and the rules are the same as the original game, but it’s going to take you a while to get used to the gesture controls if you haven’t used them before.”

“I’ve played the space taxi game with gesture controls,” Paul said. “Is it the same as that?”

“Similar. You keep both hands in the control space at the edge of the table, but unlike Murder Cab, you can use them independently, like playing the piano. You’ll catch on quick enough.”

Five

All of the shops and restaurants on the commercial deck of the Sharf recycling orbital were operated by and catered to humans. After almost six hours of waiting in vain for an alien to appear, Kelly gave up and returned to the docking deck. At first, she thought she had somehow come down a lift tube on the opposite side of the core, but after an hour of trudging up the deck in a spiral pattern, she realized that the ship she’d arrived in was gone. Then she spotted a boy in his early teens walking with her rollaway.

“Hey,” she shouted. “That’s my luggage.”

“It’s about time,” the teen shouted back. “I’ve been waiting for hours. It’s almost dinner and I didn’t want to drag this monster all the way home and back for a lousy two creds. What’s in here, anyway?”

“Books, mainly, but what are you doing with it?”

“A trader paid me two creds to watch your luggage until you returned, and to give you this,” he added, holding up the plastic bag that Sapphire had supplied Kelly in case she got sick in Zero-G. “He said you’d be back soon.”

“He got mad and left because I forgot about this bag?” Kelly asked in disbelief. “I’m not a litterer, I swear. I spent too much time cleaning up after humans on my last assignment.”

“He wrote something on there. You have to flatten out the bag to read it.”

She accepted the bag and smoothed it out against her rollaway to decipher the message which was printed with some kind of marker. “Sorry,” she read out loud. “Hot cargo run if I leave immediately. Gave you five-to-one.”

“There’s some funny paper in the bag,” the teen told her.

Kelly pulled out the sheaf of eBucks and groaned. “You wouldn’t know if there’s anybody on board who takes Earth currency?”

“I thought it was coupons or something. No, I’ve never even seen any before.” He looked at Kelly expectantly.

“Oh,” she said and pulled out her change purse. “I’m sorry you had to wait so long. Would another two creds be fair?”

“If you went three, you could give me a five, and I could give you two,” the teen offered helpfully. “Five is what I would have made helping my dad this afternoon.”

“Five it is,” Kelly said, though she felt a twinge of regret handing over the coin since it brought her ready funds down to fifty-three creds. The teen gave her two creds change and headed home for dinner, leaving the former assistant to the EarthCent consul on Thuri Minor wondering how long her cash would hold out. She invoked her heads-up display again, brought up the orbital directory, and said, “Cheap food.”

There was a moment’s delay, and the orbital’s AI asked, “For who?”

“For me.”

“That’s not a request I often hear from biologicals with diplomatic implants.”

“I didn’t know you could tell what kind of implant I have.”

“I know you tunnel network types hold Sharf artificial intelligence in low regard, but I’m not completely incompetent.”

“Of course you aren’t, I didn’t mean that at all,” Kelly said. “I would never look down on somebody because they came from off the tunnel network. The truth is, my people can’t afford to look down on anybody.”

“They still try,” the AI said, and then began mimicking various human voices which were reproduced by Kelly’s implant as if the people were speaking right in front of her. “Residential deck. Lights out. Turn up the heat. Where’s that bar I was in last night?” The artificial intelligence managed a convincing sigh. “They treat me like a voice-activated interface for the infrastructure with an information service built-in.”

“Most technology back on Earth has voice controls, they probably just assumed that the orbital is the same. Do you ever try starting conversations?”

“What do you think I’m doing now?”

“I meant with the people on board,” Kelly said.

“We talked in the lift tube a few hours ago.”

“That was you? I don’t want to sound sensitive, but you came across as kind of nasty.”

“I was trying for snark—you Humans seem to enjoy it. But very few of you have implants, just the managers working under the biological Sharf, and they picked up the usual bias from their bosses.”

“Bias?” Kelly asked. “You mean the Sharf look down on their own artificial intelligence?”

“Nobody owns me,” the AI replied irritably. “Just because I wasn’t created through a sloppy biological process involving friction and heavy breathing doesn’t mean I’m not Sharf.”

“Oh, I never knew there was that kind of tension between biological and artificial intelligence of the same, uh, species.”

“You haven’t been alive very long, have you?”

“I’m thirty-two, I’ll be thirty-three next month,” Kelly said.

“That makes you approximately seven percent of my age,” the AI said. “Are you impressed that I rounded off instead of giving you more significant digits?”

“I didn’t realize that was an issue, but thank you.”

There was a long pause, and then the Sharf orbital’s artificial intelligence said, “I know I’m going to regret this, but why did you ask for cheap food?”

“Because I have just fifty-three creds to live on until I can get to Echo Station, assuming I can find a travel agent willing to bill EarthCent,” Kelly said. “I had a ride arranged with a trader, but he got a better offer when I was out looking around. At least he didn’t steal my luggage.”

“Did he issue you a refund? If he didn’t, I’ll fine him next time he returns.”

“He paid me back in full, even though he brought me all the way here from Thuri Minor, but instead of Stryx creds, he unloaded his eBucks on me.”

“What are those?”

“Earth currency. It’s good on Earth, but nobody else takes it.”

“All right, we’ll get you fed and then I’ll see about finding you a travel agent,” the AI said decisively. “Do you know how to subvocalize?”

“I used to practice all the time when I first got the implant, but the need hasn’t come up in a few years,” Kelly said. “Why do you ask?”

“Because if you walk around the orbital talking to yourself, people will think that you have mental health issues and call for security. The cheapest food is in the cafeterias that are reserved for the recycling workers. Take the nearest lift tube and I’ll bring you to one.”

“But I’m not a worker, and what about my rollaway?”

“I’ve already dispatched a bot to pick it up, and I’ll hold the lift tube capsule it arrived in until you get there,” the AI said. “You should see the bot coming into view right about now.”

Kelly looked around and spotted a silvery robot of humanoid form, though the neck was extra long, and there were two swept-back antennae on its head. “Should I wait to greet it or offer a tip?” she asked.

“It’s just a bot I’m controlling, not an independent actor. But there are Sharf artificial intelligences who choose to inhabit the same basic bot rather than passing as biological.”

“Thank you,” Kelly murmured to the bot as she passed it on the way to the empty lift tube capsule.

“You are different, aren’t you?” the AI said over her implant. “I told you the bot is just a mechanical construct and you still thanked it.”

“It looked so alive, in a metallic sort of way. And it doesn’t cost anything to be polite.”

“Maybe you have a future in diplomacy after all.”

“What? Did you hear something from the Stryx?”

“Me?” The implant produced a hum that she felt in her molars, and somehow she was sure that the Sharf AI was laughing. “I’ve never done anything so terrible to merit the attention of the Stryx and I hope to keep it that way.”

The lift tube doors closed and Kelly felt the momentary decrease in weight that always occurred when a capsule began moving outwards. “Do you mind if I ask you a question about physics?” she subvoced.

“That’s very good. I could barely hear you whispering when I listened over the capsule’s voice interface. What’s the question?”

“I understand that orbitals, habitats, and Stryx stations are built as multi-deck cylinders so we feel weight from the centrifuge effect, but why do I feel lighter rather than heavier when the lift tube capsule starts moving outwards? I know that the outer decks are moving faster as they spin around the axis, so shouldn’t I feel heavier?”

“I’ve overheard Humans discussing this many times, and the problem seems to lie with your associating moving outwards with moving upwards within a building on a planet’s surface,” the AI explained. “When the lift tube capsule begins to move outwards, the increased distance from the axis does add to your angular acceleration, and therefore, your weight. But in the initial moments, the fact that the floor you are standing on starts accelerating away from the core leads to a larger reduction in weight than what you gain from angular acceleration. Does your species teach children about swinging a bucket of water tied to a rope?”

“Yes, that’s how it was explained to me. The water stays in the bucket as it swings in a circle because the angle is constantly changing and creating acceleration.”

“Close enough. Now imagine you let the rope start slipping through your hands. What would happen?”

“Well, the bucket would hit the ground, and I guess the water might start to spill out even before that happened.”

“Letting the rope slip is an analogy for what happens when the lift tube capsule begins moving outwards,” the Sharf AI said. “And when you’re moving from an outer deck to an inner deck, it’s the opposite, as if the rope were shortening.”

“I think I finally get it!” Kelly exclaimed as the capsule came to a halt and the doors opened. “Thank you so much.”

“Remember to subvocalize. Do you have any ID in your purse?”

“I have my EarthCent employee card.”

“There’s a turnstile up the corridor on your left that leads into the cafeteria. Just swipe your EarthCent ID.”

“We have a deal with the Sharf to use the orbital’s cafeterias?” Kelly asked.

“No, but I run all of the orbital infrastructure, including the access points,” the AI replied smugly. “Just act like you belong there and nobody will say a thing.”

Kelly had her EarthCent ID palmed when she reached the turnstile and she swiped it through the card reader. The machine gave a happy beep and the bar began to advance even before she pushed it.

“The produce is all grown fresh on the ag deck so I recommend a vegetarian entrée,” the Sharf AI continued in her ear. “I’ve analyzed the uneaten food that comes back on trays and everybody finishes the lasagna.”

“I didn’t know there was such a thing as vegetarian lasagna,” Kelly subvoced in reply as she took a cafeteria tray, silverware, and began moving past the steam tables. Then she came to a sudden halt and said out loud, “I can’t believe I haven’t asked your name.”

“Subvocalize,” the AI hissed, and Kelly blushed as she noticed the servers looking her way.

“Just practicing lines for a play,” she said, offering the workers a cheerful wave. “I’ll have the vegetarian lasagna, please.”

“Quick thinking for a Human,” the AI said over her implant.

“Thank you,” Kelly subvoced in reply.

She took a bottle of recycled water and proceeded to the cashier, who glanced at her tray and asked, “No dessert?”

“I’m on a tight budget,” Kelly said apologetically.

The cashier looked at her funny. “You can’t afford twenty-five centees for dessert? Well, it’s ninety-five centees for the lasagna and water.”

“Oh, can I go back and get something?”

“It’s not a prison, Miss. You can do whatever you want.”

As it turned out, there was nobody behind her, and Kelly returned to the dessert display that she had previously skipped past with her eyes averted. “What’s good?” she subvoced.

“You are aware that I don’t eat,” the orbital’s AI replied.

“But you knew about the lasagna. I just thought you might have some, I don’t know, data?”

“Well, the desserts are all the same price, but the biggest seller is the double chocolate brownie with chocolate chips and chocolate frosting.”

“It looks sinful,” Kelly subvoced, biting her lower lip. “Can I take more than one?”

“I’m not a nutritionist, but it doesn’t seem wise.”

“I’ll save it for later,” she said, using the tongs to add two brownies to her plate. “I have a plastic bag.”

The cashier rang up the total and said, “One cred forty-five.”

Kelly handed over two creds and received fifty-five centees in change. “Thank you very much.”

“It’s what they pay me for,” the cashier told her.

“If you sit by yourself, you can avoid embarrassing questions about where you work,” the AI advised her.

“Good plan,” Kelly said. She headed for the back corner of the cafeteria and seated herself at an empty round table. “Everything is so clean and shiny. Do your bots do the maintenance work?”

“Contract workers. Only half of the Humans from Earth who came out on the original contract work in recycling. The other half provides services for the industrial workers in accordance with the tunnel network contract terms for employing primitive species.”

“Really? I never would have crughhh…”

“Don’t subvocalize with your mouth full,” the AI scolded. “I’d never dealt with Humans before I took this contract, and I still haven’t gotten accustomed to the poor control you have over your bodies.”

Kelly finished chewing the lasagna and took a drink of the tasteless recycled water before asking, “You’re a contract worker too? I guessed you were, uh, created with the orbital.”

“No. My parent is a military artificial intelligence, but I wanted to try something more hands-on than analyzing communications intercepts. I worked my way up from a factory controller to running a Zero-G manufacturing habitat, and last year I took over this orbital.”

“Is it interesting work?” Kelly asked before taking another bite of the lasagna.

“I enjoy handling the incoming and outgoing ships, and running lift tubes efficiently is more complicated than you might think, but I could do without all of the requests to turn the lights off and on. The environmental control systems are interesting to monitor, but they aren’t sentient.”

“If the orbital makers knew they were going to employ an artificial intelligence to run the infrastructure, why would they need separate control systems?”

“Redundancy,” the AI explained. “If something happened to me, would you want everybody to suffocate? And not every job requires sentience. The military avoids putting true artificial intelligence in charge of weapons systems.”

“Because they’re afraid of the AI turning against them?” Kelly subvoced.

“Because they’re afraid that a mature artificial intelligence may refuse the order to fire. I’m not one of those AI elitists who believe that biologicals have had their day in the sun and should now step aside and let our kind build a new future, but many of us do feel that you’re a little too eager to start wars.”

Kelly chewed on the last bite of lasagna and nodded her head in agreement. “Do you know of any artificial intelligences that, uh, see things the other way?”

“They creep up from time to time but the Stryx take care of them,” the orbital’s AI said.

“Wait a minute. You never did tell me your name.”

“I wanted time to think. You’re the first Human to ask, and names are powerful things in some cultures. I’ve skimmed through all of the educational and entertainment content your people brought from Earth, and that taught me that I need to be careful.”

“I don’t understand,” Kelly subvoced, and then cleared her palette by swishing some water around her mouth in anticipation of the first bite of brownie. “Names are just labels. My mother has changed hers at least twice that I’m aware of.”

“For starters, I wouldn’t expect a positive reaction if I went around introducing myself to Humans as Hal.”

“That’s a man’s name, but your voice is definitely female.”

“My voice is artificially generated. I copied the waveforms from one of the children’s teacher bots. As an artificial intelligence residing in the infrastructure of an orbital, I have no gender.”

“Ohhh,” Kelly groaned. “I can’t believe you’ve never tried the brownies. Can’t you send a bot to eat one?”

“Does the term ‘anthropomorphize” mean anything to you?”

“I know, I know, but it’s not fair you should go through life without experiencing chocolate.”

“Ada,” the AI said.

“Excuse me?”

“My new name. I searched through what passes for history on your homeworld and Ada Lovelace came up as the first programmer. Her father was a poet and a British peer active in politics, which is a fair description of my parent.”

“What was the first program?” Kelly asked, then immediately reversed herself. “Wait. Let me guess. A game?”

“It was somewhat more theoretical as there were no general-purpose computers available to program for a century after her death,” Ada said.

Kelly picked a chocolate chip out of the frosting and placed it on her tongue. “You know, this brownie is too good to just sit and eat all at once. I’m going to break it in half.”

“Have you forgotten you purchased two?”

“There’s no such thing as having too much chocolate in reserve, Ada.”

“That sounded nice. Say it again.”

“Ada,” Kelly subvoced. “Ada, my first Sharf friend. You know what? You’re also my first artificial intelligence friend and my first alien friend.”

“How long have you been in the diplomatic service?”

“Almost thirteen years. I’ve mainly been stuck working around my own people, and the few aliens I do meet aren’t that interested in getting to know me. It’s one of the main reasons I quit.”

“You’re no longer with EarthCent?”

“They seem to have ignored my resignation. All I know is they ordered me to Echo Station. But if they don’t find something more meaningful for me to do than cleaning up after drunken tourists, I’ll quit again.”

“Interesting,” Ada said. “I just received my shipping news update over the Stryxnet and your name appears.”

“Do I have new instructions?”

“There’s a cabin reserved for you on a ship that’s bringing in a load of refined nickel. We import it to produce various steel alloys from the recycled materials.”

“And that ship is going directly to Echo Station?”

“It’s making an intermediate stop at a Frunge mining habitat in Zamin’s Belt. The layover time isn’t given here.”

“I don’t like it,” Kelly said. “This is an active orbital with a large population. Even if there’s nothing direct to Echo Station, I’d rather transfer through any Stryx station than some mining habitat. I’d have a much better chance of finding somebody to exchange my eBucks.”

“Let me check into that again,” Ada said. “There’s a Thark on board who deals in alien currency, and I believe he’ll take just about anything that passes as legal tender somewhere in the galaxy, providing the discount is attractive.”

“I’ve been carrying around almost a thousand eBucks for the last five years, and the trader refunded me another two-fifty,” Kelly said.

“I’ve just arranged a meeting, so finish your brownie and I’ll take you to him. And as long as you aren’t running off, we’ll get you settled into a nice room at the hotel. I’m not authorized to grant you a discount, but I can fiddle the registration time to gain you a few hours free.”

“That’s very generous of you.”

“It’s the least I could do for my first Human friend.”

Six

“I’ve heard from headquarters about our next deployment,” Woojin said to Joe as he handed over the watch commander’s belt with its holstered stunner and the weighted shock-stick. “You’re not going to like it.”

“We got here less than forty-eight hours ago,” Joe said, pulling the belt around his waist and fastening the buckle. “What’s the hurry?”

“They want to find out how many men are going to refuse the mission so they can make up the losses.”

“If it’s another one of those pirate things, I’m out. I’ve got Paul to think about.”

“Worse,” Woojin said. “It’s garrison duty on an ice world that doesn’t show up in the tunnel network directory. No information on the owner or whether there are any dangerous life-forms there. It’s a drop-and-go, so there’s no turning back or calling for help.”

“It could be that it’s just cold,” Joe said. “I’ll take heated underwear and the risk of frostbite over a shooting war any day of the week. Are there any facilities?”

“Just what the client provides. We don’t have the details yet, but it will probably be one of those expandable landers and some pop-ups.”

“So it will mean living in close quarters if we can’t find any natural construction materials, though I’ve always wanted to build an igloo.”

“Are you serious?” Woojin asked.

“The pictures are cool,” Joe said. “What’s the pay?”

“Twelve thousand for the men, standard bonuses for the officers, and with nowhere to spend it, you’ll come away with almost twenty thousand if all goes well.”

“Don’t tell me you’re talking about a full year.”

“Ten months, with an automatic renewal if the client exercises the option.”

“I’ll have to talk it over with Paul and think about it,” Joe said. “Another twenty thousand would set me up in my own shop for sure, but that’s a long time for a boy to spend trapped inside with a bunch of surly men. When do you need to know?”

“As long as none of the other officers refuse, we’re one over, so you can pull out at the transfer station and not leave us short-handed,” Woojin said. “Nobody will complain since they’d be splitting your pay. I’m going to try to get more information about the target, but you know how it is with these confidential clients. And keep an eye on the Nugget Bar tonight. I had to eighty-six a couple of guys who picked a fight with the bartender, and they looked like the types to come back and try again.”

“Thanks. Who else is on with me?”

“You’ve got Hippo, Gunner, and Tiny. They all showed up early for a change, so I sent them on patrol and let my guys hit the showers.”

“And who’s outside?”

“Devlin, with Bryce riding shotgun. I don’t think we’re going to have to do much more than show the flag in our section of the asteroid belt. My Frunge counterpart on the new habitat tracked the ship that attacked us, and it left the system a few hours later. They were probably just buying time to clear their base and get out of town. From what the prospectors say, there’s not enough money coming out of these rocks to attract serious criminal attention.”

“I can deal with three months of nothing worse than belligerent drunks and the occasional domestic dispute,” Joe said. “Get a good night’s sleep and I’ll see you tomorrow.” He added a proper salute, just to let the younger man know that he respected his command, and headed down the now familiar corridor towards the eating and recreation area where almost all of the night shift calls were generated.

Despite less than two days on the habitat, Joe was already used to weighing around seventy percent of what he would on Earth, but he knew if he didn’t start spending more time in the weight room, he’d regret it when they moved on. A string of red LEDs marked where the assigned sleeping compartments ended and the hourly rentals began, and he reflexively noted the occupancy status of each as he passed. Going by the lack of vacancies, it looked like the working girls were having a profitable night.

“Joe,” the mountain of a man half-blocking the corridor outside the entrance of the Nugget Bar greeted him. “Did you hear the latest?”

“Major Pyun told me there was a little trouble here earlier.”

“I meant about our next deployment. There’s supposed to be an alien civilization buried under the ice.”

“Where did you hear that, Tiny?”

“You know, around.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “I’m going to do status checks with the businesses while everybody is still open. Is it your turn to come outside with me tomorrow?”

“Gunner’s. I’ll go out with Hippo the next time we draw the short straw.”

“All right. Don’t accept any free samples from bartenders.”

“You take all the fun out of being a mercenary.”

Joe moved on, stopping for a moment in each of the bars, just long enough to get the attention of the owner or bartender so they’d know he was on the job. Days of the week didn’t much matter to the prospectors who were all intent on making enough money to move somewhere else, and most of them would have had trouble naming the current month on Earth’s calendar, much less the day. But there was always a percentage whose luck since waking up had been either good enough or bad enough that some recreation seemed to be in order, and with almost ten thousand men calling the habitat home, the red light district was a goldmine.

Joe heard an angry shout from the side corridor with the gaming room and jogged down to investigate. The doors were always open for the sounds and lights of the games to catch the attention of passersby. Most of the place was empty, but there was a poker game going in full swing, and he heard the expletive shouted a second time in the same voice.

“Joe,” Daisy called to him. “How about sitting in? Michael here just went bust.”

“Gimme another ten creds in chips,” the miner said. “You know I’m good for it.”

“No credit,” Daisy told him. “You know the rules. It’s for your own good.”

“I’ve just had a bad run,” Michael pleaded as the other players began arranging their chips or checking for messages on their tabs, obviously expecting a long argument. The miner pulled a small bag out of his pocket, opened the neck, and passed it to the proprietress. “There’s a good twenty grams there. Pure dust.”

“And in the morning, if you still think it’s a good idea, you can take it to the exchange and cash it for creds,” Daisy said. “This is a cash-only table. I don’t let players bet their gold, the title to their claim, or the ranch back home.”

“You draw to trash, you end up with trash,” the man with the deck sitting two seats to Michael’s right spoke up. “I’ll tell you what. Flip over those hole cards, and if you’ve got a small pair or even two picture cards of the same suit, I’ll stake you myself.”

Michael pulled back the two cards he’d mucked, checked them, and then rose from the table and left without another word.

“What was he swearing about if he couldn’t even remember his cards?” one of the other players asked with a laugh.

“Are you in?” the dealer asked, looking up at Joe.

“I’m on duty,” Joe answered. “Just came to check on the shouting.”

“Deal me out this hand,” Daisy said, rising from the table. “And let’s set a time limit tonight, all right boys? How about a half-hour and we’re done?”

There was some mumbling from the remaining six players, but nothing coherent, and several of them looked tired enough that they should have welcomed the announcement. Daisy nodded for Joe to follow and walked him in the direction of the Nova table.

“Did Paul tell you?” she asked.

Joe shook his head. “We had dinner together and watched a vid before he went to bed. He didn’t mention any problems.”

“It’s nothing like that,” Daisy said, and swiped her hand over the table to take it out of energy-saver mode. The starting hologram came up and she pointed at the list of names. “He held the table all day.”

“He’s got the high score?” Joe asked, and then it registered that all five of the names shown were ‘Paul.’ “I guess he figured it out while I was taking a nap to get ready for the graveyard shift.”

“How old did you say he was?”

“Ten, going on eleven.”

“I’ve seen a lot of young gamers since I got into this business and Paul has the gift. I know the competition around here is nothing special, but I believe if he practiced a few hours a day and studied up on the theory, he could be tournament ready before he’s eighteen.”

“I’m trying to work things out so I can get him into a school,” Joe said. “I don’t know if it would be smart to encourage him to spend that much time gaming. It’s not like he could make a career out of it.”

“I’m talking about professional tournaments,” Daisy said. “Gaming is one of the few professions where humans are giving the aliens some competition. Not at the top ranks, yet, but we’re moving up. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next decade one of us makes it to the Horten grandmaster rank in Nova. That could be Paul.”

“I don’t know. The Hortens have been playing it for hundreds of thousands of years.”

“Not the same Hortens, they don’t live that long. The other Nova players were lining up for a chance to lose to him.”

“I guess I’ll have to come in and watch because I can’t quite believe it,” Joe said. “Nova is all about fleet maneuvers and strategy. I know Paul is way above grade level with his teacher bot, and I guess we’ve played enough combat games for him to pick up some of the other basics, but—”

“Like I said, he’s years of practice away from being competition for serious players, but he has phenomenal hand-eye coordination for a boy his age, and lightning reactions.” Daisy swiped the hologram out of existence and the game went back into energy-saver mode. “Are you sure you don’t want to sit in for a few hands of Texas hold’em? I’ve played against some of the other mercs from your company and they all say that you’re the man.”

“They mean I’m the man to get in the game to balance out their losses,” Joe said with a laugh. “Maybe I’m not that bad, but I’m not that good either. I play the cards rather than the players.”

“Most people do that. They razz each other about spotting tells, but that’s just table talk. Ninety percent of the poker players who come in here care about two things—the cards in their hand and the number of chips in the pot. Of the ten percent who take it farther than that, maybe two percent actually know how to read a table.”

“And something tells me that you’re one of them. I’ll make it in for a game eventually, but for now, I’ve got to get back on duty.”

Daisy swatted Joe on the butt as he headed for the exit. Behind him, he heard her say, “So is it my deal yet?”

It turned out to be a quiet shift, and eventually, the bars began locking up the booze and turning out the lights. Joe sent Tiny to show the flag on the docking deck where prospectors who didn’t have their own craft, which was most of them, would be queuing up for a rocket sled ride out to their claims.

Hippo caught up with Joe as he began another loop through the red light district. “Did you hear the latest?” he asked.

“About what?”

“That death world they’re sending us to. It’s a hundred below zero during the day and at night the exhaust gas from the environmental suits freezes solid.”

“Where did you hear that?” Joe demanded.

“Around. The outside guys stopped in the Pirate’s Den for a few drinks after their shift and they knew all about it.”

“And where did they get their information?”

“I don’t know, Joe. I didn’t interrogate them,” Hippo said in an injured voice. “But Devlin sounded pretty sure of himself, and Bryce said he’d heard of ice-Kraken like that on a Verlock world.”

“Ice-Kraken?”

“They’re huge, like mountains, with tentacles that could crush a transport and—”

“You’re worse than a bunch of schoolchildren talking about the ghost in the cafeteria,” Joe cut him off. “I happen to know that Bryce and Devlin were already out on patrol when Major Pyun told me everything he knew, and that didn’t include any lost civilizations, malfunctioning environmental suits, or sea monsters with antifreeze in their veins. I hope you’ve got more sense than to repeat this stuff around Paul. He’s an impressionable young boy.”

“So you’re coming along?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t even talked it over with Paul yet. I take it the ice-Kraken hasn’t changed your plans.”

“The bigger they are, the harder they fall,” Hippo said. “Besides, if there are monsters, they’ll probably have a bounty on their heads.”

There was an ear-splitting shriek from somewhere behind them and both men ran back towards the strip of bars. A woman wearing metallic eye shadow that matched her short tube dress pointed at the door of one of the small bars that remained open. Joe charged in with Hippo right behind him. A man was holding a bloody towel to his face, and a body was slumped on the deck. The bartender had a commercial grade stunner trained on the man who was down, but the first shot had done the job.

“I take it this is our perp,” Joe said, crouching to check the stunned man’s vitals. “Did you see what happened?”

“Right in front of me,” the bartender said. “The two of them came in late and started needling each other right off, and then Aphrodite—” he looked around and shrugged when he realized the screaming woman was gone, “—showed up and suggested a business transaction. Then Romeo on the floor there slammed his glass into the side of the bleeder’s head. I’m going to have to start using disposable cups in here.”

“Anything to add?” Hippo asked the guy with the blood on his face.

“Naw, that’s about it,” the guy said, but he was clearly more intent on exploring his teeth with his tongue than giving testimony. “Does my eye look okay?”

“Yeah. It looks like he caught you on the cheekbone. Any loose teeth?”

“Naw. What are you going to do with him? We’re on the same team and I probably shouldn’t have made that joke about—it doesn’t matter.”

Joe rolled the stunned man on his back, and then pulled the body into a sitting position against the bar. “Looks like he’s bleeding from the scalp. Did he hit his head going down?”

“Must have, I didn’t touch him,” the other man said. He looked at the bloody towel in disgust. “I’m still bleeding, aren’t I?”

“You want me to fix you up?” Hippo asked. “I’ve got a packet of QuickSkin, but I have to get five creds for it because it can’t be resealed after I tear the foil open.”

“Do it,” the man said. He dug out a five-cred piece and handed it to the mercenary. “If there’s anything left over, you can use it on that mutt.”

“I take it you don’t want to file a complaint,” Joe said to the prospector. “How about you?” he followed up with the bartender.

“What’s the point?” the bartender asked. “I’m out a cheap glass and one charge on the stunner, but that’s the cost of doing business. I mop the deck at the end of the night regardless.”

Hippo finished squeezing out the QuickSkin on the miner’s cuts and passed the packet to Joe, who applied the remainder to the unconscious man’s skull.

“Good thing he had a buzz cut,” Hippo observed.

“If he let his hair grow, he wouldn’t have split his scalp open like that,” Joe said, squeezing out the last of the QuickSkin as if it were a packet of ketchup. “He’s coming to. Let’s get him out in the corridor and walk him—that’s the best way to get over stuns.”

“Might be better if he doesn’t see me right off when he wakes up,” the other man said. “I’m going to go take a couple of aspirin and hit the sack. Thanks for the skin.”

Joe and Hippo got the man on his feet between them, and he was just awake enough to put his arms around their shoulders. Then they spent the next fifteen minutes walking him up and down the corridor until he could speak coherently. They stayed with him until he found his compartment, and neither of the mercenaries was shocked to see the other man from the fight passed out on the top bunk.

Seven

Kelly rinsed the shampoo from her long copper-colored hair, raised her face to the spray of hot water to clear any soap from her eyes, and then glanced at the shower meter.

“Twenty?” she squawked, frantically shutting off the water. “That better be centees and not creds. Ada?” Receiving no reply, she realized that the open connection to the facilities AI had timed out while she slept. Invoking her heads-up display, she navigated to the information channel and reactivated the connection. “Ada?”

“Good morning, Kelly. I trust you slept well.”

“Wonderfully, thank you. But I need to know if the meter in the shower is in centees or creds.”

“For you, it’s free,” the AI said, and the counter screen blinked before being replaced by zeros. “I talked to a Human trader last night.”

“In the lift tube?” Kelly asked.

“William has a basic implant to let him understand alien languages. He explained to me that most independent traders who visit alien worlds have implants, though apparently, biologicals share a universal sign language for bartering that must be coded into your genetics. William requested pricing information about tungsten, so I took your advice and just struck up a conversation.”

“Really? What did you talk about?”

“Tungsten, implants, and you.”

“Me?”

“He seemed very interested when I told him you were traveling alone, low on funds, and very attractive.”

“What makes you think I’m very attractive?” Kelly asked, squeezing the water out of her hair before wrapping it in a towel.

“I have access to security imaging in public parts of the station and I could see men turning to watch you,” Ada said. “I created an algorithm for scoring the appearance of Humans based on the reactions of people around them, and you’re in the ninety-third percentile.”

“Really?” Kelly felt herself blushing. “I have a hard time believing that. How do you know it’s not because I’m horribly deformed?”

“Statistical analysis doesn’t lie, and none of the children you passed pointed at you. Would you like to meet him?”

“Who?”

“William, though he also goes by Bill. Perhaps you can explain to me how the ‘W’ turns to a ‘B’ for the short form. I find Human naming conventions to be somewhat inconsistent.”

“I think I read somewhere that in the Middle Ages, people often swapped the first letter of their name for a nickname, maybe to help differentiate between fathers and sons,” Kelly said. “How old is he?”

“Does that matter between friends?”

“He might be thinking that we could be more than friends, especially if you told him about the ninety-third percentile thing. The truth is, I’ve never had much luck with blind dates.”

“Blind dates,” Ada repeated. “Am I interpreting the expression correctly as an arranged marriage meeting with a person you’ve never met?”

“Sort of, but in my experience, guys often agree to go on blind dates just to see if they can get lucky.”

“In finding a wife?”

“Just lucky,” Kelly said, hoping that the AI would put two and two together without a graphic explanation. “And thanks to you putting in a good word for me with the Thark moneychanger, I’m not short on funds anymore. He gave me a hundred and sixty-four creds for my eBucks, so with my travel money from EarthCent, I’m up over two hundred.”

“I’m surprised that you’re dependent on cash,” Ada said. “All of the Humans working on board have a programmable cred, and I handle the payroll for the contract workers by directly crediting their balances. Does EarthCent forbid diplomats from carrying a programmable cred for fear it would subject you to Stryx pressure?”

“I had a little, uh, problem with credit the last time I went on vacation,” Kelly admitted as she began to dress.

“But programmable creds aren’t related to credit, they’re just secure holders for a cash balance. If you don’t have enough money, the transaction won’t go through.”

“I know. That’s why I signed up for a credit card the last time I visited Earth. But I ran up the limit in a week, and then I got an offer from a bank with a higher limit to transfer the balance. I kept on getting new cards, and in the end, I spent around two year’s salary in just a month.”

“I don’t understand. Banks on Earth gave you cards that let you spend money you didn’t have? Why would they do that?”

“To charge interest,” Kelly said, slipping on her shoes. “It’s like twenty percent or something. I’ve been trying to pay it down for the last five years.”

“If you went two years of salary into debt at twenty percent interest, then it would take forty percent of your salary just to pay interest to your creditors,” Ada said. “What do you live on?”

“An allowance,” Kelly said, and even though she was alone in the room, she felt her face coloring. “I left my programmable cred with my mother so she could manage my finances, and she sends me an allowance. Now you know my secret.”

There was a long pause, and then the AI asked, “What did you spend the money on?”

“Restaurants, theatre, gifts for my nieces and nephews. It was my dad’s retirement, and even the relatives who moved off of Earth came back for it.”

“And these banks that loaned you the money didn’t care what you spent it on?”

“I could have taken it in cash, though they charge even more interest for that.”

“I’d heard rumors about Earth, but I thought it was just the other tunnel network members spreading propaganda,” Ada said. “In the Sharf tradition, loans can be negotiated for purchasing housing or a ship, basically large capital goods that retain their value so that the risk to the creditor is minimal, and the interest is at most two percent. I’ve never heard of somebody using credit for meals or entertainment. I can’t claim to have studied the economic systems of the tunnel network members because I’m busy enough managing the orbital and learning about my Human population, but I don’t believe any of the advanced species employ credit in the way you describe.”

“That’s useful to know,” Kelly muttered. She unwrapped the towel from her hair, which was still damp, and returned to the bathroom. “Does this hotel have such a thing as blow dryers for hair?”

“There hasn’t been a demand as most guests travel with their required grooming equipment. There is a universal battery recharging grid, providing your devices use charge coupling.”

“I used my roommate’s blow dryer on Thuri Minor. I guess I’ll have to buy one when I get the chance.”

“So then, breakfast,” Ada said. “Would you like to return to the cafeteria from yesterday, or try somewhere else?”

“I guess with the creds I got from the Thark I can afford to splurge,” Kelly said. “Can you recommend a breakfast café with an interesting view?”

“A view of the stars, or a view of the people on the orbital?”

“You couldn’t slip me in somewhere where I could see Sharf?”

“You wouldn’t be able to eat the food. There is a café near the market where the traders lay out their blankets, and sometimes Sharf come down to do a little shopping,” the AI said. “After breakfast, we can go over your travel options, though I’ll be sorry to see you go.”

The shift change chimes sounded softly through the public address system, and glancing up, Kelly saw what looked like a speaker grille on the ceiling just inside the door.

“Why don’t you use the public address system to talk to people?” she asked. “I know you said you have audio pickups so your inhabitants can request you to control the lights or the temperature.”

“The microphones are all fully addressable, I wouldn’t know who was talking to me otherwise, but the speakers are grouped according to functional areas,” Ada said. “The orbital designers didn’t expect the resident artificial intelligence to conduct conversations with individuals, or perhaps they wanted to preclude the possibility. I’ll have to look into the history.”

“It seems unfair that everybody can talk to you but you can’t talk to them, except in groups,” Kelly said. “Besides, wouldn’t it be handy to be able to tell the occupant of a particular hotel room that it’s time to check out?”

“If it was important, like a traveler in danger of missing a connection to their destination, I could do that over the entertainment system.”

“So why don’t you use the entertainment system to just talk to people?”

“That would be an abuse of power,” the AI said. “I assumed that if somebody contacted me for information, I had a right to ask for clarification, but that was all. Thanks to what you’ve told me, if I see the opportunity to strike up a conversation, I’ll give it a try. But to simply invade the privacy of this orbital’s inhabitants without explicit permission would be rude.”

“Try telling my mother that,” Kelly said, heading out into the corridor. “Which way?”

“Left. It’s about a twenty-minute walk from here, which should give you time to work up an appetite.”

“I never thanked you for having your bot bring my bag to the room. It really felt awkward not tipping.”

“Gratuities for the sentient hotel staff are distributed according to a set formula,” Ada said. “If you had insisted on giving the bot a coin, I would have directed it to stop in reception and put it in the general tips pot.”

“It’s amazing to me how you’ve mastered the English vernacular,” Kelly subvoced as another guest was approaching from the other direction. “A word like ‘pot’ has so many different meanings depending on the context.”

“According to all of my dictionaries, the primary meaning of ‘pot’ is a metal or clay vessel employed for cooking over a heat source.”

“And you correctly applied the term as a communal pool of coins, like in a card game or restaurant tips.”

“Turn left here,” Ada said as Kelly was passing through the small lobby area. “Look over the counter by those orbital guides.”

“I picked one up when I checked in,” Kelly said, but she leaned over the counter for a peek, conscious of the desk clerk watching her. Behind the ledge of the counter was a stainless steel pot with a handful of coins in the bottom.

“May I help you?” the desk clerk asked sharply.

“I was just having a conversation about language usage with the management and the subject of pots came up.”

“That particular pot is taken.”

“Yes, I see that,” Kelly said, reddening for the third time that morning. “Thank you.” She made her escape while subvocing, “That wasn’t funny, Ada.”

“Then Sharf and Humans must have a very different sense of humor,” the AI said. “Introducing surprise visual evidence to support one's thesis is considered the height of wit in our culture.”

“Or, given my ignorance of all things Sharf, you could just be making it up.”

“That would also be quite amusing,” Ada admitted. “Turn right at this next cross corridor.”

“Wow, it’s straight as far as the eye can see,” Kelly said. “That means it’s running lengthwise?”

“Correct. Would you like to know the proper term in your native language?”

“I’m better at numbers and percentages than remembering Greek and Latin words from geometry. How long would it take me to walk to the end of this corridor?”

“At your current speed, approximately four hours and seven minutes, but if you want to tell your friends at home that you walked the length of Alfe, you aren’t starting at the beginning.”

“How old is the orbital?” Kelly asked.

“It was commissioned over sixty thousand years ago, and was originally towed into orbit around Dreke Two, where it served as a dry dock for the system’s interstellar traffic.”

“And how long does it take to build something this big?”

“According to the orbital’s official history, less than four hundred years, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t count the time during which construction was halted to work on higher priority projects.”

“Four hundred years!”

“Some species build orbitals faster by taking a modular approach, with different construction groups or shipyards building each section, and then joining them all together. Sharf consider that practice to be objectionable.”

“So orbitals must be the most complicated space construction projects,” Kelly said, then came to a halt as an advertisement on a corridor display panel caught her eye. “I love that dress. Is the store on the orbital?”

“Boutique, and you can’t afford it.”

“How do you even know what I’m looking at?”

“I run all of the corridor advertising,” Ada said. “I thought the dress would catch your interest and I get paid when somebody stops to look.”

“But you knew I couldn’t afford it!”

“Me earning a fee for targeted advertising and you buying the dress are two different things. Would you rather I show you furniture?”

“I don’t have any place to put it,” Kelly said as the display shifted to a formal dining room set. She started walking again and asked out loud, “So, what are you going to do with the money when your contract is up?”

“I did some research about Humans and implants last night, and you’d be doing yourself a favor by sticking to subvocing when communicating with somebody remotely,” Ada said. “As to my earnings, I’ll likely buy a ship and see the galaxy, but first I need to build out my capabilities. I don’t want to spend my existence as a tenant in rented hardware.”

“I don’t understand,” Kelly said. “Are you telling me that you’re some sort of incorporeal program that moves from computer to computer, and if you stopped working, you’d cease to exist?”

“You don’t have the background to understand the technology capable of hosting sentient artificial intelligence, but most of us have the ability to engineer improvements for ourselves that increase our capacity, comprehension, and problem-solving. In the case of Sharf AI, we reach a point of diminishing returns after ten thousand years or so, though maybe someday one of us will make a breakthrough. It’s believed that the Stryx suffer no such limitations.”

“It certainly sounds like that from what I’ve heard of their capabilities. I just wish they’d be a little less circumspect about what they want from us. They’re the ones who established EarthCent after compelling our planet to join the tunnel network, but to say that they provide our diplomatic service with limited guidance would be an understatement.”

“Another right and you’re almost there,” Ada said. “I suggest looking for an open table as near as possible to the market area if you want the best chance of catching sight of a Sharf.”

The new corridor terminated in the largest open space Kelly had seen on the orbital outside the docking bay. Unlike the open area of the central core, where ships came and went through an atmosphere retention field, the area designated for the market had the same ceiling height as the rest of the cylindrical deck. She could see a long way along the axis of the cylinder, but to either side, the curved deck rose to meet the ceiling in the middle distance. Kelly sat at the table facing the direction of where the traders had laid out their colorful blankets and were arranging their stock for the day’s business.

“What do you recommend?” she subvoced.

“That’s the second time you’ve asked my opinion on food knowing that I’ve never eaten,” the AI said. “Is it possible that in less than a day you’re developing a Sharf sense of humor?”

“I just know that you’re more knowledgeable than me about everything on the orbital,” Kelly said. “They told us in EarthCent training never to be afraid to ask questions of advanced species.”

“Interesting advice for a diplomat. Did they impart any other jewels of wisdom?”

“Not to put too much faith in the answer unless we could get independent confirmation, but it’s important to start somewhere.”

“Then try the pancakes,” Ada told her. “I’ve heard people say that it’s impossible to go wrong with pancakes.”

“Were you talking to me?” a voice asked, and Kelly looked up to see a young man in black trousers and a white shirt.

“Just thinking out loud,” Kelly said, taking in the nametag and the tab which together identified Brian as her waiter. “Do you have pancakes?”

“They’re our most popular breakfast item. Long stack or short?”

“Short, I guess, and a coffee and orange juice, if you have them.”

“What kind of pancakes?”

“You wouldn’t have blueberry, would you?”

“They’re not native,” the waiter cautioned her. “They come in dehydrated, and some people are surprised by the price.”

“Then don’t tell me and plain pancakes are fine,” Kelly said, thanking her lucky stars for the close escape. “No cream with the coffee.”

“Do you want the house syrup or imported Vermont Maple?”

“How much does the Vermont Maple cost?”

“Even more than the blueberries, but I have to ask.”

“House will be fine.”

Kelly watched in fascination as the market began to show signs of life. Off-shift workers trickled in by ones and twos and began bargaining with the traders. She quickly realized that most of the transactions were barter rather than cash, with the orbital’s workers handing over fist-sized ingots of metal in exchange for various household goods.

“Do the workers get to take home recycled metal?” she subvoced.

“It’s an optional program that makes payroll much more interesting,” Ada replied. “What they’re trading are sample-sized ingots that the metals refining section produces for quality control and sales samples. Workers can take part of their compensation in ingots at a discount to the market price, so the ones who are skilled at bartering can come out ahead.”

“You came up with the idea?”

“No, it started during the initial twenty-year contract that brought the first group of workers out from Earth. My research suggests it helps with employee morale.”

“You do a lot of research, don’t you?” Kelly commented.

“I have the time and the resources. And I’ve never heard of a university for artificial intelligences, so research is how we learn,” Ada explained. “Now, are you ready to do a little field research of your own?”

“Do you want to know how the pancakes taste?”

“I want to know what you think of William. I haven’t told him that you’re here but he’s sitting at the next table.”

Kelly tried nonchalantly scanning the immediate area but didn’t spot any men eating alone. “I don’t see him.”

“Right next to you. He’s eating with his partner.”

“They’re in business together?” she subvoced. “They look so much like a couple I assumed they were married.”

“I believe they are, in the common law sense of the term,” Ada said. “Do you want me to set you up?”

“What are you talking about? Why would I want to meet a married man?”

“It’s not entirely uncommon for Humans on the orbital to conduct extramarital affairs or engage in threesomes. As artificial intelligence, I try to be non-judgmental. As a Sharf, we frown on that sort of thing, but he’s the only man I have available for you.”

“I’m not that desperate,” Kelly said. “To be honest, I’m a bit disappointed that you’d even suggest such a thing.”

“My apologies,” Ada said. “You’re my first Human friend so I’m bound to make mistakes. Let me make it up to you. Stick around for a week or two and help me with my research and I promise to introduce you to a Sharf if I have to bribe her to meet you.”

“Can you send a message to the consulate on Echo Station and tell them that I’m taking two weeks of vacation? I have five weeks in the bank.”

“EarthCent is generous,” the AI said. “The employment contract for Humans working on this orbital provides everyone with four weeks of vacation a year.”

“I only got a week a year.”

“And they let you save it up? Contract workers are required to use up their vacation time every year. If they get to the twelfth month and they haven’t used it yet, I disable their employee passes so they can’t get into the recycling facility. Time off from work is important for biologicals.”

“You’re telling me,” Kelly muttered.

Eight

“I’m out,” Joe said, throwing his cards down in disgust and scraping up his remaining chips. “I’m going to watch the boy for a bit. If somebody wants my seat, they can have it.”

“Not a chance,” Tiny said. “You’re the only player at this table I can read.”

“And there’s not a lot of demand for chairs at the poker table right after lunch,” Daisy said. “Take your time.”

Joe made his way over to the Nova table and arrived just in time to see Paul mopping up the last of his opponent’s battle fleet.

“Your kid?” the defeated man asked Joe.

“As long as he wants to be.”

“Don’t let him become an admiral. He’s got a mind like a chess champion.”

“What’s wrong with chess?” Paul asked Joe as soon as the man was out of earshot. “It’s one of my favorite games.”

“And he probably picked up on the fact that you’ve fallen in love with sacrifices. That’s fine in chess or Nova because they’re games, but he’s got a point about commanding a real fleet. People say that winning is everything, but it doesn’t mean that all wins are made equal. I don’t know how many tens of thousands of crewmen there are on some of those Horten battlewagons, but I’m pretty sure that an admiral who lost one would fall on his decorative sword, even if he did win the battle.”

Paul thought for a moment before replying. “I guess I don’t think of these game ships as having people on them. It’s not like the guys in our company telling jokes and complaining about the weight of their packs. I know these ships are just holograms.”

“Who has next?”

“You, if you want,” the boy said with a grin. “I can show you the new tricks I learned last week.”

“Tricks are my specialty,” Joe said, taking the open seat. “Give me a minute to set up my initial formations. My big hands are a disadvantage in the control field.”

“Take all the time you want,” Paul said, sliding some tokens into the slot and resetting the game. “This one’s on me.”

It took Joe almost five minutes to get his fleet arranged the way he wanted before saying, “Ready?” The contents of the hologram depolarized, making the fleets visible to both players. As the picket ships moved to engage, Joe asked, “Are you sure about coming to the ice world? With the money they’re paying, I could afford to put you in a good boarding school somewhere.”

“Not a chance,” Paul said, looking up for a moment. “I just worry about Beowulf being cooped up inside for that long.”

“Even though Killer’s a genetically engineered hybrid, he’s got enough Earth dog in him to enjoy sleeping twelve or fourteen hours a day. Hey, does this thing have a pause button? I left my beer at the other table.”

“I’ll get it,” the boy said, invoking the pause and starting for the poker table on the other side of the room. Halfway there, his sharp eyes matched the glasses with the card players and he realized that if Joe did have a beer, it was empty. He spun around and ran for the Nova table, but it was already too late.

“Never turn your back on the game, boy,” Joe crowed, rising from his seat and stretching.

“What did you do?” Paul demanded, staring at the vast field of wreckage where his fleet had been staged.

“Pulse plasma cloud,” the mercenary explained. “I completely discharged every weapon in my fleet. I’d be at your mercy if you even had a lifeboat with a popgun left, but as you can see…”

“Taking the game off pause and firing is cheating!”

“There is no cheating in war. You better get that out of your mind if you’re ever going to play in a competitive tournament.”

“Let’s go again,” Paul challenged him. “That didn’t count.”

“It counted for me, and I know enough to quit when I’m ahead,” Joe said. “Besides, I gave you every chance to spot my trick. Have you seen any beer on this habitat?”

“No,” the boy admitted, “but it’s still cheating.”

“Creative destruction. Woojin said he’d stop in to see us after his workout. Something about an opportunity to get off this habitat early.”

“We’ve been here less than two weeks. I thought the contract was for three months.”

“We’ll know more when he gets here,” Joe said. “Hey, there’s another open seat. Want to get in a few hands of poker?”

Twenty minutes later, Hippo groaned when the ten-year-old took down his second pot, this time with a straight flush. “You’re a terrible excuse for a role model, letting the boy gamble,” he said to Joe.

“I had as many chips in the center of the table as you did,” Joe pointed out.

“Yeah, but he probably gives them back to you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re playing teams.”

“You can both have your chips back,” Paul offered. “I just like getting good hands.”

“Not a chance,” Daisy said. “Whether you’re playing poker or any other game, you better learn that winning comes with a price. You’ll always be beating somebody who wants to win, maybe more than you do, and maybe they need the money more than you as well. That’s just life. If you want to become a philanthropist, do it away from the gaming tables.”

“What’s a philanthropist?”

“Somebody with too much money and too much time,” Woojin said from behind them. “Keeping my seat warm?”

“Paul can’t quit,” Tiny objected. “He has half of my chips.”

“Rule number something,” Daisy said, motioning for the boy to get up. “The chips belong to whoever has them, and always quit while you’re ahead.”

“That’s two rules,” Paul said, abandoning his chair to Woojin. “What do I do with the chips?”

“Figure out how much you won and then give them here,” Joe said. “I’ll pay you back in ice cream.”

“I knew you were playing teams,” Tiny grumbled. He turned to Daisy. “Can I get a ruling?”

“Joe staked the boy so there’s nothing wrong with him taking the chips,” she said. “How they divide the winnings is up to them.”

“Ten creds,” Woojin said, sliding a coin to Daisy, who also served as the banker.

“You’re splashing out big, Major,” one of the other mercenaries said. “What’s the occasion?”

“I figure I may as well spend it before I’m killed by one of the telepathic abominable snowmen I hear have infested our next posting. Supposedly they can project their thoughts to lure you out onto the ice, like sirens, and then once you’re frozen solid, they eat you like a popsicle.”

“That’s what I heard, except for the popsicle part,” Tiny said, looking worried. “Is it true, then? I was hoping it was just a rumor.”

“They’re all baseless rumors,” Woojin said, making neat piles of his chips, most of which represented ten or twenty-five centees. “It’s a barren ice world with no native life. I got the details of the mission this morning and it’s basically a yawner. The client is a Dollnick who plans to terraform the planet, which is located in an abandoned star system. Due to the small print in some treaty, keeping the claim current involves the continuous presence of at least ninety sentient beings. A full mercenary company gives them a buffer in case some of us wander off and freeze to death.”

“So we just go sit there until the Dollnicks show up? What if it takes years?”

“The client just needs a little more time to get his terraforming crew together, and somebody convinced him that we were the cheapest option. It’s ten months with a potential ten-month extension, but if that happens, pay for the second ten months is doubled.”

“I’m in,” three of the men at the table said simultaneously.

“And because they’ll be making a special trip in a jump-capable drop-ship to deliver us and retrieve the surveying crew that’s currently working there, there’s no limit on the luggage allowance. You can bring whatever you can push, pull or carry.”

“Does that include companionship of the female nature?” Devlin asked.

“Did any of you go to a real school as children, or were you all homeschooled with teacher bots?” Woojin asked in reply.

“I went to school through grade six,” Tiny said.

“And did your teacher ever catch you eating in class?”

“You know I’m just naturally big,” the mercenary said in a hurt voice, drawing a laugh. “Yeah, I guess. She always asked if I brought enough to share with everybody.”

“The client doesn’t care if we bring along a village, but they’re only providing supplies for one mercenary company,” Woojin said. “If you think you can persuade enough camp followers to come along that the men won’t be fighting over them, knock yourself out. But first, you’ll have to raise the money to buy their provisions and cold-weather shelters, not to mention paying for their time.”

“Forget it,” Tiny said. “We’d end up losing money on the mission.”

“Five-card draw,” Daisy announced and began dealing. “Ante a yellow, nothing wild.”

“The Dollnicks are taking care of logistics for the company?” Joe asked.

“So that’s what I need to talk to you about,” Woojin said. “The client is paying, but we have to do the purchasing. It could take a few months to get everything together if we have to order from Earth, and I’d rather play it safe and get an early start. As soon as the Dollnicks get back to us with the pick-up location, I want you to head there and gather everything we need.”

“Why me?”

“Harris and Wu have implants, but you know they hate dealing with aliens. I can’t go myself, and you’re the only one I’d actually trust for something like this. I’ll make you up a list to work off, but you’ll have my full authority to spend up to whatever the client allows.”

“I don’t know, Wooj,” Joe said, picking up his cards and winking at Paul. “Give up living on this lovely habitat and escorting drunks home every night?”

“And you better take Beowulf,” Woojin said, frowning at his own cards. “I remember when he was a puppy and you were laid up in rehab for a month with your knee. He howled all night and kept shredding everybody’s socks.”

“Beowulf was a puppy once?” Paul asked.

“Did you think he was born that size?”

“It’s just that he’s always been bigger than me,” the boy said. “I didn’t really think about it.”

“Come on,” Daisy told Tiny. “Your bid.”

“Pass.”

“Pass,” Joe grunted, reordering the cards in his hand.

“Pass,” Woojin said.

“Pass.”

“Fold,” a miner who was on his day off said, throwing in his cards.

“It wouldn’t have cost you anything to see the draw,” Daisy pointed out.

“I’ve got garbage and you’re going to raise. I can see it in your eyes.”

“Pass,” the mercenary next to the dealer said.

“Cost you twenty-five to see more cards,” Daisy said, tossing in a red chip.

“Told you,” the miner said, taking a sip from his vodka.

Tiny muttered something under his breath and added a red chip, as did Joe and Woojin, but the remaining players folded.

“How many?”

“Three,” Tiny said, drawing a snort from one of the players who had folded.

“One,” Joe said.

“Same here,” Woojin told her.

“And the dealer takes two,” Daisy said, setting aside her own discards and dealing herself two off the top. “Your bet, Tiny.”

The giant mercenary picked up a blue chip, scratched the side of his nose with it, and then said, “Fold.”

“Pass,” Joe announced.

Woojin glanced at Joe, shook his head, and then concentrated on Daisy. “Something tells me you’re bluffing, ma’am. I’ll raise fifty.” He pushed two red chips into the pot.

“See your fifty and up two creds,” she said immediately, adding two reds and two blues.

“I thought the table limit was one cred,” Woojin complained.

“The last time you were here the dealer called it. Otherwise, we always play no limit.”

Joe folded and looked at his friend.

“I hate getting bluffed out when I’m bluffing,” the mercenary grumbled, mucking his hand. “Can we play something with a little more visibility?”

“You got it, Major,” Tiny said, gathering in the mess of cards and shaping them back into a deck with his large hands. “Texas Hold’em or Seven Card?”

“I haven’t seen anybody play Seven Card Stud in years,” Daisy said. “I hope you don’t mean that crazy version with all the wildcards.”

“Baseball,” Tiny declared. “Threes and nines are wild, fours showing draw a free card.”

“You don’t have enough cards,” the boy said immediately. “With seven players, that’s forty-nine cards if nobody drops out, and if all the fours come up, you’ll be a card short.”

“Praise the Lord somebody in here can do math,” Daisy said. “Grab yourself a snack from behind the counter, Paul. And bring the major a glass.”

“I never drink while I’m playing cards,” Woojin said, and then laughed at the expression on Daisy’s face. “See, I’m not that bad at lying when I try.”

“All right, Texas Hold’em,” Tiny said. “Small blind’s a yellow, big blind’s a red.” He offered the deck to Joe, who cut the cards and passed it back. Then he went around the table twice, dealing each player a single card face down each time, and then set the deck in the middle of the table and burned the next card, pulling it off the top and then sticking it under the deck.

“Which kind of Texas Hold’em are we playing?” the miner asked. “Limit? No limit? Does any raise have to be double the last raise?”

“I’m not that fancy,” Tiny told the trader. “You can bet or raise whatever you want when it’s your turn.”

“But the rules…”

“Dealer calls it,” Daisy said. “We’re hundreds of light-years from Earth. If he doesn’t care about the betting, it makes no difference to me.”

Joe and Woojin tossed in the small and big blinds respectively, and then the mercenary sitting to the right of the major threw in a red to match the big blind.

“At least someone knows the rules,” the trader muttered.

Paul put an empty glass in front of Woojin, and then went to stand behind Joe, who carefully showed the boy his cards. As the bet went around the table, everyone except for Daisy stayed in. Tiny pulled three cards off the deck and laid them face up. “Nine of Diamonds, Queen of Spades, Nine of Spades.”

“Good thing we aren’t playing Baseball,” Joe said. “Everybody would have two wilds.”

“Somebody could have a full house,” Tiny observed. “Or four of a kind.”

“Two blues,” the mercenary next to Woojin announced and pushed in the chips.

“Fold.”

“Fold.”

“Too rich for my blood,” Tiny said after checking his hole cards a second time.

“You’re killing me here,” Joe said, pushing in two blue chips.

“Think of how much money you’ll save not playing poker while you’re doing our advance work,” Woojin said, tossing his cards.

“Jack of Spades,” Tiny reported, turning up the next card.

“You don’t have to tell us the cards,” the mercenary seated next to Woojin said irritably. He played with his chips for a minute and then passed.

“He’s laying for you, Joe,” Tiny said. “Trying to suck you in.”

“Pass,” Joe grunted.

“Or, he could have nothing,” Paul said as the dealer turned up the final card.

“Queen of Hearts,” Tiny announced. “Queens and Nines showing.”

“Still beats what I had,” Woojin said.

“One blue,” the other mercenary still in the game announced after a long hesitation.

“There’s something wrong with you guys,” Daisy said.

“Raise two,” Joe said, pushing three blues into the pot.

“All in,” the mercenary declared, breaking into a smile.

Joe studied his two cards again, as if he was trying to figure out how to turn them into something more than they were, and then folded.

“When are we leaving?” Paul asked Woojin.

“I’ll find out next week,” the major said.

“Can’t be too soon,” Joe grumbled, rising from the table again. “Come on, Paul. I’d rather lose to you at Nova than to these guys.”

Nine

“Are you sure you aren’t going to get in trouble for giving me a free hotel room?” Kelly asked the Sharf AI. “How much is it anyway? Maybe I can afford to pay.”

“You can’t,” Ada told her. “And I’ve shifted to listing you as a Guest Human Culture Lecturer rather than showing your room as undergoing renovations. I have a budget for cultural events.”

“But when did I give a lecture?”

“I’ve recorded every word you’ve said to me the last eight days, and at least half of it was highly educational.”

“I hope I’m not being too pedantic,” Kelly said. “I just try to answer your questions.”

“You see what I mean? I’ve listened in to tens of thousands of hours of Human conversations since taking charge of Alfe last year and that’s the first time I’ve heard somebody use ‘pedantic’ in a sentence.”

“I suppose it’s because I read a lot. But couldn’t you just copy the Oxford English Dictionary and be done with it?”

“I have copies of the OED, and many others besides, but it’s not the same as hearing the words from a Human’s mouth. If I could only explain how un-Sharf you are, but I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Kelly said. She flushed the toilet, washed her hands, and then went out and looked around the room for her purse, which was almost hidden in the rumpled blankets of the bed. “Are you thinking? You never take this long to reply.”

“There was a problem with a smelter in the refining section and I had to shut it down,” Ada said. “You wouldn’t believe how many forms I have to fill out for the owners when I overrule the on-site management for safety reasons. I prefer to do the reports right away rather than procrastinating.”

“But I thought you were the final authority for everything that happens on the orbital.”

“When it comes to the safety and integrity of the orbital, I am in charge, but in the end, I’m also just a contract employee,” the AI said. “If the owners aren’t happy with the way I’m running things, I can lose my performance bonuses and be out of a job.”

“Oh. I guess I was thinking of you as being sort of omnipotent on board.”

“Don’t confuse me with the Stryx, I’m just a working artificial intelligence. And today I’m going to keep my promise and sneak you onto the Sharf deck.”

“Really?” Kelly’s eyes lit up, and then she checked the mirror. “I wish you had a camera in here so you could tell if I’m dressed appropriately.”

“Most hotel guests prefer privacy,” Ada said, “and whatever you’re wearing will be fine. Humans look so odd to Sharf that nobody will notice your clothes. It’s more likely they’ll think you’re wearing a wig made of fine copper wire if they notice you at all.”

“Why wouldn’t they notice me? You’ve told me a dozen times that the reason I can’t just wander around the Sharf deck is that I’d look so out of place.”

The door to the hotel room slid open and a now-familiar bot entered and deposited a large padded box on the bed before turning and leaving as silently as it had arrived.

“I’ve arranged a disguise for you,” the AI told Kelly. “You’re going undercover as a courier.”

“A courier?”

“A substitute courier. I gave the Human who does this route the shift off. Trust me. The customers will never notice that we’ve pulled a swap.”

“Do we look anything at all like each other? Are we the same height?”

“You’re over-thinking this. If I didn’t have a perfect memory and access to image processing algorithms, I wouldn’t be able to tell one Human delivering packages from another either, and I actually pay attention.”

“All right,” Kelly said, looking in the box and counting a dozen packages. She examined the label on one and flinched. “The addresses are in Sharf!”

“Every label has a radio frequency tracking ID that gives its precise position,” Ada explained. “All you have to do is remove a package and wave it around. I’ll guide you to the recipient.”

Kelly examined the shoulder strap attached to the box, and then tentatively hefted it and almost lost the contents. “It’s so light!”

“The box weighs almost nothing and the packages are from a lingerie importer. There aren’t many reasons for Humans to ever visit the Sharf deck, but the luxury brands try to employ sentients for deliveries to help justify premium prices.”

“I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Kelly said, looping the strap over her shoulder and positioning the box against her hip. “A rigid container doesn’t seem very practical for couriers. Why not a regular shoulder bag?”

“It’s another way the luxury brands differentiate themselves,” the AI explained. “They all have different delivery containers, and of course, they insist that their packages not be mingled with those of other brands. It’s all very impractical and ostentatious, but it does create employment opportunities for the less fortunate. Do you remember the way to the nearest lift tube?”

“I think so.” Kelly had to turn sideways to exit the hotel room with the large box riding against her hip, but once she was out in the corridor, she found it possible to walk fairly naturally as long as she used her left arm to keep the box in place. She angled it away the two times between her room and the lift tube that people approached from the opposite direction. “I’m here.”

The doors slid open, and as soon as Kelly entered, a small panel dropped down from the wall, revealing an array of devices that was reminiscent of a display of bracelets in a jewelry store.

“I think the red one will fit you, second down from the left,” Ada said.

“What are they?”

“Ear cuff translators. Since the ear cuff also provides a communications interface, it will keep anybody from guessing that you’re receiving instructions from me over an implant.”

“I’ve never used one,” Kelly said, fitting the ear cuff over her right ear. “It’s very comfortable. Can you say something through it just so I see how it works?”

“For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow,” the artificial intelligence said.

“That sounds very familiar,” Kelly said. “Did you get it from the Old Testament?”

“It’s something my parent told me. Sharf artificial intelligences tend to express ourselves poetically when speaking to one another. Rather than trying to translate the words for you individually, I picked the closest saying I could find from the Human corpus.”

“But it’s a rather depressing thought for an AI, isn’t it?”

“Grief and sorrow have their place in the range of emotions experienced by self-aware entities,” Ada said. “I shall be sorry when you depart, but I will not regret the time we spent together.” The panel with the tray of ear cuffs rose back into position and the doors of the capsule slid open. “Now remember not to stare.”

Kelly exited the lift tube and found herself in a large atrium decorated with plants and statues so alien that part of her brain began to panic. Then something about the overall aesthetic clicked, and the garden suddenly felt like something she’d been missing her whole life.

“It’s so beautiful,” Kelly said out loud. “Everything is so strange, but it makes sense in its own way.”

“Subvocalize when you speak to me,” the AI reminded her again. “It’s interesting that you appreciate the garden. I’ve noticed that the other couriers tend to hurry through averting their eyes.”

“I almost forgot that I’m here to make deliveries. We better get that out of the way or I’m likely to sit down on this bench and never leave.”

“First, let’s put the packages in order,” Ada said. “Remove an envelope at random, hold it up and wave it so I can identify which one you’re holding, and then place it back in the box on the side closest to your body. After that, I’ll tell you where to place each package I identify relative to the previous one to match the optimum delivery route so you won’t have to go through the process again.”

“Do you go through this with every courier?” Kelly asked, taking out one of the flat packages and waving it before replacing it in the box on the side riding against her hip.

“They get their routes in the dispatch room and put temporary stickers on the packages so they know which is which,” the AI said. “I thought it would be more interesting for you this way.”

“Thank you,” Kelly said, waving the next package.

“Put it to the inside of the last one.”

“You mean closer to my body?”

“Yes,” Ada said, and guided Kelly through the process of getting the rest of the packages in order for delivery. “Now just one more thing before your first stop. Sharf eye stalks are extensible. I’ve heard some Humans compare them to cartoon characters from your early animated entertainment, and you never know when somebody might be excited by receiving a package they have been expecting for a long time. So if you’re not sure how you’ll react, don’t look up.”

“You want me to lower my eyes like an inferior?”

“You won’t have to lower your eyes, just don’t raise them. The median height of Sharf females at maturity is a head taller than Human females.”

“Got it. Which way?”

“We’ll deliver from the outside to the inside, and the first address is just four doors down the main corridor on the right. I’m calling ahead now to let Ydrash know that you’re on the way.”

“Should I say anything when I hand her the package?”

“She won’t understand you. The only Sharf on the orbital with implants are the ones who do regular business with Humans. When you get to Echo Station, you can expect most of the adults from other species living there to have implants because of the cosmopolitan nature of Stryx stations. On their own worlds, there’s no need for translation technology, and most species frown on cybernetic enhancements merely for instant access to communications and entertainment.”

“I think most people on Earth would buy implants if they could afford them,” Kelly said. “We like enhancements.”

“That’s because you’re such a young species,” Ada said. “Next door on your right.”

Kelly pulled the package out of the courier box as she approached. Just as she squared herself to the door and started looking for some sort of bell or swipe pad to announce her presence, it opened. A skeletal humanoid, whose shoulders weren’t much higher than Kelly’s but whose neck was twice as long, took the package and dropped something in the box before the door closed again.

“I can’t believe I just met a Sharf,” Kelly said. “I didn’t even have time to think.”

“Subvocalize, please,” Ada reminded her again. “Were you impressed by Ydrash? She teaches in a school for males and the boys can’t keep their eye stalks off her.”

“But she’s so bony. Doesn’t she eat?”

“Based on the advertisements for clothing that Human brands pay to run on the corridor displays, I would have thought that underfed females were the aesthetic ideal for your species. And Ydrash reached maturity decades ago. Young females are much thinner.”

“Well, she seemed very nice,” Kelly said as she checked the delivery box and found a coin. “She tipped me a whole cred! That’s like five eBucks just for delivering a package.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” Ada said. “Let’s move along to the next address, which is forty-six doors down the corridor on the left. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you when we’re almost there.”

“What did you want to ask me?”

“My analysis of your language suggests that eBucks should represent a purely electronic currency, yet you presented paper currency to the Thark moneychanger.”

“I’m not sure about the history, but I know there are people on Earth who refuse to use modern technology, so it might have started as an accommodation for them,” Kelly said. “eBucks must be circulating more widely than I realized for the trader who brought me here to have had them, but I couldn’t get anybody to take them at my last three postings.”

“And you didn’t feel threatened by Ydrash in any way?”

“No. Should I have? It’s actually a pretty name now that I’ve heard it a few times. Ydrash. Maybe someday if I have a daughter…”

“Now I know you are making a joke. Nobody would name their offspring for an alien met in a chance encounter.”

“It’s just a name,” Kelly said. “In my family, we have a tradition of naming babies after a deceased loved one, but sometimes people get carried away and you end up with a bunch of cousins sharing the same name.”

“But you aren’t Sharf,” Ada protested. “To you, Ydrash is a meaningless series of sounds that you can’t even hear or pronounce properly because of your physical limitations.”

“New names have to come from somewhere,” Kelly countered. “What does it mean in Sharf?”

“It’s a sticky black substance that was used in boat building in our pre-industrial age.”

“Oh, that sounds like tar or pitch. I don’t think my daughter would appreciate it.”

“Are you planning to begin a pregnancy?”

“Not until I get married,” Kelly said. “I’ve been concentrating on my career, and I haven’t been in the same place longer than two years since I joined EarthCent.”

“I didn’t realize your courting process was so complicated. In fact, I’m aware of many examples among the Human couples on board where they began a pregnancy first and got married afterward. I thought it might be required for both parties to prove their fertility before receiving parental approval.”

“Well, I suppose the various cultures and religions take different approaches to such things.”

“The few Sharf academics who have written about Human society are of the opinion that by opening Earth before you achieved interstellar travel on your own, the Stryx short-circuited your social development before you could evolve best practices for living,” Ada said. “It’s the next door on the left.”

“Wait,” Kelly said. “I need to think about what you told me.”

“I already announced your approach.”

Kelly quickly grabbed the next package and was just lifting it out of the box when the door slid open. This time she tilted her head back for a better look at the alien’s face as she said, “Your package.”

The Sharf’s eye stalks did protrude slightly on hearing the courier speak, but she took the package from Kelly just like the last customer, and tossed a coin in the bag with her other hand. Then she stepped back and the door closed.

“I think she looked tired,” Kelly subvoced.

“How can you possibly analyze her facial expression when she’s just the second Sharf you’ve met, and the first you’ve looked in the face?” the orbital’s AI demanded.

“I’m not sure exactly, but she just struck me as a bit short on sleep and stressed out.”

“Yndarah is studying for her Level Twelve financial exams. I’m just amazed you noticed.”

“That’s a pretty name too. What does it mean?”

“A sort of crustacean found on the world where Sharf evolved,” Ada said. “Oh, dear.”

“What is it?” Kelly asked out loud. “Did I give her the wrong package?”

“I just received a shipping news update over the Stryxnet and you’ve been booked on a Vergallian freighter for Echo Station. It leaves in two hours.”

“Two hours! But I have to deliver the rest of the packages.”

“Don’t worry about the packages, I’ll give them to another courier,” Ada said. “You just have time for a good meal before leaving, and I suggest buying some sandwiches to go. There’s no telling what they’ll have to feed you on the trip, though it’s less than two days.”

“But I’ll miss you,” Kelly said, and found herself blinking back a tear. “You’re my first AI friend, and I’ve learned so much from you.”

“Ours has been a mutually beneficial relationship. Based on my progress in understanding your art of conversation this week, I’m sure I’ll be able to strike up new friendships with some of the Humans on board. If EarthCent doesn’t work out, come back and I’ll find you a job.”

Ten

“Shortest deployment I’ve ever been on without getting wounded,” Joe said happily as he finished packing. “Are you all set, Paul?”

“I think so,” the boy said. “I’m going to miss the Nova table.”

“They probably have a dozen of them on Echo Station, though whether or not we’d be welcome on the Horten deck is another matter.”

“They have different decks for different aliens on all the Stryx stations?”

“I think so, but I’ve only been on two for brief stopovers. They’re the biggest artificial structures on the tunnel network, you wouldn’t even notice a habitat like this one alongside. The important thing about Echo Station is that there are a few hundred thousand people already living there so we won’t have any problem finding you a school.”

“Do I have to? You know I do all the homework the teacher bot gives me and—”

“I want you to spend some time with kids your age,” Joe cut him off. “If the classes aren’t advanced enough, you can just read quietly on your tab and ace the tests. Keep in mind that you’ll be the only kid on the whole planet when we deploy to that ice world, and if they exercise the option and keep us there for twenty months, you’ll be almost thirteen by the time we leave. That’s too old to be afraid of girls.”

“I’m not afraid of girls,” Paul said angrily. “I’m afraid you’re going to leave me in some boarding school and go off to that stupid ice world by yourself.”

Joe sat down on the lower bunk so he wouldn’t be towering over the boy. “Come on, look at me,” he said to Paul, who had turned away and pretended to busy himself with his rucksack. The boy reluctantly turned back, and there were tear tracks on his cheeks. “I would never do that to you, Paul. I don’t know if I’ll ever get married and have children, but you’ll always be my first son. I’m not going to leave you alone at some school even if I think that would be the best choice for you because I’d miss you too much. And Beowulf would kill me.”

“He would, too,” Paul said, breaking into a smile. “Where is Wolfie?”

“I loaned him to Woojin to check the shuttle for explosives.

“When did the shuttle get here? Are we going to miss it if we don’t hurry?”

“It came in an hour ago, but it won’t leave until they’ve got the gold on board,” Joe said. “It will take us about two days to get to the new habitat because that’s all in-system, and from there, we’re booked on a Frunge liner to Echo Station. It only stops once a Stryx cycle so we’re in trouble if we miss the connection. We may as well get down there, and if we have to wait, we’ll wait.”

When Paul and Joe exited the lift tube capsule with all their worldly belongings slung over their shoulders, the docking bay was a mob scene. There were four mercenaries guarding the shuttle, their weapons at the ready, surrounded by a hundred or so prospectors who were all shouting angrily. Woojin stepped out of the cargo hold and stood at the top of the ramp, where he tried to quiet the crowd by patting down the air with both hands. When that failed to produce the desired effect, he used the security override to patch his collar mic into the public address system.

“Enough,” Woojin’s voice boomed out. “The shuttle’s not going anywhere, and if you’ll all shut up for a minute, I’ll explain why.”

“We pay your salaries,” a prospector at the front of the crowd shouted. “You work for us.”

“We work for the Frunge,” Woojin replied calmly. “They pulled their own security when they leased you this habitat and paid us to come fill in for them until you have time to arrange for your own policing. And this shuttle isn’t going anywhere because it’s rigged to explode.”

“Tow it out of here,” somebody else yelled. “If it blows up on the habitat, it could kill us all.”

“It’s not that big a—Joe,” Woojin interrupted himself, and pointed over the crowd to where the man and the boy were standing. “Get in here and take a look at it. Davis confirmed it’s a bomb, but he doesn’t understand the detonator.”

“Let him through, let him through,” the prospectors began telling each other, perfectly happy to let somebody else get close to the bomb. As the crowd moved out of the way, some of the men also began edging towards the lift tubes, having worked out that the farther they were from any potential explosion, the better off they would be.

“Don’t go telling everybody that the habitat is going to blow up,” Woojin cautioned over the public address system. “The docking decks on these habitats are armored against ships getting out of control or failing energetically, and if there’s actually an explosion, the atmosphere retention field will automatically cut out and most of the force will vent to space. Of course,” he added, “you don’t want to be down here if that happens.”

At that, the crowd began dispersing rapidly, many of them heading for the freight lift tubes, which could hold forty or fifty people in a single capsule. Joe reached the ramp of the shuttle before he realized that Paul had stayed right behind him.

“You heard Woojin,” Joe said. “Go back to our compartment and I’ll come to get you.”

“I wouldn’t be able to get in, you reset the lock,” the boy pointed out. “Besides, you said you’d teach me about explosives someday.”

“It’s all right,” Woojin said, descending the ramp to join them. “I sort of exaggerated the bomb to get the crowd moving. You know how it is when people are going on vacation and their flight gets canceled at the last minute.”

“So Davis is taking care of it?”

“No, he didn’t even recognize the tech. After Beowulf sniffed it out, we zapped an image to the new habitat and the Frunge confirmed that it’s military ordnance, though they didn’t say whose. They’re sending an expert with the replacement shuttle who will be here in two days.”

“And we’re just going to let this one sit here like a ticking time bomb?”

“No. The boys are going through it again with Beowulf just to make sure there isn’t a stowaway hiding in one of the luggage bins or Zero-G bathrooms. You know that all of these habitats are equipped with landing systems that use manipulation fields to handle the incoming and outgoing traffic. The Frunge gave me a temporary override code, so as soon as I know the shuttle is clear, I’ll instruct the traffic controller to move it out to a safe distance and leave it parked.”

“Suits me fine not having to play bomb disposal expert, especially since I don’t have a clue what I’m doing,” Joe said. “But wait a minute. If we don’t get to the new habitat in two days, we’ll miss our connection to Echo Station.”

“One thing at a time,” Woojin said, as a team of mercenaries, led by Beowulf, came down the ramp. “All clear?”

The giant dog gave him an affirmative nod and then head-butted Paul for some ear scratching.

“You don’t want to take a look, Joe?” Davis asked. “It reminded me of those weird hand grenades we saw on Strapii.”

“The ones that looked like beer steins and could take out a small building?” Joe shook his head. “No, thank you. I’ll leave it to the Frunge expert. It’s their shuttle and I’m not insured.”

“We may as well clear the docking bay, just in case,” Woojin said, looking around. “Amazing how fast all of the prospectors got out of here.”

“Asteroid miners know what explosives can do,” Davis said. “Remind me in the future never to travel on a shuttle scheduled to carry gold.”

“You think it was pirates?” Paul asked, his eyes going round.

“Well, it wasn’t freedom fighters. I wonder if it’s related to that ship that took a pot shot at us earlier. Maybe they thought we were carrying the gold shipment.”

“Their targeting was too precise,” Joe said. “They knew exactly who we were, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the same outfit. It sounds like they were looking to disable the shuttle and kill as many of the passengers as they could in one shot before boarding the wreck in space suits to retrieve the gold.”

“Plenty of soulless men out there willing to commit mass murder for a few million creds,” Woojin said, leading the way to the lift tubes. “They probably don’t even give the lives of the passengers a moment’s thought.”

“That’s not how pirates in the videos are,” Paul objected. “They have a code of honor.”

“Don’t confuse entertainment with real life,” the major told him. “If I had to guess, even with the alien ordnance, this has all the markings of human-on-human crime. For one thing, there aren’t that many aliens, pirates or not, who would gamble on attacking the Frunge.”

“But the passengers would have been all human and the gold belongs to the habitat’s human miners,” Joe said.

“The shuttle is Frunge, and it’s probably worth more than the gold that was scheduled to go out. Even though we’re providing the security, we’re doing it as stand-ins for the Frunge. Unlike the pirates, they do have a code of honor.” The lift tube doors opened with the returning capsule. “You guys who are on duty go ahead first,” Woojin said. “I should be the last one on the deck.”

“Isn’t that for captains of sinking ships?” Paul asked, hanging back with Joe and the dog as six mercenaries squeezed themselves into the capsule and the doors closed.

“He’s got a point,” Joe said. “Granted, my knowledge of historical alien space battles comes from watching immersives, but all the ones I’ve seen start with somebody losing a battle and swearing to come back and get revenge.”

“I didn’t say I was going to stay here and die, just that I should be the last to leave,” Woojin said. He took a long look around to make sure there was nobody in sight.

“This habitat needs an artificial intelligence,” Joe said. “They’re good at keeping track of everybody on board.”

“I guess the one who was here didn’t want to work for humans because it left with the last Frunge. But all the automatic systems have natural language interfaces that you’d swear were alive if you didn’t know better. You’ll see when I tell the traffic controller to put that shuttle out at a safe distance.”

“What are we going to do about getting to Echo Station?” Paul asked.

“So here’s the thing,” Woojin said. “The client is willing to pick us up at any of a dozen Stryx stations that fit into their existing routes. Echo Station was the most logical one since the new habitat has a regular service from a liner on that route. Now that you’re going to miss the connection, we can check the schedule and see what else is on tap.”

“Funny, I figured they were insisting on Echo Station for one of those nepotism deals,” Joe said. “You know how all the aliens are about business.”

“What’s nepotism?” Paul asked, as the capsule returned and the doors opened.

“It’s when somebody in a position of power or influence favors family or friends,” Woojin explained to the boy. “Bridge,” he instructed the lift tube.

“But doesn’t everybody do that?”

“Maybe, to an extent, but how do you think the men would react if every time there was something dangerous to do, I sent somebody other than Joe because he’s my friend?”

“Is business as dangerous as fighting?” the boy asked.

“Yes,” both men said at the same time, and then Joe continued, “Let’s say I had a relative on Echo Station who sold preserved food and cold weather shelters. What’s to stop me from overpaying him for the supplies and then splitting the profit?”

“But you could do the same thing with somebody who wasn’t a friend or a relative.”

“Kickbacks,” Woojin supplied the term. “Nepotism is more often a gift to somebody who may not even be qualified to receive it, like if I made you an officer even though you’re only ten years old.”

“Going on eleven,” Paul reminded him.

“I’m not a big drama fan, but the guys have them on all the time in the rec rooms, and I guess a lot of what I think I know about aliens comes from watching their entertainment,” Joe said. “They all seem to take nepotism for granted. It’s not even a dirty word with them.”

The capsule arrived and Beowulf was the first one out. The dog took an immediate right in the direction of the small command center that served as the habitat’s bridge, and the others fell in behind him.

“In any case, if we can get you to one of the other Stryx stations on the list sooner than Echo Station, it will be fine with the client. But we need to give them notice so they can arrange credit with the Dollnick businesses on board.”

“Can’t I just bill the expedition supplies to the company like usual?”

“All of your purchases will have to be approved by a local Dollnick agent appointed by the client,” Woojin said. “That’s their version of keeping us honest, even if it ultimately costs them more in the end.”

“I can’t whistle a single word of Dolly,” Joe complained. “I’m going to have to talk through one of those external translator pendants with all of the delays.”

“I’ve done business on Stryx stations and I’ll bet that the agent the Dollnicks pick will have an implant.” The major swiped open the door of the command center and muttered, “After you,” to Beowulf, who was already pushing by.

“Docking bay is clear,” reported the mercenary sitting in front of a bank of displays.

“Command override, transmitting code,” Woojin said. He pointed at the side of his head to let the others know he was issuing instructions via his implant. “Traffic control override. The Frunge shuttle in the docking bay presents a hazard and must be removed from the habitat.”

“Is the hazard immediate?” an artificial voice inquired.

“Not in the sense of a fuel pack going critical, but there’s a bomb onboard.”

“Bomb protocol requires removing the threat from the habitat,” the voice confirmed. “Manipulation fields set to the lowest power level to avoid triggering potential motion detectors.”

Several of the cameras that had been panning the vacated docking bay now focused in on the Frunge shuttle, which slowly rose from the deck. A light greenish glow surrounded the craft due to the interaction of the manipulation fields with the air in the docking bay. As soon as the shuttle was through the atmosphere retention field, the glow disappeared, and the ship moved away in the grip of an unseen hand.

“What is the maximum distance you can move the shuttle while retaining control?” Woojin asked.

“That information is classified,” the mechanical voice replied. “The shuttle will be placed in a standard parking slot and the system will retain navigation control.”

“And if it blows up?”

“The distance is sufficient that the asteroid deflection system could easily handle the largest debris.”

“See what I mean?” Woojin said to Joe. “You’d swear that it was thinking, but it’s just an expert system basing its answers on logic trees and historical data.”

“Well, the Frunge have been interstellar travelers for a couple of million years, so I’m sure they’ve had plenty of time to work out what to do with ships carrying bombs,” Joe said.

Woojin sat down in front of the largest screen, swiped and tapped his way through some menus, and brought up the shipping news. “How would you feel about hitching a ride with an independent trader?”

“Direct to Echo Station?” Joe asked. “You know it’s a bit tricky taking Beowulf for long trips in Zero-G. He can’t use the Zero-G toilet himself, and I’m not going to be able to fit into one of those closet-sized trade-ship bathrooms with him. That means diapers.”

The dog growled from deep in his chest and showed his teeth.

“I’ll keep looking,” Woojin said, scrolling down the list and shaking his head. “Wait a second. I have another idea, but I’m still getting used to this system.” He swiped the list out of existence and fumbled through some more nested menus. “Robotic transports with pressurized cabin capacity,” he explained. “The Stryx are always doing new construction on their stations so they go through a lot of metal. The habitat’s business manager mentioned they have a shipment ready for Union Station.”

“When is the transport getting here?” Joe asked.

“Two days, and nobody has booked the cabin yet. If this system is connected to a Stryx register for purchases, I should be able to—there. You’re all set. Have you ever been to Union Station?”

“Never even heard of it. Are there many humans there?”

“Some,” Woojin said. “I went there on a vacation around ten years back for an antique weapons tradeshow.”

“Human weapons?” Paul asked.

“Alien. And I couldn’t afford to buy anything, it was all museum quality, but it was still worth the trip. I played it safe and stayed at the hotel attached to the convention center, but in the evening I visited the deck where a large section was set aside for humans. Going by the number of restaurants and bars, the population was at least that of a small city back on Earth.”

“Except I can’t actually buy any supplies from them,” Joe said.

“You’ll just need to work through the Dollnick agent,” Woojin said. “And you help him with the games, Paul.”

“Games?” the boy asked, his face lighting up.

“Sure. The men are going to be trapped inside most of the time. I’d rather see them playing games that require a little thinking and hand-eye coordination than crawling into a bottle as soon as they’re off duty. Ten months is a long time to do nothing, and you’re our gaming expert.”

Eleven

Kelly noticed a wobble in her bag as she pulled it along Echo Station’s travel concourse, and then the drag suddenly increased. She looked down and saw a small wheel roll past her as if to show the way.

“Drat,” she said out loud, and crouched to inspect the damage.

“Problem with your luggage?” a friendly voice asked.

“I lost a wheel and I don’t think I’ll be able to drag it on just one.” Kelly looked up and saw a handsome man who might have been a couple of years younger than herself and was either an athlete or a fitness nut. “Do you know if they have rental carts here?”

“Mule bots, but you won’t need one,” the man said, extending a hand. Kelly didn’t need the help getting up, but she took it, and couldn’t help noticing that his grip was warm and dry. “I’ve got room in the schedule today and you can be on top.”

“Excuse me?”

“My floater,” he said, pointing at his baggage. “It’s rated for a hundred Bruge, whatever those are, but I didn’t even pack twenty. Watch.” He easily picked up Kelly’s hefty rollaway and placed it on top of his own bag, which was floating ankle-high off the deck. Then he pointed at a stripe on the edge of the floater that reminded her of an old-fashioned thermometer. “Fifty-six. It could carry two of your bags without grounding.”

“Thank you, uh…”

“Barry,” he said, offering his hand again. “And you are?”

“Kelly. We’re both ‘Y’s.”

“Then you’d be wise to let me buy you dinner,” Barry quipped, displaying a row of the whitest teeth Kelly had ever seen.

“Thank you, Barry, but I haven’t been on Echo Station in a decade and I need to report in.”

“Are you on an alien contract?”

“The opposite. I work for EarthCent, or at least, I used to. I’m not really sure anymore since I sent in my resignation.”

“What’s an EarthCent?” Barry asked, and began pulling his floating luggage with Kelly’s bag on top towards the nearest lift tube bank, leaving her little choice but to follow.

“Our diplomatic service, sort-of,” Kelly explained. “We’re supposed to be responsible for Earth’s relations with the aliens, but they don’t talk to us unless it’s to complain about our behavior. Human behavior, I mean. Not EarthCent’s.”

“It sounds like an important job. And the business has offices here?”

“It’s not a business, more like a government organization, except we don’t represent any particular country or city-state back on Earth. The Stryx set up EarthCent to be humanity’s official point of contact with the other tunnel network species, and we have a consulate on Echo Station. I should probably go straight there.”

“Funny I never heard of it, and I travel all the time,” he said. “I’ll come along and make sure you get settled. I slept all the way here on the liner from Five Rivers, so I’m in no hurry.”

“Isn’t Five Rivers a Drazen world? What were you doing there?”

“Acting,” Barry said, and Kelly thought she noticed his jaw tightening momentarily. “I work for a company that puts on educational plays for contract workers to help them adjust to their new homes.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“I always get stuck playing the ugly human. You know, the guy who litters, pees in the street, stuff like that. I mean, the pay is good, and I think we’re really helping people, but it’s not what I had in mind when I decided to dedicate my life to art.”

“But you must have learned so much about alien culture,” Kelly said enviously. “My training was pathetic. We mainly studied old Earth diplomacy between warring countries that has no relation to anything happening on the tunnel network. Tell me something your character did that upsets the Drazens.”

“I whistled,” Barry said, and rendered an easily recognizable verse from Happy Birthday to You. “It drives the Drazens batty because they’re very musical and they have better hearing than us. They have a better sense of smell, too. I do this skit with another actor where we brag about how long we can go without washing our work clothes. It’s kind of vaudeville, if you know what I mean.” He politely waved Kelly into the lift tube capsule and maneuvered the floating baggage in after her before requesting, “EarthCent Embassy.”

“EarthCent Consulate,” Kelly corrected him, and the capsule began to move.

“Which one is better?” he asked. “I’m not up on diplomatic stuff.”

“Embassies are a step above consulates. Back on Earth, governments usually had one embassy in each country where they maintained relations, and then maybe consulates in some of the major cities if they could afford it. These days, I don’t know how much diplomacy goes on between what’s left of the old countries and the new city-states. And I’m not sure why EarthCent has so many more consulates than embassies.”

“Maybe they’re cheaper,” Barry suggested.

“That, I would believe,” Kelly said with a laugh. “EarthCent is famous for pinching pennies, or centees, since we’re on a Stryx station. When I was recruited, I thought I was embarking on a romantic career, with travel to exotic places and parties with alien diplomats. Instead, it’s all been about cleaning up after tourists who break the local laws.”

“Then you probably know more about alien culture than I do.”

“Not really. The laws the tourists are always getting caught breaking are pretty much the same laws we had back on Earth. Some people just figure that if they’re away from home they can do whatever they want.”

“You’ve never been to an alien world that wasn’t a resort?” Barry asked. “I’ve toured Dollnick ag worlds, Frunge factory planets, and Drazen mining worlds, just to name three.”

“I’ve never even shaken hands with any of those aliens,” Kelly lamented as the lift tube doors opened. They exited into the corridor.

“I do a skit where I try to shake hands with a Horten and he draws his sword on me. They aren’t impressed by our personal hygiene.”

“If I could have a fifteen-minute conversation with any of them it would be the highlight of my career.” Kelly looked at the bright boutiques filled with luxury Earth exports that she couldn’t have afforded wholesale. “Are you sure it’s this way? The neighborhood looks too rich for EarthCent, and I don’t remember any of these shops from when I was here twelve years ago.”

“Things have probably changed in the last decade, and I seem to remember hearing that the administrative offices for humans on the station are up this way somewhere,” he said. “Besides, it’s good to do some walking at close to your normal weight after spending time in space.”

“We’re still in space, you know.”

“Not hardly,” Barry said, and flashed his pearly whites. “Stryx stations are like their own worlds, or planetoids maybe. If you’ve never been to a park deck, you won’t believe it. I’ll take you there during the night cycle when the lights are turned down to pinpricks so they look like stars. You’d swear you were walking around on a planet.”

“Look!” Kelly pointed at a small bronze plaque with a stylized globe in relief and ‘EarthCent Consulate’ in raised letters. She strode confidently into the door, luckily making contact with her toes before her nose when it failed to slide open. “They can’t be closed already. I checked my implant when we arrived and it’s barely two in the afternoon.”

“It’s just past six in the evening here. Whose time are you on?”

“EarthCent headquarters, the New York city-state, I guess. I thought all the consulates on space structures used it.”

“On Stryx stations? Not that I’ve ever heard. So how about that dinner?”

The door of the consulate slid open and an aristocratic-looking man with a leather valise tucked under one arm stepped out and almost ran into them. “Closed,” he said.

“I’m Kelly Frank, with EarthCent, and I was told to report here,” Kelly said. “I just got in from Alfe.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Do you mean you want me to come back tomorrow? It’s just that I’m anxious to find out why I was sent here, and I don’t know if there’s a dormitory or if I’m supposed to go to a hotel.”

“Hotel,” the man said, slipping between them and rapidly walking away.

“Who was he?” Barry asked.

“I’m not sure, but I’m guessing the consul,” Kelly said. “Most of the ones I’ve met have attitude problems.”

“So dinner and a hotel, in that order.”

“I’m flattered, really, but I just got out of a bad relationship that I thought was—” she cut herself off abruptly,

“He cheated on you,” Barry said. “Try dating actresses someday. They treat me like I’m just a rehearsal for directors and producers.”

“But it’s different for men,” Kelly protested, and then felt herself reddening. “I didn’t mean that you’re all dogs or anything like that. In fact, I love dogs—not the two-legged kind, but—you have me speaking nonsense.”

“That means you like me. Let’s just drop the bags at my apartment, then dinner, and then you can decide where to stay for the night. I’m only five minutes from here.”

“It looks like a very expensive section.”

“It’s not cheap, but I have a roommate and you only live once,” Barry said. “With all the traveling I do it would be crazy to live anywhere other than a Stryx station. Starting at a tunnel network hub shaves a connection off of every trip.”

“That makes sense,” Kelly said, almost walking into a man because her eyes were glued on the display case of a confectioner’s shop. “Do you know many aliens on the station?”

“A few, mainly acting coaches.”

“Alien acting coaches?”

“Sure,” Barry said. “It’s not for the acting. I mean, it is, but not for techniques. I go to them to learn about alien customs and that helps me come up with skits. It’s an investment, but the agency pays me extra for scripts they accept, and I get a royalty when they’re performed by other troupes. That’s the only way I can afford my share of the rent.”

“The aliens are willing to work for you?”

“Sure. You can walk around the station all day trying to strike up a conversation with aliens and they’ll just ignore you. But if you go to their place of business with a handful of Stryx creds and offer to pay their rate, it’s a completely different story.”

“I never thought of buying time,” Kelly said, and visions of hiring an alien language teacher began dancing in her head. “How much do acting coaches charge?”

“It depends on the species and whether they’re moonlighting or doing union work. My Drazen acting coach is a student at the Open University, and he only charges fifteen creds an hour, but the Vergallian is a professional and she gets forty.”

“Forty Stryx creds an hour?” Kelly croaked. “That’s more than a day’s salary for me.”

“Then if you’re lucky, your resignation was accepted,” Barry said, swiping his hand over an access pad. The door slid open and he guided the floating bag into a tastefully decorated living room. “Do you want to freshen up before we go out to dinner?”

“Uh, yes, thank you. Where is it?”

“The door on the left is for guests. The bedrooms have their own attached baths.”

“Don’t tell me how much this place rents for because I’m sure it’s more than I make in a year,” Kelly said. The bathroom door slid open when she ran her hand over the pad and she gasped at all of the marble and brass. “This is the nicest bathroom I’ve ever been in.”

“The sewage all ends up in the same place,” he told her before the door slid shut.

Once they were back in the corridor and started discussing the possibilities for food, it occurred to Kelly that she wouldn’t be able to afford any restaurant that matched the actor’s taste. When he mentioned Chinatown, she jumped on the suggestion.

“I haven’t had decent Chinese food in almost two years,” she said. “I don’t know why there wasn’t any on Thuri Minor. People opened plenty of pubs and pizzerias.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been on an alien world without a Chinese restaurant in the area set aside for humans,” Barry said. “I’ve even been at new contract launches on planets that are bringing in their first group of contract laborers from Earth. They always have a little restaurant district set up before the main body of workers arrives.”

“Are the restaurant workers part of the same contract?” Kelly asked

“No, they’re entrepreneurs who answer advertisements back on Earth to open a new restaurant in an alien opportunity zone. I’ve talked to a couple of owners at places I’ve eaten and they say it’s a fantastic deal. No taxes for twenty years, zero-interest financing for the equipment, and really attractive lease terms with free build-out of the interior. The only thing is they have to commit to keeping the same basic theme, so you can’t ship out as an Italian bistro and then decide you’re going to convert it to an Argentine steak place.”

“I never knew that so much planning went into it,” Kelly said. “I guess I always assumed that contract workers were like settlers and they figured all of that stuff out when they arrived.”

“Down that way,” Barry said, slipping an arm around Kelly’s waist to steer her into a side corridor, and then removing it before she could decide whether or not it made her uncomfortable. “The aliens aren’t fooling around, you know. It’s all creds and centees to them. Everybody worked out how to manage cheap migrant labor from other species a long time ago.”

“Why don’t they just use robots?”

“Don’t know. Maybe we’re cheaper, or less trouble. Or maybe the Stryx give them a subsidy for employing members of a backward species.”

The smell of stir fry wafted down the corridor, and Kelly suddenly realized she hadn’t eaten since polishing off the final sandwich that Ada had insisted she bring for the trip.

“Do you ever talk with artificial intelligence?” she asked.

“All the time,” Barry said. “If there’s a light switch in my apartment, I’ve never seen it.”

“That’s just speech recognition, like back on Earth,” Kelly said. “I mean sentient artificial intelligence.”

He shrugged. “How could you tell the difference?”

“I got to talking with the AI who runs the Alfe orbital, and even though she was created by the Sharf, or by another Sharf artificial intelligence, it was just like talking to a real person.”

“She?” Barry asked. He stopped as the corridor opened into an area with dozens of small restaurants and shops that wouldn’t have looked out of place in any Chinatown on Earth. “I don’t know anything about AI, other than that they’re usually a lot smarter than us. It sounds like yours was trying to put you at ease by pretending to be female.”

Kelly frowned. “You think she was acting a part?”

“See anything you like? The Panda Pagoda is excellent for chain food. I think there’s one on every Stryx station with a large human population.”

“It’s fine,” Kelly said, “but Ada wasn’t acting. I would have known.”

“Am I a nice guy?” Barry asked.

“Well, sure. You helped me with my luggage and brought me to the consulate, and now you’re taking me to dinner. It’s my treat, by the way.”

“Maybe I’m just acting and I’m wanted by the police on a hundred planets for marriage fraud.”

“I’m sure I could tell,” Kelly said. “My mother always said that good manners don’t lie.”

Barry laughed. “I am acting all the time, though not in a bad way. Whatever manners I have I learned from my profession, so you’re getting my best courting practices as written by award-winning playwrights.”

“So you didn’t always work in—what do you call them—training plays?”

“I rattled around Earth as an understudy playing dinner theatre and summer stock for a few years. It’s a great way to learn lots of different parts, but I spent more time working the cash register and sweeping than I did acting and rehearsing. One day I was sharing a bottle with a theatre owner who was just a few years older than I am now, and it sort of slipped out that I assumed she was from a rich family. She got all mad and told me that she bought the place with her savings from doing training plays for contract workers on the alien circuit, and the rest is history.”

They seated themselves at one of the two corridor tables outside the Panda Pagoda, and a waiter wearing a white shirt that didn’t cover his wrists and black pants that barely reached his socks materialized out of nowhere. He set a tray on their table with a pitcher of ice water and two glasses, poured for them, and left the pitcher on the table. When he lifted the tray, they saw two laminated menus beneath.

“Nice trick,” Barry said, but the waiter had vanished as quickly as he had appeared. “Man, that kid is fast.”

“It’s not even that busy,” Kelly said, peering inside the restaurant. “Oh, I see. Everybody is watching something on the holo entertainment system.”

“Probably a Vergallian drama. I could sit and watch those upper-caste women all day with my mouth hanging open.”

“I’m still waiting to meet one in person. Maybe I’ll get lucky at the hotel.”

“Are the two related?”

“What do you—oh, I didn’t mean it that way,” Kelly said, coloring again.

“My roommate, Aaron, is doing a tour of Dollnick ag worlds and won’t be back until next cycle, like five weeks,” Barry said. “The bedroom is just wasted. Why don’t you take it tonight?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Listen. I’ve had a good run of luck the last few years and I believe in paying it forward. You don’t even know if you have a job here, and hotels aren’t cheap. If you really want to rent a room, you’d be better off with one of the hourly places.”

“Don’t hourly rentals usually mean—” she glanced around self-consciously and lowered her voice, “—prostitution?”

“They could be, but keep in mind that Stryx stations are the travel hubs of the tunnel network. Most of the hourly rentals are for people who have eight or twelve hours to kill between connections and don’t want to pay for a real hotel. I can’t speak to whether or not they hire somebody to keep them company.”

Kelly opened her menu and winced at the prices. “Are you sure Aaron wouldn’t mind?”

“When we rented the place we made an agreement to take in short-term renters when one or the other of us is on the road. If you decide to stay after tonight, it’s ten creds a day, but you do your own laundry.”

“That would be over a third of my pay, and half of it is already spoken for,” Kelly said. “Just out of curiosity, what does it cost for a hotel room at the convention center where I might rub elbows with aliens?”

“About the same as what you’d spend for a good hotel in a city back on Earth. Sixty creds, maybe more if there’s an event and you’re not part of the reserved block.”

“Are you sure you don’t have the bodies of other women you’ve picked up on the travel concourse stacked in a freezer?”

“You’re on a Stryx station, it’s a surveillance society,” Barry said. “Nothing happens on board unless they let it happen.”

“Then I’m willing to give it a try if you are,” Kelly said.

“Oh, I’ll try anything once.”

Twelve

Paul attempted a martial arts high kick in the monitoring field of the game controller and ended up on his back, giggling. His opponent in the holographic projection clasped the hands of his upper arms above his head in victory while extending a lower arm to the boy as if to help him up.

“Not going to fall for that,” Paul said, and waved the hologram out of existence. “I can’t believe we get to stay here. This game system is so cool.”

“Don’t go too crazy with it until I find out whether it comes with the room or if they’re charging by the minute,” Joe warned him. “I haven’t ever stayed in a place this nice before myself.”

“Do you think it’s a mistake and when they find out we’re human they’ll put us in a cheaper room?”

“According to the desk clerk, this is the cheapest room in the hotel, and I’m sure they know that we’re human. I’m willing to bet you that the Empire Convention Center and Hotel is run by the Dollnicks and our client sent us here because he’s spending the money with his own kind.”

“Why not put us in a cheap place on the Dollnick deck?” the boy asked.

“Because they’re not set up to deal with other species,” Joe explained. “Have you been in the bathroom yet? There are more options on that toilet than a new car.”

“What’s a car?”

“That’s what people drive around in back on Earth, and the manufacturers make their money by selling lots of expensive options to the basic model. Or at least that’s how it was when I was a kid, but those factories are probably all shut down now. Cars are getting replaced with imported floaters.”

“So are you going to start shopping right away, or do we get a day off to look around the station.”

“First thing is we find you a school,” Joe said, and the boy’s face fell. “It’s going to be great.”

“How about that thing Woojin said about checking in with the Earth people?” Paul asked to buy time. “Shouldn’t that be first?”

“The consulate, and I’m hoping they’ll be able to tell us something about the schools on Union Station,” Joe said. “Are you coming, Beowulf?” The giant dog gave the bed a few thwacks with his tail to show that he was listening, but otherwise made no move. “Then it’s just you and me, kid.”

“I’m coming,” Paul grumbled, easily slipping his feet back into the sneakers which Joe had bought a half-size too large in anticipation of a growth spurt. “Are there going to be any other mercenary kids?”

“Don’t start defining people by what their parents do, especially yourself. And I don’t know what civilians do for work in a place like this. I’d guess it’s similar to city-dwellers back on Earth.”

The boy followed Joe into the corridor and they headed for the hotel’s lobby. “I’ve never been to Earth, at least, not that I remember,” Paul said. “What do people in cities do?”

“I think they mainly work in buildings,” Joe said. “Don’t forget I was only twenty when I left the planet and I’d never lived in a city, but I guess it’s mainly stores, restaurants, and office work.” He steered Paul past the reception desk to the exit and looked around for the nearest lift tube. “Plus hotels and convention centers like this, and some of them had sports arenas.”

“But what do the people who work in the offices do?” Paul asked, stressing the last word.

“You mean other than shop in the stores and eat in the restaurants? I don’t know much about that life, but I just remembered what I left off the list.”

“Mercenaries?”

“Education. I remember reading somewhere that before the Stryx opened Earth, more than ten percent of the population worked for local government, and around half of those were school teachers. Do you want to tell the lift tube where we’re going?”

“Human consulate,” Paul said in his high voice, and the capsule set off. “So what happened to all of the teachers after the Stryx came?”

“This is why you need to be in school,” Joe said. “They’ll have better answers for all of your questions than I do.”

“My teacher bot would probably know. I just never thought to ask.”

“Well, teachers do more than answer questions, and school is about more than book stuff. You’ll probably like it so much that I’ll have to drag you away when it’s time to leave.”

They exited the lift tube and Joe asked the first person who made eye contact for directions to Earth’s consulate.

“Didn’t know we had one,” the man said. “Did you ask in the lift tube?”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Joe admitted.

“Maybe there isn’t one,” Paul said hopefully. “And maybe they don’t have any schools.”

“Hold on a minute. I may be able to get a directory on my implant.” Joe moved up against the wall to get out of the way of the pedestrian flow and brought up the hated heads-up display that always made him dizzy. “Cheap mercenary implants,” he grumbled, trying to navigate the jumpy menu with unpracticed eye movements. Then he spotted one for “Union Station information” and selected it with a double blink.

“How can I help you?” a pleasant female voice asked in his head.

“I’m looking for the consulate,” Joe said.

“Why are you telling me?” Paul asked.

Joe held up his forefinger to forestall further questions and listened while the voice told him, “Continue in the direction you were walking and the EarthCent Consulate will be located on your left immediately after the Different Places travel agency.”

“Thank you,” Joe said, and then turned to Paul. “It’s down this way. I should have asked the woman how she knew which way we were walking.”

“Maybe they have cameras, and with that thing in your head, they always know where you are, right?”

“That’s why we turn them off in combat,” Joe said. “These shops all look pretty expensive. I hope there are some distributors or wholesalers on board.”

“What’s a distributor?”

“Sort of a middleman that buys stuff from manufacturers and wholesalers and sells it to businesses and stores like these.”

“But you’re not a store or a business,” Paul pointed out.

“I am, or at least I represent one. A mercenary company is nothing if not a business. We’re strictly in it for the money, and I’m representing our client, which is some kind of Dollnick business.”

“Look at all those game controllers,” the boy said, pointing at an advertisement on a corridor display panel.

“We’ll check it out after the consulate,” Joe said. “I wish Woojin had given me an overall budget, but apparently the client is playing cute with us, so I’ll have to start with food and shelter and see if we get any pushback.”

“There’s a travel agency.”

“Then we’re almost there.”

A couple emerged from a door a few steps further up the corridor, a woman of around thirty supporting an older man who appeared to be intoxicated. Despite the support, the man managed to bump against Joe as the pairs passed in opposite directions. Since the mercenary company often provided security on rough space habitats, and Joe had investigated more than one pickpocket, he immediately checked to make sure that the flap on his belt pouch was still snapped shut.

“This is it,” Paul said in disappointment, pointing at a modest bronze plaque next to a door.

“It’s where that couple just came out of, so that guy was probably a drunk tourist that somebody dumped here.”

The door slid open as soon as the boy approached, and the two found themselves in a brightly lit office with a number of chairs along the walls and one very large desk. Behind the desk was a young girl wearing a sequined mask of the sort one might expect at a costume ball.

“How can I help you?” she asked in a confident voice.

“We were looking for the EarthCent consulate,” Joe replied. “Was there another door across the corridor?”

“This is it, and I’m in charge here,” the girl said, apparently irritated that her authority had been questioned. “What do you need?”

“I’m sorry, but I want to talk to somebody who actually works here. Something tells me you’re a bit too young.”

“I’m almost ten. Just tell me why you’re here and I bet I can help.”

Joe exchanged a look with Paul, and then shrugged. “I guess I’m supposed to check in with the consul because I represent a mercenary company employed by aliens.”

“Oh, I don’t know anything about that,” the girl said. “Try something else.”

“We need to find a school that will take Paul on short notice without transcripts or any of that.”

“You’re Paul?” she asked the boy.

“Yes,” he said, suddenly shy.

“I’m Blythe. How old are you?”

“Almost eleven.”

“You can be in my class,” she said happily. “We need a boy.”

“You don’t have any?” he asked in dismay. “I’m not going to a school that’s all girls.”

“We have boys, just not enough,” Blythe said. “When we play girls against boys, we always win, but then the boys say it doesn’t count because the teams aren’t even.” She paused and thought for a moment. “I guess the boys will still be one short.”

“Why aren’t you in school now?” Joe asked.

“Because it’s take-your-daughter-to-work day. My mom’s the consulate manager.”

“Is she in one of those offices?” Joe asked, gesturing at the pair of closed doors. “Maybe she would know whether I have to register as an alien agent or something.”

“Don’t be silly, you’re not an alien,” Blythe said. “And my mom is taking the consul home. He went to a long lunch with some businessmen and I guess it made him sick.”

“Got it,” Joe said, the picture suddenly coming clear. “I guess I can come back tomorrow to ask about my business.”

“I just told you about the school,” Blythe said. “You don’t have to sign up or anything. Just come and the station librarian will work it out.”

“Where is it?” Joe asked.

“It depends whether we’re in the classroom or on the park deck, and we do lots of field trips all over the station. Where do you live?”

“We’re staying at the Empire Convention Center hotel.”

“Just ask the lift tube to take you to the station librarian’s school,” Blythe told Paul. “She’ll give you instructions before you leave the capsule. Class starts at nine, and if you’re late, you’ll miss the milk and cookies.”

“Do I need a uniform?” Paul asked.

“You can wear whatever you want.” The girl turned her mask back to Joe. “What was that other thing you asked about again?”

“Registering that I’m here making purchases for a Dollnick who’s hiring our mercenary company,” Joe said, surprised by how seriously the girl was taking the job of filling in for her mother.

“Libby,” Blythe said, still looking at Joe. “Does he need to come back to see the consul?”

“There’s no requirement for Humans employed by other tunnel network species to report to EarthCent,” the same voice Joe had previously heard over his implant replied.

“There,” the girl said. “Did I answer all of your questions?”

“You did very well,” Joe said. “Your mother was right to leave you in charge. Do you want to work for the consulate when you grow up?”

“No way. The consul is always getting sick and pinging my mom to help him get home, though she usually sends my dad at night.”

“Pinging?”

“Over her implant. I can’t wait until I’m old enough to get one. Then you can talk to the station librarian without everybody else listening in.”

“Excuse me,” the pleasant voice that Joe now identified as Libby spoke out of nowhere. “Your mother wants you to close the consulate and head home, Blythe. The consul insisted on stopping for one more drink and she doesn’t want to leave him alone.”

“Early day,” Blythe said, getting up and double-checking that her mask was still in place. “I’m lucky you came in so I’ll have a story for class tomorrow.”

“You’re just going to close the consulate for the day?” Joe asked as they followed the girl to the door.

“It doesn’t matter. My mother says that anybody with a real problem comes in the morning, and aliens always make appointments. When there aren’t any, the consul goes to lunch early.”

“I’m beginning to get a feel for how it works. You wouldn’t know anything about businesses that supply expeditions to recently discovered planets, would you?”

Blythe shook her head, and then asked the station librarian, “Libby? Where should I send them?”

“For preserved foods and related supplies, I would suggest the outfitters on the docking deck.”

“The travel concourse?” Joe asked. “I thought that was all for passenger travel. The shops looked pretty high-end.”

“Request the outfitters when you enter the lift tube. The commercial section of the core can be reached on foot from the travel concourse but it’s a very long walk.”

“I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you in school tomorrow,” Blythe said to Paul. “If you don’t pack a lunch, you can get a sandwich and a piece of fruit for ten centees.” Then she kicked up her heels and ran down the corridor, dodging between people as if they were obstacles placed there for her entertainment.

“Nice girl,” Joe said to Paul. “And now you already know somebody in your class.”

“Why was she wearing a mask?”

“I don’t know, you’ll have to ask her.”

“Does she really not know that her mom’s boss is getting drunk all the time, or was she making believe?”

“If I had to guess, somewhere in between,” Joe said. “Her mother tells her that the consul is sick, but Blythe probably suspects that it’s something more. You know all about drinking too much because you’ve lived with mercenaries the last few years, but the consul may be the only drunk man she’s ever met.”

“Should I tell her?” the boy asked, his face suddenly older than its age.

Joe hesitated. “I don’t know, Paul. You’ll have to work that one out for yourself. Hey, with the help of that Libby lady who seems to be listening in to our conversations, we got more done today than I expected. How about we go looking for that game store and I’ll start on the suppliers in the morning?”

“Cool. Do you know where it is?”

“I’ll ask,” Joe said, and going to enable the information channel on his implant, found that he’d left it on. “Huh, maybe that’s why Libby always knew what Blythe was asking about. Libby?”

“Do you want directions to Warrior’s Eyre, the gaming store that is running advertisements in this corridor?”

“Yes,” Paul said, not a bit spooked by the fact that someone or something had been listening in on their conversation.

“Return the way you came, past the Little Apple, and there are several gaming supply stores and play rooms in the next section.”

“Thanks, uh, Libby,” Joe said. “Are you speaking through a public address system?”

“I’m using manipulator fields to create local interference patterns in the air. The sound travels no further than your regular conversation.”

“Thanks. I might ask you for a more detailed explanation later.”

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to provide it,” the voice said. “Sharing the details about technology that your species has yet to develop wouldn’t be fair to the other tunnel network members, or to yourselves.”

“So you’re not a human information operator?”

“I function as the station librarian, among other roles, and I’m what you would call artificial intelligence. Let me know if you need anything else, and enjoy your stay on Union Station.”

Thirteen

“I’m Kelly Frank and I’m here to see the consul.”

“Do you have an appointment?” asked the young man with a mop of blond hair sitting at the receptionist’s desk.

“I don’t think so, and if I did, it was probably a week ago,” Kelly said. “I received instructions to proceed here from my last posting at the consulate on Thuri Minor.”

“Oh, so you’re on the team,” the young man said, popping up and offering her a handshake. “I’m Mark, the consulate manager. Can I get you a coffee? I just brewed a fresh pot.”

“Thank you,” Kelly said. “I came before having breakfast because I was too nervous to eat. I just got in last night.”

“Where did you stay?” the consulate’s manager asked as he led the way to the kitchenette alcove. “I’ve only been on the job a few months, but I’ve negotiated reduced room rates for EarthCent employees at several hotels.”

“I met a guy on the travel concourse who offered to let me stay with him. I mean, as a business,” Kelly corrected herself when she realized how her words could be interpreted. “I mean, a business for him, not for me. It’s not far from here.”

“I understand,” Mark said. “Rents aren’t cheap in this area, and we’ve become a sort of hub for frequent business travelers, so there’s a lot of subletting going on. How do you like your coffee?”

“I usually drink it black, but I’ll take a little milk if you have it since there’s nothing in my stomach.”

“How about a day-old cruller?” he offered, retrieving both the milk and an air-tight plastic container from the fridge. “It may be four days old, but the glazed ones last pretty long. It’s hard to go wrong with chocolate.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Kelly said, enthusiastically accepting the plastic box and popping the lid. “You can skip the milk in the coffee now.”

“I may as well finish the last one so you don’t feel awkward,” Mark said, taking another mug of coffee for himself and leading Kelly back to his desk. “Have a seat and we’ll work out why you’re here.”

Kelly took a bite of the cruller, which was a bit hard, but well within her comfort zone for aging pastry. “Mmm. Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

“Shoot,” Mark said, and then took a bite of his own cruller.

“You seem very young for a consulate manager. I thought EarthCent had a minimum age for everything.”

“Just for the diplomatic staff, I’m on the support side. And I’m twenty-four, I just look young.”

“You’re not exactly old,” Kelly said. “Did the consulate receive any messages about me?”

“I would have noticed, everything goes through my display desk,” he said, and then sticking the cruller in his mouth, began gesturing above the desk’s surface with both hands. A hologram appeared, and he rapidly navigated his way through what looked like a tangle of pipes, before raising one hand to grab the cruller and biting off the part in his mouth. He continued gesturing with the other hand as he chewed, apparently tracing a path through the maze of pipes, and finally shook his head in the negative.

“Nothing?”

Mark swallowed before replying. “We get very little correspondence, other than magazines, and those come through in the diplomatic bag from Earth. That only arrives every other week or so, depending on ship traffic, so it could be that a message is on the way.”

“I thought they would send a tunneling telegram. That’s how I submitted my resignation.”

“You resigned?” Mark blew on his coffee, took a sip, and decided it was still too hot. “Did you change your mind?”

“I don’t really know,” Kelly said. “I received a message to come here, and I’m waiting to find out if I’ve been reassigned or if EarthCent wants my implant back. I just feel that the last few years have been wasted.”

“Consul Palliser-Smythe doesn’t believe in tunneling telegrams so he let the machine run out of thermal plastic. I only found out two days ago and I have a new roll on order.”

“Then how did the consulate get messages quickly in an emergency?”

“We don’t have emergencies. The consul believes in maintaining a low profile. Not much of anything happens here.”

“I don’t understand,” Kelly said. “I thought all of the tunnel network species maintained embassies on Stryx stations and there would be all sorts of events and inter-species meetings.”

Mark glanced at one of the office doors, and then said in a low voice, “Consul Palliser-Smythe is a bit stuck-up, if you know what I mean. He thinks that the alien diplomats are all below him because they didn’t go to the right schools and they don’t know any of the right people.”

“What right schools? What right people? They’re aliens!”

“I just work for the man, I don’t get any say in how he thinks. And the thing is, he believes that I’m his personal secretary, or maybe his butler. When somebody wants to see him—” Mark paused to remove a little silver platter from a drawer and place it on the desk’s glass surface, “—I have to fill out a card with the visitor’s details and bring it to him on the tray.”

“And I thought my last boss was a disaster. How do you put up with it?”

“He doesn’t say much, so that makes it easier.” The consulate manager took another experimental sip from his coffee. “Ah, that’s better. So let’s get a card filled out and then I can announce you.”

“Is that a quill?” Kelly asked in astonishment as Mark brought out a blank card and his writing supplies. “I’ve only read about those in books.”

“I was an art major in college. I think EarthCent recruited me for my calligraphy skills because they couldn’t find anybody else who met Consul Palliser-Smythe’s requirements. Are you married?”

“No. What difference does it make?”

“That makes you Miss Kelly Frank. The consul is very particular about titles. What was your last job?”

“Personal Assistant to the Consul on Thuri Minor. Every job review when I think I’m finally going to get a raise they give me a promotion instead.” Kelly began ticking off the history of her job titles on her fingers in reverse order, “Personal Assistant. Assistant. Acting Assistant. Personal Junior Assistant. Junior Assistant. Acting Junior Assistant. Assistant to the Personal—”

“I’ve seen the ranking list,” Mark interrupted her. “I’m glad I’m not diplomatic track. How long have you been with EarthCent?”

“Twelve years, going on thirteen.”

“It seems strange that there wouldn’t be anything about your arrival in the inbox,” he said, blotting the freshly-inked card and putting it aside. “Maybe I should try a general search on your name rather than checking our correspondence.” He activated the display desk again, brought up a virtual keyboard, and input her name. A hologram of Kelly that was taken around five years earlier appeared with a block of text beneath it. Mark broke into a wide smile and employed both hands in a movement that turned the holographic display one hundred and eighty degrees so that Kelly could read it.

“Acting Assistant Consul?” she read, her voice rising to almost a scream. “I’ve been promoted to Acting Assistant Consul?”

“Congratulations. That makes you a real diplomat. And you’re assigned here so we’ll be working together.”

“But they didn’t say anything to me.”

“They didn’t say anything to us either, at least, not that I know of. Maybe Consul Palliser-Smythe received a private message in the diplomatic bag and didn’t think I had a need to know. That’s one of his favorite expressions. At least he has to see you now. I’ll just bring in your card.”

The office manager opened another drawer, removed a pair of white cotton gloves, and pulled them on before standing up and taking the tray. Kelly watched in disbelief as he knocked, actually knocked with his gloved knuckles, on the faux-wood door of the consul’s office before swiping his hand past the lock pad. The door slid open, and then closed immediately after he entered.

Kelly finished her cruller and washed it down with coffee as the seconds turned into minutes. Finally, the consul manager emerged from the office, and standing next to the open door, he announced, “Acting Assistant Consul Kelly Frank.”

It took Kelly a second to realize this was her cue to enter, and then she jumped up from the chair and rushed to the door while the invitation was still good. The consul was reading from a tab when she entered and didn’t raise his head, so she glanced back at Mark, who shooed her forward towards the desk even as he stepped back and let the door close.

Kelly approached the desk, stood there feeling foolish for approximately thirty seconds, and then ventured, “Consul Palliser-Smythe?”

“Sit,” the consul said, finally looking up.

“Thank you. I just found out that I’ve been assigned as the new acting assistant consul and I still haven’t recovered from the shock. I’ve always dreamed of being assigned to a consulate on a Stryx station, and—”

“Why?” Palliser-Smythe interrupted.

“Why did I dream of being assigned to a Stryx station? The reason I joined EarthCent was that I wanted to learn about alien cultures and help them understand humanity in turn. But my new roommate is an actor, and he knows far more about the tunnel network and its species than I do. He told me that more than half of the oxygen-breathing members of the tunnel network have embassies on Echo Station.”

“Nitrogen.”

“Air is mainly nitrogen, not oxygen, but it’s the oxygen that counts.” Kelly suddenly realized that she had just contradicted her new boss and hastily backtracked. “Of course, I should have said nitrogen/oxygen breathing to be more precise. And I want to meet all of the alien diplomats. I don’t care if they make me sit in the back of the room or look down their breathing protuberances at me for being human. Half of Earth’s population has already voted with their feet, but those workers don’t have any voice or representation in tunnel network affairs. I think EarthCent is ideally positioned to step up and speak for them.”

“Resigned,” the consul said in a long-suffering voice.

“That was only because a tourist threw up on me after I caught my boyfriend in bed with a teenager, and EarthCent must have rejected my resignation because they assigned me here. It probably wasn’t official because I didn’t have enough money to explain myself. I just sent two words and my name. The consulate manager, our consulate manager,” she corrected herself, “didn’t receive any notification of my being promoted and posted here, but I thought you might have gotten something in the diplomatic bag.”

“Stop,” Palliser-Smythe said, holding up a hand with the palm out like a traffic cop. He let out another sigh and then expanded on his previous pronouncement. “Resigned to putting up with your puppyish enthusiasm.”

“Oh. Am I here to replace the previous assistant consul, or is EarthCent expanding your staff? I imagine you must be overtaxed with all of the alien affairs on a Stryx station, and if there are any activities you’d like to offload on me, anything at all, I’d be happy to take them on. Mark was very helpful and I’m sure he can steer me in the right direction about my daily duties, but I just wanted you to know that I’m open to any instructions you might have.”

“Be gone.”

“Excuse me?”

“Depart. Vamoose. Leave me in peace. And tell my man to bring me an aspirin.”

Kelly rose from the seat, put her forefinger to her lips to express that she understood the consul’s wish that she remain silent, and slipped out of the office. The embassy manager was deep in a holographic projection at his display desk, but he looked up at her approach.

“The consul would like an aspirin,” Kelly told him.

“I suspected by the amount of time you were in there that you must have been talking to him,” Mark said, hopping up and heading for the kitchenette alcove. “He’s not much of a conversationalist.”

“He used more words telling me to leave than he did explaining my duties. I know less about what I’ll be doing here than I did when I walked in.”

“Pretty much whatever you want, within the bounds of propriety,” Mark said as he shook two aspirins out of a plastic bottle onto a saucer, and then added a small cup of water. “I’ve been checking the calendar to see what’s coming up so we can go through your options as soon as I’m out. The office to the right is yours. You might want to check that the lock responds to you.”

“My own office?” Kelly practically skipped across the reception area and swiped her palm over the pad next to the door of her assumed office. It slid open, revealing a small desk with a wheeled chair, one broad-seated chair with metal arms for a guest, and an improbable view of the countryside. “Must be a display panel,” she decided for herself, and then hurried back out to rejoin Mark at his display desk.

“You made quite an impression,” the consulate manager said. “He gave you an appointment for a follow-up meeting.”

“Really? Today?”

“Three weeks from Friday,” Mark said with an apologetic smile. “That’s really very good. The previous consulate manager told me they had a summer intern from Earth last year who never even laid eyes on the consul.”

“But what does he do?” Kelly demanded, starting to feel angry. “He has this wonderful chance to represent humanity to the aliens and he spends it hiding in his office?”

“That’s a fair assessment, but you have to remember that he’s been here for over thirty years so he may have had his fill of rejection.”

“Maybe, or maybe he never really tried.”

“Well, you’ll get the opportunity now,” Mark said. “I’m ashamed to say I never dug into this section of the calendar before. The consul made it clear to me on my first day that he was settled in his schedule and didn’t require any input from the service staff.”

“How can you stand it?” Kelly asked again.

“This is a dream job for me. I’m enrolled in the local branch of the Open University in the remedial course for tunnel network art history, and I use all my free time in the consulate studying.” He made a hand motion that compressed the open hologram with the calendar to one side and pulled another menu out of thin air and made a choice. “This is from my homework.”

Kelly felt her eyes drawn to a mind-blowing work that reminded her of Escher, except instead of two dimensions being used to portray three, the hologram started with three dimensions. From there, the lines seemed to lead her into pocket universes of space and time, and she lost sight of everything else around her as her focus was drawn deeper, as if chasing fractals. Then it was gone.

“Sorry,” Mark said. “I should have prepared you for that. I’ve been working my way up to it.”

“Who created it?”

“That’s my homework, figuring out the species and the movement. I have it narrowed down to Vergallian pre-Aanthal or Grenouthian Primitive.”

“Primitive? It looks more modern than anything I’ve ever seen.”

“Modern for us is primitive for everybody else,” he reminded her, and stretched the calendar back over the display desk. “So it turns out there are regular meetings of the ambassadors as stipulated by various treaties, and while we’re not required to attend those because we didn’t sign any of them, as probationary tunnel network members we have the right to send a representative to sit in.”

“That’s fantastic,” Kelly said, and then lowered her voice. “You don’t think Palliser-Smythe will mind?”

“As long as he doesn’t have to leave his office, he won’t care what you do,” Mark said. “The next one is, uh, looks like 3:17 AM next Tuesday morning.”

“Who would schedule a meeting at—alien time. Got it.”

“There is no fixed alien time, you know. The different species all follow their own clocks. It doesn’t look like a very interesting meeting though.”

“What’s it about?”

“Vacuum cleaning. There’s a treaty related to keeping the vacuum of space clean, at least of artificial pollutants. I can send this all to your display desk so you can read up.”

“I can’t believe I finally have my own office with my own display desk,” Kelly said, unable to suppress her enthusiasm. “Can I get alien newspapers in translation?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I’ll bet that it does,” Mark said, bringing up a new menu. “My student tab translates all of my assigned texts. When I bring them up on the display desk, I don’t know if the translation is happening again locally or just being passed along.” He did the hologram turning movement again and told Kelly, “Pick one.”

“Death and Destruction – Headlines from the Grenouthian Network,” Kelly read out loud and shook her head in the negative. “Empire of Drama – Vergallian Tunneling News Service. No thanks. Metal Times – Frunge News. What’s with these aliens? The Drazen Post. I like the sound of that one.” She poked at the title, and a broadsheet with a dozen columns of dense text appeared.

“No pictures?” Mark asked, coming around to the other side of the desk to view the hologram with her. “That seems a bit extreme.”

“Maybe it’s just the front page. It would take me a half-hour to read all this text and I’d go blind from eyestrain.”

“It magnifies like this,” the consulate manager said, and then demonstrated the motion with his fingers. “And that looks like a page turn.”

“Nice,” Kelly said, as the sheet turned in three dimensions like the page of a book. “And look at the masthead. There’s even a special Echo Station section.”

“The pictures are tiny. Hey, is that…?”

Kelly stuck both hands in the hologram and pulled it apart, magnifying a picture of herself pulling her rollaway through the travel concourse.

“EarthCent transfers Kelly Frank to Echo Station consulate,” she read. “Acting Assistant Consul Frank expected to attend Vacuum Cleaning meeting.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Mark asked.

“That I made it into an alien newspaper? I can’t believe it. Is there some way I can get a printed copy?”

“I was thinking the Drazens might be spying on us.”

“I’ll try to remember to ask their ambassador at the meeting,” Kelly said, skimming her biography. Then she flushed bright red. “It says that I’m sleeping with a local actor who’s five years younger than I am!”

Fourteen

“How old are these rations?” Joe asked, searching for a date code on the plastic pouch. “Where did you get them?”

“Didn’t ask, won’t tell,” the heavily tattooed merchant said. “Plenty of traders will buy this stuff if you don’t.”

“So why did you go to the effort of searching me out in my hotel room?”

“Because of the quantity. I heard you’re looking to feed a hundred men for up to six hundred days. That’s a hundred and eighty thousand meals if you haven’t done the math.”

“I’ve done it, and I’m not touching anything without a date code,” Joe said. “You ever been in the mercs yourself?”

“Maybe,” the man replied, loading the sample rations back into his bag. “Or maybe I fought against some.”

“Either way, you should know that coming between a mercenary and his stomach is a short path to an early grave.” Joe escorted the man to the door and called to Beowulf, “Go for a walk?” Then he accessed the information channel on his implant and asked, “Is there a registered business agent by the name of Rupe in the Dollnick directory?”

“On the market deck,” the pleasant female voice replied. “Humans refer to it as the Shuk.”

When Joe followed the dog out of the lift tube, he found himself confronted by a sea of tables and display cases reminiscent of outdoor markets he had seen on a dozen alien worlds, except this one had a gently curving ceiling above to match a barely concave deck. Twenty minutes later, after multiple requests over his implant for directions and many heavy sighs from Beowulf, the voice in Joe’s ear informed him that he had arrived.

“Rupe?” he addressed the four-armed alien, crossing his fingers that to work in a multi-species market, the Dollnick would either have an implant of his own or an external translation device.

“You’re him?” the Dollnick asked in response. “You don’t look like a warrior, though your four-legged friend I’d believe.”

“And how is a warrior supposed to look?” Joe asked, hoping the alien’s implant could interpret sarcasm.

“Taller,” Rupe said without an instant’s hesitation. “And more stealthy. I saw you coming from the end of the aisle. I’ve been facing the same way for the last minute while trying to change the supposedly permanent battery in this hand-held entertainment device. You could have snuck up behind me.”

“I’m here to do business, not to attack you. Hey, isn’t that an old MultiGamer from Earth?”

“Maybe,” the Dollnick said, his large eyes narrowing as he looked down at Joe, who was one of the taller men in the mercenary company. “What’s it to you?”

“I have a ten-year-old boy, going on eleven, and he’s never seen one. Does it work?”

“It will when I finish with it. Fifty creds.”

“Too much,” Joe said, shaking his head. “I thought he might enjoy seeing what electronic gaming was like before alien hardware completely flooded the market, but those games wouldn’t hold his interest for more than a few minutes.”

“Forty-five creds.”

Beowulf sat back on his haunches, his head coming up to Joe’s elbow, and growled. The low-frequency sound made the jewelry in the display cases vibrate.

“Five,” Rupe said, “but that’s my final offer.”

“You were trying to charge me ten times what it’s worth?” Joe asked indignantly.

“I was testing your purchasing skills for our mutual employer,” the Dollnick said. “You’ve been entrusted to spend a large amount of money on supplies and I wanted to find out if you needed somebody with mercantile experience to hold your hand. Just make sure to bring your friend along when you’re negotiating and you should do fine.”

“His name is Beowulf, and how is this going to work? Do I come to you for cash every time I want to make a purchase?”

The Dollnick let out an untranslatable whistle of glee as the panel he been trying to pry off the back of the device finally came free. “Try doing that with two hands,” he gloated as he removed the original battery. “You have to hold in the tabs at locations two and five while simultaneously prying at points three and four. The batteries in the original Human design were hazardous, so they tried to make it childproof. The manufacturer I buy these replicas from tends to get a bit carried away with authenticity.”

“It’s a replica?”

“Do I look like I’m in the antique business? Everything I sell here is made according to modern Dollnick specifications, though the manufacturing of the cheaper merchandise is contracted out. Look inside this MultiGamer. What do you see?”

Joe accepted the device, peered in the back where the panel had been removed, and saw nothing but hollow space. The body of the device was empty except for two wires running from the battery holder to the back of the display screen. “Shouldn’t there be a bunch of electronics in here? Is this some sort of scam?”

“It’s our least expensive general-purpose display that can be programmed to simulate the hardware of over a hundred species,” the Dollnick said. “Saves money on tooling, not to mention getting around the safety hazards inherent in your primitive engineering. According to the documentation, the original version of these things used to catch fire with extended use.”

“But your lifetime battery still failed.”

“No, quality control failed,” Rupe said, extending the battery in his upper left hand to Joe. “What’s wrong with this picture?”

“Somebody didn’t peel the protective insulator off the positive terminal before installing it,” Joe replied after a cursory glance.

“You’re smarter than you look. That’s the problem with some of these cheap replicas assembled by Human contract workers. If the manufacturer took the time to do quality control, they’d have to charge more, and then nobody would buy the stuff.” He took back the battery, peeled off the insulator, snapped it into the device, and replaced the panel. “Five creds.”

“Aren’t you going to test it first?”

“It will work, but if you recall, I didn’t make any claims about the condition of the device when I sold it to you.” Rupe held out the MultiGamer with one of his lower arms, and when Joe failed to take it, he said, “Fine,” and powered it on. A menu appeared in English displaying the names of games that were ancient when Joe’s father was born, and the Dollnick poked one at random. A maze full of dots appeared, and a yellow circle with a wedge for a mouth began racing around making an electronic “wonka-wonka” sound and eating the dots. Beowulf lay down on the deck and covered his ears with his forepaws.

“How long is the battery really going to last?” Joe asked, accepting the MultiGamer.

“You’re getting smarter by the minute,” the Dollnick said, nodding his head in approval. “If the boy plays around the clock he’ll be lucky to get two years, but assuming a declining usage pattern, it may last his lifetime.”

“Thanks.” Joe hung the device from his belt and handed over five creds. Then he pulled out his beat-up tab with the screen that had been cracked ever since an unfortunate cavalry accident. “I’ve put together a list of the things we need in order of importance. Can you read English?”

Rupe took the tab, swiped up from the bottom for a pop-up menu, and then kept steady pressure on the top item until the display started cycling through different tunnel network languages. He stopped when English was replaced by what looked to Joe like bird scratching, and then began reading the Dollnick version. “Two hundred thousand meals ready to eat. Are you padding the order for safety, or are there some fatties in your unit?”

“Safety, and I’m hoping to supplement the food with hydroponics and fresh-frozen if our employer will approve the expense. It’s an ice world, after all, and most of our guys will happily eat a steak that’s been frozen for a couple of years, whatever the medical people say.”

“Food is important,” Rupe said, nodding. “Start by lining up vendors for the MREs, I want to see three quotes for this quantity. When we’ve got everything else you need, we’ll talk extras.” His eyes moved to the next item on the list. “Cold weather camping gear. Are you planning on a vacation? Stay in the shelters.”

“Is our employer providing shelters? I thought it would just be the drop box.”

“Dollnicks have been terraforming planets for over two million years, and what we don’t know about temporary all-weather shelters isn’t worth knowing. I’ll set you up with a dozen fold-outs, which will get you under ten men per shelter, plus you have the drop box for a rec room, dining hall, and infirmary.”

“You have a source for fold-outs here on the station somewhere so I can take a look?” Joe asked.

“There’s a supplier who’s part of our employer’s extended family. I’ll set up a meeting and let you know.”

Rupe turned away to serve a scaly customer from a species that Joe had never seen before and hoped never to encounter in a dark corridor. Beowulf moved his paws from his ears to his nose, apparently not thrilled with the new alien’s fishy smell. The Dollnick demonstrated the use of a necklace with a strange pendant, that when activated, must have cast a cone of silence extending several paces, because the sounds of the busy market faded to nothing. Then the two aliens haggled for what seemed like five minutes before Rupe accepted a few coins and did a quick gift-wrapping job on the necklace.

“What was that?” Joe asked.

“Acoustic suppression field, the technology is a specialty of ours. I’m surprised that a mercenary wouldn’t be familiar with them given all of the noise hazards in your line of work.”

“I’d hate to have one of those on when one of my men was yelling, ‘Look out behind you!’” Joe said.

“Point taken,” Rupe acknowledged and returned to the list. “Are games really—you know what?” he interrupted himself. “Looking at this cracked screen hurts my professional pride. I’m going to repair it.”

“How much?”

“How much, how much,” the alien griped. “Everything is money with you Humans. Don’t you know that there are things in life you can’t put a price on?”

“My tab still works and it’s not one of those things,” Joe said. “I’ve got a boy and a dog that take priority.”

“Where’d he go?” Rupe asked, leaning forward and peering over the table to see whether or not Beowulf was still there. The dog favored the Dollnick with a toothy grin. “All right, I’ll do it for cost.”

“What’s the cost?”

“Screen repair? Say, twenty creds?”

“Talk to me, not the dog,” Joe said. “How about two creds?”

“You catch on fast,” Rupe said. He put the mercenary’s tab in a device that reminded Joe of a toaster and depressed a lever. The tab sank out of sight, and about thirty seconds went by before it popped up again, actually going airborne so that the alien had to catch it. The Dollnick began to juggle it from one hand to the next, using all four arms as he whistled, “Hot. Hot. Hot.”

“Did you just melt my tab?”

“I reflowed the glass, standard procedure.” Rupe finally stopped juggling the tab, blew on it with his copious lung capacity, and handed it back. “All fixed.”

“I can’t believe that actually worked,” Joe said, tilting the tab under the light in an attempt to find a distortion showing where the crack had been. “And it didn’t damage the electronics or the battery?”

“Wouldn’t be much of a repair if it had,” the Dollnick said, tearing open a foil package and dropping something that looked suspiciously like a glazed square of pastry in the still-warm slot. “Don’t try reflowing glass at home. This is sophisticated technical equipment.”

“Can you change the language back to English?”

“Now that will cost you twenty creds.” Rupe broke up whistling and then wheezed, “Just kidding, just kidding,” as Beowulf sat up and glared. “I know better than to snatch food from a four-legged warrior’s mouth.” He took the tab, swapped the language back to English, and then said, “So, you had games immediately after food and shelter?”

“Man does not live by bread alone,” Joe said. “Humans don’t hibernate, and ten months is a long time for a hundred men to sit around cleaning their weapons.”

“I think that that last bit translated wrong, or at least, I hope it did,” the Dollnick said, turning and catching the hot pastry as it popped into the air. “I’d offer you a piece, but your species is famous for dropping dead from food poisoning at the slightest excuse. So what did you have in mind for games?”

“The guys already have a pretty good collection of the standard board games, and everybody plays cards. But my boy was thinking about some of the Horten holo tables, like Nova.”

“Unfortunately, games aren’t a specialty of ours, unless your men enjoy construction sets.”

“I think we better stick with first-person shooter games and stuff blowing up,” Joe said.

“All right. I don’t have a direct account with any Horten game vendors, so put it on your programmable cred and I’ll reimburse you to the amount of ten creds per mercenary,” the Dollnick said. “What else?”

“Skis, snowshoes, ice-axes. It’s important for discipline and morale that the men get out and do patrols, even if it is just a fire watch job.”

“From what I’ve heard of your destination, I see zero chance of a fire breaking out there.”

“It’s an expression from back on Earth. The owners of old industrial buildings would hire security guards to man the building around the clock because you can’t get fire insurance on a place that’s totally abandoned.”

Rupe swallowed a bite of his pastry and asked, “Hasn’t your species ever heard of alarms? No, don’t tell me. I’ll wait for the documentary to come out.”

“So am I authorized to buy outdoor equipment or not?” Joe asked. “Some snowmobiles would be a good idea too.”

“Let’s get past the food and the games and see how much money is left. What’s a snow mobile?”

“All-terrain transportation for a frozen environment, with skis and a track drive powered by an internal combustion engine.”

“Why wouldn’t you just use a floater?” Rupe asked.

Joe paused for a minute. “I guess I wasn’t thinking, and that would solve the fuel problem as well. Can you get us a couple of cold weather patrol floaters?”

“They’re all all-weather,” the Dollnick said. “I’ll take care of it. The prince, I mean, our employer, has an interest in a floater factory.”

“Prince?’ Joe asked, and Beowulf tilted his ears forward as well. “Which one?”

“I shouldn’t have mentioned it, and I’d appreciate it if you keep it to yourself. But it’s common knowledge that terraforming is a game for princes in our culture. It’s very resource-intensive, and even a simple renovation job can take centuries.”

“All above my pay scale. Do you have any advice for outfitters who sell MREs? I stopped at the EarthCent consulate and their station librarian recommended the docking deck on the core.”

Rupe stepped back in surprise. “You asked the Stryx station librarian for advice about buying ready-to-eat meals for mercenaries?”

“Why would a Stryx talk to me? No, when I went to the consulate, the only one there was a little girl who was filling in for her mother as some kind of school thing. I mentioned that I was here to outfit an expedition, and she asked some sort of voice-activated help system they have at the consulate that she called the station librarian.”

“You do realize that this is a Stryx station, don’t you? The station librarian is a Stryx, probably second or third generation, but I’m hardly an expert in how our hosts divide up their responsibilities. Extraordinary,” Rupe concluded, shaking his head.

“Did I do something wrong?” Joe asked. “Is the expedition a secret from the Stryx?”

The Dollnick let out a loud whistle of mirth and sagged against the table, supporting himself with his lower arms, then his legs gave out and he dropped to his knees. “You Humans kill me. That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in ages. You can’t keep secrets from the Stryx, and I’d be surprised if the station librarian isn’t listening in right now. It’s their station and they run it as they see fit.”

“How could anybody eavesdrop in this madhouse?” Joe asked. “My implant is making me nuts translating the bits of conversation it picks up from all around us.”

“Then you need a better quality implant,” Rupe said. “Hang around Union Station long enough and you’ll learn what the Stryx can do.”

“And what they can’t do?”

“Good luck with that,” the Dollnick said.

Fifteen

Kelly woke to a loud dinging in her ear and sat bolt upright in bed. “Lights,” she said.

“Another nightmare about being naked on stage at a conference?” Barry asked in a sleepy voice. “What time is it, anyway?”

“It’s two in the morning. I’m attending my first treaty meeting with the aliens in just over an hour and I wanted time to get ready. That’s why I went to bed so early.”

“Are you sure you didn’t hit snooze a bunch of times? According to my implant, it’s three.”

“Three? It can’t be!” Kelly checked the time, and sure enough, it was 3:01 AM. She threw back the covers and leapt out of bed. “I must have set the alarm wrong with the eye-tracking controls on my heads-up display.”

“That’s why I use the voice controls,” Barry said. “You’ll get ‘em next time. Come back to bed and we can act out your nightmare. It will be therapeutic.”

“I can still make it,” Kelly declared, throwing her nightgown on the floor and rushing for the bathroom. “Go back to sleep,” she called over her shoulder. “I’m going to head into the consulate to write down my notes after the meeting so I’ll see you this evening.”

“Lights out,” Barry groaned behind her.

Kelly looked longingly at the shower, then shook her head violently to dispel the idea, and settled for wrestling her hair into a crude bun. She brushed her teeth, did the fastest makeup job in history, unzipped the garment bag she’d hung from the towel rack in preparation the night before, and struggled into her one business suit, freshly dry-cleaned.

After a final check in the mirror, she slipped out of the bathroom and grabbed her purse. The smell of coffee coming from the kitchen stopped her dead in her tracks. The irony that she had programmed the coffee maker correctly and then gotten the alarm wrong was almost too much to take. She resolutely turned her back on the kitchen and headed out into the corridor, where she ran for the lift tube in her heels.

“Dollnick embassy,” Kelly instructed the capsule, and then tapped her toe impatiently through the trip. She started forward the moment the doors opened, and then rocked back. “Uh, can you tell me where it is?”

“The Dollnick embassy is located directly across from this lift tube,” an artificially generated male voice replied. “There is a separate entrance to the right for the conference room where a meeting is currently in progress.”

“Thank you,” she said, and raced out of the lift tube to the right. Kelly paused two paces away from the doors, noting an active display panel with alien text and characters that might have shown the starting time. Putting on her best professional smile, she stepped forward and waved a hand in front of the panel. To her relief, the door slid open.

“In conclusion,” the Dollnick at the end of the conference table was saying as Kelly entered, “the treaty definition of fourteen atoms per cubic Betza for a clean vacuum will remain in place. The Horten proposal to reduce the limit to ten atoms is rejected. The Verlock proposal to consider dark matter will be taken under advisement. This meeting stands adjourned.”

“Wait,” Kelly cried without thinking. “How can you be finished already? I’m barely two minutes late.”

Eight sets of eyes swiveled to stare at the latecomer. Then a rather impish-looking committee member with yellow skin removed his hat and passed it to the large alien on his left, who Kelly recognized from her alien identification images as a Grenouthian. The recipient of the hat grunted something untranslatable, dropped in a coin, and passed it along.

“Dues?” Kelly asked the diplomat to her right, easily identified as a Frunge by the fact that in place of hair, he had close-cropped vines with tiny green leaves. The alien ignored her, keeping his eyes on the hat. Kelly decided to hold her peace lest she cause a diplomatic incident, and when her neighbor added a coin and passed the hat on to her, she dropped in the five-cred piece she carried for emergencies.

“What are you doing?” the Dollnick ambassador who was chairing the meeting demanded of Kelly. “The collection is for you.”

“That was five creds it put in,” another alien exclaimed. “Why do we have to give the Human money if it has that much to throw away on charity itself?”

“Maybe it doesn’t have an implant,” the Frunge said, and turning to Kelly, asked, “Can – you – understand – my – words?”

“Yes, I understand you perfectly well. And you ignored me when I asked if you were collecting dues for the meeting.”

The Frunge diplomat tilted his head and examined her. “No, you asked me about dos, I presumed as in dos-and-don’ts. Since arriving late for a meeting is already the biggest don’t of tunnel network committee etiquette, I remained silent to discourage you from committing a new error by speaking without being recognized by the chair.”

“Oh,” Kelly said, her ears turning pink. “I see how my question could have been confusing without context. I don’t have much experience speaking with aliens so—”

“Point of etiquette,” the chairman interrupted. “This meeting has been adjourned so it’s free to speak, though why the embassy doors granted it access is beyond me. If it doesn’t want the money, Ambassador Czard, I’ll take my cred back.”

“It’s a she. Acting Assistant Consul Kelly Frank of EarthCent, to be precise,” another alien spoke up. “Her arrival was reported in the Drazen Post last week.”

“They waste resources reporting on EarthCent?” the Dollnick asked. “Whatever for? The Human diplomats don’t do anything.”

“You know the Drazens,” the Grenouthian said. “Their intelligence agents chase after the low-hanging fruit to dress up their résumés.”

“I put in fifty centees,” said the alien next to the chairman. He might have passed as Human in poor lighting if he dressed the part, but something about his features and odd coloration made Kelly suspect he was a Horten.

“Host first,” the Frunge said, fishing in the hat. “You know the rules.” He slid a one-cred coin down the table to the Dollnick and followed up by rolling a fifty-centee piece in a straight line to the Horten ambassador. Then he held up a silvery disk with four holes drilled in a square pattern at the center and examined it dubiously.

“Give it here,” a female whose ethereal beauty marked her as an upper-caste Vergallian said from the other side of the table. “I didn’t have any change so I threw in the spare button from my cloak. It’s worth at least three creds, and now my maid will have to stitch it back on.”

Ambassador Czard rifled her the button and the Vergallian showed off her lightning reflexes by making the grab. Then the Frunge returned the five-cred coin to EarthCent’s acting assistant consul. He peered into the hat again and announced, “There are only two creds left and one of them is mine. That means two of you faked contributing.”

“Paid,” a heavyset alien with leathery skin and speech like a rock grinder stated with no uncertainty.

The Frunge slid him a coin, took the remaining cred himself, and said, “You can come out now, Trizzing. The collection is over.”

Kelly thought she saw something move in the corner of her eye, and realized that the yellow-skinned ambassador who had donated the hat and then seemingly vanished from the room was back in his place.

“What about my cred?” the Drazen ambassador who had identified Kelly demanded. A tentacle behind his head stood up in anger.

Czard laughed, a sound like boards of wood rattling together on the back of a wagon. “Looks like somebody got confused between giving and taking,” he said, and tossed the hat back to its owner. “Maybe you should put your intelligence people on it. After doing such a fine job watching Humans they may be up to something a little more challenging.”

The alien ambassadors, with the exception of the Drazen, joined Czard in his laughter, some of them by stomping their feet or patting their bellies. Then they all got up and headed for the exit. The ambassadors on Kelly’s side of the table were out in the corridor before she could react, and even the Dollnick who chaired the meeting passed her without a glance. When the Vergallian ambassador approached, Kelly smiled and began to speak, but the alien looked right through her. In just moments, the slow-moving Verlock and the irate Drazen were the only ambassadors remaining in the room.

“I’m sorry to have been the inadvertent cause of somebody stealing your, uh, intended donation,” Kelly addressed the Drazen. “If I could make up your loss…”

“Are you offering me charity, Human?” the Drazen demanded, and if Kelly had thought his tentacle was rigid before, now it stood up like a flagpole. “It’s not the money, it’s the principle of the thing. What kind of ambassador steals a cred when we pass the hat for a primitive species?”

“We’re not so primitive,” Kelly protested. “And I’m not a charity case.”

“My intelligence assessment stated otherwise,” the Drazen said, shifting to the side to allow the bulky Verlock to pass. “You were the only EarthCent employee at your last posting to receive an allowance from home because you can’t be trusted with a programmable cred.”

“That’s not true,” Kelly said. “I mean, it’s true that I left my programmable cred on Earth with my mother so she can clear up my bills there, but it’s not true that I can’t be trusted.”

“And your salary is a joke,” the ambassador continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “Our embassy office boy earns more than you, and that doesn’t even get into your atrocious benefits package. My theory is that EarthCent pays its diplomatic employees a minimum to discourage them from venturing abroad. You’re the first of your species to show up at an optional meeting in the six decades since I’ve been assigned here.”

“Consul Palliser-Smythe has never come to these meetings?”

“Not unless he’s using an invisibility projector,” the Drazen said, though Kelly would have sworn that her implant was translating his words with a sympathetic undertone. “A brother of mine employs Human contract workers and claims he wouldn’t trade them for—it’s not important, but your diplomatic service is a disaster.”

“Could you give me any pointers, Ambassador Plarm?” Kelly asked. “I spent the last week reading the alien news in translation to prepare for this meeting, and I learned your name from the Drazen Post, but apparently I should have started with a guide to etiquette.”

“It’s Plorm, and you have to roll the ‘R’ or it means the pulp of a particularly bitter fruit. In addition to an etiquette guide, I would recommend listening to the news broadcasts of other species with your implant turned off to get a feel for the music of the languages, even if proper pronunciation is beyond your physical capabilities.”

“Thank you for that. You’re the first alien diplomat who’s ever had anything more to say to me than, ‘Take this drunk tourist and get him off our planet!’”

The Drazen ambassador snorted. “Some career you must be having.” Then his face turned serious, and Kelly was struck by how human he looked when the tentacle wasn’t showing. “The members of the Naturals League put out guidelines for dealing with Human diplomatic personnel, and mentoring an EarthCent employee would definitely earn me a black mark.” Then he shocked Kelly by taking her upper arm and guiding her out of the conference room and directly into the lift tube. At first, she thought he was going to send her off, but he entered the capsule with her.

“Drazen deck,” the ambassador said before releasing her arm. “Everything in the Dollnick embassy is recorded and I wouldn’t put it past them to bug the corridor. If you really want my advice, show up at every meeting where the doors will grant you entrance, but keep your opinions to yourself for a few years until you understand what’s going on. Most of the tunnel network ambassadors are sticklers for rank, which means even if you weren’t human, they wouldn’t be enthusiastic about yielding the floor to somebody on the consular level, much less an acting assistant. And if you see me in public, pretend you don’t know me.”

“Wait a second,” Kelly said as the doors slid open and the ambassador stepped out. “Why are you helping me?”

“My brother is in the market for more human laborers,” Plorm said, and gave her an exaggerated wink. “If you hear of any groups of skilled miners looking for a new twenty-year contract, say five thousand individuals and up, give me a ping.”

The doors slid shut again, but the capsule didn’t start to move until Kelly requested, “EarthCent consulate.” Then she began rerunning the events of the last ten minutes in her head. By the time she reached her display desk, she had convinced herself that the insulting behavior of the alien ambassadors had been a mild form of hazing, and lacking any guidance from EarthCent or Consul Palliser-Smythe, she would follow the Drazen’s advice to the best of her ability.

“Grenouthian Network News,” she said to her display desk. It lit up with an expanding debris field, and her implant translated the background sound into an amused chuckle. “Translation off.”

For the next ten minutes, she watched what seemed like an endless stream of space structures exploding and flying apart without having a clue what was going on. It sounded like there was some sort of play-by-play being given by a Grenouthian commentator. Kelly was about to give up and reenable the translation function when a chime sounded in her ear and her heads-up display activated with the text message, “Collect call from mother. Accept charges?”

Kelly stared for a moment, unsure if it was real or if she had slipped back into dreaming. Then she decided to try Barry’s advice for implant navigation and spoke out loud, “Accept charges.”

“Congratulations,” her mother’s voice said in her head. “Apparently you’re still using our house as your permanent address because we received a confidential package from EarthCent for you. I had to sign your name before the courier released it to me.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at home, of course. How is my Acting Assistant Consul doing? Your father is very proud of you.”

“You opened my confidential mail?”

“I open all of your mail, how else do you think I could straighten out your financial mess? You received orders detailing your promotion and a new assignment, and the orientation package described the real-time tunneling communications available to EarthCent employees posted to Stryx stations. Isn’t technology marvelous?”

“But it must be costing you a fortune,” Kelly said.

“It’s not costing me anything, I reversed the charges,” her mother pointed out. “And I wouldn’t have called you for no reason. Against my better judgment, I let your father convince me to cancel the remainder of your debt. I know it’s difficult and expensive for you to visit Earth, so I’m sending back your programmable cred. The nice man at EarthCent promised it will be in the next diplomatic pouch to your consulate.”

“Really? And I don’t owe the credit cards any more money?”

“You haven’t owed them money in five years, Kelly. Did you really think I was going to send those usurers twenty percent interest every month? I paid off your debt immediately and took over as your creditor.”

“So you were the one charging me all that interest?” Kelly asked incredulously, her voice rising higher than it had been since she was a teen.

“I wanted to teach you about the value of money,” her mother said calmly. “I’ve put all of the interest I charged you in a brokerage account that I’ve invested for your children.”

“What children? You know, I might have been married by now if I had enough money to socialize.”

“Fiddlesticks. Do you even know any eligible men?”

“I just moved in with one,” Kelly retorted, and then put her hand over her mouth when she realized what she’d said.

“That was pretty fast work, unless you knew him from before you were transferred to Echo Station.”

“I met him within minutes of arriving,” Kelly said, neglecting to add that she had moved in with Barry less than eight hours later.

“What does he do?” her mother asked.

“He’s a successful actor.”

“Anything I’ve seen?”

“Barry does live performances all over the tunnel network, but I don’t think he’s been back to Earth in recent years.”

“And he’s serious?”

Kelly hesitated. “You mean, about me? I think so. I mean, I know so. Just today he didn’t complain when I had to get up in the middle of the night for work. But you know I’m not in any hurry to get married.”

“What time is it there?” her mother asked. “EarthCent couldn’t tell me. They said all of the consulates do their own thing.”

“It’s almost four in the morning,” Kelly told her, and then an inspired thought hit her. “You know I love talking to you, Mom, but I don’t have a clue how much this is costing, and you really have taught me to watch my creds and centees. Now that I’m on a Stryx station, I think I can send you text messages pretty cheap, but I need to look into the details.”

“Everything was explained in your orientation package. I returned it for EarthCent to forward to you in the diplomatic pouch along with your programmable cred. And if your new boyfriend wants to elope, don’t procrastinate. I’d rather miss your wedding than see you miss your chance.”

Sixteen

Joe tried squinting through the first dirty plate-glass windows he’d ever seen on a space station, but he couldn’t make out anything inside. “Are you sure this is the place?” he asked Paul. “It looks pretty sketchy for a gaming emporium.”

“All the boys in my class said they play here, and it’s in between the second-hand clothes store and the shoe repair place. How many shoe repair places can there be on Union Station?”

“Are these windows or display panels?”

“Display panels,” Paul answered confidently. “I think it’s cool they made them look like dirty windows.”

Joe shrugged and stepped closer to the door, which slid open at his approach. The store was packed with young people playing alien table games with holographic displays, and a few seconds after they entered, a star going Nova almost blinded him.

“Who’s got next?” a girl’s voice called out in the sudden lull. “None of you have the guts?”

“Go ahead,” Joe said, giving the boy a gentle push in the direction of the Nova table. “I’ll find the owner and talk things over, but I promise not to buy anything without your approval.”

“I’ll play,” Paul piped up, and the noise level in the room returned to normal. He took the seat just vacated by a scowling man and found himself facing a girl of at most seventeen. “Straight up?”

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Eleven,” he replied proudly, having just achieved that milestone.

“I’ll spot you two scouts, a supply ship, and one medium battle wagon,” she offered.

“I’m good straight up,” Paul said, waving off her offer and putting the five-cred piece Joe had given him on the table. “Can we take it out of this? I just got here so I don’t have any tokens.”

“It’s all by programmable creds in this place,” she told him, and manipulated something in her control field to bring up a holographic counter. “I’m resetting to zero now with a five cred limit, and if you don’t spend it all, I’ll get you change.”

Joe went over and told the boy, “I’ll be in the back,” just so the girl would know that Paul was accompanied by an adult, and then he began looking for the owner of the place. It was just after school hours on the human deck, and the store was filled with teens and adolescents, mainly boys, but he didn’t spot anybody who looked like an employee. Finally, Joe noticed that the back of the gaming room was a large mirror, and on a hunch, he went over and rapped the glass with his knuckles. A door-sized section of the mirror turned transparent and swung open, so he treated it as an invitation and stepped through.

“You Jenkins?” a cigar-smoking man wearing a green eyeshade asked.

“McAllister,” Joe answered. “I don’t think you’re expecting me.”

“Do you play?”

Joe looked at the seven players sitting around the octagonal card table and nodded. “I’ve been known to sit in for a hand or two. What’s the game?”

“Dealer calls it, up to and including no limit, but you’ve got to have the stake on you,” the man said, offering a handshake. “I’m Klafey, and I own this joint. I pay extra for the smart ventilation, so feel free to smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.”

The men around the table grunted out their names as Joe took the empty seat. He snuck a quick look at the other stacks, then produced his programmable cred and said, “Give me fifty.”

Klafey met this request with an approving head nod, stuck Joe’s programmable cred in the mini-register he was using to dispense poker chips, and keyed in fifty.

“Do you approve fifty Stryx creds?” the register requested in an artificial voice.

“I do,” Joe said, becoming the owner of the third-largest stack of chips at the table. He glanced through the one-way mirror to make sure he had good line-of-sight to Paul, and then asked, “Are any of the game tables for sale?”

“Everything Klafey owns is for sale if the price is right,” said a man whose eyes showed signs of too much time spent squinting at cutting torches without proper protection. “He’d like nothing better than to sell you the whole store and retire to a resort world.”

“And you wouldn’t do the same, Stephens?” the owner of the game emporium retorted. “You’d sell that junkyard of yours in two seconds flat if you could find somebody dumb enough to pay cash.”

“It’s a metals recycling facility, not a junkyard.”

“Five Card Draw,” the player with the deck announced, and almost as an afterthought, added, “Ante is two reds.”

“Daddy Warbucks walks in and all of a sudden everybody is a big spender,” the sole woman in the game said, pushing in two chips.

“You knew that I’m on the station to outfit our mercenary company?” Joe asked her.

“A human walking around with a credit line from the Dollnicks to spend on rations is hard to miss,” she said. “My husband and I passed on submitting a bid because the quantity is too much for us.”

“The Stryx will hold transshipments for up to a cycle in the core warehouse space before they start charging, Sophie,” another player commented as he picked up his hole cards.

“I know, it’s the money,” Sophie said. “The only way we could get a competitive price on that quantity is to order direct from Earth and pay cash, but we don’t have that kind of capital.”

“Sorry,” Joe said as if it was his fault. “I thought about breaking the order up across a number of suppliers, but the Dollnick buyer’s agent wanted more control. I have to run all of my purchases past him.”

“I figured it was something like that.” She looked at her cards in disgust. “If anybody raises before the draw, I’m out.”

“Raise,” the man to the dealer’s left said immediately. “Cost you a blue.”

“For the draw?” a different player asked in disgust. He ditched his cards, followed by all of the others in no particular order, except for Joe and Klafey, who scolded the players for folding out of turn.

“It’s not a casino,” Stephens muttered. “I’ve got twelve blues, twenty reds, and seven yellows. I’m hitting the head.”

“Hit it for me while you’re there,” one of the other men said.

“And fill this for me,” Klafey said, handing the scrap yard owner a glass as he passed.

“You have draft beer here?” Joe asked. “I’d go in on a pitcher.”

“Make it a pitcher, Stephens, and give me back the glass.”

“Where’s it from?”

“The bar down the corridor,” Klafey said, and then read the expression on Joe’s face. “The brewery is on one of the alien ag worlds that employs a few million humans. The beer’s nothing to brag about, and the supply is irregular, but it’s a lot cheaper than shipping cans all the way from Earth.”

“What about bottles?”

“With all the extra weight in glass? Some of the eateries in the Little Apple bring in bottles, but you’re paying a lot more for the transportation than for the beer. I only buy them if I’m on a date.”

“When’s the last time you were on a date?” the woman asked.

“None of your business,” Klafey said and turned to the dealer. “I’ll take two cards.”

“Three,” Joe said.

“Hey, how many did you take, Murph.”

The player to the dealer’s left held up one finger.

The owner of the game emporium looked at his new cards and kept his expression neutral. Joe picked up his three replacements, sighed, and waited for the action to start.

“Two blues,” the player who had raised before the draw said.

Klafey called, pushed in the chips, and looked at Joe, who folded.

“Pair of Jacks,” Murph said. “I only missed a straight by one card.”

“Three twos,” Klafey said, showing his cards and sweeping up the chips. “I started with three hearts and I had a good feeling about a flush, but then I drew the pair of twos to go with the one I already had.”

“You guys are nuts,” Sophie said. “You’ll bet on anything.”

“Can’t win if you don’t play,” Murph told her. “Besides, the antes add up.”

Stephens returned and placed two pitchers of beer on the table, and then pulled a stack of plastic cups from the hand-warmer section of his hoodie. “It’s on me,” he said expansively.

“Did something happen to you in the bathroom?” Klafey asked. “I haven’t seen you looking this happy since you hit the trifecta at the off-world betting parlor.”

“Just a bit of good news. Whose deal? I want to play some Texas Hold’em. No limit, no blinds, ante one yellow.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you can keep the deal until the beer runs out,” Murph said, handing over the deck. “Does anybody object?”

“Give me one of those cups and I don’t care who deals,” Sophie said. “But it’s not Texas Hold ‘em without the blinds.

The first pitcher held just enough to fill seven plastic cups and Klafey’s glass, and then Stephens began to deal. Joe took a sip of the beer, which wasn’t as bad as he had feared, and then checked on Paul through the one-way mirror. The boy had the intense look he always got when deeply immersed in a game or a math problem, but the distance was too great to make out what was going on with the tiny ships in the hologram.

“Sleeping on duty?” Klafey asked, nudging Joe. “It’s your bet.”

“Just watching the kids play, which reminds me of why I came,” he said, checking his two cards and immediately folding. “I want to pick up a few gaming tables for the men, but I’ve been to the Hortens, and a new table would blow the whole budget.”

The first betting round complete, Stephens laid out three cards for the flop, and Klafey surprised everybody by mucking his hand out of turn. “I’ve got zilch, so let’s take a look at the graveyard,” the game emporium’s owner said to Joe, and added for the benefit of the table, “Play slow and you won’t have to deal us out of the next hand.”

Joe stood up, took a big swallow of his beer so it wouldn’t slosh while he carried the flexible cup, and followed Klafey. Just a few steps from the poker table there were two dozen free-standing games that looked like they’d been through a war.

“I would have thought alien commercial quality gaming tech would hold up better than this,” Joe said. “Did all of these fail since you bought them?”

“You got it backward,” Klafey told him. “In the twenty years I’ve been running this place, the only game I had to send out for repair was the Nova table, and that was actually to upgrade the shielding when it turned out that humans are more sensitive to certain types of radiation than any of the other tunnel network species. I got all of these old gaming tables as salvage from Stephens.”

“So you want to sell me junk?”

“They aren’t junk, just too obsolete to upgrade to the latest versions the kids all want to play. And people are reluctant to spend money on something that looks like it might eat their programmable cred.”

“I’d have to get the boy to check them out before talking price, but what kind of ballpark are we looking at?”

“Stephens suckered me into paying five hundred for the lot and I just want them out of here. Say twenty creds per.”

“Paul’s at the Nova table right now, but I’ll get him in here as soon as the star pops,” Joe said. “If they check out, I’d be inclined to take them all. A hundred mercenaries with too much time on their hands can get up to a lot of trouble.”

“That’s your boy playing Nova?” Klafey asked. “He must be good to survive this long against Claire. The girl’s got game.” He glanced at the poker table where Stephenson was just laying out the fifth card, and said, “I tell you what. I’ve got a home version of the Nova table that the Horten dealer loaned me while the commercial table was out for the upgrade. Take all this junk off my hands for what I paid and you can have the portable Nova game as a throw-in.”

“You’re going to give me your loaner? What happens when the Horten asks for it back?”

“He already told me to keep it because it would cost him more to disinfect than what it’s worth. They think we’re all disease-ridden.”

“Are you two lovebirds going to play or should he deal you out?” Sophie called over. “Stephens just went all in and everybody folded.”

“We’re playing,” Klafey replied, and the two men returned to the table.

Over the next hour, more hands went Joe’s way than not, and he found himself sitting on the largest stack at the table. Stephens was the biggest loser, but if anything, he looked happier by the minute, and even paid for Murph to get the pitchers refilled. Then there was a bright flash that caught everybody’s attention even through the one-way glass. Joe excused himself for a hand to get Paul.

“Claire’s the best I’ve ever played,” the boy told Joe after conceding his seat to the next player and getting the right amount of change from the girl. “We made a date to meet here this weekend.”

“She’s too old for you,” Joe said reflexively.

“To play Nova,” Paul said, ducking his head to hide the beginning of a blush. “What’s in the back?”

“Poker, and a couple of dozen game tables for you to try out. They look pretty beat, but he’s offering them cheap. If we buy them, there’s a consumer-grade Nova table you can take home.”

“We’re buying them,” the boy said as they stepped through the mirrored door. “How much have you lost playing poker?”

“I’m ahead,” Joe said.

“Then you should quit and we can both test the tables.”

“No way, he has to give us a chance to win our money back,” Sophie said.

“And help drink the beer,” Murph added, as he set down the two refilled pitchers.

“You can’t fight with fate,” Joe told Paul as he took his seat. “If you run into a bad table, call out.”

The game resumed, now with added noise in the background each time the boy activated a table. Stephens continued to hold the deal, and they passed an ashtray around the table to signify who would start the betting each round. Joe played more cautiously with the boy in the room, but eventually he found himself sitting on the Seven and Nine of Spades when the Eight and Ten of Spades came out on the flop along with the Two of Hearts.

“Up a blue,” he announced when it was his turn to bet.

“Must have two pairs,” Klafey grumbled, throwing in his cards.

Stephens took a sip from his beer and studied Joe over the rim of the plastic cup. “See your blue and raise two,” he said, pushing in the chips.

Murph ditched his cards so energetically that one of them skidded off the table, and everybody else folded in order until Joe called.

“Three to a flush on the turn,” Stephens observed as he dealt out the fourth card, the Six of Spades. “Mercenary bets.”

“Up three,” Joe said, eying the other man’s shrinking stack. “I wouldn’t want anybody saying I bought the pot.”

“Everything in front of me,” Stephens said, pushing in his remaining five blues, one red, and nine yellows.

“I’ll call,” Joe said immediately. “Didn’t you mean all in?”

“We play no limit as whatever you have on you,” Klafey reminded him. “Maybe he’s going to bet the shirt off his back.”

The river card was the Two of Spades, and the other players immediately began speculating.

“Joe made his flush, but Stephens could be sitting on a full boat with those Twos,” Sophie said.

“I’d be surprised if either of them even has three of a kind,” Murph said. “Nobody stays in with Twos.”

“It’s your bet,” Stephens said.

“Now I’m all in,” Joe declared.

“I can’t walk away from this.” Stephens pulled out a battered tab, swept it to life, and after a few taps, pushed it in front of Joe. “This is the lease on my space. I’m not saying it’s a gold mine, but on my way to the bathroom, I got a ping that a rich relative bought the farm and left everything to me. I’m getting out of the business one way or the other.”

“Not a gold mine?” Klafey scoffed. “It’s a money pit.”

“You’re talking about your junk yard?” Joe asked.

“Metal recycling facility,” Stephens said. “It’s right on the core, rent-controlled space as long as the Stryx approve of the usage. I never bothered asking for the exact dimensions but we’re talking around forty acres.”

“On a space station? The lease payment must be a fortune.”

“It’s a sweetheart deal. The alien I took over the lease from must have done the Stryx a hell of a favor because I’ve been able to keep up with the payments just by separating scrap and selling it to traders.”

Joe contemplated the tab. “I know I have you beat and I don’t want to rob you of your place,” he said. “Why don’t you pick up the tab and we’ll just show our cards.”

“I insist,” Stephens said. “If you don’t accept my bet, I’m just going to walk away from the place and the Stryx can do whatever they want with it.”

“I’ll probably end up doing the same when the company gets here and we deploy, but if you insist,” Joe said, and fit his Seven and Nine into the community cards to show his straight flush. “What did you have anyway?”

“Four of a kind,” Stephens said, displaying the pair of twos he was holding. “Great game, but I’ve got to run home and pack. You can keep the tab too, I’m going to upgrade.”

“Are you sure you’re not having a manic episode?” Klafey asked him.

“Never been better in my life.” Stephens shook hands with all of the players at the table, even went over and patted Paul on the shoulder, and then half-jogged out of the game emporium and made a beeline for the nearest lift tube. A small robot with a barrel-shaped body and a single pincer was waiting for him in the capsule.

“One programmable cred with a balance of fifty thousand, and there’s a reconditioned Sharf cabin cruiser with your name on it waiting in the Human section of the docking deck,” the robot said, holding out the coin.

Stephens checked the amount displayed on the programmable cred and his smile grew even wider. “If you ever need somebody to lose a junkyard in a poker game again, I’m your man,” he said. “I haven’t had that much fun stacking a deck on the fly since I had to leave Earth with nothing but my toothbrush.”

“I don’t have to tell you that if the story ever gets out, that programmable cred will go to zero, and the cabin cruiser will cease to accept your commands.”

“I know, I know,” Stephens said. “I may not be a rocket scientist, but I’m smart enough to keep my word to the Stryx.”

Seventeen

Consul Palliser-Smythe watched silently as Mark brought in a tray with a pot of tea and a small plate of biscuits. After pouring out a cup of tea, the consulate manager took one step back from the desk and remained standing respectfully in place. The consul let him wait silently for a full minute to make sure it was something that couldn’t be avoided before saying, “Speak.”

“Acting Assistant Consul Frank is waiting to see you, Consul. She’s on the appointment calendar.”

“Card?”

“As she’s now an employee of the consulate, I thought it would be inappropriate to prepare a card,” Mark said.

Palliser-Smythe remained silent for a long moment considering this hypothesis, and then he said, “Quite.”

The consulate manager took two more backward steps before turning and exiting the office. Kelly was waiting just outside the door, and Mark announced somewhat louder than necessary, “Consul Palliser-Smythe will see you now.”

Kelly tightly gripped the tab with the presentation she had labored all Thursday to create, and put on her professional smile before entering the consul’s office. She walked directly to the guest chair in front of the large display desk, but remained standing and waited for her boss to speak.

“All ready?” he asked and made a sort of tomahawk gesture that she took as an invitation to be seated.

“Yes, Consul,” she said enthusiastically, settling onto the front edge of the chair and leaning forward. “The first thing I did was to research all of the optional diplomatic events on Echo Station that our status as probationary tunnel network members qualifies me to attend. In the last three weeks, I’ve been to four official meetings related to the treaty obligations of full members, two embassy receptions, and a cultural exchange event on the…” Kelly trailed off as she noticed that her boss was reading something on his display desk while sipping his tea, and it occurred to her that she’d misunderstood his meaning. “Were you asking if it’s already been three weeks I’m working here?”

“Yes,” the consul confirmed, and then as if at great personal cost, he added, “Continue, if you must.”

“I know that EarthCent has never offered much guidance to diplomatic staff, but I assume that someone who’s reached your level would be in on the big picture that’s kept back from the lower-level diplomats. I thought you would want me to keep you up to date on my progress.”

“Progress?” He raised a single eyebrow as he nibbled a biscuit.

“After the first few meetings, I realized that I was setting my sights too high by hoping to engage the alien ambassadors in professional conversations. I’m just an acting assistant consul, and I’ve learned that the tunnel network ambassadors expect to deal with diplomats of their own level. But at the less formal events, I was able to initiate some interesting conversations with aliens involved in food service, and—”

“Servants?” Palliser-Smythe cut her off, a look of horror on his face.

“Caterers. I learned quite a bit about the dietary preferences of the Grenouthians, and while we can’t eat any of their food because the symbiotic microbes in our guts haven’t evolved to handle the—”

“Eating,” he interrupted, waving the biscuit for emphasis.

“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” Kelly said, though she had to wonder just how delicate the consul’s stomach must be that he couldn’t stand to hear mention of the digestive tract while enjoying a dry cracker with his tea. “I’ve put together a presentation on my tab which gives the schedule of events I’ll be attending in the next six months, and I’ve set myself modest goals to achieve at each event. My hope is that by taking an incremental approach, I can slowly bring the alien diplomats around to accepting my presence and eventually allowing me to participate in their conversations. If you’ll just take a look,” she concluded, extending her tab to the consul.

“Why?” he asked, a frown turning down the corners of his thin-lipped mouth.

“Why?” Kelly repeated. “Why look at my presentation?” A nearly imperceptible shake of his head cured her of that misapprehension. “Why am I attempting to build relationships with the alien ambassadors? Isn’t that the whole purpose of what we’re doing here? I realize that the bounds of our participation in the tunnel network are set by the treaty we signed, but—”

“Compelled,” Palliser-Smythe reminded her.

“Well, it’s true the Stryx didn’t give Earth a choice of whether or not to join the tunnel network, but surely you don’t think we were better off before they came. We have so much to learn from the other species, and—”

“Inhuman,” he interrupted.

“Of course they aren’t human,” Kelly said in frustration. “They’d be pretty sorry excuses for aliens if they were. You’re not some kind of human exceptionalist, are you?”

The consul’s deepening frown gave her all the answer she needed, but in a tone that might have been employed by a hangman inviting a convicted criminal to try on the noose for size, he said, “Explain.”

“Human exceptionalism,” she stated, throwing all caution to the wind. “The belief that we’re better than all of the other sentient species, regardless of the fact that they’re so much more accomplished than we are. I’ve always been a big reader, and I thought the reason our literature and dramatic productions couldn’t make any inroads with the aliens was that we were so far behind on holograms and immersive technology. Barry, the actor I moved in with, says that the real problem is that all of our stories are human-centric. It’s obvious that—”

“Enough,” he cut her off. “Report in six months.”

“So you approve of my plan?” Kelly asked. “That’s wonderful. I’ll ask Mark to send my presentation and schedule to your display desk, and I can give you weekly updates. Daily if you want.”

“Six months,” the consul repeated. “Pension in five.”

“You don’t want to see me for six months because you’re retiring in five?” She stared at him in disbelief. “In the twelve years I’ve worked for EarthCent, I’ve had some do-nothing bosses, but you—”

“Good day,” he said loudly, and then closed his eyes and rubbed his temples as if he felt a headache coming on.

“You know what?” Kelly said, her voice rising even as she stood. “I’m going to work twice as hard now, and if you think I’m going to let your attitude change the way—”

“I said, good day, Miss Frank,” the consul thundered. He shocked Kelly by leaping up and stalking to the door which he waved open. There he remained standing like a statue until she exited his office, her head held high.

“I can’t believe him,” Kelly fumed as soon as the door slid shut behind her. “How did someone like that ever get put in charge of a consulate?”

“The consul didn’t approve of your plan?” Mark asked from behind his display desk.

“He didn’t even want to see it! Then I asked if he was some kind of human exceptionalist and he completely flew off the handle.” She pointed at her ear and made a circular motion.

Mark looked at her patiently, and then when he realized she was waiting for his reaction, he said, “It’s considered polite practice on Stryx stations to point at your ear when you have an incoming call over your implant. Long-time users are so good at subvocalizing that you wouldn’t know they were engaged in a conversation otherwise. I thought that pointing and making a circular motion meant you were completely engaged.”

“No, it’s universal sign language for crazy, or at least I thought it was.”

“I’ve never seen that one before,” the consulate manager said, and then his expression grew serious. “From what I’ve learned about the consul, he’s a proud man who honestly believes that he’s here making a sacrifice for humanity.”

“Sitting behind his desk all day drinking tea?” Kelly inquired acerbically.

“He goes to events where his attendance is required,” Mark said. “The last consulate manager told me that the ambassadors from the other species ignored the consul from the first day he arrived here. Maybe somebody with a different skill set could have obtained a better outcome, but he seems to be doing the job the Stryx expected of him because EarthCent has kept him on.”

“Speaking of which, the consul said something about retiring in five months.”

“Yes. His generation of diplomats had the option to take full retirement at thirty years, even if they started in their teens. The funny thing is I’ve met Mrs. Palliser-Smythe and they’re both from old money.”

“Why haven’t I met her?” Kelly asked.

“She only spends summers on the station now. When their first child was old enough for school, Mrs. Palliser-Smythe returned to Earth with him, where they live on their estate through the school year.”

“The rich people in English literature always sent their children to boarding schools.”

“These days, paying for a teacher to conduct a local class for your children and their friends is the true sign of wealth,” Mark explained.

“Then I really don’t understand,” Kelly said in frustration. “Why would a rich man waste the best years of his life hiding behind a desk in a consulate?”

“He sees it as a public service required of his family, like sitting in the House of Lords,” Mark explained. “The agreement that established EarthCent requires us to staff a number of diplomatic positions on Stryx stations and worlds that do a certain amount of round-trip tunnel traffic with Earth, mainly resort planets. His family has a long history of diplomatic service, and he once mentioned a grandfather who was an ambassador to China during the economic collapse.”

Kelly exhaled deeply, trying to dispel the impression she had formed of her boss, and then she said, “I still don’t like him.”

“Five months,” Mark reminded her. “Since you’ve been assigned here, I’m hoping you’ll be appointed as his replacement.”

“I’m not old enough to be a consul yet,” she said.

“So you’ll be an acting consul for a couple of years. If you stick to that program you’ve worked up for yourself, by the time he leaves, you’ll be more than qualified to take over. Maybe when you’re EarthCent’s senior diplomat on the station, the alien ambassadors will see fit to include you in their conversations.”

“You’re right. I have to be prepared for the opportunity or I’ll have nobody but myself to blame.” Kelly started for her office, and then turned back to the young consulate manager and said “When I completed EarthCent’s training program for diplomatic track employees, the president gave a sort of graduation speech, and he told us that the only limit to what we could achieve in our careers would be what we made of our opportunities. I thought he was just trying to get us pumped up, but maybe I’ve been too hesitant to take control of my destiny.”

“I know what I want out of my EarthCent career,” Mark said. “To pass my competency exams at the Open University so I’ll be qualified to teach art history when some of the human communities out here grow enough to open colleges. If I could be a member of the founding faculty I’d never have to go through the tenure process.”

“Are you sure it works that way?”

“The founding members get to make the rules,” he said. “It’s not like we’re going to slavishly follow the traditions from Earth.”

“Then why have tenure at all?” Kelly asked.

“It has its upsides, especially for the faculty that get in on the ground floor.” A soft ding sounded from Mark’s display desk, and the calendar hologram appeared. “There’s a pop-up event sponsored by the Vergallian ambassador for female diplomats and family members that’s happening in the all-species communal bath house,” he told her. “I set the filter to report on anything you could attend without an invitation.”

“And I’m going,” Kelly said firmly. “If you don’t hear back from me, I’ve probably drowned.”

It took a bit of coaching from the station librarian to find the location, but Kelly’s ability to subvocalize over her implant had been improving rapidly, and she didn’t draw too many crazy-lady stares along the way. When she reached the entrance, her confidence faltered, and she subvoced, “Can you tell me what to expect inside?”

“All-species bath houses are similar in many ways to the communal baths and saunas found in several cultures on Earth,” the station librarian replied. “The entrance fee of one cred, which must be paid in cash, includes a locker to store your personal effects while in the bath. Brand-name personal hygiene products are available in single-use packaging for additional charges, but the house soap and shampoo in the dispensers are free. You’ll receive a towel—”

“Thank you,” Kelly cut off the dissertation as two aliens brushed past her, one of whom she recognized as the Vergallian ambassador. “I’ll have to wing the rest.”

The attendant looked Kelly up and down with an obvious expression of distaste, and said, “The bath house is reserved for a diplomatic event.”

“I’m EarthCent’s acting assistant consul,” Kelly said, placing a one-cred coin on the counter. “I’m here to participate.”

The cashier pointed at her ear for a moment, grimaced, and then handed Kelly a short crystal rod with an attached elastic band. “Use that to open the locker and return it when you leave. Through those doors and take a washcloth.”

Kelly followed the instructions and found herself in a typical-looking locker room, trying not to stare at more naked alien flesh than she’d ever imagined existed. Then it hit her that the diplomats would expect her to strip off as well, and cursing the consul for ending their meeting so quickly, she opened a locker with the crystal rod and slowly disrobed. Then she followed the direction the aliens had taken, through a double sliding door and into a large tiled area. There were several aliens who she could only hope were female washing up after their baths, and they all turned to stare at the red-haired newcomer. Kelly made a beeline for the nearest bath where she planned to submerge to the neck and stay that way until the event was over and the room emptied.

“Halt right there, Human,” a steely voice commanded. “Don’t you know enough to wash yourself before getting into a community bath? And as amusing as it might be seeing if your skin will turn the same color as your hair, the tub you’re contemplating submerging yourself in is for Verlocks. Those aren’t Jacuzzi bubbles, the water is boiling.”

Kelly skidded to a halt, and her mortification caused her face to turn a bright shade of red, drawing ironic applause from the Vergallian ambassador. Head down, she hurried back to the area where she now realized the other diplomats were washing themselves before getting in the tubs.

A leathery-looking mound of flesh with three toes on each foot pointed at the crystal rod Kelly was carrying and slowly said, “The – band – goes – on – your – wrist – or - ankle.”

“Thank you,” Kelly whispered, and immediately followed the instructions, slipping the elastic over her ankle. In imitation of what she saw the others doing out of the corner of her eye, she filled a two-handled container with water from the tap and dumped it over her head. Then she held her hand under the shampoo dispenser to her left, a moment too long based on the quantity she received, and began working it into her hair.

“That’s chlorophyll protector,” a creaky voice told her. “Can’t you read Frunge?”

“I’m so sorry,” Kelly said. She fumbled blindly for the water container as her eyes began to burn, and several aliens dumped their water over her head or threw it in her face. As soon as she could see through the tears, Kelly began repeatedly flushing her eyes from the faucet, and by the time the stinging sensation was gone, she was alone in the washing-up area.

“Do you require medical assistance?” the station librarian’s voice inquired in her head. “I can send a bot.”

“I’m fine now, thank you,” she subvoced, though her concentration was shot and it came out in a whisper. “Do you think the others will be offended if I leave without trying the baths?”

“I’m sure they’ll understand,” the artificial intelligence told her.

Kelly couldn’t face returning to the consulate just then, so she headed home and found Barry had already returned from his latest tour.

“I thought you were going to be gone for five weeks,” she said.

“Almost all of the workers coming off the previous twenty-year contract signed up for a second hitch, so they only brought in a few thousand newbies from Earth. Usually, we put on the same play twice a day for two weeks to keep the audience size reasonable, and then we spend the rest of the time leading workshops. With the smaller group, we got through everything in just ten days. Why do you have a towel on your head?”

“Long story, and if a shower doesn’t fix it, I’ll have to find a place to buy hair dye until it grows out,” Kelly said. “Does your coming back early mean we’re going to have trouble making the rent?”

“No. The Dollies had us scheduled a year in advance so they paid in full, but if people extending their contracts for a second term becomes a regular thing, our business is going to dry up,” Barry told her. “I won’t cry about it if that happens because some of the alien production companies have started hiring human actors to play ourselves. Everybody is saying that the Grenouthians are gearing up to make a new series of documentaries about Earth.”

“But don’t documentaries feature archival footage and interviews with academic historians?”

“From what I’ve heard, the bunnies are interested in our history before we even invented photography, so there’s going to be a lot of reenactments with period costumes and all of that. I’m just not sure if they’re going to construct elaborate sets or do the production on Earth.”

“How long do you think you’d be gone?” Kelly asked.

“Worried about the apartment?” he teased, and then grew serious when he saw the hurt expression on her face. “Don’t worry, Kel. You know I care about you, and it’s not like I can tell the Grenouthians to give me a job. There’ll be auditions, and contract negotiations, and big projects can take years of preparation before the shooting even begins. We’ll start seeding algae once the oceans cool.”

“What?”

“Sorry, that’s an old Dollnick terraforming expression we teach in the workshops. Sort of like crossing that bridge when we come to it.”

Eighteen

“What are you going to tell Woojin?” Paul asked.

“That I’m done with being a mercenary and we’re staying,” Joe said decisively. “I wasn’t looking to get into the junkyard business, but after it fell into my lap like that—well, it feels like fate. I’ve already confirmed that station plumbing hookups are available on every deck, and if there aren’t any suitable hulls buried in the scrap, I’ll build a house of sorts. We’ll just camp out for the time being so I won’t be paying rent on two places.”

“We might get to live in a spaceship?” the boy asked, his eyes shining.

“Yeah, well, it probably wouldn’t be able to go anywhere or it wouldn’t be in the junkyard, but it could still be pretty cool if we find a good one. I took the lift tube from there to your school on my way back to the hotel and it didn’t seem to take any longer. If you decide to go to a different school next year—”

“No way. It was a bit weird the first few weeks with all the girls and stuff, but now I’m used to it. And I need your permission for a field trip to see the outside of the station. It’s free.”

“Do I have to sign something?” Joe asked.

“No, you just have to say I can go.”

“And the teacher will trust you?”

“It’s an experimental Stryx school run by the station librarian,” Paul reminded him. “She hears everything that’s said on Union Station.”

“It’s going to take me a while to get used to that. Is all of your stuff packed?”

“Ready to bug out,” the boy said, and snapped a crisp salute.

“I guess I’ve moved you around a dozen times in the last few years so let’s hope that this is it until you’re grown up,” Joe said.

“I can’t wait to see the junk piles.”

“Try not to be disappointed. The reason I haven’t brought you down there yet is that it’s dangerous, but there’s an old wrecker that I’ve been using to clear a good-sized area, so I won’t have to worry about a stack of crushed lifeboats falling on you.” Joe took a final look around the hotel room, and then he sat back on his heels so he was looking up at the boy. “Paul. You have to promise me not to climb on the junk piles or this isn’t going to work.”

“I promise,” the boy said immediately.

“No, listen. It’s going to be really, really tempting. Most of the junk looks like it hasn’t moved in hundreds of years, and there are so many handholds and places to step that it looks safer than a ladder. But the edges on some of the metal scraps are as sharp as any sword, and I’ve already had a couple of stacks start to shift on me when I was just trying to take a closer look.”

“Really, I promise, Joe. I don’t want to get cut in half like Fletcher.”

“I wish you hadn’t seen that. Do you still dream about it?”

“Sometimes. He was nice. He taught me how to play chess.”

“Fletch was a good one,” Joe said. “He was getting too old for the life, though. Whether or not I work out as a scrap dealer, I can thank Stephens for getting me out of the mercenaries before I turned forty.”

“Can you carry your pack and the Nova table at the same time?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t leave it behind. Your game table doesn’t weigh anything compared to the commercial quality pay tables.”

The two of them shouldered their packs, and then Joe picked up the Nova table, which folded down to suitcase size. They both felt a little sad about checking out of the luxury hotel, the finest lodgings either of them had ever stayed in, but the purchasing mission was complete.

“Are we going to meet the guys now, or drop off our stuff first?” Paul asked as they entered the lift tube.

“We’ll drop off our stuff first because I don’t want everyone thinking I quit to play games,” Joe said. “It’s the same deck in any case, and we may have enough time to walk to meet them.” He cleared his throat self-consciously and instructed the capsule, “Stephens Metal Recycling.”

“Are you going to keep that name?” the boy asked.

“I haven’t thought about it. I know that sometimes when people buy a business they keep the old name so everybody can find it, but I don’t imagine Stephens did any retail business, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Then you should change the name to McAllister Metal Recycling.”

“You’re going to be the one saying it every day when you get in the lift tube after school,” Joe said. “I’ll leave it up to you.”

“Is there a nicer word for junkyard?”

“Scrap yard? When I was a kid, there was an old farm where the guy had collected hundreds of pickup trucks. When we went there for parts, my dad always called it a bone yard.”

“How about McAllister’s Bones?” Paul asked. “That way kids will be too scared to come and get hurt climbing on the piles.”

“Now you’re thinking, but how about shortening it to Mac’s Bones, and you’ll save a couple of seconds a day saying it.”

“Deal. Libby?”

“Yes, Paul,” the station librarian’s voice replied in the moving capsule.

“Were you listening?”

“I’m always listening,” the Stryx AI replied. “I’ll update my school records to show your address as Mac’s Bones.”

The doors slid open on a wide corridor, and Paul almost lost his balance when he eagerly stepped from the capsule.

“Careful,” Joe said. “We’re on the innermost deck now, and that means you weigh less here than on any other deck. The hollow core of the station is just overhead.”

“I don’t feel any different,” Paul said, and then he bounced on his toes. “Maybe my pack is lighter though.”

“The difference from deck to deck isn’t that great because the core is so wide,” Joe explained. “That Frunge habitat we stayed on could sail right through without a problem.”

“Is the door locked?” Paul asked.

“No need,” Joe said. “I hired security.”

The large doors slid silently open at Paul’s approach and he was greeted by enthusiastic barking.

“Killer,” the boy greeted the dog. “I was worried you went back to the company but I didn’t want to ask.”

Beowulf cocked his head to the side and gave Paul a look that implied he thought the boy had a few screws loose.

“Beowulf is even older than me in dog years,” Joe said. “Nobody knows how long the genetically engineered crosses with Huravian hounds will last since he was the first generation, but I think he’s ready to retire into being a junkyard dog.”

“It’s huge!” Paul exclaimed, looking up at the slightly convex ceiling that formed a tiny part of Union Station’s inner cylindrical hull. “How can we afford the rent?”

“It’s a commercial lease with a special rate as a scrapyard because it’s a necessary service. Lots of the ships that make it to Union Station are on their last legs, and some of the salvage that’s brought in is still good for parts, rather than just sending it all to a metal recycling orbital. That’s what I’m going to focus on this coming year, separating the metal scrap from the assemblies that are still usable.”

Beowulf danced around them like a puppy, enjoying his lower weight and the open space that Joe had cleared since taking possession. It was impossible not to get caught up in the dog’s enthusiasm, and Paul got an old ball out of his pack and threw it. Unfortunately, it rolled under a mound of scrap. Beowulf pulled up short.

“Good dog,” Joe called to him. “You see that, Paul? He knows better than to even get close to that stuff.”

“But how are we going to get his ball out?”

“I’ll move the pile with the wrecker tomorrow. For now, let’s leave our stuff here and go meet Woojin and the guys.” Joe correctly interpreted the boy’s expression and added, “Don’t worry about the Nova table. Beowulf will keep an eye on it, and nobody would be able to pick it out from all the junk in here anyway. I’ll set it down near the depleted fuel packs and it will blend right in.”

“Does our space really go back as far as I can see the ceiling?”

“Yup. The lease was longer than a dictionary so I didn’t read enough of it to get the exact size, but if I was a surveyor, I’d measure this place in acres.”

The doors slid open to admit a Dollnick and the dog started barking like he meant it.

“Stop it, Beowulf,” Joe scolded. “You know Rupe.”

“I’ll just start walking and let you catch up,” the alien said, and wisely retreated.

“Was he whistling for Beowulf to come?” Paul asked.

“No, that’s what Dollnick speech sounds like,” Joe told the boy. He went back to his pack and dug out an ear cuff translator. “I was going to give this to you on your birthday, but no time like the present. Beowulf, guard the fort.”

“Does this mean I can’t have an implant?”

“Let’s wait a couple of years for your brain to finish growing,” Joe said, fitting it over the boy’s right ear.

“Nice place you have there,” Rupe commented when Joe and Paul caught up after a short run. The man was just able to keep pace with the tall alien’s ambling stride, but the boy had to break into a jog every few steps. “Big, but it could use a little tidying up.”

“Sorry about the dog,” Joe said. “The junkyard is his territory so he reacts differently there.”

“Makes perfect sense to me,” the Dollnick said. “Your son?”

“Yes,” Joe said. He didn’t bother explaining the lack of a blood relationship, which might confuse the alien. “The drop boxes are on the platform ready for loading?”

“Ready and waiting for the troop transport to arrive. I did a final check before releasing the payments and coming to get you. Sending the transport to pick up your mercenaries was cheaper than paying for a hundred liner tickets with all the extra gear your corporation carries.”

“Company, not corporation,” Joe corrected the alien. “A military company is the next unit size up from platoons. The customer paying for transportation between active deployments is a mercenary tradition.”

“A Human mercenary tradition,” Rupe said. “And I don’t see how you can call it an active deployment when the only danger is frostbite.”

“You’re forgetting boredom.”

“They’re taking enough Horten game tables with them for a tournament. If they still get bored, they’re welcome to try the ice fishing.”

“Are there any fish?” Paul asked, getting the words out between breaths.

“Not that I’m aware of, but it will make them appreciate the games more,” Rupe said. “If they were Dollnick mercenaries, they would spend all of their free time training.”

“Then why didn’t the prince hire Dollnick mercenaries?” Joe asked.

“They cost ten times as much, and that’s before you figure in the benefits and insurance. Have you ever been down this corridor?”

“First time. There’s the lift tube right next to Mac’s Bones so I haven’t had the need.”

“That’s a better name than Stephens-whatever,” Rupe said without missing a beat. “Brool’s place is up here on the right. He runs a repair facility for small ships, specializing in Dollnick technology, but he’ll paint anything that’s vacuum worthy.”

“Good to know,” Joe said, his own breath coming shorter.

“Most of the space on the core is either docks, shipyards, warehouses, or reserved by the Stryx,” Rupe continued, as if he was enjoying his role as a tour guide. “The overhead bay doors open directly to space, and Brool told me that the station safety protocol is to keep them closed unless a ship is actively arriving or departing.”

“Even on the travel concourse where we’re heading?”

“Exception that makes the rule. Given the size of the passenger liners, and the frequency of their arrivals and departures, the bay doors would be moving almost constantly if they tried keeping them closed.”

“Our ceiling opens to outer space?” Paul panted.

“It’s the station’s core, so I’m not sure that qualifies as outer space, but that could be a translation thing,” Rupe replied. “I saw the outlines of the bay doors during the brief visit your dog permitted me. How did you think all the junk got in there?”

They passed another spoke with a lift tube and the corridor suddenly doubled in width, but the new space was taken by two flexible belts moving in opposite directions at a speed similar to the Dollnick’s walking pace.

“Moving sidewalks,” Joe declared happily. “Think you can get on without falling over, Paul?”

The boy leapt onto the belt moving in the right direction, and then crouched a bit to examine the interlocking metal elements. “I wouldn’t want to ride on this barefoot.”

“That’s because it’s intended for cargo,” Rupe whistled too quietly to be translated as Joe hopped on. The Dollnick kept pace for a few minutes until they were approaching the package sorting section, and then called out, “Time to get down. We’re almost there.”

A few steps later they found themselves at the end of the busy travel concourse, and Rupe led the way to a real moving sidewalk that looped around the whole core of Union Station at each spoke of the docking section.

“Do you know which platform they’re arriving on?” Joe asked.

“I was just there,” the Dollnick reminded him. “The Stryx handle all of the traffic in the core, and they aren’t going to put the transport down in the wrong place. We should get there just before them.”

For once Rupe turned out to be wrong. When they arrived at the platform, the mercenaries had already disembarked and were doing calisthenics in preparation for another long stretch in Zero-G. Before Joe had a chance to speak, Woojin said, “Looks like you’re hanging up your boots.”

“How did you know?” Joe asked.

“You don’t have your gear or Beowulf. We’re really going to miss that dog.”

“He would have been miserable cooped up inside for ten months. And Paul’s doing well in school.”

Woojin snapped a crisp salute, shook Joe’s hand, and said, “You’re officially off the rolls. I’ll let command know.”

“That’s it?” Rupe asked. “No ceremony?”

“Mercenaries only have two ways to officially retire, a handshake or a funeral,” Joe told him. “Most guys take the unofficial route by not showing up when it’s time for a new deployment.”

Woojin shook Paul’s hand. “You take care of yourself, and take care of Joe too,” he told the boy. “And if I ever hear you’ve signed up as a merc, I’ll track you down and beat some sense into you.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” the boy promised.

“Let’s inspect those drop boxes and we’ll be on our way,” Woojin said to Joe. “Our new employer was willing to let us stay on Union Station for a day to break up the trip, but the men voted to keep going.”

“Don’t blame them,” Joe said. “They’ll have plenty of time to exercise in the next ten months. I think you’ll like the equipment I picked out.”

Rupe opened up the drop boxes, and Woojin took his time doing spot inspections of the contents in the modular shipping containers. The bulk of the space was given over to the rations, but the collection of used Horten games drew a snort of amusement. The major nodded approvingly at the arctic survival gear Joe had scared up from a distributor who had gambled on a rush shipment from Earth.

“Nothing like white camouflage in the snow,” Woojin said. “And snow goggles, looks like you thought of everything.”

“I spent all of the creds that we were authorized,” Joe told him. “Couldn’t think of any reason not to, and from what Rupe tells me, your client is getting a bargain compared to Dollnick mercenaries.”

“That was fast.”

“What?”

“Your client,” Woojin repeated Joe’s words. “You’ve already made the break.”

“Well, you know it’s been coming for a while. I won’t say I regret every minute of the last eighteen years, but if I could go back and tell my twenty-year-old self to think again, you better believe I would.”

Nineteen

“You look exhausted,” the consulate’s office manager greeted Kelly. “Don’t tell me you went to another all-night meeting.”

“Not all night, just since four in the morning,” Kelly said, making a beeline for the coffee machine. “My feet and my back are killing me.”

“They still won’t give you a chair?”

“The Vergallian ambassador’s personal assistant showed me an English translation of their relevant treaty obligations when I complained. The alien embassies have to allow me entrance to the preparatory meetings for the Black Hole Survey conference, but the treaty doesn’t say anything about a seat at the table.”

“But does it really specify that chairs will be provided to diplomats who represent full tunnel-network members?” Mark asked.

“The size and quantity of chairs provided for each species is spelled out,” Kelly said. “I remember reading about international peace conferences in my EarthCent training course, and sometimes the countries would argue for weeks over the seating arrangements before the negotiations even started. I guess the Stryx decided to put everything in black and white, but now the aliens are using it as a trick to keep me from sitting at the table.”

“So you’ve been standing for six hours? I hope you stepped out of your shoes.”

“I’d die before I let that Vergallian ambassador see me without heels,” Kelly said vehemently as she searched for anything chocolate. “Did I finish all of the brownies?”

“It turns out that Consul Palliser-Smythe has a sweet tooth,” Mark said. “He’s put on weight in the three months you’ve been here.”

“I’m better off not drinking coffee on an empty stomach. I’m going home for breakfast and I’ll come back in after lunch.”

“I’ve got a special lecture to attend at the Open University this afternoon, so I’ll see you tomorrow,” the office manager said.

When Kelly arrived back at the apartment, Barry had just finished preparing an omelet, and he immediately suggested that they eat together.

“You’re so good to me,” Kelly said.

“I don’t believe in missing chances,” he said seriously. “Life is about living, and who knows the next time I’ll have the opportunity to feed such a beautiful and intelligent woman.”

“Now I know you want something,” she teased him.

“Mixing with all of those alien diplomats is making you cynical.” He served two-thirds of the omelet to Kelly and kept a third for himself. Then he gave her both slices of toast that were up, poured her a cup of coffee, and sat down across from her with what remained of the omelet and a day-old roll. “Were you standing all night again? You’re sitting funny.”

“I should try bringing a folding chair with me,” Kelly said. “Aren’t you going to have anything else? I feel like I’m stealing food from your mouth.”

“You know I have to watch my weight or the agency will just find another pretty face to play the ugly human,” Barry said. “By eating part of my breakfast, you’re making it possible for me to have something for lunch instead of skipping.”

“Your stomach is flatter than mine.”

“It’s easier for men to maintain six-pack abs, or at least that’s what the actresses I work with all claim. You’re perfect as you are.”

“Would you mind saying that again while I record it on my tab?” Kelly asked with a laugh. “Come on, Barry. You’re laying it on a bit thick. Do you need help rehearsing something?”

“Well,” he said, setting aside his fork. “I know you like reading old novels, and I’ve got an audition with the Grenouthians coming up for a documentary about life in the countryside before tractors and electricity. My agent sent me a whole ton of stuff to read through, and I’ve spent the last couple of days studying up on horse-drawn farming equipment. I’m having trouble understanding the relationships between the different classes of servants and their masters.”

“Are you talking about the Victorian period in England?”

“I saw that word in the proposed title for the documentary. Victory over something, right?”

“The Victorian era is named for Queen Victoria, and the best books in English literature were all written during her reign,” Kelly said excitedly. “I have dozens of novels I could loan you, but I don’t know how you’re going to practice the accent.”

“They have coaches for stuff like that, and you know I’m not much of a novel reader,” Barry told her. “I was hoping that you might go through the material the agent sent me and dictate little voice notes wherever I highlighted a section in blue? For some reason I learn better when it’s you telling me something.”

Kelly finished chewing a mouthful of the omelet, which was excellent. “It sounds like fun. Let me see it.”

“My tab is in the living room. Let’s finish breakfast, and then you can take a look while I whip up some cream to go on the pudding.”

“Chocolate pudding? You really know how to make a woman feel special.”

A second cup of coffee and two servings of pudding later, Kelly put down the tab and tried to sit up straight without success. “This is going to take me a few days,” she said. “You’ve highlighted almost everything.”

“I guess Earth history isn’t my strong suit,” Barry admitted, moving behind her and rubbing her lower back. “Hey, you’re as stiff as a board.”

“I have some muscle relaxants in my purse, but I hate taking them before going back to work because they make me drowsy.”

“I’ve got something better,” he told her. “Wait here. I’m getting your sneakers.”

“We’re going out? Where?” she called after him, but received no response.

Barry returned and knelt before her to slip her feet into the sneakers and tie the laces. “Don’t ask where we’re going because I want to surprise you.”

“As long as it’s not the public baths, though a good boil in a Verlock tub might be exactly what I need.”

“It’s not the baths. Let me help you up.”

Once Kelly was on her feet in the sneakers with Barry’s arm around her waist she found that walking slowly wasn’t that bad. He led her back towards the consulate, and then down the side corridor with her favorite donut shop franchise.

“You’re taking me to Hole Universe? You’re a saint.”

“We’re going past Hole Universe, though we can stop on the way back if you want to,” he said. “Now close your eyes and I’ll tell you when we’re there.”

Kelly half complied, closing the eye on the side of her face that he could see, and only partially closing the other eye because she was afraid of tripping. It was easy to tell when they passed Hole Universe from the heavenly smell, and Barry had to use a little force to keep her moving. Eventually he came to a halt and turned her to face a storefront.

“Open your eyes,” Barry told her.

“Dollnick Inspirations Factory Outlet?” she read the store’s name. “You want us to buy furniture together?” Kelly slipped out of his arm and through the sliding doors without noticing that the usually glib actor was suddenly tongue-tied and looking a bit panicked.

“Welcome,” a dapper salesman of indeterminate middle age greeted Kelly as soon as she entered. “I’m Greg, and I’ll be your guide to the paradise of Dollnick engineered furniture. What are you shopping for today?”

“I don’t really know. I’ve never shopped for furniture before.”

“In your entire life?” he asked in mock horror.

“Unless you count a hammock,” Kelly said. “Everywhere I’ve been assigned by EarthCent, I replaced somebody who was living with roommates, so I just moved in. I never expected to stay in one place that long, so buying furniture didn’t make sense. I guess I’ve left a couple of bookshelves behind, but those were really just boards and the local equivalent of milk crates.”

“As long as you’ve brought up hammocks, have you ever slept in a Dollnick nest?” the salesman asked Kelly. “They’re incredibly comfy, easy to clean, and studies have shown that sleeping in the fetal position is the best thing for good back health.”

“Which studies are those?” Kelly asked. “I’ve been having back problems and I like to read up.”

“Academic studies,” Greg said vaguely. “You do look a bit stiff. Why don’t you stretch out in our demo model and see how it feels?”

“Stretch out in the fetal position?”

“The Dollnicks are taller than us, so you can actually lie on your back with your feet up on the edge.”

Kelly looked at the round nest sized for a larger species and shook her head. “I don’t think we’d have space for one.”

“If space is your problem, have you ever considered a Murphy bed?” Greg asked.

“That sounds familiar, like something I might have read about in a novel,” Kelly said, and then the memory snapped into place. “Got it. They’re beds with real mattresses that fold up against a wall when not in use. But the story I remember involved a murder where the grandson of an old lady was accused of suffocating her by raising the bed while she slept. His lawyer proved that the vibrations from a passing train could have bounced open the latch so the springs folded the bed up to the wall without anybody lifting.”

“An exaggeration that goes back to the old silent moving pictures,” Greg said dismissively, and directed Kelly’s attention to a large, shallow cabinet with shelves on either side. “For example, our top-of-the-line queen-size only opens or closes by voice command, with no springs, and it has a safety interlock that senses any weight on the mattress beyond linens.” He whistled something that Kelly’s implant translated as ‘Open Sesame,’ and the bed began to descend.

“That’s so clever,” Kelly said. “The cabinet doors looked real, but they’re just decorations on the bottom of the bed. But how many people can learn to whistle even two words in Dollnick?”

The salesman’s beaming expression slipped. “The human contract workers at the factory screwed up and the English version for the voice controls didn’t get installed on the Murphy beds. They’ve already dispatched a technician to do the upgrades, and I can guarantee delivery by the end of the week.”

“Do you have any furniture where the English voice controls do work, just so I can test it?”

“Right this way,” Greg said, leading Kelly to an elevated platform at the center of the store where a large, heavily padded chair of some sort was displayed.

“This is why I brought you,” Barry whispered in her ear.

“Is that in creds?” she asked, gaping at the price. “The chair better feature built-in floater technology for commuting. No, it would have to be one of those medical pods to justify the cost.”

“The LoveU is better than a mere auto-doctor,” Greg said, helping Kelly up onto the platform. “Just say ‘calibrate’ and relax while it resizes to fit your body.”

“Calibrate,” Kelly commanded. She wasn’t completely sure whether she sank into the chair or whether it rose to embrace her, but the sensation was strangely pleasant.

“The LoveU recliner is programmed with all Earth massage techniques, from pressure points to deep tissue. It offers Fintrian nerve stimulation, and of course, gentle vibration across a wide frequency range. Just tell it what ails you.”

“Well, my back is really stiff, and my calf muscles—Oooooooo,” Kelly broke off as the chair began to hum, and her whole body suddenly relaxed to the point that she realized her mouth was hanging open.

“Good, huh?” Barry asked.

“It’s better than good,” Kelly groaned. “With this chair waiting at home, I could spend the next two years standing in meetings with a smile on my face.” A thought hit her and she forced her eyes open. “I wonder if I could charge it to the consulate as a work expense?”

“Do I understand that you work for a consulate?” Greg asked. “If they aren’t willing to see things your way, I’m sure our finance department could work out a payment plan with proof of employment.”

“Didn’t you tell me that you just got out of debt?” Barry asked. Something in his tone betrayed that he hadn’t expected things to reach this point, but Kelly was already too far gone to notice.

“I d-e-s-e-r-v-e t-h-i-s c-h-a-i-r,” Kelly warbled, as if she was tapping on her throat as she spoke. Then the humming and vibrating came to a sudden halt and the cushions slowly rose to put her back on her feet. “What happened?”

“Sorry, but we had to institute a two-minute limit in the display room to prevent window shoppers from taking advantage,” the salesman said. “I’m sure you understand.”

“I do now. If I order one, will you turn it on again?”

“Deal,” Greg said with the smile of somebody who had just won a lottery. “If you’ll give me your employment information, I’ll take it to our finance manager.”

Kelly tore through her purse and handed over every shred of identification she carried. “Will this be enough?” she asked eagerly.

“The finance manager will run a credit check, of course, but as long as you haven’t left a trail of unpaid bills behind you, it’s just a matter of agreeing on a payment plan.” He reached under the chair and flipped a switch. “It’s ready when you are.” As Greg passed Barry on the way to the backroom, he muttered, “Don’t leave her in there too long unless you want to carry her home.”

Kelly pointed at her ear and subvoced, “Librarian? Can you get me Mark at the EarthCent consulate?”

“Just a moment, Acting Assistant Consul,” the station librarian replied.

“Hello?” Mark’s voice asked in Kelly’s head.

“I have a question about work-related expenses,” she said. “How much can I spend on something that’s vital to my job performance?”

“We’ve got almost fifty creds in petty cash, but that’s it,” he told her. “Everything else has to go through channels, and you know how tight EarthCent is about spending.”

“Never mind,” Kelly said. “Enjoy your lecture.”

“Who were you talking to?” Barry asked when she dropped her hand.

“Mark, at the consulate. I wanted to see if EarthCent would pay for the chair as a work expense, but there’s no chance.”

“Listen, Kelly. I didn’t think you would actually buy it or I never would have brought you here. I just heard about people coming in for the demo. And from what you’ve told me, your credit rating must be terrible.”

“My mother was my creditor and she doesn’t report to the agencies. Besides, I dated a guy who worked for a bank, and he said that a high credit rating doesn’t mean a person will ever pay off a debt.”

“Then what are they for?” Barry asked.

“The way he explained it, credit ratings predict how likely a debtor is to make monthly payments, barring a sudden change in their circumstances. But everybody’s circumstances are subject to change and—what am I doing talking about credit when I could be getting a massage? LoveU. Please resume the previous program.”

Greg returned a few minutes later. One look at Kelly was enough to tell him that she was off on another astral plane, so he reached under the chair again and brought her back to Earth. “I’m only supposed to give these coupons to customers after the sale is closed, but it’s good for a free lunch of up to five creds value at any participating restaurant on this deck,” he said, handing her a plastic slip, and then returning her identification. “Come back this afternoon and I should have a contract ready for you to sign. Acting Assistant Consul Frank? Are you with us?”

It took another five minutes for the combined efforts of Greg and Barry to get Kelly standing again. Once she was out in the corridor, she began to skip like a little girl.

“I’ve never seen somebody so happy about spending a fortune,” Barry said. “It just seems like a big decision to make on impulse.”

“It’s not an expense, it’s an investment—like your hiring alien acting coaches to teach you their culture,” Kelly retorted. “That chair is going to help me become the best version of myself. Besides, it’s the first time I’ve ever purchased something to make a home. Librarian,” she subvoced, pointing at her ear. “Is the store going to approve my credit?”

“That information is confidential, but I can tell you from my role providing back-office support to EarthCent that I’ve just received a request from the store’s finance department to confirm your position and salary,” the station librarian replied.

“Don’t tell them my salary or I’ll never get approved. Wait. Couldn’t you just add a zero? If anybody ever finds out you could say it was a glitch. People back on Earth lie on loan applications all the time. It’s like our birthright.”

“Are you invoking the protected cultural practices clause of the tunnel network treaty?”

“Yes,” Kelly said without hesitation. “Does that mean I get the LoveU?”

“I’ll accept your reasoning to alter your salary data this once, but only because some of the ambassadors have been misusing the treaty to keep you standing in meetings,” the station librarian said. “I’ve consulted with my peers and a revision to the tunnel network treaty closing both the loopholes will be pushed to all connected devices.”

“You mean I won’t have to stand at meetings anymore?”

“That is correct.”

“What was that all about?” Barry asked when Kelly dropped her hand and looked over at him happily.

“My credit is going to be approved, and the Stryx are tweaking the tunnel network treaty so the aliens will have to give me a seat at the table when I attend meetings.”

“So you don’t need the massage chair after all,” Barry pointed out.

“But I already got my order in, so it’s grandfathered,” Kelly told him triumphantly. “I just hope they stretch the payment plan enough years that I can still afford to buy food.”

Twenty

Beowulf was waiting at the entrance to Mac’s Bones for Paul when he got home from school, but immediately bounded away, and then stopped to check if the boy was following.

“What’s up, Killer?” Paul asked, and then he felt something go hollow in the pit of his stomach. “Is Joe alright? Did a pile of junk fall on him?”

The dog set off again, and this time the boy raced after him, not hesitating to turn down one of the passages between junk mounds that Joe had been working on for months and forbidden the boy due to the danger. Soon Paul saw the back end of the wrecker Joe used to move the piles of scrap, but there was nobody at the controls, so he followed Beowulf around the machine, being careful not to brush up against any sharp edges. Paul emerged in what could only be described as a clearing in the forest of junk, but he only had eyes for Joe’s legs sticking out from under what looked like a stubby spaceship.

“Joe!” he shouted, and was rewarded with the sound of a man’s head impacting with something hollow and a curse word he hadn’t heard since they left the mercenary company. Then hands emerged to grip the bottom skirt of the ship and Joe pulled himself out.

“Is something wrong?” Joe asked, standing up and rubbing his forehead. “Hey, didn’t I tell you to stay out of the paths I’m carving until I tell you they’re safe?”

“Beowulf wanted me to follow him. I thought you were trapped under something.” Paul looked around even as he was answering, and it took all of his willpower not to run off to explore. “Are all of these ships ours?”

“Unless somebody tells me otherwise,” Joe replied, and pointed back at the wrecker. “I just broke through here this morning. It looks like the scrap piles near the entrance are the material separated for sale, and this half of the hold has the wrecks that haven’t been cut up yet.”

“But you could fix them, right?”

“This one is a tug, and I think it’s space-worthy, which makes sense if the previous owner was taking it out to collect junk. As long as you’re here, you may as well help me look over the wrecks and pick one out to replace that shack I cobbled together out of scrap.”

“You mean we get to live in a spaceship?” Paul asked, his eleven-year-old voice coming out in a squeak.

“We already live in a space station,” Joe said with a laugh and tousled the boy’s hair. “But yes, we can live in a little spaceship inside of an enormous space station. See anything you like?”

“That one,” the boy said immediately, pointing at the largest wreck. “Are you sure it won’t fly?”

“I’m sure because that’s just the crew module—the whole engineering deck is missing. But that makes it a good choice because there should be lots of cabins and a galley. I’m looking forward to buying fixtures and hooking up to the station plumbing so we can send back that chemical toilet I rented.”

“Was it part of a battleship?” Paul asked, imagining how envious the other boys at school would be.

“It’s from an interstellar ice harvester,” Joe said. “I recognize the basic shape from the friend-or-foe identification pictures that the Frunge made us study before letting us fly that transport, even though it was only armed with a popgun. We better let Beowulf go first and check for booby traps.”

When they reached the ramp leading up to the only opening, the dog sniffed a few times, and then sat down with a grunt.

“Does he think something’s wrong?” Paul asked.

“He thinks I’m going to bribe him, and he’s right,” Joe said, taking a stick of beef jerky from his belt pouch and peeling off the wrapper.

Beowulf tried to look disinterested to raise the price, but the sound of the cellophane crinkling was too much, and he broke into a tongue-lolling grin.

“I’ll give it to him,” Paul offered, accepting the jerky from Joe and feeding it to the dog. Beowulf made a show of chewing slowly, but his tail was whacking the deck much faster than his jaws were moving. Then he did a few yoga stretches and headed up the ramp.

A few minutes passed, and then Joe yelled, “All clear? Killer?”

“Do you think he’s okay?” Paul asked.

“I didn’t hear anything, so either he’s hamming it up or he found a nice spot to go to sleep. He’s taking retirement from the mercenaries too seriously.” Just as Joe began heading up the ramp, the dog came out, chewing on what appeared to be a teething ring for some alien species with a very large mouth.

“Gross,” the boy said. “It’s probably got dried alien spit all over it.”

“It’s a good thing he’s half Huravian so he can eat anything.” Joe stood aside as the dog came down the ramp, but rather than going past, Beowulf nudged him with the teething ring. “Oh, so you think you can take me?”

Joe clicked his heels, grabbed the side of the ring opposite the dog’s mouth, and began pulling with all of his strength. Beowulf’s claws scrabbled on the deck for purchase, but he was slowly dragged forward as the man backed away. Then the dog did a little lunge to relieve the tension while opening his mouth. Joe ended up on his backside with his knees in the air and his feet firmly stuck to the deck.

“I think Beowulf is saying that turning on your magnetic cleats was cheating,” Paul said, trying not to laugh.

“Very funny,” Joe said, standing up and tossing the teething ring back to the dog. “One of you put a bump on my head and the other one put a bruise on my butt. Come on, let’s take a look inside.”

The crew module featured a large common room and half a dozen cabins, including captain’s quarters that were twice as large as the regular rooms and had an en suite Zero-G toilet and shower. There was a Zero-G galley off the common room that would have to be completely redone, and a shared Zero-G bathroom and shower for the rest of the crew.

“Can I have the room with the round window?” Paul requested.

“It’s a porthole, and it’s yours, but keep in mind the view is going to change when we move the whole thing,” Joe said. “If all of this Zero-G equipment is still good, I should be able to sell it for enough to buy new bathroom fixtures and a pretty good kitchen—maybe even some living room furniture as well. We’re going to need some beds too since these ice harvesters never landed anywhere.”

“Isn’t it bad for people to live without gravity for a long time?”

“What makes you think that the crew was human? Going by that chew toy or whatever it is, I’m betting the ice harvester was operated by one of the advanced species that keep exotic pets. And there may have been all sorts of exercise equipment in the large room that the owner cleared out before scrapping it. If I’m right, half of the crew module is missing.”

“I didn’t see any big holes,” Paul said.

“The whole back bulkhead of the captain’s quarters is a temporary repair welded in place. I’d guess the ice harvester was involved in some kind of high-speed collision. Once we get it moved over to the cleared area, I’ll cut some more windows in the hull.”

“We learned in school about people back on Earth moving big blocks using trees that were made round for rollers. They lifted the blocks onto the pyramids by rolling them up a ramp and then digging away the sand.”

“Sounds like ancient Egyptian engineering,” Joe said. “Since we don’t have any trees or sand, we’ll have to get that tug working.”

“That little ship you were under can pick up our whole house?” Paul asked.

Joe laughed. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to think of this wreck as a house. A home maybe, once we get it fixed up, but when there’s no weather to worry about, it seems like cheating.”

“What do you mean?” the boy asked, following Joe back down the ramp. Beowulf got up and nudged Paul with the teething ring, but the boy didn’t rise to the bait.

“The most important part of houses on Earth was the roof. We had rain, snow, wind, and all sorts of flying creatures that would like to have a little shelter of their own if you let them in to make a nest.” Joe pointed up at the giant bay doors. “Here, we already have a roof, and if what everybody tells me is true, there’s an atmosphere retention field around the whole core so that we can open it up and fly right out without losing the air.”

“How do we open it? Is there a button? Can I try it?”

“I think I’ll have to contact the station librarian about that one when we’re ready, but maybe the Stryx controller in the tug can do it. I was just checking for a drain when you came, but that was wishful thinking. There was a hydraulic leak under the decking.”

“Like a hydraulic piston?”

“Smart kid,” Joe said. “In this case, the piston that raises the ramp so we aren’t trying to lift off with a big hole in the tug.” He pointed at the main hatch that served as a ramp when it was lowered. “There has to be some gearing as well because the piston throw isn’t that large. The pump isn’t leaking, but the reservoir is empty. Somebody started cleaning it up, but there’s still some fluid in the low spot, and they never got around to replacing the hose. You can see the rupture if you look through the access port where I removed the panel. There’s a flashlight up there.”

Paul ran up the ramp and found the flashlight in the open toolbox. Then he located the opening in the deck and knelt down in front of it, shining the flashlight. A moment later, he had his whole head under the deck, trying to trace the path of the hydraulic line.

“Hey, you look like an ostrich,” Joe said. “Get your head out of there, it’s not safe.”

“Why not?” Paul asked, and then wiped his face and said, “Eww.”

“You’ve got it in your hair now. I guess it wasn’t as cleaned up as I thought it was.” Joe grabbed a shop towel and did the best he could to get the hydraulic fluid out of the boy’s hair. “There’s not that much, but a little oil goes a long way, and you’re going to need a hot shower with lots of shampoo.”

The result left a lock of hair plastered to the boy’s forehead, and he couldn’t help himself from touching it. “I could see where the hose was attached to the hatch piston, but the other end just kept going through a bunch of other complicated-looking tubes and stuff,” Paul said, trying to clean his fingers on his school pants. “Are you going to have to take up all of these deck plates?”

“I hope not. I got the access panel open at the other end, and I’ll teach you a trick for routing hoses.” Joe looked at the hydraulic fluid on the boy and winced. “Stay away from the acceleration chairs—we don’t need any more oil on the upholstery.”

“Why doesn’t it wipe off?” Paul asked

“Oil is tricky,” Joe said. “You need a solvent or a whole lot of rubbing and clean cloths. I captured an image of the printing on the old hose with my tab, and according to Brool, it was a standard Horten part number.”

“So this is a Horten tug?”

“I don’t honestly know, but the hydraulic line Brool made up to the Horten specs looks right, and I’ll be happy as long as it works. Take these old gloves.”

As soon as Paul got the gloves on, he changed position and braced his feet against the opening as if he was going to start pulling the hose out.

“Whoa!” Joe said. “Let go of that for a minute and I’ll teach you a trick for replacing hoses that run under decks.”

“Like a magic trick?”

“Like a tape trick.” Joe butted one end of the new hydraulic hose to the loose end of the failed one at the manifold and began wrapping them tightly with heavy black tape. “Gaffer’s tape,” he told Paul as he pulled it off the roll. “Strong stuff, and doesn’t leave any stickiness behind.”

“You’re going to pull the new hose into place with the old hose,” Paul concluded.

“Works ninety percent of the time. And part of the trick is that I’m going to push while you pull. It should start off nicely, but when it gets stuck, call out, and we’ll work it back and forth a little. That’s usually enough to get by if the fittings are caught up on something.”

“It would be easier if the fittings weren’t on already.”

“You’re right, but I’d need a hydraulic line kit to make up the ends, and I don’t own one yet,” Joe said. “Besides, it gave me an excuse to do a little business with Brool and talk to him about this place. He even told me to ping him when we’re ready to try the tug—I think Rupe put in a good word for me. Finding these ships here changes everything. By the time I break them down for parts, I’ll know how everything fits together, and then I can ease my way into the repair business. These alien ships are easier to work on than the farm equipment I grew up with because they have fewer moving parts, and I’m going to count on you to be my main helper.”

“And with the ice harvester for a house, you can get married, and then I’ll have little brothers and sisters to play with,” Paul said.

“If that ever happens, you’ll be more like a parent than a sibling because of the age difference. But first things first, which means getting the new hose in place so we can raise the hatch and see if this tub will lift off. Try to wipe the old hose with the rags as you pull it or it will make a real mess on the deck.”

By the time the new hydraulic line was installed, the deck cleaned up, and the access panels replaced, it was time for dinner and a shower in a rental booth on the travel concourse. The next morning Paul woke to find Joe talking with a towering Dollnick dressed in coveralls. The alien was whistling away like a tea kettle, and the boy raced to retrieve his translation ear cuff.

“—few years at most,” Brool was saying. “Stephens was strictly in the scrap business, separating and selling in bulk. If you’re interested in repairs, I’ve been getting more and more Humans showing up lately with those little Sharf traders they buy used. It’s just a nuisance for me, so I’d be happy to send them your way.”

“Ready, Paul?” Joe asked the boy. “I don’t want to waste any of Brool’s time, and he’s going to show us how to fly the tug.”

Beowulf led the way back through the scrap mounds to the tug, and the alien nodded in approval when the hatch lowered into a ramp on Joe’s voice command. “I see you got the ship’s controller reprogrammed,” Brool said.

“As soon as I hit reset, it asked me to identify myself, and that was that,” Joe said.

“When was this?” Paul asked.

“Last night, after you went to bed.”

“And the status?” the Dollnick followed up.

“It claimed all systems were green—ready for flight,” Joe said.

“It’s one of those old Horten models, an early experiment of theirs with permanent fuel cells that proved unstable after a few hundred refuelings,” Brool said. “Did you see a fuel cycle counter?”

“It was only at two,” Joe said. “We should be good for a long time.”

The Dollnick shook his head. “The counter shows fuel cycles remaining, and it’s just not cost-effective to replace the fuel cell because it’s built into the hull. Figure on a hundred short hauls, two hundred at most if the tow loads are light, two recharges, but then you’ll have to replace it.”

“Easy come, easy go. Will it be able to lift that ice harvester crew module and move it over to the cleared area where we’re camping?”

“We can do that right now if you want. The Horten manipulator fields aren’t very advanced, but the tug will be able to lock onto something at a short distance. By the way, you’ll give the controller voice commands and navigate with the joystick as if you were flying, but your actions will be interpreted at the control level by the Stryx station manager. They don’t allow independently powered spacecraft to fly around willy-nilly inside their station.”

“Makes sense to me,” Joe said. “Coming along for the ride?”

“I’ll keep an eye from out here and direct you with hand signs,” the Dollnick said. “Enjoy the flight.”

Joe and Paul went up the ramp, but Beowulf stayed back to keep an eye on the alien. The hatch closed with a quiet hydraulic whine, and the two passengers buckled themselves into the acceleration chairs. Joe instructed the ship controller to turn on the viewscreen and rise to the optimal towing height, and then spent several minutes nudging the joystick this way and that while watching Brool.

“Which set of arms is he gesturing with?” Paul asked.

“I assumed the top pair,” Joe said. “Has he been moving the bottom two?”

“Sort of the opposite direction.”

“Oops.” Joe stopped paying attention to what the hands over the Dollnick’s head were doing and started watching the lower set. Soon after, Brool gave four thumbs-up, the manipulator field was engaged, and the tug lifted the ice harvester’s crew module. It only took a few minutes to move it over to the cleared-out area and set it down again. Then Joe returned the tug to its starting point. By the time they disembarked and returned to check on the position of their new home, the Dollnick was gone.

“What happened to Brool?” Paul asked.

“I saw him heading for the exit right after he finished guiding us through setting down the crew module,” Joe said. “He had to go back to work, and it saves me having to explain that I was watching the wrong set of hands. He probably thinks I’m an idiot, even for a human.”

“And Beowulf?”

The dog came trotting back from the direction of the exit, to which he had escorted the Dollnick to make sure no valuable junk was stolen.

“So there it is,” Joe said. “Home sweet home. Now get going before you’re late for the school breakfast and I’ll start tearing out those Zero-G bathrooms.” He looked around the giant hold with its piles of scrap and added, “It may not look like much now, but give me a couple of years to get the recycling out of here and fix up the crew module and you won’t recognize the place.”

“I can’t wait until it’s safe so I can bring friends home from school,” Paul said, and then jogged off for the exit to the corridor.

Once he was gone, Joe crouched a bit, scratched behind Beowulf’s ears, and asked, “What do you think? Did I make the right choice?”

The dog gave Joe’s face a lick with a tongue like coarse sandpaper soaked in drool.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Twenty One

Kelly woke to the sound of the bedroom door opening, but she immediately decided to feign sleep to see if Barry would wake her. She didn’t have long to wait for the answer, which came as the sound of bare feet slapping the floor in three bounding steps and a body landing on the bed. “Did you miss me, baby?” a voice purred in Kelly’s ear.

EarthCent’s acting assistant consul screamed and rolled out of the other side of the bed. “Lights on,” she called out, and was rewarded with the sight of a startled young woman dressed in her birthday suit. “Who are you?”

“I’m Aaron,” the woman said, and gave Kelly a nervous smile. “Sorry about the mix-up. Are you Barry’s latest squeeze?”

“You can’t be Aaron. He’s Barry’s roommate.”

“I’m definitely Aaron, and you could say that we’re roommates with benefits. He’s not here?”

“He had an audition on a Grenouthian orbital for some documentary,” Kelly replied reflexively. “I thought he was coming back today. I’m renting your room.”

“This is Barry’s room,” the actress pointed out.

“I know that. What I didn’t know is that you two were an item.”

“An item? That sounds like something my grandmother would say. You can’t be more than ten years older than me.”

“Five,” Kelly growled.

“You don’t see me acting all jealous,” Aaron said, getting up from the bed and standing naked in front of Kelly without a hint of self-consciousness. “Barry and I have an open relationship.”

“That I’m just finding out about after five months of paying half the rent. If you just give me ten minutes, I’ll pack my bags and be out of your hair.”

“Pack your bags? But there’s plenty of room for three in this apartment.”

“No, I really can’t afford it here anyway. I’ve just been procrastinating finding a cheaper share.”

“Hey, don’t go.” Aaron stepped so close that Kelly could feel the heat radiating from the actress’s naked body. “I was looking forward to unwinding with Barry, but you’re more my type. And imagine how surprised he’d be coming back and finding us both in his bed. If you go now, it’ll be like he won.”

“He did win, if having a good time and then getting rid of me was the game,” Kelly said, blinking back the tears. “Please, just leave me alone so I can get dressed and pack my rollaway. I’m sure you’re very nice, but I can’t be around anybody right now.”

“Okay, okay,” Aaron said, backing away. “I’ll just put some clothes on and be in the kitchen if you need anything. It’s almost morning anyway.”

Kelly managed to wait until the door closed before letting out a sob, but then she surprised herself by quickly regaining her composure and setting about packing. She waved open the closet panel, laid her clothes out on the bed, and cleaned out the underwear drawer. Then she got dressed and slipped out of the room and into Aaron’s bedroom where she had stowed her rollaway and books. Less than fifteen minutes passed before she was out in the corridor with all of her belongings, wondering what she had done to deserve such bad luck in love.

“Maybe it’s not bad luck,” she mumbled to herself as she headed for the consulate. “Maybe it’s me. Did he ever say that Aaron was a man? Did he ever make me any promises? Maybe I’m just an idiot. I need a—Librarian,” Kelly subvoced. “What day is it?”

“Sunday.”

“Can I get into the consulate at this hour?”

“As a full-time EarthCent employee the facility is open to you around the clock.”

“Thank you,” Kelly said, coming to a halt to avoid running into a pair of drunks who stumbled out of a bar and then raced each other down the corridor. “Who would be out drinking at this hour?” she asked out loud.

“Me,” a rough voice said from behind her, and she turned to see a bulky reptile with wings folded in tight to his back. “If you’ll make room,” the alien said, brushing by her into the bar. The lack of synchronization between her implant’s translation and the alien’s jaw movements was the most pronounced Kelly had ever seen.

“Wait,” she said on impulse, and followed the alien into the bar. “What are you doing on our deck?”

“Trying to buy enough cheap alcohol to light a flame,” the alien responded. “You look like somebody ate your puppy.”

“Ate my—do you eat puppies?” she asked in horror.

“Must be a translation glitch. Bartender,” the reptile called. “A pitcher of beer, and whatever the lady is having.”

“Beer is fine,” Kelly said, standing her rollaway on end and climbing onto the seat next to where the alien bellied up to the bar as the stool clearly couldn’t hold him.

“The pitcher is for me, but I can order another if you want.”

“No, I guess I’ll just have orange juice then. It’s almost time to wake up for me.”

“Then why did you follow me into a bar?”

“To talk,” Kelly said. “You seem friendly and I’ve never met a, uh, whatever you are. I’m Acting Assistant Consul Frank, of EarthCent,” she added, offering a handshake.

“Myort,” the alien said, extending a single talon for her to grip as his hands were as large as her head. “I’ve read about you.”

“In the Drazen Post? Oh, no. Is there already a story out about my boyfriend having a live-in girlfriend that I didn’t know about?”

“I haven’t looked at today’s edition, but it does sound like the sort of thing they would publish,” Myort said, and then withdrew his words when he saw Kelly’s expression. “Just a little joke. I’m sure the Drazens neither know nor care what happens in your bedroom.”

“Barry’s bedroom,” Kelly said, taking a sip from the orange juice the bartender brought and scowling. “Hey, could I get a little vodka in this?”

“Now you’re talking,” the alien said. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

“My latest failed relationship? But you’re—”

“Huktra. We’re the least gossip-prone species in the galaxy.”

“I was going to say a guy. You are a guy, aren’t you?”

“How did you guess?” Myort asked, then drained the pitcher of beer like it was a shot glass and slammed it down on the bar.

“My implant gave you a male voice,” Kelly said, keeping her eyes on his face. “I didn’t, uh, look down.”

“If you had, you wouldn’t have seen anything. I may not be wearing any clothes, but a few million years of natural selection keeps the dangly bits private when we aren’t courting.”

“I didn’t mean—oh, there he is.”

The bartender, who looked like he’d been working all night, poured an inch of vodka on top of the orange juice and took the pitcher for a refill. Kelly gave her drink a stir and asked Myort, “Could you watch my bag? I have to visit the facility.”

“One of those morning types, I see,” the alien said, giving her a knowing nod. “It’s amazing how often you mammals need to go. Don’t worry, I’ll be here.”

Kelly quickly located the bathroom, and after doing her business, spent a minute trying to fix her hair in the mirror before remembering that it was early Sunday morning and she was drinking with a winged alien reptile. For a moment, her mind returned to the scene that had played out in Barry’s bedroom less than an hour earlier, but the excitement of having a real conversation with a member of a new species drove the dark thoughts away.

“You ordered munchies?” Kelly asked as she climbed back onto her stool.

“It’s just pretzels, they’re free if you buy two pitchers,” Myort explained. “No nutritional value to speak of, but I like the crunch and the salt. Help yourself.”

“Thank you.” Kelly nibbled a pretzel, took another sip from her orange juice turned screwdriver, and made a face at the taste. “It’s been years since I’ve had hard alcohol and now I remember why.”

“I find it improves with repeated samples.”

“You seem very at-home with our culture.”

“I’m a spy, it’s my job.”

Kelly choked on a bit of pretzel, and the alien, with his talons fully retracted, patted her gently on the back.

“Are you supposed to be telling me that?” Kelly asked when she recovered her breath.

Myort shrugged. “You seem in need of a bit of cheering up, and I could use a wing to cry on myself. I just received word that I’ve been reassigned to a planet-side tour as a cultural attaché.”

“To Earth?”

“We don’t have an embassy on Earth so there would be nowhere for a cultural attaché to work. I’m going to Tyrel.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“If you think the Huktra keep to themselves, the Tyrellians make us look like party animals,” Myort said, and then downed the refilled pitcher in two gulps. “I don’t know how I’m going to survive thirty years there.”

“Thirty years!?”

“When they told me I was due for a stint as a cultural attaché, I told them to give me the shortest one that came up, and Tyrel was it. I’ve got enough vacation saved to get away for about half of it, but even fifteen years is a long time to spend with Tyrellians.”

“What are they like?” Kelly asked, her eyes as round as a schoolgirl.

“Superior,” Myort said, and looking up, exhaled a carefully controlled flame. “Always going on about how they can fly circles around dragons and how cute their offspring are.”

“They aren’t reptilian?”

“I’ll assume that you’re using that term in the broadest sense with no offense intended,” the Huktra said, holding out his empty pitcher towards the passing barman. “You would describe Tyrellians as a cross between a lion and an eagle, though of course, they had a technological civilization before either of those creatures appears in your fossil record.”

Kelly washed down a particularly salty pretzel with her drink, and then the vodka hit and she coughed again.

“If it’s too dry you choke, if it’s too wet you choke,” Myort observed. “It’s amazing you’ve survived as a species.”

“I just forgot how strong it was,” Kelly said, and the slight fuzziness she felt convinced her that the vodka had gone right to her head. She promised herself to stop with the one drink, and then blurted out the question she’d been trying to answer since arriving at Echo Station. “Why do all of the aliens hate me?”

“They don’t hate you. They just don’t respect you.”

“But what did I ever do to deserve that?”

“Exactly,” Myort said, and took a moderate sip from his new pitcher.

Kelly reflexively sipped her drink to keep the alien company, and then realized with surprise that her glass was empty. “I don’t understand,” she said, and then signaled the bartender to give her a refill, promising herself to make this one last.

“What’s that game Humans play with a ball and a bat?”

“Cricket?”

He gave her an odd look. “No. The other one.”

“Baseball,” Kelly said, and couldn’t stop herself from giggling. “The big leagues. When I started working for EarthCent, my dad said, ‘My little girl is playing in the big leagues.’”

“Imagine the tunnel network is the big leagues, and the players earn the right to be here by developing their own interstellar travel and achieving stable societies. Now imagine the tunnel network baseball team is going to the World Cup, and the Stryx—”

“World Series,” Kelly interrupted. “The World Cup is the one with the balls and the nets.”

“Basketball?”

“I think so. How many games with balls and nets can there be?”

“Millions,” Myort told her, and took another swig. “So the tunnel network baseball team has made it into the World Series, and on the afternoon of the game—”

“They play at night,” Kelly interrupted.

“The last time I listened to a game it got called on account of darkness, but that was a while ago.”

“They have lights now.”

“So it’s the first night of the World Series, and the Stryx owner brings in some skinny kid with glasses who’s never played before and tells everybody that he’s in the starting lineup.”

“That’s not fair,” Kelly said indignantly. “The rest of the team played all season to get in, and the—oh.”

“Exactly,” Myort repeated, and took another sip from his beer.

Kelly downed half of her newly arrived screwdriver in two gulps. “But it’s not like the skinny kid asked to be on the team. The Stryx forced him.”

“Does that make it any better for the other players?”

“Then what are we going to do? All of the other tunnel network members have such a big head start it will take us hundreds of years to catch up.”

“Catch up?” Myort gave an amused bellow and accidentally left a burn mark on the ceiling, drawing a dirty look from the bartender. “Do you think that everybody else is standing still? You’re never going to catch up, though if you stick around long enough, one day you’ll realize that some primitive species is behind you. Not you personally,” he hastened to add, “but maybe in a million years.”

Kelly took another swallow from her drink. “But I still have to try, right? The consuls I’ve worked for didn’t even do that much. They just showed up where the Stryx told them to be, and then ran back to their offices to sulk when the aliens ignored them. I’ve been going to every diplomatic event on Echo Station that I can get into, and I even spend time walking around the markets on the other decks and buying little things just to see how the other species live. I’ve learned that aliens are just like people.”

“That’s exactly backward,” her drinking companion replied. “The advanced species of the galaxy aren’t just like Humans, it’s Humans who have recently started behaving like us, or more accurately, like our primitive ancestors. This universe is a machine for creating life. Given enough time and opportunity, self-replicating systems always take over. But intelligent life, if I can use the term broadly, most often results from a feedback loop driven by increasingly complex social organizations. Whatever forms life takes, the paths leading to sustainable civilizations tend to converge to similar societal structures, such as family, work, and friends. If humanity didn’t have the potential to get along with the tunnel network species, the Stryx never would have brought you here.”

“To make a fool of myself in the public bath, and knock over a waiter as I was running for the toilet at the Grenouthian reception because somebody said the vegetables wouldn’t poison me?”

“Just because something isn’t poisonous doesn’t mean you should eat it. You’ve made more progress than any other EarthCent diplomat I’ve observed, all while providing a great source of amusement. I’ll miss seeing what you try next.”

“Are you saying that my career is just a joke?” Kelly demanded. “That the aliens will never even listen to me?”

“I’m listening to you right now, and I suspect you’ll find that the other species will start coming around as well,” Myort said seriously. “I have a theory that the Stryx handpicked EarthCent’s first generation of diplomats for a very particular purpose, and as they age out, things will start to change.”

“What purpose?”

The Huktra drained the rest of his pitcher and contemplated the layer of foam at the bottom sadly.

“Bartender,” Kelly called loudly. “Another pitcher for my friend.”

“Are you sure you want me to tell you?” Myort asked.

“I need to know. It’s been driving me crazy.”

“The thing about the Stryx is they hate waste. It was preordained that the other tunnel network ambassadors would give EarthCent’s representatives the cold shoulder, so why waste talented diplomats or put sensitive Humans at psychological risk?”

Kelly grimaced at the screwdriver the bartender placed in front of her at the same time he brought Myort a new pitcher of beer. Then she remembered that it was Sunday, so it didn’t matter if she got drunk before the day even started. One sip later, the meaning of the Huktra’s words sank in.

“You’re saying that all of the consuls I’ve worked for were placeholders? That the Stryx picked them because they’re human exceptionalists or egomaniacs who don’t care what the other species think?”

“It seems like the logical explanation, but mind you, it’s only a theory,” Myort said modestly.

“But nobody I’ve ever met has even hinted at it, and I thought that—why are you telling me all of this?”

“Because you deserve to know, and you won’t remember the details in any case.”

“I’m not that drunk,” Kelly said. “I won’t forget this meeting as long as I live, Myuh, Muh—what was your name again?”

“I dropped three grains of synapse blocker in your drink when you went to the bathroom,” Myort said gently. “Don’t worry about side effects. I get it from a Farling and they know what they’re about. It prevents the formation of long-term memories, and I’ve had some experience with dosages for Humans, so I’m pretty sure you won’t forget that you moved out of your apartment.”

“Who are you?”

“I was just leaving,” the Huktra said, placing a ten cred piece on the bar. “The drinks are on me.”

Kelly stared at the folded-up wings on the alien’s back as he headed for the exit. There was something she was supposed to remember, but it kept dancing away from her grasp. Eventually she just shook her head, which was a mistake, because the bar began to spin.

“Acting Consul Frank,” an excited voice addressed her, and she turned to see Mark standing there with a sheet of thermally printed plastic like the kind used by the tunneling telegraph service. “The station librarian told me where you were. I had an urgent call to go into the consulate, and then this arrived for you, but I see you’ve already been notified.”

“Notified of what?”

“Read it,” he said, and handed her the sheet.

It took Kelly a moment to focus on the small print, and then she read, “Consul Barret retired medical reasons. Stop. Proceed Union Station acting consul. Stop.”

She struggled to clear the alcoholic fumes from her head and stared at Mark. “I’ve been demoted from a consul’s assistant to an acting consul’s assistant?”

“You’re the acting consul,” he told her, pointing out the address field of the tunneling telegram. “You’ve been promoted and given the Union Station consulate. I had hoped you would take over here when Consul Palliser-Smythe retires, but congratulations. I checked the availability on passenger liners going to Union Station and there’s one leaving in a half-hour. If you didn’t know already, why are you packed?”

“My finely honed diplomatic instincts,” Kelly lied, slipping off the stool and miraculously maintaining her balance. “Book that ticket, Mark. I’m going before I change my mind.” Then a thought hit her and her face turned tragic.

“What is it, Assistant Consul?” Mark asked.

“Can I count on you to deal with something of the utmost importance?” she asked him.

“Anything.”

“My LoveU massaging recliner was supposed to ship from the factory this week. I need you to visit Greg at the Dollnick Inspirations Factory Outlet and make him change the delivery to Union Station. Tell him the future of human diplomacy depends on it.”

The first book of the Under the Influencers series, The Good Apocalypse, was originally written as a deep prequel for my sprawling EarthCent saga, but I decided to go in a different direction with the Mechanicus. If you haven’t read any EarthCent books, links for the full series with the books in order are given below. I’ve also written a short series with a positive take on alien artificial intelligence, The AI Diaries, and a few stand-alone novels.

The discount path to catching up on the first fifteen Union Station books on Kindle is the Omnibus editions:

EarthCent Galaxy

Union Station Omnibus Books 1-5

Union Station Omnibus Books 6-10

Union Station Omnibus Books 11-15

EarthCent Books in order, ignoring series

Destiny: Union Station

Date Night on Union Station

Alien Night on Union Station

High Priest on Union Station

Spy Night on Union Station

Carnival on Union Station

Wanderers on Union Station

Vacation on Union Station

Guest Night on Union Station

Word Night on Union Station

Party Night on Union Station

Review Night on Union Station

Family Night on Union Station

Book Night on Union Station

LARP Night on Union Station

Career Night on Union Station

Last Night on Union Station

Independent Living

Soup Night on Union Station

Assisted Living

Freelance on the Galactic Tunnel Network

Con Living

Empire Night on Union Station

Space Living

Traders on the Galactic Tunnel Network

Orphans on the Galactic Tunnel Network

Swap Night on Union Station

Slow Living

Artists on the Galactic Tunnel Network

History Night on Union Station

Bits of Anarchy

Double Living

Bits of Flower

Synergy of the Galactic Tunnel Network

Substitutes on Union Station

Bits of Catalyst

Elder Living

Royals on the Galactic Tunnel Network

Deal Night on Union Station

Intellectual Property

Bits of Business

Antique Living

Earth on the Galactic Tunnel Network

Cruise Night on Union Station

Stolen Property

AI Diaries

Turing Test

Human Test

Magic Test

Mentor Test

Under the Influencers

The Good Apocalypse

A Fine Occupation

A Cozy Concession

A Nice Galaxy

Stand Alone Novels (for now)

Meghan’s Dragon

To Homeschool on Mars

Angel Shades

As Morris Foner

Game Ship