Party Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 10) (4 page)

“It’s a live broadcast,” the boy informed him. “Back to you, Deborah.”

“Thank you, Leon. We’ll have a full interview with the president as soon as it’s available. Now to the weather, as reported by YOU.”

The scene cut to a little boy who was wearing a yellow slicker with a hood and jumping in a puddle. “It’s raining in Boston,” he yelled.

The image was quickly replaced by a teenage girl with a surfboard running towards the ocean. “Sunny in Malibu,” she informed them.

Then came a whole group of children, bundled up warmly, putting the finishing touches on a snowman. “It’s cold in Denver,” they shouted in rough unison, and then dissolved into laughter.

A boy with a homemade fishing rod, sitting on the end of a dock, reported. “Hot in Mississippi. And humid.”

“We’ll be back with more news after this brief message from our sponsor,” Deborah announced.

“Aren’t they cute?” Marge prompted her son-in-law.

“I liked the kid jumping in the puddle,” Joe admitted.

An impossibly beautiful woman in a diaphanous dress appeared on the screen and halted mid-twirl, as if she had been surprised by the intrusion of a camera into her dance routine.

“Boys,” she said. “Wouldn’t you like to be popular with the girls and learn the confidence that will let you become great men? Girls. Wouldn’t it be nice to meet some boys who won’t step on your toes and ruin your shoes? Astria’s Academy of Dance is now accepting applications for a local branch near you. Learn the techniques that have won the galactic ballroom prize every year since, well, longer than your planet has had written language. If you don’t have the means to pay, Astria’s academy is a member of the human barter network and a proud sponsor of the Children’s News Network.”

“Floater. Pause,” Marge instructed the machine. “That reminds me. My husband said some funny things towards the end, so I couldn’t always tell whether he was making things up or just confusing his memories. He would look at me and say, ‘Marge. My grandson and I have a secret, and I’m not telling.’ Then he would do that zipper thing across his lips and not speak to me until the next time he wanted something.”

“And you think it has to do with dancing? Samuel still takes lessons with Blythe’s daughter, you know. They compete on a regular schedule, though both of them insist they’ll never be able to beat the top Vergallian juniors because they started too late.”

“Steve left your son a special bequest,” Marge said. “It’s an antique cane that he picked up at an estate sale and walked with when he felt unsteady. He said Samuel could use it to impress his little girlfriend. I suspect he confused ballroom dancing with the tap routines from old movies where Fred Astaire would dance with a top hat and a cane, but it was one of his last wishes.”

“I’m sure Sam will appreciate the gift, even if he can’t use it for dancing. I know he really enjoyed the time he got to spend with his grandfather when you both came to visit.”

Joe spent the next hour answering his mother-in-law’s questions about Dorothy and their friends on Union Station. Eventually, the floater interrupted with the message, “Arriving at the Frank Grove in one minute.”

“We better wake them up,” Marge said. “Floater. Cancel acoustic suppression fields.” The sound of gentle ocean waves filled the passenger compartment. “Floater. Cancel ocean.”

The change in audio input was enough to wake Kelly, who sat up groggily and asked, “Are we here already?”

“Just another minute, dear,” her mother replied. “Are you up back there, Samuel?”

Samuel’s head popped up over the seat and he looked around. “Where are we?”

“We’re almost at the Frank Grove, where your grandfather is buried,” Marge replied.

“Good. I can visit him,” the boy said.

“I thought we were going to Lisa’s house,” Kelly protested, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“We are, just as soon as we’re finished here.”

The floater slowed to a halt, and the Dollnick force field powered down, allowing the scent of fresh forest air to fill the vehicle. The occupants stepped out over the low gunwales onto the soft forest floor. Kelly wondered at how the floater had ended up in the midst of so many trees, and then she stepped to the side and saw the trunks all aligned in rows until the perspective was lost in the distance.

“The trees are all planted on a grid,” Kelly objected.

“The Frunge tree warden told me that there’s no point in trying to make a new forest look natural when it’s not. But in a thousand years, nobody will know that this area was once deforested by surface mining,” Marge replied.

“Frunge?” Kelly asked.

“Your mother explained to me that your family has purchased a burial grove here and we’re welcome to use it,” Joe fibbed. “I think it’s a beautiful spot.”

“Where’s Grandpa?” Samuel asked.

“A little to your right and down a bit,” Marge replied. “He’s in front of the sign.”

“This grove was made possible by a generous donation from the Frank family,” Kelly read out loud. “Well, if that’s what he wanted for a memorial…”

“It’s what they allow. But the tree warden insisted on performing a Frunge ritual after your father was buried. He even brought a giant wooden pole and tossed it so that it bounced once and then fell across the grave.”

“We can’t even make a little border of stones or something?”

“Your father didn’t want that and neither do I,” Marge said. She took a small silver flask out of her purse and poured a liquid that smelled suspiciously like single malt Scotch onto the earth. “Don’t ask. Come on, Samuel. Help an old woman take a little walk and let your Mom spend some time with her father before we head back. Coming, Joe?”

Four

“Good morning, David,” Aisha said, looking up from the stove where she was preparing breakfast. “You’re here early today. I’m not even sure if Dorothy is up yet. But where are your shoes?”

“Uh,” David stuttered, looking suddenly embarrassed.

“Hey, you’re blocking the doorway,” Paul said, moving around the young man and going over to see what Aisha was cooking.

“I want yogurt,” Fenna announced, skipping into the kitchen and positioning herself in front of one of the high stools. She turned and looked at David, and then commanded, “Up.”

Dorothy’s boyfriend obligingly lifted the girl onto the stool, acutely conscious that Aisha’s eyes had never left him.

“Did you stay over?” Aisha asked suspiciously.

“Uh,” David replied, shuffling his bare feet and looking to Paul for help.

“Dorothy is twenty-one and they’ve been dating for nearly five years,” Paul reminded his wife, throwing in a little shoulder rub to ease her obvious tension. “You were only nineteen when we got married.”

“Married,” Aisha repeated. “Is it a coincidence, David, that I’m seeing you here in the morning for the first time when Dorothy’s parents are away?”

“That’s not…” David muttered, backing towards the door.

“Sit,” Paul instructed, and then gave his wife a kiss on the cheek. “You’re cute when you get all traditional,” he informed her.

Aisha’s nut-brown complexion darkened noticeably. “And what did Beowulf have to say about all of this?”

“He’s on a sleepover,” Dorothy answered, crowding into the kitchen and going over to lean against David. After registering the look of disapproval on Aisha’s face, the girl added by way of explanation, “Brinda invited Beowulf to keep company with their Cayl hound.”

“It looks like you’re making more than enough roti for everybody,” Paul said, pointing to the growing mound of flat breads that his wife had continued to prepare, even as she carried out the interrogation.

“I invited the Cohans for breakfast to talk about their son and his little Stryx friend appearing on my show.”

“That’s a great idea,” Dorothy said. “I’ll go set the table. Come on, David.”

“Mikey is coming?” Fenna asked.

“They’ll be here in around five minutes,” Aisha confirmed. “Do you want to go greet them since Beowulf is away?”

“Okay.” The girl carefully climbed down from the high stool, holding onto the counter with one hand, and then ran out of the kitchen.

The moment Fenna exited the room, Aisha asked, “Do you really think it’s okay for David to stay over with her parents away?”

“Sure, I’m surprised he hasn’t before. I guess he’s still scared of Joe.”

“Or Beowulf. Well, I suppose David can eat the dog’s share this morning. Will you start putting out the side dishes?”

A few minutes later, Fenna ran up the ice harvester’s ramp with Mike and Spinner in hot pursuit. Shaina and Daniel followed with the baby at a more sedate pace, and everybody sat down to a home-cooked Indian breakfast.

“It feels so weird being here without Kelly,” Shaina commented. “I still remember the first time she came to the Shuk shopping for counterfeits and my Dad asked me to take her around.”

“I’m just hoping that Joe talked to you about the poker game,” Daniel said, looking over at Paul. “I think I’m finally getting a feel for Dring’s tells. Toughest alien I ever played against.”

“I promised Dad I’d put out the tables and handle refreshments, but Stanley is going to take his seat,” Paul replied. “How are the preparations going for your conference this year?”

For the next ten minutes, the EarthCent consul monopolized the conversation with a detailed report on the evolution of the Sovereign Human Communities Conference, pausing only long enough to inhale a mouthful of food at occasional intervals. Shaina shrugged apologetically at the others, but everyone knew how important the conference had become to Daniel, and they enjoyed his enthusiasm. He wrapped up his report with a funny story about how the humans living on an open Dollnick world had taken to using alien idioms, such as “two arms short” for a half-baked business plan, and then headed off to the embassy in a rush, because he had a holo-conference scheduled.

Fenna, Mike, and Spinner all disappeared under the table to play a secret game, and David excused himself to leave for work. Dorothy and Shaina got into a discussion about shoe development for SBJ Fashions, and Jeeves floated in just as Aisha was working up her nerve to make a pitch to the little Stryx.

“Morning, Jeeves,” Paul said. “Are you going to help me with repairs today? We’re not taking in any new ships while Joe is gone, and I’d like to clean this lot out before the weekend.”

“I thought perhaps you could use an extra hand, or at least a pincer,” Jeeves responded. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Did you know I was planning on asking Spinner to appear on my show?” Aisha inquired.

“Libby might have mentioned something. As long as I’m already here, I’d be honored to assist if I could.”

“Does that mean you think it’s a good idea?”

“I think all of your ideas are good ideas,” Jeeves replied, laying it on thick.

“I’m going out to make the morning rounds,” Paul announced, figuring that if he wasn’t in the room, there would be less chance of being blamed for anything Jeeves did or didn’t do. “Let me know if you need anything.”

Aisha examined Jeeves closely, and for a moment, she considered asking him to leave. Then the children emerged from their table-cave, and she decided to just proceed as planned.

“Mike, Spinner. Could you guys come over here for a minute?”

The boy and the little Stryx came and stood before Aisha, their body language suggesting that they had been caught red-handed in some crime. Spinner lived up to his name by rotating nervously in one direction and then the other as he floated in place, and Aisha had to suppress the urge to ask what they had been doing under the table.

“Spinner,” she began. “Did you know that Mike is going to start appearing on ‘Let’s Make Friends’ with our next cast change?”

The little Stryx bobbed and ventured a creaky, “Yes, Mrs. McAllister.”

“Aisha,” she corrected him gently. “Did you know that we’ve never had a little Stryx on the show?”

Spinner stopped spinning and began to vibrate alarmingly. “You haven’t?”

“I was thinking that if you’re interested, you could come on the cast with Mike.”

“I could?”

“It would be fun. We play games and tell stories. I’m sure you’ve seen the show.”

“Yes,” the little Stryx replied, sinking to the floor.

“Are you alright?” Aisha asked in alarm.

“Nobody floats on your show,” Spinner said, and began tipping from one side to the other like a wobbly toy figure.

“That’s because they don’t know how,” Aisha explained. “We don’t have a rule against floating. Of course, you would be welcome to move any way you like.”

Spinner popped back up into the air and immediately started doing three-quarter turns to the left and right. “Teacher says it’s okay,” he rasped.

“Do you mean Libby? I discussed it with her before asking.” Aisha relaxed a little, and continued with the question she asked all new cast members. “What do you like to do?”

“Go to school, and play with Mikey and Fenna.”

“Anything else?”

“Was that the wrong answer?” the little Stryx chirped nervously. “I’ve never been asked to be on a show before. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“There is no right or wrong response. I just want to get an idea of what you like to do.”

“How can there be no right or wrong?” Spinner’s constant motion came to a dead stop. “Did I just fail?”

“You’re doing fine,” Aisha reassured the little Stryx, but she glanced over at Jeeves for support.

“Think of it this way,” Jeeves suggested, seizing the chance to jump into the conversation. “Say you were in a boat with two humans and they both fell in. Which one would you save?”

“Jeeves!” Aisha said angrily.

“Fell in where?” Spinner asked.

“Wherever the boat was,” Jeeves replied. “Humans are always falling out of boats.”

“Is one of them Mikey?” the little Stryx wanted to know. The boy stopped teasing Fenna and stood a little straighter at the mention of his name.

“Maybe they’re both Mike.”

“So it’s a multi-dimensional math problem,” Spinner declared in relief. “Can I have time to work it out?”

“Never mind the boat,” Aisha said. “I just want to make sure that you’re comfortable using your imagination since we do a lot of that on the show.”

“You want me to lie? Libby teaches us to tell the truth whenever practical.”

“Imagination isn’t lying,” Dorothy interjected. “Shaina and I were talking about creating new shoes just now, so we have to use our imaginations.”

Spinner swung about in the direction of the fashion designer and the businesswoman and inspected their feet. “But your shoes don’t look broken,” he objected.

“Oh, I have lots of shoes. And we aren’t creating them just for us, but for everybody who likes new shoes. We want to produce a unique product that doesn’t already exist.”

The little Stryx paused to absorb this latest nugget of information. “You want to make new shoes that aren’t really shoes?”

“Well, they’ll still be shoes,” Dorothy explained awkwardly. “We aren’t designing new ones just for the sake of being different. They still have to fit our feet and make us look and feel good.”

“And they have to sell,” Jeeves reminded her.

“They’re going to be better than the old shoes,” Dorothy concluded energetically.

“Better how?”

“This is just like visiting Libby’s school on Parents Day,” Shaina commented with a laugh. “Spinner. I think you’ll enjoy being on the show, and you can practice your imagination with Mike and Fenna before it starts so you don’t make mistakes.”

“I’ll try it,” the little Stryx rasped, resuming his pattern of partial spins. “Can I go practice making things up now?”

“I think that would be a good idea,” Aisha replied, wondering if Spinner was going to put her through the third degree every time she asked a question on the show. She decided on the spot to develop a strategy for avoiding circular conversations, and made a mental note to warn the Grenouthian studio engineers about reflections coming off the young Stryx’s constantly moving metal body.

“I’m still curious to know which Mike he’s going to save from drowning,” Jeeves said, looking after the children as they fled from the ice harvester to get away from the grownups.

“I should have known what a big help you were going to be,” Aisha retorted, glaring at the Stryx. “Does his voice have to be that scratchy? Can you adjust it?”

“It’s his voice, not a translation device,” Jeeves replied. “Stryx don’t communicate with one another through spoken words unless we’re being polite to biologicals who happen to be present. Back when Libby started her experimental school for humans and used me as the guinea pig for the first Stryx student, she decided to let me develop my own audible voice, rather than simply mapping our communications onto English.”

“But surely even the youngest Stryx has a larger vocabulary then pretty much anybody.”

“It’s not a vocabulary issue, it’s about learning to communicate. Spinner’s lack of vocal control just reflects the uncertainty he feels about what he’s saying. Language conveys much more than simple facts, and it took me months just to understand how much of my feelings I should reveal in my voice. You should ask Libby to play back my introductory speech to the class. I sounded like a metallic rat being fed into a meat grinder.”

“I remember a little from when I helped teach Metoo to speak,” Dorothy volunteered. “I was only four, and I didn’t understand that Metoo was really better than me at everything except for socializing with humans. It’s the one built-in skill we have that Stryx don’t.”

“That’s why Libby has been slowly raising the age of the school children she pairs with the young Stryx,” Jeeves explained. “Your brother was five when he got Banger as his work/play assignment, and Mike was nearly six when he started with Spinner. It’s really cut down on the number of little Stryx getting emotionally overloaded and shutting themselves off, which saves me a lot of running around to wake them.”

“Is there any chance that Spinner will shut himself off on my show?” Aisha asked. “I wouldn’t want to traumatize hundreds of billions of children.”

“There’s always a chance, but Spinner strikes me as quite stable, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

“What pun?”

“He means gyroscopically,” Shaina explained. “After working with Jeeves for ten years, I’ve gotten used to his humor. You can take Stryx out of the physics, but you can’t take the physics out of the Stryx.”

“But what if something happened and he did shut himself off?” Aisha asked. “I’ve had cast members fall asleep on set, but the other children wake them up. It’s almost a rite of passage with young Fillinducks because the lighting makes them drowsy.”

“I could come to the studio while you’re shooting, just to be on hand,” Jeeves offered.