Party Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 10) (7 page)

“When did you leave your office?”

“Maybe a quarter of an hour ago,” Woojin replied. “I had to wait a few minutes when I got there because he was straightening some guy’s spine. His examination of me only took a minute or two.” The tough ex-soldier winced at the recent memory of the giant needle that the beetle had used to extract a sample.

“A complete fertility examination in a minute or two?” Lynx asked skeptically. “Did he tell you your fortune while you were there?”

“He says we’re biologically simple. Well, my implant translated it as ‘biologically trivial,’ but I think that’s probably a bad usage of terminology.”

“I can’t believe you fell for his shtick,” Lynx said derisively. “It’s a gimmick with some species, you know. Talk down to humans and we’ll believe anything.”

“Libby?” Woojin asked. “Could you tell Lynx that the Farling doctor I’m talking about isn’t a quack?”

“Of course. We hire him whenever possible for on-call duty, but he only works enough to cover the rent on his shop and living quarters. He prefers to work independently.”

“You hired an insect doctor who sees humanoids as trivial?” Lynx asked.

“I don’t think he was talking about all humanoids,” Woojin interjected, receiving a glare from his wife in thanks.

“It’s rare for Farling physicians to practice outside of their space, but they are held in high esteem by all of the advanced species as the final word in medicine,” Libby continued. “Gryph paid a significant contract bonus to M793qK in order to bring him to the station for a hundred cycles.”

“What kind of name is M7—whatever?” Lynx complained.

“The information bandwidth of the high frequencies utilized by their native communications has led to names akin to epic poems which translate poorly into most galactic languages,” Libby explained. “It would take me approximately forty-seven minutes to offer a rough analog of M793qK’s informal name in English. His formal name, updated with more recent accomplishments from the last few centuries, would take days to recite. Would you like to hear it?”

“No,” Lynx hastened to reply before Libby could get started. She bit her lower lip and turned to her husband. “I don’t think I can go through all of the hormone shots and office visits again, Woojin. The emotional part was even harder than the physical part. I do want to have a baby, maybe even more than you, but we tried the best doctors and it just didn’t work.”

“The best human doctors,” Woojin reminded her. “The Farling offers a double-our-money-back guaranty if he takes the job, and he claims he’s never had to turn a human down yet. He said you can do the whole procedure in one visit to his shop if you’re willing to wait while he does the tricky parts, and there won’t be any hormone shots or nasal sprays. Lynx, he fixed our recruit’s brain hemorrhage as casually as you might sew on a button. He’s the real thing.”

“Double our money back? Libby? Is my husband getting that right?”

“Farling physicians always guaranty their work with aliens and pay cash penalties for any failure to perform. It’s a highly effective marketing strategy, and given their bedside manner, a necessary one.”

“They don’t guaranty results when they work on their own species?”

“Farling physiology is appreciably more complex than that of the tunnel network members, and of most other biologicals for that matter. They have natural immunity to a wide range of pathogens, and given food and rest, they can regenerate limbs and organs to recover from most injuries. But on the rare occasions that they do develop medical problems, treatment is challenging.”

“Challenging as opposed to trivial,” Lynx muttered.

“Try putting it in perspective,” Woojin cajoled her. “If you were a dog, would you rather be operated on by another dog, or by a trained veterinarian? It’s the same thing.”

“It is not the same thing! Are you getting your comparisons from Jeeves these days?” Then she saw that the hopeful look on Woojin’s face was beginning to slip, and she realized that if there really was still a chance, she wanted to take it. “When am I supposed to do this?”

If Lynx hadn’t been looking at him the whole time, she would have sworn that somebody had just swapped her husband with a version who was ten years younger. “I think everything will go easier if we wait a few weeks until the ambassador gets back. You’re going to make a great mom.”

“Just don’t tell anybody about this. If it all works out, I don’t want our child to be stuck with ‘Beetle baby’ for a nickname.”

Seven

“Welcome to Manhattan Elegance Hotel,” the desk clerk greeted the McAllisters. “How may I help you?”

“I’m Ambassador Kelly McAllister, this is my husband Joe, and my son Samuel. I believe we have a reservation.”

“Oh, the EarthCent block of rooms,” the girl said in a surly tone, her professional smile slipping a number of notches. She tapped away on an ancient touchscreen and grimaced. “I see it’s just the one room for the three of you.”

“Yes. There’s supposed to be a cot for my son.”

“There’s a supply closet in every hall, you can open it with your room chit and get a cot. All of the supplies are tagged and we count the towels when you leave, so don’t take anything you don’t want added to your bill.” She slipped two room chits across the desk and informed them, “If you lose your room chit, there’s a replacement charge. No outside food or beverages are allowed in the hotel, and room service hours are 10:00 AM through 4:00 PM.”

“How can you run a hotel like this?” Joe demanded. “I’ve stayed in flop houses with better service.”

“It’s not how we run our hotel, sir,” the clerk responded stiffly. “Just the floor of rooms and the conference facility reserved by EarthCent at a special rate which was negotiated by a manager who is no longer with our company. I hear your people gave him a diplomatic posting,” she concluded with a sniff.

Kelly decided to ignore the clerk’s provocation and turned to her family. “Let’s dump our bags and take a walk around the city.”

“Your room chits will only work on the color-coded elevators,” the girl called after them. “Don’t try sneaking into a premium elevator while the doors are open because it won’t let you off on your floor.”

“Why do people say they like staying in hotels?” Samuel asked, as the family headed for the bank of elevators.

“They aren’t all like this,” Joe reassured his son. “Sometimes it’s nice to get away from home and have your meals brought to you.”

“Between 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM, when nobody in their right mind is in their room,” Kelly grumbled. “I don’t even see a blue-coded elevator.”

“It’s at the end,” Samuel shouted, running across the marble floor. “I’ve never been in an elevator.”

“You take lift tubes every day of your life,” Joe pointed out.

“But this is different,” the boy insisted. “Libby taught us about them. It’s a box hanging in a shaft by a cable, and if the cable parts and the brakes fail, it crashes at the bottom.”

“You do know that’s not a good thing,” Kelly said, watching as Joe inserted his room chit to call the elevator. “How come there’s no indicator above the doors?”

“That’s to tell you what deck the elevator is on?” Samuel asked.

“They call them ‘floors’ on planets,” Joe said. “When you have so many floors in a building and a limited number of elevators, it helps to know where the elevator car is and which way it’s heading, so you can choose the shortest wait.”

“And if we can only use the one elevator, it doesn’t matter,” the boy concluded, having solved the puzzle to his own satisfaction. “That makes sense. What floor is our room?”

Joe and Kelly exchanged looks. The clerk hadn’t mentioned the floor, and it had been so long since either of them had been in a hotel that they had forgotten to check.

“Room 3257,” Kelly read from the chit. “So the thirty-second floor?”

“It’s a pretty big building,” Joe observed. “Maybe it’s the third floor.”

“How come there’s nothing on my implant’s information channel?” Samuel asked.

“I guess Earth hotels haven’t caught up with the state-of-the-art for travelers, and most people living here don’t have any need for implants,” Kelly said. “Still, you’d think there would be a map or something.”

“Ambassador McAllister,” a woman addressed Kelly. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you in person for years.”

Kelly turned and immediately recognized Svetlana Zerakova from the EarthCent Intelligence Steering Committee meetings. The Corner Station ambassador was accompanied by a bearded man and two teenage girls who were identical twins.

“Svetlana. Wonderful to see you. And this is your family?”

“My husband, Anton and my daughters Sabina and Katya. Don’t wait for the elevator. We arrived yesterday and I have yet to see those doors open. We’re all on the third floor in any case, and the stairs are good exercise.”

“My husband Joe and our son Samuel,” Kelly introduced her family. “Did you have any trouble with the cots?”

“What cots?” Svetlana asked, as she led them to a fire door that opened onto a stairwell.

“For your daughters,” Kelly said. “I wouldn’t agree to remain for the whole conference unless Samuel could stay in our room.”

“I guess he is a bit young to be on his own,” the Corner Station ambassador responded, causing Samuel to blush. “We just reserved an extra double-occupancy room for the twins. The same with the first class cabins on the trip in.”

“I couldn’t bring myself to spend that kind of money on travel,” Kelly admitted, as the two women fell behind on the stairs. “I turned in my first class ticket and bought three regular transits with the money.”

“Didn’t you request tickets for your family?” Svetlana asked. “I wouldn’t have dragged the girls along if the trip wasn’t free. They’re still mad about missing a party on the station.”

“You got free first class tickets for the whole family?”

“Well, I had to threaten that I wouldn’t come otherwise,” Svetlana said apologetically.

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that,” Kelly groaned. Above them, a door slammed shut as their families exited the stairwell. “Haven’t we already climbed two flights?”

“It’s actually four flights to the third floor. I think it has to do with the high ceilings in the lobby and the atrium in the conference center. Have you seen it yet?”

“We just arrived,” Kelly replied shortly, trying to conserve her breath.

“The rugs need replacing and the conference rooms are full of those old-fashioned folding chairs. This hotel has seen better days. Which panels will you be on?”

“Uh, I had a request from the president yesterday asking me to host an informal session about alien/human relations for some nonprofessionals they’re letting into the conference.” Kelly stopped for a moment, breathing heavily, but gathered her strength when she saw that they were only half a flight from their goal. “And later in the week, I’m chairing the panel about how Grenouthian documentaries depict humans, probably thanks to my brief career doing an interview show on their public access channel.”

“I always thought it was a shame you dropped that show,” the other woman said, pulling open the fire door on the third floor.

“I ran out of alien friends to interview,” Kelly admitted. “Are you doing any panels?”

“Drazen/Horten Relations: From Allies to Enemies to Competitors,” Svetlana replied. “And I’m giving a public talk on Thursday, titled, ‘Making a Career with EarthCent,’ though the truth is, I’m a little nervous about that one. Some of the questions I’ve gotten since we arrived make me wonder where people get their information these days.”

“Kind of hard to plan for a career in EarthCent when we don’t have an application process,” Kelly said. She examined her room chit again, and compared the digits to the cryptic plaque with numbers and arrows on the wall.

“Well, I’m this way, so I’ll see you at the opening session if we don’t run into each other again before then.”

“Thanks for the tip about the elevator.” Kelly spent the next five minutes following arrows with room numbers in what seemed to be a circle, until she ran into Joe wheeling a folded cot down the hall.

“Trouble finding the room?” he asked.

“I was getting there. Why? Did you have trouble?”

“I’d still be looking if Samuel hadn’t figured out that one of the signs had been stolen. Just remember when you get to the 3240’s, start ignoring the numbers and follow the emergency exit signs. We’re on the right in the dead-end corridor.”

“That cot seems awfully narrow,” Kelly commented.

“It has to be to fit in the room. You’d think this hotel was some sort of old space station where space was at a premium. But we didn’t come all the way to Earth to spend our time hanging around inside, so it’s no big deal. Wave your chit in front of the lock there.”

Kelly followed Joe’s instructions and they entered the room. “Close the door when you use the bathroom,” she called, assuming that’s where her son was hiding.

“Svetlana’s girls took him to the observation deck. Our floor only has access between 10:30 and 11:30 in the morning.”

“Well, we may as well get unpacked and wait for him, since he’ll be kicked out in twenty minutes,” Kelly said, consulting her decorative watch.

Joe took his toothbrush and shaving gear out of his small carry-on and then threw the bag into the corner. “I’m unpacked. I’m going to pop down to the travel agency in the lobby to see about a sub-orbital ticket to Korea. That tunneling call from Union Station I got while you were saying goodbye to your mom was Woojin asking for a favor. He’s authorized me to go by a bank in Seoul and claim some family jewelry that he probably inherited or something. If I leave first thing in the morning, I’ll be back in time for dinner. Hey, don’t unfold the cot until bedtime or there won’t be any room to move.”

“All right. See you in a bit.”

After Joe left, Kelly took ten minutes to unpack her things, and then retrieved Joe’s bag from the floor. It contained one pair of pants, two shirts, and three unopened packages of underwear, a seven-day supply. She wondered for a moment what he had done with his dirty laundry from the first half of the trip, and how he planned to get through the final week in space. Then she went to lift Samuel’s bag onto the bed and let out a grunt. It was heavier than she expected, and something jabbed her in the stomach. It turned out to be her father’s cane, which was strapped to the side of the shoulder bag.

After a brief struggle with the Vergallian interlocking flap system, she got it opened and wasn’t surprised to see that the boy’s wardrobe was identical to his father’s, except Samuel had also packed his Libbyland toy. Kelly frowned at the little robot, which she had explicitly told him to leave home. Then she recalled the stuffed animal she had not only carried around as a girl, but which currently adorned her dresser back on Union Station, and decided she wouldn’t comment about her teenage son traveling with a favorite toy from childhood.

There was a loud sound that reminded her of the low-oxygen warning made by the lifeboat during the brief evacuation training they had received on the Vergallian freighter that brought them to Earth. The alarm noise sounded again, and this time she realized that it was coming from somewhere in the room. Given the limited number of fixtures, process of elimination led her to discover that the culprit was an off-white boxy object on the small stand next to the bed.

“Hello?” she ventured, suspecting it was some sort of crude communications device, like the telephone handsets in old movies. The annoying alarm sound repeated, and she noticed that there was a large button on the box, so she pressed it.

“Mr. or Mrs. McAllister?” a voice asked through the speaker grille.

“Yes, I’m Ambassador McAllister,” Kelly replied.

“I’m Tom, the guide on the observation deck, employee ID 2761. There’s a young man up here who claims to be staying with you, but he doesn’t have a room chit.”

“That’s my son. There are three of us in the room, and they only gave us two chits.”

“Well, he can’t get on an elevator without one so you’ll have to come get him. Wait, hold on a minute. What? He says he wants to take the stairs, but we keep that door locked. Should I open it for him?”

“What floor are you on?” she asked.

“The hundred and second.”

“Tell him I’m on my way.”

It only took Kelly two minutes to find the elevator bank, and to her surprise, the doors of the blue elevator opened immediately. She got in and said, “One hundred and second floor.”

Nothing happened.

“Oops, forgot the magic word,” she muttered to herself, and tried again. “One hundred and second floor, please.”

Nothing happened.

She looked for a spot to insert her chit to open the doors, preparing to take the stairs to the lobby and complain, but then she noticed an immense array of buttons with numbers on them.

“Oh, isn’t that quaint,” she said out loud, and captured the image through her implant. Then she took another picture with her finger pressing the button for the hundred and second floor. Even the elevators at the university she had briefly attended almost thirty-five years earlier had voice control. The car lurched into motion, and she felt her weight increasing as the elevator accelerated upwards. Then she waited. And waited. And waited. After what seemed like forever, the doors opened and she stepped out onto the observation deck.

“Hi, Mom. Tom has been explaining to me all about the city and the gangs and everything. It’s pretty cool.”

“Gangs?”

“You just have to avoid the ends of the island, Mrs. McAllister,” the guide told her. “The middle part is fine.” Then he lunged past her and stuck his foot between the doors. “That was a close one. If the car got away you’d be waiting here another fifteen minutes.”