Date Night on Union Station (5 page)

“Not now,” he grunted, followed by a subvoc that she missed. Then he practically yelled, “I just said I wasn’t talking to you, idiot. Yes, now, now, now!”

Kelly didn’t have time to think before the glass isolation cover whooshed down over her seat and her body felt like all of its warmth was being sucked away by a giant pump.

“Libby,” she cried through her implant. “Libby, I think I’m being kidnapped!”

A faint crackle sounded in her ears as the cold sank into her bones, then the reassuring voice of the station’s Stryx librarian broke in with, “…jamming, but tracking. Please report status.”

“I’m trapped in a seat pod, isolation cover down, freezing. I think I’m being put into stasis. It’s an Eemas date, check the records.” Kelly banged her hands on the glass to no avail, but she saw Olaf dragging himself forward towards the front of the ship on his magnetic traction cleats. “Scramble fighters or something. Stop them.”

“Fighters?” Despite her rapidly dimming consciousness, Kelly thought she could hear Libby chuckling. That’s right, they don’t have any, she remembered. “Don’t worry, Kelly. We suspected there was a bride-stealing gang working the station, we just needed them to violate our regulations. I’ve already arranged for apprehension and retrieval. Help is on the way.”

“You used me as date bait?” Kelly mumbled incredulously, lacking the energy to get angry about it as she felt herself drifting into sleep. “That wasn’t very nice. Please turn off the freezer.”

“You’ll be safer in stasis, Kelly. We’ll have to disable the ship. Sleep well.” Libby closed the channel softly.

As everything faded to black, Kelly reflected that this, surely, was the new low point of her dating life.

Five

“Somebody’s coming,” Paul yelled into the jagged opening in the lifeboat hull, from which emitted an unending stream of curses and oddly colored wisps of smoke. The volume of curses increased even as the smoke died out, and a helmeted head with a dark visor poked out of the hull.

“Stupid auto-adjusting shield,” Joe complained as he rapped the side of the welding helmet a couple of times with his glove-encased knuckles. Finally he gave up and raised the visor manually. “Where’s Killer?”

“Sleeping,” Paul replied and shrugged his shoulders at the pointless question. Beowulf, aka Killer, was a war dog, a genetically engineered cross between a mastiff and Huravian hound. The dog had chosen to stick with Joe when he left the mercenaries, and anybody who might have disagreed with the canine’s choice had more sense than to argue with him.

Beowulf looked exactly like a war dog retired to junkyard duty. He weighed as much as a big man, drooled buckets, and mainly slept whenever Joe or Paul was around to keep watch. At the sound of his name, Beowulf’s ears twitched and he opened his eyes. After a quick sniff and glance at the approaching robot, he made an elaborate show of curling up and going back to sleep in a nest of scrapped insulation he had arranged as a bed away from bed.

Joe left his cutting torches and gauntlets behind, pulled himself out of the lifeboat, and handed the helmet to Paul. Then he straightened out painfully and cast a critical eye over the strange amalgamation of parts that rolled up to him under its own power.

“This is a first,” Joe said, as he untied the straps securing his leather welder’s apron. “I’ve never had a robot come to junk itself before.”

“How very droll,” the robot responded with the pointed inflection peculiar to the Stryx. Its various articulated limbs undulated wildly about, like a blind octopus groping for the wheel on a submarine hatch. “About what I should have expected from a man who would take a second-hand dating subscription in barter.”

“Oh, you’re the guy from Eemas. That’s a dirty trick you folks have, charging the full subscription price just to change the user profile!” Joe intended to work himself up for a tirade, but became hypnotized watching the apparently uncontrollable spasms of the robot’s extremities.

“I’m sure it was explained to you that the cost of the service is the research that goes into finding potential matches.” The robot shifted to a tired monotone that suggested too much time spent doing customer service. “We offered you a very attractive alternative, and I understand you were quite enthusiastic about the terms.”

“Yeah, well, my tug’s right there, as you can see.” Joe indicated the stubby salvage vessel that was built for the sole purpose of short-haul towing and orbital junk sifting. “Where’s the exterior propulsion unit you guys promised? I don’t mind doing repo work, but I’ll never catch a cabin cruiser, not even if you gave me the head start.”

The robot ignored Joe, rolled up to the tug, and then right up its side onto the hull. “Let’s go,” it called.

“You’re the propulsion system?” Joe asked in disbelief.

“They aren’t getting any closer,” the robot pronounced languidly, and its various limbs seemed to wilt as they sought anchoring spots on the hull. “Come on now, hotshot. Get the lead out.” It snapped the commands with a momentary display of energy and knowledge of archaic human slang. “I didn’t load myself down with all these extras to stand around yapping with a glorified trash collector.”

“Alright, alright. Mind the shop, Paul, and no cutting until I get back.” Joe gave the boy’s shoulder a squeeze and then followed the Stryx to the tug. He stopped and shook his head at the little robot perched on the hull, then hauled himself up the ladder and into the cockpit. There was barely enough room for a human operator in the tug, which had been built for smaller humanoids and converted for human use.

The vessel was procured in a barter deal for a rather elaborate potbelly still which the former owner of the junkyard had employed to make pretty good moonshine. Joe had long since decided that he’d gotten the short end of the stick on that trade. Strapping himself into the command chair, he began the launch sequence by calling to station control for clearance, but the controls abruptly locked out.

“I’ll do the talking and the flying if you don’t mind.” The robot spoke through his implants, sounding positively exhausted at this point. “How many G’s can your body tolerate without permanent damage?”

In Joe’s experience, nothing good ever came from responding to this type of question. However, his years in the mobile infantry had taught him the answer, and he decided to play it straight rather than leaving the robot to guess, especially since this particular Stryx didn’t sound like it would be upset by accidentally turning Joe into a gelatinous mass. “I can take 5 G’s for about thirty minutes, though I won’t be worth much for a while when it cuts out. Or I can take 15 G’s for around twenty seconds, but I’ll pass out without a pressure suit.”

“Passing out won’t be necessary,” the robot practically yawned the words in his ear. “Launch initiated.”

The tug took off like it had been kicked by a Thurillian riding beast, blowing through the ionized field that kept the air in the hold and out into the vacuum of the station core, without pausing to check for traffic. There was a brief high G turn, and then Joe felt himself pressed back into the pilot’s seat by a giant hand, though it was nowhere near as bad as some rapid assault landings he could recall, or strategic withdrawals for that matter.

Joe was impressed so much thrust could be generated with the casually bolted-on attachments that made the little robot look like it had magnetized its casing and blundered through a scrap heap, but none of the biologicals fostered by the Stryx had a clue as to their patron’s true technological limits. The robots gifted or bartered their fosterlings just enough technology to reach the stars, but generally left the different life forms to work out their own solutions to the problems they encountered in space.

The accelerometer on the tug’s instrument panel held steady as the velocity continued to ramp up, already far beyond the speed the ship could have reached on its own even when it was new. Joe actually caught himself studying the forward sensor display for their fleeing quarry, then he remembered that it had failed several months ago and was replaying the same loop from memory over and over again. He tried to lift a hand to give the console a whack, but it was too much work, so he decided to trust the robot and promptly fell asleep like an old trooper.

Joe awoke to a bored voice intoning, “Target acquired, preparing to disable their propulsion system.” He was still pressed down by a giant hand, but the instruments showed that velocity was dropping rapidly now.

“I can’t see anything,” he complained, looking through the forward port. “No visual contact.”

“That’s because I’ve turned the ship for deceleration,” the Stryx responded. “It’s also for your safety.” There was a crackle of static and the field sensors on the console lit up with colors Joe hadn’t seen in years, indicating that some high-energy weapon had been fired. Another of the robot’s primitive looking attachments, no doubt.

“Please prepare for a brief period of discomfort as I match speeds.” The robot offered the warning just as the invisible Thurillian beast that had kicked the tug out of the station took a seat on Joe’s chest. He didn’t pass out, quite, but a few more seconds would have done it. Then he was weightless, and a slight tremor passed through the tug as it gently bumped into something.

“Sharf vessel acquired,” the Stryx droned in a monotone. “Please engage towing grapnels.” Joe knew he was a little slow recovering from the hard deceleration, but it was downright mean-spirited of the robot to add, “It’s the three blue buttons at the top left of your console. Press them in sequence.”

“I know how to secure a tow,” Joe responded irritably, but he hit the buttons quickly. The inelastic contact between the ships had been softer than anything he could have managed flying the tug manually, but the vessels would still be drifting slowly apart without the magnetic grapnels to hold them together. “Repo has been secured,” he reported to the robot as the blue buttons turned green.

“Returning to Union Station.” The Stryx finally sounded like it was waking up a little, and they began to move again. The accelerometer on the instrument panel settled at exactly 1 G as Joe’s weight returned to normal. Apparently the robot saw no need to hurry back, or maybe it wanted to give Joe the most comfortable ride possible, which made him think of whoever was aboard the Sharf cabin cruiser.

“Hey, uh, Robot,” Joe said, losing momentum as he realized he had never asked the Stryx its name. Well, it could have offered to tell me, he thought. “What about the passengers aboard that ship? Did the cabin take any damage from whatever you were shooting there?”

“Oh, please,” the robot replied. “It’s a civilian pleasure craft, not a battle cruiser. I could have stopped it by just grabbing the hull but this sorry excuse for a tug would have torn itself apart. Isn’t somebody from your history famous for saying with a good enough fulcrum, he could change a planet’s orbit?”

“How should I know?” Joe replied with a shrug, musing over the fact that this Stryx had an ego. Maybe it was a juvenile. “I thought this was supposed to be a repo job. If you’ve vaporized their propulsion section, there goes ninety percent of the resale value.”

“Your information was incorrect,” the robot responded, returning to its prior languor. “The job was to retrieve a Sharf cabin cruiser that departed Union Station without clearance in the commission of a crime. After we process the passengers, you are welcome to the ship and remaining contents for your little junk business.”

“Oh,” Joe said, not sure if he should be more thankful or insulted. Bringing the conversation to a close would probably be the best policy. “Well, if you don’t need me for anything, I may as well catch up on my beauty sleep.”

“If you ever do catch up, let me know,” the robot replied. “I’d be happy to make the appropriate changes to your Eemas profile.”

No question, that was an insult, Joe thought as he closed his eyes, but maybe the Stryx was having a bad day. Besides, didn’t his father have a saying about looking a gift horse in the mouth? Joe knew about horses and their mouths from his childhood on the family ranch, not to mention cavalry stints on various worlds with technology bans. Even a toothless Sharf cabin cruiser was worth more than a herd of cow ponies. He smiled to himself at the thought that his dad would have called the robot a “pill,” as he slipped into the dusty dreams of his youth.

Six

The first thing Kelly saw when she regained consciousness was a priority message from EarthCent which Libby had forwarded to her heads-up display.

congratulations stop

Congratulations? The end of congratulations? She moaned and blinked her eyes, trying to remember where she had been when she passed out, and then it came back to her in a rush. Date bait.

“Libby!” she called out angrily. “Come on, I know you can hear me.”

“Welcome home,” Libby’s voice sounded smoothly in her head. “Sorry for the delay, I was just wrapping some things up. You’re quite a hit with EarthCent, you know. From what I hear, they’re going to upgrade the consulate to an embassy and give you another promotion.”

“Great, I’m sure I’ll need it to pay for my rescue.” Kelly grimaced as she lifted her head slowly and looked to both sides. She was still reclined in the seat pod from the excursion craft, but it was no longer in the ship. The cavernous space was probably a docking bay for a decent-sized vessel, but all she could see were a dozen seat pods just like the one she occupied, the isolation covers still in place.

The individual pods looked strangely out of context on the bare decking, trailing disconnected lengths of cable and tubing which witnessed how they had been mated with the excursion craft. Then a smallish robot rolled into view and did something to the external control panel on Kelly’s pod. The glass cover rolled back and the Stryx version of an optimum human air mix filled her lungs.

“How do you feel, Consul Frank?” the robot politely inquired. “I hope you are suffering no ill effects from your brief stay in stasis.”

“Fine, thank you,” she mumbled automatically, realizing that Libby had retreated into the background for the time being. “Are you associated with the station library?”

“I’m a field agent for Eemas. I was responsible for your retrieval,” the Stryx responded cheerily.

“Perhaps you can explain the coincidence of my two Eemas introductions turning out to be something other than dates?” Kelly inquired, putting on a professionally calm demeanor. Then she waited for a response as the silence stretched uncomfortably.

“Might I suggest that coincidence is unlikely in this case?” the robot finally offered in reply. The average Stryx tended to treat unwanted questions the same way human adults treat embarrassing questions from other people’s children, with a mixture of good will and stonewalling. “Ah, the others are regaining consciousness. I really must see to them now,” the robot exclaimed with a hint of relief, and rolled away to the nearest seat unit. Kelly swung her legs down to the floor, found she was sufficiently recovered to stand, and shuffled off in the robot’s tracks.

“I’ve been bombarded by advertisements for your service as long as I’ve been on this station, and I’ve never seen a disclaimer stating that the Stryx might hijack a date for diplomatic or police purposes.” Kelly spoke to the robot’s back as it fiddled with the controls for the isolation cover of the next pod. A groggy young woman was trying to sit up behind the glass, and a moment later, the cover swung back with a hiss.

“Ugh, where am I?” the girl moaned. “The last thing I remember I was on a date at the Beer Garden in Little Europe. What happened?”

“You were abducted by a ring of bride-stealers,” the robot answered in what struck Kelly as an exaggeratedly mechanical voice. The color that had been creeping back into the girl’s face beat a strategic retreat, then returned in a red flood. “Fortunately, your Earth Consul was able to expose the operation, and the perpetrators have been deported from Union Station. Excuse me, I have others to release.”

The robot rolled off to the next pod unit, and rather than follow it around the hold badgering it with questions it didn’t appear inclined to answer, Kelly decided to wait with the girl, who looked like she was having a hard time shaking off the effects of stasis.

“It did say bride-stealers, didn’t it?” the young woman asked, letting her head rest back on the cushion as she fought off a sudden wave of dizziness. Then she added in a tone of accusation, “I’ve heard some of those guys working the asteroid fields in this sector are pretty nice, and wealthy too.”

“You can’t mean you wanted to get kidnapped!” Kelly responded incredulously. “What if they had been slavers, or organ thieves?”

“But they weren’t,” the girl replied stubbornly. “The robot specifically said bride-stealers. That means there’s a man waiting who could afford to pay for the abduction, and he’s lonely enough to gamble on a strange woman who could turn out to be anyone. My own mother was stolen from an agricultural colony when she was just out of school, and she always said it was the best thing that ever happened to her.”

“Oh, well, excuse me for rescuing you,” Kelly flared up, but a shriek from the next pod over interrupted her, and she saw a woman striking at the robot with her bare hands. “Some women may not share your broad-minded views on abduction,” she flung over her shoulder, as she shuffled over to calm the frantic woman.

“Twenty days! I’ve missed my connecting ship and the ticket was nonrefundable!” The woman moaned and rocked back and forth while sitting up in the pod, but her eyes were scanning and Kelly could see that she was using her implants to catch up. The robot was already rolling away to the next unit, and Kelly chased it down.

“Your bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired,” she told it. “Let me do the talking.”

“Yes, Consul,” the robot replied meekly. Its attitude was so out of keeping with the personality of any Stryx she had ever encountered that Kelly got the feeling she was being manipulated by an amateur, but she didn’t have the time or heart to argue about it. Waking up the rest of the women and sending them on their way took another hour, but none of them seemed any worse for wear, other than the unplanned vacation in stasis. It quickly became clear that all of the victims were single women who had no family or friends on the station, and more than one was quite annoyed with Kelly for sticking her nose in other people’s business.

“You just wait right there,” she hurled at the robot as it tried to stealthily roll away after opening the last pod. Surprisingly, the Stryx didn’t even argue, but sat motionless as Kelly explained the situation to the last woman revived and offered the help of the consulate.

“Has the consulate started a matchmaking service?” the woman asked hopefully. When Kelly shook her head, the woman just looked disgusted and stumbled away.

Kelly turned and addressed the robot. “Now, you have some explaining to do. But first, what should I call you?”

“My English name?’ the Stryx mused. “I rather fancy Jeeves, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Fine, Jeeves. So who made the decision to drag me into the middle of this bride-stealing mess, and what’s the connection between Eemas and EarthCent?”

“There is no direct connection, Consul, but surely you know that we Stryx enjoy a highly cooperative culture,” the robot replied evasively.

“Then what’s the connection between Eemas and station management?” she asked.

“Ah, that’s rather complicated. But I can tell you that two of the women on that ship were introduced to the bride-stealers through Eemas, and as soon as we suspected what was going on, we had to act to defend our business model.” Jeeves sounded indignant rather than defensive, and Kelly wondered if he was a stakeholder in the dating service.

“So why didn’t you just deport the guys and confiscate their ship?”

“You know that we don’t like imposing rules on other species, and bride-stealing is a widespread practice in many cultures. It doesn’t always include prior negotiations.”

“And I entered into this how?” Kelly asked.

“You fit the profile,” the Jeeves responded. “That made the date legitimate for both parties, and we do have a guaranty to uphold.”

“I, what?” Kelly slapped the robot’s head and hurt her hand. “You think I’m so desperate to find a man that I want to get kidnapped?”

“In any case, as an EarthCent employee, your implants are diplomatic quality, and of course, you authorized remote monitoring when you signed your employment contract,” the Stryx continued unperturbed. “By taking you without your prior consent, the bride-stealers violated your diplomatic immunity, which gave us an excuse to step in.”

“Hold on a sec,” Kelly protested, with the feeling she was getting too much new information all at once. “What was that bit about authorizing remote monitoring of my implants? Do you mean you have me bugged?”

“Strange how nobody from your world ever reads the end user license agreements,” Jeeves said by way of an answer. “This must have been the first time your implants were accessed remotely, or you would have been aware of it. The EarthCent agreement stipulates that the employee will be notified of any remote monitoring within one pay period. This conversation is being entered in the records that notification was made.”

“Just wait a minute, and stop changing the subject,” Kelly demanded, trying to recall which question the robot was evading. But the whole situation was too confusing and she just wanted to get home and go to sleep. “I’m not through with you,” she concluded lamely.

“You’ve had a strenuous day, you need rest,” the robot soothed her. “After a good night’s sleep, I hope you will see this experience in a new light. Remember, Eemas knows you better than you know yourself,” Jeeves invoked the tagline from the ads, and began rolling towards the exit.

Kelly followed the robot in silence as she formed and discarded new lines of questioning. When they reached the corridor, Jeeves patiently waited for Kelly to choose her direction, towards the main tube bank, and then he headed off the opposite way. Just before the tube door closed, it occurred to her to yell at the vanishing robot, “Hey! Did whatever you call what just happened actually count as a date on my subscription?”

Jeeves, who could probably pick up the vibrations of a butterfly landing on a leaf down on an ag deck, somehow failed to hear the question and rolled along his merry way.