Vacation on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 7) (6 page)

“I’m trying to understand you, but your concept of liberty clashes with everything I studied back on Earth.” Walter sat down heavily in one of the chairs, looking physically drained. “I realize that the academic environment may have turned me into something of a hothouse flower, but surely the concepts of freedom and liberty are universal.”

“Let me tell you about that since I’m here,” Liza spoke up unexpectedly, coming out of her torpor. “The Free Corridor Commune didn’t start off as a segregated group. Our goal was to bring freedom from clothing to all of the humans on the station. Given the advanced climate control on the human decks, clothing is no longer needed for warmth or protection from the sun and the weather. Some of the advanced species haven’t worn clothing in millions of years.”

“Like the Grenouthians,” Daniel interjected.

“So around twenty years ago, a group of us decided to stop wearing our clothes, and we were sure the rest of the humans on the station would follow our lead. It didn’t work that way. Some people stared at our bodies, some people wouldn’t look at us at all, and then there was the groping in crowds.” Liza stopped for a moment and shuddered. “But the worst part was the parents getting angry with us. They said we were infringing on their right to bring up their children without having to look at a bunch of—well, we learned that we don’t all have the same ideas of freedom.”

“So eventually you reached a compromise by creating a section exclusively for nudists,” Walter summarized. “That’s the classic solution, and a fine example of democracy in action.”

“Actually, the Stryx station manager told us that the tenants were demanding action, and if we didn’t want to put our clothes back on, we would either have to move or to pay for everybody else to move. It turned out that the small print in the Stryx leases includes a whole section about communal norms.”

“I hadn’t thought about the nudist thing in years,” Shaina exclaimed. “I was only a girl, but I remember my father loaning a towel to a naked woman who came to the Shuk during the rush, when the crowds are so thick that we still get the occasional pickpocket.”

“Thank you for sharing,” Walter said, nodding to both women. “I’m beginning to see that life on a Stryx station follows a different pattern than I’ve been led to believe.

“So what can you tell us about HEEL?” Clive asked, persisting with his original inquiry. “What was the training course like? Did you meet any other new hires?”

“We didn’t exactly have a training course and I haven’t met any other organizers,” Walter admitted. “I haven’t even met my direct superior, except by holo-conference, of course. I’ll know more about it when my materials get here. I’ve just been trying to make good use of my time until then.”

“So all you really know about HEEL is that they placed an ad on your alumni board and have promised you a salary and materials that are due any day?”

“I did get a travel allowance and an advertising budget,” Walter said. “You don’t think I’d come all the way out here on my own creds?”

“Well, I hope you’ll stop by our offices when your materials show up,” Clive told Walter. “Even if we can’t work together, I see no reason we should find ourselves on opposite sides.

“I’m curious too,” Daniel said. “Hey, where did Henri go?”

“He snuck off after making his little speech about shared sacrifice,” Sylvia told them.

Six

“Hurry up, they’re expecting us for dinner,” Lynx called up to Woojin, who hadn’t followed her down the Prudence’s ramp. “We’re supposed to present an image of good governance to these people and I don’t want to start by being late. You’re just as bad as Thomas.”

“You try shaving during reentry on a two-man trader sometime,” Woojin called back. “I almost cut my own throat. If you didn’t have that tube of Farling skin-knit in the first-aid kit, you might have been a widow before I had the chance to place a life expectancy bet with the Thark bookmakers.”

“Some mercenary hero you are,” she yelled irritably. “Just put on a clean shirt and hurry up. We hit the ground running in this outfit.”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Woojin responded, as if they were on a parade ground. A minute later he emerged from the hold tucking his shirt into matching black pants. “But if you’re going to bring up your old boyfriends every time I shave, it’s going to be a long marriage.”

“Are those the best clothes you brought?” she asked, eyeing the mercenary dress uniform critically.

“I’ve got two more sets in black.”

“But those are—never mind.” She issued a silent instruction over her implant to the ship’s controller to raise the ramp which doubled as the main hatch for the Prudence’s hold.

“Here comes our transportation,” Woojin said, pointing with his smoothly shaven chin to indicate an approaching dust trail. “That’s a Dolly floater they’re driving, and I’ll be glad of the ride after a week in Zero-G. Did you really spend ten years in that tin can?”

“Hard to believe it now,” Lynx replied. She did a deep knee-bend to see if her joints would be making embarrassing cracking noises now that her body weighed something again. Fortunately, gravity on the open world of Chianga was barely two-thirds of Earth standard, as the towering Dollnicks preferentially focused on terraforming worlds that didn’t give them backaches and flat feet. “You killed my old record on the tie-down treadmill,” she added grudgingly.

“Running the recruits around Mac’s Bones keeps me in shape. I wonder how Thomas is doing with the new group. He didn’t seem very enthusiastic about following the basic training program Joe and I developed.”

“Now who’s bringing up my old boyfriends?” Lynx asked playfully. She licked her index finger and chalked a mark on an invisible blackboard. “Besides, you’re the one who jumped at Blythe’s offer to pay for the honeymoon in return for stopping by a few of the human settlements that were advertising for cops. We’ll be lucky if we only spend three out of the four weeks on my ship.”

“And you’re the one who’s been talking about getting her ship out of mothballs ever since we met. Besides, given our age difference, I thought I’d make a better impression in Zero-G.”

“I’m just saying, if everything goes wrong and we have to eat worms or something, it’s your fault.”

“Are we having our first argument?”

“What are you talking about?” Lynx retorted. “We argue all of the time.”

A barely audible hum announced the arrival of the floater, which came to a hovering stop just in front of the recently arrived visitors. A young boy wearing a sort of a sun-helmet sat at the controls, and a girl who looked like his sister occupied the other front seat. The Dollnick floater resembled a spaceport courtesy transport with four rows of seats and no visible means of propulsion.

“Climb in,” the girl told them. “If we set down in the sand too often the filters will get clogged.”

Lynx swung a leg over the edge of the craft and then accepted a boost from Woojin, who followed by vaulting into the next row back. The floater dipped alarmingly at his sudden entry, but then recovered. He clambered over the low seat-back to join Lynx in the row behind their young drivers.

“I’m Sephia and he’s Raythem,” the girl told them. The floater spun about on the spot and began to accelerate rapidly. A lack of wind in their faces showed that the craft employed some type of force field technology, without which conversation would also have been impossible. “You’re the first people from Union Station who have ever come to visit us. We know all about your home from LMF. It’s my favorite show.”

“I’m Lynx and he’s Woojin. I’ll make sure to tell Aisha that you watch.”

“I haven’t watched that show in two years,” the boy said haughtily, lest they get the wrong idea. “It’s for little kids.”

“You know Aisha?” Sephia asked, wide-eyed in astonishment. “Dianna says that she’s just a hologram created by artificial intelligence. Nobody could really be that nice.”

“I eat with Aisha all the time so you can tell Dianna that she’s wrong,” Lynx replied. “How old are you two?”

“I’m seven, and Raythem’s ten,” Sephia said. “Daddy only lets him drive the floater if I come because Raythem knows I’ll tell on him if he goes too fast.”

“I’m a good driver,” Raythem asserted.

“I didn’t know the Dollnicks made floaters sized for humans,” Woojin said. “The ones I’ve seen were more than twice as big as this one.”

“We make them in our own factory, with Dollnick parts,” the boy explained without looking over his shoulder. “Daddy says that people who won’t use alien technology are just dumb.”

“I guess I can agree with your father there,” Lynx replied. “Is that dome up ahead your town?”

“That’s the factory,” the girl said. “Daddy says the dome keeps out all of the dust, and when we visit, we have to go through a little room where the walls blow on us. Then we have to put on plastic clothes over our real clothes. Everybody inside looks really funny. What do they call it, Ray?”

“A clean-room,” the boy replied. “Daddy says it’s because the Dollnick parts are so small and fit so close together that a bit of dust you can’t even see could ruin a floater drive unit.”

The floater raced past the dome and the sandy surface gave way to agricultural fields. At one point, they saw a group of humans in the distance working with what looked like a giant spool of black wire or pipe.

“Drip irrigation,” Woojin commented. “They manage their water carefully on this world.”

“Water is money,” the little girl said reflexively, repeating something she must hear from adults all the time.

The floater began to slow as they came over a small rise, and a strange settlement sprang into view before them. The houses were all cookie-cutter prefab structures that looked like they had been delivered directly from a factory with only the slightest aesthetic modifications. Lynx counted more than twenty concentric circles of grassy streets before she gave up and asked the children, “What’s that metallic tower in the middle?”

“It’s our rock zapper,” the girl told her without hesitation, since it was obvious that Lynx couldn’t have been referring to anything else. “Sometimes it lights up at night to shoot meteors and stuff. It’s real pretty, but it makes the air smell funny while it’s working.”

The boy slowed the floater to the speed of a galloping horse as they approached the outermost houses.

“Press the button,” the girl told him.

“I did already,” the boy replied, a little too quickly.

“Did not. I watched you. And the green light isn’t on.”

“But I know how to get there,” Raythem protested.

“I’ll tell Daddy,” Sephia warned him.

“Alright, alright,” the boy said, pushing the autopilot button. The floater immediately sped up, but Lynx relaxed. She knew that kids on outposts and ag worlds learned how to operate equipment early, but that didn’t mean she wanted a ten-year-old driving her through town traffic. The autopilot navigated too fast for her liking, but at least it had a built-in collision avoidance system, probably.

“Home,” the boy said sullenly, after the floater came to a rather abrupt halt. It settled onto the grass, and the four occupants were able to exit easily by simply stepping over the gunwales. A deeply tanned man wearing shorts and a T-shirt waited for them.

“I’m Bob Winder,” he introduced himself, at the same time tossing a coin to each of his children. They eagerly caught the money and ran off without saying where they were going. “I hope my son didn’t scare you with his driving, but I thought it would be a more important use of my time to talk a couple of other mayors into coming. They should be arriving any minute.”

“I’m Pyun Woojin and this is my wife, Lynx. Please call me Wooj.” The two men shook hands.

“Lynx Edgehouse,” Lynx said, shaking Bob’s hand.

“You’re married but you use different names?” Bob asked.

“I’m keeping my options open, just in case,” Lynx replied. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us on such short notice. We were originally planning to contact you from at least a day out, but the tunnel controller dumped us in such a low orbit that landing immediately was the only thing that made sense.”

“The Dollnicks prefer it that way,” Bob said. He ushered them into the house through an odd double-door and led them into a sunken living room, indicating that they should seat themselves. “Very efficient people, might have something to do with the four arms. Of course, I’ve never been off Chianga myself, so I’m not familiar with planetary approach methodologies.”

“You were born here, Mayor?” Lynx inquired.

“Born and raised,” the mayor responded proudly. “My parents came out in the first wave from Earth and never went back. I grew up on the main continent, but when the Dollnicks declared Chianga an open world and offered financing to humans willing to colonize the outlying land masses, I signed up immediately.”

“You’ve certainly done a lot in a short time,” Woojin said, looking around the well-appointed home. “Are these structures manufactured by the Dollnicks?”

“Everything you see in my home was made by human hands, though we use a lot of Dollnick equipment in the factories,” Bob said. “The mayor of Houses will be here tonight, so you can ask her about the process yourself.”

“You named a town Houses?” Lynx asked.

“All of our towns are named for their factories,” the mayor replied, making it sound like the only logical possibility. “Is there some other way of doing it?”

“On Earth, cities and towns are named after local geological features, or the place the settlers came from, or for the people themselves,” Lynx said. “In fact, the two times I visited Earth, it seemed that half of the places I went had a prefix, as if they ran out of ideas.”

“Like New Houses, or West Houses, or North…”

“He gets the idea,” Lynx interrupted her husband.

“Nope, makes no sense to me,” Bob said, shaking his head. “We live in Floaters because the factory makes floaters. That’s how the Dollnicks name their towns and it’s good enough for us. But where are my manners?” he cut himself off and rose. “What can I get you to drink?”

“Anything distilled is fine by me,” Woojin said.

“Make mine with plenty of water,” Lynx added.

“Best water on Chianga comes from our deep wells,” the mayor boasted. “You’ve made a wise choice.”

There was a loud hiss and a skittering sound from the other room which made Lynx’s hair stand up on the back of her neck. She turned to Woojin to see if he was preparing to fend off an attack of giant insects, but he looked completely relaxed.

“Could you trigger the door, Martha?” the mayor called. He turned back to his guests with a conspiratorial grin. “My wife is in the kitchen trying to make take-out look home-made. She commutes to Furniture, which is down south a ways, and she got home from work later than me today.”

The front door opened and two women entered.

“So the two of you came in one floater,” Bob commented. “What can I fix you for drinks?”

“You’d ask ME that question?” said the taller of the pair. She carried what appeared to be a doctor’s bag, and when she pressed a hidden button on the handle, the sides flopped down, exposing a salesman’s display of small liquor bottles. “I’m not one to waste a trip out of town just to talk politics. We’ve got some new products coming out, including a fair version of dark rum.”

“I was about to tell our visitors that we don’t stand on formality around here, so Wooj, Lynx, let me introduce you to my closest mayoral colleagues. The booze hound there is Terri, the mayor of Distilling, and her designated driver this evening is Sheila, the mayor of Houses.

“Great to meet you, Wooj, Lynx,” the shorter woman said. “Let me have one of those Scotch samples, Terri, and that will be it for my evening. The last one you tried on me was the right color, but it tasted like medical alcohol mixed with tea.”

“How many factory towns do you have on Chianga?” Woojin asked their host, accepting a short tumbler full of oily yellow liquid and passing on to Lynx a glass with a diluted version of the same.

“We’re up to forty-seven now, and some of them are practically cities,” Bob replied. “I could have invited a couple more mayors from the closer factories today, but I thought it made more sense to check you out first, if you don’t mind my saying.”

Lynx coughed, turned red, and spit her drink back out into her glass. The mayor of Distilling leapt up and pressed a sample bottle into her hands.

“Drink this,” she ordered. “It’s branch water, or at least, that’s what we call it.”

Lynx took the small bottle greedily, gargled, and swallowed.

“It’s my fault,” Woojin said to their host. “Lynx worked as an independent trader for ten years, so I just assumed she’d have developed a taste for Dollnick tequila.”