Vacation on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 7) (4 page)

“We recently had an unfortunate incident involving some of the youth on our lower deck overdosing on stimulants for recreational purposes,” said Svetlana. “Pepper is manufactured by the Farlings and tailored for human biology. It provides a feeling of energy and wakefulness with no noticeable side effects right up to the third or fourth day when the user collapses.”

“Collapsing sounds like a pretty serious side effect to me,” Kelly said.

“Users can avoid that part if they take what amounts to an antidote at the right time,” Svetlana explained. “Of course, the antidote, Salt, is priced higher than the Pepper, and it also puts you to sleep for twenty-four hours or so.”

“Is there a big difference between collapsing in bed and taking the antidote?” President Beyer asked.

“The users who take Salt according to the schedule seem to hold up pretty well, but the ones who only use Pepper lose weight, and their hair starts falling out almost immediately,” the Corner Station ambassador replied. “It’s the hair loss that’s kept this drug from turning into an epidemic. According to our station librarian, the drugs aren’t sufficiently harmful to fall under a Stryx import ban, and are probably safe if used as directed.”

“I think we should talk to the Dollnicks about this,” Kelly said. “They may not be the largest employer of human labor in terms of the total numbers, but their projects are certainly the biggest. I’m aware of an ongoing terraforming job where the Dollys have more than thirty million humans at work on a single planet, and that doesn’t include the dependents.”

“I’ll ask our local Dollnick ambassador,” Raj Tamil offered. “They employ tens of millions of humans on a pair of ag worlds they run in a nearby system, and I was able to help the ambassador with recruiting the latest replacements. It seems that the market for unskilled human laborers has become more competitive since most of the people who wanted off of Earth have left.”

“Speaking of Dollnick terraforming and human emigration, how long until Venus is available?” Belinda asked.

“That project is strictly in the chemical lab phase,” the president replied. “The Dollnicks are still working at removing the sulfuric acid from the atmosphere, after which I believe the plan is to mechanically sequester most of the carbon dioxide before they introduce specially engineered microbes to start the real terraforming process. We’ll all be long dead before any humans set foot on the surface.”

“Again, I apologize in advance if I’m bringing up a point which has previously been discussed by this committee, but policing and intelligence gathering are very different activities,” Ambassador Fu stated. “My understanding is that our intelligence service grew out of EarthCent’s need for information to help our diplomats, including those present. A commitment to policing, however, requires both enforcement and a judiciary to deal with suspected criminals, not to mention a penal system.”

“We don’t have any budget for a judiciary or prisons,” President Beyer cautioned the group. “We don’t even have the authority to raise money beyond the funding we get from the Stryx.”

“Couldn’t we just dump the bad apples on the Wanderers?” the Middle Station ambassador asked.

“It doesn’t work that way,” Kelly said. “The mobs only come around every few hundred years, and they don’t accept just anybody.”

“Maybe we could extend the successful model of the Stryx stations, where all of the policing is done by bots,” Svetlana suggested. “I realize that they are being controlled by the station manager, but perhaps we could develop a police force with artificial people who could also act as impartial judges?”

“A two-for-one deal,” the President mused, sounding impressed. “That would solve half of our money problems. Perhaps those human communities who are currently advertising for help would be willing to fund the development.”

“You can’t manufacture artificial people to do a job like that,” Kelly pointed out. “They’d have to choose the work, and once their body mortgages are paid off, I don’t imagine many would find living in backwaters and watching humans behaving badly all that interesting.”

“Perhaps our friends at QuickU could create a personality enhancement for policing,” President Beyer said. “I’ll bring it up next time we have lunch together.”

Four

“Why is it so dark?” Kelly asked, after the lift door slid shut behind them. “Do you think we’re on the right deck?”

“Give your eyes a minute to adjust,” Joe advised her. “Kids, don’t go running off until we can see where we are. Beowulf? You’re on point.”

The Huravian hound lifted his right-rear leg and marked the location of the lift tube, just in case. His eyes didn’t need time to adjust to the low light on the deck and he could see that they were in a wide-open space, with no corridors or walls. Aside from the giant spokes piercing the floor and ceiling at regular intervals, there was little nearby to break the monotony of the mossy growth that covered the deck like a soft blanket. He trotted off towards the only thing of interest he had identified, a minor hump in the moss.

“Can anybody see more than me?” Kelly asked. “I’m holding my hand in front of my face and I can barely make out my fingers.”

“Have you shifted your sensory band to infrared?” Banger asked helpfully.

“Humans have a fixed visual spectrum,” Joe explained to the young Stryx. “Rods and cones.”

“How about echo location?” Banger suggested. “Lots of biologicals can navigate by sound. Libby just taught us about bats and dolphins in school.”

“We haven’t evolved to that point yet,” Joe said. “Any other ideas?”

“I think you’ll have enough light to see in nineteen or twenty minutes,” Banger replied. “The ceiling luminosity has increased by eleven percent since we entered.”

“Maybe it’s dawn,” Kelly said. “We did start out a bit earlier than scheduled.”

“Look, Mommy,” Dorothy exclaimed, pointing in the direction Beowulf had taken. Everywhere the giant dog had stepped and crushed the moss, an eerie orange light had begun to glow, getting stronger by the second.

“There are some more lights off to the right,” Joe said. “They aren’t spaced right for Beowulf, though. Did somebody bring a ghost dog along?”

“Look at me,” Samuel shouted, jumping up and down. “I made footprints that light up too!”

“I thought I told you to stay put,” his father said in exasperation. The boy’s figure was slowly illuminated in the bright spot he created by crushing more moss under his leaps. “I suppose those prints from your hind paws are actually Ailia’s?”

“Yes, Mr. McAllister,” the Vergallian girl called from the darkness. “You told us to stay together.”

The ambient light increased as Dorothy and Mist scuffed their feet on the ground, allowing Kelly and Joe to exchange a parental look.

“Well, you have to admit it’s different,” Joe said. “The campsite is supposed to be near a waterfall, right? We may as well find our way there and set up camp, and afterwards we can see about exploring.”

“I know where it is,” Banger offered, spinning around in the air.

“Great, we’ll follow you,” Kelly said.

“But I can’t show you,” Banger added mournfully. “Libby made me promise not to.”

“Samuel, Ailia,” Joe called. “We’re going to follow Beowulf and see if he can find the waterfall. Get over here now before you fall into a black hole or something.”

Two sets of glowing footsteps angled to intercept the three brighter sets that were following in the giant dog’s illuminated paw prints. Kelly suddenly flashed back to a Halloween party she had attended as a girl, where the children were given glowing tubes to navigate a haunted house. She flinched at the memory of a plastic skeleton dropping down in front of her from the ceiling. She remembered being terrified, but it was the sort of thing Dorothy would enjoy. Mist and Samuel too, though Ailia would probably faint.

“How about it, Killer?” Joe asked when they reached the dog, who had ultimately decided that the mossy mound was just the right height for a pillow. “Can you hear a waterfall?”

Beowulf wasted a long-suffering expression on the humans who couldn’t make out his face, then rose to his feet and trotted off in a straight line towards the faint sound of falling water. Dorothy, Mist and Kelly immediately set out after him, following in his glowing steps, but Joe and Banger remained behind to wait for the smaller children to catch up.

“You can’t just run off like that, especially in the dark,” Joe lectured the pair of six-year-olds, though he was really talking to his son.

“We were just ‘sploring,” Samuel protested, kicking at the moss. “That’s our job, isn’t it? I’m hungry. Can I have some emergency rations now?”

“Is it an emergency?” Joe asked sternly.

“Yes. We’re starving,” Samuel insisted

Joe worked one arm out of a strap to let his backpack swing free from the other shoulder and opened a side pocket. He removed a handful of snacks, straining his eyes in the dim glow from the trampled moss to pick out a fruit bar, since the Vergallian girl couldn’t tolerate chocolate or milk. He gave the appropriate bar to each child and shouldered the pack again.

“Thank you,” Ailia said, peeling the wrapper back from her treat as she walked, nibbling on the end.

“That was good,” Samuel added a few minutes later.

“Did you remember to save the wrapper or did you drop it?” Joe asked.

“I saved it,” Samuel replied after a moment’s hesitation.

Glancing over his shoulder, Joe saw a set of glowing footsteps racing backwards, so he stopped again to wait for the boy to find the wrapper and return. Ailia pressed a neatly folded square of paper and foil in his hand.

“You can see well in the dark?” Joe asked the girl in Vergallian.

“Pretty well,” she replied. “It’s not really dark with all of the glowing footprints.”

“It is for us,” Joe told her, wondering if Vergallians lost their acute night vision as they aged. Maybe they all had the ability but they hid it from their mercenaries? He’d have to remember to check with Woojin.

“Why are you guys dawdling along back there?” Kelly called. She had found herself alone after Dorothy and Mist pushed Beowulf to go faster, and she wasn’t going to try keeping up with teenagers running in the near-dark.

“Just taking in the sights,” Joe hollered back. “We’re on vacation, you know.”

Kelly waited until Joe and the children caught up, and then the five of them set off after the glowing footprints, Banger ostentatiously bringing up the rear where nobody could accuse him of interfering. Looking back the way they had came, Kelly saw that their tracks were fading, but there seemed to be a dim haze around the curved ceiling.

“I think the lights are beginning to come up,” Kelly said.

“And something is starting to wake up,” Joe replied. “Do you hear that?”

After the first few whistles and chirps, the birdsong quickly swelled in volume to become cacophonous. The light increased at the same pace, and soon they caught up with Beowulf and the girls, who had halted at the edge of a marsh.

“Beowulf can’t hear the waterfall over the noise,” Dorothy told them, practically shouting to make herself heard. “How come the birds here are so much noisier than on the ag deck?”

“I think there are a lot more of them,” Kelly replied. “I wonder what they eat?”

Joe crouched down and turned over some damp soil, exposing a number of wriggling red worms. “Looks like there’s a whole ecosystem supported in here,” he commented. “I hope there aren’t too many biting insects.”

“Look, there’s a grassy path right through all of the reeds,” Dorothy said.

“Green grass,” Joe observed. “When I was your age, my father told me that’s the real dividing line between night and day, when you can start discerning colors.”

“The path seems to be continuing in the direction Beowulf was heading before the birds starting singing,” Kelly said. “Why don’t we keep going for now and see where it leads?”

The marshy strip continued for about fifteen minutes of walking, all of it along the curvature of the deck. Eventually they emerged into an area crisscrossed with small streams which were bridged at regular intervals by metal ramps. They couldn’t tell how deep the water was because it was covered by a dense mat of floating plants.

After closely observing the surface of one stream from a low metal crossing, Samuel declared, “The plants are blowing bubbles.” Sure enough, when the others looked, they saw that small bubbles were breaking the surface between the crowded plants at regular intervals.

“The bubbles smell funny,” Mist said, wrinkling her nose.

“Methane,” Joe explained. “Could be all kinds of old plant matter decomposing in the stream bed.”

“The spacing is too even,” Dorothy said confidently. “It must be built that way.”

“My little engineer,” Kelly whispered to Joe. “It seems like just yesterday she thought everything happened because of magic.”

Beowulf whined impatiently and pointed with a paw.

“I hear the waterfall!” Ailia declared. The avian orchestra had dialed back its performance, and the dull roar of water could be heard over the trills and whistles of the aspiring soloists.

“Let’s get going then,” Joe said, and the dog bounded off, the children and Banger chasing after him. The adults followed at a more sedate pace.

“I think the water is getting clearer,” Kelly said. They crossed the largest stream yet, one which wasn’t densely matted with floating plant life. “Oh, and look at all of the fish.”

“I wonder what makes the water flow,” Joe mused. “It was barely moving at all back in the marsh. I’ll bet the Stryx manipulate it with fields, and beneath the water’s surface, they’re running invisible paddle wheels of force that operate on the molecular level.”

“It seems like an awful lot of effort to go to for a deck that nobody uses,” Kelly said. “Maybe they keep it going for the birds and the fish.”

“Libby said that we would be the first humans to visit this section, right?” Joe asked. “But all of this vegetation looks like it’s from Earth, and even though the birds are avoiding us, I’m pretty sure I recognize their calls. This could be one of those decks they keep in reserve for emergencies.”

“If it’s an emergency deck, that calls for a chocolate bar,” Kelly suggested hopefully. Joe shook his head in mock despair at the poor discipline of his troops in regards to their survival rations, but he dug in his pack and handed one over, not neglecting to help himself at the same time.

“Hey, we better speed up,” Joe said after they finished their snack. “Beowulf just vanished into the ceiling, and the kids aren’t far behind.”

Kelly reluctantly stayed alongside her husband as he broke into a slow jog. They passed over a band of brilliant white sand, marred only by the tracks of the visitors. Before she had a chance to begin panting, the waterfall came into view and Joe slowed to a walk again.

“It’s beautiful,” Kelly exclaimed, her face lighting up with pleasure. “Look at all of the flowers. It’s like some kind of tropical paradise.”

“I’m finally going to get a chance to teach the boy how to swim,” Joe said with satisfaction. “Ailia too, unless Vergallians hate going in the water. I don’t remember.”

“Are you sure the water will be safe?”

“Libby wouldn’t have let us in here if it wasn’t. And Banger can tell us if the water isn’t clean, unless it’s part of some Stryx secret.”

“What’s that the children are all looking at? Is it a hologram or a real old-fashioned display case?”

“It’s a hologram. I can see that it’s moving and it’s really holding their attention. Even Beowulf is watching, and he usually ignores those things.”

The roar of the waterfall prevented Kelly and Joe from hearing whatever audio went along with the hologram, and as soon as they were almost near enough to start making out details in the animated presentation, it vanished.

“Mommy, Daddy,” Samuel shouted, running towards them. Suddenly, Banger got in front of the boy and seemed to be arguing with him.

As they approach the pair, Kelly heard the little Stryx telling Samuel, “But you promised, cross your heart and hope to turn into a Horten if you tell.”

“What is it?” Kelly asked, crouching in front of her suddenly silent son.

“I can’t,” Samuel said, almost tearfully. “Don’t want to be a Horten.”

“Let the boy keep his word,” Joe told Kelly, pushing Samuel off in the direction of Ailia. “He has to learn sometime.”

“It’s really cool,” Dorothy said, coming up to them. “The presentation is on an automatic timer, it starts every fifteen minutes.”

“How could you hear anything over the waterfall?” Kelly asked loudly.

“There’s an acoustic barrier,” Dorothy explained. “Around the campsite too, though it lets some of the sound through. Can we set up our tents now?”

“Alright,” Joe said, lowering his pack to the ground. “You and Mist picked the red one, right?”

“White,” Dorothy corrected him, no longer surprised at her father’s inability to remember such important details.

Joe rooted around the main compartment of the pack and pulled out a small white sack, about the size of a loaf of bread.

“Here you go,” he said. “I’ll inflate the sleeping bags later.”

Dorothy took the sack, nodded to Mist, and the two girls headed off to the far edge of the campsite, which was plainly delineated by a circle of white stones. The whole area had the rugged look of a wildlife sanctuary, but the absence of trees made it seem more like the seashore.