Space Stations

An infant species just making its first venture into space, and a Glug.

She checked the computer's schedule. Both species had missed their appointment by seventeen centags. An unforgivable breach of etiquette. This did not bode well. Did not this new species realize that all of its future trade agreements and diplomatic alliances revolved around this first meeting at the Labyrinth?

And the Glug. The greedy methane eaters came and went on a schedule understood only by other Glugs.

The infant in her womb twisted and upset her digestion. She folded one ear across her mouth to hide her burp.

She did not need this added worry.

When she had made verbal arrangements for this meeting with the infant species, their representative had promptly named Labyrinth “First Contact Cafi,” stating blithely:

“Yeah, we have them back home.” Whatever that meant?

Within centags of that communication, all thirty-seven species in residence had adopted the name. For sixty-five million trade agreements the station had been Labyrinth.

No more.

This new language could not disappear into the galactic polyglot fast enough.

Ab'nere looked over the bar to make sure a diminutive being had not crept in unnoticed; though preliminary communications indicated the new species was taller than most bipedal quadrupeds in this sector. Species had been known to lie about themselves to keep others from thinking about them in terms of lunch.

The etiquette Ab'nere had codified strictly forbade the question, “Are you edible?” Still, it happened. The granite giants of Magma Prime—like her latest spouse and the father of her eighteenth child—were voracious feeders on anything mineral, sentient or no. And the silicon globules of N'w Sson Hoos'seh had been known to slurp unsuspecting planets dry, leaving desiccated corpses for the Vulturians of Go Bae. Still, most of the fleshy carbon-based species avoided harvesting each other.

She understood why species just venturing beyond their own solar system for the first time liked a neutral meeting point before giving out their home address. They also liked a sense of quiet privacy while they labored through the first delicate negotiations with others. Ab'nere acted as a neutral referee between alien prejudices, preconceptions, needs, attitudes, and languages.

And Ab'nere earned a very generous fee for providing the service and the meeting place.

Most of the time. The brawl in A 108 threatened the first contact as well as the fee.

(Each quarter cycle when the loan payments came due, the bankers of D'Or looked closer and closer at her bookkeeping. She had to work harder and harder at hiding the true numbers. She refused to allow them to increase her debt in direct proportion to the profit margin.)

A brief look into the monitor showed the fight in A 108 winding down. Ab'nere should not have worried. Ammonia breathers did not have the concentration to sustain anything long enough to incur real damage.

Except perhaps mating. Then they lost interest as soon as gestation could be confirmed.

Just as well. Ab'nere did not appreciate interference from any of her eighteen spouses in the raising of her offspring.

Males just did not appreciate that no matter what species they came from, Ab'nere's children were always fully Labyrinthians. The other species rarely contributed more to the genetic makeup than a useful trait like ammonia gills, or heavy gravity adaptability.

The Magma Giants were an unknown quantity as sires. She should not worry about the size of her child. Every one of her offspring had weighed the same at birth and grown to equal her in height. Still…

The docking manifest showed the infant species arriving at Oxygen/nitrogen/hydrogen 3

—about halfway to the end of that spoke and therefore at a mid level gravity. A huge ugly ship that had to slow its rotation to dock. Until they completed that delicate operation, the spacers would be without gravity. Their FTL drive was primitive, probably their first. Must have taken several of their years to reach Labyrinth. Had they resorted to suspended animation to survive the long trip? Ab'nere shuddered at the thought of the primitive travel mode.

Civilized species did not subject their people to such dangerous indignities.

“Number Six Daughter, please open ONH 321 for the isolated use of the new arrivals.

Provide fermented grains and distilled spirits for their consumption while they await completion of first contact.”

“Honored Mother, do we truly wish to encourage the consumption of distilled sprits?”

Number Six had the audacity to ask.

If the ammonia breathers drank toxic chemicals, this infant species polluted themselves at higher levels (much as their language had already polluted Labyrinth).