“Yes, and they were one of the last planets to be added. When they visited with other species on the system they were treated like country bumpkins, and the only things they have to show for their efforts are a few tourist trinkets that didn’t rise to the standard of commercial freight. Ironically, their whole portal system experience put them off developing interstellar capabilities. If everything works out, yours will be the first starship to visit.”

  “But thanks to the portal, they must have knowledge of what more advanced civilizations have achieved,” eBeth pointed out. “That and millions of years to work with would have put them pretty far ahead of us.”

  “As I said, their technology is well-advanced, but the Unxians have never known the goad of healthy competition,” I told her. “One of the reasons the League tolerates species like the Ferrymen and the Hankers is that their activities keep everybody else on their toes.”

  “Thank you,” Pffift said, choosing to take my words as a compliment. “What are we waiting for?”

  “Let me grab a box of universal translators from the basement and reprogram them so that the Unxians will be able to understand eBeth. Their heads are rather large, so I’ll need to bring the wire adapters.”

  “How long will that take?” the girl asked. “You can always translate for me if I really need to say something.”

  “It only takes a few seconds for me to add the new language,” I told her. “Meet you upstairs.”

  Paul was waiting by the cross-connection console when I caught up with the group on the second-floor landing. “Everybody ready?” he asked. “I’m only going to charge half as much for this trip because you’ve already been there and I don’t have to change any of the settings.”

  “Peter is going to kill me for going without him,” eBeth said. “Why did he have to drive the bus to the capital today?”

  “We’re establishing a regular once-a-week service,” Paul told her. “It was your boyfriend’s idea, not mine.”

  “Wait,” Pffift said as I opened the portal. “I have to use the facility.”

  “We’re stepping through into a visitor center. I’m sure they have a bathroom.”

  “Library’s visitor center didn’t have a bathroom,” the Hanker pointed out. “Besides, it would make a bad first impression.”

  “There goes Spot,” eBeth said, and sure enough, I caught a glimpse of the Archmage’s tail disappearing through the portal. I didn’t recall inviting him, but I knew better than to say anything.

  “We can’t leave him there alone, Pffift. There’s no knowing what he might do. Paul can reopen the portal and send you through after you’ve taken care of your business.”

  “Don’t sell them anything without me,” the Hanker called after us as I followed Art and eBeth through the portal. It closed behind me with an odd ripping sound and the faint smell of ozone.

  I glanced at eBeth, who was too busy fiddling with her ear cuff translator to have noticed the problem, but Art caught my eye and flashed me a thumbs down. The Archmage appeared to be blissfully unaware that anything had gone wrong with the cross-connection between portal networks, and was posing with muzzle raised high so that the natives could admire his faux brandy cask.

  The same group of Unxians who accompanied me back to the visitor center when I returned to Reservation had apparently been so excited about the prospect of meeting an Original that they simply waited there for my return. The natives bore a slight resemblance to baby elephants that had learned to walk upright, and their arms were disproportionately short for their height by most standards, probably the evolutionary result of being equipped with a long trunk. The youngest member of the Unxian welcoming party had already put that appendage to work rubbing Spot’s belly.

  “We have one more coming, if the portal functions properly,” I announced in the click-tongue spoken by the natives. “I brought along these translation devices so you’ll be able to understand the other members of my party.”

  “I volunteer to be first,” the largest of the Unxians said immediately. “Will it be painful?”

  “No surgery involved,” I promised. “The actual translation device is the silver medallion on the end, and its only function is to render English into Unxian. The rest of the hardware is just a crude headset to let me position the translator near one of your ears.”

  “Is it a disposable version of the pendant translator the Original is wearing?” asked another Unxian, pointing at Art.

  “That’s actually a thought-to-speech device,” I explained, intentionally leaving the word ‘magical’ out of my description in case they were skeptics. “It allows Art to speak English.”

  “Can it be reprogrammed to speak our language?”

  “Not by me,” I admitted, glancing at Spot. If the Archmage caught my meaning, he chose to pretend he hadn’t. I quickly bent the felt-padded coat hanger into a shape that would sit comfortably over the volunteer’s head and made sure the device was positioned right over the opening of the ear.

  “Can you understand me?” eBeth asked.

  The Unxian displayed flat teeth in a broad smile at the results, and produced a torrent of clicks that the girl’s ear cuff device translated to, “Yes, it’s quite remarkable. Our historical records talk about such technology being common back when our portal was first connected, but none of the other species showed any particular interest in us, and we soon gave up on traveling due to the difficulties involved.”

  “What difficulties?” eBeth asked.

  “Our atmospheric requirements for breathing, which you obviously share, are apparently the hallmark of younger species in this galaxy. We had to wear bulky spacesuits to visit most worlds, there was nothing to eat, and the advanced species treated us like a nuisance. The only really interesting conversations we had were with the Originals, and they stopped coming to visit us after a few thousand years.”

  “My apologies,” Art spoke through his pendant. “We had become jaded with first contacts by that point in our history. We were all too happy to abdicate the chore of reaching out to new worlds to the League when it came along.”

  “Mark informed us that a few of you have chosen to spread your minds over large numbers of clones so you can experience the advantages of being alive, but he refused to go into details, saying that he’d never been alive himself,” the Unxian said. “We’ve been dying with curiosity to ask why you’d go to such an effort.”

  “And I’d be happy to explain, but right now I need to use the bathroom,” Art replied, casting his eye around the visitor center.

  “It’s out of order,” the younger Unxian told him. “It didn’t get used in such a long time that nobody noticed that the pipes had disintegrated. We only found out a short time ago when I went to use it while waiting for Mark’s return.”

  “Is there somewhere nearby?” the Original asked.

  “Let’s all move outside,” the leader said. “Anywhere is fine, but please spare the flowers.”

  “Pffift is never going to stop bragging about his prescience when he hears about this,” eBeth said, falling in alongside me. “It’s sure taking him a long time to get here.”

  “There may be a minor problem with the cross-connection to our portal network,” I admitted.

  “You mean we’re stuck here?”

  “No, not at all. Even if Paul can’t fix the console, we can still go anywhere on the Original’s portal network, including their current homeworld. If worst comes to worst, I’ll pop through to there and arrange for a rescue ship.”

  “But that could take weeks and weeks,” eBeth protested.

  “We’ll figure out something for you to eat,” I reassured her. “The Unxians really are quite advanced.”

  “I don’t care about that. You’re supposed to be getting married Sunday.”

  “I am? I mean, I am, but a few weeks delay means nothing with our lifespans.”

  “To you, maybe,” eBeth said skeptically. “I’m the one who promised Sue to keep you out of trouble.”

  We waited in the garden outside the visitor center for fifteen minutes just to make sure Pffift wasn’t coming, and then I gave eBeth a tour of the local highlights while the Unxians quizzed Art with a million years of saved-up questions. Unfortunately, the Original could provide few answers since most of his memory was back on Reservation with his clones.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked eBeth after she and Art finished their picnic lunch. “I’d like to think that I know a little about human tourism by this point, and the places I’ve been taking you would make the “A” list on any world. You’re barely even looking.”

  “I’m worried about Sue and Peter,” she confessed. “I can’t just pretend everything is normal when we won’t know until we get back to the visitor center whether or not we can return today.”

  “You can stop worrying,” Art told her. “We can’t”

  “What!”

  “I didn’t want to say anything that would spoil your enjoyment, but it seems that I had it backwards. Now that you know we aren’t getting back in a hurry, you can focus on the here and now.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense at all,” the girl objected.

  “Sorry,” Art said. “It was the Archmage’s idea.”

  I looked over at the dog, who had snuck another sandwich out of the picnic basket and was eating it without removing the wax paper.

  “Bad, Spot,” I admonished him. “What if it takes the Unxians a day or two to synthesize something for eBeth?”

  “The Archmage says not to worry,” Art told me. “He suggests we open his cask.”

  “Well, a drink might help with the stress, but the nutritional value is low.”

  “He says it’s a surprise.”

  I looked more closely at Spot, who was wearing the most self-satisfied grin I’d ever seen on any creature’s face, dog or man. eBeth approached him and unbuckled the cask, then gave it an experimental shake. There wasn’t any sound, which seemed unlikely unless the Archmage had used telekinesis to fill it with brandy or ale so completely that there was no empty space for sloshing around. I made a mental note to weigh the kegs and check the brandy bottles when we got back home.

  “How do I open it?” the girl asked.

  “Bring it over here,” Art said. The Original set the cask between his knees, gripped it with one clawed hand, and began running the sharp point of a talon around and around one end of the cask.

  “Are you scribing a knock-out?” I asked. “I could do a neater job with my plasma cutter if Spot wants it repaired afterwards.”

  “The Archmage says that it’s better to eschew technology in close proximity to magic,” Art replied. His claw made a faint scratching sound as it went over the same cut again and again, until finally the flat piece came free and he was able to lever it out of the cask.

  “Wood shavings?” I asked. “Big surprise, Spot. I hope you’ve got better taste in wedding presents or Sue is going to stop making you treats.”

  Art inserted a couple of claws into the cask and fished around in the shavings before withdrawing a pair of bronze cylinders lashed together with a cord.

  “What are those?” eBeth asked.

  I stared in disbelief, never having seen so much wealth in one place in my life.

  “Retrieval nets,” the Original whispered through his pendant. “These are the main reason we invested millions of years developing a method to transfer ourselves into living bodies so we could learn magic. Just one of these cylinders would buy you a luxury resort moon.”

  “This is perfect,” I said when I finally recovered my voice. “eBeth and the Archmage can return to Eniniac and take the portal to Earth. The next time one of my team members pops through with a tour group or to do a bit of internet shopping, you’ll be home free.”

  “What about you and Art?” eBeth asked.

  “We’ll be fine here. Pffift wants to visit anyway, so I’ll just write out the exact galactic coordinates before you go and he’ll come as soon as he can.”

  “The Archmage says we can go Dutch,” Art announced.

  “Are you sure?” I asked Spot. He ignored me and started munching on the last sandwich.

  “He’s sure,” the Original said. “And the base crystals aren’t on Eniniac.”

  “They’re on Reservation?”

  “On Earth. The Regent didn’t want to put too much temptation in Pffift’s way so she packed the crystals in crates and sent them to Earth labeled as furniture for your wedding present. They’re probably in the basement of your old restaurant.”

  “Bob didn’t mention anything.”

  “Maybe he’s better at surprises than you are,” eBeth said.

  I explained the situation to the Unxians and promised that I would return again with Pffift and more of Art’s clones at the first opportunity. The leader offered me the honeymoon suite at a hotel run by his family and wished me luck on my nuptials. Then, following Spot’s instructions, Art and I each took one of the cylinders. The dog jumped up, putting his paws on my shoulders, and nodded for the girl to do the same with the Original. The Unxians must have thought that we looked like the most mismatched dance partners in history.

  “Hold it over your head with the nozzle pointed up and slowly depress the plunger,” Art continued to relay the Archmage’s telepathic instructions. “The web will surround you both naturally, but you’ll have to pick up your feet for total containment.”

  “One at a time?” I asked.

  Spot snorted in my ear.

  “Yes,” Art said. “Ready?”

  I cranked my data recorder up to the highest bit rate to capture the experience, held the cylinder over my head like the Statue of Liberty, and slowly depressed the plunger. A fine spray of an inky black substance cascaded down about my arm and formed a shroud around the Archmage and myself. I felt Spot’s body shift as he lifted a hind leg, then he transferred his weight to the other side. I did the same, and the essence of teleportation, or whatever the mages call the retrieval web, knit itself together. Suddenly, we were somewhere else.

  “Break glass in case of emergency,” I said out loud, and drove one of my elbows backwards. The crystal shattered easily, but we were still enclosed in a large wooden crate. I punched through carefully with a stiff finger, in case we were stacked next to the crate containing eBeth and Art, but I only encountered something soft and round that gave way easily. A quick scan showed me the side of the crate with the fewest fasteners, and fortunately the wood was strong enough that it didn’t splinter into a mess. I forced the lid free and found myself buried to the neck in used tennis balls.

  “Tell Art that I see their crate and I’ll have them out in a minute,” I said to Spot. “Pffift must have left the base crystals with his grandson, who stuck them in the back of the tennis ball warehouse and promptly forgot about them.

  Twenty

  “Nervous?” eBeth asked as she straightened my tie.

  “AI don’t get nervous,” I told her. I checked my encounter suit systems versus the default settings and quickly shut down the facial tic that had given me away.

  “Right, and AI don’t lie either,” eBeth said sarcastically. “You can’t be worried that she’s going to stand you up. Sue is crazy about you.”

  “Maybe she’s better now.” I grabbed eBeth’s shoulders and stared into her eyes to better detect a falsehood. “You don’t think she went away for treatment, do you? To get over me, I mean?”

  “Relax, Mark. You have the pre-wedding jitters. She’ll be here, Kim will take the plastic wrap off the buffet, everything will work out fine. Our mistake was coming early.”

  “You didn’t see this place the last time I was here, it was just a giant empty dome. Maybe we should have had the wedding in the backyard.”

  “It would have been kind of embarrassing explaining to all of our friends and neighbors who think you’re already married why you were having a do-over,” eBeth reminded me. “Besides, your head librarian seems so proud of the new visitor center. She gave me a tour while you were hiding in the bathroom having a nervous breakdown.”

  “I was not hiding in the bathroom, I just wanted to make sure everything was prepared. And I never saw the head librarian wearing a human encounter suit before today. They must be having a sale on the things somewhere.”

  “Oh, look. Art is here and he brought friends.”

  “I need a drink,” I muttered, plastering on a smile to greet the Originals. “Art, I’m glad you could make it. I’m honored so many of you could come.”

  “One representative from each of our minds vacationing on Reservation,” Art informed me. “It’s not every day we get to see such a wonderful pair of artificial intelligences getting married. Where’s the beautiful bride?”

  “Ixnay on the idebray,” eBeth hissed at the Original, but she was too late to stop a fresh wave of anxiety from washing over me. Then Paul arrived and handed me his drink, which I gulped down greedily.

  “It’s wasted if you don’t enable your inebriation algorithm,” he reminded me.

  “You are NOT getting loaded before your wedding,” eBeth said, shattering my last hope for making it through the ceremony in one piece. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder, and my encounter suit went from the edge of fight or flight to perfectly relaxed.

  “Easy, Mark,” my mentor cautioned me. “You were getting a little too human there. I’ve hacked into your maintenance system and tweaked all of the settings. Sorry I didn’t arrive earlier.”

  “Just a little keyed up,” I told him. “Sue’s late.”

  “Actually, we’re all early,” eBeth said. “She’s probably still getting into her dress. Don’t you know it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding?”

  “AI don’t believe in luck,” I said reflexively.

  “Hors d’oeuvre?” Justin asked, making the rounds with a tray.

  “About time,” I grumbled, selecting a cucumber slice with some sort of cherry tomato pinned on top with a decorative toothpick, and then wondered what I was going to do with it. Fortunately, eBeth took it out of my hand and passed it to Art, as if we had planned the whole exchange.

 

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