Read Online Guest Night on Union Station by E. M. Foner - Free Book Online

and the auction business.”
    “Then we have a deal, but it will have to be your wife,” Kelly said. “Brinda is going along with Lynx and Woojin to the Cayl homeworld to check on business opportunities. I’ll try to find one more person to get the panel up to six. Keep up the good work on the conference and let me know if you have any problems.”
    The ambassador ducked back into her office and smiled as the door slid shut behind her. After racking her brain all morning trying to come up with ideas for a speech, she had given up and decided to talk Daniel into going with a panel presentation instead. It was much better with the idea coming from him.
    Immediately after she sat down, “Collect call from mother,” appeared floating before her eyes. Collect? “Accept charges,” Kelly said out loud, wondering if her mother had lost her wealth by over-leveraging her real-estate investments.
    “Is everything all right?” Kelly asked before her mother could even speak.
    “If you’re wondering why I’m calling collect after we talked just yesterday, it’s because Dorothy’s job cost me a pair of direct tunnel tickets to come see you. We’re on the elevator to orbit now and we should be there by Friday.”
    “You’re coming to see us? That’s great. Samuel is always talking about grandma and grandpa, even though he hasn’t seen you in years. But what did Dorothy’s job have to do with it?”
    “You know how your father loves to fish. Dorothy told him a story about some alien fishing rod that came into their lost-and-found. This morning he woke up and insisted we visit Union Station immediately to buy one. I tried to convince him to let Joe do the shopping and send it in the diplomatic pouch, but he wasn’t having any of it.”
    “And that’s it? You agreed?”
    “Kelly, I’ve been putting off telling you this, but your father has been going through some changes.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “The doctors have some fancy name for it, but I think it’s just old age. His long-term memory is fine, but he has trouble remembering whether he ate breakfast. He also makes impulsive decisions about going places, and if I try to talk him out of it, he gets terribly upset and depressed. A couple of months ago he insisted we visit your sister during their family ski trip in Switzerland, and of course, he spent the whole week sitting in the lodge watching sports because the cold took him by surprise. He’s almost ninety you know, and it’s a miracle he can still pull on hip waders and walk into a stream with your brother.”
    “Is he, uh, still all there?” Kelly asked quietly.
    “Some days, yes. Other days, well, I just wait for tomorrow.”
    “Maybe it’s a good thing you’re coming here, then. Some of the aliens and AI are getting pretty good at human biology, and their technology and pharmacology are way in advance of anything on Earth.”
    “Have you forgotten that your father and I both have NAT orders?”
    “Yeah, but I thought that ‘No Alien Technology’ just applied to artificial organs and limb replacements, the heavy stuff. If they can do something…”
    “Kelly. Your father and I were both born before the Stryx opened Earth, and we decided years ago that we’re comfortable drawing the line at human-only medical assistance. Would you want your father choosing to go into stasis for a thousand years in hopes of a cure, or having his mind transferred to a robot made to look human, like those crazy people with too much money and not enough sense?”
    “None of us would want that, Mom,” Kelly replied, recalling her experiences with dead-end species in Libbyland. “So is there anything special we can plan for while you’re here?”
    “Well, I’m afraid your father read something into Dorothy’s story that wasn’t there. When he broods on things, he tends to invent details to make his decisions more attractive.”
    “Should I talk to the shop owners and make sure they sell him one of those