Family Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 12) by E. M. Foner

Author:E. M. Foner [Foner, E. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Paradise Pond Press
Published: 2017-05-29T06:00:00+00:00

Eleven

“He’s going to be mad when he wakes up,” Kevin warned Dorothy.

“But it will help keep his claws from chipping, and black is a masculine color.”

“He looks like a goth Cayl hound, and Beowulf is going to laugh at him. Besides, that chipping is part of the process that keeps his nails from getting so long that they need to be clipped. I still get the shivers when I think about taking care of Borgia’s claws when I was a kid and cutting one too close. She yelped and started bleeding—the look she gave me—it was like I betrayed her to a cat. It was heartbreaking.”

“You’re such a softie. If Alex’s nails need clipping, I’ll do it,” Dorothy said, putting away the little bottle of protective lacquer. “I just hope it has time to dry before we get to the elevator.”

“That won’t be a problem because I’m not waking him. The Frunge don’t allow alien dog breeds on their worlds. Their own dogs are too territorial, which is why you don’t see any of them on mixed species stations.”

“Oh, that explains why Flazint makes such a fuss over our dogs. I never thought to ask.”

“I’m hoping that the special visa from your mother’s friend will speed things up, so we can visit Flazint’s cousin, deliver the gifts, and then get a week’s worth of trading in at the elevator hub. I’ve been to Frunge worlds before and there are merchants who specialize in bringing trade goods up to the elevator hub by the container load.”

“But what do we have that they’ll want?”

“You never know with aliens, that’s the fun part. There’s no market at a fully developed world for the kinds of commodities and species-specific goods that go well at small space stations or on the frontier, but if I lay out enough odds and ends, it usually turns out that something is trending. One time at a Frunge elevator hub, I traded a box of Verlock memory-metal drinking cups that cost me less than fifty creds for a decorative suit of armor that I later disposed of for ten times that. And after we knuckled on the deal, the Frunge merchant told me that each one of those cups was worth a whole suit of armor on the surface at the moment. That’s the best kind of trade, where you both win.”

“So why wouldn’t they ship all of their suits of armor to wherever you sold yours and make a killing?”

“Because markets aren’t static, it’s all about timing. And I didn’t actually get five hundred creds cash for that suit of armor. A few weeks later, I took four princely measures of Dollnick tubers in trade, which practically filled the hold of my old ship.”

“What did you want with a bunch of potatoes we can’t eat?”

“I was heading for Prince Kluge’s space docks to barter for spare parts that a human colony on a Dollnick open world needed, and fresh tubers always go like hotcakes to Dollys living in space.

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