Free Vacation on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 7) by E. M. Foner Page B

Italian/Dollnick fusion cuisine and smacked his lips in loud appreciation. “Supposedly they’re popping up all over the tunnel network.”
    “That man talked the strangest mixture of sense and insanity I ever did hear,” Marge said, watching out of the corner of her eye as Lynx finally began eating like a normal person. “Self-government, self-sufficiency, earning our place amongst the advanced species, all things we believe in. But he kept bringing up how we have to break away from the Stryx and stop letting them run our lives. I’ve never met a Stryx and I wouldn’t know one from any other AI if I did. But without their opening Earth, we’d probably all have killed each other by now, unless the Vergallians had moved in and taken over the planet.”
    “The HEEL guy showed up at our distillery dome last week asking if he could address the workers and hand out some informational holo-cubes,” Terri said. “I gave him permission to talk in the cafeteria at lunch since we don’t get much in the way of entertainment at work, unless your idea of a good show is watching our quality control tasters staggering around. He didn’t say anything about the Stryx, but after talking about self-determination and holding free elections, he made some mysterious references to a Big Brother.”
    “Probably us,” Woojin said, polishing off his second plate of pasta. “Are those spoon worms for eating, or did you just put them out for display?”
    “Dessert,” Marge informed him. “They’re the closest we can come to Dollnick Snakees, which are unfortunately toxic to humans. We imported some starter worms from Earth and farm them in the salt marshes. You’ve cleaned your plate twice, so I guess you can go ahead of us.”
    “Have mine,” Lynx muttered, looking rapidly away from the bowl of creepy-crawlies which she hadn’t noticed previously.
    “I grew up on these,” Woojin said with a happy grin, adding a bit of salt to a worm before slurping it down. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
    Lynx gagged on her linguini, which suddenly felt alive in her mouth. The Chiangans regarded her with a mixture of pity and amusement.
    “Do you mind my asking if the two of you are undercover agents?” Terri inquired. “Bob just told us to expect a recently married Union Station couple from EarthCent, but the holo-cubes that HEEL man distributed included some pretty strong accusations about humans spying on humans and running a shadow government.”
    “That’s us,” Woojin told her cheerfully, ladling a generous dollop of spoon worms onto his plate where he dressed them with oil. “We aren’t undercover though, or I’d have to kill you all. That’s a joke,” he added, when the other diners froze. “I haven’t killed anybody in years.”
    “It’s not very exciting,” Lynx said, realizing she had better interrupt before Woojin’s sense of humor dug them a hole they’d never get out of. “We’re mainly focused on business intelligence to pay the bills. I’m actually the cultural attaché at the Union Station embassy, so maybe that’s our shadow government.”
    “You’re not here to help us organize elections, maybe put your own names in as candidates?” Shelia suggested playfully.
    “We’re really here on a fact-finding honeymoon,” Woojin said, pausing to slurp up a choice morsel of spoon worm flesh. “I worked a couple of police assignments for aliens in my previous career so I’m supposed to be the expert.”
    “So you saw our advertisement for a part-time marshal, and even though you aren’t getting into the business, you thought you’d like to see who was hiring,” Bob summarized.
    “We’re still feeling our way forward,” Woojin told him. “Most Earth expatriates live under alien control of one type or another, mainly business consortiums. The few truly independent human colonies we’ve visited in the past were able to scrape by without official governments, thanks to special