Category:

"It's midnight," Xan said evenly. "They're gone. You missed everything."

"Dammit!" Mallory fell back onto her bed, rubbing her forehead absently. "Why didn't anyone call me?"

Xan pointed to the comm terminal on the wall, where a tiny red light blinked.

"Oh, you did." Mallory sighed. "I'm sorry. I've been trying to 'commune' with the Sundry more." Her voice took on a dreamy, mocking tone as she made air quotes. "While I'm getting better at it, it still makes me lose time."

Xan went to look at her terminal. "Good excuse for tonight, but you have unopened messages here that are really old. Someone paid to send you a video and you haven't opened it yet?"

Mallory followed him, trying not to squirm with embarrassment. "Yeah, my agent has been sending messages. I think it'll be bad news, so I don't answer."

"You do know that shit happens whether you get the message or not, right?" Xan asked slowly.

"I can only deal with one big-time authority figure right now," Mallory said. "And the Sundry are taking everything out of me."

"Let's see what he has to say. I'll hold your hand if you're scared," Xan said in a gentle, sarcastic tone.

"I'm not scared, I—hey!" she protested as he hit the button on the terminal to play the oldest message.

Her agent's slick grin filled the screen. Aaron Rose was in his sixties, white, a very fit build, with thinning brown hair and a mole on his chin that had probably made him look interesting and attractive when he was younger. Aaron didn't need to send her many messages; when Mallory finished writing up her adventures as "ripped from the headlines" true crime books, she would send the manuscript to him in a storage drive via Earth shuttles. Every few months he'd send her royalty checks.

Just recently the most-traded human money had entered the galactic economy, starting with US dollars, pound sterling, euro, and Japanese yen so far. Mallory still couldn't follow everything about alien economics, but she understood enough to get an account with the station and deposit her checks.

"Mallory, I have some great news," Aaron said into the camera with a grin. His pale skin was ruddy, as if he had been in the sun a bit too long. "Your Mrs. Brown lady has permitted the very first mystery convention in space to take place on Station Eternity! Or rather, beside it. We're chartering this huge new spaceship and running Marple's Tea Party, the first mystery space cruise! It'll have murder mysteries and tea and deerstalkers. It's going to be great. We will start here on Earth on May 12 and we'll get to the station on day four of the cruise. That's where you come in. When we dock, then you get to give the guest of honor keynote! Let me know what you think and I'll give details."

"A mystery convention? Here?" Mallory stepped back as if distance from the terminal would keep her away from the message. "Et tu, Mrs. Brown?"

"She's got the whole station to think about, Mal," Xan said. "And more human tourism is good for everyone."

Sentient stations and ships needed someone from a smaller race to bond with in order to communicate with their inhabitants, and Eternity's host was a tiny elderly human by the name of Mrs. Elizabeth Brown. Mallory's friend Xan was similarly bonded to the ship Infinity.

"I don't argue with Mrs. Brown," Mallory said, shaking her head. The woman was a twice-convicted murderer (she did her time, thank you very much) and it was a bad idea to cross her. Mallory didn't think she would actually kill anyone to win an argument, but she wasn't going to find out. If Mrs. B wanted a mystery convention here, then it was going to happen, whether Mallory liked it or not.

"I guess I should stop being surprised at things like this." She sighed and pulled the hair out of her eyes again, holding it back with one hand. "When did he send that?"

"Three weeks ago," Xan said. He advanced to the next message. "It's not the only one he sent, it looks like."

Aaron, in a different suit, same grin. "Mallory! I haven't heard from you, so I'm assuming you'll say yes. I went ahead and told the con you would be on board for the speech. I also set you up for a mystery LARP—I think your fans will get a kick out of that! So you'll need a speech by May 16.