The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [28]
I said, “Translator, I’m on it. Tell them that they’ll be protected.”
“Tell all species?”
“Tell the most timid. Tell Ambassador-Regent Ven and whoever else is complaining. Can you handle it?”
“Yes.” I heard hoots and whistles and a low rumble and a skittery rattlesnake sound, alien voices all jabbering at once: the Draco Tavern’s translators momentarily linked to perform one service.
Bennett had nearly reached the bar when he suddenly pulled the children against him, pointed straight up, and screamed, “That’s them!”
The Lungfish all burrowed straight down into mud. The rest of us all looked up.
The Tavern is built to Chirpsithra design, though humans were the builders and the place is human-friendly. Chirpsithra stand eleven feet tall, and they like head room. Bennett was looking forty feet up to the aerie the birds had built under the ceiling.
Two Warbler faces stared back for a moment, and then one bird launched and tilted into a tight spiral. It wore a thick silver plate with a small rocket pod sticking up on a fin, the base held in place by webbing across its puffer-pigeon chest.
Damage control needed I eeled around from behind the bar, big smile, hand extended. “I’m Rick Schumann,” I said. “You’d be Z. Wayne Bennett?”
He didn’t look down, but his hand reached out. “Pleased to meet you, Doctor Schumann. This is Lilly, this is Hammett. Ham was the one attacked. What are you doing about these undead birds?”
“Hi Ham, hi Lilly.” I shook their hands. “Attacked?”
The boy grinned. In a sudden motion he peeled off his T-shirt. There were small red marks on both sides of both shoulders, nine marks and a Band-Aid.
Aw shit.
The Warbler dropped lower. He was giving Bennett the creeps. For an instant I saw the Warbler as he did: a cross between a plucked chicken and a bluebellied demon, vicious beak, huge claws built for ripping, the head too human or not human enough. He landed halfway across the main room, on an empty table, and waited.
A child-stealing alien was about the worst publicity I could think of. “I don’t see police,” I said. “Or reporters.”
“You will,” Bennett said, “if we don’t get this settled. Do I have to worry that my boy got infected with something weird?”
“No, trust me on that” No visitor carries parasites. It’s damn few alien bacteria that have an interest ... though I’m hosting one myself. That one got through by outwitting the medics.
“Here.” I fixed a translator to his shirt collar. “Let me talk.” He nodded once, jaw clenched. I led him and the children to the bird’s table.
We had an audience. Even the Lungfish had come out to watch.
The bird watched with unruffled dignity as I settled the Bennetts in chairs. I told it, “I’m Rick Schumann, speaking for—”
“I know you. That one shot my mate.”
Bennett glared. I spoke before he could. “Your mate is accused of stealing a child.”
“Stealing was not her intent, nor mine. We pick up chosen prey, fly in a circle of designated circumference, and set it down. No harm—”
“Her claws pierced his skin.”
“We must acquire gloves. Hammett Bennett, we are sorry for your hurt. Doctor Schumann, this worked out well enough in France when I took prey.”
Bennett didn’t like that, though he held his tongue. I said, “What are your names?”
The bird shrieked musically, twice, then said, “I have been called Langue d’Argent.” My translator said, “Silver Tongue.”
The United Nations Free Sky (or “Free Spy”) Treaty allows satellites to pass over any country at ninety kilometers or above, and any observer may watch it if he can. The Warblers took a lens lander, the smallest of Clickety-ponk’s boats, a quarter around the planet and down in Alsace. The boat’s stealthing was minimal and the sky, as Silver Tongue described it, was full of hot air balloons that day, but the Warblers would be gone before anyone could react.
What kind of idiots had the Chirps wished upon us this time? “In front of a sky full of witnesses, did you attack a creature that wore clothing?”
“I lifted and carried away a local sapient, a human child whom I had observed with family. These are