The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [31]
The boy said, “But an interstellar—”
Silverback noticed what was going on. “Major decision, give up the past, adjust to far-away unknown future, as we have. Circle the galaxy or stop off at own risk. Up to a hundred thousand years before return. Wait until older, Hammett. Mister Bennett, we accept price to teach Ham through college as determined through the Internet, pay in United States dollars, twenty percent finder fee for rapacious bartender—”
“Hold up,” said Z. Wayne.
“—Escrow account for you and Hammett until Hammett attains age of presumed wisdom, if you will sign now.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the price,” Z. Wayne said. “No, dammit, Ham, we will not sue to get you a ticket on an interstellar liner! Silverback, I want some assurance that there will be no further hunting of children.”
“We would have to leave Earth early,” she said.
“You can’t prey on children. No matter what you pay, who you pay, you still can’t do that.”
The birds were silent. Z. Wayne looked at me.
“I have a notion,” I said.
Five months later I took my niece and her children to the Park.
They’d raised the price of tickets by 60 percent. The crowding was fierce. Marilyn was shocked.
“Relax,” I told her. “This is Draco Tavern’s treat, every dollar of it.”
“But why do they pay that much? Most children aren’t even wearing the hats! Those that are ... four a day? Out of hundreds!”
“Under two hundred.” We’d picked a Wednesday.
The young man wouldn’t give Wayne and Becky hats unless Marilyn and I signed contracts as their guardians. Despite four children tugging at us, I took a couple of minutes to examine the contract. I wanted to be sure no sneaky little weasel clauses had crept in since we wrote it.
A lot of parents were changing their minds after they read it. I signed.
“Ricky, is this safe?”
“Sure. Jael? Alvin? Han?” Had they changed their minds?
They made their intent clear, and Marilyn signed, and the kids put on the hats. Han asked, “Can I keep it?”
“It’s a loaner,” Marilyn said.
I said, “You can buy it when you leave.”
Scattered through a crowd of a thousand were less than a hundred hats, all on children between five and ten, all flame orange with a wide brim for protection against the sun and against looking up. Children with and children without orange hats all looked up anyway as they entered the Park. We found cloudless blue sky, and the new tower.
“Where are they?” Denise demanded.
I shook my head. “The tower’s theirs. They come when they want. Only the top, of course.” Most of the tower was the Beanstalk Fall, with much too long a waiting line. “Hey, Dolphin Ride!”
A prey who welcomes us is not acceptable!” Silverback kept repeating herself. She was sure I didn’t understand.
“First remember what you’re avoiding,” I told her. “Two years in cold sleep, then off into the starscape. Even doing it my way, you’ll lose time while the lawyers argue.”
“No!”
“Bet on six months, plus or minus. You can’t have everything. What you can have,” I said, “is prey that don’t know you’re coming.”
“Nonsense! They sign contracts!”
“Look again. The Park gets seven hundred people on a weekday, three times that on weekends. Half of those are kids,” exaggerating a little. “You pick two in a day. Four if you can stand it. It’s less than a hundred to one that any kid gets picked.
“A lot of them, kids and parents, will spend the whole time looking up.” Memo: Be damn sure the Park makes dark glasses available! “You don’t pick those. Ignore them. Others will forget you’re there. You’re not on a schedule. It’s an amusement park. They’ll be distracted.”
Z. Wayne had been working with a Palm Pilot. “Can you really get away with this? You’re selling very little. Pot odds are of any kid being carried one and a half feet by two-point-two pounds of bird.”
“Most of them won’t wear the hats! Z. Wayne, they’ll pay extra to see some other kid carried off. Most of