The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [34]
“Rick, most animals seek homeostasis, but interstellar travelers are different. We are not like those who stay home. We seek change. The man I was last night wanted to change himself. He has his wish. I do not have a complaint. Do you? You know who to speak to.”
He walked out, perfectly in balance and almost strutting. I thought it over, and in the end I did nothing.
SMUT TALK
The Draco Tavern isn’t just a pub. It’s how humanity interacts with at least twenty-eight sapient species throughout the galaxy. Somewhere among these trillions of alien minds are the answers to all of the universal questions.
So it’s worth the expense, but costs are high. Keeping supplies in hand grows more difficult every time a new species appears. Siberian weather tears the Draco Tavern down as fast as we can rebuild it.
When a year passed without a Chirpsithra ship, we were glad of the respite. The Tavern got some repairs. I got several months of vacation in Wyoming and Tahiti. Then that tremendous Chirpsithra soap bubble drifted inward from near the Moon, and landers flowed down along the Earth’s magnetic lines to Mount Forel in Siberia.
For four days and nights the Draco Tavern was very busy.
On the fifth morning, way too early, one hundred and twenty-four individuals of ten species boarded the landers and were gone.
The next day Gail and Herman called in sick. I didn’t get in until midafternoon, alone on duty and fighting a dull headache.
We weren’t crowded. The security programs had let the few customers in and powered up various life-support systems. The few who didn’t mind staying another year or two were all gathered around our biggest table. Eight individuals, five ... make it four species including a woman.
I’d never seen her before. She was dressed in a short-skirted Italian or American business suit. Late twenties. Olive Arabic features. Nose like a blade, eyes like a hawk. I thought she was trying to look professionally severe. She was stunning.
The average citizen never reaches the Draco Tavern. To get here this woman must have been passed by her own government, then by the current UN psychiatric programs, Free Siberia, and several other political entities. She’d be some variety of biologist. It’s the most common credential.
Old habit pulled my eyes away. The way I was feeling, I wasn’t exactly on the make, and I didn’t need to wonder what a human would eat, drink, or breathe. Tee tee hatch nex ool, her Chirpsithra life-support code was the same as mine. My concern was with the aliens.
I recognized the contours of a lone Wahartht from news coverage. They’re hexapods with six greatly exaggerated hands, from a world that must be all winds. They’d gone up Kilimanjaro in competition with an Olympic climbing team. Travelers are supposed to be all male. This one had faced a high-backed chair around and was clinging to the back, looking quite comfortable. He was wearing a breather.
The three Folk had been living in the Kalahari, hunting with the natives. They looked lean and hungry. That was good. When they look like Cujo escaped from Belsen with his head on upside down, then they’re mean and ravenous and not good bar company.
Gray Mourners were new to Earth. They’re spidery creatures, with narrow torsos and ten long limbs that require lots of room, and big heads that are mostly mouth. I’d taken them for two species; the sexual disparity was that great. Two males and a female, if the little ones were males, if that protrusion was what I thought it was.
The gathering of species all seemed to be getting along. You do have to watch that.
As I stepped into the privacy bubble the woman was saying, “Men mate with anything—” and then she sensed me there and turned, flushing.
“Welcome,” I said, letting the translator program handle details of formality. “Whatever you need for comfort, we may conceivably have it. Ask me. Folk, I know your need.”
One of the Folk (I’d hunted with these, and still never learned to tell their gender) said, “Greeting, Rick. You will join us?