The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [38]
~Monster, pervert! What would you know of empathy? I will accept the contraceptive.~
~You must buy it,~ Sfillirrath said coolly. ~This first dose is our gift.~ “Jehaneh, give him the first shot.” ~Two boosters to come, else the sulfa drugs. We will discuss terms.~
Jehaneh pulled down my belt and pushed a hypodermic needle into the glutial muscle. I barely felt the sting.
I listened to Sfillirrath’s terms, and agreed to them. They included measures for the health of my host. My host was to be treated for arthritis, cholesterol buildup, distorted eyesight, a knee injury, flawed teeth. I was not to make colonies without permission of a willing host. Jehaneh offered herself as a host, under rigidly defined conditions, and I agreed to those. Xenologists of many species would interview me periodically.
I was feeling more lucid. When I could stand up, they escorted me off to the Medical facility.
Morning. I lay on a flat plate with a sensor array above me. I’d never seen the Draco Tavern Medical facility from this viewpoint.
I felt wonderful. Rolled out of bed and did a handstand, something I hadn’t done in some time.
Jehaneh caught me at it. “I’m glad to see you’re up to exercise,” she said. “What do you remember?”
“First flu, then an invasion, now it’s an embassy. Jehaneh, I can hear it. It’s thinking with my brain. I think it’s got the hots for you, but that could be just me.”
“We agreed that I’ll take a colony from you. Remember?”
“No. That sounds risky! Jehaneh, it would be like being an ambassador to, well, Iraq.”
“They do build embassies in Iraq,” she said, “and this is a star-traveling intelligence. What might I learn?”
“Huh. Your choice. And it’ll fix...” I was remembering more of the negotiations. “I thought I was in pretty good health, but it wants to do a lot of fixing. To show how useful it can be. You’re the brain it really wants.”
“Do you remember that it’s a sexually transmitted, um, entity?”
I did. I leered.
We talked much as we had last night, but on a more personal level. Ultimately she asked, “We’ve both had the usual blood tests, yes? Our guest would fix that anyway. Do you have room for me here? Just until I can get infected.” She didn’t like that word. “Colonized,” she said.
“Positively. Maybe I can talk you into staying longer? My bed has one or two unearthly entertainment features. And if a hundred breeds of alien are going to be interviewing your guest, well, the Draco Tavern has the best communication and life-support systems on Earth.”
She smiled. “We’ll see.”
SSOROGHOD’S PEOPLE
A week after the first Chirpsithra liner arrived, a second ship winkled out of interstellar space. It paused to exchange courtesies with the ship now hovering alongside the Moon, then pulled up next to it.
It was as big as the liner whose passengers had filled the Draco Tavern for seven nights now. We’d never had two of these in dock. The media were going nuts, of course. I worried about all these extra aliens. How was I going to fit them in?
The Draco Tavern’s ceilings are high enough for bird analogues to fly. I could set some tables floating....
When a handful of Chirpsithra crew came in, I took the opportunity to ask. “How many more tables am I going to need?”
“One,” said a ship’s officer. “One occupant.”
“How big?” The Chirpsithra deal with entities bigger than a blue whale.
“Ssoroghod is one of us, a Chirpsithra. Sss,” as she touched the sparker with her fingertips. “She flies a long-term habitat and environment-shaping system. Much cargo space,” she said.
Next day a ship’s boat drifted down the magnetic lines to Mount Forel. Presently an inflated sphere rolled across the hard November tundra, attached itself to one of the Tavern’s airlocks, and deflated to let in a Chirpsithra.
The newcomer made for the bar, passing six crew from the first ship. They all look alike, or pretty close, but I noticed differences. The newcomer’s decorative crest (and news and entertainment set) was in a very different style. Her salmon armor differed just a bit, graying at the edges of