The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [4]
Hopkins shook his head. “They could have found out there wasn’t a life after death. No, they couldn’t, could they? If they didn’t find anything, it might be they were only using the wrong model.”
I said, “Try it the other way around. There is a Heaven, and it’s wonderful, and everyone goes there. Or there is a Hell, and it gets more unpleasant the older you are when you die.”
“Be cautious in your guesses. You may find the right answer,” said the Chirpsithra. “The Sheegupt made no attempt to hide their secret. It must have been an easy answer, capable of reaching even simple minds, and capable of proof. We know this because many of our investigating teams sought death in groups. Even millennia later, there was suicide among those who probed through old records, expecting no more than a fascinating puzzle in ancient history. The records were finally destroyed.”
After I closed up for the night, I found Hopkins waiting for me outside.
“I’ve decided you were right,” he said earnestly. “They must have found out there’s a Heaven and it’s easy to get in. That’s the only thing that could make that many people want to be dead. Isn’t it?”
But I saw that he was wringing his hands without knowing it. He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything.
I told him, “I think you tried to preach at the Chirpsithra. I don’t doubt you were polite about it, but that’s what I think happened. And they closed the subject on you.”
He thought it over, then nodded jerkily. “I guess they made their point. What would I know about Chirpsithra souls?”
“Yeah. But they spin a good yarn, don’t they?”
GRAMMAR LESSON
It was the most casual of remarks. It happened because one of my Chirpsithra customers shifted her chair as I was setting the sparker on her table. When I tried to walk away something tugged at my pants leg.
“The leg of your chair has pinned my pants,” I told her in Lottl.
She and her two companions chittered at each other. Chirpsithra laughter. She moved the chair. I walked away, somewhat miffed, wondering what had made her laugh at me.
She stopped me when next I had occasion to pass her table. “Your pardon for my rudeness. You used intrinsic ‘you’ and ‘my,’ instead of extrinsic. As if your pants are part of you and my chair a part of me. I was taken by surprise.”
“I’ve been studying Lottl for almost thirty years,” I answered, “but I don’t claim I’ve mastered it yet. After all, it is an alien language. There are peculiar variations even between human languages.”
“We have noticed. ‘Pravda’ means ‘official truth.’ ‘Pueblo’ means ‘village, considered as a population.’ And all of your languages seem to use one possessive for all purposes. My arm, my husband, my mother,” she said, using the intrinsic “my” for her arm, the “my” of property for her husband, and the “my” of relationship for her mother.
“I always get those mixed up,” I admitted. “Why, for instance, the possessive for your husband? Never mind,” I said hastily, before she could get angry. There was some big secret about the Chirpsithra males. You learned not to ask. “I don’t see the difference as being that important.”
“It was important once,” she said. “There is a tale we teach every immature Chirpsithra....”
By human standards, and by the Chirpsithra standards of the time, it was a mighty empire. Today the Chirpsithra rule the habitable worlds of every red dwarf star in the galaxy—or so they claim. Then, their empire was a short segment of one curving arm of the galactic whirlpool. But it had never been larger.
The Chirpsithra homeworld had circled a red dwarf sun. Such stars are as numerous as all other stars put together. The Chirpsithra worlds numbered in the tens of thousands, yet they were not enough. The empire expanded outward and inward. Finally—it was inevitable—it met another empire.
“The knowledge that thinking beings come in many shapes, this knowledge was new to us,” said my customer. Her face was immobile; built like a voodoo mask scaled down.