The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [51]
“We wonder if it was too powerful for a time. For billions of years following the Old Mind’s expansion, we see no sign of other intelligence—”
“Rick,” asked Gail, “may I speak to you?”
They took an established science fiction writer from Sri Lanka.
They took the manager of the San Diego Zoo.
They took Gail.
They wanted humans with a record for getting along with minds unlike their own. I hope three humans are enough to keep each other sane.
I didn’t go.
After all, I have this bar. All the traffic between Earth and the universe passes through the Draco Tavern.
There have been other convergences of the Old Mind. Other Chirpsithra liners must have gone to visit them. Sooner or later the stories will come home to the Draco Tavern. All I have to do is wait.
CHRYSALIS
After Apparent Dischord’s lander docked, the Flutterbies came to the Draco Tavern every day.
The Chirpsithra called its kind something multisyllabic, with a juicy sound. My translator rendered this as “Flutterby.” There were seven. They more nearly resembled caterpillars: segmented worms with a couple of dozen frail legs that bunched up near a complicated face with a triple jaw. They weighed half what I did. In Siberian winter they didn’t use pressure suits, nor even clothing for warmth, but backpacks rode behind their heads.
They’d enter through the long-and-low airlock and split up. They were gregarious: they mixed with their fellow travelers and humans too. I spent an hour listening to two of them argue philosophy with a grad student from Washburn U, veering over into quantum physics and astrophysics and evolutionary theory, hitting her in stereo, shooting down every theory she raised.
On the seventh day one Flutterby stayed behind when the rest left. She said, “I hope you will hire me to wait on tables.”
The idea tickled me. I’d never had an alien working in the Tavern. Besides, I needed a replacement for Gail, who had gone off aboard Chimes In Harmony to find the Old Mind and wouldn’t be back until after I was dead.
Of course I could see problems. “Your environmental designation—”
“Tee tee asterisk squiggle ool,” she said, “but my supplement box compensates.” The caterpillar lifted a feeler to tap the flat bag that rode her back. “I can tolerate a tee tee hatch nex ool environment and Earth’s temperature and humidity spectrum. Ultraviolet light would be dangerous; will I need to spend time outside?”
“No. Why do you want to do this?”
“My reasons will not harm you nor your dependents. I will work for food and shelter.”
I asked, “Are you underage?”
Our translators may have botched that. She said, “I am older than you are. Child-labor laws cannot apply. Wish you to know if I am an adult? Of course not I am an incipient female, maturity delayed. Wish you to know if I can bind myself with promises? I can.”
Aurora didn’t have a name until I gave her one.
Aurora worked for scale: there’s a union in Mount Forel Town. Still, scale is cheap. My staff has to face daily crises never described outside of old science fiction magazines. They all have doctorates, and they all work for high salaries.
Food and housing might be a problem. Aurora had said that nourishment was covered. Her backbag included a supplement box that would take care of allergies and dietary deficiencies, and the “ool” designation gave her an herbivorous but flexible diet. As for housing, I had to improvise. The food storage lockers under the Tavern are versatile—have to be—so we reprogrammed one of those.
Some of the human anthropologists who came in were surprised and amused. I don’t believe any of my alien customers were startled to find Aurora serving their drinks and such, barring one, and that was her own species.
They wriggled in through the long-and-low airlock, all six of them, two days after Aurora started work. They ordered as usual: a green glop, rich in