The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [6]
“A language problem,” she said. “I have said that the planetary system clusters close around a red dwarf star. There are usually asteroids of assorted sizes. Do your scientists know of the results of a cubic mile of asteroid being dropped into a planetary ocean?”
I’d read an article on the subject once. “They think it could cause another ice age.”
“Yes. Megatons of water evaporated, falling elsewhere. Storms of a force foreign to your quiet world. Glaciers in unstable configurations, causing more weather. The effects last for a thousand years. We did this to every couplet world we could locate. The Ilwan took some two dozen worlds from us, and tried to live on them. Then they took steps to arrange a further conference.”
“You were lucky,” I said. By the odds, the Ilwan should have evolved on the more common one-face worlds. Or should they? The couplets sounded more hospitable to life.
“We were lucky,” the Chirpsithra agreed, “that time. We were lucky in our language. Suppose we had used the same word for my head, my credit cards, my sister? Chirpsithra might have been unable to evacuate their homes, as a human may die defending his home—” she used the intrinsic possessive “—his home from a burglar.”
Closing time. Half a dozen Chirpsithra wobbled out, drunk on current and looking unstable by reason of their height. The last few humans waved and left. As I moved to lock the door I found myself smiling all across my face.
Now what was I so flippin’ happy about?
It took me an hour to figure it out.
I like the Chirpsithra. I trust them. But, considering the power they control, I don’t mind finding another reason why they will never want to conquer the Earth.
ASSIMILATING OUR CULTURE, THAT’S WHAT THEY’RE DOING!
I was putting glasses in the dishwasher when some chirps walked in with three Glig in tow. You didn’t see many Glig in the Draco Tavern. They were gray and compact beings, proportioned like a human linebacker, much shorter than the Chirpsithra. They wore furs against Earth’s cold, fur patterned in three tones of green, quite pretty.
It was the first time I’d seen the Silent Stranger react to anything.
He was sitting alone at the bar, as usual. He was forty or so, burly and fit, with thick black hair on his head and his arms. He’d been coming in once or twice a week for at least a year. He never talked to anyone, except me, and then only to order; he’d drink alone, and leave at the end of the night in a precarious rolling walk. Normal enough for the average bar, but not for the Draco.
I have to keep facilities for a score of aliens. Liquors for humans; sparkers for chirps; flavored absolute alcohol for Thtopar; spongecake soaked in a cyanide solution, and I keep a damn close watch on that; lumps of what I’ve been calling green kryptonite, and there’s never been a Rosyfin in here to call for it. My customers don’t tend to be loud, but the sound of half a dozen species in conversation is beyond imagination, doubled or tripled because they’re all using translating widgets. I need some pretty esoteric soundproofing.
All of which makes the Draco expensive to run. I charge twenty bucks a drink, and ten for sparkers, and so forth. Why would anyone come in here to drink in privacy? I’d wondered about the Silent Stranger.
Then three Glig came in, and the Silent Stranger turned his chair away from the bar, but not before I saw his face.
Gail was already on her way to the big table where the Glig and the chirps were taking seats, so that was okay. I left the dishwasher half filled. I leaned across the bar and spoke close to the Silent Stranger’s ear.
“It’s almost surprising, how few fights we get in here.”
He didn’t seem to know I was there.
I said, “I’ve only seen six in thirty-two years. Even then, nobody got badly hurt. Except once. Some nut, human, tried to shoot a Chirp, and a Thtopar had to crack his skull. Of course the Thtopar didn’t know how hard to hit him. I sometimes wish