The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [62]
“This last ship,” I said, “brought three more.”
“Addresses?”
“They haven’t logged in yet. Come back in the summer and I’ll introduce you.”
Welcome to Earth!
Thank you. We are Bricks, a multiple mind.
Taper, a human.
Can you tell us what of Earth is worth seeing?
Lots! You could watch Niagara Falls eat its way west. Watch redwoods grow. Ride a glacier.
CRUEL AND UNUSUAL
Chirpsithra do not vary among themselves. They stand eleven feet tall and weigh one hundred and twenty pounds. Their skins are salmon pink, with exoskeletal plates over vital areas. They look alike even to me, and I’ve known more Chirpsithra than most astronauts. I’d have thought that all humans would look alike to them.
But a Chirpsithra astronaut recognized me across two hundred yards of the landing field at Mount Forel Spaceport. She called with the volume on her translator turned high. “Rick Schumann! Why have you closed the Draco Tavern?”
I’d closed the place a month ago, for lack of customers. Police didn’t want Chirpsithra wandering their streets, for fear of riots, and my human customers had stopped coming because the Draco was a Chirpsithra place. A month ago I’d thought I would never want to see a Chirpsithra again. Twenty-two years of knowing the fragile-looking aliens hadn’t prepared me for three days of watching television.
But the bad taste had died, and my days had turned dull, and my skill at the Lottl speech was growing rusty. I veered toward the alien, and called ahead of me in Lottl: “This is a temporary measure, until the death of Ktashisnif may grow small in many memories.”
We met on the wide, flat expanse of the blast pit.
“Come, join me in my ship,” said the Chirpsithra. “My meals-maker has a program for whiskey. What is this matter of Ktashisnif? I thought that was over and done with.”
She had programmed her ship’s kitchen for whiskey. I was bemused. The Chirpsithra claim to have ruled the galaxy for untold generations. If they extended such a courtesy to every thinking organism they knew of, they’d need ... how many programs? Hundreds of millions?
Of course, it wasn’t very good whiskey. And the air in the cabin was cold. And the walls and floor and ceiling were covered with green goo. And ... what the hell. The alien brought me a dry pillow to ward my ass from the slimy green air plant, and I drank bad whiskey and felt pretty good.
“What is the matter of Ktashisnif?” she asked me. “A decision was rendered. Sentence was executed. What more need to be done?”
“A lot of very vocal people think it was the wrong decision,” I told her. “They also think the United Nations shouldn’t have turned the kidnappers over to the Chirpsithra.”
“How could they not? The crime was committed against a Chirpsithra, Diplomat-by-Choice Ktashisnif. Three humans named Shrenk and one named Jackson did menace Ktashisnif here at Mount Forel Spaceport, did show her missile-firing weapons, and did threaten to punch holes in her if she did not come with them. The humans did take her by airplane to New York City, where they concealed her while demanding money of the Port Authority for her return. None of this was denied by their lawyer nor by the criminals themselves.”
“I remember.” The week following the kidnapping had been hairy enough. Nobody knew the Chirpsithra well enough to be quite sure what they might do to Earth in reprisal. “I don’t think the first Chirpsithra landing itself made bigger news,” I said.
“That seems unreasonable. I think humans may lack a sense of proportion.”
“Could be. We wondered if you’d pay off the ransom.”
“In honor, we could not. Nor could we have allowed the United Nations to pay that price, if such had been possible, which it was not. Where would the United Nations find a million svith in Chirpsithra trade markers?” The alien caressed two metal contacts with the long thumb of each hand. Sparks leapt, and she made a hissing