The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [65]
“To stay home is easy,” the other said. “Stay within the bounds of one’s evolution. Stay where dangers are known. Most sapient species can’t travel. They would need life support so extensive that they could not perceive the universe beyond. Information flow is so easy. Why do we go?”
I asked, “Why did you?”
She didn’t answer. I looked to the Boojum, who said, “I was made, an elaborate multisensual camera. I was to carry sensations home to my makers, who were not able to leave their swamp. The swamps dried despite all efforts. To stay home is only relatively safe. May I show you some of the wonders I have collected?”
I said, “My systems are down.”
“But the danger to Wandering Signal suggests its own solution,” the Blue Bubble said. “Why not bar everybody? Why not explore as the Boojum’s people do ... did?”
I thought: why doesn’t Congress shut down all airports?
The Chirp said, “Knowledge. All this mingling of near-infinite varying viewpoints is certain to produce new tools, ideas, techniques, philosophies, art. Whether these things are worth the risks is a judgment call. A tiny few of us choose to travel. Ten-to-the-fourteenth Chirpsithra stay home, those who see risks as greater than rewards.”
Blue Bubble said, “Yet you claim all red dwarf stars.”
“Only travelers settle other worlds, mate and breed. Most Chirpsithra descend from travelers. Most of every species worth talking to descends from travelers.”
I said, “Robert Heinlein once wrote that you do not truly own anything that you can’t carry in both arms at a dead run.”
“Yet you stay home, Rick Schumann,” said one of the Chirps.
“And look what that got me.”
“You will rebuild. Somewhere among your population are the vandals who attacked the Draco Tavern. They will be brought to our justice. We have set Folk in charge of finding them. Half our passenger complement is playing the detective game, enjoying themselves greatly, building or borrowing forensic techniques—”
Like a role-playing game, I thought. Wait, now—“The Folk?”
“Who better?”
The Folk are hunters. They don’t eat unless there is prey to track down.
The thought gave me a moment’s vicious pleasure. Then I asked, “What if there are a lot of terrorists involved?”
“The law is already established. One of us died in the explosion. They belong to our justice. Why would numbers matter?”
Whole nations had backed the killers who brought down the World Trade Center. The bomber who attacked the Draco Tavern might represent a political party, a nation, a religious movement, or—it was not beyond possibility that a whole world could be held responsible.
I said, “A sense of proportion can be a valuable thing.”
Trucks were pulling up outside. These must be the repair crews I’d asked for, though of course they’d have to get through our security. “I’d best deal with this,” I said.
One of the Chirps said, “Vandals of a species now deceased once destroyed a planet housing four times ten-to-the-ninth of our kind. What sense of proportion should we have shown then? Would it matter that most of us escaped?”
But men in hard hats were waving at me, and I went to answer them.
BREEDING MAZE
The Draco Tavern can be hot and cold, wet and dry, the air compressed or rarefied and of varying composition. Booth-sized temperature zones inside the dome must serve an eerie variety of alien visitors. But outside the Tavern, the Mount Forel environment is thin and frozen, the vegetation sparse and hardy.
We use the cold in various ways. Storage for an unearthly variety of perishables is behind the Tavern, along with a wide range of toilet facilities.
But we use the Tavern’s facilities too. Housing for me and my staff is a wing of the Tavern, and the climate control is the best on Earth. We don’t get colds or allergies. Working the Draco Tavern isn’t for everyone—it can freak you out, and some of my staff have stayed only hours—but it has its compensations.
One of last night’s animals came in loose. I looked around for its owner and didn’t see him.
As it stalked toward the bar from one of the small airlocks,