The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [67]
“Hold up.” I showed him the stun. “What are you doing?”
He stopped. “Following a scent trail.”
“One of your females is back behind my bar?”
“Is or was.” The Pazensh settled onto a stool. His many-toed feet dangled; the long toes thrummed with his eagerness. “Name me Hass. My companion, my will-be-darling, she is Tenshir. You?”
“Rick.”
“If we were more than one female and one male, I would smell it. Tenshir is using your establishment as a—” The translator hiccoughed, then said, “breeding maze.”
I said, “Hass, we have laws to block your mating against your partner’s will.”
“When I have found Tenshir, you may ask her wishes. For now, she must test my intelligence.”
“You’re following a scent trail of pheromones. That’s intelligence?”
His toes stopped moving. “That doesn’t make sense, does it? Following her scent will hardly engage my mind. But she has marked the domain, the perimeter of the breeding maze. She is here and I must find her.” Hass surged over the counter and down the stairs into the storerooms, running on all sixes. I followed his path with the point of the stun, but didn’t fire.
If I’d seen a Chirp I’d have asked for help. There were ten varied aliens in the bar, all staring at me, most of them unfamiliar species. And Rory was at the service window. “Boss? Three silvers for the Wids, unless you’re—”
“Rory, take over.” I didn’t like doing that. The Tavern can run a crew of up to six residents plus day help, but this year’s interstellar liner was a small one with less than a dozen passengers. Miranda, on duty last night, was sleeping it off. Only Rory was on duty.
But Hass wasn’t the only one getting an intelligence test here. I donned an air filter and kept the stun. I walked down the stairs slowly, giving myself time to think.
I couldn’t just let Hass run loose here. My staff wears air filters when they come to the basement for drinks and edibles. It was a maze even to me, but a maze of stocks for more than fifty alien varieties who had visited the tavern at various times. Most of what feeds one life-form would be poison to a score of others. Chemicals were in the air.
It was cold down here. Siberian temperatures are good for storing a lot of my stocks; others have to be chilled, heated, pressurized, or irradiated. I caught a whiff of Hass’s scent, but not enough to guide me. I followed a scuffling.
“Hass,” I called, “how long is this likely to take?”
“A breeding maze? There is no telling. Hours or days, perhaps.”
“Are you allowed to get help with this?”
Still unseen, Hass answered. “Any may help. This is a mating maze, not—” The translator hiccoughed. “—an entertainment. The stakes are the highest. If I can trust a companion, it speaks for my intelligence. If I choose one who will mock me, or a fool who will lead me astray, that speaks too.”
“Okay.”
“Rick, is the Draco Tavern a successful concern?”
I chuckled. “Yes.” My intelligence test.
“Good. I trace your scent and hers, and several other human and Chirpsithra. Does that match—”
“Chirpsithra come down here, sure. All my staff are human.”
“And a Joker was here.”
I’d been thinking about the Joker. Given what I knew now, he’d learned more last night than I was comfortable with. Time I found out something about him. I used my translator to call Shock Layer, the Chirpsithra liner currently hovering near the Earth’s Moon.
I got an answering device. “I’ll talk to any member of the crew,” I told it.
“Hi, Rick. The crew are dealing with internal matters. You have not clearance.”
“Search the passenger lists for Jokers.” I spelled it in the Chirp language, as best I could.
“Joker. One passenger, Hsenshesist Brill, adult male, restricted to ship.”
“Hsenshesist is on Earth,” I said.
“That information is restricted.” Pause. “I have upgraded your clearance. Hsenshesist Brill has gone missing. Where is he now and what is he doing?”
“He’s in the vicinity of the Draco Tavern. He’s running a scheme of some kind. What are his capabilities?”
“It was not expected that he could board the lander. He is barred from Earth.