The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [68]
I disconnected. I whispered to my translator to get a hologram map of the cellar. A skittering told me Hass was running above me along the stacks of boxes, left, down, left again and up and back toward me. I broke into a jog, the hologram glowing ahead of me like a complex flashlight beam.
“Your help has been of little use,” Hass said. He was over my head.
“Slow down.”
“Tenshir will not slow!”
“She’ll be faster than you. You have to stop to sniff. You’ll never catch up unless you guess where she’ll be. How would she break a scent trail? Can she fly?”
“No, not without an aircraft or lift belt. We do not use mechanical aids for this, barring what our hands can make. You see me naked, yes? She will be too.”
“Can she jump long gaps?”
“She might make four meters. I would still scent her.”
“Will she have help?”
“Hsenshesist Brill must have thawed us at the same time. The med system that held us was in the lander, and the scent led here. Snowfall might have disturbed the scent trail. Who would we meet on the path to the Draco Tavern? You,” he answered himself: the obvious suspect. “And a female human server. Has Tenshir approached you?”
“No. And it’s Jennifer’s sleep cycle, and you didn’t come near her last night.”
A long, low, modulated snarl. The translator said, “Did Tenshir speak to you of a stalker with rape in mind? And beg help?”
I repeated, “No.”
“Last night, who else did we approach?”
“Things have been pretty dead this trip. There were only seven or eight customers last night, all at one table. Brill and his pets tried to join them, but they got yelled at.”
“Do you think she’s alone, then? Rick!” His voice dropped as if she might be in earshot. “The toilets!”
“Right. Here, these steps lead out.”
I store some stocks outside in the Siberian cold. Animals won’t come near the weirder chemicals, and the temperature stays low enough. Housing for human staff forms an arc partway around the dome. The toilets are outside too, completing more of the arc.
Hass dashed ahead of me.
“Humans have a poor sense of smell,” I said.
“How I envy you.” But Hass’s spongy tip of a nose was in the air. “Like a chemistry lab. These two booths are for Chirpsithra. This for several types; a Joker has used it. This one I could use, or Tenshir.” He sniffed. “Tenshir has not used it. Some Tiktik have.”
“How long can she hold her wastes?”
Hass spoke; the translator said, “Two days or longer.” A sudden yip. “Rick! The ceiling!”
In the booth that a Pazensh might use, I looked up at an alien pictograph: a hundred tiny symbols arrayed in a near-ellipse. I said, “She didn’t use this booth except as a drop.”
“She got in ahead of the Tiktik and hoped their smell would cover hers. My mate is clever.”
“What’s it say?”
“ ‘When zeeft fayristtent waves ... it’s a puzzle. It won’t work in your speech.”
While he worked on the puzzle, I called Shock Layer again. “How often does a Joker need a toilet? Which toilet would he use?”
The answering device said, “A Joker must void liquid wastes once every three hours or so. Stony solids, up to ten standard days. Gullet stones, every five hundred days. Number hash mub delta.” Fourth booth to my right. “Have you data for me, Rick?”
“He’s been here. What motivates a Joker? Why did this one board a Chirp ship, and why did they let him on?”
“Hsenshesist Brill is a famous xenopsychologist. Ship law restricts him because he runs uncomfortable experiments on sapient entities, but his lectures rank high. Many will attend when he tells us what he has done on your world.”
“What will he do? Knock down a building? Nuke a city and study the survivors?”
“He will do nothing harmful. Deaths would place him in a new category, outside the protection of citizenship. Hsenshesist Brill is not deemed mad.”
“Good.” What then? Would he start a career as an alien rock star and study the groupies? Go into politics? Crash the stock market? Smuggle something alien, like Glig medicines?
“Liquid wastes?” I asked, “Are they easy to track?