The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [7]
He turned just enough to look me in the eye. I said, “I saw your face. I don’t know what you’ve got against the Glig, but if you think you’re ready to kill them, I think I’m ready to stop you. Have a drink on the house instead.”
He said, “The correct name is Gligstith(click)optok.”
“That’s pretty good. I never get the click right.”
“It should be good. I was on the first embassy ship to Gligstith(click)tcharf.” Bitterly, “There won’t be any fight. I can’t even punch a Glig in the face without making the evening news. It’d all come out.”
Gail came back with orders: sparkers for the chirps, and the Glig wanted bull shots, consommé, and vodka, with no ice and no flavorings. They were sitting in the high chairs that bring a human face to the level of a Chirp’s, and their strange hands were waving wildly. I filled the orders with half an eye on the Stranger, who watched me with a brooding look, and I got back to him as soon as I could.
He asked, “Ever wonder why there wasn’t any second embassy to Gligstith(click)tcharf?”
“Not especially.”
“Why not?”
I shrugged. For two million years there wasn’t anything in the universe but us and the gods. Then came the chirps. Then bang, a dozen others, and news of thousands more. We’re learning so much from the chirps themselves, and, of course, there’s culture shock ...
He said, “You know what we brought back. The gligs sold us some advanced medical and agricultural techniques, including templates for the equipment. The chirps couldn’t have done that for us. They aren’t DNA-based. Why didn’t we go back for more?”
“You tell me.”
He seemed to brace himself. “I will, then. You serve them in here, you should know about them. Build yourself a drink, on me.”
I built two scotch and sodas. I asked, “Did you say sold? What did we pay them? That didn’t make the news.”
“It better not. Hell, where do I start? ... The first thing they did when we landed, they gave us a full medical checkup. Very professional. Blood samples, throat scrapings, little nicks in our ears, deep-radar for our innards. We didn’t object. Why should we? The Glig are DNA-BASED. We could have been carrying bacteria that could live off them.
“Then we did the tourist bit. I was having the time of my life! I’d never been further than the Moon. To be in an alien star system, exploring their cities, oh, man! We were all having a ball. We made speeches. We asked about other races. The chirps may claim to own the galaxy, but they don’t know everything. There are places they can’t go except in special suits, because they grew up around red dwarf stars.”
“I know.”
“The Glig sun is hotter than Sol. We did most of our traveling at night. We went through museums, with cameras following us. Public conferences. We recorded the one on art forms; maybe you saw it.”
“Yeah.”
“Months of that. Then they wanted us to record a permission for reproduction rights. For that they would pay us a royalty, and sell us certain things on credit against the royalties.” He gulped hard at his drink. “You’ve seen all of that. The medical deep-radar, that does what an X-ray does without giving you cancer, and the cloning techniques to grow organ transplants, and the cornucopia plant, and all the rest. And of course, we were all for giving them their permission right away.
“Except, do you remember Bill Hersey? He was a reporter and a novelist before he joined the expedition. He wanted details. Exactly what rights did the Glig want? Would they be selling permissions to other species? Were there groups like libraries or institutes for the blind, that got them free? And they told us. They didn’t have anything to hide.”
His eyes went to the Glig, and mine followed his. They looked ready for another round. The most human thing about the Glig was their hands, and their hands were disconcerting. Their palms were very short and their fingers were long, with an extra joint. As if a torturer had cut a human palm between the finger bones, almost to the wrist. Those hands and the wide mouths and the shark’s array of teeth. Maybe I’d