The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [73]
“—And a few hundred Bebebebeque spawn,” said Queeblishiz.
“A few hundred?”
Queeblishiz said, “Bebebebeque spawn must be culled. We will turn them loose in the Tavern and leave the Rainbow Wyrms to deal with them.”
I had long since stopped seeing signs of mice inside the Tavern, barring tiny heaps of tiny bones and tufts of fur. That was nice. I didn’t like an infestation of bugs! “Why not outside? Give them more room to run.”
“They like it warm.” Queeblishiz said implacably.
Bebebebeque infants were the size of my thumb, little golden bugs looking a lot like their parents. For a couple of days they were all over the place, snatching food of the tee tee hatch nex ool variety, including my own meals. Hyperquick Rainbow Wyrms were all over the place, hunting them down. The bugs became scarce, then invisible. Survivors had learned to hide.
DAY NINE
Jehaneh had worked in the Tavern on and off for a year, before and a little after Walt’s birth. It’s a good way to study aliens. She knew the territory and she had all the passes. This time she didn’t phone ahead; she just flew in.
I saw her coming through one of the bigger airlocks, dressed for Arctic cold, manipulating Walt and a lot of his gear. I went to meet her.
“Hi,” she said. “If I’d phoned you’d have told me not to come.”
I said, “Yes.” I started moving Walt, his stroller, his toys, diapers, powder and Q-tips, food. “Where’s your stuff?”
“Still in the SUV. But I got to thinking. Picture Walt in his teens, or in his thirties,” her hands flat on my chest so I had to look her in the eye, “knowing that his father runs the only bar for aliens in the known universe—”
“But that’s just Earth.”
“—And he never got in to see it when he was a kid.” Her eyes roved, seeking the newest lot of aliens.
There weren’t any, barring Speedy, who looks like an abstract sculpture of a turtle and doesn’t move fast enough to notice. Speedy pushed his way through the jelly lock two years ago and is on his way to a booth. The Rainbow Wyrms were hiding, and the rest of the kids were outside, even Djil. Nonetheless Jehaneh said, “This place is the most wonderful toy on Earth.”
“Yes, dear, but other children are using it.”
“That’s—”
A whirr and a wind and a glimpse of orange-green passed between our noses. Jehaneh yelped and threw herself back. I caught her wrists so that she missed falling on Walt and hit flat floor. I was kneeling beside her in an instant.
“I’m all right,” she said, and sat up, and clutched the back of her head. “What was that?”
“That was the Rainbow Wyrms. They’re very fast.” They’d slowed down now, but six orange-green snakes surrounded us, ready to investigate. I snatched up Walt. “I have to put a bar code on him right now.”
“Bar code?” She tried to follow me behind the bar. The field stopped her, so she watched while I peeled down Walt’s shorts and stamped his butt. The mark was a simplified picture of a set of alien fangs.
“It keeps the others away from him.” Keeps him from being eaten, I didn’t say. “The tracers can read the mark through clothing. Show me some skin, woman.”
She didn’t argue: she bared enough of her butt for a flu shot. I stamped her.
“Rick, did you mean actual children?”
I started to explain. Djil had come in through the big lock, and I waved at her awesome pink bulk. “That’s Djil. She’s old enough to babysit. Djil, this is Jehaneh.”
“The Red Demons are loose,” Djil said.
“Loose? How loose?”
“Barman, I only turned my back for a time-hack. The sky was full of birds. The Wayward Child tried to catch one. You know, she shouldn’t do that. These birds are much too big for her mouth, but there aren’t any big birds where she comes from, and while I was turning around the bird wriggled loose and dove down over the Red Demons and it hit the origin point of the field, the singularity.” She waved her arms. “Flash! And the first thing the Demons did