The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [74]
“Good. Don’t go out there. Jehaneh, don’t go outside.”
Djil said, “The toilets are all around the back.”
Not true. There was a bathroom for humans in my quarters, but all the alien sanitation equipment—“We’ll find you a bucket. Are you all right?” The smell had just reached me: Djil was scorched across the back of her clothing.
“I am not hurt.”
“I’d better call the ship.”
One of the Red Demons was trying to batter its way to me through the Tavem’s glass wall. Though half my height, he looked spiky and devilish. I couldn’t see the others. That bothered me.
The translator said, “Rick, hello.”
“Get me Queeblishiz or any crewperson connected with children.”
Matriarch Queeblishiz came on. “Barman, your call is opportune. Another freezer has failed. The lander is here boarding—”
“The Red Demons are loose. Your confinement field failed.”
“Details.”
I described the situation. The Red Demon was still watching me through the glass. “I’ve lost track of two of them. Djil, what were you doing out there?”
“Feeding them, barman, but they didn’t come. They wanted the birds. See, I dropped their food at the airlock.”
Yes, I could see the cage and the red-furred prey inside. “Queeblishiz, they’re hungry. They’ll be outside chasing ducks. They’ll still be wearing police cuffs if you can activate them. Can you track them?”
“If they’re on the tundra, we can stun them from orbit, once the lander is in place. Keep them occupied.” She clicked off.
Djil said, “Don’t do anything to hurt the Red Demons.”
“No.” You didn’t harm children, if that’s what they were. Worse yet—but call them children. The one I could see was under an overhung roof. It stopped clawing at the glass, made a rude gesture, and went around the curve and out of sight.
The lander was near the Moon. We wouldn’t get help from the Chirpsithra for many hours.
A bit of a search found the other Red Demons. All three were now wandering around the line of airlocks. One found a way to open the cage. They ate the prey animals, messily, then continued to explore the locks.
I hadn’t been thinking in terms of escape until now. No problem: we could get out through the bar, downstairs and through the storerooms under the Tavern. But it was safer in the Tavern.
Then one of the Demons figured out the small airlock.
“Behind the bar,” I ordered, and looked around and didn’t see Walt.
“Djil,” I snapped, “get into the bar.” I didn’t want to worry about her too. Walt at two and a half was surprisingly agile. When he saw he was being chased he chugged off between and around booths, under float chairs, around the bar and off again.
Jehaneh and I tried to corner him.
It wasn’t that easy. The Draco Tavern has been a dome for most of its life. There weren’t any corners, and there were plenty of obstacles for adults. Another problem was that Djil hadn’t obeyed: she too was trying to corner Walt.
I think Walt found her scary. She was too big. He tried to climb the ladder to the loft. The field repelled him, and he dashed around a booth and was lost to us.
The Red Demon who had figured out the lock got inside, then looked around, undecided. The Rainbow Wyrms buzzed around us, bouncing off the fields. Walt charged at the Demon from around a booth, then stopped, startled. They looked at each other, then at Jehaneh and me easing toward them. Another Demon was coming through the small lock. Where was Djil?
Djil came up from the storage space under the bar. She was carrying four cages occupied by furry red creatures from another star. She opened the cages and shook the creatures out onto the floor.
The third Demon stopped just inside the lock, confronted by a lot of motion. He decided: he scrambled toward a sudden cluster of golden bugs. Something snapped, and he howled.
“They mustn’t be hurt!” Djil cried. “Can’t you see? They’re the Chirpsithra males!”
Well, yes, I’d seen the resemblance. The Chirpsithra never talk about their sex lives, and nobody’s ever seen one pregnant, and sexual dimorphism isn’t uncommon even on Earth. Sure, they