The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [8]
“Clones,” said the Silent Stranger. “They took clones from our tissue samples. The Glig grow clones from almost a hundred DNA-based life forms. They wanted us for their dinner tables, not to mention their classes in exobiology. You know, they couldn’t see why we were so upset.”
“I don’t see why you signed.”
“Well, they weren’t growing actual human beings. They wanted to grow livers and muscle tissue and marrow without the bones ... you know, meat. Even af-f-f—” He had the shakes. A long pull at his scotch and soda stopped that, and he said, “Even a full suckling roast would be grown headless. But the bottom line was that if we didn’t give our permissions, there would be pirate editions, and we wouldn’t get any royalties. Anyway, we signed. Bill Hersey hanged himself after we came home.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I built us two more drinks, strong, on the house. Looking back on it, that was my best answer anyway. We touched glasses and drank deep, and he said, “It’s a whole new slant on the War of the Worlds. The man-eating monsters are civilized, they’re cordial, they’re perfect hosts. Nobody gets slaughtered, and think what they’re saving on transportation costs! And ten thousand Glig carved me up for dinner tonight. The UN made about half a cent per.”
Gail was back. Aliens don’t upset her, but she was badly upset. She kept her voice down. “The Glig would like to try other kinds of meat broth. I don’t know if they’re kidding or not. They said they wanted—they wanted—”
“They’ll take Campbell’s,” I told her, “and like it.”
THE SCHUMANN COMPUTER
Either the Chirpsithra are the ancient and present rulers of all the stars in the galaxy, or they are very great braggarts. It is difficult to refute what they say about themselves. We came to the stars in ships designed for us by Chirpsithra, and wherever we have gone the Chirpsithra have been powerful.
But they are not conquerors—not of Earth, anyway; they prefer the red dwarf suns—and they appear to like the company of other species. In a mellow mood a Chirpsithra will answer any question, at length. An intelligent question can make a man a millionaire. A stupid question can cost several fortunes. Sometimes only the Chirpsithra can tell which is which.
I asked a question once, and grew rich.
Afterward I built the Draco Tavern at Mount Forel Spaceport. I served Chirpsithra at no charge. The place paid for itself, because humans who like Chirpsithra company will pay more for their drinks.
The electric current that gets a Chirpsithra bombed costs almost nothing, though the current delivery systems were expensive and took some fiddling before I got them working right.
And some day, I thought, a Chirpsithra would drop a hint that would make me a fortune akin to the first.
One slow afternoon I asked a pair of Chirpsithra about intelligent computers.
“Oh, yes, we built them,” one said. “Long ago.”
“You gave it up? Why?”
One of the salmon-colored aliens made a chittering sound. The other said, “Reason enough. Machines should be proper servants. They should not talk back. Especially they should not presume to instruct their masters. Still, we did not throw away the knowledge we gained from the machines.”
“How intelligent were they? More intelligent than Chirpsithra?”
More chittering from the silent one, who was now half drunk on current. The other said, “Yes. Why else build them?” She looked me in the face. “Are you serious? I cannot read human expression. If you are seriously interested in this subject, I can give you designs for the most intelligent computer ever made.”
“I’d like that,” I said.
She came back the next morning without her companion. She carried a stack of paper that looked like the page proofs for The Brothers Karamazov, and turned out to be the blueprints for a Chirpsithra supercomputer. She stayed to chat for a couple of hours, during which she took ghoulish pleasure in pointing out the trouble I’d have building the thing.
Her ship left shortly after she did. I don’t know where in the universe she went. But she