The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [82]
She came back with a pair of Chirpsithra. At eleven feet tall they entered crouched over, and immediately sat on the floor. Beth took the reading chair.
“I wish I had better hospitality to offer,” I said. “I don’t even have sparkers for you.”
“Travel involves occasional discomfort. If need sparkers or to straighten up, we return to the lander,” one said in Lottl. “I am Shastrastinth, this is Stachun. How is your health?”
“Much improved. I would have been crippled without Gligstith(click)optok medical assistance.” I wondered how much the Glig had learned of human physiology that way, then dismissed the thought. They’d studied human tourists on their own world; they had our DNA.
I asked, “How are your passengers?”
“Restless. Some have decided to travel.” She was still speaking Lottl. Beth’s translator was on. I reached for mine.
“I saw some of that on the news,” Beth said. “Gligstith ... the gray ones built like little walking tanks. They wear green furs? They’ve been visiting hospitals. And the wolflike things—”
Unease crawled up my rebuilt spine. “Tell me more.”
Following the explosion there had been a period of dithering on the part of Wandering Signal’s crew and passengers, matched by dithering from the United Nations. Various diplomats were trying not to admit that they didn’t want aliens running loose across the Earth. Others, isolationists and Muslim and Christian fundamentalists, were screaming their heads off, but they’ve been doing that since the first ship was sighted.
Chirpsithra crew and their varied passengers had done some touring even when the Draco Tavern was available to keep them occupied. Funds that would have repaired the Tavern after the bomb had dried up. Meanwhile sixty or seventy aliens of a dozen species—I was guessing a little here—had been sitting in Wandering Signal’s lander, possibly waiting for an engraved invitation that wasn’t going to come.
Then I’d stopped watching the news.
Shastrastinth said, “The Mnemoposh have caused disturbances. They never come out of the lander, but they explore virtually. Their probes look like miniature selves, and they are large enough to be noticed. Some of your kind fear large insects.”
“I do.” Beth hadn’t told me that when she signed up for the Tavern. “Most of the probes are this size,” the size of her thumb. “Tens of thousands of them, wandering all over the Earth.”
“Not conspicuous,” Shastrastinth said.
“CNN has videotapes.”
“These are complex machines, for all of their size,” said Shastrastinth. “Many include projectors and translator-speakers.”
Beth said, “A lot of people have seen big metal-and-plastic bugs. In Africa and the Mideast they think the Americans make them. Now the Gligstith,” she clicked her tongue, “them, they’ve started visiting hospitals.”
Shastrastinth said, “We have no good sense how your folk will react to our renewed presence. They rioted when we executed Ktashisnif’s killers. That surprised us. We hoped you might help us understand.”
I said, “Seven billion people go in seven billion directions. I don’t predict human behavior any better than I do yours. Do you think you can persuade the Mnemoposh to give interviews? I don’t mind what they look like as long as they’re willing to talk about what they’ve seen on Earth. Get them to act like tourists until they aren’t news anymore.”
“We may ask,” the alien said.
“What about the Glig? Visiting hospitals doesn’t sound bad.”
Beth said, “Most hospitals won’t let them in, most countries. They took a tour through St. John’s in Santa Monica. NBC followed them around with cameras. They scare some of the patients. They dropped a lot of hints. Some doctors on TV are talking about big changes in medical practice. Others don’t like it.”
Some doctors would have trouble keeping up, and they wouldn’t like changes. I said, “That sounds generally