N-Space Part 21

"See, you don't really talk like a bartender. You use big words."

"I do?"

"Sometimes. And you talked about 'suns exploding,' but you knew what I meant when I said 'nova.' You talked about 'H-bomb power,' but' you knew what fusion was."

"Sure."

"I got the possibly silly impression that you were learning the words the instant I said them. Parlez-vous francais? Parlez-vous francais?"

"No. I don't speak any foreign languages."

"None at all?"

"Nope. What do you think they teach at Webster High?"

"Je parle la langue un peu, Frazer. Et tu?"

"Merde de cochon! Morris, je vous dit-oops."

He didn't give me a chance to think it over. He said, "What's fanac?"

My head had that clogged clogged feeling again. I said, "Might be anything. Putting out a sine, writing to the lettercol, helping put on a Con-Morris, what is this?" feeling again. I said, "Might be anything. Putting out a sine, writing to the lettercol, helping put on a Con-Morris, what is this?"

"That language course was more extensive than we thought."

"Sure as h.e.l.l, it was. I just remembered. Those women on the cleaning team were speaking spanish, but I understood them."

"Spanish, French, Monkish, technical languages, even Fannish. What you got was a generalized course in how to understand languages the instant you hear them. I don't see bow it could work without telepathy."

"Reading minds? Maybe." Several times today, it had felt like I was guessing with too much certainty at somebody's private thoughts.

"Can you read my my mind?" mind?"

"That's not quite it. I get the feel of how how you think, not you think, not what what you're thinking. Morris, I don't like the idea of being a political prisoner." you're thinking. Morris, I don't like the idea of being a political prisoner."

'Well, we can talk that over later." When my bargaining position is better When my bargaining position is better, Morris meant. When I don't need the bartender's good will to con the Monk When I don't need the bartender's good will to con the Monk. "What's important is that you might be able to read a Monk's mind. That could be crucial."

"And maybe he can read mine. And yours."

I let Morris sweat over that one while I set drinks on Louise's tray. Already there were customers at four tables. The Long Spoon was filling rapidly and only two of them were Secret Service.

Morris said, "Any ideas on what Louise Schu ate last night? We've got your professions pretty well pegged down. Finally."

"I've got an idea. It's kind of vague." I looked around. Louise was taking more orders. "Sheer guesswork, in fact. Will you keep it to yourself for awhile?"

"Don't tell Louise? Sure-for awhile."

I made four drinks, and Louise took them away. I told Morris, "I have a profession in mind. It doesn't have a simple one or two word name, like teleport or stars.h.i.+p captain or translator. There's no reason why it should, is there? We're dealing with aliens."

Morris sipped at his drink. Waiting.

"Being a woman," I said, "can be a profession, in a way that being a man can never be. The word is housewife housewife, but it doesn't cover all of it. Not nearly."

"Housewife. You're putting me on."

"No. You wouldn't notice the change. You never saw her before last night."

"Just what kind of change have you got in mind? Aside from the fact that she's beautiful, which I did notice."

"Yes, she is, Morris. But last night she was twenty pounds overweight. Do you think she lost it all this morning?"

"She was was too heavy. Pretty, but also pretty well padded." Morris turned to look over his shoulder, casually turned back. "d.a.m.n. She's still well padded. Why didn't I notice before?" too heavy. Pretty, but also pretty well padded." Morris turned to look over his shoulder, casually turned back. "d.a.m.n. She's still well padded. Why didn't I notice before?"

"There's another thing.-By the way. Have some pizza."

"Thanks." He bit into a slice. "Cood, it's still hot. Well?"

"She's been staring at that pizza for half an hour. She bought it. But she hasn't tasted it. She couldn't possibly have done that yesterday."

"She may have had a big breakfast."

"Yah." I knew she hadn't. She'd eaten diet food. For years she'd kept a growing collection of diet food, but she'd never actively tried to survive on it before. But how could I make such a claim to Morris? I'd never even been in Louise's apartment.

"Anything else?"

"She's gotten good at nonverbal communication. It's a very womanly skill. She can say things just by the tone of her voice or the way she leans on an elbow or-"

"But if mind reading is one of your your new skills..." new skills..."

"d.a.m.n. Well. . . it used to make Louise nervous if someone touched her. And she never touched anyone else." I felt myself flus.h.i.+ng. I don't talk easily of personal things.

Morris radiated skepticism. "It all sounds very subjective. In fact, it sounds like you're making yourself believe it. Frazer, why would Louise Schu want such a capsule course? Because you haven't described a housewife at all. You've described a woman looking to persuade a man to many her."

He saw my face change. "What's wrong?"

"Ten minutes ago we decided to get married."

"Congratulations," Morris said, and waited.

"All right, you win. Until ten minutes ago we'd never even kissed. I'd never made a pa.s.s, or vice versa. No, d.a.m.n it, I don't believe it! I know know she loves me; I ought to!" she loves me; I ought to!"

"I don't deny it," Morris said quietly. "That would be why she took the pill. it must have been strong stuff; too, Frazer. We looked up some of your history. You're marriage-shy."

It was true enough. I said, "If she loved me before, I never knew it. I wonder how a Monk could know."

"How would he know about such a skill at all? Why would he have the pill on him? Come on, Frazer, you're the Monk expert!"

"He'd have to learn from human beings. Maybe by interviews, maybe by-well, the Monks can map an alien memory into a computer s.p.a.ce, then interview that. They may have done that with some of your diplomats."

"Oh, great great."

Louise appeared with an order. I made the drinks and set them op her tray. She winked and walked away, swaying deliciously, followed by many eyes.

"Morris. Most of your diplomats, the ones who, deal with the Monks; they're men, aren't they?"

"Most of them. Why?"

"Just a thought." It was a difficult thought, hard to grasp. It was only that the changes in Louise had been all to the good from a man's point of view. The Monks must have interviewed many men. Well, why not? It would make her more valuable to the man she caught-or to the lucky man who caught her- "Got it."

Morris looked up quickly. "Well?"

"Falling in love with me was part of her pill learning. A set set. They made a guinea pig of her."

"I wondered what she saw in you." Morris's grin faded. "You're serious. Frazer, that still doesn't answer-"

"It's a slave indoctrination course. It makes a woman love the first man she sees, permanently, and it trains her to be valuable to him. The Monks were going to make them in quant.i.ty and sell them to men."

Morris thought it over. Presently he said, "That's awful. What'll we do?"

"Well, we can't tell her she's been made into a domestic slave! Morris, I'll try to get a memory eraser pill. If I can't I'll marry her, I guess. Don't look at me that way," I said, low and fierce. "I didn't do it. And I can't desert her now!"

"I know. It's just-oh, put gin in the next one."

"Don't look now," I said.

In the gla.s.s' of the door there was darkness and motion. A hooded shape, shadow-on-shadow, supernatural, a human silhouette twisted out of true...

He came gliding in with the hem of his robe just brus.h.i.+ng the floor. Nothing was to be seen of him but his flowing gray robe, the darkness in the hood and the shadow where his robe parted. The real estate men broke off their talk of land and stared, popeyed, and one of them reached for his heart attack pills.

The Monk drifted toward me like a vengeful ghost. He took the stool we had saved him at one end of the bar.

It wasn't the same Monk.

In all respects he matched the Monk who had been here these last two nights. Louise and Morris. must have been fooled completely. But it wasn't the same Monk.

"Good evening," I said.

He gave an equivalent greeting in the whispered Monk language. His translator was half on, translating my words into a Monk whisper, but letting his own speech alone. He said,, "I believe we should begin with the Rock and Rye."

I turned to pour. The small of my back itched with danger.

When I turned back with the shot gla.s.s in my hand, he was holding a fist-sized tool that must have come out of his robe. It looked like a flattened softball, grooved deeply for five Monk claws, with two parallel tubes poking out in my direction. Lenses glinted in the ends of the tubes.

"Do you know this tool? It is a "___", and he named it. I knew the name. It was a beaming tool, a multi-frequency laser. One tube locked on the target; thereafter the aim was maintained by tiny flywheels in the body of the device.

Morris had seen it. He didn't recognize it, and he didn't know what to do about it, and I had no way to signal him.

"I know that tool," I confirmed.

"You must take two of these pills." The Monk had them ready in another hand. They were small and pink and. triangular. He said, "I must be convinced that you have taken them. Otherwise you must take more than two. An overdose may affect your natural memory. Come closer."

I came closer. Every man and woman in the Long Spoon was staring at us, and each was afraid to move. Any kind of signal would have trained four guns on the Monk. And I'd be fried dead by a narrow beam of X-rays.

The Monk reached out with a third hand/foot/claw. He dosed the fingers/toes around my throat, not hand enough to strangle me, but hard enough.

Morris was cursing silently, helplessly. I could feel the agony in his soul.

The Monk whispered, "You know of the trigger mechanism. If my hand should relax now, the device will fire. Its target is yourself. If you can prevent four government agents from attacking me, you should do so."

I made a palm-up gesture toward Morris. Don't do anything Don't do anything. He caught it and nodded very slightly without looking at me.

"You can read minds," I said.

"Yes," said the Monk-and I knew instantly what he was hiding. He could read everybody's mind, except mine.

So much for Morris's little games of deceit. But the Monk could not read my mind, and I could see into his own soul.

And, reading his alien soul, I saw that I would die if I did not swallow the pills.

I placed the pink pills on my tongue, one at a time, and swallowed them dry. They went down hard. Morris watched it happen and could do nothing. The Monk felt them going down my throat, little lumps moving past his finger.

And when the pills had pa.s.sed across the Monk's finger, I worked a miracle.

"Your pill-induced memories and skills will be gone within two hours," said the Monk. He picked up the shot gla.s.s of Rock' and Rye and moved it into his hood. When it reappeared it was half empty.

I asked. "Why have you robbed inc of my knowledge?"

"You never paid for it."

"But it was freely given."

"It was given by one who had no right," said the Monk. He was thinking about leaving. I had to do something. I knew now, because I had reasoned it out with great care, that the Monk was involved in an evil enterprise. But he must stay to hear me or I could not convince him.

Even then, it wouldn't be easy. He was a Monk crewman. His ethical att.i.tudes had entered his brain through an RNA pill, along with his professional skills.

"You have spoken of rights," I said. In Monk. "Let us discuss rights." The whispery words buzzed oddly in my throat; they tickled; but my ears told me they were coming out right.

The Monk was startled. "I was told that you had been taught our speech, but not that you cbuld speak it."

"Were you told what pill I was given?"

"A language pill. I had not known that he carried one in his case."

"He did not finish his tasting of the alcohols of Earth. Will you have another drink?"

I felt him guess at my motives, and guess wrong. He thought I was taking advantage of his curiosity to sell him my wares for cash. And what had he to fear from me? Whatever mental powers I had learned from Monk pills, they would be gone in two hours.

I set a shot gla.s.s before him. I asked him, "How do you feel about launching lasers?"