The Draco Tavern Part 3

"You're actually manufacturing these things on Earth?"

"Guatemala has agreed to license us. The climate is so nice there. And so I can lower the price per unit to three thousand dollars each."

"Sell me two," I said. It'd be a few years before they paid for themselves. Maybe someday I really would have enough money to ride the Chirpsithra liners ... if I didn't get hooked myself on these full-sensory machines. "Now, about Opal Fire. I can't believe it's really that good-"

"I travel for Chignthil Interstellar too. I have sample bottles."

"Let's try it."

WAR MOVIE.

Ten, twenty years ago my first thought would have been, Great-looking woman! Tough-looking, too. If I make a pa.s.s, it had better be polite. Great-looking woman! Tough-looking, too. If I make a pa.s.s, it had better be polite. She was in her late twenties, tall, blond, healthy-looking, with a squarish jaw. She didn't look like the type to be fazed by anything; but she had stopped, stunned, just inside the door. Her first time here, I thought. Anyway, I'd have remembered her. She was in her late twenties, tall, blond, healthy-looking, with a squarish jaw. She didn't look like the type to be fazed by anything; but she had stopped, stunned, just inside the door. Her first time here, I thought. Anyway, I'd have remembered her.

But after eighteen years tending bar in the Draco Tavern, my first thought is generally, Human. Great! I won't have to dig out any of the exotic stuff. Human. Great! I won't have to dig out any of the exotic stuff. While she was still reacting to the sight of half a dozen oddly shaped sapients indulging each its own peculiar vice, I moved down the bar to the far right, where I keep the alcoholic beverages. I thought she'd take one of the bar stools. While she was still reacting to the sight of half a dozen oddly shaped sapients indulging each its own peculiar vice, I moved down the bar to the far right, where I keep the alcoholic beverages. I thought she'd take one of the bar stools.

Nope. She looked about her, considering her choices-which didn't include empty tables; there was a fair crowd in tonight-then moved to join the lone Qarasht. And I was already starting to worry as I left the bar to take her order.

In the Draco it's considered normal to strike up conversations with other customers. But the Qarasht wasn't acting like it wanted company. That bulk of thick fur, pale blue striped with black in narrow curves, had waddled in three hours ago. It was on its third quart-sized mug of Demerara Sours, and its sense cl.u.s.ter had been retracted for all of that time, leaving it deaf and blind, lost in its own thoughts.

It must have felt the vibration when the woman sat down. Its sense cl.u.s.ter and stalk rose out of the fur like a python rising from a bed of moss. A snake with no mouth: just two big wide-set black bubbles for eyes and an ear like a pink blossom set between them, and a tuft of fine hairs along the stalk to serve for smell and taste, and a brilliant ruby crest on top. Its translator box said, quite clearly, "Drink, not talk. My last day."

She didn't take the hint. "You're going home? Where?"

"Home to the organ banks. I am s.h.i.+s.h.i.+shorupf s.h.i.+s.h.i.+shorupf-" A word the box didn't translate.

"What's it mean?"

"Your kind has bankruptcy laws that let you start over. My kind lets me start over as a dozen others. Organ banks." The alien picked up its mug; the fur parted below its sense cl.u.s.ter stalk, to receive half a pint of Demerara Sour.

She looked around a little queasily, and found me at her shoulder. With some relief she said, "Never mind, I'll come to the bar," and started to stand up.

The Qarasht put a hand on her wrist. The eight skeletal fingers looked like two chicken feet wired together, but a Qarasht's hand is stronger than it looks. "Sit," said the alien. "Barmonitor, get her one of these. Human, why do you not fight wars?"

"What?"

"You used to fight wars."

"Well," she said, "sure."

"We could have been fourth-level wealthy," the Qarasht said, and slammed its mug to the table. "You would still be a single isolated species had we not come. In what fas.h.i.+on have you repaid our generosity?"

The woman was speechless; I wasn't. "Excuse me, but it wasn't the qarashteel who made first contact with Earth. It was the Chirpsithra."

"We paid them."

"What? Why?"

"Our s.h.i.+p Far-Stretching Sense Cl.u.s.ter Far-Stretching Sense Cl.u.s.ter pa.s.sed through Sol system while making a doc.u.mentary. It confuses some species that we can make very long entertainments, and sell them to billions of customers who will spend years watching them, and reap profits that allow us to travel hundreds of light-years and spend decades working on such a project. But we are very long-lived, you know. Partly because we are able to keep the organ banks full," the Qarasht said with some savagery, and it drank again. Its sense-cl.u.s.ter was weaving a little. pa.s.sed through Sol system while making a doc.u.mentary. It confuses some species that we can make very long entertainments, and sell them to billions of customers who will spend years watching them, and reap profits that allow us to travel hundreds of light-years and spend decades working on such a project. But we are very long-lived, you know. Partly because we are able to keep the organ banks full," the Qarasht said with some savagery, and it drank again. Its sense-cl.u.s.ter was weaving a little.

"We found dramatic activity on your world," it said. "All over your world, it seemed. Machines hurled against each other. Explosives. Machines built to fly, other machines to hurl them from the sky. Humans in the machines, dying. Machines blowing great holes in populated cities. It fuddles the mind, to think what such a spectacle would have cost to make ourselves! We went into orbit, and we recorded it all as best we could. Three years of it. When we were sure it was over, we returned home and sold it."

The woman swallowed. She said to me, "I think I need that drink. Join us?"

I made two of the giant Demerara Sours and took them back. As I pulled up a chair the Qarasht was saying, "If we had stopped then we would still be moderately wealthy. Our recording instruments were not the best, of course. Worse, we could not get close enough to the surface for real detail. Our atmosphere probes s.h.i.+vered and shook and so did the pictures. Ours was a low-budget operation. But the ending was superb! Two cities half-destroyed by nuclear explosions! Our recordings sold well enough, but we would have been mad not to try for more.

"We invested all of our profits in equipment. We borrowed all we could. Do you understand that the nearest full-service s.p.a.ceport to Sol system is sixteen-squared light-years distant? We had to finance a Chirpsithra diplomatic expedition in order to get Local Group approval and transport for what we needed... and because we needed intermediaries. Chirps are very good at negotiating, and we are not We did not tell them what we really wanted, of course."

The woman's words sounded like curses. "Why negotiate? You were doing fine as Peeping Toms. Even when people saw your s.h.i.+ps, n.o.body believed them. I expect they're saucer-shaped?"

Foo fighters, fighters, I thought, while the alien said, "We needed more than the small atmospheric probes. We needed to mount hologram cameras. For that we had to travel all over the Earth, especially the cities. Such instruments are nearly invisible. We spray them across a flat surface, high up on your gla.s.s-slab-style towers, for instance. And we needed access to your libraries, to get some insight into I thought, while the alien said, "We needed more than the small atmospheric probes. We needed to mount hologram cameras. For that we had to travel all over the Earth, especially the cities. Such instruments are nearly invisible. We spray them across a flat surface, high up on your gla.s.s-slab-style towers, for instance. And we needed access to your libraries, to get some insight into why why you do these things." you do these things."

The lady drank. I remembered that there had been qarashteel everywhere the Chirpsithra envoys went, twenty-four years ago when the big interstellar s.h.i.+ps arrived; and I took a long pull from my Sour.

"It all looked so easy," the Qarasht mourned. "We had left instruments on your Moon. The recordings couldn't be sold, of course, because your world's rotation permits only fragmentary glimpses. But your machines were becoming better, more more destructive! We thanked our luck that you had not destroyed yourselves before we could return. We studied the recordings, to guess where the next war would occur, but there was no discernible pattern. The largest land ma.s.s, we thought-" destructive! We thanked our luck that you had not destroyed yourselves before we could return. We studied the recordings, to guess where the next war would occur, but there was no discernible pattern. The largest land ma.s.s, we thought-"

True enough, the chirps and their qarashteel entourage had been very visible all over Asia and Europe. Those cameras on the Moon must have picked up activity in Poland and Korea and Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iran and Israel and Cuba and, and ... b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. "So you set up your cameras in a tearing hurry," I guessed, "and then you waited."

"We waited and waited. We have waited for thirty years ... for twenty-four of your own years, and we have nothing to show for it but a riot here, a parade there, an attack on a children's vehicle ... robbery of a bank ... a thousand people smas.h.i.+ng automobiles or an emba.s.sy building ... rumors of war, of peace, some shouting in your councils ... how can we sell any of this? On Earth my people need life support to the tune of six thousand dollars a day. I and my a.s.sociates are s.h.i.+s.h.i.+shorupf s.h.i.+s.h.i.+shorupf now, and I must return home to tell them." now, and I must return home to tell them."

The lady looked ready to start her own war. I said, to calm her down, "We make war movies too. We've been doing it for over a hundred years. They sell fine."

Her answer was an intense whisper. "I never liked war movies. And that was us!"

"Sure, who else-"

The Qarasht slammed its mug down. "Why have you not fought a war?"

She broke the brief pause. "We would have been ashamed."

"Ashamed?"

"In front of you. Aliens. We've seen twenty alien species on Earth since that first Chirp expedition, and none of them seem to fight wars. The, uh, Qarasht don't fight wars, do they?"

The alien's sense cl.u.s.ter snapped down into its fur, then slowly emerged again. "Certainly we do not!"

"Well, think how it would look!"

"But for you it is natural!"

"Not really," I said. "People have real trouble learning to kill. It's not built into us. Anyway, we don't have quite so much to fight over these days. The whole world's getting rich on the widgetry the chirps and the Thtopar have been selling us. Long-lived, too, on Glig medicines. We've all got more to lose." I flinched, because the alien's sense cl.u.s.ter was stretched across the table, staring at us in horror.

"A lot of our restless types are out mining the asteroids," the woman said.

"And, hey," I said, "remember when Egypt and Saudi Arabia were talking war in the UN? And all the aliens moved out of both countries, even the Glig doctors with their geriatrics consulting office. The sheiks didn't like that one d.a.m.n bit. And when the Soviets-"

"Our doing, all our own doing," the alien mourned. Its sense cl.u.s.ter pulled itself down and disappeared into the fur, leaving just the ruby crest showing. The alien lifted its mug and drank, blind.

The woman took my wrist and pulled me over to the bar. "What do we do now?" now?" she hissed in my ear. she hissed in my ear.

I shrugged. "Sounds like the emergency's over."

"But we can't just let it go, can we? You don't really think we've given up war, do you? But if we knew these d.a.m.n aliens were waiting to make movies movies of us, maybe we would! Shouldn't we call the newspapers, or at least the Secret Service?" of us, maybe we would! Shouldn't we call the newspapers, or at least the Secret Service?"

"I don't think so."

"Somebody has to know!"

"Think it through," I said. "One particular Qarasht company may be defunct, but those cameras are still there, all over the world, and su are the mobile units. Some alien receiving company is going to own them. What if they offer ... say Iran, or the Soviet Union, one-tenth of one percent of the gross profits on a war movie?"

She paled. I pushed my mug into her hands and she gulped hard at it. Shakily she asked, "Why didn't the Qarasht think of that?"

"Maybe they don't think enough like men. Maybe if we just leave it alone, they never will. But we sure don't want any human entrepreneurs making suggestions. Let it drop, lady. Let it drop."

LIMITS.

I never would have heard them if the sound system hadn't gone on the fritz. And if it hadn't been one of those frantically busy nights, maybe I could have done something about it ... never would have heard them if the sound system hadn't gone on the fritz. And if it hadn't been one of those frantically busy nights, maybe I could have done something about it ...

But one of the big Chirpsithra pa.s.senger s.h.i.+ps was due to leave Mount Forel s.p.a.ceport in two days. The Chirpsithra trading empire occupies most of the galaxy, and Sol system is nowhere near its heart. A horde of pa.s.sengers had come early in fear of being marooned. The Draco Tavern was jammed.

I was fis.h.i.+ng under the counter when the noises started. I jumped. Two voices alternated: a monotonal twittering, and a bone-vibrating sound like a tremendous door endlessly opening on rusty hinges.

The Draco Tavern used to make the Tower of Babel sound like a monologue, in the years before I got this sound system worked out. Picture it: thirty or forty creatures of a dozen species including human, all talking at once at every pitch and volume, and all of their translating widgets bellowing too! Some species, like the Srivinthish, don't talk with sound, but they also don't notice the continual skreeking skreeking from their spiracles. Others sing. They from their spiracles. Others sing. They call call it singing, and they say it's a religious rite, so how can I stop them? it singing, and they say it's a religious rite, so how can I stop them?

Selective damping is the key, and a staff of technicians to keep the system in order. I can afford it. I charge high anyway, for the variety of stuff I have to keep for anything that might wander in. But sometimes the damping system fails.

I found what I needed-a double-walled canister I'd never needed before, holding stuff I'd been calling green kryptonite green kryptonite-and delivered glowing green pebbles to four aliens in globular environment tanks. They were at four different tables, sharing conversation with four other species. I'd never seen a Rosyfin before. Rippling in the murky fluid within the transparent globe, the dorsal fin was triangular, rose-colored, fragile as gossamer, and ran from nose to tail of a body that looked like a flattened slug.

Out among the tables there was near-silence, except within the bubbles of sound that surrounded each table. It wasn't a total breakdown, then. But when I went back behind the bar the noise was still there.

I tried to ignore it. I certainly wasn't going to try to fix the sound system, not with fifty-odd customers and ten distinct species demanding my attention. I set out consomme and vodka for four Glig, and thimble-sized flasks of chilled fluid with an ammonia base for a dozen chrome-yellow bugs each the size of a fifth of Haig Pinch. And the dialogue continued: high twittering against grating metallic ba.s.s. What got on my nerves was the way the sounds seemed always on the verge of making sense!

Finally I just switched on the translator. It might be less irritating if I heard it in English.

I heard: "-noticed how often they speak of limits?"

"Limits? I don't understand you."

"Lightspeed limit. Theoretical strengths of metals, of crystals, of alloys. Smallest and largest ma.s.ses at which an unseen body may be a neutron star. Maximum time and cost to complete a research project. Surface-to-volume relations.h.i.+p for maximum size of a creature of given design-"

"But every sapient race learns these things!"

"We find limits, of course. But with humans, the limits are what they seek first."

So they were talking about the natives, about us. Aliens often do. Their insights might be fascinating, but it gets boring fast. I let it buzz in my ear while I fished out another dozen flasks of ammonia mixture and set them on Gail's tray along with two Stingers. She went off to deliver them to the little yellow bugs, now parked in a horseshoe pattern on the rim of their table, talking animatedly to two human sociologists.

"It is a way of thinking," one of the voices said. "They set enormously complex limits on each other. Whole professions, called judge judge and and lawyer, lawyer, devote their lives to determining which human has violated which limit where. Another profession alters the limits arbitrarily." devote their lives to determining which human has violated which limit where. Another profession alters the limits arbitrarily."

"It does not sound entertaining."

"But all are forced to play the game. You must have noticed: the limits they find in the universe and the limits they set on each other bear the same name: law."

I had established that the twitterer was the one doing most of the talking. Fine. Now who were they? Two voices belonging to two radically different species ...

"The interstellar community knows all of these limits in different forms."

"Do we know them all? Goedel's Principle sets a limit to the perfectibility of mathematical systems. What species would have sought such a thing? Mine would not."

"Nor mine, I suppose. Still-"

"Humans push their limits. It is their first approach to any problem. When they learn where the limits lie, they fill in missing information until the limit breaks. When they break a limit, they look for the limit behind that."

"I wonder ..."

I thought I had them spotted. Only one of the tables for two was occupied, by a Chirpsithra and a startled-looking woman. My suspects were a cl.u.s.ter of three: one of the rosyfins, and two compact, squarish customers wearing garish designs on their exoskeletal sh.e.l.ls. The sh.e.l.led creatures had been smoking tobacco cigars under exhaust hoods. Now one seemed to be asleep. The other waved stubby arms as it talked.

I heard: "I have a thought. My savage ancestors used to die when they reached a certain age. When we could no longer breed, evolution was finished with us. There is a biological self-destruct built into us."

"It is the same with humans. But my own people never die unless killed. We fission. Our memories go far, far back."

"Though we differ in this, the result is the same. At some point in the dim past we learned that we could postpone our deaths. We never developed a civilization until individuals could live long enough to attain wisdom. The fundamental limit was lifted from our sh.e.l.ls before we set out to expand into the world, and then the universe. Is this not true with most of the s.p.a.ce-traveling peoples? The Pfarth species choose death only when they grow bored. Chirpsithra were long-lived before they reached the stars, and the Gligst.i.th(click)optok went even further, with their fascination with heredity-tailoring-"

"Does it surprise you, that intelligent beings strive to extend their lives?"

"Surprise? No. But humans still face a limit on their lifespans. The death limit has immense influence on their poetry. They may think differently from the rest of us in other ways. They may find truths we would not even seek."

An untranslated metal-on-metal sc.r.a.ping. Laughter? "You speculate irresponsibly. Has their unique approach taught them anything we know not?"

"How can I know? I have only been on this world three local years. Their libraries are large, their retrieval systems poor. But there is Goedel's Principle; and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is a limit to what one can discover at the quantum level."

Pause. "We must see if another species has duplicated that one. Meanwhile, perhaps I should speak to another visitor."

"Incomprehension. Query?"

"Do you remember that I spoke of a certain Gligst.i.th(click)optok merchant?"

"I remember."