The Draco Tavern Part 24

Shastrastinth had a word with them. Now witnesses began seeing transparent people who talked like stand-up comics. That didn't go over well either. The Tonight Show host, Jay Leno's successor, started talking about Biblical plagues.

I was yanked away from the dark blue deeps off Maui. "What?" I demanded. was yanked away from the dark blue deeps off Maui. "What?" I demanded.

"Human on the phone," Beth said, with composure. "From Washington, D.C. Says he's with the Secretary General's office."

One Harold Macy wanted me to meet him at the Draco Tavern. He couldn't say exactly what for. I agreed because I was becoming a little stir-crazy.

We put my motor chair in the SUV, and Beth drove us over the tundra.

Macy looked like an actor, tall, square jaw, intense green eyes, wonderful blond-going-gray hair. He looked around at the row of airlocks in front of the Tavern. Damage wasn't visible from here. "That doesn't look bad," he said.

"Sonic shields took some of the force. Most of the damage is inside," I said, "toward the back."

So I took the chair through the big airlock and we toured the inside. Macy's nose wrinkled at the interesting chemicals released first by the explosion, then by what was happening to the various foodstuffs stored here. We should have moved those outside.

I hadn't wanted to see what the bomb had done. It was bad: not just the shattered booths, but darkness and mildew, the magic lost because of lost power, the dead feel to the place. Yet I felt a fierce pride. I'd built this over half my life span. This was mine.

The spa took Macy's attention. "Do you need this?"

I'd put it in when I had some spare money. I said, "Sometimes a customer uses it. The Zash held a mating ceremony in there." They'd invited me and Corinne to join them. "It needs a lot of cleaning. We can't use chlorinated anything."

"What would it cost to-"

"Nothing. It didn't get damaged."

He nodded. "How much to repair all all the damage?" the damage?"

"We're guessing thirty billion dollars."

"That sounds like a lot."

"Could be more. Let's go around back," I said.

I tried my motor chair on the icy paths, and found it good. The back of the Draco Tavern was a row of plug-in toilets.

"Here." I opened one that the Qarashteel used. It looked like a miniature chemical factory and smelled like one too. Macy shied back. I asked, "Can you see any damage?"

"No."

"I can't either. They say it's a total loss. I understand some of what makes the Tavern work, at least well enough that I don't poison anyone, but these toilets are a mystery. Doesn't matter, they're all plug-ins. The users bring their own. But the interfaces are all up against the back wall, so the explosion ruined a lot of them. I lost half my booths too, sonic dampers, translators-the news anchors talk about Hrashantree's death and my injuries, but a translator network died too. That's an intelligent being. We'd need a volunteer to replace it. Thirty billion is just a guess."

"Okay."

"What?"

Macy opened his briefcase. "I brought a contract."

"Who's supposed to pay for this?"

"Officially, it's the Emergency Funds Office branch of the United Nations. There were a.s.sessments and contributions. Your aliens can be really annoying, you know? It's not that we want to live without them. They've been changing civilization, the knowledge they bring in, and it's usually for the better. But we'd rather they stay here, most of the time, anyway. The, uh, fish? You could feed them here, can't you?"

"That bomb blew up my aquarium. Otherwise, sure, except that they've been breeding. They don't do that when they don't have room."

"And that G.o.dzilla-sized kid and his toy. It'd be easier to catch if it didn't have the run of the whole planet."

The Tavern was too small for that kind of chasing around. "How about confining them to just the Mount Forel environment?"

"Whatever. What are you doing?"

I was crossing out clauses in his contract. "I don't want to give away the Tavern!"

"They won't go for it."

"I'll keep my autonomy, thank you very much. Why in h.e.l.l would I submit to inspection by-" By people just out of the Stone Age, if that clause were strictly enforced. Always look a gift horse in the mouth. "I'm still healing, Mr. Macy. I don't really want to go back to work yet. Give the Emergency Funds Office some time to talk it over."

"Mmm."

"Want to try something? Chignthil Interstellar sells a liqueur called Opal Fire."

During the next two weeks ahi, mahi, and swordfish went off the menus in most restaurants.

Elvis Presley revealed a list of commandments-and Shastrastinth caught the pair who had been manipulating that poor woman. Dianna Gustal had been communicating with a Mnemoposh hologram, and that worthy had been getting its cues from a Vollek merchant ready to sell a new religion.

A big-headed mantis eleven feet tall, with a three-jawed mouth armed with dagger teeth, chased its giggling prey through the Northridge Mall in California. The damage was more spectacular than expensive. Chirpsithra negotiators offered to pay for repairs.

The Mnemoposh opened access to their bug-sized cameras to the Fox network for an undisclosed sum. Other networks merged forces and sued.

The Folk held their hunt. By Chirpsithra law it had to be televised. Their prisoners-minus two, released as innocent-were set loose all at once, and that allowed them to form bands, set traps, and swarm the occasional Folk. They'd have held out longer if they hadn't needed water. The Folk lost two, the prisoners lost all. There was a storm of protest- And my funding came through.

I've been able to open up part of the Tavern while repairs go on. We beefed up our security: it's harder to get in than it used to be. Beth Marble surprised me: she gets along best with the weirdest of my customers. Shapes don't bother her unless they resemble Earth's more noxious life-forms, and the oddest of alien minds are still saner than what she was used to at the hospital.

Beyond that it's been business as usual at the Draco Tavern.

Larry Niven is the multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of the Ringworld series, along with many other science fiction masterpieces. His novel of alien invasion, Footfall, Footfall, coauth.o.r.ed with Jerry Pournelle, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. He lives in Chatsworth, California. coauth.o.r.ed with Jerry Pournelle, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. He lives in Chatsworth, California.