The Draco Tavern Page 21

  “I’ll keep my autonomy, thank you very much. Why in Hell 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, coauthored with Jerry Pournelle, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. He lives in Chatsworth, California.