TALES FROM THE SPACEPORT BAR
"Let me buy this one," said Witherwax firmly. "What I was going to ask was about this selective breeding."
The professor shook himself, blinked twice, leaned back in his chair, and placed one hand on the table. "You wish me to be academic? Very well; but I have witnesses that it was at your own request."
Mrs. Jonas said^'Now look what you've done. You've got him started and he won't run down until he falls asleep."
"What I want to know—" began Witherwax, but Thott beamingly cut across: "I shall present only the briefest and most nontechnical of outlines," he said. "Let us suppose that, of sixteen mice, you took the two largest and bred them together. Their children would in turn be mated with those of the largest pair from another group of sixteen. And so on. Given time and material enough, and making it advantageous to the species to produce larger members, it would be easy to produce mice the size of lions."
"Ugh!" said Mrs. Jonas. "You ought to give up drinking. Your imagination gets gruesome."
"I see," said Witherwax, "like in a book I read once where they had rats so big they ate horses, and wasps the size of dogs."
Tales from the Spaceport Bar
Edited by
George H. Scithers and
Darrell Schweitzer
NEW ENGLISH LIBRARY
Hodder and Stoughton
Copyright © 1987 by George H. Scithers and Darrell Schweitzer
The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.
First published in the United States of America in 1987 by Avon Books
First published in Great Britain in 1988 by New English Library Paperbacks
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without either the prior permission in writing from the publisher or a licence, permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-34 Alfred Place, London WC1 E 7DP.
British Library C.I.P.
Tales from the spaceport bar.
I. Scithers, George, 1929-
II. Schweitzer, Darrell, 1952-813'.54 [F]
ISBN 0-450-48909-4
Printed and bound in Great Britain for Hodder and Stoughton Paperbacks, a division of Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., Mill Road, Dunton Green, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 2YA (Editorial Office: 47 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP) by Richard Clay Ltd., Bungay, Suffolk.
Dedicated to John B. Gaughan
A Good Man
Acknowledgments
“The Green Marauder” by Larry Niven. Copyright © 1980 by Larry Niven. Reprinted by die kind permission of the author.
“Don’t Look Now” by Henry Kuttner. Copyright © 1948 by Better Publications, Inc., renewed 1976 by Henry Kuttner. Reprinted by the kind permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc.
“Getting Even” by Isaac Asimov. Copyright © 1980 by Montcalm Publishing Corp. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author.
“What Goes Up” by Arthur C. Clarke. Copyright © 1955 by Mercury Publications, Inc. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author and the author’s agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc., 845 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022.
“Social Lapses” by Darrell Schweitzer. Copyright © 1985 by TSR, Inc. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author.
“One for the Road” by Gardner Dozois. Copyright © 1982 by HMH Publications, Inc. First published in Playboy. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author and the author’s agent, Virginia Kidd.
“Elephas Frumenti” by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp. Copyright © 1950 by Fantasy House, Inc. Reprinted by the kind permission of L. Sprague de Camp, on behalf of himself and the literary estate of Fletcher Pratt.
“Unicom Variation” by Roger Zelazny. Copyright © 1981 by Davis Publications, Inc.; copyright © 1982 by the Amber Corp. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author.
“Strategy at the Billiards Club” by Lord Dunsany. Copyright © 1948 by Lord Dunsany. Reprinted by the kind permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd., on behalf of John Child Villiers and Valentine Lamb, as literary executors for the estate of Lord Dunsany.
“Through Time & Space with Ferdinand Feghoot!” by Grendel
Briaiton. Copyright © 1981 by Davis Publications, Inc. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author.
“On the Rocks at Slab’s” by John Gregory Betancourt. Copyright © 198S by TSR, Inc. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author.
“Hands of the Man” by R. A. Lafferty. Copyright © 1970 by R. A. Lafferty. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author and the author’s agent, Virginia Kidd.
“Endurance Vile” by Steven Barnes. Copyright © 1980 by Davis Publications, Inc. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author.
“The Centipede’s Dilemma” by Spider Robinson. Copyright © 1977 by Spider Robinson. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author.
“The Causes” by Margaret St. Clair. Copyright © 1952 by Fantasy House, Inc.; copyright renewed 1980 by Margaret St. Clair. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author.
“For a Foggy Night” by Larry Niven. Copyright © 1971 by Mercury Press, Inc. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author.
“They Loved Me in Utica” by Avram Davidson. Copyright © 1970 by Avram Davidson. From New Worlds of Fantasy #2, edited by Teny Carr. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author.
“A Pestilence of Psychoanalysts” by Janet O. Jeppson. Copyright © 1980 by Davis Publications, Inc. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author.
“The Regulars” by Robert Silverberg. Copyright © 1981 by Davis Publications, Inc. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author.
“The Man Who Always Knew” by Algis Budrys. Copyright © 1956 by Street & Smith, Inc. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author.
“Infinite Resources” by Randall Garrett. Copyright © 1954 by Fantasy House, Inc. Reprinted by the kind permission of the author.
“What’s Wrong with This Picture?” by Barry B. Longyear, John M. Ford, and George H. Scithers. Copyright © 1980 by Davis Publications, Inc. Reprinted by the kind permission of the authors.
Contents
Acknowledgments
PREFACE by Darrell Schweitzer and George H. Scithers
THE GREEN MARAUDER by Larry Niven
DON’T LOOK NOW by Henry Kuttner
GETTING EVEN by Isaac Asimov
WHAT GOES UP by Arthur C. Clarke
SOCIAL LAPSES by Darrell Schweitzer
ONE FOR THE ROAD by Gardner Dozois
ELEPHAS FRUMENTI by L Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt
UNICORN VARIATION by Roger Zelazny
STRATEGY AT THE BILLIARDS CLUB by Lord Dunsany
THROUGH TIME & SPACE WITH FERDINAND FEGHOOT! by Grendel Briarton
ON THE ROCKS AT SLAB’S by John Gregory Betancourt
HANDS OF THE MAN by R. A. Lafferty
ENDURANCE VILE by Steven Barnes
THE CENTIPEDE’S DILEMMA by Spider Robinson
THE CAUSES by Margaret St Clair
FOR A FOGGY NIGHT by Larry Niven
THEY LOVED ME IN UTICA by Avram Davidson
A
PESTILENCE OF PSYCHOANALYSTS by Janet O. Jeppson
THE REGULARS by Robert Silverberg
THE MAN WHO ALWAYS KNEW by Algis Budrys
INFINITE RESOURCES by Randall Garrett
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? By Barry B. Longyear, John M. Ford, and George H. Scithers
PREFACE
by Darrell Schweitzer and George H. Scithers
Star Wars showed millions upon millions of viewers that magnificent old cliché with chairs, the spaceport bar. Indeed, it’s been a long-staggering tradition in science-fiction stories that space pirates, interstellar adventurers, and the Galactic Patrol all stop by the spaceport bar for a quick one before heading out to die untamed reaches of the void, where the hand of man has never set foot, and... but you know how it goes. Thus the cantina in Mos Eisley on the planet Tatooine is where Ben and Luke go to find a space pilot with a fast ship... and thus have hundreds and hundreds of science-fiction stories started, taken a rest break, or ended—among the old space dogs and strange Things that frequent such places.
But sometimes these characters start reminiscing about curious adventures in far places; sometimes, even, curious adventures happening in the bar itself. It is these, the bar-centered or bar-framed stories, that this book is all about— and not just in spaceports, for strange things happen in bars and clubs back on Earth, where—even in the middle of the twentieth century—the storyteller in the next seat may be from Out There.
The equivalent of the spaceport bar has become a fixture in tales set in fantasy worlds as well, especially heroic fantasy: a place for Conan and Fafhrd and the like to rub broad shoulders and catch a breath between feats swordly and sorcerous—but save for a representative sample, we’ve left fantasy-world bars for another volume. Here, we focus on bars, taverns, and clubs set in our own past, present, or future, and on the odd tales and odder events in them.
Why stories told in bars, rather than—say—railroad trains or railroad stations? Mostly, it’s the ambiance: the local pub and the London club are places to exchange stories, to get acquainted with strangers while the drinks take the edge off one’s skepticism. If someone told you about the Martian plot to infiltrate human society in any setting except a bar, you’d probably be trying too hard to get away to really listen; in a bar, however, it could be an interesting evening’s entertainment, and—listening—you might even become convinced.
The strange tale told in a bar is a very old and respectable form of literature, with a pedigree that goes back to the very beginning of storytelling, as Avram Davidson suggests in his contribution to this anthology; audiences have always been interested in how and why and where stories came to be told—how the storyteller came by his tale, with all the corroborative detail that gives artistic verisimilitude... and that is why so many nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century adventure stories begin with frames: accounts of finding manuscripts in a bottle, papers in a dispatch case, long-lost journals, and the like. The contemporary practice of presenting fiction as fiction is quite recent. Consider the elaborate framework of The Arabian Nights, presented, not as a collection of tales assembled or written by some mere editor or author, but as the very stories told by Scheherazade herself.
The framing story, as a literary device, goes back at least as far as the Romans. The two surviving Latin novels, The Satyricon of Petronius and The Golden Ass, or Metamorphoses, of Lucius Apuleitis, are both mixtures of novel and short story, of framework and foreground narrative. The Golden Ass contains eighteen tales, mostly fantastic, told by the characters in the framing story to each other; The
Satyricon includes a set of ghost stories told around the dinner table at Trimalchio’s feast.
This subgenre—sets of stories, surrounded by a framing device—continued through the centuries that followed; the most famous example is Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales of the late 1300s. Almost as famous is Boccaccio’s The Decameron, in which the stories are told by refugees from the Black Death to while away the time.
As Arthur Jean Cox recently pointed out to us, the next development was to focus on the place where tales were told—a bar with a continuing clientele or a club—as did Charles Dickens in 1837 with The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club and again, in 1840, with The Old Curiosity Shop. There were also a few deliberate throwbacks, such as Arthur Machen’s The Chronicles of Clemendy (1888), a pastiche of works like The Decameron. John Buchan’s Tales of the Runagates Club (1928), in which each member tells a story, includes some of the most brilliant horror stories of English literature.
But it was Lord Dunsany who put all the elements of this subgenre together with his tales of Mr. Joseph Jorkens and the Billiards Club: the storyteller, who continues from story to story; the setting, sometimes just a frame for a story and sometimes the scene of the action itself; and the fantastic elements which seem, for the duration of the story at least, to be entirely plausible—certainly to Jorkens’s audience at the Billiards Club, some of whom would be delighted to show Jorkens to be a liar but—somehow—can never prove any story to be untrue.
Jorkens’s antecedents include the Anglers’ Rest stories of P. G. Wodehouse, and his name is taken from an offstage character in one of those tales. Dunsany wrote five books of short stories about Jorkens, plus a few stray, uncollected ones; topics include a biplane flight to Mars, a man reincarnated as a snail, and Jorkens’s trip to the other side of the Sun.
Lord Dunsany became the inspiration for most science-fictional and fantastic bar stories written since, either directly or through his influence on Arthur C. Clarke and his Tales from the White Hart or on Fletcher Pratt and L.
Sprague de Camp and their Tales from Gavagan’s Bar. Other notable, contemporary series include Larry Niven’s Draco Tavern, G. C. Edmondson’s Mad Friend, Sterling Lanier’s Brigadier Ffellowes, Spider Robinson’s tales of Callahan’s Place,and Janet Jeppson’s Pshrinks Anonymous. The Thieves’ World series of heroic-fantasy books, edited by Robert Lynn Asprin and Lynn Abbey, use the Vulgar Unicom as the leading tavern-of-ill-repute in their series’ principal city, Sanctuary; while Isaac Asimov has created— and is actively working on—no less than three series of tales told in clubs, though only one has an explicit fantastic content.
In addition to the almost universal use of the spaceport bar as a convenient scene in a larger work—Northwest Smith spent many a night in a sleazy Martian dive; and even the moral and upright Grey Lensman went drinking with the asteroid miners, albeit as part of an undercover assignment—most science-fiction writers have given in to temptation and have written at least one spaceport-bar story; that is, one told in or wholly set in such a bar. We successfully tempted Robert Silverberg, Roger Zelazny, John Gregory Betancourt, and Grendel Briarton; their stories appear in this volume. The Longyear-Ford-Scithers collaboration and the Schweitzer limerick are also the fruits of our editorial coaxing. But then, Tony Boucher, when editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, also encouraged writers to produce strange bar stories; several in this volume were first published by his magazine. Larry Niven challenged Steven Barnes to write one set in a health-food bar; Barnes’s reply appears in these pages. Finally, both Edmondson and Scithers have each written a tale told in a railway car (Scithers may have cheated; his is told in a railway bar car); but there was room for neither in this book.
Whether a bar is located on a side street in Victorian London or at the edge of the purple desert of Rigel IV, the basic ambiance is the same: you go into a dark, friendly place, to meet old friends or just to mix with the crowd.
You sample the local brew, whether a simple Ale or a Pan-Galactic Gargle-Blaster... and when you are ready to listen, some being says, “That reminds me of an odd experience I once had, when..
Tales From The
SPACEPORT BAR
THE GREEN MARAUDER
by Larry Niven
The Mount Forel spaceport has a bar, of course...
I was tending bar alone that night. The chirpsithtra interstellar liner had
left Earth four days earlier, taking most of my customers. The Draco Tavern was nearly empty.
The man at the bar was drinking Gin-and-Tonic. Two glig—grey and compact beings, wearing furs in three tones of green—were at a table with a chirpsithtra guide. They drank Vodka-and-Consommé, no ice, no flavorings. Four farsilshree had their bulky, heavy environment tanks crowded around a bigger table. They smoked smoldering yellow paste through tubes. Every so often I got them another jar of paste.
The man was talkative. I got the idea he was trying to interview the bartender and owner of Earth’s foremost multispecies tavern.
"Hey, not me,” he protested. "I’m not a reporter. I'm Greg Noyes, with the Scientific American television show.”
"Didn’t I see you trying to interview the glig, earlier tonight?”
"Guilty. We’re doing a show on the formation of life on Earth. I thought maybe I could check a few things. The gligstith(click)optok”—he said that slowly, but got it right—"have their own little empire out there, don’t they? Earthlike worlds, a couple of hundred. They must know quite a lot about how a world forms an oxygenating atmosphere.” He was careful with those polysyllabic words. Not quite sober, then.
"That doesn’t mean they want to waste an evening lecturing the natives.”
He nodded. "They didn’t know anyway. Architects on vacation. They got me talking about my home life. I don’t know how they managed that.” He pushed his drink away. "Fd better switch to espresso. Why would a thing that shape be interested in my sex life? And they kept asking me about territorial imperatives—” He stopped, then turned to see what I was staring at.
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