by Larry Niven
“She got in ahead of the Tiktik and hoped their smell would cover hers. My mate is clever.”
“What’s it say?”
“ ‘When zeeft fayristtent waves ... it’s a puzzle. It won’t work in your speech.”
While he worked on the puzzle, I called Shock Layer again. “How often does a Joker need a toilet? Which toilet would he use?”
The answering device said, “A Joker must void liquid wastes once every three hours or so. Stony solids, up to ten standard days. Gullet stones, every five hundred days. Number hash mub delta.” Fourth booth to my right. “Have you data for me, Rick?”
“He’s been here. What motivates a Joker? Why did this one board a Chirp ship, and why did they let him on?”
“Hsenshesist Brill is a famous xenopsychologist. Ship law restricts him because he runs uncomfortable experiments on sapient entities, but his lectures rank high. Many will attend when he tells us what he has done on your world.”
“What will he do? Knock down a building? Nuke a city and study the survivors?”
“He will do nothing harmful. Deaths would place him in a new category, outside the protection of citizenship. Hsenshesist Brill is not deemed mad.”
“Good.” What then? Would he start a career as an alien rock star and study the groupies? Go into politics? Crash the stock market? Smuggle something alien, like Glig medicines?
“Liquid wastes?” I asked, “Are they easy to track?”
“I have specs for your local toilets. He could use those.”
Dammit. I disconnected. “Hass?”
“The puzzle is incomplete,” Hass said. “It’s as if she stopped when almost finished. Why would she do that?”
“Drew the rest of it elsewhere.” The ellipse of markings had a bite missing. “Fits here.” I looked hard at the oddly configured bowl that was the centerpiece of the cubicle. Detergent spray from here, warm air from here, two-stage flush, outlet underneath. It was in my mind that if I wanted to hide a puzzle from a human woman, I’d draw it on the bottom of a toilet seat ... but I couldn’t see anything analogous here.
The puzzle had me in thrall. I went outside. Piled snow allowed me to crawl onto the roof. The roof was covered with packed ice, and no patterns had been carved into it.
Hass wouldn’t carry a heater—no store-bought tools—but he might make a scraper to get through this ice sheet to reveal a message. “Hass? You’ve been telling me she wants to be caught. We’re not looking for anything terribly difficult. Hass?”
Nothing. I got off the roof and looked into the cubicle. The Pazensh was gone.
So the question was, Did I want to lead Hass to Tenshir? We weren’t looking for the same thing. Puzzle aside, it wasn’t my species’ problem. Further—despite the appearance that she’d left a message, it was still possible that Hass was a stalker.
What I wanted was to find the Joker. Whatever devilment Brill was planning on Earth, he’d played me for a fool last night.
He could use a men’s room, or a ladies’, but he couldn’t pass for human. Where could he hide, and still accomplish anything?
We sometimes use pressure suits for a cleanup. I went back in and put one on. Now a Joker couldn’t smell me. I went back to the appropriate toilet, hash mub delta, and set a tiny security camera.
He’d need food ... but the age of terrorism has not quite faded. There were already cameras in the Tavern’s food preparation area.
It couldn’t be this straightforward. Think of something else.
I hadn’t needed to call Shock Layer. All of my possible customers are in my registry before they ever reach the Tavern ... but Brill wasn’t supposed to have come here at all. Hmm? I used the translator to look him up, and there he was.
Physiologically and chemically, Brill was a tee tee arrowhead slant ool, which meant he’d have to carry supplements: pills or a needle. Otherwise he could get what he wanted at any market. Of course any market clerk would see him for an alien. He wouldn’t be too conspicuous if he stayed in the Mount Forel Spaceport area, unless someone called the cops. Me or any Chirpsithra officer. Could he risk that?
Aliens did often possess special, valuable knowledge. If Brill left the Mount Forel area, he might persuade someone that he had, say, the secret of immortality. Hell, it might be true: he might have got it from a Glig. So someone outside might hide him—
But what did he want with the Pazensh?
For the first time I wondered if Brill might have taken the Pazensh female. (For what?) And left Hass behind. (Why?) But if there were a scheme involving the Pazensh, he’d have to hang around. (Where?)
Actually—to a Joker, that might have an answer.
I stripped off my pressure suit behind the bar. “Rory? How’s it go?”
“Rick, the Wids want to try sparkers. Shall I? I thought sparkers were just for Chirpsithra.”
“Sure, and alcohol is just for humans, but a lot of aliens want to try liqueurs. I always, always check their registry.” I reset the translator. “There. Wids are ahn tee hatch nex zep. It won’t injure them.” They wouldn’t like it, though.
He took a couple of sparkers and went, and noticed I was following him. Under a sound suppressor I stopped him. “Rory, you weren’t in last night. There was a Joker name of Brill. It’s a fugitive.”
“Isn’t that up to the Chirps?”
“If I’m right, it’s our problem too. I’m going back to my room. If anything more goes wrong, call Shock Layer. This is what you tell them ...”
Rooms for the staff are roomy enough, and the communal complex includes a pool, some exercise equipment, stuff you’d expect at a mid-level hotel. There’s also quite a lot of security stuff. Staff knows and accepts that I can use a screen in my room to spy on them to a certain extent. Brill would not.
Brill had learned that most of the staff complex was empty. Of course he could be hiding on the endless miles of tundra; but where was the humor in that? And Jokers like it warm. Hiding in the staff complex would be a fine joke on me.
Where? Another species might have chosen the pool or spa.
He might have captured Miranda and taken her room, if he thought she might stumble across him.
I’d told Brill about Jehaneh. My bet was that he was in her room: my own mate’s room.
I hesitated outside the door to my apartment, stun in hand. Opened the door and, for an instant, froze. Another Pazensh was there, partly embedded in something like lime Jell-O. Tenshir wriggled, and I swung left and right with my stun held high, and Brill’s stun got me first.
I was still standing up, stun held high, every muscle rigid in spasm. I concentrated on breathing. It was too slow.
The spindly green-and-white Joker eeled out from under my breakfast table and looked me over. The grin didn’t change, and he didn’t laugh. He stepped toward my door and I heard it close and lock. Something flew past my ear. I heard two solid impacts, one as it hit, one as he fell.
Hass ran past me. I heard another thud, and more. If Hass could have used my stun, Brill would have been a lot better off.
Locked in a full-body cramp, I listened to the lovers talking.
Hass asked, “Do you know a way to get this stuff off you?”
“Only one way. Think of it as the last test.”
“The tavern tender must have left word that he would search here. He’s certainly that bright. In an irritatingly long time some Chirpsithra will arrive to free us and reclaim the Joker.”
“That’s my best answer too. Dear, how did you find me, with the puzzle incomplete and myself in the wrong place?”
“First I looked for the rest of the clue, but nothing was there. I thought, it must be that you were interrupted. We met none but two humans and the Joker last night. Jokers are notorious. Leaving me a broken and empty breeding maze would be a hoot.
“Rick Schumann was hunting the Joker. I can’t use any tool I don’t make myself, but Rick can. I followed Rick. His scent trail disappeared when he put on a pressure suit,
so I had to work out where he’d take such a thing and follow him by eye.”
“You let this local do your tracking for you?”
“I did.”
“Darling, that’s brilliant!”
“He spoke of the staff housing. I found the Joker’s scent there. I found a broken lock. I went through to the pool, then a complex of rooms with Rick’s scent and a female’s. I lurked with a water flask in hand until Rick provided a distraction.”
“Nice toss.”
“Thank you.”
“I had such a nice puzzle laid out for you. There was so much more. Did you find the sticks?”
“No, I went straight to the toilets.”
“Look them up later.”
“I wish I could break you loose from the police goop.”
“Minor foreplay?”
I hadn’t thought other life-forms were as versatile in their petting as humans. Things were getting interesting when the door behind me was blasted open and two identical Chirpsithra came in. One sprayed me in the face with something acerbic. Gradually my frozen muscles relaxed. The other set some humming thing against the green jell, and that melted away from Tenshir.
They put the Joker on a float plate and one Chirp took him away. The other stayed. I thought she would question me; but she did it her way. She led me back into the bar, leaving the Pazensh to use my rooms as they saw fit. She got me to sit down at the biggest table, me with an Irish coffee and her with a sparker, and I told the tale to every entity in the Tavern.
PLAYHOUSE
DAY ZERO
Long View reached lunar orbit as so many Chirpsithramanned passenger ships had done before, but faster, skipping steps. There was a curtness to their negotiations with United Nations traffic control. The lander turned loose from the big ship before its orbit about the Moon was well established.
I was spending a few weeks with Jehaneh and Walt in Saddam Hussein’s palace in Tikrit. The army had turned some of his old palaces into hotels back in the Twenty Zeros. Amenities were primitive and the fad had wilted, so it wasn’t that expensive, considering. Saddam had had lots of interesting playground equipment ... for adults, of course, but Walt was having a good time too.
Then the liner hove into view near the Moon and I was called back. I left Walt and Jehaneh there. The Draco Tavern was no place for a two-and-a-half-year-old boy.
DAY ONE
I got there ahead of my crew.
Reworking the Draco Tavern to accommodate new species takes preparation. I spent a few hours looking around the Tavern, then called the ship to learn what kind of visitors to expect. I was waiting on the line, chatting with the translator device, when four Chirpsithra filed through the tall-and-narrow airlock.
Chirpsithra stand eleven feet tall. They’re exoskeletal creatures, usually wearing tools and pouches and rank marks attached to their scarlet chitin shells. I’ve learned to recognize some of the marks. Three were ranking officers. The fourth wore a sigil I’d never seen before: a triangle with curved edges. They looked around, chattering to each other with their translators turned off.
I pointed at a sparker. Want this? The triangle-bearer spoke in Lottl, and I heard, “Rejected with thanks. Rick Schumann?”
“That’s right.”
“Proprietor of this?”
“Yes, the Draco Tavern. Welcome.”
“Thank you. I am Queeblishiz, Matriarch of Lifesystem Support. We have a—” The translator hesitated. “—situation.”
Running this world’s only interspecies bar for nearly forty years, I’ve seen more “situations” than I could count. I said, “See if you can describe it.”
“Our cold sleep facilities have failed.”
“Oboy,” I said, before my mind quite caught up. How many extra visitors—? “Just a minute. Don’t most of your passengers come down anyway? The Draco Tavern is popular. So’s Earth.”
“Passengers, yes,” Queeblishiz said.
Still speculating, I said, “You’d have to fix what’s broken before you can leave. You’ll play hell finding tools for spacecraft on Earth.” We’d abandoned the Moon more than forty years before the first interstellar liner showed up. “How long?”
“Perhaps forty days. We carry tools to make tools.
That didn’t sound bad. But the other Chirp officers were still chattering at her, and she turned off her translator and chattered back. Then, “Barman, we must upgrade your facilities, particularly your defenses.”
“Defenses?” Ohmygod. Sooner or later it had to happen. “What is Long View, a prison ship?”
“Close. Unlucky guess. Long View is not unusual, a typical passenger liner with cold sleep facilities for prey animals, pets, and children. These are breaking down. The ship is too small, massively too small. We’ll go insane if we can’t set some of our children free on Earth.”
“And prey animals too? Do you plan to run hunts through my place?”
“Those we may slaughter and clone again later. We may require the owners to care for their pets, or slaughter them too. Our concerns are for the children. We have four varieties awake.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” I said.
“Yes, but we must begin at once. We must childproof the Tavern.”
I phoned Arlan and Genevieve and told them the situation.
Staff at the Draco Tavern are always volunteers; they’re scientists come to interact with unearthly intelligences and alien disciplines. Children were not of interest. They both bowed out.
Children and pets are normally barred from the Tavern. Variety in adult tool users has always caused problems enough.
The Chirps put electronic locks on the airlocks and toilets. I worried: what if a child was locked out? Queeblishiz reassured me. The children would have bar codes tattooed on their hides. Only the appropriate locks, and toilets, would open for them ... and they wouldn’t lock with a child inside.
Hah, that lesson must be universal! Walt hasn’t locked us out of a bathroom yet, but it’s a basic intelligence test for grown-ups.
The first child was already down. Djil was a streamlined humanoid massing around two hundred kilos. Most of a human’s features were in place, but she had lids over everything: eyelids, earlids, no nose, no hair, a gristly filter behind the lips, and no obvious openings that a human would cover with clothing. I pictured her as coming from a windy, sandy world.
We put her in a shirt and jeans. She didn’t object.
Djil explored the Draco Tavern and watched Queeblishiz impose childproofing changes. I watched it all carefully. Fragile stuff out of reach or locked away. Stairs blocked with a repel field keyed to the bar codes. Odd chemicals kept out of sight and touch, and that included everything behind and beneath my bar. Most of what I serve is lethal to something.
When a party of anthropologists showed up, Djil served their drinks, then got into an intense discussion of experimental methods.
“Her parents are too big to travel,” Queeblishiz said. “They can arrest the development of children for a time. Djil is nearly seventy years old by your counting. She can babysit, but she must be watched.”
“Why? She sounds like an adult to all intents and purposes.”
“Watch her. Tend her. Djil’s brain has not reached full weight, and she is as self-centered as any child.”
DAY TWO
We barred humans from the Tavern. Protests came from various directions. Sooner or later ... but first we’d better see just how much of a problem the children were.
“There’s no need to think of me as a child,” Djil told me. “I’m older than you. My parents are excessively protective. They tried to stop me from leaving. We reached a compromise. I’m listed as a child, with fewer rights than a passenger.”
“That’s a pity,” I said. “But why were you chosen to guard the younger children?”
“I’m an available sitter, and barred from roaming at will through Long View. The Chirpsithra are economical.”
I’d still keep a watch
on her. She was too big to be taken lightly.
DAY THREE
After two days of work, Matriarch Queeblishiz brought down the children.
The Rainbow Wyrms were snakes, six of them. They were caged when Queeblishiz brought them in on a heavy lift platform. When the field was switched off, they were gone too fast to be visible. For an hour they buzzed around the Tavern, bouncing off the lock fields whenever they got near the bar. They couldn’t fly, but they could jump like coiled springs. They buzzed into corners and under booths, chasing down the mice.
A few minutes wore them out, and they slowed down. They were glittering orange and green, each half a man’s weight, each about three meters long. You could see a fringe of little limbs growing down the ventral line. They slept a lot, usually wrapped in knots around each other. They were friendly to visitors; I could wear one wrapped around my shoulders and neck. They ate small mammals taken from another failing freezer. Visitors would have to be marked with bar codes; any rats and mice in the Tavern were on their own.
Mit, Hel, and Sesch, the Red Demons, were a meter long, exoskeletal, with spiky red armor. “They’ll attack anything their own size including each other,” Queeblishiz said. “I’ll give them police cuffs. They won’t be able to come near each other. We can give them a confined space in the Tavern.”
I suggested, “Outside. You can fence out wolves.”
The Chirp Matriarch accessed some beamed-in source of data. “Wolves? I think our three charges can handle such creatures. Bigger predators might be a problem. We’ll confine them to a patch of tundra and watch them for as long as this warm weather lasts. We can put the Wayward Child outside too.”
