I think I flinched. The woman Jehaneh didn"t. She cogitated, then asked, "What if you shove a beefsteak in her mouth?"

They"re not insects, I wanted to say. I wanted to say. Aliens! Aliens! But n.o.body took offense. All three Gray Mourners chittered in, I a.s.sumed, laughter. But n.o.body took offense. All three Gray Mourners chittered in, I a.s.sumed, laughter.

Wajee said, "Easy to say! No male can think of such a thing when giving generative pellet. Like design and build a parachute while riding hurricane! But what if two males? One male have s.e.x. The other male, he put turkey in Sfillirrath"s mouth."

Jehaneh jumped. "A whole turkey?"

The female smiled widely. Yike! Her jaw hinges disjointed like a snake"s. Sfillirrath was twice the ma.s.s of either male, and her smile could have engulfed my head and shoulders too.

She said, "On Earth, a turkey or dog will serve. Taste wrong, even if feed spices to the animal, but size is right. Size of Wajee"s head, or Shkatht"s head. See you the advantage? Can have s.e.x twice with the same male! Get better with practice, yes, Shkatht?"

"Almost got it right," Shkatht said complacently. "Next time for sure."

Wajee said, "Got to get one part right every time."

They chittered laughter. Wajee said, "Accident can happen. Turkey can escape. Resting male can be distracted, or remember old offense and not move quick."

Sfillirrath said, "But see anti-advantage? Males don"t die. Too many males. Soon every female must have many mates, or else rogue males tear down cities."

Wajee said, "Mating frequency rises too. Too many mouths. Must invent herding."

"Herd, then tend crop to feed herd. Then cities and factories. Then barrier bag over placer tube," Sfillirrath said, "so don"t make a clutch of infants every curse time! Now we mate without mating, but need cities to support factories to make barrier bags, laws and lawmakers to enforce use. Control air and water flow, cycle waste, s.p.a.cecraft to moons for raw resources, first contact with Chirpsithra, beg ride to see the universe and here are we. All for a perversion of nature."

Jehaneh asked the Folk, "How do you keep your numbers in bounds?"

"Breed more dangerous prey," one answered.

The female Gray Mourner asked, "How do humans pervert s.e.x practice?"

I asked the woman, "Shall I take this?" She gestured, Go.

I suppose I shaded the truth a bit toward what she might want to hear. "What Jehaneh said isn"t all true. Most of us don"t mate with anything but adults of the other gender. Most men know know that most women want one mate. Most women that most women want one mate. Most women know know that any man can be seduced. We make bargains and promises and contracts. We compromise. To go against human nature is the most human thing a human being can do." that any man can be seduced. We make bargains and promises and contracts. We compromise. To go against human nature is the most human thing a human being can do."

The Folk laughed. Jehaneh was watching me. I said, "We"re a young species. In an older species the s.e.xual reflexes would be hardwited." I wasn"t sure that would translate, but none of the devices paused. Any s.p.a.ce traveler uses computers. "But with us, s.e.x involves the mind. We"re versatile."

"We have barrier bags too," Jehaneh said. A moment"s eye contact-Condoms, of course, and had I caught the reference? of course, and had I caught the reference? I flashed a smirk. I flashed a smirk.

Still, I wouldn"t be needing a barrier bag tonight The rasp at the back of my throat told me that I"d be snuffling and coughing and gender free. I was lucky it had held off this long.

A Folk asked, "How are you versatile? Male with male? With s.e.xual immature? Outside species?"

Sfillirrath asked, "Triads?"

"You"ve been reading the tabloids," I guessed.

Jehaneh said primly, "All of that has been known to happen. We discourage it."

"There are legends," I said. "Old stories that weren"t written down until centuries after they were made. Mermaids were half woman, half sea life-"

"And mermen," she said.

"Jehaneh, those are modem," I said. "When sailors were all men, mermaids were all women with fish tails and wonderful voices."

Jehaneh asked, "Are you an anthropologist, Rick?"

"Sure."

"What discipline? What"s your education?"

I"d been lecturing on her turf. My head throbbed. It does that sometimes when I"m challenged, but this was the day"s low-level headache lurching into high gear. I must have caught what Gail and Herman had.

I reeled off some of my credits. "If you think about it, I need every every life science to run this place, and e-mail addresses for everyone in the Science Fiction Writers of America. If you"re an anthropologist, you might consider working here for a year or so. We rotate fairly frequently, and both my steadies are out at the moment-" life science to run this place, and e-mail addresses for everyone in the Science Fiction Writers of America. If you"re an anthropologist, you might consider working here for a year or so. We rotate fairly frequently, and both my steadies are out at the moment-"

"No, I"m a bacteriologist."

Bacteriologist? How was I going to get closer to a bacteriologist? I was trying to plan for the long range ... and the aliens weren"t following this at all.

I said, "We humans, we do seem wired up to mate with strangers, outside the tribe. At least in fiction, yeah, Jehaneh, we"d mate with anything. Fairies were powerful aliens, nearly human, not very well described. Humans with goat horns or animal heads, goat legs, fish tails, wings. Some were that that tall," hands eight inches apart, "others the size of mountains. Spirits in trees and pools of water, angels and devils and G.o.ds from various myths and religions, they all mated with human beings in some stories. I"m telling you what"s buried in our instincts. We don"t always act on our instincts." I realized I was rambling. tall," hands eight inches apart, "others the size of mountains. Spirits in trees and pools of water, angels and devils and G.o.ds from various myths and religions, they all mated with human beings in some stories. I"m telling you what"s buried in our instincts. We don"t always act on our instincts." I realized I was rambling.

"Rick, do you have any visual aids about?"

I gaped. Jehaneh"s smile seemed innocent, but the question was impish.

"I don"t think so." A raunchy thought crossed my mind. "Do a demonstration?"

"I don"t think you"ll be up for that," Jehaneh said.

"No, not tonight ... flu."

She shook her head. "Invader. I came here to keep it confined."

Confined. Invader. Bacteriologist. A murky truth congealed: I didn"t have the flu. Some alien disease had come with the Chirpsithra ship. I started to say something to Jehaneh, tried to stop myself, and found my thoughts running away like water.

The Wahartht leapt to the table, then the wall. He scuttled toward an upper window, his thirty-six fingers finding purchase where there was none. Jehaneh reached into her purse.

In that moment"s distraction I turned to run... wondered what I was doing ... and every muscle locked in terror. Not even my scream could get out. The G.o.d-d.a.m.ned flu was thinking with my brain!

Jehaneh aimed her purse. The Wahartht fell, stunned. I saw it all from the comer of my eye. I couldn"t turn my head to watch.

Jehaneh reached forward and turned off my translator. She spoke into her own. "Bring them in."

I couldn"t lift my arms. Escape was impossible: the host was fighting me. My head was beating like a big drum.

Sfillirrath"s long, fragile arms set a cap of metal mesh on my head. She spoke into her own translator. It was a Chirp make, crudely rewired. I heard, but not with my ears and not in any language of Earth, ~For your life, you must speak.~ I chose not to answer.

Two armored men took charge of the Wahartht. One took his breather and dropped it in a bag and sealed it, and set another on his face.

Gail and Herman came in. They bent above me, looking worried. Gail said, "Rick? You"re very sick. We were too, but they cured us-"

"Don"t agree to anything!" Herman said fiercely. "Not unless you want to make medical history!"

Sfillirrath spoke. -See you these humans. You took them for hosts some days ago, you and your Wahartht p.a.w.n. Your colonies bred too fast for their health. In another day they would have killed them, but human defenders acted first. Most of your colonies on the ship are dead too. How did you reward a Wahartht, to make him betray so many?~ I said, not with my voice, ~Simulate mating. The drug he takes to tranquilize depression does not leave him alert and happy. I do.~ ~And what fool would a.s.sume that sapient beings cannot fight bacterial invasion? It may be you are not truly sapient.~ Stung, I answered, ~Am a star-traveling species. Hold many worlds.~ ~Your number in the host is?~ ~Currently ten to the ninth operators, one ent.i.ty. Operators are not sapient, not me. me.~ ~Breed to ten times as many, ent.i.ty becomes smarter?~ ~Only a little.~ ~But too many for host. Rick Schumann would die. Kill host, is that intelligent?~ The voice in my mind asked, ~Fool, do you expect intelligence to stop an ent.i.ty from breeding?~ I thought that was a funny remark, so I added, "Ask any elected official." My voice was an inaudible whisper.

Gail said, "Rick, the Chirp liner is still near the Moon. The point was to get all the tourists into closed cycle life support and not start a panic on Earth. There"s a sapient microscopic life-form loose. This rogue Wahartht has been leaning over our drinks with his breather on, distributing the bacterium as a powder, in encysted form. Normally it spreads as a, um, a social disease. Under proper circ.u.mstances it is a civilized ent.i.ty, not especially trustworthy but it can be held to contracts. But as a disease it could ravage the Earth."

I could barely blink.

"We can make treaties with sapient cl.u.s.ters of the bacterium. That"s you. Some species can"t tolerate it at all, and some cl.u.s.ters won"t negotiate. Some aliens won"t volunteer as carriers, either. Herman and me, we would have. h.e.l.l, we"re grad students! But there wasn"t time. They rushed us to the Medical facility and shot us full of sulfa drugs."

Sfillirrath had gone on talking. ~There is a chemical approach to halt your cell division. Antibiotics would kill you entirely, as they have killed your other colonies. Which will you have?~ I felt terror from both sides of my mind. ~If my operators do not fission, still they die. When the numbers drop enough, I am gone. You would make me mortal!~ ~Give you empathy with your host.~ ~Monster, pervert! What would you know of empathy? I will accept the contraceptive.~ ~You must buy it,~ Sfillirrath said coolly. ~This first dose is our gift.~ "Jehaneh, give him the first shot." ~Two boosters to come, else the sulfa drugs. We will discuss terms.~ Jehaneh pulled down my belt and pushed a hypodermic needle into the glutial muscle. I barely felt the sting.

I listened to Sfillirrath"s terms, and agreed to them. They included measures for the health of my host. My host was to be treated for arthritis, cholesterol buildup, distorted eyesight, a knee injury, flawed teeth. I was not to make colonies without permission of a willing host. Jehaneh offered herself as a host, under rigidly defined conditions, and I agreed to those. Xenologists of many species would interview me periodically.

I was feeling more lucid. When I could stand up, they escorted me off to the Medical facility.

Morning. I lay on a flat plate with a sensor array above me. I"d never seen the Draco Tavern Medical facility from this viewpoint. I lay on a flat plate with a sensor array above me. I"d never seen the Draco Tavern Medical facility from this viewpoint.

I felt wonderful. Rolled out of bed and did a handstand, something I hadn"t done in some time.

Jehaneh caught me at it. "I"m glad to see you"re up to exercise," she said. "What do you remember?"

"First flu, then an invasion, now it"s an emba.s.sy. Jehaneh, I can hear it. It"s thinking with my brain. I think it"s got the hots for you, but that could be just me."

"We agreed that I"ll take a colony from you. Remember?"

"No. That sounds risky! Jehaneh, it would be like being an amba.s.sador to, well, Iraq."

"They do build emba.s.sies in Iraq," she said, "and this is a star-traveling intelligence. What might I learn?"

"Huh. Your choice. And it"ll fix..." I was remembering more of the negotiations. "I thought I was in pretty good health, but it wants to do a lot of fixing. To show how useful it can be. You"re the brain it really wants."

"Do you remember that it"s a s.e.xually transmitted, um, ent.i.ty?"

I did. I leered.

We talked much as we had last night, but on a more personal level. Ultimately she asked, "We"ve both had the usual blood tests, yes? Our guest would fix that anyway. Do you have room for me here? Just until I can get infected." She didn"t like that word. "Colonized," she said.

"Positively. Maybe I can talk you into staying longer? My bed has one or two unearthly entertainment features. And if a hundred breeds of alien are going to be interviewing your guest, well, the Draco Tavern has the best communication and life-support systems on Earth."

She smiled. "We"ll see."

SSOROGHOD"S PEOPLE

A week after the first Chirpsithra liner arrived, a second ship winkled out of interstellar s.p.a.ce. It paused to exchange courtesies with the ship now hovering alongside the Moon, then pulled up next to it. week after the first Chirpsithra liner arrived, a second ship winkled out of interstellar s.p.a.ce. It paused to exchange courtesies with the ship now hovering alongside the Moon, then pulled up next to it.

It was as big as the liner whose pa.s.sengers had filled the Draco Tavern for seven nights now. We"d never had two of these in dock. The media were going nuts, of course. I worried about all these extra aliens. How was I going to fit them in?

The Draco Tavern"s ceilings are high enough for bird a.n.a.logues to fly. I could set some tables floating....

When a handful of Chirpsithra crew came in, I took the opportunity to ask. "How many more tables am I going to need?"

"One," said a ship"s officer. "One occupant."

"How big?" The Chirpsithra deal with ent.i.ties bigger than a blue whale.

"Ssoroghod is one of us, a Chirpsithra. Sss," as she touched the sparker with her fingertips. "She flies a long-term habitat and environment-shaping system. Much cargo s.p.a.ce," she said.

Next day a ship"s boat drifted down the magnetic lines to Mount Forel. Presently an inflated sphere rolled across the hard November tundra, attached itself to one of the Tavern"s airlocks, and deflated to let in a Chirpsithra.

The newcomer made for the bar, pa.s.sing six crew from the first ship. They all look alike, or pretty close, but I noticed differences. The newcomer"s decorative crest (and news and entertainment set) was in a very different style. Her salmon armor differed just a bit, graying at the edges of the plates. She was old.

One spoke to her. She chose not to hear, walked regally past, and was at the bar. To me she said, "Dispenser, a sparker."

I had one ready. The chirps only have, or only show, this one sin.

She put her thumbs on the sparker and kept them there. I"d never seen a Chirp do that. Her antennae were trembling. She was getting too much of a charge.

She let go. Her posture shifted, lolling. She said, "Dispenser, sparkers for my companions at table zith-mm. Tell them to remember-" She rattled off numbers in her own language.

I took sparkers to the chirps" table. Props. They already had theirs. I said, "A gift from the citizen at the bar. She sent you a message." My translator also records. I ran it back to the right time and played it for them.

One said, "A location."

"That was her her station," another said. "Whee-Nisht variants one through four. Ssoroghod had them in her charge. She sent us sparkers?" station," another said. "Whee-Nisht variants one through four. Ssoroghod had them in her charge. She sent us sparkers?"

"Memorial," said a third. "They must be extinct."

"She will not talk to us. Ssoroghod was always unsocial."

I asked, "Can you tell me what"s wrong with her?"

They looked at each other. I thought they wouldn"t answer, but one said, "She may choose suicide."

"How would I stop that?"

"Why would you?"

Death has happened in the Draco Tavern. Once it was a memorial service with the main guest alive until halfway through. Both times, the individuals kept it neat. I still don"t like it.