One said, "She spoke to you. Rick Schumann, let her talk. She may persuade herself to live."

Humans use the bar chairs when they need to talk to the bartender. Most of the chirps" clients need a tailored environment; they go to the tables, which can be enclosed. The bar doesn"t get much action from aliens. Chirps themselves can breath Earth"s air; it"s the lighting that gets to them.

At the bar tonight there was only Ssoroghod, eleven feet tall though she weighed no more than I did, armored in red exoskeletal plates fading to gray at the edges, and some prosthetic gear. I told her, "The tables might have lighting more to your taste."

"I do not want the company of my kind. This bluer light, I endured it for-" She gave a number. My translator said, "-One million thirty thousand years."

Mistranslation? I said, "That"s a long time."

Nothing.

"What were you doing?"

"Watching."

I guessed: "Watching the Whee-Nisht? Variants one through four?"

She said, "Variants two and three made pact, inter-mated, merged, crowded out the others. They were competing for too limited an environment. Variants one and four died out."

"Why were you watching them?"

For a minute I thought she wouldn"t answer. Should I leave her alone, or risk driving her away? Then she said, "We found a species on the verge of sapience.

""The Whee-Nisht held a limited environment, a sandy coastline along the eastern sh.o.r.e of the megacontinent. Their metabolism was based on silicon dioxide. They adapted too well to the local diet, gravity, lighting, salinity of water, local symbiotes. They would never conquer any large part of their own world, let alone go among the stars. I could study them and still stay out of their way. This was the basis on which I was given permission to watch them evolve.

"I watched them grow along the Fertile Band. I was pleased when they tamed other life-forms and bred them for desired traits. Though sworn not to interfere with their development, I did divert a meteoroid impact that would have altered local coastlines. They might have gone extinct." She touched the sparker, just brushed it. "But they might have evolved flexibility. I cannot know. Mistake or no, I shifted the killer rock.

"Their numbers then grew overgreat. I wondered if I must act again, but they adapted, developed a yeast for contraception. It was their first clear act to change themselves."

"What went wrong?"

She focused on me. I had the impression that she was only now seeing me.

"Dispenser ... Rick Schumann ... do you use something like sparkers? A jolt to change your viewpoint?"

I said my kind used alcohol. At her invitation I made myself an Irish coffee. I sipped meagerly. Being drunk might be bad.

She said, "Whee-Nisht have completed a cycle, a pattern. They are extinct. Does that always mean something has gone wrong?"

"It would to me," I said.

Her head nodded above me. Thumbs brushed the sparker. Then, "I saw no reason to interfere when they altered other life-forms. They made and shaped and reshaped foodstuffs, beasts of burden, guard beasts. Yeast a.n.a.logues became flavoring for food, medicines, perception-altering substances. Plants were bred taller and stronger, to improve structure for their housing, then water-going vessels to explore beyond their domain. When they began using similar techniques to shape themselves, I saw startling implications.

"I acted at once," she said. "I set a terraforming project in motion on a large island just beyond their horizon. My intent was to build an environment the match for their own, without affecting theirs. Guiding weather patterns required exquisite care. When I finished, there was an island that might house the Whee-Nisht, and a sandy peninsula pointing straight at it.

"Now I-"

I asked, "Why?"

She focused on me. "They had shaped the contraceptive yeast Now they began to breed their offspring and siblings and dependents to make patterns, to conserve wealth and power relations and to shape offspring more to their liking. Crimes were defined and criminals were subject to mental reshaping. I asked myself, how would they otherwise tamper with their selves? One mistake would drive them extinct. It has happened to other species, over and over. Dispenser, what is it your kind uses for reproductive code?"

"Deoxyribonucleic acid," I said.

"The Whee-Nisht used a different code, being silicon oxide based, but no matter. I was in a race for their lives. By the time they learned how to manipulate their own genetics, I was done. The ocean currents were bringing them bubble plants, telling them of a second habitat beyond the water. They built exploring vehicles, and they found it."

"Ships?"

"Great translucent tubes, grown as plants, that rolled along sand or waves. They reached my second land and named it Antihome. I watched them build a base and explore from there. I waited for them to enlarge it. My intent was that they would build a city. Nearby they could do their biological experiments, where any mistake could be confined."

She touched the sparkers again, held too long. I waited.

She asked, "Do you understand why this self-tampering kills so many species? It is so easy, so cheap. Knowledge of genetic code is not needed. What you like, breeds. What you don"t like, you uproot. Planned breeding may take generations, but not wealth. It is exploration that eats wealth. Your kind could tamper with yourselves for a million years for the cost of putting a city on your Moon, using your own primitive techniques.

"But you, you have the option! Most species could not travel between worlds. It would kill them. The Whee-Nisht could barely cross a channel, half dead of motion sickness and running like thieves along their rolling ship, and reach an island prepared for them.

"And they threw it away.

"They explored, and came home, and stopped. They abandoned their bases, their tools, everything.

"Their laboratories shaped a cure for a genetic disorder out of a yeast variant. They did not guess that it would prevent the next generation from breeding. They did not guess that it would spread through their spiraclea.n.a.logues and infect all. I watched them grow old and die, and this time I did not interfere."

I asked, "Did you ask advice from other ... xenoanthropologists ? Others of your profession?" Amateur G.o.dlings? But a million years of practice does not leave an amateur.

"No."

Was she a jealous G.o.d? Or-"Ssoroghod, were you exiled?"

"No and yes. There was a professional quarrel, my view against the galaxy"s. I could not return until I knew answers I could show. So, here I am returned, and the answer is that I was wrong. What else must you know, intrusive creature?"

As an invitation to go away, that was hardly subtle. I asked instead, "Why did you Chirpsithra contact Earth?"

"I knew nothing of it. It was not my decision," Ssoroghod said.

"We went to the Moon, and came back, and stopped. We were fiddling with DNA, but we weren"t doing it in any lunar dome. I was just old enough to see how stupid that was, and I couldn"t do anything about it," I said. "You saved us. Why?"

"Merchants," said Ssoroghod. "They follow their own rules. You might have something of interest to ent.i.ties with other forms of wealth to trade. So they interfere."

"I owe them," I said. I drank an unspoken toast to the Whee-Nisht.

"Dispenser, it may be you would have come to your senses. Experiments done in your own living s.p.a.ce are lethal. You might have explored your Moon under pressure of fear, built your domed city and your nearby protected laboratories, and saved yourselves. You can never know."

I knew.

Ssoroghod said, "And the Whee-Nisht might have accepted my island despite the cost. I could not rob them of the chance! They chose convenience over adventure, short term over long. I gave them most of my lifespan, and they threw it away. I will beg a ride home and make another life for myself." She strode over to a tableful of Chirpsithra crew and began to talk.

And I made myself another Irish coffee, but it was my own species I toasted.

THE MISSING Ma.s.s.

Midmorning Sat.u.r.day, the fourth day after the landings, the Draco Tavern was frantic.

You never can tell how the biorhythms of a score of alien species will interact after the landers come down. None of them cycle through exactly twenty-four hours unless they medicate themselves. The first two days I"d been swamped in the mornings. The evenings had been half dead.

Gail, Jehaneh, and Herman were all on duty. Nearing noon, they seemed to have it under control. I could almost relax.

The Draco Tavern is all one room. During the remodeling the bar became a ring in the middle set higher than the main floor, to give me a chance to look around. This many disparate life-forms don"t always get along. I"ve learned diplomacy. I"ve got stun gear too.

Four Low Jumbos huddled close around a table, almost hiding it. Low Jumbos like crowds. They only show up when there"s no room for them. Their bodies shook; the roar of their laughter leaked through the privacy shields as a synchronized ba.s.s huf huf huf. huf huf huf. Their combined bulk nearly hid an ent.i.ty their own size, the Terminator Beaver working with his computer against the west wall. Their combined bulk nearly hid an ent.i.ty their own size, the Terminator Beaver working with his computer against the west wall.

Ten Bebebebeque, sixteen-inch-tall golden bugs, perched around the rim of a table conversing with a Chirpsithra and a gray-and-pink jellyfish in a big gla.s.s tank of foamy water ... big enough to crush my table, it looked like, so it must be sitting on a magnetic float. The jellyfish was new to me. Harsh blue light shone down from the top of the tank, illuminating an intricate internal structure and five dark, wiry tentacles knotted at the center. Evolution beneath a hot, fast-b.u.ming sun would explain why they hadn"t adapted to the land ... if there was land where they evolved. Water worlds seem to be common.

Jehaneh set a tray on their table. The water creature used skeletal waldo arms to move a pink canape through its little airlock. I watched the canape slide into its translucent interior.

Jehaneh came back to the bar, looking pleasantly bemused. "Carpaccio flavored with sea salt," she said. "Do all the seagoing forms want red meat?"

"Mammal meat is higher energy than they"re used to. They all have to try it, but it makes them hyper. Sometimes they get sick."

"I need four more sparkers," she said, "and four bull shots."

There were Chirpsithra at most of the tables. They"re the ones who use the sparkers, and they make and run the interstellar ships. They look like attenuated crustaceans, three meters tall and higher, and are red like a boiled lobster.

Four humans in Arab robes settled around a table. Iraqi seem to have rediscovered the pursuit of wisdom. Aliens made overtures, and they broke into pairs. Two joined the Low Jumbos. Two took high chairs to talk to a Chirpsithra.

A man stopped in shock in the double door airlock.

He didn"t look like the usual run of xen.o.biologist or diplomat. Short, pale of skin, oriental eyes, straight black hair going gray, a comfortable old suit and weird tie, a laptop computer hanging from one hand. He wore the vague look of a scholar with a wandering mind. It took him a moment to recover his aplomb.

Then he made his circuitous way toward the bar, shying wide of aliens, way wide of the Folk, who laughed at him with lolling tongues, like a pack of wolves with their heads on upside down.

I was human. He was really, really glad to see me. He set the computer on the bar and asked, "Can you make me an Irish coffee?" English accent overlaid on something oriental. Having second thoughts, "Leave out the whiskey."

I told him, "I can do coffee any way you want it, or espresso, cappuccino-"

"Cappuccino would be perfect."

He didn"t try to talk over the shriek of live steam. He opened his laptop and booted it up. In the sudden quiet that followed he said, "I"m Roger Teng-Hui. I"m looking for someone."

I asked, "Human or alien?"

"E-mail correspondent," he said. "I"m looking for Helmuthdip." He turned the Toshiba around. He had World Online up and running.

I read an e-mail message from : : If the Chirpsithra have such a power source, they may be willing to share it. A Human diplomat might ask. If the Chirpsithra have such a power source, they may be willing to share it. A Human diplomat might ask.

I asked him, "Power source?"

"He thinks the Chirpsithra are using the energy of the vacuum."

I let that crypticism go past me. "When did you first contact this "Helmuthdip"?"

"Wednesday evening."

"What"s he want?"

"He seems to want me to put political pressure on the crew from that starship! At first he didn"t mention politics, interstellar or otherwise. I took him for human."

The Chirp liner Scrilbree Zesh Scrilbree Zesh had been in place near the Moon last Tuesday morning. The landers were down before Wednesday noon. Give "Helmuthdip" a couple of hours to buy a computer in Forelgrad and play with it a little.... I said, "The timing"s tight. You don"t know the species?" had been in place near the Moon last Tuesday morning. The landers were down before Wednesday noon. Give "Helmuthdip" a couple of hours to buy a computer in Forelgrad and play with it a little.... I said, "The timing"s tight. You don"t know the species?"

"I thought he was human! He had a Web site up, a discussion group on the problem of the missing ma.s.s. My filter program caught it. The site didn"t look active. It was just him."

I waited.

"I didn"t think I was dealing with a political pressure group. He knew knew things. He was things. He was interested. interested. You know, a dedicated astrophysics site would have been You know, a dedicated astrophysics site would have been easy easy before the Chirpsithra came. I"ve been teaching on PBS and the Net for twenty years. Most of my students have disappeared, and I"m the only teacher left." before the Chirpsithra came. I"ve been teaching on PBS and the Net for twenty years. Most of my students have disappeared, and I"m the only teacher left."

Herman asked for Arabian coffee for the Iraqis. He took the tiny cups and went off, and I said, "I suppose the problem is that the Chirpsithra know it all."

Teng grimaced. "Do they really?"

"They say so. Their pa.s.sengers say so. Sometimes they play jokes. I might buy that they know everything they want to," I said, "and what they don"t know, their pa.s.sengers know, and when they don"t, they bluff. I"m used to it. I never thought about it from a teacher"s viewpoint, but ... it must be like everybody"s sitting around waiting for the answers!"

"Flipping to the back of the book. Give me another cappuccino. Grand Marnier on the side. Do they ever make mistakes, or are all of these ent.i.ties too advanced?"

"Oh, they make mistakes." A qarashteel had come to Earth to make cheap war movies ... but I shouldn"t blurt that that out to just anyone. "Your alien would still have had to learn how to use the Internet. Maybe a human being showed him. Let me try something," I said. I linked into the Britannica"s universal encyclopedia site, found what I wanted, and turned the screen around. out to just anyone. "Your alien would still have had to learn how to use the Internet. Maybe a human being showed him. Let me try something," I said. I linked into the Britannica"s universal encyclopedia site, found what I wanted, and turned the screen around.

" "Helmuth speaks for Boskone." Early science fiction. Helmuth was a s.p.a.ce pirate, and a "dip" is a pickpocket. You"re looking for a s.p.a.cegoing petty thief. Excuse me." Things had gotten busy around the big table, and I went off to deal with it.

The Draco Tavern has always been as much a fast-food joint as a bar, but our supplies and capabilities have expanded over the years. We charge too much because we have to keep too much stuff around, and we have to be too careful what happens to it. Most of this stuff would poison most of the life-forms we get in here, and that does does include the booze. include the booze.

A Chirpsithra knew me, though I didn"t recognize her. You can"t tell Chirps apart; they"re gene-engineered to identical perfection. I gestured at the Low Jumbos and asked her, "Do they like crowds that much? Or should I be getting bigger tables?"

"You would not see the end of that endeavor! These"-something breathy-"are not the largest of our clients!"

Other Chirps chittered laughter. One said, "There are life-forms that would not fit in any imaginable vehicle!"