Shkatht shrugged, a disturbing sight. "A convergence must evolve the concepts of communication. Some remember from earlier ages. Some won"t bother."

"I"ll think about it," I said, and I poured him tea with a different liqueur. Shkatht extruded a snorkel from his tremendous mouth and drank.

He asked, "Are you disturbed by the company?"

"I like aliens. Even so, how many humans have you got room for?"

"How many must you have?"

"I"ll think about it." Four, well chosen, might be enough to keep each other sane.

"You have little time to think. Chimes In Harmony Chimes In Harmony prepares to depart. Pa.s.sengers are gathering now. Entropy is having its way with you, Rick. Think how long you might live." prepares to depart. Pa.s.sengers are gathering now. Entropy is having its way with you, Rick. Think how long you might live."

I said, "The Old Mind has immortality. It doesn"t die. What it knows doesn"t die. And if it ever-" I stopped.

Sfillirrath had emptied a bottle of maple syrup. Gail approached her with another. Sfillirrath spoke to her. She listened. Nodded.

Shkatht asked, "Why did you stop talking?"

"Shkatht, it never cl.u.s.ters all all of itself, does it?" of itself, does it?"

"How could that be, since twelve billion years ago? It has spread itself across the universe. But we think the Old Mind almost stopped manufacturing new elements, long ago, and we think we know why. It would have become the dominant natural force in the universe. Nothing interesting could happen after that.

"We wonder if it was too powerful for a time. For billions of years following the Old Mind"s expansion, we see no sign of other intelligence-"

"Rick," asked Gail, "may I speak to you?"

They took an established science fiction writer from Sri Lanka.

They took the manager of the San Diego Zoo.

They took Gail.

They wanted humans with a record for getting along with minds unlike their own. I hope three humans are enough to keep each other sane.

I didn"t go.

After all, I have this bar. All the traffic between Earth and the universe pa.s.ses through the Draco Tavern.

There have been other convergences of the Old Mind. Other Chirpsithra liners must have gone to visit them. Sooner or later the stories will come home to the Draco Tavern. All I have to do is wait.

CHRYSALIS.

After Apparent Dischord"s Apparent Dischord"s lander docked, the Flutterbies came to the Draco Tavern every day. lander docked, the Flutterbies came to the Draco Tavern every day.

The Chirpsithra called its kind something multisyllabic, with a juicy sound. My translator rendered this as "Flutterby." There were seven. They more nearly resembled caterpillars: segmented worms with a couple of dozen frail legs that bunched up near a complicated face with a triple jaw. They weighed half what I did. In Siberian winter they didn"t use pressure suits, nor even clothing for warmth, but backpacks rode behind their heads.

They"d enter through the long-and-low airlock and split up. They were gregarious: they mixed with their fellow travelers and humans too. I spent an hour listening to two of them argue philosophy with a grad student from Washburn U, veering over into quantum physics and astrophysics and evolutionary theory, hitting her in stereo, shooting down every theory she raised.

On the seventh day one Flutterby stayed behind when the rest left. She said, "I hope you will hire me to wait on tables."

The idea tickled me. I"d never had an alien working in the Tavern. Besides, I needed a replacement for Gail, who had gone off aboard Chimes In Harmony Chimes In Harmony to find the Old Mind and wouldn"t be back until after I was dead. to find the Old Mind and wouldn"t be back until after I was dead.

Of course I could see problems. "Your environmental designation-"

"Tee tee asterisk squiggle ool," she said, "but my supplement box compensates." The caterpillar lifted a feeler to tap the flat bag that rode her back. "I can tolerate a tee tee hatch nex ool environment and Earth"s temperature and humidity spectrum. Ultraviolet light would be dangerous; will I need to spend time outside?"

"No. Why do you want to do this?"

"My reasons will not harm you nor your dependents. I will work for food and shelter."

I asked, "Are you underage?"

Our translators may have botched that. She said, "I am older than you are. Child-labor laws cannot apply. Wish you to know if I am an adult? Of course not I am an incipient female, maturity delayed. Wish you to know if I can bind myself with promises? I can."

Aurora didn"t have a name until I gave her one.

Aurora worked for scale: there"s a union in Mount Forel Town. Still, scale is cheap. My staff has to face daily crises never described outside of old science fiction magazines. They all have doctorates, and they all work for high salaries.

Food and housing might be a problem. Aurora had said that nourishment was covered. Her backbag included a supplement box that would take care of allergies and dietary deficiencies, and the "ool" designation gave her an herbivorous but flexible diet. As for housing, I had to improvise. The food storage lockers under the Tavern are versatile-have to be-so we reprogrammed one of those.

Some of the human anthropologists who came in were surprised and amused. I don"t believe any of my alien customers were startled to find Aurora serving their drinks and such, barring one, and that was her own species.

They wriggled in through the long-and-low airlock, all six of them, two days after Aurora started work. They ordered as usual: a green glop, rich in fiber, stored cool but not frozen, and they needed lots. lots. I sent Aurora with it. Their eyestalks avoided her, scanned in wide arcs around her and the big bowl of glop, as they slithered toward the long-and-low airlock. One stopped to register a credit to pay for the abandoned order. They didn"t speak to Aurora. I sent Aurora with it. Their eyestalks avoided her, scanned in wide arcs around her and the big bowl of glop, as they slithered toward the long-and-low airlock. One stopped to register a credit to pay for the abandoned order. They didn"t speak to Aurora.

Aurora seemed pleased afterward. When I asked her about it, she claimed it was personal, swore it wouldn"t affect the Draco Tavern"s business, and refused to speak further on the subject.

The Chirpsithra run the interstellar liners. They"re talkative creatures who claim to own the galaxy. They do, if you only count red dwarf stars. The Draco Tavern was built according to their plans, partly financed by them too. They"re generally eager to help when problems arise. But when something annoys them, I"ve known them to play practical jokes.

So I try not to bother the Chirpsithra every time I need data. I have other options.

For instance: the translator devices. They have access to a vast library. It"s hard to believe that something that fits in a large pocket or small purse carries that much storage, but it certainly doesn"t use the computers on the Chirpsithra liners. The liners...o...b..t the Moon. There would be a lightspeed delay, and there isn"t.

I think the pocket translators must be artificial intelligences in their own right.

I tried: {Flutterby [with a "species" suffix] + immature + employment} and got this: Plant-eater, carbon base, rocky/oxygen/water world, G4 sun. Interplanetary-level industry. Immature Flutterbies above sixty-one point eight kilograms may enter binding contracts to perform service. Servants and machinery take one p.r.o.noun; citizens take another.

(Slaves were equivalent to machinery? That sounded like a rigid caste system at work.) {Flutterby + travel} got me too much material, a long lifetime"s study. {Flutterby + interstellar travel + contractual} told me what hundreds of the Flutterby species had done to themselves in order to ride the Chirpsithra liners. Armed with that I confronted Aurora.

It was a dead morning: just us two and a sessile creature drinking alone. I asked, "How old are you, Aurora?"

"In Earth orbits, near seventy," she said, "ship time. Longer than that given relativistic effects." She reared up to polish the big mirror over the bar, avoiding my eyes, catching them anyway in the reflection. "We postpone our maturity by chemical means."

"I can see wanting to live a long time," I said. "Why not grow up first?"

"Rick, how can you bear to ask such personal questions of a waitron?"

"Why not?"

"But we are not of similar caste and rank!"

"I"m your boss," I said. "I"d be handicapped if I didn"t know something about you."

Her eyestalks telescoped forward and back, studying me. "Very well. Our mature form is little more than a s.e.x organ with wings. We have no digestive organs and little brains. We live ten or eleven days after we emerge from chrysalis form," Aurora said. "I surmise that biotamperers among the Gligst.i.th(click)optok or Chirpsithra might contrive to make an adult Flutterby immortal, and even find some way to keep her from starving. But she would be decoration, not companion. Companions, citizens, minds are found only in children. When an elder becomes a chrysalis, she has younger sibs and children of sibs to protect her until she emerges to fly. Over hundreds of thousands of orbits our line has evolved to live longer, to postpone the mating flight so that we may become more capable of defending our genetic line."

"These other Flutterbies, are they your sibs?"

"They are my mating group-wives and husbands," the translator said.

"Why did they leave when they saw you?"

"I have changed caste/rank. They don"t know what to do," she said smugly. "They can order service of me, but only in context of our positions. Else they cannot speak to me, cannot persuade me to ... persuade me of anything."

"What would they want from you?"

"To go home."

"Then what? Set your metabolism running again? Become an adult?" She avoided my eyes. I asked, "Mate?"

"Mate and breed and die," she affirmed.

"What do you you want, Aurora?" want, Aurora?"

"Stay here. Work here. Wait until my mating group leaves Earth."

"What if they don"t leave?"

"Their berths are aboard Apparent Dischord. Apparent Dischord. They would lose those, as will I. When the next ship arrives, I may try to get a berth. Then again, your Draco Tavern is a convergence of voyagers. Here I would find a life as interesting as theirs." They would lose those, as will I. When the next ship arrives, I may try to get a berth. Then again, your Draco Tavern is a convergence of voyagers. Here I would find a life as interesting as theirs."

The Flutterbies boycotted the Draco Tavern for about four months.

Then, on a day when rumor suggested that Apparent Dischord"s Apparent Dischord"s time was running short, all six Flutterbies filed in and split into pairs. time was running short, all six Flutterbies filed in and split into pairs.

The Tavern was crowded. They found conversations rapidly. Corliss and Jehaneh went to take orders and didn"t come back.

The philosophy grad student, Berda Wilsonn, had returned with a cla.s.smate. They"d chosen a big table, inviting company. A Chirp officer joined them, then two Flutterbies. The others all raised their lift chairs two feet off the floor, to match the height of the Chirpsithra.

I eavesdropped a little. At the Wilsonn table it sounded like they were discussing fear. At other tables Corliss and Jehaneh were both bogged down in conversations, over-complex orders, discussions of cuisine....

It looked to me like some kind of setup.

Well, if it turned sticky, there were Chirpsithra present. I could turn to them as authorities. I left Aurora behind the bar and went to Wilsonn"s table to take their orders myself.

The Chirpsithra said, "Please, will you have an Irish coffee with us, Rick?"

"It"s a busy ... yes, of course, glad to." I dismissed the notion of begging off. The Chirp bore rank markings: she was an officer. If this was a game, I could a.s.sume she was a player. I sat down, glanced at Aurora behind the bar.

The Chirp asked, "What are you afraid of, Rick?"

"What, now?" now?"

"I mean in the general sense."

"Lots of things," I said. "Pain. Injury. Taxes. Weird new laws. You?"

"Change, death, ignorance," she said. "You have seen how little we Chirpsithra tolerate change, how a.s.siduously we avoid death. We seek knowledge everywhere."

"But don"t all living things avoid change and death? And hey, animals generally evolve better senses as they get more complex."

"These are not universals," said the Chirp. "Berda, would you repeat-"

"I said I sometimes have nightmares about making social mistakes," Berda Wilsonn said. "Wouldn"t that be fear of ignorance?"

I asked, "What about pain?"

Aurora arrived.

The Chirp officer already had a sparker. I asked for a cappuccino: I"d better lay off the alcohol. While Aurora took our orders, the Flutterbies and the grads talked. I hate that Never let a waiter escape Never let a waiter escape isn"t slavery; it just means don"t leave the poor waitron standing there while you talk around her. Anyway, the crosstalk was confusing my translator. isn"t slavery; it just means don"t leave the poor waitron standing there while you talk around her. Anyway, the crosstalk was confusing my translator.