The Draco Tavern serves every species that travels with the Chirpsithra interstellar liners. Our storage s.p.a.ce has to be huge, but stuff for human consumption is stacked along one short wall. I picked him a cranberry soda, then took a moment to get my nerve back.

Last night he"d called himself a xenosociologist. His speech, his walk, his look were all different. There weren"t many aliens in the bar last night, and two or three times as many humans. Webber had started talking to a Gligst.i.th(click)optok.

What I know about the Glig is privileged. I"d given Webber no more warning than what we tell everybody. n.o.body gets near Mount Forel, Siberia, without hearing it a dozen times: These are ETIs, interstellar travelers. Gangrene is your ferst cousin compared to these ent.i.ties. They don"t think like you do.... These are ETIs, interstellar travelers. Gangrene is your ferst cousin compared to these ent.i.ties. They don"t think like you do....

They"d gone to a table and turned on a privacy shield.

The Glig showed him wonders. I"ve seen their toys, technology beyond anything we"ve been able to borrow or copy, and weird little plants and animals. They talked half the night. At two in the morning, with the low July sun coming around from behind Mount Forel, Webber and the Glig went off toward the lander.

And here he was again, but changed.

I"ve run the Draco Tavern for years. From time to time I see the usual strangeness edging over into horror or madness. I deal with it Whatever was wrong here, if I complained to any Chirpsithra she would relay it to the captain. And I had the stun.

So what was I afraid of?

I showed him the bottle. "This is cranberry. Ice?"

"Good idea!"

"Splash of dark nun on top?"

"Try it."

He"d ordered scotch and soda last night. Maybe he"d get loquacious. I served him and watched him taste. He twitched, startled at the bite of the rum.

"You were with a Glig last night. With," I remembered, "Preez Thporshkil."

"Yes. Thporshkil offered ... Ow."

"Ow?"

"I bit my lip," he said. Some customers wear a slack and gaping grin the whole time they"re in here, like everything they see is new and different. He He wore that grin as if sketched in by a drunken artist with a shaky hand. "Offered me a wish." wore that grin as if sketched in by a drunken artist with a shaky hand. "Offered me a wish."

I asked, "A wish? Like a genie or a devil?"

His face went slack. Then, "Yes, like a genie, but there must be many wishes.... you say Glig? Glig? Many wishes a Glig can"t grant. Thporshkil is studying the human kind. It wanted to see what I would ask and what I would do with it. What would you wish for, Rick?" Many wishes a Glig can"t grant. Thporshkil is studying the human kind. It wanted to see what I would ask and what I would do with it. What would you wish for, Rick?"

Alan Webber had asked me that question last night. I should have guessed what was going on.

I said, "Make me healthy."

He laughed oddly. "Not a good choice!"

"Glig are masters of biology."

"We, they, Glig love the life sciences. They wish to learn more of human chemistry ... plumbing... interior interactions ... array of nerve interactions. The corpus callosum that connects the two halves of your brain, why is it so narrow?"

"Beats me. I think it"s why some of us talk to ourselves. We have to get signals from one side of the brain to the other."

"Yes, of course! But Thporshkil would use the opportunity to learn. to exneriment. Once he began work on you, you would be left in too terrible a state ever to say, "Stop!" until Thporshkil had repaired all of its mistakes.

But ... no, wait ... Rick, in the end you would be healthy to the limit of Thporshkil"s skill. Ow." He p.r.o.nounced the Glig"s name better than I did, but it had him biting his lip over and over. "You would want the chaotic damage of many years repaired? Your life extended? Nose and brow and ears reshaped?"

"Hey!"

"In time Thporshkil could learn to do all that. Rick, I can arrange it."

Webber hadn"t called me Rick. Rick. Last night he"d called me Last night he"d called me Dr Schumann. Dr Schumann. But the Gligst.i.th(click)optok couldn"t say But the Gligst.i.th(click)optok couldn"t say Schumann. Schumann.

"Webber," I said, though I had become sure that this wasn"t Webber, "what did you ask for?" I was examining him for seams and flaps, not trying to hide it much. I thought he might be a copy, some kind of android, and he"d need access hatches.

He said, "I wished for Thporshkil"s wisdom."

"Just that?"

"Yes. If you ask a ... demon? for health, it must make you healthy to its own limit of skill, if you don"t add lim-. its by using modifiers. Adjectives. But that is your wish. I wanted the wisdom of an interstellar traveler."

Again I felt my bloodstream icing up. I said, "That was a bad wish. Your brain might not be big enough. Or you could end up knowing things meant for Glig, not for humans. They wouldn"t go to a toilet the same way, or reproduce-"

"No!" That wild laugh again.

I said, "Glig eat human meat, did you know that?"

"I didn"t know it last night. Rick, they don"t kill to get it! They"re only curious. They clone human organs for the markets. As for brains, Glig and human nervous systems are vastly capacious. The limit is not the number of brain cells, but the number of possible connections. Only a storage algorithm is needed. Thporshkil downloaded my mind, copied itself, wrote a merge program, merged us and wrote it all back into my brain. Here I am. When I come back here in two hundred days, Thporshkil too will have its wish. It will learn what I can learn of what it is to be a man."

"Wisdom," I said. "Suppose you"d wished for knowledge?"

"Thporshkil might have given me knowledge. Light-threads from his library and a viewer to string them." Webber"s strange p.r.o.nunciation was improving. "But wisdom is knowledge and the skill to use what you know. I wanted both."

"Did you get what you wanted?"

"Yes!"

"This change, is it permanent?"

"You mean to ask if my new knowledge can be taken away from me."

"Filtered out," I suggested, "leaving what you were." Was there a way to rescue last night"s Alan Webber?

He asked, "Rick, can you make a machine to separate the components of a milkshake?"

"I might."

"But it would be elaborate and expensive and hard to market," he said, "and too ma.s.sive to ride aboard a chirps liner."

"But are you Alan Webber? Or did he die last night? It"s pretty clear that you"re also Thporshkil the Gligst.i.th(click)optok."

I had my hand near the stun, but he hadn"t even lost the goofy grin. "I"m here. I may answer for either of us, Thporshkil or Alan. Do you think I was cheated?" Webber laughed. "I have wisdom now!"

"You sure as h.e.l.l didn"t last night. Did you ever make a sillier wish in your life?"

"Rick, most animals seek homeostasis, but interstellar travelers are different. We are not like those who stay home. We seek change. The man I was last night wanted to change himself. He has his wish. I do not have a complaint. Do you? You know who to speak to."

He walked out, perfectly in balance and almost strutting. I thought it over, and in the end I did nothing.

s.m.u.t TALK.

The Draco Tavern isn"t just a pub. It"s how humanity interacts with at least twenty-eight sapient species throughout the galaxy. Somewhere among these trillions of alien minds are the answers to all of the universal questions.

So it"s worth the expense, but costs are high. Keeping supplies in hand grows more difficult every time a new species appears. Siberian weather tears the Draco Tavern down as fast as we can rebuild it.

When a year pa.s.sed without a Chirpsithra ship, we were glad of the respite. The Tavern got some repairs. I got several months of vacation in Wyoming and Tahiti. Then that tremendous Chirpsithra soap bubble drifted inward from near the Moon, and landers flowed down along the Earth"s magnetic lines to Mount Forel in Siberia.

For four days and nights the Draco Tavern was very busy.

On the fifth morning, way too early, one hundred and twenty-four individuals of ten species boarded the landers and were gone.

The next day Gail and Herman called in sick. I didn"t get in until midafternoon, alone on duty and fighting a dull headache.

We weren"t crowded. The security programs had let the few customers in and powered up various life-support systems. The few who didn"t mind staying another year or two were all gathered around our biggest table. Eight individuals, five ... make it four species including a woman.

I"d never seen her before. She was dressed in a short-skirted Italian or American business suit. Late twenties. Olive Arabic features. Nose like a blade, eyes like a hawk. I thought she was trying to look professionally severe. She was stunning.

The average citizen never reaches the Draco Tavern. To get here this woman must have been pa.s.sed by her own government, then by the current UN psychiatric programs, Free Siberia, and several other political ent.i.ties. She"d be some variety of biologist. It"s the most common credential.

Old habit pulled my eyes away. The way I was feeling, I wasn"t exactly on the make, and I didn"t need to wonder what a human would eat, drink, or breathe. Tee tee hatch nex ool, her Chirpsithra life-support code was the same as mine. My concern was with the aliens.

I recognized the contours of a lone Wahartht from news coverage. They"re hexapods with six greatly exaggerated hands, from a world that must be all winds. They"d gone up Kilimanjaro in compet.i.tion with an Olympic climbing team. Travelers are supposed to be all male. This one had faced a high-backed chair around and was clinging to the back, looking quite comfortable. He was wearing a breather.

The three Folk had been living in the Kalahari, hunting with the natives. They looked lean and hungry. That was good. When they look like Cujo escaped from Belsen with his head on upside down, then they"re mean and ravenous and not good bar company.

Gray Mourners were new to Earth. They"re spidery creatures, with narrow torsos and ten long limbs that require lots of room, and big heads that are mostly mouth. I"d taken them for two species; the s.e.xual disparity was that great. Two males and a female, if the little ones were males, if that protrusion was what I thought it was.

The gathering of species all seemed to be getting along. You do have to watch that.

As I stepped into the privacy bubble the woman was saying, "Men mate with anything-" and then she sensed me there and turned, flushing.

"Welcome," I said, letting the translator program handle details of formality. "Whatever you need for comfort, we may conceivably have it. Ask me. Folk, I know your need."

One of the Folk (I"d hunted with these, and still never learned to tell their gender) said, "Greeting, Rick. You will join us? We would drink bouillon or glacier water. We know you don"t keep live prey."

I grinned and said, "Whatever you see may be a customer." I turned to the woman.

She said, "I"m Jehaneh Miller."

"I"m Rick Schumann. I run this place. Miller?"

"My mother was American." So was her accent. Briskly she continued, "We were talking about s.e.x. I was saying that men make billions of sperm, women make scores of eggs. Men mate with anything, women are choosy." She spoke as if in challenge, but she was definitely blushing.

"I follow. There"s more to be said on that that topic. What are you drinking?" topic. What are you drinking?"

"Screwdriver, light."

"Like hers," the Wahartht said. Aliens rarely order alcoholic drinks twice, but some just have to try it.

The female Gray Mourner asked, "Did our supplies arrive?"

They had. I went back to the bar.

Beef bouillon and glacier water for the Folk. Screwdrivers, light, for the woman and the Wahartht, but first I checked my database to be sure a Wahartht could digest orange juice. I made one for myself, for the raspy throat.

The Gray Mourners were eating stuff that I"d never seen until that afternoon, an orange mash that arrived frozen. Tang sherbet?

I a.s.sembled it all quickly. I wanted to hear what they were saying. A great many aliens had left Earth very suddenly, and I hoped for a hint as to why.

And ... given the conversational bent, I might learn something of Jehaneh Miller.

As I set down the drinks the Wahartht was saying, "Our child bearers cannot leave their forests, cannot bear change of smells and shading and diet, nor free fall nor biorhythm upset. We can never possess much of our own planet, let alone others. The females send us forth and wait for us to bring back stories."

A Folk said, "You are all male. Do you live without s.e.x?"

The Wahartht jumped; he tapped his translator. " "Survive without impregnation activity." Was that accurately your question?"

"Yes."

"Without scent and sonic cues, we never miss it."

Jehaneh nodded and said to me, "Most life-forms, the mating action is wired in." To the Wahartht, "Does that hold for sapient species too?"

The Wahartht said, "Impregnation is reflex to us. Our minds almost do not partic.i.p.ate. Away from our females, we take a tranquilizing biochemical to inhibit a sometime suicidal rage."

I said, "I"m not surprised."

"But what should I miss?"

A Gray Mourner male cried out, "To return from o.r.g.a.s.mic joy and be still alive!"

The other male chimed in. "Yes, Wajee! It always feels like we"re getting away with something." I grinned because I agreed, but he was saying, "We think this began our civilization. Species like ours, female eats male just after take his generative pellet."