Departures

While I was licking the salt off the web of my thumb, I looked around to see who-or what-was in Hobbes’ this time. There were three or four tables full of Joe’s people: not surprising, since Rapti, the planet under this space station, was Joe’s home-world. It was early yet, but a couple of them looked about ready to slide under their tables. (That’s what they get for being four-fisted drinkers.)

An Atheter was already swinging from the chandelier. She was good at it. Atheters live in trees when they’re at home, and they have prehensile tails. This one waved an empty glass at Joe and screeched for a refill.

A couple of Egnants put their credit cards in the music machine, one after the other. Raucous noise started blaring, loud enough to drown out even the Atheter.

I walked over to the machine, saw how much they’d paid, and used my own plastic to outbid them for quiet. They let their lips skin back from their teeth, but cheered up again when I bought them drinks. Egnants aren’t hard to deal with unless you try to talk about religion.

I sneezed when I sat back down at the bar. Joe’s ears twitched in surprise. “What kind of noise is that?” he asked.

“I’ve got the edge of a cold-a small sickness humans get,” I said, disgusted at the way the worlds worked. They keep saying they’ll have a cure for colds Real Soon Now. I’ll believe it when I see it; they’ve been saying that since before humans got off Terra. Greenbelly fever is dead as smallpox now, because it killed people and they threw research money at it till it went away. Colds are just nuisances. It’s hard to get excited enough about a nuisance to get rid of it.

I ordered a beer to chase the tequila, took a sip, looked around some more. What would have been the second sip stopped halfway to my mouth. Off in a corner by him/her/itself sat a person whose species I didn’t recognize, and I’ve seen a lot of them.

“Where’s that one from?” I asked Joe. (Bartenders know everything. It’s part of their job. If you don’t believe me, just ask one.)

“Who?”

“The big blue one back there over my right shoulder.” I didn’t point at the person. You never can tell what gesture will offend somebody.

“Oh, him? He’s a Foitan.”

“No kidding!” Now I really had to work to keep from staring. “I thought they were extinct.”

A lot of worlds in this part of space, Rapti among them, had Foitani artifacts; they were on the edges of what had been a really big Foitani empire maybe thirty, fifty thousand years ago. Then the really big empire fought a really big civil war. There are a lot of dead worlds in this part of space, too, and the Foitani killed most of them.

“So did we, until maybe fifty years ago,” Joe said. “Then they started showing up every so often, traders mostly, but archaeologists, too. They only have a few planets now, and they’re interested in their glory days.”

I shivered a little. “Where’s their homeworld? Do you know?”

“About as far from here toward galactic center as yours is away from it.”

I shivered again, not a little this time. If the Foitani Empire had reached across thousands of light-years, how big had that war been? How many more dead worlds lay inside that sphere? More than I wanted to think about, I was certain. Not even humans were stupid on that scale.

I found myself walking back toward the Foitan. Tequila always makes me reckless. “Excuse me,” I said. “May I buy you another of whatever you are drinking?”

The Foitan had a bug by its ear. It looked like a Rapti bug, which meant it ought to handle Spanglish. It did. The Foitan said something in a language I didn’t recognize, but my own bug did. I heard, “Thank you, if I may do the same for you.”

I waved to Joe, pointed at my beer and the bottle in front of the Foitan, held up a finger. Joe waved back; he’d seen me. “May I join you?” I asked the Foitan, nodding toward a chair across from him.

By the way of answer, he pushed the chair out with his foot so I could sit. My legs wouldn’t have been long enough for that, but then, what I could see of the Foitan was a lot bigger than I was. He looked more or less humanoid, but only the biggest battleball players would have seemed like anything but children next to him. His face reminded me of what people might have looked like if they’d come from bears-blue bears-instead of apes: nasty, brutish, and tall, you might say. Actually, that’s not fair. He was pretty impressive.

“My name is Naplak Naplak Kap,” he said.”I have not seen your kind before. Is it polite to ask what you are called?”

“I’m Walter Harbron,” I answered. “Walt will do.”

“Walt,” Naplak Naplak Kap said gravely. Just then Joe came over with our drinks. I took a pull at my beer; the Foitan half-emptied his new bottle. “Walt,” he said again. He studied me. His eyes were large. They didn’t seem to blink. “May I ask about your species? I do so only from curiosity and mean no offense.”

“Yes, go ahead. May I ask about yours as well? I’ve never met any Foitani before; I’d like to learn more about you.”