The Heights

Larry Niven

Clickety-ponk came waftin’ down the magnetic fields above Siberia in winter of 2041, the fourteenth chirpsithra liner to visit Earth in twenty-three years. My translator says that Clickety-ponk is a pun that means weary light or weary from mating. The vast soap bubble of a ship carried forty-one individuals of eight sapient species, five of them unknown to me. All strangers, of course. We’ll not see the same liner twice in the same millenium.

One pair, called Warblers, looked like featherless birds. They spent a Tuesday making an aerie just under my ceiling. Tuesday night they sang for us, a concert attended by all the ship’s wild variety of crew and passengers. We weren’t expected to serve their drinks too, because the Warblers wanted us in the audience; but the seating! The Draco Tavern isn’t designed as a concert hall.

But the birds were good! They held us rapt. They didn’t need microphones, and translators gave us the sense of the lyrics.

Warblers might have been designed by Dick Rutan. A Warbler was the size of a winning jockey, with wings built something like a hawk’s under a slick skin of what looked like natural cellophane. Above a foreshortened beak its head bulged: streamlining sacrificed for a larger brain, porcelain white eyes that faced straight forward, and stiff canards steered by jaw muscles. They didn’t use breathers. They wouldn’t touch alcohol. They bought their food in the butcher shops in Mount Forel Town, and warmed it in a microwave oven. Their life-support sigils were almost the same as a human’s, teefee tee hatch nex ool, and that was all I needed to keep them happy.

They spent a day on the Internet doing the kind of research a tourist needs. Gail helped with that.

Thursday they were gone.

Monday morning they were back, high overhead in their aerie, not talking to anyone.

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Monday evening, a man and two children came in.

They had a Midwestern look, lanky and longheaded, with straight black hair. The boy looked eleven, the girl twelve or thirteen. The children gaped at the aliens. The chirps and some others waved; the children waved back. They were delighted, I judged, but the man was dogged and suspicious. He did not look like a dignitary or anthropologist or university man.

Nobody crosses Siberian tundra to the Draco Tavern in winter just for a drink, and we don’t encourage children. I said, Door, do these have business here?

The voice of the door, and of the translators and all our other semi-independent systems, said, This entity spoke of urgent legal business. He asserts that his boy was attacked.

I watched the man approach the bar, holding tight to the hands of the children, who would have hared off among the tables. Who is he?

Z Wayne Bennett, thirty-two, resides in Ketchum, Idaho, with wife Ida, thirty-five, two children—

Pause, I said, because translators at various tables were yammering. Schumann here.

Immature life-forms are dangerous, should not be admitted, not likely to be sapient!

Who speaks?

I am Ambassador-Regent Ven! We am not to be endangered! The system drew blinking green halos around four lungfish in an overilluminated vat of water on tractor treads.

All of them? Make that thirty-eight individuals.

I said, Translator, I’m on it. Tell them that they’ll be protected.

Tell all species?

Tell the most timid. Tell Ambassador-Regent Ven and whoever else is complaining. Can you handle it?

Yes. I heard hoots and whistles and a low rumble and a skittery rattlesnake sound, alien voices all jabbing at once: the Draco Tavern’s translators momentarily linked to perform one service.

Bennett had nearly reached the bar when he suddenly pulled the children against him, pointed straight up and screamed, That’s them!

The lungfish all burrowed straight down into mud. The rest of us looked up.

The Tavern is built to chirpsithra design, though humans were the builders and the place is human-friendly. Chirpsithra stand eleven feet tall, and they like head room. Bennett was looking forty feet up to the aerie the Birds had built under the ceiling.

Two Warbler faces stared back for a moment, and then one bird launched and tilted into a tight spiral. It wore a thick silver plate with a small rocket pod sticking up on a fin, the base held in place by webbing across its puffer-pigeon chest.

Damage control needed. I reeled around from behind the bar, big smile, hand extended I’m Rick Schumann, I said. You’d be Z Wayne Bennet?

He didn’t look down, but his hand reached out. Pleased to meet you, Doctor Schumann. This is Lilly, this is Hammett. Ham was the one attacked. What are you doing about these undead birds?

Hi, Ham. Hi, Lilly. I shook their hands. Attacked?

The boy grinned. In a sudden motion he peeled off his T-shirt. There were small red marks on both sides of both shoulders, nine marks and a Band-Aid.

Aw, shit.

The Warbler dropped lower. He was giving Bennett the creeps. For an instant I saw the Warbler as he did: a cross between a plucked chicken and a bluebellied demon, vicious beak, huge claws built for ripping, the head too human or not human enough. He landed halfway across the main room, on an empty table, and waited.

A child-stealing alien was about the worst publicity I could think of. I don’t see police, I said. Or reporters.

You will, Bennett said, if we don’t get this settled. Do I have to worry that my boy got infected with something?

No, trust me on that. No visitor carries parasites. It’s damn few alien bacteria that have an interest … though I’m hosting one myself. That one got through by outwitting the medics.

Here. I fixed a translator to his shirt collar. Let me talk. He nodded once, jaw clenched. I led him and the children to the bird’s table.

We had an audience. Even the lungfish had come out to watch.

The bird watched with unruffled dignity as I settled the Bennetts in chairs. I told it, I’m Rick Schumann, speaking for—

I know you. That one shot my mate.

Bennett glared. I spoke before he could. Your mate is accused of stealing a child.

Stealing was not her intent, nor mine. We pick up chosen prey, fly in a circle of designated circumference, and set it down. No harm—

Her claws pierced his skin.

We must acquire gloves. Hammett Bennett, we are sorry for your hurt. Doctor Schumann, this worked out well enough in France when I took prey.

Bennett didn’t like that, though he held his tongue. I said, What are your names?

The bird shrieked musically, twice, then said, I have been called Langue d’Argent. My translator said, Silver Tongue.

The United Nations Free Sky (or Free Spy) Treaty allows satellites to pass over any country at ninety kilometers or above, and any observer may watch it if he can. The Warblers took a lens lander, the smallest of Clickety-ponk’s boats, a quarter of the way around the planet and down in Alsace. The boat’s stealthing was minimal and the sky, as Silver Tongue described it, was full of hot air balloons that day, but the Warblers would be gone before anyone could react.

What kind of idiots had the Chirps wished upon us this time? In front of a sky full of witnesses, did you attack a creature that wore clothing?

I lifted and carried away a local sapient, a human child whom I had observed with family. These are not mere customs, but lessons hard learned. A creature not sapient can die of the shock or kill itself trying to break free, and herders or conservationists blame us. With a sapient creature we can reason, we can deal.

The boy Andre Palanque-Delabrouille will verify that we agreed. I told him I had given him a ride; he accepted that. His female guardian screamed that I was an evil genie. When I offered a silver bar, she called me a silver-tongued genie, but she took it.

I said, Now, I’m still playing catch-up, so give me a sanity check here—

We’re sane.

I’ll decide that. You saw a child with an adult woman? You swooped out of the sky and picked him up in your claws — hands. Carried him how far?

Skreek! (The translator whispered, Two hundred twenty-three meters.) In a loop, then back. The game requires go against the wind. Land, then talk to woman Rosanne Palanque-Delabrouille.

Have you given thought to everything that might have gone wrong?

Much thought.

She was an older adult. In good health? She might have died of shock. The boy will be afraid of plucked chickens for the rest of his life. You offered her silver to say she is the boy’s guardian? What if she lied?

Surname was the same.

Did she show you identification? He shrugged; feathers would have ruffled if he had evolved them. Dammit. You’d have no contract. The news might be breaking on CNN right now. A child attacked by aliens … twice now. The Chirpsithra ships could be asked to leave Earth.

We harm nobody, and the hunt is fair, Silver Tongue said.

Z Wayne Bennett spoke for the first time. Don’t give me that! Do you think I can’t see you’re wearing a flying belt?

Bennett might be more sophisticated than he looked. Then again, Silver Tongue’s gear looked very much like a Buck Rogers flying belt. Thrashing for an answer to Bennett’s accusation, I noticed how many optical organs were pointed our way, and had my first bright idea.

Z Wayne, we’re being stared at. I don’t like it. Do you? Silver Tongue, is there room in your aerie?

There is room—

We can’t fly, Z Wayne said belligerently.

But I had the kids’ interest. I said, There’s an elevator.

We’d used it to lift amazing quantities of meat. It was just a flat plate, wide enough for all of us. Z Wayne’s kids pulled him onto it against some resistance. We went up like a dream, with nothing between us and the drop, and unearthly varieties of sapience spread out below us. I was ready to snatch at a child, but Z Wayne never let go of them.

Silver Tongue’s mate awaited our arrival, then backed away to give us room. We stepped out onto spongy wickerwork woven from Siberian vegetation.

Her right side was swollen way out of proportion, a foam plastic pillow outlining a wing bound tight along her torso. The skin of her face was ravaged and smeared with gel, with two pocks in her beak and a patch over one eye.

Her belly was the same sky blue as her mate’s. Where his back was a muddle of earth colors, hers was an elaborate scarlet design outlined in silver. I think the silver was tattooed onto a pattern evolved as a secondary sexual characteristic. I’ve never been sure. I picture him riding the wind high up, camouflaged against predators higher yet while he looked down for the bright flash and pattern of a pose mate. Mated, he would hunt for them both.

Bennett said, forcing himself, Ma’am, how are you?

She said, Healing, thank you, Mr Bennett. My eye is already replaced. Wing bones are growing in a template. My name is Sshreektht. How are you, Hammett?

Healing too. She had him awed. Silverback, he said.

Show her, his father ordered.

The boy took off his shirt. Silverback looked him over, but came no closer. She said, Z Wayne Bennett, you must be wonderfully accurate with a shotgun.

I didn’t have the right load. If you’d been closer, you’d be dead.

You shot me when I was carrying Ham, yet the boy took no harm. She paused to let us all realize how seriously the man had risked his son’s life, then said, No harm except that my hands convulsed when the blast hit me. Of course we must pay extra for his hurt.

I thought it was more dangerous to leave him in a predator’s grip.

She didn’t answer. Bennett turned red. He said, You hunted him wearing a flying belt.

I said, Z Wayne, it strikes me that a lift belt is no different from a hunter’s gun except that it’s not a weapon. Do you hunt?

He glared.

If you were strong enough, you’d hunt without the gun. Tefee tee hatch nee ool means their world has lighter gravity, that’s the tefee, with air enough like ours to breathe, that’s the tee.

Still cheatin’. To the female, And who gave you the right to hunt my boy?

The female said, Need.

I said, Oh, come on.

She said, Doctor Schumann, the hunt triggers our appetite. We need eat only seldom, but we must gorge then. You can testify.

Bennett said, What?

I ported their stocks of their food from the market, I told him. I haven’t seen them eat; but I know how much food goes up. At first none, then lots.

If we can’t work up hunger during a hunt, she said, we become malnourished, or we must take noxious medicine.

Don’t we all, I muttered.

The effect is temporary. We will be lucky to last twenty days. Then, if we cannot hunt, we must endure cold sleep. We had expected to study Earth and mankind for two years.

I had given his children the thrill of a lifetime, then let Bennett confront the entity he’d shot. She had shown him the risk he had taken with his son’s life. If Bennett could stay reasonable, couldn’t I? But these idiots were throwing it all away, and I was getting angry.

You don’t have a problem, I said. If you need to hunt, arrange a hunt! I’ve hunted with the Folk myself! They sold the TV rights and videotaped it!

Hunt by arrangement? She couldn’t believe it.

Live at eleven, Bennett said grimly.

Better take care of Bennett’s grievance first. I said, Mr Bennett threatens exposure, as is his right. The price of raising a child until he’s finished college is around a hundred thousand American dollars, I think.

Skeep? Price is stunningly high!

You might have got a better price by getting his agreement first!

Silver Tongue asked, What would you do, warn the victim?

Sure.

No, said Silverback.

The thing is, Bennett said doggedly, my wife talked me into coming here first. She’s walking today because her spine got fixed by some alien technique I can’t spell or pronounce. I’m asking because you might … might have a rational answer. What gave you the right to attack my son?

We must buy that.

After stealing it!

Silverback said, We hoped for two years on Earth, continue on the next liner. If Earth cannot feed us, we must endure cold sleep beginning tomorrow! Feeding aliens, isn’t that your business, Rick? She examined me hopefully, gave up and turned to Ham. But you are harmed, debt must be paid. Skreee?

Her mate said, Price is ridiculous in the up direction.

Ham said, I’m all right.

I wanted the price to sting a little. I said to the birds, Your sense of proportion is way off. What if you did catch an orphan? There wouldn’t be anyone to deal with.

An orphan would be the business of local government, Silver Tongue said.

Were you ready to ask the French government to name their price? Sacre bleu, I thought.

Is France rapacious?

No, it’s governments that are rapacious … and lawyers. You’ve attacked Ham in the United States of America, where lawyers are thicker than anywhere on Earth! I had my second bright notion. You try that again, you’ll be lucky not to lose your place aboard Clickety-ponk to some small boy with stars in his eyes and a smart-mouthed Lawyer. That should push some buttons.

Ham stared at me. Then he pulled at his father’s sleeve. Dad?

Silvertongue said, You exaggerate for effect. I offer two bars silver, two pounds each.

Ham’s eyes weren’t really glowing, and no alien could read so subtle a signal. But Ham and his father were trying to interrupt each other, and suddenly Z Wayne bellowed, You would never see me or your mother again! Nor Lilly either! Lilly, talk to him! Silver Tongue, am I right? These ships go slower than light! Even if he caught a ride back from some other star, it could be a hundred years, or a thousand!

The boy said, But an interstellar—

Silverback noticed what was going on. Major decision, give up the past, adjust to faraway unknown future, as we have, circle the galaxy or stop off at own risk. Up to a hundred thousand years before return. Wait until older, Hammett. Mister Bennett, we accept price to teach Ham through college as determined through the Internet, pay in United States dollars, twenty percent finder fee for rapacious bartender—

Hold up, said Z Wayne.

—Escrow account for you and Hammett until Hammett attains age of Presumed wisdom, if you will sign now.

There’s nothing wrong with the price, Z Wayne said. No, dammit, Ham, we will not sue to get you a ticket on an interstellar liner! Silverback, I want some assurance that there will be no further hunting of children.

We would have to leave Earth early, she said.

You can’t prey on children. No matter what you pay, who you pay, you still can’t do that.

The birds were silent. Z Wayne looked at me.

I have a notion, I said.

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Five months later I took my niece and her children to the Park.

They’d raised the price of tickets by sixty percent. The crowding was fierce. Marilyn was shocked.

Relax, I told her. This is Draco Tavern’s treat, every dollar of it.

But why do they pay that much? Most children aren’t even wearing the hats! Those that are … four a day? Out of hundreds!

Under two hundred. We’d picked a Wednesday.

The young man wouldn’t give Wayne and Becky hats unless Marilyn and I signed contracts as their guardians. Despite four children tugging at us, I took a couple of minutes to examine the contract. I wanted to be sure no sneaky little weasel clauses had crept in since we wrote it.

A lot of parents were changing their minds after they read it. I signed.

Ricky, is this safe?

Sure. Jael? Alvin? Han? Had they changed their minds?

They made their intent dew, and Marilyn signed, and the kids put on the hats. Han asked, Can I keep it?

It’s a loan, Marilyn said.

I said, You can buy it when you leave.

Scattered through a crowd of a thousand were less than a hundred hats, all on children between five and ten, all flame orange with a wide brim for protection against the sun and looking up. Children with, and children without, range hats all looked up anyway as they entered the Park. WC fad cloudless. blue sky, and. the new tower.

Where are they? Denise demanded.

I shook my head. The tower’s theirs. They come when they want. Only the top, of course. Most of the tower was the Beak Fall, with much too long a waiting line. Hey, Dolphin Ride!

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A prey who welcomes us is not acceptable! Silverback kept repeating herself. She was sure I didn’t understand.

First remember what you’re avoiding, I told her. Two years in cold sleep, then off into the starscape. Even doing it my way, you’ll lose time while the lawyers argue.

No!

Bet on six months, plus or minus. You can’t have everything. What you can have, I said, is prey that don’t know you’re coming.

Nonsense! They sign contracts!

Look again. The Park gets seven hundred people on a weekday, three times that on weekends. Half of those are kids, exaggerating a little. You pick two in a day. Four if you can stand it. It’s less than a hundred to one that any kid gets picked.

A lot of them, kids and parents, will spend the whole time looking up. Memo: Be damn sure the Park makes dark glasses available! You, don’t pick those. Ignore them. Others will forget you’re there. You’re not on a schedule. It’s an amusement park. They’ll be distracted.

Z Wayne had been working with a Palm Pilot. Can you really get away with this? You’re selling very little. Pot odds are of any kid being carried one and a half feet by two point two pounds of bird.

Most of them won’t wear the hats! Z Wayne, they’ll pay extra to see some other kid carried off! Most of the kids with hats won’t get more than that.

They’ll never buy it, said Bennett.

Shall I put out offers?

Try it, said Bennett, and One may ask, said Silverback, and Scraww! said Silver Tongue. So I put in calls to Disney, Knott’s, Six Flags …

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Music from the sky.

We all looked up. The birds were there, black against the sun, their hearts out. They wheeled and sang for at least ten tees above the endless line for the Beanstalk Fall, then glided behind the tower in a roar of applause.

I faced forward min. The kids were tired of waiting.

Screams. I looked around.

The birds had circled behind the tower, already diving, picking up serious speed. They fell straight toward us. Silverback pulled up and rolled, showing her silver-and-scarlet design, but Silver Tongue swerved and swooped and dropped on an eight-year-old girl.

For an instant I wished fiercely that Disney World had bid. All that empty land for the birds! And they could have been wearing yellow Mickey Mouse hands! But Disney hadn’t even got in a bid; their lawyers were too timid. Silver Tongue’s claw tips were sheathed in blue, the color of his belly, and the girl never saw them until they closed on her: we heard her scree-hee-hee-heeming fear and laughter as she rose.