When a tremendous spacecraft took orbit around the Earthβs moon and began sending smaller landers down toward the North Pole, the newly arrived visitors quickly set up a permanent spaceport in Siberia. Their presence attracted many, and a few people grew conspicuously rich from secrets they learned from talking to the aliens. One of these men, Rick Schumann, established a tavern catering to all of the various species of visiting aliens, a place he named the Draco Tavern.
From the mind of #1 New York Times bestselling author Larry Niven come twenty-six tales and vignettes from this interplanetary gathering place, collected for the first time in one volume, including:
βThe Subject Is Closedβ: A priest visits the tavern and goes one-on-one with a chirpsithra alien on the subject of God and life after death.
βTable Mannners: A Folk Taleβ: Rick Schumann is invited to hunt with five folk aliens, but heβs not quite sure what their hunt entails, or if he will be the hunted.
βLosing Marsβ: In this previously unpublished tale, a group of aliens who call Mars and its moon home arrive at the tavern only to find that humans have mostly forgotten about their neighboring planet.
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