Larry Niven - The Fourth Profession

“Give that here a minute,” I said. It only had water in it. I held the pot in my hands, closed my eyes and tried to remember…

Ah.

I knew I’d done it right even before the heat touched my hands. The pot held hot, fragrant coffee.

“We were wrong about the first pill,” I told Louise. She was looking at me very curiously. “What happened that second night was this. The Monk had a translator gadget, but he wasn’t too happy with it. It kept screaming in his ear. Screaming English, too loud, for my benefit.

“He could turn off the part that was shouting English at me, and it would still whisper a Monk translation of what I was saying. But first he had to teach me the Monk language. He didn’t have a pill to do that. He didn’t have a generalized language-learning course either, if there is one, which I doubt.

“He was pretty drunk, but he found something that would serve. The profession it taught me was an old one, and it doesn’t have a one-or-two-word name. But if it did, the word would be prophet !”

“Prophet,” said Louise. “Prophet?” She was doing a remarkable thing. She was listening with all her concentration, and scrambling eggs at the same time.

“Or disciple. Maybe apostle comes closer. Anyway, it included the Gift of Tongues, which was what the Monk was after. But it included other talents too.”

“Like turning cold water into hot coffee?”

“Miracles, right. I used the same talent to make the little pink amnesia pills disappear before they hit my stomach. But an apostle’s major talent is persuasion.

“Last night I convinced a Monk crewman that blowing up suns is an evil thing.

“Morris is afraid that someone might convert him back. I don’t think that’s possible. The mind-reading talent that goes with the prophet pill goes deeper than just reading minds. I read souls. The Monk is my apostle. Maybe he’ll convince the whole crew that I’m right.

“Or he may just curse the hachiroph shisp , the little old nova maker. Which is what I intend to do.”

“Curse it?”

“Do you think I’m kidding or something?”

“Oh, no.” She poured our coffee. “Will that stop it working?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” said Louise. And I felt the power of her own faith, her faith in me. It gave her the serenity of an idealized nun.

When she turned back to serve the eggs, I dropped a pink triangular pill in her coffee.

She finished setting breakfast and we sat down. Louise said, “Then that’s it. It’s all over.”

“All over.” I swallowed some orange juice. Wonderful, what fourteen hours’ sleep will do for a man’s appetite. “All over. I can go back to my fourth profession, the only one that counts.”

She looked up quickly.

“Bartender. First, last, and foremost, I’m a bartender. You’re going to marry a bartender.”

“Good,” she said, relaxing.

In two hours or so the slave sets would be gone from her mind. She would be herself again: free, independent, unable to diet, and somewhat shy.

But the pink pill would not destroy real memories. Two hours from now, Louise would still know that I loved her; and perhaps she would marry me after all.

I said, “We’ll have to hire an assistant. And raise our prices. They’ll be fighting their way in when the story gets out.”

Louise had pursued her own thoughts. “Bill Morris looked awful when I left. You ought to tell him he can stop worrying.”

“Oh, no. I want him scared. Morris has got to talk the rest of the world into building a launching laser, instead of just throwing bombs at the Monk ship. And we need the launching laser.”

“Mmm! That’s good coffee. Why do we need a launching laser?”

“To get to the stars.”

“That’s Morris’s bag. You’re a bartender, remember? The fourth profession.”

I shook my head. “You and Morris. You don’t see how big the Monk marketplace is, or how thin the Monks are scattered. How many novas have you seen in your lifetime?

“Damn few,” I said. “There are damn few trading ships in a godawful lot of sky. There are things out there besides Monks. Things the Monks are afraid of, and probably others they don’t know about.

“Things so dangerous that the only protection is to be somewhere else, circling some other star, when it happens here! The Monk drive is our lifeline and our immortality. It would be cheap at any price…”

“Your eyes are glowing,” she breathed. She looked half hypnotized, and utterly convinced. And I knew that for the rest of my life, I would have to keep a tight rein on my tendency to preach.

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