Дэвид Нордли - How Beer Saved the World

“Betsy, there’s no good way to say this… Scholar Asayana’s wings have already been shredded,” Charlie said quietly. “If that would’ve been enough for the Ruling Council, we’d have seen him here days ago. So I’m certain they have more in store for him—please, please don’t go to the ceremony.”

Charlie caught her before she hit the floor.

Betsy dressed in her best Ambassadorial outfit—a deep, rich black jumpsuit with a black cape lined in gold silk along with gold boots without too much of a heel—and waited for Charlie to bring the aircar around. He made a nifty three-point landing, came up to receive her formally—Betsy assumed this was done for the sake of any N’Ferrans that might be watching—and walked her to the aircar. Charlie fussed over her until she was completely belted in. Then they headed to the agricultural city of Debreay.

The place where Asa was scheduled to die.

“You can take a blaster, you know,” Charlie’s voice said over the ’com. “For self defense—the charter allows it.”

“If it was going to be that easy to get Asa away, I’d do it—but you know it’s not going to be that easy, if it’s even possible.”

“Is that why you’re going?”

“I know it doesn’t seem likely that anyone can help Asa now, but he’s my friend. He’s been my friend for ten years. And if there’s one good N’Ferran like him, who’s willing to get to know us on our own terms, I have to be there to honor him no matter what else happens.”

“Better you than me,” he said quietly.

Then, before she knew it, they were at the right coordinates. “I don’t see Scholar Asayana anywhere,” he murmured. “And there are no N’Ferran life signs for five klicks in any direction save for those six.”

She nodded, even though she knew he couldn’t see her, and waited as he landed the aircar. He opened up the door with a ceremonial flair, helped her down, and brought her over to the six high-ranking members of the N’Ferran Ruling Council. After bowing to them each in turn, Charlie said quietly, “Let me know when this farce is over.”

She waved him off, then watched as he flew away. And did her best not to slump, as all of the N’Ferrans were less than four feet high… typical of their species, even though Asayana had been quite a bit taller at nearly five feet. She thought, I wonder if that’s one of the reasons he became a Fearless One? He already was quite a bit different, just being so tall in this society.

“Strange, how you Terrans need artificial wings in order to fly,” said an artificial human voice through a machine—a voder—at the level of Betsy’s belt. She looked down, and saw one of the older Council members, one she knew could easily speak Terran, if he wished.

They must want to insult me, she thought. Why?

“We do our best, sirs and madams,” she said aloud with all due ceremony. Then, after bowing to each of the six delegates, she allowed herself to be guided by one of the Councilors to a nearby chair. Oddly enough, this one was properly sized for a human being… if they wanted to insult her, why give her a chair that actually fit rather than one sized for one of their own?

Tired already of the formal diplomatic dance, she decided to get down to brass tacks. “You invited me here for a veffen- making ceremony. Where is it?”

“There must have been an error in translation,” said the Councilman’s voder. “The veffen has been made. We just want you to drink some.”

“Where is Vkandwe Asayana?” she asked instead.

“He has completed his life’s work,” was the unsettling response. “He has fed the veffen .”

“What do you mean by that?” Betsy asked sharply.

“Blood seals the crop, and only blood,” the Councilman said in Terran. “We don’t care if the blood comes from criminals, or human-lovers like Vkandwe Asayana.”

Oh, great, thought Betsy. Xenophobia rearing its ugly head again. I really thought we’d gotten past this on N’Ferra.

“Asayana associated with you,” the Councilman continued. “He was getting old, couldn’t fly, and we needed his blood. So we took it from him… but at a price.”

“What price?” Betsy demanded. They killed him for his blood? Charlie and Stan were absolutely right.

“We’ll tell you, but you must drink—”

“Why?”

Another member of the Council, this one a blue-feathered female limned by her gold half-cape, spoke by voder. “We all must drink veffen every day, or we can’t walk, much less fly. And without our blood, the crops do not flourish.”

“Such was our surmise,” Betsy said quietly. “But why must I drink this particular veffen , knowing what I now do about its manufacture?”

“You will do so, or we will expel you—” said the first Councilman.

“And lose all our commerce?” Betsy laughed bitterly. “I don’t think so.”

“It is considered an honor to be at an end-of-life ceremony,” said a third member of the Council, this one feathered pure black and wearing a black and silver half-cape. “You’re the first Terran to ever see it.”

Lucky me, she thought.

“We toast our fallen comrades as a way to say… thanks?” the voder sputtered. “As a way to bring them… immortality, of a sort.”

“Asayana’s a Fearless One,” Betsy said. “My hunch is that Fearless Ones do not normally do this. So again, why must I, as I am a Fearless One of my own species?”

“We were divided,” a fourth voder spoke. This one was from a gold-feathered female wearing a navy half-cape. “We knew Vkandwe Asayana had asked for asylum. I, myself, wished to allow him to leave N’Ferra… if he could. And I saw no point to shredding his wings, either.”

“Why tell me this?” Betsy demanded.

“ Veffen saved our lives, which is something we promised Asayana we’d tell you in exchange for his blood,” the fourth Council member said. “Our world was nearly destroyed three hundred years ago by fire.”

Radioactivity, Betsy knew. Not a normal fire, no matter what the voder said.

“—and only the veffen crops survived. But they did something strange…”

Crop mutation. Not unknown in the annals of history.

“—and after that, the only way we could get the crops to bloom properly was to give them the blood, first of our animals, then of ourselves…”

The first Council member threw up his hands. “She doesn’t need to know all this!”

“Yes, she does,” the fourth member said. “It was our bargain with Asayana. He said if we told you what had happened, you’d be able to tell your people… and maybe you could help us. Our people will die without your help, because the blood we have is not enough.”

Betsy stared at her.

“Moreover,” the fourth member continued in Terran, “Asayana has been telling us this very same thing for the past four boryani. But not all of us wanted to listen.”

Betsy bowed to her, and thought hard. That last reason—that Scholar Asa had seen no viable way to continue fertilizing the veffen by blood—must be why Asayana went to his death. As a Fearless One, he had celebrated knowledge and went wherever his knowledge took him. This time, his fearless nature had led him to allow himself to be sacrificed in order to attempt to save his world, because that was the only way the Council would agree to ask the Terrans—ask her —for help.

“We’d need more than six scientists working on this, so we’d have to expand the Embassy,” Betsy said. Her heart was breaking, but Asa had died to give her this knowledge. She couldn’t help but use it.