The Green Knight (Space Lore Book 1) Read Free

served to keep everyone contented and to delay the next round of fighting. One night it was the customer with the most eyes. A Cryptic, all two hundred of its miniature eyes gleaming with pride, accepted the free drink. Another night, it was the patron with the most scales. That had been the evening that Traskk, a Basilisk, had won. One night, anyone with red skin. Another night, anyone with horns on their face. On the rare occasion there were no brawls in his bar, the Feedorian awarded free drinks to entire groups of customers. But that prize wasn’t given out very often because there were almost always clashes in Eastcheap. Sometimes, multiple fights simultaneously.
    The brawls and violence left the bartender miserable more often than he was happy, because instead of serving drinks to patrons he spent his time yelling for the fights to stop (during the less severe brawls) or hiding behind the bar until the fight was over (for the more common and deadly clashes). To add to this, he had to explain to the local authorities why so many dead aliens were found in the alley outside his bar.
    “Install a Treagon barrier,” the authorities said. “That’ll cut down on the violence.”
    “I did!” the Feedorian bartender replied, throwing his four hands in the air.
    A Treagon barrier was a device that prevented electronics of any kind from being operated. Blasters couldn’t shoot. Bots couldn’t function. Explosives couldn’t be detonated remotely. This had completely stopped the blaster shootouts that had occurred in his early days as a bartender. But now, instead of lasers zipping in every direction, the drunks and thieves just pulled out knives or used their teeth or claws to settle disputes. It also hindered the bartender. Now, he had no bot beside him to help pour drinks or, much more important, to decipher all of the different languages when aliens asked for drinks.
    The first time Traskk had gone up and ordered another round of drinks following the Treagon device’s installation, the bartender could only look at him in confusion. Basilisks have short tempers anyway, but especially if they are inebriated. The only reason the bartender was still alive was that Vere happened to be walking by at the same time and translated the order into Basic. Even as he poured the drinks, the bartender could hear Traskk growling, his foot-long tongue slithering in and out between fangs the length of a pitcher of ale. All of this as if the incident had been an intentional slight.
    There was no winning for the Feedorian. It was enough to make the bartender, a little alien with gray skin who had lived a century longer than anyone else who had ever been to his bar, wonder why he had ever thought opening such an establishment was a good idea.
    Traskk—one of the many aliens he could no longer understand—was still in Eastcheap. He was always there because Vere was always there. Wherever she went, the giant Basilisk was always nearby. Along with Fastolf, Occulus, and A’la Dure. Each day, the four humans and one enormous reptile sat at the same table, in the far corner of Eastcheap. They liked being away from the entrance and from the bar because those were the two most common places for fights to break out.
    From their booth, they drank and laughed all day and all night. Seven days a week. No one cared that Fastolf was twice as heavy as anyone else at the table or that Occulus was nearly three times as old as anyone else. No one commented that Vere and A’la Dure, while certainly able to handle themselves in a fight, seemed too young to be spending every day in a place like Eastcheap.
    When a fight broke out the five of them bet on who would be victorious. Each time Fastolf or Vere went to the bar, the other person challenged them to pick someone’s pocket. Each time Fastolf returned he kept the treasure or used it to buy more drinks. Each time Vere returned, she just as quickly slipped the newfound money into an unsuspecting