Pay Me, Bug!

Chapter 06

WHEREIN Our Hero, Having Reveled in His Success, is Faced With Certain Consequences

Grif Vindh, captain of the Fool's Errand, woke up to discover two things: first, his head felt as if a Nengit were jumping up and down on it with all four of its legs, and second, someone in the room was shrieking at the top of his lungs. The second item contributed greatly to the discomfort of the first, and it took nearly half a minute before Grif had regained enough of his wits to figure out who was shrieking and why.

"Oh, for the love of--Hari!" Grif tried to shout over the din but found the exertion of raising his voice was also painful, and he resorted to the largely impotent tactic of clutching his head and desperately wishing the alien would stop.

Drinking with other races was an uncertain proposition: while every sentient race in the known galaxy was familiar with the rituals surrounding the act of getting drunk, the specifics weren't always the same. The substances varied, for one, which meant that precautions needed to be taken when different races decided to get drunk together, lest someone inadvertently down a glass of something fatal. Another potentially less fatal detail, though in this specific instance it was difficult to keep that in mind, was that different races recovered from their rituals differently... and when they were all recovering at the same time, and in the same location, it often led to unintended conflict.

Invagi, for example, had very similar drinking customs to humans. They drank the same kind of alcohol humans did, got drunk from basically the same strengths and quantities, and when they woke up the next morning they felt generally the same level of discomfort. There were, however, two notable differences.

First, Invagi possessed a vestigial hive mind, the remnants of which allowed most Invagi to influence and be influenced by the emotions of other Invagi. This meant that when one Invagi woke up after a heavy night of drinking, the distress he or she felt would be sensed, very slightly, by any other Invagi in the room. If the other Invagi were feeling a similar level of distress, then that link would be increased, feeding back on itself, until either one of the Invagi was able to fully regain control of his faculties and break that link, or until someone else was able to break the link for him.

Second, and of more immediate importance, was that while Invagi did get hung over, they didn't experience discomfort from loud noises. This meant that, as far as hangovers were concerned, they had no cultural taboos against shrieking in agony at the top of their lungs.

"Damn it, Hari!" Grif gave up trying to will the sound away, and forced himself to pick his head off the table and look around the room. He was in the Starglow... thinking back, he dimly remembered being there the night before, celebrating with his crew. There were other people as well--people everywhere, he saw, people strewn about the large room as though they'd all succumbed to poison and died where they stood. This was not too far from the truth, in Grif's opinion: getting drunk was, when done properly, a process of intentionally poisoning yourself and just barely surviving. He rubbed his eyes, looked at the mass of people passed out over tables, in chairs, and slumped on the floor, trying to find Hari.

He found most of the rest of his crew: Cyrus was snoring peacefully, leaning back in a chair balanced precariously on two legs, his own legs propped up on a table and his head pressed up against the wall. Cutter and Vod had passed out in a corner by one of the gaming tables. Gurgan was lying on his back, spread-eagled on the floor. Ktk was draped over the bar, tails twitching slightly as its vocal plates ground ever so slowly in the bug equivalent of a snore. Amys was slumped over the table beside him, across from Dak Wallace, captain of the Long Haul, who had been trying to drink her under the table again.