Free The Fourth Profession by Larry Niven Page A

row of bottles, right to left, ordering a shot from each bottle. He took his liquor straight, at room temperature. He drank quietly, steadily, and with what seemed to be total concentration.
    He spoke only to order.
    He showed nothing of himself but one hand. That hand looked like a chicken's foot, but bigger, with lumpy-looking, very flexible joints, and with five toes instead of four.
    At closing time the Monk was four bottles from the end of the row. He paid me in one dollar bills, and left, moving steadily, the hem of his robe just brushing the floor. I testify as an expert: he was sober. The alcohol had not affected him at all.
    "Monday night," I said. "He shocked the hell out of us. Morris, what was a Monk doing in a bar in Hollywood? I thought all the Monks were in New York."
    "So did we."
    "Oh?"
    'We didn't know he was on the West Coast until it hit the newspapers yesterday morning. That's why you didn't see more reporters yesterday. We kept them off your back. I came in last night to question you, Frazer. I changed my mind when I saw that the Monk was already here."
    "Question me. Why? All I did was serve him drinks."
    "Okay, let's start there. Weren't you afraid the alcohol might kill a Monk?"
    'It occurred to me."
    "Well?"
    "I served him what he asked for. It's the Monks' own doing that nobody knows anything about Monks. We don't even know what shape they are, let alone how they're put together. If liquor does things to a Monk, it's his own lookout. Let him check the chemistry."
    "Sounds reasonable."
    "Thanks."
    "It's also the reason I'm here," said Morris. "We know too little about the Monks. We didn't even know they existed until something over two years ago."
    "Oh?" I'd only started reading about them a month ago.
    "It wouldn't be that long, except that all the astronomers were looking in that direction already, studying a recent nova in Sagittarius. So they caught the Monk starship a little sooner, but it was already inside Pluto's orbit.
    "They've been communicating with us for over a year. Two weeks ago they took up orbit around the Moon. There's only one Monk starship, and only one ground-to-orbit craft, as far as we know. The ground-to-orbit craft has been sitting in the ocean off Manhattan Island, convenient to the United Nations Building, for those same two weeks. Its crew are supposed to be all the Monks there are in the world.
    "Mr. Frazer, we don't even know how your Monk got out here to the West Coast! Almost anything you could tell us would help. Did you notice anything odd about him, these last two nights?"
    "Odd?" I grinned. "About a Monk?"
    It took him a moment to get it, and then his answering smile was wan. "Odd for a Monk."
    "Yah," I said, and tried to concentrate. It was the wrong move. Bits of fact buzzed about my skull, trying to fit themselves together.
    Morris was saying, "Just talk, if you will. The Monk came back Tuesday night. About what time?"
    "About four-thirty. He had a case- of-pills-RNA..."
    It was no use. I knew too many, things, all at once, all unrelated. I knew the name of the Garment to Wear Among Strangers, its principle and its purpose. I knew about Monks and alcohol. I knew the names of the five primary colors,, so that for a moment I was blind with the memory of the colors themselves, colors no man would ever see.
    Morris was standing over me, looking worried. "What is it? What's wrong?"
    "Ask me anything." My voice was high and strange and breathless with giddy laughter. "Monks have four limbs, all hands, each with a callus heel behind the fingers. I know their names, Morris. Each hand, each finger. I know how many eyes a Monk has. One. And the whole skull is an ear. There's no word for ear, but medical terms for each of the-resonating cavities-between the lobes of the brain-"
    "You look dizzy. You don't sample your own wares, do you,' Frazer?"
    "I'm the opposite of dizzy. There's a compass in my head. I've got absolute direction. Morris, it must have been the