How Beer Saved the World

On the Making of Veffen ^{Barb Caffrey}

“To veffen! Beer by any other name!” Betsy Carroll, the Terran Ambassador to N’Ferra, cried.

Vkandwe Asayana—or Scholar Asa as Betsy liked to call him—smiled, pushed his mug against hers, and took a sip. “Refreshing, isn’t it? A cool, dark beer on a warm day… what could be better?” He settled his great mottled wings on his back, adjusted his brown half-cape decorously, and leaned forward over the wooden bench. “Would you like to see how veffen is made?” His dark eyes, usually so luminous, were grave.

But Betsy took no notice of this. “Would I!” No human had ever seen how veffen was made. The N’Ferrans considered it sacred.

Yet, fortunately for the humans, the N’Ferrans did share their veffen, even exporting a small amount for a ridiculously high price. Most humans believed veffen to be akin to a rich Irish stout, even though it had a taste all its own that was rich, nutty, and bitter as all dark beer, yet with a hint of entrancing sweetness.

“I have an invitation to the next veffen—making ceremony.” Asayana’s lips twitched with something that wasn’t a smile. His four-fingered hands stayed folded and his wings were quiescent, which was never a good sign. “You might say I’m ‘requested and required’ to be there. My people say it’s time.”

“I don’t understand,” Betsy said. “Does the making of veffen require a specific time?”

“Not exactly,” Asayana said. “But you’ll find out more at the ceremony. I’ve been told I can only share so much information with you prior to that time.” He looked away, as if in embarrassment. “I’m truly sorry.”

“Your people are that stiff regarding the making of veffen?” Betsy looked closely at her friend, the first N’Ferran who’d ever shown interest in learning more about the humans and their ways. But Vkandwe–Scholars–were legendary in their fearlessness, at least on this world. “Why should the making of veffen be so shrouded in secrecy, anyway?”

Something wasn’t right about all this.

“As a Fearless One, Betsy–” his voice trilled up on the “y” but otherwise pronounced her name flawlessly, unlike most other N’Ferrans, scholars or no “—I truly hate not being able to give you this knowledge in advance.”

Ah. Now Betsy understood his look away. Asa was angry. And anger was rarely shown in N’Ferran society, because it was seen as a loss of face.

She wondered how the N’Ferrans were able to deal with humans, as even the calmest humans had difficulty in keeping their feelings off their faces unless they’d had specific religious training. But the N’Ferrans refused to allow anyone deeply religious to step foot on their world, claiming a privacy violation.

And most humans weren’t all that religious anyway. So the monks went elsewhere, while the “great lumpen unwashed,” as Betsy had once delightfully told Asa, came to partake in the veffen.

Asa held up his clear mug and studied the contents. Then, thoughtfully, he took another sip. “No wonder the humans line up for this at their festival of beers–what did you call it again?”

“Oktoberfest,” Betsy said. “Though our beers are not a patch on N’Ferra’s own veffen, truly.”

Asa shrugged. “I’ve enjoyed trying the various beers over the past six boryani as we’ve wrestled with the cosmos. My favorite is the Guinness stout–but don’t tell anyone.”

“I promise,” Betsy said. She clinked her mug again with Asa’s, and took another sip. “Your secret is safe with me.”

She didn’t realize this was the last time she’d ever see her friend alive.

Three days later, Betsy received a large, elegant scroll through diplomatic channels at the Embassy addressed to “Elizabeth Carroll.” The handwriting was obviously not human and the ink was not stock.

Because of this, she walked into her back office—the one with all the safeguards. The one so rarely used, as the N’Ferrans, aside from Scholar Asa and a few others among that fearless caste, seemingly didn’t care if the humans lived or died—so long as they kept drinking their veffen.

Betsy frowned. The only N’Ferran who knew her full name was Scholar Asa, but as he couldn’t pronounce Elizabeth, he’d dispensed with writing out her full name after the equivalent of a few months. But he’d told her once when deep in his cups that if he ever had need of her, he’d write to her formally—and through diplomatic channels, as he obviously knew how to reach her at home.

She opened the scroll, written out in the N’Ferran script only she among her staff of six had truly mastered. “Asylum?” she wondered as she read. “Why does Asa want that?”

Betsy checked the various places Asa usually used to leave her a message—while the N’Ferrans didn’t use much technology as a whole, the Fearless Ones had become adept at the use of voicemail and various computer-aided devices (providing they’d been adapted for the N’Ferran four-fingered hand)—and found… nothing.

Worse yet, a quick check of Asa’s lodgings found that he’d not been there since Betsy had last seen him, even though he’d lived there for the better part of forty years. And no one knew where he had gone, either.

None of this was customary for a Fearless One, much less someone with the high status of Vkandwe Asayana. Someone who was openly a friend to the Terran Ambassador—someone who saw the benefit of peaceful commerce, trade and knowledge, even though the trade-off for the N’Ferrans was that a human spaceport had been built on N’Ferra’s outsized moon.

And not everyone on the N’Ferran Ruling Council had liked that, Betsy remembered. Even though with the spaceport, she and the other Terrans had pledged to defend N’Ferra with their lives if pirates ever attempted to attack… which was a realistic possibility considering the popularity of veffen.

She called Charlie Simmons, whom the N’Ferrans believed to be her cultural attaché, into the office and motioned him to a chair next to her desk. He actually was her spymaster, though he’d had little to do over the past five years he’d been stationed here. “What do you make of this?”

He read over the document, questioned her over the words, and then sighed. “I’ve heard that Scholar Asayana has angered the N’Ferrans in some way,” he said. “This communiqué would seem to indicate what I heard is the truth.”

“What else have you heard?” Betsy asked intently.

“Asayana’s life is said to be forfeit unless he bows down to the Ruling Council… and then shreds his wings.”

“What?” Betsy asked in astonishment. “Why would the Ruling Council want him to do that?”

“They wish to humble the Fearless Ones is my guess,” Charlie said. “And they may wish to humble us as well through his friendship with you.”

“But… you’re friends with several N’Ferrans—”

“Not with a Fearless One, though,” Charlie interrupted. “Don’t you know what they are? What they give up to obtain the knowledge they seek?”

“They’re… like monks, I thought,” Betsy said. “With a thirst for knowledge, even knowledge that would seem to be useless to them—thus the low-tech. A N’Ferran Fearless One becomes friendly with me, a spacegoing human from an obviously high-tech culture—”

“That’s not entirely it.” Charlie’s voice dropped. “You know they sever all family ties, and while they do allow friendships—especially in a situation like this one, where there’s much potential benefit for all involved—a Fearless One is expected to give up his life on a moment’s notice if it will give him, or the N’Ferrans as a whole, knowledge they’d not otherwise have.”

“But Asa has asked for asylum, Charlie! He’s done so formally, so I can’t refuse to admit that he’s done so… he must need me, or he’d not do this.”

“I’ll see what I can find out, Betsy, but I hold out no promises.” Charlie’s eyes were grave. “But you have to know that if Asayana truly wanted asylum, he’d have walked through the Embassy doors himself and told you. So this message can’t be all that it seems.”

“I agree.” Betsy threw up her hands. “This whole thing makes no sense. Especially the business with the wings. To N’Ferrans, their wings are everything! They’re for status, display, to keep the rain off—even if they’re too old to fly any more, like Asa. Why would the Ruling Council want to take Asa’s wings?”

“To humble him,” Charlie said bluntly. “But as important as Scholar Asayana is to you, Betsy, it’s more important that the N’Ferran Ruling Council would openly attempt to shame him in this fashion. As it stands, I’m sure that the veffen-making ceremony, and your open invitation to it through Asayana, is not what it seems. I’m betting that all of Asayana’s current problems have something to do with this ceremony, too.”

“Isn’t that a bit of a reach?” Betsy asked. “Asa’s in trouble, yes, and they’re about to have a veffen-making ceremony, yes… and they’ve invited me, yes… but—”

“There’s too many coincidences here to suit me,” Charlie said. “Please, for the love of God and little green applies, don’t go!”

“I have to,” she said quietly. “It’s a diplomatic function. Plus, Scholar Asa invited me. Why would he invite me to something that might be dangerous?”

“And he’d request asylum if he wasn’t in danger himself?” Charlie pointed out with remorseless logic. “Come on! You know Asayana. He’s never evinced a wish to travel off-planet. So why would he request asylum now, knowing the only way to grant his wish, providing we can even find him to do so, is to put him on a ship bound for Earth… which might kill him at his age!”

“He’s only seventy, or thereabouts,” Betsy argued.

“And none of his people—not one of them—have ever traveled off-planet. No one has any idea if the drugs we use to endure deep space will work on a N’Ferran, much less one of his advanced age. Much less the fact that he may not be able to tolerate the additional gravity to break for space… Asayana has to know this.”

“He should, yes,” she agreed. “He’s a scholar, and they collect what we might call ‘useless knowledge.’ You know they stay exempt from politics, which is why this is so bizarre… Asa sees me as being like him.”

“Someone who’s getting to know the N’Ferran culture for its own sake definitely would be viewed as a scholar.” Charlie stated the obvious, but his eyes told her something else. “Tell me everything he said at your last meeting.”

So Betsy went over it all. Again.

Charlie listened impassively. “Let’s assume we do find Asayana. Can you grant him asylum?”

“I think so.” She frowned. “It will anger the N’Ferran Ruling Council, but when we landed here, we insisted that if anyone ever wished for asylum, we must grant it. That’s the main reason we are only allowed to have six Terrans at the Embassy at any given time.”

“Yes, and we’re all supposedly scholars, too.” Charlie snorted. “Though what we’re studying is definitely up for debate.”

“We’re studying the N’Ferrans. They’re studying us, or at least the Fearless Ones are… I’ve never really believed the Ruling Council cared one way or the other about us, aside from drinking their veffen and making some hefty profits. So why start now?”

Charlie’s blue eyes bored into hers. “What do you know about veffen?”

“Other than it’s a really good drink?” Betsy asked. “It’s high in certain trace elements, along with folate and some flavonoids—”

Charlie interrupted. “And small N’Ferrans—egglings, even—need to drink at least a little veffen in order to survive.”

“I didn’t know that,” she admitted. “Asa said that veffen saved N’Ferra once, when I asked him. But he couldn’t tell me why.”

Charlie drummed his hands against the wooden desk. “My hunch is that veffen, like human dark beers, allows calcium to better bind to bones. And that it works even better for the N’Ferrans than it does for us.”

Betsy frowned, a twitch of her lips. “Maybe… maybe we need to think about how the veffen is fertilized. They seem to do it only as a ceremony with many honored guests among the N’Ferran elite–”

“—And there must be a reason for that,” Charlie finished. “We’ve never been told what it is. Yet now, after how many years of secrecy, they’re willing to show us? There’s something wrong with that, Betsy!”

“I’ve been here ten years,” Betsy said quietly. She’d been on N’Ferra twice as long as Charlie, who’d been among the second batch of humans to make the nascent Terran Embassy a going concern. “And they continually rebuffed me—even Asa, who has said he’d be glad to tell if it were allowed. But I think he’d lose his status as a Fearless One—”

“Which he’s about to lose anyway if my sources are correct,” Charlie put in.

“They’ve always been willing to share their veffen, at least in small amounts,” Betsy said, thinking aloud. “If it’s as necessary to their culture as you think it is—”

“I’ll put out some more feelers,” Charlie promised. “When, exactly, is this ceremony?”

“The second of Dalgarsh, which is… eight days from now?”

“Eight 14.8 hour days… that doesn’t give us much time. I’ll ask Stan if he’s willing to do some legwork.”

Betsy knew Stanley Driscoll, the Terran Embassy’s science specialist, quite well. An older Terran, he was passionately interested in everything concerned with avian biology and had actually come out of retirement to study the N’Ferrans. So if anyone could find out what the N’Ferrans actually needed the veffen to do for them, Stan would be the man.

“He’ll have to get over the N’Ferrans use of his full first name, too,” Betsy said dryly. “I know Stanley sounds strange—”

“But they like it, and that’s what they’re going to call him, nyah!”

They laughed, but without humor.

“For now, I’m going to pretend that Scholar Asa did not request asylum and continue to try to find him,” Betsy murmured. “I’ll be the misdirection, while you and Stan try to figure out what’s going on.”

Another four days passed before Stan Driscoll walked into Betsy’s public office. He waved triumphantly, then walked upstairs to her inner sanctum. She quickly disengaged from a few Terran tourists (visiting the embassy for the locations of bars that catered to human stomachs along with the ubiquitous veffen) and followed.

Stan wasted no time. “At the veffen-making ceremony, I’ve heard that the N’Ferrans give chapter and verse as to how, exactly, veffen is so important to them.”

“Did you find someone willing to talk with you right now, though?” Betsy asked as she took her seat behind her desk. “And should we wait for Charlie?”

“He’s got a lead as to where Asayana is, so I’d guess not,” Stan said. “And no, I couldn’t get anyone to talk directly. But I did confirm your hunch that veffen helps the N’Ferrans, biologically—did you know that N’Ferran bones are abnormally brittle due to past radioactivity?”

“The crust of N’Ferra has some abnormalities, I’d read—”

“Exactly, and that’s why the Ruling Council distrusts our technology, as they equate it, I’m sorry, with radiation.” Stan shook his white-haired head.

A deep bong rang out, which meant one of the other Embassy staffers had need of her, immediately. Betsy went to the glass plate and saw Charlie… alone. Something about his expression made her stomach drop.

She quickly opened the door. “Charlie, what’s wrong?”

He stepped inside, closed the door, and said. “Asayana’s been taken by the Ruling Council. We can’t get at him, though supposedly he will be available to you, and to you alone, directly before the veffen-making ceremony.” His eyes darkened to a near-black, something Betsy had never seen in the five years she’d known him. “The Ruling Council said everything will be explained at that time.”

“But you don’t believe it.”

“I don’t believe it, either,” Stan said. “I’ve heard rumors of ghastly things done to elderly N’Ferrans such as Asayana at veffen-making ceremonies—”

“Such as what?” Betsy demanded.

“Ritual murder…” said Stan.

“Blood sacrifice…” said Charlie.

Stan and Charlie looked at one another, then by unspoken accord Stan went on. “Blood, you see, also appears to be needed in order to fertilize the various plants that make up veffen. And the N’Ferrans often make a spectacle of it, from what I’ve been told—”

“And I,” Charlie agreed.

“Even though voluntary transfusions are possible and would not harm the N’Ferrans if done in small quantities—which appears to be what is usually done to fertilize the veffen, from what I could tell—the Ruling Council likes to make an example out of certain notorious N’Ferrans.”

“Thanks, Stan, for this information.” Betsy knew she needed to talk with Charlie alone, as there was something else he hadn’t yet said. “If the N’Ferrans would allow it, I’d like to bring you to the veffen-making ceremony.”

“I appreciate the offer, but if what I think is going to happen actually does, I don’t want to be there,” Stan said. “I’m just sorry that you have to go. Because I don’t think anyone should have to witness something like that.” He then bowed, formally—an unexpected touch—turned on his heel, and left.

“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.

Which is what she knew he’d expect.

Quickly, the N’Ferrans agreed. But then, they insisted that she drink the veffen in order to seal the deal. And she knew she’d have to do it, even though after this she knew she’d never drink veffen again.

She remembered Asa, his calm certainty, his intelligence, his strength, and his final, ironic toast. This gave her the courage to take up the mug and take one, ritual swallow. “To Vkandwe Asayana! The finest Fearless One I’ve ever known, who gave his life in the pursuit of knowledge.”

“To Vkandwe Asayana!” the Councillors echoed.

And the deal was done.

Betsy hoped that somewhere, wherever Asa was now in his pursuit of knowledge, that he was smiling. Because she knew she wasn’t.