Fourth Profession, The

Publication date: 
1972-08
Publication type: 
Short Story
Published: 
Quark 4, edited by Samuel R. Delany and Marilyn Hacke
Opus No.: 
50
Setting: 
Léshy
Awards: 
Hugo nominee
Summary: 

After a visiting alien unexpectedly shows up in a Los Angeles bar, bartender Ed Frazer awakes the next morning with the strangest hangover of his life. Ed barely remembers taking the gift offered by the alien; mysterious pills that flood his brain with the knowledge and skills of an alien profession: spaceship captain, teleporter, translator... now Ed can't remember how many pills he took, or if the confusing overload of information in his head reveals the terrible secret of the aliens' mission...

Notes: 

Monks and bartenders

Reprints: 

Reprints Characters Awards Notes The Best Science Fiction of the Year, edited by Terry Carr; anthology, The 1972 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollhein; Yugoslav magazine, Sirius, broj 61, as "Cetvrta Vjestina"; Project Solar Sail, ed. Arthur C. Clarke, NAL/Roc 1990; Hole in Space, A; N-Space; Best of Larry Niven, The; De Stranden Van Serius Vier