Mid-Flinx (25 page)

The soldier responded by checking the charge on his rifle, ignoring the female child who was now clutching desperately at his legs and sobbing uncontrollably. Flinx contemplated making a jump for the weapon even though he knew he’d never reach it. Caavax was watching him too closely.

The alarm was sounded by another of the alert troopers. Movement in the branches overhead spurred him to shout a startled warning. For an instant Flinx flinched along with the AAnn, but the unexpected sense of calm and assurance Teal projected caused him to relax. Along with everyone else, he turned his gaze upward.

Drifting down through the leaves and branches was what appeared to be a swarm of thin mushroom caps. Brown on top and streaked with bright blue, pale white underneath, they averaged a third of a meter in diameter with hollow centers. Each cap was ringed with tiny globules. If it was some kind of attack, it was proceeding at a pace an active slug could avoid.

“Calm yourself, Masmarulial,” the field officer instructed the trooper who’d yelled. “All kinds of plant matter drifts down from above. Seeds and leaves, twigs and empty husks. Just move out of the way.”

“Yes, honored one,” mumbled the abashed soldier. Stepping clear of the nearest gently tumbling brown disk, he watched it spiral down toward the branch.

He had no way of knowing that his body heat would be sufficient to activate it.

Faster than the eye could follow, the tiny globes rimming the disk ballooned to four times their normal size and exploded. The soldier responded by doing precisely the wrong thing, which was to inhale sharply. Vertical pupils expanding to the maximum, his eyes bugged. Mucus began to stream from his nostrils and he sneezed so violently that he dropped his rifle. It clattered on the branch but did not go off.

Everyone gaped at the unfortunate trooper, who by this time had collapsed on the branch and was sneezing uncontrollably. In imitation of Teal, Flinx once again had clapped his hands over nose and mouth.

Distracted by their companion’s distress, the AAnn failed to notice that Kiss’s sobbing had ceased with suspicious suddenness. Nor did they see her remove from a pocket concealed in the lining of her cape a child-sized bone blade ten centimeters in length. Demonstrating lightning reflexes and precocious skill, she jammed this with all her strength up between the legs of the soldier she was clinging to.

The trooper screamed like a baby and dropped his weapon to clutch at himself. At the same time, Dwell bounded forward and leaped at the field officer. Wrapping one arm around the AAnn’s neck and both legs around its waist, the boy used his own knife to slash several times at the straps that secured the catching sack to the officer’s pack. He had to work fast because more and more of the mushroom-puffballs were exploding as the disks drifted within range of those standing on the branch. Sneezing helplessly, locked together, both he and the field officer crumpled onto the branch.

Flinx closed his eyes to try and shut out the irritating spores. At that moment he wanted nothing more out of life than to be able to take a deep, invigorating mouthful of fresh air. He was sure his face must be turning blue.

Having planted her hidden knife where it would do the most good, Kiss scrambled like a little brown-haired bug to the edge of the branch  . . . and flung herself over the side, out into empty space. Sneezing painfully, Dwell rolled free of the helpless Nesorey. A last, tenacious tug ripped free the sack containing Pip. Flinging it ahead of him, he followed it over the side.

Seeing this, a wide-eyed Flinx stumbled toward the edge. He couldn’t hold it in any longer; he
had
to breathe. As he opened his mouth, someone hit him hard in the middle of the back. Flailing wildly for balance, he looked over his shoulder and saw that it was Teal who had struck him from behind. Her cool, contemplative stare was the last thing he saw before he felt himself falling through space.

Seconds became an eternity before he struck something soft and yielding. Bouncing several times, he eventually came to a halt. Rolling over onto all fours and looking up, the first thing he saw was Dwell. The grinning boy was standing and looking down at him, a now familiar sack slung safely over his shoulder.

“You can breathe okay now.” With one hand he pointed upward. “The hac spores are all up there.”

Nodding to show that he understood, Flinx sucked in a great, deep mouthful of heavy, moist hylaeal air. It felt wonderful and his starved lungs cried for more. As he climbed to his feet he saw that Teal was laughing at him.

Smiling shyly, he inclined his head and tried to see up into the canopy. They had fallen far enough so that there was no sign, or sound, of their captors. A hand tapped him on the shoulder.

The boy held the sack out to him. “Here is your animal. I knew you would not come without it.”

Flinx accepted the sack and tried to think of some way to show the depth of his appreciation. “That was very brave of you, Dwell, to jump the field officer like that.”

The ten-year-old shrugged. “I knew what the hac spores would do. He didn’t.”

Flinx smiled and bent to release the secure seals. When the last had been loosened, a brilliantly colored cylindrical shape slithered out, flaunted multihued wings, and took to the air. It circled three times around the cluster of approving humans before setting down on Flinx’s shoulder. He felt the pointed tongue flicking affectionately at the underside of his jaw.

“We have to get her something to eat,” he explained to Teal. “It shouldn’t be difficult. She’s omnivorous—I mean, she’ll eat just about anything.”

Approaching with a shyness Flinx could no longer accept at face value subsequent to her actions above, Kiss presented him with a handful of thumbnail-sized nuts drawn from still another concealed pocket in her green cape. They were bright pink with ribbed exteriors, but Pip downed them one after another without hesitation.

“Thanks,” Flinx told the girl. She smiled back up at him and he could feel a blend of uncertainty and affection radiating from her.

Looking up into the boundless greenery once more, he thought he could just hear the echo of distant popping. “How much longer will the sneeze effect last?”

Teal moved close. “We left before the spores could disperse fully. If the not-persons are still up there, in the same place, they won’t be able to do anything at all for a little while yet.”

Kiss pressed a finger to her lower lip. “Not-persons aren’t very smart.”

“Certainly not as smart as you,” Flinx told her admiringly. “Who taught you to react the way you did up there?”

Not-so-innocent green eyes peered up at him. “Mommy and Daddy an’ Uncle Thil and Shaman Ponder.”

“Children’s training starts very early,” Teal explained. “It’s easy to get them to pay attention to their lessons. Those who don’t never grow up.”

“Lost my knife.” A disappointed Kiss pushed out her lower lip, looking for all the world like any little girl who’d misplaced her dolly.

“I’ll get you another one,” Flinx assured her. “A better knife than you’ve ever seen. Even if I have to make it myself.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Really? Promise?”

“Really. I promise.” He smiled fondly.

They had landed atop something Teal identified as gargalufla. The single flower had only two leaves, each of which was three meters thick, five wide, and six long. It would have been incapable of supporting its own weight if the majority of its intercellular interstices hadn’t been filled with air. This was what had cushioned their fall.

“How did you know this was here?” Flinx looked from the colossal flower to Teal. “Surely your decision to jump this way was based on more than hope? For that matter, you didn’t seem surprised at the arrival of the hac spores. Are they common around here?”

She was smiling back at him. “No, they’re not. They usually don’t fall in such dense clusters, either. They were carried to the place and then dropped on us.”

“Dropped  . . . ?” Half-familiar feelings caused him to turn in the right direction several moments before the furcots actually arrived.

With a somber Saalahan in the lead, they ambled out of the verdure to rejoin their humans. A delighted Kiss and Dwell flung themselves at the equally responsive Moomadeem and Tuuvatem, the four of them laughing and giggling as they rolled about, swatting and hugging one another with reckless disregard for the precipitous drop that gaped beneath the gargalufla. While no less pleased to see one another again, Saalahan and Teal restricted themselves to a more formal embrace.

“You almost waited too long.” She made a fist and rubbed the big adult between the ears.

Saalahan grunted contentedly. “Easy to gather hac spore caps. Harder to make sure you had a place to jump okay.”

Flinx eyed Teal. “So that’s how you knew it was safe to throw yourself off the branch.”

She nodded. “As soon as I saw so many hac caps falling in one place I knew that Saalahan had to be responsible. Knowing that, I knew my furcot wouldn’t dump them right on top of us unless it was safe to get away from them the quickest way possible. Which was to jump.” She nodded in the direction of the gigantic flower. “I didn’t know what we’d land on. The gargalufla was perfect, Saalahan.”

“Thought it would be so.” The big adult sniffed.

“How did you know these spores would have the same effect on the AAnn,” Flinx inquired. “On the not-persons?”

Three eyes regarded him thoughtfully. “If a thing has a nose, hac spores will make it sneeze.”

“Furcots have noses. How come they didn’t make you sneeze when you gathered them?”

The social symbiote sniffed. “Use long grasper vines to pick, and carry caps. If hac caps are not brought close to a person’s body, where they can be warmed, they stay closed.”

The furcots helped them slide safely off the side of the humungous leaf. Teal showed Flinx the stem of the flower, which was as big around as the trunk of an oak. The flower in turn grew atop a branch greater in diameter than the largest tree Flinx had ever seen on Moth. Everything on this world, he reflected, was of a scale to dwarf all the combined jungles of the known worlds. Compared to it, the Amazon basin of Terra was backyard landscaping and the rain forests of Hivehom as thoroughly domesticated as the rough bordering a golf course.

At the limit of his perception he felt he could see an extraordinary jumble of fear, fury, uncertainty, and determination.

“Don’t you think we should get moving?”

Teal peered up into the tangle of vegetation. “Do you really think after what just happened to them they will still try to come after us?”

“I don’t know, but the AAnn honor persistence. I’d rather not wait around and see.”

Lord Caavax’s expeditionary force was now down to a field officer, two healthy troopers, and the hapless victim of Kiss’s knife, assuming he hadn’t bled to death. Given such losses, human pursuers would have opted to execute a strategic retreat. The AAnn thought differently.

“Then we will not linger. Give us a direction, Flinx.”

Checking his tiny positioner, he raised an arm and pointed. “That way.”

“Your device is a wonderment.” She smiled at him. “Perhaps this time we will reach the Home-tree without interference.”

“I sure as hell hope so.” He scratched Pip under her chin and she closed her eyes in pleasure. They could just as easily head for his shuttle, he reflected, and with the furcots’ help, probably beat the leery and weakened Caavax to the landing site.

The drawback to that notion was that there could be several dozen fresh troopers still aboard the AAnn craft, waiting with heavy weapons and eager attitudes for the opportunity to see some action. Perhaps only an imaginary confrontation, but one Flinx intended to avoid. Before attempting anything on his own behalf he fully intended to see Teal and her children safely home.

Dwell was chatting with his sister. “Remember when that dumb diverdaunt tried to
eat
a bunch of ripe hac caps? It nearly sneezed itself to pieces!” Brother and sister shared a giggle along with the memory.

Watching them, serene and safe once again, Flinx mused on what it might be like to grow up in a world like this, never seeing the ground or the sky, surrounded by millions of exotic species where in a lifetime most people were fortunate to encounter a few hundred. The forest supplied everything they needed, in unimaginable plenty and variety. The flavors of foods alone must exceed anything available to even the richest of merchants.

Then a thorn nicked the back of his left hand and he winced slightly. A tiny bubble of blood welled up where the skin had been broken. It was a reminder, small but not insignificant.

This was a place of great beauty, but also a place where daydreamers died. Resolutely, he returned his attention to the track ahead.

Chapter Nineteen

When Field Officer Nesorey finally stopped sneezing long enough to catch his breath, he staggered weakly to his feet. His face was a mess, the usually immaculate scales crusty with drying mucus, normally bright eyes dulled and dark from uncontrolled glandular seepage.

Chorazzkwep was doing his best trying to treat the moaning, badly wounded Jusquetechii, applying disinfectants, antibiotics, and sterile spray-on. Serious medical treatment would have to wait until they returned to the shuttle. Wiping at his eyes, the field officer saw that the quick-thinking Chorazzkwep had at least succeeded in stopping the bleeding. Nesorey would put him in for an appropriate commendation—provided any of them lived that long.

Gazing intently into the green depths below the branch, Lord Caavax was using a moistened disinfecting towel to clean his face and muzzle. He stood too close to the edge for Nesorey’s comfort, but it was not the field officer’s place to criticize the noble’s decision. Suggesting that he step back from the abyss would be equivalent to impugning the aristocrat’s courage. Whatever else his faults might be, Nesorey mused, Lord Caavax was not lacking in bravery.

What was in order now, however, was not bravery but common sense.

Cries, whistles, screeches, howls, rhythmic bellowing, and musical calls resounded from below as well as all around the devastated expedition. None provided any clues as to the fate of their former prisoners. Had they all committed suicide rather than submit to the ennobling attention of AAnn weaponry, or were one or more of them lying safe somewhere unseen below, possibly injured? The field officer knew that in that equation only the tall human male mattered.

He peered cautiously over the edge. Green of every possible shade and permutation assailed his still tender eyes. There was ample movement, none of which could be traced to a human source. With a soft hiss he sidled sideways until he was standing next to his superior.

“Honored Lord, what shall we do now? Direct me.” He performed a second-degree salute with suggestions of understanding and a touch of sympathy-for-position.

Caavax was touched. Un-AAnnlike as it would have been, given their circumstances, he would have taken no umbrage had the field officer chosen instead to announce himself with several choice curses.

“As soon as Jusquetechii’s injury has been stabilized we shall resume pursuit.” After a glance down at the tracker attached to his instrument belt, he pointed eastward. “They’re moving that way. So long as the human Flinx utilizes his own instrumentation to position himself with respect to his shuttle, he cannot escape us. If he switches the device off, he will become hopelessly lost. He is young, but not stupid.

“When we next catch up with him, there will be no hesitation. We will kill the three native humans from ambush and I myself will see to it that he cannot flee from us without great difficulty. The option of a respected captivity will not be offered.”

The field officer acknowledged his superior’s designated course of action. “Honored Lord?”

“Field officer?” Caavax was staring off into the impenetrable wall of green.

“The human Flinx is aware of our presence and intentions. As you have observed, he is not ignorant. Therefore he must know that we can track him so long as he continues the use of his positioner. The fact that he does so suggests that he does not fear pursuit. To carry this line of reasoning further, it is not out of the realm of possibility to consider that he may be deliberately tempting us to follow him.”

“To what end, field officer?”

Nesorey’s tone was one of first-degree assurance. “Our ultimate destruction, honored Lord.”

Caavax considered. “The thought had occurred to me. However, all of our losses save a single wounding have been caused by inimical local life forms, not by the humans. We need to take more care. Also, the human Flinx has been relieved of his only weapon.”

“I need hardly point out, honored Lord,” the field officer replied in a voice that flirted dangerously with impertinence, “that we are running out of soldiers with which to take care, and that this whole world may be regarded as a weapon.

“Even if we were to catch up to the quarry a second time, keeping in mind that he is now fully aware of our presence and intentions, I wonder if we could make it safely back to the landing site. We embarked on this hunt with a full squad of alert, energized troops. Presently we find ourselves reduced to three, one of whom is seriously injured.” He executed a profound gesture of disagreement tempered with respect.

“Let the human and his native friends go, honored Lord. Unless he chooses to live out his life in this pestilential morass, he will eventually have to return to his shuttle. Easy enough to disable the craft so that it would do him no good to sneak back aboard. Then we, or any AAnn who may follow us, can take him at leisure.” Nesorey turned to gesture in the direction of the wounded Jusquetechii.

“Is principle worth more than the life of an AAnn soldier?”

“Of course it is,” Caavax replied readily. “You know that as well as I do, field officer. Yet I take your point. I will lose face if we return without the quarry.”

Field Officer Nesorey regarded their surroundings with continued wariness. “Better to do so figuratively than literally, honored Lord.” He flinched as three stubby fliers with streaming yellow tails and quadruple wings flitted past the branch. They looked clumsy, harmless, and attractive, which made Nesorey all the more uneasy in their presence. He was learning.

Caavax was silent for a long time. When he finally replied, the resignation in his voice was profound.

“You are right, field officer. It will do us no good to die out here and leave the human free to wander on or off-world as he wishes. A blow to one’s pride is a fearful thing, but death compounded by failure is worse.

“We will return to the landing site. The quarry’s shuttle will be disabled and a suitable message placed aboard. When he is ready to leave he can determine his own fate.” He resumed his contemplation of their surroundings. “Perhaps that would have been the best course of action to pursue all along, but no one anticipated there would be this degree of difficulty in apprehending a single human.”

“No one could have, honored Lord.” Nesorey’s terse reply was ripe with both feeling and sympathy. “Who could imagine a world like this? It will haunt my memories till the day the Dark Dune sweeps over me.” His voice fell to a murmur. “I do not like this world, and I do not think it likes me.”

“Be careful, field officer,” Caavax warned him. “Suffering fear is debilitating. Projecting it is worse.

“Inform the others. We will return to the landing site as rapidly as is feasible, in the course of which we will touch nothing, brush nothing, examine nothing. If the journey could be accomplished with closed eyes and sealed ears, I would order it done so. Our food will be caution and care, which we will consume daily and in copious quantity.” He stepped past the field officer.

“Let us see how trooper Jusquetechii is doing. Now that a course of action has been decided, I am anxious to be on our way.” He bumped a trio of innocuous pink blossoms and jerked back sharply. They did not laugh at him, but had they in fact broken into audible hysterics, he would not have been at all surprised.

“There is no sign of them.”

Saalahan dropped from a liana and ambled up to the campsite, which consisted of several large leaves suspended over a crook where two large triangular cummumbra branches joined their parent trunk. Flinx and Teal reclined beneath the shelter while the children and their furcots played nearby.

“I went quite a distance.” Settling down with a grunt, Saalahan folded all six legs underneath.

Flinx’s senses had been devoid of AAnn-feel for some time now and he could readily have confirmed Saalahan’s observation. There was no need. What mattered was what was: regardless of what the surviving AAnn were up to, they weren’t following. This posed other potential difficulties, but he would deal with them later. For now it was enough to know he and his friends were safe from the attentions of Lord Caavax and his minions.

“They’ve given up. For now.” Idly he fingered the softly pulsing positioner.

“Maybe all dead.” Saalahan seemed to find this hugely amusing. A deep rumbling issued from within the burly chest. “Hard to follow when dead.”

“We were lucky,” Flinx corrected the furcot.

“Lucky like Kiss.” Tuuvatem took a playful, prideful swat at the child, who ducked easily.

Flinx lifted his eyes. Pip lay curled around the back of his neck, sleeping on his shoulders. They were on the third level, favored of local humans, and the sky was hundreds of meters distant.

“The AAnn aren’t always predictable. They might try to fight their way down to us with another shuttle. Next time there might not be the right kind of trees around to clog up its intakes.”

“Always such trees nearby.” Saalahan grunted knowingly. “Otherwise more fires.”

Flinx chose not to elaborate on the options open to the AAnn through the aid of modern technology. It was hard to argue with a furcot. Saalahan always seemed to have an answer for everything.

He envisioned a heavily armed AAnn shuttle blasting its way through the canopy and descending into the depths of the forest. It was a disconcerting image, made tolerable by the certain knowledge that in one way or another, the forest would respond. The consequences of such a conflict could only be imagined.

Something told him it would be unwise when considering the outcome of such a confrontation to bet against the all-encompassing vegetation.

Safe now from Lord Caavax’s attentions, Flinx was enjoying himself. Pip was all right, Teal was in good spirits, the children and furcots were consistently amusing, and everywhere he looked something new and extraordinary materialized to astonish the eye. He chose not to dwell on when it all might start to bore, as had everything else new and exciting he’d encountered in his brief but harried existence.

The time would come when he would have to consider leaving. How persistent was Lord Caavax? How desperately did the AAnn desire control of the
Teacher
?

Time yet to work out a plan of reaction. Careful not to disturb Pip, he placed his hands behind his head and leaned back against the trunk. The bogli tree reached nearly to the canopy and put forth a sensuous, pungent fragrance. Not all the wonders of this world were potentially lethal. He and his companions were relaxing in the shade of a six-hundred-meter-high cinnamon stick. It wasn’t cinnamon, of course, but that was the scent that came most readily to mind. Wallowing in the sensation, he inhaled deeply and often. A vast feeling of well-being and contentment washed over him, a massage more mental than physical.

It was a situation he was able to savor not because he knew he was safe, but because he enjoyed the company of three forest-attuned humans and three equally alert furcots.

That night he found, himself sitting and watching the rain as it pelted the branches and leaves, flowers and bromeliads outside their simple but adequate shelter. Seeing Pip curled like a blue and pink tattoo atop the mountainous Saalahan’s spine, he had to smile. Unable to catch or dissuade the persistent minidrag, the furcots had chosen to ignore her. Flinx knew the big adult’s back had to be softer than his own unyielding shoulders.

After checking on the children, Teal slid over to sit close to him. “What are you looking at?”

“The rain. The way the bromeliads catch and store it. The little glowing lives that flit and fly among the leaves. The dark shapes that boom hopefully at the night. The silent fliers who steer by the light of concealed moons.” Turning, he smiled affectionately at her. “Lots of things. My senses are all filled up with the perfume of newness.”

Her face wrinkled. “I don’t understand.”

He returned his attention to the dark, dripping hylaea. “I have this hunger to learn, Teal. You know how when you’re hungry you get a knot, a tight feeling, in the pit of your stomach?” She nodded. “I have the equivalent in my mind. There are plenty of times when I wish I could satisfy it, sate it, but no matter how much I learn, the hunger always comes back.” In the shadow of the cummumbra leaves he spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

“I need to learn, Teal. I need to see and experience new things. Otherwise, a part of me starts to starve.”

She snugged up against his arm. “Is the forest feeding you enough?”

“More than enough,” he assured her.

“Tell me, then. Share with me. What have you learned from the forest?”

He reflected. “That with beauty comes also death, and out of death arises new life, and that nothing should be taken for granted because in nature nothing is what it seems.” He shrugged. “It’s equally true for people.”

“Is it different where you come from?”

“No,” he told her quietly, “not really. It’s just not as passionate. Everything here is intensified: sights, sounds, smells. This world puts all your senses in overdrive.” He grinned in the darkness. “It’s hard to relax and lose yourself in beauty knowing that at any minute that which you’re admiring might gleefully try to rip your leg off.”

“I wouldn’t let that happen to you.”

“Thanks, Teal. I know . . .” He paused, struck by the tone as much as the import of her reply.

She was concentrating hard. Not on the forest. On him.

“I am mateless, Flinx.” That was all she said. It hung in the air like a seed, waiting for nurturance.

He looked away from her. “I’ve never been married  . . . mated, Teal. I’ve told you that.”

She shifted against him, her words as well as her body ripe with warmth and promise. Nearby, children and furcots slept soundly.

“I have helped you, you have helped me. I think there is more than help there. We are good for one another.”

He had visited many worlds, escaped dangers few could imagine, interacted with the good and the bad of numerous species, but not even his unique abilities could prepare him for Teal’s straightforwardness, nor tell him how to reply.