Flinx in Flux

by Alan Dean Foster

  Around? He smiled inwardly. Yes, you might say that I’ve been around, little gengineer. I’ve traveled to the Blight and the fringes of the Commonwealth. I’ve done such things as most men only dream of, and others that cannot be imagined. Oh, I’ve been around, all right.

  He had turned away from her again. Now he felt her pressing up against him, her front tight against his back, her arms sliding around his waist in a graceful serpentine flanking movement as she nonverbally began to make it clear exactly how grateful she was to him and how grateful she might be.

  Without really knowing why, he found himself slipping free of her grasp and turning to face her. There was hurt on her face and real concern in her voice. That made it harder.

  “Now what’s wrong?”

  “I haven’t known you long enough to like you that way. Not consciously, anyhow.”

  “You liked me better unconscious?”

  “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.” Time for a subject change. “If you still feel threatened, you ought, to report what happened to you to the authorities.”

  “I told you, they have spies everywhere. That’s how they got to me in the first place. We’d only have to talk to one wrong person, and then they’d have me again. You they’d probably kill, just to keep from talking.”

  “That would upset you?”

  “You’re damn right it would.” She was looking straight at him. “You’re a curious savior, Flinx.” She cocked her head to give him a coquettish sideways stare. “I’d like to find out just how curious. Don’t you find me attractive?”

  He swallowed. As usual he intended to be in complete control of the situation, and as usual he was not.

  “Extraordinarily attractive,” he finally managed to mumble.

  “That clears that up, anyway Oh!” Scrap startled her as the adolescent minidrag landed on her shoulder. Unable to coil around her shoulder, he settled for wrapping his tail tightly around her thick, short blond sidetail.

  “His name’s Scrap. I think he likes you.”

  “How do you do?” She bent her head to eye the tiny instrument of death snuggling cozily against her neck. “How do you know he likes me?”

  “Because you’re still alive.”

  “I see.” She pursed her lips. “You said his name was Scrap?” At the mention of his name, the young flying snake’s head rose slightly.

  “They tend to bond, you know? Form close emotional attachments with human beings they’re attracted to. Do snakes bother you?”

  “I’m a gengineer. Nothing living bothers me except a few creatures I can’t see with the naked eye.”

  I wonder what you’d think of me if you knew my history, he mused. “They’re telepathic on the emotional level. Scrap knows what you’re feeling. If he chooses to bond with you, you’ll never have a more devoted companion or effective bodyguard. Pip and I have been together my whole life. I’ve never had more than a moment or two to regret the relationship.”

  “How long do they live?” She was stroking the back of the flying snake’s head the way she had seen Flinx caress Pip.

  “Nobody knows. They’re uncommon on Alaspin, practically unknown offworld. This is a tough place to do studies in the wild, much less on anything as dangerous as a minidrag.” He thought a moment. “Pip was mature when I found her, so she must be around seventeen. That’d be old for a reptile, but the minidrags aren’t reptiles.”

  “No. I can feel the warmth.” She smiled at her new friend. “Well, you’re welcome to stay there if that’s what you want.”

  It was. Flinx could feel it. After considering taking her in his arms and kissing her firmly, he sighed and sat down on his bed. He was an expert at such scenarios but utterly inept at putting them into practice. His fingers worked nervously against each other.

  “I said I’d help you. How do you want to proceed?”

  “I have to get back to my people. I’m sure they’re worried sick by now. As far as I know, not a soul knows what’s happened to me. They’ll be frantic.”

  “Because they miss you personally or because you’re such an important part of their research machinery?”

  “Both,” she assured him without batting an eye. “But it’s bigger than just me now. From their questions, I gather that these fanatics want to shut down our whole project. Kidnapping me was one way to slow everything down as well as acquire the information they wanted for the rest.”

  “Pardon me, but you don’t look old enough to be that important to any company.”

  Her expression started to twist. Then she saw he was teasing her. “Your point. I won’t make any more comments about your age if you’ll do the same for me.”

  “Much better.”

  “I have to get back quickly. My absence slows everything up. I’m kind of the insightful hub of the project. They come to me for breakthroughs, for new ways of looking at things. Not for everyday design work. I’m intuitive where practically everyone else is deductive.” She spoke so matter-of-factly that he knew she was not boasting, just stating the facts.

  “It’s all going to come to a grinding halt without me there, if it hasn’t already. Just get me to Alaspinport. Then we’ll decide what to do next. I guess I’ll have to disguise myself somehow. Besides looking for me out here, you can be sure they’ll be swarming all over the one shuttle area like lice, or whatever it was you called those things that scarred my legs.”

  “Millimite bugs, mostly.” He stared at her thighs.

  When he looked back up, he saw her grinning at him. “Like what you see?”

  He struggled to appear blasé. “Nice legs, bad bites.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t try to get out on the first ship. I’ll bet not too many call at Alaspin.” She was arguing with herself, he saw. “But if I don’t try for the next one, I might be stuck here for weeks until another liner orbits, and that’ll give them that much more time to close in on me. So I suppose I’ll have to try slipping onto the first one no matter how many people they have watching the port.” As if suddenly remembering she was not alone, she glanced back at him. “I don’t suppose you have any friends in the planetary government?”

  “There is no planetary government. This is an H Class Eight frontier world. There’s a Commonwealth-appointed administrator and peaceforcers on call. That’s about it. Pretty wide-open place.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” she said firmly. “I have to try to make it clear on the first available ship not only to save myself but to warn my people.”

  “Alaspin has a deepspace beam. Paid for by the protectors, I understand. You could try contacting them that way.”

  She shook her head. “No receiver station where I come from.”

  “How about beaming a message to the nearest receiver world and sending it along by courier?”

  “I don’t know. They might be watching the message depot here as well. And it’s easy to intercept a courier packet. Then I wouldn’t know if they received my message or not. Don’t underestimate these people, Flinx. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re screening everything that goes through Alaspinport. They knew enough to smuggle me in. They’ll make it hard to smuggle anything out.”

  “Sounds to me like you don’t have a lot of options.”

  “No.” Her voice fell. “No, I guess I don’t.” She stared at him. “You said you’d help me. I asked you for suggestions. I’m asking you again. Maybe we could bribe someone to let us skip departure procedures.”

  “Not enough of a crowd to get lost in.” He coughed silently into a closed fist. “There is one other possibility. I could take you back.”

  She made a face. “I don’t follow you. Are you talking about something like me traveling along as your wife under an assumed name? Maybe in some kind of disguise?”

  “Not exactly. I mean I could literally take you back. See, I have my own ship.”

  A long silence followed. He found himself fidgeting uncomfortably under her stare. “You have your own ship? You mean that you c
ome from a ship in orbit and are waiting to rejoin the rest of the crew? That’s what you mean, isn’t it? An unscheduled freighter or something like that?”

  He was shaking his head. “No. I mean that I have my own ship, registered in my name. I’m the owner. It’s called the Teacher.”

  “You’re teasing me, making a joke. It isn’t funny, Flinx. Not after what I’ve been through.”

  “It’s no joke. The Teacher’s not very big, but it’s more than spacious enough for my needs. One more human being won’t crowd my space.”

  She gaped at him. “You aren’t kidding, are you?” She slumped in the chair next to the still unrestored bathroom-door holo. “A nineteen-year-old b—a nineteen-year-old who owns his own ship. By himself? It’s not sublight?”

  “Oh, no,” he said quickly. “It’ll go anywhere in the Commonwealth you want. Full KK-drive, very narrow projection field, custom dish lining, the full complement of automatics. I just tell it where we want to go, and she goes there.”

  “Who are you, Flinx, that at your age you can own an interstellar vessel? I’ve heard that the heads of the great trading families have their own private crafts, and that others have access to special company ships. I know that the government maintains ships for diplomatic service, and that the Counselors First of the United Church have small fast vessels for their needs. Who are you to treat equally with them? The inheritor of one of the Great Trading Houses?”

  Mother Mastiff would have found that amusing, Flinx knew. “Hardly. I’ve never had much interest in commerce in the conventional sense.” I used to relieve the wealthy of their excess without their knowledge, but that hardly qualifies as trade, he thought.

  “Then what are you? What is it that you do?”

  He considered the question carefully, wanting to give her an answer she could believe without stretching the truth overmuch.

  “I guess you could say I’m a student doing advanced work.”

  “Studying what?”

  “Mostly myself and my immediate environment.”

  “And what is your ’immediate environment’?”

  “For someone whose life was just saved, you ask a lot of questions. Wherever I happen to be at the moment, I guess. Look,” he told her with some firmness, “I’ve offered to take you anywhere you want to go, to help you get safely off this world and away from these mysterious crazies you keep talking about. Isn’t that enough?”

  “More than enough.”

  There was no reason for him to go on, but something within him compelled him to answer the rest of her question. “If you’re so interested in how I came by ownership of the Teacher, it was a gift.”

  “Some gift! For what even the smallest class of interstellar vessels cost, I could live in comfort for the rest of my life. So could you.”

  “Living in comfort doesn’t especially interest me,” he told her honestly. “Traveling, finding things out, meeting interesting people, that interests me a great deal. I did a favor once for some friends, and their gift to me in return was the Teacher.”

  “Whatever you say.” Clearly she did not believe a word he had told her but was sensible enough not to probe further. “Your personal life’s none of my business.”

  “You don’t have to accept if it makes you nervous.”

  He was surprised how badly he was hoping she would accept. True, she was a gengineer, a member of a profession he had come to regard with both awe and fear. But she was also attractive. No, he corrected himself, that was not quite right. What she was, was extraordinarily beautiful. That was not a quality often found in tandem with great intelligence.

  Put simply, he did not want to see the last of her. Not even if much of her story was a carefully crafted fabrication designed solely to gain his help. If that was the case, she had certainly achieved her aim.

  “Of course I accept. What else am I going to do? I’m ready to go right now, this minute. It’s not like I have to pack. Nor do you strike me as the sort of man who carries around a lot of excess baggage.”

  Rather than probe possible double meanings, he replied simply, “You’re right; I don’t. But we’re not leaving just yet.”

  “Why not?” She was obviously puzzled.

  “Because after ferrying you halfway across the Ingre jungle only to wake up and find you with a knife in your hand and self-confessed intentions of slitting my throat, I need one decent night’s rest in a real bed.”

  She had the grace to blush. “That won’t happen again. I told you, I was confused.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s been a long couple of weeks for me, and now I have to consider you and your troubles. We’ll leave first thing tomorrow morning, when it’s less hot. Remember, we should be rested. You’ve been sleeping for days. I haven’t.

  “Besides, if these people are trying to track you, delaying here will cause them to spread their search wider and wider afield. Be that much simpler for us to avoid detection when we leave.”

  “You know best,” she said reluctantly. “Look, I know it’s a lot to ask considering everything you’ve done for me already, but my stomach feels like the inside of Cascade Cavern.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “On the world where I’m working.”

  “I’m not surprised. You’ve been surviving on intravenous and ampoules since I found you.”

  “Any kind of solid food would be wonderful.”

  He considered. “I suppose your system’s ready. I guess since I’m going to take you an unknown number of parsecs, I can afford to spring for a couple of meals as well.”

  “Oh, I’ll see that you’re paid,” she said quickly. “When I’m returned, my company will pay you for the trip and your trouble.”

  “No need. It’s been a long time since I’ve bought supper for a beautiful woman.”

  My God, he thought sharply. I actually said that, didn’t I!

  The softening of her expression was proof that he had indeed.

  “Just don’t overdo it. Otherwise it’ll kick back on you, and you’ll be sick for the whole journey.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I have an iron gut. I can eat anything. Or doesn’t that square with your image of the beautiful woman?” She was disappointed when he did not comment. “You say you’re a student, but that still doesn’t tell me what you’re about.”

  He checked the hallway carefully, Pip riding well back on his shoulders, Scrap clinging with his tail to Clarity’s sidetail. Only when he was sure it was quiet and empty did he proceed in the direction of the small hotel dining room.

  “That’s all,” he told her. “Just a student.”

  “Null and void. You’re more than that. I’m no emotional telepath like your flying snakes, but I can tell there’s more to you than studying, Flinx. More than learning. Don’t tell me if you don’t want to. Damn; there I go, prying again.” He sensed rather than saw her smile. “You’ve got to excuse me. It’s the nature of my mind, not to mention my work. If you’re half the student you claim to be, you’ll understand my curiosity.”

  Curiosity? Yes, he was curious. Also frustrated and angry and frightened and exhilarated. Wasn’t that true of any young human being?

  As to what he was really about, no one, not even the people who had played God with his mind and body prior to his birth, knew the answer to that.

  I am, he thought suddenly, a drum in a vacuum.

  Chapter Five

  There weren’t many people in the dining room, for which he was grateful. For the first time in memory he found himself enjoying a conversation that touched on nothing of importance. It was relaxing and reassuring. Wasting time, he found, could be fun as well as therapeutic.

  He had heard of half sleep. It was the time called waking by others, when one was not quite conscious yet no longer asleep. He had never experienced it. One moment he was sound asleep, the next he was fully awake and alert. There was never anything like a transition stage as there seemed to be with other people. Whether it was a function of his pec
uliar mind or simply his street upbringing in the back alleys of Drallar, he had no way of knowing. He had never spoken to anyone else about it.

  So it was that he found himself staring into near darkness with only the light of one of Alaspin’s two moons casting shadows through the room. Pip was lying close to his face, her tongue flicking rapidly against his left eye until it opened. Realizing that she had awakened him and knowing she would never do so arbitrarily, he was instantly alert.

  He kept his eyes half-closed as he studied the room. A long low outline was visible beneath the covers on the other bed. He could hear Clarity’s soft breathing as she slept comfortably and undisturbed. What reason, then, for rousing him? Someone else might have risen then to have a look around. Flinx did not. Whatever had upset Pip would make itself known to him as well.

  Only after a while did he see the shapes moving against the far wall. He, tilted his head imperceptibly until he could see the door. At first glance it appeared closed. Only by concentrating hard was he able to make out the light mask that had been unrolled in front of it. Half-open at least. Probably a noise mask behind it. The treated Mylar foam would give the impression to any casual onlooker inside or out that the door was still tightly shut.

  He made out a pair but knew there might be more. On the floor, perhaps, or behind the screen. One advanced into the light from the window. Instead of trying to avoid the moonglow, the figure continued blithely on, taking on the slightly mottled color of the light and shadows, blending perfectly into floor and walls.

  Chameleon suit, Flinx mused. Fits like a second skin and adapts instantly to any background and lighting. As a boy he had often wished for one. Not the kind of toy children normally wish for, but then, there had been little that was normal about his childhood.