For Love of Mother-Not

by Alan Dean Foster

  If Mother Mastiff had retained enough presence of mind to remember that the Drallarian gendarmery occasionally employed the services of tracking animals—for the first time hope crowded despair from Flinx’s thoughts. Those animals could track odors even through Moth’s perpetual dampness.

  If an Alaspinian minidrag possessed the same ability … Was he completely misinterpreting the flying snake’s actions? “Pip?”

  The flying snake seemed to accept the mention of its name as significant, for it promptly spun in midair and darted through the slip-me-out. Flinx dropped to his hands and knees and crawled after. In seconds, he was in the alley again. As he climbed to his feet, he searched for his pet. It was moving eastward, almost out of sight.

  “Pip, wait!” The snake obediently halted, hovering in place until its master had caught up. Then it took off up the alley again.

  Flinx settled into a steady run. He was an excellent runner and in superb condition, on which he had always prided himself. He resolved to follow the flying snake until one or the other of them dropped.

  Any moment he expected the snake to pause outside one of the innumerable faceless structures that peppered the commercial sections of Drallar. But while the minidrag twisted and whirled down alleys and up streets, not once did it hesitate in its steady flight. Soon Flinx found his wind beginning to fail him. Each time he stopped, the snake would wait impatiently until its master caught up again.

  Drallar was the largest city on Moth, but it was a village compared to the great cities of Terra or the underground complexes of Hivehom and Evoria, so Flinx was not surprised that when Pip finally began to slow, they had reached the northwestern outskirts of the metropolis. Here the buildings no longer had to be built close to one another. Small storage structures were scattered about, and individual homes of blocked wood and plastic began to blend into the first phalanx of evergreen forest. Pip hesitated before the trees, zooming in anxious circles, soaring to scan the treetops. It ignored Flinx’s entreaties and calls until finally satisfied, whereupon the snake turned and dropped down to settle once again on the familiar perch of his master’s shoulder.

  Turning a slow circle, Flinx fought to pick up even a fragment of lingering emotion. Once again, his efforts met with failure. It seemed clear that whoever had carried off Mother Mastiff had taken her into the forest and that the olfactory trail that had led Pip so far had finally dissipated in the steady onslaught of mist and rain. On a drier world or in one of Moth’s few deserts, things might have been different, but here Pip had come to a dead end.

  After a moment’s thought, Flinx started away from the trees. In addition to the storage buildings and homes, several small industrial complexes were visible nearby, including two of the ubiquitous sawmills that ringed the city and processed Moth’s most prolific crop. Flinx wandered among them until he located a public com station on a service street. He stepped inside and slid the spanda-wood door shut behind him. Even after curing, spanda retained a significant coefficient of expansion. When he closed the door, it sealed itself against the elements, and only the ventilation membranes would keep him from suffocating. He took out his battered credcard and slid it into the receptacle on the unit, then punched the keyboard. A pleasant-looking middle-aged woman appeared on the small viewscreen. “Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”

  “Is there a Missing Persons Bureau in the Drallar Municipal Strata?”

  “Just a moment, please.” There was a pause while she glanced at something out of range of the pickup. “Human or alien?”

  “Human, please.”

  “Native or visitor?”

  “Native.”

  “You wish connection?”

  “Thank you, yes.” The woman continued to stare at him for a moment, and Flinx decided she was fascinated by the coiled shape riding his shoulder. The screen finally flashed once and then cleared.

  This time, the individual staring back at him was male, bald, and bored. His age was indeterminate, his attitude barely civil. Flinx had never liked bureaucrats. “Yes, what is it?”

  “Last night,” he declared, “or early this morning”—in his rush through the city streets he’d completely lost track of the time—”I—my mother disappeared. A neighbor saw some people running away down an alley, and our house was all torn apart. I don’t know how to start looking for her. I think she’s been taken out of the city via the northwest quadrant, but I can’t be sure.”

  The man perked up slightly, though his voice sounded doubtful. “I see. This sounds more like a matter for the police than for Missing Persons.”

  “Not necessarily,” Flinx said, “if you follow my meaning.”

  “Oh.” The man smiled understandingly. “Just a moment. I’ll check for you.” He worked a keyboard out of Flinx’s view. “Yes, there were a number of arrests made last night, several of them including women. How old is your mother?”

  “Close to a hundred,” Flinx said, “but quite lively.”

  “Not lively enough to be in with the group I was thinking of,” the clerk responded. “Name?”

  Flinx hesitated. “I always just called her Mother Mastiff.”

  The man frowned, then studied his unseen readout. “Is Mastiff a first name or last name? I’m assuming the ‘Mother’ is an honorific.”

  Flinx found himself staring dumbly at the clerk. Suddenly, he was aware of the enormous gaps that made up much of his life. “I—I don’t know, for sure.”

  The bureaucrat’s attitude turned stony. “Is this some kind of joke, young man?”

  “No, sir,” Flinx hastened to assure him, “it’s no joke. I’m telling you the truth when I say that I don’t know. See, she’s not my natural mother.”

  “Ah,” the clerk murmured discreetly. “Well, then, what’s your last name?”

  “I—” To his great amazement, Flinx discovered that he was starting to cry. It was a unique phenomenon that he had avoided for some time; now, when he least needed it, it afflicted him.

  The tears did have an effect on the clerk, though. “Look, young man, I didn’t mean to upset you. All I can tell you is that no woman of that advanced an age is on last night’s arrest recording. For that matter, no one that old has been reported in custody by any other official source. Does that help you at all?”

  Flinx nodded slowly. It helped, but not in the way he’d hoped. “Th-thank you very much, sir.”

  “Wait, young man! If you’ll give me your name, maybe I can have a gendarme sent out with—” The image died as Flinx flicked the disconnect button. His credcard popped from its slot. Slowly, wiping at his eyes, he put it back inside his shirt. Would the clerk bother to trace the call? Flinx decided not. For an instant, the bureaucrat had thought the call was from some kid pulling a joke on him. After a moment’s reflection, he would probably think so again.

  No one of Mother Mastiff’s age arrested or reported in. Not at Missing Persons, which was bad, but also not at the morgue, which was good because that reinforced his first thoughts: Mother Mastiff had been carried off by unknown persons whose motives remained as mysterious as did their identity. He gazed out the little booth’s window at the looming, alien forest into which it seemed she and her captors had vanished, and exhaustion washed over him. It was toasty warm in the com booth.

  The booth’s chair was purposely uncomfortable, but the floor was heated and no harder. For a change, he relished his modest size as he worked himself into a halfway comfortable position on the floor. There was little room for Pip in the cramped space, so the flying snake reluctantly found itself a perch on the com unit. Anyone entering the booth to make a call would be in for a nasty shock.

  It was well into morning when Flinx finally awoke, stiff and cramped but mentally rested. Rising and stretching, he pushed aside the door and left the com booth. To the north lay the first ranks of the seemingly endless forest, which ran from Moth’s lower temperate zone to its arctic. To the south lay the city, friendly, familiar. It would be hard to turn his back on it.
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  Pip fluttered above him, did a slow circle in the air, then rose and started northwestward. In minutes, the minidrag was back. In its wordless way, it was reaffirming its feelings of the night before: Mother Mastiff had passed that way. Flinx thought a moment. Perhaps her captors, in order to confuse even the most unlikely pursuit, had carried her out into the forest, only to circle back into the city again.

  How was he to know for certain? The government couldn’t help him further. All right, then. He had always been good at prying information from strangers. They seemed to trust him instinctively, seeing in him a physically unimposing, seemingly not-too-bright youngster. He could probe as facilely here as in the marketplace.

  Leaving the booth and the sawmill block, he began his investigation by questioning the occupants of the smaller businesses and homes. He found most houses deserted, their inhabitants having long since gone off to work, but the industrial sites and businesses were coming alive as the city’s commercial bloodstream began to circulate. Flinx confronted the workers as they entered through doors and gates, as they parked their occasional individual transports, and as they stepped off public vehicles.

  Outside the entrance to a small firm that manufactured wooden fittings for kitchen units, he encountered someone not going to work but leaving. “Excuse me, sir,” he said for what seemed like the hundred thousandth time, “did you by any chance see a group of people pass through this part of town last night? They would have had an upset old lady with them, perhaps restrained somehow.”

  “Now that’s funny of you to mention,” the man said unexpectedly. “See, I’m the night guard at Koyunlu over there.” He gestured at the small building that was filling up with workers. “I didn’t see no old woman, but there was something of a commotion late last night over that way.” He pointed at the road which came to a dead end against the nearby trees.

  “There was a lot of shouting and yelling and cursing. I took a look with my nightsight—that’s my job, you know—and I saw a bunch of people getting out of a rented city transport. They were switching over to a mudder.”

  The watchman appeared sympathetic. “They weren’t potential thieves or young vandals, so I didn’t watch them for long. I don’t know if they were the people you’re looking for.”

  Flinx thought a moment, then asked, “You say that you heard cursing. Could you tell if any of it was from a woman?”

  The man grinned. “I see what you’re thinking, son. No, they were too far away. But I tell you this: someone in that bunch could swear like any dozen sewer riders.”

  Flinx could barely contain his excitement. “That’s them; that’s her! That’s got to be her!”

  “In fact,” the watchman continued, “that’s really what made it stick in my mind. Not that you don’t see people switching transports at night—you do, even way out here. It’s just a bad time to go mudding into the woods, and when it is done, it’s usually done quietly. No need that I can see for all that yelling and shouting.”

  “It was them, all right,” Flinx murmured decisively. “It was her swearing—or her kidnappers swearing at her.”

  “Kidnap—” The man seemed to notice Flinx’s youth for the first time. “Say, son, maybe you’d better come along with me.”

  “No, I can’t.” Flinx started to back up, smiling apologetically. “I have to go after them. I have to find her.”

  “Just hold on a second there, son,” the watchman said. “I’ll give a call to the police. We can use the company coms. You want to do this right and proper so’s—”

  “They won’t do anything,” Flinx said angrily. “I know them.” On an intimate basis, he could have added, since he’d been arrested for petty theft on more than one occasion. He was probably on their question-list right now. They would hold him and keep him from going after Mother Mastiff.

  “You wait, son,” the watchman insisted. “I’m not going to be part of something—” As he spoke, he reached out a big hand. Something bright blue-green-pink hissed threateningly. A triangular head darted menacingly at the clutching hand. The man hastily drew it back.

  “Damn,” he said, “that’s alive!”

  “Very alive,” Flinx said, continuing to back away. “Thanks for your help, sir.” He turned and dashed toward the city.

  “Boy, just a minute!” The watchman stared after the retreating figure. Then he shrugged. He was tired. It had been a long, dull night save for that one noisy bunch he’d seen, and he was anxious to be home and asleep. He sure as hell didn’t need trouble himself with the antics of some kid. Pushing the entire incident from his thoughts, he headed toward the company transport stop.

  Once he was sure he was out of sight of the watchman, Flinx paused to catch his breath. At least he knew with some certainty that Mother Mastiff had been kidnapped and taken out of the city. Why she had been carried off into the great northern forest he could not imagine.

  In addition to the hurt at the back of his mind, a new ache had begun to make itself felt. He had had nothing to eat since the previous night. He could hardly go charging off into Moth’s vast evergreen wilderness on an empty stomach.

  Prepare yourself properly, then proceed. That’s what Mother Mastiff had always taught him. I’ll go home, he told himself. Back to the shop, back to the marketplace. The kidnappers had switched to a mudder. Such a vehicle was out of Flinx’s financial reach, but he knew where he could rent a stupava running bird. That would give him flexibility as well as speed.

  His legs still throbbed from the seemingly endless run across the city the previous day, so he used public transport to return home. Time was more important than credits. The transport chose a main spoke avenue and in minutes deposited him in the marketplace.

  From the drop-off, it was but a short sprint to the shop. He found himself half expecting to see Mother Mastiff standing in the entrance, mopping the stoop and waiting to bawl him out for being gone for so long. But the shop was quiet, the living space still disarranged and forlorn. Nonetheless, Flinx checked it carefully. There were several items whose positions he had memorized before leaving; they were undisturbed.

  He began to collect a small pile of things to take with him. Some hasty trading in the market produced a small backpack and as much concentrated food as he could cram into it. Despite the speed of his bargaining, he received full value for those items he traded off from Mother Mastiff’s stock. With Pip riding his shoulder, few thought to cheat him. When anyone tried, the minidrag’s reactions instantly alerted its master and Flinx simply took his trade elsewhere.

  Flinx switched his city boots for less gaudy but more durable forest models. His slickertic would serve just as well among the trees as among the city’s towers. The outright sale of several items gave his credcard balance a healthy boost. Then it was back to the shop for a last look around. Empty. So empty without her. He made certain the shutters were locked, then did the same to the front door. Before leaving, he stopped at a stall up the street.

  “You’re out of your mind, Flinx-boy,” Arrapkha said from the entrance to his stall, shaking his head dolefully. The shop smelled of wood dust and varnish. “Do you know what the forest is like? It runs from here to the North Pole. Three thousand, four thousand kilometers as the tarpac flies and not a decent-sized city to be found.

  “There’s mud up there so deep it could swallow all of Drallar, not to mention things that eat and things that poison. Nobody goes into the north forest except explorers and herders, hunters and sportsmen—crazy folk from offworld who like that sort of nowhere land. Biologists and botanists—not normal folk like you and me.”

  “Normal folk didn’t carry off my mother,” Flinx replied.

  Since he couldn’t discourage the youngster, Arrapkha tried to make light of the situation. “Worse for them that they did. I don’t think they know what they’ve gotten themselves into.”

  Flinx smiled politely. “Thanks, Arrapkha. If it wasn’t for your help, I wouldn’t have known where to begin.”

&nbs
p; “Almost I wish I’d said nothing last night,” he muttered sadly. “Well, luck to you, Flinx-boy. I’ll remember you.”

  “You’ll see me again,” Flinx assured him with more confidence than he truly felt. “Both of us.”

  “I hope so. Without your Mother Mastiff, the marketplace will be a duller place.”

  “Duller and emptier,” Flinx agreed. “I have to go after her, friend Arrapkha. I really have no choice.”

  “If you insist. Go, then.”

  Flinx favored the woodworker with a last smile, then spun and marched rapidly toward the main avenue. Arrapkha watched until the youngster was swallowed up by the crowd, then retreated to his own stall. He had business to attend to, and that, after all, was the first rule of life in the marketplace.

  Flinx hadn’t gone far before the smells of the market were replaced by the odors, heavy and musky, of locally popular native transport animals. They were usually slower and less efficient than mechanized transport, but they had other advantages: they could not be traced via their emissions, and they were cheap to rent and to use.

  In a licensed barn, Flinx picked out a healthy-looking stupava. The tall running bird was a good forager and could live off the land. It stood two and a half meters at its bright orange crest and closely resembled its far more intelligent cousins, the ornithorpes, who did not object to the use of ignorant relatives as beasts of burden. Flinx haggled with the barn manager for a while, finally settling on a fair price. The woman brought the bird out of its stall and saddled it for the youngster. “You’re not going to do anything funny with this bird, now?”

  “Just going for a little vacation,” Flinx answered her blithely. “I’ve finished my studies for the year and owe myself the time off.”

  “Well, Garuyle here will take you anywhere you might want to go. He’s a fine, strong bird.” She stroked the tall bird’s feathers.

  “I know.” Flinx put his right foot in the first stirrup, his left in the second, and threw his body into the saddle. “I can see that from his legs.”