The End of the Matter

by Alan Dean Foster

  Four legs working effortlessly, the blue-green alien complied without any indication of strain.

  Darkness owned that corner of Alaspin by the time they reached the modest hotel Flinx was staying in. His room pass keyed the transparent doorway. Panels slid aside, admitting both men and Ab to the unpretentious lobby.

  Flinx headed straight for the lift; his rooms were on the third floor. Pocomchi and Ab trailed close behind, so close that when Flinx halted as if shot, the Indian nearly ran into him.

  “Flinx?” Pocomchi inquired softly, alert now himself.

  An amorphous, oppressive something had fallen like a thick curse over Flinx’s thoughts. For a moment he had difficulty classifying the source. Then he knew. The mental stench of recent death permeated the entire building.

  He told himself it might merely be a lingering aftereffect of the simiespin experience, a sort of mental hangover. It could also be the result of his often-morbid imagination. But he did not think so. He was trying to rationalize away his fear of what must have taken place here.

  Instead of taking the lift, he tried to lean in the direction where the brain-smell was strongest. It led him toward the opposite side of the lobby. Mirable’s quarters and office were here.

  When he placed his palm over the call contact, he heard a reassuring buzz within. But no one came to open the door or check on the caller. He repeated the action, with the same result.

  He tried to tell himself she could be out of the building. That must be it. His bill was paid for two more days in advance, but it would only be polite to leave a message explaining his sudden departure.

  Picking the light stylus from its holder in the wall, he inscribed his good-bye on the electronic message screen. Then he pushed the transcribe button. When she returned, her presence would activate the screen machinery. His light images would be turned into voice and played aloud for her.

  Replacing the stylus, he turned to leave. Pocomchi caught him and nodded at the doorway: “Listen.”

  Flinx obeyed. He heard something, then realized it was the message he had just left. That meant Mirable had to be in her apartment.

  Why didn’t she respond?

  Experimentally, he placed a hand on the door and pushed. It slid back a few centimeters into the wall. That didn’t make sense either. If she was within, surely she would have set the lock. Even on a relatively crime-free world—let alone a boisterous planet like Alaspin—such a device was standard equipment, built into the doorway of every commercial establishment.

  The door continued to slide back under his pressure. He peered inward.

  A voice called from behind him, “What’s going on, Flinx?”

  “Shut up.”

  Pocomchi was the sort of man who had broken limbs for less than that, but something in Flinx’s manner induced him to comply without protest. He contented himself with watching the hotel entrance and the lift doors, while keeping an eye on Ab.

  Shoving the door all the way into the wall, Flinx noticed a dark spot near its base. A thin stain indicated that a fluid-state switch had been shattered. That tied in with the broken lock mechanism.

  Slowly he walked into the room. Internal machinery detected his body heat and brightened the chamber in greeting. It was decorated with the sort of items one might expect to be chosen by a woman whose dreams were rapidly leaving her behind. The flowers, the little-girl paraphernalia, a few stuffed animals on a couch, all were nails desperately hammered into a door against which time pressed relentlessly.

  Then he saw the leg sticking out from behind the couch. The trussed body of Mirable lay naked beyond. Most of the blood had already dried.

  A vast coldness sucked at him as he kneeled over the rag-doll shape. One eye stared blankly up past him. He put a hand up and closed it gently. The other eye was missing. A look of uncomprehending, innocent horror was frozen on her face. About that he could do nothing.

  Why she had shielded him, as she apparently had, he could not imagine. Whether out of some strange loyalty or the like, or out of pure stubbornness, she had not talked immediately. That would please ordinary criminal types, but not the Qwarm. True sadism was not a luxury professionals could afford, and they had done a professional job on her. But he did not understand why they had killed her. It was almost as if her obstinacy had irritated them.

  Quickly he left the room and the body, surrounded by now-dead dreams. He almost expected to see Pocomchi and Ab lying dead across each other. But both were standing there, Ab mumbling amiably to himself and Pocomchi waiting silently. The Indian said nothing.

  Flinx’s gaze went immediately to the lift. He did not think anyone had seen them enter the building; if they had, he would not be standing here now.

  “They’re upstairs, I think,” he told the expectant miner.

  “I know where we can rent a skimmer now, if you’ve got the money,” Pocomchi told him.

  “I’ve got the money.” Flinx took a step toward the lift. Pocomchi caught his arm, hard. Both minidrags stirred.

  “You did me a right turn, back in the spin,” the Indian said tightly. “Now it’s my turn.” He jerked his head toward the lift and the floors above. “This isn’t the place or time. They’ve chosen both. When the time comes, we’ll be the ones who’ve done the planning.”

  Flinx stared at him for a long moment. Pocomchi stared back.

  “It was the woman who owned this hotel,” Flinx finally explained flatly. Pocomchi let go of his arm, and they started slowly for the door. “She should have told them about me immediately.”

  Both men checked the door and the street beyond. It was empty.

  “Then she did tell them,” Pocomchi said.

  Flinx nodded. “Not right away.”

  “Why not?” the Indian wanted to know as they exited and turned right down the street. Nothing fell from above to explode between them; no one challenged them from behind a corner.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, unable to blot the pitiful image of her twisted form from his mind. “It was a stupid, foolish thing to do.”

  “She must have had some reason,” pointed out Pocomchi.

  “I think . . .” Flinx’s tongue hesitated over the words. “I think she liked me, a little. I didn’t think she liked me . . . that much.”

  “One other thing.” Dark eyes turned to Flinx in the dimness. “As soon as we started for the elevator, you knew something was wrong. How?”

  If nothing else, Flinx owed this little man some truth. “I can sense strong feelings sometimes. That’s what hit me when we went in. An overwhelming sensation of recent death.”

  “Good,” Pocomchi commented curtly. “Then you know how I feel.” He increased his speed, and although Flinx was a fair runner and in good condition, he had trouble staying alongside him. “Let’s travel,” Pocomchi urged him, seemingly not straining at the wicked pace. “Let’s get that skimmer.”

  As they ran they passed several late-evening strollers. Some examined the racing triumvirate curiously. A few stopped to gawk at the four-footed apparition loping along behind the two men.

  But as he panted and fought to keep up with Pocomchi, Flinx knew that no death lay behind any of those staring eyes. That threat was behind, receded with every additional stride they took into the night. As the warm air enfolded him, he wondered how much longer it would stay behind him.

  Chapter Seven

  In comparative silence, the skimmer drifted across the waving grassland of Alaspin.

  Flinx had the feeling he was riding a bug over an unmade green bed. Neither the topography nor the vegetation was uniform in height or color. Here and there the familiar green gave way to a startlingly blue sward, and in other places to a bright yellow. Heavier growth, sections of bush, forest, and jungle, protruded like woody tentacles into the sea of reeds and grass.

  He studied the individual seated next to him, in the pilot’s chair. Pocomchi seemed to be perfectly normal, very much in control of himself. Still, Flinx could sense the tension
in the man, along with the anguish at his partner’s death. Both had been pushed aside. To any other onlooker, the Indian’s attention would have seemed to be wholly on the rippling savanna beneath them. Flinx knew otherwise.

  From their position, roughly a meter above the waving stalks, he inclined his head to squint up at the warm buttery beacon of Alaspin’s star. It was a cloudless day, too hot for human comfort, too cool for a thranx to really enjoy.

  “I still don’t know where we’re going, Pocomchi.”

  “The last I know of your man,” the Indian replied conversationally, “he was working his claim near a city reputed to be of Revarn Dynasty. Place called Mimmisompo. We’re three days out of Alaspinport—I’m hoping we’ll reach the city some time this afternoon.” Unexpectedly, he smiled at his companion. His voice changed from the uncaring monotone Flinx had gotten accustomed to over the past several days.

  “Sorry if I’ve been less than good company, Flinx.” His gaze turned back to the terrain ahead. “Habib was the type to mourn, not me. I’m kind of surprised at myself, and I certainly didn’t mean to shunt my misery off on you.”

  “You haven’t shunted a thing off on me,” Flinx assured him firmly. “Intimate deaths have a way of shaking one’s ideas about oneself.” He wanted to say more, but something ahead caught his attention. Pip squirmed at the abrupt movement, while behind Ab rambled on, oblivious.

  Just in front of the leisurely cruising skimmer the sea of high grass had abruptly given way to a winding, curved path roughly a hundred and fifty meters wide. Where the path wound, the tall growth had been smoothly sliced off a couple of centimeters above the ground. Some torn and ragged clumps of uncut reeds pimpled the avenue, which looked to have been created by the antics of a berserk mowing machine.

  While Flinx tried to imagine what kind of instrument had sliced away the grasses, which grew to an average height of several meters, Pocomchi was pointing to some gliding, bat-winged avians armed with formidable beaks and claws. “Vanisoars,” he was saying, “scavengers prowling the open place for exposed grass dwellers.” Even as he spoke, one of the creatures dove. It came up with an unlucky furry ball in its talons.

  “But the path, what made it?”

  “Toppers. Hexapodal ungulates,” he explained, examining the path ahead. He touched a contol, and the skimmer rose to a height of six meters above the topmost stalks. “This grass looks fresh-cut. I think we’ll see them soon.”

  The nearly noiseless engine of the skimmer permitted them to slow to a hover above the herd of huge grazing animals. The largest member of the herd stood a good three meters at the fore shoulder. Each of the six legs was thick, pillarlike, to support the massive armored bodies. Hexagonal plates covered sides and back.

  Massive neck muscles supported the lowered, elongated skulls. Most remarkable of all was the design of the snout. What appeared originally to have been armored, the nostril cover had lengthened and broadened to form a horn in the shape of a double-bladed ax.

  Flinx watched in fascination as the creatures methodically cut their way through the green ocean. Lowered, ax-bladed heads swung in timed 180-degree arcs parallel to the earth, scything the grass, reeds, and small trees almost level with the ground. Then the lead creatures would pause briefly, using flexible lips to gather in the chopped vegetable matter immediately around them.

  Behind the leaders, immature males and females followed in the path of the adults. They consumed the cut-down fodder prepared for them by the leaders. A few small females guarded the end of the procession, shielding the infants from a rear assault. The younger toppers had no difficulty downing their share of food, which had been pounded to soft pulp by the massive footpads of the larger herd members in front of them.

  It seemed an ideal system, though Flinx wondered at the need for a few adults to shield the calves. The smallest, he estimated, weighed several tons. He questioned Pocomchi about it.

  “Even a topper can be brought down, Flinx,” he was told. “You don’t know much of Alaspin.” He nudged a switch, and the skimmer moved forward slightly. “See?”

  Flinx looked down and saw that one of the lead bulls was standing on its rear four legs, sniffing the air in a northerly direction. The enormous nose horns looked quite capable of slicing through the metal body of the skimmer.

  “Let’s see what he’s got,” Pocomchi suggested. He headed the little craft sharply north. Flinx had to scramble to keep his seat.

  In a few minutes they were above something winding its patient way through the reeds. Flinx had a brief sight of a long mouth lined with curved teeth, and glowing red eyes. It snapped at the skimmer and Flinx jerked reflexively.

  Pocomchi grinned at his companion. “That’s a lance’el.” He swung the skimmer around for another look. They passed over a seemingly endless form laid out like a plated path in the grass. Row upon row of short legs, like those of a monstrous millipede, supported scaly segments. Flinx couldn’t make an accurate estimate of its size.

  “I knew it’d be well hidden,” Pocomchi said easily. “That’s why I kept our altitude. We’d have made that fellow a nice snack.” A hiss-growl came from below; angry eyes stared up at them.

  Pocomchi chuckled. “We’ve interrupted his stalk, and he’s not happy about it. It’s unusual for a lance’el to strike at a skimmer, but it’s happened.” Another growl from below. “They can jump surprisingly well. I think we’d better leave this big one alone.”

  Flinx readily agreed.

  Pocomchi had turned the skimmer and increased their speed. They were back on their southwesterly course once more. As the sun reached its zenith they were racing over bush and tree-lined streams as much as grassland.

  “I think we’re all right,” Pocomchi murmured, checking a chart. “Yes.” He shut off the screen and returned his attention forward. “Another ten minutes, I think.”

  The time passed. Sure enough, Flinx discovered the first reflections from stone and metal shining at them from between tall trees. “Mimmisompo,” his companion assured him, with a nod forward. He slowed the skimmer, and in a minute they were winding carefully through soaring trees hung heavy with vines and creepers.

  “We’re on the edge of the Ingre,” Pocomchi informed him, “one of the largest jungle-forests in this part of Alaspin. Mimmisompo is one of many temple cities the archeologists don’t consider too important.”

  They were among buildings now, lengthy multistory structures flanking broad paved avenues. Brush and creepers grew everywhere. The fact that the city wasn’t entirely overgrown was a tribute to the skill and precision of its engineers. An abandoned city in a similar section of Earth would have been all but eradicated by now.

  It was a city of sparkling silence, an iridescent monument to extinction. Everywhere the sun struck, it was reflected by a million tiny mirrors. Mimmisompo had been constructed primarily from the dense gold-tinged granites Flinx had seen employed in Alaspinport. The local stone contained a much higher proportion of mica than the average granite. Walls built of such material gave the impression of having been sprinkled with broken glass.

  The architecture was massive and blocky, with flying arches of metal bracing the carefully raised stonework. Copper, brass, and more sophisticated metalwork were employed for decorative purposes. It seemed as if every other wall was fronted with some intricate scroll-work or bas-relief. Adamantine yellow-green tiles roofed many smaller structures.

  As they traveled farther into the city, Flinx began to get some idea of its size. Even that, he knew, was an inaccurate estimate, considering how many buildings were probably hidden by the jungle.

  “Maybe it’s not an important city,” he mused, “but it seems big enough to attract at least a few curious diggers.”

  “Mimmisompo’s been grubbed, Flinx,” his companion told him. “No one ever found a thing. At least, nothing I ever heard of.”

  “What about all those fancy engravings and decorations on the buildings?”

  “Simple relics and art
ifacts are throwaway items on Alaspin,” Pocomchi informed him. “This is a relic-rich world. Now if some of those worked plates”—he gestured out the transparent skimmer dome at the walls sliding past them—“were done in iridium, or even good old-fashioned industrial gold, you wouldn’t be looking at them now.”

  “But surely,” Flinx persisted, “a metropolis of this size and state of preservation ought to be worthy of someone’s interest. I’d expect to see at least one small survey party.”

  Pocomchi adjusted their course to avoid a towering golden obelisk. A broad grin split his dark-brown face. “I’ve told you, you don’t know Alaspin. There’re much more important diggings to the north, along the coast. Compared to some of the major temple-capitals, like Kommonsha and Danville, Mimmisompo’s a hick town.”

  “Stomped flat, sit on that, push it down and make it fat.”

  “What’s he drooling about now?” Pocomchi asked, with a nod back to where Ab squatted on all four legs.

  Flinx looked back over the seat idly. Ab had been so quiet for the majority of the journey that he had almost forgotten the alien’s presence. But instead of playing dumbly with all sixteen fingers, Ab appeared to be staring out the dome at something receding behind the skimmer.

  “What is it, Ab?” he asked gently. “Did you see something?”

  As always, the alien’s mind told him nothing. It was as empty as a dozen-diameter orbit. Two blue eyes swiveled round to stare questioningly at him. Two hands gestured animatedly, while the other two executed incomprehensible idiot patterns in the air.

  “Behind the mine the ground has stomped subutaneate residue lingers in the reschedule. Found itself often comatose. If you would achieve anesthesia, take two fresh eggs, beat well, and by and by up in the sky leptones like lemon cream will . . .”