Running from the Deity

by Alan Dean Foster

  “It did not fall, Noble.” Ebbanai was panting hard as he ran alongside the government representative’s steed, his lung slamming against the inside of his chest wall. “It—he—arrived in an enormous vessel, a kind of flying machine.”

  “I see.” Treappyn’s unhappiness over having to undertake the journey from Metrel began, just barely, to give way to curiosity. “This machine—was it drawn by tethets? How big was it? As big as a good-sized wagon, no doubt, to survive such a fall.”

  Ebbanai looked up at Treappyn. “It was bigger than the fortress at Metrel, Noble.”

  That put the poised counselor off stride. “Really? And how, pray tell, did such an enormous vessel touch down without crashing to the ground? Its wings must have been many hundreds of times larger than those of the piercing verohjard that lives in the high mountains.”

  Ebbanai leaped, one foreleg after another, over a rock in his path. “It had no wings, Treappyn. It was very long, with a bulge at one end, a great glowing disc at the other, and many lights set along its length.”

  If nothing else, Treappyn mused, the locals hereabouts could boast of vivid imaginations. “I would certainly like to see such a wonder.” He looked to his left, scanning the seashan-thick terrain. “Is it nearby?”

  “I could take you to it, Noble, but you would not see it. Its appearance has changed since it touched down among us. Somehow, the Visitant caused it to become just like the dunes among which it rests.”

  “Ah,” murmured Treappyn. “How convenient.” His escalating curiosity immediately began to recede. The local’s reply was clever—and exactly what might be expected of an adroit liar.

  Cynicism gave way to astonishment when he and his bodyguards pushed through a last high clump of green-brown seashan and saw the scene spread out before them. All manner of conveyances were drawn up in two traditional circles to the left of a simple domed building. Stretching from the circles around to in front of the building and nearly to where he sat on his patient tethet were the scattered encampments of dozens of families and individuals. Unable to take it all in at one glance, Treappyn nevertheless decided that there were more than a hundred people present, from the elderly creaking along on four bad leg joints to scattered playgroups of energetic youngsters. In contrast to what one would expect from such a scene on, say, the outskirts of Metrel itself, it all looked very orderly and serene.

  Noting the look of uncertainty on the Noble’s face and back on his home ground, Ebbanai’s confidence rebounded. “The Visitant will not stand for chaos where he is working. My mate and I have organized all this.” And then, in a not-so-subtle dig at his overlord’s parsimony, “All this takes time that we would otherwise be able to use in supporting ourselves.”

  Treappyn was not so easily ambushed. “Then why bother with it?”

  Ebbanai’s expression was deliberately enigmatic. “There are compensations.”

  Ordinarily, the unexpected appearance of senior counselor to the Highborn Treappyn in the company of well-groomed and heavily armed bodyguards would have attracted shouts of recognition, appeals for charity, or at the least a running, trailing escort of shrieking, laughing youngsters. He was both appalled and intrigued to find himself ignored. Something was certainly afoot here on this meager homestead, though he was not quite ready to attribute it to the presence of alien visitants from the sky. He had not expected to find much of anything. Yet here he was, surrounded by hundreds of fellow Wullsakaans, all drawn to this humble out-of-the-way place by—what?

  He needed to find out, and the Highborn certainly needed to know. Whatever was going on here was clearly of considerably more import than the government realized.

  As his bodyguards helped him to dismount—a process rendered difficult by his unusual bulk—the net-caster who had greeted him was in turn met by a female whom Treappyn assumed to be his mate. For the first time this day, one of his assumptions proved accurate. He deigned to touch Sensitives with her, voicelessly conveying his feelings of superiority and impatience. Hers hinted at expectation, excitement at his arrival, and a cool sense of assurance he found oddly disquieting.

  “You honor us with your presence, Counselor Noble Treappyn.”

  “I know.” Peering past his hosts, he found himself eyeing a line of Dwarra who were slowly and intermittently filing into a nearby barn. Periodically, the line would advance as an individual or family group entered. Wholly stoic up to now, his bodyguards likewise found themselves straining to see what might lie beyond the single enigmatic, open door. Much to his surprise, Treappyn discovered that he was suddenly unaccountably nervous.

  This won’t do, he told himself firmly. He could not appear anything less than completely confident in front of these country folk. “I am told you are housing a creature from another world here. I demand to be taken before it immediately.”

  His hosts exchanged a look, touched Sensitives, then turned back to him. The female’s voice was apologetic, but firm. “I am sorry, Noble Treappyn, but we can’t do that.”

  He did not try to hide his shock. “Do you realize to whom you are speaking?”

  “Without question, Noble.” Ebbanai hurriedly picked up the refrain. “But it cannot be done like that.” Twisting around slightly at the waist, he used a pair of forearms to indicate the large barn. “The alien Flinx will not allow it.”

  “Really?” Treappyn hardly knew how to respond. “It will not allow it. And it has a name, too. Flinx. The sounding smacks of barbarism.”

  “I assure you, Noble,” replied Storra, “he is very sensitive, and cultured. I am sure he will see you—in his own good time.”

  “His own good time? What about my own good time? I am on leave from the government. Your government.” He gestured sharply behind him. “Do you expect me to camp out here like the rest of this mind-addled rabble?” He indicated his bodyguards. “What if I and my escort decide to walk straight into that miserable building and confront this—whatever it is you’re hiding in there.” His voice tightened. “If this is some kind of clever fraud you have concocted to extort money from nave fellow citizens, I promise you here and now that you will not survive the consequences!”

  He did not know whether to be pleased or disappointed when neither of them reacted fearfully. “It is no fraud, Noble,” the female assured him. “The alien is tense and uncertain at times. We do not know how he is armed, or to what degree, but have heard him say that he is; thus, we consider it sensible not to provoke him.” She hesitated meaningfully. “Though he prefers to see supplicants in the order in which they arrive, it might be possible, given your eminence, to bring you before him sooner.”

  Under the curse he uttered silently, Treappyn could not help but admire the audaciousness of the couple confronting him. He no longer had any compunction against paying them their requested bribe. If this was all a skillful swindle, he would get his money back along with pieces of their limbs. If it was something more than that...

  If it was something more than that, then the packet he now handed to the grateful net-caster would be money well spent.

  Having finally been persuaded to make a contribution, he expected to be led into the “presence” immediately. But there was one more formality to conclude.

  “Apologies, Noble,” Ebbanai told him, “but your raiment is far too elaborate. Such flamboyance seems to upset the alien. Perhaps you have simpler garb you could don for the audience?”

  This was really too much, Treappyn huffed. Well, he would force himself to play along. Reckoning would come soon enough. At any moment he expected the couple to disappear, along with his money.

  They did not. Leading him quietly toward the barn, clad now only in his plain cloth undergarments, they passed beside the line that stretched outward from the building. Surprisingly, none in the queue objected to their advance. Equally surprisingly, his hosts allowed the Noble’s bodyguards to accompany him—also in their undergarments, but in possession of their weapons. More than anything else, Treappyn was thankful n
one of his counterparts from court was present to witness the droll procession.

  And yet, not a suggestion of humor arose from those standing silently in line. More than anything else about the situation, he found unsettling the graven solemnity of the queued commoners.

  Then he and his guards were inside the barn, advancing deeper into the simple country structure. He thought he was prepared for anything he might see.

  He was wrong.

  CHAPTER

  8

  The young female had been carried in on a pallet of woven seashan stiffened with the oversized spines of some unknown plant, the sharp tips of which had been trimmed down so that the makeshift stretcher would not harm its bearers. As she was gently placed before him, Flinx could see she was in considerable pain. Days of working with ill and injured Dwarra had attuned him to the meanings of their expressions. Although their faces were not as flexible as those of a human, they were quite capable of communicating a wide range of emotions.

  He did not need to see the pain in her angular, somewhat stiff face, of course. She was outputting her feelings without any attempt at moderation, her Sensitives weaving hypnotically and out of control, as if searching for someone, anyone, with whom to make emotional contact. The expressions of those who had carried her in and laboriously lifted her up to the platform inside the barn where he was working were equally eloquent. As for their feelings, they were a roiling jumble of hope and hopelessness. It was a combination he had come to know well since he had started helping the natives.

  Holding the Dwarra-attuned, portable medical scanner he had brought back from his last visit to the Teacher, he prepared to pass it over the part of her body that was heavily bandaged. Both she and those who had brought her in looked alarmed. To allay their fears, he projected feelings of assurance onto each of them. That was another of his abilities he’d had ample opportunity to practice lately. They looked surprised, feeling relaxed when they felt they should not. What mattered was that no one moved to interfere with his work.

  It took only moments to diagnose the young female’s problem: a shattered pelvis. What frightful accident had caused the damage, he did not know. It didn’t matter. What was important was stimulating the healing process. No one objected when he removed her bandages. After days of dispensing medical aid, the peculiarities of Dwarran anatomy no longer held any surprises for him. Using his recalibrated healer, he worked on the badly injured female for nearly half an hour. From her resting place nearby, Pip occasionally lifted her iridescent, emerald-green head to spare a glance for her master’s activities.

  His efforts concluded, Flinx sat back and regarded the young female’s handlers. From experience, he knew they might be relatives, close friends, hired helpers, or a mix of all three.

  “She’s healing now. Reapply the bandages and try to keep her as still as possible for as long as possible.” He checked the readings on his healer. “If everything goes well and there are no setbacks, she should be well enough to walk by herself in an eight-day or two.”

  “Master Visitant!” The senior of the four males who had carried the patient in started to press his Sensitives to Flinx’s forehead, looked surprised as he remembered that the alien had none, and settled instead for bending to push them against the human’s free hand. “My life is yours. You have restored my only female offspring to me.”

  “Not yet.” Gently, Flinx reached down and raised the elder’s angular, bony face. “Let’s see how her healing goes before you promise me anything.”

  Gesturing with gripping flanges and Sensitives, the weathered native indicated understanding. But the gratitude that flowed out of him filled Flinx with the warmth he had come to know well over the preceding days. It was nourishment of a kind even the Teacher’s advanced food synthesizer could not provide.

  It had been a particularly complex procedure. “That’s enough for now.” Peering down the line of disappointed hopefuls, his gaze found his hosts and the three males who were accompanying them. Unusually, two were armed. Sensing a change in her master’s emotional state, Pip raised her head from its resting place once more. This time she half unfurled her pleated pink-and-blue wings.

  “Ebbanai, Storra,” he called down to them. “You’ve brought along some people who don’t appear to be ill.”

  Below the simple platform, Treappyn started. The mere sight of the broad-bodied, limb-deprived alien had been shocking enough, and more than sufficient to instantly confirm the basis for the multitude of rumors that were spreading through the countryside. Watching it work on the crippled young female, without making contact and by simply passing several cryptic instruments repeatedly across her broken body, had been less conclusive. It wasn’t as if she had suddenly stood up and danced, miraculously cured. To the chary counselor, the painless, bloodless procedure smacked of outright fraud.

  But how had the astonishing creature known that his new visitors were different from those who had preceded them? How could it tell he and his bodyguards were not seekers after healing like all who had gone before? Plainly, it had no Sensitives, nor any other visible means for perceiving what those around it were feeling. Yet the rumors insisted it was capable of doing so.

  It should be easy enough to determine the truth. In his position as a counselor to the Highborn, he had long ago learned it was better to ask an awkward question than squat on comfortable ignorance.

  “How do you know that there is nothing wrong with any of us? With myself, for example?”

  The alien peered down at him. “Your present emotional state is not that of a sick person.” It was wonderful, Flinx felt, to be able for the first time in his life to be so open and honest about his Talent. Liberating, even. “The same is true for those who accompany you. You project wariness and curiosity. Those with you project wariness and tension.”

  Remarkable, Treappyn decided. Though his whole world was spinning around him, he did not lose his balance. Drawing himself up, stretching all four forelegs to their limit, he announced, “I am Noble Treappyn, counselor to His August Highborn Pyrrpallinda, ruler of Wullsakaa. I have been sent by my government to ascertain the truth of your existence as a visitor among us.”

  “Well?” Flinx flashed the slightly sardonic smile that many he had encountered, human and otherwise, had come to identify closely with his personality.

  “I intend to say in my official report that I consider it verified—and then some.” Tentatively, he started toward the wide stairs that led up to the platform on which the alien squatted. No, he corrected himself. It was not squatting, as was normal and natural. Instead, it had somehow folded its body in the middle and was resting most of it on a wooden storage container. It was a feat of protean flexibility not even the most adroit Dwarra could duplicate.

  “As representative of my government, I request an official audience.”

  “I don’t give official audiences,” Flinx replied.

  Treappyn thought fast. It was his best attribute. “Well then, can we have an informal chat?”

  No hostility radiated from his new visitor, no overtones of deception. Flinx grinned. This individual was as different from his hosts as he was from the suffering he had helped. The Dwarra was not the only individual in the barn whose curiosity needed to be sated.

  “Come up and have a seat,” he told the counselor. His fluency had increased to the point where he only occasionally needed the assistance of the translator hanging from his neck. Although the counselor could not take a seat, the idiom Flinx employed conveyed the same sentiment, if not the same biological requirements. “Just you,” he added when the counselor’s bodyguards moved to accompany him.

  The two muscular soldiers looked uneasy, and Treappyn was less than thrilled with the stipulation himself. He was not by nature a bold individual. But curiosity overcame his caution.

  “Remain here,” he told them. “Arms at the ready, but physically and mentally at ease.” He did not look up at the waiting alien as he spoke. “Though it has no Sensitives
and makes no contact, it is already clear to me that the Visitant can tell what we are feeling.”

  One of the bodyguards muttered a curse. “A creature of the Dark Pools.”

  “We don’t know that yet,” Treappyn admonished him. “Myself, I tend to think not. Those who dwell in the Dark Pools do not bestir themselves to heal on behalf of the sick. Be alert, and wait for me.”

  Turning, he started up the stairway, his stout form forcing him to labor. Climbing was not at the top of the list of his favorite activities. Approaching the last couple of steps, he was surprised when the Visitant, seeing—or perhaps feeling—the trouble Treappyn was having, extended a single right hand to help him ascend the rest of the way. The hand itself was conspicuously alien. Instead of splitting into a pair of flexible gripping flanges, it terminated in five short, bony digits, like miniature forearms. Wrapping themselves around the counselor’s wrist, they pulled gently but firmly.

  Despite their small size, the strength in them was astonishing. Treappyn felt himself practically lifted up onto the crude wooden work platform. Nearby, he saw another fantastic creature resting on a pile of gathered seashan fibers. Brightly colored, winged, and limbless, it resembled nothing he had ever encountered outside of a dream. Or a nightmare.

  Below, Storra and Ebbanai looked on with concern, though they tried not to show it. Or rather, to feel it, lest their unease be perceived by the alien. They had not been invited up onto the platform to join in, or to monitor, the conversation.

  “It’s not a problem,” Ebbanai whispered to his mate as he touched Sensitives with her. “They will talk, the counselor from Metrel will leave, and things will go on as before.”

  “Yes,” she agreed shrewdly, “but for how long?”

  Ebbanai was unconcerned. “For as long as can be hoped.” His joy communicated itself to her through their entwined Sensitives. “We have already made more money than ever we dreamed of.”