Trouble Magnet

by Alan Dean Foster

  Choosing from among several drugs contained in a pouch on his service belt, he medicated himself. The embryonic headache diminished but did not disappear entirely. Pip settled herself beside the single oval window, curling up away from the transparency. Rain streaked the exterior. As he lay down on the humming, solicitous bed and let it unwind him, an already discouraged Flinx tried not to dwell on what the morning might bring. He was determined to give this place a chance to prove him wrong about the current state of humaniform sentience. He would be fair.

  But based on what he had seen and encountered merely in the course of getting from the shuttleport into the city, humankind and its allies were going to have an uphill struggle convincing him to sacrifice the rest of his life to preserve their distant, unimaginable future.

  A plain but nourishing breakfast in an eating establishment on the main avenue served to raise his spirits somewhat. Homo sapiens had not evolved to the point where food failed to energize mind as well as body. Feeling a little better about himself if not his species, he set out on a walk to see more of Malandere. Trusting neither pet nor possessions to the questionable safety of his room, he let Pip ride comfortably in the pack on his back.

  Opening himself to the swarm of sentients who surrounded him on the pedestrian walkway was the empathetic equivalent of going on a three-day bender. Seething emotion overwhelmed him: joy, misery, delight, sadness. His mind was wave-washed with intimations of murder, accomplishment, seduction, betrayal, hope, despair, and a thousand other sentiments. It rocked him so severely that several passersby glanced uncertainly in his direction. One even paused to inquire as to his condition. The encounter would have raised his opinion of his kind ever so slightly had not the self-proclaimed good Samaritan been busy trying to find a way into Flinx’s pant pockets while expressing his seemingly heartfelt concern. Fortunately for the nimble-fingered fellow, he did not get the opportunity to fumble in the tall young visitor’s pack, where he would have encountered not valuables, but the scales of justice.

  Autonomous transports propelled by a variety of technologies carried people as well as goods through the streets. Skimmers with airspace permits soared above the more plebeian, groundbound traffic. Unregulated noise bombarded his hearing at levels long since banned on more settled, civilized worlds. This was what cities were like prior to the adoption and enforcement of laws designed to protect the health of their inhabitants, he knew. This was what they would revert to in the absence of the controlling civilization of the Commonwealth.

  Malandere was a cauldron. People were thrown in, stirred, spiced with ambition, and boiled until only the most successful rose to the top. It was a stew fueled by money. Visaria was still a world where fortunes could be made by those without connections, inheritances, or special knowledge. A place where humankind could revert to the jungle, where laws were still new and their effect tenuous. The only difference between Visaria and someplace like Midworld, he felt as he forced himself down the crowded street, was that here one was more likely to be killed by another human. On Midworld, the descendants of the first settlers had survived by learning how to emfol, or empathize directly with their alien surroundings. On Visaria, survival would be a matter of learning how to socialize with one’s own kind.

  And just as on Midworld, or Moth, or the deserts of Pyrassis, one learned quickly how to adapt to the immediate environment, or perish. Unfortunately, he had never quite been able to blend in no matter where he was. He was too much the outsider, too conscious of the differences that marked him. And as always, too interested in the welfare of others to look only after himself.

  A perfect example of this debilitating condition manifested itself within the hour, when he heard panicky hooting coming from the serviceway off to his right. He was positive several other pedestrians heard it. He could tell by the way they picked up their pace to hurry past, and the sharp stabs of fearfulness they radiated in all directions. He knew he ought to do the same. Blend in, adapt, do as the locals did. But he simply could not. He was not local and, as was so often the case to his detriment, he could not ignore the plight of others.

  Turning right, he entered the serviceway.

  The encounter was almost a cliché, except that the two men and one woman were assaulting an alien and forced sex was not involved. One protruding from the top of its head and the other from the lower portion of its face, the Deyzara’s breathing and speaking trunks were writhing helplessly. Centered on the hairless ovoid of a skull, the large dark eyes bulged even more than usual. The woman easily held its limber arms behind its back. Terror was writ almost as large on its face and in its mind as the garish epidermal makeup favored by its kind. Its clothing was an explosion of bright color. Despite its extreme distress, the alien’s emotions lay light and feathery on Flinx’s mind, a kind of pastel panic.

  Rummaging through the waist pack they had removed from the victim, the two male upwardly mobile thugs were arguing over a small, exquisitely made communications device of Deyzaran manufacture. They paused in their skirmishing only when they noticed a tall, slim figure quietly watching. Flinx sensed confusion, rapidly replaced by confidence.

  “Vent, visitor,” one of the men growled.

  His companion’s free hand drew a weapon from his chest belt. “Choose or lose, angulate.”

  Easily maintaining her grip on the Deyzara’s arms, the woman nodded sharply in the newcomer’s direction. “He’s just a big kid, Vynax. Ignore him.” As the alien struggled, she twisted both boneless wrists. The Deyzara whimpered, an awkward gurgling sound.

  “Let him go,” Flinx said quietly. Save an innocent individual, save the galaxy. Small steps always first, Mother Mastiff had frequently told him. Why was he getting involved? A hundred, a thousand similar little conflicts were doubtless playing themselves out all over this fermenting pustulence of a planet. Why insert himself into this one?

  Because he could, he knew, sighing to himself. Because even if illegally and immorally genetically modified, he represented civilization, and the trio eyeing him warily represented—something else.

  The man holding the weapon was preparing to shoot. Flinx knew this even though the gun holder had not said a word. His intent was plain in the surge of violent emotion that was rising like magma in his mind. So Flinx countered as he had learned to do over the past several years. Having grown up with the ability read the emotions of others he had gradually acquired, if not mastered, the concomitant ability to project them.

  Fear replaced fury in his would-be murderer’s mind. Fear, and utter panic. Eyes widening suddenly, the hardened fighter let the gun slip from his fingers as he staggered backward, his gaze fixed on the indifferent figure looming before him. Initially slim and harmless, in the killer’s mind the tall young man had abruptly acquired horrific dimensions. Here was something to be feared, to be avoided, to run away from as fast as his feet could propel him. What exactly that was, he could not say. The omission puzzled, but did not dissuade him from backpedaling rapidly. His companions eyed him as if he had suddenly gone mad.

  “Vynax, what the…?” Viewing the olive-skinned, red-haired youth standing in the entrance to the serviceway in an entirely new light, the other man started to reach for his own weapon. Dark green eyes shifted to meet his own.

  Any careful, cool, collected consideration of the confrontation vanished as an overwhelming terror swept through the man. All he could think of was to get away, to flee, to take himself anywhere away from where he was. Whirling, he scrambled and stumbled in blind horror down the serviceway in the wake of his compatriot. Both men were moaning and chattering as if possessed by ghosts.

  That left their female companion by herself. Maintaining her grip on the bewildered Deyzara, she stared at Flinx as if one of the graven monoliths of the Sauun had suddenly entered the serviceway and come thundering toward her. Stare as she might, she could not see anything that should have prompted the panicked flight of her normally assertive colleagues. Which made Flinx’s nonchalant appro
ach all the more alarming. Though he towered over her, it was not his height that was intimidating. It was the intimation that he controlled something forceful and unseen; something potent enough to send not one but two murderous individuals like Howlow and Vynax running like scared little children.

  Still, she stood her ground until something small, reptilian, and angry looking poked its head out of the pack riding on the redhead’s back. One hiss in her direction brought her to the swift conclusion that no matter how potentially valuable his possessions, the disposable property of one ugly alien was not worth wrestling with mysteries that took the form of tall, soul-piercing strangers and small, gimlet-eyed serpents. Letting go of the alien’s rubbery wrists, she took off in pursuit of her companions. It was not necessary for Flinx to project any emotions onto her: she was sufficiently frightened already.

  The Deyzara stood unsteadily for a moment, then bent to recover his property that lay scattered on the pavement. Moon-like eyes regarded the tall human.

  “I am very much extremely grateful to you, stranger sir.” As did many of its kind, the Deyzara spoke excellent terranglo. “As one engaged in business on several worlds, I am not one to generalize as to the nature of a species.” Two-fingered hands adjusted and repositioned belongings recovered from the ground. “But I must say that until your arrival and intervention, my opinion of your kind was undergoing a most precipitous droppage indeed.”

  “Glad I was able to balance things out. If it’s any consolation, your opinion of my species probably still rates higher than my own.” Flinx turned to depart.

  Like a pale rope, one alien arm hastily transcribed anxious circles in the air in front of its owner. “Wait, good person! I believe it is customary among your people, as it is among mine, for such a selfless deed to be rewarded.” The other two-fingered hand began to fumble with a sealed length of some metallic fabric.

  “Some would say so,” Flinx murmured by way of reply, “but it’s not customary among me.”

  After seeing the visiting Deyzara safely back out onto the main avenue, his rescuer turned and strode off in the opposite direction, leaving the bemused alien to follow him with its oversized eyes. Flinx would have declined the offer of a reward anyway, but he had another reason for wanting to ditch the other visitor’s company.

  Surrounded, submerged, and enveloped by so many fuming emotions, the medication he had taken was already beginning to wear off and his head was starting to pound as if the masters of some minor race were attempting to drill their way into the back of his brain. He had to find a way to moderate them, or he was going to have to abandon this world without reaching the conclusions he sought to the questions he had posed to himself. This was not recently visited Arrawd, where he could effortlessly shut out the feelings of the locals. Here, as on nearly every other world, he had little control over the emotional storm that raged all around him.

  He finally decided that unless the pain became incapacitating, he would not flee Malandere. Instead, he would try to find a less emotionally turbulent space within it.

  One hope he held was that the nights might prove to be less invasive and disturbing than the days. This wish was quickly quashed as he lay in bed in his hotel room after sunset only to be emotively assaulted as forcefully as he had been at noon. Unable to sleep he rose, slipped on belt and pack, made sure Pip was comfortable in the depths of the latter, and wandered outside. He could not compress or shove aside the flood of feelings that surged around him, but physical activity helped minimize the discomfort somewhat. Lying motionless was the worst. At least when he was moving, observing, studying constantly changing surroundings, it forced his thoughts to focus on something other than the throbbing in his head.

  Malandere at night was as dynamic as it was during the day, though the thrust of activity was different. Commerce was still the principal order of business, but it tended to take place on a more personal level. Companies might be closed for the day, municipal facilities muted, but everywhere one looked, something was being sold, traded, bartered, offered, or exchanged. And sometimes, someone.

  Even more so than during the hours of daylight, the darkened streets of the city lay smothered beneath a blanket of emotion. Feelings boiled and bubbled all around him. Foremost amid the sea of sentiment were desperation and desire, the latter often leading to the former. Like many thriving, wide-open colony worlds, Visaria was a first choice of the hopeful and a last refuge of the hopeless, thousands of its denizens driven by the twin dynamos of triumph and despondency. The need to succeed led individuals who might have worked at legitimate professions on other worlds to resort to doing things they would otherwise never have contemplated. Mugging inoffensive visiting Deyzara, for example.

  Letting chance and indifference guide him, he turned a corner only to stumble onto a face-off between a pair of local youth gangs. A commonality to civilizations throughout the course of human history, this particular incipient confrontation differed from its ancient predecessors only in choice of attire, weaponry, and the inclusion of the occasional nonhuman in the ranks. While the words being vigorously tossed around were different, the sentiments they conveyed were no different from identical taunts that had once resounded on the streets of ancient Rome or Thebes, Cuzco or Angkor or Mohenjo Daro. Or earlier still, in caves. As ever, they included remarks concerning the legitimacy of specific individuals’ ancestry, demeaning appraisals of the sexual prowess of those opposite, and respective suggestions as to how those on the other side might best go about performing certain physical impossibilities.

  Flinx had sensed the rising group animosity before he had turned the corner, of course. Curious, he joined several other passersby in standing and watching. Several among the crowd of onlookers egged the opposing groups on. As long as it didn’t spread to include spectators, such nocturnal combat promised free entertainment, with the added benefit of allowing those not participating to depart feeling morally superior.

  He turned away before the confrontation escalated to more than verbal sparring. The emotions flooding through the bystanders depressed him far more than the adolescent bloodlust being pumped out by the two groups of young ruffians. The outlook of mature lawbreakers he could understand, if not empathize with. They were professionals who had deliberately settled on an antisocial way of life. And judging from what he had already detected in the course of his first day in Malandere, such individuals were in ample supply on Visaria. Their existence did not disappoint him, because he expected it. The same could be said for the rival gangs of misdirected, unguided youth.

  It was only when the citizenry at large of a place reeked of unwholesomeness that he found himself losing hope.

  Though he wished for it, the days that followed gave him no reason for optimism. He found himself sinking farther and farther into gloom. Pip tried her best to help, not realizing that those very efforts only contributed to her master’s intensifying melancholy. What hope was there for a society when its only emotionally selfless denizen was a nonsentient flying creature who hailed from a world whose native civilization was already long past its prime?

  If a majority of sentients no longer cared about one another, why should he forgo his life and happiness to do what they could not? Even the martial AAnn, for whom self-advancement was the greatest good, recognized and respected the need to help one another, if only to advance themselves as individuals. Why should he have to be the one to give up everything? Clarity was waiting for him; he was as certain of that as he was of anything in the universe. Returning to her and living out his natural life span, perhaps on an accommodating world like New Riviera, would disappoint his mentors Tse-Mallory and Truzenzuzex. Their displeasure would hurt, but no more so than the assorted pain and suffering he had already, often futilely, endured. He was not a child anymore. Did he deserve happiness any less than the selfish, egocentric swarms busy exploiting worlds like Visaria?

  Everybody wanted him to save them. Who was there, except perhaps Clarity, who was willing to sac
rifice even a little to save him? With his recurrent headaches and unpredictable Talent and ineluctable burden of knowledge of what was coming this way out of the Great Emptiness, would he even be doing her a favor by returning?

  It struck him suddenly that he could lose himself here. If he stayed on Visaria, in Malandere or another of its teeming, festering cities, he might go mad, overwhelmed by the flood of raw emotion surrounding him. Would that be such a bad thing? he found himself wondering. He could simply let things go and succumb to himself. Maybe even the pain in his brain would go away, or he would become so anesthetized to its constancy that he would lose the ability to feel it. It was an alternative to suicide he had never before considered. Life as a condition of perpetual numbness.

  He wandered on into the night, oblivious to the strobing lights, howling touts human and alien and mechanical, curious stares, intimate come-ons, garbled offers of assorted contraband, and conflicts both observed and sensed. Most folk got out of his way. Those who persisted found themselves unaccountably starting to sweat, or to see small unpleasantnesses that weren’t there, or to otherwise find sudden reason to move on.

  The night, the noise, and the inescapable emotional storm that was civilization in its most frenzied form closed in around a troubled, lonely Philip Lynx and swallowed him up.

  CHAPTER

  3

  Subar was not an ethical thief in that he stole not just from the crooked but from anybody, everybody, and whomever he could. Being a true citizen of the Commonwealth, neither did he distinguish among species. If a temptingly gullible intelligence was in possession of something valuable he could safely appropriate for himself, he did not discriminate as to its color, sex, size, shape, number of limbs, language, origin, religion or lack thereof, class, clan, or preferred breathable atmosphere. Robbery-wise, the sixteen-year-old was as egalitarian as they came. Given the opportunity, he would hit an easy target over the head no matter what shape or form that protuberance took. Or if a head was lacking, he was quite happy to bludgeon the appropriate substitute.