Trouble Magnet

by Alan Dean Foster

  “I’ve heard it before.” It was Flinx’s turn to cut the youngster off. He, too, found himself staring in the direction of police and thranx. Maybe the youth was right. Better to let the thranx explain exactly what had happened. Give the local police a chance to calm down and digest the official report. Besides which, the last thing he wanted or needed was to be held in custody while the Visarian authorities ran a background check on him. His current alias might well withstand their probing—but why take the chance? Especially when a city like Malandere offered a plethora of opportunities to avoid such unwanted attention.

  Also, he was no less weary than when he had first entered the park. The fleeting surge of adrenaline he had experienced upon interposing himself into the human–thranx confrontation had now faded. As fatigued as he was, from both ongoing mental strain and lack of sleep, he couldn’t think straight. And his head was pounding.

  As much for the novelty of it as out of a desire to take flight, he decided to allow the boy to take him where he would. He was convinced it could be no more depressing or disillusioning than any other environment he had encountered on Visaria. Might as well go along with this youth as wander aimlessly through town on his own, he decided.

  In his rest-deprived, fatigue-addled state, he could not quite rationalize his decision. A reason would come to him soon enough, he was convinced. For now, it would be enough simply to move on, in search of further enlightenment—and sleep.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Gazing down at the slender, slumbering shape, Subar badly wanted to rummage through the contents of the service belt the young man wore. Not only was it fashioned of the latest and most durable material, but its bulging pouches hinted at the presence of all manner of readily salable gear secured within. There was also a medipak of a manufacture he did not recognize. Oddly, the dozing visitor’s attire was of a design and material that was purely utilitarian. Its simplicity and lack of interwoven or add-on adornment contrasted markedly with the tantalizing hints of expensive equipment attached to the belt.

  It all added up to a puzzling and possibly profitable challenge. Exploring or profiting from it further would have to await the visitor’s return to consciousness. In the meantime, Subar had determined to leave him and his goods alone. Not out of a sudden surge of selflessness, not because his morals had undergone an abrupt seismic shift, but because deep-seated instinct told him that if he tried to unfasten so much as a single pouch on that tempting belt, the colorful winged demon coiled on the visitor’s chest might raise a violent objection to said course of action. Ignorant of both the creature’s taxonomy and its possible potential for wreaking grief, Subar sensibly decided to keep his distance.

  Turning away, he moved to a window and brushed his hand across the surface. Reading his DNA, the material recognized him as one of those authorized to give it commands. Atoms within obediently realigned, and the dark rectangle promptly turned transparent.

  Outside the makeshift hideaway, the decaying rooftops of Alewev District stretched off into the distance. A pall of chemical fog too persistent to be wholly banished by the city’s secondhand atmospheric cleansers turned sunlight to saffron. Since being led to the priv place by Subar, the visitor had barely managed to mumble a dispirited “thanks” before collapsing on one of the bunks. The flying creature had immediately settled itself onto its owner’s sternum, a place of resting—and watchfulness—from which it had not stirred since.

  It was now late afternoon. If the visitor didn’t wake soon, he was liable to sleep on into the evening and wake after sunset only to find his biological clock in need of still another reset. Subar was determined to rouse his guest, not least because he wanted to learn more about him before someone like Dirran or Chaloni showed up, monopolized the conversation—and saw the same possibilities he did.

  But how? Every time he drew near, the dozing flying creature would open an eye in his direction. Was it poisonous? Did it have other capabilities he knew nothing about? It was not a matter of wishing he had paid more attention in school. Subar had never gone to school. He’d been too busy working at the business of survival. Occasionally, when time and life and other occupants permitted, he would attempt to access information via the battered terminal at the main house. He dared not spend too much time on a free public terminal lest the activity be noticed by his friends, who would then tease him unmercifully. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to know. He just did not know how to safely go about it.

  Though it was unlikely, he reflected as he stood staring at the lanky figure snoozing away on the fraying, salvaged lounge, maybe this visitor had an idea or two about how someone like himself could go about the proper gathering of information. One never knew about strangers.

  That was more wishful thinking than realistic assumption, he decided. Though older than himself, the stranger was much too young to have acquired anything noteworthy in the way of knowledge or experience.

  Still, Subar was curious about him. That curiosity could not be satisfied while the visitor remained comatose. He considered how best to proceed. He’d already tried waking him gently. The stranger had slept through each of Subar’s successively louder entreaties. An actual shout had roused the flying creature to open both eyes and raise its head. Its pointed stare was enough to persuade Subar that additional screaming was not a good idea. And if loud noises were enough to trigger the colorful creature’s protective instincts, it did not take a genius to realize that physically shaking the stranger was undoubtedly a worse idea.

  How then to rouse his guest? What manner of intercession would the scaly little monster tolerate? At any moment Chaloni or Dirran or even the girls might show up at the makeshift, clandestine meeting room. He had to take a chance.

  Turning, he walked over to the crude but functioning illegal water tap Sallow Behdul had punched through the wall and filled one of the half-dirty glasses stacked nearby. Keeping one eye on the glass and the other on the flying creature, he sipped. Both small, slitted eyes remained closed. After a couple of minutes of this, they opened sharply and unexpectedly. It was almost as if the small flying thing knew what Subar intended. If so, it was either too slow or too uncertain as to the youth’s motives to intervene in time.

  From childhood Subar had displayed a strong arm and excellent aim. The half glass of city water struck the sleeping stranger square in the face. His reptilian guardian unfurled her dampened wings in a blaze of blue and pink. But before she could take to the air, Flinx had sat up and was rubbing water from his eyes. It did not appear to the tense, ready-to-bolt Subar as if the stranger said anything to his pet, but the latter refolded her wings and slithered off his torso without attacking. While she relaxed to one side, licking droplets from herself with her pointed tongue, Flinx sat up and swung his legs off the bed. Still wiping at his face, he eyed his circumspect assailant. His expression was half ire, half grin.

  “What did you do that for?”

  Taking heart, Subar also took a step forward. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you, but it looked like you were going to sleep all day.” Still wary, he indicated the grooming minidrag. “Your animal wouldn’t let me near you.”

  Flinx nodded knowingly. “Her name’s Pip. She’s an Alaspinian minidrag, or flying snake. She’s very protective of me.”

  “Tsha, that’s the truth. I had to try something. Since words wouldn’t wake you, a little cold water seemed the next most harmless thing to try.” He jabbed a thumb into his chest. “I’m Subar. I saved you from the police.”

  Dragging an arm across his face to wipe up lingering drops, Flinx blinked at his bedraggled surroundings. “I kind of remember it as being the other way around. Where are we? I remember taking public transport, and I remember stumbling in here, but I didn’t pay much attention to much of anything else. I was tired.”

  “Tired?” Subar made a face. “Tchai, you were opting cataleptic. Couple of times, I thought you were going to fall asleep on me standing up. I think you were out before you
went horizontal.” He nodded tersely in the minidrag’s direction. “I would’ve woken you sooner, but I couldn’t take chances. Did I guess right? Is she dangerous?”

  “Only when she needs to be.” Clear-eyed again, Flinx eyed his host.

  “And you?” Subar asked boldly.

  “Me? No, I’m not dangerous. I’m too mixed up to be dangerous to anybody except myself.”

  Crossing his arms, Subar leaned back against a battered cabinet. Inside were two guns. He saw no reason to apprise his guest of their presence.

  “What do you do?”

  “You’re a straightforward one.” Flinx yawned. “I’m a student.”

  “Tsai? What do you study?”

  “Everything,” Flinx informed his host without a hint of guile.

  Oh shatet, Subar thought. A dilettante. A philosoph. Useless. Maybe it would have been better to have left the tall target for the trigger-happy Malandere police.

  On the other hand, the stranger had saved him from the determined grasp of the two thranx and, by reasonable inference, from the loutish attention of those selfsame municipal enforcers. There was also, Subar reminded himself, the distinct possibility that the visitor was lying. Most people possessed ample lying skills. He did not know nearly enough about the visitor to be able to estimate his capabilities in that discipline. But the longsong was no lifter, no Qwarm, no emoman. And certainly no undercover authority figure. This Flinx radiated an odd mixture of confidence and confusion, wisdom and ignorance. Subar felt a little better about his visitor.

  “Why did you sky me from the bugs?”

  Flinx spoke without looking at his youthful inquisitor. “You reminded me of someone I knew once. Also, at the time I intervened, you might say I was slumming in despair. Helping you gave me something to do. Call it whatever you will. A desire for momentary focus. A jolt of intravenous altruism. A bad attack of what-the-hell.”

  Subar did his best to affect an air of studied indifference. “Good luck for me. Though I would have slipped the bugs by myself anyway.”

  “Uh-huh, sure you would.” Flinx nodded and tried not to smile. “The thranx aren’t big, and they’re not particularly strong, but chitin is harder to push against than muscle, and to my way of calculating a grip of thirty-two digits beats ten every time.”

  “Okay, okay, tshai!” Unsettled by Flinx’s perception, Subar turned away. “So maybe it was a good thing that you came along, with nothing better to do.” He looked back. “At first I thought you were drunk. Or elevated.”

  “I was suffering from lack of sleep,” Flinx explained. “And, um, emotional excess.”

  “Oh.” Subar was suddenly sympathetic. “Y chromo trouble, huh?”

  This time Flinx had to stifle a grin. “No, not exactly.”

  “What then? You just an emotional kind of guy?”

  The grin vanished. “You have no idea, Subar.”

  Nodding, the youth moved closer. This time the flying snake did not even look up in his direction. It was as though she could instinctively distinguish between inoffensiveness and a genuine threat. At the moment, he did not take the time to wonder how.

  “So, tsa, Mr. Flinx—where you from?”

  Rising, Flinx moved in the direction of the cabinet. Subar tensed, but his visitor’s goal was only the side window and the view it offered of the rooftops beyond.

  “Just Flinx. I’m from offworld.”

  “Well tsai, as if I couldn’t figure that,” Subar sniffed condescendingly.

  “My homeworld is a place called Moth.” There was a wistfulness in Flinx’s voice that even someone Subar’s age could not miss.

  “Never heard of it. I know Terra and Hivehom and some of the other major worlds, but I never heard of a place called Moth.”

  Flinx’s gaze roved the rooftops. The city was awake, but for some reason the deluge of emotions flaring from its frenetic citizenry hammered less heavily against his sensitive inner self than they had the day before. It wasn’t that his system had become acclimated. To the best of his knowledge and experience, such a thing was not possible. But the previous day’s reckless, full-out immersion had toughened him somewhat against its effects.

  “Moth’s a minor world. Pretty place, though. Went back for a quick visit not too long ago. Didn’t stay long.” Turning, he looked back at Subar, and for a startling instant the youth felt as if his visitor were looking right through him. “I like to move around.”

  Like to move around—or have to? Subar wondered, fixing his guest with the shrewd gaze of a survivor. Maybe he had been too hasty in his judgment of this longsong. Maybe they had more in common than he’d first suspected. Despite his visitor’s reticence, there were ways of drawing such things out.

  Unintentionally, Flinx helped. “I’ve told you about myself. What do you do?”

  “Tschu, for one thing, I’m no student!”

  “Yes, I can see that.” Flinx’s flat tone and neutral expression made it impossible for Subar to tell if this crisp response constituted agreement or insult.

  “I make my own way,” the youth continued proudly. “Plenty of others can’t. Malandere, and especially Alewev District, where we are now, is too much for them. They end up begging on the streets, or dancing the custody revolve, or candidates for selective mindwipe.”

  “But not you,” Flinx murmured appraisingly. “You do whatever you have to do in order to survive.”

  Subar blinked. It was not the kind of response one expected from an offworlder. Although, he reflected as he regarded his guest in a new light, for all the strange look in his eyes, this Flinx was not all that much older than himself. Could it be, perhaps, that he was also not all that much different? Or did the tall stranger mean to suggest something else?

  “You’d better not be making fun of me,” he muttered warningly.

  Flinx smiled. “I wouldn’t dare.” He started toward the door. Subar moved quickly to intercept him.

  “Wait! I—I’d like to talk some more.” He forced a smile of his own. “It isn’t every day I’m slipped from the system by an offworlder.”

  As Pip hummed over to land on his shoulder, Flinx looked back at his host. “Maybe you do want to talk. But what you really want is to figure out a way to get hold of my service belt and disappear down the nearest alley with it.”

  The smile stayed on Subar’s face, but his insides gave a little jump. “Don’t be crazed! You saved me from those thranx, and from the police. Why would I do something like that?”

  “To ‘make your own way.’ Hey, don’t look so outraged. When I was your age, I did things to survive that I’m less than proud of today.”

  For a moment, Subar considered holding fast to his denial. It would do no good, he saw. His guest was far too—too what? Perceptive? Or something more? “What did you do—read my mind?”

  The tall offworlder chuckled. “No. Not even your emotions. Your eyes. Every other second, especially when you thought I wasn’t looking, they were fastened on my gear. Greed is a tantrum of the face. You’d make a poor gamester. You need to look away from your target, not at it.”

  Flinx caught himself. What was he doing, giving that kind of advice to a strange youth? For a moment he had reverted to the wily adolescent who had haunted the streets of Drallar, on Moth, always keeping an eye out for an easy dishonest mark or any other advantage that could be turned his way. After everything he had been through over the past ten years, it was something of a shock to find that he could slip so easily back into old ways.

  Something of a shock, yes—but not wholly unpleasant.

  “I can’t stay,” he told his bemused but energetic young host.

  “Why not? Just for a little while longer. Just to answer some questions,” Subar pleaded with him. When his guest shrugged and turned again toward the doorway, the fast-thinking youth raised his voice. “Where do you have to go in such a hurry? You have to save the galaxy, or something?”

  Flinx’s hand halted halfway to the door’s jury-rigged activa
tion panel. Subar’s comment was simultaneously stunning in its incongruous perceptiveness and breathtaking in its unknowing innocence. Flinx’s spirit, which for an instant had regressed to a childhood dominated by poverty and carefreeness, was roughly wrenched forward to the present, with all the awesome burden of responsibility and knowledge it incorporated.

  For the first time since he had sat up on the mattress, pain returned to the back of his head. It was joined by frustration, laced with a soupçon of anger. Though he said nothing, his expression and the look in his eyes were enough to cause Subar to take several hasty steps backward.

  What did I say? the youth wondered. It was as if he had somehow touched more than a nerve. His guest had undergone a sudden transformation from amiable longsong to something much deeper and darker. Something haunted those dark green eyes. Meeting the offworlder’s gaze without flinching, he tried to see if he could find a clue as to what it might be.

  It reached out and touched him.

  It was unintentional on Flinx’s part. He hadn’t meant to project. Certainly not what he was thinking about. Only a sliver of what he had seen and experienced; of his past decade, of things whose existence very few sentients were even aware of, was projected onto the youth standing before him.

  Subar was tough, Subar was self-reliant, Subar had been through a great deal in his young life.

  Subar screamed.

  “It’s all right, it’s all right!” Reflexively, Flinx moved to comfort the younger man.

  Subar had retreated until he was backed up against the old cabinet. One hand clawed blindly for the recog panel that would open at his touch. A gun. He had to get a gun, had to kill this thing looming before him.

  Something else flowed out of Flinx. Reassurance, a gentling, a calm born of long practice and much meditation undertaken during long passages between the stars. Subar’s fingers relaxed, stopped fumbling at the front of the cabinet. His breathing slowed, returned to normal. The bottomless dark that had filled the longsong’s eyes had gone away, to be replaced by a caring and understanding that arose from other, less traumatic experiences.