For Love of Mother-Not

by Foster, Alan Dean;

  The young innkeeper looked indifferent. A pleasant enough sort, Flinx thought, but sheltered-like so many of

  his potential friends back in Drallar.

  "You can get a meal here anytime. We're all autoserve here. This isn't a fancy place. We can't afford a live kitchen."

  "The machines will be fine for me," Flinx told him. He walked through the entry area and on into the dining room. Other people were already seated about, enjoying their food. There was a young touring couple and one solitary man far back in a corner. After the usual curious glance at Pip, they ignored the newcomer.

  Flinx walked over to the autochef, his mouth watering. Living off the land was fine for the stupava, but occasionally he needed something neither stale nor dehydrated. He made his selections from the extensive list, inserted his card, and waited while it processed the request. Two minutes later he picked up his meal, chose a table, and dug into the roast, fried tuber, and crisp green vegetable. Two tall cups of domestic coffee-substitute washed it down.

  The innkeeper strolled in. He chatted a moment with the couple, then sauntered over to Flinx's table. Despite his desire for solitude, Flinx didn't feel much like arguing, so he said nothing when the 'keeper pulled over a chair and sat down nearby.

  "Excuse me," the young man said cheerfully. "I don't see many people my own age here, let alone anyone younger traveling on his own-certainly never with so interesting a companion." He pointed to Pip.

  The flying snake had slithered down from Flinx's neck and was sprawled across the table, gulping down green seeds. They complemented a steady diet of arboreal rodents. The seeds really weren't necessary, but the minidrag was not one to pass up a meal that couldn't fight back.

  "What are you doing out here all by yourself?"

  A real diplomat, this one, Flinx thought to himself. "I'm looking for a friend," he explained, chewing another chunk of roast.

  "No one's left any messages for you here if that's what you're wondering," the innkeeper said.

  "The friends I'm looking for don't like to leave messages," Flinx said between mouthfuls. "Maybe you've seen them," he asked without much hope. "A very old woman is traveling with them."

  "We don't get many very old people out this way," the innkeeper confessed. "They stay closer to the city. That's what's so funny." Flinx stopped in midchew. "There was a group in here just recently that might be the friends you're looking for."

  Flinx swallowed carefully. "This old woman is short, a good deal shorter than me. She's close to a hundred."

  "Except for her mouth, which, is a lot younger?"

  "You've seen her!" The meal was suddenly forgotten.

  "Five days ago," the innkeeper said. Flinx's heart sank. The distance between them was increasing, not growing shorter.

  "Did you happen to see which way they went?"

  "Their mudder took off almost due north. I thought that was odd, too, because the line of inns most tourists follow runs pretty much northwest from here, not north. There are a few lodges due north, of course, up in the Lakes District, but not many. They were a funny bunch, and not just because the old woman was with them. They didn't look like sightseers or fishermen."

  Trying not to show too much anxiety, Flinx forced himself to finish the rest of his meal. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the help, but the talkative youth seemed just the type to blab to anyone who might be curious about a visiting stranger, including the forest patrol. Flinx did not want anyone slowing his pursuit with awkward questions-especially since he intended to increase his speed as soon as feasible and like as not by methods the police would frown upon. Nor had he forgotten the watchman in Drallar whose helpfulness had nearly turned to interference.

  "You've been a big help," he told the other.

  "What's all this about?" the innkeeper persisted as Flinx finished the last of his food and let Pip slide up his proffered arm and onto his shoulder. "What's going on?"

  Flinx thought frantically. What could he say to keep this loudmouthed innocent from calling up the patrol?

  "They're on vacation-my great-grandmother and some other relatives. They argue a lot." The innkeeper nodded knowingly. "I wasn't supposed to be able to go along," Flinx continued with a wink. "But I slipped away from my studies, and I've sort of been playing at trailing them. You know. When they get to the lodge where they'll be spending the rest of the month, I'm going to pop in and surprise them. Once I land in their laps, they can hardly send me home, can they?"

  "I get it." The innkeeper smiled. "I won't tell anyone."

  "Thanks." Flinx rose. "Food's good." He gathered up Pip and headed for the door.

  "Hey," the innkeeper called out at a sudden thought, "what lodge are your relatives headed for?" But Flinx was already gone.

  Outside, he hurriedly mounted his stupava and turned it into the woods. Five days, he thought worriedly. Two more at this pace and they would be ten ahead of him. The stupava was doing its best, but that was not going to be good enough. Somehow he had to increase his speed. He reined in and let the bird catch its breath as he extracted a ten-centimeter-square sheet of plastic from his backpack. It was half a centimeter thick and had cost him plenty back in the marketplace, but he could hardly have risked this journey without it. A series of contact switches ran down the left side of the plastic. He touched the uppermost one, and the sheet promptly lit up. Additional manipulation of the controls produced a map of the forest, and further adjustments zoomed in on a blowup of his immediate surroundings.

  He entered the name of the inn where he had had his hasty meal. Instantly, the map shifted position. It was as if he were flying above an abstract landscape. When the image settled, he widened the field of view, expanding the map until it included several other inns and a small town that he had unknowingly skirted the previous day. He touched controls, and the map zoomed in on the town. On its fringe was a small wood-processing plant, several minor commercial structures, a forest service station, and a communications supply-and-repair terminal. He thought about trying the forest service station first, then decided that of all the structures it was the one most likely to be manned around the clock. That left the communications depot. He turned off the map, replaced it carefully in his pack, and chucked the reins. The bird whistled and started forward.

  Night was falling, and soon the sun would have settled completely behind the shielding clouds. One thing he could count on was the absence of moon-even Flame's maroon glow could not penetrate the cloud cover that night.

  Though he had completely missed the town, it was not far off. The buildings were scattered across a little knoll the driest land around-and remained hidden by trees until he was right on top of them. Most of the homes and apartments were located across the knoll. To his left was a low, rambling structure in which a few lights shone behind double-glazed windows: the forest station. The communications depot was 'directly ahead of him. He slid easily off the back of the stupava, tied it to a nearby log, and waited for midnight.

  A single, three-meter-high fence ran around the depot, enclosing the servicing yard. Flinx could make out the silhouettes of several large vehicles designed for traveling through the dense forest with a full complement of crew and equipment. Flinx wasn't interested in them. They were too big, too awkward for his needs. Surely there had to be something better suited to his purpose parked inside the machine-shod beyond. There had better be. He doubted that the sawmill or smaller commercial buildings would have anything better to offer.

  He made certain the stupava's bonds were loose. If he failed, he would need the riding bird in a hurry, and if he succeeded, the stupava would grow restless before too long and would break free to find its way back to Drallar and its barn. That was another reason Flinx had chosen the riding bird over the toadlike muccax: a muccax had no homing instinct

  With Pip coiled firmly around his left shoulder, he made his way down through the night mist. The yard was not paved, but the ground there had been packed to a comparative dryness and he was
able to move silently along the fence. He carefully made a complete circuit of both yard and buildings. No lights were visible, nor did he see any suggestion of alarm beams. Though he had circumvented antitheft equipment before, this would be the first time he had tried to break into a government-owned facility.

  The fence arched outward at the top, a design that would make climbing over it difficult, and he could clearly see transmitter points positioned atop each post, ready to set off the alarm if anything interrupted their circuit. Flinx lowered his gaze to the back gate. The catch there appeared to be purely mechanical, almost too simple. He could open it without any special tools. The catch to the catch was a duplicate of the units that ran along the crest of the fence. He could not open the latch without interrupting the beam and setting off the alarm.

  Cutting through the mesh of the fence itself was out of the question. The meal was sensitized: any nonprogrammed disruption of its structure would sound the alarm as surely as if he had tried to knock a section over with a dozer.

  Nudging Pip aside, Flinx slipped off his backpack and hunted through it. In addition to the concentrated foods and basic medical supplies, he carried equipment that would have shocked the innkeeper who had chatted with him earlier that day. He didn't need long to find what he was looking for. From the pack he extracted one of several odd lengths of wire. A single contact switch was spliced to its center. Making certain the switch was open, he looped one end of the wire carefully around the tiny transmitter point on the left side of the gate latch. Gently, he formed the wire into an arch and brought it across the long latch to loop it over the transmitter on the opposite side. A minuscule LED on the wire's switch glowed a satisfying green.

  Then out of the backpack Flinx took a small, oddly formed piece of dull metal, inserted it into the gate lock, and turned it a couple of times. In the heat from his hand, the metal softened and flowed obediently. The latch _clicked._ Holding the metal tool with only two fingers, Flinx lowered the heat it was absorbing until it resolidified, and then turned it. He heard asecond, softer click from the latch. He pulled it free, put a hand on the gate, and pushed. It moved two meters inward, swaying slightly on its supports. He hesitated. No audible alarm ran through the night. He hoped that a rural cummunity would have no need of silent alarms. Still, he gathered up his tools and backpack and retreated hastily to the forest.

  He waited until half an hour had passed without anyone's appearing to check the gate or the yard, then he crept back to the fence. The gate still sat ajar. The glass fiber, looped from terminal to terminal, permitted the alarm beam to flow uninterrupted, but there would be a problem when he had to open the gate farther than the length of the wire allowed.

  He slipped easily into the maintenance yard. Pip flew over the fence and hovered just above its master's tousled hair.

  Flinx searched the yard. There was still no hint that his intrusion had been detected. The machine shed lay directly in front of him, doorless and open to the night. He used the huge repair vehicles for cover as he made his way into the shed. Among the equipment and supplies were a pair of two-passenger mudders. His heart beat a little faster. The compact vehicles bad flared undersides and enclosed cabs to protect pilot and passenger in side-by-side comfort.

  He tried them both. Jumping the simple electric engines was easy enough. He grew anxious when the fuel gauge on the first machine didn't react, indicating an empty storage cell, but the second mudder showed a ninety-five-percent charge. That was better than good; it was critical, because he doubted he would have access to recharge stations where he was going.

  Since the depot remained peaceful, Flinx gambled his success thus far to resolve one additional difficulty: the mudder's government marldngs. In a storage cabinet, he found dozens of cans of catalytic bonding paint. He chose a couple of cans of brown. After a moment's thought, he went back to the cabinet and selected an additional canister of red. He had never had a personal transport of his own-as long as he was going to add a little art, he might as well put some flash into it. Besides, that would be more in keeping with the character of a sixteen-year old boy. The trees would still conceal it well.

  When he had finished spraying the mudder, he climbed into the pilot's seat. Pip settled into the empty one along-side. The controls were simple and straightforward, as he'd expected. His right hand went to the little steering wheel, his left to the jump he had installed beneath the dash. The engine came to life, its steady hum little louder than Pip's. A nudge on the accelerator sent the mudder forward. The single, wide-beam searchlight mounted on its nose remained dark. It would stay that way until he was sure he was safe.

  He drove into the yard, and still there was no sign of concern from the nearby buildings. At the gate, he left the craft on hover and jumped out. Patching his remaining passfibers onto the first, he was able to open the gate wide enough for the mudder to pass through. He was so fearful of being spotted that he nearly forgot to duck as he drove through the gap-the fibers that served to fool the alarm system almost decapitated him.

  Then he was out through the gate, on the smooth surface bordering the depot. In moments, he was concealed by the forest. A touch on a dash control locked the transparent plastic dome over his head, shutting out the mist. Another control set the craft's heater to thrumming. For the first time since he had left Drallar, he was warm.

  He held the mudder's speed down until he was well away from the town. Then he felt safe in turning on the searchlight. The high-power beam pierced the darkness and revealed paths between the trees. Now he was able to accelerate, and soon the mudder was skipping along over the moist earth. Too fast, perhaps, for night-driving, but Flinx wanted to make up time on his quarry. And he was a little drunk with success.

  It wouldn't have been that easy in Drallar, he told himself. Out here, where there wasn't much to steal, he had succeeded because thieves were scarce.

  The underside of the mudder was coated with a special hydrophobic polyresin that allowed it to slide across a moist but solid surface with almost no friction, propelled by the single electric jet located in the vehicle's stem. It also made very little noise; not that he could detect any sign of pursuit. The mudder's compass control kept him beaded north.

  It was midmoming before Flinx finally felt the need to stop. He used daylight and the canister of red paint to decorate the brown vehicle, adding decorative stripes to side and front. It took his mind off his problems for a little while. Then he was traveling again, in a craft no casual observer would ever have mistaken for a sober government vehicle.

  The night before there had been a touch of a mental tingle of almost painful familiarity. As usual, it vanished the instant he sought to concentrate on it, but he felt sure that that touch had reached out to him from somewhere to the north.

  Confident and comfortable, he soared along with the dome retracted. Suddenly, the air turned gray with thousands of furry bodies no bigger than his little finger. They swarmed about him on tiny membranous wings, and he swatted at them with his free hand as he slowed the car to a crawl. They were so dense he couldn't see clearly.

  Pip was delighted, both with the opportunities for play and for dining. Soon the storm of miniature fliers became so thick that Plinx had to bring the mudder to a complete halt for fear of running into something ahead. At least now he could use both hands to beat at them.

  He hesitated to close the protective dome for fear of panicking the dozens that would inevitably be trapped inside. Besides, except for blocking his view, they weren't bothering him. Their square little teeth were designed for cracking the hulls of nuts and seeds, and they showed no interest in live flesh. They had large bright-yellow eyes, and two thin legs suitable for grasping branches. Flinx wondered at them, as well as how long it would be before they moved on and he could resume his journey.

  Suddenly, the air was full of _whooshing_ sounds. The earth erupted head-sized round shapes. Flinx saw long thin snouts full of needlelike teeth and multiple arms projecting from narrow
bodies. The _whooshing_ noise was composed of a long series of explosive popping sounds.

  He squinted through the mass of fliers and saw one creature after another emerge from vertical burrows. The poppers were black-bodied with yellow and orange variolitic colorings. They became airborne by inflating a pair of sausage-shaped air sacs attached to their spines-by regulating the amount of air in the sacs, the animals could control not only their altitude but their direction. They lit into the swarm of fliers, utilizing long, thin snouts to snatch one after another from the air. Once a popper had made several catches, it would deflate its air sacs and settle parachutelike to the ground. They always seemed to land directly above their respective burrows, down which they would promptly vanish.

  When neither the cloud of fliers nor attacking poppers showed any signs of thinning, Flinx made the decision to move forward. He traveled slowly, picking his way through the trees. He had traveled nearly a kilometer before the swarms started to disperse, and eventually he passed into open forest once again. A backward glance showed a solid wall of gray, black, and yellow-orange shifting like smoke among the trees. It took a moment before he realized something was missing from the mudder.

  "Pip?" The minidrag was not coiled on the passenger seat, nor was it drifting on the air currents above the mudder.

  It took Flinx several worried minutes before he located his pet lying on its belly in the storage compartment behind the seats, swollen to three times its usual diameter. It had thoroughly gorged itself on the tasty little gray fliers. Flinx was convinced that his currently immobile companion did not look at all well.

  "That'll teach you to make a durq of yourself," he told his pet. The minidrag moved once, slowly, before giving up totally on the effort. It would be a while before it flew again, even to its master's shoulder.

  Flinx continued northward, hardly pausing to sleep. Two days had passed since he had appropriated the mudder. Given the likely laxity of rural bureaucratic types, it might be some time before its absence was remarked upon. By the time someone figured out that a real theft had been pulled off, Flinx would be two hundred kilometers away, and the local authorities would have no way of knowing which direction he had taken. Skimming along just above the surface, a mudder left no trail. Its simple electric jet emitted practically no waste heat to be detected from the air. But Flinx did not expect any kind of elaborate pursuit, not for a single, small, comparatively inexpensive vehicle.