"I'm ready," he told them. "Nakina will watch business until I return. Unless you'd rather rest a while longer." "No, no." Mother Mastiff struggled to her feet. "I'll rest when I'm back home in my shop."
It was not far from Small Symm's place to the side street where Mother Mastiff's stall was located. With Symm carrying her, they made good time.
"Seems empty," the giant commented as he gently set the old woman on her feet. It was evening. Most of the shops were already shuttered, perhaps because the rain was falling harder than usual. In the marketplace, weather was often the most profound of economic arbiters.
"I guess it's all right." Mother Mastiff stepped toward the front door.
"Wait a minute." Flinx put out an arm to hold her back. "Over there, to the left of the shop."
Symm and Mother Mastiff stared in the indicated direction. "I don't see anything," the giant said.
"I thought I saw movement." Flinx glanced down at Pip. The flying snake dozed peacefully beneath the cover of the slickertic. Of course, the snake's moods were often unpredictable, but his continued calm was a good sign. Flinx gestured to his right. The giant nodded and moved off like a huge shadow to conceal himself in the darkness next to the vacant shop off to the left. Flinx went to his right-to starboard, as Lauren might have said. It had taken him awhile to forgive her for leaving-and Mother Mastiff for letting her leave-while he was still sound asleep. He wondered what she was doing, yet the memory of her was already beginning to fade. It would take some- what longer to escape his emotions.
Mother Mastiff waited and watched as friend and son moved off in opposite directions. She did not mind standing in the rain. It was Drallarian rain, which was different somehow from the rain that fell anywhere else in the universe.
Flinx crept warily along the damp plastic walls of the shop fronts, making his way toward the alley that meandered behind their home. If the movement he thought he had spied signified the presence of some scout awaiting their return, he did not want that individual reporting back to his superiors until Flinx had drained him of in- formation.
There-movement again, and no mistaking it this time! It was moving away from him. He increased his pace, keeping to the darkest shadows. The stiletto that slept in his boot was in his right hand now, cold and familiar.
Then a cry in the darkness ahead and a looming, massive shape. Flinx rushed forward, ready to help even though it was unlikely the giant would need any assistance. Then something new, something unexpected.
Nervous laughter?
"Hello, Flinx-boy." In the dim light, Flinx made out the friendly face of their neighbor Arrapkha.
"Hello, yourself." Flinx put the stiletto back where it belonged. "You gave me reason to worry. I thought we were finished with shapes in the night."
"I gave you reason to worry?" The craftsman indicated the bulk of Small Symm standing behind him.
"I'm sorry," Symm said apologetically. "We couldn't see who you were."
"You know now." He looked back toward Flinx. "I've been watching your shop for you." Symm went to reassure Mother Mastiff. "You know, making sure no one broke in and tried to steal anything."
"That was good of you," Flinx said as they started back toward the street.
"Ifs good to see you back, Flinx-boy. I'd given you up not long after you left."
"Then why have you kept watching the shop?"
The older man grinned. "Couldn't stop hoping, I guess. What was it all about, anyway?"
"Something illegal that Mother Mastiff was involved in many years back," Flinx explained. "She didn't go into the details. Just told me that revenge was involved."
"Some people have long memories," Arrapkha said, nodding knowingly. "Since you have returned well and safe, I presume that you made a peace with the people who kidnaped your mother?"
"We concluded the business," Flinx said tersely.
They returned to the street, where Small Symm and Mother Mastiff waited to greet them.
"So it was you, Arrapkha. Ye ignorant fleurm, worrying us like that." She smiled. "Never thought I'd be glad to see ye, though."
"Nor I you," the woodworker confessed. He gestured toward Flinx. "That boy of yours is as persistent as he is foolhardy. I did my best to try and convince him not to go rushing off after you."
"I would have told him the same," she said, "and he would have ignored me, too. Headstrong, he be." She al- lowed herself a look of pardonable pride. Flinx was simply embarrassed. "And fortunate it is for me."
"Old acquaintances and bad business." Arrapkha waggled an admonishing finger at her. "Beware of old acquaintances and bad business and deeds left unresolved."
"Ah, yes." She changed the subject. "Been watching the old place for me, eh? Then I'd best check the stock care- fully as soon as we're inside." They both laughed.
"If you think it's all right for me to leave," Small Symm murmured. "Nakina has a bad temper, and that's not good for business."
Mother Mastiff looked thoughtful. "If our friend here insists he's kept a close eye on the shop . . ."
"I've watched and watched," Arrapkha insisted. "Unless they've tunneled in, no one's gone inside since your boy left to look for you."
"No tunneling under these streets," she observed with a grin "They'd hit the sewers." She looked back up at their escort. "Thank ye, Symm. Ye can rim back to your lovely den of iniquity."
"It's hardly that," he replied modestly. "Someday if I work hard, perhaps."
Flinx extended a hand, which vanished in the giant's grasp. "My thanks, also, Symm."
"No trouble. Glad to help." The giant tamed and lumbered away into the night.
The three friends moved to the front door. Mother Mastiff placed her right palm against the lock plate. It clicked immediately, and the door slid aside, admitting them. Flinx activated the lights, enabling them to see clearly that the stall area was apparently untouched. Stock remained where they had left it, gleaming and reassuringly familiar in the light.
"Looks to be the same as when I left," Mother Mastiff observed gratefully.
"Looks to be the same as it did ten years ago." Arrapkha shook his head slowly. "You don't change much, Mother Mastiff, and neither does some of your stock. I think you're too fond of certain pieces to sell them."
"There be nothing I'm too fond of not to sell," she shot back, "and my stock changes twice as fast as that pile of beetle-eaten garbage ye try to pass off on unsuspecting customers as handicrafts."
"Please, no fighting," Flinx implored them. "I'm tired of fighting."
"Fighting?" Arrapkfaa said, looking surprised.
"We're not fighting, boy," Mother Mastiff told him. "Don't ye know by now how old friends greet one an- other? By seeing who can top the other's insults." To show him that she meant what she said, she smiled fondly at Arrapkha. The woodworker wasn't a bad sort at all. Only a little slow.
The living quarters they found likewise untouched: in total chaos, exactly as Flinx had last seen it.
"Housekeeping," Mother Mastiff grumbled. "I've always hated housekeeping. Still, someone has to get this place cleaned up, and better me than ye, boy. Ye have no touch for domesticity, I fear."
"Not tonight, Mother." Flinx yawned. His initial sight of his own bed had expanded until it filled the whole room.
"No, not tonight, boy. I must confess to being just the slightest bit tired." Flinx smiled to himself. She was on the verge of physical collapse, quite ready to go to sleep wherever her body might fall, but she was damned if she would show weakness in front of Arrapkha lest it damage her image of invincibility.
"Tomorrow well put things to rights. I work better in the daytime, anyway." She tried not to look toward her own bedroom, waiting on Arrapkha.
"Well, then, I will leave you," the craftsman said.
"Again, it's good to see you back and healthy. The street wasn't the same without you."
"We monuments are hard to get rid of," Mother Mastiff said. "Perhaps we'll see ye tomorrow."
"Perhaps," Arrapkha agreed. He turned and left them, making certain that the front door locked behind him.
Once outside, Arrapkha drew his slickertic tight around his head and shoulders as he hurried back to his own shop. He had no more intention of turning his friends over to the authorities, as he had been instructed, than he did of cutting the price of his stock fifty percent for some rich merchant. He would not hinder the police, but he would do nothing to assist them, either. He could always plead ignorance, for which he was famed in this part of the marketplace.
So tired; they looked so tired, he thought. It was the first time he could remember Mother Mastiff looking her age. Even the boy, who, though slight of build, had never before seemed exhausted by any labor, appeared completely worn out. Even that lethal pet that always rode his shoulder had looked tired.
Well, he would give them a few days to get their house in order and regain their strength. Then he would surprise them by taking them to Magrim's for some tea and tall sandwiches and would tell them of the mysterious visit of the two Peaceforcers to their little street. It would be interesting to see what Mother Mastiff would make of that. She might welcome the interest of the authorities in her case-and then again, she might not. Not knowing the details of her history, Arrapkha could not be sure, which was why he had elected not to help those offworld visitors.
Yes, he decided firmly. Wait a few days and let them rest up before springing that new information on them. No harm in that, surely. He opened the door to his own shop and shut it against the night and the rain.
One day passed, then another, and gradually the shop again assumed the appearance of home as the mess the kidnapers had made was cleaned up. Comfortable in such familiar surroundings, Mother Mastiff regained her strength rapidly. She was such a resilient old woman, Flinx thought with admiration. For his part, by the second day he was once again venturing out into his familiar haunts, greeting old friends, some of whom had heard of the incident and some of whom had not, but never straying far from the shop lest even at this late date and in spite of his beliefs some surviving members of the organization that had abducted Mother Mastiff return, still seeking their revenge.
Nothing materialized, however, to give any credence to such anxieties. By the third day, he had begun to relax mentally as well as physcially. It was amazing, he thought, as he settled in that night, the things that one misses the most during a long absence. Odd how familiar and friendly one's own bed becomes when one has had to sleep elsewhere....
It was the hate that woke Pip. Cold and harsh as the most brutal day winter could muster on the ice world of Tran-ky-ky, it shook the flying snake from a sound sleep. It was directed not at the minidrag but at its master.
Pink and blue coils slid soundlessly clear of the thermal blanket. Flinx slept on, unaware of his pet's activity. Several hours remained until sunrise.
Pip rested and analyzed. Examining the minidrag lying at the foot of the bed, an observer might have believed it to be a reasoning being. It was not, of course, but neither was its mental capacity inconsequential. Actually, no one was quite sure how the mind of the Alaspinian miniature dragon worked or what profound cogitations it might be capable of, since no xenobiologist dared get close enough to study it.
Blue and pink wings opened, pleats expanding, and with a gentle whirr the snake took to the air. It hovered high over its master's head, worried, searching, trying to pin- point the source of the unrelenting malignancy that was poisoning its thoughts. The hate was very near. Worse, it was familiar.
There was a curved roof vent that Pip had appropriated for its own private comings and goings. The snake darted toward it, the wings folding up at the last second to allow the slim body to slip through the curving tube. Nothing much bigger than a mouse could have slipped through that vent. With wings folded flat against its muscular sides, the minidrag made the passage easily.
Pip emerged atop the roof into the light, early-morning rain. Up that way the bate lay, to the north, up the alley. Wings unfolded and fanned the air. The minidrag circled once above the shop, paused to orient itself, then buzzed determinedly into the opening nearby where the alley emerged into cloudlight.
It braked to a halt and hovered, hissing at the mental snarl that had drawn it.
"Over here pretty, pretty," coaxed a voice. "You know who hates your master, don't you? And you know what we'll do to him if we get the chance."
The flying snake shot through the partly open doorway into the hate-filled room beyond. Two humans awaited it with deadly calm. Never would they have the chance to harm the minidrag's master. Never!
A thin stream of venom spewed from the roof of the flying snake's upper jaw and struck toward the nearest of the vicious bipeds. It never reached the man. Something was between him and Pip, something hard and transparent. The venom contacted it, hissed in the still air as it started to eat at the transparent shield. Startled, the two monsters seated behind the shield flinched and began to rise.
But the door opening on the alley had already slammed shut behind the minidrag. Suddenly, a strange, sweet smell filled the room. Wingbeats slackened and grew weak. Twin eyelids fluttered and closed. The flying snake flopped about on the floor like a fish out of water, wings beating futilely against the plastic as it gasped for breath.
"Be careful," a distant voice warned. "We don't want to overdose it. It's no good to us dead."
"I'd sooner see it dead and take our chances with the subject," another said.
"We need every hold we can manage, including the possibility raised by this little devil."
The voices faded. Soon the flying snake had stopped moving. Long minutes passed before a man dared to enter the sealed room. He was dressed head to toe in a protective suit. His eyes were anxious behind the transparent visor. With the long metal prod he carried he poked once, twice at the comatose minidrag. It jerked convulsively in response to the touches, but otherwise displayed no sign of life.
The man took a deep breath and set the long prod aside as he bent to pick up the thin body. It hung limply in his gloved hands as he inspected it.
"Still breathing," he declared to the people pressed close to the transparent wall.
"Good. Get it in the cage quick," said the shorter of the two observers. Her companion was studying the hole where the venom had finally eaten through the protective shield.
"I'd like to see a molecular breakdown on this stuff," he murmured, careful to keep his fingers clear of the still-sizzling edges of the ragged gap. "Anything that can eat through pancrylic this fast . . ." He shook his head in disbelief. "I don't see how the venom sacs can contain the stuff without dissolving right through the creature's jaw."
"You'd need a toxicologist and biochemist to explain it, if they could," said the woman standing next to him, like- wise taking a moment to examine the hole. "Perhaps there's more to it than just a straightforward poison. The snake's mouth may hold several separate sacs whose con- tents mix only when it's spraying someone."
"Makes sense." The man turned away from the shield that had nearly failed them. "We better get moving. The subject may awaken any minute now. Be sure you keep the monster thoroughly narcotized."
"Is that necessary?" She frowned. "Surely the cage will hold it."
"That's what we thought about the wall. The cage is tougher, but we don't want to take any chances. I don't want our guest spitting his way free while we're asleep in our beds."
"No, we sure as hell don't." The woman shuddered slightly. "I'll take charge of it myself."
"I was hoping you'd say that." Cruachan smiled to him- self. He was intimately familiar with the theories that at- tempted to explain the special bonds that could spring into being between a catalyst creature such as the minidrag and one of the Talented. Certainly the link that existed between this creature and the boy known as Number Twelve was as powerful as any of the imperfectly recorded cases he had studied. It was not unreasonable to suppose that it could be stronger than the affection bond betwee
n the boy and his adoptive mother.
They came at him without warning during his final period of REM sleep, when he was defenseless. They sprang into existence out of emptiness, laughing at him, tormenting him with feelings and sensations he could not define or understand.
Nightmares.
Someone was twisting a wire around his brain, com- pressing it tighter and tighter until it seemed certain that his eyes would explode out of his head and fly across the room. He lay in his bed, twitching slightly, his eyelids quivering, as they did their work on him and took ad- vantage of his helpless, unconscious mind.
"This batch was worse than most; twisting, abstract forms, dark swirling colors, and himself somehow in the middle of them all, racing down a long, ominous corridor. At the end of that corridor lay his salvation, he knew, and almost as important, answers. Understanding and safety.
But the faster he ran, the slower he advanced. The floor that was not a floor dissolved beneath his feet, dropping him like some relativistic Alice down a rabbit hole of space-time distortions, while the far end of the corridor and its promises of light and comprehension receded into the wastes overhead.
He woke up with a silent start and glanced rapidly around the room. Only after he convinced himself of its reality did he begin to relax.
It was the right room, his room, the one he had lived in most of his life: tiny, spartan, comfortable. The patter of morning rain was music on the roof, and faint daylight filtered through the window above his bed. He swung his legs out clear of the blanket and rubbed both throbbing eyes with his fingers.
The fingers abruptly ceased their ministrations, and he looked back to the bed. Something was wrong.
"Pip?" The flying snake was not coiled in its familiar position at the top of the pillow, nor was it underneath. Flinx pulled back the blanket, then bent to peer under the bed. "C'mon boy, don't hide from me this morning. I'm worn out, and my head is killing me."
For Love of Mother-Not Page 22
