"Alan Dean Foster - Flinx - Reunion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

new sense of urgency. With the onset of full adulthood looming over him, he
could feel himself changing, in slow and sometimes not-so-subtle ways. Each
month, it seemed, brought a new revelation. He could not define all the changes,
could not quarantine and assess every one of them, but their periodic nebulosity
rendered them no less real. Something was happening to him, inside him. The
self he had known since infancy was becoming something else.

He was scared. With no one to talk to, no one to confide in save a highly
empathetic but nonsapient flying snake, he could look only to himself for
answersтАФanswers he had always wished for but had never been able to acquire.
It was for those reasons he had taken the risk of coming back to Earth. If he was
going to find what he needed to know, it lay buried somewhere deep within the
immense volume of sheer accumulated knowledge that was one of the
homeworld's greatest treasures.

But if he was home, as every human who came to Earth was supposed to be, then
why did he feel so much like an alien? It bothered him now even more than it
had when last he had visited here some five years ago.

He tried to wean himself from the troubling chain of thought. Belaboring the
accumulated neuroses of twenty years would solve nothing. He was here on a
fact-finding mission; nothing more, nothing less. It was important to focus his
attention and efforts, not only in hopes of securing the information he sought, but
in order to avoid the attention of the authorities. With the exception of the thranx
Druvenmaquez and his underlings, who were specifically looking for him, what
other agencies and individuals might also be interested in one Philip Lynx he did
not know. It did not matter. Until he left the homeworld, a little healthy paranoia
would help to preserve himтАФ but not if he allowed his thoughts to float

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Foster, Alan Dean - Flinx 8 - Reunion (v1.0) (html)


aimlessly, adrift in a distraught sea of incomplete memories and internal
conflicts.

Of course, he might well secure answers to all the questions that tormented him
by the simple expedient of turning himself in. Druvenmaquez or a specialist in
some other relevant bureau would gladly take the plunge into the secrets of him.
But once committed to such research, he would not be allowed to leave
whenever it might please him. Guinea pigs had no bill of rights. Revealing
himself might also expose him to the scrutiny of those he wished to avoidтАФthe
great trading houses, other private concerns, the possible remnants of certain
heretical and outlawed societies, and others. Becoming a potentially profitable
lab subject carried with it dangers of its ownтАФa long, healthy, and happy future
not necessarily being among them.

Somehow he had to discover himself by himself, without alerting to his presence
the very authorities who might help alleviate his seemingly illimitable anxieties.