"Alan Dean Foster - Flinx 4 - End of the Matter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

lump of immature meat! Where have you been to? It's been over a year. A year, paragon of ingrates!
Not a tridee tape, not a card, nothing!"
"I am sorry. Mother Mastiff," he confessed, putting his arm around her bony shoulders. She
shrugged angrily, but not hard enough to dislodge his arm. "It wasn't that I didn't think of you.
But I was far from modem communications."
"Ah, in trouble again?" She shook her head. "Is that the way I raised you?" He started to reply,
but she cut him off hastily. "Never mind that now. Where were yon? Come, tell me back at the
shop."
They started down the street. Aromatic scents and the cries of Drallar's inner marketplace filled
the air around them. "Come, boy, tell me, where were you, that you couldn't let me know if your
worthless carcass was still intact?"
Flinx considered his response carefully. He had good reasons for wanting to keep his whereabouts
of the past year secret. What Mother Mastiff didn't know she could never reveal.
"I took a job, sort of," he finally explained.
She gaped at him. "You ... a job?"
"I'm not lying," he argued uncomfortably, unable to meet those disbelieving eyes. "I set my own
hours and work pretty much as I want to."
"Now I just might, just might believe you. What kind of job?"
Again he glanced away evasively. "I can't say exactly. I'm sort of a teacher, a private tutor."
"A teacher," she echoed, evidently impressed. "A private tutor, eh?" She let out a snicker. "What
is it you teach? Pickpocketing, breaking and entering, or general theft?"
"Now what would I know about such things?" he countered in astonishment. "Is that how you brought
me up?" They both chuckled. "No, I'm kind of a general-purpose instructor in basics."
"I see" was all she said this time, so he was spared the difficulty of explaining what kind of
basics he taught) and to whom. Especially to whom; it was not time for Mother Mastiff or anyone
else to know about the Ulru-Ujurrians, the race he had adopted and which had adopted him. The race
that could turn this corner of creation inside out.
"Never mind me," he insisted, staring at her. "Here I take money and set you up in one of the


file:///F|/rah/Alan%20Dean%20Foster/Foster,%2...x%204%20-%20The%20End%20Of%20The%20Matter.txt (5 of 93) [1/16/03 6:47:36 PM]
 file:///F|/rah/Alan%20Dean%20Foster/Foster,%20Alan%20Dean%20-%20Flinx%204%20-%20The%20End%20Of%20The%20Matter.txt

fanciest shop districts of Drallar, with top-flight stock, and how do I find you? Like this!" He
indicated her ragged clothes, torn skirt and overblouse, the ugly muffin of a hat perched
precariously on long, straggly hair. "Out in the street in the rain and damp, clad in scraps."
Now it was Mother Mastiff's turn to glance away. They turned up a cobblestone street and entered a
less frenetic section of the city.
"I got itchy nervous, boy, sitting in that fancy store all day. I missed the streets, the
contacts, the noise-"
"The arguments and shouting," Flinx finished for her.
"And the gossip," she went on. "Especially the gossip." She eyed him defiantly. "At my age it's
one of the few disreputable delights I haven't grown too old for."
Flinx indicated the street ahead. "So that's why we're not headed for the shop?"
"No, not that stuffy snuffbox, not on a beautiful day like today." Flinx studied the gray,
overcast sky, blinked at the ever-present mist, but said nothing. Actually, it was a rather nice
day for Drallar. It wasn't raining. He had been home for two weeks and had yet to see the sun.
"Let's go to Dramuse's stall. I'll treat you to lunch."
Flinx expressed surprise. "You buy someone else lunch? Still, after the profit you made on that
bracelet ..."