"Alan Dean Foster - Flinx 5 - Flinx in Flux" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

centimeters and more into the gray mud through which he was traipsing. They
smelled blood. The high‑frequency repeller clipped to his belt kept most of the
winged vampires away. His long‑sleeved shirt and his pants were impregnated with
powerful antipheromones, as was his wide‑brimmed hat. So far his sound and stink
had maintained him unpunctured.
Though he did not know it, his appearance was little different from that of
jungle explorers from ancient times. Such men would have killed for the
chemistry and electronics that kept the worst Alaspin could offer at a safe
distance. The thranx, bless 'em, didn't need elaborate protection. Few bugs
could bite through their chitons. Nor did they need the refrigeration unit that
lined his pants, keeping him cool by recycling his own sweat. Not necessary, but
a luxurious antidote to misery.
Also expensive, but money was something Flinx did not worry about. While not
dominatingly wealthy, he had made himself financially independent.
A multiple humming filled his ears. He had felt their presence long before he
heard them. Pip uncoiled from his shoulders and took to the air. There they were
again, in the trees off to his right.
Each was larger than the most massive hummingbird. They darted toward him in
formation and danced around his head. He smiled fondly at them, then turned and
continued toward the lake he had found on the aerial map. It had struck him as
an appropriate place to make final farewells.
The reality was more lovely than the picture, he thought as he broke through the
last of the undergrowth and stood there on the steeply banked shore. It was
still quite early. A fog was rising from the mirror‑smooth surface of the lake,
softening the outlines of the trees and lianas that lined the far shore. They
were dream‑shapes limned in gold, glowing cutouts rising as if in offering to
the mistshrouded sun.
The broad expanse inspired his fellow travelers. They rocketed out over the
water, swirling gaily around Pip. She was the star to which they anchored their
constellation.
Until today. The time was near, and he knew it. He knew because he could feel it
in his pet's mind. Pip was an empathic telepath, able to both transmit and
receive emotions to and from her master. The half dozen offspring that flew
dizzying circles around her now were equally talented.
They had been conceived during a visit to this, their home world, and to this
place Flinx had returned them for weaning, though that was a term not literally
applicable to flying snakes. He had felt it was the right thing to do, though
how much of that feeling had originated with him and how much of it had been
imparted by Pip he could not have said. Now he knew he had done right. He had
enjoyed the yearlings' company, but they were growing fast. Seven meter‑long,
highly poisonous empathic minidrags were more than any one person could be
expected to cope with, so he had returned the prodigals.
They were snakes in name alone, because that was what they most nearly
resembled. Even the xenotaxonomists called them miniature dragons, though they
were actually more closely related to the extinct Terran dinosaurs, particularly
the coelurosaurs. He could sense their confusion as he stood there on the bank,
the machete dangling from his right fist.
Waves of maternal repulsion were spreading outward from Pip like ripples in a
disturbed pond. They washed over her offspring, battering them, driving ahem