"Foster, Alan Dean - Flinx 1 - For Love of Mother-Not" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

"I already have," Sal replied.
"You said they went north, across the lake. Can't you be any more specific than that?"
Sal looked helpless. "Lauren wouldn't be any more specific than that."
"They might not continue heading north."
"No, they might not. Do you have a tracker for following other craft?" Sal asked.
The man shook his head. "We didn't think we'd need one. The last we knew, the young man we'd like to talk With was traveling on stupava-back."
"I think he arrived here in a mudder."
The woman looked surprised and grinned ruefully at her companion. "No wonder we fell behind. Resourceful, isn't he?"
"Too resourceful for my liking," the man murmured, "and maybe for his own good if he backs those you know-whos into a corner."
The women sighed, then rose from her chair. "Well, we've wasted enough time here. We'll just have to return to Pranbeth for a skimmer and tracking unit. Unless you think we should try to catch up to them in the mudder." The man let out a short, humorless laugh, then turned back to the assistant manager. "Thanks, son. You've been helpful."
"I wish I could be more so," Sal told him anxiously. "If anything were to happen to Lauren-you'll see that nothing happens to her, won't you?"
"I promise you we'll do our best," the woman assured him. "We don't want to see innocent bystanders hurt. We don't even want to see noninnocents hurt." She favored him with a maternal smile, which for some reason did nothing to make the nervous assistant feel any better about the situation.

Chapter Eleven

The tracker hummed quietly, the single glowing dot showing clearly on its screen as the skimmer rushed north-ward. It was clipping the tops of the tallest trees, more than eighty meters above the bogs and muck that passed for the ground. They had crossed Lake Patra, then an intervening neck of dry land, then the much larger lake known as Tigranocerta and were once more cruising over the forest. A cold rain was falling, spattering off the skimmer's acrylic canopy to form a constantly changing wet topography that obscured much of the view outside. The skimmer's instruments kept its speed responsive, maintaining a predetermined distance between it and its quarry to the north.
Awfully quiet, Lauren Walder thought. He's awfully quiet, and maybe something else.
"No, I'm not too young," he said into the silence that filled the cabin, his tone softly defensive.
Lauren's eyebrows lifted. "You can read minds?"
He responded with a shy smile. "No, not that." Fingers stroked the head of the minidrag sleeping on his shoulder. "I just feel things at times. Not thoughts, nothing that
elaborate. Just the way people are feeling." He glanced up at her. "From the way I thought you were feeling just now, I thought you were going to say something along that line."
"Well, you were right," she confessed, wondering what to make of the rest of his declaration.
"I'm not, you know."
"How old are you?" she asked.
"Sixteen. As best I know. I can't be certain."
Sixteen going on sixty, she thought sadly. During her rare visits to Drallar, she had seen his type before. Child of circumstance, raised in the streets and instructed by wrong example and accident, though he seemed to have tamed out better than his brethren. His face held the knowledge withheld from his more fortunate contemporaries, but it didn't seem to have made him vicious or bitter.
Still she felt there was something else at work here.
"How old do you think I am?" she asked idly.
Flinx pursed his lips as he stared at her. "Twenty- three," he told her without hesitating.
She laughed softly and clapped both hands together in delight. "So that's what I'm helping, a sixteen-year-old vengeful diplomat!" Her laughter faded. The smile remained. "Tell me about yourself, Flinx."
It was a question that no stranger in Drallar would ever be so brazen as to ask. But this was not Drallar, he re- minded himself. Besides, he owed this woman.
So he told her as much as he knew. When he finished his narrative, she continued to stare solemnly at him, nod- ding her head as if his words had done no more than con- firm suspicions already held. She spared a glance to make sure the tracker was still functioning efficiently, then looked back at him. "You haven't exactly had a comfort- able childhood, have you?"
"I wouldn't know," he replied, "because I only have hearsay to compare it with."
"Take my word for it, you haven't. You've also man- aged to get along with the majority of humanity even though they don't seem to want to have anything to do 149 with you. Whereas I've had to avoid the majority of people who seem to want to have a lot to do with me." Impulsively, she leaned over out of the pilot's chair and kissed him. At the last instant, he flinched, nervous at such. unaccustomed proximity to another human being-especially an attractive member of the opposite sex-and the kiss, which was meant for his cheek, landed instead on his lips.
That made her pull back fast. The smile stayed on her face, and she only blinked once in surprise. It had been an accident, after all. "Take my word for something else, Flinx. If you live long enough, life gets better."
"Is that one of the Church's homilies?" He wondered if she wore some caustic substance to protect her lips from burning, because his own were on fire.
"No," she said. "That's a Lauren Walder homily."
"Glad to hear it. I've never had much use for the Church."
"Nor have 1. Nor have most people. That's why it's been so successful, I expect." She turned her gaze to the tracker. "They're starting to slow down. We'll do the same."
"Do you think they've seen us?" Suddenly, he didn't really care what the people in the skimmer ahead of them decided to do. The fire spread from his lips to his mouth, ran down his throat, and dispersed across his whole body. It was a sweet, thick fire.
"I doubt it," she replied. "I'll bet they're close to their destination." Her hands manipulated controls.
"How far ahead of us are they?" He walked forward to peer over her shoulder at the screen. He could have stood to her left, but he was suddenly conscious of the warmth of her, the perfume of her hair. He was very careful not to touch her.
She performed some quick calculations, using the tracker's predictor. "Day or so. We don't want to run up their tail. There's nothing up in this part of the country. Odd place to stop, but then this whole business is odd, from what you've told me. Why bring your mother up here?"
He had no answer for her.
They dropped until the skimmer was rising and falling inconcert with the treetops. So intent were they on the actions of the dot performing on the tracking Screen that neither of them noticed that not only had the rain stopped but the cloud cover had cracked. Overhead, one of the wings of Moth, the interrupted ring which encircled the planet, shimmered golden against the ceiling of night.
"What makes you so sure they're stopping here instead of just slowing down for a while?" he asked Lauren.
"Because a skimmer operates on a stored charge, just like a mudder. Remember, they had to come from here down to Patra. Our own charge is running low, and we're not on the return leg of a round trip. I don't know what model they're flying, but I saw how big it was. It can't possibly retain enough energy to take them much farther than we've gone the past several days. They at least have to be stopping somewhere to recharge, which is good."
"Why is that?" Flinx asked.
"Because we're going to have to recharge, also." She pointed to a readout. "We've used more than half our own power. If we can't recharge somewhere around here, we're going to have some hiking to do on our way out."
Flinx regarded her with new respect, if that was possible; his opinion of her had already reached dizzying heights. "Why didn't you tell me when we reached the turnaround point?"