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

"I'll be just a moment," Symm assured him. "Wait here." He vanished into a back room. When he returned, it was in the company of a tall young woman. He spoke softly to her for a minute, she nodding in response, then rejoined his visitors. He was wearing a slickertic not quite large enough to protect a medium-sized building.
"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 stand- ing 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.