"Foster, Alan Dean - Flinx 3 - Orphan Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

"I flew down," Flinx said, "after I made myself invisible."
Bisondenbit eyed him uncertainly, started to laugh, stopped, then stared again. "You are a most peculiar fellow, even for a human. I do not know whether to believe you or not." He suddenly looked around the busy terminal, his nervousness returning. "Powerful people around Chaflis want to know your whereabouts. There is talk of a large reward, to be paid without questions. The only clue anyone has as to your escape, however, resides in a woman who is confined to a hospital. She is hysterical still."
"I'm sorry for that," Flinx murmured honestly.
"It is not good for me to be seen with you-you have become a desired commodity."
"It's always nice to be wanted," Flmx replied, blithely ignoring Bisondenbit's fear for his own safety. "By the way, I didn't know that the thranx counted pickpocketing among their talents."
"From a digital standpoint we've always been adroit. Many humans have acquired equally, ah, useful abilities from us."
"I can imagine," Flinx snorted. "I happen to live in a city overstocked with such abilities. But I haven't time to debate the morality of dubious cultural ex- changes. Just tell me where I can find Conda Challis."
Bisondenbit eyed the youth as if he had suddenly sprouted an extra pair of hands. "He almost lolled you. It seems he wants another chance. I can't believe you will continue to seek out such a powerful enemy. I consider myself a fair judge of human types. You do not appear revenge-motivated."
"I'm not," Flinx confessed uneasily, aware that Small Symm had assumed he was following Challis for the same reason. People persisted in ascribing to him motives he didn't possess.
"If not revenge, then what is it you follow him for ... not that it makes me sad to see a beme of Challis' reputation squirm a little, even if it be bad for business."
"Just tell me where he is."
"If you'll tell me why you seek him."
Flinx nudged Pip and the flying snake stirred, yawned to show a sac-backed gullet. "I don't think that's necessary," Flinx said softly, meaningfully. A terrified Bisondenbit threw up truhands and foothands in feeble defense. . .
"Never mind," sighed Flinx, tired of threatening. "If I tell you it might even filter convincingly back to Challis. I just think he holds information on who my real parents are and what happened to them after they ... abandoned me."
"Parents?" Bisondenbit looked quizzical. "I was told you had threatened Challis."
"Not true. He's paranoid because of an incident in our mutual past. He wanted me to do something and I didn't want to do it."
"For that you've killed several people?"
"I haven't killed anyone," Flinx protested unhappily. "Pip has, and then only to defend me."
"Well, the dead are the dead," Bisondenbit observed profoundly. He gazed in disbelief at Flinx. "I did not believe any being, even a human, could be so obsessed with perverse desire. Does it matter more than your life to know who your parents were?"
"We don't have the tradition of a general hive- mother that I could trace myself to and through," Flinx explained. "Yes, it matters that much to me."
The insect shook his double-lobed head. "Then I wish you musical hunting in your mad quest. In another time, another place, I would maybe be your clanmate." Leaning forward, he extended antennae. After a moment's hesitation, Flinx touched his own forehead to the proffered protrusions. He straightened, gave the slight thranx a warning look.
"Try," he said to Bisondenbit, "to keep your truhands to your own thorax."
"I don't know why my activities should concern you, as long as you are not affected," the thranx protested. He was almost happy, now that it appeared Fliax wasn't going to murder him. "Are you going to report me to the authorities?"
"Only for procrastination," Flinx said impatiently. "You still haven't told me where Challis is."
"Send him a tape of your request," the thranx advised.
"Would you believe it?"
Bisondenbit's mandibles clicked. "I understand. You are a strange individual, man-boy."
"You're no incubator yourself, Bisondenbit. Where?"
Shoulder chiton moved to produce a ruffling sound, like cardboard being scraped across a carpet. Bisondenbit spoke with a modicum of pride.
"I'm not one of Chalks' hired grubs-I'll tell yon. You drove him from Moth, it seems; and now you've chased him off Hivehom. The Challis Company's home office is in Terra's capital, and I presume that's where he's fled. No doubt he'll be expecting you, if he hasn't died of fright by now. May you find him before the many-who-pursue find you." He started to leave, then paused curiously.
"Good-bye, Bisondenbit," Flinx said firmly. The thranx started to speak, but spotted the minidrag moving and thought better of it. He walked away, looking back over his shoulder occasionally and muttering to himself, unsatisfied. For his part Flinx felt no guilt in letting the pickpocket go free. It was not for one who had performed his fair share of borderline activities to judge another.
Why wouldn't Challis believe that his purpose in seeking him out was for nothing so useless and primitive as revenge? Challis could understand only his own kind of mind, Flinx decided.
Somehow, he would have to find a way around it.
From Hivehom to the Commonwealth's second capital world of Terra was a considerable journey, even at maximum drive. But eventually Flinx found himself drinking in a view of it from another shuttlecraft port as the little transfer ship dropped free of the freight- liner.
This was the green legend. Terra magnificent, spawning place of mankind, second capital of the Common- wealth and home of the United Church. This was the world where once a primitive primate had suddenly risen to stand on hind feet to be nearer the sky, never dreaming he would one day step beyond it.
And yet, save for the royal blue of the oceans, the globe itself was unremarkable, mostly swirling white clouds and brown splotches of land.
He hadn't known what to expect ... golden spires piercing the cloudtops, perhaps, or formed crags of chromium backing against the seas-all that was at once absurd and sublime. Although he couldn't see it, Terra possessed both in munificent quantities, albeit in forms far more muted than his grandiose visions.
Surely, Flinx thought as the shuttle dropped into the outer atmosphere, the omnipresent emerald of Hivehom was more striking and, for that matter, the lam- bent yellow ring-wings of Moth were more sheerly spectacular.
But somewhere down there his great to the second or third power grandfather had lived and died....

Chapter Four

Descending on a west-to-east path, the shuttle passed over the big approach station at Perth before beginning its final powerglide over the endless agricultural fields of central Australia. Flinx had passing views of isolated towns and food-processing plants and the shin- ing solar power stations ringing the industrial metropolis of Alice Springs. He patted the shiny new case sitting by his feet, heard the relaxed hiss from within, and strapped himself down for landing.
The shuttle was dropping toward the largest shuttle- port on Terra. The port formed the base of an enormous urban T whose cap stretched north and south to embrace the warm Pacific. Brisbane had been Terra's capital city for hundreds of years now, and its port, with long, open approaches over the continental center and the open Pacific, was the planet's busiest. It was also convenient to the large thranx settlements in North Australia and on New Guinea, and to the United Church headquarters at Denpasar.
There was a gentle bump, and he was down.
No one took any notice of him in the terminal, nor later as he walked through the streets of the vast city. He felt very much alone, even more so than he had on Hivehom.
The capital surprised him. There were no soaring towers here. Brisbane had none of the commercial intensity of West North America's city of Lala or of London or Jakutsk, or even of the marketplace in Drallar. The streets were almost quiet, still bearing in places a certain quaintness with architecture that reached back through to the pre-Amalgamation time.
As for the government buildings, they at least were properly immense. But they were built low to the ground and, because they were landscaped on all sides, seemed to reach outward like verdant ripples in. a metal and stone pond.
Locating the headquarters of the Challis Company was a simple matter. Careful research then gave him the location of the family residence. But gaining en- trance to that isolated and protected sanctum was an- other matter.
Bisondenbit's comments came back to him. How could he reach Challis and explain his purpose before the merchant had him killed?