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

Though the outlines shifted and trembled constantly, never quite firmly fixed, they took on the recognizable shapes of several persons. One appeared to be an exaggeratedly Junoesque woman. Of the others, one was a humanoid male and the third something wholly alien. A two-sided chamber rose around them and was filled with strange objects that never held their form for more than a few seconds. Although their consistency fluctuated, the impression they conveyed did not. Flinx saw quite enough to turn his stomach before everything within the crystal dissolved once again to a cloud of glowing dust.
Looking up and across from the crystal he observed that the merchant had removed the headpiece and was wiping the perspiration from his high forehead with a perfumed cloth. Illuminated by the subdued light concealed in the table edge below, his face became that of an unscrupulous imp.
"Easy to begin," he murmured with exhaustion, "but a devilishly difficult reaction to sustain. When your attention moves from one figure, the others begin to cpl- lapse. And when the play involves complex actions performed by several such creations, it is nigh impossible, especially when one tends to become so ... involved with the action."
"What's all this got to do with me?" Flinx broke in. Although the question was directed at Challis, Flinx's attention was riveted on those two half-sensed figures guarding the exit. Neither Nolly nor Nanger had stirred, but that didn't mean they had relaxed their watch, either. And the door they guarded was hardly likely to be unlocked. Flinx could see several openings in the floor-to-ceiling glassalloy wall which overlooked the city, but he knew it was a sheer drop of at least fifty meters to the private street below.
"You see," Challis told him, "while I'm not ashamed to admit that I've inherited a most successful family business in the Ghallis Company, neither do I count myself a dilettante. I have improved the company through the addition of people with many diverse talents." He gestured toward the door. "Nolly-dear and Nanger there are two such examples. I'm hoping that you, dear boy, will be yet another."
"I'm still not sure I understand," Flinx said slowly, stalling.
"That can be easily rectified." Challis steepled his fingers. "To hold the suspended particles of the Janus jewels, to manipulate the particulate clay, requires a special kind of mind. Though my mental scenarios are complex, to enjoy them fully I require a surrogate mind. Yours! I shall instruct you in what is desired and you will execute my designs within the jewel."
Flinx thought back to what he had glimpsed a few moments ago in the incomplete playlet, to what Challis had wrought within the tiny god-world of the jewel. In many ways he was mature far beyond his seventeen years, and he had seen a great many things in his time. Though some of them would have sickened the stomach of an experienced soldier, most of them had been harmless perversions. But beneath all the superficial cordiality and the polite requests for cooperation that Challis had expressed, there bubbled a deep lake of un- treated sewage, and Flinx was not about to serve as the merchant's pilot across it.
Surviving a childhood in the marketplace of Drallar had made Flinx something of a realist. So he did not reel at the merchant's proposal and say what was on his mind: "You revolt and nauseate me, Conda Challis, and I refuse to have anything to do with you or your sick private fantasies." Instead he said: "I don't know where you got the idea that I could be of such help to you."
"You cannot deny your own history," Challis sniggered. "I have acquired a small but interesting file on you. Most notably, your peculiar talents figured strongly in assisting a competitor of mine named Maxim Malaika. Prior to that incident and subsequent to it you have been observed demonstrating abnormal mental abilities through the medium of cheap sideshow tricks for the receipt of a few credits from passersby. I can offer you considerably more for the use of your talents. Deny that if you can."
"Okay, so I can work a few gimmicks and fool a few tourists," Flinx conceded while studying the thin silvery bracelets linking his wrists and trying to find a hidden catch. "But what you call my 'talents' are erratic, undisciplined, and beyond my control much of the time. I don't know when they come or why they go."
Challis was nodding in a way Flinx didn't like. "Naturally. I understand. All talents-artistic, athletic, whatever kind-require training and discipline to develop them fully. I intend to help you in mastering yours. By way of example . . ." Challis took out some- thing that looked like an ancient pocket watch but wasn't, pressed a tiny button. Instantly the breath fled from Flinx's lungs, and he arced forward. His hands tightened into fists as he shuddered, and he felt as if someone had taken a file to the bones in his wrists. The pain passed suddenly and he was able to lean limply backward, gasping, trembling. When he found he could open his eyes again, he saw that Challis was staring into them, expectantly interested. His stare was identical to the one a chemist would lavish on a laboratory animal just injected with a possibly fatal substance.
"That ... wasn't necessary," Flinx managed to whisper.
"Possibly not," a callous Challis agreed, "but it was instructive. I've seen your eyes roving while you've tatted. Really, you can't get out of here, you know. Even should you somehow manage to reach the central shaft beyond Nolly and Nanger, there are others waiting." The merchant paused, then asked abruptly, "Now, is what I wish truly so abhorrent to you? You'll .be well rewarded. I offer you a secure existence in my company. In return you may relax as you like. You'll be called on only to help operate the jewel."
"It's the ethics of the matter that trouble me, not the salary," Flinx insisted.
"Oh, ethics." Challis was amused, and be didn't try to hide it. "Surely you can overcome that. The alternative is much less subjective." He was tapping two fingers idly on the face of the pseudo-watch.
While pretending to enjoy it all, Flinx was thinking. His wrists were still throbbing, and the ache penetrated all the way to his shoulders. He could stand that pain again, but not often. And anything more intense would surely knock him out. His vision still had an alarming tendency to lose focus.
Yet ... he couldn't do what Challis wanted. Those images-his stomach churned as he remembered-to participate in such obscenities ... No! Flinx was considering what to say, anything to forestall the pain again, when something dry and slick pressed against his cheek. It was followed by the feathery caress of something unseen but familiar at the back of his neck.
Challis obviously saw nothing in the darkness, since when he spoke again his voice was as controlled as be- fore. His fingers continued to play lazily over the ovoid control box. "Come, dear boy, is there really need to prolong this further? I'm sure you gain less pleasure from it than do 1." A finger stopped tapping, edged toward the button.
"HEY!"
The shout came from the vicinity of the door and was followed by muffled curses and dimly perceived movement. Challis' two guards were dancing crazily about, waving and swatting at something unseen.
Challis' voice turned vicious, angry for the first time. "What's the matter with you idiots?"
Nanger replied nervously, "There's something in here with us."
"You are both out of your small minds. We are eight floors from the surface and carefully screened against mechanical intruders. Nothing could possibly-"
Nanger interrupted the merchant's assurance with a scream the likes of which few men ever encounter. Flinx was half expecting it. Even so, the sound sent a chill down his spine. What it did to Nolly, or to Challis, who was suddenly scrambling over the back of the chair and fumbling at his belt, could only be imagined.
Flinx heard a crash, followed by a collision with something heavy and out of control. It was Nanger. The half-face had both hands clamped tight over his eyes and was staggering wildly in all directions.
"The jewel ... watch the jewel!" a panicky Challis howled. Moving on hands and knees with surprising rapidity, he reached the edge of the table and hit a switch. Instantly the light went out. In the faint illumination from the wall window Flinx could see the merchant disconnect the top of the apparatus, the globe containing the crystal itself, and cradle it protectively in his hands as he removed it.
Suddenly there was another source of light in the room, in the form of sharp intermittent green flares from a needler. Nolly had the weapon out and was sparring desperately with an adversary that swooped and dove at him.
Then something began to buzz for attention within the table, and Challis lifted a receiver and listened. Flinx listened too, but could hear nothing. Whatever was being said elicited some furious responses from the merchant, whose easygoing manner had by now vanished completely. He mumbled something into the pickup, then let it snap back into the table. The look he threw Flinx in the near blackness was a mixture of fury and curiosity. "I bid you adieu, dear boy. I hope we have the opportunity to meet again. I thought you merely a beggar with talents too big for his head. Apparently you may be something more. I'm sorry you elected not to cooperate. Your maternal line hinted that you might," Challis sneered. "I never repeat mistakes. Be warned." Still scrambling on hands and knees, he made his way to the hidden door. As it opened, Flinx caught a glimpse of a small golden figure standing there.
"Listening again, brat-child?" Challis muttered as he rose to his feet. He slapped the girl, grabbing her by one arm. She started to cry and looked away from Challis as the door cycled shut.
As Flinx turned his attention back to the other door, his mind was already awhirl at an offhand comment of the merchant's. But before he could consider all the implications of the remark, Flinx was hit with a tsunami of maniacal mental energy that nearly knocked him from the couch. It was forceful beyond imagining, powerful past anything he had ever felt from a human mind before. It held screaming images of Conda Challis coming slowly apart, like a toy doll. These visions were mixed haphazardly with other pictures, and several views of Flinx himself drifted among them.
He winced under that cyclonic wail. Some of the fleeting images were far worse than anything Challis had tried to create within the jewel. The merchant's mind may have been one of utter depravity, but the brain behind this mental storm did not stop with anything that petty.
Flinx stared back at the closing door, getting his last view of black eyes set in an angelic face. In that un- formed body, he knew, dwelt a tormented child. Yet even that revelation did not spark the same wild excitement in him that Challis' last casual statement bad. "Your maternal line," the merchant had said.
Flinx knew more about the universe than he did about his real parents. If Challis knew even a rumor of Flinx's ancestry ... the merchant was going to get his wish for another meeting.

Chapter Two

The door to the tower's central shaft opened as the only other occupant of the room sought escape. Instead of an empty elevator, he found himself confronted by a figure of gargantuan proportions that lifted him squealing from the floor and removed the needler. The new arrival quickly rendered the weapon harmless by crumpling it in a fist that had the force of a mechanical press. Nolly's fingers, which happened to be wrapped around the needler, suffered a similar fate, and a single shriek of pain preceded unconsciousness.
Small Symm ducked to clear the top of the portal, dropping the limp human shape to one side. Simultaneously a long lean -shape settled easily about Flinx's shoulders, and a single damp point flickered familiarly at his ear. Reaching back, Flinx scratched under the minidrag's jaw and felt the long muscular form relax. "Thanks, Pip."
Rising from the chair, he moved around the table- safe and played with the controls on the other side. Before very long he succeeded in lighting the entire room.
Where Nanger had crashed and stumbled, the expensive furnishings lay broken and twisted. His body, already growing stiff with venom-inspired death, lay crumpled across one bent chair. The unmoving form of his companion was slumped to one side of the doorway. A mangled hand oozed blood.
"I was wondering," Flinx informed Symm, "when you'd get here."
"It was difficult," the bartender apologized, his voice echoing up from that bottomless pit of a chest. "Your pet was impatient, disappearing and then reappearing when I fell behind. How did he know how to find you?"
Flinx affectionately eyed the now somnolent scaly head. "He smelled my fear. Life-water knows I was broadcasting it loud enough." He held out manacled wrists. "Can you do something about these? I have to go after Challis."
Symm glanced at the cuffs, a look of mild surprise on his face. "I never thought revenge was part of your makeup, Flinx."
Reaching down with a massive thumb and forefinger, Symm carefully pinched one of the narrow con- fining bands. A moment's pressure caused the metal to snap with an explosive pop. Repeating the action freed Flinx's other hand.
Looking at his right wrist as he rubbed it with his left hand, Flinx could detect no mark-nothing to indicate the intense pain that the device had inflicted.
He debated how to respond to his friend's accusation. How could he hope to explain the importance of Challis' remark to this good-natured hulk? "I think Challis may know something of my real parents. I can't simply forget about it."
The unaccustomed bitterness of Symm's answer startled him. "What are they to you? What have they done for you? They have caused you to be treated like chattel, like a piece of property. If not for the intervention of Mother Mastiff you'd be a personal slave now, perhaps to something like Challis. Your real parents- you owe them nothing, least of all the satisfaction of showing them you've survived!"
"I don't know the circumstances of my abandonment, Symm," Flinx finally countered. "I have to find out. I have to."