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

"When do you want to go back to the terminal to pick up the rest of your luggage?" the insect asked casually, after their drinks arrived. He noted with approval that Plinx disdained a glass in favor of one of the weaving-spouted tankards used by the thranx themselves.
"This is it," Flinx told him, indicating his small shoulder bag and the single large perforated case. Bisondenbit didn't try to conceal his surprise.
"That's all you've brought all this way with you, without knowing how long it will take you to find this human Challis?"
"I've always traveled light," was his companion's explanation. The drink was typically sweet, with a faint flavor of raisin. It went down warm and smooth. The trip, he decided, was beginning to catch up with him. He was more tired than he should be this early in the day. Obviously he wasn't quite the urbane interstellar traveler he pictured himself as.
"Besides, it shouldn't be hard to find Challis. Certainly he'll be staying at his local company headquarters." Flinx let another swallow of the thick, honeylike fluid slide down his throat, then frowned. Despite his age, he considered himself a good judge of intoxicants, but this new brew was apparently more potent than the menu description indicated. He found his vision blurring slightly.
Bisondenbit peered at him solicitously. "Are you all right? If you've never had Sookcha before, it can be a bit overwhelming. Packs quite a concussion?"
"Punch," Flinx corrected thickly.
"Yes, quite a punch. Don't worry ... the feeling will pass quick enough."
But Flinx felt himself growing steadily groggier. "I think ... if I could just get outside. A little fresh air ..." He Started to get up, but discovered his legs responded with indifference while his feet moved as if he were walking on an oiled treadmill. It was impossible to get any traction.
Abandoning the effort, he found that his muscular system was entering a state of anarchy. "That's funny," he murmured, "I can't seem to move."
"No need to be concerned," Bisondenbit assured him, leaning across the table and staring at him with an intensity that was new to Flinx. "I'll see that you're properly taken care of."
As all visual images faded, Flinx feared his strange, new acquaintance would do just that....
Flinx awoke to the harmony of destruction, accompanied by curses uttered in several languages. Blinking -his eyelids felt as if they were lined with platinum -he fought unsuccessfully to move his arms and legs. Failing this, he settled for holding his eyes partially open. Dim light from an unseen source illuminated the little room in which he lay. Spartan furnishings of rough-hewn wood were backed by smooth walls of argent gunite. As his perceptions cleared he discovered that metal bands at his wrists and ankles secured him to a crude wooden platform that was neither bed nor table.
He lay quietly. For one thing, his stomach was performing gymnastics and it would be best to keep the surroundings subdued until the internal histrionics ceased. For another, the sensations and sounds surrounding him indicated it would be unwise to call attention to his new consciousness.
The sounds of destruction were being produced by the methodical dissection of his personal effects. Looking slowly to his right, he saw the shredded remains of his shoulder bag and clothing. These were being inspected by three humans and a single thranx. Recognizing the latter as his former games mentor and would-be friend, Bisondenbit, he damned his own naivete.
Back in Drallar he would never have been so loquacious with a total stranger. But he had been three days isolated and friendless on board ship when the thranx had approached him with his offer of games instruction. Gratitude had shunted aside instinctive caution.
"No weapons, no poison, no beamer, needler-not even a threatening note," complained one of the mea in fluent symbospeech.
"What's worse," one of his companions chipped in, "no money. Nothing but a lousy cardmeter." He held up the compact computer unit which registered and transferred credit in unforgeable fashion, and tossed it disgustedly onto a nearby table. It landed among the rest of Flinx's few possessions. Flinx noted that there was one remaining object they had not yet broken into.
"That's not my fault," Bisondenbit complained, glaring with eyes of shattered prism at the three tall humans. "I didn't promise to deliver any fringe benefits. If you don't think I've earned my fee I'll go straight to Challis himself."
One of the men looked resigned. Taking a double handful of small metal rectangles from one pocket, he handed them to Bisondenbit. The thranx counted them carefully.
The human who had paid him looked over at the restraining bonds, and Flinx closed his eyes just in time. "That's a lot of money. I don't know why Challis is so afraid-this is just a kid. But he thinks it's worth the fee you demanded. Don't understand it, though."
The man indicated the biggest of the three. "Charlie, here, could break him in two with one hand." Turning, he tapped the large sealed case. "What's in this?" "I don't know," the thranx admitted. "He kept it in his cabin all the time."
The third man spoke up. His tone was vaguely contemptuous. "You can all stop worrying about it. I've been examining that container with appropriate instrumentation while the rest of you have been occupying yourselves with a harmless wardrobe." He gave the bag a shove. "There's no indication it contains any- thing mechanical or explosive. Readings indicated that it's full of shaped organics and organic analogs-probably the rest of his clothing." He sighed. "Might as well check it out. We're paid to be thorough." Taking a pair of thick metal clippers from a neat tool case, he snipped through the squat combination lock.That done, the top of the case opened easily. He peered inside, grunted. "Clothes, all right. Looks like another couple of suits and-" He started to remove the first set of clothing-then screamed and, stumbling backward, clawed at the left side of his face, which was suddenly bubbling like hot mud. A narrow, beltlifce shape erupted from the open case.
Bisondenbit chattered something in High Thranx and vanished out the single door. The one called Charlie fell backward across Flinx's pinioned form, his beamer firing wildly at the ceiling as he dug m awful silence at his own eyes. The leader of the little group of humans was close on Bisondenbit's abdomen when something hit him at the back of his neck. Howling, he fell back into the room and started rolling across the floor.
Less than a minute had passed.
Something long and smooth slid onto Flinx's chest.
"Thats enough. Pip," he said to his pet. But the minidrag was beyond persuasion. His inspection over, he took to the air again and began darting and striking at the man on the floor. Gaping holes appeared in the supplicant's clothing and skin wherever the venom struck. Eventually the man stopped rolling.
The first man who had been struck was already dead, while the second lay moaning against a wall behind Flinx. Pieces of skin hung loosely from his cheek and neck; and a flash of white showed where Pip's extremely corrosive poison had exposed the bone.
Meanwhile the minidrag settled gently on Flinx's stomach, slid upward caressingly. The long tongue darted out again and again to touch lips and chin. "The right hand, Pip," Flinx instructed, "my right hand." In the darkness the reptile eyed him questioningly.
Flinx snapped Ms fingers in a special way and now the minidrag half crawled, half fluttered over to the hand in question, rested his head in the open palm. A few scratches and then the hand closed gently but firmly. The snake offered no resistance.
Adjusting his pet with some difficulty, Flinx aligned Pip's snout with the place where the metal band was locked to the table. His fingers moved, massaging various muscles behind the jaw. A few droplets of poison oozed from the tapered tube which ran through the minidrag's lower palate.
There was a sizzling sound
Flinx wafted until the noise died away, then palled hard. A second pull and the rotted metal gave way. Transferring Pip, with greater control now, he repeated the process on his other bindings, the snake doing his bidding through each step.
As he was freeing his left leg, Flinx noticed a movement on his right. So did Pip, and the minidrag took to the air again.
The single survivor shrieked as the dragon shape moved close. "Get away, get away, don't let it near me?" he gibbered in total terror.
"Pip!" Flinx commanded. A hushed pause. The mrinidrag continued to hover nervously before the crouching man, its wings a hummingbird blur, soul- less, cold-blooded eyes staring into those of the bleeding human whose clavicle showed pale through dissolved clothing.
Flinx finally ripped clear of the last strap. Getting slowly to his feet, he made his way carefully to the other table. The clothes he'd been wearing were an unsalvageable mess. He began to slip into the second jumpsuit, in whose folds Pip had been so comfortably coiled.
"I'm sorry for your friends, but not too sorry," he murmured. Zipping up the suit, Flinx turned to the shocked creature on the floor. "Tell me the whole story and don't leave out any details. The more questions I have to ask, the more impatient Pip will get."
A stream of information poured from the man's lips. "Your thranx friend is a small-time criminal."
"Antique services," Flinx muttered. "Very funny. Go on."
"It struck him odd that a kid like you, traveling alone, would be so interested in looking up Conda Challis. On a hunch he beamed Challis' offices here and told them about you. Someone high up got upset as hell and told him to deliver you to us, to be checked out."
"Makes sense," Flinx agreed. "What was supposed to happen to me after I was-er-checked out?"
The man huddled into the comer farthest away from the fluttering minidrag, whispered, "Use your head- what do you think?"
"Challis claimed he was the thorough type," Flinx observed. "I could have been an innocent passenger- it wouldn't have mattered." Repacking his few intact belongings in the hand case, Flinx started for the door that Bisondenbit had exited through only moments before.
"What about me?" the man mumbled. "Are you going to kill me?"
Flinx turned in surprise, his eyes narrowing as he regarded the human wreck who had confidently pawed through his luggage just minutes before. "No. What for? Tell me where I can find Conda Challis. Then I'd advise you to get to a hospital."
"He's on the top floor of the executive pylon at the far end of the complex."
"What complex?" Flinx asked, puzzled.
"That's right-you still don't know where you are, do you?" Flinx shook his head. "This is the fourth sublevel of the Challis Hivehom Mining Components plant. The Challis family's very big in mining machinery.
"Go to the corridor outside the door, turn to your left, and keep on until you reach a row of lifts. They all go to the surface. From there anyone can direct you to the executive pylon-the plant grounds are hexagon-shaped and the pylon's at the northeast corner."