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

She continued to scream.
Flinx halted and thought furiously what to do. Someone was bound to hear the noise any second.
Pip solved the immediate problem. He lurched speculatively at the woman. She saw the long, sinuous, quick-moving reptilian form, mouth agape, rushing toward her on broad membranous wings.
She fainted.
That stopped the screaming, but Flinx was still trapped in a now alerted building with next to no prospect of slipping out unseen. His gaze traveled frantically around the room, searching for a large carton to hide in or a weapon or ... anything useful. Eventually his attention returned to the woman. She had fallen awkwardly and he moved to shift her into a more natural resting position. As he propped her up, Flinx noticed a bathroom nearby. His gaze shot back to the girl....
A minute later several heavily armed guards burst into the unlocked room. It seemed to be deserted. They fanned out, made a quick inspection of every possible hiding place. One guard entered the bathroom, noticed feminine legs beneath the privacy shield, and hastily withdrew, apologizing. With his comrades he left and moved on to inspect the next office.
Three offices later it occurred to him that the woman hadn't responded to his apology-not with a thank- you, not with a frosty acknowledgment, not with a curse. Nothing. That struck him as being strange and he mentioned the fact to his superior.
Together they dashed back to the office in question, entered the bathroom. The legs were still in the same position. Cautiously, the officer knocked on the shield, cleared his throat appraisingly. When there was no response, he directed the other two men to stand back and cover the shield exitway, which he then opened from the outside.
The woman was just opening' her eyes. She found herself sitting stark naked on the convenience, staring into the muzzles of two energy weapons held in the steady grip of a pair of resolute-looking, uniformed men.
She fainted again.
By the time the badly shaken woman had been revived once more, Flinx was well clear of the tower. No one had noticed the lithe, short-haired woman leaving the building. Flinx had made excellent use of the cosmetics found in the woman's desk-in Drallar it was useful to have knowledge of abilities others might find absurd or even disreputable. Only one clerk had noticed anything unusual. But he wasn't about to mention to his fellows that the double leather belt encircling the woman's waist had moved independently of her walk.
Finally away from both the tower and the Challis plant, Flinx discarded the woman's clothing and let Pip slip free from around his belly. Disdaining normal transportation channels as too dangerous now, he made his way to the edge of the escarpment.
The two-thousand-meter drop was breathtaking, but he couldn't risk waiting around the Plateau for some of Challis' armed servants to challenge him in the street. Nor did he want to risk awkward questions from the authorities. So he took a deep breath, selected what looked like the least sheer cliff, and began his descent. The basalt was nearly vertical, but crumbling and weathered, so he encountered an. abundance of handholds. Even so, he doubted that Challis would imagine that anyone would consider descending the escarpment by hand and foot.
Flinx came upon some bad places, but the overgrowth of dangling vines and creepers enabled him to bypass these successfully. His arms began to ache, and once, when a foot momentarily became numb, he was left clinging precariously by fingers and one set of toes to tiny cracks in the rock.
At the thousand-meter mark, the cliff started to angle slightly away from him, making climbing much easier. He increased his pace. Finally, bruised, scratched, and utterly exhausted, Flinx reached the jungle at the bottom. Pausing a moment to orient himself, he headed immediately in what he hoped was the direction of the port. He had chosen his place of descent with care, so he didn't have far to go through the dense vegetation.
But he was totally unaware that he was struggling over a region as densely populated as any of Terra's major cities. An entire thranx metropolis lay below him, hewn in traditional fashion, from the earth and rock beneath the sweltering surface. Flinx walked upon a green cloud that hovered over the city.
Totally drained and beginning to wish Challis had shot him, he shoved himself through one more stubborn cluster of bushes ... then stumbled onto the surface of a neatly paved roadway. Two more days, and he had made his way back to Chitteranx Port. Those he met cautiously avoided him. He was quite aware of the sight he must present after his scramble down the cliff wall and his hike through the jungle.
A few thranx did take pity on the poor human, enough to provide him with sufficient food and water to continue on.
The sight of the Port outskirts cheered him immensely. Pip took to the air at Flinx's shout of joy before settling back on his master's shoulder. Flinx glanced up at the minidrag, who looked relaxed and comfortable in the tropical heat so like that of his native world of Alaspin.
"You can afford to look content, spade-face," Flinx addressed his companion enviously. While he had fought his way down the cliff centimeter by centimeter, Pip had fluttered and soared freely nearby, always urging him on faster and faster, when a single misstep could have meant quick death.
The clerk at the overbank counter in the Port terminal was human, but that didn't prevent him from maintaining his composure at the sight of a dirty, ragged youth approaching. A wise man, he had learned early in life a basic dictum: odd appearance may indicate wealth or eccentricity, with the two not necessarily mutually exclusive.
So he treated the ragamuffin as he would have any well-dressed, clearly affluent arrival. "May I be of service, sir?" he inquired politely, unobtrusively turning his head to one side.
Flinx explained his needs. The information he provided was fed to a computer. A short while later the machine insisted that the person standing before the counter-name Flinx, given recorded name Philip Lynx, retina pattern so-and-so, pulse variables such- and-such, heart configuration thus-and-that-was indeed a registered depositor at the King's Bank on Moth, in the city of Drallar, and that his present drawable balance as of this date was ...
The clerk stood a little straighter, fought to face Flinx. "Now then, sir, how did you happen to lose your registered cardmeter?"
"I had an accident," Flinx explained cryptically, "and it fell out of my pocket."
"Yes." The clerk continued to smile. "No need to worry. As you know, only you can utilize a personal cardmeter. We will note the disappearance of your old cardmeter and within the hour you will have a new one waiting at this desk for you."
"I can wait. However," he indicated his clothing with an eloquent sweep of his hands, "I'd like to bay some new clothes, and get cleaned up a little."
"Naturally," the clerk agreed, reaching professionally into a drawer. "K you'll just sign this slip and permit me to register your eyeprint on it, we can advance you. whatever you require."
Flinx applied for a ridiculously modest amount, listened to the clerk's directions as to where he could hire a bath and buy clothing, and left with a grateful handshake.
The jumpsuit he eventually chose was more elaborate than the two Hivehom had already appropriated, but he felt he owed himself a little luxury after what he had been through.
The bath occupied most of the rest of the hour, and when he returned to the overbank desk he once more resembled a human being instead of a denizen of Hivehom's jungles. As promised, his new cardmeter was ready for him.
"Anything else I can do for you, sir?"
"Thanks, you've done more than enough. I ..." He paused, looked to his left. "Excuse me, but I see an old friend."
He left the clerk with an open mouth and a tip of ten percent of his total withdrawal.
The central terminal floor was high-domed and filled with the noise of travelers arriving and departing. The smallish thranx Flinx strode up behind was engaged in activity of a different sort.
"I think you'd better give that lady back her abdomen purse," he whispered to the insectoid lightfinger. As he spoke, a lavishly miaid and chiton-bejeweled thranx matron, her flaking exoskeleton elegantly streaked with silver, turned to stare curiously at him.
At the same time the thranx Flinx had surprised started visibly and whirled to confront his accuser. "Sir, if you think that I have ..." The voice turned to a clacking gargle. Flinx smiled engagingly as Pip stirred on his shoulder.
"Hello. Bisondenbit."
The concept of compound eyes bugging outward was unreasonable from a physiologic standpoint, but that was the impression Flinx received. Bisondenbit's antennae were quivering so violently Flinx thought they might shake free, and the thranx was staring in expectant terror at the lethal length of Pip.
"The abdomen purse," Flinx repeated softly, "and calm down before you crack your braincase."
"Y-ye-yes," Bisondenbit stuttered. Interesting! Flinx had never heard a thranx stutter before. Turning to the old female, Bisondenbit reached into an overly capacious b-thorax pouch and withdrew a small, six- sided bag of woven gold-colored metal.
"You just dropped this. Queen Mother," he muttered reluctantly, using the formalized honorific. "The hooks have come all unbent ... see?"
, The matron was checking her own abdomen with a foothand while reaching for the purse with a truhand.
"I don't understand. I was certain it was secured
..." She broke off, ducked her head and executed a movement with skull and antennae indicative of pro- found thanks, adding verbally, "Your service is much appreciated, warsire."
Flinx flinched when she bestowed the undeserved compliment on Bisondenbit.
That worthy's courteous pose lasted until the matron had passed out of hearing range. Then he turned nervous eyes on Flinx. "I didn't want you killed ... I didn't want anyone killed," he stammered rapidly, "they said nothing to me about a killing. I only was to bring you to ..."
"Settle down," Flinx advised him. "And stop yammermg of death. There are already too many deaths in this."
"Oh, on that I concur," the thranx confessed, the tension leaving him slowly. "None of my doing." Abruptly his attitude changed from one of fear to one of intense curiosity.
"How did you manage to escape the tower and leave the plateau? I am told many were watching for you but none saw you leave."