The End of the Matter Page 14

  “Don’t count on being safe tomorrow,” the man advised him pleasantly as he descended the stairway. He indicated the gun as he reached the floor. “Any reasonable humanx wouldn’t want to tangle with a Mark Twenty, but these aren’t reasonable or human or thranx, lad. They’re primitives, and primitive folk always have more courage than brains. Besides, each of ‘em probably thinks that if he dies in battle the gods will favor him in the afterlife. At least,” he amended himself with a modest wink, “that’s my theory.”

  “Are you an anthropologist?” Flinx asked him uncertainly.

  A great, roaring laugh filled the room, rattled around the engraved walls, and filled each niche and hollow with monumental delight. While the man enjoyed Flinx’s question, the youth took the time to note the piles of supplies stacked neatly in various spots around the room. There was also an oversized mattress, a cell charger, and a compact autochef complete with moisture condenser. All signs indicated that here was an efficient, organized, long-term camp.

  “Not me, young feller-me-lad,” the man finally replied after regaining control of himself. “I’ll claim science as a hobby, not a trade.” Turning, he shouted up toward the high gallery and waved at the figure standing by the long window there. “Come on down, Isili! Sunset’s on. You know they won’t trouble us any more today!” Lowering his voice, he spoke conspiratorially to Flinx. “Isili’s the scientist. Me, I’m just a menial . . .” He stopped, frowning.

  “What’s the matter?” Flinx watched as the man walked over to him and continued on past. He saw him bend over Pocomchi and realized that the guide had not said a word since they had reached safety.

  “He’s asleep?” he inquired hopefully.

  The big man rolled the slight Indian over onto his stomach. The action revealed two broken shafts sticking out of the narrow back. With an angry grimace, the white-haired giant plucked both arrows free, then gently turned the Indian over onto his back. Flinx saw blood on the small miner’s lips.

  “Hey, grubber-man,” the huge man inquired gently, “how do you feel?”

  Pocomchi’s eyelids twitched, his eyes opened. “How should I feel?” He turned his head and looked back up at the concerned face above him. “How did I get here?”

  “The lad carried you.”

  Pocomchi raised his head slightly and smiled at Flinx. “Thanks, Flinx. Waste of time, I’m afraid.”

  On all fours, Flinx crawled over to sit next to the limp form of the man who had brought him this far. Pocomchi took in the expression on the young face. He shook his head slightly, and winced at the pain the effort caused him.

  “Not . . . your fault,” he assured Flinx. “My own . . . carelessness. Should have sensed them.” He forced out a smile. The gesture was nearly beyond his rapidly fading capability.

  “Anything I can get you?” the big man asked gruffly.

  “How about . . . a shot of Tizone?” Flinx started. Tizone was so illegal that few people even knew it existed. The giant could only grin faintly.

  “Sorry, grubber-man. Would I could.”

  “Thanks anyway.” Pocomchi’s voice was that of a ghost now, the syllables poorly formed. Within him life had shrunk to a soap bubble’s consistency.

  “I’m going to join Habib anyway,” he rasped, staring across at Flinx. “I’m not religious, but the sanctimonious fool is there, I can feel him.”

  “Give him my best,” Flinx choked out. “Though that’s not much to give anyone, these days.”

  “Not . . . your fault,” Pocomchi repeated. His eyes closed. His lips moved, and Flinx had to lean close to hear. “If . . . you ever see Balthazaar again . . . give his neck a scratch for me.”

  “Two scratches,” Flinx assured him, in a tone scarcely more audible than the Indian’s.

  The soap bubble popped, the spirit in the small body fled, and the third person who had been good enough to aid Flinx since his arrival on Alaspin was now just so much meat.

  Slowly Flinx climbed to his feet, arranged his jumpsuit, and glared at the silently watching giant. “As soon as it gets dark, I’ll make a run for the skimmer. Maybe they’ll all be ceremonying, like you said, and I’ll be able to slip through. You’d better not try to stop me. People seem to die in my vicinity.”

  Pursing his lips, the big human examined Flinx appraisingly. “Well, now, that’s quite a speech, feller-me-lad. But, frankly, you don’t look like much of a jinx. You’re just a little bitty feller. And I’m about as unsuperstitious as they come. Besides, after they get through arguing and partying, they might just decide that they don’t want any more of my Mark Twenty or Isili’s popper.”

  Flinx paused. “You really believe that?”

  “Nope,” responded the man, turning to face the gallery above, “but it’s a nice thought. Isili,” he shouted again, “quit your gawking at the greenery and come meet our guest! Bet you the Ots don’t even bother with us again.”

  A rippling, slightly brittle voice called back to them, “You’re dreaming if you think that, Skua.” But the figure put the weapon down and descended the stairs.

  Trying to force Pocomchi’s death and what he thought was his responsibility for it from his mind, Flinx studied the woman intently as she approached.

  She was about a twentieth of a meter shorter than he was. Her skin was a rich olive hue, much like his own, but other features pointed to a different ethnic heritage. Terran-Turkish, he decided, taking in the doll-like face with its amber eyes, the too-wide mouth, and the natural waterfall of sparkling hair that looked like pulled filaments of pure black hematite.

  She returned Flinx’s stare for a moment, then ignored him. “They’ll be back,” she assured her associate, in that soft voice. Yet each word had an edge to it, suggesting that every consonant had been filed to a fine point before being uttered. What he could sense of her mind was as hard as duralloy.

  Pretty she was, but not in a commercial sense. It was the kind of beauty which would appeal to the man with a taste for the exotic. Flinx thought of her as a rare dish. It might give you an upset stomach or you might remember it as uniquely satisfying for the remainder of your days.

  He suspected that, beneath the jungle suit, her body was as wiry and tough as her thoughts. He nodded mentally. There were blatant differences in size, sex, appearance, and much else between her and the giant. But mentally there was a similarity of process and purpose, and that was undoubtedly what had joined them together.

  Of the obvious differences, one was that she did not share the big man’s desire to protect Flinx. “You’ve brought us a lot of trouble,” she told him candidly. “We haven’t had any trouble with the Otoid until now.”

  “You’re also the first visitor we’ve had in weeks,” her huge partner countered, “and welcome, lad.”

  First visitor . . . then they hadn’t seen the bodies of the three Qwarm, Flinx mused. No point in mentioning them. He was already unpopular with the woman. The announcement that he and Ab were being chased by the brotherhood of assassins wouldn’t exactly help change her attitude toward him.

  She noticed Flinx’s live companion for the first time, and her expression became one of distaste. “What’s that grotesque thing?” At the moment, Ab was singing something about Usander, crystalware, and Peter the Great.

  Once again Flinx had to explain his ward. He finished gratefully, “I can’t say much except to thank you for my life, both of you.” The woman didn’t look at him as she muttered something inaudible. Flinx indicated the motionless form of Pocomchi. “I know my friend would have been too. If it hadn’t been for you, Mr. Skua . . .”

  “September,” the white-maned giant corrected him, “Skua September.”

  “If not for you, I’d be dead and eyeless out there some place.”

  “Would have been better all around,” the woman murmured, stalking over to the food supplies and viciously cracking the seal on a carton. She pulled a tube free, took a seat on a smooth stone, and sucked at the liquid inside the transparent plastic. Her
gaze traveled from Flinx to September.

  “Would have been better if you’d left them. Now we’ll probably all die. Oh hell,” she concluded, not looking at either man. “I guess I’d have done the same thing, Skua. I’m going up for another look.”

  September shook his head. “Isili, I told you, the Otoids will not attack during—”

  “Since when did you become an expert on the Otoid?” she snapped back. “Nobody’s an expert on the Otoid. I don’t think they’ll attack at night either, but it’s not completely dark out yet.” She climbed the stairway and reassumed her position at the long window above the gateway. Her gaze was turned outward, the pulsepopper cradled efficiently under one arm.

  “Women!” September murmured softly, his expression unreadable. A hundred shades of meaning were encompassed by the single noun. He turned a bright smile on Flinx. “Would you like something to eat, feller-me-lad?”

  By way of reply, Flinx indicated Pocomchi’s body.

  “What, not squeamish are you, lad?” wondered the giant disapprovingly.

  “No, but don’t you think we ought to bury him?”

  “Sure,” September agreed, walking over to the recently opened case of food. He removed several small, brightly colored cubes, dumped them into his mouth, and chewed. “You pick him up,” he mumbled around the mouthful of organic slag, “and carry him outside. I’ll toss you our smallest excavator through the doorway. Isili and I will do our best to cover you while you dig him a grave. I guess there’s always a chance you’ll make it back inside.”

  Flinx didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he walked over to stand next to the food case. “Despite your untimely sarcasm, I’ll have a couple of those concentrates.”

  “Sarcasm? Sarcasm!” the big man rumbled, spitting particles of food over the floor. “There’s no such thing as sarcasm, boy. Just a few of us in this universe who accept the truth and deal with it accordingly. Sorry if I offended you, but outside the Alaspinport this world doesn’t take much notice of tact.”

  Flinx mulled over his situation as he masticated a concentrate cube which tasted affectionately of beefsteak and mushrooms. He knew the concentrate bore no more relationship to a once-live steer than it did to a thranx vovey. But while it was artificial, it was a masterfully composed artificiality, and his dried-out taste buds conveyed the efficacious, nutritive lie to the rest of his body.

  “What are you doing so far from the city?” September asked.

  Flinx wasn’t quite ready to answer that question. Not just yet. “I might ask you the same. You said she’s the scientist?” He gestured up to where the watchful woman continued her sunset vigil.

  “My employer, Flinx. It’s stretching things a bit to say we’re partners. Isili Hasboga. We’re not too bad a team. She’s as pessimistic as I am optimistic.”

  “Optimistic?” Flinx snorted. “On this world?”

  “Ah, now who’s being sarcastic, young feller-me-lad?” September inquired without rancor. “She’s one of the most knowledgeable Alaspinian archeologists I’ve ever met. What’s more, she’s as avaricious as I, and that’s greedy, lad. We have different reasons for wanting wealth, but the aim’s the same. Isili wants financial independence so she can pursue the kind of research that interests her, instead of doing what some prissy institution wants her to. My desires, on the other hand, are more basic.”

  “Why’d she choose you?”

  “I’m good at what I do,” September replied easily. “I don’t drink, narcotize, or simiedive on the job, and I’m honest. Why not? It’s as easy to be honest as it is to be a crook.”

  “You’re an optimist, all right,” observed Flinx.

  “She decided on this particular temple after two years of research,” the big man went on. “She needed someone to do some of the heavy work and provide cross fire when required.” Moving to the near wall, he patted the huge weapon resting there. “This Mark Twenty, for example. It’s tough to see an Otoid in a tree. With this toy, you just blast the tree. Never met another man who could use one as a hand weapon.”

  “So she supplies the brains and you the muscle,” Flinx commented. Refusing to be taunted, September simply grinned back at him.

  Flinx wondered if the giant could be upset. Despite his outer boisterousness, there was much that hinted at an inner calmness and confidence which would put him above petty arguing. And yet, something in the man’s mind—something buried deep, hidden well—suggested some terrible secrets.

  “There’s some crossover, lad,” he finished. “I’m not the village idiot, and Isili’s much more than a fragile flower, bless her curvilinear construction. What we find, we split evenly.”

  “If we find anything,” a voice tersely called down to them. “You talk too much, Skua. Getting lonely?”

  “Why, Grandma,” September yelled back in mock, surprise. “what big ears you’ve got.”

  She didn’t smile back. “All the better for gathering reasons to have you discharged, and drawn up before a government court for violating the secrecy terms of employment,” she countered. She glanced back out the portal at the near-blackness outside, then started down the stairs.

  “Ah, the lad’s no claim stealer, silly bog,” September murmured coaxingly. She brushed past him. “What’s the matter, no Otoid for you to fry?”

  “One of these days,” she snarled with a smile, “I hope one of those homicidal little abos puts a copper bolt right into your—”

  “Now, silly,” he chided her, “no dissension in front of our guest.”

  She might have had a retort ready, Flinx felt, but her attention was drawn from the wordplay to Ab. Walking past him, she inspected the alien closely, eyeing him up and down, walking a complete circle around him. For his part, Ab ignored her and continued his rhyming.

  “Funny,” she muttered to Flinx, “I think I recognize this fool, but from where I can’t remember. What planet does it come from?”

  “Not only don’t I know Ab’s world of origin,” Flinx informed her, “but I wish he was back on it. Ab was a slave, performing in the marketplace in Drallar, back on Moth. I acquired him accidentally,” he explained, leaving out a great many awkward details of Ab’s acquisition. “He’s harmless. He also,” he added with a touch of awe, “seems to be immune to Otoid arrows and to massive electric shock.”

  “I’d like to have the first ability myself,” she responded. Taking a stance directly in front of Ab, or at least where she decided his front was, she stared straight into his eye and said, hard and plain, “Where do you come from . . .” She glanced at Flinx. “What did you call him?”

  “Abalamahalamatandra is what he calls himself, but he responds to ‘Ab’ ” was Flinx’s reply.

  “Very well.” She moved closer, almost standing on a green-striped blue foot. “Ab, where do you come from?”

  A blue eye rolled at her. “Hetsels, hetsels, harmon nexus. Special nexus. Shoulder right and up a thousand nexus, spatial solar plexus.”

  Hasboga made a disgusted sound while September stifled a smirk, without much success. “That’s one useful facility Ab has,” Flinx commented, smiling himself. “He makes people laugh.”

  “He’s more than a pet, then,” the inquisitive scientist decided, studying Ab thoughtfully, “if he responds directly to questions.”

  “Not necessarily,” argued September, leaning back against a broken stone. “He might be only a mimic. Little intelligence required for that.”

  “His comments are not repetitions of what’s been said,” argued Hasboga in return.

  “I had a pet once,” whispered Flinx, but no one heard him.

  “Pet . . . scandal smith,” decided Ab, promptly performing a quadruple handspring and landing on his hands. His trunk roved over the floor, sucking up pieces of dropped concentrate. So absurd was the figure of the inverted alien that both Flinx and September broke out in laughter, and even Isili had to smile.

  “Funniest-looking creature I ever set eyes on,” the giant declared. He brus
hed back the hair that had slid over his face. It fell straight down again, but not before Flinx saw what he had almost expected.

  “The earring,” he almost shouted.

  “What?” September looked startled; then his thick brows furrowed with concern. “What are you staring at, feller-me-lad? You all right?”

  “It’s the earring,” Flinx finally explained, pointing to the giant’s head. “When you brushed at your hair, I saw it. You got a gold ring in your right ear.”

  Reflexively, September reached up and fondled the circlet, hidden behind his flowing white hair. “Well, yes, I do. Why so interested, lad?”

  “I just—”

  “Just a minute,” Hasboga interrupted, stepping between the two men physically and verbally. “Before this goes any further, Skua”—she turned to confront Flinx—“we still don’t know what you’re doing here. Just because you’re young doesn’t make you trustworthy in my book. I’ll buy your funny alien,” and she jerked her head in Ab’s direction. The alien was now standing on two legs and two arms, scouring the floor for crumbs.

  “But what about you and your unfortunate friend?” she wanted to know. She jabbed a thumb at Pocomchi’s body. “His kind I placed the moment I set eyes on him. Alaspin is infected with prospectors, like a pox. But you . . .” She gave him the same thorough examination she had bestowed on Ab. “You don’t look like a grubber, and you’re too young to be much of a scientist. So what are you doing here in Mimmisompo?”

  Chapter Nine

  “You two are looking for your fortune,” he finally replied, after a moment’s hesitation. “I’m looking for myself.”

  If it came to a fight, for any reason, he knew he would have no chance against these two. He had to convince them he was telling the truth. They had been friendly so far, but they had the strength to be.