The End of the Matter Read online

  “Oh, what of that!” she shouted angrily. “What would that mean? Would it change you any, boy? Would it affect your life?”

  Flinx started one reply, settled himself down, and switched to another. “I tell you what, Mother. If he’s a fine man of wealth and form, I’ll bring him back here, and maybe then I can finally get you to settle down.”

  She gaped at him momentarily, then broke into a robust cackling laugh which did not seem to die down until the last vestiges of daylight did. “All right, boy, you go,” she finally agreed, sniffing and blowing her nose. “But be certain you take that gargoyle with you.” She pointed to a far corner of the room, where Abalamahalamatandra was honking and rhyming steadily to himself. “I will not have that monster living in my house, and I certainly can’t keep him downstairs in the store. He’ll scare away customers.”

  “Who, Ab?” argued Flinx desperately. He had hoped to unload the helpless tag-along on Mother Mastiff. “What else can I do with him? I can’t let him follow me around.”

  “Why not?” she countered. “He seems happy enough doing so.”

  “I was thinking maybe you could take care of him for a while,” he pleaded. “Besides, Ab doesn’t frighten people; he makes them laugh.”

  “Maybe he makes you laugh,” she snorted, “maybe he makes others laugh.” She jabbed a leathery thumb at her bony sternum. “But he doesn’t make me laugh. I want him out of my house and out of my shop, boy.” She thought a moment, then ventured brightly, “As to what you can do with him, well, you’re going to the slave market tomorrow. Sell him. Yes,” she finished, well pleased with herself, “maybe you can make a profit on your inconvenience.”

  “I can’t,” he whispered.

  “Why not?”

  He thought rapidly. “Having once been sold myself, Mother, I can’t see myself selling another creature. I’ll let him follow me, I guess, until I can find him a kind home.”

  Flinx turned to eye his new ward while Mother Mastiff grunted in disgust. There was no way he could tell her that he was keeping Ab around because he was still curious as to why the Qwarm wanted him dead.

  Ab honked and gazed cryptically back at him with two vacant blue eyes.

  The following day dawned damp and drizzly. That was not the reason behind Flinx’s shivers, however. A modest walk had brought him to the outskirts of the slave market, and he was discovering that, despite his determination, the atmosphere was having a chilling effect on him. Pip squirmed anxiously on his shoulder, uncomfortable at his master’s state of mind. The only member of the little group who remained unaffected was Ab, singsonging irrepressibly behind Flinx: “Neutron, neutron, who you are, why is an organ camel-bar?”

  “Oh, shut up,” Flinx muttered, aware that his admonition would have no effect.

  He made his way, frozen-eyed, through the stalls. The beautiful maidens and dancing girls were present, just as in the old spacers’ tales and marketeers’ stories, but they danced much more reluctantly and unenthusiastically than those stories would lead one to believe. Nor were they as sensuous and appealing as in those tales, neither the men nor the women.

  They were here, though. That Flinx knew. Drallar was a prime market world, a crossroads of the Commonwealth. Whether male, female, androgynous, or alien, the prime product was not put out on the avenue for the common herd to gawk at. In the streets around him, such dealings were consummated quietly, in secret. It was better that way, for it was rumored that sometimes there were souls who were not sold freely or honestly.

  There were various beings for sale, as the Commonwealth boasted a glut of organic power. A few thranx were present, though not many. The clannish insects who had amalgamated with mankind tended to care better for their own. He saw a thorps and some seal creatures from Largess, the latter looking more comfortable in the dampness of Moth than they would have on most Commonwealth worlds.

  One covered balcony provided seats for a handful of well-dressed prospective buyers. Few if any of them would be the ultimate owners, he knew. Most were merely intermediaries for respectable employers who wished not to be seen in such a place.

  Presently he noticed spirited bidding on a bewildered, narcotized boy of six. For all his blondness and differing features, the lad reminded Flinx of a similarly lonely child of many years ago. Himself.

  For a crazy instant he thought of buying the child and setting it free. Free on whom, though? Mother Mastiff would certainly never take in another foundling; he’d never understood what had possessed her to buy him.

  Ab knocked Flinx back to reality, bumping clumsily into him from behind.

  “Watch where you’re going, you opinionated piece of elastic insulation!”

  A bulging blue orb winked at him, lids fluttering uncertainly. “To give offense in any sense,” he began sensibly, only to finish with “lox are a very metaphysical bird, it’s heard.”

  “No doubt about it,” Flinx shot back distastefully. He forced himself to a faster walk. He was anxious to leave this place.

  The sign over the office door in the street behind the stalls was tastefully lettered—not flashy, but eye-catching. It bespoke a firm of moderate status, one which took a certain amount of pride in itself. The door was clean, polished, and made of intricately carved wood brought down from Moth’s snow-clad northern continents. It read: arcadia organics.”

  Home to the helpless and homeless, Flinx thought. The name sounded much better than Slave Dealer.

  He reached out and touched the silent buzzer. After a brief wait, the door slid aside silently. It turned out to be much thicker than it looked from outside. The delicate woodwork was a thin veneer laid over metal.

  Completely filling the portal was a massive humanoid of solemn demeanor. He glanced down at Flinx and addressed him in a deep, throaty voice: “Your business here, man.”

  “I’ve come to see the owner, about an earlier sale of his.”

  The giant paused, appearing to listen. Flinx noticed a small glint of metal, some sort of transmitter, built into the left side of the humanoid’s skull. The installation looked permanent.

  “The nature of the complaint?” the giant inquired, flexing muscles like pale duraplast.

  “I didn’t say it was a complaint,” Flinx corrected cheerfully. “It’s just something I’d like cleared up.” With Pip’s aid, he knew, he could force his way past even this brute, but doing so would not help him gain the information he sought. “It’s a question of pedigree.”

  Once more the man-mountain relayed the information to parts unseen. His response this time was to move aside with the same mechanical precision as the door. “You will be attended to,” Flinx was assured. He would have preferred the invitation to have been phrased otherwise.

  Nevertheless, he stepped into the small chamber. Ab followed, his rhyming loud in the confined space. The room was empty of furniture.

  A hand the size of a dinner plate gently touched Flinx’s shoulder—not the one Pip rested on, fortunately, or circumstances might have become awkward. “Stand, please.” Seeing no place to go, Flinx readily complied.

  A polelike finger touched a switch. There was a hum, and Flinx felt himself dropping. Forcing himself to be calm, he affected an attitude of pleasant indifference as the floor and room sank into the ground. Before very long he found himself in a much larger room. It was spacious and neatly decorated, and it fit the man who moved around the table at its far end to greet Flinx as he stepped out of the elevator.

  Twisted and braided dark ringlets cascaded over forehead and neck. The man was a little taller than Flinx and roughly three times his age, though he looked younger. A pointed vandyke and curled-up mustache gave the slaver the appearance of a foppish raven with clipped wings. A very large star-ruby ring on the man’s pinky was the only meretricious detail in the office.

  After greeting Flinx politely, the man escorted him to a lavishly brocaded chair. A proffered drink was declined. Flinx thought the fellow looked disappointed at the youth of his visitor,
but he tried hard not to show it. After all, Drallar was home to spoiled children as well as spoiled adults.

  “Now, what can I do for you, young master? My name is Char Mormis, owner and third generation in Arcadia Organics. Don’t tell me—it’s a young lady you’re looking for. I knew it! I can always tell.” While Char Mormis spoke his hands charted each sentence like a seismograph measuring tremors. “I can always tell when they’re hunting for comforting.” He winked lewdly across the desk. “Name your tastes, young master. Arcadia can supply you.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Mormis,” Flinx said, “but I’m not here to buy.”

  “Oh.” The slaver looked crestfallen. He leaned back in his chair and tugged at the point of his beard. “You’re here to sell?” he asked uncertainly, eyeing the rhyming Ab, who stood by the elevator entrance.

  “Neither,” Flinx informed him firmly.

  Mormis let out a reluctant sigh. “Then you really are here over a question of pedigree. Oh well. How may I help you, young master? Is there some question of inaccuracy?” He appeared genuinely distressed at the prospect. “It pains me to think we might be responsible for such an error. We are not dealers in the highest-priced merchandise, but,” he added conspiratorially, “we have the advantage of being honest.”

  “Relax,” Flinx advised the slaver. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I just need some information. It concerns a boy named Philip Lynx you sold to a woman named”—he grinned—“it wasn’t her real name, but that doesn’t matter. The boy’s name is correct. He was four, five years old at the time of sale.”

  Mormis spread his hands. “I’ll tell you what I know, of course. We retain permanent records of every one of our transactions.” Faith, but he was so smooth, so polite, Flinx mused. “But first, young master, you must satisfy me that you have a right to such information. Slaves have a right to their privacy too, you know. We respect the rights of our purchased as well as those of our purchasers.”

  “Glad to hear it,” admitted Flinx.

  Mormis studied the confident youth seated across from him. “Let me guess. The boy was bought to be a companion for you. You’ve grown up with him. Now you’ve become curious about his original background. Or maybe he’s asked you to inquire about it to satisfy his own curiosity. You look to be about his age.”

  “I am,” agreed Flinx. “I’m him.”

  Mormis did not appear as surprised as the elderly clerk had been at this information. He simply slumped into his chair and looked weary.

  “I was afraid it might be something like that. You must realize, Mr. Lynx—”

  “Just Flinx.”

  “Very well. You must see, Flinx, that we have clients to protect in such cases. If it is revenge you seek, if you are on some kind of personal vendetta . . .”

  Flinx shook his head impatiently. “Nothing of the sort. I give you my word, I’m only trying to find out what happened to my natural parents.”

  Now Mormis looked sad. “Such cases are known. Very persistent people who gain their freedom often seek such information. All such searches I know of come to naught. If the sale of the child was voluntary, the parents go to great pains, usually successful, to conceal their identities forever. If the sale was involuntary, then the seller goes to the same lengths to disguise his identity. Even if you were to get into the archives on Terra itself—”

  “I’ve already done that,” Flinx informed him.

  Mormis’s eyes widened slightly. “You’ve been to Earth?”

  “I’ve been in the Church archives on Bali itself. Eventually I managed to find out who my mother was. She’d already been dead many years.” Surprisingly, he found he could relate the information without pain. It was as if he were talking about someone else, not himself. There was only a cold emptiness in him.

  Mormis looked at him with fresh respect. It was evident in his tone as well. “You are an unusual young man.”

  “So I’ve been told,” Flinx commented drily. “Now, about my request?”

  “Yes, certainly.” Mormis activated an electronic filing system rather more modern than the one Flinx had visited yesterday. It coughed up a tiny rectangle, which the slaver inserted in a projector.

  “Here is the original record of sale,” Mormis told him, pointing to the wall screen. “Look for yourself.”

  Flinx was already doing so, raptly. His early self was spelled out on the wall, a human being metamorphosed into figures. Height, weight, hair and eye color, and every other vital statistic imaginable was shining brightly on the wall. He had to smile again when he saw the name of his buyer: the Grand Ladyess Fiona Florafin. Mother Mastiff was right—slavers were concerned only about the legitimacy of a purchaser’s credit.

  Once again, that which he most hoped to find was absent. Remuneration was recorded as having gone to the House of Nuaman, presumably to enrich the coffers of his now-deceased aunt, the murderous Rashalleila. That fitted with what he already knew.

  Of his natural parents he found less here than he already knew; there was nothing about his mother to match what he had spent a year learning, nothing at all about his still-mysterious father.

  “Thank you, Char Mormis,” he forced himself to say tightly, struggling to hide his disappointment. Finally, he had reached the dead end he’d feared. There was no place else to go, nowhere more to search.

  The matter was finished.

  “I appreciate your kindness.” Flinx’s hand moved in the direction of his credit cardmeter.

  Mormis waved the gesture off. “No, thank you, Flinx. The pleasure was mine. It’s always heartening to see merchandise that has done well for itself. You are an independent citizen?”

  “Have been since the day I was bought, thanks to my buyer.”

  “You know, it’s odd . . . Can’t I persuade you to have a brandy?”

  Flinx shook his head. Despite Mormis’s courtesy, the man was still of a breed for whom human lives were chips on a gaming table. He wanted out.

  But there was something prodding at Mormis. “It’s strange . . . I have an excellent memory for people—nature of the business, you understand.” Flinx nodded without speaking. “But . . . I think I remember your sale.”

  Flinx sat down abruptly.

  “Yes, I’m sure of it. At that time it was my father, Shan Mormis, who was running Arcadia. I was still learning. But your sale, your sale . . . it sticks in my mind for some reason. You’ve brought the memory back to me, for two reasons. The first concerned your buyer. An old woman?”

  Flinx nodded vigorously.

  “That grandiose name on the manifest”—the man gestured toward the wall—“didn’t match her appearance. Does that make sense to you?”

  “A squat, heavy woman dressed in neat rags, with a vocabulary like a spacer?”

  “That description seems to fit,” Mormis confessed, caught up in Flinx’s excitement. “You keep in touch with your former owner?”

  “She was never really an owner in the usual sense,” Flinx explained, a pugnacious yet affectionate picture of Mother Mastiff forming in his mind.

  “I suspected as much, considering your present status. Such a contrast between appearance and given name—how could one forget? The other memory concerns the one other person who was bidding for you.” Mormis looked embarrassed. “You were not a quality item.”

  “My value on the scale of such things doesn’t depress me,” Flinx assured him.

  “Self-deprecation . . . a good trait in mer—in a citizen,” the slaver corrected himself hastily. “It was the spirited bidding for your unremarkable self between two extraordinary persons which remains in my memory.”

  “What of the other bidder?” insisted Flinx eagerly.

  “Well, he was human, quite human. Huge he was, built like a city wall. Would have fetched a pretty price on the stage. Sadly, he was on the wrong end of the business. He must have weighed as much as two good-sized men. Heavy-planet upbringing, no doubt. All white-haired he was, though I think it was premature. Two meters tall,
easily.” Mormis paused, and Flinx had to urge him to continue.

  “There must be more.”

  Mormis strained at his memory. “So many over the years . . . that face, though. A cross between a libertine’s and a prophet’s. And I think he wore a gold ring in one ear. Yes, I’m sure of it. A gold ring, or at least one of golden hue.”

  “A name, Char Mormis, a name!”

  The slaver rambled on. “You weren’t sold very high, Flinx. I think the fellow had reason to leave the bidding when he did. He left in a rush, and as I recall there were an inordinate number of soldiers milling about. But I shadow-play a scenario. I never heard him mention a name.”

  “Anything else?” Flinx pressed him, refusing to be discouraged. “Why did he want to buy me?”

  Mormis looked away, as if Flinx had touched on something the slaver would have preferred not to discuss. “We do not inquire into the motives of our customers. Once the transaction is completed, subsequent events pass into the jurisdiction of the authorities. Our business is to sell, not to judge.”

  “But he left before the bidding closed,” Flinx mused. “Then it’s conceivable he could have outbid the woman who bought me?”

  “Naturally, that’s possible.”

  “You can’t remember anything else about him?”

  Mormis pursed his lips in disapproval. “After twelve years? I think it’s remarkable I’ve remembered what I have. If you will entertain a hypothesis, I would say that, considering the limited bidding for you, the fellow looked on you as an investment.”

  Flinx didn’t reply. He was thinking. A very large human, prematurely white-maned, gold ring in one ear . . . He grimaced. It wasn’t much to go on.

  “I need more information.” Pip, aroused from his nap, poked his head out.

  Mormis started. “By the chains of the sky, there it is!”

  “There what is?” a puzzled Flinx wondered.

  “Your quest is impossible, young master, but I will not dissuade you. That—that is the other thing.” He was pointing at Pip. Intrigued, the minidrag stuck a questioning tongue out at the slaver. Ab sang on in the background.