Sliding Scales Read online

  Beneath her, Flinx was regaining consciousness.

  5

  His head hurt. No, he corrected himself. Everything hurt. Sitting up required the kind of coordination between bruised brain and battered muscles he was not sure he possessed. The effort caused one particular place on his forehead to shout with pain. Wincing, he reached up and felt the abraded flesh. When he brought his fingers down he saw that they were covered with a sticky, largely dried mixture of grit, dirt, and some reddish material. From his wrist hung a shattered bracelet. What was the latter's purpose? Odd. He could not assign a name to it. As his thoughts began to unspool, he found that he could not assign names to a great many things. Himself, for example.

  Who am I? he found himself wondering. The clearer his thinking became, the more that utter bewilderment replaced the aches and pains that seemed to vibrate through every part of his body. Where am I? What is this place? Strive though he might, he found only a great gray void where knowledge ought to be. Though many things around him felt familiar, he could not assign them specific names. He knew, for example, what a rock was, but when he searched his addled thoughts for a word to apply to the object, none was forthcoming. He knew all about rocks, he felt instinctively. He just couldn't put names to them. He even felt that he knew what was wrong with him, but he could no more call up the term than he could remember where he was, or where he had come from.

  A surge of empathy filled him. Turning toward its source, he found himself gazing down at an exquisitely colored coiling shape. He did not recognize it. It was friendly, though. He could sense that, even if he could not identify the creature. Slitted green eyes gazed up at him as if imploring some additional form of recognition. Not knowing what else to do, he let it slither into his lap. It curled up there, apparently satisfied, a flood of contentment surging forth from it in waves that washed across his bemused mind like a soothing touch on his cheek. It did nothing to help him identify the creature that clearly had a close attachment to him—but it made him feel better.

  He sat like that for some time, staring at the canyon at his feet, observing the strange airborne creatures that drifted back and forth along its impressive length. He could not put a name to any of them, or to the sparse but hardy growths with whom he shared the rocky ledge, or to the canyon itself. Try as he might, he could not put a name to anything.

  Is this my home? he found himself wondering. No, that couldn't be right. A home was a comfortable place. He was sure of that. Whatever else he might be, he was decidedly not comfortable. Therefore, home had to lie elsewhere. Home. At least he had finally been able to name something.

  Thirst. That was something else he could put a name to. He needed water. As he rose, the flying creature that had been dozing in his lap took to the sky but did not abandon him. Instead, it darted upward, returned, darted, returned again. Having no idea where he was or what to do next, it seemed sensible to follow the one being that projected feelings of affection toward him. Forcing his bruised muscles to manipulate his bones, he began to climb. That activity, at least, did not require struggling with the aching vacancy that filled his mind. He would have taken the easier way and headed down, if any accessible route had presented itself. But a quick investigation revealed only sheer cliff below him. So he was forced to go up, digging and scrabbling at the uncooperative rock.

  Once, he came to a place that threatened to defeat him. Only isolated cracks in the stone marred the rock wall that threatened to halt his ascent. Carefully, unsure that he really knew what he was doing, he forced bruised and scraped fingers into shallow crevices, jammed his booted toes into cracks seemingly too slight to support his weight, and continued to work his way up.

  Interesting, he mused as he struggled to pull himself up onto the next ledge. I know how to climb. Could it be that I am an interesting person?

  He didn't feel very interesting. He felt as if death was climbing right behind him, just a little slower. Or perhaps patiently. Realizing that in addition to knowing how to climb he apparently also knew death, he decided without additional analysis that he preferred to put off further acquaintance with the latter for as long as he possibly could.

  Then, quite unexpectedly, the next ledge he pulled himself up and over was not a ledge at all, but the rim of the canyon. Panting, his ripped and torn clothing soaked with stale sweat and dried blood, he sat there contemplating the chasm that spread out below him. He did not know the names of the bladder-borne creatures that floated in and out of the vast, shadowy depths. Some of them were pretty, in a resplendent, iridescent sort of way. Others made him smile to look at them. Some of the bigger and stronger methodically murdered some of the smaller and weaker—usually in silence, but sometimes noisily. None came near him.

  On the lip of the gorge was only himself and the winged flying creature that would not leave him. As it once again coiled up in his lap, he reached down to stroke the back of its head. It extended its exquisite blue-and-pink wings fully, stretched, and seemed to shiver with pleasure.

  Now how did I know to do that? he found himself wondering. Clearly, the creature was very attached to him. So, in all likelihood, he was somehow attached to it. Adrift in the midst of an emptiness that was both physical and mental, it was good to have a friend. Even one that was legless, mute, and scaly.

  He wondered if it had a name. Straining mentally, he fought to recall. But where information ought to have lain waiting, there was only the same hazy vacuum. Whatever it had once contained, his storehouse of memory was presently empty.

  Nor was it the only thing that troubled him. He was still thirsty. Rising, he turned to survey his surroundings. It was getting dark. That, he realized as he struggled to analyze the condition, was a consequence of the absence of light. Something told him he needed to seek shelter. From the cold, if not from—other things. But water first, his body insisted.

  There would likely be water in the bottom of the canyon. It was a continuous amazement to him that he knew such things without being able to explain how he knew them. He was grateful nonetheless for the dribbles of wisdom. Where else was water likely to hide? In other low places, but the plateau that was cut by the great canyon was as flat as his spirit. Choosing a direction, he started off away from the chasm. Perhaps water would present itself. He knew he would have to go to it because it manifestly was not going to come to him.

  A name, he found himself thinking furiously as he walked. I need a name, an identity. Riding on his shoulders, the flying creature flicked out a single-pointed tongue to caress his cheek. Through hurt and exhaustion, he smiled at it.

  “You need a name, too. Until I can remember one, I'll call you Pip.”

  For reasons unknown, this plainly pleased his companion. Why he had settled on that name, he didn't know. At least it was short. Like his life was going to be if he didn't find water.

  The search for something to drink kept him from dwelling on what had happened to him, on how he had come to find himself, battered and bruised and emptied of remembrance, on a ledge within the canyon. Later, he would contemplate it further. After he'd had something to drink.

  It was not cold on the plateau during the day, but night was different. Huddling beneath an overhang of rock, he shivered and wished fervently for warmth. It did not come to him. Morning saw him little rested, his throat now dry, his lips beginning to turn to parchment. Groaning, he heaved himself up from his nonexistent bed and resumed walking eastward.

  Was it a strange land he was walking in? It seemed so, but he could not be sure. Every odd growth, every peculiar creature that crawled or hopped or floated, might in truth be as familiar to him as his own name, if only he could remember any of it. He simply did not know. His ignorance of labels was utter and complete.

  That curious green mat-creature whose ribbed back was lined with lifting bubbles, for example. What was it called? He watched while it drifted parallel to him for a while, grazing small buttons of crimson and yellow growths, rising and falling as it ate. When he turne
d toward it, the alarmed creature inflated the dozen or so bubbles on its back to their maximum and, forcefully undulating the edges of its body, fluttered off in the opposite direction. He could easily have chased it down, but to what purpose? He did not even know if it was good to eat.

  Eat. That concept he understood. It was of primary importance, right behind drink. One emergency at a time, he told himself.

  He passed through a forest of growing things that in the absence of leaves and branches flaunted deep folds and indentations to the sky to maximize their surface area. When the light struck these directly, they swelled until the sunstruck surface was perfectly smooth, minimizing surface area in order to minimize evaporation. They flexed like rubber when he pushed his way through them, springing back in his wake with little irritated humming noises. Other growths were striped or spotted. One was quite mobile, pulling its roots out of the ground at his approach and drifting away beneath a single inflated airsac to settle into fresh earth nearby. Flinx watched as its roots, corkscrewing like drunken worms, buried their way into new soil to reestablish the parent growth.

  It was only later that he grew aware he was being followed.

  Unlike every other living thing he had encountered over the past several days, he succeeded in putting a name to the creature that was unashamedly trailing him. It might not be the correct name, but in lieu of the right one it would certainly serve. He called it the Teeth.

  The Teeth was much bigger than any other meat-eater he had seen. Long and slender, it had a spine that spread out above its entire length like an unfolding bony blossom. This spreading V-shape was no wider than his arm was long. From its attenuated surface rose a single line of ten big airsacs, each a couple of meters in diameter, which kept the animal aloft. Slim and muscular, the Teeth was a good six meters in length, of which a meter or more consisted of jaws. These were equally long and slender and filled with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of fine, needle-like teeth. Jaws and teeth were perfectly designed for sweeping from side to side to pluck small prey out of the air. He decided that they could also, if given the chance, rip him up pretty bad.

  The several large, black orbs hanging from the front edge of the spread spine remained fixed on him. They had no pupils and did not move like eyes. Motion detectors, Flinx decided, or perhaps heat sensors, or both. The Teeth advanced with rippling, snake-like contortions of its flattened body. Despite its length, when viewed from head-on it would offer only a very small profile. Another useful characteristic for a large predator.

  That it was focused on him, Flinx had no doubt. He lengthened his stride. Inflating its airsacs and increasing the rippling movement of its body slightly, the Teeth kept pace.

  He climbed a fairly steep slope. Ignoring the more difficult terrain, the Teeth simply floated upward behind him. A handful of small, single-trunked browsers no bigger than Flinx's hand detected the approaching carnivore and erupted out of his path, exploding away frantically in all directions like so many spring-loaded buttons. Flinx wended his way though a narrow ravine. The Teeth kept pace by simply rising above it and continuing to track him from overhead. When Flinx tried to ignore it, the silent Teeth moved stealthily closer. When he paused to look back, it halted, hovering patiently while waiting for its increasingly anxious prey to break into a run, attack, or fall down dead.

  What could he do? In combination with his own increasing weakness and need for water, the creature's size and persistence were beginning to unnerve Flinx. In response to his escalating agitation, Pip circled anxiously. She was not stimulated to attack the Teeth because it had yet to make a hostile gesture in her master's direction. Until it did, the exact source of Flinx's distress remained a matter of conjecture for her.

  The Teeth was not going to leave him, Flinx saw. Somehow, he was going to have to try to defend himself. Emerging from the far end of the ravine, he began searching the surrounding ground for a weapon. There were rocks aplenty, but he was too weak to pick up and throw anything substantial, and the Teeth looked too big and tough to be discouraged by a flurry of flying gravel. Flinx examined the surrounding growths. Whether simple or complex, nothing offered the promise of a strong club. Furthermore, attempting to dismember a living plant might have unpleasant repercussions of its own. Vague half-memories warned him against taking such an action except as a last resort.

  When he came upon the dead, desiccated tree-thing, it was as if he had stumbled on a potential arsenal. There were large, solid branches he could swing, smaller ones he could throw, and a plethora of strange, rock-hard protrusions. Already sensing the growing weakness in its intended quarry, the Teeth had moved dangerously close. Needle-lined jaws opened and closed repeatedly in silent expectation. At any moment, Flinx feared, it would test him with a quick bite he might well be unable to avoid.

  Bending, he reached down to pick up one of the hard woody nodules lying on the ground. It came up a little ways before snapping right back down. Surprised, he tried to pick it up again. As if attached to an elastic cord, the nodule was yanked out of his hand. Not a cord, he saw, but some kind of long, strong fingers belonging to something hidden in the soil. They did not strike out at him, but they refused to surrender the nodule. It was the same with all the others. Each had been possessed by something whose presence was revealed only by clutching fingers.

  He felt something tear at his back.

  Flinging himself to one side, he fell and rolled once, twice. The Teeth was on him in an instant, propelling itself forward at unexpected speed by expelling air through a quadruple set of nozzles located just above the tip of its tail. With the previously indistinct threat now having defined itself, Pip was there in an instant, interposing herself between the carnivore and Flinx. She spat at it, once. Normally, she would have aimed for an attacker's eyes. But the Teeth had no eyes that she recognized, and she did not perceive its ebony motion/heat detectors as such.

  The corrosive neurotoxin struck the Teeth just behind its head. Emitting a loud, shrill hiss, the carnivore jerked back, its long jaws snapping at the burnt place. Some of the cartilage of which its spreading back was composed dissolved under the effects of the toxin. Either none of the poison entered its nervous system, or else it was immune. Smoke rising from the burned place, it returned furiously to the attack.

  Many of the dead trees' fallen branches were lined with thorns. Grabbing one, ignoring the pain of several small punctures, Flinx raised and swung the makeshift weapon just in time to block a downward bite. He scrambled to his feet as the infuriated carnivore gathered itself to strike again. Where was a vulnerable spot? Flinx wondered desperately. Nothing visible on the slender, rippling body hinted at the location of a vital organ. There was only the head. But the head was where the teeth were, and he preferred to avoid that end.

  Forcing muscle-compressed air from its tail nozzles, the Teeth shot straight at him. It expected him to jump to one side or the other, or perhaps to crouch or duck. That was what prey did, usually to no avail. Instead, Flinx surprised it. And in doing so, surprised himself.

  With the gaping, narrow jaws less than a meter away from chomping out a chunk of his belly, Flinx leaped. It was an instinctive reaction. I must have had some kind of combat training, he decided as he found himself soaring over the onrushing Teeth. Pain shot through him as twisting, flexing jaws tore flesh from his right calf. He landed on the Teeth's back. Heavily. The impact was considerable. Though strong and wiry, the Teeth could not have weighed more than a hundred kilos. It twisted and jerked, trying to buck him off. Wrapping his legs around its serpentine body, Flinx rode the writhing form as it thrashed wildly, sometimes rising a few meters skyward, at other times banging itself hard against the ground. Then he began to swing his club.

  Thorns punctured first one, then a second, and then a third lifting sac. Fetid air escaped from the punctured bladders as the Teeth began to sink earthward. When the narrow jaws would twist around to snap at him, Flinx fended them off with the makeshift club. All the while, Pip kept buzzing
the carnivore's head, continually distracting it.

  All but bending itself double, the Teeth finally succeeded in throwing him off its back. Grunting as he landed on his left shoulder, Flinx managed to keep a grip on the thorn club. Rolling onto his back, he raised it defensively to ward off the questing jaws he expected to come snapping at his face. He needn't have worried.

  Deprived of several of its lifting bladders, the wounded meat-eater was struggling to gain altitude. But no matter how hard it strained and how much it inflated its remaining airsacs, it could not quite muster sufficient lifting power. Squealing and hissing, it floundered off in the opposite direction from its intended prey. As it did so, several meter-long, worm-like shapes emerged from hiding places in the rocks. Flinx had been completely unaware of their presence. They had individual, sausage-like air bladders that ran the length of their backs, and single eyes set in the center of their fore ends. Beneath the solitary eye, multiple sharp-edged tentacles curled and uncurled expectantly, like barbed beards. Inflating their bladders, the creatures silently rose a couple of meters into the air and began to track the injured Teeth. They were careful to keep a respectful distance from the much larger carnivore. They were in no hurry, and had plenty of time.

  It was a coarsely beautiful place in which he found himself, Flinx decided, but with the single exception of his winged traveling companion it was not a benign one. Once again he found himself wondering: from where had he conjured the name Pip? Was it the right one, or just something dredged hastily from the sludge that was his memory? Perhaps one day he would find out.

  Following the fight, he discovered that he needed water more than ever. Scanning the rocky eastern horizon, he saw what he thought might be a line of deeper green off to his left. As he started in its direction, he wondered if he would last long enough to reach it.