Mid-Flinx (Pip and Flinx) Read online

  The air was so rich and thickly flavored with alien smells he felt he should be spooning it into his mouth like some frothy whipped dessert instead of simply inhaling it. The effect was as if a perfume factory and a fertilizer plant had been raised up and smashed together, resulting in what Flinx chose to think of as aromatic critical mass.

  An all-pervasive warmth enveloped him, which he attributed to the perpetual and for the most part pleasurable assault on his senses. Not a single threatening mental throb disturbed his musing. No headaches to be had here.

  Pip sometimes trailed behind, sometimes raced out in front to investigate a new flower or slow-moving creature. She appeared to be coping effortlessly with the deluge of new sensations.

  He paused to examine a flower whose petals twisted to form perfect spirals. The top of each petal was bright silver-green, the underside green-gold. Each a meter or so in diameter, half a dozen such flowers grew upon every parent plant. They looked like decorations for a gigantic Christmas tree and smelled of sandalwood and cinnamon. Overwhelmed by their magnificence, he moved on.

  Numerous small life forms skittered along the branch and its wooden tributaries, adroitly avoiding his approach by means of legs or wings. Most hewed to the three-eyed, six-legged standard which seemed to the norm, though there were plenty of variations in the number of limbs and other organs.

  A single bloom three meters across blocked his path. The hundred slender petals of the incredible blossom were dark green laced with tartrazine, while the center of the flower bulged with thick orange nodules whose purpose was not immediately apparent. Purple stamens thrust skyward, drusy with yellow pollen. Its elegant perfume was so heady it all but made him dizzy.

  Reaching down, he broke off a piece of damp deadwood, intending to use it to nudge the petals aside so he could pass without having to walk on so much beauty. As he took a step forward he thought he saw the purple stamens twitch. There were more than a dozen of them, each as thick around as his thumb. He hesitated, having already escaped one encounter with vines that had turned out to be tentacles.

  Tentatively, he extended his arm to the fullest and managed to reach the nearest stamen. Surprisingly tough, it was as if he were prodding a stick of rubber. The stamen bent and released a blast of still stronger perfume. Woozy with pleasure, Flinx turned away and sucked fresh air to clear both his lungs and his head.

  Nothing made a grab for him. The amazing blossom was the reproductive portion of a plant and nothing more. Reaching down, he used the piece of wood to push the first petal aside.

  It contracted viciously around the stick and snapped it neatly in half. Flinx jumped back and Pip let out a startled hiss.

  As he watched, half a dozen wiry tendrils that glistened like corn silk crept out from beneath the base of the flower. Like pale worms, they examined the wooden fragments from top to bottom before curling around them and dragging them to the edge of the branch. The deadwood was dropped over the side and the tendrils withdrew out of sight, leaving the astonishing flower once more quiescent and wondrous.

  Flinx backed slowly away from the botanical phantasm. Securing a grip on a suitable creeper, he leaned far out over the side of the branch and looked down. Half a dozen meters below, whiteness gleamed amidst the green. He wondered what the creatures who had encountered the flower before him had looked like.

  Certainly their broken and scattered skeletons were interesting.

  Finding the exquisite fragrance that issued from the blossom no longer quite so appealing, he sought a safe way around the innocent-looking petals. Closer inspection revealed that the silvery glint that emanated from their edges was decidedly metallic in nature. Somehow the plant extracted and concentrated metal along the rims of its alluring petals. Flinx knew of plants whose leaves could slice flesh, but none that incorporated actual razors into their blossoms. Here was a plant whose perfume masked the presence of swords.

  A brace of stout vines and a twisting aerial root allowed him to descend to the next major branch. Despite the resultant gap, he took care not to pass directly beneath the great flower.

  As a lesson, the brief encounter was simple and straightforward. On this world, equating beauty with harmlessness could prove fatal. He considered returning to the shuttle. Even a cursory exploration of the surrounding forest might better be left to an experienced and properly equipped survey team.

  If only it wasn’t so beautiful.

  Something was moving sluggishly through the branches and lianas just ahead. It looked like a dun-colored, black-spotted stump suspended from a hanging creeper. The three eyes were half closed, giving the creature a decidedly somnolent appearance. The short tail was striped with gray, and a pink patch flashed above each of the three eyes. It had no legs and hung from the creeper by six long, triple-jointed arms. In this fashion it moved along hand over hand over hand.

  As Flinx looked on, a dozen similar individuals of varying size materialized from the green depths, following the leader along the creeper like so many upside-down elephants. The smallest ones gamboled among the vines and branches, occasionally leaping by means of their sextupal arms from adult to vine and back again. Meanwhile the adults advanced with an unconscious solemnity so profound Flinx found himself grinning at the sight.

  Suddenly the lead adult spotted him. All three eyes dilated and a concealed round mouth pumped out a series of shrill hoots. The troop immediately leaped in a series of floral crashes from their chosen creeper to another farther away.

  It was a relief to encounter something more afraid of him than he was of it. Flinx watched as the troop of ambling armatures vanished into the glaucous depths, the leader lingering behind to favor him with a few last disparaging hoots. He found himself waving amiably.

  A swarm of tiny creatures momentarily enveloped him in a cloud of powder-blue wings before moving on. Nearby, a cluster of leathery cylinders the color of dried blood weaved back and forth to a silent floral beat. Flinx saw a waterfall of silver-sided vines plunging into the abyss, flashing light from leaf to reflective leaf as they bounced precious sunshine to light-hungry growths down in the emerald depths.

  “Look at that,” he murmured to Pip. “Isn’t adaptation wonderful? Wish it were as easy for me.” The shuttle could wait, he decided. With a new wonder presenting itself at every step, he had no choice but to continue on. Beauty aside, the sheer profusion and diversity of life was overwhelming. He felt more alive than he’d ever been.

  And there was something else. Something thus far undefinable. An all-pervasive feeling of peace and well-being that persisted and survived despite the aggressive attempts of various representatives of the local flora and fauna to consume him. It washed over and through him in an irresistible, soothing wave, almost as if the forest itself was projecting a homogeneous emotional calm.

  Which was absurd, of course. Only sapient beings emitted emotions his aberrant talent could detect. Plants did nothing of the sort. What he was experiencing was nothing more than a deception promulgated by a subtle combination of fragrance, humidity, and increased oxygen levels. It was a physical rush masquerading as mental.

  The astonishing alien zoo kept his attention occupied. A two-meter-long, rippling crawler the color of clotted cream was advancing down the branch toward him, scuttling along on hundreds of tiny legs. It looked innocuous enough. Half a dozen small black hairs or antennae protruded from each end. Several bulged at the tips, suggestive of eyestalks.

  Flinx retreated a step. Sensing movement, the creature halted, then turned to its right. Increasing its pace, it came to the edge of the branch and without hesitating dropped off the side.

  Leaning over, Flinx saw it land in a cluster of flowers with leaves the texture of split blue leather. To his surprise, the crawler promptly split into half a dozen independent sections, each with its own now visible face. These organic components engaged in some brief foraging before reforming their original lineup, the protuberant face of each section fitting seamlessly into the concave d
epression that formed the backside of its colleague immediately in front of it. Once more resembling a two-meter-long—and presumably more formidable—animal, the communal crawler continued on its leisurely way.

  Shaking his head, Flinx resumed his pace. Before long he came to a section of branch devoid of animal or secondary plant life. The barren place caused him to halt. After several close brushes with death, he’d learned to suspect anything out of the ordinary. On this world, a place where nothing grew certainly qualified.

  While he waited he watched the local fauna. Everything that came close was careful to bypass the seemingly innocuous section of branch. Their unanimous avoidance only heightened Flinx’s suspicion.

  The slight depression that ran the length of the open space was filled with fresh rainwater, surely an attraction to any passing animal. Then Pip, before he could call her back, zoomed over and lowered her head to take a drink. He held his breath.

  Nothing happened. None the worse for the experience, she returned to resume her familiar perch upon his shoulder.

  Either he continued forward or looked for a way around. No easy alternate routes presented themselves. Advancing cautiously, he examined the waterlogged section of wood without seeing anything that resembled an eye, a limb, a claw.

  Then it occurred to him that anything that tried to grow in the depression would find itself subject to permanent if shallow inundation. Any hopeful epiphyte that took root in the hollow would find its roots rotting quickly. Striding forward into the liquid, he watched it slide over the tip of his boot. A swarm of tiny red ovals with outsized black eyespots scurried away from his foot. Apparently they lived in the water without coming to any harm.

  He was halfway across the depression when he was forced to pause. His right foot was refusing to comply with the instructions from his brain. Irritated that he might have momentarily stepped in a deeper crack and caught himself, he looked back and down.

  There was no crack. It was the water itself that had undergone a startlingly rapid transformation. He leaned forward. His leg refused to move. When he tried to turn to gain more leverage, he found that his left foot was also stuck fast. He was locked in place, unable to advance or retreat, his boots entrapped by a thick, transparent, tarlike substance. Furthermore, it wasn’t inactive.

  Very much to the contrary, it was slowly but inexorably crawling up the sides of his boots even as he watched.

  Alarmed at the abrupt change in her master’s emotional state, Pip rose to hover anxiously. From time to time she dove combatively toward the depression, perceiving it to be the source of Flinx’s upset, but there was nothing she could do. This time there were no inimical eyes to focus upon, no head to strike at.

  The branch beneath him quivered slightly and Flinx flailed wildly to keep his balance. If he fell over and got his front or back stuck in the thickening goo, he’d be unable to move at all. He tried not to think of what might happen if he fell facedown. He would suffocate rapidly and unpleasantly.

  A section of branch directly in front of him suddenly rose. It was pointed, rough-edged, and designed to fit flush with the top of the hollow that had been excavated in the living wood. Reaching down, Flinx fought to release the rip-fastener that secured his front boot. If nothing else, he could try stepping out of his footwear and making a leap for safety, an alternative denied to this extraordinary predator’s accustomed prey. If he could make it over the side of the branch he would be safe.

  Depending on how far he fell and what he landed on, he reminded himself.

  A semicircle of nine opalescent orbs bordered the apex of the creature’s head, if such it could be called. Devoid of irises or pupils, the organs might be no more than primitive light-and-motion sensors. More than adequate for the creature’s needs, he told himself. The gunk gripping his boots continued to flow energetically upward. When it reached his pants he’d have to consider abandoning them as well.

  As he reached for his boot fastener, a deep bubbling noise emerged from the depths of his undefinable assailant. The surface heaved beneath him and he found himself, arms swinging madly, catapulted over the side of the branch. As he fell he realized that the predator must have some way of separating what was edible from what was not. Leaves, branches, and other debris must frequently fall from above, he realized. Like a spider cleaning its web, it was natural to expect that the glue-sucker would have a way of detecting and ridding itself of the inedible.

  Plasticized travel boots, for example.

  It was seven hundred meters or so to the actual ground. Surely he would fetch up against something before he reached that final, unyielding destination.

  Even as he pondered the possibilities, he found himself entangled in a cluster of thin, unyielding green vines. His momentum snapped several before his fall was arrested. For several moments he hung twisting in their knotted grasp, his feet kicking at the air, before he realized they were pulling him up.

  Tilting back his head, he found himself staring at the source of the vines: something like a giant lavender orchid squatting on a dense mound of reeds. Only the dark, ominous opening in the underside spoiled the otherwise elegant effect. Within the gaping maw, sharp-pointed cilia palpitated expectantly.

  Another plant evolved to act like an animal, he thought. Another camouflaged carnivore. Wasn’t there anything on this world that didn’t grasp or bite? He struggled to reach his needler, but the tendrils’ grip was unyielding. He continued to rise.

  Darting upward, Pip released a stream of venom at the source of her master’s distress. The corrosive liquid burned a section of the puffy, main mass but did nothing to halt Flinx’s inexorable rise toward the waiting mouth. The area affected by the minidrag was too small and neuronically insensitive to trouble the expansive growth.

  Another three, four meters and those questing, eager cilia would be able to reach his head. Propelled by tendril and cilia, he would enter the creature’s stomach head first, no doubt to be consumed slowly and as necessary. First the head, next the shoulders, then the torso, much as he would munch satay on a stick.

  Still, it was with quite a start, despite his situation, that he found himself gazing across open space at an obviously intelligent green face directly opposite his own.

  Chapter Six

  The owner was short and stocky. Though it was hanging upside down, it was clearly not a permanent dangler like the six-armed hooters he’d encountered earlier. About the size of a St. Bernard or small mastiff, it hung from a thick creeper by means of six short, powerful legs. Each foot ended in half a dozen long, curving, and very impressive claws.

  Three eyes ran across the front of the blunt-snouted head. A pair of pointed ears faced toward him. An upward-curving tusk protruded from either side of the powerful lower jaw. As he stared, a snort came from the large nostrils. The creature was covered completely in short, thick, green fur.

  Moving foot over foot along the creeper, it approached to within half a meter of his face, supremely indifferent to however the carnivorous quasiorchid overhead might choose to react. The large, limpid eyes examined him curiously. Then it spoke, in comprehensible if strangely accented symbospeech.

  “Stupid person.”

  “Not a person,” insisted a second voice, pitched slightly higher than the one challenging Flinx.

  He managed to twist around just far enough to see another of the green talkers squatting on quadruple haunches on a nearby branch, surveying the scene with bucolic aplomb. The differences between the two were minor: a notched ear on the first speaker, a slightly longer tail on the second. As he gaped and Pip darted in tight nervous circles, the one on the branch swatted lazily at a brightly colored insectoid.

  “Is.” The upside-down scrutinizer regarded Flinx with comical seriousness.

  “Is not.” The sitter ignored Pip, who buzzed the blocky head several times. “Just look at it, Moomadeem.” A heavy paw waved in Flinx’s direction as he continued his inexorable ascent toward the waiting, cilia-lined digestive cavit
y. “See how tall it is. And it has reddish fur.”

  “Green eyes, though.” Triple oculars squinted at Flinx’s face. “That’s right.”

  “Not a person,” the other continued to insist.

  “Has to be, Tuuvatem.” Advancing, it came to within licking range. A thick, musty, but not entirely unpleasant odor assailed Flinx’s nostrils. “Everything else right.”

  “Look at its feet,” suggested Tuuvatem. “Too stubby. Not a person.”

  “Maybe an old injury.”

  Flinx didn’t have time to wonder what was wrong with his hair and his feet. The top of his head was less than a meter from the dark, slimy maw. Fringing cilia twitched expectantly.

  “Save him and then decide.” Moomadeem swung effortlessly from his vine.

  “Save not. Not a person.” Tuuvatem was inflexible.

  All Flinx needed to hear was the word “save.” “Look, I don’t know what you are, or how you learned my language, but if you can understand me, all I can tell you is that by any standard you’d care to apply I am a ‘person,’ and if you can do anything to help me out of this, afterward I’ll personify myself to your satisfaction the best I can.”

  “He talks.” Moomadeem looked smug. The lower lip curled up over the upper. “Has to be a person.”

  “Does not!”

  “Can’t we argue about it later?” Flinx struggled violently in the creepers’ grasp.

  The one called Moomadeem shoved out its lower jaw, thrusting the sharp tusks into even greater prominence. “Speaks sense, too!”