The End of the Matter (11 page)

“Your dragon is as welcome as you,” Pocomchi assured him. He leaned back into the supportive limbs of a multitentacled creature. As Flinx watched, the alien octopus-shape became a small tornado. Wind whistled and howled all around them. The jungle was gone.

“Isn’t that right, Balthazaar, old fellow?” Pocomchi had reached up to rub the neck muscles back of his snake’s skull. The big minidrag was obviously as much older as it was larger than Pip.

“How does one get a drink in here?” Flinx asked.

“If you don’t want to try the mushrooms, or other decor,” Habib told him, “you can always tuck-a-tube.” He extended a hand downward to pull a red siphon out of the ground. “If this doesn’t appeal to you, there’s a fairly standard mechbar back there.” He pointed at a giant bird, which abruptly turned into an emerald cactus. “I much prefer the tube, because it matches the simie.”

“I don’t understand,” Flinx confessed, taking the tube with one hand and eyeing it uncertainly.

Habib smiled. “The liquid changes to match the new environment. You never know what you’re going to be sipping next.” Flinx made a face, and Habib hastened to reassure him. “You can’t get sick. This is a legitimate place. Plenty of modifiers included in the drinks to make sure no one gets ill. The owner’s proud of his reputation. Wouldn’t do to have customers puking all over his simulacra.”

Habib retrieved the tube, stuck it in the corner of his mouth, and leaned back. “How do I get one?” Flinx asked, studying the ground unsuccessfully.

“There’s one by your right hip,” Pocomchi informed him. “It was sticking out of the left leg of that spider thing you were sitting on a few minutes ago.”

Looking down, Flinx saw the whirlwind he was sitting on change into a blue stalagmite. Now they were in a cave filled with chromatically colored formations: stalagtites, helicites, flowstone, and much more. Cool cave air hung motionless around him.

One of the helicites sticking to his seat was longer and straighter than its neighbors. It was also flexible, Flinx discovered when he pulled on it. Sticking it into his mouth, he sucked experimentally. A thin syrup flowed through the tube, with a taste redolent of overripe pomegranate. It coated his throat. The sweetness did not make him sick.

There was, he decided, plenty of time to ask the important questions. For now, he would enjoy the simiespin’s delights and the company of these two companionable men.

Chapter Six

At least an hour passed, although within the simiespin there was no way of knowing the exact time, before Flinx spoke again.

“What do you two do?” Curious, he examined them, the quick-moving, enthusiastic Pocomchi and his lanky, mournful companion. “Surely you’re not attached to one of the scientific teams working on Alaspin?”

“Who, us—archeologists?” gasped Pocomchi, eyes flashing in the dim light. The cave simulacrum, apparently proving popular, had been returned. “Fine chance you’d have, Flinx, of finding one of those brain-cases in a simiespin. No, they get their kicks down in the town library that the Commonwealth maintains for them.”

“You go to extremes, Poco,” Habib insisted. He ran a hand through thick, curly black hair. “Even the thranx among them aren’t strictly mental machines. You see thranx in here too, don’t you?” With an arm he gestured toward a cluster of sparkling aragonite crystals, delicate as flowers. A male and female thranx were sprawled on their stomachs, immersed in illusion and each other. The male was caressing his companion’s ovipositors suggestively.

The cave vanished as snow started to sift down over them. Now Flinx’s seat was a rough block of solid ice. Yet he remained comfortable, even as the breath congealed in front of his mouth.

“We wander around a lot,” explained Pocomchi.

Habib leaned back into a snowbank and sucked silver from the siphon. “What we actually do, Flinx, is . . . not much.” He noticed the youth staring at his associate. “Tell the boy where you’re from, Poco. He’s shared with us.”

“I was born and raised in . . .” Pocomchi hesitated. “Just say it was on Earth, near the middle of what teachers call the Hourglass. Near a place called Taxem.” Flinx admitted ignorance of the name, though he knew of the Hourglass, where the two smaller continents met.

“It’s an old archeological site,” Pocomchi went on. “I grew up surrounded by ancient temples. When I was seven I was running the tiller in my family’s quartomaize field when something went clunk and the machine stopped. I sat there and cried for hours, afraid I’d busted the damn expensive thing.” He grinned at the memory as he watched Ab’s antics.

“My mother finally heard me crying over the locater I always wore . . . there were creatures called jaguars living in our neighborhood. When she and my uncle came out and moved the tiller, they found I’d hit a buried stone head about twenty-six hundred years old. It was on our land. The local museum paid one-hundred fifty credits for it. I got ten whole credits of my own to spend. I bought out part of the local sweetshop and for a week I was sicker than a boa trying to swallow a maiden aunt.” He took a swig from his tube, which now projected from the head of a glowing fish. They were underwater, Flinx noted with interest. Bubbles rose from his nose and mouth, yet it felt as if he were breathing clean air.

His sensory apparatus was beginning to handle the extreme shifts in environment. Ab seemed to float in the water behind him.

“I’ve been trying to stumble over credit-producing heads and related stuff ever since,” finished Pocomchi.

“In short, he’s as money-hungry as I am,” Habib put in with a supple smile. “We’re as bad as a Moth merchant.”

Flinx bridled slightly at the deprecatory comment directed at his home world, then relaxed. Why should he take umbrage at the reference? He was no merchant. And if he had one friend in that trade, it was off-balanced by a dozen enemies.

“So now you know what we’re hunting for,” muttered Habib, after explaining that he came from a part of Earth called Lebanon. “What are you hunting here?”

“A man.”

From nearby, Ab let out a startlingly clear bit of nonsense rhyme. Habib sat forward; he seemed to notice the alien for the first time.

“Why’s that with you?”

“
His
associate,” quipped Pocomchi. “Both Flinx and I share the same fate.”

“I acquired Ab by default,” Flinx explained yet again, as Habib threw his grinning partner a sour look. “I haven’t the heart to abandon him, and I’m not sure I could sell him. Besides, Ab’s not good for anything except singing madness and serving as the butt of bad jokes.”

“Never seen anything like it before,” Habib admitted.

“Neither have I,” added Pocomchi. “The simie admitted him?”

“I don’t think environment affects Ab,” Flinx theorized, as the subject of the discussion drew lines in the snow. “Once in a while he almost makes sense. I’m afraid Ab exists in a universe of his own.”

Ab bent over to stare with a single eye at something on the ground. Apparently the thing was moving, since Ab’s head inclined to follow it between his legs. Slowly he tucked head and then neck beneath him, until he fell over on his back—if it was his back and not his front—into the snow. Flinx smiled sympathetically, while both men laughed.

“See?” Flinx said. “He’s too pitiful a creature to just leave some place.”

“You sure you’re not a slaver?” Pocomchi inquired with sudden sharpness. “You don’t look the—”

“No, no,” Flinx corrected, shaking his head rapidly. “I’m just here looking for a man.”

“For what?” Habib asked with unexpected directness.

Flinx hesitated, and finally said, “Personal reasons.”

“You want to kiss him or kill him?” Habib pressed disarmingly, not put off by Flinx’s disclaimer. But then, Flinx knew, this was a frontier world, where such civilized subtleties as obfuscation were unknown.

“Honestly, I’m not sure, Habib,” he admitted, considering for the first time what he
would
do if he actually found the person he sought. “It depends on whether he’s the end of a trail or simply another signpost on it.” Sighing, he repeated his description of the man in question, for the hundredth-odd time on Alaspin:

“A very big man, age uncertain but not young. Over two meters up, two hundred kilos in between, maybe less. Wears a gold ring in his right ear, or used to. He may or may not have a minidrag with him. Don’t tell me about the cargo handler at the port. I’ve already met him, and he’s not the one I’m seeking.”

“Sounds like it could be . . .” Habib was murmuring thoughtfully, but his companion was already waving his hands with excitement.

“Sure, we know him.”

Flinx started, and slid off his ice block to land in a shallow pool of thick petroleum. They were in a swamp again, a dark morass dominated by carboniferous plants from which swung chittering oil-black creatures with flaming red eyes. A red sun blasted the noon sky overhead, stabbing through black-white clouds.

Flinx saw only Pocomchi.

“Don’t look so startled, lad,” the Indian urged. “It’s not a common man you’ve described. The one we’re both thinking of fits, even to the gold earring.” He shook his head, smiling at some secret thought. “A character, even for Alaspin, he is.”

“Could you—where is he?” Flinx finally managed to stutter as he fought to untangle himself from his siphon tube.

Habib made an expansive gesture eastward. “Out there, doing the same things we do. Got a claim of sorts that he works with a partner.” He leaned forward slightly. “Personally, the grubbers I’ve talked with say he’s working an empty slot.”

“When was the last time you saw him there, or knew for sure that he was at this place?”

“Three, maybe four months ago,” Pocomchi considered, scratching the bridge of his impressive nose.

Flinx sagged inwardly. By now the man could be anywhere, even offplanet. But it was something! A reason to remain.

Habib rose and sauntered toward Flinx, waving his tube. “If I were to tell you some of the stories about your man, dragon lord, you wouldn’t . . .” His mouth opened wide, and he gaped querulously at Flinx. Then his hands went out in front of him reflexively as he fell forward, metacarpal bones buckling as they hit the now-firm gravel floor of the desert under them. Three suns burned hellishly above; a fourth was sinking over the distant horizon.

Flinx had a glimpse of a hair-thin wire attached to a needle the size of a nail paring protruding from Habib’s back, near the spine. A slight
phut,
and the needle and wire were withdrawn. The faint smell of ozone lingered in the air as he threw himself flat.

While Flinx crawled over the sand and gravel toward Ab, Pocomchi was moving toward his friend, calling to him wildly.

The instant Habib hit the ground, a tawny leathery shape had left his shoulder. Now it was joined by Balthazaar, and then Flinx felt a familiar weight leave his own arm. Like leaves in a dustdevil, the three winged demons circled one another in the air. Then they were streaking as one toward a gleaming boulder of solid citrine off to Flinx’s right. Several violent hisses sounded behind them, a reptilian equivalent of a sonic boom.

Flinx continued toward Ab, shouting for the alien to lie down. Two blue orbs moved, eyeing him quizzically. The slight puff of displaced air sounded above Flinx. Artificial desert sunlight reflected from a long, silvery thread. The thread ended in a sharp, tiny shape which struck the quadrupedal alien just under one of its four arms. A faint crackling sounded, as if a hand had been dragged across a coarse wool blanket.

Ab stopped in mid-verse and appeared to quiver slightly. Then he resumed rhyming as if nothing had happened. Flinx reached him, got his arms around three legs, and yanked. Ab tumbled to the sand. He stared at his master with a blank but almost hurt expression.

Glancing behind them and to the right, Flinx saw that Pocomchi was kneeling next to the motionless form of Habib. Slowly, as if fearing what he would learn, he extended a palm. It touched his companion’s back, rested there a moment, then was brought away.

“Get down, Pocomchi!” Flinx yelled frantically. The Indian didn’t look over at him, and made no move to comply. He appeared dazed. Maybe it was unconcern, Flinx thought, when muffled curses and screams began to reach him from behind the tall spire of yellow quartz.

As he waited and watched, the boulder changed into a giant diamond-bark tree, whose brown exterior flashed with blue sparks. Three shapes fluttered out from behind the tree.

Pleated wings braked as Pip came in for a landing, tail extended like a hand. It curled around Flinx’s shoulder, the body then folding itself around the youth’s extended arm, pleated wings collapsing flat against the cylindrical body. Flinx could feel the tenseness in the minidrag; he noted that his pet was panting nervously. Slitted eyes continued to dart watchfully from side to side.

A second minidrag, the constrictor-sized Balthazaar, draped itself around the back and arms of the grieving Pocomchi. The long, pointed tongue darted in and out worriedly, touching cheek, touching eyes, touching.

Flinx watched Habib’s minidrag settle to a curled landing on its master’s back. It lay there briefly, then slid forward to examine the head. After several minutes, great pleated wings unfurled. The flying snake fluttered forward until it was hovering in front of Habib’s face. Leathery wings beat at the air violently, sending wind into the motionless man’s mouth and nostrils.

More minutes, until the minidrag finally settled to earth by the still head of Habib. It coiled itself, and they remained like that, face to face, unmoving.

Flinx finally realized he was still holding on to Ab’s legs. As soon as he released him, the alien righted himself. Indifferent to all that had taken place, Ab proceeded to inspect a tree root.

Keeping his eyes on the citrine boulder, Flinx crawled over to sit next to Pocomchi. He was still cautious, but felt less and less that any danger still hid behind the massive yellow rock.

There was no need to state the obvious. He had seen death in Habib’s eyes before the man hit the sand.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he whispered tensely. “We’d better try to get out of here.”

“Why?” Pocomchi turned anguished eyes on Flinx. When he spoke again, Flinx realized his question had nothing to do with a reason for leaving the simiespin.

“We never stole a claim, we made no serious enemies,” the little man went on. His eyes returned to the slim prone form below them. The sand and gravel beneath it abruptly, uncaringly, changed and became blue grass.

“Three years. Three years we’ve been grubbing and carving and stinking on this end-of-civilization world. Three years! Other people hit it big all around us. But not us, never us.” His voice rose. “Why not us?
Why not us?”

Flinx made calming motions. Other patrons were beginning to look in their direction. The one thing he didn’t want now was to be asked unanswerable questions. Reaching out, he tried to grab Pocomchi by the shoulders, to turn him toward him.

The moment he was touched, Pocomchi shook the hands violently from him. “Don’t touch me!” He trembled; his voice was full of homicidal fury.

After a moment’s hesitation, Flinx sat back on his haunches. While waiting, he occasionally eyed the yellow massif, which had now become a cluster of
sutro
branchings. Pocomchi seemed to calm himself a little. Flinx decided to wait, despite possible danger to himself, until the tormented Indian regained a measure of self-control.

So he turned his attention to the corpse at his feet. There was no blood, no visible wound. Leaning close, he saw where the needle-tipped wire had touched. A small hole had been made in the back of Habib’s shirt. It was blackened around the edges. The peculiar smell still hung above the spot: ozone.

At least, he reflected gratefully, the philosophical miner had not suffered. Death had been instantaneous, brought on at the moment of contact with the needle.

A hand touched his shoulder. He glanced up anxiously, then relaxed. Pocomchi was standing above him, looking down at the body of his friend. His firm, assured grip was comfort enough for Flinx.

“I’m okay now, Flinx. It’s just that—that—” He fought for the words. He wanted them to be right. “Habib was about the only man on this world that could stand me, and he was one of the few that I could stomach. Three years.” Abruptly, he rose and turned to face what was now a clump of trees long extinct on Earth but still flourishing in mind tapes.

“Come on,” he instructed Flinx as he started toward the small cluster of elms, “I want to see the dirt.”