The End of the Matter (16 page)

“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 brushed 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.

The problem lay with Isili, he felt. While not openly antagonistic, she was cautious to the point of paranoia. He tried to reach out mentally to her and received an impression of enormous emotion barely held in check. Surprisingly little of it was directed toward him or September. It was all wrapped tightly inside her. She was like the coil of an old-time generator: On the surface all was calm, but overload it slightly and wires would fly in all directions.

Taking a seat on a block of trimmed green stone, he explained about his search for his true parents. He censored those details which might upset or prejudice his hosts, avoided mention of Ulru-Ujurr and his flight from the Qwarm. His mere presence was unnerving enough to Hasboga. No need to make it worse.

He finished with his search for a big man, one with a gold earring and a small minidrag, who had tried to buy him over a dozen years ago.

“Twelve years, standard time,” he said, staring hard at the watching September. “I was five years old. Do you remember it?”

Isili’s eyes widened, and she stared accusingly at September. “A five-year-old child, Skua. Well, well.” She gave Flinx a knowing look when the giant failed to respond. “He remembers something, for sure. This is the first time I’ve ever seen him speechless.”

“Yes. Yes, I remember, lad,” September finally admitted, looking and sounding like a man reliving a dream he had forgotten. “I did have a small minidrag with me.”

“Did you leave Moth with it?” inquired a tense Flinx.

“No.” Something trembled inside Flinx. He felt like a person with amnesia slowly regaining memory of lost events. “It finally left me in a bar. I was drunk. Minidrags can be temperamental. It probably decided I wasn’t fit to associate with any more.”

“I know how temperamental they can be,” Flinx assured him. He forbade mentioning that Pip might have been the same minidrag September had lost. “I . . . used to have one myself.”

“Then you do know. And you also probably know, lad, that on Moth it’s a severe crime to import venomous creatures. So I couldn’t very well march myself up to the nearest gendarmerie and ask for help. Not without being thrown in jail for letting a toxic alien loose on the planet. Sure, but I remember the slave auction.” His memory of the incident appeared to grow stronger the longer he thought about it. “I bid on you. I was bidding on several in the same consignment.”

“Several others with me?” Flinx frowned. This didn’t fit. “What others?”

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea to tell you that just yet, young feller-me-lad,” the big man announced softly. For some reason he appeared almost afraid of Flinx, as if the youth were a bomb who might explode at any second. Flinx could not understand. The dialogue was not following the scenario he had constructed in his imagination as to how this momentous talk would proceed.

One way or the other, his last trail seemed to be drawing inexorably to a dead end. Already, one possible link was broken. His meeting with Pip when he was six years old appeared to have been accidental. A coincidence only.

“For yourself?” he asked uncertainly.

September snorted. “I wouldn’t know what to do with a slave. No, lad, I was bidding for an organization.”

The trail abruptly revealed a fresh length of itself. Perhaps the giant wasn’t the end after all.

“What organization?” he pressed the big man. “Does it still exist? Could it be traced if it’s disbanded, traced to its responsible individuals?”

“Easy down, lad,” September advised him, making calming motions with both hands. “You’ve already told us you found out about your natural mother last year.”

“Yes. She’s dead. She died before I was sold.” Silently he strained his erratic abilities, trying to see if the information sparked any response in September’s mind. He was disappointed. The big man exhibited no reaction he could detect, mental or otherwise.

“As to my natural father, I know nothing,” he continued, “I do know that my father wasn’t the man my natural mother was married to. I’d hoped that by tracing whoever was trying to buy me, I might discover some new information leading to him.”

“That makes sense, feller-me-lad,” agreed an approving September.

“Nothing makes sense,” growled Isili, who had listened to about as much of Flinx’s problems as she could stand. “What about us, Skua?” She was stalking magnificently back and forth, her ebony mane flying, her amber eyes glowing. “Nothing makes sense if all the work we’ve put in here goes for nothing, and it will if the Otoid persist after us.” She stopped abruptly and whirled on him. “Months of planning, years of research, and we come up with nothing!” She wrung her hands in frustration. “I don’t know why I tear myself up about it. I’m probably all wrong about this temple. We’ve been excavating for nearly two months and we haven’t found anything beyond those.” She indicated the exquisite carvings lining the chamber’s interior. “And we didn’t have to move a pebble to find them. Hieroglyphs, stories . . . what a waste.”

“They seem unusually well preserved to me” was Flinx’s comment. He found her attitude peculiarly unscientific.

She startled him by trying to read his mind. The force of her desire shocked him a little, although he knew she had no talents of any kind. She possessed a powerful mind, did Isili Hasboga, but it was not a mind of Talent.

“So you think the historical and scientific aspects of our grub should interest me more, do you?” she eventually inquired. “My
real
work is back home, on Comagrave. There’s a site in the Mountains of the Mourners that’s never been dug. No foundation or museum or university thinks it’s worth excavating.” Her eyes blazed. “I know better! They’re wrong, all of them!”

Fanaticism in pursuit of knowledge, Flinx reflected, was still fanaticism.

“I know what’s there,” she rambled on, “under the garb mounds. And I’ll find it, even though I have to mount and finance my own expedition. But for that I need credits. All of us need credits.” She drew herself up haughtily. “That’s why we’re all on Alaspin. As you are neither a scientist nor a researcher,” she concluded with a twinge of bitterness, “I don’t suppose I can expect you to understand that.”

“Maybe I understand more than you think” was his quiet reply. “I have a good friend, a young thranx who was once a student archeologist in the Church, who would have sympathized completely with your attitude at one time. She’s since found other things to do.” He wondered how Sylzenzuzex was managing without him in teaching the ursinoids back on Ulru-Ujurr.

“It’s all for nothing anyway, now.” She slumped. “Damn all unreasonable, xenophobic aborigines! Damn this world and its endless temples!” She sucked in a resigned breath. “Nothing now but to try to get out and try somewhere else, Skua. Maybe they’ll leave us alone if we move to the other side of the city. But it’s got to be somewhere in Mimmisompo. It’s
got
to be!”

Flinx had no idea what “it” might be. It wouldn’t have been discreet to inquire. Such a question would serve only to heighten Hasboga’s suspicion of him.

But, having found the man with the earring, he could not let him go. Not till every question was satisfied. The internal portables brightened, compensating for the vanishing illumination outside.

“If you’re finished with your grubbing,” he told September, “I’ll hire you.”

“You, hire me?” The giant smiled condescendingly at him. “What’ll you pay me with, lad? Stories, and entertainment provided by your poor ward?” He indicated the gallivanting Ab.

Flinx took no offense. He had come to expect such disbelief. “Whatever your cost, if it’s in reason, I can pay it. How much?”

“That sounds like a sincere proposal,” September confessed. Flinx thought the giant threw a mischievous glance at Hasboga. “I suppose if we
are
going to give up here . . .”

“Then both of you can go to hell!” Hasboga exploded, the barely suppressed anger finally erupting. She stormed over to glare down at Flinx.

“First you bring the Otoid down on us and now you want to steal Skua. Well, my skinny stripling, you’re in no position to buy. Only to give. You owe me. We saved your miserable, barely begun life because on Alaspin help is rendered without question to those who need it. Don’t you forget that.” She turned away from him to confront an amused September. “And, mercenary that you are, Skua, don’t forget that you and I have a contract. Of course, if you want to buy out from under me . . .”

“What, from under you?” Bushy brows lifted in mock astonishment. Flinx got the impression that maybe the relationship between these two was something other than wholly professional. He winced at the slap she gave the giant, but September only rubbed at the reddening place on his face and grinned more widely, almost approvingly.

Stalking away from them both, she threw herself down on the huge inflated mattress and buried her attention in a small, self-contained reader screen. For Flinx, there followed several moments of embarrassed silence.

“For a scientist she can behave awfully irrationally at times, feller-me-lad,” September confided to him. He added, somewhat reassuringly: “These spells don’t last much longer than they take. Watch.” He winked.

Strolling over to the mattress, he sat down next to her. She ignored him. He pretended to peer over her shoulder at the screen.

“Now, Isili, it’s not nice to act petulant before the lad.”

“Get lost!” she snapped. “I’m busy.”

“I can see that,” admitted a seemingly startled September, his eyes bulging as he focused on the tiny screen. “I can tell what the man and the woman are doing, but the two tendril cats are—”

With an exasperated sigh, she looked up at him and spoke in a tone one would use with a child. “This is a perfectly plain theoretical tract, as you can easily see.”

“Oh yes, I can see it, all right.” Sitting back, he whistled solemnly at the ceiling. Flinx marveled at the man’s élan, considering that they might all be dead the next night.

Rolling over, Hasboga sat up straight, put her hands on her hips, and glared at the giant. “Are you implying that I’m watching pornography?”

“Oh no,” September started. “No, no, no, no. It’s just that, in front of one so young . . .” He gestured toward Flinx. “And tendril cats, too.” He clucked disapprovingly.

“Listen, you outrageous parody of a human being, if you think you can embarrass—” She stopped. September was grinning down at her. She fought to remember what she was about to say, but for the life of her couldn’t get a grip on her half-disintegrated thought. Her mouth twisted and gradually broke into an almost shy smile.

The moment she realized what she was doing, her lips immediately clicked primly back to a firm set. “It’s important work,” she muttered lamely. She gestured weakly toward Flinx. “Go bother our visitor for a while and leave me alone.”

Turning away, she went back to the viewer, but Flinx could sense that the dark cloud of fury which had been hovering over her had evaporated.

September obligingly walked back to flop down heavily in front of Flinx. “See? Silly’s not such a bad sort. In fact, she’s rather a good sort. Pity there aren’t more like her.” Commentary came from the vicinity of the viewer, but it was garbled and indistinct and not really angry any more.

“It’s you that interests me right now, feller-me-lad. You’ve come a great way and a hard way to find me. You want to know about that day a dozen years ago, on Moth. I’ll try to tell you what I can. That way, maybe I can learn a little too.” He sighed. “I suppose you know who sold you, if you found out about your natural mother.”

“I do.”

“Do you know why?”

“I think so.”

September shook his head. “I don’t think you do. Not all of it. I can’t tell you the rest, not yet. There are ethical questions involved.”

Flinx’s laugh was so harsh that he wondered at it himself. “You’re talking to someone torn from his parents before he can remember, and sold like a piece of meat on a world not of his birthing.”

“All right,” September shifted agreeably, “call it a business confidence, then. I probably will tell you, in time. But I need to think on it. Remember, I didn’t have to tell you I knew anything.”

“We’ll let it pass for now,” replied Flinx magnanimously, since be couldn’t coerce the giant anyway. His next question he had to consider carefully. For a large part of his adult life he had framed it, rephrased it, turned it over and over in his mind, considered how he would present it to various people. He had developed and discarded a hundred different approaches. Now the moment to ask had come. This might be the last moment in a search that had taken him across half the Commonwealth and through stranger adventures than most people could imagine.

He forgot all preconceptions, leaned forward, and asked with unsophisticated innocence: “Are you my father?”

September took the question well. Maddeningly, he didn’t venture an immediate reply. Indecision was the last thing Flinx had expected from the big man. September looked at the floor, using a landing-skid-sized foot to move rubble in meaningless patterns.

Flinx strained in the silence with all his desire, tried to bring his infrequent, awesome talent to focus on the man before him. The falseness or truth of September’s eventual answer could be the most important thing in his young life. But, as so often happened, when he most wanted his abilities to function, they mocked him. Some days they could operate with the precision of a tridee beam, could pierce the nothingness between worlds. Now, even his own thoughts were unreadable.

When September looked up, he wore an expression of almost overwhelming earnestness. All thoughts of prevarication left Flinx. This man was not going to lie to him. He stared so long and hard that for a second Flinx wondered uncomfortably if the giant didn’t possess unsuspected mental talents of his own. But while his gaze was intense, it was only from concentration.