Flinx in Flux

by Alan Dean Foster

  “We would not be assembled here if we were discussing the harvesting of a normal growth, but the Weave is the product of the worst kind of unregulated genetic manipulation. And the company that produced it is hard at work trying to bend many other lifeforms to their will.” His voice was rising and the tic of his eye accelerating.

  “Verdidion Weave is the forerunner of a panoply of abominations. The defenseless lifeforms of Longtunnel are particularly amenable to genetic alteration. To those for whom exploitation of the innocent is a middle name, the world is a biological gold mine!” Aware that he was shouting, he strove to moderate his tone.

  “I have seen some of their proposals for additional bioengineered products, to be produced by manipulating Longtunnel’s indigenous lifeforms. Most are the product of a single brilliant but morally bankrupt mind, that of the head of this firm’s bioengineering division. This individual is the one cog in the company’s machine which I do not think they can easily replace. Skill at bioengineering is cheap. Intuition is priceless.”

  “This individual was responsible for the development of the Weave?” Stick wanted to know.

  Lizard nodded.

  “Then I think our course of action has been determined for us.” Flora’s exquisite face was less than pleasant to look upon. “By excising this particular person we will at one stroke learn what we need to know to successfully conclude our mission as well as eliminate a possible future blemish on the natural order.”

  “That was my intent.” Spider clasped his hands over his belly as he leaned back in his chair. “Longtunnel is both a suitable and an appropriate place for us to have our little coming-out party. The crimes being committed against nature there are of the worst sort, yet the firm which is behind them is neither too large nor too dangerous for us to deal with efficiently. Furthermore, they have opened only a single wound on this otherwise pristine planet. A wound, my friends, which we will suture and heal. We will simultaneously announce ourselves, serve warning upon our enemies, and cure a cancer before it can spread. It is agreed, then?”

  There was no need for a show of hands, no need even for words, though several of them did nod approvingly.

  Spider turned to Lizard. The two men were individual components of a greater whole, each like one leg of an insect working to carry the body to a chosen destination.

  “I take it your people are ready to move?”

  Lizard nodded briskly. “Ready and, anxious. They’ve been practicing for a long time. They’re eager for the chance to finally do something.”

  “They’ll have their chance. We’ll all have our chance.” Spider’s brooding gaze swept around the table. “No more clinging to shadows. No more limiting ourselves to issuing manifestos and inserting tracts in obscure faxes. No more begging for public service time on the major tridee services. After Longtunnel our name will be on everyone’s lips. The entire Commonwealth will know what we stand for. The undecided will rally to our cause. Then we can begin in earnest to reverse the tide of exploitation which has dominated government policy for far too long!”

  They would have raised a toast to their decision and to themselves save for the fact that none of them consumed alcohol or indulged in other narcotic substances. How could you preach the purity of the natural world if you could not keep your own body clean? They got high on one thing only: the passion for the Cause. The true Cause, the holy war against the rapacious despoilers of multiple environments, against the polluters and DNAnarchists.

  There were other organizations that professed to work for that end, but the six knew them for what they were: weak, feeble, and uncommitted. Only those around the table were the true shock troops of the coming ecological jihad.

  Lizard did something, and the holo vanished as though it had never been. They rose from their seats and began to leave the meeting room, whispering among themselves, excited but under control. Everyone knew what he or she had to do to make the operation a success. And it had to be a success. The robber barons and their Frankensteinian servants had been given a free hand too long. Now it was time to amputate.

  They kept their voices down and dispersed rapidly. Time had taught them patience; experience had taught them caution. As they filed out of the nondescript structure into waiting vehicles or walked to the nearest public transport, they were already rehearsing their next moves, each concentrating on his or her assigned duty.

  They certainly did not look much like the members of the ruling clique of a burgeoning terrorist organization.

  Chapter Two

  While Alaspin attracted its share of visitors, few of them were tourists. The majority were scientists for whom an unpleasant climate was merely a minor impediment to research. Here, at least, it was a consistent impediment. The weather in the broad, high-grassed savannas and the dense jungle that bordered them changed little from month to month. There were only two seasons: wet and not so wet.

  The scientists came to study the thousands of temples and ruins left by an advanced civilization too shy even to name itself, which was thus called Alaspinian by default. They had left extensive records of their travels throughout this portion of space, but practically nothing about themselves. Yet they had chosen to live and work in primitive structures of stone and wood. Nothing was known of their disappearance, though the theory of racial suicide had numerous adherents. It was almost as if, embarrassed by their achievements, they had simply disappeared some seventy thousand years ago. Moved away somehow, others said. For if they had committed racial suicide, where were the remains?

  Fragile bodies, the suicide supporters insisted. Or cremation in the jungle. These were theories upon theories that brought mild-tempered xenoarcheologists to blows, all impossible to prove because among the millions of carvings and records that had been left behind on small cubes of micronically etched metal, there was not one picture of an Alaspinian. There were endless images of plants and animals and landscapes and structures, but of the people who had recorded them, nothing.

  It was one of those worlds where the thranx were more at ease than their human compatriots. The hot, humid climate was like a breath of fresh steamed air from home to them. The larger permanent research installations were all staffed by thranx, while their human counterparts came and went rapidly, gleaning bits and fragments of knowledge suitable for a paper or thesis before fleeing for cooler, drier worlds.

  Prospectors outnumbered scientists in the frontier regions. Alaspin was rich in valuable minerals. Many of those who called themselves prospectors, however, avoided the rich alluvial plains of the savannas in favor of mining the limitless ruins, where the digging was easier and the “ores” more highly concentrated; already refined, in fact. A perpetual state of limited war existed between prospectors and scientists.

  To those engaged in research, the prospectors were despoilers of tombs and destroyers of a still poorly understood alien heritage. Some of the more reckless and less caring explorers would not hesitate to tear apart a newly uncovered structure in search of a single marketable artifact, thereby rendering the entire site useless for scientific study.

  Meanwhile, the poor prospectors, unsupported by fat research grants and surviving largely by their wits in a hostile environment, complained that the authorities always sided with the big institutes, while they already had located more sites and ruins than could be studied in a thousand years. They argued that every additional site they discovered only added to, instead of subtracting from, the sum of scientific knowledge.

  In between drifted a small group of hybrids acknowledged by both sides, solitary individuals who were both prospector and scientist, travelers in whom the desire to learn warred constantly with greed.

  Standing apart and aloof from the combatants and their eternal bickering were those who had come to Alaspin to make their fortune by other means. They came to serve the needs of prospector and scientist alike. For money, since no one came to Alaspin for his health. The climate was rotten, and the native lifeforms inimical.

/>   Not every scientist was supported by a recognized institute. Not every prospector was grubstaked by a large company or criminal consortium. So stores were needed, and entertainments sufficiently simple and garish, and servicing facilities. The people who ran those businesses were the only ones who could really call themselves citizens of Alaspin. They depended on the planet for their livelihood. They were there for the long haul, unlike the scientists who dreamed of making the Great Discovery or the prospectors who pondered the one Big Strike that lay in the next vine-cloaked temple, the next virgin stream.

  Lastly there was Flinx.

  He belonged to none of the recognized classes that flitted, across Alaspin’s humid surface. He was not there to prospect and he was not there to do research, though he studied hard everything he encountered. Solitude was his primary backer.

  The scientists thought him a peculiar student working on a thesis. The prospectors recognized a loner when they saw one and considered him one of their own. Who else but a prospector would have an Alaspinian flying snake, or minidrag, constantly riding his shoulder? Who else would discourage casual friendships and conversation? Not that the young man had to discourage actively. The presence of his horridly lethal pet kept the curious well away.

  To those who were bold enough or ignorant enough to sidle up next to him on the street or in the dining room of the small hotel, he was always polite. No, he was not a student. Nor a prospector either. Nor did he work for one of the planetary service corporations. He was on Alaspin, he freely admitted, to perpetrate a homecoming. On hearing this, his questioners invariably departed more puzzled than they had been before accosting him.

  Flinx treasured everyone he encountered, both those who questioned him and those who recognized Pip’s distinctive blue and pink diamondback coloring and hurriedly crossed to the other side of the street when they saw him coming. The older he grew, the more fascinating he found mankind. Until recently his immaturity had prevented him from truly appreciating the uniquely diverse organism that was the human race.

  As for the thranx, they were equally interesting in their own way. Their social system was very different from mankind’s. For all that the two species got on supremely well, they had different individual priorities and beliefs. Yes, he was becoming quite a student of people, regardless of their size and shape and where they happened to wear their skeletons. Part of it was that he kept looking for another as unique as himself. So far he had not found one.

  As he pondered, he wielded a machete. It was an extraordinary primitive instrument, no more than a large chunk of sharpened metal. Cheap laser cutters were available for sale in every outfitter’s shop in Mimmisompo, but he had chosen the antique instead. Aiming a cutter and pulling the trigger did not convey the same sense of satisfaction that swinging the heavy blade did. A cutter worked neatly and soundlessly. With the machete you could smell your progress as you chopped your way through green and purple stems and striated leaves. The destruction did not trouble him because he knew how temporary it was. Within a week the trail he was cutting would be gone as new growth swamped it, devouring the sunlight it admitted to the jungle floor.

  Tall trees rose all around him. He was fascinated by one that was all buttressing roots and little trunk. It was festooned with epiphytes ablaze with bright crimson flowers. Swarms of tiny blue-black insects crowded around blossoms shaped like miniature trumpets. Four-winged relatives of Terran lepidoptera pushed and shoved for their turn at the nectar.

  Less decorative creatures tried to bite through his boots, which sank three centimeters and more into the gray mud through which he was traipsing. They smelled blood. The high-frequency repeller clipped to his belt kept most of the winged vampires away. His long-sleeved shirt and his pants were impregnated with powerful antipheromones, as was his wide-brimmed hat. So far his sound and stink had maintained him unpunctured.

  Though he did not know it, his appearance was little different from that of jungle explorers from ancient times. Such men would have killed for the chemistry and electronics that kept the worst Alaspin could offer at a safe distance. The thranx, bless ’em, didn’t need elaborate protection. Few bugs could bite through their chitons. Nor did they need the refrigeration unit that lined his pants, keeping him cool by recycling his own sweat. Not necessary, but a luxurious antidote to misery.

  Also expensive, but money was something Flinx did not worry about. While not dominatingly wealthy, he had made himself financially independent.

  A multiple humming filled his ears. He had felt their presence long before he heard them. Pip uncoiled from his shoulders and took to the air. There they were again, in the trees off to his right.

  Each was larger than the most massive hummingbird. They darted toward him in formation and danced around his head. He smiled fondly at them, then turned and continued toward the lake he had found on the aerial map. It had struck him as an appropriate place to make final farewells.

  The reality was more lovely than the picture, he thought as he broke through the last of the undergrowth and stood there on the steeply banked shore. It was still quite early. A fog was rising from the mirror-smooth surface of the lake, softening the outlines of the trees and lianas that lined the far shore. They were dream-shapes limned in gold, glowing cutouts rising as if in offering to the mist-shrouded sun.

  The broad expanse inspired his fellow travelers. They rocketed out over the water, swirling gaily around Pip. She was the star to which they anchored their constellation.

  Until today. The time was near, and he knew it. He knew because he could feel it in his pet’s mind. Pip was an empathic telepath, able to both transmit and receive emotions to and from her master. The half dozen offspring that flew dizzying circles around her now were equally talented.

  They had been conceived during a visit to this, their home world, and to this place Flinx had returned them for weaning, though that was a term not literally applicable to flying snakes. He had felt it was the right thing to do, though how much of that feeling had originated with him and how much of it had been imparted by Pip he could not have said. Now he knew he had done right. He had enjoyed the yearlings’ company, but they were growing fast. Seven meter-long, highly poisonous empathic minidrags were more than any one person could be expected to cope with, so he had returned the prodigals.

  They were snakes in name alone, because that was what they most nearly resembled. Even the xenotaxonomists called them miniature dragons, though they were actually more closely related to the extinct Terran dinosaurs, particularly the coelurosaurs. He could sense their confusion as he stood there on the bank, the machete dangling from his right fist.

  Waves of maternal repulsion were spreading outward from Pip like ripples in a disturbed pond. They washed over her offspring, battering them, driving them away. Gradually instinct took over where understanding was lacking. As they flew wider and wider circles around her, Flinx could feel the bonds between mother and offspring weakening. They did not break but became steadily less intense. It was at once beautiful and painful to watch, and it filled him with a righteous peace.

  He no longer wondered if he had done the right thing in bringing them here. The dance of the minidrags continued, their incredibly agile shapes darting and spinning, iridescent scales catching the rising sun. Eventually they broke away one at a time, like children taking turns at the end of crack-the-whip, to vanish into the trees on the far side of the lake. Now they had truly returned to the world that had given them birth. Flinx inhaled deeply.

  “Well and done,” he said aloud, knowing that the words would not be understood but that Pip would perfectly comprehend what he was feeling. “That’s that, old girl. Time you and I got back. It’s warming up out.”

  Pip came shooting back to him, stopping instantly to hover a meter before his face. The long pointed tongue flashed at his nose and eyelids before she pivoted to settle comfortably on his neck and shoulders.

  He allowed himself a final look at the lake, its surface s
till as glass. Then he turned to retrace the route he had chopped through the jungle. If Pip was sorry to see her offspring go, she gave no sign of it. If he sensed anything in her, it was a vast contentment.

  Of course, he had no way of telling if he was actually feeling what she was feeling or if it was no more than a reflection of his own emotions. His peculiar sensibilities were as much of a mystery to him as ever, though each passing year seemed to bring him a little closer to coming to grips with them. It was like trying to strangle fog. One instant the talent was as solid and real as steel, and the next he would try to use it and there would be nothing there, nothing at all.

  He worked hard trying to understand the mystery of himself. As he trudged through the mud, he tried to avoid brushing against the surrounding vegetation. In the jungle every leaf seemed to shelter something toothy or toxic. He was beginning to respect his talents instead of fearing and hating them. If only they were more predictable! Hard to build a fence when something kept taking away your hammer the instant before it struck each nail. So far his abilities had served to cause him trouble more than anything else. Unfortunately, he would have to learn to live with them. He could no more disown them than he could engage in self-mutilation.

  Pip stirred against him even as the surge of emotion roared through him. He stopped and turned as he heard the humming.

  A single adolescent minidrag hovered noisily before him. When he had turned on it, the yearling had backed wind, retreating until it was two meters away. There it remained, staring back intently.

  Flinx knew he was not the first human being to establish a tight emotional bond with an Alaspinian minidrag. There were tales of other prospectors who had done so. He had met one such individual himself little more than a year ago. That man’s minidrag, Balthazaar, had mated with Pip. But he had never heard of anyone bonding with more than one flying snake. One human, one minidrag. That was the rule. The yearling had to go.