The Tar-aiym Krang

by Alan Dean Foster

  He had wanted to space, but had not yet found a valid reason to, and could not leave Mother Mastiff without anyone. Despite unceasing bellows asserting to her good health she was a hundred and something. To leave her alone simply for a pleasure trip was not a thought that appealed to him.

  He tugged his cloak tighter around his shoulders, half-burying Pip in the folds of thick fur. As human-inhabited worlds go, Moth was not an exceptionally cold planet, but it was far from tropical. He could not remember the time when he had not been greeted upon awakening by a wet and clammy fog. It was a dependable but dampish companion. Here furs were used more to shed water than to protect from bitter chill. It was cold, yes, but not freezing. At least, it snowed only in winter.

  Pip hissed softly and Flinx absently began feeding him the raisins he’d plucked from the thisk-cake. The reptile gulped them down whole, eagerly. It would have smacked its lips, if it’d had any. As it was, the long tongue shot out and caressed Flinx’s cheek with the delicate touch of a diamond cutter. The minidrag’s iridescent scales seemed to shine even brighter than usual. For some reason it was especially fond of raisins. Maybe it relished their iron content.

  He glanced down at the plus window of his personal cardmeter. They weren’t broke, but neither were they swimming in luxury. Oh, yes, it was definitely time to go to work!

  From a counter of her variegated display booth, Mother Mastiff was pleading amiably with a pair of small, jeweled thranx touristas. Her technique was admirable and competent. It ought to be, he reflected. She’d had plenty of time in which to perfect it. He was only mildly surprised at the insectoid’s presence. Where humans go, thranx also, and vicey-versy, don’t you know? So went the children’s rhyme. But they did look a bit uncomfortable. Thranx loved the rain and the damp, and in this respect Moth was perfect, but they also prefered a good deal less cold and more humidity. Paradoxically, the air could be wet and to them still too dry. Every time a new hothouse planet turned up they got ecstatic, despite the fact that such places invariably possessed the most objectionable and bellicose environments. Like any human youngster, he’d seen countless pictures of thranx planets: Hivehom, their counterpart of Terra, and also the famous thranx colonies in the Amazon and Congo basins on Terra itself. Why should humans wear themselves out in an unfriendly climate when the thranx could thrive there? They had put those inhospitable regions to far better use than man ever could or would have—as had humans the Mediterranean Plateau on Hivehom.

  Indeed, the Amalgamation had worked out very well all around.

  From the cut of their necklaces these two were probably from Evoria. Anyhow the female’s tiara and ovipositor glaze were dead giveaways. Probably a hunting couple, here for some excitement. There wasn’t much to attract thranx to Moth, other than recreation, politics, and the light metals trade. Moth was rich in light metals, but deficient in many of the heavier ones. Little gold, lead, uranium, and the like. But silver and magnesium and copper in abundance. According to rumor, the giant thranx Elecseed complex had plans to turn Moth into a leading producer of electrical and thinkmachine components, much as they had Amropolous. But so far it had remained only rumor. Anyway, inducing skilled thranx workers to migrate to Moth would necessitate the company’s best psychopublicists working day and night, plus megacredits in hardship pay. Even off-world human workers would find the living conditions unpalatable at best. He didn’t think it likely. And without native atomics there’d be a big power problem. Hydroelectricity was a limited servant due to the lack of white water. It formed an intriguing problem. How to generate enough electricity to run the plant to produce electrical products?

  All this musing put not credit in one’s account nor bread in one’s mouth.

  “Sir and madame, what think ye on my wares? No better of the type to be found this side of Shorttree, and damn little there.” She fumbled, seemingly aimless, about her samples. “Now here’s an item that might appeal to ye. What of these matched copper drink-jugs, eh? One for he and one for she.” She held up two tall, thin, burnished copper thranx drinking implements. Their sides were elaborately engraved and their spouts worked into intricate spirals.

  “Notice the execution, the fine scroll work, sir,” she urged, tracing the delicate patterns with a wrinkled forefinger. “I defy ye to find better, yea, anywheres!”

  The male turned to his mate. “What do you say, my dear?” They spoke symbospeech, that peculiar mixture of Terran basic and thranx click-hiss which had become the dominant language of commerce throughout the Humanx Commonwealth and much of the rest of the civilized galaxy besides.

  The female extended a handfoot and grasped the utensil firmly by one of its double handles. Her small, valentine-shaped head inclined slightly at an angle in an oddly human gesture of appraisal as she ran both truehands over the deeply etched surface. She said nothing, but instead looked directly into her mate’s eyes.

  Flinx remained where he was and nodded knowingly at the innocent smile on Mother Mastiff’s face. He’d seen that predatory grin before. The taste of her mind furnished him with further information as to what would inevitably follow. Despite a century of intimate familiarity and association with the thranx there still remained some humans who were unable to interpret even the commoner nuances of thranx gesture and gaze. Mother Mastiff was an expert and knew them all. Her eyes were bright enough to read the capital letters flashing there: SALE.

  The husband commenced negotiations in an admirably offhand manner. “Well . . . perhaps something might be engendered . . . we already have a number of such baubles . . . exorbitant prices . . . a reasonable level. . . .”

  “Level! You speak of levels?” Mother Mastiff’s gasp of outrage was sufficiently violent to carry the odor of garlic all the way to where Flinx stood. The thranx, remarkably, ignored it. “Good sir, I survive at but a subsistence level now! The government takes all my money, and I have left but a pittance, a pittance, sir, for my three sons and two daughters!”

  Flinx shook his head in admiration of Mother Mastiff’s unmatched style. Thranx offspring always came in multiples of two, an inbred survival trait. With most things terrene and human there had been little or no conflict, but due to a quirk of psychology the thranx could not help but regard human odd-numbered births as both pathetic and not a little obscene.

  “Thirty credits,” she finally sighed.

  “Blasphemous!” the husband cried, his antennae quivering violently. “They are worth perhaps ten, and at that I flatter the craftsman unmercifully.”

  “Ten!” moaned Mother Mastiff, feigning a swoon. “Ten, the creature says, and boasts of it! Surely . . . surely, sir, you do not expect me to consider such an offer seriously! ‘Tis not even successful as a jest”

  “Fifteen, then, and I should report you to the local magistrate. Even common thieves have the decency to work incognito.”

  “Twenty-five. Sir, you, a cultured and wealthy being, surely you can do better than taunt and make sport of an old female. One who has doubtless fertilized as many eggs as you . . .” The female had the grace to lower her head and blush. The thranx were quite open about sex . . . theirs or anyone else’s . . . but still, Flinx thought, there were lines over which it was improper to step.

  Good manners it might not have been, but in this case at least it appeared to be good business. The male harrumphed awkwardly, a deep, vibrant hum. “Twenty, then.”

  “Twenty-three five, and a tenth credit less I will not say!” intoned Mother Mastiff. She folded her arms in a recognizable gesture of finality.

  “Twenty-one,” countered the male.

  Mother Mastiff shook her head obstinately, immovable as a Treewall. She looked ready to wait out entropy.

  “Twenty-three five, not a tenth credit less. My last and final offer, good sir. This pair will find its own market. I must survive, and I fear I may have allowed you to sway me too far already.”

  The male would have argued further, on principle if for nothing else, but at that point the fem
ale put a truehand on his b-thorax, just below the ear, and stroked lightly. That ending the bargaining.

  “Ahhh, Dark Centers! Twenty-five . . . no, twenty-three five, then! Thief! Assaulter of reason! It is well known that a human would cheat its own female-parent to make a half-credit!”

  “And it is well known also,” replied Mother Mastiff smoothly as she processed the sale, “that the thranx are the most astute bargainers in the galaxy. You have gotten yourself a steal, sir, and so ‘tis you and not I the thief!”

  As soon as the exchange of credit had been finalized, Flinx left his resting place by the old wall and strolled over to the combination booth and home. The thranx had departed happily, antennae entwined. On their mating flight? The male, at least, had seemed too old for that. His chiton had been shading ever so slightly into deep blue, despite the obvious use of cosmetics, while the female had been a much younger aquamarine. The thranx too took mistresses. In the moist air, their delicate perfume lingered.

  “Well, mother,” he began. He was not indicating parentage—she had insisted on that years ago—but using the title bestowed on her by the folk of the markets. Everyone called her mother. “Business seems good.”

  She apparently had not noticed his approach and was momentarily flustered. “What? What? Oh, ‘tis you, cub! Pah!” She gestured in the direction taken by the departed thranx. “Thieves the bugs are, to steal from me so! But have I a choice?” She did not wait for an answer. “I am an old woman and must sell occasionally to support myself, even at such prices, for who in this city would feed me?”

  “More likely, mother, it would be you who would feed the city. I saw you purchase those same mug-spirals from Olin the Coppersmith not six days ago . . . for eleven credits.”

  “Ay? Harrumph,” she coughed. “You must be mistaken, boy. Even you can make a mistake now and then, you know. Um, have you eaten yet today?”

  “A thisk-cake only.”

  “Is that the way I raised ye, to live on sweets?” In her gratefulness for a change of subject she feigned anger. “And I’ll wager ye gave half of it to that damned snake of yours, anyway!”

  Pip raised his dozing head at that and let out a mild hiss. Mother Mastiff did not like the minidrag and never had. Few people did. Some might profess friendship, and after coaxing a few could even be persuaded to pet it. But none could forget that its kind’s poison could lay a man dead in sixty seconds, and the antidote was rare. Flinx was never cheated in business or pleasure when the snake lay curled about his shoulder.

  “Gentle, mother. He understands what you say, you know. Not so much what as why, really.”

  “Oh surely, surely! Now claim intelligence for the monster! Bewitched it is, perhaps. I believe it that latter, at least, for I can’t deny I’ve seen the thing react oddly, yes. But it does no work, sleeps constantly, and eats prodigiously. You’d be far better off without it, lad.”

  He scratched the minidrag absently behind the flat, scaly head. “Your suggestion is not humorful, mother. Besides, it does work in the act. . . .”

  “Gimmick,” she snorted, but not loudly.

  “And as to its sleeping and eating habits, it is an alien thing and has metabolic requirements we cannot question. Most importantly, I like it and . . . and it likes me.”

  Mother Mastiff would have argued further except that they had gone through uncounted variations of this very argument over the years. No doubt a dog or one of the local domesticated running-birds would have made a more efficacious pet for a small boy, but when she’d taken in the maltreated youngster Mother Mastiff’d had no credits for dogs or birds. Flinx had stumbled on the minidrag himself in the alley behind their first shack, rooting in a garbage heap for meats and sugars. Being ignorant of its identity, he’d approached it openly and unfearing. She’d found the two huddled together in the boy’s bed the following morning. She had hefted a broom and tried to shoo it off, but instead of being frightened the thing had opened its mouth and hissed threateningly at her. That initial attempt constituted her first and last physical effort at separating the two.

  The relationship was an unusual one and much commented upon, the more so since Alaspin was many parsecs away and none could recall having heard of a minidrag living unconfined off its native world before. It was widely surmised that it had been the pet of some space trader and had gotten loose at the shuttleport and escaped. Since the importation of poisonous animals was a felony on most planets, Moth included, few were surprised that the original owner had not made noisy efforts to reclaim his property. In any case it had harmed no one (Flinx knew otherwise, and better than to boast the fact) and so none in the marketplace protested its presence to the authorities, although all wished with a passion it would go elsewhere.

  He moved to change the subject.

  “How are you equipped for credit, mother?”

  “Fah! Poorly, as always. But,” and this with a sly, small grin, “I should be able to manage for a while off that last transaction.”

  “I’d wager,” he chuckled. He turned to survey the chromatically colored crowd which flowed unceasingly around and in front of the little shop, trying to gauge the proportion of wealthy tourists among the everyday populace. The effort, as usual, made his head ache.

  “A normal day’s passings or not, mother?”

  “Oh, there’s money out there now, all right! I can smell it. But it declines to come into my shop. Better luck to you, perhaps, lad.”

  “Perhaps.” He walked out from under the awning and mounted the raised dais to the left of the shop. Carefully he set about rearranging the larger pots and pans which formed the bulk of Mother Mastiff’s cheaper inventory to give himself sufficient room to work.

  His method of enticing an audience was simple and timeworn. He took four small brana balls from a pocket and began to juggle them. These were formed from the sap of a tree that grew only in Moth’s equatorial belt. Under the sun’s diffused DV they pulsed with a faint yellow light. They were perfect for his needs, being solid and of a uniform consistency. A small crowd began to gather. He added a fifth ball now, and began to vary the routine by tossing them behind his back without breaking rhythm. The word was passed outward like invisible tentacles, occasionally snatching another person here, another there, from the fringes of the shuffling mob. Soon he had acquired his own substantial little island of watchful beings. He whispered softly to the minidrag, almost buried in the soft fur.

  “Up, boy.”

  Pip uncurled himself from Flinx’s shoulder, unfurling his leathery wings to their fullest extent. In spite of its rarity the crowd recognized the lethal shape and drew back. The snake soared into the air and performed a delicate, spiraling descent, to settle like a crown around the boy’s head. It then proceeded to catch each ball and toss it high into the air, changing the shape but not the rhythm of the act. The unbroken fluorescent trail took on a more intricate weave. A mild pattering of applause greeted this innovation. Jugglers were more than common in Drallar, but a young one who worked so deftly with a poisonous reptile was not. A few coins landed on the platform, occasionally bouncing metallically off the big pans. More applause and more coins when the snake flipped all five balls, one after another, into a small basket at the rear of the dais.

  “Thank you, thank you, gentlebeings!” said Flinx, bowing theatrically, thinking, now for the real part of the act. “And now, for your information, mystification, and elucidation . . . and a small fee” (mild laughter), “I will endeavor to answer any question, any question, that anyone in the audience, regardless of his race or planet of origin, would care to tempt me with.”

  There was the usual skeptical murmuring from the assembly, and not a few sighs of boredom.

  “All the change in my pocket,” blurted a merchant in the first row,” if you can tell me how much there is!” He grinned amid some nervous giggling from within the crowd.

  Flinx ignored the sarcasm in the man’s voice and stood quietly, eyes tightly shut. Not that they had to be.
He could “work” equally as well with them wide open. It was a piece of pure showmanship which the crowds always seemed to expect. Why they expected him to look inward when he had to look outward remained ever-puzzling to him. He had no real idea how his answers came to him. One minute his mind was empty, fuzzy, and the next . . . sometimes . . . an answer would appear. Although “appear” wasn’t quite right either. Many times he didn’t even understand the questions, especially in the case of alien questioners. Or the answers. Fortunately that made no difference to the audience. He could not have promised interpretations. There!

  “Good sir, you have in your pocket four tenth pieces, two hundredth pieces . . . and a key admitting you to a certain club that. . . .”

  “Stop, stop!” The man was waving his gnarled hands frantically and glancing awkwardly at those in the crowd nearest him. “That will do! I am convinced.” He dug into his pocket, came out with a handful of change, thrust the troublesome key back out of sight of the curious who leaned close for a look. He started to hand over the coins, then paused almost absently, a look of perplexity on his face. It changed slowly to one of surprise.

  “By Pall’s tide-bore, the whelp is right! Forty-two hundredths. He’s right!” He handed over the coins and left, mumbling to himself.

  Flying coins punctuated the crowd’s somewhat nervous applause. Flinx judged their mood expertly. Belief had about pulled even with derision. There were naturally those who suspected the merchant of being a plant. They granted he was a very convincing one.

  “Come, come, gentlebeings! What we have here is larvae play. Surely there are those among you with questions worth tempting my simple skill?”