Strange Music

by Alan Dean Foster

  “Strong words this commander did sing me, without shouting and without concern. ‘Tell no one what you have seen here this night; sing in no village of our passing, in no street of our conversation, to no relative no matter how naïve. Or surely of it I will hear, and return to this place, to find and slaughter you, and to you all who are precious.’ Whereupon he turned his back to me, and to an underling sang a single order, which brought forth down a sword behind me, and in one blow deprived me of my tail.” His lips trembled slightly. “As a warning it was brutal, and unnecessary to the keeping, of my word about not singing, of what I had seen.

  “Over the side of the strideship I was thrown without caution, its crew not caring if I landed on head or on hind. Much blood I left behind me, as I staggered homeward, to my mate and her keening, which sad and loud split the night.”

  A glance at the female showed her stoic and barely reacting. But as soon as her mate stopped singing, Flinx could sense her crying inside.

  Even the usually apathetic Wiegl was affected. “You are brave in the retelling, in the resinging to strangers, of a tale so vital, and ignoring the threat.”

  Their host gave the Larian equivalent of a shrug. “If one tail is missing, then what better than to fill it, than another retelling of the cruelty, in hopes of some justice.” Black eyes regarded them shrewdly. “You seek to find this strideship and its iniquitous crew, in which seeking I bless you, whatever your reasons, whatever your rationale. I ask only that if you do this, and succeed in your striving, whatever its reason, whatever its purpose, that you might return to me if not my tail, then some retribution I cannot imagine.”

  Gesturing with his left hand, Wiegl flicked ears and extended the tip of his breathing proboscis as far past the end of his snout as possible. “Endeavor we will, if fighting cannot be avoided, to seek out the one who cut you, and reciprocate in kind.”

  The doorwatcher-thing was asleep as man and Larian exited the house. While Flinx was profoundly moved by the elder Larian’s story, Wiegl was now twice as guarded as before.

  “Press on with your searching, are you still decided?” Flinx’s guide asked him. “In the face of this viciousness, so plainly described, so clearly shown?”

  “Press on as before,” Flinx replied in singspeech, “now quicker than ever, lest the trail we lose, of those that we seek.”

  Wiegl hissed through his long furry nostril tube, causing it to vibrate like a short length of rubber hose. “No problem should that be, as by the description just given, easy enough as described, to follow a trail of blood.”

  7

  ■ ■ ■

  They encountered the strideship’s footprints on the other side of a rippling tidal flat so thickly overgrown with purple and green knee-high vegetation that Flinx was hard-pressed to bash a path through it. With his lower center of gravity, short legs, and powerful tail to add impetus to his forward motion, Wiegl made better progress. He did not mind breaking trail for the human or snapping off the camouflaged, lightly poisonous seed tangles. After all, he was being paid to carry out such humble tasks. He did find it instructive that the taller offworlder was having such a difficult time. Instructive, and reassuring. The aliens had wonderful technology that could do amazing things, but they were not gods.

  At regular intervals they would come to a hole in the heath where one of the strideship’s feet had smashed the foliage flat. Water puddled in the ovoidal gaps and small wiry kaerls took advantage of the unexpected excavation to burrow deep into the resulting mud. It did not take the observant Wiegl all day to come to the obvious conclusion.

  “Headed north they are, at a good rate of speed, the better to outdistance any presumed pursuit, to defeat any attempt at rescue.”

  Coming up behind the Larian, Flinx leaned on Pip’s tube and paused to catch his breath. It had been cold enough that morning to see it. “At this moment I do not feel, in my feet or in my bones, that I am in any condition to qualify, as anyone’s presumed pursuit.” Raising his gaze, he peered into the misty distance. Were those clouds ahead, or merely more low mountains? “I do not know, nor can I imagine, what here is considered, a ‘good rate of speed.’ Only this I know: that I cannot exceed it, that I cannot match it, and that in so failing, I will fail my needs.” Scrutinizing their surroundings, he saw only low rolling strips of granite and basalt interspersed with saltwater inlets and freshwater pools.

  “Is there not some way, is there not something, that will allow us without gasping, to overtake our quarry? Or at least to arrive, in time just behind them, with enough energy remaining, to give good account of ourselves?”

  Wiegl considered a moment, then turned and gestured to the west. “Not far from here lies Grndalx, a town of some substance, not Borusegahm to be sure, but adequate for our needs, on the northern edge of the Leeth.”

  Flinx nodded tiredly. “And what can we find, in this Grndalx you mention, to solve the small problem, that I sing with my feet? A strideship perhaps, like the one we are chasing, perhaps even faster, so that we may it overtake?”

  The Larian emitted a rude sound via his proboscis. “Why for sure a fine strideship, we will just charter without waiting, without hesitation or research, and fifty fighters for crew.” He eyed the panting human. “Such charters take time, both to arrange and provision, and no crew should be hired, without careful vetting.”

  “Then—what?” Flinx asked, too tired to sing the query properly.

  “Because of its location, at the Leeth’s northern reaches, the town boasts a market, of some considerable renown. A market where travelers, lame of foot and of thinking, might hire transportation, to travel fast over the moors.”

  The moors. Flinx had not thought of the countryside through which they had just passed with such difficulty as “moors,” but the description was apt even if the exact translation was suspect. As to how much of such terrain they had to traverse to catch up with the strideship and its noteworthy captive, he did not know. While on the Teacher he had studied as much as he could of the culture and language of Largess, but he had perforce lacked time to delve into many other subjects. Geography, for example.

  He sighed. At this rate, the store of money discs Padre Jonas had given him was not going to last very long.

  “If not a strideship, then what shall we find,” he sang as best he could, “in the market you reference, since a shipyard it is not?”

  Wiegl was already smashing his way westward through the lavender-tinged undergrowth. A small cloud of angry carmine-hued leaves flew at his face and he swatted them away indifferently. Flinx had a moment of alarm as they turned their attention on him, until he experienced an assault of feathery softness. Though aggressive, the tiny creatures possessed nothing with which to harm him. Had he faced a similar assault on, say, Midworld, his initial panic would have been more justifiable.

  Despite his concerns and his difficulty walking, they reached Grndalx at nightfall, utilizing the trail broken by the surprisingly skilled Wiegl. As the town was a trading crossroads as well as an entryway to the more developed districts of Borusegahm, they had no difficulty finding lodgings. Flinx was a bit surprised at the speed with which Wiegl negotiated arrangements for the night, given that his companion was a tall, furless alien.

  “Human presence may be scarce out here,” the guide explained, “but offworlders have been on Largess for some time, so knowledge of them is widespread, even if actual encounters are infrequent.”

  As had been done at a similar establishment in Borusegahm city, a bed was improvised for Flinx by pushing two of the sleeping platforms in their room together end to end. While both were narrower and lower than even a small bed designed for humans, Flinx knew he could manage. The biggest problem came in the form of the cutout slots located three-quarters of the way down each platform. These were designed to allow Larians to sleep on their backs while their thick short tails hung through. Flinx found the openings inconvenient, but not intolerable. Of the three travelers, Pip was probably most c
omfortable of all, snug inside her insulated metal tube.

  The fact that his digestive system (and Pip’s as well) could tolerate and derive nutrients from Larian fare made the journey not only simpler but possible. Flinx carried supplements in pill form to supply those critical vitamins and minerals that were lacking in native cuisine. Having sampled an enormous variety of local foods on a host of other worlds, he had been delighted to find that Larian cuisine was genuinely nourishing if not especially tasty. Food that was locally grown was tolerable, and he was able to avoid domesticated and hunted protein in favor of that which was hauled from the innumerable lakes, inlets, and shallow seas. More used to surviving on an alien world than prospering, he had quickly discovered that he could indulge in caloric intake without fear of his guts turning inside out.

  Wiegl noted his companion’s unrestrained consumption of the morning meal. “To your liking, this morning, you find our foodstuffs?”

  “More so than your politics, which I can ignore, but which trouble the Commonwealth, which hopes to uplift you.”

  “Politics do not interest me, as it is a woeful profession, and as to offworlder interests, I can only say uplift this.” Reaching down, he clutched at his genitals in an apparent act of simultaneous derision and dismissal that was uncommonly universal among species that utilized similar methods of reproduction. Flinx ignored the gesture. He hadn’t hired Wiegl for the Larian’s political propensities and in fact did not care if the guide held any.

  Morning did not dawn so much as seep into gray prominence. Doubtless a steady diet of such gloomy weather resulted in a healthy turnover among staff at the Commonwealth station. He wondered how long Padre Jonas had been assigned to Largess.

  Such speculation vanished as an all-too-familiar throbbing at the back of his head caused him to wince. For a moment he was forced to shut his eyes against the pain. Wiegl did not notice and Flinx, leaning on the metal tube that contained a now-concerned Pip, was able to recover before the guide saw that anything was amiss or the minidrag felt a need to put in an appearance.

  The sharp, stabbing headache was induced by his sudden exposure to a cacophony of conflicting emotions. They arose from the sprawling market ahead. Hundreds of Larians were arguing, complaining, pleading, accusing, cursing, and in general generating a rising miasma of emotions, all of which he was unable to shut out whenever the individuals in question stopped singing. Every marketplace he had ever visited, including those on his home world of Moth, had proven to be a comparable well full of such strong feelings. Steeling himself against the emotional deluge, he allowed Wiegl to lead him forward and into the mental morass.

  Eventually they arrived at a more open area where the emotional overload he was suffering was somewhat reduced because many of those present were all talking at once. Rising interest helped to focus his attention, if not his talent, elsewhere.

  They were making their way through what on any other world would have constituted a zoo but on Largess was merely a noisy, smelly souk for buying and selling animals. Some for food, some for companionship, some domesticated for working in fields or in water. In addition to the excess of new alien smells, Flinx was much taken with the variety of shapes and sizes around him, many of which he had not encountered in his hasty studies on board the Teacher.

  A small, iridescent green head popped out of his walking tube. At ease by now in the presence of the flying snake, Wiegl did not flinch at her appearance. While other lightly clad traders and visitors did glance in Pip’s direction, they did not panic. Having never seen an Alaspinian minidrag before, they had no notion of her lethal capabilities, so their curiosity was not tainted by fear. Certainly Flinx sensed none among those who took notice of his scaly companion.

  She drew considerably more attention when she emerged fully from the tube and took to the air. Not only her spectacular coloring but the deep hum generated by her wings caused glassy black eyes to glance skyward. Making no attempt to call her back, Flinx let her go as she pleased. Pip had no natural enemies on this world, nor did she constitute the natural prey of any local carnivores, who would be cautious before they were aggressive. And unless she chose to stray far, human and minidrag would always be in emotional contact.

  Thus allowing her free rein, he tried to focus on what Wiegl was saying to the various herders and merchants. Even without the constant Larian damp, the glut of stink would have been considerable. It ranged from delicate, fragrant scents that were almost thranx-like to an overpowering thrust of musk that emanated from one corral packed with what looked like giant balls of long brown fur streaked with tints of amber and antimony. Unafraid that he might offend the locals by holding his nose, since their respiratory apparatus was different in shape and location, he got as close as he could. The result was olfactory overload, a sensation akin to wading into a pool of semi-vaporized sewage whose stench was only slightly minimized by a faint overlay of lilac.

  He was drawn to the enclosure not by the smell or the thick, rank fur of its inhabitants, but by the fact that their heads seemed to be situated with complete randomness. Low-hanging fur hid whatever limbs they used for locomotion, so all that was visible were narrow, vaguely equine skulls that terminated in meter-long flexible proboscises. Unlike the similar but much smaller organs of the dominant Larians, these were fully prehensile: a fact he discovered from watching the creatures crop at the bundles of cut vegetation that had been supplied for their nourishment. Not nearly as elongated as those of a Larian, pale blue eyes regarded the world with bovine placidity.

  Settling on the nearest representative, Flinx met its gaze straight on—whereupon the head shrank back and disappeared into the mass of oily fur, only to reemerge on the other side of the body. Or had he been mesmerized by a Larian example of facial mimicry all along? As he marveled at the increasingly nervous mob, heads began vanishing and popping back out elsewhere seemingly at random. So fascinating was the display that a touch on his arm startled him. He was mildly bothered that he had not sensed his guide’s approach. But then, Wiegl’s current emotional state was fairly neutral.

  “Shomagr you see, an interesting creature, famed for its pelt and meat, once industrially deodorized.”

  Flinx nodded understandingly. “Glad I am to know, that my detection of their smell, is not something confined to my kind, but is acknowledged on Largess as well.”

  Flinx sensed the change as Wiegl’s emotional neutrality was lifted by amusement. “Ignorant you are of your surroundings, but that may be to your benefit, that may be just as well. What you are smelling of the shomagr is but a sampling of their bouquet, as when faced with a predator, they into a circle combine, and then project from scent glands, a reek that will drop a warrior.”

  Flinx took several steps backward. “Then let us do our best, to not provoke them, as what I smell now, is powerful enough.” He gestured. “Their heads vanish into their fur, only to reappear somewhere else, and I must confess, that this is a strange biology, I do not understand.”

  “Beneath all that fur,” Wiegl explained as he pointed, “the head rides on a multiflexible joint, that around the central body, swings freely. Away from an attack can the shomagr run, while staring straight at you all the while, constantly shifting their line of sight, by just repositioning their heads. Disconcerting it is, to any hungry pursuer, to not know which way, their prey is looking.”

  “Not to mention that smell, which I do not need to experience further,” Flinx concluded. Looking over the heads of the milling crowd, he wondered where Pip had gone. To his surprise, Wiegl knew the answer.

  “Settled your pet on your mount of my choosing, as if prescient she is, as well as deadly.” Raising both feet and pivoting neatly on his tail, he led Flinx through the mass of buyers and sellers, gawkers and families. More of them turned here to look at him than had in Borusegahm. That was to be expected and the attention did not trouble him. He sensed only curiosity and no enmity. Being the subject of questioning alien stares was a situation as familiar
to him as breathing.

  Breathing brought back memory of the shomagr stink, causing him to lengthen his stride.

  They found Pip settled on a perch as high as it was alien. The creatures Wiegl had chosen to be their mounts were restrained by leg braces instead of a corral. As they stood an average of six meters in height, it would have taken a major construction project to erect an enclosure capable of holding them.

  Flinx swallowed as he contemplated the unexpectedly tall prospect. “Those are what, in our need to pursue, we are going to have to ride, are going to have to balance upon?”

  Wiegl enjoyed the human’s anxiety. “It is not as difficult, as first look might indicate. Come and I will show you; how to take the saddle, how to settle yourself, how to ride in comfort. For in comfort we will travel, and as fast as can be managed with a mount and not a strideship—or perhaps you can call one of your craft, that floats in the air like a winged birag?”

  Flinx grinned at his guide. Can’t blame Wiegl for trying, he told himself. “No skimmers are allowed this far from the station, no advanced tech of any kind, save what small thing might be necessary, our lives to save, only in direst emergency.”

  Clearly disappointed, Wiegl turned back to the chained animals. “Then second best will have to do, and we will make speed—but only if these fine mounts, you can afford.”

  Flinx considered the rapidly shrinking store of money discs Padre Jonas had provided. “The cost of riding we will calculate, after first determining, if the cost to this rider, will be the health of his spine.”

  Indicating his understanding with a gesture, Wiegl turned back to the proposed means of transportation.