Alan Dean Foster - Flinx 2 - Tar Aiym Krang.pdf - Foster, Alan Dean - margozap

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Author: Alan Dean Foster

Title: The Tar-Aiym Krang

Series: Flinx of the Commonwealth

CHAPTER ONE

The Flinx was an ethical thief in that he stole only from the crooked. And' at that, only when it

was absolutely necessary. Well, perhaps not absolutely. But be tried to. Due to his environment

his morals were of necessity of a highly adaptable nature. And when one is living alone and has

not yet reached one's seventeenth summer, certain allowances in such matters must be made.

It could be argued, if the Flinx were willing to listen (a most unlikely happenstance),

that the ultimate decision as to who qualified as crooked and who did not was an awfully

totalitarian one to have to make. A philosopher would nod knowingly in agreement. Flinx could not

afford that luxury. His ethics were dictated by survival and not abstracts. It was to his great

credit that he had managed to remain on the accepted side of current temporal morality as much as

he. had so far. Then again, chance was also due a fair share of the credit.

As a rule, though, he came by his modest income mostly honestly. This was made necessary

as much by reason of common sense as by choice. A too-successful thief always attracts unwanted

attention. Eventually a criminal law of diminishing returns takes over.

And anyway, the jails of Drallar were notoriously inhospitable.

Good locations in the city for travelling jongleurs, minstrels, and such to display their

talents were limited. Some were far better than others. That he at his comparatively slight age

had managed to secure one of the best was a tribute to luck and the tenacity of old Mother

Mastiff. From his infancy she had reserved the small raised platform next to her shop for him,

driving off other entrepreneurs with shout or shot, as the occasion and vehemence of the

interloper required. Mother Mastiff was not her real name, of course, but that was what everyone

called her. Flinx included. Real names were of little use in Drallar's market-places. They served

poorly for identification and too well for the tax-gatherers. So in more appropriate ones were

rapidly bestowed upon each new inhabitant. Mother Mastiff, for example, bore a striking

resemblance to the Terran canine of the same name. It. was given in humour and, accepted with poor

grace, but accepted, nevertheless. Her caustic personality only tended to compliment the physical

similarity.

The man-child had been an orphan. Probably involuntary, as most of his ilk were. Slill,

who could tell? Had she not been passing the slave coops at that time and glanced casually m a

certain direction, she would never have noticed it. For reasons she had never fully understood she

had bought it, raised it, and set it to learning a trade as soon as it was old enough. Fortunately

his theatrical proclivities had manifested themselves at quite an early stage, along with his

peculiar talents. So the problem of choosing a trade solved itself. He proved to be a keen if

somewhat solemn observer, and so his own best apprentice. Fine and well, because the older

performers always became more nervous in his presence than they cared to admit. Rather than admit

it, they pronounced him unteachable, and left him to his own devices.

She had also taught him as early as was practical that in Drallar independence was ever so

much more than an intangible thought. It was a possession, even if it would not fit into one's

pocket or pouch, and to be valued as such. Still, when he had taken to her word and moved out to

live on his own, the sadness lingered with her as a new coat of paint. But she never revealed it

to him for fear of communicating weakness. Not in her words nor in her face. Urged oil

affectionately but firmly he was, much as the young birds of the Poles. Also she knew that for her

the Moment might come at any time, and she wanted it to brush his life as lightly as possible.

Flinx felt the cottony pain of a sugar-coated probe again in his mind; the knowledge that

Mother Mastiff was his mother by dint of sympathy and not birth. Coincidence was his father and

luck his inheritance. Of his true parents he knew nothing, nor had the auctioneer. His card had

been even more than usually blank, carrying not even the most elementary pedigree. A mongrel. It

showed in his long orange-red hair and olive complex ion. The reason for his orphanhood would

remain forever as obscure as their faces. Pic let the life flood of the city enter his mind and

submerge the unpleasant thoughts.

A tourist with more insight than most had once remarked that strolling through the great

central marketplace of Drallar was like standing in a low surf and letting the geometrically

patient waves lap unceasingly against one. Flinx had never seen the sea, so the reference remained

obscure. There were few seas on Moth anyway, and no oceans. Only the uncounted, innumerable lakes

of The- Blue-That-Blinded and shamed azure as a pale intonation.

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The planet had moved with unusual rapidity out of its last ice age. The fast-dwindling ice

sheets had left its surface pock marked with s glittering lapis-lazuli embroidery or lakes, tarns,

and great ponds. An almost daily rainfall maintained the water levels initially set by the

retreating glaciers. Drallar happened to be situated in an exceptionally dry valley, good drainage

and the lack of rainfall (more specifically, of mud) being one of the principal reasons for the

city's growth. Here merchants could come to trade their goods and craftsmen to set up shop without

fear of being washed out every third-month.

The evaporation-precipitation water cycle on Moth also differed from that of many

otherwise similar humanx-type planets. Deserts were precluded by the lack of any real mountain

ranges to block off moisture-laden air. The corresponding lack of oceanic basins and the general

unevenness of the terrain never gave a major drainage system a chance to get started. The rivers

of Moth were as uncountable as the lakes, but for the most part small in both length and volume.

So the water of the planet was distributed fairly evenly over its surface, with the exception of

the two-great ice caps al the poles and the hemispheric remnants of the great glacial systems.

Moth was the Terran Great Plains with conifers instead of corn.

The polyrhythmic chanting of barkers hawking the goods of a thousand worlds formed a

nervous and jarring counter-point to the comparatively even susurrations and murmurings of the

crowd. Flinx passed, a haberdashery he knew and in passing exchanged a brief, secret smile with

its owner. That worthy, a husky blond middle-aged human, had just finished selling a pair of

durfarq-skin coasts to two outlandishly dad outworlders ... for three times what they were worth.

Another saying trickled lazily through his mind. 'Those who come unprepared to Drallar to buy

skin, inevitably get.'

It did not offend Flinx's well-considered set of ethics. This was not stealing. Caveat

emptor. Fur and fibres, wood and water, were Moth. Can one steal seeds from a tomato? The seller

was happy with his sale, the purchasers were pleased with their purchase, and the difference would

go to support the city in the form of welfares and grafts anyway. Besides, any outworlder who

could afford to come to Moth could damn well afford to pay its prices. The merchants of Drallar

were not to any extent rapacious. Only devious.

It was a fairly open planet, mostwise. The government was a monarchy, a throw back to the

planet's earlier days. Historians found it quaint and studied it, tourists found it picturesque

and frozepixed it, and it was only nominally terrifying to its citizens. Moth had been yanked

abruptly and unprepared into the vortex of interstellar life and had taken the difficult

transition rather well. As won id-be planet-baggers rapidly found out. But on a planet where the

bulk of" the native population was composed of nomadic tribes following equally nomadic fur-

bearing animals who exhibited unwonted bellicosity towards the losing of said fill's, a

representative government would have proved awkward in the extreme. And naturally the Church would

not interfere. The Counsellors did not even think of them-selves as constituting a government,

therefore they could not think of imposing one on others. Democracy on Moth would have to wait

until the nomads would let themselves be counted, indexed, labelled, and cross-filed, and that

seemed a long, long way off. It was well known that the Bureau of the King's Census annually

published figures more complementary than accurate.

Wood products, furs, and tourism were the planet's principal industries. Those and trade.

Fur-bearing creatures of every conceivable type (and a few inconceivable ones) abounded in the

planet's endless forests. Even the insects wore fur, to shed the omnipresent water. Most known

varieties of hard and soft woods thrived in the Barklands, including & number of unique and

unclassifiable types, such an a certain deciduous fungus. When one referred to 'grain' on Moth. it

had nothing to do with flour. The giant lakes harboured fish that had to be caught from modified

barges equipped with cyborg-backed fishing lines. It was widely quoted that of all the planets in

the galaxy, only on Moth did an honest-to-goodness pisces have an even chance of going home with

the fisherman, instead of vice-versa. And hunters were only beginning to tap I hat aspect of the

planet's potentialities ... mostly because those who went into the great Forests unprepared kept

an unquieting silence.

Drallar was its capital and largest city. Thanks to fortuitous galactic co-ordinates and

the enlightened tax policies of a sucession of kings it was now also an inter-stellar clearing-

house for trade goods and commercial transactions. All of the great financial houses had at least

branch headquarters here, reserving their showier offices for the more 'civilized' planets. The

monarch and his civil service were no more than nominally corrupt, and the king saw to it that the

people were not swamped by repressive rules and regulations. Not that this was done out of love

for the common man. It was simply good business. And if there were no business, there would be no

taxes. No taxes would mean no government. And DO government would mean no king, a state of affairs

which the current monarch, his Driest Majesty King Dewe Nog Na XXIV, was at constant pains to

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avoid.

Then too, Drallar could be smelled.

In addition to the indigenous humans, the business of Drallar was conducted by half a

hundred intelligent races. To keep this conglomeration of commerce pulsing smoothly, a fantastic

diversity of organic fuels was demanded. So the central marketplace Itself was encircled by a

seemingly infinite series of serving stands, auto-chefs, and restaurants that formed in actuality

one great, uninterrupted kitchen. The resulting comb; nation of aromas generated by these

establishments mingled to form an atmosphere un duplicated anywhere else in the known galaxy. On

more refined trade stops such exotic miasmas were kept decently locked away. In Drallar t h ere

was no ozone to contaminate. One man's bread was another man's narcotic. And one man's narcotic

could conceivably make another being nauseous.

But by some chance of chemistry, or chemistry of chance) the fumes blended so well in the

naturally moist air that any potentially harmful effects were cancelled out. Left only was an ever-

swirling thick perfume that tick led one's throat and left unexpecting mouths in a state of

perpetual salivation. One could get a deceptively full and satisfying meal simply by sitting down

in the centre of the markets and inhaling for an hour. Few other places in the Arm had acquired

what might be described as an olfactory reputation. It was a truth that gourmets came from as far

away as Terra and Proycon merely to sit on the outskirts of the marketplace and hold long and

spirited competitions in which the participants would attempt to identify only the wisps of

flavour that were wafted outwards on the damp breeze.

The reason for the circular arrangement was simple. A businessman could fortify himself on

the outskirts and then plunge mio the whirl of commerce without having, to worry about being cut

down in the midst of an important trailsaction by a sudden gust of, say, pungent prego-smoke from

the bahnwood fires. Most of the day the vast circle served admirably well, but during the prime

meal hours it made the marketplace resemble more than ever that perspicacious tourist's analogy of

the ebb and flow of a sea.

Flinx paused at the stand of old Kiki, a vendor of sweets, and bought a small thisk-cake.

This was a concoction made from a base of a tough local hybrid wheat. Inside, it was filled with

fruit-pieces and berries and small, meaty parma-niits, recently ripened. The finished product was

then dipped in a vat of warmish honey-gold and allowed to harden. It was rough on the teeth, but,

ob, what it did for this palate It had one drawback: consistency. Biting into think was like

chewing old spacesuit insulation. But it had a high energy content, the parma-nuts were mildly

narcotic, and Flinx felt the need of some sort of mild stimulant before performing.

Above the voices and the smells, above all, Drallar could be viewed.

The edifices of the marketplace were fairly low, but outside the food crescents one could

see ancient walls, remnants of Old City. Scattered behind and among were the buildings where the

more important commerce took place. The lifeblood of Moth was here, not in the spectacular stalls

below. Every day the economies of a dozen worlds were traded away in the dingy back 'rooms and

offices of those old-new structures. There the gourmet restaurants catered to the rich sportsmen

returning from the lakes, and turned up their noses and shut their windows against the plebeian

effluvia assailing them from the food stalls below. There the taxidermists plied their noisome

arts, stuffing downy Yax'm pelts and mounting the ebony nightmare heads of the horned Demmichin

Devilope.

Beyond rose the apartment houses where the middle and lower classes lived, those of the

poorer characterized by few windows and cracking plaster, and those of the better-off by the

wonderful multistoried murals painted by the gypsy artists, and by the brilliant azurine tiles

which kept the houses warm in winter and cool in summer. Still further off rose the isolated tower

groupings of the rich inurbs, with their hanging gardens and reinforced crystal terraces. These

soared loftily above the noise and clamour of the commonplace, sparkling as jewelled giraffes amid

each morning fog.

Rising from the centre of the city to dominate a 13 was the great palace of the rulers of

Drallar. Generations of kings had added to it each stamping a section here, awing there, with his

own personality. Therein dwelt King Dewe Nog Na and his court. Sometimes he would take a lift to

the topmost minaret, and there, seated comfortably on its slowly revolving platform, leisurely

survey the impossible anthill that constituted his domain.

But the most beautiful thing about Moth was not Drallar, with its jewelled towers and

chromatic citizenry) nor the innumerable lakes and forests, nor the splendid and variegated things

that dwelt therein. It was the planet itself. It was that which had given to it a name and made it

unique in the Arm. That which had first attracted men to the system. Ringed planets were rare

enough.

Moth was a. winged planet.

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The 'wings' of Moth doubtless at one time had been a perfect broad ring of the Saturn

type. But at some time in the far past it had been broken in two places - possibly the result of a

gravitational stress, or a change in the magnetic poles. No one could be certain. The result was

an incomplete ring consisting of two great crescents of pulverized stone and gas which encircled

the planet with two great gaps separating them. The crescents were narrower near the planet, but

out in space they spread out to a natural fan shape due to the decreasing gravity, this forming

the famed 'wing' effect. They were also a good deal thicker than the ancient Saturnian rings, and

contained a higher proportion of fluorescent gases, The result was two gigantic triangular shapes

of a lambent butter-yellow springing out from either side of the planet.

Inevitably, perhaps, the single moon of Moth was designated Flame. Some thought it a trite

appelation, but none could deny its aptness. It was about a third again smaller than Terra's Luna,

and nearly twice as far away, It had one peculiar characteristic. It didn't 'burn' as the name

would seem to suggest, although it was bright enough. In fact, some felt the label 'moon' to be

altogether inappropriate, as Flame didn't revolve around its parent planet at all but instead

preceded it around the sun in approximately the same orbit. So the two names stuck. The carrot

leading a bejewelled ass, with eternity forever preventing satisfaction to the latter. Fortunately

the system's discoverers had resisted the impulse to name the two spheres after the latter saying.

As were so many of nature's freaks, the two were too uncommonly gorgeous to be so ridiculed.

The wing on Drallar's side was visible to Flinx only as a thin glowing line, but he had

seen pictures of it taken from space. He had never been in space himself, at least, only

vicariously, but had visited many of the ships that landed at the Port. There at the feet of the

older crewmen he listened intently while they spun tales of the great KK ships that plied the dark

and empty places of the firmament, Since those monster interstellar craft never touched soil, of

course. He had never seen one in person. Such a landing would never be made except in a dire

emergency, and then never on an inhabited planet. A Doublekay carried the gravity well of a small

sun on its nose, like a bee carrying pollen. Even shrunk to the tiny size necessary to make a

simple landing, that field would protect the great bulk of the ship. It would also gouge out a

considerable chunk of the planetary crust and set of all sorts of undesirable natural phenomena,

like tsunamis and hurricanes and such. So the smaller shuttle ships darted yoyo like between,

traveller and ground, carrying down people and their goods, while the giant transports themselves

remained in Polyphemian exile in the vastnesses of black and cold.

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

appeared 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 rein ember the time when lie 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 had

any. As it was, the long tongue shot out and caressed Flinx's cheek with the delicate touch of a

diamond cutter. The mini drag'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 card meter. 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 Mastif 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 s bit uncomfortable. Thranx loved the rain and the damp,

and in this respect Moth was perfect, but they also preferred 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 blazon and Congo baisins 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

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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, hero 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 rumour, the giant thranx Elecseed complex had plans to turn Moth into a leading

producer of electrical and thinkmachine components, much as they had Arnropolous. But so Far it

had remained only rumour. Anyway, inducing skilled thranx workers to migrate to Moth would

necessitate the company's best psycho publicists 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. Hydro-

electricity 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 hi one's account nor bread in one's mouth.

'Sir and madame, what think ye on my wares? No better of ths 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 yon 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

bandies. 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 other mind furnished him with further inform

a lion 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 of hand 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 odour 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 it 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

I 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 ... their's

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

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Alan Dean Foster - Flinx 2 - Tar Aiym Krang.pdf

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