The End of the Matter (13 page)

“They’re upstairs, I think,” he told the expectant miner.

“I know where we can rent a skimmer now, if you’ve got the money,” Pocomchi told him.

“I’ve got the money.” Flinx took a step toward the lift. Pocomchi caught his arm, hard. Both minidrags stirred.

“You did me a right turn, back in the spin,” the Indian said tightly. “Now it’s my turn.” He jerked his head toward the lift and the floors above. “This isn’t the place or time.
They’ve
chosen both. When the time comes, we’ll be the ones who’ve done the planning.”

Flinx stared at him for a long moment. Pocomchi stared back.

“It was the woman who owned this hotel,” Flinx finally explained flatly. Pocomchi let go of his arm, and they started slowly for the door. “She should have told them about me immediately.”

Both men checked the door and the street beyond. It was empty.

“Then she did tell them,” Pocomchi said.

Flinx nodded. “Not right away.”

“Why not?” the Indian wanted to know as they exited and turned right down the street. Nothing fell from above to explode between them; no one challenged them from behind a corner.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, unable to blot the pitiful image of her twisted form from his mind. “It was a stupid, foolish thing to do.”

“She must have had some reason,” pointed out Pocomchi.

“I think . . .” Flinx’s tongue hesitated over the words. “I think she liked me, a little. I didn’t think she liked me . . . that much.”

“One other thing.” Dark eyes turned to Flinx in the dimness. “As soon as we started for the elevator, you knew something was wrong. How?”

If nothing else, Flinx owed this little man some truth. “I can sense strong feelings sometimes. That’s what hit me when we went in. An overwhelming sensation of recent death.”

“Good,” Pocomchi commented curtly. “Then you know how I feel.” He increased his speed, and although Flinx was a fair runner and in good condition, he had trouble staying alongside him. “Let’s travel,” Pocomchi urged him, seemingly not straining at the wicked pace. “Let’s get that skimmer.”

As they ran they passed several late-evening strollers. Some examined the racing triumvirate curiously. A few stopped to gawk at the four-footed apparition loping along behind the two men.

But as he panted and fought to keep up with Pocomchi, Flinx knew that no death lay behind any of those staring eyes. That threat was behind, receded with every additional stride they took into the night. As the warm air enfolded him, he wondered how much longer it would stay behind him.

Chapter Seven

In comparative silence, the skimmer drifted across the waving grassland of Alaspin.

Flinx had the feeling he was riding a bug over an unmade green bed. Neither the topography nor the vegetation was uniform in height or color. Here and there the familiar green gave way to a startlingly blue sward, and in other places to a bright yellow. Heavier growth, sections of bush, forest, and jungle, protruded like woody tentacles into the sea of reeds and grass.

He studied the individual seated next to him, in the pilot’s chair. Pocomchi seemed to be perfectly normal, very much in control of himself. Still, Flinx could sense the tension in the man, along with the anguish at his partner’s death. Both had been pushed aside. To any other onlooker, the Indian’s attention would have seemed to be wholly on the rippling savanna beneath them. Flinx knew otherwise.

From their position, roughly a meter above the waving stalks, he inclined his head to squint up at the warm buttery beacon of Alaspin’s star. It was a cloudless day, too hot for human comfort, too cool for a thranx to really enjoy.

“I still don’t know where we’re going, Pocomchi.”

“The last I know of your man,” the Indian replied conversationally, “he was working his claim near a city reputed to be of Revarn Dynasty. Place called Mimmisompo. We’re three days out of Alaspinport—I’m hoping we’ll reach the city some time this afternoon.” Unexpectedly, he smiled at his companion. His voice changed from the uncaring monotone Flinx had gotten accustomed to over the past several days.

“Sorry if I’ve been less than good company, Flinx.” His gaze turned back to the terrain ahead. “Habib was the type to mourn, not me. I’m kind of surprised at myself, and I certainly didn’t mean to shunt my misery off on you.”

“You haven’t shunted a thing off on me,” Flinx assured him firmly. “Intimate deaths have a way of shaking one’s ideas about oneself.” He wanted to say more, but something ahead caught his attention. Pip squirmed at the abrupt movement, while behind Ab rambled on, oblivious.

Just in front of the leisurely cruising skimmer the sea of high grass had abruptly given way to a winding, curved path roughly a hundred and fifty meters wide. Where the path wound, the tall growth had been smoothly sliced off a couple of centimeters above the ground. Some torn and ragged clumps of uncut reeds pimpled the avenue, which looked to have been created by the antics of a berserk mowing machine.

While Flinx tried to imagine what kind of instrument had sliced away the grasses, which grew to an average height of several meters, Pocomchi was pointing to some gliding, bat-winged avians armed with formidable beaks and claws. “Vanisoars,” he was saying, “scavengers prowling the open place for exposed grass dwellers.” Even as he spoke, one of the creatures dove. It came up with an unlucky furry ball in its talons.

“But the path, what made it?”

“Toppers. Hexapodal ungulates,” he explained, examining the path ahead. He touched a contol, and the skimmer rose to a height of six meters above the topmost stalks. “This grass looks fresh-cut. I think we’ll see them soon.”

The nearly noiseless engine of the skimmer permitted them to slow to a hover above the herd of huge grazing animals. The largest member of the herd stood a good three meters at the fore shoulder. Each of the six legs was thick, pillarlike, to support the massive armored bodies. Hexagonal plates covered sides and back.

Massive neck muscles supported the lowered, elongated skulls. Most remarkable of all was the design of the snout. What appeared originally to have been armored, the nostril cover had lengthened and broadened to form a horn in the shape of a double-bladed ax.

Flinx watched in fascination as the creatures methodically cut their way through the green ocean. Lowered, ax-bladed heads swung in timed 180-degree arcs parallel to the earth, scything the grass, reeds, and small trees almost level with the ground. Then the lead creatures would pause briefly, using flexible lips to gather in the chopped vegetable matter immediately around them.

Behind the leaders, immature males and females followed in the path of the adults. They consumed the cut-down fodder prepared for them by the leaders. A few small females guarded the end of the procession, shielding the infants from a rear assault. The younger toppers had no difficulty downing their share of food, which had been pounded to soft pulp by the massive footpads of the larger herd members in front of them.

It seemed an ideal system, though Flinx wondered at the need for a few adults to shield the calves. The smallest, he estimated, weighed several tons. He questioned Pocomchi about it.

“Even a topper can be brought down, Flinx,” he was told. “You don’t know much of Alaspin.” He nudged a switch, and the skimmer moved forward slightly. “See?”

Flinx looked down and saw that one of the lead bulls was standing on its rear four legs, sniffing the air in a northerly direction. The enormous nose horns looked quite capable of slicing through the metal body of the skimmer.

“Let’s see what he’s got,” Pocomchi suggested. He headed the little craft sharply north. Flinx had to scramble to keep his seat.

In a few minutes they were above something winding its patient way through the reeds. Flinx had a brief sight of a long mouth lined with curved teeth, and glowing red eyes. It snapped at the skimmer and Flinx jerked reflexively.

Pocomchi grinned at his companion. “That’s a lance’el.” He swung the skimmer around for another look. They passed over a seemingly endless form laid out like a plated path in the grass. Row upon row of short legs, like those of a monstrous millipede, supported scaly segments. Flinx couldn’t make an accurate estimate of its size.

“I knew it’d be well hidden,” Pocomchi said easily. “That’s why I kept our altitude. We’d have made that fellow a nice snack.” A hiss-growl came from below; angry eyes stared up at them.

Pocomchi chuckled. “We’ve interrupted his stalk, and he’s not happy about it. It’s unusual for a lance’el to strike at a skimmer, but it’s happened.” Another growl from below. “They can jump surprisingly well. I think we’d better leave this big one alone.”

Flinx readily agreed.

Pocomchi had turned the skimmer and increased their speed. They were back on their southwesterly course once more. As the sun reached its zenith they were racing over bush and tree-lined streams as much as grassland.

“I think we’re all right,” Pocomchi murmured, checking a chart. “Yes.” He shut off the screen and returned his attention forward. “Another ten minutes, I think.”

The time passed. Sure enough, Flinx discovered the first reflections from stone and metal shining at them from between tall trees. “Mimmisompo,” his companion assured him, with a nod forward. He slowed the skimmer, and in a minute they were winding carefully through soaring trees hung heavy with vines and creepers.

“We’re on the edge of the Ingre,” Pocomchi informed him, “one of the largest jungle-forests in this part of Alaspin. Mimmisompo is one of many temple cities the archeologists don’t consider too important.”

They were among buildings now, lengthy multistory structures flanking broad paved avenues. Brush and creepers grew everywhere. The fact that the city wasn’t entirely overgrown was a tribute to the skill and precision of its engineers. An abandoned city in a similar section of Earth would have been all but eradicated by now.

It was a city of sparkling silence, an iridescent monument to extinction. Everywhere the sun struck, it was reflected by a million tiny mirrors. Mimmisompo had been constructed primarily from the dense gold-tinged granites Flinx had seen employed in Alaspinport. The local stone contained a much higher proportion of mica than the average granite. Walls built of such material gave the impression of having been sprinkled with broken glass.

The architecture was massive and blocky, with flying arches of metal bracing the carefully raised stonework. Copper, brass, and more sophisticated metalwork were employed for decorative purposes. It seemed as if every other wall was fronted with some intricate scroll-work or bas-relief. Adamantine yellow-green tiles roofed many smaller structures.

As they traveled farther into the city, Flinx began to get some idea of its size. Even that, he knew, was an inaccurate estimate, considering how many buildings were probably hidden by the jungle.

“Maybe it’s not an important city,” he mused, “but it seems big enough to attract at least a few curious diggers.”

“Mimmisompo’s been grubbed, Flinx,” his companion told him. “No one ever found a thing. At least, nothing I ever heard of.”

“What about all those fancy engravings and decorations on the buildings?”

“Simple relics and artifacts are throwaway items on Alaspin,” Pocomchi informed him. “This is a relic-rich world. Now if some of those worked plates”—he gestured out the transparent skimmer dome at the walls sliding past them—“were done in iridium, or even good old-fashioned industrial gold, you wouldn’t be looking at them now.”

“But surely,” Flinx persisted, “a metropolis of this size and state of preservation ought to be worthy of
someone’s
interest. I’d expect to see at least one small survey party.”

Pocomchi adjusted their course to avoid a towering golden obelisk. A broad grin split his dark-brown face. “I’ve told you, you don’t know Alaspin. There’re much more important diggings to the north, along the coast. Compared to some of the major temple-capitals, like Kommonsha and Danville, Mimmisompo’s a hick town.”

“Stomped flat, sit on that, push it down and make it fat.”

“What’s he drooling about now?” Pocomchi asked, with a nod back to where Ab squatted on all four legs.

Flinx looked back over the seat idly. Ab had been so quiet for the majority of the journey that he had almost forgotten the alien’s presence. But instead of playing dumbly with all sixteen fingers, Ab appeared to be staring out the dome at something receding behind the skimmer.

“What is it, Ab?” he asked gently. “Did you see something?”

As always, the alien’s mind told him nothing. It was as empty as a dozen-diameter orbit. Two blue eyes swiveled round to stare questioningly at him. Two hands gestured animatedly, while the other two executed incomprehensible idiot patterns in the air.

“Behind the mine the ground has stomped subutaneate residue lingers in the reschedule. Found itself often comatose. If you would achieve anesthesia, take two fresh eggs, beat well, and by and by up in the sky leptones like lemon cream will . . .”

“Well?” Pocomchi asked.

Flinx thought, scratching the scaly snake head, which was curled now in the hollow of his neck. “It’s hard to tell with Ab, but I think he did see something back there. There’s nothing wrong with his sensory
in
put.”

Even as he slowed the skimmer and brought it to a hover, Pocomchi considered. He cocked a querulous eye at Flinx. “You willing to waste some time to check out an idiot’s information?”

“Why not,” the youth responded, “since we’re probably on an idiot’s errand?”

“You’re paying,” Pocomchi replied noncommittally. The skimmer whined slightly as its driver turned it around. Slowly they retraced their path.

“Whatever it is has to be on the starboard side now,” Flinx declared, carefully studying the landscape “That’s the side Ab was looking out.”

Pocomchi turned his attention to the ground on his right. In order to see clearly past him, Flinx had to stand. His head almost bumped the top of the transparent canopy. Jungle-encrusted ruins passed by on monolithic parade.

Several meters on, both men saw it simultaneously.

“Over there,” Flinx said, “under the blue overhang.”

Pocomchi angled closer to the walls, then cut the power. With the soft sigh of circuits going to sleep, the little vessel settled birdlike to the ground. A few shards of rock and shattered masonry crunched beneath the skimmer’s weight.

A touch on another control caused the canopy to fold itself up and slide neatly into the skimmer’s roof behind them. In place of the steady hum of the engine, Flinx now heard jungle and forest voices emerging into the silence. They were cautious at first, uncertain. But soon various unseen creatures were whistling, howling, cooing, bellowing, hissing, and snuffling with increasing confidence beneath the blue sky.

The noises fascinated Ab (didn’t everything?). “There is a large depression in the sermoid,” he began. Both men tuned out the alien versifying.

Their attention instead was focused on the massive azure overhang to their left. It resembled blue ferrocrete, although that was impossible—ferrocrete was a modern building material. It stuck outward, a thrusting blue blade shading a space fifteen meters square. In the sheltered region beneath the overhang was a familiar, self-explanatory outline.

Pocomchi turned his gaze to the depression in the earth. Flinx, his own thoughts still on the blue monolith, followed the Indian out of the skimmer.

“I haven’t seen that color before,” he told Pocomchi.

“Hmmm?” murmured the Indian, intent on the outline pressed into the ground. “Oh, that. The ancient Alaspinians colored a lot of their formed stone. That overhang isn’t granite, it’s a cementlike material they also used. Probably a lot of copper sulfate in this one, to turn it that dark a hue.” He traced the outline in the ground with his feet, walking around it.

“A pretty good-sized skimmer made this mark,” he announced. “Light cargo on board.” Turning, he struggled to see through stone and jungle, walls and trees. “Somebody’s been here recently, all right.” Eyes intently focused on the ground, he walked away from the outline until he was standing beneath the blue overhang.

“A good place for a first camp. Here’s where they unloaded their supplies,” he noted, examining the dirt. He walked out from under the sheltering stone and looked up across dense brush which formed a green wave against the side of the structure. It sounded like corduroy against his jumpsuit.

“They’ve gone off through here, Flinx.” Turning, he eyed his anxious young companion. “Yes, it might be your massive mystery man with the gold earring. Whoever it was, they’ve spent some money.” He pointed to where the brush had been smashed down repeatedly to form a fair pathway that was only now beginning to recover from the tread of many feet. “They made a lot of trips to transfer their stuff deeper into the city. I thought everyone had given up on this location years ago.”