The End of the Matter (3 page)

“I’ve spent a year pursuing absurdities,” he reminded her. “Give, Mother.”

“When I bought you in the market,” she began easily, as if discussing any ordinary transaction, “it was a perfectly ordinary sale. Still don’t know what possessed me to waste good money.”

Flinx stifled a grin. “Neither do I. I don’t follow you though.”

“Find the dealer who sold you, Flinx. Perhaps he or she is still in business. There’s always the chance the firm kept decent records. I wasn’t too concerned with your pedigree. Might be there’s some additional information in their records that wasn’t provided with the bill of sale. Not likely, now. But all I was interested in was whether or not you were diseased. You looked it, but you weren’t.” She sipped from a mug. “Sometimes those slavers don’t give out all the information they get. They’ve got their reasons.”

“But how can I trace the firm that sold me?”

“City records,” she snuffled, wiping liquid from her chin. “There would have been a tax on the business. Try the King’s tax records for the year I bought you. Waste of time, though.”

“I’ve plenty of time now,” he said cryptically. “I’ll try it and gladly.” He reached out across the table and patted a cheek with the look and feel of tired suede. “But for the rest of the day, let’s be mother and son.”

She slapped the caressing hand away and fussed at him . . . but softly.

Chapter Two

The following day dawned well. The morning rain was light, and the cloud cover actually showed some signs of clearing. Flinx was spared the shocking sight of sunlight in Drallar when the clouds thickened after he started toward the vast, rambling expanse of official buildings. They clustered like worker ants around the spines of their queen, whose body was the King’s palace.

Damp, cool weather invigorated Flinx. Moist air felt familiar in his lungs; it was the air of the only home he had ever known. Or could remember, he corrected himself.

He stopped to chat with two side-street vendors, people he had known since childhood. Yet at first neither of them recognized him. Had he changed so much in one year? Was he so different at seventeen from what he had been at sixteen? True, he had gone through a great deal in that year. But when he looked in the mirror it was no stranger he saw. No fresh lines marred his smooth brown skin, no great tragedy welled out of cocoa eyes. Yet to others he was somehow not the same.

Possibly the crashing kaleidoscope that was Drallar simply made people forget. Resolutely he shut out the shouts and excitement of the city, strode past intriguing stalls and sights while ignoring the implorings of hawkers and merchants. No more time to waste on such childish diversions, he instructed himself. He had responsibilities now. As the leader of an entire race in the Great Game he must put aside infantile interests.

Ah, but the child in him was still strong, and it was a hard thing to do, this growing up . . .

Like a granite ocean the myriad walls of Old Drallar crashed in frozen waves against the sprawling bastion of bureaucracy which was the administrative center of Drallar and of the entire planet Moth. Modern structures piled haphazardly into medieval ones. Beyond towered the King’s palace, spires and minarets and domes forming a complex resembling a gigantic diatom. Like much of the city, the building looked as if it had been designed by a computer programmed with the
Arabian Nights
instead of up-to-date technologies.

Flinx was crossing the outermost ring of stalls when two striking figures passed in front of him—a man and woman, both slightly taller than Flinx but otherwise physically unimpressive. What was striking about them was the reaction they provoked in others. People took pains to avoid the couple, even to avoid looking in their direction. But they did so carefully, to be certain of not giving offense.

The couple were Qwarm.

Barely tolerated by the Commonwealth government, the Qwarm were a widely dispersed clan of professional enforcers, whose services ranged from collecting overdue debts to assassination. Despite being shunned socially, the clan had prospered with the growth of the Commonwealth. Since the beginning of time, there had always been a market for the services they chose to provide.

Flinx knew that the two walking past him were related in some fashion to every other Qwarm in the Commonwealth. Both wore skin-tight jet-black jumpsuits ending in black ankle boots. Those boots, he knew, contained many things besides feet. A decorative cape of black and rust-red streamers fluttered from each collar to the waist, like the tail of an alien bird.

Having heard of the Qwarm but never having had the opportunity to see one, Flinx paused at a small booth. Pretending to inspect a copper-crysacolla pitcher, he surreptitiously eyed the two retreating strangers.

Standing behind them now, he could no longer see their faces, but he knew that the bodies inside the jumpsuits would be as hairless as their heads were beneath the black skullcaps. Red foil designs marked each cap, the only decorative touch aside from the streamers on their clothing. Various pouches and containers hung from each black belt—pouches and containers which held a great many varieties of death, Flinx knew. If he remembered correctly, each belt would be joined in front by a buckle cut from a single orange-red vanadium crystal, which would be inlaid with a gold skull-and-crossbones. Their uniform was sufficient to identify them.

The crowd parted for them without panic. To run might be to give offense. No one desired to give offense to a Qwarm.

Flinx took a step away from the booth—and froze. Unbidden, as it often was, his talent had unexpectedly given him an image. The image was of incipient murder. He hadn’t sought the information. The most frustrating feature of his peculiar abilities was that they often functioned most effectively when he had no need of them.

Instantly he knew that the man and woman were a husband-wife team and that their quarry was very near. He tried for a picture of the quarry and, as he half expected, saw nothing.

Even more bewildering were the waves of curiosity and confusion that emanated from the Qwarm couple. Flinx had heard that the Qwarm were never puzzled about anything, least of all anything related to their work. Someone was nearby whom they had to murder, and this puzzled them. Strange. What could so puzzle a pair of professional killers?

Flinx cast about for an explanation and found only a mental blank. He was human and only human once more. So he found himself torn between common sense and his damnably intense curiosity. If only that powerful sensation of uncertainty from the couple hadn’t leaped into his mind. Nothing should puzzle a Qwarm so. Nothing! Cause concern, yes, because murder was still illegal and if caught they could be tried and punished by the authorities.

But confusion? Impossible!

Suddenly Flinx found himself walking not toward the receding solidity of the administration center but back into the depths of the sprawling, chaotic marketplace. The black-clad pair were easy to follow. They were utterly devoid of suspicion. Qwarm stalked others; no one followed a Qwarm.

Despite Pip’s nervous stirrings on his shoulder, Flinx moved closer. Still the Qwarm gave no indication that they were at all aware of him. At the moment he had nothing in mind beyond following the two killers to the source of their confusion.

A small crowd formed a bottleneck just ahead. The black-clad couple paused and talked together in whispers. Flinx thought he could sense muscles tensing. They ceased conversing and seemed to be straining to see over the heads of the cluster of beings ahead of them.

Moving forward, Flinx encountered a low section of ancient wall off to one side. Part of it was occupied by seated figures staring over the heads of the crowd. No one spared him a glance as he mounted the wall and joined them. Seated securely on the damp, slick stone, he found he could easily see over the heads of even the tall avians in the crowd, which consisted mostly of local humans sprinkled with a few warmly bundled thranx and a smattering of other alien types. His position afforded him a clear view of the center of attraction. He could also keep an eye on the Qwarm, off to his right.

In front of the crescent of laughing, appreciative creatures was a small raised stage. Flinx experienced a jolt of recognition. Jongleurs, magicians, and other entertainers were using the public stage to perform their various specialties for the entertainment of the crowd and the enhancement of their own empty pockets. Not much more than a year and a half ago, he had been one of those hopeful, enthusiastic performers. He and Pip had gone through much since those days. He felt the snake relax, responding to his nostalgic mood.

A juggler currently working the stage finished manipulating four brightly colored spheres. One by one he tossed them into the air, and one by one they vanished, to the apparent mystification of the performer and the appreciative oohs and ahs of the crowd. The watchers applauded; the juggler collected. Life advanced.

Flinx smiled. The material of which the balls were composed remained visible only when heat was steadily applied—such as that generated by the juggler’s rapidly moving hands. When that activating body heat was removed, even for a couple of seconds, the spheres became invisible. Behind the stage, Flinx knew, the juggler’s assistant waited to catch the carefully thrown invisible objects. Timing was essential to the act, since the assistant had to be in just the right position to catch the spheres.

The juggler departed. As the next act came out on stage, Flinx felt a supple dig at his mind. For a brief instant he was experiencing the same feeling as the Qwarm. Looking over, he felt that they were straining to see a little harder.

He turned his attention to their intended victim.

A tall, robust-looking individual, the figure on stage was not as dark-skinned as Flinx. Black hair fell in greasy strands down his neck. He was dressed simply in sandals, loose slickertic pants, and a shirt opened to show a mat of thick curls on his chest. The shift sleeves were puffed, possibly to hide part of the act.

Try as he would, Flinx could see or detect nothing remarkable about the man—certainly nothing that might require the attention of two Qwarm instead of one. Yet something here worried someone enough to engage the services of those dread people.

Holding on to a shiny cord, the man was pulling at something still hidden behind the stage backdrop. The jokes and insults he alternately bestowed on whatever was at the other end of the cord were not particularly clever, but the crowd was well baited, anxious to see what could absorb such comments without responding.

It was beginning to drizzle again. The crowd, used to omnipresent precipitation, ignored the rain. The jokes started to wear thin, and the crowd showed signs of restlessness. Having built the suspense, the rope-handler vented a violent curse and gave a hard yank on the cord. Flinx tensed slightly, now really anxious to see what was at the other end of the tether.

When the creature finally wobbled unsteadily around the backdrop, its appearance was so anticlimactic, so utterly ludicrous, that Flinx found himself laughing in mixed relief and disbelief. So did the rest of the crowd.

What emerged from behind the wall was probably the dopiest-looking creature he had ever seen, of a species completely unknown to him. Barely over a meter and a half tall, it was shaped roughly like a pear. The ovoid skull tapered unbroken into a conical neck, which in turn spread out into a wide, bulbous lower torso. It stumbled about on four legs ending in circular feet tipped with toe stubs. Where the neck began to spread into the lumpy body, four arms projected outward, each ending in four well-developed, jointless fingers. The thing gave the impression of being rubbery, boneless.

The creature was dressed in a vest with holes cut at equal intervals for the four arms. Baggy, comical trousers completed the attire. Four large holes were set around the top of the head. Flinx guessed these were hearing organs. Beneath them, four limpid eyes stared stupidly in all directions. Occasionally one or two would blink, revealing double lids which closed like shades over the center of each pupil.

A single organ like an elephant’s flexible trunk protruded from the top of the bald skull. It ended in a mouth, which served, Flinx guessed, as both eating and speaking organ . . . assuming the thing was capable of making noises.

As if this grotesque farrago of organs, limbs, and costume wasn’t hysterical enough, the creature was colored bright sky-blue, with green vertical stripes running from neck to feet. Its owner-manager-trainer gave the cord another sharp yank, and the apparition wobbled forward, letting out a comical honk. Those in the front of the crowd burst into laughter again.

Flinx only winced. Although the tugs on the cord didn’t seem to be injuring the creature physically, he didn’t like to see anything mistreated. Besides, no matter how hard its owner pulled, Flinx had the feeling that the creature was moving at its own speed, in its own time.

Then, abruptly, Flinx wondered what he was doing there. He ought to be hunting down officials and records, not watching an unremarkable sideshow. The training which had preserved him as a child in Drallar began to reassert itself. It was none of his business if the Qwarm wanted to kill an itinerant animal trainer. He could gain nothing by intruding himself into this affair, Flinx reminded himself coldly. His curiosity had gotten him into trouble often enough before.

He began to slip from his perch as the man in question ran through his routine, prancing about on stage while the crowd laughed at his antics and at those of the poorly trained but funny-looking creature. As the owner attempted to get the creature to execute various movements and the thing clumsily tried to comply, the laughter rose steadily.

Flinx was about to abandon his place when something happened to give him pause—at a command from the owner, the creature spoke.

It had an arresting, well-modulated, and undeniably intelligent voice, and it spoke quite comprehensible Terranglo despite its alien vocal organs. At another command, the creature switched to symbospeech, the commercial and social dialect of the Commonwealth. The alien’s voice was a high, mellifluous tenor that bordered on the girlish.

It was reciting gibberish. The words each meant something, but the way the alien was stringing them together made no sense. Over this rambling monologue, the trainer was speaking to the crowd. “Alas,” the man was saying, “this strange being, who lives to delight and amuse us all, might possibly be as intelligent as you or I. Yet it cannot learn to speak understandably, for all that it could be our superior.”

At this the alien produced—on cue from its trainer, Flinx suspected—another of its hysterical honks. The crowd, momentarily mesmerized by the trainer’s spiel, collapsed with laughter again.

“Unfortunately,” the trainer went on when the roar had subsided, “poor Ab is quite insane. Isn’t that right, Ab?” he asked the alien. It responded with more of its nonstop gibbering, only this time all in rhyme. “Maybe he’s glad, maybe he’s sad, but as the philosopher once said, he is undoubtedly mad,” the trainer observed, and the alien honked again, beaming at the crowd.

Flinx made an attempt to plunge into that alien mind. He achieved just what he expected, which was nothing. If an intelligence capable of something greater than mimicry existed there, it was hidden from him. More likely, there was nothing there to read.