Patrimony (18 page)

All those villagers who were not engaged in essential work turned out to see the travelers off. Yet again Flinx was struck by their kindly nature and general geniality. He could not have been rescued by representatives of a more affable species. At ease around humans and secure in their relationship with them, the Tlel were in no wise subservient. As equals, they truly wanted to help.

And, as Zlezelrenn had pointed out previously, the expedition offered those participating a fresh opportunity to engage in traditional ritual hunting.

While it may have felt perfectly natural to his Tlel driver, it took Flinx awhile to get used to the gaitgo’s rocking forward motion. Considerably more unsteady than a skimmer, the vehicle’s movement was defined and made possible by the smooth operation of no fewer than four and sometimes as many as all eight of its mechanical limbs. Once most of him (with the notable exception of his cramped backside) became accustomed to the jerky, uneven motion, he was able to marvel at the device’s abilities. He found himself wondering if it had been designed by the Tlel themselves and made a mental note to put the question to his new friends at the first opportunity.

By the end of the first day he was convinced that, should it have been necessary, Zlezelrenn and his fellow villagers would have been able to find the valley of the two tributaries even without the aid of a map. Several times he was certain the expedition had made a wrong turn or had begun to retrace its course. Each time he was assured by his hosts that they had not deviated from the predetermined itinerary, and that sometimes the shortest and quickest route to the next waypoint was not a straight line.

In addition to the awkward walking motion, the gaitgo’s climbing ability took some getting used to. It was one thing to be striding along up a gentle slope, quite another to find himself dangling out over emptiness as Zlezelrenn sent the multilegged mechanical clambering up a sheer rock wall. Not once, however, did one of the unique grasping legs lose its grip.

Strange, Flinx thought, how one could wholly without fear traverse immense distances when traveling between star systems through space-plus, yet suffer panic and disorientation when suspended only a few dozen meters above solid ground. It was all relative. Or a matter of relativity. One just had to have confidence in the relevant machinery. In that respect the gaitgo was no
Teacher.
It wasn’t even a rented skimmer. But after a day of watching it clamber over and around seemingly impossible obstacles without losing so much as a composite digit, he finally found himself starting to trust the vehicle as much as its operator.

One time the gaitgos in the lead touched off a small landslide. It was at once frightening and enlightening to see the several machines caught up in the slide skitter downhill among the tumbling rocks without a single one toppling over or losing its gyroscopically enhanced balance. Eight computer-coordinated legs provided the kind of stability that would have eluded a tracked or wheeled vehicle. Once the rockfall had rumbled to a stop, Vlashraa led those who had successfully ridden out the slide back upslope to rejoin their companions.

When it began to snow lightly, a touch on a control caused the protective arching framework to unfurl a lightweight, transparent rain shield that kept both driver and cargo clean and dry. Streams were easily forded and deep, narrow canyons effortlessly negotiated.

“Tu more days,” Zlezelrenn called back to where Flinx had folded himself into the gaitgo’s modified cargo compartment. “Then we will arrive at the valley yu seek.”

“I won’t be there long.” Flinx shouted to make himself heard over the steady, metronomic thudding of multiple artificial feet. “It should only take a short while to find out if this person is the individual I’ve been looking for.”

“Take yur time.” Everything was running smoothly, and Zlezelrenn was very much at ease. “We are all uv us enjoying the change frum daily routine.” From the emotions that emanated from each of the gaitgo drivers, Flinx knew that Zlezelrenn was telling the truth.

It was the following day when a different and less enjoyable change in routine interrupted the morning meal. The disturbance also served to remind Flinx that while his new friends and companions might be wholly civilized, the world that they had so magnanimously agreed to share with humans was not.

He had just finished eating and was watching the Tlel pack the last of their supplies and equipment onto their vehicles when activity ceased. Whatever realization was dawning over his companions, it occurred progressively instead of all at once. First Sladehshuu, their lead driver, stopped what he had been doing. From busily adjusting the seals on his gaitgo’s storage locker, his cilia stopped moving. His attention shifted not to another member of the party, not even to the surrounding dark blue forest, but to the mountainside that loomed off to the left. Then he was shouting as he hopped—given their low center of gravity, the Tlel could not leap—and pulled himself into the driver’s cage of his vehicle.

“Ressaugg, ressaugg!” he yelled. The word was new to Flinx, did not translate, and sounded as much choked as spoken.

The cry was rapidly taken up by the others. Zlezelrenn was at Flinx’s side in seconds, urging him to mount their gaitgo. With his escort not lingering to answer questions, Flinx had no choice but to throw himself into the open cargo bin that had been adapted to accommodate him. An increasingly agitated Pip swooped back and forth overhead, rising skyward in ascending spirals until she had climbed above the treetops.

Gaitgos were starting up all around Zlezelrenn. Supplies and personal gear not yet packed were abandoned where they lay. Casting aside any pretense at organization, drivers slammed their machines into sprint mode and began to race away in all directions. No attempt was made to coordinate the wild flight. Unlike every previous morning, the Tlel did not line up themselves and their machines in single file. Witness to the near panic, Flinx had the distinct impression that for the first time since he had known them, the best and brightest of Tleremot’s normally mutually supportive inhabitants had degenerated into a self-centered mob. There was no avoiding the impression that, whatever the cause of the confusion, at that moment it was every Tlel for itself.

Though he had no way of realizing it at the time, the apparent randomness of the scattering and flight was not indicative of panic. It was a proactive reaction, the defensive opposite of fish schooling.

Concentrating on his driving, Zlezelrenn ignored his passenger’s increasingly anxious queries. Seeking the source of the disorder, Flinx looked around repeatedly. He found what he was looking for moments later, and not by picking up on any broadcast emotions.

How had he overlooked something so massive when every Tlel in the group had detected its presence? True, it was projecting nothing in the way of strong feeling, but its size alone should have revealed it to him more or less at the same time his friends became aware of it. As he stared at the onrushing monster, the explanation presented itself to him.

Something that big, he realized, must generate a proportionate quantity of
flii
. Every Tlel in the traveling party would have picked up the monster’s particularized electrical field at approximately the same time. It was an identifying characteristic Flinx could not have detected even if the creature was right on top of him.

Which, if Zlezelrenn’s gaitgo could not muster more speed, was liable to be exactly the case.

CHAPTER 10

“It is a ressaugg!”

Flinx could barely hear Zlezelrenn’s shouted words. Not because the smooth-running, engine-dampened gaitgo was making too much noise, nor because its composite feet were making loud scraping sounds each time they slammed down onto the rocky ground, but because the monster his Tlel friend and driver had finally identified was smashing down entire trees and splintering them beneath its weight as it barreled toward them. The deafening electric
crack
of wood being violently splintered combined with the rumble that accompanied the creature’s attack to drown out all but the most penetrating cries.

Superficially it resembled the round, furry rollers that had come bounding toward and past him on the tarmac of Tlossene’s shuttleport as they had frantically sought escape from the kasollt that had been pursuing them. Sheer size was the most obvious difference between those panic-stricken herbivores and the creature that now threatened the fleeing Tlel. The largest of the rollers had been thirty or forty centimeters in diameter.

The gigantic mass of dense pale pink and white fur that was bearing down on him now was bigger than his shuttlecraft.

Like the harmless rollers, the ressaugg was also propelled by four limbs. Unlike them, these did not terminate in flat, fleshy pads. Instead, each tapered to a single five-meter-long curving claw. As the creature rolled downhill, the fully extended arms rotated madly. So, naturally, did the four scythe-like claws. The spinning blades sliced through tree trunks as if they were made of gelatin. Clearly, they would effortlessly and instantly dispatch anything softer they happened to come in contact with. Prey, for example. Himself, for example.

Almost lost against the booming hulk of onrushing inimical whiteness, a tiny pink-and-blue shape was whizzing back and forth just in front of it and out of its reach. Realizing her master was in danger, Pip responded as she always did: by confronting the threat. That was all she could do. Somewhere within that tumbling mass of fur there were likely to be eyes, or an enormous eyeband akin to those of the Tlel. It didn’t matter. Whatever organ or organs the creature utilized to perceive the world around it was completely hidden within the rolling thunder. Even if she attacked randomly with her poison, the corrosive effects of her toxin could not halt so mammoth a monster in its tracks. Much less the avalanche that accompanied it.

Not only did the ressaugg half bury itself in a snowbank to mask its presence, but when it had started downslope on the attack it had brought all that snow along with it, Flinx realized. Though he had spent time on many dangerous worlds and had emerged unscathed from a number of hostile environments, this was the first time he had encountered a predator that utilized snow as a weapon. If prey was not cut to pieces by the monster’s extended, rotating talons or crushed beneath its massive weight, there was a good chance it would find itself buried beneath the snowfall the ressaugg deliberately brought crashing down around it. At the bottom of the slope atop which it had positioned itself the patient carnivore could then collect itself, gather its quadruple limbs around its enormous body, and leisurely set about the task of picking up the pieces of its sliced or smothered quarry. The ressaugg’s method of hunting was exceptionally energy-efficient: it did not even have to walk, much less run, after its intended prey.

Flying ahead of the oncoming predator like dozens of small, stinging, winged scouts, snow at the forefront of the avalanche struck Flinx’s face as he looked out over the back of the gaitgo. He could no longer see Pip. He could see nothing but hungry, flying pinkness. The expansive
flii
of the rolling, tumbling ressaugg remained invisible to him.

Then the wall of snow slowed, along with the beast it shrouded. The roar of the avalanche faded together with its force. Pink snow settled into drifts against the splintered shells of smashed trees. Looming above it all and now clearly visible against dark rock and blue sky, the ressaugg retracted its scythe-tipped arms and began burrowing into the new snowfield. A worried Flinx strained to see even as Zlezelrenn’s gaitgo continued to put distance between its two passengers and the spherical monster shoveling snow behind them. Had any of his new-found friends been too slow in initiating their escape? How many Tlel lay buried beneath the combined weight of snow and ressaugg?

None, as it turned out. Individually and in pairs, gaitgos and their drivers reassembled on the far side of a small but fast-moving tributary of the main river. Stimulated by the near escape, the collective pong they emitted was heady, almost overpowering. It did not affect them, of course. Among the group there was in fact only one who had to struggle not to gag on the stench. As visitor and guest, Flinx would have been too polite to mention it. He would have been wasting his time if he had, since his olfactory-deprived companions would not have had the slightest idea what he was talking about.

A final head count confirmed that everyone had survived the assault. Having now lived through it, Flinx did not need to ask anymore for an explanation of the seeming panic that had enveloped the party when the attacking ressaugg had first been detected. The predator’s method of assault was clearly designed to take down as much prey as possible as quickly as possible. Since its mass and lack of bona fide legs rendered it incapable of swift pursuit, it had to situate itself to bring down not just a single animal but an entire herd at one swoop. By scattering as they had when the attack had first been detected, the Tlel had deprived the ressaugg of an obvious target.

As the re-formed expedition resumed its course, Flinx found himself frequently glancing up at overhanging ledges and heavy snow-banks that he’d previously ignored. What else might lurk among Gestalt’s mountainous heights, waiting to roll, plummet, or perhaps drop down on unsuspecting passersby?

“A great many harmful creatures make their lairs and nests in such places,” Zlezelrenn elaborated in response to Flinx’s inquiry. “Usually they leave signs that can be recognized, so that they may be avoided.” Raising a long, slender arm, he used his cilia to point to the lead gaitgo. “That Sladehshuu did not detect the ressaugg before it attacked shows how effective was its camouflage.”

Flinx considered. Once again tucked comfortably beneath his jacket, Pip had finally relaxed. He wondered if the minidrag was experiencing frustration at her continuing inability to counter the threats this world posed.

“I’d think more than one of you, not just Sladehshuu, would have sensed its
flii
before it started toward us.”

Zlezelrenn looked back at him, the sun glistening off his eyeband. “Did yu not know, Flinx, that many predators possess the necessary biological mechanisms tu suppress their
flii
?”

Of course they would, he told himself reprovingly. Now that it had been pointed out to him, it was obvious that such an ability was vital. Otherwise
flii
-sensitive prey would always be able to detect the presence of those stalking them. A predator unable to mask its
flii
was less dangerous to prey able to sense it than a cat with a bell around its neck was to a mouse. He should have realized that before he asked a Tlel what must have sounded like a stupid question whose answer was blatantly obvious.

“You said
a great many harmful creatures,
” he submitted. “I take it there are worse dangers in these mountains than the ressaugg?”

“Yes,” Zlezelrenn told him. “Much more dangerous. And probably not like what yu think.”

Flinx eyed the immense bulk of the rocky spire that dominated the terrain to the immediate left of the advancing column. “How do you mean?”

“Why waste warmth forming the words? We have just escaped a ressaugg.” Though he could not be sure, Flinx thought his friend sounded slightly testy. “Those whu speak uv trouble often find it. Better tu focus on the way ahead, and tu think instead uv gud weather and safe traveling.”

It was an approach Flinx could understand, even if his ever-active imagination prevented him from dropping the subject as easily as Zlezelrenn. While a part of him wanted more of his curiosity concerning the nature of hazardous Gestaltian wildlife satisfied, the rest concurred with his host. With luck, he would remain ignorant for the remainder of the journey as to the precise makeup of the threat to which Zlezelrenn had alluded. They had already been lucky in their surprise encounter with the ressaugg, however.

As one who had counted on the Bank of Luck to bail him out of numerous difficult situations in the past, Flinx knew well that his account was seriously overdrawn.

While unlike his sensitive Tlel companions he could not detect the
flii
of a flea, his own singular Talent continued to function, interrupted only by the occasional pains that flashed through his head. As always, the frequency and intensity of these were utterly unpredictable. Sometimes he would go for days or weeks without so much as a twinge. Then there would come a morning when he felt as if his head were going to explode every hour on the hour. He dreaded his repetitive dreams because the worst cerebral attacks always seemed to follow close upon each occurrence. An ordinary day might pass, or two, or several, without any discomfort. But every time his somnolent visualizations interrupted his sleep, he knew that without fail a fiery, stabbing headache would not be far behind.

Having recovered fully from the most recent of the trance-like dreams, his mind was clear when he picked up the first faint stirrings of unsettled stress. They had the feel of emotions distant but closing, of the faraway coming inexorably nearer. Straining for clarification, he perceived hostility underlain with tension merged with apprehension. Considered as an emotional whole, not an altogether comforting mix.

He would have informed his companions, who continued onward entirely ignorant of the stress-laden feelings that were inclining in their direction. Doing so, however, would have meant revealing his ability. Justifying a warning by saying that he “just had a feeling” would carry no more weight with the Tlel than it did with any other intelligent species, including his own kind.

But as the line of gaitgos ambled through a section of particularly dense forest and growths from green to turquoise to near indigo in color closed in claustrophobically around them, he grew more and more uneasy. The enmity he sensed was thickening in his mind like a fog, threatening to drown out his perception of his amiable companions. That the hostility he was identifying arose from Tlel minds and not those of primitive carnivores rendered it no less troubling.

He finally decided that he could no longer keep his concerns to himself. If one of his friends questioned his “feelings” or means of perception, he would extemporize some kind of explanation or excuse. Debating how best to proceed, he leaned forward to address himself to Zlezelrenn.

He never got the chance.

Where his singular ability was concerned, continued silence would keep his secret safe. However, it would do him no good if he ended up dead. That seemed a very real possibility as the forest around them erupted with gunfire. Though not nearly as advanced as the gaitgos, the weapons that were being brought to bear on the line of travelers were more than adequate to accomplish their intended task. Rock-hard projectiles whizzed around his head as Zlezelrenn took immediate evasive action. Small projectiles of forced metal capable of killing simply by unlocking the kinetic energy they possessed slammed into the forest on all sides. Trees exploded noisily.

Zlezelrenn was yelling at him to stay down. Flinx needed no incentive. Though ignorant of the motivation and identity of the attackers, he still found himself wishing for his pistol. Regretfully, along with the rest of his equipment it lay somewhere at the bottom of the river that had swallowed the skimmer.

Still and as always, he was not entirely defenseless. There was his functioning Talent—and Pip. As sensitive as her master to threatening emotions, she had slithered out of his jacket and taken to the air before the first shot had been fired. Now she patrolled overhead, singling out potential targets, flying cover for Flinx, marshaling her venom. Instinctively aware that it was limited in quantity, she would not dive to his defense until her master was more openly threatened.