Reunion by Alan Dean Foster

Author:Alan Dean Foster [Foster, Alan Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

When he finally awoke, it was dark save for the light from Pyrassis's two sizable moons. The wan, ethereal glow spilled into the room through a pair of slitted, ground-level observation ports. Neither the darkness nor the moonlight was what had awakened him. however. It was Pip. She was astir and fully alert, triangular emerald-green head held high, wings half unfurled ready to carry her aloft. Her small, bright eyes were focused on shadowed movement. Not AAnn, but something else with legs. Lots of legs. Too many legs.

No, they weren't legs, an unmoving Flinx decided as their serpentine owner continued to emerge from beneath the floor. More like fins, stiff paddlelike appendages that had evolved to propel the creature through sand instead of across it. Its long, narrow snout had no visible teeth. In their place writhed a quartet of questing, exploring tongues. Each slim protuberance was about a meter in length, or at least the portion that the creature chose to expose was that long. Every one of the four appendages tapered to a point. In contrast to the invader's mottled yellow-and-black epidermis, the internal appendages were tinted a striking crimson. They flicked rapidly in and out of the eyeless snout, sampling their surroundings. The hole or burrow from which it continued to emerge, he noted, had been bored through sand, avoiding the hard black ribbed material of which the suspect transmitter was composed.

Flinx remained calm, telling himself that this visitor from the cooler subterranean regions was only curious. Other than its size, it did not appear threatening. As he watched it slither across the floor, its multiple tongues nuzzling containers and packages, furniture and scientific supplies, his attention was drawn back to the hole in the ground. A low ridge of sandy soil had formed a ring around the opening from which the visitor was emerging. And emerging, and continuing to emerge.

How long was the creature, anyway?

The languidly rising cable of blood and flesh continued to issue from its eruptive burrow until the seated and much smaller inhabitant of the storage chamber decided that it might be time to put his carefully considered plans aside and get the hell out of there. Concentrating his thoughts, focusing his emotions, he launched Pip from his shoulder. Taking to the air, she hovered expectantly in front of him. Flinx was both relieved and pleased to note that the steady thrum of her wings did not distract the intruder from its ongoing inspection of the room's contents.

Caressing his explosive collar with the fingers of one hand, he gestured expressively with the other. As a child on Moth, he had often amused himself by teaching his slender winged companion to perform a number of simple tricks. What he was striving to have her do now might not be classed by others as a trick, and was not particularly simple. It was also potentially dangerous.

Pip recognized the tell-tale gesture as well as the position of her companion's fingers. Darting forward, she positioned herself

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