Strange Music by Alan Dean Foster

Author:Alan Dean Foster
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2017-11-07T05:00:00+00:00

10

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Poskraine was the name of the small town where they opted to stop for the night. Having deduced from his painful experience earlier in the day that the individual he sought was now close at hand, Flinx would have opted to continue the pursuit without stopping in hopes of possibly catching up to him. Wiegl was adamantly opposed.

“Can run for days without stopping, can the brund, and on low rations, and at steady pace. But at night-seeing, they are not so good, and to be saddled in a brund, that falls, from that height, can be a journey-ending experience.”

Locating a human emotional signature among so much Larian fury and death had been as disconcerting as it was painful, but though his head still hurt, it was not sufficient to turn Flinx from the task that had been set to him by Sylzenzuzex. Once he committed himself, he never backed away from a challenge.

What was a recognizable if distant set of roiling human emotions doing all but submerged in a sea of churning, fevered Larian feelings involving life and death? Was the abducted Firstborn of Hobak directly involved? If she had been caught up in the surfeit of violence he had sensed and had perished as a consequence, then all of his study and travel, from Cachalot all the way to this backward part of Largess, would have been for naught. Having never met the Firstborn, Flinx had no way of identifying her emotional signature. And even if he had correctly located a human who might well be the one who was the subject of Church interest, that did not mean the Firstborn Preedir was with him, or that she was even in the general vicinity.

However, based on what Padre Jonas had told him, if he could find the offworlder who was aiding Larians with advanced tech, the chances were good that he would also find the kidnapped Firstborn. Having proceeded from the start on that assumption, Flinx felt he had no choice at this point but to continue to do so.

But not tonight. Now that he had dismounted and descended to the ground from the perpetually jostling brundian heights, he became aware of how tired he was. While his empathetic ability could reach effortlessly across modest distances, his body was restricted to that portion of him that was centered on his pelvis. Right now, said center and associated parts were sore and worn, in addition to which he was hungry. The dried food that provided sustenance while he and Wiegl were on the move kept them alive but little more. And the largely seafood-based (even if it came out of an alien sea) fare that made up the normal Larian diet had proven itself perfectly palatable, if not particularly flavorsome. It reminded him of Cachalot, and home.

All thoughts of Cachalot’s tropical seas vanished as the sun set and the atmosphere once more grew chilly as well as damp. Notwithstanding that it was home to a largely engaging intelligent

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