Alan Dean Foster - Life Form by Life Form

Author:Life Form [Form, Life]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Then a pair of Pendju were pulling him forward, the dancing blaze reflected in their capacious eyes, laughingly urging him to join in, to participate. He protested weakly: brazen public displays were not his forte.

Off to one side he saw the Carnavons displaying surprising vigor as they demonstrated several styles of human dance to the delight of the natives. A grinning Theodore Halstead lumbered about surrounded by slimmer Xicans while Lejardin's hair flew as Simna whirled her around the bonfire. The night had become a colorful, chaotic mass of swirling shapes, of flying hair and huge, multihued eyes, of tinkling-voiced aliens, throbbing music, and deep-throated human laughter.

His natural reticence fell away and he allowed himself to be drawn into the spirit of the celebration. Still running, his recorder bounced against his belt. The account it would make from now on would be exhilarating but difficult to study.

Someone pushed him toward the fire and he stumbled as he rollicked past. A pair of Quwanga ... Pendju? ... became his satellites, spinning and darting around him.

Maybe this was the more civilized way of conducting warfare, he told himself. Better a Jewish wake than a Greek tragedy.

For a while nowhere to be seen, the Carnavons reappeared soon thereafter, hauling with them a portion of the expedition's modest liquor supply. At their urging every-one, even the teetotaling Simna, was induced to have a sip. Or two. Prentice accepted his in the midst of a wild spin with Lejardin. As was often the case he couldn't tell whether she was laughing with him or at him. Her fingers slipped from his as she darted away to pirouette with Simna The two of them exchanged whispers before parting to link up with new Xican partners.

It was a shame the others couldn't be present, he reflected. O'Sandringham, Stevens, and Ramirez were stuck looking after Base Camp. He could already envision their complaints when they saw the recordings. They would not accept that had all been conducted in the spirit of serious scientific inquiry.

Another pair of bright-eyed Xicans spun him around, and for once he managed to forget about colleagues both present and absent.

Having quietly preceded the Carnavons both in thought and presence to the hut that contained their food supplies, Lastwell had appropriated for himself and subsequently consumed a disproportionate quantity of alcoholic spirits, with the result that his own were raised considerably.

He was standing, or rather swaying, off to one side in the company of an agreeable tree, observing the proceedings, when a blue-green-haired and unusually tall Quwanga maiden prodded him from behind the supportive growth. He couldn't tell if she was giggling at him or if his brain was fizzing, but he gave congenial chase with a sort of brontosaurian grace.

Her easy avoidance of his grasp made him only more determined to catch up with her. They bounced from tree to bush to tree, drifting away from the celebration and further back into the woods.

"That's enough tag-you're-it for me, miss two-thumbs. You've damn well tired me out.

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