Part 1 (2/2)

Pip hissed softly and Flinx absently began feeding him the raisins he'd plucked from the thisk-cake. The reptile gulped them down whole, eagerly. It would have smacked its lips, if it had any. As it was, the long tongue shot out and caressed Flinx's cheek with the delicate touch of a diamond cutter. The mini drag's iridescent scales seemed to s.h.i.+ne even brighter than usual. For some reason it was especially fond of raisins. Maybe it relished their iron content.

He glanced down at the plus window of his personal card meter. They weren't broke, but neither were they swimming in luxury. Oh, yes, it was definitely time to go to work!

From a counter of her variegated display booth, Mother Mastif was pleading amiably with a pair of small, jeweled thranx touristas. Her technique was admirable and competent. It ought to be, he reflected.

She'd had plenty of time in which to perfect it. He was only mildly surprised at the insectoid's presence.

Where humans go, thranx also, and vicey-versy, don't you know? So went the children's rhyme. But they did look s bit uncomfortable. Thranx loved the rain and the damp, and in this respect Moth was perfect, but they also preferred a good deal less cold and more humidity. Paradoxically, the air could be wet and to them still too dry. Every time a new hothouse planet turned up they got ecstatic, despite the fact that such places invariably possessed the most objectionable and bellicose environments. Like any human youngster, he'd seen countless pictures of thranx planets: Hivehom, their counterpart of Terra, and also the famous thranx colonies in the blazon and Congo baisins on Terra itself. Why should humans wear themselves out in an unfriendly climate when the thranx could thrive there? They had put those inhospitable regions to far better use than man ever could or would have - as had humans the Mediterranean Plateau on Hivehom.

Indeed, the Amalgamation had worked out very well all around.

From the cut of their necklaces these two were probably from Evoria. Anyhow the female's tiara and ovipositor glaze were dead giveaways. Probably a hunting couple, hero for some excitement. There wasn't much to attract thranx to Moth, other than recreation, politics, and the light metals trade. Moth was rich in light metals, but deficient in many of the heavier ones. Little gold, lead, uranium, and the like, But silver and magnesium and copper in abundance. According to rumour, the giant thranx Elecseed complex had plans to turn Moth into a leading producer of electrical and thinkmachine components, much as they had Arnropolous. But so Far it had remained only rumour. Anyway, inducing skilled thranx workers to migrate to Moth would necessitate the company's best psycho publicists working day and night, plus megacredits in hards.h.i.+p pay. Even off-world human workers would find the living conditions unpalatable at best. He didn't think it likely. And without native atomics there' d be a big power problem.

Hydro-electricity was a limited servant due to the lack of white water. It formed an intriguing problem.

How to generate enough electricity to run the plant to produce electrical products?

All this musing put not credit hi one's account nor bread in one's mouth.

'Sir and madame, what think ye on my wares? No better of this type to be found this side of Shorttree, and d.a.m.n little there.' She fumbled, seemingly aimless, about her samples. 'Now here's an item that might appeal to ye. What of these matched copper drink-jugs, eh? One for he and one for she,' She held up two tall, thin, burnished copper thranx drinking implements. Their sides were elaborately engraved and their spouts worked into intricate spirals.

'Notice the execution, the fine scroll work, sir,' she urged, tracing the delicate patterns with a wrinkled forefinger. 'I defy ye to find better, yea, anywheres!'

The male turned to his mate. 'What do yon say, my dear?' They spoke symbospeech, that peculiar mixture of Terran basic and thranx click-hiss which had become the dominant language of commerce throughout the Humanx Commonwealth and much of the rest of the civilized galaxy besides.

The female extended a handfoot and grasped the utensil firmly by one of its double bandies. Her small, valentine-shaped head inclined slightly at an angle in an oddly human gesture of appraisal as she ran both truehands over the deeply etched surface. She said nothing, but instead looked directly into her mate's eyes.

Flinx remained where he was and nodded knowingly at the innocent smile on Mother Mastiff's face.

He'd seen that predatory grin before. The taste other mind furnished him with further inform a lion as to what would inevitably Follow. Despite a century of intimate familiarity and a.s.sociation with the thranx there still remained some humans who were unable to interpret even the commoner nuances of thranx gesture and gaze, Mother Mastiff was an expert and knew them all. Her eyes were bright enough to read the capital letters flas.h.i.+ng there: SALE.

The husband commenced negotiations in an admirably of hand manner, 'Well ... perhaps something might be engendered ... we already have a number of such baubles ... exorbitant prices ... a reasonable level ...'

'Level! You speak of levels?' Mother Mastiff's gasp of outrage was sufficiently violent to carry the odour of garlic all the way to where Flinx stood. The thranx, remarkably, ignored it. 'Good sir, I survive at but a subsistence level now”. The government takes all my money, and I have left but it pittance, a pittance, sir, for my three sons and two daughters!'

Flinx shook his head in admiration of Mother Mastiff's unmatched style. Thranx offspring always came in multiples of two, an inbred survival trait. With most things terrene and human there had been little or no conflict, but due to a quirk of psychology the thranx could not help but regard human odd-numbered births as both pathetic and not a little obscene.

'Thirty credits,' she finally sighed.

'Blasphemous!' the husband cried, his antennae quivering violently. 'They are worth perhaps ten, and at that I flatter the craftsman unmercifully.'

'Ten!' moaned Mother Mastiff, feigning a. swoon. 'Ten the creature says, and boasts of it I Surely ...

surely, sir, you do not expect me to consider such an offer seriously'. 'Tis not even successful as a jest.'

Fifteen, then, and I should report you to the local magistrate Even common thieves have the decency to work incognito.'

'Twenty-five. Sir, you, a cultured and wealthy being, surely you can do better than taunt and make sport of an old female. One who has doubtless fertilized as many eggs as you ...” The female had the grace to lower her head and blush. The thranx were quite open about s.e.x ... their's or anyone else's ... but still, Flinx thought, there were lines over which it was improper to step.

Good manners it might not have been, but in this case at least it appeared to be good business. The male harrumphed awkwardly, a deep, vibrant hum. 'Twenty, then.'

'Twenty-three five., and a tenth credit less I will not say!' intoned Mother Mastiff. She folded her arms in a recognizable gesture of finality.

'Twenty-one,' countered the male.

Mother Mastiff shook her head obstinately, immovable as a Treewall. She looked ready to wait out entropy.

'Twenty-three five, not a tenth credit less. My last and final offer, good sir. This pair will find its own market. I must survive, and I fear I may have allowed you to sway me too far already.'

The male wouid have argued further, on principle if for nothing else, but at that point the female put a truehand on his b-thorax, just below the ear, and stroked lightly. That ending the bargaining.

'Ahhh, Dark Centres! Twenty-five ... no, twenty-three five, then! Thief! a.s.saulter of reason! It is well known that a human would cheat its own female-parent to make a half- credit!'

'And it is well known also,' replied Mother Mastiff smoothiy as she processed the sale, 'that the thranx are the most astute bargainers in the galaxy. You have gotten yourself a steal, sir, and so 'tis you and not I the thief”

As soon as the exchange of credit had been finalized, Flinx left his resting place by the old wall and strolled over to the combination booth and home. The thranx had departed happily, antennae entwined.

On their mating flight'? The male, at least, had Seemed too old for that. His chiton had been shading ever so slightly into deep blue despite the obvious use of cosmetics, while the female had been a much younger aquamarine. The thranx too took mistresses. In the moist air, their delicate perfume lingered- 'Well, Mother,' he began. He was not indicating parentage - she had insisted on that years ago - but using the t.i.tle bestowed on her by the folk of the markets. Everyone called her mother. 'Business seems good.' She apparently had not noticed his approach and was momentarily fl.u.s.tered. 'What? What? Oh, 'tis you, cub! Pah!' She gestured in the direction taken by the departed thranx. 'Thieves the bugs are, to steal from me so I But have I a choice?' She did not wait for-an answer. I am an old woman and must sell occasionally to support myself, even at such prices, for who in this city would feed me?' 'More likely, Mother, it would be you who would feed the city, I saw you purchase those same mugspirals from Olin the Coppersmith not six days ago... for eleven credits.' 'Ay? Harrumph,' she coughed. 'You must be mistaken, boy. Even you can make a mistake now and then, you know. Um, have you eaten yet today?'

'A thisk-cake only.' 'Is that the way I raised ye, to live on sweets?' In her gratefulness for a change of subject she feigned anger. 'And I'll wager ye gave half of it to that d.a.m.ned snake of yours, anyway!' Pip raised his dozing head at that and let out a mild hiss. Mother Mastiff did not like the minidrag and never had. Few people did. Some might profess friends.h.i.+p, and after coaxing a few could even be persuaded to pet it. But none could forget that its kind's poison could lay a man dead in sixty seconds, and the antidote was rare. Flinx was never cheated in business or pleasure when the snake lay curled about his shoulder. 'Gentle, Mother. He understands what you say, you know. Nor so much what as why, really.'

'Oh surely, surely! Now claim intelligence for the monster! Bewitched it is, perhaps. I believe it that latter, at least, for I can't deny I've seen the thing react oddly, yes. But it does no work, sleeps constantly, and eats prodigiously. You'd be far better off without it, lad.' He scratched the minidrag absently behind the flat, scaly head. 'Your suggestion is not humourful, Mother. Besides, it does work in the act ...'

'Gimmick,' she snorted, but not loudly.

'And as to its sleeping and easing habits, it is an alien tiling and has metabolic requirements we cannot question. Most importantly, I like it and ... and it likes me.'

Mother Mastiff would have argued further except that they had gone through uncounted variations of this very argument over the years. No doubts dog or one of the local domesticated running-birds would have made a more efficacious pet for a small boy, but when she'd taken in the maltreated youngster Mother Mastiff'd had no credits for dogs or birds. Flinx had stumbled on the minidrag himself in the alley behind their first shack, rooting in a garbage heap for meats and sugars. Being ignorant of its ident.i.ty he'd approached it openly and unfearing. She'd found the two huddled together in the boy's bed the following morning. She had hefted a broom and tried to shoo it off, but instead of being frightened the thing had opened its mouth and hissed threateningly at her. That initial attempt const.i.tuted her first and last physical effort at separating the two.

The relations.h.i.+p was an unusual one and much commented upon, the more so since Alaspin was many pa.r.s.ecs away and none could recall having heard of a minidrag living unconfined off its native world before. It was widely surmised that it had been the pet of some s.p.a.ce trader and had gotten loose at the shuttleport and escaped. Since the importation of poisonous animals was a felony on most planets, Moth included, few were surprised that the original owner had not made noisy efforts to reclaim his property.

In any case it had banned no one (Flinx knew otherewise, and better than to boast the fact) and so none in the marketplace protested its presence to the authorities, although all wished with a pa.s.sion it would go elsewhere.

He moved to change the subject.

'How are you equipped for credit, Mother?'

'Fah! Poorly, as always. But,' and this with a sly, small grin, I should be able to manage for a while off that last transaction.'

Id wager,' he chucked. He turned to survey the chromaticalllly coloured crowd which flowed unceasingly around and in front of the little shop, trying to gauge the proportion of wealthy tourists among the everyday populace. The effort, as usual, made his head ache.

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