Free Quofum by Alan Dean Foster Page A

downriver. An increasingly drowsy Tellenberg estimated that its wingspan was at least twice that of the shuttle’s length. On shore, unseen animal life squealed and meeped, whistled and sang and hooted, the startling multiplicity of voices forming a perfect choral counterpoint to the sea of dancing floral colors.
    One by one even the most dedicated among them retired to their respective sleeping platforms. When N’kosi had finally had enough, he too retired, after checking to make sure that the craft’s internal AI understood its instructions. It would wake them if the boat was threatened or if anything of exceptional merit manifested itself. Defining the latter meant radically expanding the AI’s definition of “exceptional.” Though they revised the definition several times during the night, the AI still woke them on two different occasions.
    Tellenberg had always been able to sleep soundly. In this he was luckier than any of his colleagues. Much to the simultaneous admiration and consternation of his companions he even managed to sleep through the boat AI’s two uncertain and unnecessary alarms.
    So it was not surprising that he should finally be awakened by half a cup of purified river water that N’kosi, with great precision and considerable satisfaction, trickled onto his face. He sat up sputtering.
    “Hey, what’s the…?”
    Valnadireb cut him off with a suitable four-armed gesture. “I have seen dead people more easily stirred. We are all jealous. How do you do it?”
    Sitting up on his sleeping platform, Tellenberg wiped water from his face and muttered, “Do what?”
    “Sleep through anything. Sleep through forest screams, sleep through lights that burn with the brilliance of unwanted urban advertisements, sleep through alerts sounded by the boat.”
    Tellenberg looked around uneasily. “I slept through an alarm?”
    “Two.” N’kosi was now preparing a hot drink in the same cup that had been used to douse his colleague. “Remarkable.”
    Tellenberg was apologetic. “I’ve always been able to sleep anywhere, even out in the field.” He grinned shyly. “I have a clean conscience, I guess.”
    “Or none.” Valnadireb turned away, pivoting on all four trulegs and both foothands. While Tellenberg noted that the thranx’s supporting limbs did not dig quite so deeply into the deck as when they had first boarded the craft, neither were they completely relaxed. Not even the redoubtable Valnadireb could completely ignore the fact that he still had water underfoot, even if he was separated from it by the bottom of the boat.
    It was less than an hour later that Haviti, perched attractively if professionally in the observation seat in the bow, called back to N’kosi to reduce speed. Relaxing casually in the command chair behind the weatherproof console, her fellow xenologist moved to comply as Tellenberg and Valnadireb rushed to the bow.
    “Take it slow,” she called back. Obedient to N’kosi’s touch, the craft decelerated until it was barely making headway against the current.
    It took only a moment to share Haviti’s vision and to see what had impelled her to direct N’kosi to reduce their speed. Actually, Tellenberg heard it before he saw it. Valnadireb was standing so close to him that the thranx’s natural perfume was nearly overwhelming. Instead of being held vertically, both of the insectoid xenologist’s antennae were inclined forward, in the direction of the nearest bank.
    Off to starboard, the forest was thinning rapidly. As the boat came around a bend in the river, the level of the noise they had been hearing suddenly rose tenfold in both volume and complexity. The sound was terrible. It was as if some maniacal music maker had decided that instead of mixing rhythms and melodies he would attempt to merge recordings of riots from half a dozen worlds—none of them populated by humans. The shrill, frantic cacophony threatened to give everyone on board including Valnadireb a severe