Free Running from the Deity by Alan Dean Foster Page A

gesture. “What powers your craft, Flinx? I would say that maybe it is like one of the wondrous new steam devices one hears about, though I saw no evidence of such.”
    More indications of the level of local technology. “Not steam,” he replied as they followed a well-trodden path through a pair of dunes thickly clad in tall, single-stemmed vegetation. “A kind of energy that would be hard for me to explain to you.”
    The Dwarra accepted the demurral—for now. Time enough later to seek more detailed explanations. As the initial shock of the creature’s reality continued to fade, other ideas, other notions, began to fill the empty space in his head. Especially the portion that was devoted to contemplation of future possibilities. Looking past the struggling, limping alien, he could see that his mate’s thoughts were running along similar lines.
    Not every successful voiceless communication required the entwining of Sensitives.
    The home of Flinx’s new friends was not properly a farm. There were only two buildings, both dome-shaped. The smaller featured tall, narrow windows, a single door, and a slender clay pipe chimney. The other was somewhat larger with no chimney or windows, but it boasted a much larger set of double doors.
    “That’s where we keep our wagon and overnight the baryeln,” Ebbanai explained in response to his query.
    “What’s a baryeln?” Flinx asked via the translator. The sounds of Dwarrani were not complex. Already he found himself beginning to recognize simple words. Always good at languages, he had no doubt that with a little effort and practice, he would soon be able to manage basic phrases. The translator would always be available to back him up.
    Ebbanai looked again at his mate. It was clear that this creature, for all its impressive technology and physical stature, was ignorant of a great many basic things.
    “We’ll show you,” Storra told him. Her right hands indicated his bad leg. “Unless you are too tired and wish to rest first.”
    Flinx tested his ankle. There was no way he could walk on it, but the worst of the pain seemed to be ebbing somewhat. After the assisted hike across the dunes, rest was certainly in order. But he knew that once he sat down he would not feel like getting up again for a while. Better to view the enigmatic baryeln first, then relax.
    Interestingly, there was no fence around the buildings, or anywhere that he could see. “How do you define your property limits?” he asked.
    “There are stone markers,” Ebbanai told him.
    “And the baryeln don’t wander off if you let them out of their enclosure?” Overhead, Pip soared effortlessly on a mix of sea breezes and lighter gravity.
    “You will see,” Storra told him. This alien was going to need much education, she thought, if she and her mate were going to pursue some of the ideas that were just beginning to coalesce in her mind.
    Hinged at the sides—the Dwarra had advanced far enough to smelt metal, Flinx noted—one of the double doors was pulled aside by Ebbanai while Storra fought to assist Flinx in remaining upright. As the two of them helped him hobble inside, he saw that individual pens held what at first appeared to be decapitated creatures. They were not headless, however, and he eventually found the fore end of each animal by seeking out the now familiar pair of Sensitives that protruded from the skull of every higher-order land-dweller on Dwarra.
    The baryeln were so rectangular in shape that except for their four legs—which underwent the standard Dwarran subdividing to form a total of eight forelegs—they might be shipped by being stacked one atop another as neatly as crates of comparable size. Tail-less and virtually featureless except for their Sensitives, they stood motionless in their stalls, the only sound in the stable or barn the sound of hundreds of flat mouthparts masticating kilo after kilo of harvested verdure.
    Walking over to the nearest enclosure, Ebbanai opened the