Free Running from the Deity by Alan Dean Foster Page B

simple but sturdy gate and beckoned Flinx come closer. He did so, hopping on his one good leg and using the solidly built fencing for support. Up close, the baryeln were as dull in appearance as they were from a distance. Their bulky, squarish bodies were adorned with dozens of small, pyramidal nodules. In color they ranged from a pale blue to a deep violet. Some featured horizontal streaks of white or beige. As they ate, their Sensitives bobbed up and down like paired metronomes. Placid and bovine, it seemed they would be easy to care for.
    “The baryeln are our life,” Storra explained. “They provide us with meat, gryln, and transportation.”
    One word had failed to translate. “What’s
gryln
?” Flinx asked innocently.
    “Watch.” Moving to one fence, Ebbanai removed what appeared to be a long, narrow funnel and a feather-tipped stick from among a cluster of identical utensils. Approaching a baryeln, he selected one of the many nodules on its back and began to stroke the area around it with the feather-stick. In less than a minute, a glistening, pink-tinged fluid began to ooze from the tip of the nodule. It flowed slowly, gleaming with a consistency like glycerine. After a few teaspoons had issued from the spot, the flow stopped.
    Bringing the funnel-like collection device over to where Flinx stood propped up against the fence, Ebbanai held it up to the visitor. “Gryln is refined in many ways, and used in many different forms, but those of us who are fortunate enough to own our own baryeln enjoy it fresh.” He held it out to the human. “Please, try some.”
    They were both watching him carefully. Fortunately, they did not possess sufficient cultural referents with which to allow them to interpret the expression on his face. He swallowed hard. Removing the analyzer from his belt, he carefully pushed the sampling probe into the viscous fluid. Unfortunately, the device promptly pronounced the amalgam of alien proteins and sugars perfectly harmless to his system. It did not, of course, reference something as subjective as taste. His principal excuse for not accepting the offering now demolished, he smiled wanly and took the funnel from the eager Ebbanai’s gripping flanges.
    The thick liquid was warm, which did not surprise him. The taste, however, did. His face rapidly unwrinkled. The viscous fluid was simultaneously sweet and sharp, like honey doused with pepper. Though perplexing to his palate, it was anything but unpleasant, despite the immediate and unsettling proximity of its ambulatory alien origins. He handed the funnel back to his host. Moments passed and his stomach did not rebel.
    Storra’s mouth was flexing in a series of expanding ripples. The local equivalent of a smile, perhaps. “Welcome,” she declared heartily. “Wherever you have fallen from, Flinx, you are welcome in this house.”
    “Where our tired and sore guest should be resting,” Ebbanai chided them both. He had to admit that it had been interesting to see the alien drink gryln fresh from the baryeln. Perhaps they were more alike than not.
    Their visitor chose that moment to remind them that the gap between them was also defined by things that could not be observed.
    “That baryeln there.” Halting on the way out of the building, Flinx halted and pointed at one of the creatures in a stall opposite.
    Storra looked at the animal and wondered why the alien was singling it out. “That is orv-six. Something about it draws your attention?”
    Flinx did not bother to nod, knowing that the gesture would pass unrecognized. “Something’s wrong with her. She’s in pain.”
    Eyes contracting slightly, Ebbanai walked over to the stall in question. Entering, he studied the nearly motionless animal, walking all around it, collapsing his upper body into the lower in order to peer beneath the stolid creature. All the while it ignored him, making no sound beyond a soft humming noise.
    “I see no injury, or sign of difficulty.” He peered