Free Orphan Star by Alan Dean Foster Page A

skull and antennae indicative of profound thanks, adding verbally, “Your service is much appreciated, warsire.”
    Flinx flinched when she bestowed the undeserved compliment on Bisondenbit.
    That worthy’s courteous pose lasted until the matron had passed out of hearing range. Then he turned nervous eyes on Flinx. “I didn’t want you killed . . . I didn’t want anyone killed,” he stammered rapidly, “they said nothing to me about a killing. I only was to bring you to . . .”
    “Settle down,” Flinx advised him. “And stop yammering of death. There are already too many deaths in this.”
    “Oh, on that I concur,” the thranx confessed, the tension leaving him slowly. “None of my doing.” Abruptly his attitude changed from one of fear to one of intense curiosity.
    “How did you manage to escape the tower and leave the plateau? I am told many were watching for you but none saw you leave.”
    “I flew down,” Flinx said, “after I made myself invisible.”
    Bisondenbit eyed him uncertainly, started to laugh, stopped, then stared again. “You are a most peculiar fellow, even for a human. I do not know whether to believe you or not.” He suddenly looked around the busy terminal, his nervousness returning. “Powerful people around Challis want to know your whereabouts. There is talk of a large reward, to be paid without questions. The only clue anyone has as to your escape, however, resides in a woman who is confined to a hospital. She is hysterical still”
    “I’m sorry for that,” Flinx murmured honestly.
    “It is not good for me to be seen with you—you have become a desired commodity.”
    “It’s always nice to be wanted,” Flinx replied, blithely ignoring Bisondenbit’s fear for his own safety. “By the way, I didn’t know that the thranx counted pickpocketing among their talents.”
    “From a digital standpoint we’ve always been adroit Many humans have acquired equally, ah, useful abilities from us.”
    “I can imagine,” Flinx snorted. “I happen to live in a city overstocked with such abilities. But I haven’t time to debate the morality of dubious cultural exchanges. Just tell me where I can find Conda Challis.”
    Bisondenbit eyed the youth as if he had suddenly sprouted an extra pair of hands. “He almost killed you. It seems he wants another chance. I can’t believe you will continue to seek out such a powerful enemy. I consider myself a fair judge of human types. You do not appear revenge-motivated.”
    “I’m not,” Flinx confessed uneasily, aware that Small Symm had assumed he was following Challis for the same reason. People persisted in ascribing to him motives he didn’t possess.
    “If not revenge, then what is it you follow him for . . . not that it makes me sad to see a being of Challis’ reputation squirm a little, even if it be bad for business.”
    “Just tell me where he is.”
    “If you’ll tell me why you seek him.”
    Flinx nudged Pip and the flying snake stirred, yawned to show a sac-backed gullet “I don’t think that’s necessary,” Flinx said softly, meaningfully. A terrified Bisondenbit threw up truhands and foothands in feeble defense.
    “Never mind,” sighed Flinx, tired of threatening. “If I tell you it might even filter convincingly back to Challis. I just think he holds information on who my real parents are and what happened to them after they . . . abandoned me.”
    “Parents?” Bisondenbit looked quizzical. “I was told you had threatened Challis.”
    “Not true. He’s paranoid because of an incident in our mutual past. He wanted me to do something and I didn’t want to do it.”
    “For that you’ve killed several people?”
    “I haven’t killed anyone,” Flinx protested unhappily. “Pip has, and then only to defend me.”
    “Well, the dead are the dead,” Bisondenbit observed profoundly. He gazed in disbelief at Flinx. “I did not believe any being, even a human, could be so obsessed with perverse