Free Trouble Magnet by Alan Dean Foster Page B

sense mitigating circumstances within him.”
    The two thranx exchanged a look. The male gestured expansively with both truhands. “You
sense
?”
    Flinx hurriedly rephrased his comment. “Better to say that I recognize hope in his essence.”
    The female bent toward Subar. As he struggled against her, the white tips of her antennae brushed his forehead. “I recognize nothing in this human’s face except dirt.”
    “Grant that I may be more perceptive,
rr!ilkt
. This post-pupa is, after all, of my kind.”
    “This one’s ‘kind’ transcends species.” The antipathy in the male’s voice was as unmistakable as it was intentional.
    “Nevertheless, I would appreciate it if you could see it in your hearts to grant him the clemency of the Hive. I ask this as one who is an honorary member of the clan Zex.”
    The thranx exchanged another hard look, accompanied by additional gestures employing both tru- and foothands. Trapped between them, Subar could not tell if they were conferring, arguing, or discussing the weather. Unable to free himself, he watched the stranger watching them. Why did this lanky stranger care what happened to him? Why had he intervened? Most important, what did he want? It did not occur to the youth that the newcomer might not want anything. For Subar,
altruism
was a term as alien to his existence as anything in High Thranx.
    Something made the stranger suddenly turn sharply and look to his right, off to the north. Reflexively, Subar strained to see in the same direction. His verbal reaction was automatic.
    “What is it, what do you see?”
    “Park authorities coming.” Flinx spoke without looking back at him. “Local police.”
    The announcement was enough to cause Subar to resume struggling. Though he had yet to sample the dubious delights of his hometown’s juvenile restraining facilities, he had heard all too many tales of what life was like within its superficially sanitized walls. Sallow Behdul, for one, had spent time there. There were worse fates Subar could imagine than ending up like Behdul—but not many.
    “I don’t see any officials coming this way,” the male commented. Both thranx were also staring in the same direction.
    “Nor I,” added the female uncertainly.
    “I have a, uh, different vantage point,” Flinx explained. He could hardly tell them that he could sense the approach of determined police long before they came into view, and that his exceptional perception had nothing to do with his height or his eyesight.
    “
Prandahs,
let me
go
!” Subar cursed desperately. It was, ultimately, more of a cry than a demand.
    A minute later the first municipal police could be seen heading toward the location of the abortive ambush. Traveling on individual transports, the dark dots rapidly resolved themselves into bipedal shapes. Turning her attention from the oncoming officials to the tall human, the female thranx addressed him intently.
    “They are coming from well below that far rise. How did you see them approaching?”
    Before Flinx could respond with a fresh evasion, he sensed a brief flash of murderous intent. All too familiar, it invariably presaged a more vivid physical response. As he ducked down behind the squirming youth and his pair of insectoid captors, the long-range shot that the quick flicker of emotion had foreshadowed singed the air where he had been standing a moment before.
    Startled by the shot, which struck both thranx as auguring a conspicuous recklessness on the part of those humans ostensibly sent to rescue them, the pair momentarily released their grip on the remaining attacker. Not one to waste an opportunity, Subar threw all his remaining strength into a successful effort to break free. Under ordinary circumstances, he might have been expected to bolt immediately for the cover of the thick vegetation that fringed the park. Instead he hesitated, clearly torn between what he knew he should do and what he felt he ought to do. The latter, imperfect