Free Flinx Transcendent by Alan Dean Foster Page B

remember correctly, viewss thiss differently.” Reinforced by gesture and emotion, the implication in the youth's tone was that humans and thranx were both debased species because they chose to honor full-time artists and viewed creative endeavors as an acceptable way of spending one's entire existence.
    Sidestepping a characteristic AAnn invitation to argument, Flinx elaborated. “I think you might feel differently about this particular group of artists. For one thing, they chose to live apart from the rest of AAnn society. Your kind are especially gregarious, and such self-enforced isolation on an alien world represents a considerable sacrifice for them.”
    “Fleeing and hiding by any other name …” Unpersuaded, Kiijeem blew dismissively through the nostrils located at the end of his short snout.
    “I was badly injured and they took me in,” Flinx continued. “My own kind did not; the dominant Jastian sentients, the Vssey, did not. Only this group of AAnn artisans freely offered me shelter and succor. They could just as easily have finished me off and made a meal of my remains.” He met the youth's slitted gaze without blinking. “Most members of your species would have done exactly that. At least one of them tried. But not the members of this Tier.” He leaned back against a stone slab that was being warmed by the heat of day.
    “I'd lost my memory. My time among the members of this Tier helped me regain it. They treated me as one of their own. One in particular …” His voice trailed away.
    Though what little he knew of the remarkably flexible and expressive human face had been learned only in the past day or so, Kiijeem thought he detected suggestions of emotions not formerly encountered. The sudden fall-off of the human's voice and deliberate noncompletion of a whole thought also seemed to point to previously unencountered ambiguity. Curious as to the cause, he pressed his visitor for further explanation.
    “You did not finissh the narrative. You were sspeaking, I believe, of an individual nye.”
    Flinx eyed his young host sharply. “You're a perceptive one, Kiijeem.”
    The AAnn responded with a gesture indicting first-degree concurrence. “In ssocial groupss I am often ssingled out for approbation of my sskillss at obsservation.”
    “Truly,” Flinx conceded. “The female's name was Chraluuc. Like all of the Tier to which she belonged, she was an artist. She was charged, I suspect originally against her will, with looking after my amnesiac self. We became friends. Good friends. More than most, she wished me to be a bridge between human and AAnn.”
    “What happened to her?” Kiijeem was much intrigued. In all his studies he had never encountered an instance of a personal, as opposed to the occasional professional, closeness between a human and one of his own kind.
    “The same thing that happens to all of us.” Flinx spoke softly, remembering. “She died. Too soon.” He eyed the young AAnn. Round eyes peered deeply into slitted pupils. “I've spent much of my life not doing that.”
    Kiijeem was momentarily confused. “Not doing what?”
    “Dying.” Straining to see past the landscaping off to his right, Flinx peered in the direction of the main residence. “I wouldn't want that to happen to you.”
    “Not to worry on that sscore.” To emphasize his confidence, the crouching AAnn smacked the ground twice with his tail. “Sshould sserious conflict arisse between uss, I can alwayss turn you in to the authoritiess.”
    It was a characteristic AAnn trait, Flinx knew well, to be direct to the point of tactlessness.
    “Truly you could,” he admitted dryly. “But it is my hope that you and I might foster a friendship similar to the one I formed on Jast.”
    “Time will reveal,” Kiijeem told his guest, as straightforward as ever. “For the moment I sstill find you far too interessting to ssacrifice.” Underlying his enthusiasm, the tip of his tail kept flicking from side to side. And