"Foster, Alan Dean - End of The Matter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

Flinx found himself staggering back toward the stairway. Without even bothering to recover his knife, he plunged down the steps. Somehow he had completely lost control of events and as had happened too often in the past, events had ended up controlling him.
At the bottom of the stairs he paused, regarding the open doorway as an enemy. A glance right and left showed that this floor was still deserted. There had to be a back way out; he went hunting and found a little used exit opening onto a narrow, smelly alley. The pathway appeared empty. After a careful search, he started down it at a brisk trot. Soon he was back on the streets. The moment he was convinced he wasn't being followed, he turned and angled back toward the stage, approaching it from a new direction.
As for the woman with the child, he suspected she would find new lodgings as quickly and quietly as possible. She might notify the police and she might not.
By the time be reached his destination, the show was concluding. He slipped easily into the protective wall of bodies. Nothing had changed: The trainer was still making jokes at the dopey alien's expense and the alien was bearing it all with the serenity of the softheaded. And that oval head did look soft, Flinx reflected. So why bad the Qwarm felt it necessary to use such dangerously identifiable explosive projectiles?
A respectable amount of applause and some tossed coins were awarded at the end of the show, as much for uniqueness as for polish, he suspected. The trainer scrambled about after the coins without regard for dignity.
The crowd started to disperse. Apparently the alien act was the last for the afternoon at this location. Flinx sauntered casually backstage, where he found the trainer counting his money and inspecting his few props. Almost at once, the man grew aware of Flinx's attention and looked up sharply. On seeing that it was only a youth, he relaxed.
"What do you want, youngling?" he inquired brusquely.
"We have something in common, sir."
"I can't imagine what."
"We both train aliens." Pip moved suddenly on Flinx's shoulder, showing bright colors in the cloud-filtered light. The man frowned, and squinted as he peered close.
"I don't recognize your pet, boy."
Whoever this fellow was, Flinx thought, he wasn't well traveled or informed. Minidrags were not common, but their reputation far exceeded their numbers. Yet this man obviously didn't know one when he saw one.
Flinx found his attention shifting to the alien, which stood patiently to one side, muttering rhythmically to itself in some unknovm language. "In any case," he explained, "I'm curious about your pet. I've never seen anything like him." To make conversation, he went on, "Where did you get its name from?"
Flint's politeness disarmed the man a little. "It came with the poor dumb monster," he explained, exhibiting more sympathy than Flinx would have suspected of him. "I bought it from an animal dealer who thought it no more than that. But the creature has some kind of intelligence. It can speak as well as you or I, and in many languages. But in none of 'em does it make sense. Oh, Ab's quite mad, it is, but he can learn. Slowly, but enough to serve in the act." He smiled," now filled with pride. "I was smart enough to recognize his uniqueness. No one else has ever been able to identify Ab's species either,) boy. I hope it's a long-lived one, though, since this one's irreplaceable.
"Far as the name goes, that's kind of a funny tale. Only time he's ever made sense." He frowned. "I was trying to decide what to call 'im when he gave out with one of his crazy ramblings." He turned and eyed the alien. One egg-yolk eye watched him while the other three operated independently, Flinx considered that a creature capable of looking in four directions at once must have a mind of considerable complexity, simply to monitor such a flood of neural responses.
"What's your name, idiot," the trainer asked, pronouncing the words slow and careful. "Name!"
"Mana, Orix, Geimp nor Panda," the liquid tones ventured promptly, "my name is Abalamahalamatandra."
While the creature continued to mumble on in verse, the man looked back at Flinx. "Easy to see why I call 'im Ab, hey?" he bent over and wiped at his muddy boots. "Dealer I bought him from had no clue to his species. Just assured me he was docile and friendly, which he is."
"It's remarkable," Flinx observed, Battering the man as he studied the blue-and-green lump, "that as mad as Ab is, you've managed to teach him so much."
"Told you, boy, all I've taught Ab are the rules of the act. He's a mind of his own, of sorts. I said he can talk in many tongues, didn't I?" Flinx nodded. "Terrangio and symbospeech are just two of 'em. Every once in a while Ab gives me a start when I think he's said something almost sensible," He shrugged. "Then when I try to follow it up he goes on blabbin' about the taste of the sky or the color of air or stuff I can't make any sense of whatsoever. You're curious about 'im, are you? Go over and say hello, then."
"You're sure it's all right?"
"I said he was friendly, boy. In any case, he's got no teeth."
Flinx approached the alien tentatively. The creature observed his approach with two eyes, which crossed as he neared. Flinx smiled in spite of himself. Experimentally, he extended a hand as if to shake the alien's.
Two eyes dipped downward. One smooth hand came up and slapped Flinx's palm. Flinx drew his hand back sharply, more surprised than hurt. As if in admonition, another hand came around and slapped at the one which bad struck Flinx. Apparently enchanted, the alien commenced slapping its four palms together, entirely ignoring Flinx.
The alien palm had been hard, flat, and cool to the touch.
The owner was speaking again. "Ab will eat just about anything except," he finished with a smile, "me and thee." Rising, he walled up to Ab and booted the creature hard. It ceased slapping itself and resumed mumbling steadily, like an idling engine. "C'mon, sit down for a while, you stupid monstrosity."
Showing no sign of pain, Ab sat down on the ground and began cleaning its feet with all four hands. In that position it looked like a demented triclops trying to pull its toes off. Again Flinx found himself grinning unintentionally.
"Have to do that when I'm not watchin' 'im," the man explained, "or he'll wander off."
"I can see why you use Ab in a comedy act," Flinx observed readily. "What I can't understand is why anyone, least of all a Qwarm, would want to kill it."
At the mention of the assassin clan the trainer lost his composure, his emerging friendliness, and most of the color in his face.
"Qwarm?" he stammered.
"Two of them," Flinx elaborated. He nearly turned and indicated the building with its window facing on the stage. Then he thought better of it, "I don't know why they changed their minds," he lied, "but I know for a fact that they want your pet dead."
"Qwarm?" the man repeated. At that moment, Ab appeared to be the more balanced of the two. Looking around frantically, the man grabbed a small black satchel. A couple of coins fell from a half-open pocket. He ignored them.
"You train aliens too?" he bloated hurriedly. "Good. He's all yours now, boy."
"Wait a minute!" Flinx protested. Things were happening too quickly again. "I don't want to-"
" 'Bye and luck to you, boy!" the man shouted back to him. He put out a hand, vaulted a nearby railing, and vanished on the nm into the milling crowd nearby. "Hey, hold on'" Flinx shouted, rushing to the railing. "Come back, I can't take care of-"
There was a tentative honk from behind. Flinx turned and saw Ab staring blankly at him while mumbling steadily. When he turned back to the crowd, the trainer was out of sight, though his terror still lingered like the scent of cloves.
Flinx stared over and down at the striped blue alien. "Now what am I going to do with you?" The fix he now found himself in was his own fault, of course, if be had taken care not to mention the Qwarm by name ... Well, no matter now. He started to walk away. A fresh, louder honk stopped him.
Ab had stood up and was following Flinx. At the sight of that utterly open, helpless face, Flinx's coldness shattered. Whatever else he did he couldn't leave the poor thing alone. It would probably remain where it was, cleaning itself, until someone took charge of it or it starved to death.
Served him right. He had started the day in an at- tempt to find out something about himself. Instead, he'd killed two Qwarm and acquired an alien simpleton by default.
"I can't keep you,'* he told the bubbling creature, "but we'll find a place for you as quickly as possible." One big eye blinked disarmingly at him.
"Mur'til burtill?" he sang.
"Yeah, come on," Flinx instructed. "I'm going to finish the day the way I should have started it." He started off; a glance behind showed the creature following dutifully, weaving on its four legs. Spouting sing-song nonsense, it trailed Flinx through the crowd, apparently as happy with its present master as it bad been with the former one.
Flinx was not happy with the stares his strange companion drew, but there was nothing that could be done about it. As soon as he finished with the records department, he would get rid of the creature.
There was a knock at the door,
The woman sent her silent little girl into the bathroom. Then she walked over to lean against the door and listened with one hand on the bolt. "Yes?" she finally asked quietly.
"You have a delivery," a soft voice replied.
That was the code sentence. She glanced at the covered bodies of the black-clad man and woman lying beneath the window and threw the bolt sharply.
"Thank you for coming so quick," she said gratefully. "I don't care how you dispose of them, just-" She choked on the rest of the words.
The man on the other side of the doorway was not from the discreet service she had contacted. Dressed entirely in black, devoid of hair even to the shaved eyebrows, he was clearly a mate to the corpses in her chamber.